#but I'm tempted to draw them in this 'series'

[wdiao]

I had to draw Papyrus to match my sans drawing.

[sandboxscenes]

You've been challenged! (Pokemon AU)

A/N: This is an experimental piece that I wanted to try out because I was inspired by this Pokemon Battle featuring Delphox. This is a different take on a Genshin Impact Pokemon AU. This was done in conjunction with @xianyoon for their Extreme Bias Game. Special thanks to @floraldresvi for assisting me with the ideas for Thoma's section.

Characters: Lyney, Thoma

Genre: Mostly fluff, with hints of angst

Summary:

Pokemon and Genshin collide in this Pokemon style AU that answers the question: What would happen if the characters you encountered in Genshin Impact challenged you?

If you were challenged by them, what would be their in-game tagline when they challenged you to a battle? What would their title be on the game screen? And most importantly, what would be their character summaries?

In short, it positions the different Genshin Impact characters as in-game coded sprites.

Word Count: Lyney (277 words), Thoma (328 words)

You have been challenged by the House of Hearth's Second in Command, Lyney!

Tagline: "Let's give them a show to remember!"

Brief Summary:

Tricks, Illusions, and Magic galore! Whenever anyone takes a seat at Lyney's shows in the Court of Fontaine, they will be in for a magical time. Charming, charismatic, and talented are all words that describe the renowned magician. Lyney and his aforementioned magic shows are famous across the Fontanian landscape. But few know the man behind the spectacle.

Growing up, Lyney owes much of his present success to his upbringing in orphanage known as: The House of Hearth. His sister, Lynette, and his (adopted) brother, Freminet, also grew up there as well. While not much is known about The House of Hearth, it is full of unexpected surprises.

To Lyney, family means to the world to him. He will do anything to protect it. Second only to the "Father" of the House of Hearth, he is the one that will eventually be "Father's successor." Despite his young appearance, there is a reason that he is the second in command. Anyone who ends up underestimating him, regrets it.

For the Magician Lyney, he always wants to keep people on their toes. His Pokemon are the same way. Some of Lyney's trusted Pokemon partners include the show stopping, Delphox and Meowscarada. They also have some tricks up their sleeves as well.

Special Notes:

Lyney's interest in magic has spread to his Pokemon too. His Delphox is a bit of a magician as well - blink and things will disappear. On the other hand, his Meowscarada is ready for anything. It's able to adapt on the fly, like any good magician does.

-------

You have been challenged by the mysterious foreign fixer, Thoma!

Tagline: "Let me protect you. It's what I want to do."

Basic Summary:

Inazuma is a land of tradition.

However, Thoma himself has a very non-traditional skill set.

As someone with skills in cooking and cleaning, he enjoys using his skills to assist people whenever he can. His earnest kindness, his willingness to help, and loyalty have made him well liked among the Inazuman Citizens, despite their wariness towards foreigners.

As a foreigner, Thoma cares deeply about others. He knows what it's like to have people be wary of you due to things out of his control. As someone with a deep sense of duty and loyalty, he is not someone who forgets his debts or reneges on them.

Thoma's actions have earned him the nickname of fixer, as he is well-versed in the art of fixing problems. For someone like Thoma, resolving things peacefully is always preferable. Whether it's a small fight between children over toys to a fight between foreign and local merchants, Thoma would prefer if both sides could compromise.

But if things things escalate, don't be fooled.

When push comes to shove, Thoma's willing to do what it takes to protect himself and his family from harm. Once you have wormed your way into the heart of the foreign fixer, he will protect you until his dying breath.

For the mysterious Fixer, he is well-informed of any happenings going on in Inazuma. He has to be, due to the nature of his job.

With such a dangerous job, he needs partners he can rely on.

One of his trusted Pokemon partners is Talonflame. Talonflame soars above the skies of Inazuma, its keen eyes alerting Thoma to any potential issues that may arise within Inazuma. And for those conflicts that can't be fixed peacefully and require a 'forceful' touch, Thoma's other partner Blaziken, is there to help - both its master, its family, and the people of Inazuma.

[imitation-steamroller]

Ulfstead Railway Museum

Sir Robert’s railway museum is a concept that was set up in S20 but never went anywhere, presumably because Big World Big Adventures happened. So as I rewatched the series, I worked on my idea of what the Ulfstead Railway Museum would be like. I also did one for the Vicarstown Railway Museum if you want to check that out.

The way I see it, Sir Robert just suddenly decided he wanted to build a museum, kinda like the dinosaur park. It’s a fair bit bigger than the Vicarstown museum and has a roundhouse for its engines. But unlike the VRM, most of Ulfstead’s stock has little to do with Sodor’s railways. All but one of them are from the mainland or further beyond.

Everyday, two of the museum’s engines bring visitors from the mainland, while Sudrian visitors are usually brought by Thomas, James, and whoever else is a available.

On the subject of engines, the museum currently doesn’t have many yet. Even if you were to count Millie, Stephen, and Glynn, the museum’s roster doesn’t hit double digits. Among them are:

Kana - Ooh, an All Engines Go character, how scandalous! Kana was the first engine brought to the museum, and very quickly made friends with several of the island’s tank engines. While Kana truly means well, she can sometimes become too big for her wheels and get into scrapes. Lucky for her, Rosie and Percy always ready to bring her back down to earth.

Bruno - I promise they’re not all AEG characters. Bruno is a young and sturdy caboose who usually gives rides around the castle with Glynn, but he is often borrowed by the NWR to help keep the troublesome trucks and more easily distracted engines in line. Bruno generally prefers things slow and steady, but he can keep up with whatever shenanigans of Thomas and his friends if need be.

Gator - Didn’t expect to see him, did you? Before he left Sodor again, Gator and Percy became pen pals. So when Gator was being withdrawn some years later, he told Percy, who told the Earl, who bought Gator. Nowadays, he spends his time talking to visitors or collecting stone for the castle.

Smudger - The VRM are seething because they didn’t get to him first. Smudger was dug up from the ruins of the sheds around the time Duke was found and as you could probably expect, he was in pretty rough shape. Luckily, the Earl wouldn’t stop until Smudger had been completely repaired. Unluckily, at least for Smudger, Duke is a stone’s throw away from him now, and Smudger isn’t too keen on seeing him again.

Duchess - Duchess is the newest engine in the museum’s fleet and is very eager to please. After she was withdrawn from service, the Earl snatched her up for the museum. Like Kana, Duchess usually brings visitors to and from the castle, but tourists wanting to see the former royal engine have made her job a little harder than it needs to be.

[acid-ixx]

You mention in the first story that the Batfam finally realizes where we are because jon showed Damian our picture while calling us his parent- so I was wondering about how Damian reacted to that? Like did he realize we’d left at that point or did he just get hit in the face with that info?

— related post !

reblogs and interactions are encouraged and appreciated

a/n: y'all i have clogged nose and i hate it LMAO. anyways, i'm gonna write smth about this soon but damian's character for both the series again & again and this series is genuinely one of the more complicated to write because of how he's raised but it really goes like this—

"jon... what do you mean? that's my—"

he cuts himself off before he could continue running his mouth off. damian ignores the slight raise of jon's eyebrow, his thoughts running a mile every second.

his parent? no, never once in his life has damian considered you his parent, pushing you away whenever you try to bond with him. whatever gifts you gave him, no matter how small, or big, expensive, or inexpensive they are, he always makes a show of ripping them away right in front of you.

he told you himself. you are not his parent, never will be his parent, you'll never replace talia's standing, and there will never be a time where damian will see you as one. dick, jason, tim, literally anyone can consider you as theirs, but damian is a product of two genetically perfect individuals— you are imperfect, and it's not your business to coddle him just because you are merely married to his father in paper.

no matter how much you softly gaze at him with loving eyes, invite him with welcoming arms, praise his passion for drawing; all you'll do is weaken him and damian hates feeling weak, hates how you tempt him into melting into a puddle. that automatically makes you a burden in his book.

he hates you, and he should've been glad you disappeared off of the face of the manor.

yet the record stands still: why are you with jon? why do you hold him like he is the world in the picture? what does he mean by "sorry, damian, but me and my parents are gonna go to the carnival later!"? you, as in, bruce's spouse? why are you with them, of all people?

... why does jon get to have fun, with you? and he doesn't...?

and yet he couldn't reply to him, not when his friend babbles on for longer about his... parent. about how you, make him feel so complete. that you'll be the one helping him with his science fare project, how you two spent the night yesterday building a volcano, how you treat him with ice cream every time he achieves a good enough grade for a subject, how you, you, you always spoil jon, always comfort him, read him bedtime stories, matched bracelets, sung karaoke together, played board games with each other, picked him up from school, help him with assignments—

the more jon goes on, the more damian wants to rip his hair out. he doesn't know, doesn't know why he's suddenly pissed. is it because jon can never shut up, or because he couldn't shut up about you? about how perfect you are apparently? how you're the ideal parent he never once bat an eye on? the domestic life jon seems to brag about, it's something damian secretly wanted, and it's all ripped away from him.

it makes damian wonder, would you have done the same for him?

he knows it in himself, that if he hadn't pushed you away, he might've been in jon's place.

[margotw10bis]

Daydream.KTH [m] "Baby" 01

boyfriend!taehyung x female reader

Genre: drabble series; smut; fluff

Words: 2.8k

Synopsis: Your boyfriend is daydreaming about how he fucked you last night.

Warnings: talk about babies; protected sex; spanking; oral sex (f. & m. receiving)

"Hey, Kim, focus please!"

The voice of the superintendent makes Taehyung jolt. Even if he is quite bruised in his ego to have been called out in from of the whole team, he cannot deny that he wasn't daydreaming while he should listen to the meeting. It's not even that he finds is job boring — he actually enjoys being a police officer — but something is stuck in his mind.

Something as you.

Taehyung knows he has to get his head in the game otherwise his colleagues, especially the older ones, won't stop teasing him and he is not fond of sharing that the reason why he is so deep in thoughts today is because he fucked you good the night before.

₊˚⊹♡ YESTERDAY

You roll your eyes for the millionth times. Your boyfriend and you know that it's a never ending debate — well, perhaps Taehyung doesn't really acknowledge that.

"Why are you so insisting anyway?" You ask with despair

"And why are you so against it?" He replies, trying his best to make his puppy eyes but it's not working — not with this subject

You do your best to escape the conversation by heading to the kitchen and attempt to make food but, obviously, Taehyung won't let it go that easily. You know the man, he is stubborn on certain topics and this one is definitely one of them.

"Y/N, answer me" He says, more softly, sounding almost hurt "Why don't you want to have kids with me?"

You sigh, your heart squeezing in your chest.

"It's not that I don't want kids but I don't want kids now" You try to explain

"Why not?"

"Because it's too soon" You reply firmly

"We've been dating for two years!" Taehyung exclaims, scandalized

"We have time" You de-dramatize, patting his cheek

"Please" He whines

And here you go again.

Your boyfriend has been begging for kids for months now. You don't know why this sudden urge appears but you suspect the birth of one of his colleague's baby. You know that Taehyung wants children, the talk arrived early in your relationship, but you don't want children right now. For you, 26 is still young.

"Tae..." You sigh

"I just want a mini you walking around" He pouts and brings you closer by grabbing your hips

He even draws light circles with his thumbs like he knows you like. That man is definitely a menace for your sanity.

You know damn well that he is trying to seduce you and you hate to admit that it's working. To be honest, Taehyung is really, really handsome. A lot of your friends are burning in jealousy that you got to get the hot police officer with the whole honey-tanned skin and muscles set.

"Don't you think it'd be adorable?"

Oh, you forgot to mention the harmonious deep and sexy voice in the set.

"Baby, you don't want one child, you want five!" You point out

"Five mini yous walking around is cuter!" He states

"Do you know how hard is it for a woman's body to have a child? Then, think about five!"

"Please, baby" Taehyung pouts again "I'll do anything"

You think for a minute, trying to prove that he is actually not ready to 'do anything'.

"You'll massage my feet after I come back from the gym?" You tease

"Before and after your shower" He answers without hesitation

"You'll let me win every argument?" You raise your brow

"Isn't it already the case?" Taehyung jokes, slyly kissing your neck

Instinctively, you wraps your hands around his neck to appreciate more his lips on your skin.

"You'll really do anything?" You whisper because you know that if you talk too loud, you'll moan

"Anything. I'll eat you out everyday"

Tempting.

"Even when I'm on my period?" You cock a brow

Taehyung pulls back his head from the crook of your neck and looks at you with big black eyes. He doesn't say it but his face spots a light disgust and you're having a hard time concealing your laugh.

"Even when you're on your period" He finally concedes

"Wow, you really want kids, do you?" You say, genuinely surprised that he is ready to go this far

"Yes" You can see on his handsome face that he is dead serious "With you" He adds and gosh, you can't help but blush

Taehyung is not only the most good-looking guy on Earth, he is also the sweetest one. When you first met him, you were attracted by his physical appearance of course, but you fell in love with him because of his personality.

"I'll think about it"

"You promise?" You spot the excitement in your boyfriend's voice

"Yeah" You smile widely at him

Taehyung secures his arms around you and lifts you up to head to the bedroom. His happiness that you are simply thinking about having his baby drives him beyond clouds. He loves you, so much. Yeah, he has been wanting to have (a lot of) kids since he was young but when he met you, he knew that you were the one. He is just tired that his fantasizes of you as the mother of his babies are, well, fantasizes.

He makes sure to land you safely on the bed and wastes no time in getting rid of his t-shirt, blessing you with his strong upper body, while you keep giggling. Seeing you smile makes him happy and he can't help but send you the most charming smile ever.

"Why are you laughing?" He questions, raising a brow in a comic way

"Because I was wondering if your colleagues knew that the intimating and buff Kim Taehyung was actually crazy for cute babies" You joke but your smile doesn't last as your boyfriend lays on you to capture your mouth

"Not any cute babies" He states "Ours"

Gosh, he makes it very difficult to say no.

He doesn't really give you time to think about that because he starts pulling up the hem of your t-shirt that you might have actually borrowed — stolen — from your boyfriend. Taehyung grunts against your lips as he squeezes your bare breasts, not believing that you hid the fact that you didn't have a bra underneath his large t-shirt.

Actually, he is not complaining: he loves your tits. But well, he loves everything in you.

He starts going south to reach your boobs and kiss them. He even licks and sucks your nipples until they are hard and you start whining with impatience. Taehyung knows you so well and he knows that his ministrations on your breasts bring wetness to your core. And even if he didn't know yet, the way you are starting to buckle up your hips so you can gain some friction is a clear sign of it.

Sometimes you miss his longer hair because you can't really tug on it anymore. But it's okay because you have to admit that Taehyung is really hot with this hair-cut.

"Baby..." You moan when his teeth tease your right nipple, threatening to bite

You gasp when a vicious and quick lick replaces his teeth.

"Can I fuck you?" He asks and smirks when you nod frenetically because gosh, you really want it

His experts fingers hook the hem of both your sweatpants and soaked panties and pull them down your legs so Taehyung can fully appreciate your wet cunt. And let's say that he is not disappointed at all: your arousal is clearly noticeable and he can't resist.

He makes himself comfortable between your open legs, squishing the flesh of your thighs as he dives into your pussy. His mouth is nothing shy, settling messy kisses and licking your juices from your entrance. The way he is eating you out like a starved man makes you shake with pleasure, especially when he sucks on your clit. If your boyfriend wasn't holding your thighs this tight, you would already close your legs or kick him with the spams that control your body.

The sounds coming from your mouth are a mix of moans and gasps but you don't even acknowledge it as you are resting on your elbows to watch your devilishly handsome boyfriend's face between your legs.

"It feels so fucking good" You praise him as he enters you with his tongue and your head roll back

"This little pussy is the sweetest one, I swear" He mumbles to himself, giving one heated kiss to your cunt

When he stands up you first notice the way his face is glistening with your arousal and then how tight his pants look at this crotch area. With a little smirk, you reach out your hands so you can open his pants and caress his hard cock through his briefs.

"Eating my pussy got you hard?" You tease, faking an innocent voice

Taehyung grunts when you squeeze his tip but doesn't stop you — and you know that he secretly likes it.

"Loving you makes me hard, baby" He replies and you feel butterflies in your stomach

You are always amazed by how easily he can switch between pure hotness that burns your skin and the softest and loving words that make you sure that you're living on a cloud.

Your eyes leave his covered dick to his warm dark eyes. This man is the love of your life, there is no doubt about it. And if you don't say it to him, you make sure that he knows it as you are kissing him in the most passionate way.

Taehyung's hands slide to your ass, hugging you tight.

"I love you" You whisper against his swollen lips

"Then get on all fours for me" He commands with a light spank on your asscheek and you oblige

You arch your back and rest your head on the mattress to make sure that Taehyung can see how you clench around nothing while waiting for him. Before him, you thought that you knew what good sex was but god you were wrong. No one fucked you the way Taehyung does and there is only one word to describe it: addictive. After your first time with him, you begged him to fuck you every single day for two weeks, afraid that you won't feel the same way as the first time. However, now that you cannot count how many times you had sex with him, you can confirm that he never disappoints.

Your boyfriend looks away from your appealing pussy to grab a condom in the nightstand — secretly hoping that he won't need one soon — and wraps his long dick after taking off the rest of his clothes.

You feel the mattress sinks as Taehyung takes place behind you. He makes sure that you feel him, sliding his hard dick between your asscheeks and you can't conceal your surprised moan nor control the way your hips push back against him.

"You want it, don't you?" His deep voice is full of cockiness but how can you be mad when he is speaking the truth?

"Yeah" You try to make him quit the teasing with a honey tone but you only earn a good spank on your ass

"Are you sure you deserve it though?"

Your head turns abruptly because you don't understand how Taehyung can resist when his dick is this hard — and you cannot resist anymore yourself either. Does he want to punish you because you refuse his demand of having a baby? You know that he is not cruel and that he won't force you to do anything, especially something as serious as that but you can't deny that the thought is crossing your mind.

However, you sigh with relief when you spot on his face his playfulness and you know that he is just playing his 'male alpha' fantasy or whatsoever. You roll your eyes and bite back:

"If you don't want to fuck, I can take care of myself in the shower"

To support your claim, you feign to move away and a wave of panic raises in your boyfriend's chest. He quickly grabs your hip and says:

"No, no, no, no! Please stay, I was just teasing you"

You hide your smirk and let Taehyung lands a sweet kiss on your ass as an apology.

You return to your comfortable position with your head down as Taehyung slowly enters you. You love how careful he is with you — only the first minute because after that he turns into a sex machine that only stops after making you cum.

Once settled inside you, he grunts of out deep he is inside you and how tightly your walls squeeze around the intruder. You love having his cock in your cunt, really really much and the impatient whine that escapes your mouth is a sign.

Taehyung gets the message and starts moving, slow at first but it doesn’t last. You beg him for more and it’s like a switch in his handsome head: he harshly grabs the flesh of your ass to keep you in place and pounds into you. The bed shakes the same way your moans are shaky.

Pleasure. That’s all that feels your mind right now. Your boyfriend’s dick is stretching you so good that you can’t think straight. Your fists grab the sheets in a desperate attempt not to sink too much into horniness.

“Oh my god, Tae!” You exclaim when he spanks your beautiful ass

“How does it feel when I fuck you like that?” He cockily asks

“So fucking good” You reply nonetheless because you feel no shame in confessing that he is good at sex — and he knows it

Actually, it’s so good that you could cry. Your eyes are watery and you close them to focus on the sensation in your pussy.

Taehyung slightly changes the angle when he shifts to rest on his right foot rather than his knee, allowing him to go even deeper. Extra pleasure is added when his balls slap your sensitive clit at every pound.

If you could care, you’d hope that your neighbors don’t hear the bad smashing into the wall or your loud moans or your skins clapping. But you don’t care because you are close to a great orgasm.

Your walls throbs and your hand tightly grabs your boyfriend’s forearm, provoking a smirk on his face. He doesn’t mind that your nails bruise his skin or make him bleed. He has a hot girlfriend and he doesn’t mind showing that he is fucking her the way she deserves.

He lightly and lovingly caress your ass with his thumb, soothing you before you reach your orgasm but it does little against the huge wave of pleasure that washes over you.

You cum so hard that you have no strength left and that your knees doesn’t support you anymore, especially with how you're shaking with endorphin. Taehyung gets it and makes you rest on your back, facing your exhausted yet blissed face.

“You think you can it five more minutes?” He asks

You consider it but when your eyes land on his messy dick, you have another idea.

“How about I suck you off?”

“I love you so much” He replies at that, making you laugh

You let your boyfriend resting comfortably against the headboard and you massage his dick after taking off the condom. Light grunts escape Taehyung's mouth and it spurs you to take him in your mouth.

You love how heavy he feels. With his thickness, you have no choice but to open your mouth wide and someway, it makes you horny. Your tongue swirls around his tips to conceal your moans and it doesn't take long for you to bob your head.

Taehyung helps you by putting your hair in a ponytail and pushing your head at a pleasant pace for you both.

"Fuck, baby, you're so good at that" He whispers almost to himself "You suck my cock so well"

To thank him, you go even deeper until you gag. You know damn well how much your boyfriend loves it and you can't conceal a smirk when his breathe hitch out of pleasure.

You decide to push him a little further and caress his balls.

"You naughty" He says but you know he loves it "Keep going I'm gonna cum"

You nod lightly and enhance your pace. You bob your head, let sloppy sounds fill the air and tighten your throat around his tip when you choke on it. It's a mess, full of saliva and pre cum but you both love it.

You feel your boyfriend's body tense right before he cums down your throat.

You, just like Taehyung, are panting but your heart squeezes when he delicately wipes your swollen lips with his thumb.

"You were perfect, baby" He says and you smile at him "I love you very much" He adds as he kisses your nose, making you giggle

You should really consider having his babies...

[alchemistc]

So about that deleted scene:

(shovel) talks - read on ao3

"So how many shovel talks should I be expecting?" Tommy asks, once the cake is mostly gone and Eddie and Christopher have wandered off. He tilts his voice low, so as not to draw the attention of Eddie's aunt, who has been eyeing him closely since he came back without any cake for Evan.

"Shovel what?" Evan's eyeing the cake.

"You could just have a bite," Tommy tempts, letting his grin go a little teasing, waving his fork a bit for emphasis, and Evan sighs. Pats his stomach, which Tommy is intimately familiar with, and very fond of, even if Evan wants to be a bit more cut.

"You're trying to deflect. Who gave you a shovel talk?"

"So far?" There's no reason to keep it going, really, except when Evan gets exasperated he huffs and puffs about it and Tommy - he doesn't not like his little attempts at dramatics.

Evan rolls his whole head in an effort to emphasize how much he's not in the mood, but his smile gives him away. It always does.

"Well, Hen and Karen just accosted me. Christopher's already promised anatomically improbable harm."

Evan, if anything, looks a little chuffed about that. Considering some of the things he's gleaned about his home life growing up, it's not all that strange.

Still, it doesn't hurt to ask. "They do know you're an adult, right?"

"Y-yeah, of course they know. It's - you know, that whole family thing you were so jealous of sometimes includes them being a little overbearing."

"Personally, I think they were just looking for some gossip."

Evan's face goes red. "Uh - that might be - that might be my fault. I'm... usually an over sharer."

"Is there something wrong with what I'm doing that you don't feel like over sharing?" It's a dirty ploy, but he's already over invested in this, in them. He wants to weasel a bit of praise out of Evan, even though he hasn't exactly been shy about it to this point at all.

Evan's face does something - a series of tiny expressions he'd have been hard pressed to catch if he weren't staring so closely - before he kicks at Tommy's foot under the table. "You're teasing me again."

Tommy doesn't hide his grin, even as he shovels his fork around the plate to get the last of the frosting off. "Can you blame me?"

Evan's blush is deep deep pink, but he still bites his tongue, tilts his head, tips his foot so that he can slide his toes around Tommy's ankle. He really, really wasn't kidding when he joked that he was trying his best to keep up.

He taps two knuckles against the table, looking like he's physically restraining himself from reaching for Tommy's hand. "It's - it's not like I don't talk about you. I just - some of it I wanna keep for myself."

Tommy fields fifty questions a day at work about the man who has him smiling to himself randomly, checking his phone and losing track of conversations because something ticks at a newly made memory of Evan Buckley. He understands the urge to keep some of those memories for himself.

"So what have you told them?"

He's picking at the thread, trying to unravel it, and he doesn't know why. He's more than satisfied with the state of things as they are now. Things are... different than he's used to, this early in. He's never been with someone so intent on getting to know him, spending time with him, so ready to share himself. It's intoxicating, really, and Tommy's never had a great handle on when to cut himself off.

Evan's expression is overly fond, and Tommy feels the thrill of it down to his toes.

"I told them about our date at the aquarium," he says, eyes sparkling a little. It had been a spur of the moment thing, Evan texting him for three days straight about hammerhead sharks, Frederickson mentioning his son-in-laws obsession with manta rays and the glass-side dinner they offered Saturday's and Sunday's. Evan's eyes drifting to the creatures in the water only half-as-often as they drifted to Tommy, and the air expanding in Tommy's lungs every time that smile landed on him.

Tommy hums.

"I told them a... very abridged version of you trying to teach me Muay Thai."

Evan, gleaming and wide eyed, pinned beneath Tommy, his hands giving up any pretense of doing anything but bracketing Tommy's hips, the gentling kiss Tommy'd placed to the birthmark over his eye before Evan whined and Tommy decided he was done playing games.

"Well, now Hen thinks I lied to her." Tommy jokes, and Evan's brow jumps quizzically. Tommy can't quite help it. Even with Gerrard here, even with eyes around them, even though they'd both decided together to keep the contact to a minimum, this being a work event and all - he reaches out and taps his finger to Evan's nose just to see his face crinkle in confusion. It'll have to do, with friends and family and colleagues all around them, but he can feel the urge to drag him in, to give Evan a taste of the frosting still on his lips, to press their bodies together and feel Evan's heart beat beneath his. The desire is there, crawling beneath his skin, and Evan watches him lean back in his chair like he knows every spare thought rattling around in Tommy's head.

"I told them you make me stupid happy," Evan says, all bright and sincere, something softening around the edges of his eyes, and the cage around his heart strains under the pressure of the muscle pressing for freedom.

Tommy darts a look around the room. Things are winding down, families with children drifting off early to enjoy having the day off, members of the 118 returning to their duties now that they've been thrown back on the dispatch register, higher ups huddled off in groups whispering to themselves about how they all would have been fired if Chief Simpson wasn't gunning for a promotion. Evan tips forward, chin dropping to the bridge of his hands with a grin.

"What do you tell the Harbor people about me?"

"Oh, absolutely nothing," Tommy says, standing, tilting a hip sideways so that he can hide the thumb the presses to the divot of Evan's chin. "If I did they'd think you'd bewitched me."

Evan's smile curls over his cheeks with the dopey expression Tommy's grown to adore.

"Let's get out of here before we get recruited for cleanup."

Evan looks like he's thinking about staying, anyway, so Tommy sweetens the deal. "I told Hen and Karen you were setting the pace. Are you gonna make a liar out of me again?"

Evan barely waits until they're out of sight before he's got two hands bracketing Tommy's hips from behind. Tommy knows he's staring at his ass - can't quite blame him. He works hard on making it look good in dress blues.

They manage to make it to the far side of Tommy's truck before Evan spins him, presses him to the passenger door before Tommy can get it open for him. "When we get home," he starts, too busy pressing his tongue to Tommy's pulse point to notice Tommy's quiet inhale at the phrasing. "I'm gonna take this uniform off of you, piece by piece, and then I'm gonna blow you so good you see stars."

"We should both wear our hats," Tommy negotiates, hoping to keep it light enough that he won't hone in on 'home'.

"The medals can stay too," Evan says, and sucks a bruise into the side of Tommy's neck when Tommy tilts his head back to laugh.

[leconcombrerit]

This thing had been rotting in my files for a year (minus three weeks but that's basically a year). It was a redraw of one of my first ever pieces for this fandom, and I still find it quite okay if a little stiff in places, so I thought I might as well share it since I don't draw that much anymore.

And then I had second thoughts, which obviously led to me posting it anyway, as you can see, but I realized I've almost made it a point not to draw anything related to Sasi anymore. As in at all. I can't, and I don't want to, and even sharing old art feels a bit 'meh'. It's too directly linked to my long going art block.

What I mean by that is that if I took all the followers I have out there and asked them what they know me or initially followed me for, you might have a fair amount of Lis 2 and the occasional Desert Bluffs afficionados, but you'd get an overwhelming majority of Sanders Sides. Sanders Sides fashion posts even. I was by no means famous for it or anything, but at my small artist scale, it was the biggest success I had.

And it makes it much harder to go back to it at all now. One, because I don't give a damn about the show anymore. Two, because I haven't been properly obsessing over anything in a while (there was a series early this year but given the actual emotional distress I get thinking about it I'm ruling it out). I haven't had real engagement from my own brain, nor real engagement from a broad audience -which makes sense, I'm not posting for anything that will reach a broad audience. But it takes its toll regardless.

Even when I finally finished writing a long fic, I couldn't help but feel 'all this for what ? Ten people or so and two hundreds have dropped it ?'. Which is a bad way to think about stuff you write for your own enjoyment but, you know, the brain gets happy with external validation even if you pretend really hard you don't care.

And so it feels tempting to go back to the golden goose just the time to get the creative juice pumping back, and I try, and I always end up frustrated and angry and feeling even less like making art that before. I'm not having fun with Sasi. Like an old friend you have nothing to say to and yet you have so much to say otherwise, so you get a bit frustrated, you know ? Not sure I'm making much sense, but that's how it feels. I want to have something like that again, but it won't be with Sanders Sides, and I somehow just want if off my radar.

It was left hanging, then lost its spark, and then I stopped caring altogether and I most likely won't even watch the finale when it does come out. I'm over it. I wish I wasn't though, because it does feel like the artistic spark won't come back all on its own this time, and the buzzing community made it so much easier to bounce back and do shit when your brain got wired all wrong.

It sounds like I'm just bawling after love and likes and stuff, and I guess that's part of it, in a way ? Like I'm in no place to do things for myself, and seeing the one thing I used to use to get back in the flow giving me a bored sense of dread doesn't feel too great.

Yet this drawing is still good ! I find it good ! I don't remember everything, but I can tell from the looks of it that I spent a while on it ! It's nice ! I should celebrate that. So I'm sharing it. I think it will be the last piece of Sasi I ever share, though. I'm not watching the finale when it comes out. I don't care about it. I'll just keep doodling my OCs and characters from cool books every once in a while. I'll write little things.

I just really, really need to stop trying to go back to it when it's clearly not working and not even for good reasons. It was a fun ride though ! So yeah. Basically. A whole ass rant for a one year old piece of art. I'm in my bi-annual depresso mood, nothing too surprising there.

[canmom]

Animation Night 189: Nonphotorealistic

There is a funny trend in animation-related terminology to define things by what they aren't. Animation is any technique for creating film that isn't live action. Limited animation is any style of 2D animation that doesn't follow the conventions of Disney's 'full animation' on 1s and 2s - a category that includes a wildly diverse range of approaches and techniques, as this wonderful history by Animation Obsessive describes.

In 3DCG circles, there is a similar term: nonphotorealistic. Which describes, naturally, anything that isn't trying to look like a photograph of a real scene. There has been a real boom in this of late, and just like the other terms, it really doesn't narrow it down very much. Other terms like 'hybrid animation' add a bit more hints.

Of course, if you've been anywhere near animation in the last few years, you'll probably know another term: 'Spiderverse style'.

There is no denying that Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (2018) by Sony Pictures Animation was an absolute landmark for animation. (I wrote about it way back on AN21, focusing more on the cultural angle.) The ludicrously stylish film pretty much set the direction for animation in the 2020s - making a bunch of money and awards and thus finally throwing open the door to 3DCG animation that doesn't look like the style set by Pixar/Dreamworks in the 2000s. Its sequel, Across the Spiderverse (2023), was even more ambitious and successful (despite a troubled production involving a lot of needless crunch). We'll be showing that soon in a Spiderverse double bill so look forward to it!

So perhaps not surprising that when people see the use of graphical styles, 2D elements, limited framerates and the like in 3DCG these days, Spiderverse comes to mind. In its wake have come various films and series that apply these and related techniques: 3DCG animation is more varied than ever, and it's cool.

It isn't really a style, tho.

Here I'm indebted to youtuber Camwing who has made a nice video overview breaking down the animation of recent movies in this vaguely defined paradigm. Among them we have The Mitchells vs the Machines (2021, also Sony), Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022, Dreamworks), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023, animated at the French/Canadian studio Mikros animation), and of course over on Netflix you got the wildly popular League of Legends spinoff series Arcane (2021, Fortiche Productions), and the romance film Entergalactic (2022, DNEG), tying in with an album of the same name.

None of these films has exactly the same style, but they all pull from a related bag of tricks. The core techniques are animating on reduced framerates for a 'snappy', high-clarity feeling, the combination of 2D and 3D elements in some fashion, and taking inspiration from traditional media such as paintings or comic books.

For example, Arcane and Entergalactic both use the trick of 2D backgrounds/projecting paintings onto 3D geometry, inhabited by 3D characters with a stylised shader. Arcane is dripping with 2D visual effects. Puss in Boots drops the framerate during its action scenes - the opposite of the old paradigm of full animation, where fast actions would get more frames. Spiderverse draws 2D expressions onto its 3D models to push them further, and is full of all kinds of colourful stylised rendering - screentone effects, kirby dots, outlines, the works.

It's tempting to link this to 2D-in-3D animation, and certainly many of these films apply this technique - this is the major niche where Blender has found its way into industry pipelines. But using 2D isn't mandatory to count here. For example, TMNT Mutant Mayhem has an incredibly striking storybook-painting style, accomplished largely by clever shader work and a strong sense of graphic design. Genndy Tartakovsky's canned 2014 Popeye project was planning to use a ton of 2D-style posing and squash-and-stretch, accomplished largely with rigged 3D models. There are many paths to take!

And mind you, I haven't even covered one of the biggest angles here. Search for nonphotorealistic 3DCG on Youtube and what you'll probably find most is information about cel-shading - aka 'anime style'. This has also advanced considerably in the last few years, with the techniques pioneered by Arc System Works in Guilty Gear such as editing the normals of characters for more precise control over shading, and minute adjustments to break up the mechanical feeling of 3D, becoming widely copied in both games and films. (And particularly, animated porn.)

Vtubers in particular have really run with this technique, generally speaking using cel-shaded models with edited normals, inverted eyes, etc. etc. to try and get the feeling of an anime character come to life. [You can see a lot of these state of the art techniques if you download Pixiv's free VRoid Studio software and import the model into Blender using the VRM plugin.]

Naturally this kind of cel-shaded approach has found a particular home in Japan. In anime, the biggest champions of it are certainly Studio Orange, whose hybrid approach involves planning out shots with 2D animation before matching them with the rigs. We've covered their adaptation of Houseki no Kuni in great detail on Animation Night 97; their Trigun reboot was perhaps even more popular. But cel-shaded techniques, 3D previs and the like have also made their way into big films like Eva 3.0+1.0 (AN66).

Although this type of rendering aims to recreate the look and feel of 2D animation as much as possible, it always ends up being something new: character models that would be too complex to draw, an ease to 3D movements and camerawork that would be challenging in 2D, and generally a new hybrid style. This is good! 2D animation is already very good at being 2D animation - it's fascinating to see what 3DCG becomes with that inspiration.

So with that brief overview, where does that take us tonight?

I'm not quite ready to do a Spiderverse double bill tonight, so instead the plan is to check out a couple of recent American franchise films that are taking on the new suite of techniques. I've mentioned them up above, but let me introduce them more fully here.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is a sequel to a fairly unpopular spinoff about a side character of the Shrek franchise (AN75). Not, on its face, very promising - which is why it is all the more striking that I was told on all sorts of sides that I must watch this movie. I'm finally going to make good on that.

The title character is a kind of feline musketeer type, now facing the end of his swashbuckling career as he's lost 8 of his 9 lives. Not wanting to hang up his hat, he goes on a quest to restore them. What makes it stand out its the action scenes, which go all in on the anime-influenced, extreme perspective and lighting, limited framerate style that we're discussing above. Apparently it looks sick as shit.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is a fresh reboot of the venerable TMNT franchise, which pretty much describes itself in the title: four turtles (named after Renaissance painters, of course!) live in a sewer as ninjas, led by their aging master who is a rat. Starting as a comic book, it became one of the iconic toyline-driven TV shows of the 80s - but it's still going! Indeed, Turtles has been on a roll of late (at least going by animator scuttlebutt), with Australian studio Flying Bark Productions turning a lot of heads with their neo-Kanada School style (and for really stretching the definition of 'storyboard').

This new film takes a different approach to the bombastic action of Rise. It focuses on a new origin story for the turtles, telling a kind of coming of age story - but what makes it unique is the animation style and cinematography. Cinéma vérité is not a phrase you really expect to be associated with ninja turtles, but the film seems to really go all out in a way you wouldn't really expect from a franchise movie, shooting the young turtles in a handheld style and focus heavily on character. Marcel Reinhard's shader work, allowing the animators to isolate lights to specific objects and characters and introducing graphical elements of cross-hatching, stippling, etc. etc. to the lighting, gives it a uniquely painting-like feeling, augmented by a lot of 2D creativity in lighting and effects.

Turtles has never really been my thing, but this film looks unique enough that I really want to see it - and I hear it's a good film too.

So that's our bill for tonight! Puss and Turtles. Let's see what the big studios have been cooking of late...

Animation Night 189 will be starting around 10pm UK time (roughly three hours hence) and carrying on til about 2-3am same! We'll be on twitch.tv/canmom as usual. Hope to see you there!

[aihoshiino]

chapter 166 thoughts

As of chapter 166, Oshi no Ko has finished a roughly four-and-a-half year run started back in 2020. While there's some speculation about an epilogue or some extra content in volume 16 when it drops, this is where the main story ends. And you know what that means!!!

OSHI NO KO HAS OFFICIALLY ENDED WITHOUT ADDRESSING OR ACKNOWLEDGING THE FACT THAT RUBY KISSED HER BROTHER IN CHAPTER 143

please understand that this is FUCKING BOGUS

I'll probably do a longer post on this subject specifically, but my main critique of 143 when the chapter dropped was that while I liked the individual beats in it and I was really glad to see Akasaka finally addressing this tension bubbling underneath Aqua and Ruby's relationship, the immediate swerve away from showing us the aftermath of that kiss felt to me like an admission that the story was going to needlessly draw this out even more. Now that the story has ended and we can see that moment had literally no impact on the plot or even the character dynamics, I'd like to revise that statement - it feels like an admission of compromise. It feels like crumbs thrown to AquRuby fans to tempt them to keep reading and to stir up the waters of the ship wars, so people would keep reading and stay invested in the manga right to the very end. But most of all, it feels deeply disrespectful to both Aqua and Ruby as characters. Rather than exploring their feelings and giving both of them interiority and complexity in relation to incest or even just fucking acknowledging that the kiss had happened and letting their dynamic evolve, the series just memory holes the entire event and asks that you do too. Rather than letting Ruby have any development whatsoever as pertains to that relationship or, god forbid, let a female character move on romantically from the male lead, the series ends with her feelings so up in the air that I literally could not tell you what she thinks of Aqua by the time he dies.

ANYWAY… FINAL CHAPTER. BREATHES OUT VERY HARD.

I really can't believe it's taken us until the final chapter to actually deal with Ruby's grief over Aqua lol. We got a snippet of it last chapter but it was so brief that it really just felt like a tease. I also just think it's kind of bizarre that we're spending this little time on Ruby having feelings about Aqua's death to the extent that I have no idea how or when she found out about it.

It's also kind of hard to feel particularly strongly about Ruby's grief when the chapter doesn't really bother to explore it all that much. It's just a montage of Ruby quite literally Screaming, Crying and Throwing Up while Akane dispassionately narrates it all. The art also doesn't really help in terms of connecting with the emotions at play - I usually really like Mengo's expression work and the way she depicts extreme emotions but this all just felt like of… I don't know how else to put it. Goofy??? Is that an insane thing to say about Ruby grieving her brother???

Idk, something about both the panelling and just the extreme on-the-noseness of Ruby, again, literally Screaming, Crying Throwing Up while she's wearing a Burning cosplay Just In Case You, The Audience, Didn't Get It only for her to abruptly be done crying with no exploration or insight as to what's going on in her head that allows her to move forward.

Honestly, this is kind of the issue with everyone in the cast. The resolution is just sort of "Aqua died and we were sad about it but then we stopped being sad". I know what the story is trying to go for here - it's trying to express that even when you're in pain, life goes on and so you have to find a way to go on with it. But the result is that we spend all this time oogling at their pain without spending equivalent or even meaningful time on their recovery process.

It feels both excessive and undercooked at the same time and I'm left with the same icky, voyeuristic feeling I got from Aqua's funeral last chapter. This should be the point in the story at which we empathize with Ruby the most, but she remains a frustratingly distant figure right to the final pages. Part of this is an unfortunate consequence of Akane's narration directing these final chapters meaning that we're hearing about Ruby from an outsider's perspective and thus don't really see what's going on in her head… but if I can be frank, this has been an issue of Aka's with Ruby in particular basically nonstop since chapter 123.

As others & myself have noted, despite the absolutely catastrophic downward spiral Ruby is in at that point, Aqua revealing himself as Gorou basically flips it all off like a switch. There's some mild lipservice paid to the idea that Ruby is just using her dependency on Gorou to prop herself up and it's pointed out that the issues that contributed to her breakdown haven't actually been resolved - but none of these issues are ever even acknowledged again, let alone resolved. So, functionally, that reveal does fix all Ruby's problems in the space of a single chapter and the result is, again, that we spend multiple chapters gourging on depictions of Ruby's absolute rock bottom only for her to ping back to normal like a lightswitch. As such, the depictions of her pain feel less like explorations of Ruby's interiority and more like voyeuristic oogling at Ruby's misery and trauma and the effect is that the resolution to it all is both unsatisfying and a little gross. The result is that it feels like Akasaka is just indulgently mining the imagery of cute girls suffering because it causes simple thoughts neuron activation but doesn't respect these girls enough as characters to build them back up.

It doesn't help that this is basically the in-universe excuse for Ruby's career further skyrocketing. Instead of Ruby becoming a star on her own merits as the story keeps insisting she was supposed to, she's artificially buoyed by the public's morbid fascination with her tragedy. If I was feeling charitable towards the story right now, I would say this is an avenue of intentional critique but… well, I don't feel super charitable about the story right now lol

I WILL say that the one part of this chapter I did just uncomplicatedly like was the beat of Mem trying to suspend activities (presumably in the wake of her grief for Aqua) only for Kana to basically immediately explode into her room and help her get back on her feet. It's a beat that would've been much more effective if we'd, you know, seen it, but I otherwise enjoyed it and I thought it was sweet.

But. pbbbbtttt. I guess I can't talk around it any longer… let's get into the Dome concert.

To start things off on the immediately worst note possible, Akane describes Ruby performing at the Dome as being 'everyone's dream', including Aqua's. I'm reminded once again of the strange turn the story took in insisting that um, actually, performing at the Dome was totes Ai's dream all along (even though she literally didn't give a shit even a week before she was due to perform there herself) so Ruby performing there is fulfilling that dream for her!!! and I can't help but wonder if this abrupt shift in focus is an attempt to make readers forget what Ai's actual dream was - to see her beloved children grow up happy and healthy. Hell, it wasn't even really Aqua's dream, until the story suddenly had to try and convince us that his entire purpose for existence was to kill himself so Ruby could be an idol for slightly longer than she would've otherwise. The only people whose dreams she's textually fulfilling are Ichigo and Miyako and Ruby herself, but…

Honestly, is this really Ruby's dream anymore?

Who is Hoshino Ruby? What does she want? Why does she want it? These should be the very least of what we can concretely say about not only a protagonist but a character who has become a central figure of the entire story as Ruby has, but with the way Oshi no Ko has warped and distorted her, I find myself increasingly unsure of what the story wants her to be or how I should answer those questions.What does Ruby feel about Aqua? Was she still in love with him? Had she moved on, romantically? Was she still waiting for a response to her confession? Did she finally realize it was probably kind of shitty to respond to her brother going "lowkey wanna kms" by sticking her tongue down his throat? I Guess We'll Never Know.

This extends to whatever the fuck Ruby's relationship with idols and being an idol is. Almost the entirety of Ruby's time in the story has been spent reiterating over and over that Ruby cannot just be an idol who imitates Ai and that to truly shine, she needs to step out of her mom's shadow and shine in her own way. Ruby even literally tells Kana in no uncertain terms in 137 - "I'll be a star in my own way. I won't be like Mama."

While this has always been the text of the story, as I've pointed out before, the actual art with which Ruby's idolhood depicts her basically just as Ai 2.0. It relies so heavily on mining the imagery of Ai's charisma and personality as an idol and using them as the measure of Ruby's success as an idol that Ruby essentially has no visual or conceptual identity of her own as an idol. She's just Ai, But Arbitrarily Better, For Reasons The Narrative Fails To Actually Establish But Hopes That You Just Accept Anyway. This was always kind of annoying, but now that friction seems to have been resolved by… just making her Ai 2.0, But Arbitrarily Better (etc, etc) in the text as well. The fact that we're given no further insight as to Ruby's feelings and continue to just have Akane Explain Ruby's Character Arc to the camera also doesn't help.

All this combines to make the Dome concert and the final few pages feel exceptionally cold in a way I really don't think was intended by Akasaka. Yes, that splash page was nice and flashy but… I just felt nothing. I have no idea if or why Ruby cares about this. And even though the Dome concert has been hyped up through the entire story as the peak of Ruby's achievements as an idol, I feel no sense of accomplishment in her finally being there - not just because her journey to it was basically sneezed at us across two panels, but because it just feels hollow as a victory lap for Ruby. Again, she feels so distant and abstracted as a character that I can't bring myself to feel very strongly about her good or bad.

I think the perfect encapsulation of this are the final four pages of the story. Ruby's words here are very clearly intended to be a callback to Ai's words to Gorou in chapter one but as @all-of-her-light pointed out in our initial discussions of the chapter, Ruby very much does not have an equivalent to Ai's conclusion that she nevertheless wants and values the opportunity to find personal happiness and fulfillment outside of being an idol. Are we supposed to believe that simply being an idol is all that Ruby needs to achieve a similar degree of happiness and fulfillment? Is there no more to her than that?

I've seen a lot of people interpret this ending as exceptionally bleak and, as usual, gleefully predicting Ruby's immanent suicide because her beloved oniichansensei isn't around but this is indulging in, if you'll allow me to be frank, some pretty transparently ship-motivated flanderization. Despite what certain sections of the fandom would like to believe, Aqua and Ruby's lives, past and current, have never revolved around each other to the exclusion of every other relationship in their life. Ruby has a massive support network of people who love and care for her and actively want her to get back on her feet. I can one hundred percent believe that she does not need Aqua in her life to be happy and content.

The issue is that we don't see enough of Ruby to understand that ourselves. Again, she has become such a distant figure with so little insight into what she's thinking and why that this ending is basically a Rorschach test in which you can interpret basically whatever the hell you want or assume because we have so little canon basis to support or debunk our assumptions.

and yes. don't think i didn't see them. it IS both grimly hilarious and weirdly tonally appropriate for this ending that ruby has a bunch of oshi goods of ai and aqua including their fucking autographs set up to say goodbye to every day.

AND…… WE'RE DONE!!! THAT'S OSHI NO KO, BABY!!!! well, technically, there's going to be a 20 page extra chapter in volume 16 but I don't see it being big or substantive enough to meaningfully change my feelings about the ending so… I guess we're leaving it here. Damn. Feels crazy to be done with it.

I'll probably do a bigger post down the line about my thoughts on the ending as a whole but in terms of just How This Chapter Made Me feel, I guess the word is just… meh! It's definitely not an ending I like and I think the execution is sloppy and rushed but I also just don't really have the energy to feel angry about it. Maybe that's sad in its own way but tbh… I still really love Oshi no Ko! I still find it engaging and I find the characters I enjoy rewarding to talk about. I like the artistry of the anime adaptation. I don't blame anybody else for being so turned off by this ending that they're done with the series but for me, I like what I like about OnK too much that this ending could retroactively ruin it for me. Whatever else happens with the OnK franchise, whatever directions the anime and live-action take, this will always be the series that gave me Ai and the Hoshino family and. look at me. look at what she's done to my brain. could I really ask for anything more than that?

That being said, I'm definitely not done with discussing the series! I have fics to write (including a VERY exciting large scale project lined up with some friends), my Ai analysis post to finish and I also want to do a re-read of the series and finish my anime rewatch. I'll be here to discuss Oshi no Ko as long as I have things to say about it and as long as you guys will have me! Despite how the series ended, I've had a genuinely wonderful experience in the fandom and I really don't want to let go of the little community we've built together just because the series is done. I'm Ai's fan for all eternity!!!

[starmocha]

I'm gonna finish this story, I'm gonna finish this story, I'mgonnafinishthisstory, I'm gonna finish this story

Main story of Bride of the Dragon King is currently at 26.7k words...and idk, I think there are like ten scenes left. Most of my writing notes got scattered in my phone, because I've also been itching to write a few other AUs and more of the LNDS babies series. I have a goldfish brain and the attention span of a golden retriever, sorry, I can't be fixed 😔😔😔

Anyhoo, here's a wip snippet to hype myself up lol

Prelude is already out and I am keeping track of who asked to be tagged when I post the main story. Just mention explicitly to me somewhere and I'll add your handle to the list.

“Come here.” “I will not!” you protested vehemently, arms crossed over your chest, back turned to him in embarrassment. You could hear the sound of water splashing, sensed his presence shifting. You blushed harder. Sylus sighed. “I do not like repeating myself.” You flustered, but continued to adamantly keep your back to him. “You are shameless!” Sylus smirked, tilting his head in amusement. “Am I, my beloved?” Before you could even think of deigning him a response, Sylus motioned with his hand, summoning crimson tendrils that wrapped around your body, lifting and dragging you over until you shrieked in shock, finding yourself submerging into a hot spring. You surfaced quickly, gasping and sputtering, choking on the water you had accidentally engulfed. You could hear laughter and you turned in his direction, glaring, red-faced from both anger and embarrassment. You immediately splashed him with the water, yelling, “How could you do that?!” You gasped again, not expecting Sylus to wade closer to you. You quickly tried to avert your eyes, well aware he was completely nude in your presence. The sound of the water splashing seemed to grow louder the closer he moved to you. You whimpered when he invaded your space, his hand gripping your chin, gently guiding you to meet his darkening eyes. “As you have said, my beloved,” he murmured quietly, eyes darting back and forth from your flushed cheeks to your quivering lips, “I am shameless.” You swallowed slowly, heart quickening as his lips moved closer and closer until he finally claimed yours. You weakened, letting yourself be tempted by this sweet kiss, and forgetting momentarily the salacious situation you were in. As Sylus kissed you, his hands skimmed down underwater, resting on your hips and rubbing slow, lazy circles on them, feeling the wet fabric of your clothes clinging to your skin. You could feel an unusual heat building inside you as he touched you, seemingly testing the boundary between the two of you. He pulled away first, eyes growing hazy with desire. You panted, unable to regulate your breathing after the whirlwind of emotions he had just put you through in the last few minutes. You tried to speak, but all coherent thoughts seemed to have left your head, and from the way he was smiling at you, a cross between teasing and adoration, you found yourself at an even greater loss for words. After a moment, you managed to find your voice, as feeble as it may be. “You are so shameless…” you repeated, attempting to look elsewhere, though by this point, Sylus made sure he was the only object of your vision. “…how can you ask a maiden to bathe with you?” “She will be my bride,” he answered unabashed, smirking at your gawk at his audaciousness. His finger traced over your trembling lips, the light, fleeting touch left behind a tingling sensation long after they were gone. He hummed in satisfaction at the reaction you had. “Am I not your lover as well?” You blushed deeper. “…in a sense…” He chuckled, shaking his head in amusement at your coyness and embarrassment. He leaned down, taking your lips for himself again, pleased as he was able to draw out your soft, sweet moans. Minutes passed, he broke the kiss, the warmth of both your breaths intermingled, breathing heavy, and your look of disappointment not missed by his keen eyes. His fingers glided along your flushed cheek, down to your chin, and with a light tilt up so your soft doe eyes met his own aroused gaze, Sylus husked quietly, “In all sense, I want to be your lover.”

[mika-no-sekai-blog]

Part IX

Word count: 2900+

Warnings: mentions of torturing, SA, fight and blood, some swearing

Autumn themed divider by tsunami-of-tears

This one is a bit more brutal and not the last such scene in this series, but I hope you'll like the moment Eris appears. Hopefully you'll see what I saw while writing it, the Lord of Autumn Court in full glory (I'm so tempted to draw him btw)

Part VIII | Part X

Eris was mad with rage, running faster and faster through the castle and its grounds like a fire breathing demon, leaving a havoc behind. He literally turned his estate upside down, not leaving a single thing on its original place, but Y/N disappeared without a trace.

Killian had never seen him like this. Right now he reminded him of their father, Beron, more than ever. Eris barked at everyone who came empty-handed, threatened and intimidated every aristocrat who lived in the castle and had ever expressed the slightest objection against him or his choice of wife. Even Killian didn't dare to get in his way. Every person in the castle was looking for Y/N day and night without a break to no avail.

"My Lord," a shy voice snapped him out of thoughts on his way to Eris's office.

Killian halted looking down on a small trembling lesser faerie that served in the kitchens.

"Yes? What is it?"

Even though he spoke softly, little faerie shivered like a leaf in the wind and nervously fidgeted with her fingers.

"I- I think I saw something suspicious the morning Lady has disappeared."

Killian's brows shot to his hairline as his eyes widened. Finally something that might be helpful. Quickly, he looked around, checking whether someone heard them and then gestured toward the closest empty chamber. The maid nodded and walked in. He closed and warded the doors behind.

"And now tell me everything." He turned to her with high expectations, urging her to speak.

"I was washing a lettuce near the well when I saw him."

"Who?"

"I-I don't know, my Lord," she sobbed.

"It's okay," he reassured her, forcing himself to speak calmly. "Tell me what you remember. Anything. Any small detail."

"I saw him only from behind. He was tall with long, dark brown hair. He carried a big bag on his shoulder. It was too big, that's why I found it so strange. As soon as he got out from the wards, he winnowed away."

Narrowing eyes, Killian nervously bit on his lower lip, his brain running at full speed. If that male could winnow, it meant that he was a high fae, but list of names was still too long.

"Did you notice anything else? A scar, unusual clothes, accessory, anything that could help me to identify him?"

The maid thought about it for a moment. "He.. he had a sword slung across his back. Quite long one. I think I saw some big gems on its hilt, but I'm not sure about the colour."

"What about its scabbard. Anything special?"

She shook her head. "It was just black with gold details I think."

Killian breathed out deeply. "Why haven't you said something sooner?"

The maid uncomfortably shifted under his piercing gaze. "I-I was scared. His Lordship was so angry when he stormed through kitchens like tornado. I thought that he would burn me down, if it turned out to be irrelevant.."

He laughed and ruffled her short auburn hair. "Silly girl! Go back to the kitchen. And not a word to a living soul, do you understand?"

"Yes, my Lord," she quickly bowed and disappeared.

Killian didn't waste time and headed to Eris's office.

"Anything new?" he asked in his usual mocking tone as soon as the doors closed behind him. Eris was pacing around the room, the flames roaring in his veins caused that the air around him rippled.

"Do you think I would be here if I knew where she is?" he barked.

Killian lazily walked over to the window and leaned against the cool glass. This room was insufferably hot. It was a miracle that it hadn't caught fire yet.

"One little bird whispered to me that a certain lordling was here and when he was leaving he carried a human sized load."

In a blink of eye, Eris was on him, fisting the front of his tunic, his fingers burning holes into it.

"Who are you talking about?" he hissed through clenched teeth.

"I'm talking about a boring lordling with ego bigger than entire castle, who likes to brag about his stupid sword and wears it 24/7. I'm sure that he even takes a shit with it. Do you get it now?"

Eris's eyes widened with understanding. The blood froze in his veins. If that male kidnapped her, they didn't have much time to find her, especially if they hoped to find her alive. "But that bastard was banished from here after he took Volkan's side. So how did he get in?"

"Yeah, he was and I have no idea. That's something we will have to worry about later though."

Eris nodded. "Y/N is priority now. We need to get her back asap. Do we know where he is now? What does he do?"

Killian pressed lips into thin line. "No. We have no news about him nor Volkan ever since they left, unfortunately. If they are together, which certainly they are, they can be anywhere."

Eris swore, feverishly thinking. He ran hands through his hair, making it even messier than it already was. It could take weeks even months to find them and he didn't have so much time. There was no other way. He had to use his smokehounds once again. Only they could find her fast enough.

He stormed out from the office, heading to their chambers. He opened the doors to his wife's bedroom and looked around. There were no combs, no hair accessories. No jewellery she often wore. All clothes were washed. Everything was neat and clean, not a single hair left behind.

If he wanted to find her fast, he would need her blood or anything she often carried around and preferably nobody else had touched. He started to search the drawers, returning everything to its place. This room was like a sacred place to him, he wouldn't dare to make a mess here. However, the commotion drew attention of one of the girls Killian brought for her as her maid and companion.

"My Lord?"

"Where are all her personal things?" he asked while he rummaged through the mostly empty drawers.

"I'm afraid she doesn't have any.. She brought just few dresses with her. The only thing that could count is a necklace his Lordship gave her for birthday, but she wore it all the time. She had it on her even when.." she couldn't finish the sentence.

Eris shook his head in disbelief. "What about .. I don't know.. some diary? Handkerchief? Anything!" The girl just shook her head sadly.

"She lives here like the poorest priestess. Why none of you bothered to let me know she's struggling so much? I thought that you were supposed to take good care of her. I hoped I expressed myself clearly when I said I want her to have anything she wants or needs." Eris ran hand through his hair, barely suppressing the anger.

"She never complained about anything nor expressed the desire to have things.. We asked her at least thousands times, but she said that she didn't need anything. That she was satisfied with what she already had.." The girl started to cry, big tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Why do you talk about her in the past tense?" Eris growled lowly, his heart clenching in pain. "She isn't dead. She can't be.. not yet.."

The girl started crying even more and apologised again and again. It was clear that she sincerely missed Y/N and feared for her safety.

"Forget that," he growled angrily. He didn't have time for this sentiment right now. His patience was wearing thin. He needed to move on. "Where is her nightgown?"

"In laundry room I think." Eris closed his eyes, gritting his teeth. "Would maybe the dress from the birthday party be of any help? It's stained with her blood, but she insisted on keeping it."

Eris sharply turned to her. "Bring it right away!"

You woke up with a headache and a strange, unpleasant after-taste on your tongue in a dark room, lying on the cold stone floor. As your last memories cleared up, your heart raced up and you tried to sit up. You barely managed to stop the scream that almost escaped you as the ropes cut into your skin. Trashing you managed to roll to your side. You were terrified.

The sound of snap of fingers bounced off stone walls in the distance and the torches lit up. When your eyes got used to the bright light, you realized with horror that you were most likely in a cave, the room carved in stone reminding you of your former home. Steps echoed in the hallway and the door swung open.

You cried out with relief when you saw flash of red hair, pale skin and a glimpse of amber eyes, however the person who entered was unfamiliar. He was lazily stalking closer, hands in pockets, watching you like wolf observing the future meal.

"So this is the whore he's chosen over a pure blood." The raspy, cold voice of the male made you shiver in fear. This person wasn't here to help you.

"I told you, didn't I?" Another male who you hadn't noticed before, snarled from threshold. That one had dark brown hair. You doubted that you had ever seen him. You would remember the ugly scar that just miraculously missed his eye, stretching all the way down to the corner of his mouth, giving him a permanent one-sided grin.

The red head crouched before you and painfully squeezed your jaw, turning your face from side to side to get a better look.

"It's not too bad. My brother's taste isn't so horrible after all. Maybe we could have some fun before we get rid of her. There aren't any females to fuck around here anyway. What do you think?"

"Please.." you sobbed almost inaudibly, but they only laughed. No matter how much you would plead with them, it wouldn't work. It never did with this type of males. So you just pressed your lips together, determined not to make another sound.

The first tears slid down your cheeks as you were shivering there, completely in mercy of those two strangers. They could do with you anything they wanted. You wouldn't be able to protect yourself, anyway. They were much bigger and stronger than you. And there was no one who could come to rescue you in time.

"What are you staring at?" The redhead snarled when he stopped laughing and hit your head on the ground with such strength the room again darkened for a brief moment.

You wanted to scream for help but you knew it would go unanswered, more over you would only enraged them, provoked them to continue.

"That whore doesn't even plead anymore. It seems that she enjoys it," the other one laughed and came closer.

The redhead stood up, then he picked you up by your hair and punched you. The pain shot from the cheek to whole your body and more tears welled up in your eyes. During the months you spent in your husband's castle you'd almost forgotten how much the beating hurt, but it wasn't any worse than what your father did to you.

"Not even a small noise. This is going to be such fun," the redhead snarled delighted.

They started to punch you and kick you around without a break until you couldn't take it anymore and cried out. They seemed to be pleased with it and continued using you as a punch bag. Only once you weren't able to move even the slightest, your body aching so much you hardly could take a small sip of air, the redhead began reaching for the hem of your skirt.

You were already at the end of your strength, hardly perceiving what was happening to you. The darkness was reaching for you and calling you to its emptiness when a real inferno had began.

At first there were only shouting voices and sounds of fight, then the entrance exploded in the flames, hot air fanning over your face and making already labored and painful breathing even harder.

Out of the all consuming fire a figure in silver armour with bright red cape stepped out, unaffected, unbothered by flames licking his body. His eyes were burning even brighter than the fire around him, his face twisted with rage. The moment he saw you on the ground, covered in blood and bruises, a deafening roar broke through from the depths of his chest and he turned into bloodthirsty demon.

"Volkan!" Eris snarled, the ire dripping from every syllable. "I'll burn you down to ashes with my own hands for this!"

The other scarred male ran away as soon as Eris appeared, but the redhead stood up to him, eager for fight.

"Let's end it here and now, brother," he spatted out the word with utter disgust. "You shouldn't have become the High Lord. You aren't suitable for that. You aren't enough ruthless and cruel for that. With such, you can't rule the Autumn."

"You are wrong," Eris snarled with wild grin. "I can and I do rule the Autumn Court. You had to hide in the Middle to survive. You aren't suitable for ruling. Remember? You are the one who was never enough."

Whatever Eris referred to, the redhead reacted to that with a battle cry and charged towards him with a sword made out of fire.

You didn't recognize your husband. He was like a beast released from the hottest depths of hell and he fought like that, too.

The fire met the fire in such a fierce fight that stone walls cracked and the whole mountain shook. Somewhere above you, you heard collapsing ceilings. The sounds of fight outside the room instantly stopped, replaced by shouting men trying to evacuate the place and save their lives. However, two brothers hadn't faltered and continued their merciless fight, determined to kill each other.

The stone walls of the room you were in, shook for the last time and started to collapse. The redhead cried out in pain as part of ceiling collapsed at the place where he stood, burying him under the stone. As the rest of the ceiling began collapsing, Eris lunged at you and in the last moment winnowed you away.

Darkness and unpleasant pull were replaced with fresh, cool night air that filled your lungs as you found yourself lying on your back in the middle of the courtyard of Forest House surrounded by dirty, tired and hurt soldiers. Everyone was panting, some even groaning, several needed to sit down or leaned for support against the closest wall.

Your eyes found the stars above, winking down at you, unchanged, their cold beauty soothing some of the worst pain. With difficulty you were fighting the darkness lurking at the edges of your mind, but you needed to see him, to make sure he was alive. You couldn't even count how many times in your life you were beaten to blood, how many bones were broken in the process, yet it had never been so bad as now.

Small whimper escaped you as you were trying to turn your head to the side where you felt his hand holding yours. The rope you were bound with, disappeared while you were winnowed from that place. The armour screeched against the cobblestone as groaning Eris pushed himself up into a semi-sitting position and bent over you.

He was dirty, a trail of blood running from his hair line to his chin, another from the corners of his mouth. A bruise was starting to form under his left eye. Silver lined his eyes as his gaze roamed over your face and he reached for you stopping just an inch from your skin, afraid to touch you.

You smiled at him, every muscle in your face protesting. "You came for me." Tears slid from your eyes, cooling the hurting flesh on its way.

"Of course I did. I couldn't leave my wife in hands of those bastards. You can't even imagine how worried and scared I was when you disappeared. I was going crazy-"

His words were cut off as Killian with smaller army of healers rushed from the doors, interrupting whatever Eris was about to say with his strong voice.

"Take care of the wounded," he shouted the orders and immediately was at your side. At first he noticed his brother and paled.

"We need one healer here," he shouted out.

"Or rather three," he added when his gaze fell to you. "I'm so relieved to see you alive, dear sister."

He reached for your hand, but just like Eris, changed his mind half way through and his hand halted, awkwardly hanging in the air. Eris growled.

Killian cleared his throat. "Easy. I don't want to hurt her. What happened?" he demanded. "Is he dead?"

"I think so," Eris grunted, his eyes never leaving yours. "But I'd love to be sure he's gone for good. Also, that bastard Nair escaped as soon as he saw me."

Killian nodded. "I will send someone to check on it and look for Nair."

"Give them rather shovels and pickaxes. They will need them."

Killian blinked in confusion, but before he could ask why, bunch of healers shoved him aside, examining Eris's and your injuries. Eris refused to let go of your hand that he was still holding, snarling at anyone who tried to reason with him. In the end, healers figured that it would be much easier for you both if you took a nice, deep nap and so they put you to sleep with a single flick of wrist. Eris collapsed as first and you followed right after him.

[vividstardustrevolution]

You know what would be a funny AU?

What if Es, at the start of MILGRAM, decided, "I'm a 15 year old amnesiac who doesn't know nearly enough about law and morality to judge these murderers based on that, so I'm going to judge them all on their skill at arbitrary things," and just turns MILGRAM into a little series of competitions in increasingly weird things? Like, at first, it's normal things like drawing and playing Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokémon and writing and sports, but then it turns into "who can balance an egg on their head for the longest period of time?" and "who can sit still for the longest period of time?" and "who gives the best hugs?" and so on. Jackalope is increasingly irritated by this. Even better, the competitions produce the same results as actual MILGRAM. Also, Shidou would be desperately trying to fuck up every challenge because he wants to be voted guilty, and then he does really well at all of them, much to his dismay. Kotoko would be so pissed the whole time too because "You're not even judging them on their crimes! >:("

I don't know. It's a silly and funny idea to me at least. If you see this, let me know if you'd read a fic about this, because I'm tempted to write one now.

[mellozheist]

Hi guess who got no sleep last night (thanks doctor's appointment) and decided to watch your animatic again

I quote myself about 1 hour ago in a treebark channel on a discord server my friends and I made (to anybody that reads this i am so sorry):

(Also I'm sorry if somebody's uncomfortable with swearing :'D)

"[Link]

I'm sorry I still can't handle this animation's existence peoples

I can't with it

I'm crazy

Like REN PUTTING HIS HEAD BACK ON AND CALMING DOWN MARTYN WHO'S PANICKING?????

REN BEING SO CALM AND THEN FUCKING CRAZY IN THE NEXT SHOT?????

FUCKING HELLO????

THE VERY FIRST FEW SHOTS WHERE MARTYN IS LOOKING AT REN BEING ALL EXCITED AND BLUSHING??????

THE END????????

THEM HAVING THEIR PINKIES WRAPPED AROUND???? I EVEN SENT MELLOZ AN ASK ABOUT THAT AND THEY TOLD ME "oh yeah they indirectly promised to see each other in the next life series :3" MELLOZ IS SINGLEHANDEDLY KILLING THE TREEBARK SHIPPERS WITH THIS ONE

MARTYN HOLDING REN'S HAND AND KISSING IT BEFORE DYING ALSO

GUYS I BEG

I CAN'T WITH THIS

I CANNOT

I AM UNABLE TO

Oh my gosh FCUKING REN PUTTING HIS HEAD BACK ON AND LOOKING AT MARTYN WITH THOSE DANG EYES

Guys I need to resist spamming this thing in here

But at the same time IT'S SOOOOOO TEMPTING

FUCKIN

LOOK AT IT

[Link]

GRIPPING MY HEAD FURIOUSLY

THIS WHOLE BEHEADONG SCENE

I JUST NOTICED REN'S NECK DOESN'T LIGN UP PROPERLY IN THE SHOT WHERE MARTYN KISSES HIS HAND

GUYS I'M INSANE

GIYS I'M INSANE

LOOK AT THISSSSSSS

Furiously rattling the bars of my cell is that what it's called

Honestly I never thought I'd go insane over a ship called treebark

IT'S FUCKING BAUMRINDE IN GERMAN

BAUMRINDE IS SUCH A SILLY SHIP NAME ISTFG

I don't think I've ever loved an animatic thid much

I'VR NEVER LOOKED AT AN ANIMATIC SO CLOSELY

THE FACT THE FIRST SCENE IS SO SWEET AND THE SECOND ONE IS ALREADY REN BEING BEHEADED

I wish they won. I wish Ren or Martyn was the winner of 3rd Life

CAN'T I HAVE L8KE

A LITTLE FAIRY THAT MAKES MY WISHES COME TRUE?

C'MOOOOONNNNN [insert a bunch of screaming emotes here]

AGH I CAN'T

...what if i copied every single message and sent melloz this as an ask to show my appreciation

CUZ I SURE DO APPRECIATE THIS ANIMATIC

[Link]

WATCH THIS. WATCH. OBSERVE. NOW. I BEG.

I'VE WATCHED THIS FOR 5 TIMES IN A ROW NOW

I'M VERY SANE

I STILL CAN'T GET OVER REN'S NECK NOT ALIGNING PROPERLY

also the feather and the poppy but this is the treebark channel

Not

Not desert duo

I CAN'T

.........do i send this as an ask i am very sane i promise

One of my very favourite scenes though is the beheading scene, funnily enough

Me literally passing out when I see gore but not here cuz idk baumrinde <333333

Also here

HIS NECK.

IS NOT.

ALIGNING.

Or what if it's his head falling off after death cuz he died and that determination is no longer there to keep dogwarts, causing his hesd to fall off

New headcanon i think

And I just noticed I watched this like 6 times now DESERVED THOUGH

Gonna watch it again

I love them so much

I love this animatic so much

Guys I can't

WAIT DID MARTYN'S EARS TILT DOWN IN THE REN DEAD SCENE

HOLD

WAIR YEAH

HIS EARS TILTED DOWN

I CAN'T

Somebody stop me

Actually no

Oh also the song choice IS PERFECT????????

WAIT REN'S PONYTAIL IS GONE IN THE LAST SCENE HIS HAIR IS OPEN

YAAAAAYYYYYY

Anywhoozles

[Link]

WATCH THIS.

I BEG

EVERYBODY THAZ DOESN'T IS MISSING OUT THIS IS SO COOL"

And with that, Melloz you're amazing, EVERYBODY WATCH THE ANIMATIC EVER >:D

I have so much fun reading this, It's like I'm in a theater seat watching this happen with 4D sound surrounding Lmaoooo

Thank you for sending this to me I really appreciate this <3333

I'm so happy you eating all the details I put in hehe

though the part where you describe Ren's neck as not aligning is probably just my error in art but that's also a really cool headcanon!

I might adopt that headcanon :d Like drawing Martyn carrying Ren's head

you really made my day Thank yooou :D

hope you get a good night sleep bud

[dreamingoftaehyun]

# sub taehyun drabble

pair: kang taehyun x fem! reader content warning: SMUT, sub! taehyun, dom! reader, fingering (m! receiving), pegging, nipple play (m! receiving), choking, premature ejaculation, lots of whining, praise & degradation, pet names like good boy, baby, kitty. w/c: 1.5k a/n: i haven't posted in a hot minute... whoopsies. anyways, i had a dream about fingering taehyun last night and i had to write it >_<

as soon as you heard the front door open and taehyun's voice call out 'i'm home!', you hopped up from the sofa and practically sprinted to the entryway. "hi baby, how was your day?" you greeted your husband.

taehyun hangs his coat up and takes off his shoes, leaving them by the door. "productive but boring. i missed you." he replies softly, pulling you into a hug. "did you eat?" you asked while walking through the house.

"mhm, yeonjun treated me to a meal." taehyun followed you into the living room, plopping down onto the sofa with a groan. you settled next to him, turning on the series you've been watching together for the past week.

it wasn't until halfway through the second episode of the night you noticed taehyun starting to get a little restless, his hand that was resting on your thigh now drawing circles on your skin. "tyun," you murmur and he looks at you. "you okay?"

without looking at you, he nods, pursing his lips. "you're a bad liar."

he gives you a glare that makes you chuckle. the familiar glint in his eyes was something you'd seen hundreds of times. "oh, kitty's horny?"

taehyun's head snaps to face yours, seeming to try and come up with an excuse as he gives you a blank stare. your hand slides up his thigh, then to his half-hard cock in his pants. you give it a squeeze and taehyun exhales a breath he didn't even know he was holding.

he releases a quiet groan when you rub his bulge through his pants, now fully hard. "i need you."

"nuh uh, say it properly." you tut, hands coming up to play with the hem of his shirt. "please?" he whimpers.

"good boy." you smile, slowly unbuttoning his shirt. an idea pops into your head and you giggle. your leg swings over his thigh, now seated on his lap. you start off slow, kissing and sucking marks onto his neck, basking in the soft sounds he makes directly into your ear.

"lay back for me baby." you tell him and he does, the new position exposing his whole torso. you can't help yourself, sliding your hands up and down his toned body. "you're so pretty, tyunnie. my pretty boy."

while your fingers start to tweak his nipples, he keens at your praise, whining when you start to play with the both of them. you lean down, mouth wrapping around taehyun's left nipple, sucking on it.

taehyun's hips started bucking into you as his whimpers got louder and more frequent. "m-more.. need to be inside you." he whines.

you don't answer, flicking his right nipple a few times in return as you went back to sucking and giving his left one kitten licks. you didn't know taehyun was this sensitive there until you felt a wet patch on his sweatpants under you. sitting up, taehyun's eyes are shut tightly, lips parted. "did you just cum?"

"no!" he whines, covering his face in embarrassment. your hand snakes down his torso and past his waistband, pulling it out only to be covered in white stuff. "what's this then?"

taehyun simply whimpered in response, not able to speak while he watched you lick his cum off of your hand. "bad kitty, i didn't say you could cum yet, did i?"

you made your way to your shared bedroom, taehyun quickly following. he gasps when you push him onto the bed. "get on all fours, tyun." he quickly obeys, positioning himself in the middle of the bed. you take your time undressing, putting on your strap-on.

taehyun had also fully undressed, not exactly on all fours like you'd asked but instead had his back arched with his ass out, tempting you. opening the bottle of lube you had stored in your drawer, you spread it around your fingers and taehyun's ass.

"you ready, tyunnie?" you ask, finger prodding at his hole. "fuck, yeah." he breathes out. you slide two fingers in at first, letting him get used to the stretch. "shit, need more... i can take it," taehyun whimpers out.

you scoff, putting a third then a fourth finger in. he mewls out when you start moving them, thrusting your fingers in and out. "thought you could take it?"

"ohmygod!— i can!" he rasps, taehyun's hands gripping the sheets as he cries into the mattress when your fingers found his prostate, hitting it over and over. he looked so hot at your submission — drool coming out of his mouth, legs shaking trying to hold himself up, fingers gripping the sheets, back arched — all for you.

"who knew you were such a slut, tyunnie?" you tease, practically ramming your fingers inside him. your other hand came around to wrap around his cock. "ah, please let me fuck you already..." taehyun chokes out and you laugh. "i'm fucking you tonight, kitty."

the slow pace you had on his cock contradicted the roughness you were fingering him with. "mmf—fuck… ‘m— gonna cum–" he whimpers, crying out when both of your hands withdrew from him. "babyyy, i was so close!" he whines, sniffling as a few tears rolled down his cheeks.

"too bad, i'm not letting you cum early again." you push your fingers back inside him and taehyun lets out a sigh of relief. this time, you fucked your fingers into him painfully slowly. taehyun was still teary and clouded with lust at this point, sniffling and trying to push his hips onto your fingers to get more friction. "it's not enough, please just touch me, y/n." he begs.

mocking him, you pull your fingers out yet again, instead picking up the bottle of lube you left next to you and covering your strap with it. taehyun held his breath when he felt the tip of the toy prod at his hole.

"breathe, baby." you cooed, soothing him by rubbing his back as you carefully slid the strap inside. taehyun's small groans egged you on, bottoming out not long after.

taehyun finally exhaled once the toy was fully inside. his mind was hazy, not being able to think a coherent thought except for that he felt so full. "tyun," you call out. "you okay?"

"mhmm, never felt better." taehyun smiles and you can't help but giggle. another moment passes and you finally move, making him groan in surprise. you started with passive, slow but teasing thrusts. the little gasps and whines coming from your lover was addicting.

"faster!" taehyun whimpers. your hand slivered up his back, around his shoulders and take claim on his neck. lightly adding pressure with your fingers, his back arches up and you pull him towards you, his head now lolling back onto your own shoulder and you quickened your pace.

you thrusted into him roughly now, the hand that was on his neck roaming up and down his chest, back in forth between playing with his puffy nipples and back on his neck. "that's my good boy. take it like the slut you are." you purr into his ear.

"fuckkk— 'm close," taehyun moans and you fuck into him as hard as you can, the contact of your bare thighs on his own making a loud clapping noise that drove you to fuck him impossibly harder. "feels— ah, so good!"

"gonna cum all over yourself? you're so pathetic, my cute kitty." you teased and taehyun whines, " 'm not cute, fuck— fuck you."

you chuckled, slapping one of his cheeks that made him cry out. "gonna cum soon," taehyun says. "not unless you beg me." you slow your pace down, fingers digging into his hips.

"please, baby. need to cum so bad , it hurts." taehyun begs, tears pooling in his eyes. "i'll do anything!"

"good boy, you can cum." you smile before going back to the rough pace you had before, fucking taehyun so hard he started twitching, mouth wide open but no sounds coming out, a little drool on the corner of his lips. his eyes were scrunched shut.

"i want you to look at me when you cum, baby boy." you moan, and he opens his eyes, looking up at you with the cutest lust filled puppy dog eyes. you gave one last thrust and taehyun was cumming, white ropes shooting onto his stomach. you swiped a little with your index finger and tapped his mouth. he obliged, wrapping his pretty lips around your finger and tasted himself. you pulled out, taking the strap off and setting it aside to clean later.

after a few moments of basking in the afterglow, taehyun looked down at his stomach and cringed. "let's go have a shower, i feel gross. amazing, but gross."

"me too." you laughed and helped taehyun out of the bed and into the shower, leaving the night with a heavy atmosphere.

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

104/150 with lethal company?

104) I can hear it calling my name

.........

[Y/n], January 29th, [Log 001]

---I'm afraid this will be my last log. So I'm keeping this encrypted.

Everyone's gone, but I'm still here. And I'm terrified. We started on this job as strangers, and we became family. Now I'm all alone because of a stupid mask. A piece of scrap we should've just sold off.

But he thought it would be funny to wear. I don't blame him. He was always a jokester, willing to do anything to turn a frown upside down and make light of our dreary trips. I know he didn't mean to hurt us. He thought it was harmless. Honest to god we thought so too.

Until he started vomiting blood and tried grabbing me. He tore off my helmet, along with my tracker, but I managed to get away. I still don't know how. But I wish I was smarter about it, because I got lost.

Then I heard the ship's engines.

They must've thought I was dead. Or maybe they all died and the autopilot kicked in. I'm not sure. I don't even know the current time. But what I do know is that I'm stuck here now. Possibly forever. I could make an SOS but that monster is still outside. I had to barricade myself in this storage room and wait until it goes away.

It keeps knocking. I can hear it calling my name. But I know it's not him.

To anyone who reads this, don't pick up the porcelain masks. They aren't worth shit. It'll tempt you to put it on. Don't. You'll find better loot elsewhere. If you see anyone already wearing it, kill them. Stun them. Run. Whatever. Just don't let it take you.

And if you see me wearing it, put me out of my misery. I promise I'll understand---

Finishing what would likely be your final log, you sighed and slumped back against the wall, letting the tablet slip from your hands.

You don't know how long you've been stuck here--whether it's been hours or days.

But all you know is that the Masked on the other side of the door hasn't left. It was using your coworker's corpse, mimicking his voice as it pounded on the steel and tried convincing you to let it in, even shattering the window. For some reason it refused to leave you alone, and kept begging and begging until it began screaming unintelligently...

That would go on and on until eventually it would cease, weakly clawing at the door, only to rinse and repeat once it rested its voice.

You were starving, trying your best to ration the jar of pickles you were luckily able to find in this storage room.

Unfortunately, that's as far as your luck will go at this point. They were sour and made you want to vomit every time you ate one. But while you didn't want starvation to take your life, you weren't exactly sure how you really wanted to go out instead.

It sure as hell wasn't gonna be from that bastard who took away your friends.

"It's clear....all clear......come on out....the ship is leaving..leave....out.....COME OUT..!! COME OUT!! COMEOUTCOMEOUT-!!"

With your heart hammering in your chest, you curled up and covered your ears, squeezing both eyes shut. 'Fuck, it's losing its mind again...this is a nightmare..why did I ever take this job?' You tried not to focus on the screams so much, and instead prayed for some kind of miracle.

But in space, would anyone really hear your prayers?

Yet somebody must have, because the screaming abruptly stopped a minute later, being replaced by the sounds of heavy thumping and growling drawing near.

You only knew one other alien creature that made those.

And you knew it was pissed off.

Getting up and backing away from the door, you fearfully clutched a stop sign as you heard a series of terrified shrieks, roars, slamming and crashing sounds....before silence followed, save for the low growls you heard earlier and chewing noises.

Cautiously, you went back over and pushed aside one of the things covering up the window, and the sight on the other side was quite nauseating:

The Thumper was hovering over the Masked's body, teeth covered in blood and flesh as it tore into it, clearly wanting to savor this midnight snack.. But eventually it decided to drag the rest of the corpse away and to another part of the facility, only leaving behind a few shattered fragments of white dirty porcelain.

You couldn't believe it.

You were actually happy that a Thumper, of all things, saved your skin.

But you sure as hell didn't want it coming back for a second lunch. Now was your window of opportunity to get out of here. The adrenaline pumping through your veins was the only reason you were able to grab your loot and book it out of that storage room, being careful not to run into that Thumper again.

At least now you could go outside and (hopefully) send an S.O.S.

[hellowoolf]

on strawberries and masonry: chapter v

series summary: you atone for your sins, now, in a jackson garden, learning to care for soft things and yourself. joel miller is a lethal sort of similar, and misery loves company

OR

you live in jackson and meet joel and you’re both damaged little babies and fall in love (but i’m drawing this shit out🫶🫶)

warnings: angst, age gap (reader late 20s/early 30s, joel 50s), maria is pregnant, the dinner party trope™️, joel picks reader up (but its actually been foretold that he can hold any weight ever, so don’t even worry about it), jealous!joel, possessive!joel, SMUT !!!!!, fingering, oral (f and m receiving), unprotected piv, breeding kink (don't...even start), creampie, FEELINGS !! (as always, let me know if i missed any !!)

word count: 7.9k

authors note: an epilogue will be (probably) on the way but this is our last full chapter !! gag !! this is my first ever series and i'm so elated i decided to write and release it. this last chapter drained me mind body and soul and i don't know how i feel about it but i really hope you enjoy <3

series masterlist | masterlist

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the realization of your feelings for joel, that against all better judgment you’re tumbling somewhat unceremoniously in love with him, nestles itself between your ribs to scratch at your bones. it’s a tolerable ache, at first, and because you refuse to give into anything, you let it remain while joel fucks you on his tongue and fingers. you let him cover your skin in his spit and your slick and the marks of his fingernails, and inch closer to the doom of loving him, believing yourself capable of handling it, willing yourself to handle it. and you do. mostly.

what comes first is a need for him you’re unequipped for. his refusal to fuck you properly again (a promise he has continued to hold himself to) becomes increasingly unendurable, and you’re pushed beyond even the lust for him you’d fought against months earlier. you need him, daily, at least, pulling him behind the stables or coming to slam on his door so you can live another day. you want to please him, to mend him, to save him, even though you know you are incapable, and you try what becomes embarrassingly often to get on your knees for him, but he always denies you. yes, this is the first symptom of your almost-love, a wanting that reaches your innermost self and expands beyond the edges of you.  

the second symptom is anger, a nefarious deviousness against him, a spiteful resentment for the small ways he rejects you. you are less cautious with him, nipping at him on patrol or in the dining hall with your own sexuality, constructing heavily unsubtle innuendos and whispering them in his ear. you’re looking to punish him, so irrevocably that he’s compelled to kiss you again, to fuck you again, but until now you’ve failed at ensnaring him fully. you barely recognize yourself this way; you have never been one for this wild sort of flirting, the obvious kind, but you succumb to it regardless. 

the softness of him is the worst part. you skim your hands up his thighs and pull on the loops of his belt to tempt him to you in the ways he still refuses to give, and he’ll deny you orgasm as punishment, but still he materializes on your porch, or sits you next to him in the aftermath of the pleasure he does allot you, wet with your arousal, and lets you tell him about your life, leaves you breadcrumbs of his. he likes that spot he found on your neck that night when you cut the strawberry, wraps his palm around the base of your skull to feel the warmth of it, and with his callouses circling your skin you know that this is the most awful thing, the most terrible. it’s shameful, really, that he should show you this kindness when you’re this close to complete devotion to him.

“what d’you think, little wolf?” 

little wolf. maybe this trumps even his hand on your head. last week, with three fingers in your dripping cunt joel had stilled his hand in you, let you thrash against him while he smiled into your hairline, and you bit hard into the flesh of his shoulder, leaving the marks of your canines there. easy, little wolf, he’d grunted into you, and he felt you pulse when he said it, so he’s kept the name, uses it often.

“hm?” you lift your head from his thigh, bare legs curled up along the couch while he sits back on the cushions. he’d tugged you from your walk to your garden into his home, licked into you while you pulled on his hair, made you come on his sofa like he’d savor the stain. his hand comes from around the back of your head to your face, thumb sweeping across your chin and along your bottom lip. you take it in your mouth and suck, eyes on his as his own mouth drops open.

“bout the jam. you want me to show you how to make it?” he repeats, voice low and broken as you swirl your tongue along the pad of his thumb. you’d brought the strawberries up again, how many you have and the white fuzz they grow; noah helped you remove the heaters from inside the greenhouse as temperatures rose outside, but a chill remained, and so your plant began a slow death. you’re left now with a small batch you like the idea of preserving in sugar and heat. you like the idea, too, of joel teaching you things, of him watching you learn. you nod slowly. “when?” he tilts his head as he asks. you pull from his finger and trail little unhurried bites along his palm, down the inside of his wrist. you want to suck his blood.

“tomorrow? evening?” 

he nods, eyes hooded over as he watches you. slick drips between your thighs and sticks them together, wetting over the dried come he’d pulled from you minutes ago. you smile against his skin, teeth grazing his pulsepoint. 

“you a good teacher?”

he grins and grips back at your head, tilting your chin up to his face as he leans down to you. “a real delight, i swear it.”

your noses bump and you want to kiss him (the whole of it is you’d like to suck his tongue into your mouth and hold it there, feel behind his teeth, let him spit onto your tongue), another vice he’s denied you since that first time. he sees it in you, this wanting, so he threads his fingers through your hair to hold you in place. the tug at the roots makes you rub your thighs together and he inches closer, close enough to whisper onto your lips “go home, little wolf,” and pulls himself off the couch. he’s practically limping with how hard he is, the strong outline of his cock casting shadows as he walks away from you, and it only serves to make you wetter, but because you’re certain he won’t let you help him (you tried in the stables this morning, hay softening your fall to your knees, but he’d hauled you back up with a gruff quit it) you pull your pants back on and retreat to your home. 

stepping down his porch you bring a hand to your stomach, joel’s refusals of you burning green and orange there. the flames heat your skin and lick through your fingers, and the warmth indulges the part of you that hates him, but the rest of you (the part that loves him, lord help you) bends under the pressure. you drop your hand as you approach your house and find tommy leaned up against the fence post. panic seizes you for a moment, but you tamp it down sharply; surely, he can’t know where you’ve come from, surely he can’t smell him on you.

“isn’t this a little past your bedtime?” 

he looks up at you with a smile as you come to stand fully in front of him. “yeah, well, i figured you’d be comin back from the garden right about now.”

something sparkles across your cheeks and you hope he doesn’t notice. “mhm. how’s maria doing? she’s in the, what, second trimester now?”

tommy nods, that boyishness and the pride of fatherhood puffing his chest. “that she is. she’s a wonder, i tell ya. don’t know how the hell she’s doin it. but the nausea’s gone away now, so she’s just restin up.”

“i’ve been wanting to come by and visit, but i didn’t know if she’d want me there.” it’s the truth; you’ve seen very few pregnant women in your life, and the magnitude of it frightens and delights you. besides, as little as she seems to enjoy your company, you suspect it’s a lonely existence, cooped up by the windowsill growing little arms and fingernails, and you’re self-aware enough to know you owe yourself to her. 

tommy scratches the back of his neck. “well that’s what i wanted to come ask about, actually.”

you tilt your head. “me coming to visit?”

he hums. “maria’s been wanting some socializin, some…” he waves his hands around, looking for the word, “interaction. i figured you could come over for dinner.”

“just me?” you can’t help the surprise in your voice.

“...no. noah, too. and my brother.”

your throat dries out and you stifle a sputter. yes, indeed, dinner by candlelight with your most long standing existing friends, of which you have only two, a pregnant woman who sees you as you have been (a knife, with a girl on the end), and the man you’ve been fucking but not fucking (and you think you may be in love with him, also, but you try to keep this bit irrelevant). yes, yes. a fantastic idea! what a delight!

“i don’t…i don’t know, tommy. maria’s never been my biggest fan.” please, don’t make me come.

“come on, don’t say that.”

“i don’t mean any offense, i just don’t want to disturb her.”

“you ain’t disturbing her! i’m telling you she’d like it if you came!”

“tommy-”

“she barely tolerates my brother as it is, at least you’ll be there to occupy him. please?” and he asks with such sincerity, such unknowing of the things you’ve done to joel, and you know there is no way out.

“yeah, okay. okay. i’ll be there.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“so you’re goin to this…what is it? dinner party?” 

joel’s halfway through a bite of something red and meaty when he asks, and you clamp on his moving jaw with your palm.

“don’t talk with your mouth full, sting, it’s not very southern gentlemanly.” he flips your hand away with a grunt and you bite your tongue between your molars to keep from smiling. “yes, i will be there.”

he shakes his head and leans back in his chair, looking out at the milling people filling the dining hall. “i still don’t understand the point of it anyway. the hell we playin family for?”

“joel, you are family.” his eyes flit to yours. “tommy’s family, i mean,” you clarify. he nods, some sort of relieved, the disappointed sort, you feel. you do your best to shake the stick of it, of that feeling, off.

“then why are you goin?”

“well, as it happens, i was invited. besides,” you snort, an unattractive thing but you let it pass, “i think your brother hopes i’ll keep you entertained.”

“entertained? you bein serious?”

you’re golden and beaming with how he looks at you, so incredulous and muscled and stiff with restraint from touching you, you can feel it. “i think his exact verbiage was occupy. he wants me to occupy you.”

“jesus.”

“buck up, cowboy, i’m a delight.”

“uh huh.” you think it’s meant to jab at you, that little grunt, but one end of his mouth turns up as he says it, an imperfect cover of his grin. “he ever do this kinda thing before? before i came?”

you bite the inside of your cheek and look to the ceiling. yes, he did, once. he’d been patrolling with pete mcneilson (a scrawny thing, squirrelish and panicked, but as young as you are) and decided you were fated to be wed, worked his hardest for weeks to set you up. he’d planned the dinner in hopes it would serve as a first date, but your halfway abnormality and owlish inspection of him—tommy’s words, really; he said you looked straight through the poor thing—had frightened him, you suspect. you consider lying, though these days such attempts rarely come out right with joel. you sigh. “yeah, once. maybe two years ago.” joel raises his eyebrows, urging you on. you sort of mumble, “it was a ploy to set me up, really.”

he drops his fork onto the plate, lets it rattle, and you nearly flinch. you’re somewhat surprised to find yourself expecting him to be angry, not that he’s under any obligation to be. really, you might like him to be angry, but he chuckles, instead, biting and smug as he is. “set you up with who?” 

“don’t laugh.”

he raises his hands in surrender, grinning, still. “i ain’t, only askin for a name, baby.”

how often he uses it hasn’t dulled the sharp spasm of want that word seizes you with. “no laughing.”

“what did i just say?” he leans closer. “gimme the name, darlin.”

“pete mcneilson.”

joel does not keep his promise. he chokes on his laughter, heaves with it, tenses his ribs to keep it in the box of his chest, but it tears out between you anyway. oh, how gorgeous he is this way. “christ almighty, pete?” and then, shaking his head to himself, he adds “he’d be fuckin helpless.”

you scoff. “the fuck you mean by that?”

joel continues eating again, self-satisfied with some glorious victory that lays itself over his face. “helpless with you, darlin. you’re too damn vicious for him.”

you think for a moment. “little wolf, and all that?”

he clears his throat, laughter dead in the back of his throat but eyes still pinched a little in the tension of his smile. “somethin like that.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you think it’s a mistake, going to this dinner, as you walk out your door, smoothing your jeans down your legs. you know it’s a mistake when you walk in and see them all, the whole lot, milling about tommy’s home, your varying degrees of relation to each clashing violently. tommy rushes through the kitchen, mashing boiled potatoes and checking on meat that pours steam from the oven when he vents the door, and maria watches his frenzy with a pleased sort of smile. you know she’ll tense when she sees you here, and so you allow her another moment of secluded safety with her husband, and look around for joel; you’re almost embarrassed at how desperately you search for him, but all of it drains from you when you find him standing next to the dining table with noah, being what could only be described as talked at. you’re filled instead with a gripping warmth, pink and new, at the sight of him, so big and disinterested. he may remain mostly secretive of his feelings with you, but joel is intrigued by you, this much you are certain of, and the picture of him this plainly un-intrigued makes you feel singular, selfish, important to him. yes, tonight is a mistake.

“i can’t believe my eyes, the town ghost has appeared,” noah calls out from across the room. you give him your best attempt at a grin, eyes pulled like gravity and lust to joel but working to keep them ahead.

“in the flesh,” you dip your head in a bow, and noah pulls you into a hug. over the slope of his shoulder you see joel, hip cocked and brittle, and you both have the same thought simultaneously, that he’s never held you like this, not once. for all his increasing softness, he has never held you like this. he’s already angry, you think, gnawing on the figure of you in noah’s arms. you pull away and position yourself between them, nodding to joel, mainly for show. “i haven’t seen you in ages, noah, how are you?” and your sincerity is barely there, so slippery with joel so close, but enough to convince noah.

“haven’t you heard? i’m a mentor, now,” he smiles with sarcasm and a little pride, too. “been showing jesse how we run the patrols and all.”

you’re trying, so hard you are trying. joel is watching you precisely, hawkishly. “so i’ve been told. you started on our patrol route your first day, i think,” and you gesture to joel, but you can’t look at him, knowing you’ll twitch too damningly in his direction.

“ah, yeah, yeah that’s right.” with a playfulness he continues, “of course, we’ve moved onto much harder routes now.” 

in the compendium of near-family you’ve concocted in jackson, noah serves as the spirited sort of brotherhood you imagine was normal decades ago. when you met, skittish and cut open as you were, noah found great joy in poking at you; your hardness grated against the easy youth he’s clung to, and you think he liked the challenge of it. as you melted more into the jackson scenery, though, became more earnestly open to friendship with him, he learned instead to lend you this ease, the sarcasm and good humor. there’s something lovely about taking it up when you speak to him, though it’s difficult now, what with the distraction at your side.

you cross your arms. “oh have you? you’re that good a teacher?” 

joel coughs next to you, nearly chokes, and you feel the gentle thrum again of a shared thought between you, of yesterday on his couch, of his thumb in your mouth, of the jam (oh fuck, that was meant to be tonight). noah pays no mind, a sweet thing but dull around the edges. “you know it, baby.”

with a squeak of his boots and a grunt under his breath, joel storms into the kitchen and out of sight. you and noah watch him go, your stomach leadened with his absence, and you pull a breath in to lighten the weight, but it’s no use. baby, baby, you know it’s baby that’s driven him away. you feel noah step a little closer to you.

“speaking of, how’s your patrol been? i can’t believe maria finally let you do it.”

you shift: joel, his hands, his voice, the man you killed for him. “they’ve been fine, i guess.”

noah bumps his shoulder into yours. “details, details! you spend every morning with the big bad wolf over there, i mean how does that feel?”

you tilt your head at him. “noah,” you scold.

he brushes off your tone, craning his neck to get a look at joel in the kitchen, continuing, “he seems fucking scary to me. doesn’t he scare you?”

you huff and shove him back, but he looks back at you like he really means it. you’re startled with the sudden urge to tell him the truth, blood and spit and all. it rises in your throat like bile, but you swallow it all back down. “no, not anymore. not…not really.” your voice is heady with the history you and joel have carved with lips and tongues, and you wonder how gory it would all become if you had indulged yourself fully, let the acid of your feelings spill out. as you think it, noah scans your face, looks through it, and you worry for a moment you’re caught, that the whole of it is spread plainly on your features, but tommy comes barreling out of the kitchen with food cradled in his arms, maria in tow, and you’re spared from any further investigation. tommy laughs out your name from the head of the table.

“jesus, i didn’t even see you come in, come sit down!”

you nod, give maria a smile, glance at the globe of her stomach. she’s glowing with it, hand along the curve of her tummy, and she does her best to smile back at you, as soft as she is capable of. noah pulls the remaining empty chair next to him out from the table and you sit, finding joel across from you, biting on his tongue and furious, quietly, desperately furious, looking between you and him. fuck.

like the love, joel’s fury fissures you in two. you are, most viscerally, delighted that joel should be so angry at noah’s arm around the back of your chair. he watches the space between you, daring it to close further, shoulders strung taut like you’re his to fuss over. your heart expands and knocks on your ribcage, arteries singing with the pleasure of it, and arousal pools between your thighs and sticks there.

toe to toe with this delight, though, contends your own boiling rage. how desperately his gaze claws at you serves as a reminder of the ways he denies you of him, of his cock and his tears and his lips on yours. you would gladly give him this, let him bark and snarl like a wild animal in some unhealthy possession of you, if he let you possess him back. but, as it is, the edge of his eyeline cuts you irreparably, marks you with an indictment of you as a lover and him as something less. it makes you fucking furious.

“ellie helps you a bunch in the garden, don’t she?”

you look up to tommy. you haven’t been listening. “hm?”

“ellie. i’m always seein her in the greenhouse.”

you nod, grin at the thought of her. “mhm. she’s been a real help, actually, and it’s nice to spend the time with her. i think a lot of the other kids are sort of afraid of her.”

joel’s eyes gleam over for a moment. he loves her, you know, and whatever rift exists between them has persisted. noah grips your shoulder and shakes it a little, and the shine dries on joel’s brown eyes.

“sounds like a bit of you.”

tommy barks out a laugh and you push noah’s hand away. “yeah, yeah.”

maria lays a hand on tommy’s bicep. “i think it’s good for her. she needs to get acclimated here. she’s not like the other kids.”

you all look to joel. he hasn’t said a thing since you all sat down, actually. he clears his throat, and the rasp of it goes down hard. “no, she ain’t.”

“from what i’ve heard she’s got a real sailors mouth, big brother. that your doin?”

joel’s face pulls into offense. “no.”

“well she musta learned it somewhere,” noah sings. so very sweet, so very dull. joel looks like he might skin him.

“she came like that.”

“came like that?” noah repeats.

this is so very off limits. tommy and maria give each other a look, and they glance across the table to share it with you. stop him, for the love of god. you turn to noah, plead quietly, “just drop it, noah.”

“what? i’m asking him about himself,” and then to tommy and maria, “i can’t ask him about his daughter?”

what began as a wholly good hearted attempt at conversation has morphed, you realize, into the same sort of bear poking noah used to do with you. he’s calling joel’s prickliness and raising him a teasing interrogation. but for all your similarities, joel is not like you now, he will not absorb it as you did. he stares, lethal and still, at noah, elbows on the table. 

“come on, we know nothing about the man. i want to hear your stories! give me something.”

joel scoffs and you ask again, “noah, please.”

“how am i doing anything wrong here?” his words devolve into childlike mumbles, unused to being denied this way. “i’m trying to make some fucking conversation.”

voice resigned from subtlety, all desperation, you call across the table, “maria, how’s your pregnancy coming along? tell us a long story about it.”

tommy snorts with your bluntness, but all three millers soften with a breath. maria rubs along her tummy, smiling down and speaking, but you go deaf to it as noah brings his arm all the way up, slinging it across the line of your shoulders. and you know, like all the other touches and like his antagonizing of joel, that he means nothing real by it. but joel takes the world in as meaningful: all of it, including noah. you can’t bear to look at him, but even still you burn with the steaming point of his gaze, frenetic and livid.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“joel, jesus, slow down,” you call out as you hurry after him. tommy and maria had let you all loose to the jackson twilight, and with a smiling salute noah pranced off home, brushed already of the dust he knocked loose from joel at the dinner table. but joel eats up the ground in front of him with large, pacing strides, muscles corded in the back of his neck. you want to ride him, punch him in the stomach.

“go home.”

you catch up to him, grip a hand on the sleeve of his coat. “i will not go home. i want you to have a conversation with me first.”

joel doesn’t stop, drags you with him through the front door of his house by the fabric of his jacket. the door slams behind you and as the sound rings out joel whips around, boxing you against the wood. he heaves, little hurricane in his chest, casting shadows on you, even in the dark. “i’m not in the mood for a conversation.”

“yes, sting, i gathered that, but you’re being a fucking asshole.”

he huffs and looks to the ceiling, praying, you think, for divine intervention, or perhaps a lightning bolt to set the house ablaze. he can’t look at you when he asks it. “have you fucked him before?”

“jesus christ, no!”

he laughs, a little insane and swinging like a church bell. “seemed damn cozy in there to me.”

“yes! i’m sure we did! he saved me from bleeding out in the middle of winter joel, i told you that.” he adjusts his stance and peers back down at you, looking almost sorry with the thought of you red and unmoving, but because your fury is insatiable you poke him in the chest, adding, “besides, what if i had? what’s it matter to you anyway?”

he grips your wrist, asks incredulously, “what’s it matter to me?”

“no really, why give a shit? i promise i’ll still let you stick your fucking ring finger into my–”

“not another fucking word.”

the diseased part of you laughs with the irony of this moment, at the anger and jealousy you’d hoped for in the dining hall this afternoon; it isn’t exactly what you’d pictured. you sag with that thought. “please, baby,” his grip on your wrist tightens when you call him that, “throw me a bone. you seem entirely disgraced by the fact that we do…what we do, god forbid anyone found out, you won’t even,” you push a quick breath from your nose, “you won’t even waste the fucking energy to fuck me, kiss me. so tell me, please, what is your problem with–”

“you wanna know my fuckin problem? you drive me fucking crazy. i am clinically fuckin insane, darlin, and it’s your fuckin fault. beggin me to fuck you, fuck your face, i mean jesus, the things you ask of me.” and then, mainly to himself, “i ain’t strong enough for this shit. the hands and the eyes and the,” he remembers you in front of him, faces you again, “and the looking, i mean what—shit—what kind of fuckin look is that? you look at me like–like–”

“like what?”

“like you love me. you look at me like you love me. do you know how fucked up that is darlin? and i’m doin my goddamn best to keep you at arms length and it’s damn near impossible but i knew that first time that i–” another heave, “that i’d fuck you again and i’d love you too. be in love with you. and i couldn’t be that selfish. how could you ask me to be that selfish?”

his fingers around your wrist have formed more into a desperate sort of hold, thumb reaching up into the cup of your palm. the weight of his admission presses through your diaphragm, that i’d love you too, but the rift in you, the love and the anger, is growing savage, and you lash with it. 

“i’ve never asked a fucking thing of you. i’ve wanted, jesus joel i’ve wanted, but i never asked you to go on this emotionally stifled quest to prove—prove what exactly? that you’re good? i mean, christ, we’re both awful!” you poke him hard in the chest. “you’re awful and i–i’m awful, and,” the momentum of your fury is slowing, you can feel it dragging its feet, “and you won’t let me get close to you. i’d let you in anywhere. and you won’t,” the loving is thawing from you, and like snow in your hands it drips into water and dirt, down your front, and you’re crying suddenly, caught up in the great tragedy of what you’re about to say. “you won’t let me do it, you won’t let me love you even a little bit. but i can’t help it.” you flatten your palms on his chest, gentle, nearly losing it at the hummingbird winged hum of his heart. “if you can’t do it, i’ll leave you alone. i promise you, sting, i will leave you alone, i won’t ask again, i won’t beg it of you. tell me you don’t feel it and i’ll go.”

he takes a stilted breath in and looks down at your fingers on his front, runs his rough hands up them slowly, feeling you here with him. “i–i…” 

you nod, tears hot and fat running lines down your cheeks, and move to pull away. you open his door behind you, facing him still, but he jerks something frantic and closes it again. his hands come up next to your head on the door, and the both of you are so silent you can hear the wood creak with the press of his palms. you wait.

it comes out with a great pain at first, a terrible ache you see in the grimace of his face, but it eases as it goes, eases as he tells you, “i love you, little wolf, i do, i do.”

and then there’s a moment of stillness, of unsureness. what do you do now? what does anyone do now? oh, but he loves you, he loves you, you have to write it on a wall somewhere, burn a forest and bottle the ashes, wreak some irrevocable havoc. he loves you. 

you drag a hand from his chest up to his face, and with a shudder he leans into the warmth of it, nods against the skin, affirming some wordless agreement, and leans down to press his lips to yours. and it’s been so long you can’t help the whimper that escapes you, squeaky and wet still with the damp residue of your tears, but he’s soft and hot against you, pulls his hands down around your waist and squeezes into your spine. you say his name against his lips and he nods again, presses harder, groaning when you pull the hair at the nape of his neck. you open your mouths to one another, hoping to suck each other’s souls out, you think, and he licks into your mouth with a moan. you’re still whimpering his name somehow, over and over, meaning nothing by it other than you like the taste of it along with his tongue, joel, joel, joel, and he replies with the heated moving of his hands along your body. 

joel grips under your ass, pulls you against his cock as he ruts you into the door, speaks gruffly against your lips, “tell me again.”

and you do, somewhere between your moans, “i love you, i love you,” and he seizes with the sound of it, ducking his head to suck marks into your neck. you hitch a leg over his hip and he takes it as an invitation, dragging his cock through his jeans again along you. 

with his face still in the crook of your neck and a muffled up he hoists you fully into his arms to take you up the stairs, and if you were more lucid you would notice you’re in the same spot you were months ago, the first and only other time he let you have him, but as it is you swirl your hips as best you can against him as he walks, biting the skin that beats with his jugular. you’re drunk on the scent of him, on the pressure of his body. he lays you down on his bed and leans over you with wild eyes as he drags the fabric of your shirt up. he mouths along the skin as he bares it, mumbling into your skin, “so pretty here, baby.”

you raise your back from the bed to pull your shirt and bra off fully and he groans, hands flying to grab at your tits, tracing a line between them with his nose. “and here.” you lift your hips and he pins them with his own, the heft of his cock dragging against your clit through your pants and you mewl with it. joel moves back up to your ear, still pulling at the flesh of your breasts and rolling your nipples between his fingers, to whisper, “i’m gonna take you slowly. can you do that, darlin?”

and no, you’re not sure you can, but you nod breathlessly anyway.

“good girl.”

that drives you fully to madness, you think, and you tilt your head back into his bed, writhing into a moan. he smiles into you as he moves his face back down, down, past your sternum, hands moving to pull at your jeans. “can i take these off?”

“yes, please.”

he nods and pulls them from you, and runs his hands back up your legs. you can feel your own dripping, the gusset of your panties soaked through with arousal, and his smile drops as he looks at it, a single finger coming to run down the fabric. you shudder, and so does he, you think, hand still on your thigh tightening as the pad of his finger wipes along the dampness. “fuck. this for me?”

you’re already nodding. “yes, yes, you, please, touch me, please.”

and with that joel is pulling them down your legs, leaving a trail of glistening slick where the fabric sticks to your flesh, and joel heaves you to the edge of his bed, kneeling with a grunt to the floor. you hum around a whine as he bites and licks up the insides of your thighs, his own moans reverberating back to you. his fingers, wrapped around the crease where your legs meet your torso, will leave bruises, you’re sure.

“joel,” you plead, but he doesn’t really hear it, heaving open mouthed around your cunt now, breathing you in.

with a long inhale he drops his forehead to your navel, squeezes you between his hands. “so good, baby, this pussy is so good.”

your eyes slip shut and you feel yourself pulse with his words. joel sees it, too, and finally, fucking finally, closes his plush lips around your clit, slurping and sucking as you all but scream into the space of his room.

“fuck joel, fuck, oh my god.”

“yeah?”

you thread your fingers through his curls and tug, and his groan makes your hole flutter. he circles his tongue around your little button, flattens it, flicks over it with the tip, and the drool of his own spit mixes with your slick as it slides from your hole to his sheets below you. you’re fucking aching now, so empty as he sucks around you, but before you can even plead for them, you feel his two fingers slip inside you, gliding in easy around the wetness he’s pulled from you and the slip of his saliva. he curls them, petting against someplace only he has ever reached, and you keen.

“that’s it, huh? there?” and it’s only halfway smug, all the rest earnest, and you pull harder on his hair. your nerve endings flare up and catch fire, his scissoring fingers within you, his taste buds on your clit, his sheets bunched at your head, it all tears at you with unbearable feeling, you feel with an intensity that blurs your vision. with the pulse around his knuckles, joel can feel how close you are, raising his lips from you with eyes hooded. “oh, you’re close, darlin, i fuckin feel it,” he rasps, and you nod again, delirious and mouth open, as he circles his thumb in the path of spit his tongue left. the noises you make would be humiliating in front of anyone else, you think, but his brows furrow with each of your blasphemous little whines, and so you let them claw out as he watches his fingers thrust in and out of you. “c’mon little wolf, let it go, let me have it.” and you do, you throw it at him, really, pulsing around his fingers and gushing down his hand, moaning wildly something that sounds like his name as he groans with the squelch of it.

he pulls his fingers away only as you relax, spine released and flat again on his bed. he drags his eyes up and down your body, spent but not yet satisfied, as he rids himself of his own clothes, and your pussy shudders with her own heartbeat again as you take him in. his cock reaches stiff between his legs, blushing and pearled with precome, and you lick your lips with finally, finally. he pumps himself once, twice, stalking towards you again, but you stand from the bed with shaky legs, sit him in the wet spot you made together. as you sink to your knees he curses and squeezes the base.

“jesus christ, baby.” but you only smile as you run your nose up the underside of his shaft, tentatively pressing the flat of your tongue along his head to collect what’s escaped him there. the salt and musk of it makes you whine and you fit your lips around him, laving along his skin and watching his hands bunch in the sheets. you smooth your lips down his head, lower, lower, and suck, cunt fully dripping again at the noises he makes. a broken version of your name leaves him as you start to bob your head, spinning your chin as you come up, letting your teeth graze the vein along the underside. 

“oh fuck, you—shit—your mouth is so fuckin good,” and he brings a hand, now, to collect your hair and wrap his fingers around it, anchoring himself more than you, “yeah, yeah, that’s it baby, fuck.” you moan into him and his hips twitch as it moves through his skin, and fuck you want him to fuck your throat. you bring your fingers up to move his other hand, clenched taut at his side, to your head, pushing it down to show him. his fingers tighten in your hair as he starts to move you on his own, pulling you into him as you gag and swallow around his head. “oh fuck, oh fuck,” he grunts, hips starting to rut up to meet your face, and your hand finds its way to your clit, rubbing in tight circles as he thrusts deeper, sputtering as he grits out, “fucking gag on it.” you hum, so gloriously pleased with yourself and the taste of him, feeling him twitch in your throat, but with one final drag of your tongue on him he pulls you off. you start to whine but he’s heaving you up by the elbows to straddle his lap, grabbing you by the jaw to bring your face to his. your tongues meet and circle, the both of you groaning at the taste of the other, and he drags his wet cock along your seam. you angle your hips so he catches on your opening and his hands tighten on your waist.

“you still want it, darlin?”

you almost laugh, maybe you do, nodding with your hands on his shoulders. “yes, yes, please.”

and when he pushes in it is not like last time. he’s slow, agonizingly so, as he lets you sink down, your forehead dropping to his as you groan in unison. you clench and throb when your thighs meet, fully seated, and he pulses inside of you, but he doesn’t move yet, brings a finger from your waist to between the wings of your shoulder blades. as you breathe together, chests meeting in full flex, he drags the pad of his finger down, your body open and seizing with feeling of him. 

“you like to touch me there,” you whisper.

joel nods. “it holds you up.” and something about it makes you wail. when his finger reaches the bottom, he bands his whole arm around your back, pulls you impossibly closer against his chest and moves his head next to yours, asks into your ear, “can i move now?”

you twitch as his breath fans over the side of your face, whispering back some sort of please, please, and he starts to thrust into you, slowly but deeply, so deeply that his tip kisses your cervix, and you both hold each other tighter as he drags back out.

“fuck, joel, so good.”

“yeah?”

“yeah.”

“you’re fuckin—ah—soakin me, baby.”

between the whispers in your ear joel takes your lobe into his mouth, biting and releasing, kissing the spot beneath it. your body tenses in his arms as his cock ruts in and out of you, still so slow and still so much, and his bicep around your back flexes to keep you in place. 

“what is it?”

“fuck me faster, please,” you whimper. you feel his little smile into your skin.

“you said you could take it slow.”

“and i—fuck—i’m trying.”

he groans, long and with the movement of his cock in you. “one more second like this, just like this.” you try to roll your hips again but his grip stills you. “you have no patience, do you?” you shake your head. without a word, he reaches up to push your elbows up and over his shoulders, and you wrap your arms down his back. he nods a little, whispers just like that into your skin, and you throb around him.

the slap of his skin on yours rings through the room as he speeds up, thrusts meeting you, and you scream like this is salvation (you think it might be). neither of you can control your noises now, not that there was much control to begin with, and joel grits out agonized moans into the arc of your ear. your nails scrape up and down the skin of his back as he pounds up into you, clawing marks and holding there. again you’re on his name, repeating it with a fever and a cry, joel, joel, joel.

“fuck, i fuckin love the sound of my name like that, baby. you sound like you’re mine.”

you do your best to nod, head bobbing at his shoulder, i am yours, i am yours, but still it’s only his name coming out. he fucks you harder, holds you harder, moves like a zealot into your softness. he brings a thumb to your clit, circles it tightly, eats up your noises with a gluttony that pulls you right there, right there. 

“i’m so close, joel,” you whimper.

“fuck, i know, i fuckin feel it. come on, darlin, come on my cock.”

again, you do, you do as he asks, pulled tight into him as you pulse and thrash, ecstasy washing over you.

“yeah, that’s—oh god—that’s it, that’s it,” he rasps, thrusts unrelenting, slapping against the wetness dripping between you. as the rigid pleasure runs through you and your body relaxes again, he picks you up, knees his way up the bed to place you down beneath him. you watch his face pull together as he forgets his plan for a moment, fucks you into the bed with a hand on the headboard, but he collects himself again and heaves you over by the crook of your knee so your stomach is to the mattress, keeping the head of his cock inside you. you hold yourself up by your knees and elbows, feel his hands spread down your back and around the globes of your ass before he picks up his pace again, hips meeting your ass in harsh bumps that make you scream into his pillows. the kick of him inside you is coaxing your body again towards orgasm, and you arch your back for him. 

“such a tight fuckin fit, ain’t it?” you whine in response, pushing your hips back against his. he pulls you up, back flush against his chest, spreads his knees a little to rut deeper up into you. with what sounds like waning sanity, he grits into your ear, “you make it fit for me, darlin, i know you do.” your bag arches off his chest as you go stiff, so startlingly close again. you’re defying your own anatomy now, gone from the confines of your body, submerged fully in a rapture that beads like sweat down your skin. “fuck me, you gonna come again?”

“yeah, yes, fuck” you heave.

he nods against your shoulder and slides the paw of his hand down your front to rub you, using the flat of his hand to press into your clit. “i’m gonna—oh fuck—you’re gonna make me come, where do you want it?”

and you know you shouldn’t, but you’re so fucking close, and you want it. “inside, joel, please.”

his thrusts are stumbling now, losing rhythm. “yeah? you want me to fill you up? fuck,” and he laughs breathlessly, “tha’s how we’ll tell everyone, i’ll fuck you full of my fuckin baby.”

the both of you vibrate with that notion, buzzing together, barely human anymore, and suddenly you’re falling into climax, a third and quick and jolted one, pulling him with you as you clench and flutter, and the pump of his warmth inside of you feels like the most wonderfully selfish thing you’ve ever done. and as his cock softens inside you, a mix of your come sliding out, he’s really just holding you, wrapped up in his arms on his bed. he kisses you in the silence, up the line of your shoulder and to your ear. “stay here, baby,” and he pulls out as you lie all the way down, wipes you both with a rag before climbing up behind you and cradling you in the crook of his body. 

night has fallen fully now, but the moonlight peers through his window and marks the wall ahead of you. joel’s hands are warm as they run up your sides, draws his name on your hip. you smile.

“sting.”

J–O–E–L. “hm?”

“will you tell me again?”

he stretches out his fingers and leans his head over yours. you turn to meet his face. and you think it hurts him, still, to say it, but he does, forehead creased with sincerity and a will to tell you anyway. “i love you, little wolf.”

“i love you, too.”

joel thinks a moment. “are you…” you sit up a little to see him fully, and even in the darkness you can see the flush of red around his ears. “do you still want me to show you how to make the jam?”

oh god, he is so tender for such a violent thing. “mhm,” you hum, but turn all the way over to situate yourself into his chest. through the hair spattered there, you add, “later.”

his thumb finds your spine again, traces it like he’s done before. in his arms here, you can admit that this, now, is your greatest achievement, the closest you’ve ever been to sacred. the puffs of his breath on the top of your head, the slowing of your heartbeats as you both drift towards sleep, yes, this is holy, a sanctified thing, the loveliest thing you’ve ever grown.

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aaah !! i can't believe this story has come to a somewhat-end !! i can't thank you all enough for the support on it. as my first fic it was fucking terrifying to put out, but i'm so glad i did 🍓🤍🤍

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