#but also just I have so much knowledge trapped in my head but only ever remember when someone prompts me to think about it

[zeloinator]

I forget how huge my kpop hyperfixation is until a friend mentions something about kpop to me and I black out for a few hours while I just.. info dump everything im really glad they dont mind xD

[bobbin-buckley]

Cairo Sweet NSFW ALPHABET

Cairo Sweet x Fem!Reader

Warnings: (everything is mentioned but not happening) Smut, Cairo being controlling, mentions of writing porn, masturbating, bondage, degradation, praise, lesbian smut basically, lots of praising, and a lot of other things…

(I can also do a SFW if wanted)

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

A: Aftercare (What they are like after sex)

Cairo can play rough, but she can also play soft. She never tries to hurt you during sex, she just wants to be dominant. Other times she’ll be submissive but then becomes a power bottom basically.

Anyways, during aftercare she likes to make sure your taken care of first. She’ll get you water, massage any sore areas, maybe even give you a bath. It just depends. She also loves receiving it. There will be times she is the star and it being pleased, so she’ll want nice aftercare. After Winnie telling her what it’s like, and how she fantasies it. Cairo has begun to like it as well. Overall Cairo is soft when it comes to aftercare, probably the only time you’ll see her being a softie.

B: Body Part (Their favorite body part of themselves and their partner's)

Cairos favorite body part on you is your legs. She loves how smooth they are, how your thighs trap her head as she eats you out, or even how she holds them up when fucking you with the strap. (Not that she always uses the strap).

Her favorite body part on herself is her hands. She’s so confident about them. She knows you love her hands so much. They way she caresses your skin with her finger tips, how they grip your neck, even when knuckle deep. She’s often told she has hot hands, by you and Winnie. She doesn’t really understand that but goes with it anyways because her hands turn you on.

C: Cum (Anything to do with cum)

Cairo loves cum. Not surprising huh? But she loves it when it’s messy. She may not seem like the messy type, but when it’s with cum. Oh boy it’s all over.

She loves to cum on your face. Whenever she gives and you finish, her fingers will have be drenched with your cum and she’ll force her fingers into your mouth. Telling you to lick them clean. She’ll praise you about how much you cum or how you take her cum.

“That’s it baby, cum for me. Cum all over my fingers. So much cum.”

“Suck my fingers clean, there you go.”

“Oh fuck..yeah..lick all that up, such a good girl.”

D: Dirty Secret (just self explanatory, their dirty secret)

Cairo’s biggest dirty secret is. She wants to have a threesome with you and Winnie. Though will she never ever let it happen. Because she is possessive of you, even if it’s just her best friend who’s the most dirtiest person of all. She’d fantasize it but hate for it to happen. She’s just so possessive of you she wouldn’t even let anyone touch you.

E: Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

Cairo knows what she’s doing. I mean hey, she writes porn. So she’s gotta have knowledge, and reads smut books. She’s read more of the “straight” smut books you could say. But when she got more interested into dating a girl (you) she wanted to learn. She got those lesbian smut books off like Esty and read them all.

So yes, I’d say she knows what she’s doing. And maybe even you gave her some tips. She’ll watch you carefully as you please her, observing you and trying to understand how to please a girl. Winnie even gave her tips. And when Cairo gave for the first time, she started thinking of what would please you and go from there. Trying new things if you were comfortable.

F: Favorite Position (This goes without saying)

She has a thing for both 69 and queening. She loves oral sex for sure. Wether giving or receiving. When receiving queening she loves to sit on your face all the way just to make it challenging for you.

She’ll try any other position she finds online or a suggestion given (mostly by you and Winnie. Winnie is her Google assistant).

G: Goofy (Are they serious in the moment? Are they humorous? Etc)

Cairo doesn’t really like humor in sex. Just because she’s so focused and serious she doesn’t have time for humor. If you like fall or something or make a stupid joke she’ll laugh. But if she’s on top, oh that’s a different story.

This girl doesn’t care for any humor when on top. She is so focused on pleasuring you. No disruptions.

H: Hair (How well are they groomed? Does the carpet match the drapes?)

She always shaves. Every time you have sex or she’s naked you always notice how well groomed or trimmed she is. She’s serious about it too.

She doesn’t mind how you shave but at least don’t look like Bigfoot. She’ll help you if wanted, if you give her a reward after. 😉

I: Intimacy (How are they during the moment? The romance aspect?)

She’s definitely romantic during it. When she gives, she doesn’t exactly ask you if you want rough or slow. It depends on her mood really. And you don’t mind either way. She loves to be praised, she’ll praise you as well she just is so into it she forgets to talk. And boy does she know you love her dirty talk, she knows you love her accent so much.

She will kiss you all over, every inch of your body. Once she’s pleased she’ll peck your lips and get right to the main course.

J: Jack Off (Masturbation Headcanon)

She never really masturbates now that she has you. She used to a little bit. Before she met you, she only did it once just to get inspiration for her writing. When she met you and couldn’t stop obsessing over you, she did it a few times but never pushed herself enough to orgasm.

So she doesn’t do it unless you’re away and she misses you.

K: Kink (One or more of their kinks)

Oh boy. She’s got a lot up her sleeve. Most of them she hides. Her biggest one is punishment. Whenever you disobey, or even make her mad. She’ll take her anger out on you and punish you till she’s pleased.

“You’ve been such a bad girl. Think it’s time for my toy to learn some manners..”

She also does degrading. She doesn’t hesitate to humiliate you. (Only if you’re comfortable). But when she’s mad she’ll definitely do it as a punishment.

“Such a fucking slut. How would your parents react to hearing how much of a slut their daughter is? I bet they’d be so disappointed.”

Edging is one she enjoys. She just loves edging you, even denying you sometimes. She won’t cause any pain though. (Unless you want to). Maybe some spanking but it’s gentle. (She has a soft spot for you)

“No. Only good girls get to cum, have you been a good girl for me? Maybe a little spankin’ will help.”

L: Location (Favorite locations to do it)

She has a few. Preferably her bedroom. She loves to take you on her bed. Making sure your comfortable too, plenty of blankets and pillows on her massive bed. She may even do it on the bedroom floor if she feels like it.

“Gonna fuck you into my sheets. Make you cum all over them.”

Cairo will even take you in the living room. She loves doing it there too. When her parents are gone, it’s midnight (specifically raining out too), the fire-pit is lit, and your on the couch doing it.

“Shhh, that’s it. Such a perfect night to take my good girl on. Scream for me baby, wanna hear you cry out my name in the moonlight.”

Maybe even her garden. Over by the landscape area. Her place is private anyway. (The part where she calls Miller is where I’m trying to pov). She even bent you over that table and took you

(She even considered alone in Mr. Millers office-)

“Oh yeah? Risky huh? Fucking you with my fingers out in my landscape? Anyone could be peering over and see how well you take me.”

M: Motivation (What turns them on? Gets them going?)

Whenever you beg her. When she’s not in the mood, if you beg her enough or send her a nude pic she’s all in. (Pun intended).

Or even if you just exist and she’s in the mood. If you do like your hobby she’s turned on. Especially if it’s writing or art. Sometimes she’ll have you read one of her books and it turns her on

N: No (Something they won’t do, turns them off)

Non-consensual. She hates it. She wants to give consent even if she seems controlling and demanding all the time.

She also hates it when you disobey her. Not that it’s a complete turn off she just prefers for you to listen when she demands it. She also hates being totally controlled by you when she’s receiving, she likes to guide you.

O: Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

She loves oral. She loves it both ways. You tend to tease her on how much she loves eating you out. Claims it’s her snack through out the day, or even at night. And she’s pretty good at it, she learned more and more as she did it.

P: Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual?)

Either. She loves either but it also depends on her mood. Especially when she’s top. Sometimes she’ll start slow then gradually speed up. When receiving she doesn’t mind what pace you go, sometimes she’ll request it. She’ll definitely give if you ask.

If you disobey her and give make her mad, oh lord she’s rough and won’t play nice

Q: Quickies (Their opinions on quickies, how often, etc)

She doesn’t mind quickies. But since she lives basically alone most of the time, there’s no need for it and can go on for hours. Sometimes maybe in the shower, but it’s rare. She just wants to shower with you so she doesn’t waste any water

R: Risk (Are they game to experiment? Do they take risks? Etc)

Cairo loves to experiment. She wants to know what you are into and what you like. And she likes taking risks. Like having sex in public is a big one.

One time she took you to a public library and fucked you behind a bookshelf. That was probably the fastest sex you’ve ever had.

“Shush, sweetheart. Gotta stay quiet for me.”

S: Stamina (How many rounds can they go for? How long can they last? Etc)

It depends on her mood. If she’s top, getting rough or if mad. It’ll be up to eight rounds. If it’s her receiving it may only be four because she gets tired easily.

It can be a totally different story with how long she can last between rounds. Some she can last ten or so minutes within a round, because you like to be soft with her. But when angry and pissed with you, she can make you cum in five minutes

T: Toys (Do they own any toys? Do they use them? On themselves or their partner?)

Cairo has a few. Maybe about three. She prefers to use them on you rather than herself. Like she loves to use the vibrator on you, it’s her favorite way of teasing you. She’ll use it to edge you and you hate it. She also has some bondage stuff that she’ll use if you’re comfortable with. Cairo also owns a strap and enjoys using it on you.

(If you can convince her enough she might let you fuck her with the strap)

“You don’t like this? That’s too bad, guess I’ll have to deny you again.”

“So desperate huh? You wanna take my cock so bad huh? Just beg for it.”

U: Unfair (How much they like to tease)

Cairo LOVES I mean LOVES to tease you. It’s her favorite thing to do. She’ll tease you through out it all even when your are giving. She’ll even tease in you public. Wether it’s physically or verbally.

Physically she’ll brush her fingers against your thigh when walking by, squeeze your ass, maybe even put her hand on your covered womanhood when you sit next to each other. Verbally she’ll whisper something dirty in your ear, or even moan softly just to turn you on.

“What would you do if I fucked you senseless in front of your dad?” “Cairo!”

V: Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make, etc)

Cairo is decently loud. Her moans can be pretty vocal. When being received she likes to moan loudly to make you hot and bothered, or even whimper into your ear. When giving she’s just groaning a bit at how hot you are beneath her. Some grunts and whimpers against your ear.

W: Wild Card (Random headcanon for them)

She’ll have sex with you and even write it in her story if it’s, what she calls “juicy” enough. She’ll even make you read her stories aloud as she takes you from behind.

(She actually fucked you on Millers desk)

X: X-ray (Let’s see what’s under those clothes)

A nice toned stomach, you love to grab onto it as she rails you with the strap. Her breasts are average, you love to stuff your face in them. Naked or not. She’s very well shaved and has tons of freckles that kiss her nice tan skin. You just love her body so much.

Y: Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

She can get pretty desperate. After having a few sessions with you she started getting addicted. But you told her at times no when it became an addiction. So at this point it’s high but she’s relaxed most of the time. She won’t get that mad at you if you don’t sometimes.

Z: Zzz (How quickly they fall asleep afterwords)

She lets you rest first before she falls asleep. She’ll make sure you’re okay even if you gave because she’s such a softie for you

<3

~~~~~~~~~~

It like reset me earlier so I lost progress. So I quit but then came back to it 😭

Hopefully it’s good and I’m willing to do other headcanons!

[samirant]

Dungeon Crawler Carl & You

*taps microphone*

Okay, so I've been going off about Dungeon Crawler Carl for months now and I do not see it stopping at any point, so let's see if I can entice one or two of you to join in my madness.

DCC is Lit RPG and written like a video game come to life, from the point of view of the contestants trapped within the game. There are levels to conquer and loot boxes and quests and an AI running things that has a very tenuous hold on stability to begin with and doesn't keep it for very long.

Carl is just... a guy. He's just a guy with a traumatic backstory that he's squished deep down inside himself because he doesn't like drama and he thinks he's doing just fine because it's done, you know? It's in the past, can't change it, can't hurt him anymore.

(It can hurt him. It does hurt him.)

The world as we know it is destroyed in a split second, Carl surviving by mere happenstance and the only reason he goes into the dungeon is that he will literally freeze to death otherwise. At no point is this guy searching for glory or thinking he's a savior, he's just trying to survive another day. That Carl happens to have his ex-girlfriend's prize-winning tortie Persian cat with him is a coincidence - and it turns out to be his major lifeline in the entire series. Princess Donut is his partner in crime, his bestie for life and if he ever loses her, he will lose everything. Goodbye to the last vestiges of his sanity.

The first couple levels are pretty contained, Carl & Donut learning the ropes and how to survive every encounter with increasingly powerful enemies who want nothing more than to see them dead, the eyes of the universe and the corporations running the shitshow ever focusing on them and trying to eke out as much profit as possible at the same time.

Then they meet other survivors - both good and misled - and the beauty of humanity comes out, the sacrifices they are willing to make for one another, the knowledge that they aren't likely to survive, but they make the right choices anyway because dying might be bad, but letting each other down is worse.

The secondary characters grow in complexity with every level. Where it was once just Carl & Donut, it becomes dozens of characters, from all over the world, all of them gifted in their own way, all of them fighting as best they can, some of them betrayed, some of them dying, some of them choosing to go out on their own terms. Men and women and animal alike, they are individual and committed to the greater good.

Matt Dinniman has written a series that takes an emotional toll on its readers: pain, loss, horror, humor, desperation, walking through life with an unrelenting grief. There are dick jokes and drug-dealing, lava-spitting llamas and riffs on Wonderwall and lines like: Trauma does that, I thought. It's an explosion with your heart at the center. It changes everything all at once.

Also, there are velociraptors.

And a decapitated, talking sex doll head that wants to kill everyone's mothers.

It's a LOT of stuff going on, all right?

And just as you think the story can't get any better, enter Jeff Hays. Our audiobook narrator, our man of a hundred distinct voices. Good god, he's phenomenal. I've listened to so many books and while there are some very talented narrators out there, Jeff Hays leaves them in the motherfucking dust. I honest to god thought he was using an app to manipulate his voice for different characters until I saw him narrating in real time and I was utterly blown away by his talent.

The combination of this story by Matt Dinniman and narration by Jeff Hays has me going back, time and time again. I recommend the experience wholeheartedly and hope you'll give it a chance.

[paradlselost]

CRIMSON.

JOHN SEED X FEMALE DEPUTY

Sort of a dump, I was really debating on just publishing this as a WIP but I was halfway through the smut and decided to just finish it. Not my best, but I tried to go for a more canon accurate John, which means he’s a major freak in this sorry :/

I mentioned it in the fic but didn’t go too deep, I kinda love toying with the idea of a more selfish deputy - humanizing them. If I were to ever write a longer fic with more of an oc-ized version of the deputy would anyone read? Let me know.

I probably won’t post about John Seed or FC5 for a little while after this. I have ideas for a Black Noir (my bbg) fic and then a Father Paul Hill one from Midnight Mass cause I love religious trauma as y’all can tell. I do also like indoctrinated!deputy so maybe maybe eventually I write about that.

2.7k words

content warnings: mentions of cutting into flesh. smut — dubcon, choking, blood play (John being a freak sorry), dryhumping, oral (m receiving), fingering, debauchery in a house of God.

She should’ve known from the start, when the crackle of her radio sounded, interjecting her music with his voice; that this request was nothing but trouble. But rage had blinded her, wrath seeped into every pore in her body, selfishness.

It was never the Deputy’s plan to become the symbol for the resistance, even after the blades of the helicopter stopped, and smoke and fire billowed out from the engine. Even after Dutch saved her and enlisted her help, and despite the stories from countless other resistance members, she only really had one prerogative; save her friends. 

Hudson, Pratt, Whitehorse. Trapped in the claws of the cult, it was her duty to get them back, and despite the help she had been giving to the resistance, those were the only three people she cared about.

He knew this, stalking her like a cat preparing to pounce, he watched every facet of her life from the moment she ventured into Holland Valley that he could. A selfish little thing, ripe for his obsession.

John Seed was a proud man, bold and brave as he had so eloquently begged Jacob to put in his song. His pedestal as a Herald inflated his ego, the knowledge that without him Eden’s Gate wouldn’t have prospered nearly as much fueled his narcissism, which is why he surrounded himself with only the peggies who would do anything for him.

He isn’t sure whether new members are supposed to pledge their lives to him and the cult, but it sounds so sweet when the floor pools with the blood of their atonement and he coaxes those little words from his new followers' lips. His tongue is coated in silver, he loves this new power, and she threatens to take that from him.

He knew she wouldn’t be as proactive if he crooned to her that he had a resistance member or two, and she would swing in guns blazing if he claimed to have Hudson right beside him. So, instead he played on her curiosity, that little nudge in the back of her mind that forced her to seek him out whenever he called. Like a moth to a flame.

“Fuck you, Seed!” Voice so filled with venom it might’ve burned a hole in the floor, he tilted his head at her profanity, a sadistic grin playing on his face.

Hope County was filled with little white churches, chapels with steeples that attempted to reach to the heavens above. She assumed they were much more lively before, now most were barren except on Sundays, when the peggies who could not fit onto Joseph’s compound would listen to him under random roofs of God.

This. He chose to be under the white ceiling specifically, to call her into the thing she had been fighting against. To hear her screams echo against the chipped painting that decorated the walls, for her blood to be stained on the old wooden floorboards.

Curiosity killed the cat. She was stupid enough to venture into his trap, falling to the ground when hit hard enough over the head, and now she was stupid enough to attempt to fight off the peggies that held either arm.

“Such profanity. You’re in a house of God, Deputy, mind your tongue.” He scolded her as if she was a misbehaving child, as if everything she had ever done could be chalked up to that. A spoiled rotten brat.

His fingers danced over the tools he had brought with him, his trusty tattoo gun being at the top, but an assortment of knives he also deemed fit for this occasion. Oh, the blood she would spill for him, he became giddy at the thought.

“Get off of me-! Woah woah woah- hey stop!” Yelping, she still attempted to fight off the peggies that held her arms, she shied away when he advanced toward her, tattoo gun in his hands. He had tried this before, she knew what he was doing.

“No one here to help you now, Wrath. Don’t try and fight, your atonement will hurt much less if you cooperate.” He was too calm for this situation, a practiced art he had been through hundreds of times. It was a skill, making people spill their most intimate secrets, a skill he had perfected.

The Deputy was a fighter, through and through, though John could understand Jacobs words. She was weak without her companions, without pastor Jerome stealing her from her atonement, or Nick Rye strafing his armed convoy, she was nothing now - and it was almost endearing to him.

With her hands bound, she resorted to spitting that same venom that she held in her words, marking his perfect face with her saliva. He grimaced, wiping it off his cheek before it trailed down to his beard, pretty blue eyes flashing with that same bloodlust that dictated his every waking moment.

It was shocking to even the peggies that held her when he grabbed her by her throat, pinning her to the ground and straddling her hips. His hands shook with anger - the same wrath that he deemed consumed her now making an appearance in himself. Two sides of the same coin, two heads of a snake.

Her head ached now, body feeling as though it was echoing. A second blow to the back of her head that surely would’ve knocked her out if the pain of his tattoo gun wasn’t keeping her grounded. She didn’t know how fast he had ripped her shirt, or how long it would take for him to carve her skin, but she was reduced to pained whines and pleas for him to stop.

And he relished in the noises she made. The blood that covered his hands and trickled down her chest wasn’t an unusual sight for the herald - but her being the one under him made it all the more exciting. His Deputy, his wrath, his perfect rival. The peggies that stood above him now didn’t matter, and what are they to him anyways? Expendable followers he could use, the Deputy was everything.

“Yes yes, c’mon, keep pleading…” How could he help it? Her eyes half lidded as she looked up at him, hands no longer bound by the peggies now loosely grabbing the wrist that held the tattoo gun in an attempt to stop him. She looked so pathetic under him, so why shouldn’t he grind himself against her when his pants were so uncomfortably tight?

Her words didn’t quite reach his ears, not as he waved his followers out - who hurriedly scrambled in embarrassment. The old church was silent, save for her soft sobs and his intense breathing. His hand still placed over her neck made her choke on her words, which only fueled his desire. He could crush her windpipe, her life rested in his hands, and maybe he would’ve if the nagging reminder that she was the only way he was getting into New Eden wasn’t playing in the back of his head.

His ticket, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t have some fun with her.

He removed his hand from her neck as he finished carving into her pretty skin. WRATH, her own personal scarlet letters. He hummed, looking down at her with lustful eyes, fluttering between hers and the blood that pooled on her chest and trickled down her body to the wooden floor below.

She hated the feeling that bubbled in her chest as the pain subsided, now only a dull ache danced with the look he gave her, how he rubbed the tent made in his pants against her. No doubt, a mark had been left on her neck - his handprint, a reminder. The world felt silent at this moment, when she should've pushed him off.

Selfishness. Prioritizing that small ache he gave her over what she should be doing. Finding anything to act as a weapon against him.

But she didn’t, not as his head lowered and she was greeted with his perfectly slicked back hair, shaking hands reaching to play with a strand. A soft grumble came from his throat, tongue lapping at the blood that trickled down the valley of her chest, tasting what he had drawn out of her.

“What are you doing-?” Her voice was soft, he barely heard it over the ringing in his ears. Too long had he been subjected to resorting to his hand when he thought about her, or messing up his silk pillowcases with his pretty ropes when she teased him over the radio. He had her under him, he wasn’t going to let her go now.

“Shh.” His voice was more scolding then he meant it to be, his tongue traveling from the blood he lapped at down to her budding nipple. He wasn’t gentle, and why should he be? After everything she had messed up for him, he felt it justified to bite down on her pretty flesh, pulling at the bud as much as he wanted.

He relished in the pretty, pained moans that fell from her lips, how her back arched into it. Two sides of the same coin, both reveling in whatever pain was brought to them.

The Deputy’s head tilted back, allowing him a chance to latch onto her neck as a vampire would, smearing the blood on his lips all over her pretty skin. He bit, marking her with his teeth over the forming bruises from his handprint. His hands, decorated in the crimson from his hold on the tattoo gun traveled down her body, painting her in her own red.

He slipped his hand below the rough fabric of her jeans, being met with a contrast, soft and delicate and slightly damp. A soft grumble left his lips at the feeling; which were still pressed against her pretty neck. He felt the way her breath hitched as he ran digits over her most delicate areas. Being so close to her neck, he felt how her muscles tightened and how her breath hitched in her throat.

Lifting her hips to meet his tattooed fingers, a small admission of need. She bit her bottom lip to suppress the noises that tempted to fall from her lips - not wanting to give him the satisfaction. They were still enemies, still rivals, at least to her. 

John on the other hand seemed to be on cloud nine, relishing in how she moved against his hand, grinding herself through the fabric of her underwear. He bit down once more, slipping her out of her jeans and grabbing her hips, sitting up and pressing his pelvis against hers.

“John- John cmon…” Head thrown back, panting as she grabbed at the blue silk of his top. He tilted his head down at her, a sadistic smirk playing on his features.

He always took what he wanted, no matter who it was, and the Deputy was no exception to this. To him, it was God's Grace that placed them both here, that gave him the opportunity to rut his hips against hers.

The bulge in his covered jeans met her underwear, fucking himself against her covered cunt. He leaned down overtop of her, panting against her ear. Hot breath on her neck, the sounds of his soft moans mixing with his heavy breaths, and of course his restricted cock grazing just over her clit every couple of thrusts, it was enough to make any girl's eyes roll back.

He stopped, only for a moment, but long enough for her to let out a needy whine, lifting her head to see what he was doing. Tattooed fingers worked the EG belt off, letting his pants pool at his ankles. He wasted no time once they were off, underwear meeting underwear as the outline of his dick was much more pronounced.

“Fuck fuck, put your head back. Fucking-… good girl.” He groaned out, one hand leaving her hips and grabbing at her pretty hair, pulling her head back against the cold wooden floor of the church. She ached, head pounding and echoing from the injuries earlier - but the feeling of him fucking himself against her needy cunt kept her grounded.

In this moment, she needed him, needed this feeling to not pass out.

He tilted his own head back, sweat casting a slick sheen over his skin. A hand dipped against the drying blood on her chest, gathering what he could over his fingertips before bringing them to his lips, sucking on the bloodied digits. He groaned around his fingers, muffling the moans that threatened to fall.

The head of his cock strained against the blue fabric of his boxers, hips thrusting sloppily against her as his hand tightened on her hips, leaving pretty marks in his wake. One thrust, another thrust, and finally another before white pooled at the head, spurting out of the tiny holes in his underwear.

Panting, he finally moved his fingers out of his mouth, cleaned off the blood and tilted his head down at her almost mockingly; he got to finish, the cum that leaked from his underwear dripping down onto hers, and she didn’t get to. He relished in that, that power he had over her.

“H-hey! Not fair!”

“Oh, Deputy. Come here, maybe I’ll let you get off.”

He grinned as he stood up, fixing himself before moving back onto one of the pews, watching her scramble over to him. He had her eating out of the palm of his hand as she kneeled in front of him. Her head pounded harder, eyes a little woozy.

“Poor baby, rest your head, sweetheart.” He teased, a sadistic grin on his face as she nodded and rested against his thigh, looking up at him with those pretty eyes of hers. He couldn’t help himself, not if she looked so pretty right there in his grasp. 

He tangled his fingers in her hair, watching her confused expression as he moved the blue fabric off of his legs, dick springing up as it was freed from the confinement of his underwear. Guiding her head over it, watching her part her pretty lips to suck on his leaking tip.

Milking his cock, swallowing the spurts of salty seed that spilled onto her tongue. She drained him for all he’s worth, looking up at him as he ran his fingers through her hair. He was soft and gentle in this moment, noises falling from his lips that told her how good she was doing. She shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be sucking off John Seed of all people.

He grinned as he watched her, once he was satisfied with the way she suckled on him, he grabbed her chin and pulled her off of him. Guiding her up to her feet, he let her loom over him. She wasn’t intimidating like this, he didn’t know if it was because he had just fucked her over their clothes or because she was relying on him for an orgasm, but she seemed almost adorable.

His lips found her neck once more as she leaned against him, nuzzling her head into his shoulder. He forced her to stand, to spread her legs to allow his fingers to feel the now wet fabric of her panties. He hummed in satisfaction, moving them aside and tracing a finger over her slick folds.

A soft gasp left her lips, grabbing onto his shoulder and attempting to move back to look him in the eye. He grumbled, forcing her in that same position as he bit down on her neck, pushing a finger inside of her at the same time. He loved the moans that fell from her lips as he pumped a digit deeper inside of her.

Another finger stretched her out, deep enough to hit those nerves that made her legs tremble. She whined, shaking against him and propping herself up as he continued to pump in and out of her. He pulled away from her neck for only a moment, watching the way she buried her face against him and laughing softly.

He added one more finger before her legs fully began to tremble, grabbing onto his shoulder. Pumping more, fully reaching those nerves, which caused her to spasm around him, her orgasm flooding around his fingers. She rocked against him once or twice, chasing her high.

“Look at you, Deputy, needing me. Did I make you feel good? Use your words.”

[incorrectsibunaquotes]

I have a theory that the reason we as an audience feel like Sibuna in Season 3b are making monumentally stupid choices is because the show doesn’t actually spell out for us that the kids don’t have all the information we have. In fact, they are operating with less than half of our knowledge. (This is gonna be a longgggg post, so read under the cut if you dare)

On my latest rewatch of S3 for fanfic purposes, i found myself really struggling to justify why the hell Eddie couldn’t put two and two together with his vision of Patricia and the “traitor” in Sibuna. I was frustrated with him because to me it was incredibly obvious! Like who else could it possibly be?? But then, I rewatched it again with a closer eye and everything suddenly clicked:

We, the audience, are watching the action from a completely zoomed out angle. We’re not just following Sibuna, but we’re also following Team Evil. We know Robert is capturing Sinners and what a Sinner actually is, before Sibuna is even fully aware that they failed to stop the eclipse ceremony. The kids metaphorically tripped at the starting line.

Furthermore, this is the first time in the show that the Sibunas have not had either the upper hand or were even on equal playing field with the adults. In Season 1, the Society was wholly unprepared for a bunch of adolescents to start foiling in their plans (bc why would they be prepared for that??), and Sibuna basically destroyed them due to adults underestimating their willingness to fuck around and find out. In Season 2, Victor/Vera and Sibuna were on equal ground; no one knew how to solve the tasks and it was a matter of a bunch of separate parties trying to figure it out before each other. They were all just throwing shit at the wall and hoping it stuck.

At the top of Season 3, we play a lot with both the S1 and S2 dynamics. At first, Sibuna is leagues and bounds ahead of the adults, and then they pretty quickly end up on the same footing. Then, in the second half of the season, that entire dynamic is flipped on its head, and it’s Sibuna who are wholly unprepared for the adults. I’ve talked about how the kids, especially our Sibuna veterans, got a little too comfortable with Victor and co’s ineptitude and cocky with their own intelligence… but that’s not even why they were so slow on the uptake.

None of the Sibunas even hear the word “Sinner” until they find that book in the secret room and read it while sitting on the stage. And the book does not explain at all what a Sinner actually is. It tells them that Ammut needs “the souls of five human sinners who embody the greatest flaws of mankind” and once she has five of them she can enter the human realm and cause lots of problems. Absolutely nowhere in the book does it ever say “Also, much like Robert, the soulless body of the Sinner is reawakened in service to the underworld.” The only other hint that could have possibly clued anyone in is “when your friends are not your friends”. But like, that clue was ages ago! Why would they even be thinking about that, when it had absolutely no bearing on their hunt for the secret room/answers up to that point? I cannot stress this enough, THEY HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE WHAT A SINNER IS! (I’m gonna repeat this sentence about 400 times in case you don’t get it now lol) Mind you, that atp in the timeline, this is approximately fifteen or so minutes before Denby captures Patricia.

But let’s rewind all the way back to when Team Evil devises a plan to kidnap Eddie. He’s in the crypt, right? It’s pretty evident to him that it was probably Denby, Victor, and/or Robert who trapped him here, but he’s got no real clue as to why. Of course, we all know that they’re planning on turning him into a Sinner, because we saw Victor get turned. But as far as Sibuna knows, Victor has never really been on their side, so all they think is that he’s being meaner than usual but of course he’s opposing them. That’s not strange.

Okay, so Eddie is stuck and distressed, but he’s not as panicked as he needs to be because nowhere in his mind does he think this could potentially end in what is essentially his death. Now, throw in the horrifying vision he has of Patricia getting dragged into a glowing sarcophagus. He still doesn’t know what a Sinner is, but he knows that whatever he just saw was really bad; it’s an incentive from the Osirian spirit (or the house, or the gods, or literally whatever) to actually try to get the hell out of there.

So we’re all sitting here watching going “Oh my god they’re gonna nab Patricia and make her evil! 😰” because we have context; Eddie has absolutely none. It’s also really important for later on that his vision ends when the sarcophagus door shuts. It’s framed as incredibly final, and for all Eddie knows, they’ve just stuffed Patricia in what he knows is a tiny cramped space and locked the door behind her. He thinks that at best they are going to kidnap her or, at worst, straight up kill her. Nothing in that vision indicates she’s walking out of there at all.

When Patricia ran off after the fake messages, Eddie is concerned for a lot of different reasons, but the two primary ones are the obvious “oh my god my girlfriend thinks I cheated on her what do I do???” and the other is “if she’s run off on her own, the adults could fulfill my vision!” But then she turns back up, which should be clear to us by now means that he thinks she’s safe. He’s waiting for her (for any of them) to disappear. But when none of them do, they think it’s fine. It’s not that Eddie doesn’t think Patricia is in danger of becoming a Sinner, he just doesn’t realize what that would actually look like.

Even when they’re all in the hallway morbidly joking about having to give up sinning, the language KT uses is telling of what they think being a Sinner means: “We don’t want to accidentally help out Team Evil [by sinning].” Of course, this statement works with the knowledge the audience has of everything, but if Sibuna actually knew what they were dealing with, KT would have said something more like “We don’t want to get captured/turned by Team Evil.” The jokes they’re making are still morbid, but because they think you just get put in the sarcophagus and that’s the end of it.

Let’s flash forward again to the phonograph getting smashed and Eddie’s second vision that prompts the witch hunt panic in the first place. The vision can be separated into three parts: 1) Eddie sees a hooded figure smash the phonograph (okay Sibuna already knows someone did it on purpose, not too crazy); 2) Robert approaches him creepily and has the mic-drop moment of “it was one of your little friends; you have a viper in your nest” (seriously what a raw line of dialogue… but also now Eddie is being told that there is a traitor. Pretty cut and dry); 3) he turns around and sees every other member of Sibuna mockingly throw up the Sibuna sign (uh oh!)

So here is where people (including me!) always got a little annoyed with Eddie for not doing the math. But upon several rewatches and actually listening to what everyone was saying, never once do any of the kids ever bring up the word “Sinner” during the entirety of this whodunnit arc. And that’s simply because it’s not even a thought that crosses their minds. The language they use is very telling: “traitor” and “betrayal” being the heavy hitters. If any of them actually had context for what was actually going on, the language they would be using would be more like “victim” or literally just “Sinner” as a noun. But they don’t, which is why they’re so hostile toward one another… and why KT was screwed from the moment Eddie had that vision.

Because the fact that they don’t know that a Sinner is an evil version of themselves (not just someone whose soul is being used as a power generator), means that on a subconscious level Fabian, Alfie, and even Eddie already assumed KT was guilty. And Sinner!Patricia knew that, and that’s why she was so easily able to pivot and pin it on her. KT was directly linked to Frobisher, and Fabian and Alfie had already been suspicious of her at the start of the season for other reasons. It’s why Fabian let Patricia help him with the finger printing in the first place: because he doesn’t believe it’s her. And Eddie would have no real reason to suspect Patricia for three reasons: 1) Because he’s in love with her; 2) Because he knows just how long Patricia (and Fabian, and Alfie) have been loyal to Sibuna and to each other; 3) Because he, like everyone else, was looking at this betrayal as a willing capitulation to the Team Evil.

The first time Sibuna becomes aware that a Sinner is an entity that they have to actually watch out for walking about (as opposed to just having to watch out becoming), is after KT and Harriet manage to escape Patricia in the Gatehouse. Harriet clearly knows what a Sinner is bc she has the presence of mind to actually explain (vaguely, of course, because she’s drugged to kingdom come) to KT what she’d just narrowly escaped.

And then when she confronts Sibuna and Patricia in the hallway after Miss Crocodile Tears is telling tales about KT trying to kidnap her, KT drops the bomb on the boys: “She was trying to make me a Sinner just like her!” Pause. Record scratch. Okay. Now everything they thought they knew about the situation is completely recontextualized as something much more sinister than what they initially thought. Because I’d always struggled with how cruel they were being to KT, especially if they thought it wasn’t her fault. But everything up until this point deeply suggests or rather expects us to understand that Sibuna only had two pieces of an 100 piece puzzle, and that them being mean to KT was because they thought she actually betrayed them.

With all of this in mind, Eddie is not stupid for not figuring it out right away. In fact, without knowing what a Sinner actually is, it would be an insane leap to assume Patricia had anything to do with the phonograph.

I’ve basically talked myself and all of you in several circles, but the bottom line is the show didn’t do a fabulous job of telling us that Sibuna had no clue what they were up against. It’s easy for us to sit back and go “what the hell is wrong with them are they stupid?” because we have all the knowledge of what’s going on eons before they do. This is a far more charitable read of the characters’ choices and thought process, and the only way any of their actions make any sense. In fact, this is less of a theory and more of what is… literally canon, I guess

[fionajames]

From the one word prompt list: hiraeth

dreams of home

A/N: Hi, guys! I'm so so sorry I haven't been posting, like, at all, but y'all should have seen my schedule the past month, on addition to the fact I'm obsessed with Teen Wolf right now. shadowdragon, I'd just like to say, thank you so much for this request, I apologise for taking so long, and also apologise for the brutal feels ahead. I hope you enjoy, and as always please send requests guys! Oh, and also, please leave comments, I love them.

(divider by @saradika-graphics)

It had been seventy-two standard rotations since Order 66.

It had been seventy-two standard rotations since the fall of the Republic.

It had been seventy-two standard rotations since the rise of the Empire.

It had been seventy-two standard rotations since the massacre of the Jedi.

And, it had been seventy-two standard rotations since Obi-Wan’s family died.

He stared out at the lifeless sands of Tatooine, as he often did. Each breath he took was heavy and rasping against the abrasive, sandpaper-like feeling of the inside of his throat. Every sip of water did nothing to quench his thirst and pain.

Instead of the empty desert he saw the rolling rivers of lava, the tears falling from burning orange eyes, the sight of fire eating away at flesh. The scent of burning skin and hot, thick air choked him as he sat, suffocating him in the last memory of his brother. The words that his brother had wailed, driving a knife through him and twisting over and over and over, sinking deep into his blood like acid.

Obi-Wan placed his hands in the sand in front of him, splaying out his fingers and feeling the grains fill the gaps between his appendages. He attempted feebly to ground himself in the tan earth, but all he could hear was Anakin’s final screams. The hot air of Tatooine taunted him as a reminder of Mustafar.

Thoughts of Anakin always led to thoughts of Ahsoka. Oh, Ahsoka. So young, somewhere far away near Mandalore, lifeless. The absence of knowledge of what happened to the Togruta led to endless, haunting scenarios of her death. 

Most of the time she was on the ship, just leaving Mandalore, and Rex had appeared behind her, pistols aimed at her head. She’d had one moment to turn and see his face, mumbling a weak; “Rex…?”, before the Clone emotionlessly blasted her in the head, leaving nothing but the mutilated corpse of a teenager behind.

Obi-Wan had had plenty of time to meditate - not with the Force, no, he’d pushed that away - and yet he could never convince himself of one, inevitable truth. It’s all my fault.

He thought of Qui-Gon, and how if only Obi-Wan had been trapped behind the rayshield all those years ago, maybe the Jedi would still be alive. If only he’d been impaled by Maul, then maybe Qui-Gon training Anakin would have steered the brunet away from the call of the dark side. He’d never quite forgiven himself for watching the light fade from his Master’s eyes, and this only made it worse.

He couldn’t even find it in him to feel betrayed by Anakin. Instead, he felt as though he’d betrayed him. After all, it was his fault. His training had failed Anakin. He’d failed Anakin. No amount of meditation would ever change that. 

Nor could he blame Anakin. Instead he blamed himself. He thought of Ahsoka’s crippled, cold, dead body. His fault. He thought of the Younglings in the Temple, some not even old enough to walk. His fault. He thought of Aayla Secura, of Kit Fisto, of Ki-Adi Mundi. His fault. His fault. His fault.

Thousands of Jedi, dead, because he couldn’t teach one small boy what thousands of others lived by. 

Yes, everything was his fault. 

He longed for the days, early on in the war, when the three of them were on Coruscant. His family, safe, unscathed, happy. He thought of Ahsoka in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, her hands in the water as she watched the fish swim against her fingers, the way she’d giggled and laughed. He thought of Anakin, leaning against a tree trunk, finally content during their break from all the fighting, breathing so deeply Obi-Wan wondered momentarily if he was asleep.

He thought of all the other Jedi - many he’d never even met before - happily living their lives before the war. He thought of Younglings, huddling together in big groups to talk and running around corners, tumbling over their own feet before bouncing back up. He thought of Padawans hosting huge games of hide and seek, and tag in the Temple’s many rooms. He thought of young Knights, training together and helping each other through forms. He thought of Masters, discussing their Padawans’ journeys and looking after them. 

He thought of home.

Oh, did he miss it.

He longed for the days when Anakin was young where they’d play holochess and discuss tactics, or when they’d explore different planets. He remembered one time when Anakin had found a plant he considered the most beautiful thing ever, and insisted on taking it back with them to the Temple. He remembered even at the end of the war, spotting the blossoming, colourful flowers in the Knight’s room.

Obi-Wan wished he could have met Ahsoka before the war, when life was easier, happier, better. He had similar times with Ahsoka, though a lot fewer. He thought of times where he’d found Ahsoka reading, and spent afternoons listening to her thoughts on the literature. He remembered how happy she was when learning, when training.

Obi-Wan felt a lot of hiraeth for his home that once was. He knew now that he could never return to that home, and all he could do was hope that one day, he’d find a new home. 

He glanced to the side, spotting the little curved top of Owen and Beru’s farm, where little Luke Skywalker was somewhere inside. He smiled softly, anchoring himself against the tidal wave of memories to the thought of his brother’s child. 

He’d do his best to ensure that Luke got his home, some place where he belonged. Obi-Wan wished he could show Luke the Temple, alive and warm with Jedi. But the Jedi were gone, and this was the new life for Force sensitive children - hidden, frightened, cursed.

He thought of Anakin and Ahsoka, side by side, laughing. 

Yes, that was how he’d remember his family - the family he longed for, the family he harboured such deep, raw, hiraeth for. One day, he’d join them in another life. For now, he would make sure Luke found his home, his hiraeth.

A/N: So, yeah, I apologise, for that, but also, don't regret it. I hope you enjoyed though, and please send requests + leave comments!!! I love you all <3, stay safe.

(taglist: @skellymom, @techs-goggles9902, dm me if you wish to be added or removed)

[catholic-character-tournament]

Round 3 - Catholic Character Tournament

Propaganda below ⬇️

Michael

Literally the whole movie series is framed around the sacraments. Weddings and first communions and baptisms.

I just thought of the Godfather bc of the tumblr ask about people who are devout in some ways but uhh not very holy in other ways, and nobody is a better example of that than Michael in the montage toward the end of the Godfather. I saw the film for the first time last year, and that sequence just floored me. Will not spoil it in case you haven't seen the film but ohhh my goodness

Ronan Lynch

Uhh fun fact he saw the devil flash his father once, and that's one of the reasons he goes to church on Sundays <3

context for this scene from book 2: ronan is in church with his older brother declan, younger brother matthew, and ghost friend noah "Joseph Kavinsky isn’t someone I want you being around,” Declan added. “Don’t snort. I’m serious.” Ronan merely invested a look with as much contempt as he could muster. A lady reached over the top of Noah to pat Matthew’s head fondly before continuing down the aisle. She didn’t seem to care that he was fifteen, which was all right, because he didn’t, either. Both Ronan and Declan observed this interaction with the pleased expressions of parents watching their prodigy at work. Declan repeated, “Like, actually dangerous.” Sometimes, Declan seemed to think that being a year older gave him special knowledge of the seedier side of Henrietta. What he meant was, did Ronan know that Kavinsky was a cokehead. In his ear, Noah whispered, “Is crack the same thing as speed?” Ronan didn’t answer. He didn’t think it was a very church-appropriate conversation. “I know you think you’re a punk,” Declan said. “But you aren’t nearly as bad ass as you think you are.” “Oh, go to hell,” Ronan snapped, just as the altar boys broached the rear doors. “Guys,” Matthew pleaded. “Be holy.”

Gay Catholic streetracing farmer. Consumed by catholic guilt NOT because of the gay thing but because he can Create things in a way he thinks should be only God's business. Will literally roll up to mass on sunday morning still drunk and bloody.

THIS GOTH KID IS LITERALLY GOD. This is a god trapped in the body of a Catholic teen and if he ever stopped feeling Catholic guilt he’d end the world!!. How is your confession every week that you creating a whole new being? Babygirl the God is coming from inside the house

eldritch entity from beyond the mortal plane wants to be a Real Human Boy, becomes a real (ish!) human (ish!) boy, goes to mass every sunday

Gay boy got his crush an apartment above his church so he could have his two favorite things in one place

gay. I'm not caught up the the series but I went through the tag when the latest book came out and I remember seeing a quote that said he worried if his boyfriend would make it to heaven when he dies because of his agnostic tendencies.

Kid is like a dream warlock who creates psychic horrors and never goes to confession because why would he? and he’s gay

There are no words

basically ronan's powers are inherited from his dead father niall and it means he can bring anything from a dream into real life. so he's got this whole crisis about whether he is a living piece of blasphemy because men are not meant to have the powers of gods or whether he literally is god. which is not acceptable to him for a number of reasons but mostly because he hates himself. his love interest's name is adam and adam lives in a small apartment above a church which the book says focuses the objects of his worship neatly into one building. I love them both dearly. also, this entire page makes me feel like I'm going insane. Ronan Lynch believed in heaven and hell. Once, he’d seen the devil. It had been a low, late morning at the Barns when the sun had burned off the mist and then burned off the chill and then burned the edges off the ground until everything shimmered with heat. It never got hot in those protected fields, but that morning, the air sweated with it. Ronan had never seen cattle pant before. All of the cows heaved and stuck their tongues out as they frothed with the heat. His mother sent Ronan to put them in the shade of the cattle barn. Ronan had gone to the searing metal gate, and as he did, he’d glimpsed his father, already in the barn. Four yards away from him had stood a red man. He was not truly red, but the burned orange of a fire ant. And he was not truly a man, because of the horns and the hooves. Ronan remembered the alienness of the creature, how real it had been. Every costume in the world had gotten it wrong; every drawing in every comic book. They’d all forgotten that the devil was an animal. Looking at the red man, Ronan had been struck by the intricacy of the body, how many miraculous pieces moved smoothly in harmony, no different than his own. Niall Lynch had had a gun in hand — the Lynches had an enormous number of guns of all sizes — and just as Ronan had opened the gate, his father had shot the thing about thirteen times in the head. With a shake of its horns, the unharmed devil had presented its genitalia to Niall Lynch before bounding off. It was an image that had yet to leave Ronan. And so Ronan became a reverse evangelist. The truth burst and grew inside him, and it was laid upon him to share it with no one. No one was meant to see hell before they get there. No one should have to live with the devil. So many homilies on faith were ruined once you no longer required it for belief.

[mobirights]

MOBI DEAD GAY WIZARDS (not really but still) RANTTTT

I have major writers block, so for anyone who cares, I'm gonna talk (rant) about the Descendants movies/books while I write a chapter for my Descendants AU jegulus fanfic (the children are innocent linked here).

We DO NOT talk enough about how in the first Descendants book (don't talk to me about how canon or non-canon those books are, they ARE to ME, OKAY?) Ben and Mal had dreams about each other before the VK's got brought to Auradon??? like WHAAAAT. It adds SO MUCH to their relationship and those layers WILL be included in my fic. Like it makes so much sense???

Cause, like, even though we love Ben and Mal, we can all collectively agree that it was crazy how he just left Audrey, right? Like love potion, I know, I know. But my girl had every right to be upset because her boyfriend doesn't even break up with her, but just declares his love to the new girl who is a VILLAIN KID, through SONG, during a sports game where AUDREY was cheering for him??? And was low-key being weird (flirty, awe-struck?) with Mal from the second they met??? Like. Queen of Mean was so valid (and personally one of my fav songs).

BUTTTT if we think about it with the knowledge that he was DREAMING about Mal months prior, it makes so much sense. When he first met Mal when the vk's came to Auradon, that was the moment it clicked for him who he'd been dreaming about and he was down bad from there. I still think the whole love potion fiasco was unfair to Audrey, especially after Ben jumped in the enchanted lake and realized he was under a spell AND I refuse to believe that the scene at the end of Descendants 3 was the only conversation Ben and Mal had with Audrey about it. Like that apology wasn't even a real apology??? I head-canon that they had a much deeper conversation where they THOROUGHLY apologized to Audrey, her to them, and they ate strawberries and lived happily ever after friendship. But anyways.

It makes so much sense. Even though I hate what Ben did to Audrey, we also find out in the books that he had been questioning their relationship before he even met Mal or considered bringing the VK's to Auradon. He had been questioning EVERYTHING about his life in Auradon. (so James Potter coded of him honestly) Like we learn so much in the books and it's fucking crazy (I could make whole other post about THAT btw).

AHHHH. Like guys you don't understand, that children's book has me in a CHOKEHOLD because of... everything?? Like ugh.

But back to the dreams. That's so destiny, fate, soulmates coded of Ben and Mal. How did they dream about each other? THEY NEVER MET. We learn from Ben that he feels trapped in Auradon. Bro barely even leaves his castle??? Like at all??? (The United States of Auradon is an insane place when you think about it after reading the book) SOULMATES. IT'S THE ONLY EXPLANATION. He couldn't stop thinking about her after the dream. And at the end of the book, surprise surprise, he gets his idea to bring the VK's to Auradon after thinking about her. Like, of course he's doing it out of the goodness of his heart and because he wants change in Auradon, BUTTT.

It's also because of Mal.

He was thinking about her before he had the idea, thinking about how she is a poor unfortunate child trapped on the Isle. LIKE the way he stared out at the Isle before he made his proclamation (very much included and expanded upon in my fic) is so yearning, longing, 'I need you now, but I don't know you yet' core like- GUYS. you don't UNDERSTAND. They're everything to me. Soulmates, I tell you, SOULMATES.

The Descendants series has been all I can think about since starting this fic. Primary school me is having the time of his life because he too was obsessed with it. He didn't understand the NUANCES back then, though. I do. And I'm gonna share with it with the masses.

Everyone read the Isle of the Lost books by Melissa de la Cruz because so far it's so good! I'm only on the first one, but I love it. The writing style is amazing and also hilarious, and one thing you guys should know about me is that writing style means EVERYTHING to me. It's unfortunate because I've missed out on really good fanfics and normal novels because I just couldn't stand the writing style. But alas.

Expect more rants because talking about it inspires me to write and, as we've already established, I like to talk A LOT.

[tomionefinds]

HI! I wanted to ask if you have any recommendations on fics where Tom's darkness is described. I would like to read about a realistic Tom, his evil plans, his tortures and killings, his perverse thoughts. I would like to read about his relationship with his knights, his studies of dark magic, his quest for power. In short, I would like to read about all the terrible things he does to fracture his soul.

thank u very muchhhh

Hey Anon:

This is such a peculiar ask, that I don't think we're going to find anything that's going to exactly fit this need. But what the hell, here are some that might. (There are some decent AUs out there, where they don't touch necessarily on the Hogwarts side, and one of them is Wolfer by peppershark)

You might also want to check out the works list of Devdevlin, Nerysdax, and Ciule, just off the top of my head. - Haus

atelophobia by natasharomanhoffs

M | WIP | 164k

Sure enough, not five seconds later, the door cracked open, and a tall boy with green lining on his robes strode into the Hospital Wing. Hermione absent-mindedly noticed his attractive face, but she was more focussed on his uniform. Lord, that looks stuffy, was her first thought. At least he knows how to tie a proper Windsor knot, was her second. Hermione wakes up in 1943 alone, annoyed, and uninformed. And why the hell was life so determined to pit her against Tom bloody Riddle, anyway?

Birds of a Feather by babylonsheep

M | WIP | 530k

In 1935, Hermione Granger meets a boy in an orphanage who despises fairy stories, liars, and mediocrity. He offers her a deal of mutual convenience, and soon a tentative friendship forms between them—if Tom would ever lower himself to call anyone a "friend". But whatever they have, it's something special, and if there's anyone who can appreciate Specialness, it's Tom Riddle. 1930's-40's Childhood Friends AU.

Somewhere in Time by SerpentinRed

M | Complete | 342k

Sent back in time by a mysterious person and trapped in the past with a missing Dumbledore and an overbearing, charismatic Dark Lord, they had no idea how much they could dabble with time before the world they had known shattered into pieces.

Limerence by devdevlin

M | Complete | 17k

It does not surprise him at all to know that Hermione Granger has come to think herself half in love with him. But it is not to last, and it is that night, on the night of the school's annual Hallowe'en dinner, that he knows that Hermione Granger's opinion of him is about to rapidly shift. And how could it not? Because at his feet, there is a dead body and she... She has seen it.

A Summer Storm, Ephemeral by alpha_exodus

M | One Shot | 6k

In the middle of summer 1943, Tom meets a girl.

Choosing Grey by betagyre

M | Complete | 124k

Hermione has always been a warrior for the Light. But when an attempt to salvage more than a Pyrrhic victory lands her in 1944, she quickly realizes that sometimes it is best to allow a lesser evil to flourish, because defeating it only creates the conditions for a greater one to rise. With conspiracies, schemes, and difficult choices in every corner, and a charismatic young Tom Riddle who is increasingly interested in her, she will eventually have to answer the question: How much darkness and grey in him can she accept?

The Prisoner by Nerysdax

E | Complete | 180k

Imprisoned, Lord Voldemort is considered a threat of the past. His knowledge is desired by many. Yet, his offer is for one person only: Hermione Weasley-Granger.

[ohmygillygoshoppler]

what are.... your headcannons for Epsilon and his people?? Ad Francis too??

oooooh! OOOOOOH! FINALLY!!! MY THEORIES!!! IVE BEEN DYING TO SHARE MY THEORIES!!!

loooooooooong post lmao. Heads up-

Okay okay okay, so I had a few questions about these people when I first started watching the show a gazillion years ago; like how many more of The People are there? How do their numbers work? Are they all clones, or just the Epsilons? How do they do what they do in their universe? Who the fuck do they work for? And why are things the way they are?

I have more questions than answers, but I will say that brainstorming about it has been so much fun~ So lemme just break this down as best as I can-

I personally headcannon that only the Epsilons are cloned from each other, every other agent is someone they either recruited through traditional means, taken from childhood or from birth, or cajoled into service as a form of punishment. We all know how easy it would be to pluck a few promising young birds from some orphanage somewhere; unnoticeable, unwanted, and untraceable to the masses, an organization like The People would jump on the opportunity, I think.

Okay, now for my individual agents, I have only a few things I've actually put to pen about them. Don't you just love having blank slate character to project all of your bullshit onto? I do!

Firstly, I have Irene which i'll be real, she's my fave Green Man to draw. She's.... so pretty... To me....

Her stoicism is linked directly to her environment. When she's on the clock, she one of the most precise, cunning, cutthroat agents around. But the split second she has the okay to relax, she's relaxed.

Her detail is a saboteur, so she is the one disarming traps, disabling security systems and breaking shit up so she and her People can get their jobs done. That being said, she likes to tinker, and can make even the nastiest, most beaten up and abandoned forest can come back to life-

She is insightful, observant and sometimes even playful. She just hides it under a perpetual frown. I was also thinking she would have some affectionate feelings toward Francis, as she's known him all his life , and adored Simone. I imagine Irene and Francis are kind of like siblings with a huge age gap.

Next up, my man Io, a former Hunter who since kicks it with The People after an incident in the 90's. He, along with Epsilon and Simone worked with the Secret Scientists to create a vaccine against lycanthropy. He's been an invaluable asset to The People ever since.

Io has special knowledge on medicine and even alchemy, occasionally making passing remarks about an old colleague that could turn wood chips to gold shavings. He also has a vast knowledge in matters of supernatural sicknesses and possessions. He has a bit of a morbid fascination with it, even going as far as to try and give himself pestilences only for the sake of further research.

I think he'd be pretty neutral about Francis, seeing as how it's not ease accepting some kid to be your new boss. At the same time, he knows where he is, so Io does what he can to keep their relationship strictly professional. However, in light of... recent events, he may be spending more one on one time with his fellow agents; more so than he's used to. We might learn more about him later...

And now WOOOOOOO, GRANDPAAA!!! LETS GOOOOOO!!!!! No, but for real, Agent Rohan is the oldest agent here, pushing 65, and he's still out here taking orders from Epsilon and making moves with The People, all the while fighting vampires, befriending warewolves, tricking the fae and dealing with alien incursions of every sort. He's up there in "Spooky Levels of Competence" with Simone and Grandpa Max, like, this man has seen some shit.

Rohan likes hunting, fishing, shooting, and camping out in the middle or asscrack nowhere. You know, old man stuff. He's the good kind of Boomer, ya know?

And he's still just a chill Old Man who just wants to retire to a secluded cabin in the woods with his Dog (not a dog, not a dog-) and live out his sunset years like a regular American man.

Fuck you, I know Agent Mccabe divorced his ass (they were never married lmao) but sometimes when they're together it feels like nothing's changed. Then they look into each other's eyes and remember how they've hurt each other oh fuck-

Epsilon is an extremely reserved and extremely stifled man, so much so that he stifles everyone around him. He believes that order and routine are the ways to maintain a safe and normal lifestyle, and so many times he is proven right. So much so he allowed himself to be tricked into letting his dearest friend leave for outer space.

He is a, "By any means necessary," type of man to a fault. Ruthless, calculating, and by any sense of the word, the Perfect Agent. Nothing phases him, it seems. However, there is something there, a reason he instills instant obedience and zero hesitation, and I think we can all find that out... together....

Here cooooomes the boyyy~ 💖✨✨ my boy, my baby; Francis.

Hahahaaaa, this one thing soooo highly of himself, hahahahaa~~ Ohhh, thats so cute. I love him for that. I will break him. He will know humility.

You know what happens when someone with no moral compass is thrown into the most fucked up situation? They find that compass, and they fucking use it. The boy must learn, and there wasn't enough time in the show to teach him. Now's my chance-

Speaking of, his Foolhardy Father taught him that thinking for himself was the wrong thing to do, and after Morrigan, he has to start thinking out of the box because there was never a protocol for this...

Also..... I know the fact he's a clone hurts him, like, we saw that shit in The Unblinking Eye, fuckin he hates following Epsilon's orders but what the fuck else is he gonna do? What else is there, this is what he was made for, right? He seems like the perfect guy for a character arc, and it kills me that he didn't get one.

I want him to learn to be his own person. Kinda want em all to figure out what their lives are, since they could all be butchered at any moment and only their killers would mourn them.

Speaking of Killers....

Miss Morrigan Monroe

"Whaaaaat?!?!" I heard you gawking, "Your Evil Bitch™ is with The People?!?! How???" And I'll give you the diss-

next post, this bitch is already so long. But just know, she knew the OG Epsilon and they fucking DO NOT VIBE.

She is hundreds of years old, has profound beef, and the shits on site, so sorry Epsilon. That's what you get for the sins of your father, Get fucked, I guess.

I know she's bad, but she's meant to be vapid, petty, recalcitrant, repugnant and deranged, mean and clever and scary beyond all reason- You know, the perfect woman, lmao. (I dont AT ALL condone the shit shes done or is gonna do but like, its gonna be nasty 😈😈😈😈)

[bunorous]

Amnesia: The Bunker and Its Commentary of The Horror of War

For the purpose of this analysis let’s look at the aspects of the game— its characters, its setting, it’s period— as embodying concepts rather than just representing them.

First and foremost: I think the setting of a desolate and arguably isolated war bunker is a very strategic setting both gameplay and lore wise. This isn’t a commentary of the gameplay, though, so I’ll keep that bit simple: it’s claustrophobic, it’s murky, it’s lonely, it’s brutal. It scares you.

In a sense, though, this location also aptly represents the situation many soldiers found themselves in. I couldn’t find any statistics for France specifically, but in the States, 72% of soldiers were draftees, so we can reasonably assume that the percentage of French draftees was at least more than half.

This, of course, is a very ensnaring position to be in. You are plucked from what you know and tossed into a world that society as a whole is unfamiliar with, unequipped to handle. You experience atrocities you cannot even process. You see death, and learn of the great many things that are worse than that.

There is a religious undertone in The Bunker both in the way the soldiers interact with each other and in, of course, the otherwordly religion that ultimately drives the garrison to their demise. For all intents and purposes, Henri has been abandoned by God. He is trapped. He is lonely. He is scared. He reeks of death and blood.

What he feels during this time is not dissimilar from what a soldier anywhere else would feel. You are trapped in a bunker with a horrible beast. Or you are trapped in a bunker fighting a horrible beast. Or the beast is yourself and you must grapple with that knowledge.

On the topic of beasts: are they all not as much a monster as The Beast himself, if not just in their own head? Do they, like Augustin, not feel themselves transforming into something otherwordly due to what they have done? Do they not also have blood on their hands?

In a sense I feel The Beast represents not only just the brutality machine of war but also guilt. He kills without mercy, without second thought, for no reason other than he is a beast, and that is what beasts do.

He has lost himself. Throughout the waning days of his humanity he spends his time in the chapel, repenting for something he himself does not understand, knowing only that he must repent. And he, without a way to cope or process what he has lived through— such a thing had not yet been invented— transforms into the spirit of his guilt, of his jumbled thoughts, but he retains remnants of himself despite. Bayonets through his chest as the soldiers tried to hide from it, run away from it. His uniform still hanging on even when everything else has been destroyed.

(The Rabbit is one such example as well. He retrieves it for a moment, cradles it gently, but the moment is gone as soon as it passes. He has been changed. He can never be changed back. Compassion lives in everybody but it dies in war).

Toussaint represents a very similar concept. Many found his level to be the most frightening. There is something more terrifying than monsters or ghouls and it’s man, drawn thin by things they do not comprehend. His recitation of his poem, which is itself a commentary of the war, is all that’s on loop in his head. Had he survived, had he gone on and lived even as the war ended, it would be on loop in his head nonetheless.

Additionally: everything in The Bunker is uniquely grotesque, though not in a glaringly physical sense (at least not in my opinion). There are no corpses falling from the ceiling in front of you, no jumpscares. It is possible to proceed through the entire game without ever even glimpsing the beast. He is a looming threat, and as much a promise as an uncertainty. He toes the line between two opposite concepts. This confusion and absurdity reflects the mindsets of many soldiers at the time.

Essentially, what Frictional Games is saying is: See this? See this war, this man-made conflict? See these men, haunted and hunted? You can draw lines in the sand all day long recounting blood and guts but nothing is more petrifying than the horrors of it.

It is hard to represent the enormity of war and it is harder still to articulate it. But I feel like The Bunker has come closest to it so far.

Ultimately I don’t think The Bunker would have worked in any other setting than this one. Henri’s compassion in a compassion-less place kills Augustin. Augustin, wrought with grief and horror, very well may kill Henri, as the effects of war spread between people and brothers like a plague. You could say that the war itself is the root of all of this, if not just that it put into motion many of the things that led to the Henri waking up alone in that infirmary bed.

Anyway yeah this is very jumbled and Freeform but there’s my analysis Lawl

[lavenoon]

Woke from a nightmare n decided to check Tumblr before passing out again. I saw you mentioned wanting more Eclipse Asks 👀

Please please please tell us more about the boy :0 I would love to know more about that tall fidgeting mess of a man!

Okie now I go pass out again, cyaaaa o/ 💤

@naffeclipse

I have been enabled.

Eclipse, in short, is a mess. He copes well enough, but his insecurities have been there from the beginning - they were predestined, with how he came to be.

Sun and Moon used to have a shared mode, before they decided it would be better for their sanity to just let the other do his thing and remain in rest mode. It was a blend of their AIs, making verbal communication unnecessary. Immediate understanding and combined planning skills, it did help them out of a few pickles (though they didn't get into too many, before this job).

And technically, they can still enter that mode.

They don't, because continued use of that "Eclipse" mode, with that blend of AIs where not even their system could differentiate where one ends and one begins, caused their AI to split into three one time.

Eclipse came into existence, trapped within a mind that wasn't his own, a miracle in a way, but received with shock and hostility. Neither of them expected him, least of all he himself!

That's why he's so curious, with that insatiable thirst for knowledge. If he's possible, what else might be? What else might be out there, ready to be found? Ready to be created?

But of course, there's the insecurity. The terrible need to compete with his brothers to prove himself vs the endless fear of falling short compared to them, again and again. He got them their job but what they do he'll never be good at, he's the taller one with more limbs but his battery is spotty at best, barely keeping him together well enough. They didn't want him in their head, and he didn't want to be in their head, and they got him a rush-job of a body (that I'll get to, too). They're all happy with the separation, but none of them were happy with the need for one.

Even if everyone wants him to have his own body, it's hard not to feel rejected, hard not to feel unwanted. The lingering tension remains even after the separation, and only exacerbates the problem. They don't want him, even when he's his own person. They pushed him out, because he'll never be good enough for them. They're all he has, and he is so so scared of them never accepting him. Maybe they just tolerate him, because they feel responsible - but would they choose him, if they ever had the option? Between his existence and non-existence, which one would they opt for? He's scared to ask.

It's tense, this relationship with his brothers. He pretends to be unaffected, like any younger sibling may pretend the approval of their older, cooler siblings may not matter. But he craves it so much. He wants to be wanted, wants to be accepted, wants to be loved - who doesn't?

Sun and Moon don't hate him. They're not quite sure, at first, but he is their little (annoying) brother. They care for him, want him to be safe, and when push comes to shove, they'd help him out no question. "No you can't wear my shirt but I'll help you hide a body" sibling dynamic.

There's also some guilt, at first - he wasn't meant to exist, and his AI was a strange mix of theirs and his few own experiences. Faulty, some might say, not fully developed. But he's doing fine these days, if a little clueless about social cues and a bit too happy to set things on fire, so the guilt really disappeared. It's better for Eclipse, too - he really hated being pitied for existing.

It gets a bit better when they live apart, because they don't serve as constant reminders for each other. Eclipse still has his brothers with him - the necklace I drew him with was not a coincidence, even if he claims that "a combined Sun and Moon pendant just means Eclipse. It's a me necklace".

Still makes sure they're okay, developing gloves for them that give them that extra grip during parkour, and making sure all his little gadgets make it to them. (And if they get some confidential blueprints in the mail for their own little workshop, well, he always was loose-lipped for someone without lips) (He needs them to be okay. This is how he can make sure - and if they build his designs, well, that's approval, too, right?)

Sun and Moon also are still there for him. They play up the annoyance sometimes, but they do care for him.

Especially considering that well, his "health" issues are kind of their fault. The body was a rush job - he has "narcolepsy", or rather the animatronic equivalent. The lower his battery goes, the higher the chance that his system will recognize it as dangerously low, and push him into rest mode. He always makes sure to be fully charged for work, because even if the rest mode spells only take a few moments to a minute, it's risky in a lab environment to randomly pass out.

He's saving for a replacement - but it's slow going, with all the other repairs he necessitates and with all the fun things to buy in the world. He's just a bit of a hoarder, attracted by colorful and shiny things, and of course, anything he can fidget with.

Him and Y/N... They're good, really! But despite all the cues he misses, it's glaringly obvious that his brothers are very interested, so he just isn't. Not romantically, at least. He's not interested in fighting that battle, only losing to his brothers who live and work with them, so rather inserts himself into a unique role that his brothers don't already fill. But they like him, they accept him, and at times even seek him out - first about inventions and gadgets, then about funny stories (dirt) about Sun and Moon, and then just to chat sometimes. It reassures him that even with them in the picture, he's not out of it, partly due to their own efforts to include him

They're all four a family, with time. Having Y/N in the mix lightens the mood, and keeps them all from constantly thinking about all what was, and instead enjoy the moment, or even plan for the future.

With Moon being the only one who doesn't lie about scars, any family reunions are hell for him while he's out - because Eclipse and Y/N are just inventing crazier and crazier stories, that somehow are totally unrelated to the real cause of the scars they sport, "For the bit, Moon, it's for the bit" "He wouldn't get it, don't try" "Can't appreciate a good story. He's still mad I got creative before". By then it's not even like they try to convince anyone, they just think of it like a creative exercise!

Sun and Moon may act a little annoyed that Eclipse and Y/N get along so well, but they realize quickly that their brother isn't interested in their little rival like that, and then it's just... A relief. The two people in their life they can't imagine living without get along, why would they complain? They may enable each other, and someone should keep an eye on where the fire extinguisher is, but they're glad things are looking up for their little family, at last

And they'll all be okay, with time <3

[b-else-writes]

The Great CLAMP Re-Read Part 3: Tokyo Babylon

Part 1 (RG Veda) | Part 2 (Man of Many Faces)| Part 4 (Duklyon) | Part 5 (Clamp Detectives)| Part 6 (Shirahime)| Part 7 (X)| Part 8 (Chunhyang) | Part 9 (Miyuki-chan)

The CLAMP 90s series. Perhaps their greatest work ever. Tokyo Babylon ran from 1990 to 1993, concurrent with RG Veda, the CLAMP School, Shirahime, Chun-hyang, AND X. It makes you wonder how X and Tokyo Babylon shaped each other (but more on that later). Tokyo Babylon (and X) is also set in the same universe as the CLAMP School reflecting CLAMP’s early interest in crossovers. Planned out as 7 volumes, it consists of 11 big stories and 3 annexes. I read the omnibus versions which contain lots of coloured art, but the original print run is a beauty in 80s and early 90s graphic design.

While I'd never read this before, it's famous enough (two OVAs, a drama CD, and a live action movie), that I went in knowing some of the big spoilers, but not details. So while my reading was coloured by the knowledge of its tragic end, it still felt revelatory to me. It is the first CLAMP work where I think they had gotten their storytelling pinned down enough to consciously think of how to write a story that ties together on a thematic level, in every stage, and it's phenomenal. Heavy spoilers.

Synopsis: Onmyoji and thirteenth head of the Sumeragi clan, Subaru Sumeragi is called upon to solve occult mysteries in post-bubble Tokyo. It's a time of glittering lights, a rotten economy, and city populated by lonely people desperate for an answer to their problems as the millennium draws near. Joined by his fashionable twin sister Hokuto and the kindly but strangely sinister vetenarian Seishiro Sakurazuka - who is in love with him - the overly sacrificing and empathetic Subaru must solve these problems and learn how to live - but Tokyo is not a kind place, especially to those with gentle natures.

The Story: On its surface, Tokyo Babylon begins as a "case-of-the-week" style story, where Subaru has to solve an occult case and learns something. Its a deceptively simple premise that allowed for CLAMP to explore pressing social issues of their time (which still feel resonant due to the sensitive way they explored them), while also building upon Subaru's character development through this, and the suspense of Seishiro's true nature. We observe Subaru grow through his failures and learn more about the limitations of his empathy. No case feels pointless in how it develops Subaru as a person, and his relationship to Seishiro. The dread we feel about Seishiro's connection to Subaru grows that we almost believe we might just get out of this. It's just excellently plotted out.

The comedy is well-timed and CLAMP know when to pull back from it to allow the emotional aspect to come through. Every case is incredibly gripping and I even cried reading "Old". I have seen some suggest it would have been more effective to have a massive twist rather than seed Seishiro's psychopathy throughout, but I actually think this works on a thematic level, and finding out Seishiro is a murderer, the bet, and Hokuto's death, still hit like a gut punch. It's a brilliant usage of seeding information without the full context until the end. I have no complaints here. It's a poignant story of Tokyo in the early 1990s and its destructiveness, while never losing its humanity.

The Themes: Do you know why the cherry blossoms are red. Tokyo Babylon is a story about well, Tokyo. It's about how modern city living that pursues only personal gain and conformity leads to human loneliness, and loneliness is a trap that destroys us all. We can never know someone else's pain, which leads to loneliness - but to recognize that is also freeing because it means we cannot judge and be judged for it. Having empathy is good, but too much and for the wrong people and not for yourself, can only lead to death. Subaru forms his self-identity through others, in contrast to his self-actualized twin, remaining aloof and detached from his own self - this is why Seishiro's betrayal breaks him, because Subaru doesn't know how to live as his own person. It is also what causes his loved ones so much harm in how little he loves himself in comparison to others.

Its a fascinating interplay between community and individuality, the reality of modern life of trying to be someone while also needing to generalize, without ever really settling on either side. Hokuto is right that they're not the same person, but Subaru is also right that they are deeply connected, as all people must be. Where it does come down hard is that humans are not the villains but Tokyo is, in what it represents - greed, selfishness, cruelty, and apathy. "Things like this happen in Tokyo everyday". It is intensely tragic and yet, strangely, incredibly life-affirming. Despite everything Subaru suffers, people are not born and made evil and everyone should be taken for who they are, not a faceless mass. Including ourselves.

The Characters: Like the plot, everything in the characters is tied into the story of Tokyo. Seishiro is Tokyo: the slick, cool-cut well to do man in a suit with no empathy and a taste for violence. He's Subaru's mirror - charming AND connected to people, and yet not. Nobody is special in Seishiro's eyes, nobody deserves to be treated as anything but an object. And then we have Subaru, poor sweet Subaru who is so empathetic and yet so detached from the world and himself because he's so focused on only his job, on not being an individual. He is what Tokyo wants him to be, filled with self-loathing and frankly suicidal impulses that he shouldn’t be alive if others are not.

It's so tragic to watch Subaru finally grow into a person, but to do so to the one person who will hurt him. Subaru wants to to love Tokyo so badly, that it kills his sister, the one person he SHOULD have been pouring his love into, the person who could love him back and expect nothing in return, the person who would allow him love while not dissolving himself in it. And Hokuto is just a showstopper, funny, kind, witty and cool. She's Subaru's northstar, the empathy and humanity where he cannot, almost co-dependent. I love characters that reflect one another and the themes.

The Art: The visual storytelling and panelling are fantastic. Tokyo Babylon offers a sparser and more distinctly black and white look than RG Veda, with a stronger emphasis on emotional paneling that breaks into beautiful spreads. It creates an almost wood-block, timeless appeal (despite the fashion) that is neither too busy nor too simplified. Anything to do with the Bet and especially the finale is incredible. Subaru surrounded by cherry blossoms? Haunting. The fashion is impeccable, I love the bold design choices in the covers and spreads. The character designs in and of themselves are quite simple (and I don't love the seme-uke look of Seishiro and Subaru), but the personality-costuming is so well done and tell stories themselves. And the use of Hokuto and Subaru being identical to conceal the twist? Masterful character design. My only complaint is some of the scanned photo backgrounds are jarring against the lovely drawn art.

Questionable Elements: Subaru is 16 and Seishiro is 25. That being said, I do think from their interviews and the actual text, we aren't meant to ship them, and it's not unrealistic to be a teen and fall for an older person only for it to majorly fuck you up because they abuse their greater knowledge to harm you (which hey, might be a theme!). Some of the way issues are handled is dated, but not too badly. Again, I’m not going to comment on whether this is queer representation or not, since I don’t think that has ever been CLAMP’s intention. Despite the stereotypical seme and uke stuff, the relationship feels real and tangible (which is why the payoff works). My real gripe is Hokuto getting fridged, though it's handled better than expected (still. let's stop killing women to make men sad).

Overall: A beautiful tragedy and an ode to human alienation, identity, and empathy. I went into this expecting to like it, and ended it never the same. It is genuinely a fantastic, fully complete thematic work from them that speaks as a reflection of the time it was written, and yet remains resonant. I know some people find it edgy, but I actually don't think edge is its intention, it's dark and it's tragic but never misanthropic. Yes, Subaru enters the adult world broken, but his refusal to become like Seishiro and to continue to count himself amongst humanity despite everything, reaffirms that life and people have value (notwithstanding his behaviour in X).

You can see so much of their ideas crystallize here that they’ll repeat across X, Xxxholic, etc. We're all just lonely people and we hurt each other in our loneliness, and it's important to recognize that in ourselves and take care of ourselves for it. We have value as individuals AND through others. Read it!

[speyeralling-down-thy-majesty]

Statement of Amelie... Amelie the Spiral Librarian, regarding their backstory. Statement provided directly by subject,March 01st,2023.

I think my name is Amelie Alice Liddel. I can't remember my birthplace,nor my family.Did I even have one? I wish I knew,some true,untwisted knowledge would be nice. I'm not even sure if my name is something that was given to me or something I came up with myself…

One thing I clearly remember, though,is how and why I ended up here, working at the institute.

You see, I always loved books. Letting myself get lost in the unreality, drinking in the knowledge and the words. Escaping the boring everyday life. I would spend hours reading, ignoring the reality outside the pages.

I was always curious too,and that hunger to know everything,even the most obscure things only strengthened as time passed by. And books were the perfect gateway. They were fascinating and so entrancing!!

So, I decided- I want to spend more of my life being surrounded by what makes me the happiest. Books. Working as a librarian became my ultimate goal. Afterall, what's better for a book lover like me than to be surrounded by books full time?

With a fresh degree,and no experience ,silly little overambitious me applied as a librarian at The Magnus Institute, almost as a prank. They were losing their mind from happiness after receiving an answer. They were accepted!

It was all I wanted and more. I loved taking care of books, protecting them, losing myself among them,in a way... But you see, I was always oh so controlled by my curiosity,like Alice in Wonderland.

One day, I came across the most gorgeous book. Shimmering, seemingly shifting with strange colours,cover adorned by interlocking spirals and fractals divine. I needed to read it. It. Called. To . Me.

And so I did. It told me things. So... Many... Things... Things that could never be possible, truths that were wrong,so,so many things that they couldn't comprehend,too much,too many and it made my head hurt. I forced it close, I oh so hoped it will make it stop. I just wanted to forget what I read,erase my mind from the overload of strange knowledge, changing my perception of reality.

Oh but it didn't stop.

I started hearing whispers, taunting, begging, pleading me to just open the book once more. Promises to make it go away,unaltering my reality and untwisting the knowledge I gained.

The strange fractals I saw haunted me every time I closed my eyes or lost focus.

I also developed a headache that nothing would soothe,a mad pain. Trust me, I've tried. I took so many different types of painkillers, disregarding my physical wellbeing. After all, nothing else matters much when you're being driven mad by pain. You just want it to stop. One way or another.

My dreams were haunted by an endless library, getting lost in it,trapped in seemingly ever shifting shelves. I remember reading books that didn't make sense. Written in symbols I couldn't comprehend,yet my mind forced me to understand them. I don't know how,but it did. I am certain that knowledge was forced into my mind.

Later on I noticed how looking in the mirrors only showed a warped reflection… My eyes weren't the same as well. They seemed to swirl in spirals of strange colors,not unlike those of the cover of the book that doomed me. It hurt to look at myself. I don't think I could even comprehend what I saw,and how much of it was still me.

And yet, nobody else saw anything wrong with me. To everyone else,the book was normal. Even I myself looked normal. I don't think I believed them. How could they not see,not know,that I was becoming a twisted version of myself?!

It overwhelmed me so much… No one believed me when I told about the ways my self has changed. They just looked at me as if I was going insane. Looking back with the knowledge I now have, I probably was.

The whispers coming from the book were deafening and I've been having intense nosebleeds as it went on,for months now. My body was giving up, and I had to make a choice- death or finishing what I started. So I picked up that damn book again, taking time and care to understand it,in hopes it will fix something,and this time? Everything made sense. The clarity and joy was overwhelming,the happiness maddening!! And so I laughed. Laughed for way too long that should have been possible,but I didn't care.

The joy was immense ,and I felt one with that book,in a strange way,as if we were twisted together. We were one.

I don't remember much about what happened after. I just remember the ease with which I was capable of twisting and distorting truth, playing with reality,and enjoying the fear. I realised I could ask people questions,and have them answer it truthfully,and then use that knowledge to drive them mad. It was so satisfying to watch the fear in their eyes, having them realise they revealed their deepest secrets to me. It was fun convincing them of the many ways it wasn't true, watching them lose trust in their mind,the only thing they thought would never betray them.

I don't think I regret opening the book. Sure,there are times I miss being human,but I'm still doing what I love atleast. I'm still surrounded by books, still a librarian,even if serving two fears.

I no longer trust my own mind though. I am not sure how much of this is true,how much of it is a lie given to me by The Twisting Deceit. It is terrifying, sure,but I've grown fond of the madness. The Eye sometimes gives me fragments of truth,sure,but most of what I remember is… not something I'd rely on. There's a certain freedom in insanity, though! A certain messed up comfort in no longer caring.

Statement ends.

[saewokhrisz]

hiii!! 3 things..

1) for your mask expression art where goro's mask is confused, you said you took inspiration from atsv? what is that, if i can ask?

2) in persona 4 arena , theres a shadow suppression unit named labrys and she essentially only wears yasogami's highschool uniform so if you look at labrys and aigis, the idea of shadow suppression unit goro works very well because his school uniform is nice enough that he can hide his princely (& maybe later darker?) outfit and appear more human when theyre in public (excluding ears of course.. those can be passed off as headphones however).. i just thought thatd be something you would find interesting

3) in norse mythology there's the myth of loki killing baldr, so skadi traps him below the earth with chains made of what's holding his 1st child fenrir down as well, and poison from a creature (i cant remember the exact creature unfortunately) but he stays there until the ragnarok (the end of the world) and his wife, sigyn, who puts up with all his mischief and the fact that 4/6 (or 4/5, depending on what iteration you look at) of loki's kids are not sigyn's at all (hel, the horse he gave birth to, fenrir, and jormungandr are the ones not sigyn's.. nardi and vali slash just nardi is sigyn's) . but anyway sigyn holds a bowl and catches the poison so loki doesnt suffer, and every once in awhile the bowl fills with poison so she has to go outside to dump it out, and loki withers in pain because while she is gone the poison drips down his head and it causes earthquakes.. but anyway. this all reminds me of engine room (being trapped & in pain, etc) and its also.. loki. so sigyn as akira and loki as akechi art would be super duper cool.. i encourage you to look into both loki and robinhood's myths because robinhood era-myths also include the mention of mordred, the incestous son of king arthur who kills his way to the top yet his revenge fails (reason unspecified, it can be assumed he was killed himself or robinhood took his revenge for him) and his outfit is suspiciously similar to that of the black mask's, from the horns to the black getup.. mordred is akechi, akira is robinhood, and robinhood's merry band of thieves are the PTs.

ty for listening to my rambling :D no one really mentions mordred and i think him and akechi's symbolism is so important.. also! What You've Already Buried by malevolentmango on ao3 touches on a lot of loki's myths and such if youd like to learn about it that way :D

sorry the face i made seeing how long this ask is AHSJGF took me a min to answer

1)ATSV is Across the the spiderverse ! that movie inspired quite a few things about my art style, that also just happen to work really well with p5s visual motifs since the comic book inspiration and heavy use of colour blocks and halftones, as well as they make the spiderman masks eyes emote, since they have them on for a big portion of the film, and its the cutest thing ever

2) Ive seen Labrys' design! she always reminds me of miku if im completely honest BWAHA but yesss he could possibly hide it very well, also the fact that he always wears gloves could hide his fingers too :D

3) havent touched too much into norse myth besides the surface level knowledge of it that i obtained thru osmosis, mostly from friends who were into it. also i loveeeee binge reading wikis and link hopping (did it with gnosticism -> ended up inspired and made the ophiomorphos piece hehe) but its such a spontanious thing for me, i shall keep it in mind tho :D i did wanna at some point read up on hereward more specifically, since out of his 3 personas him is the one i have not a single clue about but i....forgot...i really dont give a lot of love to hereward sobs

[blaisenova]

how not to talk someone off of a ledge

Miguel O'Hara likes to go up to the roof of Spider-Society to think. What about? That's no one's business but his own. Though, unfortunately, Peter doesn't seem to agree.

or:

Peter B. Parker REALLY doesn't know how to talk someone off of a ledge.

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

my first TRUE atsv work on here!

it's a bit of an exploration into miguel and the way that he reacts to things in atsv because i think it's really interesting. angry man? aggressive man? no, just stressed and afraid. plus can you really blame a guy for having a bit of a breakdown when everyone keeps pushing all of his buttons and doesn't stop even when he makes it VERY clear that they should?? he needs to learn how to handle his feelings better (read: learn to TALK ABOUT THEM AT ALL) and everyone else needs to learn when to BACK OFF. i'm looking at you peter. i love you so so much but you know how to push miguel's buttons and you USE THAT KNOWLEDGE.

you also get a bit of a parental miguel moment because he is soft for children and i will not be told otherwise. idiot parents or not, miguel would do anything for little mayday. apologies again for if any of my spanish is off at all. i'm fairly advanced but there's still some stuff i struggle with. if you speak spanish, please feel free to correct me! i am always always open and willing to learn!

i should warn you that there's some very brief religious exploration at the very beginning of the work, but it's not the main focus by far so i haven't tagged it. there is, however, a deep exploration of miguel's suicidal thoughts, so please watch out for that!

as always, the link to this work on ao3 is in the reblogs if you prefer to read there like i do, and thank you so much for reading!! <3

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

A peculiar fact of life, as undeniable as the sky being blue or the sun being a star, was that the wind rushed with more and more desperate urgency the higher up into the atmosphere you got. 

Of course, Miguel knew, logically, why that was – there was less friction at higher altitudes, so the air was able to travel more freely – and he knew, even more logically, that it was stupid to try and find some sort of bigger meaning in something; that it only ever made him feel even more small. But, sometimes, despite knowing it was stupid and that he was indescribably tired of trying to find meaning in the meaningless or humanity in the inhuman, Miguel would get caught up in his own head, and he would begin to wonder if, maybe, the wind at the top of Babylon Towers pulled at him so desperately because it was trying to bring him over the edge. As if it knew that, even though he could catch himself, he wouldn’t. As if it knew that, if he just got one sign that he was meant to fall, he’d let himself.

It shouldn’t have meant anything, that the earth was functioning the way that it was meant to, especially since Miguel was the furthest thing from a spiritual person, but it wasn’t as easy as he’d like to pretend to forget the way that he’d been raised.

Miguel didn’t believe in a god.

Maybe it would have been easier to blame all of his woes on some higher power that had written his suffering into the stars millenia before he was born, but it felt like a shitty excuse for all of the things that he’d done to himself. It was supposed to make him feel better, to know that it wasn’t his fault that everything he touched fell apart, but all it did was make him feel trapped; suffocated. Who would want to be written into a destiny like this?

No, Miguel didn’t believe in a god.

His mother had raised him to be Catholic; fearing of a God with a capital g that had the power to save and destroy him all at once, but Miguel had always thought that his father had possessed that same exact ability and there was nothing all too godly about him. Having power didn’t make you a god, he’d decided, and the sentiment had only been made to feel more and more true as time went on. After all, he had power, and he was even further from god than his dad had been.

Miguel didn’t believe in a god.

But he would be a liar if he said that there weren’t still times that he wanted to break down and pray to a higher power – that either didn’t exist or loathed him completely – to make his pain stop. It was stupid, and childish, and Miguel thought he’d grown out of the urge the first time he realised that he had the power to stop the pain. Miguel was no god, though his life was in his own hands, for better or for worse, so he’d stopped praying. Even when he could think of nothing else to do but plead, Miguel did not pray.

Nevertheless, as his legs hung off of the edge of the roof of Babylon Tower’s – Spider Society’s carefully built and refurbished headquarters and, also, the location of what used to feel like home – Miguel could only silently ask of the wind to do what he was too afraid to.

There was no afterlife. That’s what he was counting on.

Each inhale burned his lungs, and he couldn’t be sure if it was because of all of the pollution in Nueva York’s atmosphere or if it was just because he was trying so hard not to burst into tears. Daring to take a breath would be to invite a sob, and Miguel was far too tired to cry any more tears, so, instead, he stilled his chest until he could no longer, then sucked in as quick of an inhale as he could before stilling once more.

There weren’t even stars anymore. The lights of the city were so blindingly bright that they drowned out the entire sky. Before figuring out how to jump universes, Miguel had never seen a star except for in pictures. Before he knew how beautiful they really were, it hadn’t really bothered him; he couldn’t have known what he was missing without having seen it for himself.

Even the most high definition of screens couldn’t capture the way that a million stars dappled the sky like freckles, twinkling and dancing; unmoving yet ever-changing.

The first time Miguel had seen the stars – really looked at them – on Earth 47219 (he could never forget), he’d been frozen in place. It felt as if he was being gazed upon by the universe itself, and he was staring right back; unabashedly marvelling at them. He remembered feeling small, and that was hardly a new feeling to him but he’d never felt it quite like he had in that moment. It wasn’t something he was being made to feel by another person, and, somehow, that had made it okay. He was small, but small in the way that he never got to be; small in the way a child was, or should have been.

And, really, stars shouldn’t have been the thing to wow him; after all, there was an entire, infinite multiverse with billions of versions of himself and every other person. The scope of the infinity of a single universe shouldn’t have compared to the scope of the infinity of the multiverse that contained it, but they were both infinities, weren’t they? So, in the end, they were the same, right?

Nevertheless, there was something about being faced with the natural vision of space’s endlessness that didn’t compare to computer generated strands of code that simply painted a picture of what infinity might look like. Nothing could be such a wholly genuine picture of boundlessness other than the real thing.

As Miguel looked up at the sky now, though, and was met with nothing but a blank grey-blue, he almost felt even smaller than he did when looking up at the stars. Small, but in the way that he was used to feeling; small, but in the way that made him afraid.

There were more Spider-People resting within the confines of the building beneath him than he would ever bother to count, so why did he still feel so alone? Infinite universes, infinite people, infinite opportunities, and, yet, Miguel had never felt so lonely. He’d searched for a solution to the hollowness once before, and he’d only found great loss – a loss he shouldn’t get to grieve when he was the one who’d caused it. Why weren’t the people he had here enough for him? Why couldn’t he just believe that Gabriel loved him, and that Xina no longer loathed him for how he’d hurt her? 

None of it was ever enough, and, at a certain point, Miguel had to admit that it wasn’t something lacking in anyone else that left him so empty; it was the fact that he tore himself open further and further each day in search of anything to fix him and was bled out in the process.

Infinity really was an unfathomably large concept. How could anyone be expected to stop the bleeding of a wound that was ever-expanding?

The wind whistled loudly in his ears, almost deafening. It urged him ever closer to the edge and the great fall that could swallow him up if he’d let it. It felt like a comfort; an assurance that maybe everything could be okay, even if only in those brief moments before it stopped, though that was a bit of a comforting promise, too.

The wind, thousands of feet in the air on top of Babylon Towers, was so loud, in fact, that Miguel missed the sound of footsteps approaching the door until it had already swung open and it was too late.

“Miguel?!” a voice shouted over the whipping air current.

Miguel’s shoulders grew even more tense, if possible. He peered over his shoulder, scowling at a certain Spider in a fluffy pink robe before he turned his attention back to the cityscape before him. If he tried hard enough, he could almost pretend that the passing headlights of cars and the faraway lit up windows of apartments were a starscape; one that didn’t inspire such unfathomable fear.

“Hey, man, what are you doing up here?” came the call once more, and Miguel tucked his head down as he hunched over.

“Avoiding you,” he shouted back, voice whisked away by the wind, but Peter seemed to hear him anyway.

“Well, you’re not doing a very good job of it!” he said, and Miguel was sure he could almost hear a laugh.

He grumbled, twisting his body just enough so that he could glare at the intruder without breaking his neck in the process. “I was.”

“Yeah, well, you know how it is,” Peter called, stumbling forward against the wind to unceremoniously plop himself down next to Miguel with a huff of exhaustion. He scooted himself over, pressing his shoulder against Miguel’s – which Miguel narrowed his eyes at and leaned, ever so slightly, away – and swung his feet in the open air with an almost irreverent glee. “Spidey-sense takes me all sorts of places that I’m not invited.”

As Miguel opened his mouth to tell Peter off, he felt a small hand press against his arm, and he looked down in horror at the bright eyes and wild red hair of Mayday parker. With one hand, he took her hand into his own, then gently brought up his other to cover her eyes. His gaze immediately darted back up to her father, who he flashed his fangs at unabashedly in a snarl.

“Peter, did you bring your sho- Did you bring your baby up here?” he seethed.

And Peter, in all of his carefree naivete – which Miguel knew wasn’t fair to think when he was well aware of all the hurt the other Spider had gone through to get here – had the gall to shrug. “She needed the fresh air!” Then, after a sniff, he corrected, “air.” Then, another sniff, and his face screwed up into one of disgust. “Actually, I’m not even sure I can call this air. What do they do in your dimension, man?”

Having enough, Miguel hissed out, “Ay, pendejo, ¡cállate!” and he carefully removed his hand from May’s face to give her a fangless smile. “Hola, criatura pequeña,” he cooed, and her hand wrapped around his finger even tighter as she beamed back up at him. “Está bien. Tu papá es un idiota. ¡Sí! ¡Sí! No tiene ningún cerebro. No. Es muy tonto, yo sé. Yo sé.” 

She babbled up at him in glee, and Miguel couldn’t help but to laugh, rubbing his thumb over her little hand as he babbled back.

Apparently deciding that he’d had his fill of being left out, Peter joined in on the laugh a bit awkwardly. “Hey, Miguel, I-”

“¡Cállate!” Miguel hissed again, shooting the other man a glare once more, though far more muted now that Mayday could see. “We’re having a conversation.”

And, seamlessly, he shot back into a stream of lovingly spoken Spanish. “Sí, me entiendes, arañita, yo sé. ¿Puedes decir ‘¡qué lástima!’? ‘¡Es una pena que mi papá sea tan estúpido!’” He hissed the last word with a pointed glare at Peter, knowing the man would know what the word meant, and, sure enough, he frowned. Then, Miguel immediately turned his attention back to Mayday, voice sweet once more. “Está bien, criaturita. No permitiré que nada te pase a ti. Lo prometo.”

“Miguel, please,” Peter interrupted again, tone desperate. “Don’t teach my daughter how to trash talk me in Spanish. I don’t know what I’ll do if I accidentally upset her one day and she starts prattling off fluent Spanish insults that I only half-understand. Or, god forbid, if it happened to M.J. instead. She took French in school, Miguel.”

More than happy to oblige, Miguel sat up, looking Peter straight in the face, and, in the same sweet tone as he’d used with Mayday, deadpanned, “You’re a moron.”

May blew a raspberry up at her father, giggling delightedly.

To his credit, Peter did manage to laugh, albeit a bit breathlessly, and he ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, alright, I guess I did kind of ask for that.”

“Do you ever think?” Miguel shot back, voice finally falling back into frustration, though only enough for Peter to pick up on.

“Well, I do have a degree-” he began only to cut himself at the look he was receiving. “Look, she’s fine!” he insisted, gesturing down to Mayday who was pulling at the yarn ends of her Spider-Man hat as they were whisked in every which way by the wind, secure in her carrier. Peter moved his hand to lay on Miguel’s shoulder, and Miguel immediately batted him away, which earned a frown but, fortunately, a bit of distance. “It’s you that I’m worried about, Mig.”

At that, Miguel’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

A finger pointing to his own skull, Peter smiled a bit grimly. “The Spider-Sense never lies.”

“Right,” Miguel drawled, rolling his eyes and biting down the rising sense of dread in his stomach. “Let’s put complete trust in your magic psychic abilities you got from a Spider over two decades ago. What could go wrong?”

“It hasn’t failed me yet,” Peter hummed. Out of the corner of his eye, Miguel could see the way his hand gripped onto Mayday’s when a particularly strong gust of wind hit their backs and minutely pushed them forward. It was a small comfort. Then, “You never answered my question. What’re you doing on the roof, man?”

Questioning why all of the people he associated himself with now were insufferably stubborn – and, more importantly, what that said about him – Miguel leaned forward, elbow on his knee and head resting on his hand. His other hand was still occupied by a little Mayday hand, and he wouldn’t dare let go until she decided she wanted to. His eyes peered over the edge of the roof, at the staggeringly long way down – so high that it almost gave him vertigo – then shifted slightly up to focus on the buildings that littered the view beneath them.

“Thinking,” he finally replied after a long pause. “I came up here because nobody bothers me.” The words were punctuated with another glare, albeit somewhat half-heartedly.

Smiling a bit sheepishly, Peter leaned back onto his free hand. “Well, you can’t win ‘em all.”

“You make it very difficult to win any,” Miguel grumbled.

“Hey, I have my moments,” came the retort, backed by a snort. Then, “y’know, if you really wanted to be alone, you could’ve just locked yourself in your room, angsty teen style.”

Unamused, Miguel didn’t grace the suggestion with any more than a scoff. His eyes were once again drawn downward, fingers curling upwards around his jaw to dig into his cheek minutely, and he hummed in thought, the sound barely inaudible over the rushing air. The sheer wind cut right through Miguel’s suit, and he shivered as a chill ran over his skin, though the feeling wasn’t entirely unwelcome; a reminder that its silent urges hadn’t given up on him just yet. Unfortunately, though, neither had Peter, who leaned over to briefly brush his shoulder with his own, brows furrowed.

“I don’t like the way you’re looking at that drop, Mig,” he said. Then, with a bit of a nervous laugh, “I mean, I’ve looked at drops plenty of times, but in a ‘I think that’d be fun to skydive off of’ sorta way, not… whatever this is.”

“I’m not talking about this in front of a child, Peter,” came the immediate retort.

“Miguel, she’s a baby,” Peter insisted. “She can’t understand anything that’s going on.”

“You don’t know that,” Miguel insisted in turn, his brows furrowing. He tore his eyes from the ground below to peer at May with thinly veiled concern.

“You can’t keep cutting everyone off, Mig,” he tried again. If Peter was trying to meet Miguel’s eyes, he wouldn’t let him, keeping his full attention on Mayday instead. “You keep finding excuses to not talk about things, and I-”

“It’s not an excuse,” he interrupted, a bit too quickly.

“Miguel-”

“Don’t make me argue with you in front of Mayday,” Miguel practically demanded, finally meeting Peter’s gaze with a vulnerability neither of them were prepared for. “Please.”

Startled, Peter’s eyes went wide, and he immediately went silent, mouth, mercifully, snapping shut. Miguel heaved in a breath and forced himself to look back out at the city. He steeled himself, forcing the weakness back out of his mind, but wasn’t quite prepared for the gentle way that Mayday squeezed his finger. The feeling made Miguel perk up a bit, and he snapped his attention right back onto the baby, on unreasonably high alert. May’s big blue eyes shifted from their hands to Miguel’s face, and she babbled at him, a strange worry in her gaze, too.

“Is- Is she okay?” Miguel asked, hating the way that he stuttered without meaning to.

With a hum, Peter glanced down at the baby, shifting her hat so he could see her face. She glanced up at her father, making more nonsensical sounds that somehow still resounded as urgent in Miguel’s ears, but Peter just smiled at her softly, petting her head. “Seems like she’s worried about you, too, big guy.”

“Wha- Worried about me?” he echoed, voice strained. “Peter, she’s a baby. She can’t understand anything that’s going on.”

“You don’t know that,” Peter countered, giving him such a stupid grin that Miguel couldn’t help but to frown.

“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Use my words against me,” Miguel hissed. “That’s not funny.”

Holding back a smile, Peter raised a hand and tilted it from side to side. “It’s a little funny.”

“You brought your baby onto a roof, Peter,” he reminded almost exasperatedly. “Don’t try to act smart now.”

“I have a degree-”

“In what? Incompetency?”

Giving an irritated laugh, Peter shook a finger in Miguel’s direction. “You know, you are a very difficult man to talk off a ledge.”

“I’d say you’re doing a fantastic job,” Miguel said with false sweetness, then pointed towards the ground thousands of feet below, “if that’s the direction you want me to go.”

“Okay. Alright. I’ll give you that one because it was actually kind of funny-”

Miguel scoffed, letting his head fall back onto his hand. “How kind of you.”

“-but I’m being serious here.”

“Wow,” he deadpanned. “First time?”

Seemingly not as amused now, Peter frowned, and his hand gently fell back onto Mayday’s head, who squealed delightedly despite the confrontation. “Alright, you’re pushing your luck now.”

“I am?”

“How is it even possible for one guy to be in this bad of a mood?!” Peter half-shouted, throwing his head back in frustration.

Again, Miguel scoffed, and his head fell to one side to stare at the other man, unimpressed. “Would you like your answer in the form of a list or an essay?”

“I’d like an answer at all, actually,” he said desperately.

“Ah, now that’s asking too much of me,” came the response, and Miguel turned his gaze away once more.

Gawking, Peter sputtered for words for a moment before pausing, falling silent, then trying again. “Are you impossible to talk to on purpose? Jess says it’s on purpose, but Ben… Well, actually, I don’t remember what Ben said.” He laughed awkwardly, waving a hand. “It’s kinda hard to focus on the words coming out of his mouth when he’s basically a clone of me. Or- Or literally a clone of me, actually. Isn’t that freaky? Poor guy. But the point is that it was probably the same answer. Everyone thinks that-”

“Are you done?” Miguel finally interjected, glaring with every bit of vitriol he could muster, but Peter wasn’t impressed.

“I could be,” he hummed, “or I could keep going. I didn’t think you were going to answer the question, and someone’s got to fill the silence.”

Now it was Miguel’s turn to gawk, and it took a few blinks for him to muster up the wherewithal to actually answer. “You are so childish.”

“Sticks and stones, Mig,” Peter mused. “I haven’t even gotten started. I could talk for days, if you let me. Next topic?” 

Still holding onto both of their hands, Mayday squealed and bounced a bit in her carrier with a spitty razzberry, and Peter immediately smiled, drawing a preemptive groan from the man by his side. “Mayday!” he exclaimed. “Oh, I could write a book about Mayday. She’s only a baby, but she really is sophisticated, you know. She’s a baby with layers! With complexities! I know I’ve already shown you all of her pictures, but-”

“Ay, Dios, enough!” Miguel hissed, his free hand running through his hair and his eyes wide with exasperation. “Yes, it’s on purpose. Because I want to avoid this!” He gestured between Peter and himself vigorously. “This drives me nuts, get it? You drive me nuts. I don’t want to talk, and everyone seems to get that but you.”

An exasperated laugh fell from him, though he gently squeezed Mayday’s hand to assure her that everything was okay. “I came up here because I didn’t want to talk to anyone, Peter. Do you not get that? Do you not understand that I don’t want you here?” He pointed a clawed finger in Peter’s face, mouth open in a snarl. “Listen to me closely because I need you to understand this before you get hurt. Leave me alone. Leave me alone.

“If you want to talk to me about work,” Miguel continued, “or if you want to talk to me about Mayday, or M.J., or anything other than this when I’m not trying to be alone, then, please, be my guest. But I am not talking about this.” He pulled his hand to his chest roughly, the fabric of his suit getting caught on the talon he pointed directly at himself. “I will not talk about this. Leave me alone.” Then, more insistently, “leave me alone.”

For a moment, then, there was silence, only filled by the whistling rush of the wind around them and Miguel’s heaving breaths. His nostrils were flared in rage, hand hanging in the air, but his anger faltered when he finally caught sight of the look on the other man’s face; a chill ran over him that was almost worse than the one caused by the roaring wind. Beside him, Peter wore the most impassive expression Miguel had ever seen on him, and the look, admittedly, scared him a bit. His hand fell back to his side, and his brows quirked upward in quiet unease as his eyes darted between Peter and literally anything else.

“Miguel,” Peter finally said, and his tone matched his face, “I’m not just going to leave you to kill yourself on a roof.”

And, all at once, with a startled and impossibly frustrated bark of laughter, the fury returned to Miguel’s chest, chasing away the chill of fear and concern that had previously gripped him. Gently, Miguel slid his hand out of Mayday’s grasp and, less so, stood to his feet.

Immediately, Peter’s eyes widened, and he half-shuffled to get up himself, stumbling onto one knee. “Wait. What are you-”

Without a word, Miguel stepped off the edge and into the open air, a strangled screech following him.

“Miguel!”

A horrified face popped over the edge of the building, where Miguel’s talons dug into the metal plated siding, and he couldn’t help the bitter sort of amusement he found in the reaction. Served him right. The thought was chased away as the wind continued to pull at him, beckoning him downward, but Miguel didn’t give in to its pleas. There was a strange sort of satisfaction to defying what was asked of him both by Peter and by the very world, though such nauseating satisfaction was probably what had kept him around for so long in the first place; whenever the promise to himself to be useful in his wretched existence managed to fail him. Maybe, for now, bitter contentment could be enough.

He snarled up at the other man, pointing at him with his free hand. “I’m not riding the elevator down with you.”

And, with that, he loosed his grip on the building a bit, allowing himself to slide down the side, followed by a half-enraged, half-relieved shout of, “yeah, fuck you, too!” and an even quieter, “don’t repeat that, Mayday.”