#but we’re not doing that either and I could have gone to target like I wanted to also but I didn’t want to leave and go anywhere bc I didn’t

[mellomadness]

sometimes I wonder if I should take a gender studies class just so I can bitch every day about how an imaginary boyfriend is often seen as a requirement for a woman to feel safe enough to have fun at a club, or the idea that an imaginary person with a fake “claim” over me has more influence over predatory men than my own voice saying “No, I’m not interested, get lost”

[sluttyten]

.

[moonstruckme]

Hi Mae!! I would love to read more about the dynamic between poly!marauders and reader. Like maybe some domestic fluff just showing the interaction between the boys and with reader. I love the way you write true poly with the boys together too 🥹🤍

Hi lovely, thanks for requesting!

poly!marauders x fem!reader ♡ 1.2k words

“Shit!” Sirius hisses, another piece of popcorn splintering off his string. It’s nearly all cranberries at this point, and half the length of either yours or Remus’. “How are yours not breaking?”

“Patience,” Remus preaches, eyes on his needle as he slides it smoothly through yet another popcorn kernel. 

“Sounds made up,” James scoffs. The remains of his own popcorn are littered about his lap and his fingers are stained pink with cranberry juice. His problems lie in inaccuracy as much as impatience, constantly getting ahead of himself and pricking his fingers rather than his target. Fortunately, Rugby Captain James Potter is no stranger to pain, so he only extends the injured finger towards where you sit on the floor for you to kiss each time before resuming his work. 

“Completely agree.” Sirius is quick to hop on James’ half-constructed bandwagon. “They’re conspiring against us, keeping the real secrets of success to themselves.” 

“They’re focussing on their work,” you say, grinning when Sirius’ foot nudges your shoulder meanly, “which is how they keep from messing up.” 

“Cruel,” he murmurs, but you only hum, a wordless You know I’m right. And he does, because he goes quiet. 

James could never stand silence. “It’s almost cold enough for a fire,” he remarks after nearly five seconds of it. “Maybe we could have one tomorrow?” 

“You just want to chop firewood,” Remus accuses. 

“I don’t mind,” you say quietly, looking down at your hands, and Sirius nods emphatically. Another piece of popcorn shatters in his hands, bits of it hitting your shoulder.

“Yeah, don’t deter him.” 

“I don’t even get to chop it anymore since you started buying it at Tesco,” James complains, shooting Remus a resentful look. “Now I just want to watch fire. It’s the last caveman’s pleasure you’ve left me.” 

You glance over, and Remus is looking downward, trying and failing to quell his smile. “Fine,” he relents. “We can pick some up tomorrow and have a fire.”

“Yes!” James leans around Sirius, planting a smacking kiss on Remus’ cheek. “Thank you.” 

“S’no problem.” Remus has gone all soft and blushy. You and Sirius exchange a fond, knowing look. 

“Hey, do you think we could pick up some of those gingerbread house kits while we’re there?” you ask the room. “We didn’t get a chance to do those last year.” 

“Patience,” Remus reminds you, recovering. “It’s hardly the end of November, we’ve got a whole month for that.” 

Your mouth pulls dissatisfiedly. “Yeah, but last year we thought the same thing and then we ran out of time.” 

“You know what we should do?” James perks up. “Have a competition! Whoever makes the best gingerbread house in under an hour gets—”

“No,” you all say on top of each other. 

You shake your head. “It’ll take all the fun out of it, Jamie.”

“You can’t put a time limit on creativity,” Sirius agrees. “Hey, I got three in a row!” He beams, holding his garland up for Remus’ approval, and the other boy appraises it for a second, nodding sagely. 

“Well done.” 

“Sorry,” you tell James, who’s still pouting after the hasty shut-down of his idea. “We can race at something else if you want to, but that sort of stuff is supposed to be more…”

“Peaceful,” Remus supplies, and you nod relievedly. 

“Exactly.” 

“S’fine,” James sulks. He sticks his needle through a cranberry, a pitiful whine escaping him when it comes out the other side harsher than he’d expected. He extends his hand toward you palm up, and you take it, pressing a gentle kiss to the tip of his finger. “Mm, now here.” He leans down, tapping the corner of his mouth. You smile, pecking him sweetly on the lips. He tastes like the peppermint chapstick he uses this time of year, which you love and Sirius abhors (he thinks all mint tastes like toothpaste). “Alright,” James says, lips curving against yours, “now it’s actually fine.” 

“Scoundrel,” Sirius accuses. “My poor darling, do you feel used?” 

“Not terribly,” you admit, but it’s no deterrence to Sirius, who reaches down to haul you into his lap. Your garland trails after you, overlapping with his. You settle in contentedly. 

“Who’s the scoundrel now,” James objects. “You can’t just move her about like she’s got no will of her own.” 

You’re perfectly happy to be wherever they want you, but you aren’t going to say that. “Does anyone fancy a hot chocolate? I just got those peppermint marshmallows.” 

Sirius makes a face. “No thanks. James, make the girl a hot chocolate.” 

“Why me?” James objects. 

“I’ll have one too,” Remus says. 

“It’s her idea, why doesn’t she make them?”

“Because she,” Sirius says, weaving his arms under yours to resume stringing up his garland in front of you, “is occupied. Go on.” 

James grumbles, but sets down his work. 

“Sorry,” you say, making your eyes extra big. It’s half sincere apology, half completely unapologetic beguilement, and James cracks quickly, kissing your cheek to show he’s not really upset. Then he kisses Sirius too, just for fun. 

“I wanted a hot chocolate anyway,” he says, heading into the kitchen. 

You fall into an easy silence as he works, the kettle gurgling in the background while you relax against Sirius’ chest, nearly finished with your garland. You wonder if you should offer to do his for him, even though you know the other two will definitely make fun of you for letting him off the hook. You think you will anyway. 

“Oh!” Sirius straightens, causing you to shift against him uncomfortably. He ignores the slighted look you send him, bringing a hand to your shoulder to hold you more securely against him. You’re easily pacified. “If you want to have a competition, you and y/n should have a race for who can wrap the most presents.” He looks at you. “You’re always saying you love wrapping, yeah sweetheart?” 

The endearment only slightly softens the look you’re giving him. Must everyone try to ruin your holiday rituals with racing and competitions? You know he’s only brought it up out of selfishness, too; Sirius hates wrapping gifts, and this is just another way for him to push the labor off on James and you. 

James, unfortunately, lights brighter than the tree you’d set up earlier that day. “Yeah!” He’s bouncing on the balls of his feet. Remus eyes the boiling water he’s pouring out at the same time warily. “What do you say, lovie? Maybe a couple of days before Christmas we can divvy up the presents that aren’t for us, then we just see who finishes first!” 

“Didn’t you already lose that competition the other night?” Remus quips. Sirius erupts in laughter behind you, but James only shoots him a hostile look (or his version of a hostile look, more of a squint than anything) before his eyes flit back to you hopefully. 

You roll your eyes, but this is one competition you think you might actually win. “Fine,” you say, smiling when he pumps his fist. “But I don’t think you know what you’re getting into, Potter. My gift wrapping skills are legendary.” 

“Oh, my love,” James croons, grinning as he carries in two mugs of hot chocolate. “My sweet, naive girl.” He passes one to Remus and the other to you, dropping a kiss on your temple. “I won’t go easy on you this time.”

[mojogojocasahouse]

Just in Time Part II

Satoru Gojo x f!reader (Principal Gakuganji's daughter)

On the eve of a wedding of your father's arrangement, you call upon your reliable yet agitating old flame Satoru Gojo in an act of desperation and defiance

words: 6.5k series content: infidelity (in an arranged marriage so does that even count?), angst, smut, unprotected p in v, oral m & f-receiving, face fucking, rough sex, minor choking, spit kink, creampie, jealous!Gojo, protective!Gojo (moreso in part ii), minor degradation 18+ only

Part I

You follow the sound out into the cool summer morning, Satoru leaning back against the railing with his head hung. He’s in shorts and an unzipped hoodie, his snowy locks still mussed from his pillow. He raises his eyes when he hears the door opening, blinking the agony from his eyes away before he smiles. Had you not been paying attention you’d have missed the switch. 

“Go sit in the bedroom and stay there,” Satoru instructs, turning you by the shoulder and gently shoving you toward his room, “Actually, lock yourself in the bathroom or something…Okay, or just stand there…”

Fear has frozen you in place, but when he pushes down on your head you drop to the floor in a heap, leaning back against the counter in the middle of the kitchen as a call of your name on the other side of the door signifies the worst has come to pass. You hear Satoru mutter ‘Good enough, I guess,’ before he snaps his jovial, mischievous persona back into place, his sing-song greeting to your father outside barely audible just as the hinges close behind him. It takes you too long to drag yourself across the sleek wooden floor and hover your ear against the same place you’d been pressed to in very different circumstances earlier that night. 

“I know she’s in there you insolent brat!” That’s your father’s voice, sounding as furious as you’ve ever heard him.

“Are you going senile in your old age?” Satoru’s wit never fails him, “We’re gonna have to strip you of that fancy position if you can’t keep your thoughts straight. I think I could be a principal, don’t you? Not that I really want to go to Kyoto but…”

The sound of blood spattering against a wall proves there’s a third out there with them, Satoru’s taunting laugh confirming he’d been the target of a blood manipulation technique. 

“Woah, woah, woah, hang on, Gramps. Call off your little attack dog, you know it’s pointless. Unless you forgot that too…”

“She’s getting married tomorrow and this nonsense that’s gone on for too long already is finished! Stop harboring her like there’s anything you can do, what’s done is done.”

“But it isn’t done, is it?” The change in his tone is almost jarring. It’s menacing now, low and rumbling even through the barrier you're still pressed against.

“You have nothing to offer–”

“Ha! Don’t I? Does that shriveled raisin rattling around inside your skull not remember? I AM the Gojo clan. It’s all me! And no offense to Kamo’s cute little squirt gun technique, but we all know who’s winning this fight, right?”

It’s all murmurs that follow, the wood too thick to allow any legible words no matter how hard you press your ear against it. You fight the urge to wrench open the door…

“You know, Gakuganji,” you can hear Satoru respond after 30 seconds of eternity, his tone once again light and carefree, “A smart man would have tried to bleed me dry as a 15-year-old kid when you caught me sneaking out of her room at that first Exchange Event.”

“It didn’t matter. What could you give me, Gojo?”

“Now? Not a damn thing! And let’s be honest, probably not back then either. You’ve always been a slimeball. Go home, old man. You lost. No seat for you at the round table.”

“There’s nothing you can do-“

“You have ten seconds to leave, I don’t think I need to warn you about what happens if you don’t.”

The door knocks you flat onto the floor when he reenters the house, his hands quickly coming to right you as he drops to his knees. You’re just trying to keep yourself from crying, the pale stretch of his bare chest at your eye level and it takes every ounce of your waning self-control not to break down into him. His hands are warm and the arm’s length distance feels like miles, and he’s the only thing you want. But he’s something you can’t have.

When he’s certain you’re steady he jumps back to his feet, grabs his phone, and walks to peek out the window to ensure your unexpected visitors are gone. A flash of headlights flickers against the wall and you sigh in relief, your body still frozen in place.

“Nanami!” Gojo greets, phone pressed to his ear, “Yeah…yeah…No, I don’t need a ride … That happened one time six years ago! … Shut uuuup…No…Wai-wai-wait! I need something! … It’s important! … Is that apartment in your building still available? … It’s not for me…It’s not for me! … I got baby Gakuganji out, she needs a place… Okay, what about that other place… Uh-huuuh… Yes… No, I’ll just cover the year… Yeah, upfront… Here tonight… No, my place in the city… I’m staying up… Yeah, okay. Thanks.”

“You’re not paying for-” you begin to argue when you’re certain he’s hung up.

“I didn’t ask,” he quickly cuts you off, “Take the bedroom, I’ll stay out here. One of good ol’ Kento Nanami’s suit buddies is a building manager, says he might have a place. No promises the Kamo clan will let me into their little fortress to get your stuff, but I’m gonna call Yaga to see if he can swindle a deal.”

The typically childish, flippant Satoru was gone, and in his place was the intelligent, efficient man that so very few saw, including yourself. He was a strategizer, calculating and quick-witted not only with his sarcastic words, but solutions, too. In ten minutes he’d already freed you of your shackles and found you an alternative path; could you have just asked him for help years ago and gotten this same response?

“Get some sleep,” he urges again, lifting his phone back to his ear for his next call, “Nothing will happen tonight… Yaga, need a favor!”

His bed feels like quicksand as you settle beneath the silky sheets and plush blankets. Everything smells like him from the pillows and the shirt you wear to your skin that he scrubbed clean with a touch so gentle it had sent ripples down your spine. You can hear him still murmuring in the living room, the conversation growing heated and you want to run to tell him you’re not worth this trouble. Nine years as an intermittent visitor to his bed doesn’t qualify you for this, he should have just surrendered you to the men at the door. 

“They tracked her phone!” He’d said that loud enough you were able to hear it clearly. 

Has there been any one moment of your life where you had control? All this time you’d thought your moments with Satoru had been yours and yours alone, a secret kept between the two of you, but it wasn’t. Your father had known all along and let it continue, and you knew that it wasn’t for your benefit. The trip down memory lane leaves you sobbing into your hands, all the emotions of the night cresting over your weakening composure. You do all you can to keep quiet, choking and sputtering on the wails that want to break free, you can’t show weakness. Not now, not ever. 

Even in your best attempts at discretion, you’re still too loud to hear the door slowly open, so when a long, slender body curls behind you it comes as a complete surprise. Satoru’s arm wraps tightly around your middle, his face notching into the curve of your shoulder.

Tears of despair turn into those of relief, your fingers threading with his on your stomach before you clutch his hand to your aching chest like a child’s teddy bear. It’s big enough to be one. Your muscles ache from tension, your resolve beginning to crack, and when he nuzzles his thin, pointed nose against your skin you finally lose the battle. 

He holds you as you sob, the embarrassment, shame, and fear you felt running down your face. You can’t make out whatever he’s whispering in your ear but you swear it sounds like a pleading ‘stop’, and you can feel the way his arm pulls you even closer, your knuckles going white as you tighten your own grip. The burning in your throat is made worse with every gasping breath, and you can’t tell if it’s your body quivering or his until his palm swallows your jaw whole and pulls your chin up to face him.

The salt of your tears is bitter in a desperate kiss, his tongue coated with what had soaked your lips. There’s nothing gentle about his movements, they’re frantic and hard, the shock of his desperation enough to snap you back to reality. It’s him who’s trembling, his brow knit tightly for reasons you don’t and will likely never know. 

“Stay…” you choke, throat thick with sorrow and strife, the thought of him leaving you in his bed alone dropping heavily into your stomach like a stone, “Please.”

“Sure,” he agrees, pecking at your lips again at a drastically softer pace.

Despite your turmoil, you doze off quickly. His embrace is an oasis, the feathering kisses he leaves along your neck, shoulder, and in the hollow behind your ear blooming like flowers and spreading their vivid warmth until you slip beneath the weight of sleep. He greets you here as he often does, the life you’d built in your dreams welcoming you. 

It’s still dark when your eyes snap open, an arm pulling you tighter into a searing cocoon when your body jolts. Your long-held fantasy has burned to ash and crumbled into a nightmare, the image of white hair billowing in the breeze as tears ran from crystal blue eyes still painted behind your eyes. 

“Toru?” you whisper as your fingers graze along the soft, smooth skin locking you in place.

“Hmm?” he hums, his tired voice like a balm. 

“Are you here?” It’s delirium fogging your train of thoughts, words your mind has fabricated still echoing. 

“Where else would I be?”

“Please stay…” You’re not even responding to him at this point, exhaustion has taken hold once again and thrown you right back into the fire. “Toru…”

The sun is blinding when you wake again, the bed cold and empty. A toothbrush is sitting on the bathroom counter when you wander in, a fresh set of shorts and a shirt that will be far too large for you perched on a shelf. Who knew Satoru could be such a gracious host?

There’s no sign of the man in the question even when you make your way to the living area save a mug of half-drank coffee sitting on an end table near the sliding glass doors leading out to a balcony. When you turn towards the kitchen, you spot another mug set out by the coffee maker, one for you, and that sinking feeling in your chest that had woken you up in the early hours of the morning returns.

“Then do something!” a distant voice shouts, “Do something!”

You follow the sound out into the cool summer morning, Satoru leaning back against the railing with his head hung. He’s in shorts and an unzipped hoodie, his snowy locks still mussed from his pillow. He raises his eyes when he hears the door opening, blinking the agony from his eyes away before he smiles. Had you not been paying attention you’d have missed the switch. 

“Morning,” he greets in a jovial tone you know is a lie, “I left you a mug—“

“I know,” you cut him off, and here in the light of a new day, you realize something you’d known all along. 

You’re in love with him.

The pain of that admittance is freeing. He’s cast in a warm orange glow looking every bit as ethereal as he was, and you press your cheek to the patch of sun shining on his chest, wrapping your arms around his slim waist and stealing this moment with him knowing it very well may be the last. His arms lock around you faster than your hands can knot at the small of his back, there is no hesitation, not even enough time to consider a different course of action, and when he notches your head beneath his chin and sighs, your mind goes quiet. 

You’ll stay here as long as he allows it. Five minutes, an hour, it doesn’t matter. This feels good, it feels safe…

I love you, I love you, I love you… It’s like a mantra, and while you don’t dare speak it you hope the message gets to him somehow. Maybe in the tightness of your hold, the tension from your efforts, or the shallowness of your breath. The world is still quiet, giving you enough peace to soak this in. There’s no blaring of car horns or busy conversations floating into the sky to disrupt you, it’s just the steady thrum of his heart beating. You’re positive this is the first time anyone has just…held you like this.

When he pulls away you try to hide your disdain for the distance he creates, your eyes are still closed when he tips your face up towards him with the side of his pointer finger. 

He catches you mid-breath in a kiss harder than you expect after just waking up. You can feel his failed restraint, it’s been years since you’ve welcomed a new day together, lonely nights after long taxi rides home have been the norm. Two hands grip behind your knees and hoist you upwards, your arms slipping around his neck as his tongue drags along your lower lip, urging your mouth open and a whine to slip free. 

There are a thousand reasons to stop him, but none of them matter right now. He’s so warm and solid, his jaw slightly rough with stubble too pale to see. A smile spreads across his face when he finally catches himself in his frenzy, slowing his frantic pace to something much more gentle and languid. 

“What do you want for breakfast?” he purrs into your mouth, sliding his tongue over your own before you can respond, “I want crepes.”

The sun disappears from behind your eyelids, and you feel the cool surface of his kitchen counter as he sets you on top of it. With free hands, he explores the soft stretch of your legs, slipping between them as you continue to tug at his lips greedily. The clock hasn’t even hit 9 AM yet, but the ache settling into your core is beginning to burn. There was something so pathetically irresistible about seeing him so comfortable, so unguarded, it felt like you weren’t just a visitor to his bed. And that was a dangerous precipice to be standing on. 

“Are you always so needy in the morning?” he laughs against your throat, a whine slipping free from his tease, “This what I’ve been missing out on?”

When his tongue swipes over your searing skin, your fingers lock into his hair as he explores the throat you bare to him. It’s those open-mouthed, lingering tastes that he tortures you with that have your hips flicking in search of friction, so he gives you his thigh, pulling you down to perch on it and dragging you over the slim, firm muscle. You know you look desperate and unkempt, but he keeps you moving enough to have you spasming as you find release and go lax in his hold. 

“So…” he practically sings, a lilt of conceit in his tone, “Crepes?”

“It’s too early for crepes,” you pant, confused by his choice of a morning meal.

“Pfft, for you maybe! You want any or no?”

After dressing in a hoodie and sweatpants, Satoru leaves with a quick peck to your forehead, promising to be quick before the door clicks and locks behind him. Seconds later, a fluffy head of white hair pokes back in, his keys still rattling in the lock.

“Don’t use your phone,” he instructs, “Or open the door.”

You passed the time tidying the space up. There isn’t much that needs to be done, but you get into a steady rhythm that you’re all too familiar with, wiping down counters, picking up laundry, and you almost make the mistake of leaving the apartment to take out the trash before remembering his warning to not open the door. 

As you begin to wipe down the bathroom, the sharp scent of the cleaner burning at your nose, you realize the ease he’d infused into you this morning has all but dried up. You watch as your hand trembles around the rag, a terrified reflection coming into view as you circle the white foam off the glass, revealing the truth of what lies beneath the crumbling facade. 

“What are you doing?” a smooth voice asks from behind you, causing you to yelp and your heart to skip a beat, “Are you cleaning my bathroom?”

“Uh…” you stammer, still reeling from the shock, “Yeah.”

“Don’t… You don’t have to do that.”

“Oh. I’m sorry–”

“You don’t have to say you’re sorry.”

With that he walks off, yelling over his shoulder that food was here and to hurry up before it got cold. You’d become so accustomed to being scolded for not being busy tidying something up that having him go and do the opposite had thrown you for a loop. When your own house had been too clean to keep you working, you’d been sent somewhere else to help, your existence nothing more than a housemaid for the Kamo clan. You’re own fault, you’d been told, with such a useless cursed technique what else would there be for you to do? 

“C’mon!” he calls, “I’m being nice and waiting!”

Where a pile of cream-filled crepes sat in front of Satoru, a much more normal option was beside his on the table, a paper bag sitting on the couch in front of it. He paid you no mind as you cautiously pulled the bag towards you, peering inside to find a dress and jacket that cost far too much money.

“Satoru–” you scolded, squashing the leap your heart did into your throat, “I can’t pay–”

“Didn’t ask you to,” he cut off again, “You can’t go out in that.”

Right. You’re going to see an apartment today. Suddenly, what little appetite you’d mustered was gone, but you slink down onto the couch anyway, trying to eat as much as you can with a boulder in your stomach. 

“What’s a’matter?” he asks with a full mouth, “I thought you liked that place.”

Adding a heaping pile of guilt to what you were already carrying threatened to shatter you, but you set a smile on your face and force the food down. His knee rests against yours, his long legs spread wide, his focus honed on his phone as he types away with one thumb. The furrow of his brow has you wondering if it’s just more trouble you’re causing him, technically now with clothes proper enough to be seen in public wearing, you could leave him free of whatever burden you’d inadvertently placed on his shoulders.

When his phone begins to vibrate with a call, he throws his overly sweetened crepe back onto its wrapping and wipes his hands on his shorts, greeting whoever it is with a cheekful of whipped cream and dough.

“If you’re calling me with more shit news…oh really!? So kind of him…I’d love to hear how that conversation went…Tell me…It is important…It is…Because I said it is…God damnit, Yaga!...”

The next bit of the conversation even you could hear thanks to tempers flaring and voices rising: “He said she’s your problem now.”

You can’t leave the apartment fast enough, even in nothing but Satoru’s baggy clothes. He yells at you to wait as you run to the door, circling down the stairs as fast as you can with tears dripping down your face. When you make it out onto the sidewalk, a solid chest and two long arms pull you in immediately, and you don’t need to see the person’s face to know exactly who it is. It’s easy to forget what he’s truly capable of. He probably leapt right off the balcony.

“I’m too tired for this,” he sighs, the agitation he was masking slipping through, “Go inside. Please.”

“No,” you argue, trying to shove him away, his hands easily catching yours and trapping them in cuffs of long, dexterous fingers.

“I just want to sleep for two fucking hours! Please, go inside!”

“You’re free to go–”

“Oh my God! Shut up already!”

It’s embarrassing how easily he hoists you over his shoulder like a tantruming child and carries you inside, sitting you on the couch and flopping down beside you, his head falling into your lap like it was a pillow. 

“You piss me off,” he mumbles, curling an arm around you as his eyes drift closed, “I never do anything I don’t wanna do. Thought you knew that by now.”

A lingering drop falls from your cheek into his still tangled hair, your fingers instinctively moving to swipe it away but instead digging deeper, scraping against his scalp soothingly. He rumbles in appreciation, already drifting off, and so you continue. The steady, slow breaths exhaled through parted lips assure you he’s getting the sleep he desperately needs. You know he’d stayed awake all night anticipating another uninvited guest to his door, and who knows if he’d even managed the night before. He claimed he never slept on missions, unable to relax enough to find even a semblance of peace away from home.

Three hours later, he hasn’t moved. A small braid sits across his temple, keeping some of the strands that had been falling into his eyes neatly twisted away. You’ve barely been able to keep your eyes off of him, your wandering touch having moved from his hair to trace the sharp features of his face ever-so-gently to not wake him. 

“I love you,” you whisper to ears that can’t hear you, hoping it alleviates the weight bearing down on your chest. It doesn’t. 

You can’t see him again. At this point, being with him only has the potential to throw you deeper into this void you’re hurtling down. After seeing this apartment, you’ll find a hotel and take the weight of your problems off his shoulders. You know he has more than enough of his own to handle, sometimes you can’t help but think it’s a miracle he’s still standing. 

The thought makes your chest tighten, and it’s simply more evidence this cord needs to be cut. He’s got his little black book and you’re simply just another number. You’re not even fun anymore, the baggage you carry is too much to bear to still be considered a good time. Whatever responsibility he feels for you is displaced, just because it all blew up right outside his front door doesn’t make this—you—his problem. 

“Hmmm,” he hums twenty minutes later, his face nuzzling down into your legs as his arms around you tighten, “What time is it?”

“Two-ish…” you reply, trying to keep your voice level, but when his fingers pull up the hem of his shirt you’re wearing and his lips press softly against your stomach there’s no helping the sharp gasp that betrays you. 

Within seconds he’s twisted you onto your back against the armrest, greedy hands tugging your borrowed shorts still loosely hanging off your hips down and off. White hair fills your fists as your spine arches off the couch, Satoru’s lips locking around your clit and suckling hard. All thoughts of never seeing him again are quickly thrown out the window. His palms hold your thighs spread wide as his silver tongue finally tastes what you’d denied him last night. He’s the only man who ever has, and he’s the only one you ever want to.

His thin, sharp nose drags over your clit as he laps at your entrance, your legs begging to clamp down around his ears as searing heat boils in your belly. It’s pathetic how you’re already trembling, but it only spurs him on, your eager response to his affections is always his greatest motivation. Despite his tongue being buried deep, it isn’t enough. You still feel so empty and your body instinctively asks–begs–for more by rolling your hips over his face, searching for anything to satiate the hunger. There is no surrender in his appetite, however. In a battle of wills, he always comes out on top, and today is no exception.

“You taste so good,” he hums against your soaked core, half-drunk on nothing but you.

“Please,” you whine, keening when he teases your back entrance with a taunting flick. 

“M’gonna take care of you.”

Something foreign and tranquil washes over you in a steady wave, and Satoru immediately pauses when you go slack beneath him and sink into the plush material of the couch. As he presses his lips in a reverent trail from your hip to your throat, pushing the baggy shirt you’re wearing up to clear his path, you relax even further.

You trust him. You love him. 

Your fingers are still locked in his hair when you hear his quiet request beneath your ear: “Can I?”

It’s such a stupid, juvenile thing, but it’s something you’ve been denied in all the years of this… situation, so you nod, taking a deep breath in a poor attempt to calm your nerves. Your pulse is thrumming with anticipation beneath his mouth, and the moment he clamps down hard enough to sting, he thrusts into your wet heat as blood pools beneath the fragile skin his tongue soothes over. 

He does it again, decorating the dip of your collarbone as the spongy head of his dick kisses your cervix, and you’re limp, taking anything and everything he’s willing to give. Let him decorate you, claim you, fuck you until you’re incoherent, it doesn’t matter. Just as long as it’s him and he doesn’t stop.  

“So wet…” he praises, groaning when his words cause you to tighten around him.

Always for you, you think as his tongue dives between your parted lips, the taste of yourself still lingering. The gentle way he cradles your jaw is the complete opposite of the speed of his hips battering into you. He’s chasing something he can’t quite reach, whether that be a sensation or an emotion you can’t tell, but he’s looking, willing himself to find this answer even if it kills him. Every stolen kiss seems to connect his wayward thoughts, but when he starts to whimper into your mouth and his pace begins to falter, you know the friction of his cock dragging along your walls has consumed him.

“I can’t–” he stammers when you lock your ankles on his lower back, tightening around him further, “Fuck, baby, that’s n-not helping.”

“Give it to me, Toru.” One last time. “Pl-please, I want it.”

There’s barely time to take a breath before you’re on your stomach, ass being pulled straight up into the air, his shaft filling your gaping hole so deep you can feel the pressure in your chest. Long, slender fingers find your swollen clit and being moving in steady, quick circles, and at this point all you can do is scream and cry out until he’s shooting hot, thick ropes of cum into your spasming cunt, your own orgasm ripping through you, leaving you boneless and drooling.

“Shit…” he pants, his phone vibrating on the table in what has to be a third attempt at a call in the last two minutes, “Gimme a second.”

The bedroom door closes as you slump down into a heap, the mess between your thighs getting sticky and uncomfortable as you adjust to the emptiness returning. It’s tempting to sneak out now, if it wasn’t for your current debauched state. You’re still so surrounded by him, the couch smells like his stupid cologne, your thighs are quivering, and you can still feel the tips of his fingers digging into your hips. Maybe you’ll never be free.

“Okay, princess,” he coos, lifting you off the couch bridal style and carrying you to the bathroom, “Quick shower then we gotta go.”

By four o'clock, you’re heading out the door, donned in a new dress accompanied by Satoru in sleek black pants and a silky black button-down, bag in hand. It’s an overnight bag, you can tell from the size and also because you caught him packing it in a rush. He hadn’t seen you, well, at least as far as you could tell, and as much as you wanted to believe he was heading out on a mission, you couldn’t convince yourself of it. The phone call he had to talk out of earshot, the fancy clothes he wore just to go tour some shitty apartment, the bag…you’re well aware of what it all means. You don’t even let the fact he’s opening your car door for you distract you from the knowledge he’ll be doing the exact same gesture to another tonight.

“Okay,” he sings out as he slides into the driver’s seat, “Ready to go?”

All you do is nod, keeping your eyes focused out your window. 

“Why’re you so quiet?” he complains–whines–five minutes into the drive, “It’s boring.”

“Sorry,” you mutter, crossing your arms over your chest, “Where is this apartment?”

“What apartment?”

“The one we’re going to see?”

“Oh…riiiight. That apartment. You don’t really want to go look at that, do you?”

He can sense your anger bubbling in the cramped space, but he laughs when he looks over to find you staring daggers at him, nostrils flared.

Relax!” he chuckles, “So worked up over nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, Satoru!” you yell back, groaning when your body betrays you for a moment and relaxes when his hand falls to your inner thigh, his thumb rubbing softly up and down over your exposed skin, “My life is a wreck!”

“When hasn’t it been?”

“You arranged that apartment. And now we’re not going?” You have to change the subject before you combust.

“Well, you said I couldn’t pay for it, and you can’t pay for it. Not yet anyway–”

“Yeah, thanks for the reminder. So, what now then!?”

“Dinner!”

The car comes to a screeching halt outside of a ramen place, and you burst into tears.

“Hey…” He’s frantic, leaning over the center console to take your face in his hand, “Hey…no-no-no. Don’t do that.”

“What am I supposed to do?!” you scream at him, your cheeks already soaked and eyes swollen, “Just go in there and eat ramen like nothing is wrong!?”

“I mean…yeah. Why not?”

“Fuck you!” 

It’s a battle when you try to get out of the car, his left hand continuously locking the doors as his right attempts to stop you from pulling at the handle at all. He’s grunting ‘stop’ and ‘listen’ and ‘calm down’ but his words fall on deaf ears. 

“Why won’t you just let me go?!” you finally sob, both of you panting and flustered.

“Because…” he replies quietly, threading his fingers with yours, however unresponsive they are, “Will you stay in the damn car?”

You don’t answer, but you don’t move to leave either, and he takes that as confirmation. With a heavy sigh (and an empty stomach) he takes off down the road until you’re outside the city, finally pulling into a large gated property. Flowers surround you on all sides, and the sound of a fountain in a pond pairs serendipitously with the birds singing the sun away as it begins to dip closer to the horizon. The house nestled amongst the gardens is massive, winding paths of stone leading through the rainbows of blooms, and you can’t help but be entirely awestruck for a moment before confusion settles. Satoru opens the door with his keys, pulling you inside the manor that’s every bit as impressive on the inside as it is outside.

“Where are we?” you ask harshly, pulling your hand free of his.

“The Gojo Estate,” he answers so casually you want to throw a shoe at the back of his head.

“What are we doing here?”

“I’m showing you around. It beats Kento’s buddy’s apartment, dontcha think?”

Not even the coldest winds could have frozen you in place so quickly. He’s brought the overnight bag from the back of the car in with him, tossing it onto the kitchen counter before opening the fridge and grinning when he finds a bottle of strawberry soda waiting for him on the shelf. 

“There’s more to the place than the foyer!” He’s moved out of sight now, but not far judging by how close he still sounds, “C’mere! Don’t be shy now.”

He’s waiting on a porch overlooking the pond you’d heard earlier, koi fish gently swimming in the clear water without a care in the world. If you’d thought the city suited him before, it was nothing compared to the sight of him framed by lush greenery and the unhindered glow of sunset. He looks every bit the part of clan head here, oozing authority and confidence as he leans with his back against the railing, smirking as you cautiously approach.

“What are we doing here?” you ask again, meek and quiet, all signs of anger gone.

“Giving you options,” he answers, gloating almost, but trepidation is still laced with what you recognize as false conviction.

“I can’t live here.”

“Why not?”

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not. I mean, you wouldn’t be living alone. No one should live alone here, that’s why I don’t. What if I slip in the shower and no one finds me for days? Ha! Could you imagine…”

“Satoru!”

Does he know what he’s asking? Does he know what it means? If it means nothing to him, fine, but you? The idea of it has you tensing and pushing back tears, your bottom lip trembling as you allow the fantasy of a home and a life to slip through the cracks forming in your barriers you keep it behind. His fingers are chilled from the glass bottle he’s been holding, the sharp contrast against your burning cheeks causing you to gasp and you’re met by infinite blue eyes staring down at you. 

“Look,” he begins, his tongue darting out to wet his perfect pink pout, “I…” He sighs, closing his eyes to gather his thoughts, “Why didn’t you ask me to get you out of there sooner?”

The question hits you like a ton of bricks. You’d been asking yourself the same thing since it all blew up last night. 

“I didn’t think you’d want to,” you answer truthfully, “If it’s not me, you have someone else–” “There is no one else. There never has been.”

“What?”

“There is no one else.”

No one else? His lips press softly against yours as you stand in stunned silence. All these years thinking you were second to twenty, and there had never been another? 

“Say it again,” he breathes into your slackened jaw, and your brow furrows in confusion.

“What…” you blubber, meeting the galaxies living in his gaze once again.

“Tell me again.”

A tight grip on your wrist tugs your hand up to what remains of the braid still twisted in his hair from his nap earlier, you hadn’t realized it had survived both the shower and what transpired before it, but it had clearly held on tight. Too many thoughts buzz around in your head for you to comprehend what the hell he's asking for until he requests it one more time, his voice cracking like his life hinges on knowing if what he’d heard was real or a figment of his overactive imagination.

And then it clicks. Your heart comes to a skidding halt as fear runs cold through your veins, and you try to run but his arm curls around your waist, holding you in place.

“I…” your tongue is paralyzed, a phrase you’ve never uttered to another person knotting and twisting, “You were asleep.” It’s such a cop-out, and the way his face falls shatters your heart.

“Right, thought so,” he concedes, “Okay. Well, do you want to see–”

“I love you.”

The words spill out so suddenly you’re clasping your hands over your traitorous lips, the urge to flee burning in your legs, and he smiles. The corners of his eyes crinkle as he leans in, pulling your wrist to free your shock-slackened lips from their cage, and kisses you. 

This kiss is different. It’s softer, lingering, it’s the kind of kiss that welcomes you home after a long day and melts the toils and tribulations you faced away. While your hands shoot to the kitchen counter behind you and your knuckles go white in an iron-like grip, the tips of his fingers brush down your cheek so gingerly a shudder shoots down your spine. You’ve never been touched so softly, with so much…you can’t think it. 

“Again,” he whispers, and you reply with those little three words in just as hushed a tone, “Again.”

With every repetition, the words fall with more grace and his smile grows. Your cheeks are burning, nerves fluttering to life in your belly, but when he asks for the fifth time to hear you say that phrase, you close the distance between your bodies, grab his jaw in both hands and finally with conviction you tell him the truth: “Satoru. I love you. I don’t kn—mmph!”

As quick as it is, the force of his lips crashing into yours is bruising. There’s nothing tactful about it, he just needs contact and he needs it now. 

“Love you,” he murmurs, and you understand immediately the incessant nagging to hear those words over and over. 

You know someone, at some point, had said that to you, but time has robbed you of the memory. This is the first time you can ever recall hearing it, and something breaks down inside of you faster than you can keep up with. His chest is there to collapse into as the tides roll in, tears pouring from your eyes as relief washes over your storm-stricken shores. The space carved out in his embrace fits you like a glove, your head tucked neatly below his cheek as he leans down to swaddle you in tight. You’re shaking and sobbing but this time he doesn’t ask you to stop, because he understands. It’s the same for him.

“Can we go to dinner now?” you sniffle, wiping your nose on the back of your hand, gazing up at him with glassy eyes.

“Nah,” he brushes off, “I’ll order something. There’s a shirt for you in the bag, take your pick.”

Donned in a t-shirt that hangs down to the middle of your thighs, you’re perched on the couch beside Satoru with a spread of food on the table before you once again. He puts on some movie but you aren’t paying attention, all you can concentrate on is trying to convince yourself it’s over. It’s done. You’re home. But too many years have passed, and it’ll take time.

“What, Yaga?” Satoru barks into his phone, “I’m not going…I’m not going…Find someone else.”

“What was that?” you ask as he tosses it away, looking over at you with eyes glowing in the dim light.

“Oh, a mission abroad. It usually goes to me but…”

There are more important things now. 

“They can figure it out,” he chuckles with that signature aloof, pompous lilt, slinging his arm around your shoulders and pulling you in. 

Maybe it won’t take as long to get used to this as you think.

Sorry this took so long!!!

{{Masterlist}}

[cryscendo]

Kurtbastian + a kiss to prove you don’t have feelings for them 👀

(except we all know it's a lie there's totally feelings there)

i saw this prompt and my mind starting thinking about the potential of dalton era kurtbastian……. i MAY have gotten a little carried away with it, but i hope you love it <3

Pairing: Kurt Hummel/Sebastian Smythe (+ platonic Kurt Hummel/Blaine Anderson)

Word Count: 1599

Rating: T

if you would like to send me a prompt, check out the prompt list here!

fic can be read under the cut <3

“God, he’s the worst, isn’t he?” Kurt muttered in mild irritation. He and Blaine were sitting in one of Dalton’s many study rooms, going over their… English homework? Or was it History? Well, considering they were discussing The Grapes of Wrath, he supposed it could be either. But it didn’t matter, because he could hardly focus on the assignment in front of him anyway.

“Oh, c’mon Kurt, he’s not that bad,” Blaine argued and it was in one of those moments that Kurt greatly questioned his friend’s sanity.

“Are you kidding? We’re talking about the same guy here, right?”

Blaine laughed, nodding. “Yes, we’re both talking about Sebastian,” he replied and even the guy’s name alone put Kurt on edge. Kurt’s transfer to Dalton had been generally pretty breezy. For the most part, the guys here were kind and accepting. Apparently Dalton Academy was serious about their ‘zero tolerance policy’.

But then there was Sebastian, who stood to be an outlier in terms of Kurt maintaining his peace. He was insufferable, to say the least. And it’s made so much worse given that he has chosen to target Kurt specifically. Kurt wasn’t sure if it was because he was the new kid or what, but Sebastian seemed to go out of his way to irritate Kurt. It wasn’t like he felt threatened by Sebastian, — this was hardly a Dave Karofsky situation — but he could most definitely attest that Sebastian was a consistent annoyance.

“I just don’t get how you can tolerate him,” Kurt went on, and Blaine rested his chin in his hand, listening patiently to Kurt’s rant with an amused grin. “Ever since I transferred here, he’s been antagonizing me. Like doesn’t he have anything better to do than exist like a gnat in my ear?”

Kurt could see it clear as day in Blaine’s poorly suppressed grin; he had something that he clearly wanted to say, but just wasn’t. Well, Kurt wasn’t really all too fond of being out of the loop, so to speak.

Kurt gave Blaine a look of suspicion. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Blaine replied, attempting to disguise his expression by taking a sip of his coffee.

Kurt wasn’t buying it, though. “No, what’s so funny? Is there some joke I’m not in on?”

Blaine paused for a moment, contemplating speaking up again. Finally, though, he sets his coffee cup back down on the table and holds his hands out in front of himself defensively. As if Kurt is some kind of threat. “Okay, if I say this, you can’t bite my head off about it. That fair?”

Well, Kurt didn’t exactly love the implications of that. But he liked being in the dark about things even less, so with some reservations, he released a sigh and shrugged. “Fine. What’s such a big deal that you don’t wanna say it? I promise I’ll be nice.”

“Well, I just noticed that any time you like a guy, you start talking about him a lot. I mean, that’s how you were with that Sam guy from your old school.” Kurt felt heat rise to his cheeks at Blaine’s accusation. He wanted to protest because he didn’t really think he had talked about Sam that much, but he decided to keep his mouth shut as Blaine continued. “And, y’know, you do talk about Sebastian an awful lot so could it be possible that you maybe have a bit of a… crush on him?”

That… truly stunned Kurt. What was Blaine thinking? Sure, he talked about Sebastian a lot but it wasn’t like that. His friend has really, truly gone off the deep end. “Are you serious?”

“Hey, I’m just thinking aloud here! I could be completely wrong, I get that. But you have to admit that he does stay on your mind a lot.”

“I can’t believe you would even suggest something like that,” Kurt responded in disbelief. “I have not, nor would I ever, have a crush on him.”

“A crush oh who, Kurt?” A voice that Kurt is unfortunately painfully familiar with cut in. Kurt and Blaine both turned towards the doorway to find Sebastian standing there, snarky expression and all. Then, with complete and utter audacity, he came in and sat down in one of the empty seats at Kurt and Blaine’s table.

“Nobody,” Kurt said immediately. He really did not need Sebastian to be here right now. Of all the examples of the worst possible timing, this has got to be a top contender in the ranking. “Nobody worth mentioning, anyway.”

“Oh c’mon, Hummel, I don’t believe that. Who’s the lucky guy?”

“Don’t you have a line of grown men on Facebook offering to be your sugar daddy for the low, low price of one sad handjob a week and no less than five weekly texts offering them ‘the boyfriend experience’? You must be far too busy to be spending your time here with us.”

“Ah, unfortunately, they couldn’t meet my rates,” Sebastian countered Kurt’s insult easily, letting the words roll off him without care. “But hey, no worries, I gave them your information. I know you could use the money. DaddyDom69 seemed particularly interested.”

“What are you doing here, Sebastian?” Kurt questioned, unimpressed.

“Well, I was here to visit with my old pal, Blaine, but then I heard that the great Kurt Hummel has a crush and realized I had to get more details on that! So, who is he?”

It was then that Kurt looked over at Blaine, shooting him a look that was a mixture of apprehension and frustration. Because this was Blaine’s fault. This entire discussion wouldn’t be happening if Blaine hadn’t insinuated that Kurt had a crush.

Apparently, the look that they shared was enough to tip Sebastian off. Either that, or he’s just such a narcissist that he believed that everything revolved around him. Regardless, he lets out a mocking gasp, bringing his hand to his chest as if pretending to be shocked. “Oh my, is it me? Kurt, I’m flattered, you could’ve just said that!”

“Never, not even in your wildest dreams, would I ever have a crush on you. Trust and believe.” Kurt spoke in such a way that he hoped left no room for argument. However, it seems like with Sebastian, there’s always room for argument.

“Yeah? Then prove it,” Sebastian challenged.

“How would I even do that?”

Sebastian’s smirk turned conspiratorial. “Kiss me. If it’s not a crush then nothing would happen, right?”

Immediately, Kurt could sense Blaine’s tension beside him. Blaine knew about Kurt’s history of being kissed in ways that nobody else did. It was sweet that he cared so much, but this was pretty much his fault to begin with.

“You must be joking,” Kurt said after some time.

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

Well he looked like a joke, that’s for sure. But that also wasn’t the question. And sure, he could end this. He could just say that he’s done entertaining this, but wouldn’t that be just the same as admitting guilt?

“Sure, fine, let’s do it.”

“Uh, Kurt,” Blaine began to cut in, “you don’t have to do that. Don’t feel pressured.”

“I don’t.” Well, he does a little bit. But he’s not going to say that. “Like Sebastian said, if it’s not a crush, it’s not like anything would happen anyway.” He scooted his chair closer to Sebastian and briefly caught a glimpse of a guilty looking Blaine out of the corner of his eye. Blaine didn’t need to feel guilty, at the end of the day, this was Kurt’s choice. “So… let’s do it.”

Sebastian readjusted in his chair. “I’m ready when you are, Hummel.”

So the ball was in his court. That’s fine. He could do this. It’s just Sebastian. No big deal. He’s never willingly kissed another man before, but it was fine.

Kurt leaned in, and before he could possibly talk himself out of it, he pressed his mouth to Sebastian’s. He didn’t know what he was doing really, but Sebastian didn’t seem to complain. In fact, he all but leaned into the kiss, carding a hand through Kurt’s hair in an act of unusual tenderness from the boy. It lingered for a bit longer than anticipated and—

Oh shit.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

Kurt pulled away from Sebastian, trying not to come off as alarmed. He stood abruptly, and had two pairs of eyes locked on him. Wide, concerned ones from Blaine, and inquisitive, searching ones from Sebastian. God, Kurt hoped he didn’t find whatever he was looking for.

He knew his face must be hot from nerves. That, and the fact that he just found the kiss with Sebastian to be… pleasant? That was not supposed to happen.

Kurt cleared his throat anxiously. “See. Nothing. Just like I said.” He haphazardly picked up his belongings as he continued. “Well, I’d hate to leave so soon, but it’s getting late and my dad’s going to be expecting me for dinner. Bye.”

And with that, he rushed out of the room, not willing to be under the scrutiny of his best friend and his rival any longer.

It wasn’t until later that night when he received a few texts. One of them made his heart skip a beat. The one from Blaine was expected. It was an apology and it read Kurt, I am so sorry that happened. I shouldn’t have said anything, please don’t be mad at me.

But the other text; that one, Kurt could never have anticipated.

From Sebastian: Hey, Kurt. You wouldn’t happen to be doing anything this weekend, are you?

[eddiediazismyhusband]

No but you’re so right about not wanting to watch season 8 because after how they handled the doppelgänger storyline I don’t want to watch it, with the rumours Gavin isn’t coming back and how this show has handled estranged parents storylines in the past I just have zero faith they’re going to do Eddie any justice especially after they sent him back to before the show levels of development, practically erasing everything we’ve seen him work on from seasons 2-6, like I can just picture the Diaz parents redemption and Eddie thanking them for taking Chris and ignoring everything a little like they did with the Buckleys

And something something this show hates happy queer parents, I don’t know how to really articulate this but like even if they do a gay Eddie storyline now, it’s not sitting right with me that it’s only happening now Chris is gone, like I know Eddie filters life through Chris/doesn’t really know who he is without the parent role etc etc I know that but with the way they treat Henren on the show and the way they treat Denny and Mara’s storylines, it almost seems like they weren’t going to let Eddie figure himself out while also actively parenting—it’s giving the straight grandparents need to save Chris from his gay dad (like they wanted to all along) i don’t know if I’m getting my point across well but it’s giving a “if you’re queer and a parent you will not be happy on this show your kid/s will get taken away from you”

👏👏👏

this. i understand the argument that eddie needs a chance to examine things without looking throughthe Chris lense, but it feels like he absolutely 100% could have had the realization because of Chris. like it would have taken chris saying he views buck as his dad one time and eddie would have spiralled and everything would have begun to fall into place— i get gavin having conflicts due to his move and possibly having to leave the show but there were so many other ways to essentially write him off (yes ik nothing is confirmed and that he very well could come back in a much slimmed down onscreen role such as may/harry) but it feels like they just went “eh… eddie started to reconcile with his dad…. let’s just send chris away even though eddie realistically would not have built up that much trust in this short amount of time (especially w helena)

and i 1000% agree w it mimicking the henren trauma bc why are we targeting the black lesbians with the same storyline we already saw with Nia…. why are we now lumping eddie into the traumatized poc paranoid losing their kid trope? especially if they plan to make him queer?

like i fully understand this show is a drama, but i miss when it was a DRAMA and not a SOAP OPERA… like earlier seasons had their fair amount of dramatic shit going on but this is just ridiculous and some of it feels farcical to me at this point… especially with the handling of buck’s bisexuality where his coming out scene to maddie included a joke about “always checking out a hot guy’s ass” once again reducing his character down to sex even though Buck has grown past that… idk it just rubs me the wrong way that we’re either sex-hungry, sassy, traumatized, or all three in one and it doesn’t sit right with me.

also them actively chosing to make a known problematic character queer just to serve as a plot device for a sexuality arc that didn’t even live up to any potential bc they kissed once, went on a coffe date and bam they’re suddenly together? even for a straight couple that’s such an anticlimactic relationship buildup let alone a queer one… and not only that but using his queerness as an excuse for his racism and misogynistic behavior as a way to sweep it under the rug is so icky to me… like why is the only decently treated canonically queer character Josh??? (even though even he was part of that whole hate crime plot!)

it’s so hard as a queer person to watch other queer people be told by straight people that they should settle for what we have… and that those queer people listen and also somehow think that settling is all we can do. i know it’s easy to settle for shit, but i’m sorry i did not spend six years watching these two build something beautiful to see it thrown away because what they gave us is (not even) “good enough.”

it really is disheartening.

anyway sorry for turning this into another rant post, anon, i just liked your added point of the traumatized queer parent thing and wanted to expand on that some more!

[spocktheestallion]

why joel was right to save ellie bc i have a lot of opinions and by god i’m gonna share em

so since the show has premiered i’ve seen this debate flare up again and a lot of people saying joel “robbed the world of a cure” when he saved ellie but lets be real, the fireflies were never gonna make that cure.

first off in the original game the hospital and operating room were FILTHY. and yes in the remaster they retconned it to be clean but that just seems silly to me. the fireflies had so little infrastructure that they were wiped out by ONE angry old man in a single night, where are they getting hospital cleaning crews? where are they getting the supplies to properly and i mean PROPERLY sanitize a working OR? more importantly WHO were the medical staff? what were their qualifications? to pull off what they wanted they would’ve needed a team of brilliant scientists specializing in different specific fields and i doubt any of them had been to med school recently. the outbreak was over 20 years old by that point, and medicine is a continually evolving field. those licenses were EXPIRED and even if they had experience during the pandemic it likely would’ve been in field medicine, which is not the same as epidemiology or neuroscience or any of the things they would’ve needed specializing in to get a cure. also the fact that they were saying “we’re gonna make a vaccine!” was another red flag, bc fungal infections aren’t even treated w vaccines. it just goes to show they didn’t know what they were doing. they were just reckless and desperate and ellie would’ve died needlessly.

secondly killing ellie especially right off the bat would make NO sense. what if they find out later on they need a live subject or more samples or whatever? well too late your only subject is dead. why wouldn’t they do blood tests? imaging? or if the cordyceps is only in the brain you can still do a biopsy without killing the person. again, these people didn’t know what they were doing. they were grasping at straws and even if they had gone through with their original plan they probably wouldn’t have been able to synthesize a cure anyway. the sample would’ve expired or been contaminated in the dirty hospital or they would’ve fucked up their sample through ignorance. the whole rushing straight to pulling ellie’s brain out was ridiculous. they would’ve killed a kid needlessly without a second thought.

which brings me to my next point. the fireflies aren’t exactly cut and dry good guys either. i may be reaching w this and i need to rewatch the premiere episode to confirm this but they don’t seem all that picky about their targets and civilians seem to get caught up in them a little too easy. the fireflies aren’t super concerned about human life if it gets in the way of their cause, i mean they were recruiting young kids and giving them weapons just like fedra did. there’s a reason tommy left them high and dry. they’re extremists and they don’t care who they hurt or exploit so long as it serves their cause. they aren’t philanthropists and they FOR SURE would not have been giving out that cure out of the goodness of their hearts. they would’ve gatekept it to themselves and they absolutely would’ve used it as a recruiting tool or political bargaining chip.

but more importantly even in the very unlikely situation they COULD make a successful cure AND mass produce it AND move it cross country which they clearly don’t have the resources for, there’s no way fedra would’ve let them get away with it. their fascist control is all justified in the name of preventing infection, if the disease is no longer a threat that’s a massive blow to fedra’s power. they might’ve been chasing around fireflies for setting off a few car bombs or whatever but if you think fedra isn’t going full extermination mode if they find out the fireflies have a cure you’re kidding yourself. and we’ve clearly established the fireflies would be crushed if they had fedras full attention given that they were pretty much eradicated by one guy in a single night.

and if we’ve learned anything from our own covid pandemic, it’s that if you want to effectively immunize a whole population it needs to be WIDESPREAD. you can’t just treat a few people and call it a day, EVERYONE needs to take the cure or the disease is going to survive and mutate until it can come back in a treatment-resistant variant again and again and again. and after a 20 year outbreak the kind of infrastructure you need to make that happens is gone. it just doesn’t exist anymore. fedra is probably the only group with the level of organization and infrastructure anywhere CLOSE to being able to achieve that kind of feat and i doubt even they could, and even if they could they wouldn’t.

so the fireflies were NEVER gonna be able to make a cure in the first place, they were NEVER gonna be able to mass produce and distribute it, they were NEVER going to be handing it out to anyone they weren’t tight with, and even if they had been well equipped philanthropists who could make a cure and were actually giving it out freely fedra would’ve crushed them immediately.

and i’ve also seen people argue that either way it should’ve been ellie’s choice but i disagree. ellie was a traumatized CHILD with severe survivors guilt. she was not mature enough or in the right headspace to make that kind of decision. JOEL was the closest thing to a legal guardian she had, and it was HIS responsibility to protect her until she was old enough to make decisions like that for herself AND HE DID. a kid should not be allowed to make that choice even if they want to because they’re a KID. also the fireflies weren’t gonna let joel live anyway, i’m pretty sure they were planning to kill him even if he complied.

and ultimately it’s not like joel was considering all this when he made his choice, he saved ellie because he LOVED her. like i’m sure he picked up on some red flags and knew things were sketch and realized the fireflies would probably fail and she’d die for nothing but more than anything he went back bc that was HIS BABY and he wasn’t letting desperate assholes sacrifice her for their cause. “save who you can save” remember? maybe you can’t single handedly change the world or make some miracle cure but you can do what you can for the people you love and maybe that’s enough. maybe you can never make the world go back to the way it was and maybe you SHOULDN’T but you can take it as it is one step at a time and you can do it with the family you’ve made. i think that’s a much better takeaway and i don’t like how the “joel was selfish and did the objectively bad and wrong thing” narrative in tlou2 minimizes that.

[trans-shuichisaihara]

it's been a long time since i added any new pieces to my tragedy au, but i've been thinking about Them again so here's a fic

---------

The van shook and groaned as they tore their way through the ruins of what used to be Kobe. Smoke lingered in the air, polluted evidence that the attack on this area had been recent.

Mere hours had passed since they were forced to abandon their home in the face of Ultimate Despair supporters closing in on the area surrounding Kyoto. Kokichi clenched the steering wheel tightly, sharply turning to avoid a fallen piece of rubble. This was such a mess. He almost wished they’d—no. He pushed that thought out of his mind. Things were fine. They had the necessities and that was all they needed. He repeated that over and over, as if it would block out Kaede’s crying in the back seat.

Miu wasn’t much better. “I just hated it, alright?!” She outright denied every potential new base, taking one look at the setup and deeming it either irreparable or just not good enough.

“If you keep hating everything, we’re going to have to sleep in the car tonight,” he finally rebutted, getting frustrated at her refusal to drop her standards for one whole night.

“I’d rather sleep in the car than some drafty, unsafe pile of crap!”

They continued arguing for a while, before Kaede finally spoke up. “Would you please stop yelling.” Her broken yet firm tone efficiently silenced the two of them—it was a command, not a request.

A long silence hung over them like a guillotine, the reality of their situation looming overhead as that blade might—threateningly. This wasn’t the time for petty squabbling, but there was nothing else they could do either to relieve the fear in their hearts.

“We can’t sleep in the van,” Kokichi finally muttered, squeezing the steering wheel. “And we can’t keep searching forever. We’re going to run out of gas soon.”

Miu leaned against the passenger’s window, hugging her arms to her chest. She let out a huff, her breath clouding the glass before dissipating. Quietly, she responded, “Fine. Just pick one, and I’ll get us some new gas, and we’ll find a better place tomorrow.”

It wasn’t a concession, but it was certainly a compromise. Kokichi knew that Miu was struggling with everything just as much as Kaede was—trying to process that their home was gone, that their parents were dead... Certainly, he held no hard feelings towards her—she was his bestest friend in this whole wide shitty world, after all.

But because he was her best friend, he knew that he had to keep her safe. So, if that meant forcing her to stay put in a shitty ruined building when anything intact would be an easy target of any rioters or followers of Despair, he would do it in a heartbeat.

Ideally, he’d find some place crummy, but not too crummy. Unappealing on the outside, but intact on the inside. Miu wasn’t exactly wrong in denying some of the places they’d looked at earlier, but... Beggars really couldn’t be choosers.

He drove them into a gloomy neighborhood, slowing the car to a crawl. They observed each ruined house in turn, trying their best to ignore the splatters of dried blood on the cracked streets and driveways.

After a few minutes of “window shopping”, Miu sighed loudly. “These all suck.”

In the rearview mirror, Kokichi saw Kaede grimace. “I don’t disagree. There’s a lot of bomb damage in this area...”

“That works out in our favor,” Kokichi pointed out. “If they’ve hit this area, there probably won’t be too many people around, and they probably won’t target this area in the near future either.”

Miu harrumphed. “Stop being right about things. Just find one that isn’t fucked up already.”

Silently, he continued on, and after a few more minutes he found their first candidate in this area. A small two-storied house with an intact driveway, which they pulled up onto before getting out.

“The windows are shattered,” Miu complained as Kaede was grabbing their self defense weapons—nothing special, just a crowbar for Miu, a kitchen knife for Kaede, and a baseball bat for Kokichi.

“Just give it a chance, Miu,” Kaede begged, exhaustion pulling her shoulders downward. Miu frowned, but she complied and said nothing more as they made their way inside through the open front door.

It was dark inside, and though he could assume it was pointless, he still tried to flick the light switch to turn the lights on. Nothing, of course—the power grid in this area was probably long gone, annihilated in the destruction of Kobe. Reluctantly, he flicked on his flashlight, and Kaede did the same with hers.

“I’ll check the security of the first floor,” he decided, his voice firm as he made the call and continued delegating tasks, “Akamatsu-chan, check and see if the upstairs is intact. Iruma-chan, see if the garage has space and opens—if we can get the van hidden away, and the building is stable, this’ll have to do.”

Kaede nodded, while Miu gave him a shrug, again commenting, “The windows are busted; that’s a major weak point.”

Kokichi couldn’t disagree there. “Yes, but if we can lock and barricade the doors, some broken windows aren’t going to be that big of a deal. It might even tell others that this place is useless—no one would camp out in a house with broken windows, yeah?”

Again, Miu shrugged, but she seemed to accept his response as she wandered off towards the logical location of the garage, opening a door before flicking on her flashlight. It seemed to be it, as she walked through the door and started looking around.

“I’m going upstairs; be careful around the broken glass, okay?” Kaede gave him a smile before going off on her assignment, the stairs creaking as she walked up them. Kokichi watched her go, before silently beginning to patrol the first floor.

The windows in the front were shattered, but the side and back ones were still intact. The doors themselves were untouched, aside from the wear-and-tear one would expect on a home that had been lived in for many years. There weren’t any unpleasant smells, aside from spoiled food in an unpowered fridge. It looked a bit battered from the outside, but overall it was in relatively good shape.

Whoever lived here must’ve met their unfortunate end elsewhere, or fled. Hopefully it was the latter.

Miu returned from her search first, hands on her hips as she announced, “I think we can fit the car in; we’ll have to move a few things, but I was able to get the door open manually.”

He gave her a smile and decided to tease her. “I’m so glad that wasn’t too much for your itty bitty piggy brain to figure out!”

Somehow his response seemed to surprise her, and it took a moment before she pushed him by his shoulder in retaliation. “You lil shit, you think now’s the time to be flirting with me?” She stuck her tongue out at him, and his smile turned into a mischievous grin.

“Me, flirt with you? Wow, someone’s getting haughty!” He stuck his tongue out at her cheekily. “I thought the smell in here was coming from you, and I’m not into pigs that roll around in the mud!”

They poked and prodded at each other while they waited for Kaede, but after a few minutes, their bantering simmered and slowed to a stop. They stood in tense silence, Miu’s brows furrowed as she looked at the stairs. Kokichi looked as well, both of their minds in sync.

“She’s taking a while.”

“Yeah.”

Miu shifted in place. “You didn’t hear anything weird?”

He shook his head. “It’s been quiet.”

“... Maybe she’s just being really careful.”

“Maybe.”

The way the staircase loomed in front of them was starting to become unbearable. Finally, Kokichi scoffed and, without announcing it, he started towards the stairs.

“H-Hey, wait up!” Miu was at his heels as he ascended the stairs, his footsteps light enough that they made no sound—there was only the delayed creak of Miu’s steps behind him.

There was a murmur of sound on the second floor—voices—and Kokichi’s heart grew fearful and panicked. Quickly, he swerved his head around to pinpoint the location and darted towards a door at the end of the hall.

“What—” Miu started to ask, but Kokichi gave her a stern look and a finger to his lips as he pressed his ear to the door.

“What was that?” an unfamiliar voice asked—a man.

“Hm? Oh, that sounded like Miu; she’s my sister,” Kaede answered. “Ah, I’m sorry, I’m keeping them waiting. C’mon, I’ll—”

Kokichi shoved open the door. The stranger and Kaede both jumped, and Kokichi took advantage of their surprise to run forward and disable the stranger by kicking him straight in the knee.

He fell like a sack of potatoes to his side, shouting out in pain and alarm. “What the fuck?!”

“Akamatsu-chan, hurry downstairs; I’ll make sure this guy doesn’t get the chance to do anything,” he growled, distrust and fear mixing crudely in his heart. His grip on his baseball bat was tight as he shoved the tip of it into the stranger’s shoulder.

Kaede stared at him with wide eyes. “Huh? Ouma-kun, what—ah, no, you’ve got the wrong idea!” She did the opposite as he commanded, instead hurrying to his side and grabbing his wrist. “He’s friendly! He’s in high school, just like us!”

Kokichi took another look at him—true enough, he looked about their age, with dark messy hair and an ugly goatee on his chin. He held his kicked knee and looked up at him with confusion-filled eyes.

He scoffed, looking back to Kaede. “Age and friendliness mean nothing,” he rebutted, twisting his wrist from her grasp. “Don’t forget there were teens in that riot in Kyoto, too.”

Kaede winced and stepped back. “Ouma-kun, I know that.”

“You know this guy?” the stranger asked, shoving at the baseball bat to divert it away from him. Kokichi scowled and aimed it back at him.

“Ah, yes, this is my friend Ouma Kokichi-kun—” Kaede introduced.

“Akamatsu-chan,” he hissed at her, “Don’t be so casual with giving out our names to people!”

“Ouma, huh?” the stranger repeated without bothering to use any honorifics. He inched back enough that he could stand up again, massaging his knee. “C’mon, I swear I’m not gonna hurt you guys; I was just tryin’ to bunker down for a while, and then Akamatsu here walked in.”

“Well, this is our place!” Kokichi declared, looking back to Miu. “Isn’t that right, Iruma-chan?”

“Huh?!” She blinked at him, before scowling. “Well, yeah, of course! I don’t want to go looking for another place when this one is actually decent!”

“Ouma-kun, he was here first,” Kaede chided. “But even so, he said it was okay if we bunkered down here for the night with him.” She turned to the stranger. “Right, Momota-kun?”

“Momota” hesitated. “Uh, well, yeah. I did say that...” He rubbed the back of his neck. “But this Ouma guy here doesn’t seem to want to play nice...”

“Of course not! Playing nice with strangers is a sure way to get stabbed to death while we sleep!” he retorted. “No one would be stupid enough to share a living space with a total stranger in this nightmare!”

Both Momota and Kaede were silent. Miu crossed her arms, frowning.

Receiving no response, Kokichi pushed forward. “It’s three against one, and so you gotta leave,” he declared.

Momota’s jaw fell. “Don’t be stupid—and selfish, for that matter! I was here first!”

“Ouma-kun, I’m certain about him being safe,” Kaede insisted, putting herself between the two again. “If something happens, it’ll be my fault, okay?”

He glared up at her. “And if he hurts you or Iruma-chan? What then?”

“I’m not going to—!” “He’s not going to—!” Momota and Kaede said at the same time, before looking at each other. He gave her a nervous grin while she quietly laughed.

“Oh no, no you don’t!” Kokichi shoved his way past Kaede, stomping up to Momota. “Listen here, mister! You better not touch Akamatsu-chan, or Iruma-chan and me are gonna let you have it! I know she’s a total catch and all but she’s got super high standards and you certainly aren’t enough of a catch to be worth reeling in!”

Momota’s eyes widened and he gasped like a fish, stammering out, “No, it’s not like that! I’m not gonna do something like that, I just was being nice ‘cause she was being nice—”

“Aha! The victim blaming type!” Kokichi shoved his finger into Momota’s chest. “I’ve got you read like a book. Yup, I’m gonna keep an eye on you—and in the morning, you better leave, got it?”

“Ouma-kun...” Kaede sighed, bringing a hand to her forehead. “I’m sorry, Momota-kun. He’s normally not like this...”

Momota grimaced. “I sure would hope not, or else I’d wonder why you’re friends with a guy like him...”

Kokichi huffed. “I’ll have you know I’m a much better choice as a friend than you would ever be, thank you very much.” He walked behind Momota and roughly shoved him towards the door. “Anyway! This is our room now! Go find a different room—and then tomorrow, you better leave! I’m serious!” he demanded and reiterated, even as Momota protested.

Yes, it would all be better once they got this stranger out of their hair.

(Little did he know, this stranger named Momota Kaito wasn’t going anywhere.)

[calissarowan]

Gantlos’s Unknown Plan

Hey, so does anyone remember in season 4, episode 5, just after the Winx stop the wizards’ spell on the pets by feeding them, and just before the wizards teleport away, Ogron says: ‘Gantlos, you were right. Next time we’ll do it your way.’ Now, across the whole episode we haven’t heard Gantlos mention anything about his way, or any alternate plan he may have had. (Actually, we haven’t heard Gantlos say anything, really, but that’s a separate issue.) Ogron didn’t mention it before that point either. And ‘next time’ is when they track Roxy down because the Winx approached her. (That isn’t confirmed, but if they could track her, they’d have done so already, and it feels too coincidental for it not to be due to the Winx finding Roxy.) Unless Gantlos can see the future, that can’t have been his plan. So we’re left in the dark about what his idea was.

Was it related to the pets? To the spell? The store? Or was it something totally unrelated? Did it involve targeting the Winx? Maybe he wanted to go after the Specialists? Or something else! A friend and I are very, very curious about what his plan was; maybe it would have worked! (And it almost certainly wouldn’t have been undone by pet food.) So I’m asking if anyone has any ideas about what his plan might have been. If you do, please share them! I’m really interested to hear what you think.

My theory is that he wanted to just fight the Winx. They already knew they could beat them; the only reason the Winx had walked away from those last fights was because Ogron had ordered them to retreat. It’s a simple plan, but effective. With the Winx gone, there would be no-one to stop them stealing the powers of the last Earth fairy. But perhaps Ogron disliked the idea of another head-on confrontation, and preferred his idea of attempting to take the Winx out using a spell. And when that failed, he admitted that they just needed the Winx out of the way, so he agreed with Gantlos’s strategy. Of course, before they could enact it, the Winx found Roxy, they gained Believix, and a confrontation became a lot less desirable as the Winx gained the ability to finally do some damage, so they continued with Ogron’s strategies.

But that’s just my theory! It’s not massively complicated, but Gantlos feels like quite a straightforward kind of guy, so his plans would likely not be as convoluted as Ogron’s. Please, tell me what you think! Share your theories!

[mahs-dumpster]

a/n: I got pirate treasure brainrot while drawing Jeanne so I made this in a hurry......... Also kinda continuation from my other fit Jasmine. Imma head to bed now

cw: oc x canon (Kalim x Jeanne), uhhhh lies to try to push people away? If that makes sense? Also thoughts of self hatred

words: 1070

“Kalim.” Jeanne spoke suddenly, her hand stopping from caressing the boy’s hair. He made a sound of acknowledgement, waiting to hear what his beloved would say. “I think it's time we stop whatever this is.”

Kalim’s eyes immediately opened, and he sat down to look at the girl with confusion on his face. His red irises looked everywhere on Jeanne's face, searching for any hint of a joke, but her expression was serious, there was no smile, no indication that she didn't mean what she said.

“What… what do you mean?” He asked, his anxiety building up as he lifted his hand to touch the girl's face. She held his wrist with her hand and leaned into his touch, a melancholic look in her eyes. “We… we’re together, right? Are you– you're trying to break up with me?”

“Kalim, there wasn't even a relationship to begin with.” she gently pushed his hand away, holding it on her lap. “We never agreed to be together as lovers.”

“But we are.” He insisted, almost frantic. “I wouldn't have kissed you that day if I didn't love you. You never rejected me either, so–”

“Because I wanted to use you.” Kalim blinked. his heart sinking as he saw the girl frowning, her eyes fixated on the ground. “I wanted– I'm a pirate, Kalim.” She began, biting her lip. “I steal, that's what I do. You're a rich boy who I thought would be an easy target.”

“I… know that.” He said, and it was Jeanne's turn to feel like her heart was breaking. “I always knew that, I’m not dumb.” Of course he wasn't. Jeanne knew that. But still, hearing him say it… “But I just loved you so much I couldn't help it.”

Jeanne let out a painful chuckle, letting his hand go and playing with her hook. 

“Love? You don't know what love is, Kalim.” He couldn't love her. It was impossible to love someone like her. “You’ve known me for months.”

“But I knew I loved you from the moment I saw you.” Kalim tilted his head, his hand moving to her chin, making her lift her face and look him in the eye. Kalim smiled softly, his dimples that Jeanne loved so much showing up. “I love you.”

No.

She took his hand out of her face and got up, but before she could walk Kalim held her wrist, making her look at him. Her face was redder than an apple, but she couldn't help it, he had always been like that… so gentle, so loving, so honest.

She would poison his existence if she stayed for longer.

“Jeanne, please.” He pleaded, deciding to get up, not once leaving his grip on her wrist, scared she’d run away. “I don't care about your intentions at first. I only care about how you feel now.” He smiled, his fingers caressing the girl's face, and she felt herself melting into his touch once again. “So, please, stay with me.”

Jeanne closed her eyes tightly and gently took his hand out of her face, she was bracing herself for the absurdity she was about to say, for how much this would hurt not only her, but him as well.

But there was no other way. She needed him to get away from her. For his own good.

“I don't love you.” 

Kalim blinked. “What?”

“I don't love you, Asim.” 

“What are you saying…?” He questioned, holding onto her tighter. “Jeanne, I told you, I–”

“This was all a trick, Asim, I never loved you.” She continued the lie, daring to look the boy in the eyes, no matter how much it stung. “Unfortunately, I realized that Jamil and Damali are onto my schemes. There's no benefit for me in pretending any longer.” 

She pushed his hands away, but she couldn't help but do it softly, gently. Almost as if trying to undo the damage she had caused. But she was too far gone. 

“Do me a favor.” His red eyes never left her gaze, not even when he started to tear up. She bit her bottom lip in an attempt to stay strong. “Forget that I ever got into your life.”

With that, she turned around, closing his bedroom door behind her. As she did, she tried to hear anything from the boy inside, but it was pure silence. 

Then, she heard soft sniffles, almost as if trying to keep quiet, as if trying not to bother anyone. Jeanne felt her eyes tear up.

He was hurting. Because of her.

She was a monster.

The girl crouched down, her face resting on her knees as she let a few tears fall. She couldn't help it, she wouldn't be able to wait until she reached her room in Savanaclaw, she needed to let it out now, at least some of it.

She hated herself for this. She hated every last part of herself. How dare she, a girl like her, try to take advantage of a boy like him, and later think they could be happy? Why? Because he had ‘changed her'? Because he was gentle and caring? Because he made her feel safe, and loved? And as if she deserved attention? And deserved kindness? Because he treated her as the most precious jewel in the entirety of Twisted Wonderland, despite all the riches he got?

What a joke!

She had tried to manipulate him, and therefore she didn't deserve his love. Kalim needed to find a wonderful, kind girl who would love him for who he was, and not for what he could get her. He deserved someone whose family had a decent job, who didn't steal for a living. 

He… deserved the opposite of her.

“Jeanne?” She fell on her butt upon hearing her name, and after realizing it was Jamil, a plate of food in his hands, – probably for Kalim – she dried her tears and got up almost immediately. She didn't want him of all people knowing how much this affected her. “What–”

“I'm not gonna show up at Scarabia anymore.” She said, making Jamil blink in surprise. “Sorry for being a nuisance this whole time.” 

And with that, she left, running back to Savanaclaw with tears in her eyes, and a heartbroken. She hated admitting this but she would never be able to love anyone as she loved Kalim.

But he should love someone else. For his own good.

[ijwrsmff]

Lucifer’s been keeping his and MC’s relationship a secret, to keep from them getting targeted by lower demons/his fans as well as keep his brothers from teasing him, and MC finally breaks down because they think it’s cause he is ashamed to be with them

Here goooooo! It took a while, but it is finally done XD

Now that I have no job, just school to worry about, I'm gonna try to write more on my pages. Maybe not daily like I used to do, but somewhere between 2-3 stories on each page a week. I think thats manageable at least. I think. We'll see. I'll certainly do my best!

You were sick of it. Not being able to even go out of the dorm with your boyfriend. He was your BOYFRIEND! But his brothers didn’t even have a clue you were together. Instead, he glared from a distance when Asmo hugged you, when Satan read with you, Beel ate with you, Belphie napped with you, Levi played games with you, Mammon…anywhere even near you. It was irritating as hell. Pun intended. 

When you would go to hold his hand if one of his brothers was present, he’d step away without even looking at you. It hurt more than anything. But after almost six months of being together, and you silently hurting from a distance, you decided to confront him. It had gone on long enough, having to only have “dates” when no one else was home. Or even pretending he had to lecture you for something, of which his brothers always believed. He did tend to lecture people…and you were about to give him a lecture of his own. 

He was in his office, (big surprise), and when you walked in he didn’t even hardly acknowledge you. Nodding his head at you, as you walked in and crossed your arms in front of your chest. He didn’t so much as look up from the papers he was examining. It only served to make you more upset than you already were. Which…was quite a bit. 

“Lucifer.” You said, stern as you could be. It wasn’t a voice he often heard from you, so he did look up briefly. “Lucifer!” This made him glare at you, but he didn’t say anything for several moments. 

“Yes, darling?” He tapped a finger on his desk, and didn’t let you respond before he continued, “You know it’s important I get this done. It isn’t even time for our date yet.” Yeah. That’s right. He lived on a schedule, and only allowed dates to happen in either of your rooms. Somewhere his brothers wouldn’t come. Ever. On top of that, he intentionally “scheduled” them for when no one else would be home. 

“We need to talk.” Again, with that stern voice of yours. “Besides…” You began, but the end of your sentence trailed off into an angry grumble, “What’s so date-like about our “dates””. If it had been another day, you might have even teared up. But your six month anniversary was coming up soon, and you were just mad you let this facade go on for so long. 

“Go on then. Talk.” He looked at you with a guarded expression, and it only made the situation worse. “What is so important that you need to interrupt my work?” 

His words fueled the anger in you, and you found yourself raising your voice as you scolded him. “We can’t go out anymore. We never even have dates outside of our rooms, you don’t let me hold your hand, we can’t even be in public in front of your brothers. BROTHERS!” You leaned forward with a scowl, but when his expression barely changed it made you waver. He…didn’t seem to even care. 

“What is this about?” he folded his hands on the desk in front of him, and had you been able to make eye contact at that moment you’d see the glimmer of hurt residing within them. “You know it’s dangerous for anyone to know about our relationship, it’s to protect you that I keep it so secret-”

It fueled the fire in you once more as you cut him off, “Protect me? Protect…ME?” You slammed your hands on the desk as your eyes watered out of a mix of hurt and anger. “It’s to protect YOU, you never want to be seen with me, we can’t hold hands anywhere, and you can’t even trust your family to know we’re together. We sit in our rooms, and aren’t even allowed to be in the same room together half of the time if anyone is home!” 

The anger subsided and you felt overwhelmed with sadness. “I love you…Lucifer. But you’re ashamed of me. If you didn’t want to be with me, you shouldn’t have asked me out.” A tear fell, then another. “Do you regret your decision to be with me?” The insecurities continued to seep into your words and you ended up so much more fragile than what you had meant to. “Do you…even WANT to be with me?” You took a brief moment to look at him. 

He looked shocked. And you turned your eyes away. You heard him get up, and you were expecting him to usher you out of the room. Instead, he pulled you into a gentle hug. It made you look up at him just as shocked as he had previously looked. 

“I’m…so sorry.” He said, and cradled your head with one hand and wrapped the other around your waist. “I had no idea I was hurting you so badly.” At the words tears poured down your cheeks, and you hugged him as tight as you could. Was it delusional to think he meant it? Or was he just doing damage control…

“I could never be ashamed of you. I’m so proud of you, you know that?” He let out a weary chuckle, “The avatar of pride…proud of the human he loves.” He pulled back and looked in your eyes. “I do love you. So much. I’m so sorry I made you feel any less than that.” He rubbed your cheek, and smiled down at you. 

“Then…why do you hide me?” It sounded pathetic, even to you, and it made him smile sadly. 

“Because…I’m scared. Scared of what would happen if my “fans” found out. They could hurt you. I know you have the power of our pact, but what if I couldn’t get to you in time?” He frowned, and looked lost in thought briefly before returning his gaze to you. “If my brothers found out? They’d tease you. Make you question your choice. If they were to convince you…that they were better for you then I, I wouldn’t be able to take it. I’d try to support you, but losing you would hurt me more than anything else.” 

You pulled him close, grasping onto him as if he’d disappear. As you spoke into his chest, you tried to reassure him. “I could never love anyone but you…I don’t care if I get hurt, if it’s the price for being with you I’d do it again and again.” When you looked up at him you had a small smile, “I love you so much Lucifer. I just want you to be proud of me.” 

He leaned down and hovered his lips over yours. He didn’t initiate it, and allowed you to make the first move at that moment. Even now, he didn’t want to push your boundaries. Without hesitating, you closed the gap. It was both an eternity, and a mere second. A kiss showing your love for each other. 

When he pulled away, he smiled and pressed his forehead to yours. “I am, and forever will be, proud of you.” He looked at the door, and back at his paperwork, before he grabbed your hand. “To prove it, what would you say to a date? At your favorite restaurant in the devildom?” He held your hand gently, and raised it to his mouth to place a small kiss upon it. 

You wiped your eyes with your free hand, and nodded. “I would love nothing more.” As you walked out of the room, all of his brothers were at the door. Some tried to play it off as if they weren’t listening, but Asmo and Satan looked at your and Lucifer’s hands interlocked. 

Satan spoke up first, “Tch. About damn time.” He walked away first, as Belphie and Beel smiled and congratulated you. Asmo and Mammon looked like they were going to cry, and while Asmo recovered quickly and mentioned how he could do your makeup for the date, Mammon walked away with goldie in hand. Ready to spend his worries away. Levi simply walked away muttering about how he was going to play his favorite game now that the “normies” admitted their feelings. 

It was a long and winding road to get to where you were, but knowing Lucifer wasn’t ashamed in the slightest made that road worth it. You felt silly having hid those feelings for so long, but in the end it brought you even closer to him. You hadn’t seen him smile so warmly in public in your entire relationship. But as you went to the restaurant he laughed and smiled at you. Not a care in the world. 

In the end, it turns out you both needed it. No more secrets, and nothing to hide. You were open, honest…genuine. Your relationship only grew that much stronger, and helped you both in ways you couldn’t have imagined. Afterall, you had each other. You against the world. 

And it would always be that way. 

[torchship-rpg]

Dev Diary 8 - Identities: Terrans & Lunars

Happy International Moon Day! Torchship is set 200 years after Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon, with history diverging when Alexei Leonov followed him a few days later, keeping the space race hot through moon bases, Mars, and beyond. A bit like For All Mankind, if everyone was a bit less of a complete drama queen.

In celebration of the incredibly cool feat of somehow putting boots on another world, we’re going to be focusing today’s Dev Diary on the two human Identities which descend directly from the event; the Terrans who went there and the Lunars who stayed.

Terrans

We touched on Terrans in Dev Diary 2, as an example for how even the most ‘standard’ of human identities still has a lot of interesting Traits to draw from. Still, Terrans are very much the ‘default’ human identity, being the most populous human group. They’re called Terrans because they got upset about everyone calling them Earthlings, and it had a nice symmetry with Lunars.

Even before we get into the specific sub-Identities, each Identity is divided into a bunch of subsections which dive into various details about the group; where they live, what the environment is like, and what specific biological or genetic details you might need to know. Any of these can come with Traits; the Biology one is where aliens get their signature features, and humans get the developmental and genetic distinctions that set them apart.

(As an aside, these Identity entries are big. They’re not just a couple of paragraphs, they’re thousands of words about history, culture, and biology. Sometimes I get distracted and go on for four paragraphs about the Zinovian biological and cultural concept of sex and gender. Sorry not sorry.)

For Terrans, our Biology section includes our first two Traits. As mentioned last time, 1g is unusually high for humanoid life in the setting; most other species evolved at around half to maybe three quarters of that, and the various spacers will have grown up under even less.

This means that Terrans are a great fit for the Heavyworlder trait, which is one of the Gravity traits. This gives you better tolerance for high Gs (important when you’ve got to work on your spacecraft while under thrust) in exchange for worse penalties in 0g. Compared to a spacer who could spacewalk before they could normal-walk, you’re going to come off clumsy in freefall. You also get a bonus to Physical Instrument, the cert used for basic physical strength and endurance, and do more damage in melee.

The other Terran biological Trait is Baseliner. An assumption underlying every biological Identity is that unless we say otherwise, there’s genetic engineering afoot, either ongoing or in the species' past. While some of this is awful Gattaca-style eugenics nonsense, for Torchship’s humanity this has mostly been just some tidying up. Evolution settles for a lot of ‘good-enough’ solutions, so with a little bit of targeted editing we can do stuff like prevent cells from hoarding molecules they’ll never use, or use a chemical that’s actually good at the job instead of one that the body just had lying around.

Baseliner is the Trait where we say otherwise. You pretty much can’t survive off Earth without some genetic engineering; turns out even a pretty small reduction in gravity long-term is going to be bad for your heart, nerves, muscles, bones… your everything, basically. But if you and your family have always lived on Earth, you could well have gone the last hundred years without genetic editing. 

The downside is that it costs more XP to upgrade Physical Instrument and you take extra consequences from different levels of gravity, but on the upside you have an extra ten minutes in low Oxygen before consequences start setting in, and you have a higher tolerance for drugs and poisons. You might not be peak human performance, but all those redundancies can come in handy.

Once we’re done with biology, we move into the sub-Identities, which are specific regions or subcultures. Right now Terrans only have two; rural and urban. (I’ve played around with some others but I haven’t been happy with anything yet, send in your suggestions!). Urban Terrans live in the dense, futuristic megacities that dot future Earth, in communal archeologies that are like self-contained villages. Theirs is a life of beautiful buildings, abundant greenery, a different kind of library for everything, and a joyous excess of monorails. It’s everything you could have wanted from Usborne’s Book of Future Cities (1979) come to life.

Urban Terrans get recommended the following Traits; Polyglot (to get across the cosmopolitan nature of the cities), Well-Connected (to show your closeness to the Star Union’s bureaucracy), Divergent (because urban Terrans are exactly the sort of people who do recreational genetic modifications), and Communal Spirit, a trait which boosts the effectiveness of working together. This is a common Trait for many Human identities; it’s pretty much the one that models prosocial production practices in action. 

The Rural Terran trait represents a much smaller proportion of the population. These are the mix of farmers, ecologists, and indigenous groups piecing the planet back together after a close brush with climate change. Outside of lithium, there’s not a lot of on-world mining anymore (space mining has made it uneconomical) so this is mostly agriculture. These communities are relatively isolated, bypassed by the high-speed trains connecting Earth’s cities; the saying goes that Mars is closer to the cities than the farms are.

Rural Terrans get these Traits suggested: Biome Specialist (representing a familiarity in whatever regional ecology you grew up in), Stiff Upper Lip (farm work tends to toughen you up), Natural Esper (a lot of psychics try to get away from the crowded cities), and Trusting, a trait that rewards you for helping others, but makes you more vulnerable to manipulation and makes it stressful to initiate violence.

Finally, at the end of each Identity is a section dedicated to how this group fits into Star Patrol, and how their presence can result in extra Traits through social interaction with other groups. Here, the privileged, ‘default’, often somewhat thoughtless Terrans are recommended the Imposing trait, which gives you some bonuses for being intimidating, but makes it a little harder to get people’s trust. It also does a decent job representing how Terrans are simply more heavily built than anyone else in the Sol system; when you’re comparing to tiny Martians and spindly Spacers, Terrans are collectively a bunch of Conans the Barbarian. 

You grew up somewhere where air is free and water falls from the sky, and people are understandably sometimes hesitant to correct your ignorance because you’re three times stronger than they are. Terrans often have some growing up to do as they realise how they come off to others.

Lunars

In Torchship’s world, there have been moon bases since the early 70s, and people have lived on the moon full-time since the early 2000s. The Soviet moon base program eventually withdrew due to budget problems, leaving the ever-increasing network of American bases the sole full-time real estate on the moon. In the 2040s, Armstrong City took one look at the unfolding disaster that was the collapse of American capitalism and seceded. Playing up its neutrality, it eventually became the de jure capital of the Solar Union and, now, the Star Union, though in actuality this is mostly symbolic.

This is because living on the moon is genuinely very difficult. The gravity is just 16% of what it is on Earth, it’s airless, and there’s no atmosphere to stop the radiation. When people started living there, its only selling point at all was being closer to Earth than Mars was.

Now that people do live there, though, in a vast underground city, there turns out to be a second advantage. The Moon is very rich in mineral resources and very poor in biospheres you might destroy by aggressively mining them, and it’s incredibly cheap to get things to lunar orbit. This has ended up making the moon the industrial powerhouse of the Star Union.

Lunars are living in the most extreme conditions of any of the human Identities, which is reflected in their Biology Traits. Like Spacers, they get Freefaller, a gravity trait that is in most ways an inverse of the Heavyworlder trait. They might not actually be living in freefall, but the gravity is so low it might not make a difference. The very low gravity also means they are recommended Medical Dependency; humans simply were not meant to grow up in these conditions. Even with genetic modifications, some ongoing medical treatment for bone density or nerve issues, arising from being seven feet tall and effectively 30 pounds, is to be expected. Finally, Lunars are recommended the Wireless Brain Uplink Trait, an extension of the implanted medical monitors which were once standard on US moon bases for long-term survival.

Lunars also only have two sub-identities. The first are the Mazedwellers, those who live in Armstrong City itself. Armstrong City is built out of the subterranean mines of Luna, using the thick crust of the planet to protect against solar radiation. This makes the city a twisting, sprawling web deep under the surface, where space is at an absolute premium even beyond what Spacers experience. To live in these conditions but still contribute your industrial might to the Union, your town doubles as a factory floor, converting back and forth every day.

This gives Lunars a distinct identity in their work ethic; while everyone else can be more content working at their own pace, on Luna the faster you get the job done the faster you get your living room back. Your recommended Traits are Claustrophile (giving you a bonus in a space suit but mild agoraphobia), Driven (representing this unusual work ethic), and Shifting Gears, a trait which lets you have two sets of Personality Impulses, in this case representing the strict work-life divide that is at the centre of Lunar culture.

The other Lunar sub-identity is being a Yardworker. The Lunar Yards are the reason that humanity won the big space war; turns out running a slower-than-light multiplanetary civilisation requires an absolutely ludicrous number of spacecraft, so Lunars built an absolutely enormous and ever-expanding space station to do that with, using a giant railgun to shoot raw materials up to it and commuting every day with short-hop shuttles. In the post-FTL era, the sheer scale of the Lunar Yards means humanity can produce an almost comedic surplus. During the war, Lunars couldn’t serve in Star Patrol (see the end of the dev diary for why), so people started living on the Yards to make as many rockets as possible instead as a way of contributing.

Being a Yardworker is a prestigious job for a Lunar, and also a competitive one. Work never slows down, six shifts twenty-four hours a day. For this reason, Yardworkers share the Driven and Claustrophile Traits with their Mazedweller counterparts, as they aren’t that divergent. They gain the Voidborn trait (which gives bonuses for making repairs, cheaper upgrades to the Cosmonaut cert, and stress when your rocket is experiencing shortages) and the Cultural Tool trait, which gives you a bonus 4d6-era item you can carry atop the normal inventory. For Lunars, that’s your Yarkworker’s Marker, the thick-nibbed, vacuum-writing pen workers carry to leave each other vital notes about problems that could potentially kill them and/or draw dicks on the spaceship. The Yardworker’s Marker and all the little notes that crews would find in their spacecraft developed a mythology, which is why now it’s as much a badge of honour as a practical tool.

Finally, the Lunars in Star Patrol section touches on an important consequence of Lunar biology; being a Lunar was for life up until shockingly recently. They couldn’t even survive something as tame as Martian gravity even a few decades ago, which meant they could never visit Earth and couldn’t serve in Solar Patrol because their hearts couldn’t take the acceleration. This only changed in the past few decades in the form of an intense, and often rather painful, two-year series of treatments and acclimation.

This comes with two suggested Traits. The first is Augment, the trait we use to represent attempts at genetic engineering that go above and beyond the normal evolutionary cleanup, which can represent some of the extreme intervention and above-average effects it might have had. The other is Stiff Upper Lip, as per Rural Terrans, representing the adjusted pain tolerances you’re going to develop after undergoing something like that.

As you can see, Trait overlap is pretty common in these things, and of course these are just suggested Traits. Despite all the differences, everyone is a lot alike in most ways.

[whirlwindimagines]

Hello! I hope You’re doing well

I was just wondering if i could request for a Wolfwood x gnreader who carries around a scythe and is called the reaper just like how Nicolas carries around a cross and goes by the name punisher?

I think that’d be cool :)) you don’t have to write it if you don’t want! I hope you are well and hydrated!! And that you take your time<33

Aww thanks for the kind words! I had no idea where this story was going, I just get an idea and run with it lol hope you enjoy! Also I’m like this will be short :) 1300 words later lol Also first time writing for Wolfwood so apologies

‘Fate’

Nicholas D. Wolfwood x Reader

You’ve decided three was becoming your favorite number because that’s how many times it took to intertwine your fate with the punisher. You’ve always gone through life with a sense of survival, it’s how you ended up here. Bounty hunting, only taking in targets dead, they call you ‘Reaper’ nothing but an angel of death in their eyes.

It was cruel work, but if someone wanted someone dead, or found dead you’d do it for the right price. It’s how you survived in this harsh world and you are fine with the routine of it. Until your routine was tossed to the side.

The first time had been quick, an annoyance more than anything else. You’ve been tracking your target for days, and you had finally cornered them outside of some backwater town. Scythe in hand ready to strike, the target was begging they always begged you hated this part. The nighttime air filled with the sound of crying until a gunshot rang out.

You dodged to the side unsure where the bullet had come from or where it would land. The night went still, you glanced at your target hoping they wouldn’t take this as a chance to run only to discover where the bullet ended up. Right through your target's head. 

You whipped around raising your weapon, only to come face to face with a man. He was holding a giant gun in the shape of a cross. Your blood ran cold, but you held your ground. 

“You asshole! He was mine.” 

“Relax you can have the bounty I just need proof.” He stepped closer, lighting a cigarette at the same time, his tone was casual. You stepped to the side letting him pass, you knew who he was. This wasn’t a fight you could win, so you would let him do what he needed and you’d collect the bounty.

“You’re not a ghost then, Punisher.” You don’t know why you felt the need to say it, your eyes glanced over him. He must have finished, whatever he did you didn’t want to know. He stood facing you and took a long drag of the cigarette “You’re not one either then, Reaper.”  

The two of you left it at that, you turned in the bounty, got the money, and didn’t think about it again. It was an odd night; one you’d just want to forget. 

The second time was confusing but somewhat enjoyable. You had a long day, you wanted nothing more than to just drink the night away. You found the closest bar to you and planned to hunker down for the night. People always gave space the moment they saw your weapon, and you don’t fuck with me attitude you were set.

What you didn’t expect was for someone to sit down right beside you at the bar. Annoyed you turned to the stranger, he was already looking at you with a smirk and a cigarette between his lips.

“Reaper”

“Punisher” 

You didn’t like being sought out like this; you were very unsure what he wanted from you. He orders a drink and then orders you one. “First rounds on me.” He said clinking his drink to yours. You downed the drink, “What do you want?” You figured you’d just get straight to the point nobody just sought you out for a drink. 

“What can’t drink with a friend?” You frowned at the tone, casual and that sly look on his face. You huffed looking down at your empty glass, “We’re not friends.” 

“Ah but we could be, I think we could help each other out.” There it was, people always wanted something from you. You knew not to get involved with this man; he was dangerous you were to hit you weren’t suicidal.  “No thanks.” You stood grabbing your weapon and preparing to leave until he grabbed your wrist, you glared at him. His hold was loose you could pull away if you really wanted to but you were in a trance at his dark gaze. 

“Hear me out first Reaper, I’m just looking for information if you can help me there, I’ll be out of your hair.” You sat back down, he let go of your hand and smirked. How annoying, he began to ask you a series of questions, he must be hunting someone you didn’t care to know the details of.  You answered honestly and he bought you another drink, you figured that was the end. It wasn’t. 

“It’s Nicholas D. Wolfwood by the way.” He lit another smoke; you watched eyes focused on his face. “Y/n l/n” you responded no one called you by your name anymore.  

You two spent the rest of the night talking, it was fun in the sense there were no expectations. He asked if he could hold your scythe you agreed, picking it up with one hand and passing it to him. You laughed when Wolfwood nearly dropped it, surprised at its weight.

“It’s heavy.” He said with a huff placing it back against the bar. 

“It’s supposed to be, isn’t it?” You said with a knowing look as you leaned your cheek on your hand to look at him. Taking lives came with a heavy toll, and you all had your crosses to bear, some heavier than most. Your heart raced when he met your gaze, you knew what could happen next so you needed to leave. 

Any sort of Attachment or comfort you didn’t deserve nor want to get into, you’d leave the Punisher here. Maybe next time you could be impulsive but not tonight. Well, a little impulse was okay, you leaned in by taking the cigarette from his lips and placing it between your own lips to take a drag. You stubbed it out on the bar top, leaning in once more to leave a kiss on his cheek. “See ya around.” 

You left him there and headed out into the dawn. 

The third was less than ideal, you were dying. Or you were going to die if you didn’t get up right now. It had been an ambush; you fell right for it and now you were going to bleed out on the desert floor.

You knew it would end like this eventually, staring up at the stars you felt some comfort. This was okay, it would be okay. You closed your eyes and accepted your fate. You didn’t know how long you were out; you were still alive but someone was shaking you and yelling. You couldn’t make out the words. You should’ve opened your eyes, but you were just so tired. You could hear the words ‘reaper’ over and over. 

Then another shout and more shaking, then the sound of your name, no one should know your name anymore. Forcing your eyes open, you came face to face with Wolfwood. He found you, how you didn’t know or care. Funny enough you felt safe, he was yelling at you again but you were too tired and closed your eyes again.

You awoke with a start in some dingy hotel room, you moved to stand up but your body protested the movements. Your wound was bandaged, how? What had even happened? Looking around the room you spotted your weapon right beside a familiar large cross.

“You lived.” Wolfwood stood at the doorway, arms crossed. “Guess I owe you my life then.” Your tone was light, but you were grateful just unsure to have to express it. “Thanks.” You whispered out he shrugged moving to the window to light a smoke. 

“Maybe you should stick around, it looks like your good at getting into trouble.” You rolled your eyes and laughed, “I think you just enjoy my company.”

“Maybe.” He answered, you laughed again laying down. Maybe surviving on your own was becoming too much, maybe with Wolfwood at your side you two could start living instead of surviving.

[all-things-john-constantine]

If you’re trying to avoid NMT3 spoilers I discuss what we know from the readings and synopsis and a couple things that have been said about the lore.

Thinking about NMT3 (Miss Holloween and Orbweaver)(THAT’S WITHOUT DISCUSSING TOM AND BECKY AND THEY’RE HAVING A BABY! I JUST KNOW ZOMBIE STANLEY IS GOING TO TRY TO RUIN THEIR HAPPINESS! TIM AND GRACE!!?!?! RICHIE AND RUTH!! DISASTER NERDS GETTING THEMSELVES IN MORE SHIT! BILL AND CHARLOTTE!! CHARLOTTE MIGHT FIND LOVE!!!) and the Miss Holloway Musical. Specifically I think about how Duke is totally dying in Miss Holloween. There is just no way they’re going to give us a happy ending (Kim and Curt please have mercy on me with your acting the reading was painful enough i know the actual thing will gut me). I also think about how we’re also getting Macnamara back. It brings up all the questions and thoughts for me.

1. What was John’s reaction when he saw Wilbur for the first time after the portal was opened? What about when he realized Wilbur’s mind was gone and it wasn’t coming back? Did he try to bring Wilbur back? What made him finally give up trying?

2. Who is John’s husband? It could be Xander, but I’m leaning towards it being someone else. I just feel like the “i know what I have to do” “no don’t go in there John!” moment would have been bigger if it was, but it was mid Wilbur monologue so maybe it would’ve been too clunky to do more. We don’t tend to get super huge reactions to deaths in Hatchetfield shows so maybe that’s just irrelevant.

3. How old is Miss Holloway? She’s depicted in the black book. Does that make her as old as it’s author Willabella? I’m leaning no. TURNS OUT MEG LLOYD TALKED ABOUT IT BEING FOR ORIGINAL WORKING BOYS SCRIPT!! IT’S BECKY!!! BADASS WARRIOR OF LIGHT!!! We could have a moment where it just works out and it’s applicable anyways, but I think we can put that on the back burner and just consider it a depiction of her making the deal. I think if she was enjoying herself as a rockstar in the 1980s she might have just been getting used to her immortality at the time which could make her birth year anywhere from 1900 to 1950. Something about that doesn’t seem right either though. I just can’t get a read on her as far as her age is concerned.

4. How did Douglas Keane Sr end up in Wilbur’s crosshairs? Were he and Miss Holloway friends? He was probably investigating something Wilbur did as sheriff and got in over his head. I feel like whatever it was leads to the initial Holloway vs Cross death match in the starlight theater.

5. What happened to Casey and the three girls Miss Holloway couldn’t save? Is Casey one of the three girls? What the hell happened beyond the obvious hatchet men ritual involving murder and burying people alive to grow as trees in the witchwood forest?

6. Why did Ethan recite the magical hat speech Miss Holloway gives to kids to Hannah in Black Friday? Where did he learn it? He totally had a touch of the gift and needed Miss Holloway’s help at some point in his life didn’t he? I also love the idea of all of the people being targeted by the Lords in Black like Paul and Ted having a touch of the gift even though there is no canonical support for that.

Alright I think that’s all I’ve got for now. Feel free to share your thoughts. I’m clueless and usually not great at predictions.

[eorzean-tale]

FFxivWrite2024 - Prompt #4: Reticent

A letter written on simply parchment, the handwriting neat and meticulous. A flowing signature marks it, the difference in colour with the body suggesting some sort of stamp was used. The writer has taken the time to dot all the i's with hearts and spray some perfume on the parchment for reasons only they understands, if that.

Dear Arbiter, if that is your real name.

A jest to break the tension. You always looked so happy when you laughed at one of my dumb jokes back in the day. I wonder when last you felt, well, anything. And I wonder why that makes me feel like shit, but I doubt you have patience for that, so let me just get this over with.

Cadmus is dead.

I know you wanted him, but he did what a lot of folks do when they see their cards crumble. He got desperate. A little megalomaniacal as well. Thought he could control a Shroud Elemental - not sure if you’ve heard of them? They are something in between Eikon and god, is the best I can describe them. Cadmus was just a man, not fit to take on something like that, and he paid the price for thinking otherwise.

As for his squadron, they’re well out of your reach. They will be punished or redeemed by others as the Unsung have seen fit. I know you wanted them as well, but I can’t give them to you. I won’t hide behind the Unsung either, I never would have given them to you regardless of what they decided was best. I can’t. They were just kids. Are just kids. Cadmus was your real enemy, and he’s gone.

I know that won’t be enough for you. It wouldn’t be enough for me, either. But here we are, and all I can ask you is to stop. Don’t chase this any further. The best revenge is to heal, or if that’s not possible, to help mend your homeland knowing that mine is rubble and broken dreams. Maybe we deserved that, I don’t know. Either way, you can choose for this to be enough. If you don’t know what to do with yourself, you can even have a place here with us. If you can stomach it, you can see what we’re about now, judge it. And if you find it wanting, well, you’d have easy access to me, wouldn’t you? Think about it.

We’ll be out of your reach for a while, but when we return you’ll have my full attention. I am not against being the person you take your shit out on, truth be told, but I made promises. To fight the despair. To fight you. But if you’re going to be a jerk about it and target those that don’t have anything to do with this just to spite me, please let me know. I don’t mind fighting you. I don’t even mind losing. But I don’t want my Castaways in your crosshairs, or the Unsung. Or even those kids from that squadron. Let the dance just be us.

Love to hear from you soon. Love, Sven.

[mishydraws]

Very... very unfortunate life update

Hi, everyone.

Ok, I don’t want to waste your time but I wanted to be upfront about what’s going on in my life just so you all know.

Last night I got what is probably one of the worst emails that could have ever appeared in my inbox? Our landlord has given us a 60-day notice to get out. For context, my mom and I have been living here since the year 2000. We have never been late on rent or missed a payment despite every difficulty life has thrown at us in that time and this has completely blindsided us.

We haven’t spoken to any of the neighbors yet but some of the wording on the notice makes me think that they may be kicking out the entire building. Or maybe they’re just targeting those of us in the non-renovated units because we’ve been here so long and they could charge a new tenant much more with a quick kitchen and bathroom upgrade. Renoviction is a new word I just learned. I don’t know. That’s what happened to my brother at his last apartment. They kicked out everyone in his building, renovated, raised the rent, then let new people move in.

They suddenly started increasing our rent every year like clockwork a few years ago so I’ve had a feeling they’ve been trying to price us out for a while but I didn’t know they could just… tell us to leave just because they can. Rent consistently paid up and everything for 24 years.

The notice we received really doesn’t say much so it’s all speculation I guess. It doesn’t state a reason why it just says we need to be gone by March 31st.

But basically, I’m really not doing well right now in all honesty. I slept for maybe an hour last night and it’s like a switch flipped in me as soon as I read the email. My stomach has had this weird knotted feeling ever since and I can’t stand up for more than a few minutes before needing to lie down again in case I either faint or vomit… I’m not sure which but it’s been this way since last night. I had to stand up at the sink to wash one singular dish from dinner and I could barely do it. At least I didn’t see the email until after I ate last night because I still have no appetite now.

However bad I’m feeling I know my mom is probably feeling worse. She has been for a while. She’s getting older and my dad is no longer alive. Aside from my brother and one irl friend I still see in person regularly, we have no family or other support system in this country and are well and truly on our own, staring down the barrel of homelessness if we can’t quickly secure a place and move decades worth of our life there before the end of March.

All of this to say, I don’t know what our usual art shenanigans here are going to look like during this time. I am incredibly stressed to the point where I am physically ill but I also can’t pause and step away because I do need the income that I receive from your support of me/my art here. It’s just the reality. I’ve never been particularly Big And Successful with what I do so your support means all the much more and makes a real impact on my life.

I am so sorry if this dampens your mood at all today or if you notice a decrease in the quality of art I’m able to deliver over the next few months but I will try my best to keep things rolling and let you know if there’s any particular delays to expect.

To top it off, I requested a tour of a nearby apartment last night (more expensive than our current) and the name of the person who just texted me back has the same name as our current landlord. Who wants to start taking bets? I know for a fact they own a lot of property in the area so this isn’t looking promising.

Anyways. Sorry for this downer of a post. If we’re not homeless in 2 months then… I dunno. I’ll have somewhere indoors to do art? Yay? You can imagine the housing market we’re dealing with being in California. The prospect of moving at this point has always been one of my biggest fears but we’ll see if we get lucky real fast 😢

If you've ever thought about supporting my Patreon or anything else, now and over the next few months might be a good time if you can swing it. Maybe it'll help us secure a place to move if I can point to it and be like 'Look! A whole income!' 🥲 Idk man.

There's an art update in the (public) post I made if you want to see what we're at least trying to work on for sticker club through all of this.

Mishy