#can't believe I wrote this

[headcanonenthusiast]

Alex Keller NSFW headcanons 

This was made with both masc and fem readers in mind. This man really has absolutely no content out there, so I'm here to provide for y'all 😎 Enjoy! (Also, sorry if this is a little dry. It's my first time posting headcanons 😔)

(I completely understand that this type of content is not everyone's cup of tea, and that's ok! But, please scroll and ignore if this type of content isn't your thing as opposed to leaving any sort of negative comments.) 

NSFW under the cut

-An absolute GOD at oral sex. He'll eat the pussy/suck dick as if he were famished

-Please smother him with your thighs when he eats you out/sucks you off. He'll be absolutely devastated if you don't. Doesn't care what your body type is, do it and he'll be happy for the rest of the week

"Fuckin smother me with those thighs, baby. What? No, no, don't you worry about me suffocating. If I do, then at least I'll die a happy man." 

-And if you look at him with any hint of unamusement, he'll chuckle and kiss your inner thigh. 

-Pays special attention to your clit/tip. He'll kiss at and slowly run his fingertips over it while complimenting your body. 

-"Look at this pretty little pussy/cock, baby. So adorable." 

-HEAVY on praise. Everything that falls from his mouth is either a moan or praise for you. 

-"Aw, fuck, dolly. You're taking me so well. Such a good girl/boy." 

-Prefers handjobs as opposed to head. Doesn't think you're bad at it or anything, just wants you to be able to respond to him when he talks.

-May not be big on head, but kiss his cock while your hands are wrapped around it and he might just cum right then and there. 

-Not very kinky at all, but he may have a bit of a breeding kink ngl..

-Mostly because he actually wants kids. Whether you can have them or not, he'll beg to fill you up. 

-Absolutely not a degrader. He'd feel way too bad. 

-If you really begged him, he might try degrading you, but that'll all melt away in five seconds as he gently kisses your face in apology, even if you're getting into it. 

"Oh, sunshine, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it. Just don't think I could degrade someone so gorgeous/handsome." 

-Very vocal, but mostly with talking. He 100% talks you through it 

"Lift your leg up a little bit for me, baby. There we go, good girl/boy." 

-If you're insecure about your body in any way, he'll carefully run his fingertips over whatever's making you insecure while fingering/jerking you off in front of a mirror. 

-"Look at that amazing body, sweetheart. Takes me so well, makes me cum everytime..so beautiful/handsome. How could you hate a body like that, hm?" 

-"Hell you mean you're too chubby/skinny? You're the perfect size for me, darling." 

-Kisses and caresses any scars, stretchmarks, birthmarks or anything else on your body you may feel self-conscious about.

-If you space out at any point, or if he just wants your eyes on him, he'll click his tongue to snap you out of your thoughts. 

-Constantly asking if you're alright. If you ever start crying during the act, he'll stop in his tracks and fuss over you. 

"Oh God, are you okay? Did I hurt you, sunshine? Too rough?" 

-Then when you convince him that you were just crying because of how good he's fucking you, he sighs in relief and chuckles a little. 

"Silly girl/boy. Had me all scared for a sec." 

-Will leave hickeys on you and will let you do it to him, but always somewhere noone else will see. You're his precious dolly, afterall. Why would Alex ever embarass you over making those marks visible? 

-Besides, with the way he's got his arm snaked around your waist in public, everyone knows you're his 

-Leaves hickeys on your chest, thighs and stomach (will definitely leave more on your thighs/belly if you're chubbier.) 

-Tickles your neck with his facial hair on purpose and smirks when it makes you giggle. 

-Has a lighthearted mindset about sex. Not opposed to making jokes and giggling during, before or after the act. As long as you're both feeling good, he's happy.  

-Tells you that your pussy/dick/ass is the best in the world. Genuinely can't get enough of it. 

"Shit, baby. This fuckin' pussy/ass is gonna make me cum..you wanna make me cum, baby? Yeah? Keep riding me then..just like that." 

-Favorite positions are ones where you're on his lap. It feels so intimate and loving, the way he can feel your grip tighten on his shoulders and see every reaction you make as his cock smoothly fucks you. 

-Mostly quite gentle. Will go harder if you want, but he's very cautious not to hurt you at all. 

-Can easily be top or bottom. Just depends on his partner wants. If you're a top? He'll gladly let you do whatever you want. Bottom? He'll take care of all your needs and desires. Switch? He's happy to flip-flop around until you're happy. 

-Makes you use your words. Rarely does things without you begging for it beforehand. 

-"Come on, darling. You know you have to beg for what you want." 

-Honestly a bit of a teaser. He'll get a big smirk on his face when you just whine to get fucked instead of asking properly. Clicks his tongue and gives a super dramatic shake of his head 

-"Oh, baby doll. That's not how we ask for things. Speak up, love. Loud and clear." 

- Can't deny you for long, though. The moment you beg he's all over you. 

-Big on eye contact. Will turn your face towards him and give you his best puppy dog eyes until your eyes stay on him

-Your pleasure always comes first 

-4 inches soft, 6 inches hard and fat asf (lord have mercy 🙏🙏) 

-Aftercare is just as good as the sex. He'll run a warm bath/shower either you alone or the both of you and carefully wash whatever he can reach while sitting behind you. 

-"You did great, baby. You alright? Not sore, are ya?" "Good, good. My perfect princess/prince." 

-Then when you're both done washing up, you'd better drag your ass back to bed for one (or more) of the following: 

-#1: Cuddles

-#2: Movie/show marathon 

-#3: Round 2 >:) 

My first headcanons done! I'm sure y'all can tell that I'm an Alex girlie but honestly this man is so FINE 😫 how can I not be? I'll def make some SFW and Alex x chubby reader headcanons later, dw.

Let me know who I should do next! 

[bussyplease]

As someone who's about to work in biology research, I can't stay silent about the Frontiers AI rat penis event.

LOOK AT HIM

WARNING: LONG AF. STRAP YOURSELVES IN, WITCHES!

I'll explain in detail, in a way that's accessible for non-scientists, everything that's wrong with this. Recently, a scientific article with AI generated figures was published in the journal "Frontiers in cell and developmental biology".

Here's the link to download this (now retracted) article in PDF.

(disclamer: I am a master's student in neuroscience with a bachelor's in biology, so, definitely not a rat ball specialist, and I have never published anything)

Context

This is a review article about the relationship between rat ball cells and a signalling pathway that happens inside cells.

What's a review article? It's an article that is meant to summarise everything we know about a certain topic, based on recent research articles. This means that the authors of a review don't conduct any experiments: they gather information from people who did. It sounds easy but it's not. They have to piece together a very complex puzzle. Sometimes an article says that molecule A interacts with molecule B and gives you such and such effects, but in another article they say they haven't found any effect in particular of molecules A and B, and a third article will tell you that the effect exists in cell cultures but not in an actual animal because molecule C is also there... And there are dozens and dozens of articles they have to sift through, dissect, evaluate etc. And then they have to make sense of that whole hoopla. And then they have to explain it to everyone.

BUT. A review is probably the easiest type of scientific article to fake. Because for a research article, you have to conduct actual experiments and provide results. For a meta-analysis, you will come under great scruitiny because they are expected to be very reliable and when a new meta-analysis drops, the hype in the field is big. People will see through it in seconds. But a bullshit review? People are not as interested in picking apart reviews, because there are no experimental results directly shown in them, no statistical calculations or criteria to criticise etc. It's almost all text. You can AI generate text. You can write lazily and it will still have the appearance of a review from afar.

However, a review has figures. The figures are meant to illustrate the mechanisms of the phenomena described in the review. Usually, those are very clean, easy to understand even for non-specialists, they are your best friend when you're not too sure what's going in this wall of text and you want to get the gist. Review figures are good educational tools, so you need to have a good understanding of the topic and be concise to make a good review figure. You can't fake that with AI.

In order to publish a review, just like any other scientific article, you have to submit it to a scientific journal. You have to format your article exaclty according to the journal's criteria, (and if you were wondering, no you don't get paid for doing the journal's job for them, nor do you get paid for providing them content you took years to produce, in fact you have to pay them, the journal, thousands of dollars). Your article will then go through several rounds of selection and revisions. First the journal will decide whether or not your article is relevant to their area of expertise (like, if you try to publish a paper on quantum mechanics to the journal "Poultry Science", it will not work, no matter if you're better than Einstein and Hawking combined). Then they'll decide whether or not your article is interesting enough to them. If it is, they will send your article to reviewers (usually 2, sometimes 3). Reviewers are researchers who are knowledgeable about the topic you're covering in your article. They're usually anonymous, they shouldn't be associated with the journal and they don't get paid by the journal for reviewing the paper (this is to guarantee neutrality, but still it's work to review an article and they don't get paid). The reviewers will suggest modifications to the paper, ask for clarifications etc. You change your paper, they give their suggestions again, you change your paper again... Then after this back and forth is done, if everyone is satisfied, your article can get published. I'd like to emphasize that in a decent journal, it almost never happens that a paper gets accepted right away without any rounds of corrections. Most of the time, reviewers get real nitpicky and I've had professors complain that they'll sometimes freak out over every single comma. This is what the term "peer-reviewed" means. Other researchers in the field have to critique your paper before it even comes out, and after it comes out, every other scientist who reads your paper can critique your paper. Some say the real peer review starts after publication, because then everyone in the scientific community can pick your article apart and determine how relevant it actually is by deciding whether or not to cite it in their own works.

The journal this article was published in, Frontiers in cell and developmental biology, is not the most prestigious, but it is (or was, I guess) still rather reputable with an impact factor of 5. The impact factor is a score that evaluates the quality of a journal based on how many times their articles were cited as references in other articles. To give you an idea, here are the 2023 impact factors of the biggest journals in biology:

Science: 57

Nature: 65

Cell: 65

The average impact factor for all scientific journals is under 1, because there are a lot of shit journals out here. Journals are businesses that can be very low effort to set up, so the quality journals are actually few. An impact factor above 10 means business, that's some shit you can brag about. 5 is not super glorious but it's decent.

Frontiers is not just one journal but a group of journals, each specialised in one topic (Frontiers in Immunology, Frontiers in Surgery, etc) each with their own impact factor.

Where did shit go wrong?

I don't know what the fuck went through the authors' heads. Was this a troll? Were they serious?? Anyway let's start with the funniest and most visible part.

The figures

Figure 1

Do I really need to explain? These aren't real body parts. These aren't even words. Shoutout to "rat", the only correct part of this figure. The caption says just about nothing.

This is the image that went viral because... Of course. It's a massive rat dick and balls. But the other figures aren't any better.

Figure 2

This is supposed to represent the JAK-STAT intracellular pathway. JAK and STAT are proteins, and this is supposed to represent how their activation impacts other molecules inside the cell. As you can see, again, not a single real word on that figure, this represents absolutely nothing. You can clearly see that the authors gave the AI image generator "JAK-STAT pathway" as a prompt because every single thing on this image is labelled as some variation of JAK or STAT. Which is pretty funny. Another thing I find hilarious is that the caption underneath the figure is actually a correct description of the JAK-STAT pathway, which leads me to think it was written by a human. For reference here's an actual diagram that represents this pathway rather simply (by Adriana Gutiérrez-Hoya and Isabel Soto-Cruz)

Source

Figure 3

Again, no real words, just a bunch of balls and circles without any meaning. I can't speak about whether or not the caption makes any sense because I'm not too well versed in the topic. Special shoutout to the beautiful word "IMMOUMINOMUDUODIUILATIUCATON" in figure E. I think that was an attempt at saying "immunomodulation".

The content of the text

This review attempts to summarise the current knowledge on spermatogonial stem cells in relation to the JAK-STAT pathway. Spermatogonial stem cells are self-renewing cells located in testicles that allow for continuous production of sperm cells throughout a male mammal's whole adult life. The JAK-STAT pathway is a cellular signaling pathway. What this means, in simple terms, is basically a cascade of proteins inside a cell that talk to each other to say shit like "hey hey hey have you heard that there's a bunch of [X] molecule outside?? We better do something about it." And then they do something about it.

As I've said before I'm not an expert in this area at all. I vaguely know the JAK-STAT pathway, the structure of testicles, and what stem cells do, but it stops there. I do want to discuss the content of this article though, because I haven't seen anyone do it yet and I wish an expert in the field would tell us what the content of that review is really worth.

There are some things that do seem fishy in here. First of all, when I first read the abstract, I was convinced that the whole article was AI generated because it looked like a succession of buzzwords. Turns out, the captions of the figures make sense and the text seems somewhat coherent. I would tend to say it was written by people, albeit in a very boring and unclear way. Then I went to the references to check if they were real. It turns out, at least the references are real articles.

I will not speak on the validity of the claims made in the article because I'm not knowledgeable enough. I've checked some references at random though, and sometimes, they are only very very loosely related to the claim in the review that they're supposed to illustrate, or sometimes just unrelated.

Example: at the beginning of page 7, you can read "miR-34c activates the JAK2/STAT3 pathway, implicated in germ cell generation and SSC differentiation (Clotaire et al., 2018)." When you go to that 2018 reference, you find out that this paper is not about miR-34c (it's not even mentioned once in that article). It's about another miRNA called miR-19b-3p. I've checked, they are 2 completely different miRNAs. They're not even coded on the same chromosome ffs. The article barely mentions JAK2 and the few times it does mention JAK2, there is no significant result showing any activation of JAK2.

Other example: at several points throughout the review, the authors claim that spermatogonial stem cells have an important immunomodulatory role. I haven't found literature supporting this claim anywhere. The one reference that the authors linked to this claim was absolutely not about immunomodulation, it was about reprogramming spermatogonial stem cells into neurons. What I did find, is several mentions of Sertoli cells (another type of cell present in testicles) having an immunomodulatory role.

Literally a case of [citation needed]. If there is one place where you have to have proper citations, it has to be a review article. This seems like some top tier laziness. I kind of doubt myself because I don't want to believe that someone would make a review where they don't source their information. I want to believe that I understood their reference articles wrong. But for real, check for yourself if you know a bit about biology. I don't think I'm wrong here.

I will not dive further into the content but tell me if y'all are interested. I will read up on rat balls to try and see if there is more bullshit in here, section by section, if you want me to.

The authors

The lovely individuals behind this review are Xinyu Guo, Liang Dong, and Dingjun Hao. All three are part of the Department of Spine Surgery in Xi'an Honghui hospital in China.

Because I don't speak chinese, and because it's common for hundreds or even thousands of people to have the exact same name in China, and because chinese social media is isolated from the rest of the world, it was hard for me to find information about these people.

All I can think is, what were they thinking??

First of all, what are y'all spine surgeons doing writing about rat balls?

First author - Xinyu Guo

For context, the first author is the person who contributed the most to the paper.

It's hard to find information about this person due to a lot of homonyms. However I was able to find 4 other articles from them on ResearchGate, which were about spinal cord injury, the JAK-STAT pathway, and one about reprogramming spermatogonial stem cells into neural-like cells in order to transplant them and help with recovery after spinal cord injury. So I guess that's why they're interested in rat balls. Kind of makes sense, but it looks like spermatogonial sperm cells could be a tool that they use in their research, and not their actual area of expertise which is, ya know. Spines. They seem knowledgeable about spines. I've also found their name in articles that were reports of medical cases and treatments for spinal injuries. I haven't found any online accounts related to this person, even on "scientist" social media like ResearchGate. My hypothesis is that this is a medical doctor turned researcher who got into using stem cells.

I did find this person as a reviewer for a paper in Frontiers in Immunology. If they're also in the field of immunology, that might explain why the review was so adamant that these spermatogonial stem cells have a role in immunomodulation...

Anyway, it doesn't seem very wise to have someone who is not specialised in stem cells to be the main author of a review about stem cells.

Second author - Liang Dong

Again, all I can find on that person is about spines and how to fix them. Articles associated with them are related to spinal cord injuries, spine surgeries, reports about medical cases and treatment efficiency etc. Nothing related to stem cells, except that one fateful review. No social media accounts either that I could find.

Third and last author - Dingjun Hao

Another Mister Spine. An experienced and prestigious one, even. He is (or was, I'm unsure) the president of the spinal surgery department of the hospital all three authors work at. He was also an author on many other papers, including those I found with the first author, so he did read the term spermatogonial stem cells at some point in his life it seems. But with his rhythm of publication (sometimes more than 10 papers a year), there is simply no way he is putting much effort in all of these papers. It seems like he is an old renowned professor, director of such and such department, who gets almost automatically added as an author in all of his colleagues' papers. I doubt he contributed a significant amount to this review. There's even a chance he hasn't read it.

He has been a reviewer for another journal of Frontiers, Frontiers in Surgery. He reviewed various papers on spinal injuries, which is fair enough because it's his area of expertise.

This time though, I got some more fun details. Interestingly, I found this from the website of Honghui hospital:

Looks like our friend won a great prize from the chinese government for his scientific work! Congrats! I'm sure that this botched review and the associated global backlash will not affect his relationship with the chinese government at all!

Overall, it seems like the authors are indeed spine surgeons, probably good ones, but not researchers specialised in stem cells or cellular singaling pathways.

This leads me to think that this review was not a troll at all. The likely scenario, in my opinion, is that, since all institutions need to publish articles to stay relevant (the age old slogan, publish or perish), the first two authors were asked to write a review and did so in a rush, about a topic they're vaguely familiar with. They didn't have anyone available to make cool looking figures, so they resorted to using AI at the last minute. It turned out terrible but they still tried to publish it in a not so prestigious journal, and somehow succeeded. They probably thought nobody would notice because no one would care enough to read it (and fair enough it is boring as hell).

The last author likely just has his name on there because he's the head of the department they work at, and these guys always get the last author spot by default. They're not necessarily very involved in the paper because they don't have time, but it benefits them by inflating their publication count.

The reviewers/the journal

With the way the figures look, there is absolutely no way a reviewer even looked at this paper and gave a favorable opinion. Point blank. Even an editor with very little scientific knowledge would have screamed seeing this. So what happened here?

After retracting the paper, just a few days after the publication, Frontiers released a statement in which they say:

"Our investigation revealed that one of the reviewers raised valid concerns about the figures and requested author revisions. The authors failed to respond to these requests. We are investigating how our processes failed to act on the lack of author compliance with the reviewers' requirements."

It seems like one reviewer (why just one??) raised concerns, somehow their opinion was not taken into account, and the editor still chose to publish without the reviewer's accord which is a huge no-no (means the paper is not in fact peer reviewed).

In a Vice article, one of the two reviewers, Jingbo Dai, (probably the one who didn't raise concerns, as you can tell from his detached attitude) said:

"As a biomedical researcher, I only review the paper based on its scientific aspects. For the AI-generated figures, since the author cited Midjourney, it's the publisher's responsibility to make the decision," Dai said. "You should contact Frontiers about their policy of AI-generated figures."

This is utter bullshit, because the figures are 100% part of the review, they are a "scientific aspect", and if they are inaccurate it's totally the reviewer's job to call them out. This guy simply doesn't give a shit. He shouldn't have accepted to review this paper if he didn't want to bother doing the bare minimum. If by "scientific aspects" he means the text, had he checked the references, he would have noticed some shit to fix as well.

Basically, what happened is that at least one reviewer didn't do his job, the editors flat out didn't look at what they published, and they only bothered looking at it when the backlash started. A nice chain of incompetence.

Conclusion

What does this mean for the scientific community?

It's important to note that the reason this article was even retracted is thanks to online backlash from the scientific community. What corrects science? More science. Better science. Not your aunt who "did her own research" on Young Living's facebook page.

Many in the scientific community are now more than ever highly critical of Frontiers, saying they will never publish in or review for them. The reputation of the journal is severely tarnished in the eyes of many, and one can hope that this will make editors look twice before they publish bullshit.

This may or may not be a career-ending mistake for the authors as well. We will see in the following weeks or months if they get to keep their jobs. They might not be able to publish in scientific papers ever again due to bad reputation. But I don't think they will have to stop their work as surgeons, since this is a completely different activity.

For me, this whole ordeal is a reminder that scientific journals are, first and foremost, businesses. Ultimately, they don't give a shit if what they publish is true. They only pretend to care about scientific integrity to maintain their reputation.

I hope that this will also encourage co-authors, especially senior researchers who get the last author spot by default, to be more cautious about what kind of papers they're willing to put their name on. And I hope this encourages institutions to lower their push for their researchers and doctors to publish publish publish no matter the quality, just so they can flex how many papers came out of their institution.

If anyone actually read this entire thing, thank you so much. I am very grateful that you found my rant good enough to read. If you have any additional information or corrections, please share them! Because this is just something a master's kid wrote in a boring afternoon, so there might be some errors. Have a nice day and uh... stay sciencing

[macverse]

Spoilers...

Justin took a worried glance towards you. What the fuck was going on?

Your phone vibrates rapidly in your hand again, signaling multiple notifications coming in and you finally unlock your phone to look at them. Your heart nearly drops out of your chest as you read your phone screen:

Instagram 1,702,083 New Notifications

X 289,546,024 New Notifications

Tumblr 4,789 New Notifications

Threads 947,821 New Notifications

TikTok 4,027,872 New Notifications

23 Missed Calls

173 New Text Messages

1 New Voicemail from Bash 💕 

You hope your face expresses ‘What the actual fuck is going on?’ as you looked back at Justin speechless...

Coming soon...

[caguaydreams]

boops might be gone but the experience will stay with me forever

[femslashspuffy]

See if I was in a secret gay relationship with my best friend and I hadn't even told my FAMILY I was gay yet.... I just don't think I would write gay fanfiction about my best friend becoming a vampire and pushing me up against a tree and killing me.... and then publish it and narrate it on youtube

Like honestly top thing I would not do in the year 2015

Good thing no one's ever done this before and it's just a hypothetical

[tell-them-the-north-remembers]

When you think about it Euron Greyjoy is actually the villain of all time, GRRM's magnum opus. He opens his eyes to the world and decides sibling abuse is gonna be his thing for a while. He fucks his brother's wife, gets exiled for it, fucks off to god knows where. Then allegedly finds a dragon egg, tries to get a wizard to hatch it, gets mad, randomly throws it into the sea. Commits war crimes, captures warlocks, makes them cannibalize each other for shits and giggles. Steals a dragon horn. DEMOCRATICALLY GETS ELECTED KING. Raids a man's castle, ties up the man, sees his daughter who goes "hey my step mom and step siblings suck strip them naked and make them serve dinner to ur men like that" and he goes "ok." and then is like "hey that was fun im gonna like kinda marry you and make you my salt wife". But she will be his SALT wife (she actually wont he will literally CUT her tongue bcs he evil) bcs he literally thinks oh yes i will marry daenerys and then tame a dragon using my dragonhorn and conquer westeros on dragonback aegon-style. He gets fucked up on shade of the evening daily, sees hallucinations and visions and plans on summoning eldritch horrors. He is an edgy pirate with a ship called "silence" bcs he fucking tore out the tongues of his entire crew and the ship is painted red so it conceals the BLOOD. Martin went "i have enough morally grey antagonists" and then created euron fucking greyjoy.

[eldritch-spagettios-on-horseback]

shit is a from of public transit because there are designated huge shimp whose shit is explosive and causes super fast propulsion that small shrimp latch on too to get around

I wonder if shrimp dream of public transportation or if that is a purely human thing

[xthecaptainssaviorx]

Alicent and Helaena after Viserys' death based on the original script for 1.09 "The Green Council"

shoutout to @darksvster for the script snippets

[teaboot]

Dude I think it’s about time for you to grow up and do the dishes

...dad?

[1v31182m5]

[peachylynnie]

garlic

word count: 1.4k

synopsis: in which sylus feeds you too much garlic.

contains: sylus x reader (doesn't have to be mc, gender neutral), an obscene amount of garlic (slight crack fic), mentions of cooking, eating, and love of food, suggestive at the end, and cussing.

a/n: i was rewatching wgm the other day and the male star did this to the female star. couldn't help but feel inspired to write this for sylus since he would totally tease us. do NOT copy or translate my work. sylus does NOT endorse plagiarism. reblogs and comments always appreciated :)

you love sylus' cooking. even before you started dating, you always thought his cooking was immaculate—so immaculate you can't help but wonder why he even had a private chef. rich people shenanigans, you like to conclude. you also wonder if rich people put a lot of garlic in their food. because there are a shit ton of garlic slices on the linguine pasta sylus just served you.

by no means are you a picky eater. heck, you love garlic. it's a blessing to humankind. garlic bread, fried rice, pesto, you name it. so many foods have garlic in them, and you enjoy all of them. but this? this was way too much.

sylus raises a brow as he sits next to you, wondering why you haven't picked up your fork yet. "something wrong, sweetie?"

"what's with the garlic, sylus?" you turn to face him, leaning back in the leather high chair.

he looks at your plate, then back at you. "is there something wrong with the garlic?" picking up his own fork, he goes to inspect your food. you stop him by holding his wrist.

"no," you shake your head, laughing a little. "it's just... this is a LOT of garlic." you nudge your head towards the incredibly noticeable pile of garlic slices. "did the tutorial really call for this much?"

sylus chuckles, returning to his own plate. meticulously, he twirls the pasta with his fork, leaving you to admire his sturdy forearms. not only do you love sylus' cooking, but you also love WHEN he cooks. why? because this absolute godsend, silver-haired, ruby-eyed, strong-nosed, supple-lipped, and deep-voiced of a man rolls up his sleeves when he cooks. his veins protrude and his muscles flex whenever he chops some vegetables with a knife. you don't pity the buttons that hold on for dear life to keep his sleeves together whenever he maneuvers a pan. resting an elbow on the kitchen island, you set your head on your hand to admire the current view.

you're taken aback when sylus holds up his fork to your mouth. normally, you would gush at such an action. the ruthless and relentless head of onychinus, offering YOU the first bite of HIS food. oh, you would happily accept, eager to taste absolute heaven in your mouth because sylus always makes great food. but, this time, you frown, noticing the mini TOWER of garlic slices on top of the noodles wrapped around his fork.

"i didn't take you for a picky eater, sweetie." sylus teases as he tilts his head. your jaw drops, flabbergasted by such an accusation. not that there's anything wrong with being a picky eater; it's just that sylus should know you by now. he's cooked for you plenty of times before. he's seen you eat plenty of times before. he should know by now you generally enjoy most food, and it takes a lot for you to even hesitate to pick up a utensil.

"i'm not picky," you cross your arms, a slight pout forming on your lips. "there's just too much garlic."

"there's no such thing as too much garlic," sylus quips. as if to further prove his point, he lifts the fork closer to your mouth. you begrudgingly accept, not without giving him a look, of course, because only you would accept a mouthful of garlic offered by sylus himself.

it's not necessarily bad. that's the first thought you have when you close your mouth. except you immediately change your mind after you bite down. holy shit, it's just straight garlic. you grimace, immediately uncrossing your arms to cover your mouth. you can't even taste the linguine. groaning, you try not to spit out the food. no matter how bad a dish may be, you wholeheartedly believe it's rude to spit it out in front of the person who made it. furthermore, this was sylus we're talking about; you're fricking boyfriend. you scrunch your shoulders as you painfully swallow, instantly reaching over the counter for a glass of water. after you relieve your mouth of garlic hell (it didn't help at all), you face sylus, glaring at him with all your might.

"that's too much garlic!" you snap, using one hand to slap sylus' shoulder and another to cover your mouth, overwhelmed by the smell. trying to ignore sylus' snickers, you drink more water. this motherfucker dares to laugh at your agony. you swear the next time he calls you over for some parmesan garlic linguine, you're going to tell him to shove a garlic braid up his ass.

"oh come on, sweetie," sylus jests as he twirls some more noodles with his fork before offering them to you again. "it can't be that bad."

you look at him with wide eyes. there's no way he's serious right now. "why don't YOU try then?"

"gladly," sylus says smugly. he takes a bite and lets out an obnoxious "mmm!" you scoff when he goes back for a second bite, unable to believe the audacity he has.

"there's no way it tastes that good," you say as you jerk your head away, determined to stay mad at him. "you just want to flatter your cooking."

"you're missing out," sylus says nonchalantly as he takes another bite. "besides, garlic is good for your health. it can provide a lot of strength. in fact, laborers were fed garlic back then, so they could have enough stamina. "

you roll your eyes. of course, he brings health into this. not that there's nothing wrong with it. you actually admire how much sylus takes care of himself. he's quite the competent man. but you know what he's doing. he's making fun of you. your eyes can't help but twitch as you look down at your plate. good for your health, my ass. no way an entire plate (sylus has massive plates by the way) topped with heaps of garlic is good for anyone. not even five serving spoons can rid your plate of its garlic slices.

suddenly, you get an idea.

"hey, sylus," you say as you reach over the counter for the serving spoon he used earlier to serve your plate. "since you like your linguine soooo much, mind if i feed you?"

sylus doesn't look up from his plate, clearly too occupied with his own making. "sure, sweetie."

you giggle, setting the spoon against the edge of your plate before scraping only the garlic slices onto it. given how much garlic there was, it doesn't take long for you to fill the giant spoon with it—garlic and garlic only.

"don't do that."

"don't do what?" you don't stop scraping.

"that," sylus answers as he warily eyes the spoon your hand is now holding up to his face. that was, indeed, too much garlic.

"come onnnn," it's your turn to tease. "there's no such thing as too much garlic, right? besides, it's good for your health. what good is the head of onychinus if he doesn't have enough stamina?"

"i have plenty of stamina," sylus insists. "and that," he juts his chin towards the spoon, "is too much stamina."

you snort as you nudge the spoon closer, ignoring him entirely. "say ah! eat and gain lots of stamina! you need it!" you chirp as you lift your free hand and extend it underneath the spoon, hoping to catch any stray slices.

sylus' eyes flicker from the spoon to your face. he leans in, acting as if he's going to listen to you. though, not before asking, "where will i use all this stamina? will you use it with me?"

you choke, immediately retracting the spoon. "what?!" you dump all of the garlic back onto the plate, avoiding the amused look on sylus' face and also the imagery of exciting... stamina-related activities involving him. "pervert," you grumble, a rosy hue appearing on your cheeks.

"i was talking about training, sweetie," he smirks.

no fucking way. you gape at him, not believing a single word.

sylus stifles a laugh, enjoying the hilarious expression on your face. look at you, so cutely flustered over the idea of taking your relationship to the next level. yes, he was talking about whatever was going on in that head of yours. no, he wasn't talking about training. but hiding such a fact was worth it, given your embarrassed state. wanting to admire your adorable face some more, sylus grips your chin before tilting it up.

"although, i'm not against what you have in mind, sweetie."

[thatanimeramenchick]

Yandere Vox x Secretary Reader Pt. 2

Eh, what have you guys done to me. I swear, we Vox fangirls are the thirstiest on the internet right now. Also, officially, I’m making this a three part series, but that’s it. So much for a oneshot. I'll make a title for this series, eventually. Also, if you want to be tagged, please put your age in your bio.

Part One - Part Three

Triggers: Dubcon-y vibes in scenes. Violence and threatening. Read responsibly, stuff is gonna get a little dark this chapter.

Word count: 3,142

---

Vox thought you looked perfect. For once, you were wearing something decent that he bought you instead of one of the plain outfits from before you had moved in. Somehow, you had been convinced to put on actual jewelry and makeup as well. The only flaw you held was the dirty look on your face, which you refused to face towards him directly, and it only got dirtier as you downed more and more wine.

“You know, you could at least attempt to have a good time after all the effort I put into this evening,” he said, “You haven’t even touched your food.”

“Not hungry,” you said, voice ice cold. It always was nowadays.

“If you’re not in the mood for dinner, we could watch a new production I oversaw,” he said, “I think you’d enjoy it.”

You snort at that.

“I’d rather listen to Alastor’s radio program than watch any of the hot trash your production company creates,” you said.

“I’m sorry? What was that?” he said, putting a warning hint into his tone.

“You heard me,” you said, “I’ve gotta say for someone supposedly so modern, you’re still just an old man. Alastor is what? Like twenty years older than you? And you think he’s elderly? You’re practically a decrepit bygone as well. You think anyone gives a shit about cable nowadays? At least Alastor has the decency to make stuff with class and not just forgettable, cheap cash grabs.”

Against his will, he felt a circuit spurt. His hand clenched around the glass and slammed it onto the table, causing you to jump. A small noise left your mouth, as panicked as the look in your eyes was now. You looked like you knew that you had pushed a little more than you probably should have.

“You know what?” he hissed, “You think you can just talk to me like that? Fine. You wanna play rough with me? Well guess what, I’m going to fuck that bad attitude right out of you!”

“Excuse me???”

You didn’t even look scared at that just shocked and baffled, as if that had been the last thing you had expected to hear.

“You heard me!” he grabbed you by your shoulders and shoved you flat onto the couch, “I’m sick of you fighting me. Well, you’re not going to after this.”

“W-wait, Vox, stop-”

He smashed his lips to yours, purposefully being harsh, biting you when you tried to keep your mouth closed. When you attempted to turn your face away, he grabbed your chin rough enough where he knew it would leave a mark before kissing you harder. You pounded your fist against his chest, but he ignored it, straddling you. He eventually used his other hand to grab your wrist and push it into the couch.

He didn’t know when it happened, but at some point in your struggle something shifted in the air. Changed. You had finally stopped fighting, slowly wrapping your arm around his neck, kissing him back. It was heavenly, you finally submitting to him. Yes, yes, yes… He paused to look you in the eyes, to see your timid gaze and red face. There was still a look of anger glazed across your features, but it was fading. He brought his hand up to play at the buttons on your blouse. You looked at each other for a second longer before you initiated a kiss for once, using the arm around his neck to pull him close. Your tongue felt so hot, so right, as if your body was as electric as his own and-

Vox gasped, a spark running through his head. He woke up alone in bed, a literal hot mess. He felt like his head was overheating, running a million miles a minute, despite the fact that he should feel cold from sleep. Mixing this with the slick sweat and fluid he was covered in, it was an uncomfortable feeling. Groping for the robe hanging next to his bed, he climbed out. What a dream. He needed a second to wire down from that before trying to go back to sleep.

He picked up his phone and opened it to check on you. The camera in your room showed you curled up on your mattress, blanket half off your body and arms wrapped around one of your pillows. It pressed into your dozing face, which held a peaceful, relaxed look that he rarely saw now that you had decided to go to war with him. His finger absently stroked your image on the screen.

Why did you have to be so difficult? He didn’t know what had been the powder keg that had kicked off your little rebellion, but whatever it was, all his attempts to nip it in the bud had made you more temperamental. Clearly his irritation with your behavior had seeped into his mind enough to create some… darker fantasies deep in his sleeping subconscious.

He shook his head. It was just a dream. It didn’t mean anything.

Besides, he already had been thinking about what to do next, to give you that little push you needed to be more agreeable.

---

Later that day he scoffed at how ridiculous his own morbid imagination was. The idea of you dressed all pimped up like one of Valentino’s whores. You barely got out of bed nowadays. If he was being honest, your imprisonment had caused your mood to swing between defiant temper tantrums and a hopelessly depressed sloth. Today, you were in the latter mood, still in pajamas that he swore you were wearing two days ago, lying on the couch and mindlessly eating as you watched some random reality show.

“Hello there, beautiful,” he said, trying to sound pleasant, “Looks like you’ve had a relaxing day.”

You glance at him for a second before looking back at the television. The blanket is pulled tighter around you, as if you were trying to hide any inch of yourself from him. Ever since his last attempt at showing his affection had ended in you headbutting him – hard – you had been particularly prickly at even the slightest hint that he might want to touch you.

“What do you want, asshole?” you said, voice lacking emotion.

Charming as always.

“Well, dearest, I was thinking. Now that you’ve had some time to think things over, I was hoping we could finally come to an agreement that would make us both happy,” he said.

“I highly doubt that’s possible,” you said.

He sat beside you, which caused you to curl your legs in tighter. You inch up on the arm a little, as if to sit as far away from him as possible without having to actually put any effort into getting up.

“We both have something that the other person wants, something that could be easily settled with a written contract,” Vox said, “You would like to be allowed to roam around this cesspool of a city and I-”

“Let me guess, it includes a whole paragraph about me never leaving your sight as well as a clause about how often you get to stick yourself in my various orifices?” you grumbled.

“You’re so melodramatic sometimes,” he said, “You always assuming the worst about people, F/N. Makes me wonder if you were double crossed a lot in your previous life.”

You don’t even respond to this, just continue to stare ahead. He’d noticed that lately you’ve been avoiding his gaze. He wasn’t sure how much you had figured out about his abilities, but you seemed to have pieced enough together that the more you avoided his eyes, the less direct influence he had on you at the moment. He was sure that it was one of the many reasons you were so moody lately; you stubbornly refused to be soothed by him. Regardless, whether you were trying to avoid his hypnotic gaze or not, it’s no matter. It’s not like you’re going to be able to avoid the overall influence he has over this city, especially if you spend your free time watching television he’s created.

“It’s rather tame, considering the situation you’re in. Contract or not, it’s not like you’re going to be going anywhere anytime soon,” he continued, “You’re lucky I care for you as much as I do, trying to work with you like this.”

“Hooray for me,” you said.

You really were a brat sometimes. Vox at times wondered if it was because he was too soft on you, and you didn’t realize the amount of actual power he held over you. Either that or you just didn’t care anymore. Whatever. It was all big talk because at the end of the day, you both knew you couldn’t do anything about your situation.

“You already have lots of benefits, which you would retain. Nice apartment, clothes, up to date tech. Besides that, you can come and go regularly, as long as you’re back here within twenty-four from when you last left. You can do whatever you want during that time. You also would be working for me a minimum of forty hours a week, with the occasional granted vacation at my discretion. That’s pretty much it, along with you occasionally being cooperative with my… desires,” he said, “So you’d have plenty of time to yourself. I didn’t put in anything that would force you to do anything too unsavory with me.”

Though he certainly would have liked to be more pushy in that department, he knew going too far could result in the kind of hate fueled relationship Valentino and Angel Dust shared. He honestly didn’t have the energy to have that much drama in his own life. Good night, he could hardly handle the drama that was in his life now. Besides, he was sure you’d come around willingly, even if it took a few centuries.

You glared at him as he finished speaking, as if to say, how generous of you.

From inside his vest, he pulls out the contract and holds it out to you.

“So, we have a deal?” he asked.

You sit up and take the paper, still avoiding his eyes. You seem to be reading it over, though your hold on it is lazy.

“… This still says you can fuck me at least once a week if you want to, or else I’m not allowed to leave the building,” you said, “Did you really think I wasn’t going to notice shit like that?”

He laughed a bit awkwardly.

“I mean, I did say I would like you to be at least a little cooperative,” he said, crossing his legs, “We could wait a little while if you’d like. I mean, you’d still have more freedom than you do now, even with that minuscule restriction. You should know by now that I’m a patient man.”

You stare at it again, forehead wrinkled.

“You know what… I see where you’re coming from,” you said, finally making eye contact, “Tic for tac, eh?”

“That’s a crude way for you to put it,” he said.

You shrug.

“Crude or not, it’s the truth,” you said, a sardonic smirk appearing on your face, “You want me to give a little to get a little.”

Before he could say anything you hold up your hands with more energy than he’s seen you have in days.

“No, no, no! I understand. I’ve been in hell long enough to know how people like you work. I get where you’re coming from, I really do. I’m not stupid! So trust me, I’m being completely serious when I say that I think you should take this lovely contract of yours and shove it up your glowing blue ass!” you ripped it in half on the last word, your smile still present but a nasty look in your eyes.

Vox felt his eye twitch as you continued to smirk at him, tossing the paper at him like you would throw trash across the room. You then lie back down and turn back to the TV, ignoring him again as if the last few minutes hadn’t even happened at all. Though you were attempting to pull your face back into the blank expression of earlier, he could see in your eyes a mixture of emotion, rage, yes, but also a certain smugness. What, did you really think you were tough shit for mouthing off to him like that?

He felt like his head was going to explode. Before he even registered how he was reacting, he had grabbed you by the hair and was pulled you back over.

“Ow! What the hell are you doing, Vox?” you yelled, the smug look gone from your eyes, “You’re hurting me!”

“You think you’re so smart, don’t you? I’m trying to be generous to you because I actually like you, but you know what? I’ve clearly spoiled you rotten already!” he fumed.

He was practically seeing red as he dragged you over, causing you to yelp. You try to kick him, but he only grabs onto your ankle and pulls you closer to him, spinning you around so that you were pressed against the back of the couch, his arms on either side of you. His fingers are still gripping your hair, forcing you to turn your head towards him.

“You know, you’re right, who needs a contract?” he said, “I can do whatever the hell I want with you, and what are you going to do about it?”

Your voice cracked as you attempted to speak, but he didn’t pay any attention to what you were trying to say. He could feel his systems overloading with the amount of rage he was feeling, shouting over you.

“I hope you like the view from up here, because you’re staying here for the rest of your miserable eternal exist. You can work and live here 24/7,” he said, “Anything else we should change in the arrangement? You didn’t like the idea of fucking me once a week? Fine by me. Why not once a day? Twice a day? Every hour? Would you like that better? Huh? Answer me!”

As he finished speaking, he finally heard what you were saying, “-m sorry! I’m sorry, please, stop!

As he heard your pleading, he felt himself being brought back down to earth. While his rage was still present, your begging brought him back to reality, and it was finally registering how upset you were. Hysterical. Terrified. You were sobbing, more afraid of him than he had ever seen you, even on the worst days of your fighting.

“D-d-don’t hurt me. I’m s-sorry, I’m sorry! Please, don’t hurt me!”

He released your hair with a rapid exhale, and you automatically moved your head away from him, arms shielding your face. Shaking, it was sinking in just emotionally distraught you were, as well as the damage he had done to the couch. He hadn’t even noticed he had been digging his claws into the polyester, a row of gnashes beside your head. The situation was completely getting out of control. He pushed himself off of you and turned away. He didn’t even say anything, just left the room and went through the wires to his office. His head was overheating, and he was going to crash at this rate if he didn’t calm down.

Damn it! He hated how out of control you made him feel. It was pathetic. There was only one other person he could think of that made him get near as frustrated as he was feeling with you at the moment. He wasn’t the kind to act out, and here he was acting almost as ridiculous as his business partner did. The only saving grace was that Vox at least tried to keep his infatuation as quiet and private as possible.

It was more than his emotional irregularity though. The fact that he felt this way at all about you was humiliating. Affection, fondness, it was a weakness, and he knew it. Valentino got away with just having simple lust and taking what he wanted, but genuine affection demanded gentleness and tenderness. It was beyond him just not being able to do as he pleased with you, he didn’t want to. He wanted you to come to him willingly. It was the thing holding him back from just hypnotizing you into his arms or using a “love” potion, and now he had probably set any progress towards your affection back significantly.

He rubbed his forehead, which was starting to cool down a little. What was going on up there? He was going to end up doing something rash, something he regretted, if he didn’t get things under control and under control fast. Something needed to be done, but he didn’t know what. Nothing had gone how he had wanted it to. He would need to rethink his approach.

---

You spent a long time shaking on the couch, arms and blanket wrapped around you, crying. You were an idiot. Clearly your brain was turning to mush just sitting around the house all day. Did you actually think you’d be able to get away with speaking like that to an Overlord of Hell?

There had to be a way out of this place. Had to. But the more you thought about it, the more impossible it felt. Even if you did manage to get out of the building in one piece, Vox had this entire city under constant watch. Every corner of Pentagram City was crawling with his tech and media. It would take minutes if not seconds for him to find you and bring you back by force. At this point, maybe you should just sign a contract with the douchebag. Surely, he’d get bored of you eventually, right? Maybe if you got lucky he’d even get killed off one of these days in an extermination, and you’d be off the hook completely.

But how long would that take? Decades? A century or two? What if he never tired of you? Eternal death or not, you didn’t want to spend that much time living and sleeping with some psycho you hated. No. That wasn’t an option. You weren’t going to do that. But what then? You had thought he was going to literally rip your head off just a few minutes ago for telling him no. You were pretty sure things weren’t going to get less volatile around here if you kept rejecting him.

You wiped at your tear soaked face with a tissue and tossed it across the room. It’s light material just sent it floating to the ground though. It looked as pathetic as you felt.

“Damn it,” you cursed, smashing your head into a throw pillow and lying back down, “I hate this fucking place.”

[lilacerull0]

that kindled her, she lighted up

Lila's love for learning and Lila's love for people in her life are identical and come from the same place. This is rather unusual and she is consistently transformed into something either less or more than human for it. She is made out to be less than human when her love for people more closely resembles love one might have for an idea or a book or a city. She is made out to be more than human when her love for learning more closely resembles love for a person in its intensity, dedication and passion. Both of these things inspire a fascination that turns sour in others who in return want to make this part of Lila dissappear. It's only with Enzo that she gets to be this way, not only without having it be a bad thing, but also having it be something that she can share and enjoy in the presence of the other.

[capseycartwright]

can't ignore the crazy visions of me in la

Margarita-drunk Buck ruminates on how beautiful Eddie Diaz is while his best friend is dancing to Chappell Roan. That's what LA pride is for, right? - or, alternatively: Eddie spends his first pride as an out queer man in a gay club, and Buck is in love with him about it.

written for week one of @summerofbuddie- mixed media. the mixed media part of this fic is eddie's big gay playlist, and is full of what i believe to be all of eddie's favourite queer music. pls enjoy.

ao3 link

Buck had always thought that Eddie was beautiful. He knew how that sounded – but even when he had thought he was straight, Buck had always felt quite comfortable in his masculinity. Men were beautiful. Okay, sure, with the benefit of hindsight, it was long-buried bisexuality threatening to burst to the surface, but the point stood: Eddie Diaz had always been beautiful to Buck. 

Physically, yes, he was beautiful. He had these big brown eyes that had always been incredibly effective at getting Buck to do all the things Eddie didn’t want to do –  small things, like driving (of course, because Eddie was a passenger princess at heart, and Buck was more than happy to indulge), and cooking, until Eddie had begun to find a love for that himself, and the bigger things too, like agreeing to be Eddie’s medical proxy, and being Christopher’s guardian in case – well, Buck didn’t like to articulate the rest of that one. It felt like jinxing it, so he always left it at ‘in case’ – nothing else needed to be said.

Eddie was physically beautiful – he had the softest brown hair Buck had ever come across, and a sweet grin that got him more than his fair share of attention on calls, and firefighting had packed on a lot of muscle over the years, so maybe he wasn’t the proud owner of an eight-pack, anymore, but Eddie’s body was strong, and capable, and Buck felt that was beautiful too. 

Eddie was gorgeous, was the thing – but he wasn’t just physically beautiful. Eddie Diaz had a really beautiful personality, too. It had taken a while for him to allow Buck to get to know it – and not just Buck, for everyone else, too – but when Eddie had decided to let people in, and see who he truly was, underneath the somewhat gruff exterior, there has been so much beauty there. Eddie was kind, kind in a way that Buck could only admire, genuine in his kindness. Buck could see where Christopher got it from.

Eddie was gentle, too. Buck knew most people would doubt that, given the life Eddie led – an army veteran with a penchant for street fighting and Muay Thai – but Buck knew better. Those were all circumstances, responses to a life filled with trauma, and underneath all of that, Eddie was the gentlest person he knew. Eddie would always be the one who carefully picked up spiders, and bees, if they found their way into the firehouse, or Buck’s apartment, or his own home, and he’d coo gently as he brought them to the window, setting them free before anyone (Buck, usually) could hit them with a stray hardback novel. Eddie liked to garden, a collection of brightly coloured flowers growing in the front bed right outside his porch, Eddie humming to himself as he watered them, the image one Buck hoped would be seared into his memory forever.

Eddie was gentle with Christopher. Buck hadn’t exactly grown up with a father he aspired to be like – Philip had been cold, and distant, and though Buck understood why now, he would never forgive it. Eddie had been through his fair share of heartbreak, and trauma, and yet he still raised Christopher with a gentle hand, guiding his son through life in a way Buck had never experienced himself. He was glad to be able to watch it, though, watch as Eddie learned from his own mistakes, and apologised to Chris, and did better for his son every day. 

Eddie was gentle with Buck.

Buck was a lot, he knew – he was loud, and talkative, and the undiagnosed ADHD he definitely had made it so both of those qualities were amplified when he was stressed, or anxious, which was frankly, a lot of the time. Buck knew he earned his eyerolls and exasperated looks – but never from Eddie. Eddie always listened, attentive and eager to learn as Buck went off on tangent about the latest fun thing he learned. Eddie was the first to suggest a gym session, when he knew Buck was antsier than normal, suggesting they work off some of his nervous energy before their next call.

Eddie had been there after the truck bombing, gentle as he had torn down Buck’s already shaky walls, gentle as he helped Buck in, and out of bed, gentle as he’d helped him shower, shrugging off Buck’s thanks with a ‘you’d do the same for me’ and a smile. 

(Buck would do the same for Eddie – he would do anything for Eddie.)

Eddie was beautiful. Eddie was beautiful when he smiled, when he laughed, Eddie was beautiful in every single conceivable way to Buck –

But this might be the most beautiful Buck had ever seen his best friend.

read the rest on ao3

[durgetavoc]

Yes I really want to know the horrors of the shit bucket. I’m quite surprised that he isn’t obsessed with cleanliness. He always struck me as the type but then again… I guess I’m wrong.

Oh god, here we go then.

SPOILERS FOR THE HOUSE OF HOPE

(CW for...The Shit Bucket Guy, obviously)

So, if we ever decide to go steal the Orphic Hammer, we can go visit The House of Hope, there, we obviously find Raphael's collection of artifacts, his eternal debtors, and one of them is… This guy.

You should know that all eternal debtors are condemned to a certain task/action. It's difficult to know if this has anything to do with their contract with Raphael, if it is a distortion of an already existing trait of their personality (for example, the Perfect Eternal Debtor, the Theologist Eternal Debtor or even the Voyeur Eternal Debtor) or if it's a way to completely dehumanize them (Loyal Eternal Debtor…My beloved :( ). It seems to be a mix of everything, that wouldn't be surprising if Raphael did what seemed most entertaining to him.

But let's focus on the Shit Bucket Guy, since he's the one that interested us today.

As our affectionate nickname for him indicates, we find him in front of a chamber pot with a visible green odorous cloud above it, which confirms us that it has been used (when you interact with the pot, here what the game says : "An overpowering stench singes your nostrils. Nothing good happened here."). The debtor doesn't appreciate us getting closer to it, and if we ask him if he is its guardian, this is what he answers:

His "name" in the game is "Unclean Eternal Debtor" and if you're taking a look at his face... Yeah, I guess he's not just guarding the pot. When we observe the animation of the character, he walks around the pot, makes a hand gesture to smell it, and that's it.

It has become a running joke in the fandom, particularly for us, little mouses. Those who have been to the House of Hope know about the Shit Bucket Guy... But nobody talks about him.

(Yeah I couldn't help it.)

It's not really surprising, the presence of the chamber pot, and not just any one, RAPHAEL'S, raises other questions. One might wonder if it's not a little OOC coming from someone like him.

Let's take advantage of this question to dig... A little deeper.

Here's, imo of course, why it's somehow relevant to show Raphael's chamber pot and what this tells us about him.

Shall we?

1. Don't be fooled by appearances, he POOPS like us!

Raphael. Raphael. Raphael who embodies sophistication, intellect and danger... Alluring and at the same time fearsome, a fascinating mix. Goddamnit, he's a suave motherfucker, and he fucking knows it.

In video games, it's part of the suspension of disbelief to not talk/show toilet, unless you're in a life simulation game like sims. It's not just taboo since it's one of the most private aspects of our life, but it's also... Not relevant to the intrigue most of the time.

Showing us something that intimate about him disintegrate his mysterious aura. We learnt that Raphaels shits. Yeah, absolutely astonishing. Reminding us that he's exactly at the same level as us. Like the title said, despite his charming manners, his eloquence, his theatrical gestures... He's still human, hells, part human.

2. In the Devil's house.

The first time we meet Raphael, he wastes no time in bringing us to his home, on his own terms. We only see one room, and this is what we see:

Luxurious place, lavish displays of food, ordered furniture... Promising, right? This is how Raphael wants to give as a first impression. I think this scene is perfect as a metaphor. Remember what Gale said? He's taking us to dinner! Like a date, he wants to impress us, seduce us.

But when we're back to this place during our improvised visit, what do we see?

Rotten food. Blood. Skeletons. Mess. Remind me of my room before I have to rush to clean everything because a friend comes over.

By choosing to enter Raphael's home, into his privacy, the game takes us on a tour of his home: we discover what is hidden behind Raphael's character. It is of course expected that we discover his secrets and/or aspects of his personality that he would not wish to reveal, at least not before we make a deal with him.

Haarlep, his incubus, also participates in this demystification. Through them, we can learn about Raphael's sexuality (I'll be quick on this since @bitethedevil did some really good analysis posts about it):

Raphael is only attracted to himself (hence Haarlep's appearance)

He is a bottom pillow prince

And he doesn't last in bed (a valuable information that can be used to anger Raphael later)

Once again, this is another very intimate aspect that is revealed to us. I'm sorry to say it, but Haarlep basically plays the same role as the chamber pot to accentuate the intimacy of the place and also to ridicule Raphael, thus revealing to us what he really is.

3. Raphael hates his father.

Our favorite cambion is having daddy issues, and the chamber pot seems like a nice response to the statue his dad gave him. It's a "blink and you'll miss it" kind of detail, but it's funny to point it out. Show don't tell as it's finest.

4. How bad it is to sell your soul to Raphael.

This one is easy... The Shit Bucket Guy is an example of Raphael's cruelty : "This is what could happen to you if you make a contract with Raphael."

Sure, it's funny because the whole thing is ridiculous: "Guardian of his chamber pot? Seriously?", but it's hard to really laugh at it if you take into account the other eternal debtors. The whole place is designed to make you uncomfortable, because it's not treated as a joke. They had a life, had to ask Raphael for help, and are now reduced to doing something degrading until the end of time. They don't even have a name anymore. They could be your Tav/Durge or your companions...

Suddenly, the temptation to make a contract with Raphael is less appealing after seeing all this, isn't it?

Conclusion : Now the question that burns our lips : What could this guy have done to him to be reduced to this? And why?

My first instinct when I met this character was to think, "oh boy, you must have really pissed off Raphael..." let's be honest, it's the kind of torture you could imagine to your worst enemy or at least a very annoying one.

It could be that, or maybe, mayyybe...

Remember Mephistopheles' statue?

What if Raphael was SO annoyed by this gift that he woke up one day thinking "fuck my dad, fuck his gift" and decided to literally shit on him by putting a chamber pot in front of this statue to express his thanks. And just like any narcissist/paranoid guy, he named a "guard" to be sure no one would spy on him through this (it sounds delirious, but again, we learn that Haarlep was send to distract Raphael, so why not?)

Sure, maybe Shit Bucket Guy annoyed Raphael in the past, but wouldn't that be kinda fucked up that this guy didn't do anything that would justify this treatment? He's just a dude, and Raphael is just a pissed-off daddy's boy (and a very mature one).

Or maybe, Raphael just thinks it's funny. And who are we to discuss a devil's sense of humor?

In any case, sorry Shit Bucket Guy, but it wasn't your lucky day.

PS: Hush, I can hear you wondering "do you think Raphael is scat???" and on this subject I would say: I don't think so, his narcissism is there after all, but he also seems really into humiliation. So maybe it's for the best we don't really know the answer to this question.

After all, only Haarlep can judge him (so the bar is already on the floor).

[lukaherehelp]

*gets back on stage* Thank you, thank you, glad to be back on stage! *preps the mic*

ehem... So about this: let me explain it to the babies in this hellsite that still are too new to a/b/o - omegaverse dynamics.

You have probably seeing our favorite alpha4alpha duo going at each others necks like their lifes depend on it.

And even in their case this gesture is important due to, you guessed it: scent.

Yet, if you go through all their makeouts and nc scenes, there's no bite to be seeing. And that's because there's no use to it in their case. Let me explain why:

This whole gesture turns into a much intricate dynamic when we are talking about an alpha4omega relationship.

The neck is really significant in this "setting" due to the existence of "scent glands". Is basically an exaggeration on how, even in "normal humans", any type of smell is more powerful on the neck area due to the pulsing and warmth of blood, which helps the skin to maintain a smell for much longer. That's why we usually wear perfume on our necks. or why vampires always go to the neck but wrong bl to talk about that.

Now, onto this "scent glands": is what gives away the subgender of anyone just by one sniff. They are the reason why Babe got really happy after those couple of sniffs onto Charlie's neck.

But in their case, that's about as much use as they have. "You smell nice!", that's it.

With our favorite alpha4omega, AlanJeff and you can also attribute this to SonicNorth btw 👀, this area can take a much more importance. Why? Because of marking.

"Marking" in omegaverse is when an alpha "claims" an omega: is a deep bite to the neck area where the scent glands are located. Once an alpha marks an omega, the omega can mark that same alpha back, also claiming it. After you get marked, that's it, you are forever partnered unless one of them dies or the bond is somehow broken but let's not think about it now. Your scent even changes, letting everyone around you know not only that you have being marked, but also whom you belong to.

Now that you know this, my post saying that we are one little step away from this to happen is more clear: because y'all can't tell me that THIS:

isn't the face of an omega whoms being more than ready to be marked and claimed. Jeff has wanted this old man's teeth sunken on his neck since two lifetimes ago.

Because when this little shit said "I can't see anything when you touch me" is pure bullshit! I know, Jefferson, that by this point:

You already knew a bathroom nailing session was bound to happened and I'm trying to not going insane about the position of their heads, I BETTER SEE A BITE MARK DURING THE BATHTUB SCEEN AFTERWARDS.

YOU AIN'T SLICK hehe, JEFFREY, AND NEITHER IS ALAN. My old man is losing his mind for a reason, never instinct has hit him harder than now. Ma boi is ready to take the responsibility and the opportunity cannot come faster for the both of them.

So yeah, that's it. Nothing else to add.

GIVE US THE MARKING, YOU BRAVE COWARDS!!

*runs off stage*