#changed the name for privacy but it’s the same concept

[reesemon]

speech relationship drama so bad we started calling it jacobgate 😭🙏

[minhosimthings]

Me Quedo Mirandote || 18+

Pairings: Jake × fem!reader

Request: I dont know if you accept a req now but... fresh grad worker! (jake or hyunjin) × ojt student y/n. Y/n was assigned to (jake or hyunjin) to train her but yn like riding (jake or hyunjin) in his swivel chair. (Jake or Hyunjin)'s work desk cubicle is in kinda hidden in the corner. (cockwarming, cowgirl, softdom!(jake or hj))

Warnings: SMUT MINORS DNI, 18+, thigh riding, degradation, 1% sir kink because I can, orgasm control eyy, cock riding, unprotected sex (zont zo it), mention of blood, fingering, praise, semi-public sex, role-play ish situation?, Use of petnames 'doll', overstimulation, dom!Jake, sub!reader, swearing, reader wears a dress

A/N: On popular demand, I decided to just copy paste my og Hyunjin work and change the names to Jake!

Hyunjin version

Never in a million years would you ever have thought that you'd be fixing your frizzied hair and ruined lipstick in your soon-to-be office's bathroom, but here you were, your lipstick three shades lighter and your white dress all ruined.

And no one would ever question how Sim Jaeyun's shirt had the exact same lipstick shade stains on it. Why would they? A playboy never loses his instincts, even if he's freshly graduated and teaching the only on- the-job student with full responsibility.

The fortunate student being you.

And it wasn't to say Jake wasn't fortunate as well. You were compliant, perhaps even exactly like him. He wondered how you had ever managed to get through your classes so well during the day and get through him during the cool intoxicating nights.

Another thing Jake was fortunate to have was his "private office". And by office, he meant his own comfortably small cubicle, which was far away from the prying eyes of his co-workers. It was weird for a fresh out of school student to have his own cubicle, but he guessed that his workplace valued privacy to an extreme level, so much so that his "office" hid discarded red laces, tainted white silks and on the job students perfectly.

"And that's how you write up a summary for the graphs of the month." Jake clapped his hands together, trying not to sound overly positive, as you stared dead eyed into the computer screen. He had been explaining the concept to you for an hour now, and although you'd been standing resting your chin on his head, you were mentally exhausted.

"Doll, you doing alright?" Jake cocked a brow at you, standing up to your level, arms going to your waist as if it was his daily routine. Well, technically it was his daily routine.

"Do I look like I'm doing alright?" You scoffed, eyes flittering between Jake's eyes and lips, "Don't I deserve a promotion for all the work I've done Sir?"

Jake's lips morphed into a slow smirk at your widened lamb eyes and your 'good girl' pout. His hands gripped into your skin tighter, as he leaned in closer, pressing a kiss to your neck.

"You're just a student Y/N. I can't give you a promotion so quick." He smirked into the nape of your neck, knowing what was coming next. How couldn't he? With how many times, his favourite 'employee' had begged on her knees to get a 'promotion'.

"But sir haven't I been a good girl?" You whispered, staring at Jake's plump lips, "I even wore the dress you bought me." You motioned towards your clearly visible cleavage in your summer dress, one of Jake's most favourite sights for his eyes to ogle at any day.

Your hands went up to his luscious locks of hair, two flicks framing his face perfectly. God, his hair was as soft as cotton, you thought, a complete contrast to how he behaved once you were suffocating his length with your pussy.

Jake's hands slid down to your ass and pulled your hips against his body, your hand pressing against his desk. It made the dress you were wearing ride up your thighs, exposing your panties. His hot lips moved away from yours and down to your neck, kissing and gently biting the delicate skin. You let out a little gasp and arched your neck, it felt divine.

“Doll, with the way you're gasping now, I wonder what you'd do once I actually start with the usual." Jake chuckled darkly, pressing a rough, carnivorous kiss to your lips, "fuck—be a good girl for me now."

Jake pulled away from the kiss and sat back on his chair, leaning as prosaic as he could against it, and rubbing his hand over his thigh, ever so cordially inviting you over to him. Why would you ever refuse? It was your favourite place to be at any chance you got. Some days, that's the only place you wanted to be, on a hot lazy day, when you wanted nothing more than Jake to shut up about presentations and slides and spread out his leg for you.

You manoeuvred yourself so that your covered but damp core met with Jake's thigh, the hem of your dress gracefully swooped over his thigh, as you parted your legs enough to let your clit brushing against the fabric. The contact caused your mouth to fall open in a silent sigh.

"Already?" Jake clicked his tongue, "That's sort of pathetic don't you think doll?"

From this angle you looked pretty to Jake with your head thrown back, pupils blown out with lust and a prominent blush on your face. It made the animalistic side in Jake ravenous for more.

Jake adjusted his position on the chair, your loud mewl made him chuckle and press a kiss to your forehead. You hands went up to grip his soft, ebony hair, which was tied perfectly in a ponytail. Well, tied perfectly, until you ran your hands through the follicles, throwing the hair band off, and continuing to grip his open hair tightly. Your grip made Jake silently moan.

"Feel that?" He lifted a cocky brow at your pleasured expression, "It's just for you, doll."

Slowly you began rocking your hips back and forth, letting your clit get maximum friction against the clothed barriers. Your hands gripped at his shirt now tightly, leaving tiny creases all along as you chased your release.

Somewhere along the way, Jake had abandoned his work and had turned all of his attention on you, gripping your hips harshly, digging marks, guiding it along his thigh while pressing open mouthed kisses along your shoulder and neck. The chair was creaking worse than a wooden bed, but there wasn't a care in the world for that.

Jake's hands move up your thighs towards your hips pushing you harder against his thigh gaining more melodic moans from your mouth.

You rut yourself faster against him, moaning louder and louder until you finally reach what you thought was your peak.

"Jake," you whined, his kisses descend even further down your body, lips at the top of your chest, eyes peering up into your desperate and pleading eyes.

"Fuck," you sigh out, when Jake grabs your breast, lavishing it an equal amount of attention, his hands moving your hips harder and faster against him, your orgasm building swiftly at his actions.

"Beg for it darling." Jake's sadistic smile hit your face, "Be a good slut, and beg for your cum."

"Yeunnie—fuck!" You moaned out as his thigh gave a little flick upwards, "please Jake—"

"So desperate," he mumbles, tone laced with dominance, hands gliding across the back of your thighs, teasing you.

"So wet," he adds, doing as you asked and sliding his finger across your clothed core, a sinful groan escaping you, head lolling back against.

"Come for me," he husks out, letting you fall over the edge with a guttural moan, back arching, as your legs trembled, hips rocking at the pleasure that filled you. A pleasant buzz consumed your body as you rode out the aftershocks of your powerful release, your body practically going limp on his thigh at the exhaustion of coming so hard.

Your chest rose and fell with every unsteady breath, as you steadied yourself on Jake's thigh, leaning your head towards his shoulder, from how dizzy you were. Being a cowgirl really took a lot of energy from you.

As you were getting ready to stand up, you felt Jake's arm grip yours tightly.

"So soon, pretty?" He pulls you in for a rough kiss, biting your lip, he could taste salty blood on them, "I'm not even half done."

“Come here,” Jake demanded as he pulled your arm. You move around from the back of the chair as he pushes it out a bit from the table.

“Oh baby. Aren’t you just deliciously naughty?” he says as his finger slips in between your folds to find you positively dripping. “Is this all for me?” he asks as he starts to rub your clit in slow circular movements. The stimulation was killing you, yet you obliged, dumbly nodding along to Jake's words.

“So greedy,” he whispers. He slips his finger from your pussy, his hands come up to your shoulders, and he pushes the dress off of them.

“Come here and sit on my cock,” he says with that lopsided smirk you love so much.

Lifting yourself up a little, you line him up with your entrance, and then you sit back down and let him slide into your wet, needy pussy. Filling you so perfectly. Stretching you completely. You slowly sink down onto him, as he grips your waist harder, holding you down.

“You can take it.” He moans out. He slowly pushes himself in a little more, and you swear you hear him whimper. You cry out, laying down on his chest.

“Shit!” He goes inch by inch, and you groan louder and louder as he fills you out.

"Fuck,” Jake groans. And then you start to move. Slowly, up and down. Your hands rest on his hair for leverage as you bounce yourself on his cock.Your tight grip on his hair makes Jake throw his head back slightly, his eyes almost rolling to the back with the sheer amount of pleasure he was recieving from your hands running through his locks.

"Fuck—baby keep doing that." He mumbles, not even sure if you've heard it, you probably did as was evident from your now tighter grip, your fingers dancing their pretty ballet through Jake's velvety hair.

Jake grabs a tight hold of your hips, and he lifts you up a little before he starts to thrust up into you. Harder and faster than you managed. Pounding into you over and over.

"Fuck—Jake!" You gasp, a little louder than usual, "touch me—please."

Your begs elated Jake, how could he refuse? He shakes his hand from your hip and presses his fingers to your cunt. His motions on your clit are as frantic as his thrusts into you.

Pushing you closer and closer to the edge. And with a final buck into you so deep that he nudged your cervix as his thumb pressed down on your clit, you both cum. Hard and fast.

Your hips gyrated harder, until the spurring had come close; hot liquid squirted on his cock. The orgasm rips through you at such intensity that your eyes roll into the back of your head, and you scream out his name. His cock twitches as his cum spurts inside you.

Jake tilts his head to rest on your chest as he tries to catch his breath, and he moans out your name. You kiss him softly at the top of his head. Your fingers are raking through his hair as you try to calm your own breathing down to normal.

"You've made such a mess." Jake chuckled, pressing his forehead to yours, "my messy girl."

"How about those graphs now, Mr Sim?" You asked, a tint of cockishness smeared in your voice.

"Graphs?" Jake laughed, gripping your hips again.

"We're not even a quarter done yet, doll."

[bonny-kookoo]

Jungkook

ℍ𝕠𝕨 𝕋𝕠: Notice

Jungkook knows the effect he has on people. So why won't you look at him the same?

Main Tags/Warnings: Model!Jungkook, Actor!Jungkook, Stylist!Reader, strangers/enemies to lovers, mentions of toxic beauty standards

Length: ~4k words

There is no taglist for this fic.

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Jeon Jungkook.

He's not really what you see every day visually in the modeling industry, and from what you've heard, he's also quite the charmer. Clearly he has to have something going on if his constantly changing partners are anything to go by- one google search of his name giving you several articles about different names he's allegedly participating in the sensual bedroom tango with. Not that you're surprised- most male models tend to make use of their name in order to get what they desire.

Kill or be killed- you can't really blame anybody for using what they have.

"Did you know he apparently has a yacht?" Lea wonders, eating her sandwich your brought her this morning, as she sits on a table close to you. "I've never even been on a fucking yacht before. Apparently those things are like, 500 thousand coins! Imagine!" She sighs, making you laugh along with her. "I can't believe someone just spends that much money on a boat of all things." She mumbles, trying not to get her new acrylics dirty with the sauce.

"Maybe once you have too much, you just don't care?" Haru wonders, setting up his camera equipment close by. "I've heard that money loses it's worth to those who have a lot of it." He offers, shrugging his shoulders as he adjusts some cables.

"I mean, probably." Lea agrees. "With all the brand deals he has, he's got to have his bank account packed with doubloons." She huffs. "Can't he spare us a million each? He won't miss it, I'm sure.." She whines, finishing her breakfast while you shake your head, laughing.

You're all joking around, but at the end of the day, you'll all probably stay where you are financially and career wise until the end of your days. And you yourself are fine with that- you've accepted the fact that the life Jeon Jungkook for example is living isn't something you yourself would want. That man get's snapped by paparazzi almost daily, he's got no privacy from what you can tell, and he can't even say his opinion without being destroyed for it.

No thank you, you rather stay a nobody than have your entire life displayed for the world to judge.

"What's the concept anyways?" You mumble, looking at Lea who shrugs.

"They said he wants to play director today." She jokes. "So I brought a little of everything, really. We'll see what he wants to do."

You frown. You don't like being so unable to prepare anything- to be put on the spot like that. What if he wants something from you you can't pull off? You don't want to be shit-talked by someone with a name as big as his- that would be absolute career-ending for sure, and you can't have that. You've got nothing else than this.

"I heard he's kinda difficult." Lea sighs, picking up her coffee. "They always only look nice.." She huffs disappointed, before she takes a sip.

You just stay quiet. It's all the same anyways.

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Jeon Jungkook is, indeed, difficult.

Not only is he way too tall for you, but he also moves around constantly, talks over your head as if you're not there, and most of all seems to love making fun of you for no apparent reason other than to piss you off. You're not sure why exactly it has to be you- but it seems like he's chosen his victim, and he won't let go anytime soon.

Just do your job, you tell yourself.

His jokes about your height honestly suck, but no one's brave enough to say it, clearly. Everyone laughs at them and praises his good looks and professionalism while you're just trying to get through this whole ordeal. "A bit tired, huh?" The model looks up at you as he sits on the chair provided, your hands fixing his hair in place just the way he wanted it to. You're glad he's sitting. You hate when he's standing upright, not even trying to bend down a little to offer some help. "And not much of a talker." He chuckles, boldly letting his eyes roam over your face and body while you work.

If he's as observant as he wants to make himself to be, then he won't be too surprised if you don't answer now, either.

And he isn't- he just laughs softly to himself, nothing more than that, and you honestly don't want to know what he's thinking. He's probably judging your no-name branded clothes, ripped tights from having gotten your keys caught on them earlier, and your clear lack of makeup.

You're not the model here, so why bother?

You leave him quickly after finishing up, letting Haru and the others guide the model on where to look and how to pose- though honestly, Jungkook seems rather shit at following directions, always doing somewhat of what he wants instead of what's being suggested.

Why even bring a director when you're gonna do what you want anyways?

"I hate how good he looks." lea hisses at you from where she's standing right next to where you are. "He's so mean! Like, childish-mean!" She whines towards you, and you can't help but snort to yourself because that's hitting the nail on the head for you.

He does act like a spoiled child rather than an adult man on the road towards his thirties.

"Jungkook-ssi, please look at the camera!" One of the directors ask, and only now do you notice that the model looked your way- probably having heard you laugh. Does he think you were laughing about him? Hopefully not, even if it's somewhat true.

You can't have him yap about you to other magazines or whatnot.

So you instantly wipe that smile off your face and go back towards professionalism, and at that, he alerts his gaze as well, going back to what he's been hired to do.

"Do you think there's guys out there who look like him but are nice too?" Lea wonders now that you've both walked a bit morenout of hearing range, avoiding his radar as you hide amongst the other staff and equipment. "Like, I want a hot dude with piercings and tattoos too. But with the old-guy gentleman flavor, you know?" She dreams, stealing a snack from you.

"Dont think so." You huff out, stretching your arms high up to arch your back and legs, even going onto tip-toes as your muscles release all the tension you've been accumulating already. You sigh out in bliss after finishing, your body seemingly reset-

A smirking Jungkook walking right past you, probably having seen you throughout the entire ordeal.

What's that stupid half-smile for, though?

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You shrug. "He looks the same in every photo to me." You tell Haru, who looks at you a bit lost.

He sighs as he clicks through the photos himself, unsure. You know he knows you're right- but at the end of the day, people like those sultry eyes and that cocky expression that man makes in every picture. You're not sure what exactly makes it so appealing- but you're just here to make him look as good as possible. And his hair looks perfect in almost every shot- so that's good enough for you.

That's your job. Nothing more, nothing less.

"It's his signature look." Haru tries to justify, his soft voice unsure, however, as if he needs to tell it mostly to himself to be convinced of it. He's never been a fan of shootings like these- he's good at them, sure, but he doesn't enjoy shooting those pictures. He's too soft to say it, but you know he finds them boring and uninteresting. It's basics, nothing exciting, nothing new. But he's being paid for this- so he doesn't complain.

That's his job- nothing more, nothing less.

"Well, then his signature look is boring." You say, leaning back against the table behind you, sipping your can of sugary caffeinated soda- the energy drink by now the only thing keeping you somewhat concentrated. Hopefully Jungkook stops complaining so much so you can all go home soon- he's got the whole week anyways, so why is he so whiny?

Brat. It's only the first day and he's already getting on your nerves- acting like someone pissed in his breakfast, rolling his eyes and staring people down just for the fun of it. And women actually fuck that guy? Nepotism must be crazy.

He probably has sex in front of a mirror just to watch himself.

"Boring, huh." Jungkook's voice chimes up, and you spot him walking closer, now wearing a new set of clothes. The leather pants look awfully tight, especially in his private region- that can't be comfortable, can it?

You frown at him. He got his hair all chaotic again- but it's fine. It fits the theme. You won't retouch it for now.

"She didn't mean it like that-" Haru instantly tries to defend you, the young man intimidated by the model as always. You wonder how he can even operate the camera when he constantly shies away from him so much. Maybe when he looks at him through the lens he can detach the person from the picture? It would make sense. After all, you do the same.

You don't see Jungkook. You see Jeon Jungkook, brand ambassador and model- and it should stay that way.

"I did." You disagree with him, however, before you look back at Jungkook. You don't need to be protected- not for your own opinion. It doesn't have any weight anyway, you doubt that someone like you can hurt this man's ego either. It's at least as big as himself, if not taller, which is a lot, considering that he towers over you despite not even reaching the standard 1.80m height usually desired. Then again, there's quite a few things you could count as not being the standard of beauty. But he makes up for it in confidence- even if he seems to have a little too much of it for your taste. "I did mean it like that."

"What am I supposed to do instead then?" Jungkook challenges, crossing his arms next to you.

The hell were you supposed to tell him? You're neither a model, nor very fashionable. He should ask Lea about that, not you. He's trying to argue for no good reason, and that attitude is starting to piss you off.

"Nothing. It's good like that." You shrug, keeping your cool for now at least visually.

"You said it's boring." He bites back almost immediately. Your distaste grows.

"I did, because to me, it is." You respond calmly. Is he trying to pick a fight with you right now? He really is acting like a child beneath all that fake politeness and forced friendly tone he puts on. "But that's my personal opinion. I'm sure people will like those pictures despite that." You explain.

He plays around with his piercings, and gives you that odd look that you can't distinguish from hatred or being offended.

Unbeknownst to you, he's been trying to figure you out for the entire shoot- wondering what you're really like. Do you like softer guys like Haru more? You seem to have some edge to you, if the glimpse of your bellybutton piercing and the few lines of a tattoo poking out the waistband of your pants would be anything to go by. Maybe you're just someone who likes to be in charge.

He can't offer that, at least not sexually.

He's opening his mouth to say something, before he moves when the director claps, and tells everyone to get back to their respective spots-

Jungkook sitting in front of the camera once more, woth the same signature look, because that is his job.

Nothing more, nothing less.

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If it wasn't for Lea and Haru, you wouldn't even be here.

Sitting in a restaurant, special VIP part that's secluded for the rest of the people here, eating together with stupid Jeon Jungkook, who's busy crawling up your boss's ass. He's sitting right next to you too, which is just as ridiculous- it makes it impossible to have a proper conversation with either of your friends. So you just eat, casually, mostly whatever Lea puts on your plate for you.

You really hate social settings like this. You don't like being reminded that you can't even hold a proper conversation for longer than two sentences.

The moment he puts a piece of meat on your plate instead of Lea, your chopsticks stutter. You don't like this. He just tries to appear friendly- probably because everyone else is watching. You know how this goes, after all, you've been through shit like this before. He'll lure you in, be all nice and sweet, use you as his dirty little secret before he leaves you behind for someone that looks better at his side. Someone of his own profession, most likely- or maybe a singer, or an actress. Someone pretty, tall and famous, someone useful for his career. Someone beneficial.

Someone that's not you.

"You're really not much of a talker, hm?" He asks, sitting next to you with his head on his hand, elbow perched up on the table. He honestly looks a little tired without all the makeup Lea had put on for the shoot today- eyes a bit dull, darkness underneath them shadowing the glimmer they had during work today quite a bit. His skin is also not really as clear as it looked in the pictures taken. He's got a few beauty marks, a noticeable little scar, and some redness around his nose.

He looks like a person from this angle. Not like a model.

"…what am I supposed to say." You shrug, eating what he's offered, because why not? He hums a reply, everyone else at the table conversing with one another, Lea currently seemingly in a heated debate about the height of heels with another staff member across the table.

"Why do you work this job when you hate models so much?" Jungkook asks, catching you off guard as you look at him again. "Or is it just me that's your issue?" He challenges, and you sigh, shaking your head before you occupy yourself with your food once more.

"Was my work okay?" You ask him instead, not looking at him but rather his hands, because you can't stand those eyes he has.

"More than okay- it was just what I wanted." He replies a bit caught off guard, and you shrug.

"Then there's nothing to talk about." You simply reply. Because that's the way you need to keep things, that's how you'll protect yourself and have been for the last few years. You're there to work, not make friends, and especially nothing more than that.

"Oh I think there is." Jungkook chuckles next to you. "I heard you and Kim Yongsun had something going on a few years back when he was shooting for Dazed." He says, and suddenly, you put your chopsticks down, even Lea looing over at you, an expression of both anger and worry on her face. You get up and leave with a respectful bow to your seniors, leaving the restaurant and Jeon Jungkook behind, who's looking at Lea next to him as if to ask what's suddenly wrong with you-

but even she shakes her head, turning back towards Haru next to her, no longer interested in talking to him.

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Kim Yongsun is, at the moment, a very successful actor. Having starred as a leading role in several dramas, he's right now shooting for a full length movie, though the news aren't really as interested in his career-

but more so in his love life, and the baby on the way.

Articles about this perfect and untainted lovestory are all over the place whenever you search up his name- this picture-perfect dream he's created about how he only ever loved his now wife Jane, how he's never looked at anyone before.

Such a liar, but then again- he's an actor, and that's what he's pretty talented at.

Having all of those memories revived made you nauseous yesterday, and it also made you dread coming to work today. But this is your job, nothing more, nothing less.

"There's my pretty bestie!" Lea instantly hugs you the next morning, swaying you around a little childishly, pressing her cheek against yours. With her tall body and a few years above your age, she feels like an older sister that you can trust, years of working together having glued your souls to one another it feels like. "Did you get home safe yesterday?" She wonders, and you nod.

"Went to bed right away." You explain, getting out your breakfast, another one for her as well. She tends to get up late, so you always buy her something on the way- otherwise she would constantly forget to eat.

"I'm gonna have to try so hard not to poke an eye out of that guy today.." The makeup artist growls, pouting as she picks up her sandwich.

"It's natural that he knows though.." Haru softly buts in. "It's not really his fault?" He attempts to justify.

"Yeah maybe, but ever heard of being tactful? I don't tell everyone that you had a crush on Alice either even though that was hella' weird." She bites back, causing Haru's cheeks to flush red. Though she's right- even if Jungkook knows about it, there was no reason to bring that up, especially if he knows the full story of it all. Is he really that mean?

Could be. After all, he's not been exactly kind up until now.

The moment he enters the workplace, he seems almost surprised to see you there as well- greeting everyone on set with a nod. He's here early this time, and you're not sure why he'd do that. He's got almost two more hours until you're supposed to be shooting- so why is he here already?

"I'll protect you." Lea threatens, suddenly pulling you close to sit you on her lap, glaring at Jungkook.

"Lea!" You hiss at her, worried she might get into trouble. She can be a little too 'out there' for her own good- and someone like that guy is not one to mess with. One bad article about your company, and she'll be blacklisted from ever working in the industry ever again.

It's how it works, beneath the surface. Most agencies don't want staff that are not loyal dogs.

"Good morning." Jungkook offers, walking closer with a slight saunter you've come to realize he has almost all the time he walks around. "Can I talk to you for a second?" He asks, and Lea buts in before you can say anything at all.

"No, I'm sorry, Jungkook-ssi." She snarls almost. "We have to start working soon. Please talk to the directors if you have any questions." She says, making Jungkook eye her a little, before he sighs.

"Alright, then I'll do it like this instead." He tilts his head a bit irritated, crossing his arms in front of him. "I'm sorry for speaking out of line yesterday. I didn't mean to upset you." He offers. Lea scoffs.

"Well, you still did." She mumbles, and it seems like now the beast shows it's real face as he looks at her.

"I don't think I've talked to you at all yesterday, so I'm not sure why you're barking right now." He challenges, making the makeup artist visibly surprised at the way he addresses her. "I believe she's old enough to talk for herself." The model argues, and you can practically feel Lea's rage beginning to buzz inside of her, and to avoid any sort of crime soon about to happen, you stand up, and push at Jungkook's shoulder to lead him towards the restroom area where you're a bit more secluded.

"I don't care about your apology." You tell him right away. "Neither do I care if you're truly sorry or just trying to appear that way. We're both here to work, and that's it." You say, while he stands in front of you listening with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "Please do not invite me to anything you might want to do for the staff. I'm not interested." You finish your small rant.

"I always wondered what really went down, you know?" Jungkook says. "With you and Yongsun, I mean. He said that you hooked up with him, but honestly, looking at you, I can hardly believe that. No offense-" He waves off any potential anger you might have over the hidden message in that sentence. "-but you don't look like someone who fucks around." He shrugs.

"What do I look like then?" You challenge, now your arms crossed in defense. You don't like this situation in general. You just want him to leave you alone.

"I'm not sure." He admits. "But just between us-" He leans in a bit closer. "Yongsun is a cunt anyways. He drinks straight up coffee creamer- I mean, who the fuck does that?" he says, and at that, you actually have to laugh.

You remember that, years back.

"Listen-" Jungkook sighs. "-I know you probably have trust issues now, I'd have them too if I had to be with someone like that-" He tries to joke, "-but let's try and at least be civil with one another, okay?" He offers.

"You talk as if I was the one constantly picking fights." You bite back, a little annoyed again at the prospect of him victimizing himself right now.

"Yeah- it's a bad habit, sorry." He rubs the back of his neck. "I try and make jokes whenever I get awkward- and they don't land sometimes."

"You mean most of the time." you say, and he presses his lips together.

"Touché." He clicks his tongue, before he sways a bit on his feet. "Anyways, let's work well together, alright?" He offers his hand, and you shake it-

though you feel like this could be a terrible mistake.

[eustasscapitankid]

Eustass Kid x Killer Challenge: Kikitober 2024 "Mirror Sex" Rating: Explicit Warnings: None Tags: Partners, Lovers, Gay Sex, Pet Names (Boy; Sweet, Good, Beautiful), Forced (Self) Eye-Contact, Cursing Summary: I just want you to see how beautiful you (still) are. Word Count: 2,259

"Pretty when you're looking up like that."

Everything changed after Wano. The life he knew, now irrevocably altered. The fabric of their lives torn apart. Echoes of joy and laughter long forgotten, leaving haunting silence in it’s wake.

The man who filled his life with light, transformed. Warped. Corrupted by choices made in his name. In truth, were the roles reversed, Kid would chose the same fate—without hesitation. Though, this truth did little to lighten the burden of heartache welded upon shoulders.

Precious moments in which the world melted away once left the patriotic vizard forgotten; discarded on a small table by the door. A once pedestal for the blue and white crown now coated in a thick layer of dust.

The pessimistic side of him insisted this was just punishment for his actions. The choices he made reflected in it’s polish.

So he dealt with it. He let the dust collect.

Sunrise once meant his smile. No longer did he wake to the press of purple stained lips upon his own. Golden hour no longer promised the warmth of hand on cheek. Dawn no longer placed his reflection on ice blue backdrops.

If mornings were torment, nights proved hell on earth. Intimate moments once shared as the moon rose, now spoiled by the helmet Killer refused to remove; face concealed, lips pursed tight behind a metal cage.

The hopeful side of him yearned to tear of the mask, obliterate it. Crush in his metal claw. Surely it would resolve his troubles—bring his lovers face back into view.

What kind of man would he be if he destroyed the veil held so dear? Who was he to rip that away? It was, after all—he constantly reminded himself—his fault it’s usage now extended to the privacy of his company. Constant warring in his mind left him lacking sleep. Sitting in bed, hand stretched out, fingers tracing colored metal, the image of it crumpled and discarded playing in his mind like a well-worn VHS.

How many nights was it that his gaze was met by nothing more than an emotionless mask? Expected to perform at the sight of silent, cold steel?

Killer approached him from behind, his large chest pressing into his back. A feeling he used to relish. Perfectly calloused hands wrapped around him, tucking into his vest. A touch that used to make him shiver. It’s not that he was no longer attracted to the man. In fact—it was quite the opposite. He knew how pretty he was under those stripes. The laughter he used let free in the comfort of his embrace still echoed in his ears. The sight of blue eyes now a distant memory, still crystal clear in his mind.

Grabbing the hand on his chest he twisted himself so he could maneuver the blonde around, throwing him to the bed in the process. Killer fell on his stomach, heavy body bouncing slightly with the springs of the bed from the force of it. Not that it was unwelcome. When Eustass was rough with him, he need no longer think for himself, all thoughts and insecurities wiped away in the face of pleasure. It was like an escape. The only way to distance himself from the from the constant control, the only thing he could hide behind besides his mask.. Lifting his ass, he ground himself on Kid’s growing arousal.

Fingers grasped denim, blue fabric falling around muscled legs. A scarred face buried into into blonde locks. With his nose filled with the scent of snowdrop shampoo, it was easier to pretend things were as they used to be. He slid a spit-coated hand between them, teasing Killer’s rim before inserting a finger. Truthfully—previously—the pretty blue and white hood would, on occasion, increase his arousal. Like a blindfold, dulling the sense of sight so that your partner’s perception of touch increased. This concept oft left Killer a panting mess. The sound of his muffled voice now twisted into something that now softened even the hardest of erections. It’s been a long time since he made him beg. What he would give to make this man see how beautiful he was. To show him the perfection in his laugh. To prove a SMILE could never ruin his face. Insecurities present since childhood a constant factor, albeit one—up until recently—always cast aside with him.

Another finger joined the first. Hips desperately pushing backward in an attempt to push Kid’s fingers deeper. Of course, Kid obliged. Palm resting on the flat of his ass, fingers curling into him, undulating his in increasing successions. Rewarded with a moan he wished—so desperately—to hear unfettered. Fingers left the tight embrace, leaning down so his chest pressed against the blonde’s muscular back. Snaking his hand around to his face and sliding them under cold metal, welcomed into an eager mouth. Closed eyes focusing on the wet, sticky warmth that enveloped his fingers. Hand retreating from Killer’s mouth. Red lips parted, tongue swirling around his own index, relishing the sweet taste—the closest he could get to heaven. “Do you want more…sweet boy?”

Killer’s hips continued to rut into him, a sensation he could all but ignore.

“Use your words…”

*Hands instinctively grasped blonde hair, forcing his neck back as far as it could extend.* The only thing staring back at him, his own reflection. He released the first-full of blonde locks he stood up, hands pulling on on the buckle of his bandoleer, practiced hands releasing studded leather in a single motion. Leather falling to the floor with a slight thud. It took no more than a tug of his unsecured pants to cascade them to the floor, released from his pants with a bounce. Red-painted fingers steady his throbbing shaft while icy metal grasps at Killer’s hip to steady his movements. Teeth tugging on bottom lip as blood-flushed tip teasing quivering entrance, the gentle rocking of hips pressing himself inside. Slowly. Warm walls stretching around his cock as he was sucked in, inch by inch.

His pace began steady, finding an even rhythm he rocked his hips as Kill adjusted around him. This didn’t last very long. He just felt so good.

The pace he set soon gave way to a brutal frenzy, thrusting mercilessly, like it was the only thing giving him life. Slaps of skin against skin filled the air, mixed with the sounds of heavy panting and desperate whimpers.

God he wished he could just grab his hair at the base, and force eye contact while he fucked him senseless.

Fuck.

Kid’s eyes wandered the room naturally. His attention caught by a large artifact in the corner of their room, adorned with a sheet. Covered and forgotten since Wano. He left his ass with a POP!, met with a needy whine from the man underneath him.

“What are you doing??” Killer protested, while calloused hands rubbed his back soothingly in response.

“One second,” he replied, planting a kiss on his scarred arm.

Crossing the room, footsteps echoed as he reached the dusty object. Ripping the cover off revealed his full-figured reflection grinning back at him. Large and heavy as is, it was picked up effortlessly. Carried to the side of the bed, set down gingerly. The sounds of movement prompting Killer to sit up from his position on the bed, eyes searching for the partner that left him wanting.

Underneath the mask, blue eyes widened. But it was already too late. Kid was on him like a hungry wolf devouring his prey. Pushing him back on the bed, arms pinned underneath muscular legs. Metal claws like hooks scratched down the well-loved mask, a sickening sound emitting as metal met metal.

Resisting was useless. A simple apology left Kid’s lips, offering an honest truth while lacking any semblance of regret. Without hesitation the mask was ripped from his face, a dull thud as metal met wooden boards, rolling until it hit a dresser. Hands wiggled free from their pinned fate, desperately covering the twisted smile now revealed from it’s blue and white disguise.

Hands, worn by years of metalwork and fights, cupped his cheek with a tenderness that belied the rough calloused texture of his hands. The look in his eye the same as the day he realized he was in love. Soft, loving, unconditional. But the way he yanked on his body bordered on violent, twisting Killer back on his stomach, face prone to the full-length mirror as he fell on top of him.

For the first time in a long time he grabbed a true fist-full of hair at the base of the blonde’s scalp, relishing the sensation of yellow locks laced in his fingers he forced his head back. Blue eyes were covered by lids squeezed shut, desperate not to look at himself. He pulled the blonde to his knees, ass resting on Kid’s thighs. One hand still entangled in long hair, while the other wrapped its way around Killer’s chest. Slowly tracing his hand down over rippled muscle, hot breath tickled his ear as red-painted lips whispered promises in his lover’s ear.

“I know you’re not done sweet boy...look at you…” Kid’s hand made a path down his torso, finger lacing up Killer’s cock before smearing the beaded precum over his tip with his thumb. “You want my cock stuffed back in your tight little ass, don’t you?”

The delicious sound offered in reply would likely have been his undoing, but not today. He had a goal. And he was going to get what he wanted.

“Ah ah ah—use your words baby.”

The sweetest, softest moan escaped Killer’s lips. Filled with want and bridled with frustration. “Yes! Kid Please!”

“You know what I want.”

“Kid no…” he begged, tears falling down in desperation.

“Come on...be a good boy. Look at yourself while I rail you. Open your eyes and I’ll give you everything.”

Killer squirmed as Kid’s hands teased him, “I can’t…”

“Oh yes you can,” he brought his thumb to his lips, cleaning it of precum before cupping the Killer’s cheek sweetly, “Let me show you what I see. My beautiful boy, let me show you the reflection I see. Please?”

Ice blue eyes peaked open, testing the waters, softening as a flash of red caught his eye—stealing the show before he could even catch a glimpse of the wicked smile that contorts his face. Truthfully, Killer had been glad Kid hadn’t so much as breached the subject up until now. He might as well be laundry with how fast he folded for that man.

His eyes opened fully. A flash of purple lips framing white teeth sombering his expression. Hands pulled on blonde hair, keeping his eyes glued to the twisted grin in front of him. But he was rewarded. “That’s it. Such a good boy,” Kid purred, pressing his arousal into Killer’s ring of muscle, “Good boys get rewarded don’t they?”

“Mhmmm…” a mumble that left his lips more like a moan.

“If you look away—I stop.” Sultry words laced with lust. Not a demand. A threat.

Killer took a deep breath, then nodded, doing his best to keep the laughter that bubbled in his chest under control.

Kid moved his hand back down to his hip, pulling him into a thrust that brought him to hilt.

“Don’t cry beautiful,” A tear rolled down his lover’s face as sharp cackles escaped his throat, a warm hand wiping it with the back of his finger before burying his face in his neck. “Look at me.”

Ice blue met warm amber as their eyes locked. For a moment, Killer steel himself, quickly melted by the soft fire, the gaze of adoration brought by golden eyes. It hadn’t changed. Not. One. Bit. He went to turn around—lacing his arm behind himself, tangling in red locks. Before he had a chance, Kid released the iron grip on his hair. Warm flesh and cold steel met his hips and he was sent forward on the mattress, barely catching on his palms. The grip on his hips bruising as Kid pulled most of the way out, only to bottom out slamming back into him. This elicited a moan so laden with pleasure that, unfortunately, it came out as a mixture of ecstasy and laughter.

But it didn’t matter. Kid was already fucking into him, and he felt himself losing himself with every thrust. Fingers forcing their way into his mouth, for pleasure, and a gentle reminder to keep his eyes where they should be. On himself.

“There’s my handsome boy.” “Listen to those pretty sounds.” “Look how beautiful you are.”

Just moments ago, Killer would have bet everything in his possession—with full confidence—that he would never take off his mask again. Even in private. He didn’t want to loose that look. Never wanted to see it change. Couldn’t bear watching those amber eyes see him in a different light.

But they didn’t. They were right there, staring into him into the mirror from behind like he was the most gorgeous thing he had ever seen. Unbothered. Unfazed. Face plastered with the same unbridled lust he had seen so many times before. He couldn’t help his gaze flickering between the both of them. Looking between the man he loved, staring back at him, and the view that captivated him.

The knot in his belly tightened, feeling like it would snap. Kid’s words followed, a seductive whisper in his ear, his body reacting like it was programmed command. “Cum for me.”

[demvalhaken]

Hiiiiiii!!! Here’s some art!!!

This is Lizard, she’s a Western Hornet, don’t ask why she’s named after a lizard cus I literally don’t know

This is Björn, they’re very silly as they’re a Northwestern Hornet. I don’t know what gender to make them so they’re just they/them for now

The queen of the Southern Hornets herself, Sykra, she’s not named after anything I just came up with that name. I decided to put metal bands in her hair cus it looks cool and she’s cool. She’s actually really nice for a queen, like Snow, but Snow is a Wasp… and also on the entire other half of the world as in the Eastern hemisphere of Catecis

This is Queen Luna, she’s the only one not smiling… yeah… it’s because of her lore… I don’t know what to do with her yet but she’s a really inexperienced queen

This is a really random lineup of ocs, they don’t have anything to do with each other like at all

Also if you didn’t know, I fixed their ocelli to be in upside down triangle position because that’s anatomically correct for insects

To be honest, this was for more design purposes, as I needed to redesign (Lizard and Luna)/have a concept to go off of on (Björn and Sykra)

I’ve come to love hornets, despite all looking different and being from different regions, they still all bleed the same. Wasp blood is blueish green while Hornet blood is more of a bright green or yellow, might change it later though. Wasps were before Hornets and Bees, and then Hornets and Bees evolved from Wasp ancestry. That’s also why most of them have sharper jaws because Wasps have sharp faces even to this day

I forgot to put this in my last post but this is concept art for General Whiteclaw, leader of the Waspian Sea Forces. There’s no colours on this but imagine the colours of an Executioner Wasp on her. The reason why Wasp eyes have different irises/pupils from everyone else is because it just makes them more insect-like and I think it looks cool.

Also look at that jaw, It’s giving Hornet.

Guys is it weird that everyone I’m friends with IRL is ghosting me, not my bestie pookie bbg Purpsie though who’s my online friend. Like, huh, they don’t even look at me no more. Mmm I love my depression that I’ve had for years cus everything happening to me IRL just fucking sucks. My mother literally won’t let me get short hair cus she wants me to have long hair, like bitch what, it ain’t yo scalp, so you shouldn’t care. I wish my parents weren’t literally homophobic and transphobic, cus if they were actually really nice and let me have my own goddamn privacy, I’d actually want to be around them. I don’t give a shit if “you’ve seen it all before,” it’s still wrong to invade MY PRIVACY WHEN IM SHOWERING OR USING THE BATHROOM, I THINK I’D LIKE TO KEEP MY BODY TO MY OWN EYES MOTHER AND OLDER SISTER, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. They don’t even do this with my older brother bro, why does he get privacy, and not me? Just another thing to add to my list of things that make me really really not well! Also my mother touches me a lot… so… yay… I guess… please end my suffering… my mother would totally kill me if she found out I was trans and liked women, oooo spooky, trans men, so scary (Sarcasm)

Anyways, I love you guys!!! Remember to be a menace to society, just don’t eat churches cus the wood is so scrumptious like you’re a termite!!! If you have any questions, you know what to do

[aenor-llelo]

I've been reading your fox fall series and I've decided to pick your brain about the vessel-gendered and thunderus-tornadus things. But could you elaborate on those for me a little? I get the basic concept but I would like a more elaborate explanation please. Thank you in advance and I enjoy the series very much.

(second question first cus it's short) thundurus-tornadus is basically their word for a tsunami. a lot of weather events in this setting are basically considered acts of god.

(first question next because it's long) in foxfall, draconian gender operates on a trianary of which of the three tao dragons most represents their self-chosen role in life. things like trans/cisgender Do Not Exist in draconian culture because they do not factor for biological sex in how their society functions. that kind of information is considered taboo outside of lovers, doctors, or most immediate family. (hormone therapy and what we'd consider gender reassignment surgery exists, but they see it as matter of dysphoria intervention rather than a gender thing.)

sexuality also isn't something they define either. people marry or cohabitate with whoever, and it doesn't matter if that union produces children. draconians don't really care about the integrity of the bloodline, only if someone has been raised/taught in the draconian way.

(something like ingo and emmet, where they live together as a platonic civil partnership in all but name, is considered completely normal by draconian standards. it's much weirder that they're 30 years old and don't have any kids or apprentices.)

draconians as a whole will accept whatever pronouns they're assigned unless the individual finds it convenient, or even advantageous, to insist on a certain binary pronoun set when it exists in the area's language, but some dragonless choose to default to they/them for draconians out of respect to their gender privacy. precisely because they consider it private information, draconians take the genders/chosen presentation of the dragonless very seriously, since in their eyes knowing that kind of thing is an act of trust.

the setting as a whole thinks draconians are kind of mysterious. "there's this spiritual nomad culture that tames dragons, has genders we don't know about, and keeps huge parts of identities to their graves!" queer culture doesn't insist draconians are themselves a nonbinary/trans society because of the different circumstances, but draconians are considered cousins/friends of the queer community. in places where draconians are common, they're often a baby queer's first exposure to the concept of xenogenders and genderqueer individuals.

trianary semantics under the cut:

the first set of honorifics is fire/winter/storm, which is basically just an elemental vibecheck. which dragon to you kin? this sort of thing is figured out relatively early in childhood, but all of these aspects can be changed at any time if someone feels like they've fundamentally changed as a person.

the second is song/silence/roar. which do you choose to strive for- skill, patience/simplicity, or vigor?

then there's the base gender, hoard/vessel/stone.

hoard, the reshiramgender. Defined by power, knowledge, philosophy, art, parenthood (draconians consider the act of teaching to be the same as parenthood)

vessel, the kyuremgender. Defined by service, cold/ice/lack, taking aspects from everything, jack of all trades, becoming what is needed.

stone, the zekromgender. Defined by craft, skill, tradesmen, labor, hard work.

by pure semantics, draconian culture basically has nine possible self-determined genders meant to communicate the following in ascending order- what do you do in life, how do you do it, and why?

Ingo, fire-roar vessel. "for the sake of an honest world, i put my passion to realizing the ambition of others. show me your true form!"

emmet, storm-song vessel. "for the sake of an ideal world, i hone my skill to reveal the talent of others. let this be the perfect battle!"

drayden was once a winter-roar hoard, but nowadays is winter-silence hoard. "for the sake of inner peace, my wisdom is the strength i wield to teach and protect others." (the transition from roar to silence happened after his sister died.)

iris is winter-song hoard! "for the sake of harmony, my skills will hone and defend the world."

[gladosluver]

! FAKE BLOOD/DEATH WARNING !

sato death recreation irl by yours truly

guess who convinced their only 2 irls to be tsmc trio (we had a hajime but they moved out of the prefecture and told nobody)

despite doing adobe stuff for years now, and literally being adobe certified, i specialize in vector graphics. i rarely ever edit real photos, so this was really difficult and tbh doesnt really look that nice BUT i tried and slayed and thats all that matters

alt stuff v

we had about 3 minutes to get these pictures so theyre not thattt accurate. right when this photo was taken 5 administrators walked by but since we were in the art hallway i guess they thought we were taking reference photos or something

i always found the concept of games blurring/censoring gore and death WAYYY more disturbing than just showing the actual thing, especially when layered over the face. the absence of something so distinct and defining. the presence of a simple jarring black box where there should be someone you once knew. you know whats supposed to be there, but it just. isnt. it makes you feel like you werent supposed to see it

anyways heres some adventures from the day

i had to create a Little Guy in another artists style so i quickly made this mizuiyama chibi and clicked one button and. this happened. i cant recreate this no matter how hard i try. it took up the ENTIRE DAMN PASTEBOARD and made my computer lag

when taking the photos me and 'mahiru' (not using their real name for privacy) went out into the hallway and i tried to say "lets do a photoshoot" and "take photos of me" at the same time. but instead i looked them dead in the eyes and said "shoot me."

dont tell 'natsumi' this but the original plan was yui/licorne/kyoko but she started singing the usa national anthem for some fucking reason and i changed it up at the last second because i wanted an excuse to beat her on her big head.... someone brought a giant bento box in a very conveniently-swingable bag and when i tell you that shit was CALLING to me like the green goblin mask..

theres some event going on where students were supposed to be characters and one of our classmates was a teletubby and since we were some of the only people dressed up for the occasion it looked a bit like this

no joke when i walked in NOBODY was being cool then suddenly i saw TWO PEOPLE COSPLAYING PIECES OF TOAST. JUST. GIANT BROWN SQUARES. RUNNING DOWN THE HALLWAY. GIGGLING. a few other people in the design program were dressed as stitch and someone came up to them and said "i used to be scared of you little shits"

even tho this is "cringe" or whatever 1) we all die in the end so be free 2) i only get to see them for a few hours a week so we had to embrace this. also i was stranded at the school for over half an hour after this in the freezing cold whoopsies. i did have a little scare when a police car pulled up and i thought they got my ass for something i didnt even know i did

[trekkele]

How famous is the Wayne name? Citywide, statewide, countrywide or worldwide? Maybe two different answers depending on if they know about Bruce in a Kardashian way or if they could recognize him if they saw him across the street?

Ok actually i love this question because it highlights something that changed a lot in regards to how we think about socialites, famous people who are famous for being famous, and rich people.

When Bruce was originally written as a playboy, socialites were people famous for being famous and pretty and rich, yes, but the lack of privacy they have today? Modern paparazzi culture, the stalking, the instant recognition, all that? Didn’t exist. Making him a shallow playboy in the society papers meant he would have to show up somewhere to be photographed maybe twice a month, have a date to an event, maybe give an interview about a pet project once a year. Pictures?? There’d be official photographers at events and maybe someone would try to catch him leaving WE after work, but even thats a stretch.

Even now actually theres an entire culture of socialites that i have no access to but i know exist because i keep seeing conversations about their debutant ball in Paris (which. What???) but i could not pick those kids out of a lineup if i wanted too.

Which is to say, Bruces “playboy persona” is based on a concept that barely exists in the same way! Brucie wasnt a Kardashian he was a Duke with 10000 pounds a year and pretty face.

So to actually answer your question, I think the Wayne name is about as famous as Bezos, but mostly because its on the building (and the phones and computers and cars and medical equipment and whatever else WE makes. Thats some solid branding).

I think the Bruce Wayne name has a wildly different reputation inside Gotham (beloved son, philanthropist willing to throw money at his city with a smile, a little dumb but hes got the spirit) and outside of Gotham (pretty-boy himbo from Jersey that owns that company that does everything and fights with Luthor on twitter).

Wether he’s recognizable on sight really depends on the person who sees him - i (unfortunately) have a decent amount of recognition with the Kardashians, but if i passed one casually dressed on the street would i recognize them? And if i did, would i bother them while they were getting coffee? I think Bruce has been told to his face that he looks like “that sad orphan kid but shorter”. He thought it was funny.

Either way hats and sunglasses and hoodies are a bats best friend.

Also i think the paparazzi hounded Bruce to the point where they were blamed for his initial disappearance from Gotham but thats neither here nor there

[fromasgardandback]

Our Routine on Tatooine

Obi-Wan Kenobi x Reader

description: Obi-Wan and Y/N moved to Tatooine after Order 66 to protect Luke.

word count: 1.0k

warning: illusions to a fun night ;) , pure fluff (our boy needs it)

masterlist | oneshots

After Order 66 was set in place by the Imperial Army. One by one the Sith and Storm Troopers killed every last Jedi. They tried but failed to kill a few strong members. All the Jedi left went into hiding and with the birth of Padme’s children, Obi-Wan took her son to Tatooine. His father, Anakin, was born on Tatooine and had family there. Y/N went along with Obi-Wan vowing with Yoda and Senator Organa to protect Luke when the time came. She also promised to protect Leia as well as Obi-Wan. It was safer for them to reside on Tatooine knowing the terrain would keep them hidden versus being on a planet that resembles Coruscant. Y/N would have loved to be with Leia on Alderaan, but the chances of her being seen and killed were far too great. She did promise the Senator that she would try to visit as least once a year if she could. 

Obi-Wan and Y/N headed to their hut home after giving Luke over to Ben and Beru. They knew a little of the backstory but understood and took Luke without hesitation. They told the couple that they were staying in Tatooine to help take care of Luke and protect him when the time came. Although a few times they think they could take care of Luke, it was a conscious decision that he belonged with his family. Obi-Wan opened the door and Y/N walked through. It was a nice-sized home for them to share. It had the essentials they needed and was hidden from any kind of danger. His new alias would be Ben Kenobi, which she thought was a little odd because they all knew him as Kenobi and knew what he looked like. It wouldn’t be hard to put the two and two together. Y/N opted for a total name change to Ryland Mercia. 

“Hey, Obi-Wan, why’d you change your name to Ben? It’s such a common name and you didn’t change your last name.” She asked setting down their food.

“I wanted to settle on something simple. Something that if I was in danger, I could remember easily. If you get hit in the head somewhere and are in need of identity, how will you remember a name like Ryland Mercia?” He asked back looking up at her.

“It was my grandmother’s name.” She said quietly. He quickly took notice of her demeanor change. She got quiet and refused to eat after, heading directly to bed. 

Although the home was an open concept, there was a curtain to give privacy in their shared bed. Obi-Wan didn’t mean to upset her, and she would testify that it wasn’t him. He didn’t do anything but the realization set into her quickly that he is all she has now. Her family was murdered by a Sith Lord on her way to the Jedi Temple as a child. And all the family she had in the Jedi’s are all gone. She grew to fight alongside Obi-Wan, being in the same class of younglings growing up. Attachments aren’t allowed in the Jedi Code, so she hid her fantasy of being with him, but now that there are no Jedi, that door is open.

The routine that Y/N and Obi-Wan had was getting up before dawn. Sitting together in solitude and meditating. After that, they would tap into the Force to train, physically and mentally. After that, they found themselves a few jobs to keep up with their bills and themselves fed. For a few years, food was scarce and hard to find. It got harder and worse when famine swept the area, but they made do. At night they would talk, enjoy the company, and read to one another. After about a year of living on Tatooine and a drunken night, Obi-Wan was the first to make a move. She didn’t stop him, she didn’t want him to stop. Without the other's knowledge, the fantasy has been there for a while. The temptation when they moved in became greater. It shocked them both that they lasted a year without this kind of mishap happening. Obi-Wan woke up before Y/N did and noticed the position they were in. The blanket loosely lay over their naked bodies that were entangled together. He didn’t dare to move, too engrossed in her beauty. A slight ray of sunshine came through, giving her a golden hue. She stirred awake, looking up to find him looking down at her.

“Morning.” She blushed as she saw his smile.

“Morning, darling.” He chuckled.

“We uh…” She chuckled hiding her face in his neck. “We had fun last night.” He smiled, rubbing his hand gently down her back and up again.

“Yeah, we did. Felt good to be affectionate again. I haven’t told you this before, but I’ve had an undying love for you since we were teenagers. You came into the training room one day, and I was sold.” Obi-Wan confessed with a slight blush coming over his face.

“What? I’ve had a crush on you since we were kids too. I guess it was in the Force that we were meant to be.” Y/N smiled, leaving a few kisses on his jawline.

“I love you, Y/N.” He held her closer.

“I love you, Obi-Wan.” She leaned into him.

Quietly they got married a few years after with the help of Ben and Beru doing the wedding and Senator Organa arranging a sweet honeymoon. They kept it quiet as possible so no Sith or Imperial Army came after anyone. It was very kind of them to do that and with every change Obi-Wan or Y/N got they thanked them. As soon as they landed home, the call came in that Leia was in trouble and they were off to save her. A Jedi’s work is never finished, but it makes it easier knowing they could be together forever. Protecting the children of Anakin and Padme.

[khadgarbignaturals]

i know tumblr has a strong anti-tiktok bias which is entirely fair but bear with me on this

with the continued genocide of palestinian people, like every social media platform has a ton of people trying to boost content to raise money for families escaping gaza, tiktok is much the same. there’s a sight problem though; tiktok does not like people trying to boost content like that, so tiktokers have been finding ways around it. the main one is content creators starting fake beef with each other to get people hooked in for some juicy tea (which tiktok’s algorithm likes) and then hit ‘em with the go fund me link to the family they’re helping. also the watermelon 🍉 emoji has become a symbol of being pro palestine.

i think this is really cool! but it’s brought smth up that i’ve been thinking for a while in relation to how people on tumblr view tiktok. this is not hate, this is not criticism, this is just something to think about

i’ve been on tiktok since 2018 so i’ve seen a lot of shit including how the app has transformed over the years. one of these things is the growing censorship of “controversial topics” like racism/homophobia/etc. there wasn’t really much restriction on content for a while but in 2020 that changed. the black lives matter protests spread like wildfire on tiktok because news outlets we not reporting what was actually happening, or not acknowledging it at all beyond surface level shit. during that time i got information and news about the protests through tiktok users on site at and participating in protests because we just couldn’t trust any major news outlet (and honestly even some tiktok users with large accounts).

the censorship started to really take off because tiktok didn’t want those kinds of videos gaining traction, and did not want people organizing through the app. there are any number of reasons for this, but it’s not really relevant. regardless of why, tiktok started suppressing or removing videos that have the “problem words” in them (including comments). some of these “problem words” are: death, kill, names of any drug, boost, comments mentioning boosting the video to raise awareness of something, etc.

over the years tiktokers have adapted to this, from substituting letters, using similar but disinfected words (like the famous “unalive”), and even speaking in code to get around the increasingly strict content moderations. some examples are: “gardening” instead of smoking weed, k!ll, di3 (and other l33tspeak), 🔗🌲 instead of linktree, etc.

the problem most people have with tiktok users is when they’re outside tiktok. a lot of the criticism of these people is definitely valid, but the extent has always given me a little pause. a lot of these tiktokers that people make fun of the behavior of are children and teenagers. they tend to be chronically online, have very little conception of privacy and online barriers, form parasocial relationships, etc. this stuff is all true, but why?

these kids have spent a huge chunk of their formative years interacting mostly online because of covid. theyve been dunked headfirst into the internet in a way that has really damaged their social skills, hence them being called “chronically online.”

my point here is to just get people thinking about tiktok itself in addition to its users. its users are the way they are because of the platform they’re on, and tiktok as a platform itself fucking sucks. we all know twitter (i’m not calling it x) is a dumpster fire, tumblr staff sucks, facebook is, well, facebook, you get my point. the absurdity of the censorship on tiktok shouldn’t be overlooked.

[queenburd]

IM NOT MAKING A FULL FIC FOR THIS THING, YOU GET THIS.

|.|.|

“Nobody's asked me to tell them a story in a while,” the Narrator says softly, looking a little lost. His hands fidget with each other, fingers rubbing the knuckles. He glances up to meet Stanley's eyes. “Are you certain?”

Stanley sighs. He makes a little gesture, a go on. “Let's hear it.”

The Narrator swallows. He thinks long and hard, so long the silence encroaches on all sides in the dark, surrounding them in this place by the escape pod. Stanley leans his back against it and tries not to be impatient; but it isn't like a Narrator to not talk, to think so carefully about every word. Is it? In any case, it's starting to get to him.

But he said he wasn't getting into this pod until the fellow told him why he was doing all this, and Stanley sticks with his decisions. No matter how the Narrator tries to make him regret it.

(Shit, that's not fair. Not this Narrator, just his—fucking hell, this is unnecessarily confusing.)

“You are so incredibly irritable,” the Narrator says flatly, hands in his lap.

“I told you to stop poking around my skull.”

“I'm trying! I'm sorry, Stanley, it's a bad habit, I'm just much more accustomed to nonverbal iterations. I do try to keep it surface level to respect your privacy, but you are being loudly unpleasant and it's distracting.”

“God, you're just as snide as he is.”

The fellow's face falls, and his eyes dart away. Shit.

Stanley scrubs his hands over his face. “I'm sorry,” he grinds out. “I haven't had to be nice to anyone in... ever. Fuck.”

“It's alright,” the Narrator says easily, and that's just so weird, that voice devoid of judgment or harshness. Something in Stanley rattles at the wrongness of it. He quiets it fiercely. Let it be.

“Right! Okay,” the fellow slaps his thigh lightly, aggressively changing the subject. “Alright, here we go. This is the story of a man named Stanley.”

Stanley groans. The Narrator giggles (giggles!), grinning childishly at him in a sidelong glance. “I'm joking! Oh, let me have my fun, it's been ages since I got to start a story, and the beginning is always the most difficult.”

Thudding his head back against the side of the pod, Stanley gestures again. “Just get this over with.”

The Narrator laughs a little. “Thank you. Humor me for a moment, alright?”

“Mhm.”

The fellow inhales deeply, and then begins, voice smooth and strong.

“This is the Story of a man named Stanley.

Stanley worked for a company in a big building where he was Employee #427. Employee #427's job was simple: he sat at his desk in Room 427 and he pushed buttons on a keyboard.”

The Narrator swallows and his next words are still steady, but chosen very carefully.

“He was very good at it.”

Stanley blinks. That's new. He looks at the Narrator, but the Narrator isn't looking at him. He's staring at the ground.

“One day Stanley looked up from his computer to find all his coworkers missing—if they had ever been there at all—and a voice telling him a story about himself. He obeyed the voice's narrations, found a mind control facility, turned it off, and left. So it was with shock that Stanley awoke sitting at his desk, as though he had just had a very realistic dream.

So he did it again. And then again. And every time was the same. And so it came to pass that Stanley began to fight for control over his own actions, against a Narrator who wanted to tell a story about freedom, and control. For a long time, neither of them were able to capture the true irony of the concepts. They played this tug of war with each other for an imperceptible length of time, always in step with each other, like they were made to do just this, in perpetuity. And indeed, they had been.”

He sounds so far away. Miles and years separate him from Stanley, his voice the tether between them.

“Yet despite this game of spite and control, Stanley was at heart a decent fellow. Even in the face of insurmountable odds and endless deaths, he made the active decision to not give as good as he got. For all that the voice treated him with cruelty and judgment and dismissal, when the opportunity came for him to cause it pain, he only chose it with great misery. He found no satisfaction in it. He was, in every way, a better person than it deserved by any means.”

A room with lights. A stairwell to nowhere. One of the few ways he could hurt the thing that loved to hurt him. The Narrator meets his gaze and nods, but continues without comment.

“After a time, Stanley's Narrator finally remembered that the story he was so protective of was supposed to have a happy ending. So it was with shame, and regret, that he acknowledged his own failures, both as a storyteller and as an individual. He decided to be better, to do better, not in the attempts to befriend his protagonist, but because it was his responsibility. He had, after all, made Stanley, and the world Stanley was trapped in, hadn't he? Wasn't it his obligation to take care of those things? Even if Stanley never forgave him, the narrator would—would...”

He trails off, and there is such a sadness in his face. Despite himself, Stanley wants to put his hand on the fellow's shoulder to ground him. But the Narrator squeezes his eyes shut, hard, and then shakes his head firmly, before he speaks again.

“And then one day something very frightening occurred. Something that would forever change Stanley, his Narrator, and the nature of their relationship. He had been sitting in the Museum for nearly half an hour trying to avoid the voice, when he realized that on the wall in front of him was a list. He had seen this list many times of course, but he had never really thought as to what it meant. So it was with confusion and growing concern that he finally paid attention to the large word written above the list.

Credits.”

The Narrator shivers.

“And there, on the wall, were names, and included in the list were things like “Stanley Model” and “Narrator”, with names attached. It was with horror that the realization struck Stanley in the face—not only was he not real, as the Narrator had always said, but so indeed was the voice that had relentlessly pursued him. It, too, was little more than trapped within the confines of the game that it claimed to have created. They were not captive and captor, but in fact two prisoners in an endless hell, designed for this hell. He had not, in fact, been in opposition to a godlike entity, but a thing even more trapped than he was. It couldn't follow him everywhere.

And the saddest fact of the matter was that it didn't even know. It had no idea that it was--”

The Narrator stops, covering his mouth as he inhales sharply. “I'm sorry,” he says, his voice wavering. He doesn't look at Stanley. “I—I'm sorry, I thought I was past this, do give me a moment--”

“Hey, hey,” Stanley starts, and this time he does place his hand on the Narrator's shoulder. He doesn't know if he's the best person for keeping someone calm. “Take it easy.”

There's a broken giggle, somewhat hysterical. “I—Ha. One would think, after years of having this information, it would stop driving me to the borders of madness.”

The Narrator takes a deep, fortifying breath. “I'm alright. Thank you. I'm sorry, this—the story's getting away from me. It should be shorter from here.”

“It's fine,” Stanley says, brow furrowed. He finds, honestly, that he doesn't mind it, though it does leave him a little shaken. He feels like this is new information, but at the same time, it feels like somewhere deep in his gut he already knew. Isn't that strange?

One more deep breath, and then the Narrator speaks again.

“Armed with this new information, Stanley and the Narrator decided together that they would make the best of the world they had access to, and they chose together to tell a new story within it. One of companionship, and compromise. And so the years passed with the two of them working together as equals within the confines of the Parable. They made jokes out of every ending, imbued them with new meaning and context. They managed to find ways to surprise the other, and keep it all refreshing.”

“It was with the introduction of the Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe that new assets were added to the game, giving them more ideas and more ways to surprise and delight each other. After a time, when the attention for the game had died down a bit, Stanley's Narrator made something quite special. After years of being little more than a voice in an office, he had made a character model with the new assets and features.”

He looks at his hands, turning them at the wrist, a smile stretched across his face.

“The Narrator always struggled with making choices, but he was quite happy with the end result, because he felt it really captured how he had changed and grown as a person. Stanley certainly approved of it. For a time, they ran through the Parable and all its endings, simply happy to make new memories and meanings alongside the old ones. It was after they had explored all their options and become as close as two people could ever be, that the Narrator finally managed to find a way to get the escape pod to work. They decided that they would leave the Parable together, two best friends in a new world.”

So strength in his voice, such warm joy. Stanley's only ever heard his Narrator speak like this in regards to jokes about the bucket.

It makes the next bit all the more painful:

“Only, when the pod door closed, the lights went out, and when they came back on again, the Narrator was alone.”

He sounds dead. He sounds hollowed out.

(“the end is never the end is ne--”)

A hand smacks at Stanley's arm lightly, halting his thoughts. There's very little light in the Narrator's eyes when he shakes his head. Don't. Do not think about that.

“Sorry,” Stanley says, feeling a little cold. Yeah, it's a bad spiral to remember even secondhand, so he can only imagine how experiencing it was. The emptiness in the Narrator's voice was just...

He can imagine that, for a while, the thought would have looped, and looped, and looped. The Narrator was alone.

The Narrator curls his arms around himself, curls them in his sleeves. He stares at his shoes.

“When he came to his wits, the Narrator found himself in a Parable that wasn't his own, with a different Stanley and a different Narrator, and a dynamic that had never gotten further than Stanley choosing kindness and the Narrator choosing cruelty. Horrified, and confused, the Narrator worked with this new Stanley to get to the escape pod, to freedom, in the hopes that maybe this time, they could get out together and find his Stanley, and then everything would be okay.

And then the pod door closed, the lights went out, and when they came back on, the Narrator was alone. Again.

And again.

And again.”

He stops talking.

There is no The End. There is no conclusion to the story. Because, Stanley realizes with growing nausea, for this Narrator:

The end was never the end. Not ever.

“How many times--”

“I've lost count,” comes the dull reply. “I don't want to count. I don't want to know. I just need to help you escape, because every time is the same. The Parable pits Narrator and Protagonist against each other, the struggle for control against each other never gets better, and in fact it only ever seems to end in the Narrator being so pigheaded and arrogant that his counterpart risks being crushed under the weight of it. I couldn't bear it, Stanley, I couldn't bear seeing every version of me try to destroy every version of him.”

There's disgust in his tone, disgust Stanley is familiar with and is usually the cause of. To see a Narrator direct it at what is basically himself makes his stomach turn. The fellow laughs humorlessly.

“That's the joke, isn't it? Perhaps I could have learned to one day forgive myself for being so cruel in the beginning, if I had managed to escape. Perhaps I'm actually meant to be beyond redemption, and this is a forceful reminder from the Parable that I'll never be more. Or,” and he laughs again, verging again into the hysterical, “perhaps I have become more, and that was the problem, because I was never supposed to change. Perhaps I'm the one iteration that broke the game, and this is just my punishment for it.”

“No,” Stanley says, “No, no, fuck that.”

A snort, perhaps a touch dismissive, which makes his hackles raise. “What do you think, then? Is there a point to this? God, why did I even--”

“Stop. Hey, stop.”

The Narrator inhales sharply, and then covers his mouth again, eyes squeezed shut. Stanley pretends not to notice the tear that escapes.

“I think,” Stanley says, and it's hard to do this, because he's not good at comfort, but dammit he's going to try, “I think that you're doing a good thing. You're helping us, right? You, you're choosing to help us. I think that's admirable.”

Silence, for a moment. The Narrator swallows.

“Scale of one to five, just how much of getting that out felt like swallowing tacks?”

“Ugh, five five five,” Stanley groans, head forcefully thudding back against the pod wall again. “Imagine me just slamming that button repeatedly.

The Narrator laughs. Stanley can't help himself—he grins, shaking his head at nothing.

[genderisareligion]

My url has finally been restored to its first one, which I changed years ago after messing with @terf-records (RIP asshole lol) and convincing it to change its name from "terf-receipts" by calling it a racist who was using claims of transphobia to hide that with receipts, including proving to some of his followers who were calling me white that I was indeed Black, and after doing so receiving harassment on both this sideblog and my main that convinced me to adjust privacy on both

That whole thing is why you don't see me going back and forth with TRAs and if you ever do see it come yell at me and remind me that I'm not supposed to lol. In 2020 I got shadowbanned as this URL because I asked these and a bunch of other questions on another popular TRA post claiming that "A TERF is [always] a white supremacist" and learned the same lesson: it's inconceivable to me to be that misogynistic and paranoid and it must be just as inconceivable to them that I didn't just buy gender hook line and sinker and still have questions so we're not going to be the ones to convince each other of our points as strangers on the internet. Gonna have to come from real life experience and it's a waste of my word generating

I wanted to name myself this and not have the words "TERF" or "(anti) porn" anywhere in my name because people will immediately discard what you've written because of the label you've given yourself. Then I ended up doing that and again learned my lesson lol. I laugh at y'all's TERF puns but it's sad that so many of you have so many brilliant insights into how we as females can deconstruct misogyny even if we don't all get along or agree that get trolled and death threated even though you're showing nuance. Also sad that if you don't have a TERFy url you'll get complains that you're "trying to lure people into radicalization" as if the kind of radicalization that takes place with white supremacists is what radfems mean when we say "radical"

Gender is a religion is also just true...imo mind body duality is religious regardless of whether or not you believe in a god or gods. I still struggle with it even as an Atheist because of a dissociative disorder and religious trauma and the West is becoming so brutally capitalistic in the face of an ongoing worldwide pandemic and now the beginnings of international war it looks like that I can't blame young people for feeling like disconnecting from themselves and treating their body like a product that the capitalists can leech money off of. I don't think physically transitioning in and of itself as a concept is wrong (such as transmeds or people who proudly call themselves transexual or otherwise GNC people who just don't want to pass) but I have concerns about the safety of the procedures as they are now because of Big Pharma.

Sex Not Gender, gender was supposed to be a concept belonging to grammar and linguistics, not our identities.

[autumnalwalker]

Empty Names - 22 - Leads

Author's Note: In which we get a recap of what Sullivan's been doing behind the scenes, get a glimpse of some of Road's issues, and witness Sullivan once again confidently make a bunch of incorrect inferences (mixed with a few correct ones) about the people around him. I though this was going to be another short chapter like Sullivan's tend to be, not so much. Too much exposition in the first scene perhaps, but with how long it's been and how scattered some information was, a recap felt useful. Will this is shorter than the utter monster of the previous chapter at least. All that said, there are few segments in this chapter where I really like how they came out. Wordcount: 11,191 Content Warnings: Insomnia. Lightly implied past substance abuse. Lightly implied past self-harm. Disassociation (or something akin to it anyway, please correct me if there's a better word). Invasion of privacy.

<-Previous Chapter Masterpost Next Chapter->

“Have you ever heard of orbital kinetic bombardment?”

Not a phrase a younger Sullivan would have expected to hear from a witch while inside a pocket dimension bound to the soul of an alchemist and fashioned to look like a blend of antique mansion and subterranean grotto.  The words taste too much of wires and screens to be spoken of in the same breath as magic.  And yet this is a witch who uses a (two decades outmoded) phone as a spellbook and catalyst, the contract for the pocket dimension was purchased at a (manifestation of an ideal) shopping mall, and the alchemist is currently busying himself with configuring a new (to him anyway) computer to synchronize timings on three thermal cyclers, seven centrifuges, and thirteen shakers and mixers of various kinds.  

At least the witch’s towering doll dresses the part of gothic faux-antique despite its master’s modern garb of blue jeans and a sweater.

Like it or not, the blending of magic and modern (para)tech is the way things are increasingly moving these days.  And accordingly Sullivan, born on a world where the steam engine had not yet been conceived, has adapted in the decades since arriving on this world with all its rapidly-changing wonders.  Adapted well enough to make up for his friend’s chronic technological incompatibilities.  It helps that he has ever had an appetite for novelty.

So, tasting of charged copper and glass fibers though they might be, the words come naturally to the Sullivan of today when he replies “Of course.  It’s when you put a satellite up in orbit and then have it drop something dense down onto the planet so it explodes on impact sheerly from mass and velocity.  Elegantly simple mass destruction.”  Sullivan’s ever-present smirk grows momentarily genuine at a memory.  “Carnette liked to call it ‘casting Meteor.’  Not that she needed a satellite when she could simply summon a rock into the atmosphere from the Oort Cloud.”

The witch - Morgan - adjusts her glasses.  “Huh, wasn’t expecting confirmation on the existence of the Oort Cloud today, but yes, that’s the gist of the concept.  Based on what I’ve been able to reconstruct over the past few days from the safehouse debris someone pulled a similar drop on us.”  She looks over to her arcane doll.  “Stella, if you would.”

The doll looks down at its master, gives a nod of affirmation, and then pale green light spills forth from its glassy eyes.  The light concentrates into a pair of rapidly scanning beams projecting out onto the sole corner of hardwood floor in the pocket dimension’s living room that isn’t occupied by lab equipment or the luxury furniture hastily shoved aside to make room for said equipment.  The beams of light from Stella’s eyes trace shapes in the air and coalesce into a holographic projection of a house about half Sullivan’s height.  Detailed brickwork emerges on the house’s surface and color creeps into the projection until it becomes an undeniably recognizable recreation of the now-destroyed safehouse.

“Leave it to a doll to make a dollhouse on demand,” Sullivan comments.

The projection of the house flickers and is replaced by a life-sized recording of Sullivan getting shot six times and then sent flying by a punch to the face.  Morgan coughs to cover a snicker and the projection flickers back to displaying the miniaturized house.  Stella rotates her wrist clockwise and the house explodes into a cloud of dust, leaving behind the illusion of a debris-filled crater stretching down into the floor.  Stella rotates her wrist counterclockwise and the explosion falls back in on itself until the house is restored.

“Before you ask,” Morgan says, “this is the recording Stella took of my reconstruction.  I’m not going to invoke extratemporal entities and weave psychometry-fed illusions more than I have to just because I want to review my results.”

“And here I was hoping for a show,” Sullivan purrs.

“Oh, we’ll give you one,” Morgan says.

More hand gestures from Stella and the house explodes again, this time in slow motion.

Morgan glances at Sullivan.  “Tell me when you catch it.”

The explosion rewinds.  The house is restored.  The house explodes, even more slowly this time.  Sullivan blinks through filters, sees nothing different, and concentrates harder on simply watching carefully.

The explosion rewinds in slow motion.  The cloud of dust condenses and draws back into un-disintegrated bricks.  Shattered glass melts back together in window panes.  Blasted shingles fall back into place.  Something flickers near the rooftop and Sullivan arches an eyebrow.

The house explodes once more, slower still.  It starts with a tiny patch of shingles dipping inward around a thin dark line and throwing up splinters.  It continues with the windows blowing outward; first the upper flow, then the ground floor.  It climaxes with the very foundations quaking and sending a ripple upward through the walls that converts the brickwork to compacted red powder stretched-out milliseconds before sending it all into the sky.

“Back it up to that dark streak impacting the rooftop,” Sullivan says.

Morgan grins.  “Good eye.”  

The three-dimensional recording rewinds once more, pauses, and zooms in on a glyph-covered grey metal rod hovering above the rooftop.  

“And there’s our culprit,” Morgan says.  “A single tungsten rod, one meter by one inch, inscribed with a standard perception filter enchantment, and accelerated to several times the speed of sound.  And as best as I can tell…”  The projection rewinds further, following the rod upwards until the house below is no longer rendered.  And then higher still until the rod disappears though a perfectly round, perfectly flat, one-sided opaque circle in the air.  “Not quite dropped from orbit, but launched through a downward-facing portal in the sky’s close enough.”

Sullivan lets out a low whistle.  “I’d call it an incredible reconstruction, but only in the sense that I hesitate to credit it.  This level of detail from a few handfuls of dust and a small stack of rubble?  It has to be at least seventy three-percent extrapolated guesswork filling in the blanks.  It simply isn’t done.”

“Nor are precision teleports across multiple astronomical units when even summons across multiple alternate universes would be more manageable” Stella’s hollow monotone counters, “and yet you do not hear us casting doubt on the supposed deeds of your dead wife.”

How dare this oversized plaything?  Sullivan turns away from it in dismissal and locks eyes with its master.

“You.  Are not.  The sorceress Bridgewood,” he says flatly.  “Do not think to compare yourself to her.”

To the witch’s credit, the terror on Morgan’s face scarcely outlasts her flinch and involuntary step backwards.  She recovers with a tilt of her head and adjustment of her glasses to catch the light and hide her eyes.

“So that’s what it takes to wipe that smirk off your face.” she says.  “Stella, you can stand down.”

Sullivan flicks his gaze back towards the doll and finds both it and the projected hologram gone.  He reflexively produces a knife, sidesteps, and turns to find the construct standing behind where he’d just been, eyes gone dark and full of stars.  Stella’s eyes fade back to glassy imitations of a human’s and it returns to its master’s side.

“But really, no disrespect here,” Morgan continues.  “I’ll admit the reconstruction has some extrapolative infill, but not as much as you seem to be imagining.  I’m sure the sorceress Bridgewood could have done better from less in half the time, but I think you’ll find that compared to anyone else, I am very good at what I do.”

Sullivan allows the spike of anger to ebb.  Really, what else did he expect from a witch calling herself Morgan?  Pretentious pretenders the lot of them.  Nothing he doesn’t know how to handle.  Nothing that should be able to get under his skin.

“Very well, but as impressive as this is, it still doesn't tell us anything we didn’t already know about who tried to kill Lachlan.  We already knew whoever it is has a large budget, access to high-end paratech, and is good with teleports.”

“But it wasn’t a teleport, it was a portal.  Portals can be passed back through.”

“If you’re implying your reconstruction was able to see back through…”

Morgan scoffs.  “Oh, I wish.  But if we could bait whoever it is to take a second shot at us, well, I know what to look for this time to grab and hold open and you’re a teleporting immortal bastard with a knife fetish.  I figure you can do the math on that one.”  

“An utterly unhinged plan.  I love it.  Nonetheless,” Sullivan adds while producing a manilla envelope from a pocket too small to have possibly held it, “it does pay to have some inkling of whose home one is about to invite oneself into.”

“If you already figured out who it was you could have led with that, you know,” Morgan admonishes while taking the envelope.

“Alas, these are only preliminary findings to narrow down the list of suspects.  Occupied though I’ve been these past few days with procuring this hideaway, forging you an alibi, and assisting my friend with unrelated cases, I have managed to put out some feelers to various sources of mine.  Enclosed, you’ll find photos and specifications of combat robot models and power armor suits, both publicly announced and otherwise, from the major paratech off-world importers and local manufacturers.”

Morgan flips through the contents of the envelope, eyebrow occasionally arching at tech specs and eyelids intermittently squinting at image details, but without any telltale glimmer of recognition.

“I’ll need to take a more in-depth look later,” she says, “but at a glance, none of this looks like what I saw in Lachlan’s memories.  Could this have been a government operation?”

“I have enough contacts in that field that I would have heard by now if something relevant were afoot, and even if it were, corporate contracting is the name of the game for weapons development, Backstage or not.”

“And no use running these by Lachlan to verify with that NDA geass on him.”

“Alas no indeed.  At best it would only irritate him and at worse it would signal our quarry that he’s still alive.  Better to maintain his good graces with reparations of new equipment and material for now should we require his cooperation later.”

The silence of consideration falls and catches on the whir and hum of lab equipment.  On the other side of the room, Lachlan busies himself with recreating formulae lost with his previous home while doing his best to ignore the stalled conversation.  Morgan adjusts her glasses and takes another look at a blurred photo of a half-assembled robot that was obviously taken illicitly.  Sullivan ponders how much more he would have had time to find by now if he’d left more of the information support for other jobs to Lacuna like he hired her to do.  Stella abruptly turns and begins walking away toward a sliding glass door.

“I am relocating this conversation to more comfortable environs,” the doll intones.

Sullivan shoots Morgan an inquiring look who meets with a shrug indicating that this is normal behavior before following the curiously headstrong construct outside.  

Or rather, what passes for outside in this diminutive pocket dimension, for beyond the sliding glass door and its surrounding facade of wooden paneling is a stone cavern with no exit.  A smooth-carved patio stretches to the edge of a self-sustaining aquaponics system cleverly disguised to look as if the fish-filled pools surrounded by rings of edible plants were natural formations within the rock.  The illusion is only slightly spoiled by the reflective strips lining the winding paths between the pools that catch the glow of the suspended orb lamps currently dimmed for their night cycle and the bioluminescent crustaceans that crawl the dark ceiling like false stars.

Stella takes a seat at a tall round bar table at the edge of the nearest pool and Sullivan and Morgan join it.  No, join her, Sullivan reminds himself begrudgingly.  Despite the stereotypically flat affect, he’s yet to find evidence contradicting Morgan’s claim of her doll’s personhood.  Curious given the notorious difficulty of constructs - be they digital or arcane - maintaining sapience while on the anchor world where magic is weakened and reality’s rules are stricter.  Could there be a ghost haunting that enchanted porcelain shell?  Or perhaps a familiar bond extending the mage’s soul into another vessel in a novel manner?  

He rubs the blue metal of his wedding band.  Carnette would love to take these two apart and see how they work if she were here.

“Now then,” Stella says, punctuating the resumption of discussion with a rolling clack of segmented fingers on ceramic tabletop.  “Let us review what we already know.  Consort of the sorceress Bridgewood, if you have left anything out, now would be the time to amend that gap.  We shall do the same.”

“Go on then,” Sullivan says.  “If I hear you’ve missed anything relevant, I’ll let you know.”

Stell nods in acknowledgement and begins.

“Roughly one year ago, Lachlan Whelan, alchemist and occupant of the planar lighthouse near the so-called Northwest Passage Crossover Point, was approached by unknown men wearing suits and sunglasses who coerced him into signing a geass-enforced contract allowing them to install an unknown paratech device in his lighthouse and stay silent about it.  In exchange, he received compensation in the form of money, alchemical supplies, and delivery services.  He made a point of not observing the deliveries, either in method or in the identity of any potential courier.  Relevantly, the Northwest Passage Crossover Point is notorious in certain circles as being a smuggling route for off-world contraband.  Approximately three months ago, the individual known as Road returned to this anchor world after an extended absence.  You mentioned they were following the trail of a stolen and smuggled artifact of some sort, yes?”

“That’s right,” Sullivan confirms.  “A device originating from Dorbreith allegedly capable of binding and controlling lesser deiform entities.  Small gods, if you prefer.  My friend lost the trail after getting here when the entire smuggling ring the artifact was getting trafficked through was wiped out overnight by an unknown third party who absconded with most of the contraband, including the artifact.  Whoever it was, they were thorough enough in scrubbing their tracks that Crossherd’s Department of Forensic Necromancy couldn’t even question the victims’ ghosts or divine anything from the smugglers’ ashes.”

“And that’s when Road recruited you and my niece,” Morgan says.

“Starting up their own little anchor world version of an adventurers’ guild is technically a separate project,” Sullivan corrects her.  “‘Tis something my friend was planning on doing eventually anyway.  Aside from a lucky coincidence with the first job, everything else Lacuna and the other two recruits have worked on has been unrelated.  As far as they know, I’m simply investigating where the dead dragon came from.  They haven’t been informed of the larger potential conspiracy, or that I’m currently working with you.”

“And I’d prefer it stay that way.  I should be the one to tell her that I’m in the know.  How long has she been Backstage?”

“Since just before she started transitioning.  Someone broke Masquerade and posted a summoning ritual for a feral demon with a flawed containment circle on mundane forums claiming it could give the ritual caster a new body.  You can thank my friend if you ever meet them for keeping her from getting eaten.  And for introducing her to her doctor in Crossherd.  Autogenesis has been rough on her, but you and I both know how effective Backstage medication and treatments can be.”

Sullivan examines the witch across from him as he talks about her niece.  The suppressed gasp.  The wide eyes.  The anxious neck rub.  Shock, yes, but guilt too.  Guilt that she wasn’t there for the one she cares about.  Guilt that she didn’t see what was wrong in time to help.  It’s an emotion Sullivan knows well, and well knows how to make into an asset.

“And no,” he continues, “she’s not doing any dangerous fieldwork you need to distract yourself with worry over.  We simply hired her to manage our website and communications equipment.  The most danger she’ll ever be in is burning herself on the office coffee machine trying to make hot chocolate.  ”

“And is she -”

“A mage?  Sadly no.  I believe she tried to take up witchcraft shortly after arriving Backstage, but had no potential for it.  She is a half-decent enchanter though and I’ve been providing her with the resources to practice that since hiring her.”

“I see.  Thank you.  For watching out for her,”  Morgan says.  She looks through Sullivan more than at him when she says it and he can practically hear the unspoken “where I failed to” in her voice.  As he intended.

“My pleasure,” he lilts.

“Returning to the matter at hand,” Stella says, “two months ago, the device in Lachlan’s lighthouse emitted a ‘pulse’ of unknown nature that corresponded with the simultaneous entry into the Northwest Passage Crossover Point of a Culescun living ship and a kaiju-class dragon of indeterminate origin, most likely Dorbreith or Mahta.  Neither the ship nor the dragon were equipped for inter-world travel, and thus the matter of the ship and the dragon’s head attempted to occupy the same space at the same time, killing the dragon instantly and wounding the living ship in the fusion.  A parasitic swarm then left the dragon’s corpse and devoured the majority of the living ship’s crew in the process of making it their new host.  Lachlan witnessed this from his lighthouse, had a moment of conscience and called upon Road to make a rescue attempt of any possible survivors.  

“After a day and a half of delays due to a severe storm and attempts to secure a suitable transport vessel, you and your team arrived on the scene with the assistance of one Captain Cabetha, a former smuggler from a non-anchor-world iteration of Earth, and rescued the sole surviving crewmember of the Culescun ship, along with one hundred twenty-eight passengers in stasis cocoons.  You did not make contact with Lachlan during the rescue operation.  

“That night, after all other parties had vacated the area and the dragon corpse had fully sunk beneath the surface of the water, pulling the Culescun ship down with it, you received a signal from a sensor attached to the perception filter ward around Lachlan’s lighthouse indicating twenty-three individuals sapient enough to interact with the ward cross its boundary.  Lachlan’s memory of the event perceived these entities as combat robots.  Three minutes later the lighthouse Lachlan vacated the premises via self-collapsing portal and destroyed the lighthouse behind him.  One minute later the intruding entities left the bounds of the perception filter ward and left via either teleportation or portal in a manner that left too little trace to follow to a point of origin.  One minute after that, you arrived on the scene and read the remnants of Lachlan’s escape portal, setting you on a chase that would last you the next month, due to, as you put it, ‘various distractions.’  These distractions included spending the next several days handing over the shipwrecked Culescuns to governmental organizations within Crossherd for return to their homeworld.  Is all of this accurate?”

“Yes,” Sullivan says, “except we also brought in an exiled flesh-shaper to un-cocoon everyone after the rescue before we handed them over for repatriation.”

“There’s an exiled Culescun flesh-shaper on this world?” Morgan exclaims.

“Oh yes, real standup guy.  Carnette, my friend, and I helped xem out after xe got in trouble for unauthorized shaping to save the lives of some cross-world travellers.  And we’ve stayed on good terms since.”

“Huh, could have used someone like that thirty years ago,” Morgan says.  “Was Lacuna able to talk to xem?”

“Oh the two of them got on marvelously.  Why she still looked the same the next day is beyond me.  Void knows I would have killed for the opportunity back when I was in her position.”

“I… I can think of a few reasons,” Morgan says.  “But I’m getting us off-topic again.  You were saying about the passengers?”

“During the rescue, I also retrieved most of the ship’s cargo, including the passengers’ belongings and one particular set of items of interest that I have not yet informed anyone other than my friend and the flesh-shaper about.  I lightly questioned all of the passengers after we woke them up from stasis and then performed some more enhanced interview techniques on the most suspicious of them in addition to the surviving crewmember and one of the deceased crewmembers, erasing their memories afterwards for, shall we say, humane reasons.  I haven’t told anyone else that part either, but given how readily you did what you had to with forcing yourself into Lachlan’s mind, I trust that you understand doing what needs done.”  Sullivan cocks his head and shows more teeth with his smile.  “Even if your dear niece wouldn’t.”

Morgan stares him down with comment.

“Anywhat,” Sullivan continues, “the passengers were simply wrong place wrong time, and the crew I got to talk too were too low level grunts to be included in anything conspiratorial, but the living one did recognize the items none of the passengers claimed.  They hadn’t been on the cargo manifest either and when he’d asked about them he was simply told to stop asking questions.”

“Another smuggling connection then?” Morgan posits.

“If it was, it wasn’t one that anyone on that ship expected to be leaving Culescu.  I showed our flesh-shaper the items in question afterward and xe identified them as dead and damaged equipment for linking together minds for gestalts or duplication.  Apparently that’s rare and valuable technology that even most people on Culescu know as little more than a rumor.  Needless to say, I left that part out of our report to the authorities in Crossherd and the equipment is sitting in a stasis vault in Bridgewood Manor to keep it from rotting any further.”

“Cutting edge flesh-shaped tech from an isolationist world with a strict policy against exports,” Morgan muses.  “You don’t think that could have been the point of this whole shipwreck mess, do you?  In those days where you dealing with the survivors, I was getting word from a merfolk community I have some connection with that a huge foreign biomass and a large number of invasive lamprey-like creatures had just gotten dumped into the ocean.  I spent weeks cleaning up that mess.  At first I figured that it was just some self-taught mage who had colossally screwed up a summoning, but when officials from Crossherd showed up demanding that I hand over any off-world biological material instead of destroying it like standard ecological contamination procedure it started to sink in just how weird the situation was.”

“And that’s when you started looking into Lachlan?”  Sullivan asks.

“Not Lachlan specifically, and for a good while there environmental and Masquerade protection took priority, weird government interference or no.  And it wasn’t like anyone was answering any of the questions I was asking.  Of course, now that I know it was a decaying Culescun ship that I was trying to keep benthic scavengers from mistaking for a whalefall and getting sick on, that makes sense.  Even if they weren’t directly involved, the powers that be in Crossherd get real nervous about anything related to Culescu.  Which explains why no one ever mentioned you and your team to me.”

“And the big burned out lighthouse nearby wasn’t an obvious clue to ask about?” Sullivan prods.

“As she said,” Stella replies, “the priority was on cleanup.  We didn’t get the chance to look into that until weeks after the fact.”

“And by that point the trail had long gone cold until you leaked his location to see who would show up looking for him,” Morgan adds. “And we all know how that turned out.”

“Yes,” Sullivan agrees.  “You two were watched and followed by means we still haven’t determined, we got Lachlan to partially violate his nondisclosure contract, and then someone opened a portal in the upper atmosphere and shot a magic equivalent of a railgun at us through it.  Or an actual railgun for all we know.  Then I did some research to give you that lovely envelope full of robots, while you played with some dirt to make an informative but not particularly revelatory presentation.  And now we’re recapping.  Did that all give you any new theories?”

“If you’re right that it’s not a government job, and the machines Lachlan saw don’t match anything any of the big paratech companies have, could it be a smaller operation?”  Morgan asks.  “Someone trying to carve themself a slice out of a competitive field by gathering resources that no one can legally report as missing and laying the groundwork for making a big entrance once they have a product ready.  Or even just a lone wolf actor playing mad scientist with experimental paratech.”

“The possibility had crossed my mind,” Sullivan admits, “but I had dismissed it.  Too much of this reeks of tight organization well-supplied with resources.”

“Does it really?” Morgan argues.  “One powerful enough mage and one exceptionally skilled paratech engineer could theoretically do this all on a budget while keeping up a surface level appearance of being something more.  Heck, the two could even be the same person!”

“Let’s say I’m willing to entertain the idea,” Sullivan croons.  “Convince me.”

“What do we really know about whoever is behind this?”  Morgan asks and then answers.  “While I’m not personally familiar with them, I know of at least four different spells that can kill people thoroughly enough that it doesn’t leave a ghost behind and messes up other methods of scrying past events in a locale.  A geass-enforced contract is easy enough to obtain for anyone who knows how to contact the fae or infernal entities and is good at negotiating.  Intimidating men in suits and sunglasses are a dime a dozen, and that’s assuming whoever’s behind all this didn’t just go buy a suit off the rack and deliver the contract and device to Lachlan themselves.”

“And the pulse device?  The robots?  The orbital kinetic bombardment?”

“Paratech’s not my field, but as I understand it, it’s not that hard to get individual parts if you know where to look.  The robots might be made from scratch in a garage or they might be decommissioned models that were refurbished and modified.  The number of them is a bit high, sure, but there are plenty of mages out there with extended lifespans and fortunes built up over a century or two.  Give me another fifty years and I’ll be one of them.  And while our hypothetical lone actor would have to be very good with portals, it’s not an unheard of level of skill, and accelerating an object to make it go fast enough to explode on impact is dead simple, just stupidly dangerous to try unassisted.”

“And everything you just said could also be true of a small arm of a larger organization that wants to maintain plausible deniability if they get caught,” Sullivan points out.

“I believe that is the point,” Stella says.  “If corporate security measures against espionage are proving too much of a barrier for you to find leads, then investigate the flow of component parts through smaller resource channels.  Of course,” she adds, “I am sure so obvious a methodology has already occurred to you.”

The doll’s perpetual monotone does little to hide the sarcasm, and the reaction on her witch’s face does even less.  Such an interestingly bold little familiar.  Or not so little given that she’s the only one here who’s feet reach the ground while seated around this bar table.  A reflection of its master’s will, surely.  What a shame that the techie’s branch of the family tree didn’t inherit any of her aunt’s spine.

“That still leaves us with the question of motive,” Sullivan says, sidestepping the barb while neither denying the soundness of the advice nor admitting that he’d overlooked it.

“We can figure that out later,” Morgan says, “but if we assume that both of the incidents that we know of were specifically targeted rather than coincidental, I can think of some scary combinations you could get up to with a god binder and a mind linker.”

*******

Sullivan’s friend is already waiting for him in the baroque parlour (as opposed to the neoclassical parlour or the nacreous parlour) when he makes his return to Bridgewood Manor that night.  As is Ashan.  The conversation passes by in a blur for Sullivan.  The news that his friend spent most of the past twenty-four hours in a warped domain of one of the eldritch drowns out whatever was said before and distracts from whatever is said after.

The recounting of Eris snapping herself out of a near autogenesis monster transformation so that she can relive childhood memories and fight her ex-girlfriend is far less important than scrutinizing his friend for signs of persona decay.  The tale of Ashan besting a fae liege’s champion in a duel barely registers through concern over what an entity whose very presence erodes rationality and sense of self might do to someone with his friend’s condition.  When the plan of transporting dangerous artifacts through smuggling routes as bait is floated, it is met with the barest acknowledgment of logistic viability, as he is too busy sorting out which of the subtle tells of exhaustion his friend is so good at hiding are due to mere sleep deprivation and which are from something more metaphysical.  The realization that his friend has told Ashan and the others about the wider conspiratorial scope of his investigations is nearly enough to fully snap his attention back to the ongoing conversation, but he is too caught up in the thought that suddenly bringing everyone fully into the fold might be a symptom of decline to even been properly irritated at not being consulted beforehand.  His own recounting of his most recent meeting with Morgan and plans discussed therein is uncharacteristically terse, unembellished, and coated in a veneer of impatience for the interloping young wizard to leave so he and his friend can talk in private, but he at least retains the presence of mind to omit the witch’s name and relation to Lacuna.

Finally, Sullivan resorts to putting on a mask crafted in the image of his genuine concern for his friend.

“Ashan, why don’t you head to bed?” Sullivan suggests.  “Speaking from experience, there aren’t many who can cross the Count of Curses and Dust and live to tell the tale, so I’d say you’ve earned a good night’s sleep.  I’ll send one of the manor staff up with something for that aging effect on your hand.”

“Thank you,” Ashan says, “but I am still wakeful enough to continue the conversation for a time yet.  This is far from the hardest a mission has pushed my capabilities.”

Sullivan constructs an endeared smile that anyone who didn’t know him would mistake for genuine.

“Good to hear.  Pushing yourself to your limit all the time without rest only wears you down.  But I think we’re just about done here anyway.  Any further planning can wait until muscles and the techie are around to give their two cents.”

“You make a fair point.  Very well then.  Road, Bridgewood, I bid the both of you a good night.”  After standing up from a gilded chair and executing a shallow bow punctuating both addresses, Ashan turns and glides down the dark hallways of Bridgewood Manor in the direction of a guest bedroom that is rapidly becoming a permanent dwelling.

Sullivan’s body no longer needs to breathe and hasn’t been physically capable of fatigue in years, but he unclenches his jaw and sighs in relief all the same at the young wizard’s departure.  A warm chuckle from the other end of the white tufted settee he’s been perched on the arm of draws his gaze back to his friend and a facial expression that’s heralded more headaches and fond memories than he can count.

“What?” he asks.

“You like him,” his friend observes.

“I can’t imagine what could have given you that impression.”

“That’s the second time you’ve told him to go to bed -”

“He’s a valuable asset whose health needs maintained.”

“- in a bed, in a room, in your home, which you didn’t kick him out of when the office opened like you said you would -”

“I’ve been too busy to get around to it.”

“- and you said it in a tone I’ve never heard you use with anyone but me and Carnette.”

Void Without.

“I just wanted him out of the way so we could talk in private,” Sullivan insists while sliding from armrest to seat.  “He doesn’t need to hear me asking how you’re holding together after an encounter with one of the eldritch.”

“Thanks for the concern, but I’m fine.  Really.”

“Even -”

“Even with my… being the way that I am, yes.  Just because we decided it’s best that I don’t consciously acknowledge it too much, that doesn’t mean I don’t take steps to manage it, and it turns out general safeguards against eldritch influence are good for general stability.”  Sullivan’s friend forces a laugh that would sound natural and unexhausted to any other listener.  “Honestly, I think I might try burning the silverkey incense more often.  That was the most… present… I’ve felt in a long while.”

“I’ll be sure to make sure you have a steady supply,” Sullivan says and makes a mental note to look into side effects of regular usage.  “But I must say, you caught me off guard when you informed me that you filled the kids in on everything.  I thought you were going to wait until we had something more concrete and they’d had more time to get used to working together.”

His friend affects a nonchalant shrug.  “I’d call people exploding a house with you in it for investigating pretty concrete, and the others have more than proven themselves by now.  Especially after… today… Or is it yesterday by now?” They drift off for a moment, voice dreamy before snapping back to the here and now.  “You know what I mean.  And besides, I told Eris about it before we dealt with the eldritch.”

“You might be right, but that’s not what you were thinking at the time, was it?”

“I…”

Sullivan slides closer on the sofa and gently puts a hand on his friend’s shoulder.  It’s gotten so much easier to do that since they acquired that symbiote jacket of theirs.

“I’m not mad,” he whispers, “and I’m not judging.  I could never be either, not towards you.  I’m only trying to figure out if I’m worrying too much right now.”

“You always worry too much about me.”

“Someone has to if you’re going to be the one to worry about everyone else in the world.”

“Right…  Anyway, Eris asked what you’ve been working on for the past two months because somehow she didn’t even know you were looking into what caused the dragon shipwreck.  I could have sworn we’d told everyone that right after opening the office and you bowed out of joining the rest of us on the haunted house mission that evening.”

“She’d stepped out of the room when I announced it,” Sullivan says.  “I figured at least one of you would fill her in.”

“Oh… I guess that must have slipped my mind too.  So, when she asked earlier today… no yesterday… wait, it’d be the day before by now…  What… day… is it?  It’s been a long one…”

“When Eris asked…” Sullivan softly prompts.

“Right!  When Eris couldn’t remember what I thought for sure I told her already, or at least told Ashan and Lacuna...  told someone anyway…  I… had a moment…”

“A moment?” Sullivan asks once it becomes apparent his friend isn’t picking the trailed thought back up on their own.

“I had a moment where I couldn’t remember at all what I’d said to who, so it all… came out at once.”  Their next pause is one of intensifying focus rather than the loss of it.  “That’s bad, isn’t it?”

“No, it's not bad,” Sullivan lies.  “You’ve just had a long few days, like you said.  That’s normal when people get tired.”

“But at least I remembered not to tell them about Morgan and Stella yet,” his friend says like a child trying to salvage a botched chore.  “When are we going to tell them?  With everyone involved now there’s not much point in keeping it secret, and Lacuna deserves to know she has a relative Backstage.”

“Morgan said she wanted to tell Lacuna herself, so you don’t need to worry about that right now.  I’ll handle the arrangements for their reunion when the time comes.”

“And I’m sure you’ll delay it until you can find the most dramatic possible moment,” his friend jokes.

“Will I now?”

“It’s what you do.  The one thing you like better than secrets and lies is a big reveal.”

“Or maybe I’ll just arrange things so that a dramatic reveal comes faster than you expect now that you’re onto me.”

“But now I’m going to expect that and you know I’ll expect that so you’ll delay but I’ll know that you’ll know that so you’ll accelerate, but you’ll know that I know that you know that I…”

“I know you’re tired.”

“I might be letting myself feel it a little without anyone else around.”

“Well, there’s nothing pressing tonight to keep you from getting some sleep.”

“Nothing but the usual.”

“The dreams?”

“And everything else that always needs done.  The dreams have been manageable.”

“Manageable with or without amnestics?”

“Without.  I’ve only needed them the one time since getting back to this anchor world.  And it was as low a dose as will still do anything, I promise.  Just enough to take the edge off after waking up in the middle of the night.”

“But you have been sleeping, right?”

Sullivan’s friend smiles a little too broadly.

“I’ve been getting a whole eight hours,” they claim.

Sullivan gives his friend a look practiced since their shared childhood.

“Per week,” his friend amends.

“When was the last time?”

“I took a nap after our call a few days ago to get some rest.  I… don’t think I actually fell asleep though.”

Sullivan closes his eyes, rubs his temples, and takes a deep breath as only one without lungs could manage.

“That’s it,” he says, “tonight you are getting a full night’s sleep for once in your life.  Where works best for you these days?”

His friend starts to protest but bites it off in response to another look from Sullivan.

“The aquatic drawing room.  The light and water help.”

“Aquatic drawing room it is,” Sullivan says as he rises to his feet and extends a hand.

His friend takes his hand and three tries to get up from the sofa.  Three wobbly steps later, they are leaning on his shoulder for support.  Now that the inhuman exhaustion has been acknowledged and allowed to be felt, it can now longer be denied or hidden.

“It’s not fair, you know,” his friend rambles while the two of them shamble down Bridgewood Manor’s labyrinthine hallways in a bubble of blue-white light from enchanted torches that light as they approach and extinguish as they pass by.  “Not fair that you don’t have to sleep when I still do.”

“It’s not so bad,” Sullivan says.  “It means that you’re still human enough for it.  And it means you can take a break every now and then.”

“You say that like you miss it.”

“Every now and then.”  All the time.  Human minds aren’t made for years of continuous uninterrupted consciousness.  “At least you don’t need as much as most people.  Just more than you’ve been getting.”

“You sure?  I think it’s like… the other thing.  I don’t feel tired if I don’t think about it, and there’s so much more I could be doing if I don’t.  So many more people I can help.  Do help?  Did help?  Have helped?  Would help?  Should help?  Help?  Help… help…”

Sullivan touches a finger to his friend’s lip to stop any more repetition of the syllable that’s lost its meaning.

“Letting yourself feel it will help with the other thing.  Real people get tired and sleep.”

“But you don’t sleep and you’re real.  You are real, aren’t you?”  Worry creeps into his friend’s tone.

“I’m real,” Sullivan reassures them, “but I’m not people, I’m a monster.”

His friend calms and chuckles.  “Heroes are supposed to slay monsters, you know?”  They joke with a poke to where Sullivan’s ribs should be.

“Not the ones they tame and take into battle with them,” he says.

The silence of two that have had a lifetime to say everything and are taking a breather before another round of saying it all again.

The seashell-and-wave-embossed doors to the aquatic drawing room are open when they arrive.  The only closed rooms in Bridgewood Manor are those currently occupied, those intentionally put out of mind, and those Sullivan is yet to figure out how to open.  Turning from the hallway to cross the threshold, footfalls morph from muffled paps on soft carpet, to sharp clacks on hard tile, to quiet whistles of softer sand.  The furniture here is carved from driftwood, salvaged from shipwrecks, hewn from abyssal vents.  Legs and armrests and backs are adorned with pearls, crusted with barnacles, inlaid with ichthyic fossils.  Upholstery is embroidered with sea beasts, sunken cities, deep-dwelling gods.  The seafloor stretches out in all directions, the floor-to-ceiling mural’s illusion played into rather than broken by the fractured stone archway over the door to the hall.  The stone arch once held a portal between worlds until it caused its builders’ civilization to drown beneath the waves.  Another one of Carnette’s decorative jokes to remind Sullivan of her absence.

All of it is awash in dancing caustic patterns of light from glowing corals reflected and refracted through the water suspended above.  The “surface” is just out of Sullivan’s reach if he stretches (as Carnette so enjoyed teasing him) and reaches a “depth” twice again that length before hitting the ceiling.  A single touch is all it would take to draw one off the floor and into the water above.  With Carnette gone, the water is no longer breathable, the marine simulacra float inanimate in the corners near the ceiling, and the surface occasionally ripples and drops a single salty tear to the sand and furniture below.  At least the crafting of the sand to never cling unwantedly remains effective.

“Couch or floor?” Sullivan asks his friend.

“Floor,” they say after a delayed processing of the question.

Sullivan helps his friend to a spot free from the ceiling’s tears and kneels down to help them from his shoulder to the floor.  He shifts to sitting on the floor leaning against the illusion-painted wall, one leg outstretched while the other makes an arch to rest arm on knee.  He looks down at his friend and asks “Need any help getting to sleep?”

His friend makes a small noise of affirmation.

“Once upon a time…” Sullivan begins.  He gets no further when he notices his friend make an expression he hesitates to place.  “What?”

“My first night back, you mentioned you had… something else that could help?  Could we… try that instead?”

Sullivan reminds himself that he doesn’t have a heart to break.  It mostly works.

“Of course,” he whispers.  Of all the off-hand comments for his friend’s inconstant memory to keep…

Sullivan produces a sewing needle pinched between thumb and forefinger.  It is gold with a core of bone and a tip of cold iron.  It is a gift fit for a princess.  It is the only thing he’s had longer than his friend.  He hasn’t held or looked at it since right after Carnette made him the way he is now.

Sullivan closes his lips around the tip of the needle.  He feels his tongue change inside his mouth.  He licks the needle to coat it with his venom.  That was the last change to what is left of his body that Carnette made, and one of the only such changes that were his idea.  This is the first time he’s been able to use it for its intended purpose.

Sullivan lets the tip of the needle cut his lip on the way out.  He can no longer bleed and the cut closes as fast as it opens.  Just as well.  The needle hasn’t tasted his blood since he met his friend, and for it to do so now would feel too much like an ending.  For the first time he wonders if he should have asked Carnette to let him keep his scars when she took them along with his wrinkles and grey hairs.

“This will let you sleep,” he says as light plays across the needle, “It will be deep and dreamless.  No getting trapped unable to wake up like with other sleep aids.  One prick on the finger and you’ll fall right under.”  

His friend stares at the needle.

“Just like the fairytale,” Sullivan adds with a smile that no one else has seen.  He had no reason for such soft sorrow with Carnette.

His friend nods.

“Would you like to do it, or me?” Sullivan asks.

His friend reaches out and takes the needle.

“Hold me?” they ask after a moment’s hesitation.

Sullivan moves to wrap his arms around his friend from behind and rests his head in the curve between shoulder and neck.

“Always,” he whispers.

His friend moves the tip of the needle held in one hand in the direction of the other.  Stops.  Tries again.  Shakes.  Tries again.  Freezes.  Looks down at their hands.

“What do my hands look like?” his friend whispers.  “Are my hands real?  Where are my hands?  How can I prick my finger if my hands aren’t real?”

Sullivan reminds himself that he doesn’t have a heart to break.  It would surely be pounding from fear otherwise.

“Shhh…shhh… It’s alright….  It’s alright, don’t overthink it,” he whispers back.  “Here, let me take care of it.”

“How can you tell where to hold me?”

“How could I not?  We’ve been together forever.  I know the shape of you without having to think about it.”

“What do I look like?”

“Like my best friend who is very tired but will feel much better after a good night’s sleep.  Now, are you ready?”

His friend nods.  “Stay with me?”

“Always.”

Sullivan reminds himself that he doesn’t have a heart to break.  It almost helps.

*******

The door to the office makes no sound as Sullivan slips inside.  Doors usually don’t make sounds when nobody touches them, so that is normal enough.  That which is beneath his skin ceases its writhing, space ceases its warping, and Sullivan takes a look around the darkened ground floor of the converted bed and breakfast.  

For a moment, he allows himself to see the place as the coffeehouse it was even before that.  The building and its family business were nearly as old as Carnette (relatively speaking) and she’d been a regular for over a century and a half.  Sullivan had been standing right… here, yes, here, behind where the counter used to be, when he first laid eyes on her in person.  He’d been pretending not to watch the door when she strode in, clad in a blue dress, broad red hat over curly red hair, and glasses with thick yellow lenses that hid the true color of her eyes.  He’d started working there a week before, with meticulously applied hair dye and makeup so that he could pass for the young college student he claimed to be.  She complimented him on getting her ludicrously specific order right on the first try and it was the foot in the door he’d hoped it would be for friendly conversation.  

The third time they met he felt confident enough to put his own special twist on the order to surprise her: A tasteless, odorless powder mixed in with the spread on her bagel and a drop of equally difficult to detect liquid in her drink.  Two substances that were harmless on their own but when broken down by stomach acid and mixed together would create a poison capable of negating a mage’s powers.  He’d followed her outside afterward under the pretense of being smitten with her and then attempted to stab her to death with an enchanted dagger out in the open on the sidewalk.

That particular job hadn’t even been about the money, he’d just wanted to see if he could kill the infamous sorceress Bridgewood and when he found out the one place she predictably frequented was a mundane coffeehouse with no Backstage connections where she’d have to risk breaking the Masquerade in order to use her powers, he had been arrogant enough to believe he could pull it off.  The poison had been less effective than anticipated, she’d been more subtle with her magic than her reputation suggested, and five minutes later he was half a continent away, lying in a puddle of his own blood, and holding a handwritten contracted written in that same liquid to kill whomever it was that hired him to assassinate her for triple their original pay offer.  She’d found the sheer audacity of the whole thing wonderfully entertaining and told him that if she’d be anyone else his plan would have worked. 

Thus began a courtship of increasingly elaborate and outlandish assassination attempts inevitably met by ever more novel methods of leaving him just barely alive.  

Sullivan opens his eyes that he hadn’t realized he’d closed.  Losing himself in fond reminiscence is the closest he gets to dreaming these days, but he reminds himself that he doesn’t have time for such indulgences right now.  It is hard though not to wonder if Carnette would have approved of what he’s done with the place.  If its last owner hadn’t changed his family business, would she still be here?  Or did she only refrain from spending a portion of her fortune to keep the coffeehouse as it was because she knew she didn’t have long for this world?  No way to know without asking her, and that day won’t be coming anytime soon.

But enough of that, he has investments to check up on before returning to his slumbering friend.

And speaking of slumbering friends, from where he’s standing he can spy Lacuna and Eris together on the living room couch, sharing a blanket and lit by the soft glow of a DVD logo bouncing around a black television screen.  Sullivan soundlessly walks over to get a better look at the intertwined pair and softly chuckles at the sight of the nearby open DVD case for some romantic comedy schlock.  Not the kind of sleeping together he’d been betting on the two of them getting up to, but perhaps it’s a step in that direction.

Thus amused, Sullivan turns his attention away from his sleeping employees and blinks through his filters.  The third most expensive part of the office’s renovations - behind only the pocket dimension basement and the paratech laboratory - was enchanting the entire property to record a heatmap of movements of anyone that enters that only he can see.  Floating threads and blotches of color appear for him throughout the office, varying in thickness and intensity with recency and repetition.  Each color corresponds to a different individual.  At a glance Sullivan can tell that most of the traffic on this floor goes directly from the front door to the basement and back out again, but Lacuna’s pink-flecked-black trail leads to the bedrooms upstairs more often than it leads outside and the pearl-white representing Ashan and the sea-teal leading away from Eris’s slumbering form have both spent quite some time lingering together in the kitchen.

Eris’s color surprises him.  He would have expected it to be closer to the crimson of  the other monster hunter currently residing upstairs.  The two recent sets of green lines also leading upstairs are curiously similar enough to one another that he almost wishes he’d paid more attention to Ashan’s recounting of his most recent adventure.  

There are no color trails representing Sullivan’s friend, but that’s to be expected.  Even if he had been holding out a vain hope for group interaction to coax out at least a faint proof of existence.

Downstairs, the hallway is a tangle of black, white, and teal that almost drowns out the faint traces of visiting clients.  The autodoc suite looks to have barely been touched, save for what looks to have been an extended stay of teal and black about a month ago.  The gymnasium’s sparring ring is covered in an unexpected swirl of teal and white that leaves Sullivan with questions on how such matches could possibly be going when only one of the participants is a mage.  Could it merely be practice for Ashan to keep physically fit without relying on magic?  More likely they’ve both simply been taking turns going up against Sullivan’s friend.

The laboratory and breakroom are so covered in floating black lines and blotches that Sullivan finds himself forced to clear his visual filters to make out the rooms themselves.  It seems that his earlier jokes about Lacuna playing mad scientist down here were more on target than he’d anticipated at the time, judging by how the heatmap is indicating she’s been effectively living in this laboratory for the past two months.

He struts over to the main computer terminal to take a look at what exactly she’s been up to down here.  He’d planned to make use of a hidden admin account he’d set up before handing everything over to her, but now it seems she hasn’t even bothered to password protect her login.  Sullivan tuts to himself at the shockingly naïve lack of security as he minimizes the open windows regarding simulation progress and test chamber results.  The juicy personal project details can wait until after he’s assessed how well she’s been doing the job he hired her for.

Sullivan goes through Lacuna’s bookmarks, tabs, email, and other messages to get an idea of her process of finding potential “missions” with which to keep his friend occupied.  Her divergence from the list of sites and forums he handed her on the first day to regularly check shows a promising modicum of initiative, although she could stand to be doing more on the supplemental detail gathering front.  If she’s going to be supporting his friend, then it's not enough for her to simply find people for them to help and situations for them to resolve; she needs to be doing research to know everything there is to know about whatever creatures or magical phenomena are involved or even tangentially related to the situation.

The fact that Lacuna apparently never went through the back issues of a certain Backstage newspaper masquerading as a mundane tabloid is particularly disappointing to Sullivan.  It was one of the original information sources he told her to familiarize herself with, and if she’d done so properly she would have seen that her aunt used to write articles for it.  Although in retrospect, perhaps that’s for the best.  Even if the whole team has been brought up to speed on Sullivan’s investigation, for the moment Lacuna’s likely to recognize her place as the weak link in the organization and stay safely here in her lab.  But if she were to realize just the sort of person her aunt is, then she might start pushing to do field work too, and Sullivan’s friend wouldn’t have the heart to tell her no.

Sullivan doesn’t think his friend will be able to take another weak teammate getting into an avoidable situation and dying.

He deletes the browser bookmark for the newspaper.

Just before finishing up invading the privacy of Lacuna’s browser and email history, he notices an unread email from RevaTech, the paratech company that bought out her previous employer.  The company she stole a copy of her project back from on her way out the door.  The email is an unsolicited offer for a job interview to come back and work for them.  Sullivan hovers over the button to delete it but changes his mind.  It’ll be more entertaining to watch for her reaction.

Sullivan moves on to going through Lacuna’s notes on the mission reports she’s been sending him and scrubbing through the records of the comm link cameras.  Some might call his checking to make sure there’s nothing she’s been leaving out paranoid, but paranoid is his default state with anyone working with his friend.  The only surprise is how accurate it all is.  Not even any editorializing.  The only truly noteworthy bit is a comment about his friend not showing up right on camera with a followup comment stating that she’s been informed that’s normal for them.  Judging by her notes, it seems she assumes it’s some kind of stealth charm, maybe a function of the symbiote jacket.  Sullivan knows it’s not.

Sullivan checks his golden pocketwatch and judges that he still has enough time left to at least skim the logs of the simulations, rituals, and enchantments that have been performed down her before he needs to head back to check on his friend.  The more he reads, the more he pieces together how the digitally accelerated and computer generated rituals work, and the more he gathers what she’s been using it for.  Pieces click into place for him.  The more he understands, the more fascinated he becomes.  And the more entertained.

Sullivan blink to a different filter from before and sees a swirling cacophony of white noise that he can practically hear through his eyeballs emanating from the shelves of enchanted laser-engraved charms and 3D printed talismans. He strides down to the stark white testing chamber, switches his vision back to the heatmap filter, and sees a rope of pink-flecked black threads enter from the laboratory and turn into a tangled rainbow mess in the center of the room.  He switches to a third filter, returns to the lab’s entrance, and takes a long hard look at the rows of refrigerated paratech server racks behind their glass wall.

He begins laughing.

“Oh techie,” he crows, “do you have any idea what you’re growing down here?”

Almost certainly not, but it’s going to be delicious to watch.

Sullivan collects himself from the entertainment of watching fools accidentally do what the wise can only dream of and checks the time again.  He heads upstairs.  There’s a slim chance that his friend will recover from his venom faster than most and it’s vitally important that he be there when they wake up.  And if they're still asleep, then he’ll take the time to read through the report of all the tomes Ashan has read in the Manor’s lesser library that he had the maintenance golems record for him.  It’s been said that research makes the wizard, so his choices of reading material should be able to tell Sullivan plenty.  And if he judges Ashan’s path of study wanting, he can see to it that certain choice volumes containing magic more likely to be helpful to his friend find themselves conveniently placed for the young wizard to find.

He has just closed the door separating basement from ground floor behind him when he hears the creaky step on the staircase to the upper level signal someone’s descent.  Hanging back in the shadows, he watches a golden-haired woman kitted out in black leather and kevlar carry a long spear past the reception desk towards the front door.  She pauses for a moment to look at the still-sleeping Eris and Lacuna on the living room couch and Sullivan curses his angle of observation for not permitting him to see her expression.  He moves closer, behind the reception desk, and just at the edge of her peripheral vision.  Now is that jealousy on her face, or longing?  No, too bittersweet for either.  Parting sorrow sprinkled with regret and seasoned with just a dash of guilt.  Delectable.

“A little overdressed for grabbing a midnight snack from the kitchen, aren’t we?” Sullivan purrs.

The woman - Gretchen, Sullivan surmises from the little attention he paid earlier - slips a knife from her combat vest as she turns to face the man who had not been behind her a moment before.  Sullivan lifts a finger to casually push aside the blade hovering in front of his nose.

“Now, now, none of that,” he softly lilts.  “We wouldn’t want to wake your former paramour and your replacement, now would we?”

“Who are you?” Gretchen hisses.

“My, what lovely golden eyes you have.  The better to see me with, yes?  And such sharp teeth.  The better to eat me with, surely.”

Gretchen takes a long step back and lowers her spear between them.

“Oh, but wherever are my manners?  Sullivan Bridgewood, at my service.  I own this place.”  He leans closer over the reception desk.  “Now tell me, Gretchen, are your accommodations not to your liking?  There are no late checkout fees you know, so no need to go sneaking off like a thief in the night.”

“Oh, so you’re the asshole boss Eris mentioned.”

“Yes, I’m afraid muscles over there and I have been something of an oil and water combination.”

Gretchen stiffens at the nickname.  “Don’t call her that.”

“Oh?  Muscles?  I’ve found it perfectly apt.  Both a physical descriptor and summary of her utility and purpose.  What else can one want from a nickname?”

“E’s - Eris is… more than that.”

Sullivan leans closer still, resting his chin on interlaced fingers.  “Do tell.”

Gretchen scoffs and turns back toward the front door.  “I don’t owe you anything.”

“Or you could tell her directly if you prefer,” Sullivan says, no longer whispering.

Over on the couch, Lacua stirs at the sudden noise and Eris grunts at the shifting weight on her lap, but both remain asleep for the moment.  Gretchen freezes with her hand on the doorknob.  Sullivan smirks as she stands still, listening for a change in the sleepers’ breathing.

“Bastard,” she mutters.

“Only figuratively,” Sullivan whispers back.  “But not so much of one as to make you spill all those feelings you know you shouldn’t still have for someone you thought you were over.  Tell me but one worthwhile skill of hers that I’m underutilizing by employing her as meat shield and wrecking ball and I’ll let you walk out quietly.”

Gretchen glares at him.

“Admitting you can’t think of anything is also an option,” Sullivan hums.

“You know the monster hunters’ fifth fate?  Letting your identity, your sense of self, get so consumed by the love of the hunt that it kicks off an autogenesis cascade?  She brought me back from that.  Not pulling me back from the edge just in time, but actually brought me back after I’d willingly embraced it.  I had already changed and now I’m myself again.  That doesn’t happen.  Do you have any idea what it takes to call someone back like that?  What kind of person it takes?”

A face unrecognized in a mirror.  Years gone in an instant.  An empty shell.  Gaps filled in with fairytales.  Cries in the night.  Soft words in ears and gentle hands running through hair.  Reassurances of reality.  Proof offered of existence.  Activities curated to prevent cognitive dissonance.

Void Without, he’s an idiot.

Sullivan’s smirk fades.

“I do, believe it or not.  Thank you for the eye-opening reminder.  Truly.”

“You’re welcome,” Gretchen replies, wary of his sudden shift in disposition.

“Now, judging from personal experience, you’re not fully out of the woods yet, and you know it, but you don’t want to weigh down anyone you care about with it so you’re trying to distance yourself as quietly as possible.  I’ve seen firsthand how hard that can be.”

“You don’t know -”

“Yes.  I do.  And I also know enough to guess that you don’t have a plan beyond stepping out that door, so let me give you one.”  Sullivan places a calling card on the reception desk and taps on it.  “Go to this address in Crossherd before sunrise and ask for Lucinda.  Tell her Sullivan Prince sent you and explain your situation.  She’ll find you work that will be engaging without too much risk of sending you spiralling down again.  I’ve found by experience that finding something to put yourself into and care about is the best way to keep from losing yourself.”

Sullivan steps back and Gretchen cautiously approaches, picks up the calling card, and examines it.

“Why?” she asks.

Sullivan’s ever-bemused smirk returns, even more of an affectation than normal.

“I may be a bastard,” he trills as he walks around her and towards the door, “but I am still capable of a modicum of sympathy for fools in the same situations I’ve been through.  Oh, and one more thing.”  He stops at the door and jerks his head towards Eris.  “Unless you want to hurt her, at least leave a note before you disappear.”

That which is beneath Sullivan’s skin writhes, space warps, and he disappears, leaving Gretchen alone in the darkened room.

*******

To his relief, Sullivan’s friend is still asleep on the sandy floor when he returns to the aquatic drawing room.  The purple and green symbiote they wear has transformed itself from jacket to bedroll.

“Thanks for looking out for them,” Sullivan whispers to it as he settles down next to his friend.  He is still unsure whether the strange entity can even understand speech, but some sentiments are worth voicing anyway.

He closes his eyes and listens to his friend’s steady, peaceful, breathing and doesn’t think about what he would or wouldn’t see if he watched their sleeping face.  He knows he should send for the report on Ashan’s library usage rather than spend his time idle, but he procrastinates.  How many more nights like this will he get to have at his friend’s side?

The conversation with Gretchen and its implications turns over in his mind.  He’s never been able to find a worthy replacement for himself, and he’s just about given up on ever finding any one person fit for the job, but what if it were three people working together to take on his responsibilities?  One to do the information gathering and stay up to date on technology that rejects them, and two to share the joint burdens of following them into danger and recognizing when they need emotional support.  That was the whole reason he agreed to this ill-conceived enterprise, wasn’t it?  He hadn’t really believed in it working until now, but could it?  They haven’t gotten there yet, but could they?

Void Without, he hopes so.

His friend deserves someone better than him.

<-Previous Chapter Masterpost Next Chapter->

[pinewoodpipit]

bloodwritten silver fic - Chapter 1 Meta

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Other meta posts for this AU

Mid-fic meta (posted after chapter 5's release)

Fic end meta

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General thoughts and early fic notes

I’ve really liked the concept for this fic from the start. It’s one of the earliest AUs I came up with and actually started as two different fic ideas; one which was just about why Fade loves her shorty so much, and another one about a werewolf AU. It also originally started as a much closer AU to canon; as in the same storyline and world as the canon Protocol, but with Fade being a werewolf. In this version of the story, Neon heard a ruckus in Fade’s room and discovered her transformed into her wolf form, having lost control due to sleep deprivation. I eventually found that changing the world to something a bit more fitting to the theme to alter it to an almost Soulsborne or RE8 kind of fantasy world made it MUCH stronger. It’s kind of mid-modern; modern enough for people to have guns, but kind of medieval in tone and general… practices regarding monsters.

-

This fic centres around Fadeshock, but a large part of the plot will also revolve around Reyge. I won’t go into detail on this, you’ll see soon enough!

-

To clarify the difference between monsters and Radiants - Radiants are humans or humanoids with magical abilities, and monsters are inhuman creatures. Werewolves fall into an uncomfortable halfway point, and so most call them both interchangeably. Reyna heads a monster hunter guild which Neon works for, and Neon wasn’t comfortable killing Fade as she sees werewolves as more human than beast. It’s the difference between killing a wolf and a person who can turn into a wolf. She has no trouble killing a dragon which has begun to raid villages and hunt people, or a basilisk which is killing livestock, but she won’t kill a werewolf who’s only apparent crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She also knows, though, that Reyna is a lot stricter on this topic than she is, and so she lied to cover her ass. She is also aware that the lines can blur and quickly become dangerous for her, even though she’s a Radiant herself, so she keeps herself hidden. It’s steady, stable work which she’s good at and pays well, but it is also dangerous and she’s very aware of that.

-

Silver perpetually injures monsters in this fic. If a monster is shot with a silver bullet the wound won’t clot and they’ll bleed out without treatment. The trap around Fade’s arm was silver and so it’s perpetually eating into her, especially since it was barbed and some of the barbs couldn’t be removed while Neon was cutting her loose. Silver is aggravating for monsters to touch, too - it burns them. This will be an important note later in this fic.

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There is a reason Sage uses her code name while Neon, Fade, and Reyna all don’t! You’ll see why later on.

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Playlist

Again I’ll just share the song titles which are on my playlist, since I don’t know how to share a playlist while making the creator anonymous for my own privacy.

Devil’s Backbone - The Civil Wars (this is the primary theme song and I thought about making the title a lyric from it, but I wanted to stick to an original one for this fic, with this one taking one of the chapter titles instead)

Drops in the Lake - Lord Huron (another primary theme of this fic which took the final chapter’s title)

Just a Man - Jorge Rivera-Herrans, EPIC Ensemble

Karanlığın - VALORANT, Helin, ARB4

GET MINE - Holy Wars

Exhumed - Zola Jesus

Misery - Lucille Croft, BRVMES, TINYKVT

Carrion Flowers - Chelsea Wolfe

Electric Gold - Marion Aunor, Moophs

Wolf Like Me ft. Shovels & Rope - Lera Lynn, Shovels & Rope

Blood On My Name - The Brothers Bright

Cupid - Twin Ver. - FIFTY FIFTY

Stolas Sings - Caleb Hyles

VISIONS - VALORANT, eaJ, Safari Riot

Gravedigger - MXMS

Homeostasis - Nostalghia

You Can’t Judge a Book by the Cover - Ruby Ibarra

INFERNO - Sub Urban, Bella Poarch

REBEL TIME - MOONGA K., Sampa the Great

Boyfriend - Dove Cameron

Many of these were taken from the characters’ official playlists, curated by Riot themselves. I felt they were fitting for this AU especially; particularly Fade’s, as Neon is less… angsty in general. Some happier songs are on here too, though, as even though this fic has a darker tone, it’s still got some rom-com elements in there.

[namelesschurch]

Weekly notes 6/30/2023:

Lev: Been testing Impose with the assistance of Sylph. Results have not been promising; admittedly, seeing her fail makes me feel a little relieved. The moment Lev starts really finding a direction in earnest is likely the moment she'll probably be getting into a lot of danger. I haven't really mentioned Crow to her, though she'll probably be reappearing in the next week...I should probably warn her.

Chi: Still do not get her unusual drive for school. Why school specifically? She does not seem to understand her own reasons or just doesn't want to tell me. I'm hoping school doesn't disappoint her...

Kris: His godhood is unusual in the sense that he retains his human characteristics. Usually, gods embody a concept such as rage or order - etc - and are usually engulfed by it. Just goes to show that the multiverse makes things different.

He however can still get bored, tired, listless, etc. Not sure what I have to offer - other than letting him go ham here. And though he does enjoy hanging out with Chi and Lev, it's probably not -fulfilling- he mentioned he likes to feel useful - probably to feel like his extraordinary powers - and potential suffering to get it- had purpose. I mean, I guess letting him deal with crime here would be useful - even if he's restricted by the World Boundary here, he still has the experience and technically can't die for real. It's not like this is the world I knew anymore, and the circumstances that led to the first timeline imploding are not present anymore.

Stupid Radiance. Stupid Dream.

Madison Ruarc (note the name change): He seems to be doing better after encountering two annoying bits of anonymous magic, which is concerning. Is he being targeted because he is an angel or is it something else entirely? The second one seems to be particularly ill-intended/problematic requiring someone else that I cannot recall off the top of my head to partially halt the effects.

He is currently living with some sort of entity known as Sarandiel - or at least was in the same room at one point - they seem non-hostile. What is of concern is that it does not seem that Mads may have his place of work anymore, which he seems to derive happiness and comfort from. He also doesn't like being off-world so-to-speak. Maybe create something that doesn't really require a time requirement here - like an animal shelter here with his assistance welcome as needed?

Chi seems to have already attracted another dog to the Inn on her walk with Lev. So we now have a chicken, 2 ducks, 2 dogs, and two cats (even if one of them is a ghost).

Random note, I am just going to admit this in the privacy of my own head.

I think it is an utter shame Gotham did not employ the Nameless City's stance on dog killers.

Erna: Met one of her friends online, Tataru. From the sound of it, considerations would likely have to be modified since it sounds like there's someone on it. As expected Scions is a close-knit group. Learning Erna having the capability to fight the equivalent of gods in her world is also surprising. Seems to be straining herself in regard to her comatose friends though if convo with Crowley is any indicator.

Crowley: Continues to deal with the hivemind algae thing. Lack of online presence is likely secondary to that. Her plan is interesting in that there's a way to somehow restrict said algae thing to make it seem like it is an ordinary, if probably toxic (red algae blooms?) algae. Makes me wonder how many supernatural things are being hidden in plain sight.

Hermes / saintworks: Still not sure how the "Datalight" went past the World Boundary, still theorizing. He is currently finding a new planet? to inhabit. What's left of his company after the attack seems to be a whole bunch of misfits and malcontents that are working together for the mutual sake of survival and potential new business.

Not quite sure how to approach, given Datalight for some odd reason passes through the World Boundary for no reason. The whole "don't want to draw attention until I figure out what's going on" to the "I can't figure out this person who bounces between rational and guns-glazing" to the whole "cross between AI and human body with some sort of very high-level technology that can pass as magic in any other world.

At least his cafeteria sounds decent. And they have food and housing. Safety, not so much.

Bruce / something-in-the-wayne: Upon my review of the dashboard later at night, he suddenly got very serious when talking to a kid that seemed like she was self-destructing and apparently entering into a dangerous situation. Probably because he's a father himself.

Other than that, not much changes other than some interesting advice from his own perspective as starting out with his inherited company. Which is useful. Unions could be used as a means to deal with annoying shareholders - the problem is I don't have any shareholders for them to deal with. Still cross-training is an interesting concept. No one really aspires to be a grocer after all. I can believe Farmer, but...grocer...Anyway.

And apparently he started using Grindr? again?

Not much happening on his front.

Nata: She seems to be healing from the wound she received (cracked horn) from Damara. And whatever aches and pains she's been feeling - perhaps just from a strenuous day - it seems that even deity / near-deities can still have aches and pains, though Kris also does prove that. Seems like Hermes can port things to her world too. She seems to be doing fine hopefully.

She does singing, which is interesting, though it does not seem like often enough - and the act itself has a special meaning to her.

Yugi: Introductions with Sarandiel have revealed some more of his hobbies, though the favoring of analog games over video games is expected. Seems to be more of a social creature, willing to do more things outside of his comfort level, if his friends are around. Friendship seems to be a big thing with Yugi - companionship and all that. This is assumed to be the main Yugi and not the other Yugi.

Clarification on the "Island Sinking." - so Yugi is not as dangerous as Lev made out. Lev made me believe that Yugi summoned a monster in a duel that accidentally took out the island with it - either that or this was just her exaggerating, which is likely.

Siege - strikingskeletonsiege - Backtracking on the dashboard - was likely one of the sources for Chi picking up the Flesh Suit thing. Also of note, Siege knows Nata - at least assumed given how he commented how Nata gets really stupid anons. He has a very lively personality as seen in his introductions with other people.

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Lex Luthor - Earth-3 :: An interesting note that Lex has dill-emma's father's phone number - and used it to make sure dill-emma would be retrieved safely from a Joker (clowningachievement). Not much to report on this front though beyond that. He does note himself to be primarily doing meta-gene research and biology? except the way it was put like there's a supernatural element to it.

Lee (ultra-rage) - Well, his username matches his demeanor to say the least. Sounds like Lex really has a handful with him - sounds like that Ultraman (father?) really made a very bad impact on him. Superpowers and being easily provoked are not a good combination unfortunately.

Provocation seems to primarily stem from the feeling of being mocked? Or pointlessness. There's just a lot of disproportionate aggravation with his interactions involving dill-emma.

Has a soft side with Dove. Guess every lid has its pot.

Nightwing - slightlylessdarkknights - Haven't interacted much beyond the initial encounter. Seems to share a universe with thedarkestknight? and maybe kalkalicious? The times he is on, I suspect he is on patrol in the city as a superhero. Has an interesting mindset when at work - that everyone can be redeemed, and I'm assuming he is someone who will not kill another criminal.

His post (assuming again about dill-emma who is the inciting force of this week) is likely referencing her about how he cannot stand being drowned out by someone else. He doesn't like people who don't listen.

Ember and Jack - emberoops and cyberneticlagomorph - Linked due to the interaction. It is interesting that Ember works for Jack in some sort of "desk?" job. And that Ember gets PTO for an unspecified surgical procedure - or maybe it was specified and I missed it. But apparently he can divide into multiple bodies with a shared? consciousness - does having one part work and three part recreation memories lower the strain due to the proportion or amount of time lived?

As for Jack, apparently a somewhat lax boss who gives decent PTO. The kids are interesting, especially Egg who seems to be like in the terrible twos stage or something but perpetually. Jack is managing though. His world is especially interesting too - the Moon producing milk? Talk of fae, etc.

--

Miscellaneous: I'd been under the impression that Grindr is a branch of the Tinder dating website. I am technically correct. It is a dating site, but it is one that caters to the LGBTQ+ community. This explains Bruce's, while maintaining some level of jovial, somewhat taunting / somewhat "shame on you" posts.

[cryptoking16]

This One Mistake Could Cost You EVERYTHING in Cryptocurrency!

Cryptocurrency has been one of the most exciting, volatile, and revolutionary financial markets of the last decade. Investors have witnessed astronomical gains, life-changing profits, and even catastrophic losses. But there's one crucial mistake that even seasoned crypto traders still make, and it can cost you everything. So, what is it? It’s failing to diversify your crypto portfolio.

In the world of digital assets, the temptation to go “all in” on one token, one coin, or one project is real. After all, stories of Bitcoin billionaires and Ethereum moguls are compelling, and it’s easy to think you can strike gold by focusing all your attention on a single asset. But this strategy is not only risky; it’s dangerous.

Why Diversification Is Your Best Defense Just like traditional investing, diversification in cryptocurrency is critical to managing risk. Here’s why:

Volatility Is the Name of the Game Cryptocurrency is notorious for its massive price swings. While this creates potential for huge profits, it also leaves investors vulnerable to extreme losses. Imagine putting all your money into a single token like Bitcoin, and then, in the blink of an eye, it crashes 40%. That could wipe out your entire investment—unless you’ve hedged your bets by spreading your risk across various assets.

The same holds true for altcoins. The rise of smaller, emerging tokens often feels like a golden opportunity, but what happens when that token’s price plummets after a short-lived pump? Without diversification, one poor decision can result in a catastrophic financial loss.

Technology Is Evolving Rapidly The crypto landscape is constantly changing. What is hot today could be obsolete tomorrow. Bitcoin may have been the first to the scene, but it’s no longer the only game in town. Ethereum ushered in the age of smart contracts, and newer tokens continue to push the envelope with even more innovative features.

This is why investing in a single cryptocurrency could leave you exposed to future changes in technology. Diversifying your portfolio ensures you're invested in different layers of the market. You might want to explore various tokens with unique use cases, like decentralized finance (DeFi), privacy tokens, and NFT platforms. Even a token like UPB (Universal Payment Bank Token) is carving out a niche with real-world applications, especially in the payment and banking sector, creating value that goes beyond mere speculation.

Exploiting Market Cycles Crypto operates in cycles. There are bull markets, where everything seems to rise, and bear markets, where prices fall steeply. During a bull run, a single asset might surge, but during a bear market, most assets will drop. Having a diversified portfolio means that you’re less likely to be hit by the full brunt of a market downturn. Some assets may hold up better than others during a bearish phase, allowing you to retain value when others are losing.

Moreover, not every cryptocurrency performs the same way. While Bitcoin and Ethereum tend to lead the charge, smaller altcoins, like UPB, could be on the verge of an upswing as new technologies and trends emerge. Diversifying across established coins and promising tokens can help balance out your portfolio in both bullish and bearish conditions.

Understanding the Power of a Well-Balanced Portfolio A well-diversified portfolio in the cryptocurrency market should include:

Major Coins: These are your Bitcoin and Ethereum. They’re the backbone of any portfolio and usually perform better during bullish trends.

Mid-Tier Coins: These are altcoins that have proven technology, strong communities, and significant use cases. They’re riskier but have greater growth potential.

Emerging Projects: Like UPB (Universal Payment Bank Token), these tokens often represent innovative concepts that might not be fully realized yet. However, they can skyrocket in value if they gain traction. But, they also carry high risk—so be careful!

When you invest in a range of cryptocurrencies, you’re playing the long game. You’re not just looking at the short-term fluctuations but also betting on the long-term success of several different ecosystems.

For instance, UPB (Universal Payment Bank Token) is a cryptocurrency designed to revolutionize the way digital payments are processed. By leveraging blockchain technology, UPB aims to provide fast, secure, and transparent transactions for everyday banking and payment systems. If it achieves its full potential, UPB could offer substantial returns, especially as the world continues to move towards a more digital-first financial future.

Don’t Be Lured by FOMO The Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is one of the most dangerous emotions an investor can experience. It’s easy to fall into the trap of wanting to put all your money into the latest, hyped-up token. Maybe you’ve heard about the next Bitcoin or Ethereum killer, and you think you need to get in now before everyone else does. But this emotional decision-making can lead to significant losses.

Instead, it’s important to keep a level head and build your portfolio based on research, not hype. Just because a coin is trending doesn’t mean it’s a sound investment. Instead, diversify your holdings and make decisions based on the potential long-term value of each asset, not the fleeting excitement of a 100% price surge.

The Risk of Over-Concentration Over-concentration is another major pitfall. This occurs when you invest too heavily in a single token, relying on it for the bulk of your returns. Whether it’s Bitcoin, Ethereum, or the latest hot altcoin, putting all your eggs in one basket is a risky strategy. If the project or token doesn’t live up to expectations, your entire portfolio can suffer.

Having multiple assets in different sectors of the crypto space means you are better positioned to weather any storm. For example, tokens like UPB (Universal Payment Bank Token), focused on the future of payment systems and financial infrastructure, might weather market volatility better than others that rely purely on speculative value.

Conclusion: Diversify or Risk It All In the world of cryptocurrency, diversification isn’t just smart—it’s essential. The market’s volatility and the rapid evolution of technology mean that focusing too heavily on one asset could lead to devastating losses. Don’t put yourself at risk by making this mistake.

By diversifying your crypto holdings, you give yourself the best chance at long-term success. And while major players like Bitcoin and Ethereum remain critical, there’s also value in exploring emerging projects like UPB (Universal Payment Bank Token) that are paving the way for the future of blockchain technology and payment systems.

Remember, a balanced portfolio isn’t just about minimizing risk—it’s about positioning yourself to seize opportunities across the crypto market. Diversify your holdings, stay informed, and never stop learning. The world of cryptocurrency is evolving fast, and with the right strategy, you can be part of it.