#death is while inevitable is still fucking. awful

[landopoet]

come online.

pairing streamer!lando x reader

warnings virtual exhibitionism (?), oral (m receiving), use of curse words and obviously smut

playlist nervous - the nbhd / a little death - the nbhd / sex money feelings die - lykke li

synopsis you decide to have a little fun while your boyfriend’s streaming

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

“Mate, what the fuck are you doing?”

Max’s voice echoes in Lando’s headphones, distracting him from the only thing he’s focused on— you.

You look up at him from under the desk, unusually cold fingertips trailing up the distressed man’s thighs. He’s been trying his hardest not to break, to not show that you’ve been teasing him for the past eight minutes, with your hands ghosting over his bulge, softly tracing his thighs or the addicting way you lick your pretty lips.

“The game lagged.” He makes up an excuse for the awful few shots he placed in the surrounding trees, instead of the enemy. You stifle a giggle at his successful lie, fingers still toying with the hemline of his shorts.

Max rolls his eyes. “You’re just bad at the game.”

Lando ignores Max’s comment, too busy biting back a moan the second your hands palm him through his boxers. The mere feeling of your slender fingers sliding up his length, already throbbing for the feel of your mouth on him.

It’s a while before you do anything, and by the time you touch him again, Lando’s focusing on the game with no regard for the pretty girl kneeling in front of him. His fingers hastily press the buttons on his keyboard, eyes intensely tracking any movement on the screen. “I got one,” he says, eyes stuck to the screen.

Lando doesn’t react when you trail a finger up his thigh again, this time underneath his shorts. It takes a moment for Lando to notice the gentle tug at his boxers. It takes another moment for him to notice the kisses you place on his thighs, starting at his knee and ending at the base of his dick. His breath hitches when you start licking up his length, taking your sweet time in teasing him, making sure to give him a hard time keeping quiet on call.

Max mutters something, but Lando’s too distracted by your lips softly sucking on his tip to even talk. He’s aimlessly walking around the area of his game, trying not to get into any trouble both online and in reality. It takes everything in him not to moan when you take his dick into your mouth, softly stroking the part that doesn’t fit.

“I’ve died.” Lando says, trying to keep his breathing steady while looking down at the view in front of him— his girl on her knees, taking him even in the virtual presence of others. He never knew you had this side to you, so he was shocked when you suggested the idea of giving him head while he’s playing.

Lando hears a noise in his headphones that indicated someone subscribing to his channel. “MissNorris4? That’s an odd username. Thank you for the sub. Appreciate it.”

You freeze. Lando notices it, looking back down at you with a sort of darkness in his eyes. You hadn’t known he was on stream, and the notion of that shook you to your core. But it also excited you. How far could you push Lando before he inevitably breaks? How bad would the consequences be? A plethora of questions swirled in your brain, all while you were still toying with the man in front of you.

Lando watched as you stroked him, feeling all his walls come crashing down the second your lips wrapped around his length. He tried his damn best not to show it on stream, but he was a fucking mess. he takes his bottom lip between his teeth the second you start doing that thing with your tongue that always drives him crazy.

It drives him so crazy that he has to focus his attention on not making a face, trying his best to keep his eyes on the screen and read the chat. He can’t even speak, the only thing helping the silence from him was the music, that seemed to be awfully fitting for the situation he’s in. He can hear Max complaining about the enemy team, but he can’t even laugh about it, his whole career at risk for the mere touch of your lips.

He feels the warmth fill his lower abdomen and knows he won’t be able to get away with the microexpressions turning macro. Eitherway, he risks it. When you quicken your strokes and movement of your head, Lando seeks strength in clinging onto the headrest of his chair, bicep bulging through his black shirt and you’re sure you’ll see plenty of pictures of your boyfriend being a pathetic mess.

It’s fun toying with him. It’s easy to make him flustered and desperate for you, but it was just as easy to make him so angry he’ll fuck you til your legs shake. You contemplate the idea of not letting him cum and instead leaving him to continue the stream with a hard-on or risking the possibility of a moan slipping past his lips and having it circulate the internet til the end of time.

Your decision becomes easier to make when Lando leans back in his chair, the back of his hand covering his mouth while the other is still holding onto the chair for dear life. His pretty eyes are hidden by his tightly shut eyelids, as he tries his best not to let a sound escape his lips.

It takes a few more strokes until he’s throbbing and coming undone. You feel the hot liquid trickle down your throat and you swallow every last drop. The heaving of his chest and silent whimpers don’t go unnoticed by you when you pull away and wipe the side of your mouth with your sleeve.

A shy smile plays on your lips when Lando drops his arms into his lap, now covered by the boxers you pulled back up. He’s a heaving mess, face red and sweaty.

“You alright, mate?” Max asks, concern lacing his voice as he notices the heavy breathing echoing through his headphones.

Lando looks down at you, biting his bottom lip as he hastily nods. “Yeah, never been better. I’ll head out now, got some things I need to take care of. Bye, chat.”

When the stream ends and the only presence in Lando’s room are him and you, he helps you up from the floor and brings you to his bed. You lay down and he lays beside you, hands touring your body and lips never leaving your neck.

Little did he know, his name was trending. And not for the right reasons.

[alllgator-blood]

I don't usually do anything for pride month cause I'm fruity every day of the year, but ahhh let's just say this year it felt especially important. Hope everyone is doing safe and that your ally friends/family members are giving you all their worldly possessions + sacrificing heretics in your name! I actually drew a very similar picture last year but didn't end up finishing it, some of the flags were definitely different though. NARINDER HAD THE EVIL AUTISM FLAG FOR SOME REASON. Shamura was the only one I finished so I'll just drop them off here:

Wow look at them go, rejecting humanity and encompassing cosmic knowledge and ceaseless war rather than masculinity or femininity....what an icon

Over the year that I've been in this fandom, I've had a lot of thoughts about Shamura's gender that I'll dump here, I WILL SAY it gets more ranty than I've ever gotten on this blog + talks about the fandom itself, so I hid it under the cut. But I feel like I've been pretty tame on this blog so far and because it's pride month, I have the legal right to make ONE rant about a queer fictional character's perception by the fandom

My weak enby heart still has a fucking death grip on shamura that hasn't been loosened in over a year at this point. They're not the best nonbinary representation in media but they're MY FAVORITE and that's all that matters. I can't stress how awesome it felt playing an actually cool, fun game a couple years ago and seeing that the Wisest, Most Powerful Eldritch Beast in all the land was a disabled nonbinary person. And it goes completely without question, it's like yeah that's shamura and *they're* going to traumadump on you and mind control your followers to rebel against you. Don't even worry about it bro

Being like....nonbinary and disabled and native and butch and yadda yadda, I swear to god I just got used to having no media/characters I could relate to. I didn't even think about how bad it felt until I'd stumble into the odd comic or indie game that had a Diverse Cast that MAY feature someone like me, but generally those types of things don't really *do* much with those characters. Not to be like THEY JUST WANT BROWNIE POINTS but...uhhh.........is it so bad to say that sometimes it does feel that way lmao, I won't play your game or read your comic if I feel like you see me as a checkbox to tick rather than a person with a fundamentally different experience.

I'll take this time to say it is kind of disheartening to see the fandom's treatment of shamura's gender sometimes, as someone who uses exclusively they/them. I've got a thick fucking skin, I've publicly acknolwedged I was genderless since before the nonbinary flag was even made, I've had a lot of time to roll with the punches that inevitably come from being trans. But literally one of the first comments I ever got about my shamura headcanons (when I still posted on reddit like a year ago) was that they didn't like that I made them AFAB and said "why can't they just be completely genderless". Like...making the TRANS character TRANSITION at some point was a bad thing? I wasn't saying "they're a girl in my drawings lol" and I even explained that I made them AFAB so I could connect with them better but. Ough

I s2g just mentioning this character brings up arguments, same with the lamb to a lesser extent, but DO NOT look at the reply chains on the youtube uploads of ANY of shamura's songs. It's always that someone calls them a him or her, someone corrects them, someone crucifies that person for being the Woke Police, blah blah blah IT'S AWFUL. It's funny in a way that the mere presence of a nonbinary person is enough to start a small war, but it also feels dehumanizing to know that my gender just cannot respectfully be talked about the same way binary genders can.

While I'm still talking about this, I don't hold it against people who played the game in other languages and call shamura "he" or w/e because from their perspective, the character is male. I've not changed my perspective of the character because I found out they're male in other releases, so I can readily accept that those folks won't either. But it feels....gross to see people who played it in english who just picked whatever binary gender they wanted shamura to be and went with that. Literally every single character with a confirmed gender is male except like, Heket + Forneus + Monch, so to take the ONE undebatably nonbinary character and decide they're not good enough the way they are is....ough. "It's my headcanon" bro that's erASURE IDK HOW ELSE TO TELL YOU. The people doing it probably literally do not comprehend what it's like to never see themself in the media they consume so I don't hate them or anything, but it took me like two decades to find a character whose gender feels like mine. It's lonely out here man

There's something to be said about me talking about that while making my kallamar nonbinary, but I'll just say this: there are so, so many male characters out there. If there was a crowd of millions of characters and ONE GUY vanished, you wouldn't be able to tell. But if there was like...a broom closet with like 9 they/thems, you'd fuckin notice if one was gone. AND I DO. Nonbinary representation isn't good enough rn to be taking the very few they/them characters out there and being like "nope my headcanon is that you're just some guy/chick", especially when sooo many people do it. Me taking one sopping wet man out of that crowd and being like "you can still be a sopping wet man, but sometimes you're a girlfail and sometimes your gender is squid" isn't the same I don't feel, otherwise I wouldn't have done it. I can't stop anyone from making shamura binary, we're all just random internet artists and do as we please, but I'm still allowed to judge from afar. I've definitely had people judge my headcanons from afar lmao

edit: I walked away and had to run back because I need reiterate, if you give Shamura features that are seen as "binary" but keep them nonbinary I think it's cool and based, especially if you are also nonbinary and just want to connect with the character more. "Gendered features" or w/e that are on a nonbinary person don't detract from their nonbinary-ness and we don't owe anyone perfect androgyny. I have boobs and an hourglass shape but also a lot of body hair + mustache and a good amount of muscle mass, doesn't mean I'm more girly or manly.

Okay end of rant, I had to get that off my chest for like EVER tbh. I really really hate discourse or drama or w/e but this is a topic that does mean a lot to me, so I made an exception this one time to make my opinion known.

[yes-no-maybe-soo]

So having finally gone through the main story update once, stared at the ceiling, then gone through it immediately again... I am in fucking awe. Speechless. How tf am I supposed to digest this lore drop??? I've been taking notes, gone over screenshots, gotten misty eyed over how much I love SylusMC and just augh... this has rewired the way I view a lot of things in this game.

For example... just how large part Sylus truly plays in the main story. How vital he is. He has been there from the very beginning, pulling strings, moving events along, watching, protecting... he is honestly Everythinglus atp. Universlus. Love and Deepspacelus. I cannot stress how central this man is to MC's story. No wonder he took 5 years to craft. And (loath as I am to say it) ... the gatekeeping of some of his content up 'til now kind of makes sense. His lore is just too closely tied to the main story plot (the lack of communication is still shitty though). I am still kind of shocked by this tbh because it's forced me to do a 180 on my stance re: Paperfold's feelings towards him.

This main story update is just mind blowing in different ways, sort of like Beyond Cloudfall and how that changed everything. I'll be obsessing over it for the rest of the week, at least.

Anyway, idc that it's too early in the morning for this I need to get my initial thoughts out of my system and what better way to do so than a long ass tumblr post. So yeah just gonna go ahead and wordvomit/theorize share some screenshots/details that blew my mind all the way to sunday, and also attempt a timeline b/c my autistic brain demands that of me.

(Be warned, it's long and kind of all over the place. I don't blame anyone that won't bother with it lol).

(Spoilers, obviously)

Can we talk about the SOULMATISM between SylusMC and how that is actually canon to the main story??? They reference the 10.5 grams of soul... Sylus says this

They are pretty much confirmed to still be destined archnemeses in their current timeline – they were meant to kill each other as kids/teens. But like in the myth – and honestly like always – they decided to give fate the middle finger and chose their own path together. Then they got separated but found each other again. Twice. And they always will keep finding each other. No matter which "soil" they find themselves in. They have always been soulmates. But not by fate. But by CHOICE.

I have tried to make a timeline of their relationship from what was revealed here, that I kind of think makes sense?

First, Beyond Cloudfall. Dragon!Sylus and later Dragon!MC dies, and are then reborn on the same planet. Note, that this is not earth but possibly Philos.

They are expected to fight each other to the death in the Arena. But instead they succesfully run off together. And perhaps go on to commit crimes... I am speculating this to maybe be the case because of the "even all the crimes you'll inevitably commit" line but also because of the potential scenario I mention in point 3.

At some point in time, they are separated by the Deepspace Tunnel. Either before or after the separation, Sylus is thrown into Tartarus. If it happened before, then it's possible that MC was somehow responsible for it (remember, as a child she threatens to throw Sylus into Tartarus. Which could be foreshadowing of some kind).

In whichever case, while Sylus is in Tartarus, MC has been taken to Earth – more specifically to the Gaia Research Center in the N109 Zone – where she has either regressed to or been reborn as a tiny child, and is experimented on by EVER who are after eternal life and want to use her powers to achieve it.

Sylus breaks out of jail and goes in search for MC, eventually pinpointing her location using the eye of Aether and landing in the N109 Zone in 2034 (this according to the Timelock Key). At this time, the Chronorift Catastrophe is happening and Dimitri – blaming MC for it and for the Wanderers – tries to kill her by putting her in the Deepspace Collision Chamber. But before she can succumb to it, Sylus arrives and breaks her out. He makes a deal with Dimitri to bring MC back to him in the future.

Sylus leaves MC to be raised by Josephine, and for the next 14 years he keeps watch over her from a distance (remember the giant red eye? And mephie ofc), while founding Onychinus and taking over the N109 Zone, and working on taking down EVER. He creates a special menu just for MC at Elysium, in the hopes that she will one day come there, order it, and find him.

LAR. They reunite again, but MC remembers nothing. Not their Dragon myth, nor their childhood, nor Sylus' rescue of her. Instead, she sees him as a monster and despises him.

Present time.

Now, there are some things I want to point out here re: this.

One – I was wrong about Sylus' being resurrected or reassembled. Clearly, he was reborn... but unlike MC with his past life memories intact. I also still see him as a Dragon for the same reasons I've stated before. And also because I want him to be lol. I definitely don't think he's human. Nor is MC.

Two – I still think that Sylus is older than what his profile states. Why? Because we know now that he came to earth in 2034. Fourteen years prior to LAR. Which would – if his profile age is to be taken as truth – have made him 14 at that time. Now, dgmw Sylus is crazy powerful and honestly probably could have won a gang war and perhaps even conquered a planet etc at that age. However... it does not at all line up with the descriptions nor with the visuals we have of him at that time. In the Tangible Shackles video, he is in no way shape or form a 14 year old boy. Same goes for the Anecdote – he is described there as "a tall man" and having a "deep male voice" and "striking features". That's as far as the physical descriptions go. Nowhere in the text is there a single allusion to his being a kid, but rather the opposite. And I do believe that the text would have drawn attention to him being well below legal drinking age in a story like that.

And then there is ofc the Approaching Dusk image as well as this one of him breaking MC out of the Deepspace Collision Chamber (it destroys me btw).

Just compare MC who is roughly 8-9 here to Sylus. The size difference is massive. So no, that is not a 14 year old. They are not that huge, not even a Burj Khalifa on legs like Sylus.

Anyway, what we learned re: SylusMC's lore for sure puts both of these scenes in a different light

We all thought he was talking about their Beyond Cloudfall past here.

But no.

He is more than likely talking about their childhood etc here... "you were quietly moved to another garden in a foreign land" ie their separation in the Deepspace Tunnel, when they had earlier been two flowers growing up together in the same soil and who were supposed to keep growing together and ＿|￣|●💔 yeah. Thanks for breaking my heart again with the same scenes but with new context, game...

And on this note... fuck, man, do I feel even worse for poor Sylus now. Not only did MC forget him once, but twice. While he remembers everything – Beyond Cloudfall, the Gladiator Arena, being separated from her... and also knows just what she went through with EVER. He knows in what ways the love of his life suffered at the hands of evil people.

How the fuck has this man not crashed out yet. He is as mentally and emotionally strong as he is physically powerful imo.

And then there is just his sheer love for her. All the things he did for her: Running away together. (Possibly) being imprisoned. Searching the galaxy. Rescuing her from Dimitri, and giving her a chance to have autonomy and a normal childhood for the first time in her life. Devoting his own life to taking down the organization that hurt her.

And waiting for her. Always.

But even after everything still being ready to let her go. In spite of everything.

HE LOVES HER SO MUCH SOBSADFHUJHJ

I thought I loved Sylus before this update but I swear it has made me appreciate his character even more. What sorcery is that??? You can really tell how much thought and care his team has put into crafting him and his story.

And the same goes for MC. She got fleshed out here in all the best ways and I admire her immensely. I think that line she has about hoping that she made the Gaia Researchers even for a moment see her as the child she was rather than as an object or experiment says so heartbreakingly much about her and who she is.

The two together have so many fantastic moments in this story that had me giggling and kicking my feet. I honestly think it's more romantic/hot than some of the memory/date cards. But I won't talk about it more here or now because this is already way too long lol. Will probably just make individual posts for them.

Anyway, I do want to share some screenshots I took that made me lose my shit

I noticed the patterns on the bell when I was going to take another screenshot from LAR and omfg do you guys see it too????? Tell me I'm not reaching or deluding myself????? Ouuuu Sylus team you always gag me

STAYRUS MY LOVE YOU'RE BACK

I think it's pretty funny how chill MC is about Sylus having wings like she really don't care she just rolls with it (as she does with a lot of huge revelations tbh). Unbothered Queen.

This is one of my very favorite parts of the Kindled. Look how tenderly Sylus holds her here... shielding and protecting her the way he has all these 14 years, but physically this time. And you can see how MC genuinely feels safe in his arms. Oh, how far they've come since LAR...

Anyway, I'm gonna finally leave off here with a prediction for Sylus' future myth. I have an inkling it will take place before and after they escape from the Arena and up until Sylus gets imprisoned. That makes most sense to me. We need to know what they were up to in between and what led to Sylus' imprisonment. In other words I feel like I can taste the Gladiator & the space pirate lore. If I am wrong though, I'm betting it will be a Hades & Persephone inspired one. There have been quite a few references to greek mythology after all. Gaia. Charon. The River Styx. Tartarus. Not to mention the Pomegranate imagery and references. And probably more I can't think of rn.

Oh and I'd love to hear if any of you guys have any theories or things you noticed in this update! I would not be surprised if I've missed important details.

[nectardaddy]

BITTER . . . kyotani “mad dog” kentaro + f! reader

                     𖥔    CHAPTER FOUR : BLOODY NOSES    𖥔

warnings : 17+ to read, language, addiction, toxic friendships/situationships, mentions/allusions to sex, nosebleeds, blood + violence, crime, manipulation, death threats

a/n : last little part is in kyotani's pov, take your bets on what happened to yaku (hint: he's not dead)

She hasn’t heard from Morisuke in three days.

He’s missed three days worth of anger management classes, and three days worth of texts. She’s not terribly worried though, he does this from time to time. Drops off the face of the earth, just to show up again weeks later like nothing ever happened. Like a piece of shit, he’ll text her back in the middle of the night to come over. And she always does. There’s a part of her that’s worried about him when she agrees, just wants to see if he’s alright; the other part thinks Yaku is as good as it gets.

She’s known him since high school, and grew fairly close once they both got into drugs. He hid it far better than she did, because she’d do keys in the parking lot of a supermarket if she wanted to. While he preferred to do lines, pop pills, and drink until he blacks out in the sanctity of his apartment all by himself.

But his tendencies make her feel sick. He gets high, he does something stupid, goes off grid, then he calls her to fuck whenever he pops back up. They’re toxic, oil mixed with water, they scream at each other and fight - then get high like they didn’t just beat the hell out of each other. Rinse and repeat.

An awful cycle she couldn’t get away from, she frankly didn't want to. Because Yaku was the only person who ever stayed. He’s the only friend she has left because she drove everyone else away.

At the height of her addiction, she’d steal money from past friends right under their noses. Would beg them to help her, just to ruin it and relapse a week later. And borrowed from those she loved, only to never give it back and get a door slammed in her face.

She still has their contacts in her phone, always makes sure to transfer them when she inevitably breaks it. They all have her blocked, but she hopes that one day they'll come back around. Because she's finally clean and getting her life together, but feels lonely without a soul next to her.

But Morisuke never left, and she doesn’t want to let him go like every friend did to her. She keeps him around, doesn't block his number, because deep down she knows he's a good person - a good friend.

He has his moments where she'll see it again: he was her call at the police station and picked her up without question, he beat the shit out of her ex that cheated on her. And there's times when she can see the Morisuke from high school when she lays next to him after sex, and they talk until they fall asleep giggling and reminiscing over the past.

He's got good in him. He's just too fucked up majority of the time to see it like she does.

           Sent at 10:34: hope you’re ok, come over when you can so we can talk

She slips the phone back in her pocket with a silent sigh and sinks back down in her seat. She’s next to the guard dog again, but not by choice. He sat next to her when he got in without a word, and every so often she'll glance over at him. He looks exhausted, dark circles under his eyes only proving her point further. And he's littered with bruises, a black eye that's still pretty fresh - black and blue - while the others are a disgusting yellow and green.

She catches herself wondering what he does to have bruises all the time, but stops herself because she shouldn't care that much. The past three days have been lonely, a mundane cycle of leaving class then going to work only to do it all over again. She believes the guard dog only intrigues her because she has nothing else to think about, and she grits her teeth whenever she does.

But he's interesting all the same, and she hates it.

He always keeps his hood up, indoors and out. She's seen him take it off once within the five days she's known him, and noticed he has blonde hair with two dark brown lines that cut through the sides. She finds it funny he dyes his hair, and choked back a laugh the first time she saw it. Imagining a hard ass perching himself in front of a mirror with hair dye made her giggle whenever she thought about it.

He's got bruises he's terrible at hiding. At first, she thought it was just the black eye. But she smoked with him yesterday and they litter his arms too, saw them when he rolled up his sleeves. They muddled with the black ink of his tattoos, but every splotch of skin that wasn't blasted was covered with blue and green marks. His knuckles are always busted, every time he flicks his lighter she sees them. And she's come to the conclusion that he fights - a lot.

He's got an aura that tells her to get away. Like something bad might happen if she gets too close, afraid if she speaks to him too much whatever bad vibes he has would rub off on her too. He's sinister, scary, and he's got a look in his eye that gives her the creeps. Like he could kill her if she locked eyes with him too long; but there's a small voice in her head that wouldn't mind it.

She shakes her head, seemingly tossing the thoughts out of her mind before looking up at the therapist that drones on. She's said the same shit over and over again the past five days, just rephrases it so it sounds new. Some of it she likes, the few parts she actually listens to.

Stay away from what triggers you until you're ready to handle it.

She's checked that box, as far as she's concerned. Any hint of drugs being somewhere, she steers clear and doesn't touch it with a ten foot pole. Too bad her other trigger is sitting right next to her.

Anger is a normal emotion, it's healthy. Learn to show it in ways that are non-violent.

It's good to know she isn't crazy whenever she puts her fist through a wall over a small inconvenience - just neurotic. But then the therapist says something stupid like taking deep breaths and she checks out again. If only she had taken a deep breath when she wanted to claw the vocal cords out of the man next to her, maybe then she wouldn't hate him so much.

She rolls her eyes at herself and groans at the thought. But if she's not thinking about Mad Dog she's thinking about drugs, and she can't decide the lesser of two evils.

“Why do you do that shit, Weezer?” His whisper is sharp, and she turns to look at him with a scowl. She hates the name he's pinned on her, she even went as far as to not wear the damn hoodie anymore; now she wears an old Nekoma one. It didn't stop him though, as far as he was concerned the name was there to stay.

Her eyes meet his and for a moment she falters - he actually gave her the decency of looking her in the eye when he spoke. “What're you talking about?” She's confused when she asks, but it still holds the same bite as usual. But she finds herself swallowing hard and turning her gaze when his eyes narrow.

The look in his eyes scares her, like he knows something she doesn't. Like he can see into her mind and pick out everything wretched and wrong with her. She hates that he can see right through her, so she keeps her eyes down the rest of the conversation.

“That,” he sounds annoyed again and he's gesturing to her leg. She's tapping her foot and she didn't even realize - she wasn’t even counting this time. “It's annoying as hell.”

“Then don't sit next to me, asshole,” she scoffs. “Problem solved.”

He rolls his eyes, but she's none the wiser. “Doesn't answer my question.”

“I don't owe you an answer.”

They don't speak for the rest of the class, and the next 30 minutes they sat in uncomfortable silence.

The therapist lets them leave ten minutes earlier than they usually do, and she thanks the stars she has time to smoke before she has to run home. Her gas station shift starts about an hour after the class and she always finds herself in a full sprint to get home because she wastes time. She resents herself for selling her car, but she lives with the consequences regardless.

It’s windy today, it goes through her hair and she takes a deep breath once she steps outside. It’ll be getting warmer soon and she thanks whatever higher power that it is; her apartment is shitty, and the heat has broken more times than she can count on her hands. The only thing she dreads is having to open every window when it gets too hot.

The wind whips against her cheeks and the cold bites at her nose, but she doesn't mind. She's glad she can take a full inhale without the crushing weight of fiending. It's like she sees the world a little more clearly again, it's still just as shitty, but it's been years since she's noticed small details like leaves blowing.

But life always finds a way to bite her in the ass.

Her stomach drops when she sniffles, and sniffles again, and again. Until she wipes at her nose and only sees red. “God dammit-” She gets nose bleeds often, and the cold only makes it worse, snorting lines of coke for god knows long what will do that to a person. She doesn't have a tissue, frankly she doesn't carry anything of value other than cigarettes. So she uses her sleeve, leans back, and pinches at the bridge of her nose.

“You shouldn't tilt your head back, y'know?” It's the guard dog - again.

“God,” she groans. “Don't you have better things to do than annoy me?” She hates how nasally her voice sounds, but keeps the pressure on her nose regardless.

“Not really, no.” She sees him shrug, and she only rolls her eyes. He's unfazed by the blood that drips from her nose onto her sleeve, by now it's left a stain on the cuff of her sweatshirt. He looks at it a moment before breathing out and reaching for the cigarettes in his pockets. “Didn't know you went to Nekoma.”

She can feel her blood pressure rising from the interaction, and wants nothing more than the man to just leave her alone. “Didn't know you couldn't read the fucking room,” she snaps. It goes ignored.

“Makes a whole lot more sense why you hang around Yaku.”

The name makes her falter and she tilts her head over just enough to look at him. What a conversation to be had over a bloody nose. “How do you know Morisuke?”

“Given name basis too, damn, I didn't know that jackass even had friends.”

There's a split second where she sees red, and she takes her sleeve from her nose. But she only stands there looking at him, he straightens up and she swallows hard. “How the fuck do you know him?”

He doesn't remember the last time he's been this amped up. With blood roaring in his ears, and fists bloodied and spliced. He couldn't place when he'd been in a fight this good. One that made his eyes go wild, his heart race, and plaster on a wicked grin.

Yaku was a good fighter. Too bad he's a rat who needs to shut his mouth.

Kyotani watches him stagger back after he punches him again, he's lost count on how many hits he's landed, until he falls. He falls hard on his side, blood spilling from cracked lips and staining his teeth. He's never seen Morisuke so pitiful, so full of hate, so loathsome.

He takes a step forward and chuckles, a juxtaposition to the situation the two men found themselves in, until it breaks into a laugh.

He kicks Yaku in the ribs as he laughs.

Over and over and over, until the other blonde coughs up blood on his shoes. That's when he stops. And he holds what little restraint he has with an ironclad grip when he crouches down. Even still, Yaku glares at him through swollen eyes - if looks could kill, Kyotani would be dead.

“I fucking hate you.” Spat with venom and followed by a heave. If Mad Dog had a shred of empathy, he would feel bad. But he doesn't, and he chuckles in response.

“You should be thanking me, short stack.”

“Oh, fuck off-” But he's cut off when Kyotani grabs him by the hair. The other yelps, like a scared dog, and grunts in pain when his face is shoved into the concrete floor.

“This is your warning, Yaku, shut your fucking mouth.” His words are like ice, and spoken all too calmy. He's done this before, practiced so much it became second nature. He's grown numb to the pain he inflicts on others. “Run your mouth again, I'll fucking kill you.”

Yaku's coughing doesn't stop, and neither does the blood that starts to seep onto his fingers. But there's only one thing that Kyotani doesn't know about him - he's fried his brain to the point he doesn't even care of the repercussions of his actions. So when he starts to laugh, Mad Dog grits his teeth. “See if I give a shit.” 

taglist (open, reply to the masterlist or send an ask)

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[s1m0nth3swag]

Leon S. Kennedy Scenarios

Some sweet and short Leon Scenarios, all inspired by the wonderful @leonw4nter who sent me some of her ideas (gen love you for that)

Three scenarios in this one, all fluffy and cute because Leon deserves happiness, and I will be the one giving it to him !!!

Info about the scenario at the start of each one

[Leon says he isn't hungry, then proceeds to steal your food | Was intended for Death Island Leon, but honestly, I think it'd fit better for Vendetta]

You glare at your boyfriend of a year as you shovel food onto your plate. There was a usual way of going about this. Leon would say he wasn't hungry, that he'd eaten at work, and that you shouldn't make a serving for him as well. Each time, you'd stupidly trust his words, which would inevitably end in him casually helping himself to steal parts of your food, all under the disguise of suddenly being just a little bit hungry. This time, you were prepared. You had prepared a second serving and were ready to defend your food with your life.

You trotted to the couch of your shared apartment, flopped down on it, and swiftly put the TV on. Leon followed after you wordlessly, and you just instinctively knew he was up to something. He always was. He sat beside you, rested his head on your shoulder sweetly - you immediately held your food up as his hand shot out. “You said you aren't hungry!” You huffed, rolling your eyes as you scooted away from the other defensively. “Oh come on, that was so long ago. I just want a little taste!” Leon almost pouts, though the mischievous sparkle in his eyes instantly betrays him. “Fuck off! Get some yourself. There's still more in the kitchen!” You respond, kicking him playfully as he tries to get closer. He puts on his best expression of betrayal, trying to make you feel sorry for him. “That's all the way back there! I've already sat down. It ain't fair!” He exclaims. “Come on, just a little bit, please.” He pleads, resting his head on your knee as he stares up at you. He almost looks like a dog begging for food now. “No, get your lazy ass up and get it yourself.” You simply say, rolling your eyes as you casually continue eating.

Leon stares you down the entire time, waiting for the moment that his usual food manipulation tactic works - you stubbornly stand your ground, though. Each time he opens his mouth to complain once again, you simply shush him and tell him the exact placement of the rest of the food in the kitchen. After you finally set your plate down on the small table beside the couch, Leon huffs as he moves to sprawl himself on top of you. “You're awful.” He pouts, snuggling his face against the side of your neck. “Just get your own food, love. Ain't that hard.” You chuckle and run your fingers through his hair, feeling his following sigh as the air hits your neck. His arms wrap around you tightly as he snuggles further against you. “Isn't fair.” He mumbles. “You're supposed to share with me and shit.” You giggle. “I made you a second serving. You could've taken that, just saying.” Leon doesn't answer, too stubborn to do so as he rests on top of you.

“Next time.” He mutters after a while as you feel him smirk against your neck. “Sure.” You laugh softly. “Next time.”

[Matching Pyjamas with Death Island Leon]

Even though Leon grumbles about being too old for childish things like this, you know that deep down he is more than thrilled as you present him the clothes you had ordered. A set of matching hello kitty pyjamas that you had bought on a whim - you definitely needed to learn how to not spend your money on the most random things (the fact that you had used Leons credit card was a minor issue for that plan though). He looked at you, sighing as he watched how excited you were. “Please Lee, you only gotta wear them this once I swear!” You begged, and you swore it was visible that his facade crumbled down. “Fine, fine. This once.” He gives in, grabbing his set from your hands swiftly. “No pictures, no laughing or I swear you'll regret.” Leon then adds, slightly glaring at you because he knew for a fact that you had taken pictures of him sleeping before - in your defense, the way he cuddled up to you during the night was just too adorable. You quickly nodded, though, even if you planned on breaking that unspoken promise. You were pretty sure Leon knew that already.

He insisted on changing in the bathroom, something about it being a surprise - he probably just wanted to stare at himself in the mirror and rethink all his life choices. You hummed excitedly, patiently waiting as you sat on the side of your shared bed. The second he stepped out you grinned widely, giggling as he came to stand in front of you. “Happy?” He asked, answered by you snaking your arms around him while nodding. “Extremely so.” You sigh, resting your head against the soft fabric of the sleep shirt. “Good. Can we sleep now?” He grumbles, his cheeks ever so slightly flushed. You knew he enjoyed this more than he wanted to let show. “Nuh uh! Gotta take pictures first!” You smile, and Leon groans as he realises that he'd be in for a longer night than he had planned.

[Re2 Leon being head over heels for you (and getting made fun of for it) No Outbreak!]

Leon can't help but grin widely at the text you've sent him, almost like he has to read it over and over again to have it imprinted on his brain or he'll die. He's taking his lunch break right now, nestled into one of the break rooms chairs. You've agreed to come see him and get him something to eat, because he totally forgot his food at home - he definitely didn't not take it on purpose so you'd have to come save him.

The two of you had only been dating for a month or so, but Leon already dreamed of a wedding and waking up next to you every morning - which had happened only once up until now. It had been a stormy day, and during the evening it only got worse, which led to you simply staying over. Leon still got that tingly feeling in his stomach when he remembered how cute you had looked with your bed hair. If he wasn't such a gentleman, or if he wasn't so shy about it, he wouldn't have let you go the whole day. He giggles as he looks back through old messages - he especially likes the outfit checks you sometimes send him, he can't help but grin at the pictures and videos, his cheeks flushing as he thinks about how wonderful you look, no matter what you wear. He comes across the one where you stayed home for a day, and he swears his heart bursts with how adorable you look in your pajamas.

Leon knows he's getting weird looks from his workmates, but he really doesn't care. He's in love, he's allowed to be a little giggly and blushy, even if the others don't agree. Chris looks over his shoulder briefly, sighing a soft “simp”, and Leon shoots him a glare before lighting up at the sight of you walking into the break room. He immediately jumps from his seat, moving to give you a hug. “Missed you, Baby.” He mumbles, face snuggled against your hair, taking in the soft scent of your shampoo. “Can't have missed them much when you're on your phone the entire time looking at their pictures.” Chris speaks, and Leon would be mad at that, if you weren't giggling as hugging him back. “Brought you some snacks.” You hum, and Leon's heart practically stops in his chest with how cute you are - as if he hadn't been the one to tell you to get him food.

Moments later, he sits at the table again, you on his lap, because he insisted that the chairs would be too uncomfortable for you. He munches on one of the sweet treats you had brought him while you spoke about your day so far, Leon was definitely the happiest guy alive right now. He places soft kisses on your neck and jaw every now and then, smiling at you. He'd definitely die happy if it was by your side.

[bloodyyconverse]

Emeritus bloodline headcanons

OKAY no one is going to see this post but I'm going to make it anyway for future reference. This is all just how I generally write the family lore, since it's all whatever-the-fuck and up to the writer. Long ass post where I ramble about the Papas and Sister because AUGH

Okay, to preface, I write the Emeritus bloodline as partially demonic. Concentration varies because I am indecisive. But Nihil has fairly blatant demonic traits, both visually and biologically (sharp teeth, pointed ears, he could probably eat raw meat without issue, strange behaviors, etc.), and these end up passing on to his awful sons.

Primo, Secondo, and Copia (and presumably Perpetua, but we don't know much on him yet) are all the kids of Sister and Nihil. They were mutually kind of awful for each other (which I can touch on later) but would NOT leave the relationship alone and got back together a few times. Nihil was fully aware I and II were his, and he raised them (read: Primo raised Secondo). Copia, however, was raised by Sister and Nihil was pretty much entirely unaware that the little rat bastard was his. I'm currently fully prepared for Perpetua to have pretty much the same story, but I'm holding off for now.

Terzo's mother was outside of the church, and while she chose to carry him, she wasn't too keen on keeping this kid when he turned out to be a little freak (aka, also demonic like his father). So, Nihil ends up raising Terzo (again, read: Primo/Secondo raise Terzo). Imperator is especially a bitch to Terzo because of the turmoil that led to him and the fact he isn't hers; she can't help but view him as existing out of Nihil's spite.

Importantly, Terzo and Copia are the closest in age, rather than II and III being the closest. This is important TO ME because I like having Terzo and Copia be fairly close emotionally and it's just easier to pull off this way.

I pretty consistently write Copia as FTM and plan on keeping it that way, but the age he comes out/transitions varies. I'd say he's usually socially transitioned before he's a teenager, though. He's close to Terzo when they're young, and they spend a good amount of time together.

Primo is unsettling and fucked up and sort of feral because he was supposed to be the antichrist. He's well-educated and can be polite and normal, but inevitably he's very in tune with whatever Evil Genes he has, and I firmly believe he has eaten human meat before. He's a calm figure until he's eating raw meat and snarling. He gets along well with ghouls, at least. Primo distances himself from his father (and mother) as soon as he gets the chance, and only truly interacts with his younger brothers.

Secondo is a good medium between Primo and Terzo. He's still fucked up, he's tasted blood, but he is also pretty normal. He is emotionally hard to read and has a lot of turmoil. He's a strong figure to cover up just how upset he tends to be. He is far more bitter towards their parents than Primo and tends to be stubborn and firm in his plans and desires just to piss them off.

Terzo, on the other hand, loves their father to death. Despite being raised by his brothers, he seeks out Nihil's approval any chance he gets. He's visually as demonic as the others (which is to say, just enough to give someone an uneasy feeling about his strange traits), but behaviorally much more normal. He has done everything in his power to be perfect. He wants to be the best he can be so he can impress their father. He is crushed when he's dragged off the stage, because it truly does mean he was never actually good enough.

Copia is where things get tricky, because I'm a HUGE antichrist!Copia fan. It's true to ME. So, he doesn't seem to have overt demonic features until he's begun climbing the ranks and getting more influence.

ANYWAY. Unfortunately, Sister wasn't much of a better parent than Nihil. While Nihil was absent, Sister was doing all she could to keep Copia firmly under her thumb. C is convinced at some point that he is incapable without her -- he's clumsy and anxious and unsure and therefore surely he's no good at any job he's given. He doesn't realize half of this is because he was raised to behave that way, so that when he becomes Papa she won't have to worry about him rebelling the way Terzo or Secondo had. This continues into her refusal of acknowledging his proper titles and such.

Everyone's ages vary, since.. the new timeline doesn't quite line up in a way that makes sense. Which is fine, because it's a silly ass band that doesn't NEED lore, it's all for fun. FORGIVE ME I am about to ramble. In RHRN, Nihil says he is "almost 80". So at the oldest, he could be 79. That would make him 24 in the Go-Goat video. He could be anywhere from 20-24 in 1969. And while C being in his 50s and being born soon after that would make sense for his canon lore... it doesn't really factor in the three older brothers. Even if Primo was born a couple years beforehand when Nihil was possibly 19 or so, he would still only be in his 40s when he was the frontman, which wouldn't line up with the clearly 60+ y/o dude he was. There's no way he and Nihil are that close in age, so you just gotta trust me when I bullshit ages and times. For the sake of my own plot and being sort-of cohesive, Primo is usually in his early 50s, Secondo his early 40s, Terzo his early 30s... maybe you smell a pattern. Copia would be in his late 20s to be near Ter's age (at the time of the Papas's executions). I believe he begins greying in his late 30s from stress. He learns these men were his brothers, and they're all dead. He watches Nihil, his father, die. He is being suffocated by Sister so she can fully control the church however she likes. He watches her die too. And after all his accomplishments... He is still regarded as a failure. It would drive any man to start stressing the fuck out.

Anyway, there's my rambling for whenever I need it. I'll add on to this post whenever necessary. Or rewrite it.

[ghostcreaturetypething]

On Dean’s First Couple of Deaths

As previously mentioned, I am still very early in terms of supernatural seasons. As such, Dean has only died twice thus far; first in season 1 episode 12, Faith, and second in season 2, episode 1, In My Time of Dying. Both episodes are phenomenal and I enjoyed them very much, but they are also, somewhat surprisingly, incredibly different. This difference felt important to me, and predictably I ended up wanting to talk about. However, most regrettably, I do not yet actually have anyone in my actual life who watches or even knows what Supernatural is, so I am afraid for now, you all are stuck with me and my incomprehensible thoughts.

First and foremost: Faith. In this episode, as I’ve already discussed, Dean seems very resigned to his fate very quickly. It’s Sam who is the driving force behind saving him, Sam who flat-out refuses to give up on his brother even while Dean is behaving as though his death is inevitable from the very beginning. In this episode Dean is also behaving in a way that is, for lack of a better adjective, very Dean. He’s matter-of-fact about the situation, he’s evasive about any feelings he might have about it, and he’s making jokes the whole time, playing up that ‘I laugh in the face of death’ attitude that Sam hates. This behaviour is, in my opinion, an attempt to cover up all the sadness and fear and anger he’s really feeling, to try and protect Sam and stop him from feeling guilty when his attempts to save his big brother inevitably fail, and he continues with it for almost the entire time he’s actively dying. Dean is also acting quite deliberately belligerent, and I have a theory about the reasons for this that I’m breaking my own heart with. Now — and I am trusting the Superwholockers to come through for this one — do you remember, in The Final Problem, when Euros is trying to force Sherlock to shoot either John or Mycroft, and Mycroft is saying all of these awful things about John, being shockingly callous and scathing about Sherlock’s best friend — until Sherlock, thank god, sees straight through him and explains to John that he’s actually being kind by deliberately trying to make Sherlock angry so that it becomes easier for his little brother to kill him. Well. And I am so sorry for this. I think, in Faith, Dean is attempting to do something similar. At the very least, his attitude is a way to distract Sam from his worry and sadness; at most, this sweet idiot is actually trying to piss Sam off to the extent that Sam is then less sad when Dean dies. Admittedly, if this is the case, Dean’s attempt is quite half-hearted; he’s trying his best, but as I said, he is dying. He’s exhausted, he’s in pain, and he’s scared. Nevertheless, he manages to keep it up pretty consistently, except for one specific moment that absolutely kills me: when he turns up in Sam’s motel room and Sam gives him shit about “this whole… ‘I laugh in the face of death’ thing”, and tells him “It’s crap, I can see right through it”…Dean doesn’t even argue with him. He nods and says, “Yeah, whatever dude” and moves on. I think this moment, more than anything else, more than Dean wincing and leaning on things and looking like a corpse, shows just how wrecked he is. Enough to let the mask fall for a moment, too tired to try and reassure his little brother or even brush it off with a joke. And, just, fuck. Now; I’ve talked about this episode before. We know how it ends. We know that despite all of Dean’s pessimism, Sam really does save him, with relatively little effort and impressively little doubt on his part. So, this series of events is now the context for Dean’s second near-death experience in In My Time of Dying, which, as a result of them, goes very differently.

So. Very first episode of the second season. For the second time in his life, Dean is dying. He has been untethered from his body and he is wandering around the hospital like a ghost. Sam can’t see him. John can’t see him. He is, for much of it, effectively alone. But despite this, despite not having to protect Sam from his own death this time, Dean doesn’t break down. He doesn’t let the mask slip, he doesn’t cry, he doesn’t despair. Even when he is completely un-perceived and therefore free to express his emotions however he likes, he still has his brave face on. The curtain’s down, sweetheart, why are you still performing and all that, but of course he is, he’s Dean. Evidence for his real feelings, I think, lies in the way he keeps repeating himself when he talks to Sam. Not word for word, but the sentiment is always the same: “I’m waking up”, “I’ll be fine”, “I’m not going anywhere”. And then, near the end with the reaper, even when it seems sure that he cannot escape her: “I’m not going with you.” He’s trying to convince himself more than anyone else, who mostly can’t hear him anyway. He is scared, of course he is. But in a very different way to how he was in Faith. It is always ‘I am’, ‘I will’, after all. Very confident phrasing, just like how Sam told him “I’m not gonna let you die” in Faith. Dean is mirroring him. In the absence of the direct support of his little brother, he’s supporting himself. But in Faith, I got the sense that he was mainly putting on a brave face for Sammy, as opposed to pushing the fear down so he could actually be proactive about the situation. Do you see what I mean? And this brings us to what I think is the main difference between the death’s: This time, Dean is fighting it. He doesn’t want to die, and he believes he has a choice in the matter, in complete opposition to how he felt in Faith. And I think this is because of Sam. Sam proved to him that he didn’t have to die, even when he was sure he had no choice, and now, eleven episodes later, Dean is fighting for himself just as hard as Sam fought for him the first time. And that, everybody, is what we call CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Right from the beginning he’s pushing to survive this — “Screw you doc, I’m waking up!” — despite the doctors saying otherwise, and neither he nor Sam having any evidence that it’s even likely. He is then very quick to turn to Sam for help — “Come on, Sam. Go find some hoodoo priest an’ lay some mojo on me, I’ll be fine” — but of course he is. Sam saved him last time, completely single-handedly. If Dean doubted him at all before, he doesn’t now. If he hesitated in entrusting his life to the hands of his little brother before, there is no thought of that now.

In comparison, Sam himself — well. Sam is having a more difficult time than he did the first time around. For good reason. Poor Sam has had a very rough few days; he got strangled by a demon-possesed civilian who was then shot off the top of him, the demon the Winchester’s have all been hunting for the whole first season has just slipped out from under all of their noses, he survived a brutal car crash, and now the person who, as he made clear in Devil’s Trap, means more to him than anyone and anything else, is dying in a hospital bed. Again. If anyone deserves to be cut some slack, its Sam Winchester. But another reason for the difference in Sam’s behaviour is, I think, the absence of Dean. Before, in Faith, Dean was at least awake — tired and grumpy as well as completely unsupportive and unhelpful, but there. Present. Contactable. Solid. Now, he’s comatose in a hospital bed, hooked up to all manner of tubes and wires and looking so much more fragile than before, and that is very difficult for Sam, I think. Dean is his older brother. He’s always been there, for Sam’s whole life. As Sam said in Salvation: “even when I couldn’t count on anyone I could always count on you.” And it’s true. Now, unable to even talk to his brother, things feel a lot harder. Little siblings are like that. They don’t often need you, per se, but they do come to depend on the fact that you’re always just sort of there. And now Dean isn’t there. For the first time in Sam’s life, his big brother has gone somewhere he cannot reach, and Sam — strong, brave, capable Sam — I think he panics a bit. Cue him yelling at John in one of my all-time favourite scenes thus far, which then brings us to the next point: when Sam and John are having said shouting match, Dean gets upset. I find this very interesting. After all, everything Sam says is completely valid based on what we know about John at this point. Hell, Dean even said similar things when John was sitting by his bedside. But as soon as Sam starts to get angry, as soon as his family begins to argue, he can’t stand it, to the point that it is then that he figures out he can move things in his disembodied state — smashing the glass of water on floor. This is a perfect example of one of the things that I love most about Dean: despite his belligerence, despite his devil-may-care attitude, he is completely family-focused. He loves them more than anything, and when faced with the prospect of literally dying — with being snuffed out, transported to some unknown state and leaving his whole life behind — his family is all he can think about. How his leaving would put them in danger, put Sam in danger. And so he fights harder, tries to find a way around the most inevitable inevitability there is. The chances are, however, that if John had not intervened — it would all have been for naught. No matter how badly he wanted to live, to stay with his family, Dean would have died and left them all the same. But so it was the first time, so it has been every time for as long as life has existed. The important thing is not the end. It is not the futility of it all. It is the fact that, this time, Dean fought to stay alive. He wanted to live. For his family, because of his family, but also — just a little — for himself. And I think that’s wonderful.

[cosmicjoke]

Eh, well, that was disappointing. Or at least, it would be if I actually thought Gojo was magically back to life, which I never really did. I guess it's appropriate and supposed to be a reinforcement of the bleakness of JJK's underlying message, or whatever, that Gojo's body, even in death, is still being used as a weapon. It's just such a bore, is the problem. This whole manga has become a hideous bore with the way it's all been executed.

But I swear to god, if this doesn't kill Sukana and the stupid fight continues on with Yuta dying for nothing, and Gojo's body being desecrated for nothing, I'll call this the worst fucking trash I've ever read and it won't even be an exaggeration. It's already practically there with the god awful pacing and dropped plot points and foreshadowing that seemingly went nowhere. But we'll see.

I'm just done. I've been done for a while.

I mean, it is sad that Gojo's entire legacy is just one of being seen and used as a weapon, even by his own students, whom he cared for so much and wanted to preserve the youth of. That's definitely a tragedy. It's just... the whole build up to this moment, the execution, the horrible pacing and fake-out cliffhangers (including this last one, which anyone with any familiarity with this manga and the way Gege writes should have seen coming)... it's too exhausting and too cynical to feel like any of it matters or to want to become invested. It's honestly awful. Maybe I'm too hard on this story. Maybe I'm too dumb and my inability to enjoy all the complexity of the CT's and what it all means made it impossible for me to enjoy the story the way someone smarter might be able to. I really loved it at first, and anyone who knows me knows I'm never opposed to tragic endings. And it seems inevitably that JJK will have a tragic ending. I'm not opposed to cynicism or tragedy, if it's done well. Even if they beat Sukana, the way it seems they're having to go about it, assuming this actually works (which, again, I'm not holding my breath), it will be a tragedy.

It's just, between the convoluted, unending explanations of cursed techniques, the boring, meaningless, dragged out fights that went nowhere and meant nothing, the foreshadowing for certain confrontations and revelations and characters that have yet to be resolved or touched upon, even... I don't know. It's just not doing it for me, anymore.

I am sad about Gojo. What a shit deal he got. Maybe Gege really hates him, or maybe he just feels sorry for him. Either way, it's pretty heartbreaking. Well, hopefully the story will end soon, because I honestly don't see where else it can go from here.

[winter-wise]

Saw a poll for FMK, Paul, Gurney, Duke Leto (not going to link it because the person who posted that poll has no control over the results) but I was surprised because there is an objectively correct answer to this question.

Paul: Paul becomes a tyrant. We *know* what happens if you either a) fuck or b) marry Paul. If you fuck him you'll get pregnant and die, and he won't prevent it because he believes it's the least awful way that life could go for you. If you marry him it will be solely for political reasons, and he'll spend the whole marriage ignoring you as much as possible and pretending not to giggle while Alia calls you names. This is canon. We also know he wouldn't marry for love because Fremen practise polygamy, so he could have married Chani for love, but didn't.

And I mean... do you want a partner who, every so often, goes into a spice trance with no sign of when he'll wake up? Do you want to tie the knot to a guy who set off the events to kill billions? Do you want to even think about the kinds of monologues Paul would have about you?

Kill Paul.

This leaves us with Leto and Gurney.

Duke Leto will not marry you. If he didn't marry Jessica, he wouldn't marry anyone. Even if you could marry Leto, you'd probably be killed by a political enemy. Yes, he's hot, but 'inevitably getting horribly murdered by a Harkonen soldier-hot?'. Also, he can be pretty dismissive of Jessica's discomfort. He has it in him to be a loving husband, but he would not be a perfect husband.

However, it is explicit Dune canon from the hand of Frank Herbert himself that this guy is really good in bed. Fuck Duke Leto.

Which leaves marrying Gurney. Now, he is explicitly ugly, but he is also well-read, a skilled musician and composer, and he both reads and writes poetry. He's well-versed in history. He can play the intense love songs *and* he can play the fun drinking songs. He's physically fit, an incredibly skilled fighter, he's got a great sense of humour (in the books, at least), and he's perceptive enough to notice when Paul stops valuing human life, because Gurney still values human life. He's also the guy who Jessica starts hooking up with after Leto's death, and I trust in Jessica's ability to pick out guys who are good in bed. He doesn't have looks, but out of the three options, Gurney is by far the best option to marry.

[livemedown]

I finally did it. I sent off my mom's death certificate.

The guy at the post office was real polite about it, tried to keep it lighthearted. He said something like, "aren't you too young to have a life insurance policy?" I just laughed along, but I was pretty awkward about it. I appreciate his attempt at least.

It's easy for me to dissociate from it, my mom taught me that skill well. I can talk about my mom being gone, and I can look at the certificate, and understand what it means, and be fine. But finally, actually sending it away, collecting a life insurance policy I didn't even know existed until a few months ago... Well, the emotions are hitting me again.

She died so young, and it feels so unfair. Her health was always bad, but she died in her 50s; my living parents are in their 60s, and doing great, all things considered. I knew it was an inevitably, she hung it over my head for as long as I can remember, but it still doesn't feel totally real. Surely, she'll drunkenly call me before bed, angry with me that I haven't called her in a year - how dare I! But I know that phone call won't happen.

I've been putting off collecting the life insurance policy for a while now. I feel a bit guilty about it. It's not a lot of money, but knowing she set it aside for me stings. I don't really want the money. I want my baby photos, I want the pictures of our fucked up family, and I want the old clothes that smell like smoke, and her old Bible even if I'm no Christian. I want pieces of her. All I have is a tiny handful of photos and a mountain of awful memories. She wasn't a good mother but she was mine.

[mermaidsirennikita]

ARC REVIEW: Never the Roses by Jennifer K. Lambert

3.5/5. Releases 7/8/25.

Heat Index: 5/10

—evil sorceress/evil sorcerer

—mutually assured destruction but make it people

—what happens when villains retire?

—melancholy and gardening

The Basics:

The "dreamthief" sorceress Oneira, renowned for her destruction, has retired to her keep in solitude (along with a couple of magical animal companions and a goddess's avatar, of course). No more protecting kingdoms through her horrors! Now it's all gardening and waiting for her inevitable death. But she would like a book or two, which leads her to dreamwalk into the library of Stearanos Stormbreaker, the one sorcerer whose power rivals her own—to the point that their respective masters (kings and queens) used them against each other. Though they offered mutually assured destruction, Oneira and Stearanos never actually met. Until she starts stealing his books. But as they get to know each other through notes and taunts, the reality that the wicked king who keeps Stearanos by his side remains; and his threat could bring Oneira out of hidning.

The Review:

In some ways, this book is cozy. In other ways, it's incredibly sad. In all ways, it's beautifully written. That being said, unless there's a sequel, I do feel it needs to be classified as a romantic fantasy, a love story, versus a genre romance. Because while I'll hold back from spoilers... The ending is what I would call bittersweet. It's not closing the door on possibilities, but it is firmly in the realm of romantic fantasy versus fantasy romance.

I loved a lot of things about this. Oneira and Stearanos are both deeply jaded, experienced people who've lived a lot of life. They have gray in their hair (and they're both hot as fuck). They're world-weary. I loved reading about people who aren't 25 falling in love, and I also loved reading about people who are the villains of the story, who have unimaginably power (while still being thwarted) getting so frustrated and bored and done with live... meeting their equals. And finally getting engaged with the world again.

Oneira especially is sort of passively suicidal, waiting to die when the novel begins. One thing I did love is that specifically, several times, her libido gets called out; she's never had great luck with lovers and sort of considered herself sexually dead. WELL. WAKE THE HELL UP, ONEIRA.

Oneira and Stearanos's connection and chemistry is both charming and tragic. They're both deeply aware of one another, and are peers, and have been for decades. But they've never seen one another in the flesh, and they're both missing a sense of understanding only they can provide each other. They're both fearsome and awful, they both exist, essentially, as dehumanized threats. They both have unimaginable power, yet can't really truly exhibit it due to these contracts held by people who essentially own them. Or, so was the case before Oneira bought out her own... for what turns out to have been a terrible price.

Based on the premise and the writing quality and Oneira and Stearanos's interactions, there is a world where this would've been a knockout book for me. It's good, but not quite that, in part due to the pacing. When you have characters like these, with the chemistry they have, there's no reason why the reader should wait until the halfway mark for them to physically meet. And while I would've had more patience with a genuinely epistolary romance done through combative notes (a la Cat Sebastian's excellent historical romance, The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes) they actually don't exchange that many?

Which makes sense. Because one Stearanos knows that this incredibly dangerous woman is stealing his books and going HEEHEE in his dreams, obviously he needs to go out there and suss out the issue. So... why so much time spent on Oneira gardening, and Stearanos fuming? There is a plot here, and the plot does need to happen for the tragedy and the culmination, don't get me wrong. There are scenes that could be cut, yeah, but it's less that *a lot* need to be cut and more that *a lot* need to be shortened and could be shortened through less internal monologue. There's a slow build, and there's holding back from what makes the book good. Which is Oneira and Stearanos.

This is a very "you can't outrun your past" book, and it has a lot of subtle things to say about the state of the world at large, to be honest. The people who use Oneira and Stearanos don't have their gifts, their intelligence, their abilities. But they hold them by their metaphorical collars and therefore wield power. Another character is held by a more literal collar, and is so... terribly tragic... in a way that contrasts to Oneira and Stearanos beautifully.

So while the coziness of the setting and the meandering of Oneira's melancholy was a good framework, I think that it was a little too indulged and kept the novel from packing the full tragedy of its punch.

The Sex:

There's a little bit of sex here, and it's not entirely between Oneira and Stearanos, which I didn't mind at all. Like I mentioned above, I really liked the way that Oneira's mindset interacted with her body, and how that changed as she fell for and connected with Stearanos. There's a scene where she contemplates what it would be like if she just accidentally got pregnant, it's this kind of out-of-body-ness to her inner monologue that adds tot he sadness.

I will say! That Oneira getting her period at an inopportune moment is a part of this... And while I loved Stearanos saying "I don't mind a little blood", as any murderous sorcerer should, I must ask? Why not? Just? Do it? I am merely a romance reader asking for authors to write period sex on the page.

The Conclusion:

The Circe comparisons are apt, and I would also throw in the sense of deep melancholy I got from The Last Unicorn. This book has absolutely gorgeous prose and a great concept, and if there is a sequel in the future I would definitely read it. I really can't critique a lot of plot and character stuff. What it needed to tighten up and work a bit better, however, was better pacing and a more streamlined narrative. Because when you have hot, "morally charcoal but trying to be better" tragic villains falling in love, that needs to be the star of the show.

Thanks to Bramble and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

[most-screwed-by-writers-tourney]

Propaganda:

Louis and Lestat: In the original book Lestat literally turns a 5 year old little girl into a vampire to trap Louis in their loveless, abusive relationship, because he knows Louis will worry about Lestat (whom Louis now recognizes as a remorseless monster who sees humans as nothing but food) using this child (Claudia) as a tool and creating the most evil and messed up surrogate child of all time. (He was right, btw, bc she grows into a woman trapped forever in a child's body and hates them both for it. but this isn't about Claudia.)

In the TV series, Lestat is a white devil offering aid, sympathy, and love to a gay, closeted black man in the 1900s. He offers him company, capital, a friend who sees him as an 'equal' Once he turns him into a vampire, his desire to possess and control Louis becomes apparent. He displays TEXTBOOK narcissistic and abusive partner behaviors, apologies for how awful he was, promises to change, makes romantic gestures to try and smooth things over. They start having an 'open relationship' where Lestat loses it over Louis taking advantage of being able to see other people. Lestat writes a love song for him and sends Louis a recording sung by the woman he's having an affair with; Louis confronts him at the singer's apartment and they have angry sex in her bed.

Late in the TV series, they get in another fight, and Lestat literally drops Louis out of the sky and leaves him paralyzed, with Claudia (in this adaptation, a young woman who is more like a sister/mother to Louis) to nurse him back to health and re-teach him how to walk. Louis still takes him back.

In both the book and the TV series, Claudia convinces Louis that the only way they can be free is to kill Lestat. In both, they poison him, slit his throat, and dump his body in a swamp. In the TV version, Louis sobs over Lestat's dead body, refusing to allow Claudia to burn him and ensure he can't come back from it. (Spoilers: he gets better. and he's pissed about it! He follows them to Europe.) Their gay divorce drama eventually results in the destruction of an entire enclave of over 400 vampires in Paris and the death of their surrogate daughter.

Ivan and Till: In a world where aliens treat humans as pets and entertainment, no relationship is fully safe. Till becomes infatuated with a girl named Mizi, and while he and Ivan know each other, he doesn’t know him well enough to realize that Ivan holds a deep unrequited love for him. When they inevitably have to compete against each other, it’s implied that Ivan kisses him and then tries to strangle him to ensure that Till will win no matter what, then gets killed in front of him, ensuring he’ll always remember him.

[tortoisetales]

Robin 7 and Knight's End

And here’s where I left off Knightfall/end. With Tim’s total inability to keep his ID … though it won’t come out for some time somehow.

Do you have the right to ruin Bruce’s plans to hand over Batman to a murderer who tried to choke you to death?! Tell him already!

Tim loves his dad. :) Because that makes it more awful when he inevitably dies.

Bruce the teenager you left with a man programmed to be an assassin is not the one who made mistakes! It’s you! Why are you blaming him!

Didn’t I say you could just take this wall down in five minutes? I at least thought it … how long JPV must’ve spent building that wall …

Love that Tim stopped to get changed into his costume and Bruce did not.

Bruce: Why did you not handle the murderer I installed while I was away. Bruce: gets his shit wrecked Bruce: Tim! Stop trying to handle the murderer I installed while I was away!

I’m starting to think Bruce is actually The Dumbest Guy.

I like that their cars reflect them. Redbird is zippy and agile but not heavy like the Batmobile!

Bruce is leaving again, because of course he is.

What the fuck is this supposed to be. Why is JPV sticking his butt out. Why is Batman a pointy cape coat hanger man. What.

Also: this reminds me that JPV let this guy and his hostages fall to their deaths. Less active than outright murder, I assume so JPV can stick around as a character in case we want more Spawn.

Bruce is so dumb, handing that guy over to Shiva. Of course she kills him. Why do people think Bruce is smart?

I guess at least Bruce didn’t know about the programmed assassination thing when he put JPV in charge. But that means he put him in charge without doing a background check. Still dumb.

Nightwing + Robin = very silly violence

bollix /bŏl′ĭks/ transitive verb To throw into confusion; botch or bungle. "managed to bollix up the whole project."

Huh. I thought Tim was just saying “Bollocks” like an Englishman. Wait … *squints*

Etymology alteration of bollocks

Ha!

Dick is bitching once again about Bruce picking JPV over him, and who can blame him? Though I can blame him for looking like he’s about to murder someone with a wingding.

Ace the Bathound is new?! Also lol at Dick being the only one who has to get on all fours.

Dick is sad that things have changed and it doesn’t feel like home … but listen! Prodigy is coming! Hang on, Dick!

I am skipping both Bruce and JPV’s parts at this point. I’m sick of you dramatic bastards.

Cute Tim face.

Dick: “He’s got to get through this the same way he’s faced everything else in his life … alone.” Uh, then what is Robin for?

BRUCE WAYNE: MURDERER! Wait, how many times has he been accused of murder? …probably a lot.

Like sex, right Tim? (Except I don't think he's said that yet ... was his idea of sex inspired by Lady Shiva's idea of murder?)

Tim talks about Shiva to Dick? They’ve barely talked! (Okay, I know I missed an issue, but still.)

Even Bruce is scruffing Tim. Tim, you need a quick-release button for your cape already.

You made Tim cry, you monster. Also … did Nightwing realize it was a trick and just play along? It seems like it.

Tim is just happy Bruce is back. His standards are so low. And also he’ll be leaving again very soon.

Dick: “On the bright side ... You have someone to lie to.” Dick has ZERO sympathy for Tim’s dad troubles. You have a dad! Dick isn’t even adopted at this point! But man, no one is being delicate with Tim’s feelings, huh.

I skipped the Catwoman stuff. She seems to be the Catwoman I’m more familiar with, but the close-ups of her butt, her squatting for no reason but that we can look at her butt, etc … I don’t have to put up with it so I won’t.

Hold up, Tim has thrown an R shurikan but he’s still got an R on his outfit! Is he carrying these dumb things with him now?!

I find the contrast between Bruce and Dick’s drama and Tim being like … “Okay I guess” very funny.

They really should’ve gotten shot for this dumb move, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ comics.

I do like that Catwoman got to be the one to go after the plot doohickey, although it means we’ve now shaken Tim and Dick.

...WTF. Catwoman gets knocked out and Bruce pulls a Gwen Stacey? (With no neck-snapping, of course.) Forget what I said about them letting Catwoman do anything. -_-;

Cute Tim face. Also I don’t like it in Disney movies, but I like the “evil defeats itself” of JPV refusing to listen and setting himself on fire.

And then Bruce doesn’t listen to Tim and sets himself on fire. Hm.

Dick’s attempting to beat the shit out of JPV in revenge for Bruce’s life, Tim is like, “This was all pointless” then immediately pivots to saving some kid.

I don’t usually say this about Nightwing, but: Hot.

The comic has turned back to having silly moments with civilians. Thank goodness. It's taking forever.

JPV: Shut up, nepo baby! Batman is mine, your house is mine, your dad’s portrait is mine!! *breaks it in half* Batman: Trying to kill me and Robin and Nightwing was one thing, but now you’re irredeemable!

Huh, the thing about baby Bruce falling into the Batcave is canon.

Bruce just forgives him and lets him go! That’s not his usual reaction to people taking their comic-book mental illnesses out on others …

Some wrap-up in Robin:

Poor Tim’s been up for 48 hours, and doesn’t get sleep as a civilian either.

Literal LOL. Oh Tim. And they just cut away, no sign of how Ariana feels about this. Does she get mad. Does she confess again. (Actually I think that slam is her leaving and slamming the door? Does Tim understand his girlfriend is mad at him. Probably not.)

Tim, do not drive when you haven’t slept in like 60 hours. Even if you are worried you’ll lose Robin. You’re supposed to be smarter than Bruce! It’s not hard! Tim destroys some priceless art … he’d probably have done that even if he were awake, honestly.

Advanced perching.

I can believe it. I was anticipating it, honestly.

Tim destroys another priceless artifact. Maybe they’re reproductions? I can’t imagine letting anything valuable into Gotham.

Awww. Why couldn’t you have said this yesterday so he could sleep, dumbass. And why did you have to yell at him for something that isn’t his fault when he did the right thing. At least at this point he’s correcting himself.

And next is prodigal! Well, next is Robin Issue Zero because comics, but whatever.

[horizon-verizon]

The fact that Alicent’s stans deluded themselves into thinking that she’s the reason Rhaenyra wasn’t beset by assassins in episode 9 and did something because she raised her voice to someone but the moment her father talked to Lord Westerling she remained in silence, it was his refusal that saved Rhaenyra, not Alicent.

And sending terms for Rhaenyra to deliver her toddler sons to live under Aegon II’s sadistic will as hostages is hardly defending Rhaenyra or doing any good to her, that’s fucking miserable, it’s insane how y’all believe that those terms were good, it’s awful on the show and on the book.

I get it now Alicent spent 10 years harassing and tormenting Rhaenyra and her underage children, openly saying she wanted her father there to take her side even tho she knew her wishes meant exile or even death to Rhaenyra because she was trying to influence the inevitable and protect Rhaenyra, true love 😍

Delusion--sometimes they are fun, harmless birds caressing us into safety, other times it's a steel band slowly starving us of or own intellect.

What really irks me are the damn terms being mischaracterized as harmless stipulations as if the greens (Alicent & Otto) are far more likely to be uncharitable to Rhaenyra's children than the reverse.

[Regardless of truebornness or illegitimacy, bc w/their regard for those not-illegitimate kids when they did live at the keep, they already showed they don't care all that much for how young and vulnerable and worthy of protection a child is; Daemon is more or less under rhaenyra's thumb (or really he cares more about her, their family and them winning than his power over their entire dynasty or provin viserys wron) and no I do not care about the choking scene bc no it is NOT even consistent with DaemonxRhaenyra--if they wanted to establish Daemon was abusive towards her, they should have shown scenes of him intimidating her or something in episodes 7-8! so I do not even think of this scene as HotD "canon" and you cannot convince me otherwise! just as I do not think Criston is Dornish in the show no matter what Alicent said or what he looked like--esp since if he was Dornish, it's far more likely he'd still look pale bc the northernest Dornish--the "stony" Dornish as Daeron I later calls them--are paler people who look your "typical" Westerosi..the Martells' looks are not ubiquitous in Dorne! Write better, and then I'll perhaps respect your storytelling.]

And while there are some sweet and rational rhaenicent shippers out there, the ship simply never made sense in the way that it was written in the show. Their development as close friends was never shown, and for how different they are, it needed to be shown! Especially with:

how Alicent really didn't seem to understand Rhaenyra as a person for her to act as she does in the Sept episode and attempting to reinforce "girls don't involve themselves with the politics of men" despite Rhaenyra being the freaking heir // while this is happening, Alicent visiting the king, with there being no sign of even hesitance , guilt, or desire to tell Rhaenyra about it--similar to how Criston should have known Rhaenyra would never leave with him and abandon her family or "duty" or the prospect of becoming the first queen of Westeros after years of everyone's doubt (2)

how she uses her queenly-stepmotherly authority over her (3)

how she continues this in her approach to her in that "queenly" way, accusing Rhaenyra PLUS the implication of her disapproving of her actions despite having to have known how Rhaenyra has felt Viserys has shunted her for most of her life....(4)

From the beginning, alicent has been too much of a ruler-follower to appeal to rhaenyra AND she has thought that for rhaenyra to be happy or at least content with her life, she must also conform to the obedient social rules of feminine conduct--ignoring any presence of inner conflict Rhaenyra has had or pondering over it.

[valleygirlmukuroikusaba]

wait. ohhhhhhhhhhh now with a lot more info talking with more long-time fans i understand why emo mukuro is more widely accepted

bc non-despair junko was just simply just a Fanon junko interpretation that was well known so basically Mukuro being in her stead in canon(UDTP/USC timelines) meant nothing to most long-time fans so like apparently to most ppl mukuro would be more interesting if she didnt fill the valley girl archetype bc like they got a fanon junko running around just doing that and thats why ppl were dissatisfied when mukuro as is was left out n is parading around as "chiller" junko in like any new media which i mean i wasn't in the fandom when USC came out so its vv much. times were different back then and i was absent lolllll

also they probably had more information and time to process than me who's like. i played thh blind like 2 months ago saw the twist blind and went. aw man they replaced the chill junko from ch1 with this FREAK LMAOOOO . basically i see mukuro how the fandom views twogami lol..........(tho twogami straight up doesnt have a name of his own) tho preference wise im way more partial to just friendly valley girl characters so its just ch1 syndrome where everyone friendly and likable dies instantly(stares at sayaka and leon)

but im like open-minded that she could be her more of her devout emotionless empty self for her inner-life but imo with the story with what i want to tell with mukuro with my AU the line blurs but i did want it that theres still a bit of stuff i wanted to take a crack at trying to repurpose her unmasked maladjusted servitude as a irreversible aftereffect bc . girl she's going thru it 😭😭😭

also it makes her dynamic with makoto and sayaka kinda somber to me bc both of them benefit off of her than mukuro can off them. like she's literally a conduit that feeds into makoto's savior complex being like the closest person to junko. at bottom of the barrel for every victim junko fucks up not even nagito comes close with how much he thinks he beefs with junko(but then he just kinda beefs with everyone atp) and sayaka is very much capable of influencing others to get things done her way and if she was more attached to mukuro then basically mukuro would simply be "under new management" just its someone that isn't her sister instead and nothing rlly changes or drives them to change each other but sometimes that kind of calm is beneficial to mukuro. it would feel at home for her(?) i do think their relationships to mukuro r STILL important to the AU bc while i plan to make mukuro very different(sorry emo mukuro fans this isn't for you its for me lol) the thing is that. take her away from her sister and either she'll internalize her memory of junko(like how korekiyo does. ?) or she'll literally just be in a perpetual state of agony and feels like she has to do anything to get back to junko to get her "needs met" bc thats junko's the only meaning of her existence so she needs those relationships even as bit of distraction to get her to like even break out of that mold bc its digestible for her even tho to me personally its strange and unfair to me but the alternative is that makoto never bails her out and continues to be a empty shell of a person serving junko out of whatever remnant of nostalgia is left after ego death or smth.

tho i need to read drif and dr0 for real this time(have the documents just havent got around to it). bc ive been putting it off bc im USC brained atm and also i kinda need to be in the right headspace to tackle it bc it's in junko's POV i think? love a unreliable narrator. hi junko enoshima cant believe i have to figure out her whole deal too tho that deep dive is probably inevitable for my research of seeing what i can work with bc like even tho i hate the overarching HPA/FF lore plot bc like. if it was like v3 lore then id probably not even have such a big lore overhaul bc my AU worldbuilding is very much v3 inspired n just sighhh why is there so much bullshit in the world abt a weird school filled with crazy kids that probably look like they'd preform just as well if they were all high school dropouts or something idfk

ok rambles over i gonna go look at my 600+ downloaded reaction videos to post on here now

[backtothefanfiction]

You Can't Outrun The Reaper | A Joel Miller x Reader Story

Summary: He thought he was saving her life, turns out he was just delaying the inevitable, the reaper will always take what's his.

Warnings: 18+ Only. Genre typical violence, smut, mentions of blood, guns, attempted sexual assault, infected, angst, nostalgia, running for your life, no use of Y/N, a little smut, small daddy kink, oh and of course death.

Word Count: 5.6k

A/N: @amy172 went absolutely, and I quote, "bananas" over the little Joel blurb I wrote the other day and asked for more. Now, that was only supposed to be one short thing, but somehow while at work my mind went wondering and somehow we ended up here. I am not an expert on the series, I know a little about the game from having very nerdy friends who were into it when it first came out and of course watched the series when it was released but haven't rewatched or read many other fanfics since (well until the last couple days anyway) so if things don't sound right, I apologies, hopefully you'll like it anyway. There is honestly so much f*cking pain coded into this story but hey... enjoy.

Running. So much running. That’s all she’d known for months now, however over the last week, she felt like she’d run more than she had ever run since outbreak day.

“Bobby, what did you do?” she chastised her brother, a look of horror on her face.

They had been raiding an old minimart when he had found the stupid shooting game in the back. She had told him not to. Told him to leave it alone, but no, her stupid man child of a 34 year old brother couldn’t help himself.

Ever since the outbreak it had been just them. Her Mom had called her frantically on the phone, “There’s something wrong with Darren!” she screeched down the phone. Darren, their step dad, not that either of them ever referred to him as that. She had been 26, Bobby 29, when their Mother had remarried. “Darren, honey.” she heard her Mom’s voice say tentatively down the line. There was screaming before the line went dead. Her and Bobby had immediately hopped in the car to travel to her, but they never made it.

It had happened so fast. “Look there’s nothing out there. They’re all hanging around closer to the QZ where there’s life.” Bobby had said. “It’ll be fine.”

He had plugged the game in, it starting up with this awful techno music from the 90s, Bobby grabbed one of the guns holstered to the console as he clicked buttons. Pew! Pew! It was so loud. 

“Bobby, turn it off. TURN IT OFF!” she said louder as she wrestled the gun from his hands before reaching to pull the plug. There was sudden silence.

“See I told you it would be fine.” 

He had spoken too soon. There was a loud snarl as a body came hurtling down from upstairs.

“RUN!” Bobby had said. “Go! RUN!”

Bobby raced to where he had left his gun next to the cash register, the creature racing after him. She watched over her shoulder as she began to race down one of the small aisles, her heartbeat pounding in her ears, adrenaline coursing through her body. She picked back up her own backpack and knife. She froze at the shadow of another human shaped creature moving past the window. Fuck.

There was one gun shot after another and she turned her head to see her brother, wrestling with the fungus covered 20 year old. “Bobby watch out!” she cried as she began to tip one of the shelves over onto the kid.

“Quick, let's go!” Bobby grunted as they raced to the door but he suddenly jolted still, the feeling of a hand tightly grasped around his ankle holding him in place. He pulled his leg hard, the fingernails of the young 20 something year old now half trapped under the shelf stack, scratching at his skin as he pulled himself free.

She pulled her own gun out of her bag as she exited the main door of the shop, her body turning in the direction of the other body she had noticed through the window. She fired once, twice, the second hitting the infected in the head and it collapsed onto the ground, just as her brother came out of the shop, fast on her heels.

“Quick, back towards the trees.” Her brother said. She didn’t second guess his judgement as she ran. Even after they reached the treeline she didn’t stop. She just kept going.

She didn’t stop until her limbs were screaming, her chest heaving, lungs burning. She braced her hands on her thighs as she doubled over taking deep gasping breaths. “Did we out run them? Are they gone?” she panted. Nothing. She stood up, her hands bracing her side as she turned around, “Bobby?” He wasn’t there, she was alone. “Bobby?” she asked again a little louder as she began to double back.

She caught up with him, hunched over his leg, his back resting against a tree trunk, panting. “Bobby.” she hissed with relief.

When he looked up at her, his face told her everything. When she looked down to his hands wrapped around his leg it only confirmed things more. Two large bite marks were on his leg.

“Dolly, you need to get out of here.” he said as she began to shake her head. “Dolly-”

“No. NOO,” she wailed a little louder, her throat closing up, tears welling in her eyes. “I can’t lose you too! No..” 

He watched as her face screwed up, her lip trembling. “You can’t stay here! You’ve gotta go!”

“Where am I supposed to go? What am I supposed to do!”

“Head back to the QZ.” She shook her head. “No, you need to go back. You can’t stay out here on your own.”

“No.”

“Go!”

“No.” she shook her head again but her feet were already stepping backwards.

“GO!” he shouted.

She couldn’t say goodbye. She had to pretend he’d be coming back. That she was going on ahead and he would catch up.

She thought that again now as her feet pounded into the concrete, her lungs burning, thighs and arms aching but she had to push forward, she couldn’t let them get her.

“Where are you going baby?”

“Yeah come back here!” Their voices jeered at her.

She had run out of bullets two days ago. She did still have her knife but to use it she’d have to be up close to them and she knew that would be pointless. They were both much larger than her, they’d over power her the second they got their hands on her. She needed to keep running. 

She darted into an open door, making her way through the rooms of the lower half of the building, looking for a back door. Shit! It had long been barricaded, there was no way she’d be able to move the furniture in time to get through it. At the sound of footsteps behind her she knew it was already too late anyway.

“Come here, baby.”

“We just want to have some fun.” They cooed to her as they circled her, backing her into the corner of the room.

“No. NO!” she said as she flashed them her knife, snarling at them like a honey badger, trying to make herself seem more deadly than she was, or at the very least like she’d be too much of a hassle. 

They just laughed as they lunged at her. She screamed and cried out as the knife was ripped from her hands, her body wrestled to the floor. She could feel their hands, groping at her body and her clothes and she closed her eyes as she fought the helpless cries and sobs that tore from her throat.

“HEY!” A gruff voice shouted from the doorway.

The two men stilled and she slowly opened her eyes as their hands removed themselves from her body.

“Hey, man.” One of them said as he sidled up to the man standing in the doorway. “Why don’t you go and find your own-” The man didn’t get to finish his sentence before there was a gunshot.

Her hands flew up instinctively to her head, covering her face as the other guy who had been assaulting her lunged forward for the man in the doorway. She held her body tight in a ball against the wall as she listened to the scuffle. Grunting and groaning, the cling of metal, she assumed one of them had picked up her knife. 

“Hey get the fuck off me man!” she heard her attacker cry before- BANG! There was another shot and a loud thud as another body hit the floor. 

She whimpered as she continued to push herself against the wall, her eyes closed tight as she heard heavy footsteps make their way towards her. The light changed as he crouched down, his body looming over her. She flinched when his hand rested upon her shoulder.

“GET AWAY FROM ME!” she screamed.

“Hey, hey, hey.” the guy's deep voice said softer. She slowly lifted her head.

“Dolly?” He said, as recognition took over.

“JOEL!” she cried out as her own recognition of her saviour took place, her arms quickly wrapping around his neck, her fingers clinging onto his shirt for dear life. She sobbed into his shoulder.

“Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay.” he tried to soothe her as he placed his gun down on the floor and pressed a large reassuring hand to her back.

She suddenly pushed herself back, half desperate for air, half desperate to check it was really him. Yes, it was him.

‘Fuck! Dolly, what are you doing here?” Her chest twinged at the old nickname, a memory of a life that felt so long ago, not just a few months. It was one thing to hear it from her brother, another to hear it from someone she’d barely known before all this happened.

Dolly. Dolly Daydream. It’s what her Dad had called her. She’d always had her head up in the clouds. It was exactly where she had been the moment she first met Joel. Him and Tommy interrupting her in the office to come and get their paychecks. Her Dad had hired them to come and do some work on the housing estate his firm was building, needing the extra pair of hands.

“Dolly, where’s Bobby?” his gruff voice pressed her when she remained silent. The way her face fell he already knew. It was a look everyone had grown accustomed to. The ‘they aren’t here no more’ look, the ‘they’re one of them now’ look. “Where were you headed?” he asked her and she fought to find her voice, her throat hoarse from screaming.

“To the QZ. Bobby told me to go- but then they-” she hastily explained as she looked at the two bodies now on the ground.

“Don’t look at them.” Joel said grounding her, forcing her to look at him and only him. “Is that where you wanna go?” Joel pressed her, his deep brown eyes boring into her.

“I don’t know.” she replied honestly. There was a silence between them. “Joel, I’ve got no one left.”

“That’s not true.” he tried to reassure her. “You’ve got me okay? I’m gonna get you out of here okay. Find you somewhere safe.”

“Okay.” she said quietly, her head instinctively agreeing and nodding before she could even process what that would mean.

She let him escort her back to the QZ, sneaking her in through a secret route in the side before taking her back to his assigned apartment.

“Who’s that?” Tess had asked him when she had got back an hour later.

“Tess, this is Dolly.” Joel had introduced them. “I ummm, I used to work for her Dad sometimes.”

“Okay, but what is she doing here?” Tess pressed him.

“She’s got nowhere else to go. The rest of her family are gone Tess. It was lucky I found her.” Joel tried to explain in a way that told Tess there was no question about it, Dolly would be staying with them and that was that.

“So what Joel you just sneak her in? That’s not how this is done and you know it. What happens when they find out? What if she’s carrying the virus?”

“She’s not.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I checked.”

Dolly felt awkward as she listened to them argue in the kitchen from the small living room.

“I can just go.” She had said to Joel after Tess had stormed out.

“No, don’t be ridiculous.” Joel reassured her, his hand resting on her thigh as he sat next to her on the couch.

The moment reminded her of another. Her birthday, a couple years ago. They had all gone out to a local bar for a drink. Tommy and Joel had been invited by her brother at the last minute. She had been drinking gin. mother’s ruin they called it and they weren’t wrong. Just another long line of things she had picked up from her mother. Mother knows best after all. They had taken a moment out from dancing, her head growing dizzy, Joel, not one for dancing, keeping her company as he helped her back towards an empty leather sofa.

“You doing okay there?” he checked in with her as she flopped onto the leather sofa, a grin on her face.

“Yup.” She smiled like the Cheshire cat under his ministrative gaze. She swayed from side to side slightly before she closed the space between them, her lips locking onto his. He instinctively pulled away from her but his hand still reached to cradle her cheek. She thought he was about to reject her but he didn’t. He was merely checking to make sure she wasn’t so drunk he would feel like he’d be taking advantage of her. 

She wanted to get lost in the memory, to wrap herself in it, but so much had happened, she couldn’t. “What happened to Sarah?” she instead asked quietly. He didn’t say anything. His whole body went rigid at her name. He couldn’t even look at her to show her that face. But she knew. “I’m sorry Joel.” she quickly said, trying to brush it away, but it was out there now. It almost killed her when he left the room and went and closed himself in his bedroom.

Two weeks after she had first arrived she felt like she was beginning to go crazy. Always kept shut away in the apartment just in case anyone noticed her.

“You should take her back out the way you first came in and take her round to be properly registered, then she can go out and sign up for jobs so she’s not so cooped up.” Tess had tried to reason with Joel but for some reason he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. “She’s a person Joel, not a pet.”

“I don’t think she’s a pet.” Joel tried to defend himself. “A pet wouldn’t tidy up around here.” Joel observed.

It had been the only thing she could do, keep the tiny apartment clean for all of them. 

“Okay, so what about sneaking her out on runs?” Tess enquired. “She seems resourceful enough.”

“No.” Joel said as a matter of fact. He didn’t want her going back out there. Didn’t want her risking her life the way they did. She had already lost too much. Heck she was still grieving the loss of her whole family.

“Fine.” Tess said as she began packing up a bag with things.

“Where are you going?” Joel asked her.

“Well somebody’s gotta put food on the table.” she said. “I’m going to do a job for Marlene.” Joel looked at her like she was crazy. “There’s three of us here now Joel and if you won’t go register her properly so we have enough food rations for all of us, then it means we gotta step up and do some jobs we don’t wanna do.” 

He sighed in acknowledgement. She was right. He just didn’t know what it was. There was something about having Dolly back in his life, that familiarity and nostalgia for who he used to be, who he tried to still be around her, it made him feel closer to Sarah. Closer to how things had been.

He didn’t mean to start sleeping with her. It was just familiarity. You couldn’t call it a one night stand if it had happened three, maybe four times. A casual hook up maybe. She had kissed him that night when they had gone out for her birthday. 29. Half a decade or so isn’t really that much of an age gap but he still didn’t want her dad or brother finding out. They’d snuck out together, Joel claiming he was taking her home because she was too drunk. 

Her apartment had been cosy. Just a small little one bedroom thing above one of the shops in town. They hadn’t made it to her bed, simply fucking on the couch, her sat in his lap, grinding and moan as he fucked up into her. She had wanted him to stay, maybe go for a second round in the morning, or at the very least have breakfast but he couldn’t, he needed to be back for Sarah.

He’d left his number though asking her to give him a call if ever she was feeling lonely. He hadn’t been ready for a relationship, he didn’t want to complicate Sarah’s life but Dolly was nice to look at and he had to admit, a man has needs.

It was hard for him not to look at her through that lens now. Tess figured it out that very first week of Dolly being there that Joel used to fuck her, that he had a soft spot for her. She tried not to be jealous, after all her and Joel hadn’t been in each other's lives that long, they hadn’t had the relationship conversation. They were just companions and who was she to compete with this woman who was almost 10 years younger than her, not long turned 31. She hadn’t had kids, still had fairly perky tits and when she looked at Joel she seemed to have a twinkle in her eye. A glimmer of hope amongst the ruins of their life. History.

Tess was gone four days in total. The first day was tense, Joel pacing around silently stuck in his thoughts. Dolly tried not to disturb him or get under his feet. She merely observed him from her spot on the couch, a book resting against her bunched up knees to entertain herself. He ultimately went to bed early without a single word.

It made her feel awkward. She’d heard how he and Tess had spoken about her. It made her feel like a burden. “Joel, I want to do more.” she said to him the next morning over a measly breakfast of toast.

“What are you talking about? You do plenty.” He had tried to say.

“Tess is right, you know. If we registered me properly-”

“No.” He said. “No, I don’t want you-”

“I can’t stay cooped up in here forever Joel. I need sunlight, I need fresh air.”

“It’s the QZ Dolly, the air ain’t that fresh.”

“You know what I mean.” she said.

“I’ll think about it.” he said before he put on his jacket and went out to do chores.

When he got back they didn’t talk about it. Instead he did everything he could to talk about anything else, to use her as an escape. He asked her about her book, which turned into a discussion about her favourite books. He asked questions about stuff he remembered from her apartment. Where she had gotten her Garfield cookie jar? How he wished they had some of her plants to liven up the space. He asked her about what she had done for work before she had gone to work for her father keeping the books. “I never asked, where does Dolly come from?” It was a conversation that lasted from the time he had gotten back until well past midnight when they finally went to bed.

When she woke up the next day he had already gone to do chores. She tidied things up from the night before, before settling down and starting another dusty looking book that had been left forgotten by the original tenants of the apartment all those months ago. 

She was taking a shower when Joel got home, dropping his keys on the table, he froze at the sound of her singing in the shower. She had left the door ajar, whether an invitation or just because she didn’t think he’d be back before she was done, he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t help but find himself walking across the floor towards the half open door, the steam filling the air. It was like a siren calling sailors to their deaths, he knew it was a bad idea but he couldn’t help it.

He heard her voice falter a moment as the door creaked open announcing his presence. When her song continued he knew it was okay. He wasn’t sure why he was doing it, but he was suddenly stripping off his clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor. ‘He was just saving water,’ he thought to himself, ‘it’s not like he hadn’t seen her naked before or she him’ he reasoned.

He shifted the curtain aside and her singing turned to humming as she took a small look over her shoulder as if to double check it was in fact him. It felt so domestic, so familiar. They had in fact showered together once. It had been the middle of summer, they had been in the middle of a heatwave when he snuck out and over to hers for a late night booty call. They were so sweaty, both of them covered in each other's arousal, a cold shower had been needed before he could go back home again.

His fingers brushed her wet hair aside, allowing him access to nuzzle into her neck. “Don’t stop.” he said as her breathing hitched, her little tune coming to an abrupt stop as his hands began to wander down her sides. She closed her eyes, exhaling deeply as her back leaned into his chest behind her. 

“Joel.” she sighed as his lips began to drag across her shoulders.

“Please Dolly, I just wanna forget. Can we just pretend for a little bit? Imagine we’re back in that little apartment of yours, sneaking around behind everyones back, everyone still-”

“Don’t say it.” she quickly interjected, not wanting the fantasy ruined.

“Okay, then sing for me then.”

“Stars shining bright above you,” she began, “Night breezes seem to whisper, I love you. Birds singing in the sycamore tree, dream a little dream of me.” she sang as his hands continued to glide over her soap covered body.

He suddenly spun her around, his lips attaching onto hers as he pushed her back into the tiles, his body leaning into the water of the shower head. He ran his hand up her left thigh, pulling it up to wrap around his body, allowing himself to nestle himself between her legs.

“Joel.” she panted as he began to run his lips along her jaw, then down her neck before she grabbed his face and latched her lips back onto his. His tongue reached out to lick into her mouth and she opened up willingly to him. 

“I need to feel you.” he said as he removed his mouth from hers again.

“Not here.” she said.

He turned off the water and wrapped her in a towel before he carried her over his shoulder to his bedroom, laying her back down onto the sheets. He quickly leaned over her, his lips latching on to hers again. Her fingers flew into his damp hair, pulling him into her. His fingers reached up to pull at the tuck of her towel, revealing her body to him again. 

His fingers traced down the familiar contours of her body, the rough pads of his fingertips dragging across her soft sensitive skin. His large hand, palmed at her breast and he couldn’t help but bite her lower lip as she moaned in reaction to his touch. 

His fingers and his lips continued to trail down further and further until his knees were resting on the floor at the end of the bed, his mouth trailing kisses closer and closer to her awaiting cunt. “Fuck baby, you still get so wet for me.” he cooed as he spread her legs wider with his hands. He wrapped his hands around her hips before he pulled her closer to the end of the bed and his awaiting mouth.

She let out a moan, her head relaxing back amongst the messed up covers as he licked a thick stripe through her folds. “Still taste so sweet for me too.” He said as he took a breath before diving back in.

He had figured out early on the first time they started having sex that his words got a reaction from her. Given her affiliation for books and reading he wasn’t too surprised. Sarah’s mom had hated that kind of stuff. Said it always made her cringe and he was fine with that, kept that side of him hidden, but after Sarah had been born a different kind of hunger and need had set in a single word. Daddy.

As if right on queue, “Fuck, daddy.” she panted. God how he had missed the way she had called him that. It had just come out the second time they had fucked. He had been the drunk one this time and the request had just fell from his mouth as he had been fucking into her from behind. She hadn’t questioned it just said, “Fuck! Yes! Daddy!” As she backed her ass back into him.

It hit differently now though, he wasn’t an actual daddy anymore. As if feeling his hesitancy against her cunt she looked up, saw the slight anguish in his face. When she met his eyes, it was a silent agreement, that term was no longer on the cards.

“Joel.” she said tentatively as she reached out for him, guiding his face away from that place between her legs, encouraging him instead to come and kiss her again.

They shuffled up the bed, laying back down amongst the covers. She wished she could kiss his pain away, suck it right out of him. She rolled him onto his back as she straddled his waist. She was still wet enough for him to slide right in. They took a moment for them both to adjust, their lips still intertwined before he started to slowly thrust up into her. It was soft, sweet, sensual; all the things their sex had never been before. It was sad, it was nostalgic, but it warmed them both, provided a connection neither one of them had had in a while.

“Fuck, I need you.” he said against her lips, his fingers holding tightly to her hips, guiding her up and down the length of his cock. “I needed this. Needed you.”

“Joel.”

“No.No.No.” he said, quickly cutting her off, not wanting her to say something that would take him out of this moment. He thrust up into her deeper and her breathing hitched, his lips eager to chase her moan, to swallow it, to let it live inside him and transform him from the inside out.

She could feel her climax rising, but she felt something else too, a pull at her chest, a knowing feeling of ‘this couldn’t last’, because it never did.

“Come on, let’s go.” Tess called out as they made their way out of the QZ. Joel had finally caved. After weeks of begging from both Dolly and Tess, it was finally agreed, Dolly would go out on a run with them. The deciding factor, they couldn’t leave her alone with no food for a week while they went out searching for the shit those stupid fireflies needed.

“You stay close to me, okay?” Joel said, gun in hand, finger near the trigger, always on alert.

“Joel, she’s not a child.” Tess said, handing Dolly a gun of her own. “You know how to use this right?” Tess checked.

“Yeah, my brother taught me.” Dolly said as she felt the weight of the gun in her hands. She’d also packed her knife, tucking it into the side of her backpack, ready to get out if she needed it, but not gonna get in the way or hurt her during their hike. And it was a hike.

She hadn’t had this much exercise in weeks. “Hold up.” Joel said to Tess as she began to fall behind. Tess grumbled but relented.

“We need to get to the outpost by sundown.” she said.

“I know, I know.” He said, waving her off as he stepped closer to Dolly.

“You good?” he checked in with her, a gentle hand to her arm. 

“Yup.” she nodded, but her hand rubbed at a stitch in her side. “Told you you shouldn’t have kept me cooped up in that apartment like that.”

“Hey, I thought you enjoyed the exercise you got.” he joked quietly so Tess wouldn’t hear. After that first afternoon they had kept fucking. Usually it was when Tess was out but they couldn’t help it. One or two times he had snuck back out into the living room under the guise of getting a glass of water, only to find himself drinking from between her legs instead. Other times they would stay up talking when Tess went to bed first and she had taken his length into her mouth and Joel would have to fight to contain himself.

“Shut up.” she pushed him and he let out a breathy chuckle.

“Come on you two, stop fucking around, lets go.” Tess shouted back to them, but suddenly there was a gunshot. Then a second one. They ducked for cover as bullets began to embed themselves in the rubble of the buildings around them. “Fucking scavengers.” Tess snarled.

Joel propped his elbows up on the hood of a car as he scoped with his rifle for a target. Dolly braced herself against the car at his side as he took the shot before he ducked back down for his own cover again. 

“You okay?” He checked in with her as she got her own gun ready. She didn’t say anything, too scared to find her voice, but she nodded.

“Shit, we need to fall back.” Tess shouted over to them from her cover as the scavengers began to press in on them. 

“Head back that way.” Joel motioned with his hand, indicating a series of raided buildings that had mostly remained intact despite the firebombs from months back.

They ran for cover, quickly getting split up as they bobbed and weaved through the different old doorways and upstairs. Dolly had followed Joel as closely as she could. He’d asked her to stay close to him and she did. She was oddly reminded of just a few weeks back as they raced across an abandoned office space. 

“Get down under here and don’t move until I say so.” Joel said as he motioned for her to climb under one of the desks.

“Joel.” she hissed.

“Wait there. I’ll draw them away and come back to you.” 

“Hey, over here.” A voice called out from the doorway and there was a flurry of footsteps as they continued to chase Joel through a door at the other end of the office.

He had told her to wait there but she couldn’t. There were so many of them. Lord knows where Tess had got to and there was no way he could take them all on his own. She creeped out from her hiding place, briskly walking towards the door Joel and the other men had gone through. 

It lead to a stairwell and she took it down, following the echoing sounds of a commotion at the bottom. When she got down there, there were two bodies lying dead at the base of the stairs, another propped a door open. She continued to follow the trail of bodies to where she could hear Joel’s grunts of exertion as he wrestled with the final two men. 

He had been able to push one back, just enough space and time for him to disarm the other assailant and use his own gun to shoot him in the head, his body crumbling. There was a cling of metal and a snarl as the other guy Joel had originally pushed back, picked up a knife off the floor and began to charge at Joel.

It happened too quickly, Joel couldn’t stop it. “Nooo!” Dolly cried as she ran forward, placing herself between Joel and the assailant.

“DOLLY NO!” Joel cried.

 She stilled as the knife struck her between her ribs. She knew she hadn’t thought this through, knew it was reckless but she couldn’t watch him die, couldn’t let him-.

There was a gunshot behind them as Tess came into view of the doorway. As their attacker collapsed to the floor, he pulled the knife back out, taking it with him. 

Joel quickly leaned forward to catch her, she had gone as white as a sheet, her legs giving out from underneath her.  “Dolly!” His voice called out to her trying to ground her. “Dolly? Stay with me baby. Come on, stay with me.”

“Joel!” Tess shouted at him. 

They could both see it, there was so much blood. Joel pressed his hands to the wound but it wasn’t doing anything. She was bleeding out.

“Come on baby, come on.” Joel kept repeating. 

“Joel.” Her voice was raspy, vision spotting. “Thank you.”

“No. Thank you.” He pressed. “Thank you.” His voice was breathy, tears welling in his eyes.

“I guess you can’t outrun the reaper.” She said breathlessly as her hand fought to touch his face one last time but it was so heavy. Joel reached for it, completing its mission, cradling her blood soaked hand to his cheek.

Her vision went hazy and white at the edges and a figure began to step forward. She fully expected Thanatos, his black cloak and scythe but as the figure stepped forward she saw their stature was a lot smaller, a mass of curls billowing out of the top of her head. She reached out her hand for Dolly. 

Her body went limp in his hands. He couldn’t speak. He had no words. His head fell into her chest as he sobbed. She had been his last remaining tie he had to his old life. Now he had nothing.

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@amy172 @morgaussy @fanfictionaddiction99 @ianknights @lillithpanda