#every thread I have exists with my group!

[newfngs]

if we're writing together you're fully allowed to make mention of the lost boys (if your muse would know of them) and mention michael is part of them/seen with them. he spends every night with them for, like, a month, so you're fully allowed to mention them. you don't have to act as if they don't exist! that's why i got my affiliated group baby<3

[scattered-winter]

woooooo that late night infinite loneliness is hitting again lads

[polyamorouspunk]

“Why Don’t You Just Move?”

A look at rural queerness and the hardcore scene.

With the recent and still on-going tragedy left in the wake of Hurricane Helene, a lot of light is being shed on southern states that make up Appalachia.

There’s a lot of misconceptions about Appalachia and the southern United States as a whole. There are a lot of good users on this website that have put a lot of effort into combating these harmful stereotypes and clearing up misconceptions.

But there’s more than just Appalachia in the south. There’s a lot of middle ground. Places that aren’t as rural as Appalachia, but places that aren’t as populated as cities like Raleigh, Richmond, Memphis, etc.

Places where people gather surrounded by other agricultural hubs.

There are queer people everywhere. In every culture, every religion, every country, in all of history, we have existed. We cannot and we will not be erased.

A common narrative that’s floated around for many years is “if red states are passing laws that are constructive to the LGBT+ community, then why don’t those people just move?”

So why don’t we just move?

I’m sure you can find a lot of well-written posts on here explaining many reasons why queer people not just in the southern states, but all over the world don’t “just move”, and one reason I’ve seen echoed over and over again is that “we have thriving communities here too”. We exist too.

How does one “be punk”?

It’s a question my mutuals and I get a lot, and a lot of us are tired of hearing it.

What does it mean to be punk?

Is it about the music? The clothes? The politics? Can you be punk if? Is it punk if you? Who? What? Where? When?

One common beginner tip to “being punk” is to find and join the local scene. This can lead to a lot of other questions, though. What is a scene? Where does one find the scene? How does one participate in the scene? Is there a minimum requirement?

Rest assured, literally no one is asking this offline.

A hardcore scene is so much more than just hardcore. A scene is a group of people where music is a common thread that builds the basis of other connections. A hardcore scene isn’t necessarily even hardcore.

“You have to listen to punk music to be punk”. Sure. But here’s the thing. In your local hardcore scene you will find: metal musicians, rappers, and more. You will attend shows with blues music, orchestras, and more.

Sometimes it’s not even music at all! Sometimes there is drag! Sometimes there are movie nights! Sometimes there are group outings!

It’s almost like… it’s just a social construct.

What is the local scene? The local scene is loud music. It’s smoking and drinking. It’s stopping by the corner store and the smoke and vape. It’s carpooling. It’s movie nights. It’s text chains. It’s group chats. It’s he-said-she-said. It’s they said. It’s AMAB enbies. It’s people who don’t care about “passing”. It’s DIY HRT. It’s she was a lesbian until she met him. It’s situationships. It’s hooking up and coming down. It’s bouncing from place to place to meet up with each other. It’s showing up someplace and seeing who’s there and waiting around to see who’s coming. It’s late nights spent partying on the weekends and back to school and work come the weekdays. It’s knowing someone by looks or name even if you haven’t put the two together yet. It’s trading socials. It’s Instagram stories and comments. It’s “DM for Address”. It’s “are you going tonight?” It’s “do you need a ride?” It’s “who else is going?”. It’s going somewhere and asking who’s coming. It’s sitting around on broken chairs and lawn furniture passing around a blunt, sharing a 24 pack of beer that 4 of you ran out to get with money you all pooled together, it’s “should we order pizza?” It’s “I brought donuts”. It’s hanging out in each other’s houses and rooms. It’s respecting the businesses that offer to house you. It’s generational friendships. It’s listening to your friends as they joke about their heritage and talk about their cultures. It’s the dog you pet when you’re sitting on the curb in ripped fishnets taking drunk selfies with your friends. It’s the man playing you the harmonica as you sit outside the THC drink bar on a Saturday night. It’s sitting out in the yard listening to someone play an acoustic set where they talk about the war and poverty and politics while you slowly get high surrounded by your friends. It’s sitting on a dock in the middle of the night fishing listening to emo music huddled together with your friends. It’s autistic people showing each other the bugs they’ve found in the dirt. It’s talking about your disabilities together. It’s shoving your friends in the pit and then holding their hands. It’s seeing the cos guys in their 40s and 50s who tend the bar and work the register calling you by whatever name and pronouns you give them. It’s all of this and so much more, and it cannot be conceptualized by one single fashion style, one single music style, one single belief system. It’s not someone calling you out because you went to Chick-Fil-A and don’t you know that’s bad, it’s not someone telling you that you’re a poser because you like Chappell Roan too or your clothes were bought at Forever 21 not thrifted and DIYed.

Everyone likes to talk about folk punk and other genres that bands like Dayz and Daze have popularized- or according to some, commodified and commercialized- but if you’re going to talk about music like folk punk, you’re going to have to respect the areas that it originated in.

Everyone want’s to talk about “local punk bands” when half the bands you’re seeing don’t even fall under the genre of punk.

Your local scene isn’t always going to be skate parks and thrash music.

Sometimes it’s the mom cooking you and all your queer friends dinner on a Friday night in her kitchen with crosses and a picture frame of her family with the quote “live, laugh, love”.

Sometimes it’s sitting around and listening to men who are old enough to be your grandfather with Vietnam Veteran hats play the blues while a pig roasts in a backyard BBQ, even though you’re in your 20s and you have blue hair and pronouns.

It’s sitting around and listening to your elders talk about how the scene used to be “back in the day”. Talk about the shows they’ve been to, the bands they’ve seen in their prime.

It’s asking what you do for work, where do you live, what brought you down here, what’s your college major?

It’s people. It’s people connecting to people. Regardless of the color of their skin. Regardless of gender or sexuality. It’s people of all ages coming together to listen to music with the idea that what you all have in common is living here and now, hating politicians, and thinking that someone should do something about the shitty state the world is in. It’s not a conglomerate. It’s individuality, and there’s no real wrong way of doing it unless you’re a Trump Supporter or a Nazi, and even then, they still have their own factions of the punk scene that are going to overlap with yours on occasion. The best you can do then is stand up for what you believe in and stay safe.

There are scenes just like mine all over this country. In southern states, in rural areas, in places that other, mainly white queers have “written off”.

So why don’t we just move?

Because this is our scene, and it’s what we make it, and in the heart of the south in the Bible Belt, we’re making it a queer-inclusive space despite what’s happening around us.

[scarlettgauthor]

I first posted this in a thread over on BlueSky, but I decided to port (a slightly edited version of) it over here, too.

Entirely aside from the absurd and deeply incorrect idea [NaNoWriMo has posited] that machine-generated text and images are somehow "leveling the playing field" for marginalized groups, I think we need to interrogate the base assumption that acknowledging how people have different abilities is ableist/discriminatory. Everyone SHOULD have access to an equal playing field when it comes to housing, healthcare, the ability to exist in public spaces, participating in general public life, employment, etc.

That doesn't mean every person gets to achieve every dream no matter what.

I am 39 years old and I have scoliosis and genetically tight hamstrings, both of which deeply impact my mobility. I will never be a professional contortionist. If I found a robot made out of tentacles and made it do contortion and then demanded everyone call me a contortionist, I would be rightly laughed out of any contortion community. Also, to make it equivalent, the tentacle robot would be provided for "free" by a huge corporation based on stolen unpaid routines from actual contortionists, and using it would boil drinking water in the Southwest into nothingness every time I asked it to do anything, and the whole point would be to avoid paying actual contortionists.

If you cannot - fully CAN NOT - do something, even with accommodations, that does not make you worth less as a person, and it doesn't mean the accommodations shouldn't exist, but it does mean that maybe that thing is not for you.

But who CAN NOT do things are not who uses "AI." It's people who WILL NOT do things.

"AI art means disabled people can be artists who wouldn't be able to otherwise!" There are armless artists drawing with their feet. There are paralyzed artists drawing with their mouths, or with special tracking software that translates their eye movements into lines. There are deeply dyslexic authors writing via text-to-speech. There are deaf musicians. If you actually want to do a thing and care about doing the thing, you can almost always find a way to do the thing.

Telling a machine to do it for you isn't equalizing access for the marginalized. It's cheating. It's anti-labor. It makes it easier for corporations not to pay creative workers, AND THAT'S IS WHY THEY'RE PUSHING IT EVERYWHERE.

I can't wait for the bubble to burst on machine-generated everything, just like it did for NFTs. When it does some people are going to discover they didn't actually learn anything or develop any transferable skills or make anything they can be proud of.

I hope a few of those people pick up a pencil.

It's never too late to start creating. It's never too late to actually learn something. It's never too late to realize that the work is the point.

[vanessagillings]

I’m posting the ever-so-rare photo of myself alongside one of my characters based on my childhood because today is World Autism Acceptance Day, and I wanted to show my little corner of the internet who this particular autistic person is:  

I was officially diagnosed in February, at age 38 (I’m now 39). A lot of people thought I couldn’t be autistic.  Some people who know me in real life still don’t.  And until around 10 years ago, I didn’t think I could be either, because I was nothing like the stereotype media portrays. I was told that autistics lacked empathy (untrue), and never played make-believe (also often untrue) and only enjoyed STEM.  I was — and am — an empathetic artist -- and make believe?  I can spend days sketching finely bedecked bears brewing tea or carefully choosing the right words to weave tapestries of fiction — though perhaps my hyper focus was a bit of a red flag.  Even so, how could autism describe me?  I was a good student.  I got straight A's. I didn’t act out in class.  I can make eye contact…if I must.  And lots of girls hate having their hair brushed with an unholy passion, right?  Clearly I swim in sarcasm like a fish, so autism couldn't be why I was so anxious all the time, could it?

If someone had told me when I was younger what autism ACTUALLY is — instead of the nonsense I’d seen on screens — I would have seen myself in it.  I didn’t hear that autistics have sensory issues until I was in my mid-twenties, which is when I first began to really research autism symptoms, and I had almost all of them:  sensitivity to light, smells, fabrics, temperatures, textures, and certain touches, all of which make me feel anxious, I fidget (stim), I never know what the hell to do with my hands or where to look, I talk too little or too much, I have special interests, I have entire animated movies memorized shot-by-shot and can remember the first time and place I saw every movie I've ever seen but I often forget what I'm trying to say mid-sentence, I echo movies and tv shows (my husband and I have a whole repertoire of shared echolalias, making up about 20% of our conversations), I was in speech therapy as a kid, I have issues with dysnomia and verbal fluency, I toe-walk, I can't multitask to save my life, I like things just-so, I’m deeply introverted but not shy, I need to recover from all social interaction — even social interaction I enjoy — and I find stupid, every day things like grocery shopping, driving and making appointments overwhelming and intensely stressful, sometimes to the point where I struggle to speak.  It turns out, I am definitely autistic. My results weren't borderline. Not even close. And while these aren’t all of my challenges, and not everyone with these symptoms is autistic, it’s definitely something to look into if you present with all of these things at once. 

So why did it take me so long to get diagnosed? The same bias that exists in media threads through the medical community as well, and because I'm a woman who can discuss the weather while smiling on cue, few people thought I was worth looking into. Even after I was fairly certain I was autistic, receiving an official diagnosis in the US is unnecessarily difficult and expensive, and in my case, completely uncovered by my insurance.  It cost me over $4000, and I could only afford it because my husband makes more money than I do as a freelance illustrator — a job I fell into largely because it didn’t require in-person work; like many autists, I have been chronically underemployed and underpaid, in part due to physical illness in my twenties, which is a topic for another day.  But it shouldn’t be like this.  It shouldn’t be so hard for adults to receive diagnoses and it shouldn’t be so hard for people to see themselves in this condition to begin with due to misinformation and stereotypes. Like many issues in America, these barriers are even higher for marginalized groups with multiple intersectionalities. 

It’s commonly said that if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.  This is why it’s called a spectrum, not because there’s a linear progression of severity (someone who appears to have low support needs like myself might need more than it seems, and vice versa), but because every autistic person has their own strengths and weaknesses, challenges and experiences, opinions and needs.  No two people on the spectrum present in the same way.  And that’s a good thing!  No way of being autistic is inherently any better than any other, and even if someone on the spectrum struggles with things I don’t — or can do things I can’t — doesn’t make them more or less deserving of respect and human dignity.

But speaking solely for myself, the more I learn about autism, the happier I am to be autistic.  I struggle to find words and exert fine motor control, but my deep passion and fixation has made me good at art and storytelling anyway.  I find more joy watching dogs and studying leaf shapes on my walks than most people do in an entire day.  More often than not, the barriers I’ve faced weren’t due to my autism directly, but due to society being overly rigid about what it considers a valid way of existing.  My hope in writing this today is that maybe one person will realize that autism isn’t what they thought — and that being different is not the same as being less than. My hope with my fiction is to give autistic children mirrors with which to see themselves, and everyone else windows through which to see us as we actually are.

If you’re interested in learning more about autism or think you might be autistic, too, I recommend the Autism Self Advocacy Network  autisticadvocacy.org and the following books:

What I Mean When I Say I’m Autistic by Annie Kotowicz

We're Not Broken by Eric Garcia

Knowing Why edited by Elizabeth Bartmess

Unmasking Autism by Devon Price, PhD

Loud Hands edited by Julia Bascom

Neurotribes by Steve Silberman

(trigger warning: the last two contain quite a lot of upsetting material involving institutionalized child abuse, but I think it’s important for people to know how often autistic children were — and are — abused simply for being neurodivergent).

Thanks for reading 💛

[millersfinest]

the thing in your chest that beats | e.w

santa barbara!ellie williams & ex-firefly!reader

wc: 5k

mini-series: california (you’re here) | oregon | idaho | wyoming

blurb: you put up a good fight with those rattlers, but it wasn’t good enough—all it got you was strung up near a beach where the sun scorched you dry. abruptly, their set-up gets fucked by their own prisoners, saving your life by only a thread. but the wrath that lingered under your skin was immense, and you’re not the only one to experience that phenomenon. when another damaged soul encounters your brittle state; the dreams that put you in a tough position manifest into reality. along with a few extra miscellaneous things…

cw: angry!r, mentions of fate, santa barbara arc, infected, shooting, lots of exposition, torture, violence, vulgar language, slow-burn romance, eventual smut, proximity trope, both reader and ellie on a path of redemption.

note: this first part is lowkey boring imo, but i hope the angst makes up for it. as always, please enjoy my hyperfixation!!

California

Ropes chafed at your skin; securing your legs and wrists on top of each other to the wooden post. Fog had shielded the setting sun from your skin—after many hours of being scorched. Your muscles ached and your bones were sore. The exposed skin on your shoulders and chest was dry and flaking, exposing an under layer of tenderness. Everything fucking hurt. But you were barely there; head nodding off from the scratching at your stomach and the dryness in your mouth ripping your lips apart.

How did you, a firefly, militarily trained, end up tied to a pillar at the cusp of a beach in Santa Barbara?

You were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. This group searched for people like you—lonely and pillaged by the weight of the world. You were too distracted to foresee their deception; they got lucky with you.

Until the chemical reactions in your brain short-circuited, causing you to act out in the name of self-preservation.

Wrath, by definition, is a trait you’re easily overcome with. It’s not just something that passes through you like other traits and emotions. It holds on. It makes a home in your body and directs you like a rabid dog—a burdening feeling that nestled between your sore muscles. It filled you with adrenaline to kill and destroy—to get rid of the people who tried to get rid of you.

And, every time, you managed to find yourself feeling bad about it. There was no explanation for that. Just your heart being too sensitive for world you existed in—it was constantly broken. By yourself and your circumstances.

It was your own fault that you were captured by the rattlers. You should’ve never left Catalina Island for a pipe dream. There wasn’t anything better than the firefly base—you should’ve known that and never left. Perhaps, if you had remained under the duty of your earned dog tags, you wouldn’t have been thrusted into the situation that you were in.

Wyoming was a lie that you told yourself because you wanted to live a life that didn’t exist.

Locked in a debate with death, your body abruptly hit the dense surface of the sand. The ropes that bound you to that skewer had been severed by a fallen angel. A prisoner you had attached yourself to in the hopes of survival. Her hair was coily and reflected copper under the Californian sun.

You came to from the impact, finally beginning to hear the ongoing gunfire coming from the resort buildings. As you twitched in pain, she cut the bindings at your wrists and ankles. Tucking a pistol into your hand, she muttered words of hope. “Good luck out there, hotshot.”

Your lips moved to respond, but there wasn’t any sound. It didn’t matter, though, because she wasn’t around to hear it. The young woman at once took off in the opposite direction of the chaos with a bag over her shoulder.

Stuck in a dilemma, you didn’t move for a few moments. Eyes stuck on the weight in your weak hands. It was nothing but a black semi-automatic—it weighed nothing compared to bigger firearms. However, it sunk your hand into the sand as if it weighed a ton. You couldn’t even hold a gun with the same conviction that you used to. Yet, the fallen angel had faith that you could.

Taking in a deep wheezing breath, you tried to stand to your feet. You got up enough for your knees to bend, but once you extended them, you crashed back into the sand with a thud. In temporary defeat, you looked to the people still suspended on the pillars. They were unmoving, rotting away from the inside out. That could’ve been you if it weren’t for her cutting you down.

In mourning them, you gave standing another attempt. Keeping your hands low to catch your fall. But you didn’t fall. The muscles in your legs were weak, trembling as you stretched them. With a hunch in your back, you grabbed the gun, adjusting it in your hands. Your professional form remained the same as remnants of your training. Placing your hands over one another on the handle, supporting its weight. Aiming the barrel toward nothing specific, just to get the feeling again. It’s been months since you had opportunity to defend yourself.

With as much quickness that you could muster, you went through the resort to grab supplies. A backpack, medkit, and some food.

Setting your mind on leaving, you tried to sneak through the gunfire between the prisoners and the rattlers. But that simply wasn’t in the cards for you.

Before you could escape the resort, one of them had a bone to pick with you. It was the same rattler that was your deceptive captor. She used her femininity to convince you that she needed help—that she was weak and she needed your help. If anything, you have a bone to pick with her.

She had come at you with her bear hands, pushing your face up against a wall. She tore the backpack from your back, throwing it to the side. Where did her wrath come from? Somehow, you managed to get the upper hand. Straddling her body delivering punches that you haven’t in awhile. It felt natural to you to release such violence against another person.

Through beating her bloody, you found your power again. Tearing off the shimmering dog tags around her neck that had previously belonged to you. Heaving, you looked down at her. She had split your lip and broken your nose, but you could argue that you did worse to her. Her nose was cracked in multiple places, as she coughed up her own blood and teeth. It slipped down the crevices of her face, dribbling into her brown eyes.

“Fuck you.” You firmly speak, picking up your bag from its straps, swinging it around your shoulders.

From the fight, you had stumbled into a room of firearms. Still weak, you limped around. Causing you to walk away from the damage with a Beretta A300 shotgun and ammunition.

Like it was a prize after a big challenge.

You found yourself stumbling along the sand of the beach you were stuck on. This time, closer to the foggy waters of the coast. Ignoring the throbbing sensation in your thigh. You were barely sentient, running on nothing but fumes. But you knew you had to get as far from Santa Barbara as you could.

All of sudden, darkness began encapsulating your eyes from the outside in. Your limbs grew heavier, slowing down the pace of your movements—you collapsed into the sand like the damsel you had become.

When your eyes fluttered open, you were laying on an itchy couch. Waking up felt like awaking from a coma. Sitting up was a chore because of the tightness of your muscles. You felt it like a sickness in your chest. Trying to move your legs, you sucked in a pained breath. A hole that was cut into your ripped jeans was covered by white wrapping. Gauze.

A single lantern in the middle of the living room illuminated the space. It was placed on a dusty coffee table—off-center. Your backpack and weapons leaned against an entertainment center; a large cabinet that combined the use of compartments as well as a space for the tv to fit.

Blinking slowly, you tried to remember how you got there. Fingers gripping at the cushions, experiencing a crazy amount of brain fog. A wrapper crackled under the weight of your hand as you shifted. It was a granola bar tucked under the pillow that you laid your head on.

You stomach scratched at your abdomen, so you wasted no time in retrieving it—ripping open the wrapper and biting into the nutty granola. The side of your foot kicked over a metal canister, accidentally. Clashing toward the scratched wooden floors, it startled you. Reaching down, you shook it in your hands. There was a liquid inside. Screwing the lid off, you realized it was only water. Something else your body demanded of you.

Who put all this stuff here? It couldn’t have been you.

A creak from the side of the room, caused you to snap your head in that direction. Chewing slowly on the oats in your mouth, your eyebrows scrunched. Your free hand felt your hip from the cool metal of that gifted pistol, but there was nothing but the fabric of your jeans.

By the time she came into your view, your body froze. Your gun was across the room, she had the advantage. She loomed in the darker parts of the room as if she were hiding from you—in a way that was prey-ish, rather than predatory.

“I didn’t think you’d wake up…”

Her voice was raspy, and she spoke with a slow cadence. When she came into the light, she kept her distance. By the corner of the entertainment center cabinet—on the opposite end of where your bag was laying. Her auburn strands were choppy and tucked behind her ears. She wore a white t-shirt that was filthy with, what looked like, blood and dirt. Hands fidgeting with each other in front of her body as she eyed you with concern. She was missing her pinky and ring finger from her left hand. “You’d been out for hours… I, uhm, stitched up a wound on your leg— thought you might’ve caught an infection.”

She lacked conviction when she spoke to you. Voice leaving with a sort of emptiness, or perhaps, guilt. “Where’d you find me?” You asked, gritting your jaw. Holding onto the metal canister tight enough to use as a weapon if need be. That last thing you wanted was to be fooled by a stranger again.

She cleared her throat. “The beach.”

That’s when it hit you. The memories of your weakness hit. You remember dragging your legs through the sand, catching the glimpse of a body sitting in the water beside a vacant boat, then falling into a deep sleep. Of course, you, somehow, offered yourself up to a stranger.

It was just your luck, huh?

“There were others you could’ve helped… Why me?”

A scoff fell from her lips. Scarred eyebrows jutting together; an attitude washing over her freckled features. As if your words were charged with something else besides cautious curiosity. “I was expecting more of a thank you...”

You blinked, sucked your teeth. “I don’t know you from a can of fucking paint— so, you should lower your expectations.” You retorted, boring your eyes into her slender figure. What alarmed her was how your voice scolded gently. It cut deeper that way. “I mean, what is that on your shirt? Blood? Would you wanna thank some stranger in a bloody shirt?”

She crossed her arms, shaking her head. “Have you seen yourself?” Her thick eyebrow raised, voice dropping an octave. “You look like shit—“

You glanced at the shirt that clung to you perspiring body. It also had remnants of blood and dirt and sand. Leaning your elbows on your thighs, you leaned forward. “Fuck you! You have no idea what I’ve been through—!”

“And you know what I’ve been through?” She countered, scoffing after her words.

You talked over each other—barking like unfamiliar dogs. Wrath came easy to you; and, apparently, it came easy to her, too. Her words silenced you, but you grit your teeth. “I should’ve left you where I found you— fuckin’ joke’s on me.” She ran a hand through her short hair, taking long strides out of the living room. Preparing to sink back into the corner she came from.

Clearing your throat, you swallowed your pride. There was a sincerity behind her eyes that you couldn’t ignore. Her anger radiated off her epidermis is such a way that it was familiar. “All right,” You sighed, positioning your body slowly to face her departing figure. She’d stopped in her path, peering over her boney shoulder. “I don’t recognize you from the cells… Or the pillars. Who the fuck are you?” Your eyebrows furrowed, voice weakening by the mention of your greatest failure: becoming a slave to the weirdest assholes known to man.

Wheels shifted in her mind, her olive eyes flickering around in the dark, in thought. Lips opening and closing, trying to formulate her words—but there was no use. She decided to resume her steps, sequestering herself in a bedroom. You heard the sound of the door shutting and locking the door behind her.

Groaning, you shut your eyes, leaning your head against the soft, itchy pillows, frustrated.

Unbeknownst to you, she’d locked herself in that room because she found herself overcome with emotion—hot, streaming tears. She didn’t know you as much as you didn’t know her, and she wasn’t going to share her own greatest failures with you. If what you were saying was true, you were victimized. How could someone like her talk to someone like you? After the things she’s done… After the things she was prepared to do.

The sun ascended, with the two of you lingering in separate rooms. You had eventually fallen asleep after some hours in your thoughts. Wondering about the story of the woman sheltering herself from you. Multiple times, you had to stop yourself from dwelling. This is what got you caught up with the first time. Instead, you began to think about what your plans were.

Were you going to resume your journey to Wyoming, in the hopes of finding that settlement? Or were you going to hitch it back to Catalina Island? And hope to God that they take you back with minimal consequences. Dwelling on those thoughts, instead of her, is what brought you to sleep.

When you woke up, you finished the metal canister of water. Giving the room a proper once-over. Sun rays cascaded through the dusty windows like beams, illuminating the room, angelically. Taking a deep breath, you decided to walk around. The soreness in your body hadn’t changed—you still felt burdened by your own body.

The home was a single-leveled Tuscan inspired home. Its interior was riddled with browns and beiges. Dragging your feet against the wooden floor, you entered the kitchen. All the cabinets were blown open and searched through. You assumed it was that woman who you’d met—still, you didn’t know her name.

Looking down at the counters, there was a yellow-paged note on the furthest one from you. The island closest to her bedroom. It was lying under a pill bottle. You shifted as quickly as you could to the note, sliding the pill bottle to the side, but not without a glance. They were antibiotics.

Found the antibiotics in the cabinets this morning, there’s only two left. Take them both.

I left to go hunt for some food. Stay in the house if you know what’s best for yourself. There’s infected around.

I’ll be back soon.

— E

You scoffed, rolling your eyes. “If I know what’s best for myself…” Pressing into the top of the bottle, you unscrewed it. With nothing but your saliva, you knocked back two of the pills just like she told you. However, not because she told you to. There were many reasons for you to catch an infection from the wound on your leg—the wound you didn’t even remember how you got.

“I can handle infected.” You muttered to yourself. It’s been awhile since you really dealt with them face-to-face, but it was an innate ability. Why wouldn’t you be able to defend yourself from infected? Your only limits were your body stuck in its state of pain.

But, where you come from, sometimes it took movement to heal pain. Pushing through soreness and tightness was the only way to move forward.

So, instead of waiting around for E to come back around. You decided to explore some of the nearby houses. Ones that were only a few paces away from the house that you were currently in—you weren’t that stupid.

You secured your backpack around your shoulders, hooking the strap of your shotgun around your arm, and sticking the pistol in the back of your jeans. The first stop was next door. Slowly, you had climbed through a broken window. Landing in a bedroom decorated with childish posters. Focusing, you found yourself busy with looting the home. Taking things of importance and putting them inside of your bag.

You didn’t run into anything shocking until the third place you visited—three houses down. Thankfully, there was no clicking, but there were the familiar wailings of a runner. Catching a glimpse of coily copper hair, huddled over sobbing in her hands, you crouched behind a wall. Eyes shifting from side to side, trying to digest the visual.

Good luck, hotshot.

Perhaps, it was her who really needed the luck. Slowly, you removed the gun from your shoulder, leaning it against the wall. The breaths from your lips fled in chunks, pulling the gifted pistol from your waistband. You had known her for the entirety of your stay at that treacherous resort—she was your anchor. She helped you with your anger, keeping you under an emotional routine. Later, it worked for the worst instead of the better, but she tried to help you in there. She was patient with you.

You stepped from the wall, aiming the chamber of the pistol at the back of her head. You didn’t know her for that long, but you knew she wouldn’t want something like this for herself. She had plans just like you did—she wanted out of California. Leaving her to stumble around this broken home would be fucked up.

She freed you. Now, it was time for you to free her.

“You deserved better than this, Honey.” She was sweet and tangy like honey; that’s why you called her that. It wasn’t even her name—you didn’t know her name.

Your index finger squeezed the trigger, sending the bullet straight through her unsuspecting mind. Her whines were more coherent, meaning that all of that just happened. The infection had just taken over. A tear had slipped down the fat of your cheek when her body hit the ground. The shot echoing against the walls and through the neighborhood.

She lasted no longer than a day on her own, and those rattlers were nothing but the blame. They drained you enough to make you suffer but keep you working. But, out on the road, you stood no chance.

There was a piece of notebook paper on the floor by the baseboards of the wall Honey’s body laid beside. With a lump in your throat, you plucked it from the ground, holding it delicately in your hands.

After months of captivity, I’ve found myself in a situation that I could have never imagined. I didn’t notice when the clicker bit me, everything happened so fast!

It hurts now, though, a lot. And the anticipation of the infection is worser than I expected it to be. This is the part where I put a gun in mouth to end it all.

I’m too tired to do that. For once, I don’t wanna fight.

I apologize to those who end up witnessing what I have become.

The palm of your hand covered your mouth in shock as you read the letter. Honey must’ve been horrified. And it hurt to know that she went through it all alone.

Catching you in a grieving state, E had vaulted through a broken window with her gun in hand. Her olive eyes landed on you, subsiding the subtle look of shock on her face. “I thought I told you to stay in the house.” She tucked the pistol into the waistband of her jeans, sighing. “You’re in no condition to travel alone…” Her eyes casted onto your frame leaning over a marble counter, reading over the letter silently.

Hearing her footsteps, you folded up the letter and slid it into your back pocket. Taking a final look at the dead woman on the floor, a reflection of your friend that didn’t exist anymore, you brush past the the auburn-haired woman. Shoulders grazing as you achingly climb out of the same window she came in from.

Without saying, what happened to Honey worried you. Loneliness was a cruelty that many could afford—you experienced it. But loneliness along with bodily ailments wasn’t a problem you wanted. If it weren’t for E, you could’ve been in the same position as Honey. What made you worth saving and not her? A ball of fury, like yourself, should’ve been the first to go.

Yet, a level of gratefulness washed over you. Were you ready to thank the freckled stranger for her saviorship?

E followed you back to the house, binding the front door with furniture. Entering, you noticed two rabbits attached to a string laying on the tiled counter. Impressed, you hummed, while dragging your feet toward the couch you had slept on. You shrugged off your backpack and leaned your shotgun against the wall.

The auburn-haired woman peered at you, messing with rabbits, pulling them off the string to prepare to cook them. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” She breathed. Her voice coming out like a muttered sigh, but it was loudly quiet in the house. Therefore, your ears picked up on her words.

You ignored her, pulling out the note, and kicking your feet up onto the couch to read it again. Analyzing the messy handwriting on the page, tainted with dried tears and dirty hand prints. E had brought in a metal trashcan to cook the animals she hunted for the both of you. Every so often, peaking at you with interest and wonder.

When the rabbits were cooked, she brought it over to you in a chipped ceramic bowl. “Thanks…” You mutter, barely meeting her eyes.

“Yeah,” She answered, slightly taken off guard.

The two of you eat separately, on different sides of the room. E didn’t retreat back into the room had the night before. Instead, she propped herself on the stool by the island table. Where she could keep her intense olive eyes on you—attempting to read you without asking questions.

You were impressed by the rabbit presented to you. Back at the base, you were familiar with chicken more so than rabbit, though. There was a hesitation when taking the first bite. But the rumble in your belly was satisfied by the animal, and that was all that mattered.

Feeling a strong gaze on you, peering to the side was a natural reaction. She’d snap her eyes back to her plate before you could fully catch her. Sighing, you set the plate on the coffee table in front of the couch.

In your looting, a bottle of wine called out to you from the basement of one of the Tuscan homes. You limped toward the kitchen with your calloused hand wrapped around the sloped neck of the bottle. Placing the bottle at the middle of the island, you take a seat at the furthest end from her. “I thought I would properly thank you for saving my ass…” You cleared your throat, awkwardly. Choosing to keep your eyes trained on your fidgeting fingers. “It’s Cabernet, I think. The label’s kind of rubbed off.”

“I’m not much of a drinker.”

You pursed your lips, flickering your eyes to peer at her. “Hm.” You hum. “Okay, well, more for me, I guess.” You shrug, reaching for the wine. The plan was to drink it either way—if she wanted it, or if she didn’t. Peeling off the wrapper, you were happy to see that it was a screw top instead of an imbedded cork.

Taking the first sip, its sweetness spread over your tongue. The alcohol percentage was fairly high, so you were expecting a pleasurable feeling within the next few minutes. If you kept gulping at the bottle. You deserved a bit of man-made solace after what you’ve been through. After the things you’ve seen. Taking another sip, you prepare to go back to the couch you were sat on, with the bottle in your hand.

However, E places a hand on the cool tiles. “Wait…” She rolled her eyes. “One sip wouldn’t hurt.” In her silence, she realized that she also deserved a few moments of calmness—self-care.

The corners of your lips curled, sitting back down on your stool. You slid the bottle close enough for her to reach it, leaning your head against your fist.

Orange rays of the sun shifted through the room; setting so the moon could take her place. You and E had found comfort in the wine and in the space between yourselves. Scooting close to each other until there was only a single stool in the center of you. Talking about the more joyous parts of your lives—which, surprisingly, wasn’t much. The pair of you managed to keep the important information off the record. Upholding a level of vagueness between your truth.

When E had brought up her son and girlfriend, that’s when the energy shifted in the room.

“You have a family? Then… Why are you out here?”

A beat slivered between you, circling your bodies like a ribbon.

“I recognize those dog tags… You’re a firefly? I thought they shut down years ago.” She spoke with rigid shoulders, taking a swig of the Cabernet.

Your hand reached for the thin metal around your neck, decorating your exposed collarbones. There was a disconnect between you and the facility you had grown up in. While you loved the support of the community, as you got older, you wanted something different. “Yeah, after everything shut down, another popped up here—in California. It’s the only one left, I believe.”

She chuckled, cheeks flushed from the alcohol accumulating in her system. “Hm. Are you gonna try and recruit me into your little cult? Is that why you’re still out here?”

Deepening your eyebrows, you peered down at the grout between the tiles under your hands. “Probably… If I still was a firefly…” Slowly, you enunciated. “I haven’t been one for months now.”

“Ah, you went rogue.”

“I wouldn’t say that… But, yeah, I guess.” You rolled your eyes, reaching for the wine bottle. She put it in your hand, leaning her elbow against the counter. E left room for you speak, just boring her hazed eyes into your frame. “I was done with being an asshole for a living— I don’t want to just survive anymore… I want to live.” You take a large swig of the wine, lamenting subtly.

Look where desiring life got you. Locked up as a slave for another bunch of assholes. “I heard from some people that there was a place in Wyoming that wasn’t anything like the fireflies.” You inhaled, sharply. “I could live a normal life there— maybe it’s a stupid idea… I don’t know.”

E deepened her thick eyebrows, leaning forward. “Are you talking about Jackson?”

“Yeah, I think so. There was a map in my bag that had the name. I lost it when the rattlers got ahold of me.”

With scrunched face, she stood to her feet. Running her hands over her face, releasing a tired sigh. “It’s not that stupid of an idea…” Looking back at you, she placed her hands on her hips. “That’s where I’m headed— Jackson, Wyoming.”

“Oh…”

Was this the fated reasoning behind why the both of you met? Both harboring an inner pain and guilt for something or someone. Two damaged souls meeting in the middle—this could be a productive exchange. But what would E receive?

She swore under her breath, running her fingers through her hair, stressfully. “You could come with me, it’s not like you’d get far in your condition alone.” She blinked, casually. You scoff at her words, sucking your teeth. She could never just be kind. Sure, it was obvious that you were injured—in horrible shape—but you weren’t inherently weak. You were a trained individual, something that most people couldn’t say.

“I’d feel like an asshole if I didn’t at least offer. It’s a long journey—“

“Oh, you still come off like an asshole, but I appreciate the offer.” You nod, jumping from the stool. “Those fucks threw me off track— I wouldn’t even know where to start up again… So, yeah, I’ll go with you.”

She nodded, pursing her lips. “Don’t make me regret this.”

“You don’t make me regret this. I have a bad history when it comes to trusting strangers.” You pressed your lips into a line, leaning against the island for support. There was a slight sway to stance, as the world around you didn’t feel stable.

“Okay, well, you have my word.” She affirmed, sliding her hands into her back pockets. “Do I have yours?”

You inhaled, sharply, glancing at the ceiling. “Yes, you have my word… On the condition that you tell me your name.” She narrowed her eyes at you, the corners of her lips curling. “We can’t possibly travel together if we don’t know each other’s names.”

The auburn-haired woman picked up the backpack she threw against the lower cabinets, slinging it over her shoulder. She was preparing to huddle into that bedroom again. Before leaving you in the dim hue of the few lanterns in the room, she spoke. “Ellie. My name’s Ellie.”

She waited by her door for your answer, with a raised eyebrow. You gave her your name, plainly. Straightening the hunch in your back—feigning a level of stoicism.

The only response she gave was a hum, before locking herself away. Releasing a sigh of relief, you smiled. Wyoming wasn’t the pipe dream you thought it to be. Yeah, the experiences you had leading up to that conversation weren’t the best. In fact, those experiences scarred everything about you. But could this have been the reason behind your hellish encounters?

[olderthannetfic]

hi, as someone who is tragically gen Z and only ever read AO3, can I ask: what was so great about LiveJournal? Like, I know that there were fics posted there (and I've even read about the "purge", so I get why it isn't used anymore) and that it was sort of a forum-type thing. But what I don't understand, wouldn't Tumblr fill in the latter function? How was that site any different? I see a lot of people reminiscing about it and I'm confused

--

A big factor in LJ's greatness is timing and nostalgia.

It was genuinely great, but it wasn't quite as great as all of the Lo, shall the Golden Age ne'er come again? posts suggest.

LJ arrived at a pivotal time in the development of the internet both in terms of technical stuff and how many people had access. Many fans who are now in their thirties to fifties first discovered fandom through LJ and many were at a time in their lives when they were feeling energetic and up to making lots of new friends—and to figuring out how to make a site work for them.

I got on LJ in 2002 when it required invites. Fandom arrived in droves in 2003, first via coordinated campaigns to get invites to key people and then when LJ opened up free account creation to everyone. Back then, LJ's features sucked. It was impossible to search properly, among other things. At its height (2005-7, let's say), there was a reasonable site search, and fans had developed all sorts of community resources for finding each other.

People often remember this phase but not the early days of suckitude.

This development parallels how Tumblr used to not have that private chat feature and how a lot of fuckyeah[whatever] type tumblrs have helped curate the site and make it much more usable for fans. Fandom draining away from LJ after strikethrough also parallels people draining away from Tumblr after the purge.

There are people who talk about Tumblr the way my cohort talks about LJ...

And to the shock of no one, they are people who came of age on Tumblr, who found fandom via Tumblr, who were on Tumblr during pivotal times in their lives and ones when they had energy to make friends and figure out how a site worked.

Those same Tumblrites are now making all the same geriatric-sounding posts we LJers do about how other sites lack the required features to be good for fandom while missing that 90% of tumblr's "features" at its height (2012-2016, let's say) were actually fan-created and were basically the same as any fandom newsletter or links page or all the versions of this kind of personal curation stretching back to long before the internet existed.

What life phase you hit a site at matters.

--

With all of that said, no, LJ was not a forum. It was a blogging site with threaded comments.

The key point to understand is that conversation was always happening in a specific person's space. Unlike on a true forum, people were in the comments on a particular post in a journal owned by another fan. (On a forum, there's the first post in a thread, but it's still more of a communal space with less of a hierarchy.)

Overall, the LJ format can have a feeling a bit like you're over at someone's house for tea. There's more of a sense of intimacy and also behaving yourself in front of community members.

Tumblr being obscure and impossible to find anything in does give it some of the same vibe relative to Twitter, but it's still part of modern social media that tries to shove every rando into the face of every other rando.

But it wasn't just vibes: LJ also had robust privacy features where you could lock a post to this or that group of friends. You could moderate your comments section properly. Tumblr has far fewer controls to force people to behave or leave on a technical level.

--

The biggest thing many people miss about LJ is the threaded comments. At least by late LJ and on Dreamwidth, you can expand and collapse threads, making it far easier to deal with a massive comments section. But more than that, things are properly threaded with multiple levels of hierarchy that are all easily visible in the same place.

On Tumblr, it used to be extremely difficult to find all of the actual commentary on a post. Nowadays, it's far easier, but you still have to scroll chronologically, and multiple versions of a post with a long chain of commentary may be much more divorced from each other than what would happen in a LJ comments section.

--

But could we use Tumblr pretty much how we used LJ?

We could.

I do.

--

The key things that people tend to miss about LJ, aside from the younger and more excited version of themselves or the friends they've lost since then, are:

Heavily text-based

It may sound odd on the modern internet, but there are a lot of people whose brains don't like or handle an image-heavy site well. They were everywhere in SF book fandom. They were everywhere on the early internet. Today, they're hanging out on Dreamwidth and still going to their SF cons. They're usually not on Tumblr.

You could follow the discussion

Threaded comments help, but a lot of it is about having some place you can check for updates. It wasn't actually that easy to follow big LJ discussions unless you were subscribed to comments and reading along as things were happening instead of coming along after the entire mass of comments had been left.

The tone of the discussion is intellectual and one's enemies are "idiots", not "problematic"

All this requires is a penchant for longwindedness and an itchy blocking finger to remove anyone slinging ad hominems from the comments section.

On tumblr, it's as simple as conversations happening in the replies on a popular account and that person not tolerating suibaiting and threats.

(And make no mistake, a lot of LJ discussion was in the comments on popular accounts, not spread equally between everyone's.)

It does require that multiple people like that tone and want to engage in that way, but lots of people do want to.

--

These days, I interact with tumblr by checking my askbox and reading my activity page. The vast, vast majority of my posts are ones where I'm the OP, so if I block someone, they're booted from the discussion entirely.

For me... yeah, Tumblr functions almost exactly like LJ.

Also like LJ, while I'm hosting the conversation, if you hang around, you'll see the same people again and again in the comments. They may or may not also host that kind of conversation in their space, and there's a larger pool of lurkers who have some notion of which people count as regulars. Other people are watching from the shadows, enjoying or deriding the takes of the usual crowd.

People presumably do like reading my lengthy commentary or they wouldn't be here, but my tumblr wouldn't be popular like this without a healthy pool of other people who chime in regularly. It's not just that there are more people: it's that you see the same people over time. There's a bit more sense of place and community than on some parts of the internet.

--

So, in my opinion, the failure to just recreate LJ fandom on Tumblr was a skill issue.

Threaded comments were great, but LJ culture came from mailing lists, and mailing lists had the same issue as tumblr with the diverging threads.

We solved that back then by clipping out only the parts we wanted to respond to (you'd write "snip" around the quotation to show it was incomplete). We solved the smaller LJ issue by linking to other posts we were referencing and doing discussion link roundups. We solve it on tumblr by, again, linking to what we're talking about and even quoting multiple reblog chains in our own reblog of just one chain.

--

Tumblr's technical features and even general crap-ness aren't really the problem. 90s and early 00s sites regularly went down for periods of time unthinkable today.

The missing piece is people.

When one is in an active fandom with others who curate or with friends who let one know what's up, a site with imperfect features is easy to figure out and retrofit for fandom's needs. When one already feels out of touch and is between fannish passions—or at least fannish passions anyone else cares about—seeing the potential in a new site is hard.

--

Threaded comments are different and better.

LJ's built-in way to see everyone's blog in your own style was better. The automatic timestamps and the ease of seeing a paginated archive of an entire blog was better than tumblr's endless scroll and lack of clear date labeling. But some of that can be fixed with xkit or knowing your way around tumblr well.

A lot of it is nostalgia for the lj era and a refusal to take the time to figure out how to use tumblr in an oldschool internet way.

--

So by all means, people, weigh in about what made LJ great or how the culture felt at the time...

But if I see one more god damn response going "You can't have a conversation on tumblr!" in reply to my tumblr, which contains nothing but conversation, I am coming for you.

[nondualiber]

(small tw: death threads) the anon from the last time (blocked now ofc) wrote another message saying i should kms because i was a fraud and i never manifested anything(?) and that gave me the idea of making today's post :)

every single thing i manifested so far & things i am (or will) manifesting

things i already manifested

an incredible, excessive amount of ice cream and cakes

shiny, long, healthy hair

stop being bullied & changing schools

fixing my relationship with a girl that ghosted me and talked shit about me for two years

a flat tummy + small waist

my grandmother beating cancer :)

my brother being nicer & getting him a school (he's autistic so a lot of schools were rejecting him last year)

random people being in love with me (exactly 15 ppl has)

perfectly clear skin

my db - in progress ;)

my family having lots of money

moving to my desired house

having braces

a boat

TONS of my desired clothes

lucid dreaming almost every night

skipping school (i had 76 absences last year 💀)...

but still approving with the highest marks 😝 (9.7 average)

traveling to Brazil

going to a taylor swift concert

things i am manifesting

traveling to Italy to see a friend of mine

entering the void on command

my family being even richer - no amount of money is ever enough money 🎀

me and all of my friends going to my desired school

my df

an iphone

revising that a certain group of people doesn't exist and never did

Argentina being a rich, safe country

an sp :)

being friends with desired person

[teojira]

Running our fingers through their fur, either as grooming or being half asleep and looking for the blanket lol

[Noa + Caesar and touching their fur] [drabbles]

Summary: Touching an ape's fur is different, but not strange. Noa wants you to take your fill, Caesar offers you himself.

Word count: 900+ words

Warnings: Romance between you and the Apes, don't like? Don't read!

A/N: I hope this is good anon! Thank you for the prompt, I'm personally really proud of these so if it sucks, don't tell me 💀😭

Noa:

The Chimp will never admit just how much he loves when you run your fingers through his fur, but it's easy to tell.

Even before you two were mates, Noa found himself constantly wanting to be in your company. Lying to himself that it was just to learn and grow his knowledge, not because he felt anything for you.

That was ridiculous, you were his friend, a small Echo that he was in charge of to keep in check, to keep safe.

His staring wasn't because he so desperately wanted to explore what made you, you. To feel how different your skin would be compared to his, to feel your hands on him, taking in each other's differences.

Watching you run your fingers through your hair, gliding gently to get the tangles out, he remembers when he wishes you'd do that to him. Only to shake his head and try and go on about his day.

Noa would have never imagined himself here, sharing a space with you at long last.

In your nest, after a long day, he will press his entire body next to yours, body damn near shaking at the thought of being able to be all over you in private.

It was an adjustment he had to make peace with, when you told him that humans value their privacy and that intimate acts were to be away from prying eyes.

Noa did it for you, though, taking your word as law.

It made it even more exciting to see you at the end of the night, to know he didn't have to hold back.

Which leads us to here, Noa draping himself over you as he silently prays you'll start threading your fingers in his fur.

"....tired....stressed." He mumbles against the skin of your neck, aware that it's senstive, smirking when you shudder a bit.

"My poor baby." You coo, giggling at the huge ape curling into you, like he wants to be in your skin.

"I do..much work." a huff, lifting his head up to meet your teasing.

You bring a small hand up, moving to brush the fur along his nape up and down, smiling at your mate.

His reaction is instantaneous, his whole body dropping like a puppet with its strings slack. His head resting on your chest, nuzzling his face there until he's sure he may suffocate.

Every bit on tension floods out of his body. Any annoyance from dealing with the many issues of the rapidly growing clan is gone from mind.

"Noa, you're heavy." But you don't stop caressing him, instead bringing another hand up to brush at his head.

All you get is a grunt is in response. He's probably gonna knock out in your hold.

You pray you don't have to use the bathroom anytime soon.

Caesar:

It's hard being new, even more so when you're the only human in an entire colony full of apes, majority of which more or less don't like your existence. Only dealing with the choice their leader made because what he says goes.

You're grateful he let you integrate with them, instead of turning you away in to no doubt succumb to the woods, the snow no doubt lessening your chance in surviving.

You're forever grateful, but the isolation is almost too much, to the point where you think of leaving in the night, when the weather lets up.

Sitting next to your small fire, a little ways off from the rest of the group, you're stoking the fire absentmindedly, your head resting on your knees as you soak in the meager warmth it provides. The fish you caught earlier sitting by untouched.

You don't pick up on footsteps coming your way, and it isn't until you feel a new warmth by your side that you look up.

It's Caesar, hunched next to you, the size difference between you two, very much apparent. He's staring at you expectantly, though you're not sure what he wants from you. He's usually never this far out, eating and conversing with the others, namely Maurice and Koba.

"Oh, uh, Hi." You mumble you're not sure what to say other than that.

Eyes following the way his fur ever so slightly shifts with the breeze going by, wondering how it would feel, no doubt he runs warm due to it.

The Ape king shifts in his place slightly before he speaks finally.

"It is okay." He gestures his arm towards you, giving you ample opportunity. He wants you to, to trust him, to be comfortable in his presence.

"What?"

"You have never felt ape," He murmurs, moving his arm closer ever so slightly, not wanting you to fear him. He'd never lay a hand on you, but he knows how humans are, so he goes slow.

"I don't want to make you uncomfortable." Is all you can say, curling your fists and placing them on the cold earth. He's being so nice to you, for no reason. It makes your head hurt, to see how kind his eyes are watching you.

"You won't."

With the added reassurance, you reach out your hand and gently brush your fingers along his fur.

It's course, but still pleasant to the touch, the heat radiating from him is an added bonus, warming your cold fingers.

While you're wrapped up in your mind, Caesar suppresses the feeling that works his way down his spine,  your touch sending off signals in his brain, some he hasn't felt since Cornelia passed.

He decides then and there that he will get you used to him, and maybe you'll be gracious enough for him to learn about you.

[pursuitseternal]

“Lapping:” post-battle lust runs hot for Astarion and Cordehlia in “Our Blood is Thicker”

Moodboard fanart by @marimosalad , my love

Link to the full nsfw art here

Astarion x Cordehlia (f!oc) | E | 4.3K of post-battle lust and licking

Summary: the fight was over, quick and hot, but not as hot as Cordehlia’s blood burns. A private room (mysteriously) secured at the Last Light Inn, the lovers take every advantage of the opportunity, but not without a little more conniving from their mysterious guest.

CW: Oral sex, hints of submission, devilish deals, bad puns from Gale, Very Intimate Missionary™️, with that hint of angst that runs through their lust

Previous chapter | Ao3 link | Fic masterlist

Chapter 9: Lapping…

🗡️💞🗡️💞🗡️💞🗡️💞🗡️💞🗡️💞🗡️💞🗡️💞🗡️

The Last Light Inn, there was no name more fitting for this place. Surrounded by shadows and curses, not to mention it seemed to be barely holding on by a thread. “More like On-Its-Last-Legs Inn…” Gale had joked under his breath as everyone wandered back down the stairs. Everyone one heaved, blood running hot after the latest ambush.

And the vampire was not tickled by the humor.

Astarion spun around, unamused and taunting as he smirked back at the wizard. “Really?” he jibed. “That’s your wizardly wit contribution after all that just happened?”

Gale shrugged. “A little humor, even spattered in blood, isn’t distasteful.”

“You play with words about as well as you cook,” the vampire grimaced, grabbing his arm around Cordehlia’s armored waist. “Not that I mind a little post-battle, covered-in-blood type of celebration.” He threw a little sidelong glance at their intrepid leader in his hold.

She smiled into his face, the briefest of loving grins, before looking over her shoulder at the rest. “Camp will be well deserved, to be sure. Perhaps the Inn has some remaining supplies.”

“Some ale?” Wyll chimed in, hopeful. “I doubt anything as good as Baldurian, but I’d settle for anything that doesn’t taste like piss at this point.”

Cordehli burst into giggles, that steadying hold around her body cooling the bloodlust that had threatened to surge inside her moments ago. “Such language from the Blade of Frontiers,” she taunted in between her laughter. “I’ll see what I can scrounge up for my merry band.”

The Inn was a sea of organized chaos, Jaheira’s exacting voice pierced through the clatter of weapons and the boisterous conversations. Enemies defeated, Harpers already cleaning the blood and disposing of the bodies, it seemed that the shock of the attack of one of their own set everyone on edge. Making each one seek a little respite to celebrate the victory. Their safety from the curse and the preservation of their mission to end Ketheric Thorm, his poison, and the threat of the Absolute.

The scent of roasted meat and alcohol began to fill the Inn, fortunately covering the stink of blood.

And as the party began to sidle up to the bar, their eyes coveting the tankards of drink and sparse platters of food. Jaheira slinked over, waving the group forward with a sweep of her arm. “For saving our very existence, you all have more than earned it.”

Cordehlia smiled, nodding her head in gratitude, her body still and steady where she remained in Astarion’s slight embrace.

“You, Not-So-True-Soul, you have an extra reward. That messenger you sent ahead, he has secured you the room you requested. Your meal awaits you,” her sharp eyes scanned the masculine arms still around her waist. “I was told to send enough for two…”

Her rogue’s hand brushed possessively over the curve of her hip, making the metal of her armor clatter slightly.

“The rest of your party is welcome to the grounds in the arc of our light, once they finish celebrating to themselves, I’m sure.”

Cordehlia cleared her throat. “While the accommodations are most welcome, I sent no such messenger,” she replied, that commanding tone still in her voice.

“Tall, tan,” Jaheira grinned, “most persuasive. He left just before the battle broke out. If he wasn’t from you…” her face tweaked suspiciously, “perhaps you have a clandestine advocate.”

“Tall, tan, persuasive? Certainly no demon in disguise,” Astarion grinned that slanted smirk at his own humor. And if it weren’t for the plate metal on her arm or covering his belly, she would have rammed him with her elbow for the joke.

More like a devil in disguise. What was Raphael’s game…. But Cordehlia’s wondering ceased as Jaheira gestured sharply towards the hall.

“Up two flights of stairs, you’ll find the room I’m sure,” she gave a little leer as she began to turn away. “Nothing has a nose quite like two lovers looking for a quiet place for an evening.”

Cordehlia’s heart leapt right into her throat. It was… almost too much. Too much insinuations too much to have to wait. Her blood pounded, her body on fire from fighting, even if the fight was small and over quickly. Of course, Astarion’s touch on her body, even through the leather and metal of her armor, it was enough to both ground her and stir her. They made their way up the stairs, almost ceremoniously at first, with sure and steady footsteps, even as his fingers, always so dexterous, slipped their way into the top of her armor at her waist. He found purchase above her belt, the soft, thin layer of leather beneath like a second skin, barely hiding the fervent way he dug into her skin. They way the tips of his fingers fought their own battle, pressing towards that bone of her hip, reaching further and further towards the pool of her desire.

He caught her eye at the top of the first landing, his eyes wide, dilated dark as he began to pull her faster. She couldn’t look away, barely noticing where the stains of their battle still remained across the floorboards they crossed. The second set of stairs, he practically yanked her up their creaking wooden boards.

Even as lithe as she was, Cordehlia couldn’t match his vampiric agility, stumbling into him somewhere in the middle. And Astarion took every advantage. He pulled her into his arms, his mouth already wet, salivating with his never-ending hunger. And not just for her blood. Armor and all, he lifted her in his arms, her mouth trapped by the working of his lips and the nipping bite of his fangs. Dragging her up the remaining few stairs, he gave that gut-dropping giggle, pushing her against the closest wall. Their armor clashed and cracked as he pressed against her. Everything was hard and sharp… the metal on their bodies and the fangs on her lips.

And Cordehlia gave a matching laugh of exhilaration, catching his lower lip in her own teeth and biting down. His blood coated her tongue, rich and tingling and coppery. The groan from his throat only fed into her own insatiable need, the driving beat of her lust. Her arm reached, hand fumbling for the doorknob beside her. Astarion smiled into the grip of her kiss. “So eager… how delicious,” he purred into the hot damp of her mouth.

His hand strayed from her hips to open the door, the warm light of the room embracing them as they stumbled inside. The scent of food, the fire in the grate. They didn’t even break to find the bed, Cordehlia merely backing until her legs butted against the edge of a mattress. Ever dexterous, he already had half her buckles and braces unlatched, the metal of her armor falling with thuds and clangs at their feet.

She hurried to do the same. Breath heavy, air whistling in their blood-coated mouths. Finally, their bodies shed the metal, the last little plate clattering from Astarion’s thigh, Cordehlia’s own nimble hands loosening the last buckles as she knelt at his feet. The Pale Elf’s eyes were closed, his head back as her hands ran up the thin leather of his breeches beneath. Her mouth trailed kisses over its soft stretched fabric until she hovered right over where it bulged to near bursting.

But she laughed, settled back on her heels. Hands tracing back down the hard muscles in his legs.

Astarion hummed, taunting and teasing as he began to look down at her. “You, my darling, certainly know how to delay grati…”

His whole body went rigid, his fangs baring and mouth hissing in surprise. “What do you want, devil?” he growled toward the crackling fire, and Cordehlia scrambled to turn around. To face the unseen voyeur behind her.

Certainly, tucked into the shadows, reclined in a modest chair, Raphael sat, smirking in that fair form of his. “Oh, do not stop on my account, I beg you. It would be the greatest sin to prevent two such beautiful, powerful beings such as you from chasing after the most natural of pursuits…”

Choosing to ignore the insinuation, she spoke clearly. “I assume you are here to call in your bargain, Raphael,” Cordehlia rose to her feet, that heat of her desire cooling to iron. She needed no armor to stiffen her form or shield her in false confidence.

She could have been naked, and just as fearsome.

“Calling in a bargain is what drunkards at gambling tables do, little warrior,” Raphael pressed the tips of his fingers together, raising them to rest against his chin. Cunning and careful. “I take as much pride in crafting mutually beneficial deals as you must in finding yourself covered in blood and well…” the devil’s dark eyes skated to the rasping male beside her, “…other fluids, to be sure.”

Astarion’s body braced against her back, she didn’t even need to turn to feel his lips raise, threatened by the insinuation about what was his. “Careful,” he kept his voice ice-cold, “or you might find your own body short some of your own fluids.”

“Be equally careful, for my blood burns hotter than Wyvern Whiskey,” Raphael taunted back, “besides, how could I translate those inscrutable scars on your back if I’m dead?”

Astarion relented, reluctantly snapping his jaws shut, eyes still diligently scanning for any next move.

Cordehlia crossed her arms, intimidating and covering the way her nipples already strained for attention from the man beside her. “Say what you want, and speak quickly,” she hissed. Terrifying and burning. “I’m not sure how long I can tolerate you standing between me and my desires. Unless you wish to see my lust turn back to bloodlust once more. My vampire is not the only one who can drain you of your blood.”

Astarion shivered, and not from fear. “Now, now,” he hummed, still suspicious and defensive, wrapping his arms posessively around her stiffened form, “let’s hear what he has to offer you, my darling, hold your talons in for a moment, little raven…”

She arched back into his embrace, grinning like a fool at her new pet name… his raven… no longer the dreadful Corvus…

“Wise indeed,” Raphael smirked wider, his eyes scanning over every place their bodies met, “especially as I have the offer that might be exchanged for the knowledge of those curious scars you surely grip as he fucks you, my lady.” He grinned as he stood, a wriggle of his body to adjust his tight fitting clothes… and breeches… assuming a confident and relaxed posture. “You will soon encounter a creature most foul once you undoubtedly reach, and leave, Moonrise Towers. You will find him haunting the domains of Shar. Do not underestimate him, and dispatch him quickly.”

“That’s it?” Cordehlia gave a cold cackle. “Kill a monster? No army, no death-defying mission, no curse to call down upon generations?”

“You will not defy death if you aren’t careful. He is an Orthon, my greatest foe, covered in more blood than you,” his thin lips drew wide at that, at the way she twitched in reaction. “Kill him, and you will know all about that Infernal fragment on your lover’s smooth, ivory skin.”

He crossed the distance, catching Cordehlia’s hand from her crossed arms, drawing in a deep inhalation of her palm before placing a gentlemanly kiss on the top of her hand.

“Until your victory, my lady…” he bid, all cordially, even as his eyes drank in the sight of them. Until he vanished in a swirl of smoke and brimstone.

Vanished just at the right time, as Astarion already had pulled a small dagger from his boot, almost ready to send it flying through the wisps of lingering demonic smoke.

“My, my…” Cordehlia ran a finger over the little blade from over her shoulder. “Coming to my defense so quickly,” she purred as she traced her touch down the blunt flat face. “Not that I don’t love to see you as the jealous lover still.”

“I wouldn’t have killed him… not quite yet…” He let the blade drop, forsaking the cold steel for her warm flesh instead. Astarion’s touch launched over her front to creep under the fabric of her tunic. “As for my… jealousy… it's nice to hear somethings must never change. And you… So fearsome and defiant, my love,” he rasped in her ear, the tip of his tongue tickling over its curve. “We are so close now, I can taste it…”

“I think that’s just your hunger for where we left off,” she chided back with a single laugh. Turning in his arms, she let his hands shimmy her shirt free.

“Which was where, exactly?” he toyed with her. “I think I recall your mouth so close to somewhere largely important.”

“Hmm,” she pulled his own shirt from the band of his breeches. “Is that what you wish your little raven to do?”

Those crimson eyes scanned to the waiting bed beside them. “I think I wish to finally fuck you in a proper bed, and,” he whispered against her mouth, feeling the warmth of her breathe sighing into his cool lips, “for you to fuck me too…”

“You always know just what honey-sweet, romantic words to say…” she murmured in reply. Her fingers flew to pull the laces from his breeches, easing them just enough to slide her hand into the stretched leather to take him in her grip. “Why don’t you make yourself comfortable first, my defiant, protective, possessive rogue…”

His face quirked, twisting with teeth, eyes bright with desire. “Not sure, I kind of enjoyed the sight of your kneeling at my feet, darling,” he taunted in that provocative, silken voice.

Cordehlia sniffed, amused. Aroused. Gripping tighter as she stroked his erection, she peeled off leather breeches to reveal more of that pale skin and etched muscles. Slowly, her touch danced over his legs, that fabric shuffled lower and lower, her body following suit until she caressed him, rubbing her hand up and down his length, wetting her lips as she smiled up at him. On her knees.

“Mmm,” he hummed, stepping from the pile of their clothes, laughing as he shifted even closer to where she knelt, his cock unable to hide the jolt that made it twitch as it brushed against her face. “A sight fit for a king,” he moaned, one hand reaching to claw his fingers into that mess of burnished red hair. “Though you would be no one’s vassal, my love.”

And that, that earned him a wide mouth smile, the running of a tongue along the entire length of his cock, a hand gripped tightly around its girth. “Even so,” she hummed, another dripping lick of his cock, “I would still aim to please you, Astarion…” She stood, hand still stroking him, letting the slick of her split spread under her touch. “Now, I think we have waited for that bed for long enough.”

He pulled her tight, trapping her in the iron hold of his arms. Settling her on the bed beside him, Astarion lounged back into the parse pile of pillows. He could have cared that the fabric was coarse, the smell a bit musty, the mattress a bit lumpy. But the moment she slid that smooth, warm flesh to cover him, all his biting critiques and criticisms vanished.

He could have been lounging in a palace, his body alive, cushioned on the plushest of beds for all he knew as her mouth trailed little sucks and nips of her teeth over every ridge and rise of his chest. His cock strained, waiting for that now centuries-old, familiar warmth of her lips and tongue to wrap tightly around it.

That hair, lustrous like light and red like fire, he needed to hold it, to weave his touch in it to feel every little jerk of her head as she sucked him and lapped him. Her voice hummed, little mewls with every kiss she traced down the v-shaped muscles of his hips.

Cordehlia glanced up, her silver eyes bright with lust, her lips licked over and over again as she gave him that heavy-lidded gaze. Then, that pink tongue teased just the weeping slit of his cock.

“Gods,” he groaned, head thrown back, face lit in extacy. As her tongue repeated the motion, harder and laughing, his body bucked beneath her. “My little raven, more tongue than talons… how divine…”

He could feel her smile against his thigh, her tongue swirling around the soft, supple skin of his balls, her hands pressed inside the rocklike muscles of his thighs, spreading him wider. He felt it then, just after she gave another taunting laugh.

The hard edge of her teeth dragging around his balls, just enough to make him gasp and squirm.

“Easy, darling,” he gripping into her hair, lifting her head to reveal her conceited, smirking grin.

“But I am going easy,” she pouted, wrapping her fingers around his cock to stroke it harder, faster. “Just remember that your darling has bite too…”

Her tongue returned to that hypnotic rhythm, up and down his shaft, catching his cock with every little unbidden twitch it made as she pleasured him.

It was… glorious. And it only grew better, Cordehlia raised up, crawling towards him. Hands grasped on the headboard, her folds drenching his cock as she settled on it. Rock hard, it pressed into his own belly, warmed by the heat of her arousal and the molten slick that seeped from her cunt.

Astarion hummed his approval, eyeing the way her fiery hair cascaded loose from her braids. “You may have been the one on your knees, my sweetest, but you deserve all the worship you can tolerate. My love,” he purred, hands holding her hips, bracing there to caress the clenching of her muscles as she dragged her folds over his length. He groaned as she bucked faster, careful not to let that shaft pierce into her, not yet. “A man could get lost in his need for you, my darling Cordehlia…”

“Not just lost in your need to drink from my neck and fuck me between my thighs?” she hummed, tossing her hair, finally reaching a hand between their drenched bodies to guide him inside

“Never,” he groaned, satisfied in the wet warmth he craved. Hungering for it equal to her potent, addictive living blood. “You’re more than a lover to warm my bed and a neck on which to feed…”

His words barely left his mouth before her lips silenced them, sucking them from his tongue with her own ardor.

“With you, I feel… alive again. I feel… real,” he panted into her kiss, her own hunger nearly suffocating, painful if he didn’t truly need the oxygen to survive.

“You are real,” she hissed her reply. Her hand tearing his fingers from her hip, pressing them into that dripping crest of her folds. Their fingertips catching her clit, brushing where they joined. “This is real.” She writhed as he circled that spot, her voice thick like honey even as she grinded and rode his cock. The friction so instense, so fast and heated, for an instant she forgot just how cold his flesh was. How undead.

That strong digit, dexterous and skilled, pleasured her perfectly with each rise and fall of her body. Orgasm clawed through her, waves of warmth tore her apart as she bucked at random, her arms giving out until she collapsed on his chest. The chill of his skin making her breath catch loudly. Astarion’s giggle was soft in her ear, his body coiling its remaining strength, rolling her quickly and carefully onto her back.

And she was grateful for the caress of a bed once more as well. The way it cradled her, sucked her in as he bore all his weight on top of her frame. She clung to him, arms around his shoulders, thighs wrapping about that narrow waist of his, etched definitions of his muscles hard against her supple curves. Trapping her, caging her, imprisoned by the wiry strength of his arms, pinned by the crushing weight of his hips and the merciless press of his thighs.

Spreading her wider, cock at the ready to spear into that awaiting molten slick. “I want to watch you come undone, my love,” he growled, braced on his arms, letting all his weight rest on that dripping curve of her mound. One hand slinked its way down her belly, the haphazard rises and falls of her breath as she shuddered from her need making him salivate. A growl, his fangs grit and bared, he guided his cock over her seam, her juices coating him in that warmth he needed like he once needed air to live. Her body squirmed as he toyed it over her clit, so hard it almost pressed back against his erection. She mewled with need, silver eyes wide and glued to watch the magic he conjured with his cock.

“Fuck, Astarion,” she panted, straining against his weight to try and catch his cock inside. “I need you,” she groaned, much to his wicked delight. “Cease this flirtation and do it. Don’t you know how badly I’ve burned for you all day…”

“I know,” he growled, finally sliding inside her trembling walls, “I just like to hear it, my love.” He began his familiar gait of thrust, slowly at first, to make her shiver and buck and writhe for more. And all the while, those crimson eyes drank in her every reaction, every bite of her lower lip, every time she forced her fluttering eyes to return his stare. “Always headlong, aren’t you, my darling? Like an unbroken filly, galloping at breakneck for what you want, damn the consequences…” he began that inevitable climb, fucking faster, each intoxicating swivel of his hips making her gasp. “Strong willed and fearless.”

“Cease this comparing me to a horse,” she hissed, raising her head, hands gripping into the bulging of his biceps.

“Why? You’re an even more pleasing mount, darling,” he giggled, her silver eyes rolling at the humor and the pleasure he stoked inside her. “Perhaps that is an idea for our next round, darling. I’m too enraptured watching your face turn beet red with pleasure to bend you over and take you from behind…”

She shuddered, her body shaking visibly, eyes rolling back at the image he summoned. “Please, yes…”

“Enjoy for now,” he emphasized each word with a dive of his cock completely within, silkenly gliding through that hot slick. “I know… I am…”

“Gods,” she groaned, head flailing from side to side, breath after breath as she wriggled beneath him. Driven closer and higher and hotter as she began to clench around his cock. Ecstasy began dawning on her face, those lines forming as her mouth gaped open and panted, her eyes forcing themselves to remain half-open, just to watch him drinking in this sight beneath him in. Her shoulders rose and slammed against the mattress, her hands clawed hard to his arms as she shattered. Pure bliss. Obsession. Trembling satisfaction as she screamed over and over again with each wave of climax.

Her thighs bucked hard against him, and suddenly his own climax pulled him under. Surprising him. He hitched with stilted thrusts, arms shaking in her grip as he came. Grunt after deep-throated grunt, he pulsed harder than ever before, consumed by the sight of her, of her pleasure and submission, the way her lips turned coyly as she was equally memorized by the sight of his bliss. But he didn’t allow himself down. Not just yet. Lowering his head, he pressed his lips, dry from all his panting, against her wet and eager mouth.

Slow. Languorous. She kissed him back, savoring the taste of his tongue, the play of his lips. He gave a few more thrusts, the mix of their cum just drenching their bodies and the bed. He would feel sorry for the Harpers who would have to change these sheets if he cared for anything as much as he cared for her.

But no, there was nothing else in all these realms but the red-haired warrior who clung to him as if he would save her life, a rock in the stream that almost drowned her.

For that was just what he was to her. He knew.

At last, he lowered into the bed, their kiss unbreaking even as he laid in the coarse sheets. “So, about Raphael and his bargain…” Astarion murmured between the wet plucking of their kisses.

“Tomorrow, to Moonrise Towers and the devil’s old enemy to slay beyond,” Cordehlia whispered back, raising herself to rest her head in the valley of his chest, splayed on the cold and hard planes she knew so well. Her hair cascading like a tumble of fire over the chilled, pale skin of his torso.

Astarion pouted a bit, his long fingers straying through those mussy locks of hers. “No bathing in the blood of our foes? No dancing on Raphael’s enemy’s grave? I was hoping for something a little more bloodthirsty sounding… a little more romantic when it comes to finally getting these scars deciphered….” He kissed the top of her forehead, his breath drawing in the scent of her sweat and her hair.

“Mmmm,” she hummed, reckless desire blooming on her cheeks. “A little more effort from your tongue, and you might just hear all sorts of things from mine, my love…”

His chuckle resounded beneath the ear that pressed into his ribs. For that moment, she stilled. Listening.

The sound of his laugh… the rush of air in his lungs as he kept inhaling her scent… a little growl of his stomach from his unending hunger…

But as her own skin cooled, her heat drawn from her body by his cold flesh… she grieved one sound that no longer met her ear. His beating heart.

[enbycrip]

So this meme about “spinster originally being a word for a woman so good at weaving she was financially independent” seems to have made it into pretty much every group I follow, so after the best part of a week biting my hands not correcting it so as not to undercut the broader point, I’ve now been *forced* to correct it (badly) and write a screed of additional context just for my own sanity.

“Spinster” is indeed a word for women who became financially independent through the cloth and garment-making trade, but by SPINNING, ie making thread from fibres, rather than by WEAVING, which is making cloth out of thread. You can tell by the title being SPINster, not WEAVEster!

The “-ster” suffix indicates that the title is feminine; you can see it in other surnames like “sangster” and “brewster”.

This actually points to one of the traditional points about female-dominated practices; while weaving within the household to make cloth for members of the household was traditionally almost entirely done by women in the house, when weaving became a well-paid trade regulated by guilds, men began doing it and rapidly pushed out the women weavesters or websters who had started the profession and originally trained most of the male weavers.

This never happened with spinsters because spinning was never as lucrative as weaving and thus it never became a guild-regulated profession; it remained a trade women in the household practiced to supplement household income.

Single women could habitually manage to support themselves on their earnings from it, including single women living in lodgings in urban centres as well as single women living in their own cottages in rural places, which was incredibly valuable to them.

This points to one of the ways trade unions, the more modern and proletarian-focused version of guilds, are not *simply by their existence* a solution for worker liberation. Trade unions, like guilds, have frequently enforced societal misogyny by favouring male and male-read workers over female and female-read workers, often actively undercutting the needs of female and female-read workers, because of the societal trope that “men were supporting a family” and “women were working for pocket money”. this kept on applying even when many female and female-read workers were primary wage earners.

Men, especially cis men, in trade union spaces have a responsibility to keep your union intersectionally-aware and actively seek female and nonbinary delegates, officers and activists to fill roles.

As everyone who is privileged in any axis - male, white, cishet, abled - has a responsibility to actively seek representation from marginalised folk, and to actively canvas marginalised folk you represent to make sure you are fighting for needs you may not perceive. It’s easily possible for instruments of liberation to end up marginalising and oppressing marginalised folks unless there is an ongoing commitment to inclusive and liberating practice in them.

[lousirs]

UD headcanons no one asked for!

my motivation has gone to get the milk and has not come back since, SO HEY! who wants to hear some random headcanons that have been microwaving in my head for the past year???

this is going to be a long one...

stuff under the cut vvv

Lou is the kinda guy to only pack nice looking outfits on a holiday. Do they suit the occasion? Probably not. But he wants to look the part every where he goes, even if he's wearing a suit during the middle of summer

He would also be the guy to complain that it's too cold, even though he was told to pack up layers of clothes for a hiking trip, and didn't. But when someone tries to give him a coat, he says "I don't need that, I'm fine!" even though he looks like he's going to freeze over.

He takes the coat not too soon after

On the other hand, either Nolan or Ox would overpack for a trip. Ox because he is basically the fatherly figure of the group, and wants to make sure that everyone has enough food, water, and layers of clothing for the trip. Oh, and he brings a first aid kit as well. Nolan however does it because "What if I didn't pack enough?? What if I need this oddly specific thing??" and packs more than he needs to

Speaking of Ox, he always came off as a character who really enjoys camping and exploring, ya know? He seems like the leader of a scout group who loves to sing campfire songs and tell spooky stories that no one believes. (him and Rhidian would get along well)

LITERALLY NO ONE TALKS ABOUT LUCKYBAT AND OX'S DYNAMIC AND IT'S DRIVING ME WILD. Hello?? A withdrawn and somewhat jaded mayor who is protective of those he's close to with his intelligent, caring and concerned assistant?? That sounds interesting!

I'm sure LuckyBat knows more than anyone else (besides Lou) of what Ox went through. Perhaps he didn't know about the Institute, but he knew ox went through some stuff outside Uglyville. Perhaps that's why he's so cautious to go into the pipe.

(And perhaps the reason why he decides to go to learn new stuff was for the sake of finding out what Ox doesn't speak about?)

Back to the Prettydolls, I always found it interesting that Nolan was able to run the gauntlet despite being imperfect, although Moxy and Mandy, two other imperfect dolls, were thrown into recycling. Why was Nolan allowed to run the gauntlet, huh Lou? Didn't you say that any unideal looking doll goes to recycling, Lou????

Personally, I like to think that Lou allowed Nolan to do training and was like "Haha watch this idiot fail". And turns out Nolan was really good at it (flashbacks to Nolan being buff in the novel). Lou is flabbergasted.

...Either that or Lou just allowed him to run the gauntlet to watch him fail immediately because "Haha funny" and also "Haha imperfects can't win. Suck it loser~"

Kitty is jealous of Mandy's makeup skills, and often copies her because of it, too embarrassed to ask for advice because she needs to learn on her own. After Lou gets overthrown, Kitty and Mandy help each other out on their makeup and hair

Tuesday is the girl to think that "Yeah I'm smiling, but inside I'm crying" is the deepest thing to ever exist. Kitty bullies her for it.

Also, Tuesday cry-sings "I'm a mess" by Bebe Rexha after Lou denied her 1244th love confession. She will try again tomorrow

Because Kelly Clarkson was pop-rock for a while, I like to imagine that Moxy had a rock-n-roll rebellious phase, and still has a few characteristics from that era of her life

During the scene where Lou is going up the gauntlet lift with everyone else, he is constantly moving about. Winking at Mandy to fake confidence, adjusting his suit...etc. I always saw this has him being nervous, because you know, he's about to expose himself for being a prototype after this gauntlet stuff is over. So I like to think that he fiddles around with his suit when he's nervous. Mainly readjusting the sleeves, tightening his ascot tie and flicking out his collar. Also pulling out loose threads, if there is any.

I thought for the longest time that when Lou's hair got slightly messier, it showed him being more genuine. There is one god damn strand on his fringe that goes from being in place to hanging out, and I thought it showed him losing his façade, very very subtly.

This might be a hot take but I always saw Loundy (Mandy/Lou) as being friends/lovers to enemies. Think about it: Lou and Mandy seemed to have some sort of connection, Mandy (in my opinion) basically being Lou's assistant, similar to the spy girls. She began thinking he was perfect, and they formed a (seemingly) close bond. But over time, as Lou's desperation for perfection increased, her opinion of him soured, and she realised he isn't as perfect as she thought. She kept the negative thoughts to herself, though. Who would believe her? The perfect doll with the flawless looks and endless talents, topped off with a charming personality... Why would he be unhinged? How would he be unhinged?

You know that line Mandy says to Lou at the gauntlet? "You know, Lou.. When I first got here, I thought you were perfect. I couldn't find a single thing wrong with you. But, I can see a lot better now." perhaps that wasn't just talking about the events of the film, as it probably implies. Maybe she knows how terrible he's been for a long time...

That's all I got for now, I may doodle some of these if motivation comes back, who knows..

[starmuselove]

HADES : MY FOREVER LAMENT PAC

What they miss about you and consequently how they act 'cause of it?

Hello my mystical babies, I was just chilling looking out in the morning cause it was raining and the ambience was so good I just sat there for quite sometime taking it in. And I was feeling my creative senses tingling, so I decided for a somewhat romantic moody suave reading. So I hope you too are able to enjoy this like I could enjoy the rain.

Disclaimer: Take a deep breath, have some fun and pamper yourself as you read this. If it doesn't resonate with you now, it's not time for you to read this yet, maybe read it at another time. Have a lovely day!

𝕯𝖊𝖈𝖐𝖘 𝖀𝖘𝖊𝖉: ℜ𝔞𝔦𝔡𝔢𝔯 𝔚𝔞𝔦𝔱𝔢 𝔗𝔞𝔯𝔬𝔱 + 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔚𝔦𝔩𝔡 𝔘𝔫𝔨𝔫𝔬𝔴𝔫 𝔗𝔞𝔯𝔬𝔱.

ᴘɪʟᴇ 1

Quote: "I Hope that someday, Somebody wants to hold you for twenty minutes straight and that's what they'll do. They don't pull away. All they do is wrap you up in their arms, without an ounce of selfishness in it"

9oW, The Fool (R)(3oC) ° 4oS, Mother of Wands, 5oP

One word I'm getting - Pookie. They're a softie aww. They miss your light-heartedness , your innocence you bring in their difficult world. The positivity that you have, which you encourage them with. How you guide them with it, with hope and faith. They could consider you their sunshine/source of strength.

They could probably get silent, introverted and moody when you're absent. A bit defensive and moody for little things cause they haven't talked to you for a long time lol. It's like the bird being defensive about her little ones, so cute. They might have a life crisis, like their life has been frozen one side and they're just existing or surviving. They would want to fight people sometimes 😭Their brain don't work well at those times when missing you guys(I'm giggling here sorry luvs) They definitely pout and sulk. They might be a little dramatic with it.

RANDOM: Infinity, Yellow, My Sunshine My only Sunshine, Pookie, Pookie Bear.

ᴘɪʟᴇ 2

Quote: "How could I not love eyes that see me in all of my forms of beautiful?"

9oS, The Emperor ° 7oS, 8oC, Justice

We've got two groups of people here- First, They miss the foundation and structure you provide to their life. It's like you are their rock. You might be a person who is self sufficient and knowledgeable. You absence is definitely very noticeable for this person. They could feel like their nightmares are coming back to swallow them whole again, you could have saved this person from relapsing into bad habits.

They might want to travel to see you. Even if you are cities apart, catching a flight just to see you. They might feel very dejected and might even start praying to the spirits to bring you back to them soon. Yeah, the separation might make them realise what's right and what's wrong. They could reassess the things they could've done or happened to deliver you the fair treatment or what you deserve.

In Second type, Some of you might be reading this for your ex? A further division in that- for some of you, they don't really have nothing positive to say they miss you, they're probably thinking it's good riddance. They are happy they could explore other options with you gone(this sucks :(( )

If it's indeed an ex that does miss you, they would try to show off how they would love you and take care of you to persuade you to get back with them.

RANDOM STUFFS: Structure, Building Blocks, Driving, Car, Meeting,Aloy/Aloha, Thrice, Moon Gazing, Snow.

ᴘɪʟᴇ 3

Mild mention of 18+ themes below.

Quote: "No, we're not soulmates. This is not divine intervention. And this is most certainly not a chance. I willed this. I knit the threads of fate myself until it wrote our name. I love you intentionally. I love you with every bit of conscience I was born with."

5oS, Ace of Wands,Page of Pentacles ° The Moon, 3oP, 5oS.

First thing I got was they don't wanna live without you, life seems meaningless in your absence. They really seem to love you a lot. This is my fun/adventurous couple, pranksters, very active couple. They miss the mind blowing sex and the play fights they have with you. The navigator and manifester energy that you bring. Tbh this pile really values what you bring to the table, they see you as a very valuable person in their life- more like invaluable. I also think you might be their dream person manifested in real life.

Like i said before they find any victories that happens in their life to be meaningless without you around. They want it to share with you. The quote too says similar stuff- they want YOU to be with them and vice versa. They turn into this self doubting phase. They might feel like people around them are gonna do things behind their back, to destroy them. I think you might be the person who restored their faith in people maybe that's why your absence could give such impacts. They could be the type of person to call people around you to check on you or if you were ever in a position of no contact.

RANDOM:

Tiger, Cheetah, Cub, Matching Couple items, Despair, Torment, Pink Gun, Dildo, Toy , Children's Gift, Night, Insomnia, Discord.

This is a part of my HADES series of PACs. Like, reblog or even comment so I can get your feedback. My ask box is open to express feedback too. Negative behaviour absolutely won't be tolerated!

[modelbus]

Hello!! I LOVE your writing, like I’m obsessed! So, I can’t tell if your requests are open, buttt if they are, I would DIE for some fluff turned to angst of a fem!reader who is in a group with cc!Ranboo, cc!Tubbo, cc!Wilbur and cc!Tommy nicknamed the chaos squad by the fandom, where she is the least popular in the group and a rumour spread that shes only in it for the popularity, so they slowly stoped inviting her to streams and vlogs and ghosting her.

it could start with like three two sentence stories about the group (or something), how it was formed just fluffy moments, and then be like “but it didn’t stay like that for long..” and explain why she was subtly kicked from the group before a scene where shes streaming and gets asked about why shes not been in any videos anymore.

PHEW that was ALOT, if its to long you can obviously shorten it or just not do it- but if requests are open and you like the idea, I would love to see something like this!! <3

PS. You are super cool, keep up the amazing work!! (When you want to ofc)

-✨🌌🌙 Anon

Thank you so much! I tried my best to include everything :D This literally took me out of my writing slump

Part 2 :)

Pairing(s): cc!Ranboo, cc!Tubbo, cc!Wilbur and cc!Tommy x Fem!Reader (Platonic)

Cut Chaos

The feeling of belonging was something nearly everyone chased after. After all, being out of place was simply… lonely. And, somehow, you found yourself slotting into the weirdest place in the world.

A handful of stupid friends.

You always found yourself drawn to dumbasses, in the most affectionate way. Like looks for like, you suppose. And shit, did you find some people that could make you cry laughing even on the worst days.

Ranboo, Tubbo, Wilbur, Tommy. Four people that made the sun rise every day, that dragged you out of bed for the stupidest vlogs to ever exist. Fans adored the five of you together so much that you got a group name for the first time in your career: the Chaos Squad.

Truly, it was a fitting name. The things that the five of you got up to, you’re certain no normal sane person would do. But, well, your job as a streamer already set you apart from the category of “normal” a long time ago, so you definitely didn’t mind the messes you got into with them.

From Tommy dragging the group to an abandoned island, saying it’d be fun to try to escape (you fell out of a tree and Wilbur sprained his ankle), to screaming along at Lovejoy concerts, it felt like the five of you were unstoppable.

And God, did you love them. It didn’t matter how many times Ranboo hit his head on things, you’d still laugh. It didn’t matter that you literally passed out from laughing so hard once, you were still happy. Pure, unfiltered love.

The five of you against the world, forever. You could see it, in those sunny days where you grinned so hard your cheeks hurt (they were the first ones to make you do that—the realization only made you grin harder). The perfect idea of happiness.

Was it any wonder things didn’t stay that way, that perfect, for long?

A rumor.

It always seemed to start with one of those, nowadays. A simple murmur among fans that grew and grew, until you were closing out of twitter at 2, 4, 5 AM, debating if you should just delete the app and put your status on “Do Not Disturb.”

You accepted the fact that being a female content creator was going to be a struggle a long time ago. It was a fact, something you knew you couldn’t avoid, especially in gaming. Having rumors about you online wasn’t new. It would never be new, not as long as you were yourself.

But you thought you’d be past caring about them by now. You thought the tight panic that gripped your heart, made it hard to breathe, was a thing of the past. So stupid.

One private account turned into multiple threads, turned into trends on the trending tab.

Everyone thought you were using your friends, the chaos squad as a whole, just to boost your career. To leech off anyone’s subscribers, just for some money in your pocket.

The idea made you sick to your core.

How dare they? How dare they ever think you didn’t genuinely care for the four? That they were anything less than the lightness in your heart, the freedom on your mind?

Rumors.

You ignored them. Even the thought of addressing them made you feel pissed off like you’ve never been before. It was such an absurd idea! At the very least, you knew your friends would see past the hateful people.

Right?

It starts with an unanswered message in the group chat.

Unanswered messages weren’t new. A stray comment tended to get lost in the general mess that the group chat was, so you weren’t concerned. Just laughed to yourself quietly; it wasn’t important anyways, just a photo of a cat you saw.

Until it happened again. And again. Until more of your messages went ignored than responded to, until the group chat had less and less messages each day.

When the first vlog comes out, the process repeats. It’s on Tommy’s channel, of course. Him, Ranboo, Tubbo, and Wilbur. The chaos squad, just without you. It surprised you, because you never even realized they filmed a video, and normally all of you share upcoming videos.

All the warning signs were obvious, and you were too much of a damn fool.

You filmed one vlog with them after that, exploring a supposedly haunted house, before you woke up a month later and realized you hadn’t talked to them in a week.

One week turns into two, two into three, until you’ve realized what’s happened. You were gone, out of the picture. Happiness had slipped through your fingers faster than you could’ve ever comprehended, and now you were in a dark room—literally.

But what could you do? If they didn’t want you, there was nothing you could do to stop the unraveling of your universe.

So you did the same thing you did before them, defaulting back to what was safe: streaming alone.

Today, it’s just a mindless game. Yesterday was the same, and fuck, this isn’t the same anymore. Not when you don’t have Tubbo in the chat sending messages, or Wilbur using Text-To-Speech.

But you’re here, still streaming. Still going, no matter how tempting it is to just shut off your computer and pretend the last months of your life never happened.

There’s always fans though, and if anything cheers you up, it’s them. So your donations are on, allowing them to be read aloud while you play the silly little unpacking game.

“Where am I putting the diploma guys? Where does this go?” You ask, mouse hovering over the virtual object. “Maybe I’ll just put it under the pillow…”

“StarEmojis donated $15! If up is down and yes is no, how many sides does a triangle have?”

“Thank you, but… uh...” You narrow your eyes at the message. “None, it’s a circle?”

Shrugging, you drag the diploma in the game to under the pillow. The riddle sounds familiar, but not one you know the answer to. It sounds like something Wilbur would send in the group chat at 2 in the morning, honestly.

With that thought in mind, your eyes flicker over the user that donated it. StarEmojis. Not Wilbur.

You’re so stupid for hoping. For the jump in your heart, for the frantic searching.

“StarStarMoon donated $20! Why aren’t you in any Chaos Squad videos anymore? Love you!”

Air catches in your lungs, dread swelling in your chest as your hands still on the mouse and keyboard. That shouldn’t have gotten past the moderators, but it did.

And now you have to answer it.

It wasn’t like you could tell the truth: that you weren’t good enough. That even your best friends didn’t believe you over rumors from strangers online.

Any lie would have a chance of getting back to them though. Not that you can imagine them caring, not anymore.

You swallow past the lump in your throat that’s killing you, taking a breath in before answering. One chance to get the fans to move on, one chance to find the impossible balance between the agony inside of you and cool indifference.

“We’re all just busy.” You say, forcing a smile on your face.

It’s true, at least. Everyone is busy. Everyone except you, that’s it.

“Just scheduling problems. Wil- Wilbur has Lovejoy practices and performances.” You stumble over his name. Did you even have the right to call him Wil anymore? “And Tommy is just always busy. He’s the busiest person, I swear.”

Is that true anymore? You don’t know. He used to be, but you used to help force him to take breaks. Was he taking breaks? You’ll never know.

With another forced smile, you give a half-hearted shrug. “So yeah, just busy, don’t worry guys.”

It’s with baited breath that you wait, eyes scanning chat to see if they bought it. From what you’re seeing, they have.

“Now we need to reorganize these clothes, because they’re killing me like this—“

Your discord pings quietly on another monitor, and you scramble to open it. Just your mods apologizing for letting the donation go through. You send a quick message back to them before pushing the donation to the back of your head just like everything relating to the group you’re no longer part of.

What could you do, anyways?

This was out of your control.

[leclerc-s]

big reputations - part eight

series masterlist // previous // next

charles leclerc i've decided that this week i will be driving like a menace.

daniel ricciardo i see track terror is making a comeback this week.

max verstappen no more inchidents please.

charles leclerc mate let it go already. it's been over 10 years.

max verstappen admit you pushed me into that puddle and i'll let it go!

oscar piastri i see why the entire internet is convinced you two are secretly dating

charles leclerc excuse me? max verstappen they're what? sabrina carpenter lestappen is lestappening

daniel ricciardo to be fair, they think k-mag and nico are in love with each other, have been since the whole 'suck my balls' thing

daphne jones didn't we have this conversation already?

max verstappen that was in the other group chat

sabrina carpenter YOU HAVE A GROUP CHAT WITHOUT US? THIS IS TREASON!

oscar piastri OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!

charles leclerc THIS IS TREACHEROUS!

daphne jones oh grow up, it was started before you three were even in the picture. we don't use it much these days.

sabrina carpenter good. otherwise i'd throw a fit.

max verstappen don't you always?

sabrina carpenter i will make your life miserable verstappen

max verstappen you already do by existing every day.

lando norris MR. RICCIARDO ARE YOU OR ARE NOT A MASTERMIND?! THE TWITTER GIRLIES WANT TO KNOW!!

daniel ricciardo the hell are you talking about lando?

pierre gasly so you saw the same twitter thread i did?

max verstappen i completely forgot daphne had performed at the 2016 austin grand prix.

lewis hamilton huh that did happen

lando norris DANIEL ARE YOU A MASTERMIND?

logan sargeant was going to ask why but then i realized what the song is about.

mark webber i don't get it? what's the song about?

oscar piastri forgive him, he's uncultured.

mark webber that's it, no more sabrina time for you. oscar piastri sabrina said you can't separate siblings. tell him charles! charles leclerc yeah! what she said! lando norris wait a fucking minute, are you all together right now?

carlos sainz is that family thing working for you guys?

max verstappen it actually is. you should've seen the group chat after texas.

max verstappen on second thought maybe not. daniel ricciardo yeah, that's not a good idea. oscar piastri things were said by sabrina. charles leclerc well when you say it like that you make it sound bad. nothing bad was said, they're being dramatic. although, she might be in love with fernando daniel ricciardo you do remember the spa inchident don't you? alex albon they call him fernando rizzlonso

lando norris renamed daniel ricciardo

mastermind hilarious lando. truely.

lando norris you never confirmed or denied it. i took matters into my own hands.

pierre gasly question for sabrina, how does one get a song like nonsense written about them?

sabrina carpenter what an odd question pear gasly, i'd say by dating a singer? which is better for me because that way i can steal your girlfriend with no obstacles.

aelx albon she's a menace.

max verstappen THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING!

oscar piastri it's not that great of a song. i don't get the hype?

sabrina carpenter added one person

sabrina carpenter oscar's been disowned. he didn't know the words to love story.

charles leclerc max doesn't either?

oscar piastri what the hell are you talking about sabrina?

sabrina carpenter i saw that mclaren video.

daphne jones it's one song sabrina, let it go. this is not going to turn into another spa situation.

yuki tsunoda excuse me while i go scream into the void

logan sargeant wait for me! lance stroll and me!

lando norris daniel probably

sabrina carpenter lando with all of his teammates

lando norris man fuck you sabrina

carlos sainz what's the spa situation?

daphne jones you don't want to know, trust me. oscar piastri for your sanity, you don't want to know. daniel ricciardo please don't get her started again.

sabrina carpenter mr. sainz, you truly do not want to get me started. as i said before, i may not have been present for spa but i can and will bite ankles for oscar.

mastermind so who's free to go to daphne's concert in argentina on the 11th?

lando norris SIGN ME TF UP!!

yuki tsunoda I'M IN!

alex albon depends, can i bring lily?

mastermind of course! - sabrina mastermind that's my wife! - sabrina

logan sargeant ready to dance along to the fearless era

mastermind bold of any of you to think you have a choice. I EXPECT ALL OF YOU THERE! - SABRINA

mastermind love the name btw - sabrina

charles leclerc to quote sabrina, "i expect ass shaking for vigilante shit."

oscar piastri dear i god i hope none of you do that.

lando norris well now i'm going to.

sebastian vettel well she's certainly something.

max verstappen she's a menace.

lewis hamilton huh, sounds like someone back in 2016 to 2018. max verstappen YOU TAKE THAT BACK! lewis hamilton i don't think i will

mastermind JUSTICE FOR ABU DHABI 2021 - SABRINA

oscar piastri she just likes to stir the pot.

mark webber sounds like someone else and the infamous alpine tweet.

oscar piastri okay, that was one time.

esteban ocon argentina right before vegas? doesn't seem like a good idea to me but i'm in.

lando norris BEST BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER!

jenson button so is daniel dating daphne or not?

mastermind that's a secret i'll never tell - xoxo gossip girl.

alex albon something is brewing i can feel it.

taglist: @glow-ish @agustdpeach @msolbesg @spilled-coffee-cup @1nt3rnetgf @six-call @smol-scream @fernandoswarcrimes @arieltwvdtohamflash @Mimolovescookies @brekkers-whore @camdensreg @mycenterfold @dear-fifi @chiliwhore @tygecjjd @cataf1 @nothaqks @caipng @nataliambc @formulaal @prongsvault @kaa212 @anxxiousaries @julesbabey1 @julesbabey @georgeparisole @hobiismyhopeu @melissayalene @nikfigueiredo

strikethrough means i couldn't tag you

¡leclerc-s speaks! i’m back for 2024! i tried something different for this chapter and i think i liked it so i'm going to change it for all of the other parts, which is going to be a bitch because it's gonna take forever. it's also not that big of a change but i think it makes a difference.

¡disclaimer! this is in no way making assumptions about the people involved in this story, this is all fake. it is a fanfiction please don't take any of what is said seriously. this is all for entertainment purposes and as a creative outlet. enjoy!

[scuttlingcrab]

Raphael reacting to being given a surprise little peck on the cheek. Just a brief and sweet little thing and the kisser is already gone before he can really do anything.

I made it so Tav kissed Raphael on the lips instead, brief and sweet as you suggested; but still shocking to the Devil, hehe. Tav always seems to get Raphael's knickers in a twist.

Summary: Raphael is fuming after Tav shows absolutely zero decorum, kissing him in the middle of an important meeting between prospective clients. How will the Devil manage? 

Link to my other work in the Devil's Archive.

Only a Kiss

(Image via certifieddilfenjoyer)

The Devil gingerly sipped his wine, no longer cringing at its watered down consistency. Each taste allowed him to make a careful observation of the reception, a mere glance was all he needed to sense whether the evening was going in his favour. And it most certainly was, despite it feeling like he was stuck in an infinite loop of monotony.

Raphael stood in the dining hall of a soon-to-be forgotten Duchess. A group of Faerûn’s most politically influential women surrounded him, cramming into the room like fish in a barrel. These parties were all nonsense to Raphael, another trite characteristic of his role as the resident Devil. 

The establishment was stuffy, not due to the growing crowd, but from the obvious lack of taste. Paintings decorated every inch of the walls, statues filled every corner, and none of the art seemed to co-exist. Each piece was random, gaudy, and only attempted to achieve one thing to any unlucky guest who was smart enough to see through the facade. 

Wealth! Status! Luxury! A tawdry display and an overt cry for help. 

Raphael pursed his lips. Was he the only one there who had even a sliver of self-respect? Who understood the complexities of art?

But of course he was. 

The evening was growing late and these mortals were on the verge of tipping over, their goblets overflowing with the very wine that coursed through their veins. Raphael was stuck entertaining them until they signed his contract.

It didn't matter. He would consume their souls and move on; just a little longer and this next batch of cattle would be herded into their pens for slaughter.

Raphael opened his mouth as he prepared to continue the dragging exchange, but he was taken by a sudden gush of air. Within seconds, his mouth was locked with a stranger's in a delicate kiss.

He blinked, a pair of striking blue eyes within inches of his own. Soft hands cradled his face. Cloves and roses. That smell. Those eyes. The sheer display of indecency. Tav. 

The fleeting act stunned the Devil. Before he could speak, move, or incincinerate; Tav winked, quickly disappearing into the crowd. 

“Lord Raphael! I didn’t realise…” One guest began. 

The herd of women grew excited, sharing hushed whispers with each other. A few of them began giggling. 

“Far from it, I’m afraid.” Raphael cleared his throat, adjusting his collar.  

“Well, that kiss told me everything I needed to know.” Another woman continued. She raised her brows high, a suggestive glint growing brighter in her eyes. “Your reputation precedes you, my Lord. Perhaps we can look at adding something similar to our agreement?”

He was going to destroy Tav, remove them from existence once and for all.

A thousand deadly thoughts ran through his mind at once, causing him to go into overdrive. The things he could do to them. Would do to them. He would make them beg for forgiveness, in every way imaginable, before he would even consider giving them the freedom of death.

“Of course I'm always open to discussing terms with prospective clients… but I am unfortunately unavailable.” Raphael responded. 

The women groaned in disappointment, a few of them, the richest ones, dismissed Raphael almost instantly. As they began to break away from the group, he could feel the threads of his perfect plan unravelling. Chaos closed in, circling him, suffocating him.  

“No need to fret, my dears. I have something for you that I don’t offer to just anyone, guaranteed to exceed all expectations. You will find them a far more pleasant experience, I’m sure.” 

This not only stopped the women from disbanding, but actually seemed to excite them. 

“Oh my Lord, forever a tease. Do tell us more!” One of them shouted. 

Raphael’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the empty chalice. He could feel his internal temperature bubbling as it rose. The chalice began to bend from the heat, slowly drooping like a dying flower.

He bit the side of his tongue, bowing respectfully. 

“I operate under the shadow of discretion. If you will allow me, you’ll soon be able to have a little taste, and discover first hand what awaits you upon signature.”

As the women huddled closer to Raphael, devouring every word from his lips, he searched the room for the culprit. That vile, unhonorable creature. He spotted them at the far end of the room, chatting with an unfamiliar face. 

He continued to glare at Tav, hoping his scathing gaze would pierce through their chest. The longer he stared at them, the more he hoped they’d feel his eyes on them; daring them to glance in his direction.  

When there was no response, Raphael set the tip of Tav’s outfit on fire with a flick of his wrist. He watched in pleasure as the flames slowly grew, nearly reaching their knees before they reacted to the warmth.

Tav jumped back, quickly killing the flames with a spell. Their cheeks grew redder as they tried to laugh off the embarrassment. Tav rubbed the back of their neck, looking around the room until their eyes caught Raphael’s. 

The Devil tilted his head in acknowledgment, a smile filled with scorn and amusement overtaking his lips. 

Try something like that again, little mouse, his expression hoped to convey; and he’ll be sure to leave them with permanent scars next time. 

Raphael soon discarded Tav from his mind, he wouldn’t waste anymore time thinking about that creature. He gathered the rest of his energy for the upcoming engagement at hand, the final one of the evening.

“Madams,” he began, turning back to the women. “This soirée has grown rather dull. Perhaps it’s time we move things somewhere more secluded as we close our deal? I think my House of Hope would suffice, no? Besides, there is someone who is dying to make your acquaintance.”