#everybody in the world could benefit from and I wish people would give it a real chance

[huellitaa]

𓍢ִ໋♡𓂃 ࣪ ִ receiving your blessings! ୨🧸୧

˚₊‧꒰ა roots ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

• feeling guilty about being given things you supposedly "dont deserve", like lots of love or gifts or whatever it may be, comes from a lack mindset.

• that is where you feel there is not enough of these things like love, gifts, money, etc. to go around. you think of the world as though there is always "not enough" and feel the need to push away the blessings you receive for someone or something else, or hold on to every little scrap of everything you find bc you fear you wont find it again.

• this comes from having a lack of things like love, money, affection, etc. in childhood and continues on as you grow up & get older.

one thing i've noticed is a lot of people actually treat this as a normal thing to push away the things youre given because you think "this is too much" or "i dont deserve this" or anything along those lines.

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ "i dont feel worthy of this" if you werent worthy it wouldnt be given to you. everyone and everything comes into your life for a reason, good or bad, and its your job to accept that and learn the lesson that comes from said thing or person. if someone offers you a gift, money, a job offer you've wanted, etc. if you know its safe then take it !!

── there are people with less money than you, less talent than you, less potential than you, out living your dreams just because you were too scared to take that opportunity you were given and just go for it. dont look back and think "oh, i should have taken that". dont let yourself have regrets when you know you can avoid them. life is to be lived, not feared.

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ "im not sure if i should" the opportunity wouldnt arise if it wasnt 100% certain it would benefit you in someway. obviously if you feel its sketchy or unsafe for whatever reason stay away from it and obviously do not go through with it or take it but if you know its safe and fine but youre still not sure then what are you doing!!! take it!!!

── you are refusing the gifts being given for what? worry? worry about what? who are you to doubt the gifts you are being given when you know its safe and you should take it? would you be concerned if someone gave you a gift on your birthday? this is the same thing. every day is your birthday if youve got the right mindset 🫶

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ "someone else deserves it more" what. think if you got a present on your birthday and it was something you'd wanted for aaaaages. would you sit there and think "no, someone else deserves this more than me"? if the answer's yes then you need to get your priorities straight ml im sorry. this was given to you for you. why are you doubting the universe- the world????? what???? girl what

── ok this can go two ways. if its something someone else genuinely needs because they dont have it and could heavily benefit from like fresh water, a job offer, a housing offer, fresh food, i would give it to them if i already had those resources for myself too because everybody needs those. they're basic necessities to live & thats basic empathy. but if its something you dont need to live but really really want and are being given the chance to obtain then what. are you doing. girl. take it! what is your problem!

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ i think if you find yourself saying or thinking these things often, pause for a second and ask yourself why you think this. is it something to do with growing up, the people around you, your financial status.. whatever it may be, it always helps to find the root of the problem. ♡

treat yourself to whatever you wish! you deserve it just because you are alive. that is a difficult task in itself. you deserve it just because you want it. you work so hard, so why shouldnt you have the things you want? take that gift, take that money, take that date, take that offer. life is too short to regret what you could have had 🫶💕

lots of love 💘

[another-goblin]

Chaos vs. Order in the world of HSR: an incoherent rambling.

Spoilers for the Unknowable Domain.

Speaking of Aventurine and Dr. Ratio, if you asked me before which side of the dichotomy of Order and Chaos they represent, I wouldn't hesitate. Of course a reasonable and methodical scientist represents Order, and an unpredictable gambler represents Chaos (Ratio even called him "a system of chaos devoid of logic"). Until I saw this.

It got me thinking. Yes, gambling is all about chance. Unless you are supernaturally lucky and you always know that the coin will land to your benefit, following the predetermioned Order.

Compare Aventurine's "No reason to choose otherwise, and no other choice" (everthing's predetermined; you can't change it; don't even try) to Ratio's "Chose your own path" (I think this phrase might be more important for Ratio as a character than we think. He said it twice. It's not just about choosing a playable path, like our Traleblazer does, but ultimately about Free Will. The chaotic unpredictability of an individual freely choosing their actions. Can it be one of the reasons why he wasn't chosen by Nous? Nous who's all about predicting and calculating the future, which is the opposite of the notion of free will?)

It seems like Aventurine long gave up the idea of having agency; he sees himself as "a cog in the machine known as the IPC's Strategic Investment Department". With his "Good luck makes one powerful, but destiny? Inherently unjust" and "Go ahead, use me as you wish". He basically sees himself as a slave to his supernatural gift and his predetermined destiny. Compare to Ratio's "about Aventurine" voiceline: "we can't chalk it all up to "good luck". Meaning, it's not just your luck; give yourself some credit for your achievements; you can change things.

Even their banner's names show the difference of their worldviews in terms of free will and determinism: Aventurine's "Gilded Imprisonment" vs. Ratio's "Panta Rhei" (which can be translated as "everything changes").

Aventurine considers his supernatural luck a gift from Gaiathra Triclops, who's theorized to actually be Ena the Order, which makes even more sense from this order/chaos point of view.

Aventurine probably knew that his path on Penacony led him towards inevitable death. "No reason to choose otherwise, and no other choice." What saved him in the end? It was two people: Mr. Chaotic himself, Veritas "Choose your own path" Ratio, and Acheron. I don't know where IX stands in this dichotomy of Chaos and Order. Probably nowhere. But if I were to choose, I'd say they lean towards Order. Or rather against the free will of Chaos. "Yes, you can do whatever you want, but why would you if it all is unlimately meaningless". But IX's factions are kind of opposed to them, so I'm curious what Acheron's personal opinion is on this.

Speaking of IX's factions opposing them, the "Dr. Ratio is a Doctor of Chaos" theory has never been so strong!

And what was our major encounter with the Order as an ingame Path? It was the Perfect Dream created by Sunday, where everybody's living their perfect lives, unwilling and unable to change it. Btw, who was one of the first people who woke up from this Dream?

Sunday and Robin also represent the opposites. Unlike her brother, devoted to Order, Robin, representing "Chaos", respects the diverse individuals as a part of a harmonious choir.

BTW, off topic but where else could I have seen a short message containing both good luck wishes and "Death" in quotation marks? Coiucidence? (yes)

Moreover *inhales*

It's interesting to look at Aeons and their major factions through the lens of the confrontation between Chaos and Order (not Ena the Order but Order in an abstact way).

Which can be understood in different ways. Free will vs. prophecy. Choosing your own path vs. calculating the future. Destruction vs. Finality. Personal strife vs. organized Preservation. Individuality vs. Harmony.

Speaking of which, we can kind of sort some of the Aeons and major factions into two opposing camps.

Who would be on the "Order" side?

Nous who can predict (and thus predetermine) the future through their calculation.

Preservation, who's main faction, the IPC, calculates planets' chances of survival in percents and who opposes Nanook (who else does that? Svarog, a super intelligent machine himself, who's later thwarted by the "unknown variable" - our Trailblazer, who only possessed the power of Destrustion at the time).

Stellaron Hunters, led by a person who's known as Destiny's Slave and can predict the future, also oppose Nanook.

Hunt, who's main faction, Xianzhou, is led by people like Jing Yuan, "The Divine Foresight" (who's so smart that it seems like he can predict the future), or Fu Xuan, whose actual ability to predict the future comes from Nous. They also oppose Nanook.

And of course Terminus the Finality, who travels backwards in time and is all about predicting the future, symbolizes the inavitable end of all things. 

And on the side, representing Chaos, we have, for example:

Nanook, whose path, the Destruction, seems kind of similar to Finality but actually somehow the opposite of it.

Mythos, who "strives to challenge the certainty of Nous the Erudition".

And of course, Akivili the Trailblaze, representing the ultimate freedom to go wherever you want, to "choose your own path", if you will.

So it all kind of boils down to Destrucion vs Finality at the end. It's interesting that at the moment we are expected to see Nanook as a "bad guy", as we ally with more factions opposed to them. Although I'm sure actually it's more complicated and messy than that. 

For example, from Data Bank on Akivili: "There are three directions on the compass of destiny — the Unknown, the Known, and the Unknowable. THEY can tolerate the Unknown, but will never bow to the Unknowable". How does it factor into all this Knowable/Unknowable Domain stuff and reaching outside the Circle of Knowladge? 

BTW I actually have only a very vague idea of the game's deep lore at best, and I also understood like maybe 20% of what happened in the Unknowable Domain, to take it all with a grain of salt.

But what I actually wanted to say is: continue, HSR, I'm listening.

[wttcsms]

daylight ; colt grice.

pairing colt grice x f!reader word count 14.3k synopsis colt grice's life has never been easy, and it's about to get a hell of a lot worse. content contains sw!reader, canon discrimination against eldians, depictions of violence, blood, taking care of him when he's injured, slowburn author's note this is part one of four!! / repost bc the first time around, it didn't show up in tags </3

part one: no sharing names

“Are you scared?” 

The teenage girl sitting in front of the cracked vanity mirror is shaking. She’s been jittery all day, and as the sun started its descent, she’s only been growing increasingly more and more anxious. You wish you could tell her that it’s nothing to be scared of, but that would be a lie. 

Your whole line of work is built on lies; the last thing you need to do is let Work You bleed through into Real You.

“It’s okay if you are.” That’s what you settle for, slowly running a brush through the thick, dark layers of her hair. 

“Were you scared?” She’s a tiny thing; it’s no surprise that her voice would sound so small, too. It makes your heart break just a little more. 

“I was.” Seeing that your admission doesn’t make her feel any better, you add on, “Sometimes, I still get scared.” 

“Oh.” And then, “How do you still do it?”

“I don’t have a choice.” You pretend that most of your focus is on the knot in her hair and not the glimpse of the horrified expression on her face. She’s actually a very pretty girl. 

Being pretty is a double-edged sword. The benefit of this is that she’ll never run out of customers; the downside of this is that she’ll never run out of customers. You drag the brush through the knot of hair more aggressively than you intend to. 

She doesn’t say anything, so you elaborate. “It’s just me and Ramzi, you know.” The girl nods in acknowledgement. At the refugee camp, everybody seems to know each other; a side effect of living in cramped spaces and having more communal areas rather than private ones. A tight-knit community, but hardly by choice. When the whole world seems to harbor an unshakable hatred towards you, you learn to cling to the people who don’t. 

“And Ramzi… He can’t make money, and we can’t keep living off the kindness of others. So, if this is how Ramzi gets food in his belly, and clothes that fit, how could I possibly stop doing this?” It’s not as if Marley is a land of opportunity; oppression fits it much better. You set the brush down and start to braid her hair. “This isn’t… This isn’t a job you can retire from very quickly.” 

It’s not a job you can necessarily leave, either. Not just because the money is more than what you could make doing laundry and picking up after people’s dogs, but your work history will always follow behind you, a permanent stain on your record. It’s best that she comes to terms with this sooner rather than later. 

“I don’t know if I can do this.” She sounds broken, defeated. The sentence comes out as a sob, and you’re distinctly aware of how her cries only continue to chip away at your resolve. You wanted to remain cool and impersonal. You wanted to act as if taking the care to do her hair for her wasn’t an attempt to give the poor girl some sense of normalcy — of comfort — before she gets sent to the slaughter. You want — the most dangerous thing a girl like you could possibly ever do.

You’re hugging the girl before you can tell yourself that this is a bad idea. The goal was to wean her off comfort, not coddle her, smother her with affection and comfort and warm words. How will she possibly survive if she’s continuously clinging onto the warmth nobody she services will provide? You certainly weren’t given anything to prepare for your first night; no warnings, no reassurances, no comfort. It was a hard lesson to learn, that no one visiting this establishment would ever care about you. That no one here would ever see you as anything more than something they’ve paid for. 

Three more seconds. That’s how much longer you’ll give her to bury her face in your neck, wetting your exposed skin and probably getting snot in your hair. Three more seconds, and then you will (gently) pull her away from you. Three more seconds, and you will begin to properly prepare her for her condemnation. 

One—

Ramzi is probably getting ready for bed right about now. 

Two—

You reminded him that he needs to take care of himself and to remember to layer the thin blankets so he can try to get as much warmth out of those hand-me-downs. 

Three—

It’s going to be a cold night.

You remove yourself from the embrace, taking in the girl. Her big, brown eyes are still shiny from her tears, lashes slick from them. She’s sniffling, lips quivering, and she looks a mess. 

(You try to ignore that by the end of tonight, she will look even worse.) 

You want to hug her again, but already, you feel like you’ve done both too much and not enough. Yes, it’s nice to know that someone cares, but that won’t do much to help her survive this. You place your hands on her shoulders.

“Look at me.” 

She forces herself to look you in the eyes. The shift in your demeanor makes her cease her sniffling, and she’s finally still.

“You asked me how I’m still doing this. I’ll let you in on a little secret, alright? Can you keep a secret for me, honey?” 

She nods, too afraid to speak. 

“It’s just all a big game. And every game has rules, right?”

 She nods again.

“I’ll tell you the rules to mine. The first one is that they can’t know my name.” 

“Won’t they ask?” 

“They don’t pay me to tell ‘em the truth.” 

That gets a semblance of a smile on her face.

Before you can tell her any more, there’s a loud bang on the door.

“Girls, we’re about to open up shop!” Willa, the Eldian woman running this whole establishment, gives you two this warning. You can hear her loud voice traveling through all the thin walls in this place. She’s making her rounds, visiting the other girls’ rooms to let them know, too.

“Guess our time is up.”

“Wait, but you didn’t tell me any of your other rules! How will I know what to do?” She’s panicking, scrambling for any reason to stay here with you instead of facing whatever nightmare awaits her out there. She’s clinging onto your arms, acting like you’re her lifeline, and how sad it must be, you think, for you to be the person someone looks up to.

“It’s your game, honey. You can make up your own rules, change them as you go, make special exceptions. Whatever you want to do.” You brush back a few strands of her hair that clings to her still-wet cheeks. “Just focus on figuring out all the rules, especially when you’re searching for something to think about.”

The best rules usually come during the times where you want to focus on anything other than what’s presently happening to you. On your second night, there was a man who produced so much saliva, that when his mouth was drunkenly exploring every inch of your skin, you stared up at the peeling paint on the ceiling and decided right then and there that no man was allowed to kiss you on your lips. 

“Why can’t they know your real name?” She asks. “Everyone back home knows your name.”

“Everyone back home knows me.” The men that come here are mostly men who want to break you. To take something from you, everything from you, to leave you with nothing. It makes them feel powerful, knowing that they paid a cheap price for free-rein to destruction. 

That’s how you win the game: by not letting them break you. 

These men, they never stood a chance against the personas you fabricate for them. Different names, different personalities — it’s all make-believe. Those girls, the girls you pretend to be, are the ones that get destroyed every night. 

“Promise me that you will never give them a chance to know you, Nadia.”

She nods, but unlike every other time, this one is fueled with conviction. 

Colt Grice is acutely aware that he has absolutely no business being here. 

The bright yellow armband sticks out like a sore thumb, acting as a flashing arrow that separates him from the other soldiers flanked by his side. Some days, it feels too tight, too restrictive, too heavy of a burden. Tonight, it feels like a blemish. 

Even drunk, Colt knows these thoughts are dangerous. Any Eldian would kill to be a Warrior candidate, and he’s all too aware of the privileges he and his family have been granted because this yellow strip of fabric says he should be granted some respect.

Not too much, though. Show a devil a little reverence, and he’ll probably take you straight down to hell with him — he’s certain that’s how most people here see him. 

Soldiers coming to the red light district of Marley is nothing new. When training gets tough or there’s time to kill, drinking ensues. Where alcohol goes, bad decisions have a tendency to follow. 

Colt likes to think of himself as responsible. Sensible. Even if the Marleyans would deny it, he would even go so far as to think that he is a fairly good person. 

Stumbling down these dark streets, passing by brothels and love hotels, he thinks a good person probably wouldn’t be here right now. 

“It’s fucking freezing out here,” Michael purposely bumps his shoulder against Colt’s. “Are you freezing too, or do devils just not get cold?” 

From anyone else, it would be an insult. From Michael, it’s a joke. Like most of Michael’s jokes, they don’t necessarily land the way he intends them to, but Colt doesn’t bother telling him to work on his comedic timing or delivery; as nice of a guy as Michael is, he could still easily get Colt punished for treason with just one conversation with any of their superiors. 

“Do you ever get tired of slumming it with us devils?” The slur glides off his tongue too easily. Michael makes a face before slinging his arm over Colt’s shoulders as a show of good-natured camaraderie. With the flickering streetlights and the few other souls walking past, there’s really no one to bear witness to it. 

“Nah.” Michael clears his throat and sounds like he almost wants to say something else but decides against it at the last minute. A second later, and he’s belting out an old battlefield victory song taught during their childhood training. With everyone else in the group inebriated, it doesn’t take much to get them to drunkenly sing along. Colt smiles at their antics, but doesn’t join in. He wants to try to shift his armband around, but Michael’s arm is still thrown around him, and Colt decides he could really use another drink right about now. 

Instead of stopping at a bar like he hopes for, the rowdy group makes their way into the infamous “Gentleman’s Club.” The paint is peeling, there’s shattered glass right beneath the boarded up window, and the words on the sign are so faded, the G entle part of it is nearly imperceptible. 

Colt does not think he is getting another drink tonight.

He’s not sure what to expect from a brothel. He’s heard some stories in the barracks, but he usually makes an effort to tune out those type of crude tales. How would his mother feel about him indulging in any of the activities being described by his fellow soldiers? What type of example would he be setting for Falco? 

Eldian soldiers looking for a quick and easy release usually frequent the cheaper brothels. From an outside perspective, it’s hard for Colt to believe that any of these places could possibly be in worse shape than this building. The fact that this one is the nicest is enough to make Colt regret following the crowd tonight. 

The entrance of the Club is sparsely furnished, with a singular light bulb hanging from the ceiling, flickering and casting weird shadows everywhere. There are some pictures in frames hanging on the wall, but the inconsistent lighting makes it hard for Colt to properly make out any specific features of the girls photographed. 

A redheaded woman appears, taking in the group of half a dozen soldiers taking up all the limited space in her entrance. 

“First time?” She asks them. She sounds perfectly calm, but Colt doesn’t miss the way her sharp, green eyes seem to linger on Michael. 

If he runs out of this place right now, would any of these guys remember or are they too drunk to trust their memories? Before he can further debate the merits of hightailing it out of here, Michael pushes Colt forward.

“It’s my friend’s first time here. Mind showin’ him what a good time a couple of coins can get him?” He winks at Colt, obnoxiously mouthing out words that look an awful lot like you owe me one . 

Colt can feel his ears turning pink from embarrassment. 

“Of course.” The woman’s tight-lipped smile indicates that she would much rather be doing anything else. “If you would follow me, sir.” 

He could still make a run for it. Sure, he might have to endure endless teasing and maybe word of this little escapade would reach the ears of the others in the Warrior Unit, to Falco, but the alcohol churning in his system is doing a magic act — look, kids, with just a couple of drinks, watch as I make all my critical thinking skills disappear! —  and Colt is very much aware that he is making a supremely bad decision, but—

—he follows the woman up the stairs, anyway.

“You’ve never been to a brothel before?” The woman asks as she leads him down a dark hallway. There are doors lining the wall, each of them closed. Sometimes, Colt can occasionally hear faint grunts and the sound of skin slapping against skin; the further he follows this woman, the louder the noises get. Or maybe it’s just all in his head. Maybe he’s making up the noises. Maybe they’re sharper, louder, only because he’s accidentally seeking them out.

He hears a scream. 

The woman doesn’t even slow her pace.

“No.” He answers. 

“Well, you chose the right one, at least.” She doesn’t sound like a proud business owner, and considering the circumstances, Colt can’t necessarily fault her for her lack of enthusiasm. “What kind of girls do you like?”

“Huh?” The question catches him off guard. 

“What kind of girls do you like? So that way we can pick the right one for you.” 

Colt doesn’t like the sound of this. He feels dirty, all of a sudden. Like he’s drenched in something filthy, and he needs to go home and shower. The fucking trenches are preferable over this.

She turns around, squinting at him. He can’t tell if it’s because it’s so dark that she can’t see him, or if it’s because she’s scrutinizing him. 

“Nothing coming to mind?” Colt is aware of the clientele that frequents places like these; her clear impatience and almost snappish tone catches him off guard once more. 

“Um, no. I’m not very particular.” An understatement, really. His kind aren’t allowed to be picky. 

She stares at him for a second longer before telling him, “I know a girl for you.” 

She leads him to the last door, knocking three times against it. Nobody answers, but this doesn’t seem to bother her. “Alright, Mr. Not Very Particular. Enter whenever you want, leave whenever you want. Normally, you pay something upfront, and then you stop by the front desk, and depending on how long you stayed, I’ll calculate the rest that you owe, but your friend is covering the cost for you. If I were you, I’d run up his tab.” He thinks she smiles when she says this.

He wants to ask her if Michael gave any particular reason for why he’s paying for a service Colt certainly never asked for, and more importantly, he wants to know why the hell Michael has an open tab at a brothel (freetime off base is usually few and far between, after all). He can’t ask her anything, though, because she’s walking away, probably to go stare into the other soldiers’ souls and ask them what type of women they’re into.

This just leaves Colt, a dark hallway, and the door in front of him. 

Not knowing what waits for him on the other side has never bothered him before. Colt is used to worst-case scenarios — a trait inherited by all Eldians. Optimism is a luxury people like him can’t afford. 

He wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all. He’s a Warrior Candidate — the one set to inherit the Beast Titan after Zeke’s time is up — and he’s being bested by what? A door?

Before he can think too much about it, he straightens his posture, grips the doorknob, and opens the damn door. 

It’s Michael’s money, anyway. 

When Colt was a young boy — so young that Falco couldn’t speak or do much besides staying swaddled in a blanket and pushed around in a stroller — his mother often made him go out for walks.

Keeping all that energy bottled up is no good is what she would tell him, before forcing him to lace up his shoes and walk up and down the cracked sidewalk of their neighborhood for thirty minutes. (It’s not until he’s older that he realizes she really just wanted him out of the house for her own peace and quiet.) 

The internment zone of Liberio could be worse. Even as a child, Colt learns that this is simply the unofficial Eldian motto, the doctrine of their way of life, if you will: it could be worse. 

In school, Colt learns that there are much worse places to be designated, and he should be grateful for the mercy of the Marleyans. The Grice family is at least better off than most; they have their own house, and the Public Security Authorities don’t patrol this area nearly as much as they do other areas in the internment zone. 

Another important lesson he learns young: just because you don’t see that you’re being watched doesn’t mean you aren’t being watched.

Usually, his mom sends him off on errands, especially when he starts to complain that it’s boring just pacing up and down the length of the neighborhood. Today is no different. 

“Go to the market, and get me some tomatoes. I forgot to buy some when we went last week.” Mrs. Grice narrows her eyes at her oldest son. “And no going off course, Colt. Absolutely no detours — to the market and right back home, do you understand?” 

His mom, just like every other Eldian mother, constantly battles with the understanding that their children need to learn how to survive outside the safety of their house and the overwhelming urge to try to shield them from said outside world. There’s always horror stories about what happens to little Eldian boys and girls who stray too far from the safety of their internment zone. 

With one hand shoved in his pocket, fist curled tightly around the money his mother pressed into his palm before sending him off, Colt heads towards the main square where there will be different vendors and stalls selling a variety of goods. Sweets, hardware, clothes, fresh fruit and vegetables; it’s easy to get distracted. The main square is probably the liveliest place in the internment zone, the only other place besides home that Colt assumes nothing bad can happen in. 

The first sign that something is off is when the usual pathway to the main square is eerily quiet. It’s a perfectly beautiful day, with the sun shining and no holiday that would cause the market to be closed down. The further he ventures, the more oddities he takes notice of. 

The blinds are drawn. Laundry that has long dried is still hanging outside, blowing in the wind. There are no children outside playing, and there’s a tiny voice in his head telling him that he should turn around right now. 

The second sign that something is off is when the flutter of curtains pulling back catches his eye. He turns his head and catches sight of an older woman peering at him through the little gap of fabric. She shakes her head slowly — a warning? He tightens his grip on the money in his pocket.

Normally, there are PSA officers patrolling the main square. With so many Eldians gathered in one spot, the officers are taught to think and anticipate the worst. A ruckus, a riot, the seeds of rebellion being planted — anything could happen. Who knows what these monsters are capable of? They couldn’t possibly just be innocently shopping for groceries and treats because there’s nothing innocent about them, period. A tamed dog is still a dog. Dogs bite.

The third sign that something is off is the deserted square. Stalls must have been hastily packed up considering the few remaining items left behind. There are no officers in the square, and Colt knows that something bad has happened. He doesn’t want to believe it at first, but the proof is hanging right in the middle of the square for any passerby to see.

There is a man hanging from the clock tower located in the middle of the square. His head is hanging limp, and Colt almost thinks that he’s dead, that there is a dead body put on display in the town square, but he sees the slight, unmistakable movements of his chest.

It’s even worse — the man is still alive.

He’s horrified. Colt is frozen in fear; somewhere during his assessment of the man, he must’ve gripped the coins in his pocket too hard because when he returns home, there will be an imprint of the currency etched onto the palm of his hand. He inhales, exhales, and is frightened to realize that his breaths are in tandem with the hanging man’s. Will he stop breathing when this man does, too? 

The man’s clothes are dirty, stained with dried blood and tears through the cotton. He’s been beaten before this has happened, no doubt. There’s no other explanation since he’s hanging too high up for anyone to touch him. He’s being held up only by the rope tied against his wrists, wrists with skin that is rubbed raw and red from the roughness of it all. 

There’s writing on the usually pristine brick of the clock tower. Dripping red, too bright to be blood but clearly a derivation of it:

TO LOVE A DEVIL IS TO BE ONE

He examines the man’s entire body, committing it to memory, especially his clothing. Dirty, torn, and tattered. Chunks of fabric ripped and ruined. Trousers, a work shirt, holey socks. The man’s left arm is still covered by the longsleeve of his shirt, but his eyes travel upwards. He blinks, rubs his eyes, and looks again, searching for the gray armband, searching for even a pin in the shape of the nine-pointed star. 

There isn’t any.

Even in death, an Eldian still must wear their armband. With no trace of racial identification, that can only mean one thing:

This man is a Marleyan.

Colt does what he should have done at the first sign of trouble: he runs. He sprints down the empty blocks and refuses to slow down, even as he goes through the neighborhoods closer to his own. There are people outside here, people who don’t know what has happened, and Colt ignores their concerned shouts and sighs of chastisement for running so recklessly down the street. He’s struggling to breathe and his legs burn by the time he barrels through the door of his home, the only safe place for him left, and he heads straight to the bathroom, ignoring his mother’s call of Colt, is that you?  

He throws up in the toilet, and when there is nothing left from breakfast for him to cough up, he starts to dry heave, images of that man, that Marleyan man, constantly flashing through his mind, permanently embedded in his memories. 

He hears the banging on the door, his mother’s worried questions of what’s wrong?, sweetie, are you okay? filtering through the wood of the bathroom door. 

There are fundamental lessons to be learned here. There is no place in Marley that is truly safe. There is nothing anyone living here can do, even if they want to do something. 

There is nothing good that comes from loving an Eldian, from loving someone like him.

“Hi,” there’s a girl in here, wearing a straight white dress — more like a sleeping gown, something long and flowy and a bit transparent — her hair tucked behind her ears and brushed behind her shoulders. She’s looking at him, studying him in a way that makes him subconsciously stand up straighter, like he needs to impress her, and there are a couple thoughts running through his mind right now.

You are a very, very pretty girl. Beautiful, even. He has never seen someone like you before, and he doesn’t think he ever will and,

He is simultaneously too drunk and yet not drunk enough for this encounter.

Another shot and he would have enough drunken confidence to approach you. Right now, he’s had just enough to make his mind go all foggy. What do you say when a beautiful girl tells you hi ? The correct reply is floating somewhere in his head, he knows it, but the answer eludes him at the moment, and all he can really focus on right now is that he is very, very upset with Michael. 

You tilt your head, standing near the bed but not approaching him yet.

“You alright, honey?”

Colt doesn’t normally have trouble speaking to girls. In fact, he’s quite popular back home. His girl cousins always groan during family gatherings, complaining to Colt that it’s so annoying how all their friends want to use them as a means to get closer to him. The attention is flattering, and he’s even flirted with the idea of a romantic relationship once or twice, but he always seems to have something else that he needs to focus on more. 

Focus, Colt. He tries to force himself to come up with something witty and flirtatious. What comes out is a strangled hi. 

He clears his throat, spits out a more coherent hello, and turns redder in the process. 

Smooth. He thinks. Real smooth. 

If you think there’s something seriously wrong with him, you don’t act like it. Instead, you smile at him, something so soft and sweet, and Colt knows for a fact that he’s a dead man. An absolute goner. 

“First time?” You ask, taking in his impossibly straight posture that doesn’t match with his curled hands and flushed cheeks. The uniform gives him away: he’s a soldier. You’re used to soldiers, some of them young and nervous, just wanting to get their first time over with. Those tend to be nice boys. Sometimes, you can even enjoy yourself — not because of their technique (or lack, thereof) — but because kindness is a resource so rarely shared with you, you can’t help but indulge in it when you get it. 

Most of the soldiers that frequent this place are Marleyan. They come here drunk from liquor and look forward to getting intoxicated with power. They’re rougher, meaner, less forgiving. 

You’ve never seen a soldier with a yellow armband before, though. A Warrior Candidate, that’s what he is. You wonder if he’ll be nice. He certainly seems nice. 

“I don’t normally do this stuff.” He blurts out. “Not sex, I’ve had sex.” And then, just for good measure, in case you don’t believe him (you do, of course, believe him; a soldier that looks like him certainly doesn’t have to try hard to find someone to warm his bed), he tells you, “I’m not a virgin, I swear.”

You sure act like one. You find yourself thinking, amused, but not necessarily annoyed. There’s something so earnest about him that you can’t find it in yourself to say something mean. Besides, men who come here aren’t looking for mean women. They’re looking for someone to exert their power over, and they’re looking for a fantasy. You’ve been doing this long enough to know how to fill the role of the woman of their desires. Some men are searching for someone sweet and docile, some are looking for a woman who’s reluctant, someone that they can chase and get to submit. No matter what, though, all of them are looking for prey.

Somehow, the soldier standing in front of you, with his blond hair and perfectly ironed uniform, yellow armband seemingly brightening up this whole room, he doesn’t look like he’s searching for prey. If you didn’t know any better, you would think he’s searching for an exit. 

“I’m not a virgin, either, so I guess that makes two of us.” You take a seat on the bed, patting down the empty space next to you, offering him a seat. He doesn’t take it. You think he’ll come around eventually. 

“I don’t… I don’t go to brothels.” He explains to you, and you nod in understanding. The stressed out soldiers of Marley saying they don’t go to brothels is like listening to an alcoholic tell you that they don’t go to the liquor store. You could try to call him out, but there’s always that little saying: the customer is always right. 

“Well, honey, I think someone must’ve given you the wrong directions because you’re in one right now.” 

“Colt.” He tells you. “My name is Colt.” 

“That’s a nice name.” 

He looks like he’s about to ask for yours, but before he can, you continue talking. “What do you want to do tonight, honey?” 

Honey. He told you his name so you wouldn’t have to call him something so sweet. He’s certain that you already saw his armband, saw him for what he is. The lack of disgust on your end is disarming him. 

“Whatever you want.” 

Idiot. He chastises himself. He’s said so many stupid things, at this point, he can’t even blame it on the alcohol in his system. He’s discovering that he just might actually be stupid. 

You give a little laugh. “You really haven’t been to a brothel before.” You adjust your position on the bed, getting comfortable, angling your body more towards him. “Normally, it’s the other way around. We do whatever you want to do.” 

You don’t sound the least bit upset about it, about the fact that you have to spend every night going through with whatever someone pays for you to do. What must it be like, he wonders. 

“I just want to talk.” 

You smile at him, and he takes a mental image of it, locks it away in his memories. 

“Sure thing, honey. We can talk, but the price remains the same.” 

“My friend has a tab here. He’s, uh, covering it.” 

Great. He inwardly groans. Now she thinks I can’t even afford to be here. 

“Must be a nice friend.”

“He’s not really a friend.” Colt explains. “Coworker is more accurate.”

“So he’s a soldier, too. That makes sense. Not sure where else you could find brothel buddies to go out with.” You don’t normally tease your customers too much. Most of the time, they aren’t here for conversation, and none of them are safe enough to say anything less than forced out praises of yes, you feel so good! to. 

“We’re in different units.”

“So how’d you two meet then?” 

“He’s—” Annoying. Irritating. A pain in the ass. A good guy, when he chooses to be. The nicest Marleyan Colt’s ever met. “—a free spirit. He just roams around, no matter how many times his commanding officer threatens punishment.” 

“He sounds fun.”

“He has his moments.” 

“And what about you? What are some of your shining moments?” 

You can tell a lot about a person by how they present themselves in their stories. If you’re going to ask an arrogant asshole soldier about his shining moments, he’s probably going to spout some nonsense about his (fictional) heroics on the battlefield (he hasn’t even fired a bullet at an enemy soldier before; hasn’t even seen war). Someone insecure struggles to even come up with a story to tell you. The best kind of people, though, tell you—

“On the day my little brother, Falco, got accepted into the Warrior Unit, I cried.” He gives you a sheepish smile and rubs the back of his neck nervously, like he’s embarrassed to admit this. “I was just really proud of him, and I knew how badly he wanted to be there. We had this whole celebration; my mom baked a cake, and my dad splurged on alcohol, and all our neighbors came over, too. It was this whole thing. And, uh, one of our neighbors asked Falco how he feels about being in the Warrior Unit. He announced to the whole party that he felt great about it because all he ever wanted to do was follow in my footsteps. I felt like I was someone for once.” 

—something just like that. 

He seems more relaxed after sharing this with you, and you can see it in the way his brown eyes seem to shine when he mentions his brother, the way he can’t quite seem to contain his pleased smile while reliving the memory, that this soldier isn’t lying to you. 

“What about you?” He suddenly asks. “What’s your shining moment?”

“You think someone like me is capable of having a shining moment?” You play at being coy, but it’s just a means of distracting him. No matter how sweet or nice this golden soldier seems, the last thing you want to do is share your own life with him. There aren’t many things you hold close to your heart, so revealing them makes all the emptiness in you suddenly seem that much more infinite. You don’t want to lie to him, though.

There is enough weakness (kindness) in you to spare to not disrespect his honesty by giving him a false memory. 

“Not only that. I think you star in people’s shining moments, too.” 

Honest. He’s being honest. 

Nobody has ever knocked you off balance like this before. You didn’t even think anyone would ever be capable of doing such a thing. And, the worst part of it all, is the fact that this soldier just throws this out so casually! What kind of person goes to a brothel and starts throwing out genuine compliments to the prostitutes? Someone not right in the head, clearly. 

But the smile on your face is unfairly sincere, and this, you realize with a sense of dread, is going to be one of your shining moments.

“Whoa, what’s the rush, Beast Jr.?” Porco Galliard is sitting on a crate outside the barracks, looking like he has absolutely nowhere to be. Commander Magath always reminds them that there is always something for them to be doing, and if he catches any of them slacking off, he is always willing to give them something to do. Porco received the same warning, same as the rest of the Warrior Unit, but he also thrives on pushing buttons. Colt knows he’s not stupid enough to challenge Commander Magath directly, but he also knows that Porco is arrogant enough to play the dangerous game of trying to see how far he can piss off Magath without getting written up. 

Ever since Colt was given the news of his inheritance of the Beast Titan, he spends more and more time with the current Warriors than the other soldiers, leaving him in a constant struggle to find his footing. The other soldiers already know he’s set up to reach the highest honor an Eldian can ever aspire to achieve, and what’s the point of getting too close to someone who’s only working with a limited lifespan? When he’s with the Warriors, Colt feels even less sure of himself. Zeke occasionally invites him to their meetings, lets him play at having some sort of significance, but Colt isn’t in as deep as the others are. Not yet. 

“What? I’m not rushing,” Colt says, sounding guilty, and exactly like someone who is in a rush. Porco is more observant than people give him credit for, and stubborn (although, people give him credit for being that all the time). 

“No way, you’re definitely in a rush. Where are you running off to?” 

“Don’t you have anything to do? I thought Warriors were supposed to keep busy schedules.” Colt attempts an evasion tactic, dodging Porco’s question and instead, putting the focus on him. Porco doesn’t give in. 

Then again, Colt can’t remember a time where anyone was able to evade the Jaw Titan.

“Now I know for sure that you’re up to something. What could Golden Boy Grice possibly be hiding?” Porco Galliard is dangerous on a good day; a bored Porco Galliard, with nothing but free time on his hands, is downright detrimental. “You startin’ a rebellion?” 

Colt’s eyes widen before he twists his neck, trying to make sure no one is in their vicinity. Even as a passing joke, all it takes is one person to mention this lighthearted jibe, and Colt’s life is over. Not only will he most likely be imprisoned and then publicly executed, but his family will suffer right with him. 

Porco throws his hands up in mock surrender. “Relax. No one’s here. They’re off actually doing their chores.” He seems to consider the situation. “Did you get a girlfriend or something?” 

Does Porco really have nothing better to do? Judging by the wide grin on his face, the answer is a definitive yes.

“Oh, shit! You do have a girlfriend.” He laughs, and Colt isn’t sure if he should be offended. “Look at you go, Grice.”

Porco is still laughing like this is the funniest thing he’s heard all day, but at least he allows Colt to go pass without any more trouble. The only reason he doesn’t bother correcting him, Colt reasons, is because he doesn’t want to explain himself. 

That’s all.

The red light district looks weird in the glow of the afternoon sun. The same dilapidated buildings, with their peeling paint and cracked windows, grimy signs and rusted, metal roofs, don’t look nearly as intimidating as they do in the nighttime. Instead, they just look a bit… sad.  

There are some people outside. Two old men smoking cigarettes outside what Colt assumes is a bar. A drunk man walking in the opposite direction, mumbling something incoherent under his breath, a half empty bottle of clear liquid hanging from his hand. A woman using a broom that’s clearly seen better days to sweep the outside of her own shop. 

The whole area feels like a graveyard for the living.

He feels aware of how he stands out. He stares straight ahead, following the cracked pavement, making his way to the Gentleman’s Club. With his stiff, ironed military uniform, neatly parted hair that’s hidden under his helmet, and hands too clean to have touched anything in this part of town, Colt can’t tell whether he looks like an adversary or a target. His only saving grace, the only thing keeping the half-dead inhabitants of this place away, is the yellow armband twisted tightly around his left bicep. He quickens his pace anyway. 

Already out in the lobby, standing behind a desk, is the same redheaded woman from last night. If she’s surprised to see him here again, she doesn’t show it.

“Back so soon?” She says, forgoing a polite greeting altogether. 

Considering where she is, Colt can’t necessarily fault her for it. Minding his manners (Mrs. Grice did not raise her children in a barn, going against what the Marleyans assume) and military training, Colt removes his helmet. He’s thankful that he has something for his hands to grasp, keeping them occupied. 

“Is—” For as much as he revealed to you, Colt realizes that you didn’t really offer much on yourself . Not even your name. “—the girl I saw last night here?”

“She doesn’t work in the daytime, no.” The woman pulls out a large book, flips through its pages, not bothering to look up at him again until a few more seconds pass. Acting as if she’s shocked to find that he’s still standing there, even though Colt knows she knows that he hasn’t left, she says, “I really don’t think you would be interested in any of our daytime workers, either. Even if you aren’t very particular.” 

“Oh. I see.” Colt, as a matter of fact, does not see. He’s just saying something to fill the awkward silence. 

“As a Warrior Candidate, I assume you have other places to be, Mr. Not Very Particular?” 

Clearly, business is doing well (even though the empty lobby suggests otherwise) since Colt hasn’t met a shop owner who seems quite content with shooing customers out the door. 

“Colt.” He tells her.

“Colt.” She repeats, slowly. “Well, Mr. Colt, my establishment prides itself on its discretion. I’d use an alias next time, if I were you.” 

He doesn’t tell her that he doesn’t plan on there being a “next time.” That would be rude.

“The girl from last night, I wanted to give her this. Would you be willing to hand her these when she comes in?” Digging into his pocket, Colt pulls out a pair of white cotton socks. They’re military issued, and stolen from the inventory warehouse. Colt was put on inventory duty, tasked with handling the shipment of new uniforms and training clothes. For all the heavy lifting he’s had to do, one pair of girl’s socks is a small price to pay. 

The pair you had on last night had been threadbare, at best. Even in the unlikely possibility that Colt gets caught and receives a punishment, knowing you had these for the upcoming winter would have made it well worth the trouble.

“You could always make an appointment and give it to her yourself.” For once, the woman seems like she’s trying to give him a genuine suggestion. 

The thought of doing that sounds nice, and then the feeling of his yellow armband being too tight brings him back down to reality. You didn’t wear an armband. There’s no indication of where you’re from, but you certainly aren’t Eldian. As nice as talking to you was, he’s aware of the fact that you didn’t seem too bothered that he didn’t take a seat next to you. Your reluctance to share anything about yourself speaks volumes. At the end of the day, you’re being paid. You probably only stomached his presence because you needed the money.

Ignoring the twisted, upset feeling in his stomach at these thoughts, Colt tells her,

“I don’t think she would want to see me again.” 

Her eyes linger on his armband, the same piece of fabric tied around herself, too, just a different color. She seems to know what he’s thinking. 

“My girls let me know when they don’t want to see someone again. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if she had an issue with you.” 

“Still, I probably—”

“There’s an opening for tonight at nine. Should I mark you down for that slot, or is there a better time that works for you?” The woman leaves no room for Colt to not make an appointment, and instead, he just lets the woman write down his name in her book. He walks outside with his pockets considerably lighter; the stolen socks are still shoved deep in there, but a majority of his cash now rests in her possession. 

(He had paid her the total amount upfront, as a way to force himself into showing up for the appointment. She had been very adamant that no deposits get returned, and she doesn’t do refunds. Ever.)

“I wish you didn’t have to leave,” Ramzi says, frowning at you as you hold up a handheld mirror, trying to examine your collarbone. There’s a nasty bruise marring your skin, slowly turning into an ugly bluish-purple splotch on your body. There’s no point in trying to apply makeup to conceal it; not only is makeup already too tough to come by, but it would be all for naught. It’ll get rubbed off before the end of your shift, and it’s not like your customers even care.

“I wish I didn’t have to leave, either,” you admit to your little brother, turning to face him. 

“Why do you still have to go when you’re hurt?” 

“It looks worse than it actually is.” You’re not lying. You really only notice the pain when you press down on it.

He’s pouting. A couple of years ago, when you first started, Ramzi used to cry every time you tried to leave. He couldn’t understand why you were gone at night, the only hours where a little brother could really use a sister, someone to protect him from all the scary, imaginary monsters that lurk in the dark. 

He finds out about what you do to ensure he’s taken care of. The first time you get recognized while shopping for food in a public market, Ramzi was clinging to your side, careful not to lose you in the crowd.

“Who’s letting the whores walk out in public?” Someone had shouted. A man. 

You were with that same man two nights ago. 

Someone else in the crowd says, quite loudly, “How shameless! Doesn’t she know there are families trying to enjoy themselves?” 

“Look, the whore has a child herself!” 

Your cheeks had become heated from embarrassment. You couldn’t even look the fruit seller in the eye as you handed him the money to pay. You’re using the money received from the services you gave that man, the one who called you out. 

Only when you two had made it back to the safety of the refugee camp did Ramzi slowly detach himself from your side. He was still just a young child, completely pure, full of innocence, staring at you with his dark eyes wide with wonder.

“Sissy, what’s a whore?”

You want to wash his mouth out with soap. You want to tell him to never say that word ever again. It’s bad enough having to harden your heart and take no offense when men call you it repeatedly, night after night, but you never realized how much it would hurt to have to hear it come out of your little brother’s mouth. 

Instead, you swallow hard, hold back your tears, and pat his head affectionately. “You’ll find out when you’re older, Ramzi. Don’t you waste a single second worrying about that.” 

Ramzi naturally finds out what that word — and all the other degrading insults hurled your way — means. Now that he’s older, he knows better than to repeat any of those words, especially when the two of you are in the safety of your home.

“If I didn’t exist, would you have to do all this?” 

Childhood is nothing more than a pipedream for kids like Ramzi. In a world where only the fittest survive, growing up is imperative. Not only is he old enough to understand, he’s old enough to do his own critical thinking, come to his own conclusions. 

If Ramzi didn’t exist, you would not be doing this. You would be like some of the older women in this camp, the ones who scrape by by doing odd jobs for pitying Eldians and living off the scraps the other refugees provide. You never tell Ramzi this because there’s no point in telling him that. He’s your only real family left. The only person in the world you think you’re capable of loving, completely, honestly, with your entire being. If the universe served you an ultimatum, telling you to be with Ramzi but die a prostitute, or live without him and live a different life altogether, you know you would choose Ramzi, every single time.

“If you didn’t exist, I wouldn’t be here at all.” You tell him. “I wouldn’t have bothered leaving our first home when Marley attacked us. I would have just decided to let the rubble and fire crush me, kill me. And even if I did manage to make it out, I would have died in this refugee camp from loneliness. Don’t ask me something like that again.” You find yourself holding back tears. “You are the reason why I’m alive, Ramzi. Don’t ever assume I regret anything I do in this lifetime, especially if it’s for you.” 

“I’ll pay you back.” He declares, standing up from the pile of blankets he was burrowing himself under. He runs straight to your side, hugging you, burying his face in your shirt. “I’ll find a way to keep us going, and then you won’t have to leave or go back to that place ever again.” 

You hold him tightly, stroking his hair. What a dream that would be. 

Withdrawing from him, taking the walk with the other girls to the brothel, preparing yourself for the night awaiting you — all of it is done with a sad smile on your face as your little brother’s promise plays over and over in your mind the whole time. 

That’s all it is: a dream. 

You think you discover a different plane of existence when you find yourself detaching from the present and use your mind to float yourself to a different time, a different place.

The man’s pace is quick and rushed. He’s just focused on getting off. On the bright side, he’s just here for the sex and not the show. No need to try to get into character, to figure out what personality he wants from you. 

A sex doll would be a good gift for him, you find yourself thinking. A hefty investment, for sure, but think about all the money he’s spending at the brothel. If he calculates his annual payment, the sex doll looks like a steal in comparison.

You ignore his grunts, reducing it to nothing more than white noise. You stare up at the ceiling, wishing you could see the night sky. Stargazing — that’s what you would like to do. If you close your eyes, you can picture the starry night from back home; not Marley, not the refugee camp, but your real home. The one where you grew up. The one destroyed by this man’s people.

You work at night, yes, but you spend all your time stuck in this room, reduced to an object of pleasure. By the time you get off from work and take the long, tiring walk back to the camp, it’s already dawn and the only star in the sky is the rising sun. You miss the little luxuries in life. You miss being able to look up at the night sky freely, counting all those twinkling, shimmery flecks above. You envision a shooting star, and make a childish wish, and somehow, with nothing but stars and silly wishes on your mind, your brain conjures an image of the blond soldier from last night. 

You don’t realize how stiff your body is until you actually find yourself able to relax, to sink into the hard mattress beneath you. With his erratic thrusts, you’re certain that your client is nearly finished. At least he doesn’t have the stamina nor the recovery rate to go for a quick round two. You don’t want to think about the client though, so you take yourself to where you can actually stomach being. To places where you want to go. To see people who you want to see.

The soldier. Why does he keep appearing? It’d be bothersome if you were busy trying to do anything else, but seeing as he’s the only reprieve your mind can come up with, you go with it. 

Besides, there are far worse things and people to think about. At least this one is kind.

Kind, and genuine. And surprisingly soft-spoken. Not in a shy manner of speaking; no, the smooth, deep tone of his voice sounds nice. You can see why he’s in the Warrior Unit. If he really put his mind to it, he could get anyone to do anything with a voice like that alone. A voice of a commander, surely.

Unlike the other soldiers you’ve dealt with, he speaks to you softly. Gently. Like you’re someone to handle softly, gently. 

This is precisely why you try not to coddle the new girls. See what happens when you’re given a little kindness, a little warmth? You start clinging on to it, desperately, hungrily. You crave it, seek it out, search for it everywhere you can, and when you can’t find it anywhere else, you start jumping through hoops, trying to convince yourself that there’s something sweet hiding underneath the cruelty everyone else gives you. 

If one person is capable of being kind, that means everybody in the world is capable of it. And if everyone else chooses to treat you like the scum of the earth, then it’s clear the one person who was nice to you was just an outlier. Or, just a liar. And then you spiral, start to think something is wrong with you, like maybe you’re at fault. Maybe you just didn’t deserve to be treated nicely. Maybe the problem isn’t with other people; the problem is you. 

Before you can drown in your self-loathing any more, the golden memory of the soldier breaks through your thoughts. 

Nothing so bright has ever entered this place until he stepped in your room and stood by the door, a blushing, stammering mess that contradicted his position in this society. 

He just wanted to talk.

Men never want to “just talk.” It always ends up becoming something much more. You think about Malik, who occasionally stops by your tent at the camp to bring you and Ramzi any of the leftovers his family has. Malik, who struggles to be soft because of all his rough edges, a side effect from growing up a child in the middle of a war. Malik, who had tried to kiss you the last time he wanted to talk. He had apologized, even though you found yourself telling him there was nothing to be forgiven for. The kiss could have landed, and you still wouldn’t be able to be upset with him. 

Would that soldier try to kiss you? You think of how he stood by the door the whole night, never leaving his station. He must be a good soldier, you rationalize. He’s probably respected by his peers. Someone his family is proud of. In this line of work, you don’t have to work particularly hard to seduce the men; they all come here out of their own lustful volition. It would honestly be tiring having to lay your charm on the whole time you’re here. 

Did the soldier find you charming? Out of all the personalities you try to emulate for these men, the closest one to your true self had been with him. There wasn’t a need to force out replies you didn’t want to say, no gut feeling arising in your belly, warning you to keep your wits about you because saying the wrong thing in a conversation with a man could be a matter of life and death. No. 

He just wanted to talk.

What if you tried to be more charming next time? Maybe you could let your dress ride up more, reveal to him more slivers of skin. He had been respectful the whole entire night; you don’t think he noticed you noticing him. His eyes never left your face, except to occasionally look down at his hands when he thought he said something stupid. 

(For the record, you didn’t think he said a single stupid thing once.)

You come back down to reality as the man is pulling out of you. He tosses the used contraceptive in the trash bin and is zipping up his pants. He doesn’t look you in the eye as he slaps down a few crumpled bills on the nightstand. Willa may take a portion of the total payment, but all tips go directly to you. 

You don’t thank him as he’s on the way out. Does garbage ever show gratitude when you toss it to the side? 

Willa makes a point of trying to schedule appointments in a way that ensures each girl gets at least ten minutes to herself between clients. A brief reprieve, a chance to recollect, to build yourself back up again right before someone else walks in to destroy you. 

In the silence and darkness of the room, you toss aside any what-if scenarios between you and the soldier. He’s likely never going to return. There’s no point in fantasizing about a “next time,” because it’s never going to happen. 

You feel empty, devoid of emotion, cold, when the door opens again. You look up at your newest customer, ready to work out what show to put on for him when you feel life flooding back into your body, shocking your system.

Closing the door gently (as opposed to the carless slams most customers do) is the soldier. The same soldier from last night. His golden hair and his sunny smile and the bright armband flaunting his status. 

“Hi,” he says, standing by the closed door, the same exact spot he was in last time. 

It really is him.

“Hi,” you say back, too stunned to come up with anything clever or fascinating or charming. 

He came back! 

“Conversation must be pretty poor in the military if you’re coming back to little old me for a chat.” You recover quickly, smoothing down your dress, wondering if your hair is a mess. 

He cracks a smile at that. “Well, you’re certainly more fun to talk to than half my bunkmates, I’ll give you that. But no, I actually came here to bring you something.” 

“You brought me a gift?” Sometimes, clients bring their favorite girls gifts. You’ve received things like lacy undergarments, tiny bottles of perfume, things that would make their visit more pleasurable. You don’t see any shopping bags or wrapped boxes in his hand, and you wonder if he’s pulling some cruel joke on you. Like, surprise! You really thought I would get someone like you a present? 

“Wait! Don’t get too excited. It’s not really much, but…” He digs into his pocket before pulling out a pair of bright white socks. He hesitates for a second, as if he’s thinking about what to do, and then he’s making his way to you, standing in front of you. He still has to stretch his arm out to hand you the socks, making sure to leave what he must consider to be a respectful amount of space between you two. 

“Wow.” You breathe out, examining the gift. The cotton is soft, thick. It’s so bright and fresh and clean, you almost cringe at the thought of stepping on these floors with them on. They would be covered in a layer of dirt and grime within seconds. It feels expensive. It feels a lot nicer than any other article of clothes you’ve received since seeking refuge in Marley. It feels too good to be true. 

No one gives you something for free. When you remember this lesson, you look up, only to realize that he’s returned back to his spot by the door. 

“Like I said, it’s not—”

“Thank you.” You suddenly feel shy, holding on tightly to the bundle of cotton. “Thank you, truly. I really don’t know how to repay you.”

“Don’t worry about it.” In the dim light of the room, you can see his face and ears turning a faint shade of pink. There’s a pleased smile on his face, and it makes your face feel warm. 

“So, you spend money just to stand by the door all night and make conversation with me, and then you bring me very nice gifts, too. Honey, I don’t think you understand how brothels work.” 

“Colt.” He says, in that soft, patient manner of his. There’s a hidden request there; not a demand, but a plea. If he asked you for anything else, you would eagerly give it to him. If he took you right then and there, you would be a very willing participant indeed. 

But he’s not asking for sex, he’s asking for something more intimate. 

He wants you to call him by his name. 

You can’t do that. It’s too personal, it’ll blur even more boundaries. 

“Don’t tell me you really think I’d forget.” You say this instead, trying to subtly avoid the situation at hand. “I couldn’t forget even if all the other customers paid me to.” 

“What do you call them? Your other customers.” There’s no malice in his question, no envy; just pure curiosity. Hearing someone want to know more about you is a foreign interaction. You don’t think you’ve ever been asked a genuine, normal question in years. 

Honey. It’s simple. It’s basic. It’s impersonal. Sweetheart, depending on what character you’re trying to perform as. Baby, on occasion. 

“Silly things.” You tell him. It’s the truth. 

“But the same things?” He asks, and you nod.

“I don’t want to call you the same things, though.” The socks feel warm in your hands, and there’s a tiny voice in your head screaming at you for being so damn truthful, for not keeping your mouth shut. Why is it that the things you want to say and the things you should tell him are the exact same thing? It’s oddly nice, being able to speak your mind and have someone actually want to hear what you have to say; even better to have it be the right thing to say. “What do you think, soldier? No more calling you ‘honey.’” 

He opens his mouth, closes it, tries to say something, then thinks better of it. Finally, he lands on, “Whatever you want to do.” 

Whatever you want to do. Last night, he told you whatever you want. 

For the hour he’s here, you can try on a new role. A girl who wants. A girl who is allowed to want. This girl — you — decides that he doesn’t even need to fulfill any wishes. Wanting is enough; for you, it’s enough. 

You get comfortable on the bed, casually pulling back your hair and letting it lay behind your shoulders, against your back. With no hair to block it and the low neckline of your dress, your collarbone is on display. You momentarily forget about the ugly bruise, and you don’t notice the way his eyes flicker downwards, seeing it. Instead, you’re happy to start interrogating him.

“What’s it like, being a soldier? I heard the yellow means you’re a special one, right? A Warrior.” 

“Being a soldier is an opportunity I’m happy to have.” He answers carefully, trying not to sound ungrateful. There’s no way his family would have been able to afford the tuition for medical school so he could be a doctor. He didn’t want to be a shop owner, either. Career options for young Eldian men are limited. Enlist, or starve. “The yellow band means I’m in the Warrior Unit, but I’m not a Warrior yet.” 

“You’re still in training?” 

“Something like that, yes. But I have to wait until the other Warrior’s term is over before I can take his spot.” 

“You’ll be able to shift into a special Titan then?” 

Colt searches for the malice, the fear, the disgust. He only hears your curiosity. 

“I’m set to inherit the Beast Titan.” 

He finds himself standing up straighter, almost puffing out his chest in pride at the way your eyes go wide with awe. 

“That must be the best one.” 

“What makes you say that? The name?” Having the moniker of Beast just makes him feel even more inhumane, but titans aren’t necessarily humans, right? No point in trying to disguise the truth as anything but. 

“No. You just seem like you’re the best soldier, so I assumed they would reserve the best Titan for you.” 

Devil, monster, savage — whatever he is, he finds himself not caring. The warm feeling taking root in his chest, spreading throughout his body as a result of your words, makes him feel incredibly human. 

“Yo, Grice! Isn’t this insane?” Michael slaps Colt on the back, ignoring the way Porco raises an eyebrow at the interaction. 

“Shouldn’t you be with your unit?” Colt asks him. 

“Nah. They don’t really care—” 

“Lieutenant Sells, why the hell are you over there conversing with the Warrior Unit when I know damn well you popped out your mother a full-blooded Marleyan boy!” 

The commanding officer for Michael’s all-Marleyan unit is red in the face with an angry vein protruding from his forehead. Michael seems entirely unfazed by the whole thing.

“I think your CO is calling for you,” Porco says. 

“Huh. Was that him calling, or just the sound of flies buzzing?” Before Michael can look too pleased at his comment, his CO is screaming for him once more.

“Lieutenant Sells, every second it takes you to come back here and get in formation, is one lap you’re doing around the whole damn camp! I am not in the mood for your little games right now, Lieutenant!” 

With his smile wiped off his face, Michael shoots them a look that says something along the lines of save me, before jogging back to his actual unit. The whole entire time, he’s being berated by his commanding officer. 

“You keep interesting company.” Porco comments. “Hope your girlfriend is at least more sane.” 

That’ll be tough, Colt thinks, considering his “girlfriend” doesn’t exist.

When war isn’t active, the Marleyan military grows restless. When Marleyans are bored, things are bound to go from bad to worse for any Eldians in their vicinity. Today’s scheme that they cooked up involves an all-unit showdown. Physical sparring, no weapons, between soldiers from all the different units. 

No weapons, no maiming, no killing. Those are the rules. 

The unspoken rule, of course, is that any serious punch dealt by an Eldian that lands on a Marleyan is sure to result in some awful punishment, ranging from toilet-cleaning duty to having a finger chopped off. Pity. Colt foolishly woke up this morning thinking he was going to have a good day. 

He ends up getting paired with a burly Marleyan boy. He’s around the same height as Colt, but where Colt is lean, this boy is bulky. His muscles practically cause his uniform to burst at the seams. 

The officers are making a whole day out of this, too. Too much free-time. Why let their soldiers rest or train in peace when they can gather them all up and publicly humiliate the Eldians? Yeah, because that schtick never seems to get old.

Commander Magath looks at Colt before sending him off to get his ass beat. It’s the same look Colt imagines a butcher gives a cow before killing it. For an animal, you weren’t too bad. Sorry things had to be like this. Not really, though.

“Whatever you do, don’t take that shit lying down.” Porco had muttered into his ear. 

Colt isn’t like Porco, though. Things will only be worse for him if he does put up a good fight, and, unlike Porco, Colt is capable of possessing rational thought and the ability to put his ego to the side. He only hopes that Falco and Gabi will close their eyes. 

“Shake hands,” the Marleyan commanding officer commands them. It’s a show of camaraderie. That this is just all in good fun. A way for all the units to bond! Colt’s not sure who’s falling for that lip service. 

Like the good sport, the good soldier, he is, Colt extends his hand. The only show of defiance he will allow himself, he decides, is to not wince in pain as the Marleyan soldier crushes his hand. Colt smiles, which seems to only piss the guy off even more. 

Thanks a lot, Porco. I tried not to take this shit lying down, and now you’re going to have to lay me in a grave. Tell Falco I love him. Colt thinks miserably.

“Remember, boys: no weapons, no maiming, and no killing. Try your hardest to follow these rules. First one down for ten seconds, loses. On the sound of the pistol.” 

Once the pistol fires, Colt narrowly dodges the boy’s attack. With his build, it’s easier for Colt to move quickly, more fluidly. If he can just continuously keep dodging the boy’s hulking arms and certain death grip, Colt figures he’ll be safe. If it comes down to a battle of stamina, he knows he’ll win. 

“Come on, Colt! You can do this!” Colt makes the mistake of trying to search for Falco, trying to pinpoint his voice through the crowd. This is the last thing he wanted! Why is Falco watching this? Why did Porco not grant him a small mercy and force his brother to close his eyes. 

One second, he’s looking for Falco. The next, he’s getting punched right on his left cheek. 

Fuck.

He staggers, loses his footing. He reflexively touches his face, already feeling the sting of the punch. He tries to avoid the boy’s next attack but moves too slow.

Fuck.

There goes his right cheek. At least he didn’t lose any teeth.

Colt says a quick prayer to any benevolent god listening. 

Please don’t let him land a punch on my mouth. Please let me keep all my teeth. 

He can feel his training kicking in. He digs his feet into the ground, subconsciously getting back into a proper fighting stance. He feels how naturally his hands ball into a fist. Even with his head ringing, his vision a bit dizzy from getting knocked around, Colt can still calculate the perfect time to go on the offense and throw his own punch.

Don’t take that shit lying down.  

And right before the perfect opportunity to strike comes, Colt thinks of you.

You just seem like you’re the best soldier, so I assumed they would reserve the best Titan for you.

There’s more at risk here than just a banged up face and ruined dignity. He has a good thing going. He’ll be the Beast Titan and pay his reparations for being born by fighting for people who don’t even care about him. No time for a traditional midlife crisis, at least, seeing as how he’s most likely not going to live to see his thirties. 

The fist he makes uncurls. The moment of opportunity passes. The last thing Colt thinks about is the bruise on your skin. He hopes that you make it to your thirties. He hopes you live a nice, long life. If anyone deserves it, it’s you.

When he gets knocked down, he doesn’t bother trying to get up. The ringing in his ears intensifies, and cutting through the noise are Falco’s and Gabi’s screams. Has it been ten seconds yet? Colt looks up at the sky. It’s a cloudless day. Nothing but sunshine and blue skies. 

Yeah. Usually the most beautiful days are the worst for him. 

Blocking his view of the sky is the Marleyan boy, his face contorted with contempt. Colt tries to think of the boy’s name, searches through his mind and looks for a time where they interacted. He comes up blank, and he doesn’t think it’s because of the mild concussion forming, either. They don’t even know each other.

Just knock me out, already. Colt wants to groan out. Hell, take a tooth if it’ll end this thing.

He catches a glimpse of something shiny, reflective. The sun? No. This is silver.

A blade. 

Didn’t they say no weapons? Why isn’t the match over yet? It’s definitely been ten seconds.

He fills the coldness, the sharpness, of a knife’s tip pressed against the flesh of his face. 

He should fight back. He should get up, take the knife for himself, and show this boy what a real fight looks like. 

No. He wouldn’t take the knife. The rules clearly stated “no weapons.” That wouldn’t be fair, it wouldn’t be right. 

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” A voice shouts, and maybe he’s hallucinating because in what world is Commander Magath the one who looks out for him? Then again, it’s probably going to be tough replacing the future Beast Titan. Zeke likes him, too, which has to mean something. 

There’s a lot of murmurs from the crowd, and Colt strains to listen to what they’re saying. He thinks he hears fabric tearing as a blurry Marleyan soldier is being pulled off of him. 

Then, the world goes black.

“Ugh, you.”

When Colt regains consciousness, he realizes he’s been transferred to the infirmary. The cot he’s laying on is cold, and he looks down. He’s shirtless. He doesn’t know why he suddenly feels so shy when he turns his head and sees that the nurse is female.

Most of the nurses assigned to the Warrior Unit are women. This fact has never bothered him before, has never even properly registered in his mind before, but the stark white of their uniforms reminds him too much of the soft white of your dress.

The only nurse present isn’t speaking to him. She has her back turned, hands on her hips, talking to whoever pulled back the curtain. 

“You’re so mean. Geez, I thought nurses were supposed to have empathy.” 

Michael. 

Colt can never seem to catch a break.

“If you want empathy, go get treatment from your own unit’s nurses. People who want proper treatment go to me.”

“Okay, we all know why you took this job in the first place. Don’t start with me, Claire—”

“I know you aren’t taking that tone with me right now. Who do you want me to get: your CO or your mom? Hurry up, and pick before I call them both.” 

“C’mon, Claire!” Michael whines. “Let me in! He’s my friend.” 

Claire turns around, squinting at Colt, who decides to feign sleep at the last minute.

“I know you’re awake.” She says. He opens his eyes. 

At least she’s nicer to him than she is to Michael. “Do you know this boy?” She points to Michael, who looks too cheerful considering his conversation with Claire. 

“‘Course he knows me! That’s my brother! It should be obvious. We look just alike, don’t we?” He knows it’s just a joke, but all things considered, the resemblance is somewhat striking. The same shade of blond, same build; the only difference is the eyes. Michael’s are a dark blue. “I clearly got the good genes, though. Ma says he looks more like the milkman than pa, but don’t tell him I said that.” Michael winks at Colt. 

Nobody laughs.

“Michael, you really shouldn’t be here. This is a Warrior Unit designated area of the base. I’m being serious.” 

“But he’s my friend.” Michael tells her this, but she shoots him a look that says yeah, right. Colt wants to tell Michael to be careful, to not just go around spouting nonsense like that, but the nurse seems used to the meaningless drivel that comes out of Michael’s mouth. 

“Is that thing really your friend?” Colt’s shocked when he realizes she’s speaking to him, pointing at Michael, indicating that it’s Michael that’s “that thing.”

“Yes.” Colt says, realizing with a sinking feeling that it’s the truth. The feeling only gets worse when he sees Michael doing a fist pump.

“Oh my gosh. Your concussion must be even worse than I thought.” Claire gasps. “It’s okay. Whatever’s wrong with you that is making you keep him for company, I’ll fix it. Don’t you worry.” 

“Are you even certified?” Michael snaps. 

The scathing look she gives Michael would be enough to knock out Colt. Michael’s tougher than he looks.

“I need to go to the supply closet and get some more things since someone decided to get cut and made me use all our bandages trying to patch him up.” Claire announces. “You two — behave.”

Colt presses his fingers to his face and feels only one big bandage stuck on his forehead. 

“Finally the Wicked Witch is gone.” Michael mutters, before turning his head sharply, almost as if afraid she’s secretly eavesdropping. He relaxes when she doesn’t jump up behind the curtain to put him in a chokehold. “Anyway, how ya feeling?”

“Like I just got publicly beaten. Oh, wait.” 

Michael laughs. “Yeah? Don’t worry, he’ll get what’s coming to him.” 

Colt doesn’t necessarily like the sound of that, but who is he to get onto Michael? 

Michael tosses two strips of yellow fabric onto Colt’s chest. So, he wasn’t imagining the sound of fabric tearing, then. His armband is ruined. He’ll have to get a new one once he’s released. 

“His knife accidentally nicked your sleeve when we were trying to yank him away from you. Figured you would miss it, so I snatched it up.” 

“Thanks.” 

“No need for all that. You’re gonna make it seem like I’m a good guy, or something. We’re friends, anyway. If you ever need anything, just ask.”

“Bruise ointment.” Recovering from a mild concussion must have caused more brain damage than he thought possible because Colt knows it’s poor manners to start making requests. Especially to someone who doesn’t have to worry about getting his armband ripped off. 

“If you’re worried about your busted up face, don’t. I heard girls go for guys with rugged good looks. The black and blue really brings out the color of your eyes.” 

Before Colt can apologize for his abruptness, though, Michael strolls to the cabinets and starts opening up drawers at random. “But since we’re best friends—” He waits for Colt’s correction that never comes. “—I guess I’ll do you a solid.” 

Colt gets permission to leave the infirmary before dinner is served in the mess hall. He only stops by the Magath’s office to receive a new armband before heading to the front gates to sign out. 

He’s got one hour’s worth of your time in money in his left pocket, and a bottle of bruise ointment in his right. He hopes you’re free.

Three soft taps against the door have you looking up. You don’t dare to hope that the soldier is visiting you, for the third time this week — in a row, no less! — but the more time he spends with you, the stronger the urge to dream gets. 

You smile when you see that it’s him, and it immediately fades when you take a closer look. This time, you’re the one standing up, quick to approach him.

“Oh my— What happened?” Your arm comes up, ready to reach for his face, to examine his bruised face even closer, but you quickly snap it back to your side. He hasn’t tried to touch you in the two times you’ve met. Maybe he has an aversion to being touched. You reluctantly take a step back.

(Colt flinches. You chalk it up to pain; he thinks he must look pretty disgusting right now, horrific even, to have you scared to be near him.)

“Don’t worry. It looks worse than it actually is.”

You frown. It causes the most adorable crease between your brows. Yet another image to store away in his memories. 

“Actually, I just wanted to come by to bring you something.”

“No. You don’t have to buy me gifts. Please—”

“I don’t mind. I enjoy giving them to you.” Not to mention that they’re technically stolen , not bought, but the Marleyan government can afford it. If his face is going to get banged up, one tube of ointment should be fair compensation. He places it in your waiting hands, the tips of his fingers brushing against the palms of your hands.

Electrifying. 

“This is…” You read the label. 

“Helps with bruises. Fades them, strengthens the skin, helps with a quicker recovery. I figured it would be something you would like.” The more he rambles, the more he thinks that maybe this was a mistake. It’s his face, isn’t it? He should have waited for the swelling to go down, for the bruises to heal up on their own, before showing up here. He probably looks more beast than human right now. 

“Come lay down on the bed.” You say, and then, minding your manners, “Please.”

His brain short circuits. The concussion surely doesn’t help. You look up at him, doe-eyed and too pretty to be real, too pretty for his imagination to come up with, and you ask him again. “Please?”

Whatever you want — that’s what he told you.

Like a good soldier, he obeys the order given. He’s too tall — perhaps the bed too small — so he has to awkwardly maneuver his body on the stiff mattress. His feet are dangling on the edge, and there’s barely any room for you to sit on the mattress. Your body is pressed against his own, the two of you swapping warmth with each other. 

You untwist the cap of the tube, applying a small amount of ointment on the tip of your finger before pressing the same finger to the bruised part of his face. 

“Is this okay?” You whisper to him. 

Your touch is gentle, soft, comforting. Far nicer than he deserves. The nicest he’s even been treated, he thinks. This is better than okay, better than great. 

He feels his eyelids drooping before he gives in and shuts his eyes altogether. “Yes.” He breathes out. 

You apply the ointment everywhere, slowly, carefully, trying not to apply too much pressure out of fear of sending a shock of pain to him. His breathing gradually evens out. 

“All done.” You say it so quietly, it’s almost undetectable. He doesn’t do anything in response, and you realize that he must have fallen asleep. 

You take the time to admire his face. He’s got a bandage on his forehead, a tiny, red line peeking out that indicates this cut was much longer than what one bandage could cover up. There are two different bruises forming on each of his cheeks, making your own look like a poor imitation of what a bruise should look like. You don’t know what possesses you to take your hand and run your fingers through his hair. It’s coarser than it looks, remnants of hair gel still stuck on some strands. Your soldier looks worse for wear, and obviously he’s exhausted. 

So why did he go out of his way to bring you this ointment? You touch your own bruise, tracing the shape of it. He must’ve seen it. He didn’t ask questions, and that’s fine, because you probably wouldn’t have given him an answer, anyway. He must have known you wouldn’t say anything. 

You know he walked here, too. It’s not a short trip from the military base to this side of town, nor is it an easy journey, either. 

You continue to play with his hair, feeling your eyes get wet the longer you stare at him. What is the matter with him? Why does he do this? Why do you have to beg him to come to bed? Why does he take the trip to see you, spends money, brings you little things that no one else would think to get you, just to get nothing in return? It would be easier to know what to do with him if he were like any other man. Why won’t he ask you for something, anything? 

“Oh, Colt.” You whisper. Your thumb brushes against the bandage on his forehead. When he wakes up, you wonder if you’ll muster up the courage to ask him what happened. 

His eyes flutter open, looking dazed at first until his vision becomes clear. There’s a small smile on his face. 

“Is this a dream?” He asks, voice sounding scratchy, like the words are scraping against his throat. 

“No, not a dream, soldier. Go back to sleep.” 

“Huh. But I thought I heard my name.” He mutters. He blinks. His body is telling him to go back into his peaceful slumber, but maybe the time he spends with Porco is making his traits rub off onto him. Colt finds enough stubbornness to fight his own body to stay awake. “Prove to me this isn’t a dream.” 

How can someone look so confident, so strong, when they’re lying on a cheap bed, bruised and tired? How can someone look so handsome, despite it all? 

You think you’re going to do something dangerous. You just have to summon the courage to do so. One look at the hopeful expression on your soldier’s bruised face, and you know that if he can brave whatever happened to him, you can finally just give in.

“It’s not a dream, Colt.” 

He has to be dreaming, he decides. His name has never sounded sweeter. 

You lean down, your face just centimeters from his own. Your lips, so close to his ear. He’s dreaming, he’s dreaming, he’s dreaming — he doesn’t ever want to wake up. To whichever higher power is listening, please don’t let him wake up.

“If this was a dream, I wouldn’t be able to tell you this.” 

You whisper your name into his ear, and he is aware that this is not a dream. This is real life. This is you, so close to him, telling him your name. He greedily snatches it up, repeats your name over and over in his mind. Then, with his eyes closing, quickly giving in to his exhaustion, he says your name.

He’s out cold.

a/n: if you made it this far, thank you!!! a like and even just a simple comment would really make my day, but i know colt grice only has 2 fans (me being one of them), so i'm not expecting much. if you read precipice, you will look back on this fic and go "oh my gosh, it's a cameo from one of my favorite characters!!!" bc nothing screams self-indulgent fan fiction more than creating ur own lil universe within canon, with ur equally delusional friend <3

[punkpandapatrixk]

👠Your Life as A Celebrity — Timeless Pick A Card

A girl who is unapologetically herself is a beam of Light in this dark world that benefits from girls doubting/hiding/despising themselves. A girl who creates her own bubble of dreamy Reality becomes instantaneously a Celebrity! Any setting she walks into, she commands attention, as well as admiration.

In a world of digital connectivity where communication is easy, room’s aplenty for everybody’s Story. We’re a new generation of celebrity, babe—what are you choosing to be?☆People become Heroes to other people not because they’re infallible, but because in spite of their shortcomings they managed to overcome🤡

[PAC Masterlist] [Part 1] [Part 3]

[Patreon] [Paid Readings]

☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Pile 1 – The People’s Dreamy Muse

VIBE: Marunouchi Sadistic by Utada Hikaru

your rise to celebrity – 7 of Cups Rx

You may consider yourself a bit timid and shy. You think you’re somewhat clumsy and more often than not deeply confused about what you’re doing with your Life. You can be random and scatter-brained, too! An abstract artist yourself, some of you may even deal with autism (of the high-functioning variety most likely) or dyslexia. Truth is, you’re this way because you’re inherently a dreamy creature. In fact, so dreamy you bring to Life people’s dreams and imaginations instead. There’s something otherworldly🧝🏻‍♀️/alien👽about you. So ethereal people think you should only exist in picture books and fairy tales (or manga LMAO).

You may not always be aware of this, but people want to immortalise you and make you a thing of their own. Artists secretly make you their Muse. Other people seem to always want to take pictures of and with you. Secret illustrations of you exist in people’s drafts~ Many people won’t be upfront about it (though they definitely show it) but they’re obsessed with you. Down bad, baby. Down, down on their knees so bad they’ll do anything to become your slaves—if you ever let them.

But you hardly let anybody get close to you, let alone enter your circle. You’re a natural born celebrity and you value your privacy. Some of you were literally born into fame or wealth, and you will eventually carve out a path of your own and continue to be famous. Some of you had past lives as famous and influential people (very likely to have South Node in Leo or 5th House, 10th House, or other placements to do with fame in a past life) and so being noticeably striking is a natural trait of yours. For that, you could get scouted to become a model, actress, idol, presenter, whatever really, and then you just naturally enter the scene.

Whatever the scale or industry may be, you were born for stardom—there’s just no other way around it, babe~🦋

your public image – VII The Chariot Rx

People see that you’re often unsure about your feelings, or that you do have a lot of feelings that seem to spill easily, and that sometimes you drown in your emotions. Some of you, you may even hide your feelings so well (you try), but people will still notice this about you. But your stories will be heard by everyone eventually.

How you came from a really harsh background emotionally and how you’ve managed to turn your past hardships into a magnificent Story that inspires. It wasn’t easy and you’re not always happy about how Life treated you in the past, but as long as your stories serve to save someone’s life, sanity, you’re cool with it. And people really appreciate you for that.

You are the kind of celeb that has a lot of sad, even tragic, stories (like YOSHIKI of X JAPAN) and your fans will want to dedicate a lot of love to you. These are the fans who say, ‘Oh, I wish I could just give them a warm hug right now.’ Your fans are hugely loyal and they talk about you to their friends and family, A LOT. They want to extend your stories to everyone who would listen.

Your stories are like honey gold, or unicorn fart, depends on what your preferences look like~ You can be glamorous, you can be amorous, you can be shy and sweet and sometimes out of control; but you’re eternally everyone’s dreamiest Muse~🪷

your impact/imprint – Page of Wands Rx

You, are, a, copycat manufacturer. Whether or not you try, whatever you do, everyone wants to copy. Name it all: fashion, hair, nails, voice, mannerism, but the coolest of all, your enterprise. Perhaps you write, in a specific dreamy/otherworldly fashion and there’s something ultra unique but touching about what you do, and now everyone tries to do the same because they know they’re gonna get attention that way.

It’s not an evil type of copycatting though; you’re just too original, too fresh, and people want to experiment with themselves by emulating you. In most cases, it’s also because you inspire people to level up themselves so they can become like you. But ngl, plenty of other celebs try to copy you with spite in their hearts, but you’re plenty aware of that, so you don’t really give a fuck. And your cold nonchalance makes you so enigmatic, elusive, that people can’t cease to speculate.

On top of that, no matter how hot or trendy you are, you’re not a sell-out. You won’t give in to corporate money if what it’s asking of you is a betrayal of your values. You have your own thing going anyway—you always will—so you’re not afraid of losing top-tier PR, lucrative contracts, expensive gifts, what have you. At the end of the day, only your true fans understand that your true Art as a celeb is the way you elevate people to the greater heights of their own potentials. You’re like Po in Kungfu Panda 3~🐼LMAO

LASTING LEGACY🔻💛

How A Biographer Would Write About You – Gold Alchemist (Roger Bacon)

How You’re Remembered by the People – Priestess of Illumination

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Pile 2 – A Soft Hero Holding A Blue Light

VIBE: Somewhere Near Marseilles by Utada Hikaru

your rise to celebrity – 9 of Wands

Your rise to fame is not an easy one. It ain’t a walk in the park the slightest bit. You worked really hard to be where you are, to have all the beautiful things you possess. You overcame a lot of challenges—mostly, challenges in your self-development. You weren’t always sure what you wanted to be when you grow up. You had vague, dreamy ideas but never were you certain because there were no signposts. You walked your Life with very few stars to guide your path on Earth.

You didn’t get told many times what your natural talents were, and those that you did showcase rarely got any praises. So you thought these abilities would never matter in the bigger world—that you would never be good enough at them to become a Star yourself. Growing up, you battled quite a lot with self-doubts and occasional self-loathing because you didn’t know if there would be a place for you in the world. You didn’t really know what you were put on Earth to do.

At some point in Life, there was a time you could only see the world as a battlefield and it was really painful to live in it. But after a painstaking process of healing yourself and making peace with the hardships that come with being Human, you triggered a miracle to stir. A shooting star of a very precious kind deep dived from the sky right into your bedroom, and suddenly, all your wishes were beginning to come alive one by one by one and one and on and on and so on.

Babe, your world fucking flipped~💃🏻

your public image – 2 of Pentacles

People see you as a bit of a tragic character; but they are enchanted. To them, you’re so fragile yet so inexplicably strong all by yourself. You’ve transformed yourself; gained your glow up in ALL areas of your Life. People are baffled at how such a soft creature could’ve endured the world’s hardest hardships yet remain so untainted. People want to know what you are made of and all the secrets to your courage, strong determination, as well as character. Most of all, how exactly did you flip your world? Ever curious are they, but no one could solve the mystery.

You are naturally soft and transparent, yet people can’t figure you out. There’s a wholeness of your spirit that feels too big to grasp. To a lot of people, your success story serves as inspiration. There’s something ultra Heroic in the way you’ve managed Life, and that alone becomes a lighthouse for others to believe in their own miracles as long as they continue to fight for what truly matters.

Your Light is so blindingly inspirational even if you feel like you’re not doing much. Your sheer existence gives people courage to fight for their Life. Those who are starting anew in Life are the ones who look up to you the most. But those whose hearts are too dark, those who are deeply scarred and afraid to do anything about their lives, those whose bandwidth of Reality is too different from yours, tend to hate you irrationally.

But truly it is because your softness, reminds them of what they have confused as their weakness.

your impact/imprint – XVII The Star

It’s pretty obvious, though unfortunate, that a lot of people find letting go extremely painful to do. Most people are often afraid of losing what’s familiar even when the familiar is no longer safe or comfortable. People are also often afraid of stepping into the unknown, journeying across unstable grounds, and that causes people to stay miserable with the known.

Something about you though, awakens a hidden courage in people. You’re that shooting star people are hoping to see on their balcony to wish their earnest dreams upon. People comment on your social media a lot, and even write beautiful handwritten fan mails, to tell you their feelings as well as gratitude. Even if they know you probably won’t read, they write anyway because when they write, it feels either like a catharsis for their pains or affirmation scripting for their wishes.

People just know that when they connect with your energy, something miraculous is bound to happen in their own Personal Reality. Not sure what that is; it is your personal touch of blue magic—the magic of profound self-alchemy~💠

LASTING LEGACY🔻❤️

How A Biographer Would Write About You – Silver Astronomer (Galileo Galilei)

How You’re Remembered by the People – Priestess of Purity

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☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Pile 3 – A Decadent Éclair Amongst Empty Croissants

VIBE: Tokyo Flash by VAUNDY

your rise to celebrity – King of Cups

In this world where people are underestimated for having emotions (because hardheaded logic is prized higher) you’ve always prided yourself in prioritising listening to what your heart tells you. Your strong intuition knows your heart would never lead you astray. In fact, it really hasn’t. And you’re proud of that—more like, you’re glad you’ve always been true to yourself, really.

Sure being this way has led to occasional alienation, but what’s it to you when you’re the one building, creating, and enjoyably living an awesome Lyfe you’ve made yourself? You’re the one having all the fun, and dang, all the money. And you’re happy. You’re doing all these things you’re passionate about. Because you never stopped listening to your singular truth, you’ve cultivated a unique skill that sets you apart from everyone else in your trade. A refinement you’ve been doing since you were a kid.

Whether or not you become a public figure, actually, you’ll always be that eccentric that draws attention. People like to flock to see what new art/invention you’re working on. Many of them are genuinely in awe; quite many of them secretly jest. Little do they know—weird as you can be, you’re a compassionate person who has a big enough heart to accept that not everybody can accept you.

You get where most people are coming from and why they are essentially afraid to accept you. Your heart is so incredibly kind~🍃Psst, amongst your fans, many are simps!🤪

your public image – 7 of Pentacles Rx

You’re a pro at your Art that gets everybody talking but they know they can never emulate what you’re doing. People know it takes way too much originality, which they’re painfully aware they don’t have; and they know it takes courage to express a singularity like yours, and they’re again painfully aware that they’re too much of a coward to even begin.

Ngl, something in your originality sends some people shrieking into self-deprecation just because they can’t help but realise they’ve wasted many years of their lives not pursuing their very own original passions. People are wont to hypnotise themselves to believe that their mistakes/wrong steps are justified, right? Just to pacify their sorrows/regrets. But when they see what you do, how you live your Lyfe, their old potentials haunt them like that motherfucker from The Ring👻

You inspire a lot of young people but make sad many old people who have nearly completely lost touch with their inner child. But you also rejuvenate those older than you who are still working on their dreams~🐣If anything, your guts resemble theirs so much that they feel relieved to know they still have a place in this strange world🌏

your impact/imprint – Knight of Swords Rx

You’ve always lived with a special courage to be unique; refusing to abide by rules let alone oppressed by set laws. You can be reckless, but that’s like a breath of fresh air in a society that’s strangling its own citizens. But you’re never really a fighter nor a warrior; you’re an Artist through and through. You’re setting an example (or more like a possibility) to live differently—against, even—society’s standards and expectations.

You’re not immoral; you just believe human beings are supposed to be FREE but governments have been criminally oppressive. What even are those questions about theft and murder? Free people who are happy, content wouldn’t deliberately hurt another person. Oppressed citizens who are deprived of resources, and subsequently the ability to feel joy, kill and steal from each other. In your lifetime, as an attempt to be somewhat of an “activist”, you are likely to quote this from Utopia (1551) many, many times:

‘For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.’ – Sir Thomas More, ah also, Drew Barrymore in Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998)🤪

LASTING LEGACY🔻🧡

How A Biographer Would Write About You – Red Magus (Edward Kelly)

How You’re Remembered by the People – Priestess of Fertility

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☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

[PAC Masterlist] [Part 1] [Part 3]

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[donnerpartyofone]

I have posted about this multiple times before but since tumblr's search won't cough any of it up, I'm just going to say it again so I can add my new thing to my thought process about trigger warnings:

Years ago a popular true crime blogger posted an ask from someone requesting that she tag for needles. I think she had posted that notorious x-ray of masochistic serial murderer Albert Fish's colon, which is admittedly disturbing, but she very politely declined on the basis that everything she posts tends to be violent and disturbing--you actually SHOULD find her blog upsetting--and users should manage their expectations around that general premise. Additionally, needles do not carry the specific traumatic weight of something like, say, racial violence or child abuse, for which a warning could be in order; needles are everyday objects that one might reasonably encounter in a store or a person's home, or practically anywhere. If you have such an aversion that it really affects your life to see a needle, you might want to pursue treatment and stop using a part of the internet that is essentially a giant random image generator.

My personal take on content/trigger warnings (are those different? If not then why do we have varying tags instead of one universal one to keep the system reliable?) is similar, that they're only important for material that could seriously upend someone's day. Is Thing X something you truly could not have expected where you encountered it? Would you need to leave work or school if you saw Thing X? Would you need to seek assistance or take a medication? Does Thing X cause significant social problems or affect your sense of safety? If not, you don't need a warning. I mean everyone can tag whatever they choose and of course some folks are happy to tag stuff just because someone might find it annoying or unpleasant, but you're not entitled to protection from strangers just to spare you casual discomfort.

One day I got this extremely angry anonymous message in all caps yelling at me for not tagging spiders. I had no idea what the person was talking about, but after a while I realized it had to be about a popular post I'd made years ago showing tarantulas in a Kids In the Hall sketch. This was especially funny to me because at the time I was posting a lot of explicit violence and sexual imagery that someone could reasonably object to, but this person felt that it was my job to help create the illusion of a spiderless world for their benefit. I know arachnaphobia is a real thing but I still think that if you suffer from it then it's your job to look after yourself and not everybody else's job to protect you from remembering that there are spiders.

This is kind of a tangent but I often think about how trypophobia is not technically a phobia because it isn't affecting anybody's ability to lead a normal daily existence. It's just a grossout thing, basically a matter of taste, but people love to try to elevate it to the level of a serious psychological vulnerability for some reason.

I'm thinking about this stuff (again) today because I just saw a post on one of the autism subreddits where someone linked to a scientific paper to answer a specific question, but they said it needed warnings for incidental use of the term "high-functioning" and advised that some people may not wish to read the paper at all so they wouldn't be triggered by it. That term is sometimes used to invalidate or deny care to people who give the outward appearance of less urgent needs, so it is indeed pretty tricky and needs work. But change is only going to come from attention; if you are concerned about the effects of that language then I think it behooves you to know how it is being used so you are able to argue about it and lobby for change. It's hard for me (a "high-functioning" person) to imagine a scenario in which I'm interested in reading about a condition I have, and then I refuse to do so because the phrase "high-functioning" is going to trigger a psychiatric episode so bad that it's better for me to just ignore information about my own health. I think an adult who is usually inclined to educate themselves should be able to handle occasionally seeing troublesome or outdated language.

Put more concisely than above, my criteria for warnings is just: when the questionable item relates to a real, reasonably common traumatic experience that would be unfair to spring on someone who could relate to it, and/or when the content would be legitimately surprising in its context. Like if you're in my corner of tumblr you should expect that you're going to see horror movie stuff, I'm not tagging anything like that unless it's miles over the line I typically draw. But on the other hand I was out at a restaurant one night and this spoiled egomaniac was practically shouting for a long time in graphic detail about episiotomies within earshot of everyone who was trying to eat. Honestly one of the staff should have told her to shut the fuck up. That's not a thing that people should be normally expected to put up with in a public dining situation, even though it regards a medical procedure that is not morally offensive.

It's probably obvious by now that I think that being uncomfortable and even offended, at least to some degree, has an important psychological and social function. It enables you to recognize and react to problems around you. Understanding what makes you uncomfortable is critical; dealing with discomfort builds character; and continuously avoiding everything you don't like keeps you infantile. It's actually not good to live in a world of only your favorite things.

[theverumproject]

An Interview with Luce Balton (Verum)

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7]

Year: 2093 (The Robotic Era)

Personality

Personality

What words or phrases do they overuse? 

Do “I”s count? I'm sure we all say I a lot… And you.

Do they have a catchphrase?

It's Verumingtime! And then I verumed all over the place! …I'm sorry, I know that meme is decades old and probably forgotten by everybody…

Are they more optimistic or pessimistic?

I'd say I'm a realist, but I'm also hopeful. Guess I'm more on the optimistic side then.

Are they introverted or extroverted?

Oh god, I think I'm somewhere inbetween? An ambivert? A social introvert? I was much more introverted in the past. 

Do they ever put on airs?

Airs? Airpots?...Oh! I hope I don't! I see all people as equals… Except those who hurt innocent ones… 

What bad habits do they have?

… I guess killing people is a bad habit… In our eyes, they deserve it. In others, they don't. Good thing that ethics and morals are an imagined concept!... Aha… 

What makes them laugh out loud?

Dethra. That's the only word I have to say.

How do they display affection?

I like hugging people! And petting their head and stuff, helps to calm many too.

Mental handicaps?

I sure hope not! 

How do they want to be seen by others?

As a hero! But heros don't kill... But you know, it's wishful thinking. 

How do they see themselves?

I think I am a decent person? The good outweighs the bad. I guess. 

How are they seen by others?

The public's opinion is pretty divided on Verum. Some don't really care about what we do. Some support us and wanna join our cause. And some think we are terrorists. 

Yeah… Definitely not a hero… 

Strongest character trait?

I always wanna help people in any way I can. And I did change many people's life for the better, especially with Mechanicus.

Weakest character trait?

No matter how much I try to convince myself, I'm not a good person. Killing people instead of showing them the right way, I think that could be seen as a weakness. 

How competitive are they?

I enjoy a fight between friends, you know, for training. And I will always give my best! When it comes to the real thing, ohhh they better fear me, cuz I'm not giving up so fast.

Do they make snap judgements or take time to consider?

With the kind of job I do and being a boss to many people, it is highly important that I am somebody who thinks things through. I'm glad that I don't have to carry everything though. The benefits of having AI friends and cowworkers. Yes, I see my employees as coworkers.  Dethra and Bluctro are co-founders and bosses too though.

How do they react to praise?

I appreciate praise. It's most useful when it comes from the public, then I know what I'm doing is right.

How do they react to criticism?

I feel ashamed and wanna right my wrongs. You learn from mistakes, but I fear making too big of a mistake. Some stuff just can't be made right again.

What is their greatest fear?

Oh, what I just said. Making such a mistake would be devestating. I also don't wanna lose my loved ones, that would be an even bigger one.

What are their biggest secrets?

I have a secret identity. Luce runs a science and medical company, trying to help humanity as best as she can. But Verum, she tries to change the world more by… force. Verum is a killer, I know that and I am not ashamed to admit it. But I could never let the public know that we are the same person.

What is their philosophy of life?

Modern humanism comes to mind. 

When was the last time they cried?

I have to see bad things. I might be familiar with it, but I'll never really get used to it. I don't want to. I have to see sad things. Sad things that remind me what I'm fighting for. But I don't remember when I have cried the last time. I still do it of course. But I don't remember when I last did. 

What haunts them?

The horror that humanity is. No being is as cruel and evil as us. And I am very aware of the evil that I carry within me. 

What are their political views?

I think democracy is a good idea. I think liberalism is a good idea. And there are also others that carry good ideas within them. You just gotta execute them right. And mix politics. I also belief in a political system that is heavily based on human rights.

What will they stand up for?

I stand up for every living being! Might they be biological, synthetic, mechanical or digital. The non humans in our society deserve life just as much as we do. And everybody should have the right to medicine and have a long life without suffering. Food and shelter is something that we provide too as Hemalog, a daughter company of Mechanicus.

Who do they quote?

Internet references? I might have quoted Diogenes and Aristoteles too some time. 

Are they indoorsy or outdoorsy?

The kind of work I do requires me both indoors and outdoors. But I'm definitely more of an outdoors person. Nature is wonderful after all.

What is their sinful little habit?

How many times do I still have to mention it? 

What sense do they most rely on?

Eyes. Especially because we can see in different spectrums, thanks to our goggles. 

How do they treat people better than them?

I see everybody as an equal. So I treat them as such.

How do they treat people worse than them?

Correction: almost everybody. 

I either kill them or hurt them very bad and put them in jail.

What quality do they most value in a friend?

Loyality, can't have somebody who betrays me.

What do they consider an overrated virtue?

Magnificence is a virtue. How the fuck is anybody magnificent? 

If they could change one thing about themselves, what would it be?

I have changed a lot of myself, I'm 69, but don't look like it. You know, in today's time, you can change yourself a lot. We have science and medicine that can change your entire appearance. So, I can't really answer that question, because I already have changed. A lot.

What is their obsession?

I was obsessed with computers, robots and AI since I was a liitle kid. And you can see where that brought me. Thanks dad!

What are their pet peeves?

Slow walkers that won't let me pass. Gross stuff like… Children are cute, but please don't let them put their boogers on my seat. Seeing people crush insects for fun, they're not doing anything to you! 

Masterpost

[benjaminthewolfnsfw]

A Sugary Snack (Remastered)

....sooooo this fic definitely needed to be remastered. Not because I was unhappy with the quality of writing of the original...but because in the original the prey was a wild, non-sapient Sugarbat and yeah...I think that might just cross one line too many.

So, I made the prey a Sugarbat borrower hybrid instead! Enjoy!

Oh, and just for clarification, "Portal Master" is the Skylands term for Human.

WARNING: FATAL VORE, GOOEY DIGESTION

****

     Being a Borrower-Subarbat hybrid, life was generally pretty good. You got to enjoy all the benefits that resulted from the Sugarbats’ kind and cuddly reputation, (as well as their ability to fly), whilst simultaneously benefiting from the fact that as a borrower, you possessed a level of sapience that full Sugarbats just didn’t have. This essentially meant that you could experience the best of both worlds to their fullest, which was an opportunity you had taken and flewn away with over the years.

     Your flight, a coveted ability which most other Borrowers and even Borrower-Hybrids didn’t have, ensured that you could practically go anywhere you wished at any time. Your diet of disease-spreading bugs earned you a near-heroic reputation in many of the villages you often frequented. And perhaps most importantly of all, your soft, fluffy Sugarbat body allowed for headpats and tummy rubs galore. You loved receiving them, and people loved giving them. You loved everybody, and everybody loved you. This was the Sugarbat way of life, and thus, it was yours as well.

      Due to all this, then, upon sensing that some sort of tall, lean, green troll was climbing up the tree you were currently resting in whilst gazing up at you intently, (although slightly hesitantly), you didn’t really think you had reason to be alarmed.

     The troll eventually makes his way up to the branch that you’re on, before slowly and shakily extending his arm. You promptly respond to this by gently nuzzling your head against his hand before his fingers cautiously slip around your being, gently grasping ahold of you as a result. The troll then starts to direct his gaze downwards, eventually making eye contact with a tiny, bald midget portal master standing rather impatiently on the ground. He then goes on to swiftly glance downwards towards his feet before precariously releasing his grip on the branch he had been previously gripping onto and maintaining his balance with. Once he has managed to do this without immediately falling out of the tree, he tenderly places his other hand on your head, covering up both your ears as a result, before rubbing all around it nice and slowly. This, of course, causes you to let out a rather pleased stream of high-pitched squeaking noises as he did.

     Finally, he opens up his mouth to speak before re-establishing eye contact with the portal master standing right below. However, as your ears are currently being covered up whilst you’re constantly making high-pitched squeaking noises, you don't end up understanding a word that he’s saying. If you could understand, however, you would hear something like this.

     “UH, LORD KAOS, I THINK I GOT IT NOW!”

     “THEN GET DOWN FROM THERE, YOU FOOL! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, I’M STARVING OVER HERE!”

     “-Y-YES LORD KAOS, RIGHT AWAY, SIR!”

     The troll promptly takes his hand off your head before, as carefully and yet as swiftly as he could, proceeding to climb down the tree, placed at a major disadvantage since he could currently only use one hand to keep his grip. He still needed to hold onto you, after all. Inevitably, this unfortunate combination of circumstances would cause him to lose his balance. Since he was already almost at the bottom at this point, though, the impact didn’t really hurt him too much aside from knocking the wind out of him for a while. Despite all this, he had still somehow managed to keep his hold on you. You can’t really help but slightly tilt your head to the side in slight concern at this scene.

     “Took you long enough…” the portal master grumbles under his breath as he walks up to the troll on the floor and places his own fingers around your upper body. The troll immediately lets go and simply focuses on regaining his breath for the moment, as the portal master takes a few steps away from the poor creature whilst silently staring you down. It was at this point where you really began to get confused.

     “Ugh, you Sugarbats are still too sickly sweet for my liking…” the portal master begins to groan to himself as your already pretty confused face now begins to grow slightly concerned. “… but I’m still really hungry! So, in you go!”

     Immediately snapping your head up in a bout of instantaneous, undistilled, body-jostling horror which rendered your form completely and utterly paralyzed for the moment being, you suddenly let out a terrified “EEP!” sound as the realization at last began to settle in. The portal master towering above you steadily brings you closer and closer towards his twisted face. It was only when his slimy, slick, smooth purple tongue momentarily exited his mouth to give a rather wet lick across his chops did you realize that your fate had already been sealed.

      Upon the relative giant finally unveiling his maw, the saliva-soaked, goopy purple chamber within promptly stretches just about as wide as it could feasibly go in order to fit all of your being within its confines at once. His mildly sharpened, glistening, white fangs brazenly gleaned their brilliant shine back at you as the portal master himself maneuvered you around in his two hands for a while until they were holding you in a cupping motion; this in order to insure he wouldn’t accidentally bite down onto any of his fingers whilst shoving you into his maw.

     The portal master goes on to waste absolutely zero time before doing exactly that, shoving his cupped hands up against his face in order to cram you inside past his jaws. His tongue, now that you are mostly underneath it, swiftly flings you up and back towards the middle of the chamber before the portal master’s lips close up, whilst still leaving open his jaws. He then slurps up your tail that had been previously dangling outside like a noodle, and finally, firmly snaps together both  jaws, sealing you away, permanently within him, yet momentarily within his maw, as a result. 

     The portal master’s glossy, soft, moist tongue proceeds to slide itself out from underneath you, before longingly caressing your being with a slow, warm lick across your head. It then proceeds to move in, out, up, down, and around the whole of your body, positively slathering your middle, back, wings, tail, and all, with his saliva. The compounding natural warmth within the maw acts as yet another thing that is constantly soaking up into your being, simultaneously.

     Eventually, the portal master goes on to slide his tongue back into place under your form, before using it to swish you between his cheeks for a while, the sensation of your waterlogged, soggy fur brushing against the slick walls of his cheek causing a pleasured shudder to run its way down the midget’s spine. This would go on for Eon knows how long, before the portal master slowly raises up the back of his tongue, in order to get your soaked being to slide back and towards the entrance of his throat, the gullet opening wide as the great, plump, dangling purple uvula gently sways back and forth above your head.

     At this point, it had become all but certain in your mind just what was about to happen next, but as the portal master’s tongue proceeds to shove you deeper and deeper into his gullet, it somehow grew more and more impossible for you to get yourself to move, and therefore resist and escape.

 Eventually, you are able to see the epiglottis covering up the entrance to the trachea, as the portal master swallows you whole. He somehow manages to squeeze your small, furry being down into his esophagus all at once, and down towards his stomach as a result. He, himself, however, does not seem to be surprised by this fact in the least.

     The portal master immediately let out an excessively satisfied sigh before placing a few fingers over the great bulge you were making in his throat, poking and prodding at it in a teasing manner, all the while you on the inside only continued your long, grueling journey downwards and towards his now empty stomach.

     At this point, the troll that had first brought you out of your tree had managed to get back up on his feet. He merely glanced over at his portal master…master with a slight sigh and a head nod before just simply being forced to watch it happen as the man sat himself himself down against the very same tree and placed a hand over his rumbling, growling gut, patiently lying in wait for its oncoming meal to be delivered right into it.

     Back on the inside of the throat, you had, understandably, begun totally freaking out, squirming and thrashing around within the tight tunnel to quite a considerable degree. Ultimately though, this was all just simply in vain, as no matter how much you pushed and shoved against the slimy, purple walls of the esophagus, the seconds ticking down all around you, you only seemed to be getting squeezed deeper, the rhythmically squelching walls pulsing around your poor being as you continued on squeaking desperately, practically begging the portal master on the outside to let you go free. Quite unfortunately for you, however, this request was absolutely, positively, not going to be granted by the now hazily drooling man lounging casually against your own tree. His fingers began to gently drum over his stomach in a tranquil air of contentedness, as you on the inside are now able to pick up his heartbeat.

     The deep, booming thumping emulating from deep inside of his chest would be absolutely nothing, in terms of audio noise, compared to the relatively high pitched grumbling and gurgling noises echoing around within the portal master’s still empty stomach which you were able to detect just a few seconds later, however. As, upon realizing what, exactly, this meant for you, your utterly futile cries and struggles only proceeded to grow stronger.

     When at last you reached the lower esophageal sphincter, the slick, narrow entryway gently squeezed you out into his growling, shifting, tightened purple stomach, the heated, growling organ expanding just slightly upon sensing your newfound, sudden presence, picking up its churning and rumbling even more whilst the acids began to trickle in.

     The portal master on the outside could feel his formerly empty, growling gut positively filling up with your form, the sensation of your heavy, squirming, helpless Sugarbat being fighting desperately for your very life within the hopeless, compact, slimy confines of his stomach chamber being all but heavenly for him, causing him to start slowly rubbing his hand over his stomach in absolutely nothing but pure bliss as a result.

     You on the inside were now beginning to feel the stinging of the acids seeping through all your formerly soft and fluffy pelt, now horrifically soaked and soggy with saliva and gastric juices, causing you to start squeaking despairingly in pain, as the slick, purple walls of the stomach repeatedly expand and contract, sloshing and swirling the acids all around your poor being whilst your many fur and skin layers only continue to cruelly melt away. Dissolving all the way down into a thick, oozy, viscous, mucky goop, your tiny, Sugarbat body is only ever able to keep on flailing helplessly up until the very end, never, ever, ever to see the light of the moon anymore. 

     Now with no more resistance to worry about, the organ only ramps up its sloshing even further, gurgling and shifting about in order to churn up what once was your living body into a nutritious soup of gooey mush, one that would only be mashed up into chime and pumped through the portal master’s intestines, destined in the end to build up into a permanent part of the man’s body after all was said and done.

     Soon, your being had become so incredibly pulpy, that its former Sugarbat outline was at last beginning to drip off and swirl away, many large chunks of mush breaking away from each other and sinking deep into the swishing pool of acids before dissolving down even more, at last being mashed up and churned about into a homogenous pool of soupy chime. Now, you were nothing more than a bunch of cellular slush, and the portal master’s body treated you as such, your liquified former body casually flowing on down into the beginnings of the man’s small intestine, as the pylorus opened up seconds later.

     The portal master on the outside proceeded to give his satisfied, growling stomach a few pats and many more rubs as a small amount of air that had been previously trapped inside his stomach was suddenly brought up inside his throat, and released all at once in a great, deep belch, one that caused the poor, green troll standing solemnly next to the man to just sigh.

     He didn’t know when his master would get back up. It could be in a few minutes, it could be in a few hours. All the troll knew was that, at the very least, now that his hunger was satisfied, there would be no need to try and appease the midget portal master by scrambling around sporadically in the kitchen doing what little was possible to whip up a satisfactory meal for him anymore. The last time this was attempted was…disastrous, we’ll just say that.

     As such, as the portal master’s loud, rumbling guts continued to make work of the sloshy remains of the once living Sugarbat that had just recently entered into it, the troll could only stand back and silently hope he would never have to fall out of a tree in order to get a meal for his master ever again.

[astralartefact]

Making sense of the "Abortion is bad"-Scene in Kamierabi because it doesn't leave my brain and I really don't want Yoko Taro to be an Anti-Abortionist

Why am I still trying to give the ugly show nobody but me watched the benefit of the doubt?

I don't know either. It has to be wishful thinking.

Okay, I know exactly why, it's the scene after all of the Lall BS where Ryo fcking 'kills' Ono and tells him that that's her wish and he doesn't get to grant it, that shit slapped and it singlehandedly keeps my hope alive that that whole previous scene was supposed to be bad so it can be 'debunked' in the next season.

Because if they actually thought Lall's monologue was it and they were spilling some hard truths about abortion being murder, women just shouldn't cheat and how society has gotten selfish bc evil evil smartphones then not only is whoever wrote that shit either downright evil or missing the forest for the trees - they're also a horrible writer.

Like Lall's whole thing is her tearfully boasting about how nobody there listened to other's wishes, how everybody else is just selfishly trying to become god for their own goals and that's why Ono Goro is so good and smart and different and deserves to become god.

But like - that's wrong. And it's wrong to an almost comical degree. Almost none of them are in this for themselves.

From what we've seen almost everybody wants to make the world a better place by becoming God - and sure we don't necesarily really know what they wished for, but from their actions and characters none of them really fight for themselves.

Sawa wants parents like hers to die because they literally killed her brother - she fights for her brother and not for herself. Akitsu literally let himself die so Goro could win and fix the world. The only thing we really know about Ama is that he is too good for this world. Chika fights for Ryo who fights for Kyo. Iyo is literally another guy who let his favorite Idol overwrite his entire existence.

Like typing this out I'm almost feeling stupid for even entertaining the thought that they could actually mean what Lall is saying - especially since Yoko Taros recent themes (that are also in kamierabi) just fly in the face of any conclusion like this - but to me the episode framed it just sympathetically enough that I'm just not all that sure.

this is literally that one crossroads meme but it's between "Kamierabi is criticizing the white savior complex" and "Kamierabi is an alpha podcast that thinks Abortion is murder, women should just stop being sluts and single mothers are ruining society by raising bad men" and it's going to take months until they finally reveal which one it is

(and i think part of my problem is that turning this into 'ono goro is just a white guy(tm) (yeah i know he's asian but you know what i mean, in his social sphere he's a white guy) who thinks only he can solve all of society's problems because he listened to a woman once' would make this a killer story. like that would make so much sense. they could bring the whole thing with him being the one good iyo stan back so we finally have an anime talking about how all oshi-ism is bad q_q but like. what if it isn't. what if these people just fully drank the alpha podcast cool-aid???)

[milkywaycreates]

♛ 04♡02♡2023 || 4.43pm

I think my curiosity have brought me more frustrations and responsibilities than have given me a clear mind for seeking answers. What I'm currently thinking right now is how I accidentally merged different worlds/societies that it felt more heavy to abandon each of them by just quietly moving on simply because there could be something out of this incident that everybody might benefit from. (or not, pfft)

I could have bruised people, I could have caused other people pain especially the ones I no longer communicate with for letting this mixed up situation stir the calm between us. But. More than anything, I regret knowing a certain person I shouldn't have known in the first place--the person my type of people supposedly shouldn't have had recognized in any kind of way. I regret realizing the existence of several people and this person that's always been stranger to me anyway but never is. Questions like "what could have been right?" if things didn't end up the way they were now has been bugging my mind every now and then. Questions like "would it be my fault if they resort to their toxic coping mechanisms bec of the pain I caused them?" has been making me curious sometimes. Questions like "what if I could save them actually from the very thing that makes them suffer only if I acted right and suppressed my anger the first time?". Like "Is it actually my responsibility now to help them heal their trauma bond because I've learned their messed up ways of coping up?". Sometimes it still hurts me to think that they could be fooling with just anybody for temporary band aid to their wounds if in the past, I could actually have probably helped them to wholly heal that toxic part of them that makes them crave temporary intimacy from other people--not that I'll offer myself as another messed up being fooling around with them to numb the pain--but the thought that maybe if I were softer and more sensitive towards their shortcoming rather than mine, things could have been better. I didn't dream of becoming a hero in any way, I just wish I don't learn of other people's terrible state while also seeing so much potential in them, of how they could have done their life multiple ways better than what they did and are doing.

Although, going back and forth to those very thoughts also makes me feel silly that how come a person like me, who's been thirsty of genuine affection thinks highly of herself as someone who's also capable of pouring them to somebody when she also can't even give herself any. I'm glad I didn't mess up though regardless of how tempting all those temporary pleasurable things sound. And maybe I'm not regretful at all actually, maybe I'm just scared that this might become my new normal perception of things and I might just end up becoming one of those people I think I should and could save. Maybe I'm just scared that I might end up justifying hurt people's coping mechanisms and just be the same.

[renatedagmarmilada]

phone rang, woke me out of my stupor, out of my weariness…dozing off, the nightmares were constant.. Yes, terse,tense, sharp, tired… later they called it a breakdown, though it is artificially created from a machine,used on countless elderly people, unfortunate enough to land in hospitals without mercy by unscrupulous researchers, pressing on the brain at angles, this crying even at the thought of catching the bus to College, with the youngest sitting quietly at her side on the floor all day instead of being at school, quiet support for each other, the only support… the machine at the rogue lab had been switched to full intensity. Anyone they got onto their books, without consent or knowledge, accidentally or through the system, were put through the total ordeal, a total breakdown, the full macoy. With all the not new, but little known technology, they could watch people in their homes and amuse themselves and no one stopped them or protested. Kill at will. How could they? There was no way to catch them, the law has not yet been changed to include all these new crimes. Research, the dominant system of the world. It was interesting for them, gave them something to do and high wages paid from taxes. They destroyed not fixed- they added laughingly. Theirs, the British version of Camp Five…

Police. We have your son here… What? Your son was caught shop lifting.. Oh God, you are joking aren’t you… No. He was laughing, actual laughter in his voice. It seemed incredulous, how can anybody be laughing when our life was shattered.   That happy, well functioning family..some years ago, moving house, yes, at her wishes, to the best street in the town, a neighbour over the back garden had even given them a children’s book; inscribed.. ‘We have enjoyed watching the antics of a happy family.’ Here and now there was another part of this ongoing nightmare. Well, ‘spose it does sound daft, why else would he be ringing after all.  The police had more to do than ring unsuspecting strangers as a joke. Can you come and fetch him.. Damn! Can’t he get home on his own? It’s nine thirty. I don’t want to tell him I am tired to the bone.. Explanation.  Police jargon Why they must and why I must. I feel like screaming, he was big enough to get into trouble, he’s big enough to get himself out of it.  Give him a kick up the arse. Wearily I trudge down to the Police Station, twenty minutes brisk walk, mind racing,  whirling, and the eternal question, why me, why us, mine, peace, give me peace, didn’t we have enough before..here too for God’s sake? The lad at the desk is pink faced. This is a policeman? He wouldn’t frighten me and I was reared to fear, had run crazily when as a child at my Bavarian Children’s Home, I had once seen a policeman with gun on his back and could not stop running, the nuns had never realised why….. how could he frighten these youngsters who have no respect for any authority .. Is this going to be embarrassing? No, things have been so bad, it is somehow part of an overall nightmarish pattern. Heâ€���s stolen some brand jeans. I can’t help thinking, stupid blighter, if I were going to pinch some jeans, I’d be a bit clever about it – however, I stifle the thought quickly. Dishonesty mustn’t even be thought, never mind acted. Later at the Station .. How could you do this to your poor mother boy?

Inspector, his father doesn’t pay anything, never comes to visit havn’t seen him since he walked out soon after we got to this city, a year a two ago now, and the stuff at the Council Clothes Store is grotesque.  Row upon row of identical cheap clothes, pink sweaters for the girls, pale blue for the boys with identical patterns, the same maroon anorak for everybody, measured out by council ladies, who like a tight fit.  Every kid with a single mum in the city wearing the same ……….Benefits doesn’t run to jeans…………. I’m trying to pay the mortgage on a Student’s Grant, keep some stability…. I should have said, but the crisp uniform stopped me, the fear welling. The lab had tuned him, the man I loved since thirteen years old, it’s called energy deplacement, easy enought to understand, only semi secret, used on the Prince and Princess to separate them, tuned him to leave our twenty three year marriage to find himself.. a Psychiatrist who was unhappy in his marriage, transferring his own wishes to that of the victim… Later at College, with a lot of support from the young students for their mature artist comrade, more than from the lecturers, wrote: ‘Why doesn’t society have a trap door, a place to send lone mothers and their unwanted burdensome children, so that society can look clean and sweet.’ But then, the Head of Human Research had been known for her sticky fingers in the past, so why were they watching some poor lad?

[boricuacherry-blog]

B: you've had plastic surgery -

M: i've had no plastic surgery on my face, just my nose..it helped me breathe better so I can hit higher notes.

B: but are you saying you've had only one operation?

M: two

B: you've had two

M:.....that I can remember

B: but since Thriller, your lips look different

M: nope

B: are -

M: And everybody in Hollywood gets plastic surgery! Plastic surgery wasn't invented for Michael Jackson.

B: Ok

*next topic*

B: when I was talking to Prince one day, he - uh - he told me he didn't have a mother.

M: he didn't have a mother?

B: yeah I said Prince, where's your mummy? And he said, 'I haven't got one.'

M: ....that's right

B: did you tell him to say that?

M: no

B: what do you think he means when he says, 'I haven't got a mother.'

M: like he said, he didn't have a mother.

B: do you not think though, that your children would benefit from contact with their mother?

M: no, cause she doesn't...uh...its private information. She doesn't - she can't handle it.

B: she can't handle her own children?

M: she prefers them to be with me than with her.

B: did you know that she didn't want to have relationships with the children when you married her?

M: Yeah. She did it for me.

B: Ok so just so I understand this correctly -

M: she's a wonderful person too

B: So she knew that Michael Jackson loves children -

M: Yeah

B: that Michael Jackson wanted children.

M: yes that's why. She said, 'you need to be a daddy.'

B: .....Right. She said you needed to be a daddy.

M: mhm.

B: more than she needed to be a mother.

M: yeah. She wanted to do that for me as a present.

B: .... a present?

M: a present

*moment of silence as Bashir looks completely baffled*

M: I use to walk around holding baby dolls

B: really?

M: yeah.

B: so she had two children for you. That's incredible.

M: Yeah there are surrogate mothers who do that everyday. It happens everyday. It happens everyday in the world. It's happening right now.

B: so when do you think you're gonna have your next child?

M: I wish I could have it today.

B: really?

M: I'm thinking about adopting two kids from each continent around the world

B: .....really....

M: yeah.

B: ........

M: a boy and a girl

B: from every continent?

M: from every continent. That's my dream.

B: when you're talking about children, we met Gavin, and it was a great privilege to meet Gavin because he's had a lot of suffering in his life. When Gavin was here he talked about the fact that he shared your bedroom -

M: yes.

B: can you understand why people would worry about that?

M: because they're ignorant.

B: but is it really appropriate for a 44 year old man to share a bedroom with a child who is not related to him at all?

M: that's a beautiful thing.

B: that's not a worrying thing?

M: why should it be worrying? Who's the criminal? Who's the Jack the Ripper in the room? This is some guy trying to help heal a child. I'm sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor, I give him the bed cause he has a brother named Star, so him and Star took the bed, and I'm on the floor in a sleeping bag.

B: did you ever sleep in the bed with them?

M: No. But I have slept in the bed with many children. I sleep in the bed with all of them. When Macaulay Culkin was little, Kieran Culkin [his brother] would sleep in on this side, Macaulay Culkin's on this side *begins gesturing with hands* his sister's on this side, we'd all just jam in the bed. And we'd wake up at dawn, and go in the hot air balloon. You know, we have the footage. I have all the footage, uh -

B: But is that right, Michael?

M: It's very right. It's very loving. *starts gestering with hands* that's what the world needs now. More love, more -

B: what the world needs -

M: heart -

B: what the world needs - a man who's 44 -

M: no, no, you're making it sound all wrong -

B: well help me.

M: because *gesturing with hands* what's wrong with sharing love? You don't sleep with - uh - your kids? Or some other kid who needs love? Who didn't have a childhood-

B: No I don't, I would never dream of -

M: I would -

B: I would never dream -

M: I would, you've never been where I've been *points to head* mentally.

B: what do you think people would say if I said, 'Well, I've invited some of my daughter's friends around or my son's friends around and they're gonna sleep in the bed with me tonight?

M: That's fine..

B: What do you think their parents would say?

M: Well if they're wacky they would say you can't but if you're...close family, like your family and you know them well, and um, and uh -

B: But Michael, I wouldn't like my children to sleep in anybody else's bed.

M: Well, I wouldn't mind, *looks away* if I knew the person well, like I'm very close to Barry Gibbs [of the Bee Gees], Paris and Prince can stay with him anytime. My children sleep with other people all the time.

B:....And you're happy with that.

M: I'm fine with it. They're honest, they're sweet people, they're not Jack the Ripper.

B: I suppose the problem, for many people, is what happened in 1993. Or what didn't happen.

M: *points at Bashir* what didn't happen.

B: Just cast your mind back - what was on your mind when you first heard the allegations that were being made against you?

M: It was shocking, and I'm not allowed to talk about this by way of law, so.

B: But how did you feel about what was being said? I'm not asking you to talk about what was said -

M: *looks away* I was shocked because, um, God knows my heart and how much I adore children *laughs nervously*

B: But isn't that precisely the problem? When you actually invite children into your bed, you never know -

M: But when you say 'bed,' you're thinking sexual *points and wags finger* they make it sexual. It's not sexual. We're going to sleep -

B: But -

M: I tuck them in, we put - I put - uh - I put a little music on, a little storytime, I read a book, they're very sweet - put the fireplace on *gestures with hands* we give them hot milk, you know, we have cookies, it's very charming, it's very sweet.

B: Sure -

M: It's what the whole world needs *makes big gesture with hands* it's what the whole world should do.

B: The reason that's been given for why you didn't go to jail was because you reached a financial settlement with the family.

M: Yeah, yeah. I don't want to do a long *hand gestures* drawn out thing on TV like OJ, and all that stupid stuff. It wouldn't look right. I just said, look, get this over with, I wanna go on with my life, this is ridiculous, I've had enough, go

Voiceover: I've interviewed him much more, but the confidentiality agreement we've signed means we cannot show that part of the interview. My questions had upset him deeply.

*cut back to scene*

M: *voice trembling* but people don't eat with their fathers anymore - or their mothers - the family bond has been broken, it's an outcry for attention, why kids are going to school with guns - they want love, they wanna be touched - it's destroying our world, we need to bond again. That's very important, Martin. I'm just very sensitive to the human condition.

Voiceover: And so I left Michael Jackson, as he prepared to go back to Neverland.

[keekity]

Hi, just popping in to share these doodles I’ve been doing lately when I need to quiet my mind :)

[will-o-the-witch]

I love your blog and was reading through a lot of your witchy/spiritual/religion asks and posts, which are chefs kiss honestly. You don’t have to answer this and can even block me if I offend you (which is not my intent at all) but I’m a Christian and really wish that people would specify who and what they’re talking about when they badmouth Christianity. Fact is most of the harm is being done (or was done) by Catholicism and white/European interpretations of the religion. I’m part of neither, and when people talk about Christians going around the world and colonizing people and forced conversions and hating women and ripping up Africa and slavery and abortion etc etc etc, I want to rip my hair out because literally that’s not what it was ever about for those of us who are nonwhite and come from nonwhite countries. Idk it’s just frustrating that people can’t see that all of that was performed by wealthy white European men for political and power purposes and they used Christianity to do all that because they realized it was effective to weaponize a religion like that and found out they could take it globally. They could’ve used almost any religion to do this, they just CHOSE “Christianity” for proximity purposes thanks to the Holy Roman Empire (get fucked, glad that’s somewhat gone) and people who don’t ascribe to any of that, who actively condemn all of that and just happen to be Christian shouldn’t be forced to answer for those actions. Catholicism is its own thing, evangelism and fundies are their own thing, and I hate when people lump us all together just because people purposely use the broad Christianity umbrella to engage in decidedlyunChristian behaviors. Someone in the abortion tag just said something similar and I realized how fucked it was that people and anti theists are like that.

Anyways, I enjoy reading about and learning about Judaism from your blog. I wish every cultural appropriator, antisemite, genocide apologist, nazi (neo or otherwise) and Lilith worshipper a very die and get blocked by you (bugs bunny meme)

Hey there! I understand you're approaching this in good faith and so I'll try my best to do so in the same way. Sorry this is long:

I understand that not everybody's individual relationship with Christianity directly stems from sharing the same colonizey mindset, but if you're Christian, the modern-day Christian hegemony still benefits you. Even if somebody doesn't have white privilege or wealth privilege, they would still have Christian privilege. If you live anywhere like where I live, you will never have trouble finding a variety of different churches to choose from (or anything else you need access to for your faith,) can expect to get ample time off for your religious holidays, and can publicly express your faith in almost any situation without fearing for your safety. Many people will even go out of their way to help you because of your faith. (On the flip side, I know businesses around here that went under because people found out the owner wasn't Christian and stopped giving him business.)

Catholics may have been the military powerhouse back in the day and evangelical protestants may have a vice grip on US politics, but a lot of the concerns us minority religions have with Christianity are not exclusive to those groups. Evangelicals are NOT the only ones telling me I'm going to Hell, secretly feeding Jews/Muslims pork without their consent, having cute little "Christian Seders," etc. There are some things written in the "New Testament" Christians of all stripes use to prop up how awesome and moral Jesus is, which are very troubling and uncomfortable to read as a Jew. Pretty much every denomination I'm aware of emphasizes the importance of "spreading the good word" in various degrees or endorses the idea "mission trips" (which are fucking evil.) I've never seen any denomination of Christianity actually formally denounce these things, even if some individuals do.

It's worth mantioning I have absolutely nothing against Christians as individuals and have many dear pals who are Christian and understand perfectly that it's not a monolith. Sadly, though, saying certain behaviors are "unchristian" doesn't do much to make me (and others) feel better when pretty much any form of Christianity given systemic power throughout history has tried to expel and eradicate Jews, convert others, establish a hegemony, etc. It's a "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Like it or not those people are Christians and these issues need to be addressed rather than brushed aside as not being "real" Christianity.

This honestly comes off to me similar to the #NotAllMen sentiment. (I don't say that to be hostile or dismissive, just to convey the feeling it gives me.) If you're a Christian and aren't doing X Thing people are upset about, then the statement isn't about you. If you feel personally attacked when oppressed minority religions don't like/feel uncomfortable around Christianity, reflect on why that might be. And if you want to change people's opinions on what it means to be a "real" Christian, lead by example.

Also important to point out: falsely conflating Christians with other Christians does not have the same negative impact as conflating Jews/other minority religions with Christians.

[english8muffin]

Vogue morning routine

Y/N Y/N/L’s guide to effortless natural makeup

Summary: you are asked to do the Vogue Beauty Secrets video and your two boys decide to join the party

Word count: around 2000

Warning: none, just pure floof!

I apologize in advance if there are any spelling and/or grammar mistakes, English is not my first language (+ this is my very first fic)

HEADLINE Henry Cavill’s new girlfriend, designer Y/N Y/L/N reveals her everyday morning routine in recent Vogue video: Y/N Y/L/N shows off her secrets to the perfect fusion of European and Asian beauty.

You stood in the spacious bathroom of the hotel room, only wearing a big, fluffy, white robe, that was actually Henry’s. But since the man was in the gym, you took the opportunity to lend it and bathe yourself in his musky smell, that calmed your nerves. Last night you started panicking, thinking you would probably look stupid for the entire world to see, luckily Henry and Kal tried to calm you down with cuddles and kisses.

This was the first ‘interview’ you would do, being such a young, successful entrepreneur really caught the attention of the media. When you first started your small online shop, you never would have thought you would end up here. Five years later, with a steady income, the job you always wished for and the man you had a crush on since the first time you laid eyes on him. Being a creative, it really made your heart soar with happiness, seeing all your products, your babies, in new homes where they would make others happy.

You were really proud of yourself. Henry was as well, and he made sure you and everybody around you knew. You were apprehensive at first, being with such a well known actor, who was also much older than you, it made you nervous of what people would say, what the media would say. You didn’t want to tarnish Henry’s image. You knew there were people with a much bigger age gap, but still, people were ruthless. So you both decided to take it slow, being careful with going out in public and social media posts.

You stand in front of the large mirror, which had a camera attached to it and open up your makeup bag. Right before you went into the bathroom, you made yourself a nice cup of tea, trying to stay calm. “Hi! I’m Y/N and today I am going to show you my everyday makeup routine,” you say with a smile, “I am not a dermatologist so please don’t take what I say too seriously.”

You grab a small white washcloth and hold it up, so it was in the frame, “First, I am going to wash my face and put on a few drops of serum,” You dampen the cloth and wipe it over your face and neck. You put a few drops in the palm of your hand and pat them into your skin. “Now I going to use my jade roller to massage the serum into my skin. It’s quite funny seeing so many people use these nowadays. In ancient China they were mostly used by the elite to keep there skin ageless. They would call jade the Stone of Heaven. It’s really helpful for the people who wake up with a puffy face like me,” you chuckle.

Somethimes you’d wake up with puffy cheeks, which led to Henry calling you his chubby bunny in the morning.

“Just a quick tip, and this is for everybody, make sure you always use SPF. I personally use SPF 30 and this one is shine control, since I tend to get an oily skin, but you can also use a regular one or a foundation with SPF in it. Believe me when I say your skin will be thankful.”

You grab the small tube of sun cream and show the amount you’ll use. You even convinced Henry to wear SPF everyday. At first he said he didn’t think it would make such a big difference, but when he realised you were going to be the one to put it on him, he was convinced about its benefits and adamant to wear it everyday. After working the thick cream into your skin, you put on some lipbalm and rummage through the pouch in front of you. When you find the product you’re looking for, you hold it up. “Now, I am going to put on a bit of concealer, this one is from Maybelline. After this, I will use a lighter shade under my eyes and on my acne scars that I have here,” you point and circle around the small cluster of scars on the sides of your cheeks.

Before blending out the concealer, you smile at the lens and put in two bright yellow hairclips, to keep your dark locks from falling into your face. “I probably should have done this at the start,” you laugh. The nerves creeping up a little. It wasn’t that you where a shy person, but knowing thousands of people will watch this, did something to you. You were always a very easygoing person, who could talk with pretty much everybody. But knowing people were going to watch you do something so intimate in a way, and would probably comment on it, scared you a little. While you would be 100% yourself, doing something as mundane as getting ready. If they didn’t like you now, then they probably won’t like you later. And that was what made you so afraid.

The bathrobe falls a bit down your shoulder, but you ignore it, since your hair fell down your shoulders in big waves. “Okay, brows. I used to block them in really dark when I was younger, but now I try to keep a light hand. I’ll use this Got 2B Glued as a brow gel afterwards. The tails of my eyebrows tend to move if I don’t use a strong enough gel. If you’re Asian you will understand the struggle.”

You quickly finish your brows, put some bronzer on your face and eyelids and take out your liquid eyeliner. “Am I the only one that acts like I’m a beauty guru whenever I do my makeup? Like, I’m just acting as if I’m used to this, right now, but to be honest, I was really nervous to do this video for Vogue,” you admit, “they will probably regret asking me,” you chuckle. You finish your eyemakeup with curling your long lashes, thanks to your mother’s genes, and add a coat of mascara.

You take in a deep breath, excited to show everyone the product you had been waiting for. “The next thing I am really proud to show you guys, because I designed the packaging. This is the new limited edition blush and highlighter palette from Dior, which they created for Lunar New Year!” You beam with pride, holding up the elegant looking palette. It had a darker toned glossy finish and the borders were the traditional Chinese looking frames, which were 3D and were surrounded by a wild variety of peonies. In the middle of the lid was your Chinese calligraphy in big golden brush stokes that said ‘year of the Ox’, the clasp was designed so it resembled an antique Chinese coin and on the side hung a jade charm.

“You can pre-order this palette now, I think they will put a link-thingy in de description. I wish you all a happy and blessed Lunar New Year, 祝农历年新年快乐牛年大吉!”

Just as you’re about to add some blush to your cheeks, the bathroom door creaks open and a curly-headed, sweaty Henry pops his head in. Fresh from the gym, and were you thankful for his new intense workout, because he was truely a sight to behold. A cheeky smile graces his handsome face when he spots you in front of the mirror, only wearing his robe, which made his grin widen.

“what are you doing in here? Are you hiding from me? Playing hide and seek is it?” he teases and rakes his large hand through the tousled curls, but just as he’s done speaking, he sees the camera behind you, and blushes. “Oh, I didn’t know you were filming, I’m sorry darling,” he smiles and gives a small wave in the direction of the camera. You led out a giggle, cheeks turning red already, if he’d keep this up, you wouldn’t need to add blush. You couldn’t focus anymore, he looked so attractive, only wearing his black gym shorts and a tight dark blue tank top. Damn that camera, otherwise you would have jumped him. Henry, thought the exact same thing. Seeing you, only wearing his robe and your hair still a bit wild from this morning’s cardio, made him hold back a moan. Those two cute, yellow clips in your hair could have fooled him, because you were anything but innocent.

Before he’s about to close the door again, he blows you a kiss. But his actions are stopped when a big bear makes his appearance. Bolting past his dad’s legs, Kal comes into the bathroom. Henry tries to catch him but misses. The black and white akita excitedly sniffs his head around the sink, trying to see what you were up to with all the stuff lying on the marble counter.

“Kal!” Henry whisper-yelled, trying to stay hidden behind the door. But you could still see his massive body crouched down behind the wood. It was rather funny, seeing the large man so panicked about getting his dog to listen. It kind of reminded you of that one video from BBC were a professor was being interviewed and his baby and nanny showed up in the background. While Henry tried to get Kal’s attention, the dog just sat next to your legs, and smiled when you pet him behind his ear. He was your good boy.

You both knew there was no other option but to keep Kal here, once he saw you do your makeup, he wanted to watch and get his ‘makeup’ done as well.

Henry also saw the look in Kal’s eyes and let out a sigh. Might as well stay with his two loves. He stood up from his position and walked to you, wrapping his sweaty but oh so save body around your figure, and placed a prolonged kiss on the exposed skin just by your shoulder. So far for taking it slow… He pressed himself thighter against your back, hiding his face in the crook of your neck and intertwined your hands, slowly rocking you two back en forth. “You look beautiful, my love,” he whispered, so only you could hear it, at least you hoped the camera wouldn’t pick that up. You let out a little giggle, like the inner schoolgirl you were whenever he was around you.

“Kal loves when Y/N does his makeup as well, don’t you boy,” Henry explains with a smile and looks down at the bear by your bare feet. Kal gives a small ruff and sweeps his tail eagerly. “Did you show them what you made,” he asked you with a wide smile, and looked straight in to the camera, “she worked really hard on that design, so I hope you all like it,” he declared proudly.

You ended up doing your makeup routine with your two boys in the background. Henry left for a few minutes to shower in the second bathroom your hotelroom had, and came back clad in a pair of light jogging trousers and a sweater. Even though you were inside, it was still a bit too chilly to walk around in short sleeves, being mid-winter and all. He just sat on the small wooden bench by the door, still in frame for everybody to enjoy and behold. His hair now damp. He was reading in a book and patiently waiting for you to get ready, occasionally looking up and laughing when you would wet your hands or Kal’s special makeup brush in the sink and pretend to do his makeup. The dog would bark excitedly and give you kisses. “Wow Kal, you look so pretty,” Henry told the big floof with the chuckle.

“Okay, this was my -somewhat- everyday makeup routine! Thank you guys for watching this chaotic mess, hope you laughed a bit, bye-bye, 再见!” How do those vlogger end their videos? Smash like and subscribe?

Behind you Henry looked up from the pages of his fantasy book and arched his brow, “Hey! No shout-out for your special guests? See you all next time!”

WOOHOO!! This is my very first fanfic, I really hope you enjoyed it. Liking, reposting and commenting would mean a lot to me! If you do repost this, please do not edit or copy my work. I worked really hard on this.

Much love, Nahmi xxx

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[imagination-is-key-in-my-world]

Awkward Encounters

Authors Note: At first, I was going to write this as the reader being in Tessa’s perspective but then I thought that it would be too much of a copyright. There may be some similarities to the story but I have written Tessa in as a separate party. Tessa is still with Noah in this. Also, I will be referencing parts from both the movie and the novels. In this particular fanfiction Tristan is a girl, like the movie.

Summary: You are a freshman at college and your life there started pretty normally. Your best friend is Tristan who is dating Steph who is roommates with Tessa. That was until you went to a party with Tristan and the girls. You had no idea that the mysterious British boy was going to intervene when you come face to face with the Bitch that is Molly.

Warning: Swearing

Pairing: Reader x Hardin Scott

Word Count: 4,423

“Come on Tristan, I told you.” I moan. “I can’t go to another party; I am still recovering from the last one.” I cling to a cold compress, trying my best to shield my eyes from the light that is seeping in through the open door.

Tristan threw a pack of Ibuprofen onto my lap that she snooped around in my bag for. “If it’s that bad, take one of these and get your butt out of that bed.” I groan at the impact from the small box just for the effect. “Don’t be a baby and get up.”

I roll over on the bed to face the wall. “Can’t you just go with Steph?”

“No!” She abruptly spat out. “I want to go with you. Steph is bringing Tessa and I don’t want to show up alone.”

“But you will be with her when you’re there. What’s the point in me getting out of this lovely cocoon that I have made, just to walk you to the party?”

Tristan had her head bent over, pulling her hair into a high ponytail on the top of her head. “You know that what you just said was the whole point.” She sighed. “Everyone is going to stare at me when I walk in there all on my lonesome.”

I eyed the short revealing dress that she was pulling onto her petite and envious body. “You know everyone will be staring at you no matter what if you wear that.” I laugh. “Those legs are going to be the headliner for that party.”

Tristan winked at me and continued adding more accessories to her ever-growing ensemble. “That my dear naïve British friend is the goal of this outfit.” She dropped to her knees faster than I could pry open the antibiotic wrapper. Gripping onto my hand she pulled me away from my mission to rid the world of the swirling furniture before my very eyes. “Y/N, if you do not go, I will literally never talk to you ever again.”

I raised my eyebrow at the sight before me. “Is that a promise.” I bravely say.

“Y/N! Please!”

“Fine alright. Give me five minutes.” I surrender, using every ounce of strength that I had left to lift myself from my comfy nest. “But you owe me, big time.” Tristan’s arms were around my neck faster than I could respond. Her soft lips that I am sure Steph adores, pressed against my forehead.

“I love you so much Miss Y/L/N!” She squealed.

I let out a stiff laugh as I saunter off to the bathroom to sort whatever state I currently appeared to be in.

***

“You know, when you said that this was going to be a cool night for us both? When did I factor into the equation?” I scoff, lifting the red solo cup to my lips. The bitter taste made my stomach curl, but what was worse was not drinking around all these over-the-top drunk people.

Tristan was straddling Steph on the sofa by the side of me. These two did not understand the true definition of PDA and why some people may find it uncomfortable. Including myself.

I inch further down the sofa that was unsurprisingly very sticky. If I wasn’t feeling queasy when I turned up, I certainly felt it now. I try to distract myself from the fact that I had to peel my legs from the leather material just to cross them. The sound was very unflattering.

“Why are you in my seat?” I roll my eyes the minute I recognised the irritating voice that filled me with angst and hatred from across the room. Molly Samuels. Her whole presence just irritates me, and it appears that I am not the only one with this response. I gaze over to my left to see Tessa shaking her head at the general distaste she had for the girl. I lift my cup up to Tessa who shyly mimics. ‘To stuck up bitches, ay?’ I say to myself, quietly so that she couldn’t hear.

Molly pushed Zed Evans and his girlfriend for the night out of her shitty throne causing his date to land hard on her arse. I am sure it wasn’t the first time that Molly has done this to declare her ‘power’ to the whole room. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” The blonde cried as Zed attempted to pick her up from the floor which was soaked in alcohol.

“Does this brat literally think she can talk to me right now?” Molly scoffed, flicking her hair over her shoulder. Turning to her so-called friends for approval of her comment and actions.

“What did you just call me?” The poor young girl shook off Zed’s protective arm and stepped right in front of Molly’s nose. Probably not the best move, but I have always found that Molly needed taking down a peg or two.

“You heard me, loud and clear” She popped her tongue on the letter ‘l’ in loud. “A little slutty brat who thinks for a second that Zed will call her back after he fucks her tonight.” Molly’s teeth were snarling almost like a wild animal.

“At least I’m not a bitchy whore who thinks that everyone here is her friend.” There were a couple ‘ohs’ and ‘ahs’ almost as if we were at a panto and not a college party after Zed’s girl’s response.

The second Molly let the words register her hand was leaving that poor girl’s cheek, along with a bright red handprint in its place.

“What the fuck, Molly!” I heard the words clear as day, but I never in a million years imagined that they would come from my mouth. But there I was, standing right in front of Molly, shielding the young girl from another blast to the face.

I could hear people whispering behind my back. ‘What is she doing?’ ‘Is she stupid or something?’ ‘Does she not know what Molly is like?’ Despite being close friends with Tristan, I never would have expected her to step up to defend me, especially when Molly Samuels was involved. She stayed on Steph’s lap; eyes bugged open. Utterly frozen.

“Wow Y/N? Get involved in other people’s business much? Just because your life is too sad, you feel like you can insert yourself into other people’s.” I roll my eyes at her pathetic attempt to rattle me. “You’re just a sad little virgin that no body wants around. Tristan only invited you tonight for her own benefit. Just look around, you don’t fit in here.”

I stay silent. I may have only spoken up once tonight, but that was enough for me. Frat parties are my least favourite place to be. The only reason I came here tonight was for Tristan. I should have left the minute she started making out with the red-haired beauty.

“Cat got your tongue now, bitch.” Molly’s face was inches from mine and I choked on the strong aroma of alcohol on her breath. “Oh, wait I forgot, the girl doesn’t own a backbone.” There were a few stifled laughs here and there. Zed stayed silent, as did Tristan and Steph. None of them making the effort to stand up for me. “Let me guess. Tristan batted her big eyes at you and begged you to come tonight, didn’t she? Then ditched you the moment someone prettier came into the picture.”

I gulp back the bile that I knew had risen to the back of my throat. “Why don’t you go back to your dorm. Oh, better yet, get on a fucking plane and fly back to shitty England. We could only get lucky and hope the thing crashes with you inside it.”

“That’s enough Molly!” The voice behind me held a British twang similar to my own. A voice I had only heard about but never actually seen. The bad boy, Hardin Scott.

Hardin Scott was attractive. Since I got here, I knew he was the talk of the college. Everybody knew who he was and that he wasn’t good news. His white shirt displayed his various tattoos clearly through the thin and tight fabric. His black hair was pushed back to show his piercing eyes and anger set eyebrows. His eyes never left Molly who was stood behind me.

“Oh, Hardin you know I am only messing with the virgin.” She forces a small laugh. “It’s not like I can control the planes is it.” Her head tilts to the side as her gaze locks onto mine, only to intimidate. “I mean I wish I could.” She muttered so that only the people stood around her could hear.

“Do you ever know when to stop!” Hardin barks, not acknowledging me physically. “Do you ever think that you’re the one that people don’t want around?” He questions, moving slowly across the room. I hadn’t noticed but the volume of the once booming music had been lowered to a slight hum in the background.

Hardin was now stood right beside me glaring down at Molly who mimicked his stance. “Ding Ding. Come on guys let’s just drop it!” Nate calls over when he noticed their glares on each other were far from breaking.

Molly was the first to move. “You’re right Nate.” She coos. “Let’s play a game.” She scans the room of her so-called posy who all appeared to be done with her shit for the night. “It’s Friday night. We need to play a game. I will even let the little virgin here play along, too.”

I am very aware that all the eyes were now back on me.

This wasn’t something that I wanted to be a part of. It took me what felt like an eternity to move my feet across the room to where Tristan was sitting. “I am going to head back to the dorms.” I declare quietly to her, but I can tell that they are all listening.

“No please stay, it won’t be the same if you go.” Tristan reaches for my hand which I pull away.

I don’t know why I am letting Molly’s words sink in so much. Everybody who knows her knows that she is full of herself and couldn’t give a shit who she hurts.

“No, it’s late.” It was only nine. “And I have assignments that are due.” I lie, they are all finished. “I’ll see you back at the dorm.”

I start towards the door but I can hear Tristan calling after me to stay.

As I reach the front door to the frat house, I hear Molly’s voice loud and clear. “So, Hardin truth or dare?”

***

The walk back to the dorms was anything but peaceful. The cars were loud and honking at me as they passed. Classy.

I reach for my phone in my bag. I could do with tuning out the world for this half hour walk back in the dark. But my fingers only find a vibrant red lipstick that I couldn’t pull off in a million years.

I stop dead in my tracks. This was Steph’s bag; I grabbed the wrong one during my never-ending embarrassment.

I couldn’t go back, but I couldn’t go further either. Where was I supposed to go, Steph’s key wasn’t in here so it’s not like I could sleep in her room for the night. No cash, key or phone meant that I had no other choice. I had to suck it up and go back.

“Fuuuck!” I shout, not caring that I startled an elderly woman who was placing a rubbish bag in her bin just outside her front door.

“Not a very ladylike thing to say.” I hear a mocking chuckle behind me causing me to jump out of my skin.

When I turn around, I am greeted by the tall British bad boy covered in ink standing about 6 foot in front of me.

His head cocks to the side when I don’t answer him. “You don’t say much, do you?” My eyes scan over his attire, black ripped jeans, white top, and a jet-black leather jacket. “But you do stare a lot, don’t you?” That British chuckle makes it’s second appearance tonight.

“What do you want?” I blurt out, shaking my head at the fact that I was indeed caught staring at the boy.

He steps a little closer to me, closing the gap between us ever so slowly. I watch in amazement at how sexy he makes walking look. “You left this at the party.” I hadn’t realised that he had extended his hand to reveal a clutch bag. My clutch bag.

“Oh!” I speak. “Thanks.” I take the bag from him and prepare myself for the walk back.

“Don’t take any notice of Molly. She is a bitch.”

“Yep.” I chip in, turning to walk back towards the college dorm rooms.

I only get a few steps ahead when I feel a cold sensation wrap around my bare arm. Why the fuck didn’t I bring a coat? I gaze down at the hand that is pressed to my skin. “Where are you going?” He softly says. His tone and action were not at all forceful but something about him made me shiver with fear deep inside the pit of my stomach. I was warned about Hardin Scott. Tristan said that he wasn’t exactly good news around her group of friends. Acting with his fists before connecting his words, that’s what she said at least.

“H-Home.” I stutter, half from the interaction, half from how fucking cold it was. I straighten up. “I am going home.”

“Alone?” He jumps in straight away.

I don’t answer. I just look back at his hand around my arm.

“S-sorry.” He stutters, removing his hand from my arm. “It’s just it’s a long way back to the dorms and it is late.”

I shrug my shoulders at his declaration. “I know.” I simply say and start to walk again but I am blocked by the gorgeous boy standing in front of me. “Oh fuck, you’re not going to kill me, are you?”

“No of course not!” He blurts.

“Good! Now could you” I gesture to the fact that he is stood directly in my path. He catches on to my hint and steps aside.

“You’re not going to walk there alone, are you?” His voice sounding desperate.

I spin and mockingly look around for people, lifting my hand to shield my eyes as I continue my search. This provokes a choked sigh from Hardin. Once I am satisfied with my ‘search’ I say “yep” and continue to walk.

“But it is late.” He chimes in again walking backwards trying desperately not to break my gaze as I try desperately to avoid his. “And you’re alone.”

“Yes, we have established this.” I mock, glaring at the stoned pavement or sidewalk ahead of me.

Hardin reaches both hands out in front of himself creating a wall which stops me from taking another step. “What is your problem?”

I take a step back, alarmed at his outburst. “My problem. You’re the one who has continuously blocked my way for the past ten minutes.” I bark. I try to move around him but he doesn’t budge, copying my actions to stay ahead of me.

“I am trying to offer my services.” Hardin exclaimed but then scowled at his choice of words. I too have a hard time accepting the word ‘services.’ Just as I go to argue he opens his mouth. “Fuck that’s not what I meant to say.” His hands instantly dart to push his hair back out of his face. A nervous tick I assume. What did he have to be nervous about? He is the one stalking after college girls at half 9 at night.

“Look can we start over?” He offers shoving his hands into his jacket. My arms promptly raise to cover my bare arms where goosebumps have started to form. Why didn’t I bring a jacket? “Could I possibly walk you back to the dorms?” His eyes dropped to the ground to stare at a pebble that he toyed with his shoe. Was he anxious?

“Why?” I question fairly quickly.

“I just want to make sure that you get back safe!” His tone wasn’t very friendly. I cock my head to one side. “Sorry, that came out bad.” His tone softening. “I just didn’t like the way that Molly spoke to you earlier and I also hate the fact that you would be walking back in this sketchy neighbourhood alone.”

“Fine.”

***

We walk all the way back to the dorms in silence. Hardin looked uncomfortable the entire time as if he were being forced to be here. I sure as hell did not make him.

I pull the key from my bag and slot it into the lock on the door. Pushing the door slightly open I stand with my arms still draped across my shivering body in the doorway. “Well, thanks for walking me back and bringing me my bag.”

Hardin didn’t budge. His eyes were locked on my body, traveling from my legs to my face. His face turned a shade of white when his eyes caught up to mine. “Fuck!” He announced.

“What!” I jump at his sudden change in demeaner.

“Your lips.” He gestures to my trembling lips that haven’t stopped shaking since I stepped outside of the frat house. “They are fucking blue!” Panic surges over him as he rakes his hands through his hair. “Why didn’t you say you were cold?” He started passing back and fourth in front of me.

“There wasn’t much you could do.” I counter. “My own stupid fault for not bringing a coat.”

I walk inside the room and grab a jacket and throw it on over my shaking body. Hardin enters after me and grabs my hand carefully. “Fuck lot that will do.” He picks up a towel and drags me back down the hallway.

I try to pull my arm back but it is no use. “Where the hell are you taking me?” I say a little too loud. Silently cursing myself if I may have woken up any of the other students living down this dorm.

“The showers now come on.” He tugs a little harder as his feet guide me towards the shared bathroom just a few floors down from my own.

As we reach the bathroom, Hardin throws the towel over the railing and reaches in to turn on the water. I couldn’t help but watch his every move. “Get in!” He cries. Gesturing to the box that was filling with tempting hot steam.

I hesitate. “Y/N, get in the fucking shower.” I jump, not at his tone. But at the fact that he used my name. How did he even know it? Oh right, he was at the party when Molly was insulting me. “If you don’t start undressing now, I will have to start doing it for you.”

I raise an eyebrow but decline his offer, stepping into the box and pulling the curtain across to shield my naked body.

***

Hardin was right, I needed that shower. I hadn’t realised how cold I had gotten from that walk home. I stood in that shower for what felt like half the evening.

I shut off the water and begin to pull the curtain slightly across so that I could reach for the towel that Hardin had placed on the rail when Hardin’s hand slips through holding the towel between his fingers.

“Thanks.” I mutter, draping it around my soaking body.

I step out to find that Hardin’s hair has dropped and started to stick to his forehead in places from the steam. His eyes dart up and down my body, quietly.

I am the first one to break the silence as we stand there in the shared bathroom. “So, I should um, probably get back to my room.”

I watch as Hardin lets my words break him from his still stance. “Yeah, um, after you.” He holds his arm out and follows me out of the bathroom. Something has shifted in Hardin. Tonight, I have seen him; angry, intimidating, shy, solemness and lost for words. It was a lot to take in during a short period of time.

I open the dorm door and step inside. When I hear the door shut, I jump and almost drop the towel. “Shit, sorry I didn’t mean for the door to shut so loudly.” He curses under his breath.

“It’s okay.” I mutter. I cling to the towel as I stare back at Hardin who hasn’t moved or made any effort to leave.

“Y/N?” Hardin’s voice softer than ever tonight, bringing my eyes to meet his. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“What do you mean?” My words coming out slowly. His head dropped to face the floor. Was he trying to count the flecks of glitter on the carpet from Tristan’s body butter or something?

“Why didn’t you say that you were cold?” I roll my eyes, this again. Crossing my arms over my stomach.

“Like I said, there wasn’t anything you could have-”

“I could have given you my jacket.” He interjects. Taking a step closer to me. His body was merely a foot away from mine.

“But then you would have been the one with the blue lips.” I counter. Tilting my head to the side in a modest challenging manner.

This stirred something within Hardin, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I know that he isn’t used to a woman not agreeing with every word that comes out of his mouth.

I suddenly shake my head as I feel a slight chill spread up my back. I am still in my towel and now I am very much aware of that. Quickly I turn away from his locked-on gaze.

“Can I have some privacy please.” I mumble, not able to turn around to face him. “I need to, uh, get changed.” I add.

Hardin lets out a small grunt but eventually I do hear the click of my dorm-room door close. I don’t know why but I feel a shed of disappointment at the fact that he listened and actually left.

It takes my hands what feels like hours to release the tight grip that I held on to the towel. Allowing it to fall onto the floor.

“You know what-” I hear the click of the door and his voice fill my ears. I jump from my spot in the middle of the room. He doesn’t finish the sentence, instead Hardin slams the door behind him. “Fuck!” His eyes firm but glued on my body.

I quickly try to grab the towel up off the floor, but it is no use. Hardin instantly placed his foot over the soggy material. “Don’t.” He lets that one word fall from his lips as he slowly continues to decrease the distance between us.

“Hardin!” I shout. “Give-” I can’t finish my argument as I find his finger is placed over the top of my lips.

Hardin doesn’t speak, he just shakes his head. His soft hand moves from my lips and trails off to my cheek, holding me in place. My eyes locked onto his own, frozen in place. I watch as his eyes bounce from my own to my lips, seeking permission. His other hand snaked its way around and laid itself on the small of my back, pulling my naked body closer to his.

I was completely thrown off by the audacity of my body responding to his touch, bringing me to him. Everything happened in slow motion from the second we were back in my room. I knew that Hardin was trouble, everybody did. But no one actually prepares you for a moment like this. Where you are stood in front of a gorgeous guy whose whole attention you own. Did I say he was gorgeous?

I shake my head breaking the eye contact trance I was in. “Har-”

“You’re so beautiful.” He interrupts, breaking right through the barrier I was desperately trying to build. Correction, he shattered the wall to pieces and I find myself pushing my lips aggressively against his, hungry for the contact.

It takes him a second to return the haste in my actions within his own. Moving his lips to mimic the speed that I had set for him. It took no time at all for that jacket that he kept holding over me for not taking since we got back to the room to be thrown onto the floor, revealing the crisp white T-shirt underneath.

His hand wandered lower to lay slightly above my bare arse. While my hands slithered up underneath his shirt. Desperate to feel the skin underneath and to trace the ink that it held. The hand that rested on my cheek now held tightly to the back of my neck making it impossible to break the kiss, not that I wanted to.

I could stay like this forever, kissing Hardin has awoken something inside me that I didn’t even know existed. This overwhelming hunger for his contact. I tug a little on the hair on the back of his head which in response summoned a deep growl from Hardin that I didn’t think I was prepared to hear. Any sense of doubt that we should stop kissing left my mind the second I heard that sound.

“Y/N? You would not believe what you missed after-” Tristan stood in the open doorway, her mouth held open just as wide.

Fuck. I jump back from Hardin and scramble for the towel, concealing my naked form from my roommate. I look over to Hardin who didn’t look at all affected by the events in the last ten seconds.

“I can tell your busy so I will just, yeah.” Tristan steps back and shuts the door behind her.

I run into the closet and quickly throw on a set of underwear and a long-oversized shirt that came down to lie just beneath my arse. “I think it’s about time I start locking that door.” I joke as I step through the closet door.

My eyes roam the room for the handsome boy I was just making out with only to be greeted with an empty room. My shoulders fall, “I guess that’s goodbye.” I mumble, trying my best to hold myself together. Locking the door before falling onto my bed.

Part 2?

[rumblelibrary]

Hello 👀❤️

So... I don't know if this will work or not, but I thought why not, I send it in... And if you don't like it, that's completely fine ❤️🔥

I really like how you write the characters' mind... What they are thinking or how they act... I was thinking, maybe a new mechanic (Reader) at Ferrari (yes, it's a Niki Lauda fic, you know me❤️🔥) who is really shy, but very good at their job, and Niki likes them and he is an asshole with everyone (which is normal from him) EXCEPT with the Reader... And like... Maybe at first he doesn't realize this, but then he does, and gets all conflicted like why is he getting soft suddenly, out of nowhere... (It is obvious, but not for him)... I'm curious how you would see this, write this... The ending of this story is up to you ❤️❤️

Love you ❤️🔥👀

What Is This Feeling [Niki Lauda x Mechanic!Reader]

Word count: 2.5k Warnings: lot of swearing by our favourite Rat King Author’s note: Niki is quickly turning into my comfort character to unleash my sass, thank you for giving me the chance to write him!

Part 2

On your first day at Ferrari nobody took you seriously, but to be a mechanic wasn’t exactly typing letters, it was not a place where somebody high up in the ranks would set a lover to give her some benefit and a free pay check.

You didn’t talk a lot, you stood your ground from the moment you put hands on any part of the car, but you weren’t exactly the chatty type and, being the only woman, it took you time to be allowed to the after work beer, to the birthdays and all the balancing that came with a good team spirit.

In a world full of bias about women, you were spared thanks to your abilities and knowledge. Or maybe, because the mechanics team had someone bigger to fight: Niki Lauda.

To work with him was thrilling, but stressful.

He would walk in at any hour of the day, break some egos, pile up an amount of changes that to make a brand new car would be a faster option.

You sat on the floor beside the baby, yes baby was the car, it wasn’t like you had to stay on the floor, there were more than plenty working stations, but it felt more comfortable for you: it gave you the chance to stand and look at things from afar, you were in need to touch, to understand, to put things together. It was your skill, but also your curse, because it was hard to gain yourself a space on the floor in such a fast paced environment like the one at Ferrari. You were working on the ignition when he stormed inside, the soft chats died fast and the noise of the radio was the only thing left, but he didn’t seem to mind the effect he had on people.

In a couple of long steps he was in front of one of your colleagues.

“What is this?” The man looked down to his sandwich like it was self explanatory, but the following silence brought him to answer “my lunch”

“Nice” Niki said, his lips curling downward in a very sarcastic amusement “well, take your lunch out of my garage because I don’t want your crumbles in my engine” he hissed picking the crumbles that effectively fell on the working table and sprinkling them like salt on the man’s face.

The man frowned and left to eat outside and avoid to punch him as Niki proceeded to his next victim.

“And you call this a design development? I call this dog shit”

“If this is a well done job, I’d better retire already before I get your good job to crack my skull open”

“Just begin again, don’t even ask”

“Are you sure you don’t work for McLaren? Because by the quality of your work I am starting to wonder”

One after the other all your colleagues fell under the axe of Niki’s commentary.

Nobody was spared, it was a butchery.

“So? What is this?”

You looked up at him as he towered over you, Satan himself would be less scary, and probably less attractive, to your eyes. His standing figure with rebel curls and his Ray-ban glasses in his left hand, the polo shirt under the fancy jacket, even his bad character gave him the edge so many men more conventionally attractive lack.

“I am working on the ignition” you said as he bent down crouching beside you as you showed him, his cologne filling your nostrils like the best smell your nose ever encountered.

“Okay, in what way?” He asked resting his elbows on his knees.

You gulped softly “Well, I am trying to experiment if I change this in here” and you pointed to a section in particular “maybe the car will have a better performance at the beginning of the race”

“Have you considered that it could over work the battery?”

“I did, but I wanted to see if I make here something like this” and you took a little tube showing how you lace it around the section “if I use this to push the cooler to work into this part as well, we might avoid over heating”

He listened touching his chin with the edge of his glasses thoughtfully.

“Give it a try”

He just said standing up.

Your colleagues looked at you shaking their heads as he turned around and everybody looked down to their tasks again, so then he left.

______________________________________________________________________ This wasn’t the first time, he wasn’t letting you do things he didn’t approve, but he always listened to you, he advised you, and the harshest thing he said was probably “I think you’re not looking at the bigger picture”

Nobody commented on it and beside some joke here and there, the little preference he had over you seemed to pass unnoticed mostly by him.

“You know, you really need a girlfriend” Clay, the other driver of the Ferrari alongside him, said during some tests.

Niki looked at him.

“Why? Do I look like one that has to fuck a woman to be fine?”

He laughed as Niki was always so overaggressive “No, but you treat everyone like bullshit beside the new girl, so you either can be an asshole only with men or your seduction technique needs a real check”

He frowned, eyebrows furrowing together as his lips parted in disbelief

“You nuts”

“Maybe, but I haven’t heard you complain about her as much as you complain about the rest of the world”

He shook his head “You are just letting you Italian genes getting your head stupid”

Clay laughed at him nodding knowingly “Sure, sure” he patted harshly on Niki’s back knowing how much he hated to be patted around like that as he moved to talk to one of the mechanics working on his car.

Niki crossed his arms resting against the wall of the garage, his eyes instinctively looking for your figure finding you to one of the working table writing down some notes over the changes applied while looking at the projects.

His eyes dropping on your ass like it was the first time he checked it, realising it wasn’t the first time he mentally noted it.

Well, he couldn’t really say you were unattractive, or not his type, or a good mechanic.

His thought process was suddenly interrupted as Clay himself approached you and you moved on side showing him the papers you were just writing on.

He nodded and said something to you, his hand casually resting on the small of your back making Niki’s jaw almost snap for how much he was gritting his teeth.

You shuffled on side avoiding the touch with a casual smile, but Clay kept talking to you and from afar Niki saw him say something and wave his pointed finger between himself and you. You shook your head and smiled turning down whatever he just offered with all the politeness you had, Niki pursued his lips slightly in amusement for his best girl’s behaviour.

Wait a second. Best girl?

He glared at Clay that smirked at him from afar, a big ‘I knew it’ smirk on his lips.

Niki bit the inside of his cheek not liking it.

He was with you like with everybody else, what the hell.

Niki ignored you all day, when you showed him something he himself requested to be shown, he shuffled away, when you handed him something he was looking for, he looked for it somewhere else, he just wasn’t meeting your eyes and hell and thunderstorm fell upon anyone that even tried to engage a talk with him on that day.

“I can’t with your boyfriend anymore, I swear” one of your colleagues muttered to you.

“He is not my boyfriend” 

He looked at you “Then he’d better be soon, maybe he’ll chill out”

“Are you even paid to stand and do nothing?” Niki shouted from afar and you two parted ways faster than two kids smuggling candies during class. ______________________________________________________________________

The next day was the judgment day for all the changes done on the car, your nerves were cracking as Niki arrived in his driving suit and your eyes immediately snapped a mental photo on his figure.

Did you ever went home wishing to have his company? Yes.

Did you ever wondered if he was so aggressive ever in the intimate times? Way too much.

Did you have any chance? Probably no.

You let out a big sigh as your colleagues reassured you “Hey, if it doesn’t work we either get rid of the rat or have some more time to work on it” he joked but you didn’t feel any better.

Niki looked up as he noticed your worried look, your lips nibbling down on your lips, your foot tapping rhythmically and nervously, the sudden instinct to lean his hand on that waist of yours, to rest his leg beside yours to make it stop that nerve wracking dance, to forbid your lips any more damage not caused by him.

All of that crowded his mind and he growled tiredly.

Stupid Clay, with his stupid theories.

He finished getting ready and put on his helmet settling down in his spot rolling his shoulders back, he needed to focus.

The head mechanic came over him repeating all the changes and just annoying the hell out of him, he is not always around the car only to check you out.

“When you're done telling me what I know, tell me something I don’t, I beg you”

The head mechanic did a big effort not to spit into his face and just left him waving his arms in the air.

You touched on your forehead nervously, if you failed it would show in the timings or maybe the car won’t even start.

You looked at him, seconds before he pulled down the dark lid of his helmet, his dark eyes so focused a shiver creeped over you.

You gasped as the signal was given and the car started.

Your fingers finding their way to your mouth as you nibbled your skin.

The car was fast, that was sure, you leaned beside the head mechanic that was taking the time. You breathed heavily, your mind going through all the changes you did, all the small settlements, the little details.

An eternal list that kept repeating itself.

Then the question as he was halfway through the leap, what if you disappointed him?

What if he asked you to be sent away?

Then you looked down to the chronometer, he was already almost two seconds earlier than usual.

A smile started to grow on you, the excitement filling your veins.

The sound of the engine roaring beautifully, you made it!

Then it happened, some smoke raised up to the sky, one of the wheels snapped, the breath died in your throat.

The car flexed on side but Niki controlled it and guided it against the sandy side of the track that slowed it down until it stopped.

“He was breaking his record” the head mechanic sighed “now he is just going to break our balls”

Niki moved out of the car throwing his helmet on the ground pushing off roughly anyone that tried to help him or check if he was hurt, some of the mechanics moving to the tow truck to recollect the car, Niki moving past you, his face tense and his posture of someone ready to snap some necks. You didn’t see him for the rest of the day, nobody talked about him, nobody mentioned anything as the storm will fall on all of the team the next day.

Now it was the head mechanic to face it for all of you.

______________________________________________________________________

That night you stayed over time, the other colleagues told you to just go home, to not let the thing sink of you, to look at it with fresh eyes and all those circumstantial phrases people gift you when they try to cheer you up. 

As always on the floor, you had now the chance to spread the pieces out, collect them into branches of types and use. You pulled closer your notebook writing down the ideas and things to remember to check, the image of Niki almost crashing gutting you even if you soon realised it wasn’t your change that set off the wheel, but it was part of the cause, the car was now too powerful and the stress on the suspensions was deadly.

You yawned lightly pulling a catalogue of replacements parts trying to find the best mix you could manage, but you surely had to make up something about it. You didn’t expect to solve the problem or to find the solution for everything with a creative twist, but to, at least, plan a sequence of possibilities to present to your chief the next day.

A hand slowly leaning a mug of steaming coffee beside you.

You looked up to find Niki there, another cup in his hand, those messy curls calling to be touched, his impeccable style always winning you over with a dark turtleneck and his tweed jacket.

“Found the problem?” He asked sharply as always.

He was surprised to see you there, he spent the rest of the afternoon after the malfunction with the head mechanic and some of the administrators as he needed a solution in time for the upcoming race.

So he decided he couldn’t trust their promises and reassurances, but take the matter in his own hand, for a change. But when he arrived he saw the lights still on and you there. He was almost tempted to leave, it wasn’t a good moment to screw things with one of his most talented mechanics.

But you, again, were so into it, you looked so beautiful with your working jumpsuit and the hair messed up nibbling on that pen like it was a matter of life and death.

He couldn’t just let you stay so beautiful and alone, who knows who could approach you.

You nodded “I think so” you said showing him the piece, he leaned his head on side studying it 

“May I?”

You nodded as he took off his blazer before joining you on the floor, he crossed his legs, your knees touching as he stole those papers from your hand.

“Signal to the administration this night shift, or they won’t ever pay you” he muttered without looking away from the papers.

You smirked “I know, but it is more a matter of principle than money, I didn’t like the heart attack you gave me today”

You were surprised by your own words, maybe it was because you really were over caffeinated or just realising how it was the first time you were alone and how you felt comfortable around him. No, not comfort, it was trust, you trusted him.

He looked up from the papers up at you, he didn’t replied to your comment straightaway, he let it sink in, he let your presence sink in.

A one-sides smirk appeared on his lips

“It is going to be a long night, then” Tagged @cazzyimagines @lieutenantn @handmaiden-of-mischief@thesunflowersutra Let me know if you want to get added <3