#expect a due revenge though >:3

[fraugwinska]

I tried my hands on an Human!Alastor fic ;> It's still very different to write for Human Al, but I hope y'all like it ;> Special thanks to @hurthermore for beta-reading and encouraging me <3 This one's for you, love! !! NSFW - Heavy Smut Ahead, Minors DNI - 6k words !!

„You need technical assistance, sir?“

Alastor looked up from the papers on his desk, adjusting his glasses that slipped down the bridge of his nose. He didn't expect her to come in this late, or at all, not while he was still at the station. The curious little sound engineer that had started half a year ago was standing at his office entrance, hands in the pockets of her outrageous trousers. She was tiny, her small figure barely filled the door frame, even with her bulky tool bag that hung from her shoulders. Alastor leaned back in his seat, folding his hands, focusing his tired gaze on her defensive expression.

She was a novelty, that one. Not the first woman working at the station of course, but the first to assert herself in the male-dominated field of technical engineering. Her male colleagues saw the spunky, brass girl as a joke, either ignoring her or trying (very amateurishly) to bed her – both which didn't faze her at all meeting both scenarios with the same contemptuous indifference. The women – secretaries, errand girls and concierges – were much more organized and refined in their bullying. Shortly after her arrival rumors had already spread, one more abstruse than the other, and they had collectively decided to pretend the engineer didn't exist in their periphery. More than once he witnessed her talking to his own secretary Ruth, just to be left standing while Ruth got up and walked out with the other girls to lunch in the middle of her sentence.

The little engineer took it all in stride, though. Never complained, never became outright disrespect- or revengeful. Gradually, her expressions steeled, her answers shortened and her work hours shifted to evenings or nights, with less people to run into.

Alastor had been fascinated by her the moment they first met. He had just started his usual 'Saturday Golden Hour', his favorite and most popular segment to host, broadcasting the newest releases of jazz and swing in the evening, just before sundown. Not even ten minutes in, right after he started playing Bing Crosby's new song 'Dancing in the Dark', listeners started calling the station by the handful, complaining about horrific feedback's and sudden blackouts. While Alastor watched Rufus Ellis, the head of the tech team, frantically run around, yelling at his workers, the little engineer had wordlessly grabbed a few tools and vanished. Five minutes later, his broadcast went back to working perfectly, sound crisp and quality flawless once again. She had returned, put back the tools from where she had taken them, and when Ellis – flabbergasted – asked her what she had done, she had calmly explained that she went up on the roof to check the transmitters connected to the radio tower and fixed a broken generator that had malfunctioned due to some doves nesting in it.

No one thanked or even acknowledged her, they just shrugged and went back to business as usual. But Alastor didn't forget, and from this day he was determined to find out more about this extraordinary girl. She reminded him of his own struggle as the exception to the rule – it was a well-kept secret throughout the station exactly what Alastor looked like and who he was. That was the only reason he was able to do what he felt was born to, a cruel, unfair compromise. So, he felt an unusual sympathy for her, in addition to just his natural curiosity for oddities. However, he didn't expect her to be so elusive.

Whenever he tried to engage her in a conversation, she gave short, finite responses, avoided his eyes and hurried to get away from him, sometimes even bordering on rudeness in her haste to flee from him. Alastor was, to be frank, perplexed - his charm usually drew in the ladies unwantedly. That it had failed him now, with the little engineer, when he welcomed it for a change? Peculiar. To a degree, it angered him, but it also awakened his hunting instinct, just not the one he was used to.

“I'm afraid so, dear.”, Alastor smiled, standing up. He rounded his desk, hands behind his back, and went to her side, looking down a t her. Granted, he was a tall man, but next to her, he felt almost gigantic, which satisfied him in a strange way. “I noticed my microphone was acting up today, and would like you to take a look at it, if you don't mind. Before it decides to give up on me mid-broadcast.”

“That's my job, sir.”, she just answered, eyes intensely staring at the carpet. Alastor's eyebrow twitched in slight aggravation. But he lead her to his booth, unlocking it to let her in. She went straight to his seat, dropping her tool bag next to it and started to pull his microphone to her to inspect it. He quietly closed the door, locking it discreetly – just as a precaution so she couldn't flee him again so easily, now that he finally had her in his vicinity.

Alastor walked over to her, leaning over her shoulder to watch her carefully taking the device apart. She startled when she saw him out of the corner of her eyes. “It may take a while, sir.”, she mumbled, an obvious attempt to make him leave. Alastor laughed. “I've got nowhere to be, dear, take your time.”, he said with a hint of mischievous delight. He heard her scoff, turning back to her work. There was a prolonged silence, her fiercely ignoring Alastor's quiet, content humming while her fingers picked apart and put together parts and cables. He used the time to analyze her appearance – her hair was smooth but more unkempt than for a girl her age – how old must she be? Twenty, maybe Twenty-one? Vanity surely wasn't a flaw of hers, she didn't wear much make-up and Alastor saw various faint, light scars on her arms and hands, little bookmarks of mishaps and failures of her chosen career – the sight of them sent a sick shiver down his spine. Given his... hobbies, he found twisted appeal in scarred skin, finding beauty in those white, shimmering lines where blood once dripped from. He roamed her supple, curved body – unlike the recent fad of skinny, androgynous frames she was built womanly, round and fleshy... how beautiful could he paint her with white streaks on this vast canvas, add some masterpieces of his own to the collection?

“Alright.”, she pulled him out of his thoughts, mounting the microphone back on it's flexible stand. “A few cables were starting to corrode, I've replaced them, it should work fine now.” Alastor grinned down at her, putting one of his hands on her shoulder. The first real contact. “What an efficient engineer you are, dear. Always coming to my rescue, I have yet to show my gratitude.” She didn't look up, didn't even acknowledge that he said something to her, just packing up the various things she had spread out for the repair. Now that was just rude.

“Hello? Is this thing on?”, Alastor strained himself to sound lighthearted as he knocked two times on her head, feeling the shivers of impatience rising. The engineer closed her eyes and took a deep breath in, shifting in his chair with furrowed brows. “I'm getting paid to do my job. I don't need anything else.” She attempted to stand up, but his hand, still resting on her shoulder, holds her in place. “If that's all, sir?”

“Now now, not to hasty. I'd think it's unlike you to leave work halfway done. Normally you are quite thorough, aren't you?” Alastor cooed, tilting his head at her. “My work is done.” she said, her voice now intense and a faint tint of red on her cheek and neck. My, there's the little ferocity he thought she'd lost at the job. “Why we haven't tested the thing, dear – How can I be sure it works properly?”

“Because I know what I'm doing.” She looked outright offended at the implied possibility that she failed the task he asked of her. He had to chuckle, such a childish reaction to something so innocent. Maybe it was because implications like these grated her thick skin, but Alastor had no problem with being the straw that breaks that camel's back. He was skilled in putting people back in their place, and with her, it would be much more entertaining and much less fatal than with his other... acquaintances. He decided to tickle this sleeping dragon just a bit more, with a funny little idea in mind.

“No one is infallible – especially when they are so young. No fault in that, dear, but I'd like to be sure.” Alastor swiftly grabbed her wrist, pulling her up to stand. Putting up no resistance, most likely because of sheer perplexity, he twirled her almost like in a dance, side-stepping to his chair, and sat down, pulling her onto his lap, locking her there by an arm wrapped around her waist. The look on her face was worth it's weight in gold – eyes wide, mouth agape in stunned shock, and tips of the ears reddened. Her hands grappled the armrests so forcefully her knuckles were as white as the scars on her arms, and within seconds of regaining her active conscience she squirmed against his body. “What... that's so... sir, please let me g...” “There you go, dear.”, Alastor ignored her babbling, using his free hand to put the headphones on her. Her pulse under her thin, clear skin drummed faster against him, it's heat felt like it could boil his own blood.

He grabbed his own microphone, swinging it up between their faces and leaned forward, chin resting on her shoulder and the grille brushing his lower lip. She stared, dumbstruck, a bead of sweat forming on her forehead. He chuckled against her cheek, leaning his mouth to the mic as he pushed the switch on the control panel up, and his rich, sultry baritone echoed in her headphones.

"How about it, darling, do you hear me?"

She breathed deeply, gulping, and her heart sped up even more. Alastor smiled devilishly against her soft skin, delighted and in awe by how far he got her worked up as she just nodded sharply.

"No soundrops, feedback or small interferences?", he hummed, his voice dripping sweet honey. She took a moment to answer. "N-no... everything seems alright."

"Lovely." He almost whispered, but she heard it crystal clear through the headphones. He let a low sigh and took off his glasses with one hand, slowly, teasingly, his nose tracing over her neck, as if it was coincidental, as if he'd never ever do such a thing intentionally, putting the accessory on the table next to him, eyes locking on the hazel ones of hers mirrored in them. "Although I wonder..." He pushed the mic nearer to her mouth, seeing a tremble running over her body. "... if the higher pitches might be a problem... You wouldn't mind help with that, would you?"

She stiffened up, barely daring to breathe, her skin erupting into goose flesh underneath his lips, he felt the impulse to press them against her, lick the salt and nervousness from it.

"Sir, I-I can't.."

He chuckled at her strained, whispering voice. How beautiful was her distress, so rich, so fragrant, almost strong enough for him to savor its essence without even needing to touch her.

"Then, may I assist you?", Alastor felt himself giddy with impish delight, his hands slowly trailing upwards from her waist to her bust, cupping her gently through the thin fabric. This made her wriggle again, a small, high pitched squeak leaving her lips that his microphone just amplified in glorious reverberations. Alastor chuckled darkly as she froze, neck burning red in deep embarrassment from the sound she heard from the headphones.

"Now we're talking. A wonderful first try. But let's see what else we can get out of you, darling. After all, we want to be thorough."

His hands palmed and kneaded the supple flesh through the cotton, feeling her squirm and tremble and the warmth of her bosom, imagining the blood rushing through her heart. How exquisite was she?

He could hear a small whimper as her head slightly lowered. Was she closing her eyes? He imagined it so. Imagined she'd shut her pretty eyes closed, furrow her brows in conflict as her legs pressed against each other in fruitless desperation. Her hands tightened on the armrest.

"You are so very quiet, dear. Why don't you relax and turn the volume up for me?"

With one of his hands he quickly loosened the two buttons that kept her blouse close and tugged at the collar to widen the neck hole, then slid under her brassier and gripped one breast with a tight squeeze. Alastor caught his breath as he realized just how sensitive and sweet the freckled skin under his fingertips was. Soft. Warm. So fragile... He would never have imagined this was hiding under her daily uniform, her sagging shoulders and loose jacket hiding those lovely features. Alastor felt a delightful spark crackle in his head and shoot up the nerves of his spine. His hunting instinct pulsed under the mask. But... with a slight delay, Alastor recognized it as a different type of hunger... one of the carnal and more depraved kind. Another novelty for him.

Alastor suddenly wondered what her lips tasted like, how soft and warm would they feel on his, her teeth biting, her tongue teasing him. How many ways could he break her - and could he do it quickly, with his bare hands, with his words alone maybe, or with his undisciplined arousal pushing against her rear-end through the fabric of his trousers? How often did she think of him? How did she think of him? Did she fear him, or dislike him even? He could hear her breathing hasten as he was trying to compose himself.

There was the devil's urge to just let himself go. To shove the equipment aside and tear those outrageously inadequate clothes away from her flesh, run his hands over the skin he didn't get to see yet, trace and map those scars of hers until they fade underneath his fingers. Mark her more thoroughly than any machine mishap ever could. Make her cry, moan, beg and whine under him until there was nothing left in her and this novel hunger was satisfied.

A wonderfully loud moan escaped her, a sweet, silky, vibrato sound of passion, that went right from Alastor's chest into his pelvis. She opened her eyes wide, pressing her hand firmly over her mouth, mortified at her own pleasure.

Oh, Alastor thought to himself, smiling mischievously as the shock of lustful rapture coursed through him, how easy it was for him to undo her. So unexplored, so fresh... "Do you wish to stop, darling?", he asked with a teasing pinch of her hardened nipple, which made her cry out and her other hand fly up and cover her mouth, too. She shook her head, her cheeks flushed and hot, eyes hazed with confused pleasure. He rubbed and teased the nipple gently in his palm, holding her close, making her struggle in defiant silence. The only sound was his gentle, patient humming.

But oh, she was breaking, crumbling like a stale beignet, and the noises his hand bullied out of her turned from hushed whimpers to barely muffled groans and cries for him, long and wanting 'Sir's and 'Oh's. She was melting under his palm. He grinned wickedly, his lower body hard and wanting against her as he put the microphone to his own lips again and spoke into it.

"Say it with your words, dear, should I stop? Or is it that you can't hear me?"

"Y-yes! I mean... No sir... d-don't... stop." There was a suppressed crack in her voice, and Alastor sighed with lust at her gasping affirmation, grinding against her plushy backside. He has found it amusing to push her limits, break through her thick skin and riddle her, like an ice pick cracking open a glacier. And now it would shatter her so gorgeously. "It's Alastor, darling." He whispered into the microphone with a dragging, sultry voice, his hand retreating from her breast, only to snake it's way to the hem of her pants. Her legs twitched, pushing together to futilely protect her modesty, but her body eagerly arched in a way that gave such easy way for his fingers to slip under the garments, feel and stroke the short, coarse hair, following it's trail, only to meet soft, silken and slippery wetness. A startled gasp escaped her and the only reason she didn't leap up was because Alastor kept his firm grip on her waist, pulling her tight against his throbbing erection. Her head fell back onto his shoulder, exposing her delicate throat as she whimpered, hands flying from her mouth to the armrests again, gripping so hard her fingernails dug into the hard wooden surface.

He tried to restrain himself but couldn't, he testily bit into the thin, soft flesh of her neck as his fingers found their way into her entrance and dipped deep in, coating his palm in generous wetness and crooking, exploring carefully, but with a patience even he was surprised at, eyes fixated on the taut fabric as he thrust into her in tandem with the waves her body undulated at the new sensation, her sweet taste on his tongue.

"S-Sir, please...", she groaned against his hand that still remained pressed over her lips, as if it could suppress the bliss Alastor wrought her into. He withdrew his hand for a moment, fingers wet, glistening and slick, as she was breathless, but she couldn't hide how her hips were chasing his retreating touch. He leaned into the microphone, barely lifting his mouth from her neck.

"Say my name, and I shall listen, little engineer."

She hesitated for just a heartbeat, before opening her eyes, hazily staring at the ceiling as Alastor patiently waited, his fingers drawing idle circles around the sweet pearl on her outer folds. She pressed her lips together for a second, seemingly mentally preparing herself, and then opened her mouth, to give in, to submit to him.

"...A-Alastor, please..."

"I like the sound of my name from your lips, darling." He almost purred in return and resumed his movements with added vigor and focus. He put down his head on her shoulder, nuzzling into the juncture of her throat, watching her reaction and every detail of how his hand worked her over with the rhythmic hump of his hips, forcing him to breathe harshly as he was starting to be deprived of blood. He had barely noticed it, how incredibly erotic and sinful this whole thing felt not just for her, but for him, too. Partly of course, because of the chase, the coaxing, the hunt to have her call and writhe for only him, not for any of these imbeciles that tried to get their pick with her, his ears pricked and eager to savor her wanton sounds... A surprising need to be connected, closer to her than anyone ever could be in her whole life, and it made him even giddy to know no man had touched her like he was doing now, taking her purity with ease and glee.

But there was another part, something he thought slumbered too deep within him to be ever awoken, a roaring fire in his guts as the alluring, delicious scent of her arousal assaulted him like a siren's song, lulling, cajoling him with sensual desires to drown in them, to abandon all else and indulge, to completely give in and surrender. It wasn't tactical, calculating or strategic, but wild and primal and primitive, and not at all as painful or awkward to him as he had always thought it'd be.

What a revelation a woman's body could be.

He almost missed her coming into his eagerly working hand - a sudden, full-body twitch that went through her spine, a whine in her voice that ended in a choked sound as her orgasm claimed her and washed her away in the torrent of rapture - eyes going wide as the air escaped her in a desperate cry, hands gripping his thigh and the chair's armrest so hard the nails left little scratches in the wood. He barely had time to notice it before her climax hit him like a truck - the convulsing of her inner walls, gripping and spasming tightly around his fingers as he slowed and stroke out her high.

This moment was pure madness in his veins - his head foggy and airy, like a drug, like a vicious new addiction he would do almost anything for. Her body went slack against him, and the only thing that held her upright was Alastor's arm still securely around her, still keeping her pressed onto his hard length, still pulsing for some release of his own. Alastor wanted more, already was plotting what his hands could be doing to her body next as she came down from her high and back to earth, the heat leaving her body slowly as the soundproofed air trapped within the booth hung heavy with her hot breath and the smell of her passion.

The first movement of hers, after having come undone so beautifully for and on him, was to lift up the headphones.

"Well then, little engineer.", he huffed into her ear, laughing with barely hidden delight. "What is your final assessment?"

"Your microphone works perfectly. J-just like I said it would." She was determined, if nothing else. And unbearably cute when she was defiant. Alastor simply adored a fiery spirit, even as he was already thirsting for more. He looked up, her sharp tone prickling his pride. He shot her a glare from the corner of his eyes, his usually calm smile tugging upward in a half smirk as she avoided his eyes. Oh, was she starting to have second thoughts about her tone towards him?

"I always admired your work ethics and knowledge, my dear, even though you eluded my attempts to give you your well-deserved recognition." The hand not occupied in playing with her still moist, delicate flesh lifted the arm that she had still buried in his thigh, brushing his fingers lightly over her knuckles as he brought it to his lips. She went still as a stone under his fingertips. "I asked myself, what would be the reason you ignored and evaded me for so long? Do you dislike me that much, little engineering girl?"

"No." It took her a moment, a little quiver in her voice, but it seemed like this was the first time in a long while that her answer was as blunt and truthful. He sighed contentedly, planting a soft kiss on her hand. "Quite the contrary, in fact."

His eyes snapped to her, narrowed. She still refused to look at him, still tense and obviously embarrassed, her free hand trembling on her lap. So it hadn't been animosity that made her behave so coldly towards him, not aversion that made her flee his presence and not prejudice that made her avoid their encounters but...

"Ah." Alastor chuckled softly at her awkward behavior, grinning delightedly at the revelation. "Of course."

Shyness was a curious thing, he thought, often misinterpreted as either prude modesty or cold antipathy. And it seemed Alastor had fallen for the latter interpretation - he would've been miffed at the thought if it hadn't brought her here, into his lap, and into his hands - alas, better late than never, he guessed. And there was still something to take care of.

"Well, since you're not running from me now..." His hand left hers and joined his other one in pulling the belt of her pants open, gently tugging on the metal buckle until the strap slipped free. "Let me finally show my gratitude in kind, for the lovely engineer and her marvelous work."

He loosened his tight grip on her, enough so that he could turn her to face him - for once, she glanced at him from under her lashes, not only out of bashfulness now - but he thought he saw something like cautious anticipation there, too. His grin became even wider as she kept his gaze, even if barely. A last stubborn act of shy rebellion - in another situation it would have enraged Alastor, but now, he was delightfully fascinated and challenged by her stubborn nature, by the unpredictability of her reactions even now, as she herself hooked her fingers under the hem of her pants and pushed them down over her shapely hips.

The last barrier of decency fell between them, revealing the full picture before him - there was her reddened face framed by cascading locks, eyes lowered in embarrassed defeat; Her stiffened nipples prominent on her perky, tight breasts; The damp patch of dark pubic hair that barely hid her glistening privates and the plush roundness of her thighs. And the whole body covered in tiny, white streaks, healed cuts and burns scattered in between her freckles. Oh, she would be delightful to ruin over and over again.

He took a step towards her, his hands immediately moving to her hip, exploring, caressing the soft flesh. This time, she did not move away from his touch and watched him with big, wide-blown eyes, full of expectation and a new type of uncertainty as he lifted her up onto the main control panel. He discarded of his jacket, the cloth too heavy and hot for him now, and threw it aside carelessly, leaving his bow tie hanging loosely around his neck as he went back to the woman, his little prey. Her knees parted slightly when his body wedged between them, an inviting gesture from her, though Alastor suspected she herself didn't notice. He grinned darkly, lifting her chin up by a finger, before bending over and planting a firm but restrained kiss on her lips, feeling his own skin crawl in electric stimulation, eager to finally taste her. His hands made quick work of his slacks, freeing his almost painfully erect member with a pleased sigh. From the way she gasped and her eyes widened, he could easily deduct that she had less to no experience whatsoever.

Oh, what a fortune. Alastor relished the thought of claiming precious, well kept treasures, his breath quickened as he broke from the kiss, hands running over her heated skin in swift, soothing motions, goosebumps trailing in their wake as he felt her shudder with hesitant desire beneath him. Oh, this would be fun.

"Let's be sure you'll hear my message loud and clear, this time, hm?"

He took her mouth again before she could protest, discreetly angling the microphone down with one hand just near enough where she would soon enough be connected to him. With a sly grin, he lined himself up to her waiting entrance and slowly pushed in. She stiffened at the unfamiliar invasion, a mewl muffled against his lips and hands in his shirt, and he stilled, enjoying the way her body reflexively tightened and squeezed around him as she tried to cope with the sensation of him stretching her.

She gasped as her chest heaved from the feeling, her walls convulsing around him like a vice. He allowed a low groan to escape him, she felt so gloriously tight and hot he had trouble keeping his composure, hands twitching to rut into her and just plow through.

"Ready for the final test, darling?"

"T-test...?"

He didn't bother to give her an answer as he started to move. In and out, with slow and drawn out movements, keeping his thrusts shallow at first, deep and precise enough to press against her innermost point and making her moan helplessly. The wet sounds of their coupling reached his ears, coupled with her wanton cries, an obscene and enchanting noise he was waiting for. With a mischievous smile, he picked up the headphones from where she had put them down, lifting it to one of her ears. Her face flushed in such lovely shades of red when the squelching echoes of what the mic picked up reached her ears, amplified and oh-so-clear thanks to her own handiwork.

He let out a guttural chuckle as he leaned into her, still thrusting slowly, her head falling on his shoulder and hanging onto his shirt for dear life, knuckles white as she could hear all the sweet sounds their bodies made and how they connected, each inch of her body singing praises for only him, for his size and rhythm. He could tell the moment her walls began to relax around him, squeezing the blood into his member as she took him in again and again, accepting it's size wholeheartedly with greedy eagerness.

"Such a talented woman.", he praised into her free ear, sighing at the delicious way her slick, swollen lips slid over his length, her thighs twitching against his with every single thrust and every word that fell from his lips. "Just listen to the fruits of your impeccable labor, dearest. Almost wasted in a place like this."

A moan, shaky and delirious, a shuddering sob for him, so high and flustered she sounded almost pained escaped her throat. She pressed against him and with a jolt that reverberated through her spine, convulsing so sweetly against him he almost came from the tremor that rushed through his cock. But it wasn't her peak. Alastor hadn't gotten his fill yet and he wouldn't stop now until it was both of their turns, but damn if he wasn't tempted.

He reached to the other ear to put the second headphone on her. Now her world had no escape, she could only listen, only hear every filthy wet noise of his slick slide, his ragged breathing and the beat of her own heart- a heavy, cacophonous staccato.

Her eyes were heavy-lidded, head clouded and flushed, looking up at him with rapt fascination. His own gaze met hers as his pace increased, suddenly snapping his hips with harsh precision, and his voice was low, carnal.

"But their loss is my gain, darling. Don't you ever forget that, now."

And his thoughts went to of those incompetent, thickheaded dunderheads who took their jobs, but were no where as skilled or invested as her, knowing full well they were inadequate and undeserving to get close to her, trying to touch what clearly should have been for him alone to do, and it sent a nasty spark of possessiveness through Alastor, igniting a furious hunger, a beast waking up within him and snarling with unbridled desire, to claim, to mark her as his. And nobody else's.

He grinned devilishly, a low rumble in his throat as a needy whine escaped his little engineer and he grabbed her waist tightly, digging his fingers into the fat there as he picked up speed and drilled into her with more intensity, savage, merciless and utterly ruthless, finally throwing all composure and rationality overboard to replace it with feral instinct and possessive desire. Her hands clutched him desperately, thighs tensing and pressing against his moving hips, her choked cries of his name were nothing else but heavenly and he was filled with lecherous obsession and greed - yes, he could get addicted to the sound of his name being screamed and moaned from her lips, her sweet, wet flesh fluttering around his throbbing length, the violent stuttering of her breath that just enticed and pleaded him to continue.

"Mine. My own, little, eager engineer." he hissed against the shell of her ear, headphones slipping from her, hips still pounding away at her heat with feverish pace and an undeniable pleasure coiling low and tightly within his pelvis. With every harsh thrust, every desperate, salacious cry, he pulled her deeper and deeper into sinful depravity, her head thrown back in bliss, the headphones slipping from her head as her nails scraped desperately over his clothed chest. The sharp bites of pain mixed with a sweet ache and tightening within Alastor, telltale signs of his climax nearing rapidly. "No more avoiding me, no more elusion or flight for you, understood? You are mine and mine alone."

Her toes curled as his words spurred her over the edge with him, her core spasming and quivering around him as her moans became ragged and desperate, jaw agape in rapture but no words found as she toppled into her orgasm, dragging and taking Alastor with her. The immense wave crashed into him and swept him along, and he growled in the sensational and exhilarating feeling and his head fell against her shoulder, with a growl ripping from his throat, low and guttural. His seed emptied in her with long, forceful spurts, her body tensing and relaxing as each twitch and jerk pushed his release deeper and deeper, the pleasure so acute, so sharp it was almost painful, until both their highs subsided and Alastor had to rest against her for a moment, their labored breaths the only noise that reached his ears.

Alastor sighed contentedly, his hand loosened it's grip and his fingertips gently traced over the angry, red lines they had left behind on her tanned skin of her waist, feeling her shivering underneath him. His lips pressed into the soft crook of her neck, placing a tender kiss on the flushed skin. He would have to do something about the bruising and marks... His eyes wandered up and he noticed that she was staring now, hazily and exhausted, her pupils still wide, lips bitten swollen and reddened, her cheeks and chest still painted pink with lingering arousal. The sight was so deliciously debauched and lewd, a smirk crept on his face.

"It seems that the equipment is indeed in perfect working order again, thanks to you, darling."

"...Yes, sir." she replied warily, her voice still breathless. Her usual demeanor returned, too embarrassed to look him in the eyes she tilted her head away from him. He chuckled, lifting her chin and capturing her lips once again, not much for hers but more for his own gain, and then moved off and out of her. He took a moment to savor the view - the red, swollen flesh, leaking his essence that pooled on the metal surface of his control panel he would work on in a few hours, and her thighs glistening in the faint orange light of the booth.

"Please, darling, from now on..." Alastor took a handkerchief from his breast pocket, wiping the mess of his hands and cleaning her with careful gentleness, her legs twitching weakly at the contact.

"...call me Alastor."

He hummed quietly and lifted her from the console, closing the buttons on her blouse again with fastidious efficiency after she slipped back into her pants. Then, with a few quick motions, Alastor picked up his jacket and fixed his own appearance, before helping her stand properly on her trembling feet.

"I trust we won't have any misunderstandings anymore?" He smiled at her, tilting his head slightly, a soft and yet challenging smile, his hand cupping her face and the thumb brushing her lower lip. Her cheeks grew warmer and redder again, her eyes flickering downwards, then back up, before she nodded silently. "Excellent."

Alastor put the headphones back on their rack, before taking his glasses, slipping them back on and reaching for the door handle, his other hand extended towards his little engineer in an inviting motion.

"Come along, my dear. Let me treat you to a nice cup of coffee, I find there's nothing better after a job well done."

She paused, her face going a shade darker and her lips pressing together. Then, after a heartbeat, she stepped next to him and through the door he opened for her. He could see the small smile that crept onto her lips as she hurriedly passed him, a shy glance shot towards him, but this time it didn't feel like she wasn't fleeing, but almost daring for him to chase her.

Another kind of hunt, he mused, and the thought made him smile as he closed the door and followed her out.

[olivianyx]

UPDATES ON MY JOURNEY

Heyy all! I've been focusing on my senior professional medical year and it has been stressful. So here are some things I manifested effortlessly and a few things without me thinking about it. Long ass post ahead! ⚠️⚠️

1. Getting more pocket money than usual. Like my parents usually transact in my account like a $80 or $100 AUD per month. But in both feb and march this year, they transacted me $500 and $700 AUD! Plus! I occasionally find $10 or $50 cash in my classroom or on the streets sometimes (and they come lie next to my feet 😭) I'd ask everyone in my class if it's theirs, and they say no. What do y'all expect me to do? Like go and give it to the university management?? 😭 hell no, so i kept it lol.

2. MANIFESTED DIOR'S LIP OILS!! 😭😭 LIKE 5 OF THEM 😭 YOU DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH I'VE OBSESSED WITH LIP OILS 😭😭 AND I WANTED THE RASPBERRY ONE SO BAD, AND GUESS WHAT? I MANIFESTED IT ALONG WITH 4 OTHER SHADESS OMGGG 😭😭😭

3. My crush giving me hints that she's obsessed with me 😭 like she literally told me 'you're so sweet and caring, I've never met a person like this after my grandma' cus her grandma passed away recently and she was so depressed. She even had an eye infection, so she stopped coming to the uni. So i had to make sure she's alright, and met her everyday cus she needed someone real bad. Like she needed to talk to someone and get that thing bothering her outta her head. I was there all along whatever she was going through (don't come at me y'all, ik if we help someone they would say all these things but she's my crush lol so) She's also getting real close to me, like she tells me how annoying people are lol. She loves skin ship, physical touch, being clingy around me, and complimenting me 😭😭 so these are the hints 😭 like friends wouldn't do that right? Would they?? (My friends diss me right in front of everyone 😶)

4. I've always been the type to care too much for the silliest things, nowadays I don't really put my energy into it and become all anxious. My anxiety levels have completely gone down like I'm literally cool asf?? Even while being in public?? Literally yess

5. Manifested getting my hair coloured next week! and my mom permitted me! For my cousin's engagement in april, I wanna be there like the hot younger sister I am lol. I just wanna make my relatives and their kids jealous cus they made fun of me when I was younger (my younger self has been dreaming for this moment) so why not a revenge glow up?? 😭

6. Losing weight even though I eat like a pig due to my study stress. Like literally I ate a 5 course meal one day and lost 2 kgs the next day? (cus I randomly checked my weight for 2 days cus I had to submit my height and weight to the university student records)

7. Getting a natural blush on my face! Like it's such a game changer, I look like a movie star y'all 😭✋🏻

8. My teachers complimenting me for my discipline and high scores. As yk uni professors don't even give af bout students and they complimented me??

9. Getting into a new friend group! My old one was too toxic and they would always bully me (verbally) my new friend group is literally soo damn enjoyable! Like they're the cool kids of the year 😭 and now I'm one too!

10. As I mentioned in my older post that I'm moving into an apartment. We moved in and it was too difficult for me to sleep as the place was new and also there we're disturbances in the night time like stomping noises or playing loud music at night. So the neighbors there were too sweet that they introduced and comforted us that it's okay and if something's bothering us they'll take care of it. And they literally made the people who we're causing those disturbances to vacate out 😭😭✋🏻

11. My hair getting shinier! It was brittle before as I was severely anemic, now my baby hair is back and it's shining ✨

12. I overheard my parents conversing that they should make me audition for an entertainment company....like what? 😭😭✋🏻 when I asked them once years back they denied giving me a 4 hour lecture and now they wanna make me audition?? Like literally 😭 y'all watch me at the Grammy's (after 5 years lol)

13. Getting into the void on command or intention.

14. I literally get free foods everywhere I go 😭😭

15. I got free gifts from my uncle who's living in France! He works at a fashion company and he sent me perfumes and a few outfits (I can't reveal it I'm sorry)

I ONLY WAS THINKING ABOUT GETTING MY LIP OIL, GETTING CLOSE TO MY CRUSH AND FOCUSING ON MY STUDIES. THE REST, I MANIFESTED WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT IT.

SO WHAT NEXT?

I've decided to respawn to my waiting next month. I'm still scripting how my waiting room should be... So it might take time for me. So till then I'm gonna be strengthening my self concept even more, and also getting more and more excited to be in my waiting room! I want my waiting room to be like a more like a sci fi movie and a princess fairytale combined 😭 (ik I'm weird). Like I just want my favorite anime characters to be there to help me script my DR ✋🏻 So I'm kinda in a more excited mode lately to script my waiting room! Will give you updates on how my waiting room will be in a future post! So until then take care, love you, byeeee byeeee!

- olivia 🤍

[darkpoisonouslove]

Griffin and Valtor's backstory is so fascinating because Griffin is still alive.

Think about it. She was literally attacked by the Ancestral Witches as she was escaping, then she kept fighting in the war against them and Valtor, whom she'd just betrayed, and she survived all the way to and past the final battle while all of them plus Marion, Oritel and Domino's population were imprisoned. Now I know this is mostly because the backstory was, in fact, added later but the trope of a former villain sacrificing their life as redemption was successfully avoided. She got to live/had to live depending on how deeply you believe she regretted her former servitude of the Ancestral Witches and/or the time period (as I think all remaining CoL members were devastated right after the final battle on Domino). She got to build herself a new life, independent of her previous mistakes only to then - almost two decades later - be forced to face the man she betrayed again.

The fact is that no one but Griffin herself ever attempts to justify her betrayal. No one. Not even once. When she confirms to the Winx and Mirta that she was a member of the Company, her previous affiliations are never mentioned. She is allowed to be an equal member of the Company that's never treated as lesser because she was initially working against them; she gets to share in both their victory and their failure (an entire planet perishing is hardly a real victory but they survived and the culprits of the devastation were imprisoned); her past is never held against her to imply she might not be trustworthy. Her course of action is understandable if poorly motivated in the minute this backstory gets to be explained. She is also never exonerated for betraying Valtor, though, which is, frankly, more nuance than you'd expect from Winx Club of all shows.

But then there's the flip side of this whole situation, which is even more intriguing. Just like she's forced to live with her betrayal, so is Valtor. Again, she is alive. Not only did she run away from him, but she also survived any subsequent attempts at revenge on her and remained at large while he was imprisoned. Whether because he still cares for her or his power simply wasn't enough to grant him his vengeance, he has failed to punish her. And failure is a rarity for Valtor.

With the might of the corrupted Dragon Fire, he is so powerful that none of the characters that have handled threats of universal magnitude before are able to stand up to him for longer than a minute. He's also smart and cunning, always knowing what to say to get on top of the situation. As such any failures he endures are far removed from one another and temporary. Really, most of his schemes during season 3 were initially successful and later only failed due to lack of direct involvement from him as he would leave the execution to his pawns - either Cassandra & Chimera, Diaspro or the Trix. The things he personally oversaw in their entirety did always succeed up until the very end.

His one colossal failure - allowing to be imprisoned - was hardly a bigger challenge than anything else he faced and would have eventually failed to contain him even without the Trix' intervention. For one simple reason - he is effectively immortal. He had all the time in the world and no one that could kill him, considering that Marion and Oritel would have probably done that rather than simply imprison him if they'd been able to. Sooner or later something (like the Trix coming across him) would have happened and he'd have been roaming around stealing magic again, his defeat barely registering except... for Griffin.

She is right there, his failure - in the flesh - staring him in the face. There is no way to rationalize this away. She betrayed him and joined his enemies. Either he allowed her to play him for a fool or his charm and power weren't alluring enough to keep her by his side. He can pretend she was too weak-willed to achieve greatness beside him but that is still a lapse in judgment on his part since he had deemed her worthy of being his partner. In fact, despite anything else he may say, he still speaks highly of their joint abilities so he definitely believed her to be a good match for him.

He fucked up. There is no way around it. And to differ from all his other failures, including his imprisonment, this one is not going away. In fact, he only temporarily succeeded with taking revenge on her by imprisoning her in turn and taking over her school and her students' minds but that barely lasted a few episodes. Before he knew it, she was free and running around again. His one permanent failure that he cannot get away from, that's been haunting him for literal decades now since she left him.

With how overpowered Valtor is, introducing such a permanent reminder that even he makes mistakes that he can't always fix with a snap of his fingers is ingenious. Granted, they don't really explore any of it but the fact is that that is the only long-term failure that he has to deal with aside from his subservience to the Ancestral Witches. The implication that the soured relationship between him and Griffin is the only thing that is even comparable in any way (as a blow to his abilities and self-image) to his slavery to the Ancestral Witches makes me mentally unwell.

Regardless of the nature of their partnership, Griffin is the only person that has managed to force him to look past his self-importance and egomania, which could have very well been traumatic in light of his lack of agency where his bond to the Ancestral Witches is concerned and has never been framed as the right thing to do on Griffin's part. It adds layers of complexity both to Griffin's morality and to Valtor's image and self-image (or at least would have if they'd explored it a little as forcing him to acknowledge failure would have added more dimension to him and tamed how overpowered he is). It's the perfect ground for headcanons and fanfiction examining the complexities of the characters and their relationship to thrive.

[zane-wanna-sleep]

I saw the time-travel concept lately and then be like 'BUT WHAT IF—! So here sumthing even me myself don't know what it is (no plot, no story line, just sum piece of my mind)

Part 2 , Part 3

⚠️: death

“ He.. –he's dead ”

And that's how the whole world stopped, sound turned itself off into high pitch echoing in Jake's ears.

The prisoner better not lied when he said that 'cause if he did Jake would be mad than grief. So he asked again “ Say that again, say the truth ”

The prisoner cried and through sob he said again, “ I told you! That's the truth, the kid is died! ”

No interrogation can bring more any information from this recombinant and he didn't want to hear any more either. Jake stepped back gesture other na'vi to lock prisoner up again and would let the judging be Tonowari's company. He felt.. numb

The Toruk Makto sighed deeply as he walked away, let his mind fly somewhere else in his memory of old days they were happy and safe in forest, had no idea what will happened. And just enjoy their normal days back then, with Spider be around them.

How could he tell this to his children? How would they react to this news? How could he even face them again after this and what he has done?

..

.

And their reactions weren't different from what he expected, Neteyam froze lost in his processsing thought, Kiri cried, shout, yell along with Lo'ak who wasn't much difference from his sister and Tuk, oh his baby Tuk, she was all confused but can understand that her brother Spider would never come back. And they can't go see him again also.

Then it's happened, Neteyam started his words, his hash and full of dreadly hatred words, “ I believed you, even though I always knew I shouldn't have ”

He spat as if there's venoms in his thoughts “ You said he would be okay, weren't you? ”

His sharp amber eyes stabbed Jake

“ And the next thing you say about him after that day is... This?? ” ow that's hurt, really “ What you going to do now? Forget it and continue this living like nothing has happened and our brother just died ”

“ That's ENOUGH! ” Neytiri shouted instantly after his last sentence and everyone went silent, just for a moment though, and before the kids can open their mouths to continue their protest, she beat them “ Don't talk to your father like that, what's wrong with you, Neteyam you've never be like this ”

That's boiled up Neteyam's blood even more but this time it's Lo'ak who answered back then Kiri who calmed her sob and let out her rage, Neteyam join in again try to used all reason to make his mate understand. Tuk was just cried she didn't know what to do or who she should seek comfort from until Neteyam calm himself, not his mind, a little enough to scoop her up to whisper reassurance.

“ Then we will fix this ourselves, we'll take a revenge for him ” Lo'ak announced his purpose with his most serious face and his kids quickly agreed, ignored Neytiri's protest completely, which sent shivers down to Jake a bit

There're shout and shout and yell and cry and shout again, that's a chaos and he wish everything was not real, that everything was just another very, very bad dream of his and he will wake up soon. Wake up to see his family happy with Spider again.

The chaos endded with Tonowari's warning he totally forgot that it's late at night by now and they're bothering other villagers by their loud voice. He apologized and tried to wave off the Olo'eytan's concern about their situation, it may not effective due his exhausted, wet-tear face but at very least the bigger na'vi willing to leave them, for now though.

When he turned back to looked in their marui, his heart fell when he couldn't find any of his children insight and let out a long breath he didn't know he was holding when noticed they're just made a dog pile in the corner, though when he or Neytiri try to get closer Neteyam and Kiri would give them a dreadful glare, Lo'ak would slightly hiss and Tuk whined softly. His mate said when he tried to assure Tonowari they've tried to sneak out, thankfully they at least still sleep in the same marui as him tonight after everything.

That's hurt him, a lot, he want this bad dream to its end so that he can pulled them into his arms again. So he made up his mind, if they need their time he he would give them as much as they need. Jake let exhausted get over him and dragged him to sleep, or please be awakeness to peaceful day.

And yes he had to wake up, the sun shone brightly hurt his eyes forced open to meet familiar ceiling he didn't doubt at first but when he stepped to outside he saw forest surrounding him and others marui on tree nearby

Jake froze there, what is happening here, he had went insane or this is another dream of him being in delusional??

“ oh Mr.Sully, ” the voice said differ from some he heard just not long that called him Olo'eytan and there's only one person who called him that, “ I came here for Lo'ak and Kiri but uh.. am I disturb you? If so I can leave ”

Jake took a deep breath before looked down, his breath hiccup when he saw the boy, and...

What in the world happened here

Spider looked young, he of course young you skxwang hes a kid, too young for him. Looked like a 10-or-so years old, Jake wasn't sure but he sure that this isn't right, Spider is sixteen, almost seventeen, for Eywa's sake.

So why is he looked like this can some one please explain?!

But with that innocent wide eyes of Spider, he couldn't scream his heart out for any explanation.

[sammylbir]

Rewriting The Most Hated Danganronpa Character (Haiji Towa)

No need for an introduction, eh? We know Haiji Towa. Mr Pedro Phillips, the guy who made Monaca, into who she is today and the guy most fans loathed. In my life, I only met 3 people who liked him as a character and even they don't like his infamous "Like em Younger" shtick. Thankfully.

Now, I made a poll and asked, if I should make a rewrite post for this POS. And all of you said Yes. Which does give me more faith in humanity. Even though I really don't want to do this post.

Welp. How about we remove the "I like em younger" line and leave it at that. Okay?

.....No, you want more? Okay fine. Let me do my best then. As always this is my personal opinion and you can feel free to disagree with me.

Appearance:

Honestly, in canon, this is probably the best part of his character. He has a very cool design and I do think that there should almost nothing be changed about it. Emphasis on "Almost".

What I would add is that the fact that his injured arm, is not actually injured at all. It's hiding a cybernetic prosthesis with a chainsaw attached to it that he can activate, in order to take down Monokumas. Said prosthetic was actually a result of an accident he had in the Towa factory as a kid. He uses his false injury, in order to lure his victims into a false sense of security.

The idea is taken from his concept art, back when he was gonna be the Deutagonist of UDG and not Toko. Good thing that didn't happen.

Personality:

Okay then, time for this part. Haiji is still unpleasant and is a huge jerk, hiding his true persona behind a brotherly and chill demeanor. He has a huge temper and can be quite authoritative. But he also cares deeply for his group members and is traumatized over the fact that he lost so many comrades over the years. He has survivors guilt and suffers from PTSD, to the point where any sight of a child sets his alarm off and makes him even more aggressive.

He did abuse Monaca like in canon, but for different reasons which will be explained later. Even so, he does regret what he did to her deep down, hating himself for the fact that he pushed her into Junko's arms. And he also misses his dad, feeling guilty that he survived over him.

Past:

Okay first of, he is not a pedophile. He is not attracted to kids.

Like in canon, Haiji was not a good brother figure to his sister Monaca. But the reason why he hated her, was due to the fact that his mother neglected him and was disappointed when he was born. She expected a girl and thanks to that, she treated him with contempt. His dad also belittled him and often verbally abused him, while praising Monaca's intelligence. This made him feel frustrated towards his younger sister and he hurt her a lot, in order to feel better about his lack of talent. Of course, Mr. Towa also was not nice to Monica and mocked her for being a woman and for trying to act like "a man".

His mother eventually left the family, thanks to the mob chasing her for unpaid debts. This made Haiji and his dad even more frustrated, treating Monaca even worse. Haiji only stopped, when he thought that he paralyzed her, something he deeply regrets to this day.

When Junko hired Haijis dad to make Monokuma Robots, Haiji spoke out against it and was therefore disowned by his dad. The rest happened like in canon and Haiji became the leaders of the adults. He is willing to kill every child, if it meant to stop the war in Towa City once and for all. Haiji did start out as more heroic, but the more the war went on, the more jaded and extreme he became, until at the end of the game, he'd turn into nothing more than a vengeful murderer, driven by the death of his comrades, friends and father.

This version of Haiji is more like A Fallen Anti-Hero/Knight Templar. He believes that what he is doing will help everyone, but deep down all he wants is revenge.

I can imagine him eventually becoming a boss in UDG, the moment Komaru refuses to break the controller, before being knocked out by Big Bang Monokuma. Whether he'd die in the process or not, remains to be seen.

And that's it. I am sure that this version of Haiji is much, much better than the original one and if ya liked this post, feel free to LIKE and REBLOG. It really helps a lot.

See ya!

[apr1lr4in]

EDDSWORLD FALLOUT AU

Ok I'm putting this here because I have had this as an idea for so long and I don't rlly expect eddsworld fans to rlly be into fallout BUT I AM, OK? I got a lot of points I wanna talk abt and MAYBE I'll draw it MAYBE SETTING- Every fallout game is in America and EW is not, but I think I can keep the setting in England. As ur gonna see later, I thought Tord being a synth would be fitting. BUT UNFORTUNATLEY synths are only present in Fallout 4 and that is largely due to the institute not being a huge presence anywhere but Massachusetts. Compromise? There is no institute, but something similar (Will talk more in the Tord section) EDD- Honestly I LOVE cowboy Edd, but the only game with a huge cowboy setting would be New Vegas. But think about it, a survivor in the wasteland who is obsessed with prewar relics and clothing. Places like the midwest or even the Mojave are very different from England, but Edd seems like the kind of guy to be into the whole Prewar cowboy nerd. Ofc he's the protagonist, I'm not sure what kind of name he would have though. You know, lone survivor, the courier, i forgot what the protag is called in fallout 3 i havent played it. The "Goulden one" would be kind of funny though. I want him to have the same energy as the Courier, got shot and survived and is now a menace in the wasteland. But he's more heroic obv, going on silly adventures with the gang and make the wasteland a better place

TOM- I can see him being a vault dweller, but choosing to leave the life of one. It wasn't working for him and he probably didn't live in one of the good vaults. He travels with Edd and matt because he probably would get killed if he went by himself (Alcohol and chem addict) and is possibly out for revenge. Revenge for what? You'll se :3 ofc this is just brainstorming, maybe he wouldn't end up as a vault dweller and perhaps Edd was the vault dweller and Tom is the jagged wastelander. MATT- I have to say it, Matt is a ghoul. But does that affect his self esteem? No! I don't think there's a single ghoul in fallout who doesn't have a captivating personality, Matt is no exception. He is definitely the type to pick up random junk from the wasteland and is over encumbered. And he loves those fuckass monkey symbol things that make noise if you've played fallout 4, you know what I'm talking about,,,shudder) But people don't take him seriously BECAUSE he is a ghoul and full of radiation. But Edd has a good reputation and is able to vet for him. I also just thought what if he was a celebrity before the war? That would explain his lingering ego, but failing to realize nobody really cares anymore. RED ARMY- Notice how I didn't put Tord here? That's because he is unfortunately the enemy. Moreso his Red Army, but he isn't aggressive towards Edd or anyone else. He thinks positively of the 3 (maybe except Tom), but the issue is his reign against the wasteland. Think of him like Mr. House or the Brotherhood of Steel (Not the vegas BoS, they can go kys) he is the only military force around, but it's not a good one. The Red Army are known for their brutal enforcement of rules and are in fact transhumanists. They want to slowly take control of everyone and "improve" the human form. Why? Tord is essentially a partial synth. Not fully robot, but not a natural human. Yes his robot arm is coming back and YES power armor is being involved. I would like to mention that as much as I want to include characters like Paul and Patryck in this post, they are not as "essential" as the main 4. They are still Tord's righthand men, but it would be unfair of me to include them in this post and not other lesser known character. I DO have plans though, but I'll have to iron all of this out first. Larry will be thought of dw bing and larry fans, all 10 of u <3 These are all ideas! Basic thoughts i've had for a while now and maybe some ppl won't understand it. But if anyone does like fallout and EW...GIVE ME UR IDEAS!!! Perhaps even draw up some designs? I know I def will revisit this but I have a haircut today

[aceditwrites]

Could you do a Yasmina x fem reader any theme is fine, hope your having a good day and thanks if you do do my req <3 !

hi! sorry for the delay but here it is! I hope this is okay :)

You never thought you’d say this, but life on the island is boring. You never realized how little there was to do when you weren’t running for your life. Yas shared that sentiment. She’s not used to be confined to a smaller space, not that the island is cramped or anything, everyone would just prefer if she didn’t run off on her own since no one knew what was out there. And not to mention, no one could keep up with her. You had to be honest, neither could you but you wished you could. You wondered it that was enough. 

You hadn’t been out there very long, it’s only been about a month since you all missed the ferry. Since Ben fell off the monorail. SInce you all realized, you had nothing but each other and that would have to be enough. 

“Hey Y/n! Get over here, I have something I want to show you!” Yas called. 

You weren’t expecting it but apparently Brooklynn was. She patted your shoulder and said, “Go get her!”

You waved her off as you went to see what Yas had for you.

“Come with me.” Yas gently brings you not far from the base you all had set up. A small cave. The sun was at the perfect place in the sky to warmly illuminate the inside. It was just the two of you, you were nervous. How could you not be? It was Yas. The Track Star. The prettiest (and snarkiest) girl you’d ever seen.

“What’re we doing here?” You ask, you look around the cave, there are little drawings everywhere. 

“I.. realized that if you take a rock or something and mash up the right flowers…. You get some kind of colored paint and I thought that you might like them.” She sort of mutters and maybe it’s a trick of the light (or smeared paint) you could’ve sworn her cheeks were pink.

“You made paint? Yas that’s amazing!” You spin around, taking in all the drawings on the walls as you realize she drew them. “It’s like we’re cave people again! Can I try?”

“Yeah! Of course, let me show you.” Yas says, grabbing some wood that’s almost shaped like a bowl and a particularly thick stick. “What color do you want to make?”

“Anything your heart desires.” You tell her with a smile. 

She rolls her eyes, “Wow, that’s helpful.” Her smile tells you she’s not mad.

“Fine, how about… orange?” You choose finally.

Yas picks up some berries, the kind you can’t eat. You watch her hands as she mushes them creating a thick orange paste. She hands you the bowl and says, “Go wild.” 

And you certainly do, you had been bored before and now you finally had something to do. Something to do with the girl you liked, you had an excuse to bond with her. You had wondered why she showed you her gallery instead of Sammy, who you noticed she was close to even after their falling out due to Broolynn’s phone situation. Maybe you actually meant something to her. Something special. There’s one thing she never let anyone see, her sketchbook. And now she let you into her safe space, her own personal art gallery. She doesn’t see you as a critic as you walk the metaphorical halls, you’re a patron. You’re an aesthete and she’s the art.

You both stay in the cave for hours, painting until you ask, “What should I draw?”

“Whatever your heart desires.” She replies, dipping her thumb into her own paint.

“Haha very funny.” You laugh as she gets revenge for earlier. “Know what? Yeah, I will.”

You draw a girl. Black hair, always tied up. She wears a ripped gray track suit with purple accents. The girl’s ankle is hurt but she’s running anyway. She smiles anyway, in a situation full of uncertainty she’s sure of herself. Or seems so. She’s what-

“I thought you were going to draw what your heart desires. Not me” Yas smiles at you though she is confused, maybe she’s trying not to get her hopes up.

“I did.. I drew you.” I admit quietly from across the cave. It’s harder than you thought it’d be. Harder than running from dinosaurs? No. That’s definitely scarier, but this is close! 

“You desire… me? Like- You mean?” Yas asks, looking at you trying to read your mind.

“Yeah! I… like you.” It feels weird to get that off of your chest. Yas walks closer and gently puts her hand to your cheek.

“I like you too.” She smiles at you and you smile back. She moves her hand then laughs, “You uh.. have a little something there.”

You put your hand where hers just was. There’s paint on your cheek in the shape of her hand.

Before you get a chance to comment, Brooklynn pokes her head in, “There you guy- am I interrupting something?” She wiggles her brows.

“Yes!” 

[miraclesnail]

title still pending, wip, chapter 3

chapter 1 2 next chapter

When you think of Travis Stoll, what comes to mind? Powerful? Intelligent? A protagonist? More like weak, a bit on the air-headed side, and a minor character at best. So why is he being chased by a crazy man with a foot long butcher knife?

When Travis was nine, Castor and Pollux snuck them a DVD from the outside world. It was a movie called Resident Evil. And like the mean, pseudo-big-brothers they are, Castor said, “It’s a funny movie.” 

“It’s a safe movie,” Pollux followed. 

It wasn’t fun and it wasn’t safe.

Instead it gave Travis a healthy dose of zombie phobia. 

It lasted up until he was 17, around the time when Nico decided to stay full time as a yearrounder. The kid used his zombie army for everything. Building his cabin, getting him snacks, attending counselor meetings. They’re actually pretty docile and interesting once Travis got over the fear of them turning into raving, brain-chomping zombies.

Well, whatever Nico did for his zombie-phobia is all undone. Right now. Right at this moment. 

The thing inching towards him on its stomach groans like the hungry brain-eating zombie it is, muffled due to its face planted solidly into the broken tile floor. 

Travis tries not to whimper (he does though) as he scoots back on his butt from the thing. He wants to run. He wants to rollerblade away. He wants to be anywhere but here. But all of that requires access to his hands which he unfortunately does not have access to right now.

He pulls lightly on the handcuffs binding his wrists together. They graft uncomfortably on his skin and he stops. The thing groans as the metal links on the handcuffs jingle and seem to shuffle even faster towards him. It’s head is rising (oh god, oh please no.) enough for Travis to see eyeless sockets, broken jaw swarming with maggots, blue skin tinge with mold and fungi, and — 

Okay, he has enough. 

“Hey, uh, Michael?” he calls out hesitantly.

His once dead but now alive and well, and also the reason for him being tied up, friend does not respond. So Travis tries again, this time louder. “Hey, Michael.”

Nothing. 

Dude, what has he done to piss off Michael? They were on great terms before Michael had died! 

…

Michael died. Michael is dead. So this person in front of him couldn’t be Michael. Because Michael is dead. Michael died. 

Who is he then? A lookalike? A twin brother? A clone?

You know what? This is an issue Travis will leave for another time. A more pressing matter is rearing its ugly head with each passing second. That thing is a foot away from him now. 

“Michael,” Travis tries again only to be ignored again. And fine with him. He knows exactly what will make Michael talk. “Mike. Mikey. Mic. Saint Michael. Mikey-angelo. Miiiiichaeeeeeel. Miiiichaeeeellllllllll.”

And as expected, Michael snaps, “What?” His brown eyes alight with such familiar anger that Travis can’t help but stare. The intensity, the way Michael scrunches his face, the absolutely familiar face of irritation is all very Michael-like. Though, it was never him at the end of Michael’s temper. It had always been Clarisse.

“Can you do something about the… uh… you know.” Michael still glares at him and okay, Michael is really gonna make him say it. Travis finishes the sentence lamely, “The zombie. Can you get rid of the zombie?”

He waits for the ridicule, the jiving, the “oh gods, you’re such an idiot. Zombies aren’t real.” but instead all he gets is an arrow piercing the thing’s head in a millisecond.

Travis jumps, tied hands clenching his chest at the speed of the arrow. He smiles gratefully and relaxes his shoulder. “Thanks. I really—”

“Shut up.”

And Travis snaps his jaws shut and endure the uncomfortable silence they delve into. He twiddles his thumbs. He taps his feet. He thinks about how Michael is now alive. The doors of death are open again? Michael decides to make a break for the real world? Michael decides to take revenge for his untimely death caused by Luke by messing with him? 

But none of that explains why everything is so… bleak and apocalyptic. New York is destroyed. **(add more later)** Most of the buildings are gone and the remaining ones are compromised. The tiles and walls have green junk growing out of them. These things, zombies, did not exist before. 

This… all of this… it has to be an elaborate prank by Connor, right? A prank that Connor somehow manages to convince Nico and Hazel to join in on? Yeah… yeah. That makes sense. Nico and Hazel made the zombies. Annabeth designed this fake, apocalyptic New York. Percy and Jason can be the one causing the storm outside. This has to be it. There’s no other explanation. **Now to figure out what Travis did to deserve all this… 

Only one way to get answers. 

“So Michael—” he begins.

“Shut up.”

“Okay.”

That went nowhere. 

Micheal crosses his arms, not moving from where he’s leaning on the crumbling wall. He’s frowning, staring intently at him. Like he’s waiting for him to do something. Like he’s waiting for him to make a run for it. But the crossbow resting snugly against Michael’s leg with all its beautiful, entirely real arrows assures Travis will do nothing. 

Except maybe scratch the itch at the back of his head.

The second his hands move up, Michael has the crossbow up and aims at his face.

Okay, no scratching the itch. Maybe he could just use his shoulder or the wall behind him. 

He lowers his hand and chuckles nervously, “Okay, sorry, sorry.” 

Michael didn’t lower the crossbow though.

Michael didn’t smile and say, ‘just kidding.’

Michael didn’t pull his mask off to reveal he’s actually Connor. 

Instead all Michael does is rest his finger on the trigger.

Oh gods. He’s really going to die here.

“Aren’t you going to make a run for it?” Michael says.

“Run?” he chuckles, “How am I going to run with you pointing a crossbow on my face?!”

Michael frowns. “You’re going to hurt Beckendorf’s feelings if you don’t try. He’s certain he created restraints even you can’t break out of.” **

Beckendorf. Another dead friend being spoken about like he’s alive. Yeah, why not. He’ll play along with whatever game this is. “Well, I’m sorry but I can’t break out of these.” And to prove it, he tugs on the cuffs and makes the link jingles. 

Michael scowls, the crossbow lowering just a tad. “You’re not even trying, asshole.”

The word comes automatically without him thinking. Connor likes to curse. Cecil sometimes too. Julia and Alice do it often as well. When he’s in a cabin full of little kids as young as 7, parents do not appreciate their kid coming back from the special summer camp knowing all the bad words a kid shouldn’t know. And since he’s the oldest, the blame falls on him. He, of course, makes Chiron take the heat of their parent’s complains but it still leaves a bad taste on his tongue. 

“Don’t curse,” he says on instinct.

Michael stiffens. He grips his crossbow tighter. 

“Travis,” Michael says slowly. At least he got his name right. “Why are you… acting ��� this way?”

“What way? I’ve always been this way.”

Michael exhales and steps closer. He kneels so they’re eye level and with a very careful eye, studies his face with excruciating focus. It’s very uncomfortable and Travis deals with uncomfortable situations the only way he knows how. 

With his trademark smirk, he shouts, “Boo!”

Expectedly, Michael jumps back and Travis makes himself laugh. Unexpectedly, Michael is back by his side, this time with fear in his eyes. With a very gentle hand, Michael touches his shoulder. Travis isn’t weirded out by touching. But it always came from Connor or his younger siblings. And Michael, before he died, was never a touchy-feely kind of person. 

Maybe he should jumpscare him again. 

With a careful voice, Michael says, “Travis, what are you wearing?”

He looks down and sees nothing out of the ordinary. “What do you mean?’

“Where did you get the shirt?” Michael’s voice is strained.

“My … shirt? From the camp store?”

Michael breathes harder. “Why are you wearing it?”

“Well, what else am I supposed to wear? Newsflash, Michael but this orange shirt is all camp has,” Travis jokes, hoping Michael will laugh but all Michael is doing is breathing harder and harder. 

“Travis, please, tell me you’re pulling my leg right now,” Michael pleads with tears in his eyes.

Travis blinks in alarm. Michael is on the verge of crying. Michael has tears in his eyes. Michael is pleading with him. This isn’t a joke, is it?

“I don’t know what you mean,” he answers truthfully, wincing at Michael’s face falling further, “I have no idea what’s going on actually. I, uh, thought you were Connor in a mask, but now I’m not so sure anymore.” 

Michael chokes and a violent shudder runs through his body. Callous hands grip his shoulder and shake him harshly. “Are you on drugs right now? Is that why you’re acting so strange? God fucking damn it, Travis! What the fuck!” Michael yells. 

“I— uh— um—” 

 Oh gods, what is he supposed to say?

Michael pulls him up by the front of his shirt. Travis stumbles unevenly on his feet. Even that seems to panic Michael more because he starts patting him down again, skipping over his secret stash. 

He squirms against the proding, whining, “Why are you doing this again? I told you I have nothing hidden.”

“You have nothing on you. No weapons. No equipment. No nothing. Fuck. Travis, are you fucking crazy?!” 

“Am I supposed to have something on me?”

This time Michael didn’t even answer his question, instead pulling an eyelid back. Travis flinches from the sudden proximity and tries to pull away but Michael wasn’t having any of it. 

“Did you take something? What was it?”

“Other than tylenol for my headache this morning, nothing,” Travis says. 

Michael scowls, “Bullshit. You’re acting weird. You’re acting like you did back then. You’re tan for whatever reason and… and…” Michael grabs his wrist and turns them over till the palms face up. He’s deathly silent. “Your scars are gone.”

His eyes trail back up. “All your scars are gone.”

“Yeah…well,” Travis pulls his arms out of Michael’s hands and shuffles back. “Mike, you’re really freaking me out right now.”

“Travis… you’re really Travis, right?” Michael whispers, not following after him. 

“The one and only,” he says, eyes looking away as he shuffles back some more, unsure of what to say next. There’s something in the shadows. There’s something moving in the shadows. There’s someone in the shadows. But it’s not shuffling like a zombie would so it’s probably not a — 

A gust of wind lifts them both up from the ground. Terror grips his heart and Michael yelps in alarm. Just a few meters behind them is a drop from an unimaginable height. They’re going to die. But rather than push out, the wind lifts them further and further up to where their back touches the ceiling. 

It feels like one of those gravity roller coasters in the fair. A force is pushing him onto the surface and it’s impossibly difficult to lift a hand against the gravity. Except there’s no rollercoaster causing this. And this experience is nowhere near as fun as the one in the fair. 

Michael struggles valiantly, twisting and turning and screaming to be put down. His crossbow lies below them. 

The person in the shadow moves closer, stumbling in an uneven gait, shambling like they’re drunk.

Crap, was it actually a zombie?!

But, wait, no. The zombie is laughing, manic and high, and zombies can’t laugh. 

“Caught two! I caught two!”

And zombies can’t talk. 

“I’m going to be fed for decades!”

But zombies eat flesh and oh god it is a zombie. 

The pressure intensifies and he can’t move. He can’t breathe. He’s being crushed. He’s being suffocated. 

The zombie moves from the shadows and into the dim light. And maybe Travis is dreaming, maybe he’s hallucinating, maybe he just ate something bad and is going through a full blown bacteria-induced hallucination, but the zombie that stumbles into view shares a face very, very similar to that of Lou Ellen, counselor of Hecate cabin.

Lou Ellen laughs freely, head thrown back and arm clutching her stomach. She steps closer and he notices something was wrong with her left leg. It shouldn’t be caved in the calf area. It shouldn’t be curved inwards at all. He shouldn’t be able to see the red sinews of the muscles and the telltale white of the bone. 

“Oh. It’s you. Hey, there,” Lou Ellen says and she steps closer until he can see her face, beyond happy, beyond crazed.*** 

She gives a wide, blood stained smile. 

“Nice to see you again.”  

He wakes up with the burning, excruciating pain in his neck. But it lasted only for two seconds before it all went away and he could breathe again, could think again. 

He always wakes silently. Sometimes zombies would claw their way to his living quarters and being absolutely still and listening first has saved him from bites many times. 

Clarisse’s voice is what he hears first. Maybe he’s been captured but he’s still alive for some reason. He wouldn’t think they would capture him and not sacrifice him right away unless they struck a new deal with the gods. 

“We should crack open his mind. Take a good look at what’s inside.”

“No, we can’t. That’s invading his privacy.”

Clarisse is arguing with someone. The other voice is unfamiliar. 

“He’s an enemy. We can’t treat a threat like he’s our friend.”

“But that’s Travis! We can’t—”

“Travis decapitated Mr. D, eviscerated Chiron, and tore my knee a new one. He’s fucking dangerous, Holly. Laurel, you shut the fuck up too.”

Oh. It’s Holly and Laurel. … What are they doing with Clarisse?

He keeps still, keeps his breathing even, and surveys his situation. He’s resting on a cushioned surface on his back. His wrists are bound with metal. One on each wrist and they extend outwards. Not linked together. He senses, more than feel, that it’s just a simple master lock with a standard key. The basics of basics. He can undo this in a millisecond. 

He listens closely, taking in the creaking of wood and the scuffing of shoes. There’s a person right next to him. Maybe 15 or 20 total in the room. If it had just been Michael and Clarisse, he could escape just fine. But they somehow got new people. Where did they get new people? They’re not exactly in supply.  

“You guys, maybe we should wake Travis up and have a talk with him.” Another voice he doesn’t recognize. 

“And have him go crazy trying to kill Percy again? Dude, no. That’s not a good idea. Six people couldn’t restrain him.” [That voice is Leo’s.]

“But we’re not getting any answers with him asleep. Besides he’s tied up and there’s 20 of us. I can charmspeak if we really need to,” the person beside him says. [Piper.]

“Alright, Clovis, wake him up. Everybody else be on guard,” a girl commands and involuntarily his hands curl into the sheets. Annabeth said that. No doubt. That’s Annabeth’s voice. Clear. Precise. Said a name. This isn’t reality then. Gods-induced illusion? Or did he finally die and this is his eternal hell?

“He’s already awake.”

Chairs scoot on wood and he can hear the boards creaking. Metal clinks around the room. Are they drawing their weapon? Why?

[I decapitated the God and gutted the centaur.] Oh. 

“Drop the act, Travis,” Annabeth demands. 

He opens his eyes and winces at the sunlight. It’s so bright. And quiet. It’s so quiet. The absence of rain after months and years of constant downpour… it’s jarring. It feels unnatural. Someone coughs and slowly, unhurriedly, inch by inch, he turns his head to the side to quickly glance at the people on the other side of the room. All of them standing and all of them either gripping the hilt of their weapon or hiding behind another person. 

[They’re scared. I didn’t mean to… I wouldn’t have… if I known they were going to freak out like this… maybe I should have blown the immortals up instead.] I think that’ll still be an issue. 

He recognizes a couple. Clarisse. Will. Katie. Conn— he tears his eyes to the next person. He doesn’t recognize her. Nor the next demigod and the next and the next until his eyes land on Perseus. By instinct, his hands reach for the weapons on his belt, but they lay several feet away on a table. Two demigods are sorting through his weapons. 

He calms the murderous, bloodthirsty need in him and looks to the next person, to Annabeth. He stares at her. At her golden locks. At the ponytail. At the familiar sternness of her face, the familiar sharp gaze. It’s her. It’s really her. 

A chair creaks nearby and he glances upwards. It was Piper sitting beside him. She stiffens when they make eye contact but she remains seated. 

“Hey,” she says curtly. 

“Hey,” he mutters awkwardly. 

You’re right. Piper has a really nice voice. [I know, right?]

He turns his head back to the ceiling and closes his eyes. There’s around 20 demigods in this room. More than half he does not recognize. And the half he does recognize, he can’t overpower by himself. Not an illusion then. Not hell then. He digs his nails into his thigh and considers the pain. This is reality. 

[I think we can still make a break for it]

A chair screeches against the hardwood and he winces at the grating noise. It’s too loud. His neck itches. And he goes to scratch it. The handcuffs only allow him a couple inches off the convertible sofa. But even that is too much to give. They should have secured it all the way down. They even gave him a pillow for his head. Stupid idiots. 

“Travis,” Annabeth says, “If you cooperate with us, everything will go smoothly and nobody will be hurt. So I’m going to need you to answer a few questions.” 

Something groans beside him and he snaps his eyes to it and oh. It’s just a branch against the window. 

“Why did you attack Percy?” Annabeth continues, undeterred.

He can see the tips of the pine trees and the very clear, very blue skies, not a single cloud in sight. 

“Travis, answer me.”

A bird flies freely, soaring without a care in the empty sky.

“Travis.”

There’s a gentle breeze outside, not a howling hurricane. 

“Travis? Are you listening?”

The sun is shining. There are birds flying. The leaves are green. Annabeth is alive. Connor is alive. Leo and Piper are alive too. Everything is alive and brimming.

Why? 

The boy he thought was Connor, the one he chased through the entire building from one end to the other, the one who confidently said his name, must actually be Travis. Did the clover allow him to time travel? To a past where nothing has gone wrong yet? No, that can’t be. The other Travis must have been the same age as him. [Piper and Leo were never at your camp at any point.]

“Percy, bring it over.” 

Then what is this? 

“Why do you have this?”

He peeks an eye open, glances at what Annabeth holds in her hands. It’s just a phone. Why is she so confused by it?

“Neat thing you have here.” Annabeth flips the phone in a hand, flipping it back and forth in faux-nonchalant observation. “It doesn’t emit our signals. You can’t attract monsters with this.”

He frowns. The way she’s talking… like she had never seen … when she had advocated for its creation for so long… *****

Annabeth hums curiously. She taps the screen once to activate it. “Who is ‘**Melon Lord?’ Weird name. They've been messaging you non-stop.”

Shit. 

It takes all he has to roll his head to the side. Annabeth holds the phone screen out for him to read, but still far enough he can’t reach it. He winces at the barrage of texts he sees.

“Yo yo yo! It’s your savior here with another daily update! I’m alive as you can see. How are you doing this fine hour? Still kicking, I hope? The others are making quite a commotion. I think they’re saying they caught you? You in trouble? Need help?”

“Yooo Travis? You're dead or what?”

“Travis?”

“Dude, I know you’re reading this.”

“Hey, you okay?”

“Travis?”

“Okay, it isn’t funny anymore. Text me back now.” 

Annabeth takes the phone back and scrolls through the limited notifications with a scowl. “Who is this person? They’re really concerned.”

Commotion? Shit. That’s right. Michael. Michael is the reason why he’s here. After he’s pushed in, what happened? Did … did Michael catch his other self? Is Michael taking him back to their base right now?!

Shit. Fuck. 

[No, wait, calm down. Let’s think this through.]

Easier said than done when his heart is beating faster by minute with fear. 

“Travis?” Annabeth’s voice is stern but there’s a crease in her eyebrows, eyes tinged with worry. 

“I…” But his voice is raspy and he gulps, wetting his mouth before trying again. “Give me back my phone. I need to call someone.”

“Call who?” She asks, face blank. “Who are you going to call?”

“S-” but he stops. 

His knowledge of the world and theirs is conflicting. 

But this isn’t an illusion. Isn’t a dream. Isn’t time travel. 

Annabeth sighs. “You know, Travis, for as long as we know each other, you never seem like the type of person to be a double agent.”

A different world then. [A parallel universe, an alternate universe] 

“We all trusted you back then when Luke left and Chiron always sent you and Connor out on a lot of quests.” 

A world where Camp Half Blood is still standing. ***

“You guys always succeeded.”

A world where everyone is alive. 

She flips the phone to its back cover and taps the insignia, a simple gold scythe, on the bottom corner.

“Hey, tell me, Travis.” Annabeth stands above, leering down over him with her piercing gray eyes. 

A world where everything is okay. 

“Was it because you were pulling the strings behind our backs?”

A world where he made the right choice and didn’t join Kronos’s cause. 

[skyrim-forever]

Yo Eve, my darling, give me a moon for the fall themed asks. Share all your secrets with me. <3

Hello Winter my queen <3 I would be glad to answer this!

🌙 moon: do any of your OCs have dark backstories or secrets they’re trying to keep?

This is going to be for Theodora as she is by far my most fleshed out oc.

Oh boy, so to start, Theo's parents were a pirate, her father Ricardo Viticius and a noblewoman Kassandra Ves. Her mom ended up running away with her dad when they fell in love, getting disowned from her family and breaking off her semi-arranged marriage. Her father had spent his life before meeting her as thief and eventually becoming a pirate, particularly raided slavers ships along the Coast of Morrowind and Black Marsh.

Theo was born off the coast of Senchal in 4E 177 26 Last Seed. Around two years later her mom goes overboard during a storm in Abeacan Sea. Theo does not remember anything about her and she finds even talking about her uncomfortable. Other women who try to be mother-figures to her cause her to lash out at them.

Ricardo never fully recovers but he is determined to be a parent as he never knew his own father. He decides to move permanently back to Anvil, the city he grew up in. Since the war destroyed the city, the East Empire Company has invested and made the city sort of a company town. Ricardo sees how their greed harms the city and how only the higher level officials have any measure of a good life; this causes him to focus his criminal enterprise against them. So Theo grows up with the backdrop of crime war. A lot of her youth was spent learning to fight and prepping to take over her father's work. Although some would say this was no life for a child, she thinks very highly of her dad. He kept her away from the very dangerous stuff, but he respected her and taught her many things about all of Tamriel due to his extensive travels.

Things come to ahead when mercenaries hired by the company head succeed in killing him, her uncle Elo Man-llu (uncle Elo is highkey my fav, iconic dunmer), and many of the crew. Theo is around 14 when this happens and she chooses to live with her friend Phy in Valenwood as they are very close and she's visited her often. They stay there until 18 when they leave for the Imperial City to try to make money and get revenge on the man who killed her family. Due to her father's criminal past (as well as him being a Great War draft dodger :P), her inheritance is seized by the Empire. She joins the Thieves Guild and becomes an Arena fighter in an attempt to gain fortune. Eventually she joins the Legion in Skyrim due to a bargain. The Empire gets the Dragonborn's service in exchange for clearing her father's name and her inheritance.

From ages 16-27, she heavily copes using alcohol, sex, fighting, and occasionally drugs (though that's more of Phy's thing). Most of it is coping with losing her father and uncle, the two people she looked up to the most, but there is also a lot of coping with the fact she's never had a mother and much of her childhood was surrounded by violence and tension. It's sort of a numbing the pain problem. She also has a tendency towards men who are terrible which include, but aren't limited to; a skooma smuggler, a Morag Tong assassin, and a married local official who funds her arena career! This gets a bit better once she starts doing Dragonborn duties mostly because she has less time to self-destruct. Originally she ran from it, only after the events of Dawnguard does she accept it and allow it to give her purpose. Though the newfound fame and expectations become difficult.

And the biggets secret she is trying to keep is orginally that she's sleeping with a Thalmor agent, and then that she's in love with said agent :P

Sorry for writing you a novel! Thank you so much for asking this question! There's a lot of thought put into her that I don't get to explore in fic because the Ondolemar brainworms haha. I just like them so much together you know :P

[aspiring-holistic-otaku]

Season 3 Ramble #8 - A is for Anime(solo reprise) ver.3

Hadn't been doing the run-up posting I usually do for my rambles due to work and such but here we are!

How this ramble is gonna go is I'm gonna list my top 3 movies watched this month then top 3 series for same, AAnd now that I actually have a semi decent number of anime under my belt I'm gonna do a quick top ten of both at the end.. after that if you wanna stick around, instead of the usual post ramble ramble, I'm gonna add a bit of the recording I did with the homies, as a sort of prelude and promise that we will have that conversation in future. I really think it's an important and potentially fruitful discussion to have.

But In any case getting into the episode now

TOP 3 MOVIES 

3) Belladonna Of Sadness (1973, 1hr33m, Mushi Production)

Crazy movie. I don't think I can accurately talk about it without it sounding too wHild… I'm still gonna, but I'm gonna open with what Google says about it.

A peasant woman is raped by the local lord on her wedding night. To take revenge, she makes a pact with the Devil himself who appears as an erotic sprite and transforms her into a black-robed vision of madness and desire.

As I said.. wHild… and that's just the summary…the details of the actual movie are like…woah.. but in any case it was great, actually something that'd been on my watch list for a good long while so I'm glad I could actually finally watch it. 

Glazing over the plot which the summary does a pretty good job of covering anyways, the visuals were absolutely stunning. They're by Yoshitaka Amano, probably most famously known for his final fantasy illustrations. For the most part the visuals are done in what looks like watercolor paint, which is just wild in my mind,, like wHy?? He definitely pulled it off though which is even more crazy cause a good amount of it was done in an almost slideshow kinda way which I usually don't like but he still pulled it off…crazy…. Should be kinda obvious from the summary but moderate tw. Still definitely strongly recommend.

Small sidenote - in making this ramble I found out that belladonna of sadness is actually part of a trilogy called animerama,, so now I have 2 more old ass movies to look forward to. Hopefully they're just as good or even better…

2) Lupin IIIrd: The Gravestone of Daisuke Jigen (2014, 51m, Telecom Animation Film)

Ever since I watched my first lupin movie 3 years ago I've been locked in. In fact it was such a good watch that I've limited myself to one a year. Thankfully the trend of awesomeness has continued up to this point but enough premature glazing. 

This movie is basically centered on Jigen, as you can probably tell from the title. Just a point of clarity for those who don't know much of anything about lupin, Jigen is basically the gunslinger of Lupin’s crew. So as this is basically his movie, he's ofc facing off against a gunslinger. The title is so named because this guy, the gunslinger they find themselves up against, makes graves for his victims before killing them. Nobody's ever gotten away from him. In fact he's so good that he uses dice to decide how many bullets he'll use to take out his target. Ice cold mf.

Pretty good action from start to finish though I’m a tad disappointed there wasn't more gun-slinging, though from what I gather Jigen’s whole thing is speed, accuracy and efficiency,, so maybe a barrage of bullets wouldn't have made sense. In any case we get to see all of the crew besides goemon, dry cry as he's my personal fav but still solid. The art direction was great from all angles as I've come to expect. Not too much to say cast wise as on Lupin gang’s side there's a cumulative effect of greatness where every time you see them it's generally a continuation of past interactions, as in there's an obviously rich history there. That being said, the dynamic is still great and from what I've seen, you can pick up any of the movies and immediately love them. But anyways, on the other hand, the main villain/organization felt a bit hollow. Which is something I've come to kind of expect with movie exclusive antagonists in general. It's just a matter of time efficiency. I think when it comes to anime movies, you're generally not watching for the antagonist unless they have to do with the main storyline. Otherwise you're kinda watching to see how the protagonist will beat them in about an hour. Though I will say as far as visuals can speak, they definitely spoke volumes in that sense. Also, given the geopolitical climate we're in, I liked the villain/organization and how they were handled... trying not to spoil too much there but if you so much as peek between the lines you probably get it.. In any case definitely highly recommend.

Side note - every lupin movie I watch further solidifies my decision to get into the series… just watching the movies first for some reason…

1) Mind game (2004, 1hr44m, Studio 4°C)

Honestly,, I don't even want to speak on it for fear of sullying its greatness. It's one of those life changing before and after watches fr. This is something I'd been really wanting to watch since ver.1 when I started getting into Studio 4°C through their awesome anthologies genius party and genius party beyond.

I'm gonna default to the anilist description here which is kinda almost decent relative to the sheer phenomenal amazingness of this movie.. but I digress.. so according to anilist..

Audiences will begin to grasp what they are in for early on, as loser Nishi, too wimpy to try to save his childhood sweetheart from gangsters, is shot in the butt by a soccer-playing psychopath, projecting Nishi into the afterlife. In this limbo, God - shown as a series of rapidly changing characters - tells him to walk toward the light. But Nishi runs like hell in the other direction and returns to Earth a changed man, driven to live each moment to the fullest.

The last bit hints at the greatness of this film. Right there that small difference in speech speaks volumes in my personal world of language. It's not just a movie. It's film. 10/10. absolute cinema.

As I said I don't even want to talk about it too much because I don't think it possible to do it justice through mere words, but I'm gonna put a bit more glaze on it before I wrap up the movie list and move on to series. This movie beat out studio ghibli’s, Miyazaki directed, howl’s moving castle in the 2004 Japan Media Arts Festival. Further, this was a debut work for the director Masaaki Yuasa, who would later go on to found science saru studio. I was so moved by this movie that I've decided I will watch everything masaaki yuasa has and will ever direct. 10/10. highly recommend. end of glaze.

hm: under the dog, Mezzo forte, blood: the last vampire, 4°c (sweat punch, short peace from last time)

Top 3 Series

3) Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (2023-2024, 28ep 24m, Madhouse) 

This is something I'd been seeing around for a bit but was intentionally ignoring because for some reason I got it in my head that it was based on this sad little one shot called The hero’s party on their way back home, and I was NOT watching an entire series based on that.

In any case, in talking with my bros recently they all insisted that it was the best anime released in the past year, one of them declaring it was in his top5 all time. So I pushed past my fears and binged it all in a day. V thankful for the bros.

The story here follows an elven mage called frieren and her life after defeating the Demon King and bringing peace to the world.

As you can tell from the summary it's largely a slice of life but it has its fair share of well placed scraps. It fills a certain fantasy gap where you get that day to day rose tinted indigenous peoples’ lifestyle feel, that I think most people would want if they actually lived in a fantasy setting,, not that constantly under threat from dragons and shit usually focused on. And as I said there are some well placed fights. The pacing also felt perfect. Like I almost felt bad binging it because I could tell that once a week watch would've been REALLY good… one of the few series I don't want to read the manga for, I'll definitely be watching weekly whenever season 2 drops..

Great cast though kinda small, pretty brilliant visuals and sound direction. Very very very solid all round, what I'd call supremely balanced tbh. One of the bros put it really well in that he said he has synesthesia so everything has colours for him, and the colours of every aspect of this show came together to paint the perfect picture. Now I don't have synesthesia myself but I could definitely feel, not just see, how well orchestrated it all was. definitely strongly recommend.

2) Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (2007, 27ep 24m, Gainax)

Yes. It's 2024 and I’m just watching gurren lagann and you'll hear why that is if you listen in to the post ramble ramble,, but suffice to say, you can never be late to true greatness and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is definitely in that category. 

Firstly I kinda watched it as a meme seeing as last ramble I focused on the supposed relationship between sacred geometry and JoJo's bizarre adventure… if that sounds crazy then you should listen to the ramble… not that it'll sound less crazy but..yh.. anyways I was vaguely aware that gurren lagann focused a bit on spirals so I tapped in for the meme. 

To summarize the lengthy anilist summary,, In a far away future, mankind lives underground in huge caves, unknowing of a world above with a sky and stars. yada yada yada blah blah blah Simon, Kamina, Yoko, and the small yet sturdy robot, Lagann, journey to the world above and find that the surface is a harsh battlefield, and it's up to them to fight back against the rampaging Beastmen. Pierce the heavens, Gurren Lagann!

Again I'm gonna fall back on the words of another of my bros from the session, I think he had it in his top 10 or 5,, but he said he considers gurren lagann to be a perfect starter anime in that it perfectly showcases almost everything the medium of anime has to offer. Action, comedy, philosophy, slice of life, amazing cast, brilliant visual direction, solid sound direction. etc. the term “starter anime” gets thrown around a fair bit and I usually think it's a rubbish term because of how insanely diverse the medium is and how specific different individuals tastes can be,, so like to say this or that anime is a good “starter anime" never made sense.. but when he said it, that was the very first time I actually thought it made sense..

Definitely super highly recommend, a recommendation to pierce the heavens if you will.

1) Akiba Maid War (2022, 12ep 24m, P.A Works)

Gotta say it was a tough call between this and gurren lagann but it won out for 3 reasons. #1 it's shorter, and that's not a lazy pov, I just personally tend to give more ratings to shorter series in general because I think being able to do something amazing in a short amount of time deserves more props than doing so in a longer span of time. personally.. #2 it was FUNNY. AS. FUCK. I'm coming to realize that when it comes to anime specifically, comedy may be my favourite genre. I can't quite put my finger on why but I think it has to do with how far animation as a medium can push physical humor.. idk.. lastly… idek why I felt the need to justify all this…it's my list… but lastly,, and most importantly. maids. enough said..

The story here follows the dealings of different maid cafes in the town of Akihabara. I say dealings because in this show the maids basically act like Yakuza, having turf wars, extortion rackets and drug trades(just a point of clarity for those who've never heard the term, you've probably guessed but Yakuza are basically Japanese gangsters). In any case this is all under the table as they pay off the police and act the usual cutesy part in front of civilians. That may be a bit of a spoiler but a gif of it was going around a lot last year i think,, with this one maid gunning down a bunch of other maids and it was made to look like an idol rave with the glow sticks and everything + the “twist" if you can even call it that happens in episode 1 so it's not like some major turning point spoilers + "wars” is literally in the title, so with all due respect, you can bite me.. 

In any case, as I said this shit was funny ASF, mainly because of the opposing imagery of maids and yakuza they somehow pulled off perfectly.. like I can't begin to explain how crazy it is to see maids cussing each other out with the most obscene language, fighting it out in the craziest brawls, then turning around and going “welcome home master”. 

Fairly small but very strong cast, all funny in their own unique ways from the hardened criminal type to the frightened newbie. the visuals were great, sounds direction solid, I really really loved the op and ed, cause they just perfectly matched the shows energy. Kinda episodic for the most part but that fit the crazy, “you'll never guess what happens next” energy… Just great overall like wow.. a bit surprised I haven't seen it around more but I realize comedies don't tend to get that much ratings on release, if they do get attention it's further down the line as a “hidden jewel".

But in any case yes. 10/10. definitely highly recommend. please go watch this. have a good laugh, give thanks for life and go see the beauty of the world.

hm: Flying Trapeze, Goodbye Mr. despair (from s2)

Top 10 Movies (no order)

A Silent Voice, Memories (anthology directed by katsuhiro otomo), One Piece Movie 6: Flower Island, Tokyo Godfathers, Mind Game, Ocean Waves, Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind, Sword Of The Stranger, the Lupin movies (just watch all of them lol), Maquia: When The Promised Flower Blooms

hm: Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop, Animatrix, GITS Innocence, Wolf Children, Princess Mononoke

Top 10 Series (no order)

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Akiba Maid Wars, Nichijou, Hyouka, Mononoke, Sonny Boy, Tatami Galaxy(all spinoffs, movies, everything.), Steins;Gate, Dorohedoro, Angel Beats, Durarara!!(all seasons)

hm: Baccano!, Pluto, FLCL up to Progressive, Cowboy Bebop, chainsaw man

[p-4in]

BULLY! (yandere) YUTA OKKOTSU X OC

Ando Yue, Ando clan’s pride and joy at one point. Ando clan was known for strong and beautiful women. Sure, they weren’t there with the top 3 clans, but they were still a threat if on the wrong side. Some women born in the clan had special powers, they could fly, teleport, telepathically converse with people, sense danger and otherworldly presences and what not. In Yue’s case, she landed all of these. She was strong, but such power comes at a price. Yue never knew her father, her mother died when she was very young as she was a big target, so for Yue’s protection, she was sent to live with her grandmother. She was forbidden from ever showcasing her actual powers, her grandmother had already lost a jewel, she didn’t want to lose another one. Of course she did go to jujutsu high, but never could succeed as much as she wanted due to restriction. Her favourite sensei, Gojo Satoru knew this, he knew everything about her, so he never forced her to do anything. She was very awkward in her class, she didn’t get along with her other four classmates being maki, panda, toge and lastly, Yuta Okkotsu. He was very strong, well why wouldn’t he, he was related to Gojo to some degree. Because of this, he was on a mission overseas. Yuta hated her guts, he could feel that she was a fake, she was faking something, he knew, and it made him despise her. He could feel the strong aura from her, yet she acted dumb and acted like she was some loser, those nerdy glasses she’d wear, the silly books she’d always hold in her hands to read rather than train, he hated it. Meanwhile, Yue knew this, even when charmed by his looks, she knew that he didn’t like her, so she didn’t even try. There was something so sinister about him, there was darkness in his eyes, that only she could see. As soon as Yuta went away, Yue’s grandmother passed away, breaking her apart. She didn’t have anyone stopping her, so she showed her true colours, her true power, and she wasn’t the same weird nerd anymore, she changed into a more revenge driven maniac, all in her head of course. Though she presented normal traits to people, except for the fact that she hid her true powers, everyone thought she was okay. Her sensei knew what she had turned into, so he would give her friendly advices at times which helped her. After her grandmother, Gojo acted as a parental figure to her, and she appreciated him a lot.

A year passed and Yue was at the top of her game, she could even do solo missions now. Though, she didn’t know that someone came back, and he didn’t know the major changes either. So, when finding out that the loser girl had climbed the ranks, it drove him crazy.

“Sensei….” Yuta spoke.

“Is there anything I can do while i’m here?”

“Well….” Gojo hummed and thought about anything in store for his prized student.

“Oh, Yue’s in Kyoto investigating some serial killer curse or something, apparently a lot of women have been found dead there, so shes gone to investigate, you should see if she needs some assistance.” All the odds were in Yuta’s favour, he can finally see what’s all this fuss that’s around Yue.

When he went to Kyoto, it was 9pm, streets were busy, he thought about where to find his prime suspect, but it didn’t take much time as he could sense a large amount of cursed energy from the forest. He went there to check and saw her. She was mercilessly stabbing the half human, half monster looking thing in the back as he screamed for mercy. The finish was so satisfying, it pissed him off even more. Yue lost her balance afterwards and fell on the ground herself. She hadn’t slept since she got to Kyoto, that being a week. She was exhausted, her head was throbbing and aching.

“Never expected you to be so brave.” That voice, it shook Yue to the core. She didn’t even have the courage to look behind her. The sound of his footsteps freaked her out, he was nearing her.

“That’s so much power you have there, I sensed it from the station, I’m impressed.” He chuckled. He came in front of her and saw her distressed state. She looked like she had seen a ghost, and the visible tiredness made her look pathetic too.

“What’s wrong? Did I scare you?” He asked oh so innocently.

“It’s just me Ando, what’s wrong?” He crouched down to her and smiled so nicely, he seemed so innocent, but Yue knew that wasn’t it.

“N-nothing, I-I just- didn’t expect you to b-be here.” She replied with a smile, a forced smile.

“I didn’t expect you to finally crack either, I knew you were lying, but still, didn’t expect you to come this far.” He cupped her cheek. His touch made chills go down her spine.

Yue awkwardly chuckled and politely removed his hand from her cheek. She told him that she was drained due to no rest and wanted to sleep. She hesitantly stood up as Yuta stayed in his position, looking at her with a sweet smile. He hummed in response and Yue bowed and started going in an opposite direction. She was scared. He definitely came with ulterior motives, perhaps to kill her. At least that’s what she thought.

“I should teleport with the little energy I have left…” Yue thought and performed the act. In seconds, she vanished.

“Rika …” Yuta called, maintaining that eerie smile.

“Go get our friend back.” With that, Rika moved after Yue. Since Yue didn’t have enough energy, she didn’t teleport far, but at least it was a head-start?? Rika found her immediately running in the woods. She immediately went after her and grabbed both of her arms , restraining her.

“ WHY DID YOU RUN?????” Rika screamed.

“WHY.”

“WHY.”

“WHY.”

Rika kept screaming as she was taking Yue back to Yuta. Yue kept pleading and begging Rika to let her go, but she only did once they reached Yuta. She dropped her on the ground. Only thing in Yue’s vision was his shoes.

“How pathetic can you get Yue??” Yuta asked in a demanding tone.

“At least you know your place.” Yuta was pleased to know that she wasn’t dumb enough to fight him, she knows she stands no chance. Yuta used the Inumaki’s clan technique to put her to sleep. He was so glad he knew this, the things he could make her do. He was so excited.

He threw her over his shoulder and left for Tokyo. After that, Yue began acting like a human doll because she was in Yuta’s control, he’d make her feed him food, dance like a lifeless ballerina, it was so much fun for him.

“Yue, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me since Rika. I never knew I could be capable of love after Rika, but you’re exactly my type. Strong, absolutely stunning, and so…. obedient. You’ll be the best wife ever!!” He cupped Yue’s cheek as she sat down to feed him. Tears started coming out of her eyes, she was trying to fight his spell. This enraged Yuta, he decided to go for stronger set of words.

“Yue, say that I own you and your mind.” Yue’s tears stopped, and her eyes left any small amounts of life and light it had.

“Yuta-kun, you own me and my mind.” Yue emotionlessly spoke.

“Yue, say that you love me.” Yuta demanded.

“Yuta-kun…. I-I….” Yue stopped. This drove Yuta crazy.

“Yue, say. that. you. love. me.” Yuta aggressively demanded.

“Yuta-kun, I love you.” Yuta chuckled, his mood went back to normal.

“Who do you belong to, Yue?”

“I belong to you, Yuta-kun.”

“Who’s my little doll, Yue?”

“I’m your little doll, Yuta-kun.”

“Good girl.” Yuta cupped hee cheeks and oh so lovingly pecked her lips.

[libbee]

Some more 8th house placements observation:

I am running the antardasha of my 8th house ruler since June & have learned a lot of revelations about people around me. Interacting with people, seeing their real faces, seeing the shock and revelations, I was able to see my own shadow too. Sharing some of my shadow work, mistakes and revelations:

🌸 Trust me when I say this, I am Gemini moon, I was the typical funny, entertainer, chatty, comical, animated personality. But my life circumstances were such that I have become dark and introverted. I have learned to live with the injustice and unfairness. I don't seek revenge even. I am numb and indifferent.

🌸 If you are around a known toxic person, do not assume that you are an exception. You are not special to them. They will just treat you like everybody else when the time comes. No exceptions. You're just in their good books until they find someone better to manipulate.

🌸 Goddamn people lie. I am craving to meet a single honest person. People lie so damn much. They lie confidently, with eye contact and even call you a liar even if you have evidence for your truth. They lie about themselves to make themselves look good. No shame, no remorse, nothing at all.

🌸 I had a narcissistic shadow. I was selfish, entitled, victim mindset, attention hungry, entitled but it was covert and hidden due to my low self confidence. I was a low functional narcissist. When I saw bad traits in others then I started fixing myself too. I attracted toxic people because I was a toxic person inside and unknown to me.

🌸 Studying astrology, psychology, archetypes, spirituality has helped me a lot in mental development. But I still meet people who treat me bad even though I treat them good. The difference is that now I have a strong character & do not take things to heart. There is a "myth of normal and healthy". I don't think that human communities can ever be healthy like a utopia.

🌸 The world runs on a pattern. In astro community, I have learned that no matter if you are born in America or Japan or third world, your life theme runs on a similar pattern depending upon your birth chart, placements, etc. There are different models of occult in different countries but all people in the world have a birth chart & they do have similar life themes. Call it genetic model or birth chart, but humans are not different from each other.

🌸 I don't know what happens in afterlife. I do know that whatever we do have consequences. This is karma. Consequences are carried into next lives. They are also inherited by next generations. People can be short sighted and think that their actions will die with them. They don't know that 3 generations later, their great grand child will suffer from cancer because they committed such and such actions stupidly and selfishly.

🌸 Nature is indifferent to pleasure and pain. Sensory pleasure is not happiness either. Happiness is something else.

🌸 I don't know if nirvana or moksha or liberation are possible. I sure do not want to come back to earth again.

🌸 Fire sign placements can be really egoistic, super liars, arrogant bullies. They need to mature the most because their hypocrisy and self centeredness is appalling. The world is not their toy. People are not toys.

🌸 8th house is all about sudden and unpredictable twists in life. One day is peace, next day medical emergency, 3rd day sudden expenses, 4th day betrayal by family member, 5th day sudden loss of money, 6th day encounter with a manipulative person, 7th day sudden money gain, 8th day peace, 9th day again problem. Same happens yearly. Every year is a challenge for them. 8th house placements are hell of a ride.

🌸 Beware of energy suckers. Predatory people love victimhood. I have dealt with victim mindset, feeling sorry for myself, equating sympathy and pity with love for so long. I kept going from one predator to the other. I keep my expectations low while recovering. If someone does something for me it is a pleasant surprise but I did not expect that.

🌸 Finally, life is complicated. Shadow self is a funny thing. I hate traits in others but I have them within me. Hate them or hate myself? Self introspection is a constant journey.

[deanoheartspie]

SOMETHING RED 2

Pairings: Reader x Soldier Boy

Warnings: nothing too crazy.

Summary: you knew soldier boy since you were young until the man had gotten tested he had become a whole different person. So when he comes back after Crimson and other supes send him away, it makes him angry

It had been weeks since the last time you saw soldier boy, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing especially due to your history with the man.

Butcher walked into the room with a hesitant look on his face, “What?” you ask placing your hands on your hips.

“We are going to need Soldier Boy's help to take down homelander.” He states while he rubs at his beard.

Your face drops as you stand up pacing back and forth, which meant you had to spend more time than needed with the supe. “Okay. I don't know if Ben is the most trustworthy guy in the world but go ahead. Don't expect him to work on your terms though”

After knowing the man for so many years, you knew how he was and how he spoke to others. So if they were expecting him to go along they would need to go on his terms and not theirs.

•°•°•°•°•

Deciding on a plan and finding out who Ben was out for next, you nearly died from laughing, it was no other than the special Crimson.

Maybe you are getting your revenge after all.

Hughie and the blonde-haired woman, that he had the hots for and that you never seemed to have remembered her name followed behind as you saw up the trailer blow up.

“Holy fuck!” Ducking down as you squinted your eyes while you saw the freshly trimmed suit beard. You couldn't lie he looked hot as hell but still he was an asshole.

“Ben. Ben! Stop” Grabbing his shoulder and pulling him from going farther away, his eyes look down at you and they were full of worry and regret. “What Y/n?” he roughly asks while taking out a cigarette, scrunching up your nose as you always hated when he did that horrible habit.

No words come out, you just simply step back while butcher gets in front of you.

“We need your help.”

•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

What do you think will happen? Also! I'll be opening a tag list for this, as I decided this will be a mini series.

Part 3

[inkblackorchid]

Orchid's 5Ds stuff Masterpost

Figured it was time to collect all my stuff nicely in one place again, and really all my stuff, this time. Fanfiction, character analyses, other meta posts, and theories, all gathered in one spot, for my own and everyone else's convenience.

Fanfiction:

All my fanfic, as it can be found on ao3 via the links provided here. Heavy focus on the female characters in the show.

The Aki series - Brimstone in my Garden, Roses set on Fire (in suggested reading order; also known as my attempt to give Aki a full character arc while trying not to upend canon entirely. Faithshipping ahoy.)

To Bloom or To Wilt (rated M, 64k words, 6/6 chapters, complete) Summary: After the defeat of the dark signers, all the souls that were taken by the Earthbound Immortals have been returned. Among them is that of a man who is driven by nothing but anger and selfishness, eager to use and manipulate those around him at every turn. A man who has caused Aki Izayoi, in particular, tremendous amounts of grief and nearly moulded her into a weapon for his personal use. And a man who has, unfortunately, proven to be very good at avoiding law enforcement ever since his return to the land of the living. Or: Divine comes back to life for a second and final time, trying to scrape together what remains of the Arcadia Movement, take revenge on Yusei Fudo and make Aki's just barely peaceful life a nightmare in the process.

Chase the Sunlight (rated T, 26k words, 2/2 chapters, complete) Summary: In the aftermath of her final, harrowing encounter with Divine, Aki feels unbalanced and afraid that she might become a danger to others again. Yusei notices, and as usual, tries to help--albeit in his own way.

You have a Mirror, but do You see Yourself (rated T, 40k words, 3/3 chapters, complete) Summary: Several months after seeing Divine for the last time, Aki reflects on how she's spent that time trying to fully learn to control her powers--without him. Her judgement ends up not being in her favour, and now, with the start of the WRGP just a few days away, she worries something will go terribly wrong. As she ruminates on what to do, she encounters not one, but two unexpected, but familiar people who give her a lot to think about while she tries to prepare for the match against Team Unicorn.

Snapping Jaws and Piercing Horns (rated T, 49k words, 4/4 chapters, complete) Summary: It's time for the WRGP and against her own expectations, Aki finds herself in the team lineup for the very first match, set to go up against the rather enigmatic duellists of Team Unicorn. To her dismay, performing well during the duel itself is far from the only thing she has to worry about, though, with her powers feeling too volatile for comfort and doubts in her duelling skills surfacing due to a recent loss. How is she supposed to keep a clear head in this international tournament when self-doubt seems to weigh on her like a ton of bricks? More importantly yet, how is she supposed to help her team win?

Be Careful what you Wish for (rated T, 71k words, 4/4 chapters, complete) Summary: Leading up to the match against Team Catastrophe where she's supposed to be taking part, Aki has an accident that changes things. Changes them in a way she could have never assumed--and realises she's woefully unequipped to deal with. When a fateful encounter with an old acquaintance additionally shakes things up, she comes to the conclusion that perhaps, she's not quite as done dealing with her past as she thought she was.

The tainted Soil of the Fields of Arcadia (rated T, 174k words, 10/10 chapters, complete) Summary: Following an eye-opening confrontation with Misty Tredwell, Aki decides she might have to face up to her past if she ever wants to be free of it. After approaching Mikage with a curious request, she ends up with the last remains of the Arcadia Movement--and starts digging.

Next work: Currently in the process of being written!

The Carly collection - I swallowed the Dice, I make my own Luck now (currently in its infancy, more planned, but: also known as me trying to let Carly retain more relevancy in the story instead of relegating her to Jack's harem. Occupies the same, adjusted canon as the Aki series.)

The Architect of one's own Fortune (rated T, 89k words, 8/8 chapters, complete) Summary: After the bombastic defeat of the dark signers, Carly is left with a suspicious hole in her memory and the feeling that something isn't quite right. As disturbing memories resurface, she must grapple with a lot more than just an increasingly unsatisfying job and the fact that Jack is ghosting her. Overwhelmed by guilt, confusion, exhaustion from work and frustration due to her lacking social life, she's left asking herself who she really is, and, even more so, what she actually wants in life.

Next Work: To be written once I reach a certain point in the Aki series. (Sorry for the wait!)

5Ds meta posts:

All my extensive yelling about the show, both on an emotional and an analytical level. Sorted by topics. Careful, not a single one of these has a reasonable length.

Character-focussed posts:

Aki

An unhinged (slightly analytical) rant about Fortune Cup and Dark Signers Aki because I love her to death

A closer look at the amount of setup done for Aki from the pre-WRGP onward that was sadly never paid off

Why Aki losing her powers in canon bothers me beyond reasons of "her powers were badass tho"

Yusei

A rant about why Yusei's hangups regarding the Zero Reverse make me want to punch a wall (and why this means they're excellent character writing)

Crow

The Crow dissertation (also known as a deep dive into Crow's character writing and what happened to it), part one: the Dark Signers arc, or: why you should never let your characters hide in a fridge

The Crow dissertation, part two: the pre-WRGP arc and the Pearson Backstory, or: how NOT to introduce an extra signer dragon

The Crow dissertation, part three: the WRGP arc, or: what do you mean, the Team Catastrophe duel has good character writing??

The Crow dissertation, part four: the Ark Cradle arc, or: if you want two characters to have a meaningful argument, maybe you should let them interact before that.

Carly

A look at why the sudden, drastic change in Carly's character writing undermined not just herself, but someone else, too

Plotline-focussed posts:

The Meklord wordlbuilding and its many holes that give me headaches

I'll try to keep this masterpost updated as more fanfics/theories/meta posts come along! If you ever wanna hear me talk about something specific, feel free to ask, the ask box is open!

[novapark]

The Nova Family - Mainline Gens 1-6 [Founded 2013]

So I wanted to reintroduce my main family line for the new people and recentish mutuals who aren't familiar with them yet. My blog is named after my old Adam and Eve challenge town which was founded and maintained by this family until the save file died in gen 5.

Okay with that said, let's buckle up cause this shit is long and it gets campy and weird at times but here is the general telling of the Nova Legacy up until Bastian's generation.

Generation 1 - Founders Cole and Ember, they had Edric, Dagny, Folke, Ander, Oliver, and Liv. They were farmers with few neighbors and fewer worries.

Generation 2 - Dagny took over for her parents once they passed on. She was a pretty chill chick who founded and ran the village consignment shop. She had two children with her husband Kellan, Owen and Edda.

Generation 3 - Edda had a one sided affair with a local farmboy named Miles that resulted in her daughter Sedona. Her parents took care of her child so she could go to Uni where she met Cid and they went on to get married and then divorced, then married again in old age. They had three children together Payson, Page, Phoenix.

Generation 4 - Page quickly took over management of the town from her mother as soon as she was able. Thinking it had languished under her elders for too long she quickly began selling land to outsiders in an effort to expand her influence and her wealth. She married her childhood best friend Vivek and they had four children together, Kiran, Teagan, Regan, and Penelope (who Page is expecting in this picture).

Generation 5 - Regan was a romantic from the start, always dreaming of her perfect match and once she found Bryn she knew it was him. Unfortunately he was much too old for her and already married but no one stops a Nova with a dream. To this day no one knows why Bryn's ex-wife left town so quickly after she turned 18. It's a mystery to everyone. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Anyway, they had 8 children (partially due to her mother Page's meddling with fertility potions): Zoey, Brenden, Brielle, Brynna, Maddox, Ferryn, Laryn, and Kamryn

Generation 6 - Being born between two sets of triplets gave Maddox a bit of a complex. He was always forgotten but also always forgiven when he acted out. So is it no wonder he grew into a monster?

He wasn't that way at first though, his love for his first wife Allison and their children - Willow, Dawn, and Layne mostly kept him in check. The root of his obsessions with genetics would begin there though, with one of his first experiments resulting in his plantsim child Ivy.

Unfortunately around this same time their youngest was born he got into a personal feud with a local group of vampires who took their revenge by setting his house on fire. The resulting blaze claimed his wife and although his children survived he soon abandoned the girls to seek a new life in exile.

His second wife was the clone of his lab assistant who died in a mysterious accident soon after they met. They had three children together, Nova, Bastian, and Delora. I don't think there's a picture of all of them together. She divorced him midway through her last pregnancy then later died young of an unusual disease.

His final (known) wife was Morgan, is who he had Terran and Skye with. She divorced him in absentia because he fled from their home in Strangetown after "the incident" with his son Bastian.

And that brings us to Bastian, who was my main sim for a couple years so we'll get to his assorted tales and children in another post. This is very much long enough.

[unironicallytes]

Dear Brother - Ch02 Supplemental Lore

The Deep Eyed Crows

In order to deliver coded messages and contracts, the Dark Brotherhood in the world of “Dear Brother” utilizes creatures which both are and are not crows. These courier birds are usually kept uncaged near Sanctuary wilderness, where they mill about like normal birds. Their use allows the Brotherhood to discreetly relay messages across and between provinces without the unnecessary risk of a third party courier. Dark Siblings known as Crowcallers are responsible for their care and training, though some crows reside more permanently with Hand members outside of their primary Sanctuaries. 

At first glance, these creatures are simple corvids, but with closer examination, one will find that their eyes are unnaturally-matte and that their feathers do not reflect light as expected. They do not caw unless they “have something to say”, according to Crowcallers, and they are known to stare with very little emotive gesture. The eggs of a normal crow are speckled and blue, whereas the eggs of a Deep Eyed Crow are so black that they may as well be a hole in the world. Brotherhood beliefs indicate that these crows are touched by the Void, but the mechanism of that process is neither well understood by core members nor known at all by laity. Due to this, the method of communication largely fell out of use following the group’s deterioration at the turn of the Fourth Era. 

Near the end of the Third Era, Deep Eyed Crows began behaving mysteriously towards their handlers.

Sacrament Contracts

These are binding agreements drawn up by Speakers when laity perform the Black Sacrament to commission a death. The word Sacrament can be used as shorthand to refer to both the contract and contract-giver interchangeably, as they are often thought of as one in the same. Listeners receive word of a Sacrament during the *Iter Communion, a weekly ritual when the Night Mother’s spirit is most focused within her corpse. At the height of Dark Brotherhood operations in Cyrodiil, typical contracts are expected to be resolved within the month unless otherwise specified. 

Speakers denote the rank of a contract by writing them with a different color or medium. This helps organize which pool of Siblings they will be assigned to when returned to the Sanctuary.

Charcoal - Rank 1

~30% of all contracts are Charcoal This type of contract usually targets commoners and individuals regarded as low-threat. These contracts are often straight-forward and don’t usually take long to complete. Canon examples include: Valen Dreth, Faelian, Rufio, Grelod the Kind. This is the second-most frequently received type of contract, and the clientele tend to be of lower or working class. Typically requested by the powerless and those without recourse to law enforcement for reasons of revenge, safety, opportunity, etc. Although there is still a minimum fee for this type, it is regarded as a charity and a duty to the faith. This type may be carried out by any Dark Sibling: Murderers (Unblooded & Blooded), Slayers/Eliminators, Executioners/Assassins, and Silencers.

Red Ink - Rank 2 

~60% of all contracts are Red This type of contract targets the gentry and individuals regarded as medium-threat. These contracts are most likely to have particular requests attached and may take longer to complete. Canon examples include: Francois Motierre, Baenlin, Gaston Tussaud, Hern the Vampire. This is the most frequently received type of contract, and the clientele is often of upper class. Typically requested by politicians, white collar criminals, scorned lovers, competitive merchants, etc. This type may only be carried out by Executioners/Assassins and Silencers.

Violet Ink - Rank 3

~10% of all contracts are Violet This contract targets nobility/royalty, military officials, and high-threat individuals. These contracts often require complicated coordination and multiple stages across a longer span of time. Canon examples include: Adamus Phillida, Celedaen, Warlord Roderick, Emperor Titus Mede II. This is the rarest type of contract, due to the expense and the risk that may also affect the contractor. Typically requested by upper class and nobility, but in some cases commoners may pool resources to eradicate a powerful individual. This type may only be carried out by Silencers.

*The Iter Communion, performed every Iteris (Turdas) by the Listener. This cyclic holiday is largely unknown to laity - some Sacraments can go on for days without being contacted because they unknowingly performed the rite directly after Iteris. The Night Mother thus won’t commune their rite with the Listener until the following week.