#five animation assignments and I did them all

[habken]

dawgs I have one (1) more animation to do and then I’m finished this hell week

[romypearl]

The Queen's Pawn - Regina George/Oblivious!Reader | II

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven

Summary: Everyone is interested and obsessed with Regina George, after all, she is the queen of the North Shore, so why does Y/N barely look at her? The new student, oblivious to her existence, intrigues and irritates the blonde at the same time. And she doesn't know how to deal with it.

Classification: Fluff

Warnings: Slight internalized homophobia

Word count: +2200

Unrevised

She's always liked strawberries. Sweet, soft and tickling the roof of mouth. And, coincidentally, every now and then it turns pink.

Like the remnants of ice cream that hang around the corner of Y/N's plump lips.

It's hard to ignore, is what Regina tells herself as she turns away, trying to find a random fixed point to distract her. What proves to be more than impossible, out of the corners of her eyes she watches a little speech about Greek culture, something about Stoicism and a guy called Zeno, she doesn't really know, can't pay attention in the long words, only and exclusively in that spot. How could the Miss Perfect and Retainer of All Knowledge miss something so silly? The blonde huffs and crosses her arms in frustration, how has no one seen this yet? The Plastics seemed indifferent, pretending to pay attention to the matter while typing messages, knowing that their respective partners would do all the work for them and be grateful. She had no such luck. When Mrs. Blake, inspired by the... variety of grades, announced that she was going to pair up for assignments, she was sure that had guaranteed a top mark and a pat on the back for the minimal effort, equivalent to a zero. It would have been like that, if she hadn't made Karen switch papers to have Y/N as partner. After all, if she's so clever could easily get an A for both, but it backfired.

"What the hell kind of word is Eudaimonia?" she finally asks, frowning in confusion.

"Did you pay attention to anything I said?"

"All the things you say are very boring." Regina shrugs and turns so that they're face to face "Just like you."

She waits for some reaction, ever since they started studying about an hour ago Regina teases her and pulls all the strings in search of the right one, the one that will snap her out of the calm state of mind or hit her in some way. Nothing. She's rather unreachable. And, just like the other times, totally ignores the petty comment.

"But..." she hates doing it, every lousy second "Can you tell me what it is?"

"Right! For the last time..." Y/N settles back in chair and takes another spoonful of ice cream to mouth, thinking about how to summarize what she's been trying to say for a long time "Eudaimonia is a term from Greek philosophy that means a state of happiness and inner well-being. In literal translation it is "the state of being inhabited by a good daemon, a good genius"."

"Daemon?" I'm getting more and more lost "Did the Greeks believe in that?"

"No, it's daemons, not demons." the newbie's monotonous tone becomes animated as she starts talking, which makes Regina's heart skip a beat and she doesn't like it "In Greek mythology, they were spiritual beings who occupied an intermediate place between gods and humans, they could be either benevolent or malevolent..."

Then another speech begins, this time she tries to pay attention, but gradually the words blur into disconnected sentences and all she can focus on is how they sound on the girl's lips, how she pronounces them, her tongue curling between pearly teeth, the soft sound and, still, that damn ice cream. She tries to remember the last time she ate one, it seems like months, maybe years. What did it taste like? Overly sweet and sickly? Smooth and addictive? Why did her mother have to interrupt them and offer a dozen options? And why did she have to choose just that? Tempting. Lovely. Irresistible.

Y/N gasps in surprise and freezes in place as she suddenly feels something soft pressed against the corner of her mouth, thumb rubbing something that is apparently resisting coming out and her eyes meet sky blue irises, staring at her obstinately. The touch is long, almost purposeful, and they don't realize they're holding breath, unaware of their surroundings, too caught up in each other to notice the curious gazes of the two lackeys.

To everyone's surprise, including her own, Regina rubs the stain, picking up some of the gloss in the process, and brings to her lips, sucking it off. She has to hold back a groan and fight against her body to keep composure, pretending not to be shaken by her own impulsive, totally thoughtless, act.

"If my face was so dirty, you could simply have warned me." she says after a long, thoughtful pause, unable to find any conceivable reason except that "But I appreciate your gesture, it was really kind."

Kind? Has anyone, at any time in life, used that word to refer to her? Maybe her dad, once, just after Kylie was born and before they lost control completely. But there was nothing kind about what she had done, quite the opposite.

"Do you want more?" the blonde points to the almost empty bowl, anxious to mask the situation quickly.

"No, thanks!"

"How about Doritos?"

"I think I've eaten too much junk food today, it can't be good for me." Y/N jokes and opens a big smile, making cheeks stand out along with dimples that are almost imperceptible to inattentive eyes.

"We have strawberries." she says immediately, not stopping to think about those soft lips around the red fruit. When Gretchen looks at her in confusion and frowns, trying to subtly point, the plan comes back to mind and she decides to put it into practice "Also blueberries, raspberries, blackberries. Whatever you like, sweetie."

"You really like berries."

"You can't blame me..." Regina leans on the table, one hand on chin, long eyelashes batting slowly and a smirk, the same one that has won over every boy she's ever wanted "When is your color."

"What do you mean?" the other asked, without even looking up from the papers, missing all the theatrics.

"Red is your color..."

"My favorite color is yellow." she finally abandons the notes, only to find George defeated in front of her, about to slam her head on the glass table to get out of this nightmare "Can I use your bathroom?"

"Of course!" Regina snorts and points towards the corridor "Second door on the right, don't get lost."

Secretly, George hopes, wishes, that she really would get lost so that she could finally have the opportunity to guide her through something, or simply talk to her without two ticks on their backs. When she wants to, Gretchen can be very... clingy and insistent, often taking the brunette as a side effect, not unexpected considering how insecure she is about herself and the stability of her position in the hierarchy of North Shore, a drone that takes pride of function. Most of the time it's acceptable, in fact her presence barely matters to the queen bee in ordinary situations, but now all she wants is for the two of them to disappear at the snap of a finger.

"Karen, Gretchen, I need you to do me a favor." Regina is direct, in a casual tone.

"Of course! What do you need?" Wieners replies promptly, always eager to please.

"Can you go to the convenience store and get some Redbulls?" she smiles and stands up, taking one of the credit cards out of the purse, tossing it for them to take "All the flavors you can find."

"Now?"

"Yes, now. And get some more ice cream too."

They exchange glances, but don't dare deny Regina anything, even if it means half an hour's walk "Right, we're going."

The pair get up and leave quickly, holding their tongues to avoid questioning her about the sudden request, nor about what seems to be an interest in the newbie. Right from the first day, they listed her as a loser, with no social sense and who no one would have the courage to touch without a ten-foot pole, so they didn't understand why she insisted on winning her over. And they had no idea that she would have her as a partner in history and now visiting the George mansion.

Regina smiles triumphantly. The living room is finally quiet and she can turn her attention completely to the plan, she didn't feel shy or pressured to succeed around them, but didn't have all the attention from Y/N as she can have without silly questions and random celebrity gossip. It's the perfect moment.

She stares at herself in the mirror above the fireplace and fixes the smallest details of appearance so that she looks flawless.

"Gina!" her mother calls out from the kitchen, walking briskly into the room, and she rolls her eyes, before feeling blood run cold at the sight of her companion "What a adorable girl! She even offered to help me in the kitchen."

"Mom..." she mutters between teeth, trying to keep composed as her mother steps forward, arms around Y/N's shoulders "She's here to study."

"Oh, of course, of course! Studying is important." June says with a mischievous smile and finally lets her go "Studying what? Human anatomy?" and winks suggestively at her daughter, causing a wave of embarrassment and annoyance.

"Mom!" Regina exclaims, face burning with embarrassment, hoping that the girl won't pay any attention to her mother. At least she didn't offer condoms like last time, which didn't embarrass her like it does now "It's history."

"And philosophy." Y/N adds.

"A lot less interesting, but still important." the woman continues, not letting herself be put down, and turns to the visitor "Darling, would you like something to drink? Juice? Lemonade? More ice cream?"

Y/N, not at all affected by the expansive and slightly invasive personality, nods and opens a shy smile "A juice would be great, thank you."

"Perfect!" June hurries off to the kitchen, but not before taking one last meaningful look at her firstborn, who blushes visibly.

Regina sighs heavily and sits down at the table, this time next to her classmate, trying to regain control of the situation.

"Sorry about that. Sometimes my mom is a bit much."

"It's okay!" Y/N replies, settling into the soft chair, and goes back to concentrating on the notes scattered across the surface. In an almost imperceptible movement, she adjusts her glasses, which the blonde hadn't even noticed were resting on the top of head, and puts them on face, completely transforming her appearance "You're lucky."

It's Regina's turn to gasp, barely feeling the surprised sound escape between her lips. She'd deny it to anyone who asked if she thought the girl was beautiful, deny it to death, but there's something differently captivating that prevents her from lying now. The lenses enhance the Y/E/C eyes, making them more penetrating, as if she could see into the soul through them. The sight makes the older's heart race and her palms sweat, having to concentrate not to let it show, let alone appear enchanted.

"Do you wear glasses?"

"Yes, for years, but I was trying to get used to contact lenses." the newbie says, adjusting the frame correctly, sighing with relief "Which turned out to be a disaster."

"They look... good on you." she comments, trying to sound casual and not too anxious, failing miserably as she stares "Your eyes are beautiful."

"Thank you!" Y/N finally lifts her face and catches the queen bee with a simple glance behind the lens along with the amused smile, rare occasion, the same one Janis gets "But they don't work."

Regina laughs at the witty response, finding her perspicacity and humor interesting, very different from what surrounds her in everyday life. She's not afraid to make a joke about herself, when any of the trio would rather fight a bear than do such a thing, making themselves the material for silly and light-hearted jokes. Y/N seems to be completely oblivious to the effect she is causing, Regina's flushed cheeks being nothing more than the result of the warm weather, the friendly laughter aimed at everyone and the hospitality something routine, perhaps an apology for the not so pleasant first meeting. All the compliments, overly embellished and full of hidden intentions, simple acts of politeness, so she remains unaffected and continues to read the manuscripts, without giving the blonde what she so desperately wants.

"You know, the text isn't going to write itself." she laughs and points to the long-forgotten laptop "And I've already made it clear that I'm not going to do everything myself."

With a disbelieving nod, Regina goes back to work, trying to ignore the signals her own body gives off in the presence of the other. It's hard not to be affected by the sweet perfume emanating from inviting skin, the taste of ice cream she wants to try again, the way she seems so at ease and unimpressed in her house, lips puckering as she encounters a paragraph incomprehensible at first reading and now pushing up the stubborn glasses that insist on slipping down her nose. God, all of this is messing with Regina's head in a way she can't explain, there are no plans that could infiltrate all the sinful thoughts that invade her with this privileged view.

She forces herself to concentrate on the task in hand, which tingles as she feels their arms lightly touching, but a part of her desperately craves more of these moments of closeness, even if it means ignoring the voice of reason that screams in her mind that she's not a dyke and wouldn't be for Y/N. It's just a fucking plan. Nothing more than that.

Taglist: @reginassweetheart @chaengluva @avelynpye @bianchiniomg @royalityofmultifandom @lottiematthewsceo @notjaexiee @mayles @l1lass @bridkesby @newyork1432

Join my taglist here ^^

[lani-heart]

|| series masterlist || next // previously ||

genre(s) -> angst, fluff, smut, non-idol, hybrid au, poly au p aring(s) -> ( eventually ) ATEEZ x reader warning(s) -> abuse, mention of sex / pregnancies, etc. words -> 2.3K

abstract -> Never owe people favors it could one day cost you your life...

y/n’s perspective

“Taeyong, you can’t be serious,” I said as I was now in the office of the devil himself. And he's called to get his end in a favor. “You owe me,” he said and I scoffed. 

“You’re literally chasing in a favor from when I was in college,” I said and he only grinned. “You still owe me. Besides, it shouldn't be dangerous” and I scoffed at his reassurance. 

“It's just an interview. You’ll wear a wire, and all I need is evidence” he asked and I sighed. “Fine. But I won't risk my life for this, Taeyong” I said and he nodded. 

“I would never put you in a dangerous situation. This won’t hurt you”

“Do you have to do this? Or at least take one of us with you?” Yeosang asked and I shook my head. “I have to repay him. He helped me a lot in college… besides he's trying to do a good thing” I explained and they sighed. “You’ll be okay right?” Wooyoung asked as he hugged me tightly. 

“Of course, he explained that I'll be going in for an interview and he’ll be listening in case. He will only interfere once he's gotten information though, so I won't be in danger. This won't affect us” I assured them and they nodded. 

“Be careful, circus hybrids are some of the most deprived and abused hybrids” San warned and I nodded. Over the years people stopped performing with animals and advanced to hybrids because of their ability to be trained and have a human way of thinking

Even though many people thought it was better it's not too well known that it's abusive to them just repeating history. “Be careful” they said as I was now on the elevator waving bye to the boys. 

They've really grown. 

I’ve officially had San and Wooyoung for five months. Whilst Yeosang joined us two months ago. It's actually been seven months since I originally adopted Son. I couldn’t be happier to have them by my side. 

Now I had to pay my debt to the devil named Taeyong. He truly does hold grudges… 

I walked into the VIP line where I showed my journalist ticket. I would be able to take pictures, and even conduct an interview. As I walked in I noticed the hybrids on display. 

There were two specifically at the entrance. They had bold big letters ‘MATZ’. They were meant to sit there in a glass box… it didn’t even have enough room to walk one step. In a smaller print were their names. 

Seinghwa was the one smiling and bowing, whilst Hongjoong only stared. He would be too far down, he could probably be dangerous. The ones around me started flashing lights at them… it clearly bothered them. I made sure to ask Taeyong to give me a camera without a flash. I took a photo of the surroundings. Another reason why he had me do this job and not Mark was because I have a hybrid specialist license to see and even handle red-coded hybrids with supervision. 

I knew how to analyze their behaviors. So when I saw Hongjoong, he had the potential to be a black code hybrid. 

“Hello! Welcome, it's an honor to see such esteemed guests !! I hope you may enjoy the show !--” as he spoke I saw his ringmaster look. He had jesters and clown costumed people handle hybrids. A few were assigned to cuff and ensure ‘MATZ’ did not act out.

They were tigers and therefore dangerous. 

“-- Of course, if you need help please ask one of my staff. I look forward to the interviews I’m scheduled for” he said as he left. As the staff looked at our tickets I was led to the back. I was given a pre / post-interview. 

“Hello, I’m going to be conducting an interview?” I said as I now saw the ringleader with the two tigers. They had chains connecting to their collar which looked like ones that were for black code hybrids. 

“Ah yes, may I ask which firm it is under?��� he asked and I nodded. “It would be under the N.E.O. Firm” I stated and he nodded. 

“I see. How is Dong Sicheng ?” he asked and I smiled. “He’s actually on vacation at the moment. Last I heard he was in China visiting a few friends. '' I answered and he chuckled. 

“I know, your firm isn’t too keen on me,” he said and I noticed the curious eyes of the tigers. “Well, the firm has hybrid rights associated. It has been for years now” I answered and he nodded with calculating eyes. 

“That it is. Though I can assure you, our hybrids are treated like family” he said and I smiled softly as I wrote down notes of the two hybrids behind him. They were clearly agitated by his words, almost like he was lying.

“Well then. What are your questions?” he asked politely. “How many hybrids currently do you have registered?” I asked and he nodded. “Around fifty dear,” he said and I nodded. “And all are vaccinated with the current hybrid regulations, health up-to-date, VISA’s registered?” I asked and he answered yes. 

So he denied hybrid trafficking, and hybrid health neglect.

“May I ask you to talk about MATZ?'' I asked and he nodded. “These two were born into the circus. Their parents are a mix from our circus and a breeder which I know personally” he explained and I saw how Seonghwa kept on staring at my coat. His ears were twitching and I noticed Hongjoong’s glare at me….

“These two are such close friends we thought that a show would be most beneficial and fun for them,” he said while lifting his hands to pet their heads making them both clearly uncomfortable. Seonghwa stared wearily whilst Hongjoong looked like he could bite any minute.

“May I ask if I own hybrids?” He asked and I contemplated. “Decline anything in your personal life” I heard on the headpiece Taeyong gave me.

“No, I do not,” I said and he nodded. “Are you against the ownership?” He asked and I shook my head. “Not necessarily… it would take a lot of circumstances for me to adopt a hybrid,” I said and the ringmaster only nodded. 

“I can assure you every hybrid here is taken care of, and we’ll look after it, '' he said and I noticed Seonghwa's gaze. It wasn’t like Hongjoong’s glare; it was almost like he was pleading for help. 

“What’s the situation with heats?” I asked and he chuckled… “I don’t believe in heat suppressants. I let them go on with it with the other gender hybrid” he explained. 

Meaning it's how he has so many hybrids… he’s illegally breeding them. “Are you not worried about pregnancies?” I asked.

“No… some of our female hybrids are sterile so they can’t reproduce either way” he explained.

It wasn’t abuse per se to sterilize a hybrid… but it was being argued for hybrid rights.

“How long have you had this duo?” I asked curious. “Hmm, these two rascals? Well, they were born in 1998 and they’ve been with me since then.” He said and I nodded.

Would they speak out against their master? They would’ve seen everything… been through… everything.

“Sir?” I heard a clown asking for the attention of his boss. “Ah give me a moment my dear, why not have an exclusive interview with a MATZ performer. Hongjoong needs some touching up so Seonghwa treats her nicely '' be said and I knew the reason why they took the orange tiger away was because of his behavior.

“Be careful, an abuse hybrid can be triggered at any mention of abuse. Ask simple questions.” Taeyong said and before I could start I looked at him.

He stared at me with soft eyes and a smile... it shocked me how gentle his expression looked.

“I’m not fragile for you not to ask me,” he said and I felt my eyes widen. “The moment you walked in I heard that radio of yours… it kinda hurt at first” he confessed.

“I’m sorry,” I said but I couldn’t turn it off for my safety.

“It’s alright… you're not the first person to come here to infiltrate this place,” he said with his ears flattening on his head. He was losing hope for himself.

“How many hybrids are there?” I asked and he sighed. “I’ve lost count… it is over a hundred by now and more to come” he explained. “Oh, and he doesn’t register hybrids in case they die. It’s a miracle to even survive birth here… let alone survive being a baby here. We aren’t checked for until we’re cubs… after that, we’re never looked after again. The only thing he’ll ask to do is hygiene for his top performers” he explained.

“I’ve heard of your firm from the clowns… they hate you,” he said and I chuckled. “They said something about a girl writing about hybrid rights. Since then they’ve shut down several enterprises” he said and I smiled.

My reputation follows me.

“They might know who you are, be careful,” Taeyong said and Seonghwa only stared at me with twitching ears.

“You must have really good hearing to catch it,” I said and he smiled softly with his tail swishing behind him.

“Thanks… but it comes in handy with the staff,” he said and I sighed. 

“Do you have anything you want to tell me?” I asked and he swallowed down saliva showing how nervous he was.

“I’ll tell you everything if you manage to burn this place down,” he said and I sighed. “How about we make a promise?” I asked and he looked at me confused.

“I’ll shut this place down… but that’ll be the easy part. I’ll still need some more evidence after to concrete it” I asked and he nodded.

“Good luck”

The show was like any other hybrid show. 

You could see the fear in hybrid's eyes when they made a mistake and had to cover it. Clowns and performers have the upper hand. 

MATZ had the opening… they did dangerous stunts. There were a few times they stumbled but otherwise did the best they could. The crowd loved them… I saw the contrast of the two… fear and anger.

Once the show was over I did a closing statement with the ringmaster and some staff who showed me around.

“And our opening act. Did you enjoy it?” they asked and I smiled when I saw Seonghwa and Hongjoong in a tiny cage. It had enough room for the both of them but it must've made them feel trapped.

The staff were talking to other reporters when I noticed the heavy glare Hingjoong was giving me.

Seonghwa got his attention and looked to be scolding him only for him to scoff. He looked over at me and bowed in an apology in which I shook my head. 

“I hope you enjoyed the show” 

seonghwa’s pov

As the reporters left with the staff, Hongjoong glared at me. “Quit acting that way” I scolded and he scoffed

“She’s not the first person to come here asking for questions with a wire,” he said and I sighed.

“You heard what they said about that firm though—“ “She also said how she didn’t own any hybrids but owned three,” he said and I was confused. 

“She has hybrid scents reading out of her. You shouldn’t trust humans so easily… one day it’ll be you they’re disposing of” he said and I looked down.

“I… sorry. I didn’t mean for that to come out that way. I’m just sick of this Seonghwa but this is our life and it’ll never change” he said and I chose not to believe that. 

I had hoped that she’d complete her promise.

“Hongjoong…. Sometimes you just have to have faith that people are still good. We don’t know how it is outside… maybe it’s different” I said and he sighed.

“But is it any better?” He asked and before I could respond I heard yelling.

“Woah!? What are you doing?!” I heard as I saw the ringmaster following… policemen? 

“This place is being temporarily shut down for inspection and so are the hybrids in this vicinity. If we find anyone trying to smuggle or hide evidence you’ll be under arrest for tampering with a crime scene” he said and I also noticed people with white lab coats. 

“Start arresting staff members and performers. Contain all the hybrids as well” he ordered and the last thing I saw was Hongjoong defying them whilst I felt a sharp pain in my neck.

Everything could only get better… right?

Waking up in a white and cold room was not what I expected…

“White tiger hybrid seems to be malnourished, untreated second-degree burns, underweight, untreated cuts, and dehydrated. Seems to be approximately 25 years old and unclassified code due to tranquilizer” I heard… Was that a doctor?

I tried sitting up but my wrists were bound. 

“You’re awake? Are you going to comply?” he asked me and I noticed how close he was. He seemed to purposely try to annoy me… “Classified as yellow. He’s one of the tame ones” he said into the radio. Classifications? I knew very little of that… but yellow wasn’t bad?

“The orange tiger is awake, and is showing a lot of aggression” I heard on his radio… Hongjoong? “Tranquilize him,” the doctor said and I struggled against the constraints. “He’s your partner, right? They won’t hurt him, but he will hurt us… he’s in good hands'' he said and I scoffed. Like I’d trust humans now after… 

“What happened to the reporter?” I asked and he looked at me confused. “She promised to help me… what did she do?” I asked and he hummed. “She’ll be conducting interviews this following week. So be on your best behavior or you’ll end up in a higher code” he said as he left the room. 

She actually… helped us?

@wonuangel @danirael @angelsaway @krissroo @minkysmilk @mayonnaise-on-toast @robertsbbygirl @superbbananananana @hyukssunflower @kitty4hwa @justconniez @senpai-of-doom @kibs-and-bits @caityelise99 @ilovekinny @ateezennie23 @wooahaelemons @purplelady85 @watamotee33@chidess97 @littlelostdemonofthelight @maliamaiden @burntarm1n @spooo00oky @eastleighsblog @momo-peachy @kitstar1117 @quartzpirate @sunnyhokyu @iwishiwasrichasfuck @theginger543210 @pandolinka @ddaeing @kpopnightingale @slid3er @kekdo-520 @puppyminnnie @sparklinghwa222 @calicanbeevil @itsvxlentine @atinism @loumin908 @smally97 @rxnexxi @acetruepunk @majesticbeluga @namjooncrabs @tashizxy @itstheghostofmypast @smilefordongil @teeziny @totallynotlyntv @kyeos4ng @prodsh00ky @acescavern

please don't be a silent reader !! reblog, comment, and like <3

[salem-witch-slut]

Behind Closed Doors (18+)

Ellie Williams x Abby Anderson

SYNOPSIS: Abby and Ellie are always at each other's throats and everyone can safely say that they hate each other. But no one ever sees what happens when the doors are closed and their hidden away from the world.

WARNINGS: Excessive swearing, dom!Abby, sub!Ellie, pussy eating, aggressive scissoring, hair pulling, spit swallowing, hate sex, no aftercare, Ellie being a rude bitch

WORD COUNT: 3.7K

A/N: I just love these two. This one was a personal favorite because it's just so damn dirty. This is NOT a continuation of Unrequited. Just a similar preface.

dividers made by @cafekitsune

Everything was going her way right now. She had woken up on time, she had enough time to take a shower even, and she was able to get breakfast before patrol! The sun was up, and the autumn air was comfortably cool, enough for her to wear her thin hoodie all day long. Everything was going good… And then she saw her assignment.

“Unfuckingbelievable…” Ellie’s hand went to the board where she saw she was running the Hoback Pass trail with… of all the people that she could go with, why was it her?

“Damn, you got Abby?” Ellie looked over her shoulder to see Jesse standing right behind her. A deep sigh left Ellie’s throat as she ran her entire hand across her face and tried to calm down. She knew it was too good to be true. And she knew that the second they were deep inside of the patrol route, her and Abby would be attacking each other like wild animals. It was always inevitable.

Shimmer was being pulled in from the paddock as Ellie went to retrieve her rifle. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Joel and Abby’s dad, Jerry, leaning against the fence on the far right with mugs in their hands and casually talking, clearly enjoying their day off. Ellie envied them, but at the same time she felt bad for Jerry. He had the world’s bitchiest daughter.

“Where even is she?” Ellie checked the chamber of her rifle and made sure it was loaded before a hand curled around the barrel. A very large, veined hand that she could recognize with her fucking eyes closed.

“Don’t fall in the lake again,” Abby remarked, her hair in that same stupid braid it always was. She was wearing a flannel that she cut the sleeves off of and underneath was a black compression shirt with a few tears near the collar. She sure was adapting to that Wyoming fashion after being here for like… five years now.

“Oh my, god, that was one time,” Ellie rolled her eyes and yanked the rifle out of her hand, slinging it over her shoulder with her backpack. Abby simply scowled and went to get her own rifle while retrieving her horse.

As usual, Jesse gave the morning talk like he always did before he jumped onto his horse and the gates opened up. Ellie noticed that Dina was riding with Manny today; that’s good. They got along great and shared stories about Mexico, and New Mexico.

Ellie looked at her partner and saw that Abby seemed more than eager to get this patrol started. What was going through her mind right now?

“You ready for this?” Ellie scooted Shimmer closer to Abby’s stallion, Artax.

Abby looked over at Ellie, and smirked. “Try to stay quiet this time.”

Attacking each other like wild animals was almost an understatement…

Everything was going like normal, with Ellie and Abby clearing out their routes, taking down any infected that was nearby and making sure the paths were clear… And as soon as they reached their first lookout, Abby snapped.

Seconds after Ellie signed them in, Abby was pushing her face down into the table and grabbing a fistful of her auburn hair, leaning down low enough to whisper into her ear in just the right way that it drove Ellie crazy every time. “Wore those fucking jeans on purpose, didn’t you?”

Ellie couldn’t stop herself from whining from Abby’s gravelly voice, basking in the warmth from her body heat and leaning back against her. Ellie knew that the blonde loved these jeans, and for some reason, she just couldn’t help herself when grabbing them this morning. They hugged her ass almost perfectly.

“Y-you fuckin’ wish,” Ellie teased, her heart racing at Abby sliding her hands down in order to grip her ass with her immense strength. What was it about this damn woman that made Ellie want to submit but give attitude at the same time?

Abby’s veined hands slid into the back pocket of Ellie’s jeans before her thumbs traced the crease between her asscheeks, teasing the redhead to no end as she moved her hands down and dragged the tips of her fingers across the denim crotch. Abby didn’t miss the way Ellie shivered at her touch. And Ellie couldn’t hide how wet she was even if she tried.

“Fucking sad, isn’t it?” Abby taunted, her right hand sliding back up to grab at Ellie’s hair hard enough to make her eyes water. “You hate me… and I’m the only one that can fuck you good enough.”

“S-Shut up,” Ellie demanded. “J-Just stop fucking talking.”

“Oh, but you like it when I talk,” Abby taunted before her hand curled into the waistband of Ellie’s jeans and started yanking them down over her rear. For some reason, Ellie knew this would happen… and she had this sickening suspicion that Abby was prepared this. “You love it when I degrade the fuck out of you and split you open on my fingers, don’t you?”

Ellie stayed quiet, trying to deny her and biting down on her lip in order to stifle the sounds that were escaping her against her will. Abby wasn’t having it. Her massive hand came down and smacked directly against Ellie’s ass. A loud yelp left her and she looked over her shoulder and stared Abby down with a simmering glare. Abby was grinning.

If Ellie wasn’t careful, Abby might get angry enough to rip her jeans in the process… it’s happened a few times in the past before, and that was an awkward walk back to Jackson. Falling in the river? Yeah, that’s why she trashed her jeans, not because the seam was ripped right over her cunt so Abby could have easy access to her.

Tried to blame Ellie’s shaking legs on the cold water… But Abby knew the truth.

The blonde was waiting. She wanted to hear Ellie say how desperate she was for her, but Abby was going to need to try harder than that. She knew Ellie and knew that she was a stubborn little shit until the end.

Ellie tried to blame the sweating on the hot weather, but that wasn’t fully true. Her shirt was sticking to her bare skin uncomfortably, and normally Abby would have her almost completely naked by now, but the blonde was holding back. She was torturing her, and Ellie didn’t know if she loved it or hated it.

“You gonna say it?” Abby leaned down, her braid tickling the side of Ellie’s neck as she breathed against her skin. Ellie scowled, looking at Abby with narrowed eyes and resisting the urge to spit on her cheek like she’s done in the past. Their dynamic was so fucked, but so much fun that they just couldn’t stop themselves from sinking into madness. When Ellie curled her lips downward into a mocking snarl, Abby scoffed and grabbed a fistful of her hair once again, yanking her off the table and pushing her down onto the couch against the wall.

Ellie can’t even remember the number of times they fucked on this couch. And now another one was about to be added to their mental list. Abby put the sole of her boot into Ellie’s chest, forcing her to lean all the way back against the couch. Once she was satisfied, Abby removed her foot and stepped forward, standing between the auburn-haired girl’s legs and reaching down with her right hand.

“Open,” Abby demanded, her fingers gripping Ellie’s jaw as she huffed, and denied Abby what she wanted. In retaliation, Abby lightly swatted her cheek with her hand, forcing Ellie’s head to cock to the left as she whined. “Don’t make me fucking repeat myself.”

Ellie opened her mouth, and Abby immediately slipped her fingers in, dragging her index and middle digit across her tongue and teasing her mouth in the most torturous way possible. Ellie drooled, saliva slipping from her tongue and down her neck as Abby pushed her fingers a little further into her mouth and made the girl gag.

“That’s it, good girl,” Abby praised, seeing the way Ellie shivered when she gave her the positive words. She knew that Ellie loved it when she praised her, but Abby loved to tease… And she loved to degrade. And while Ellie loved sweet words of affirmation, she also loved being treated like a slut sometimes… and by sometimes, she means every time with Abby. “Head back… just like that…”

Ellie sat there obediently and whined as Abby leaned forward and mercilessly spit into Ellie’s open mouth. Ellie’s heart was racing with every passing second as she did exactly what the blonde wanted. Abby pressed a kiss to the corner of Ellie’s lips and released her jaw. “Swallow.”

She gulped without a word of disobedience.

“Oh, fuck this,” Abby looked frantic as she got down on her knees in front of Ellie and began yanking down the girl’s jeans as fast as she possibly could. She almost ripped the denim, wrestling with Ellie’s dumb converse as she yanked them off and left her in just her shirt and socks before leaning down and grabbing Ellie’s thighs with both hands. The veins flexed in her forearms and Ellie huffed pathetically.

They’ve done this dance so many times before. Ellie was so familiar with Abby’s touch by now that she knew what to expect when the woman was desperate. Her tensed fingers gripping at Ellie’s flesh was making her tremble with anticipation as the blonde dived down like she couldn’t take it anymore. It was only a few seconds before Abby’s tongue was on Ellie’s pussy.

“OhmyGOD,” Ellie arched upward, her eyes rolling to the ceiling as she fell against the back of the couch. It always felt like the first time, and she could never get enough of the blonde’s mouth on her for as long as she lived. Ellie looked down, seeing how Abby’s brows were pulled in almost anger as she lapped her cunt from her hole to her clit, drinking in her arousal and pushing her legs up so Ellie’s knees nearly touched her shoulders.

Abby loved being in control. She had no problem folding Ellie’s limbs around so it was easier for her to take advantage of her body and have her lay in the perfect way so she could reach her deepest parts and get Ellie to make the sweetest sounds. Not once had Ellie topped Abby, but it didn’t seem like an issue. She always made Abby cum so it didn’t matter… Ellie loved being used by her like this. It was a part of her that she was allowed to lose and give to someone else; a piece of control she could relinquish willingly to the strongest person she knows.

Ellie didn’t voice that she trusted Abby, but it was wordlessly affirmed for her almost every time.

Abby was drowning in her. Ellie’s heavy taste was making her moan, her tongue dancing between the girl’s slick folds and feasting on her pussy like she was the most delicious thing she’s ever put in her mouth. Ellie wasn’t allowed to touch her yet… not until Abby said so.

The blonde’s fingers squeezed her thighs harder, and Ellie let out a squeak that was so pathetic, Abby almost felt mercy for a second. She broke away from her core for a small second, panting and looking down at how the girl’s cunt was glistening with pleasure and her drool. God, Ellie was so fucking hot that it was painful. Abby was ignoring the pulse in her own cunt as she looked up and latched her lips around Ellie’s clit, sucking hard and making Ellie’s body jerk forward off the couch.

“FUCK!” She sounded like she was in pain, her eyes squeezing shut and her thighs shaking as she bent forward and wrapped her arms around Abby’s head. Fuck the rules, she wouldn’t survive this if she couldn’t touch her. Abby allowed it, and hummed with approval at Ellie’s nails scratching on her scalp. “Fuck, shit… A-Abby…”

The blonde wiggled her head from side to side as her tongue provided delicious stimulation for the tattooed girl at her mercy. She was drowning and loving every second of this… but Abby wanted more. Oh, she wanted so much more that it was painful.

Ellie was in ecstasy, but it was immediately ripped away when Abby broke off from her cunt and leaned back, looking at her and bringing her strong hand down to deliver a swat to her glistening pussy, right over her exposed clit. Ellie screamed, and immediately covered her mouth. If she was any fucking louder, the lookout would be swarming with infected… that would be beyond embarrassing to explain to everybody.

“Abby w-what the fuck is—” Ellie complained, now angry that the blonde stopped. But her complaints died on her mouth when she saw Abby stand up and unbuckle the belt on her hips, pushing her cargo pants down and unlacing her boots. “Can’t wait, huh? I’m that irresistible?”

“Shut up,” Abby bit back, grabbing at Ellie and pulling her off the couch. She laid her down over the sleeping bag that was left from the last patrol that had to stay here, pushing her down onto the ground and kicking her boots off, along with the jeans and underwear hanging off her ankles. “Shut up and do what I fucking say for once.”

“And if I don’t?” Ellie barked, staring Abby down with a fire behind her eyes. Abby didn’t like that answer and she immediately began to pull away, almost like she was about to get dressed again. Ellie began to panic, and she reached out, gripping Abby by the front of her shirt. “Okay, okay, you win!  Fuck, I’ll do whatever you say, just please—”

Abby smirked, caging Ellie with her arms for a brief moment as she bent down and captured Ellie’s lips with her own. The kiss was soft, gentle, the opposite of what these two were with each other. That was one thing that always felt wrong, but so right… It didn’t matter how hard Abby fucked her, or how aggressive she was with her… Ellie always gave her the sweetest kisses that had Abby’s heart racing and it made her tremble with some forbidden emotion that she swore she didn’t feel for Ellie.

“You even beg like a whore,” Abby teased, resulting in Ellie biting her bottom lip. The blonde responded with gripping Ellie’s hips and pushing her upward a little before she used her right knee to lift the girl’s leg up a bit. “Come on, behave. Leg up, on my shoulder.”

Ellie obeyed, and she wasn’t sure if it was because her cunt was pulsing angrily, or because Abby smelled so good when she leaned forward and trailed her lips down the outer column of her neck. Ellie lifted up her leg, resting her calf against Abby’s broad shoulder as the blonde wasted no time in crawling over her body and slotting herself perfectly between Ellie’s legs.

“God, just fucking look at you,” Abby taunted, dropping forward and listening to the way Ellie groaned as she felt the blonde’s slick cunt slide against her own dripping pussy. Why did these two completely opposite women fit together so perfectly, like puzzle pieces from different boxes? Abby reached forward and pushed Ellie’s bangs out of her face, basking in how her green eyes sparkled with tears that threatened to fall. “You want me to fuck you so bad, you look stupid.”

“T-Then fucking do it already,” Ellie snapped, her fists curling into the front of Abby’s shirt as she yanked her down, veins bulging from her hands as she showed that aggression that Abby adored in her little spitfire so much. “Fuck me like you fucking mean it.”

Abby fell forward, her hands slamming into the floor behind Ellie’s head as she rutted down against her. The mix of their juices together provided the most perfect friction that Ellie couldn’t stop moaning, even for a second.

Normally she wasn’t this loud, but for some reason today, Ellie was overly whiny and vocal. It was like she was more sensitive than normal, and everything that Abby did was sending her into overdrive. She was wetter, her heart was racing faster, and her muscles were trembling with every single thrust of Abby’s cunt against her own.

Ellie reached up, grabbing the back of Abby’s neck and biting her lip as she did everything in her power to stifle her sounds, but it just felt too fucking good, and she didn’t even sound like herself! Ellie has never made these kinds of noises before in her life… Abby was practically drooling.

Everything was going just how Abby wanted it… and then Ellie grabbed her braid. A rough yank to her hair had Abby’s head snapping back and she gaped, eyes widening as she looked down and stared into Ellie’s green irises that seemed almost playful as she tugged on the braid again.

It was like a trigger as Abby just moved her hips faster, and ground herself down against Ellie’s cunt harder. She felt Ellie’s clit rub against her own in the most perfect way that Abby’s pace was beginning to falter, and her hips started stuttering. She hasn’t been able to cum in almost a week… Abby was just as sensitive as Ellie.

“Shit, El…” Abby huffed, her heart slamming against her ribs as Ellie’s fingers began aggressively curling in her hair. It didn’t take long for Ellie to unravel the braid, long blonde waves falling over and framing her face in golden curtains. Ellie loved seeing Abby with her hair down… it made her look even more beautiful than before. “Fuck… b-better cum f’me…”

“A-Abby… Abby, please…” Ellie sobbed, falling back to the ground. One of her arms went over her eyes and she arched off the floor, trying to meet Abby’s movements and slip herself along the blonde’s beautiful pussy. Abby was having none of it.

“No,” She grabbed Ellie’s wrist, pushing both arms down onto the floor and towering over her. She was really testing how far Ellie could stretch as she nearly forced the girl into a split. “Don’t you f-fucking dare look away from me… Want you to look me in the eyes… w-when you fucking cum— Jesus christ…”

Ellie couldn’t bring herself to disobey even if she wanted to. It was like a hot shower after falling in a frozen lake. It warmed her from the outside in, sending Ellie into sudden trembles that quickly took over her entire body.

“Fuckfuck— Ohmygod Abbyyyyyy…!” Ellie pressed her forehead against the blonde’s her eyes rolling back as her orgasm brought her to literal tears. Abby wasn’t far behind as she rutted against Ellie’s cunt that was getting wetter and wetter with every second.

Abby stopped moving, her hips jerking forward as low, violent groans of pleasure left her throat. “F-Fucking take it, baby… Making a fucking mess of this pussy…”

She could only hold herself up for so long. It didn’t take much for Abby to fall, her arms giving out as she pushed her face into Ellie’s sweat stained shirt. She carefully moved Ellie’s leg, listening to the poor girl cry out as her thigh cramped up and she fully lowered her limb down onto the floor. Her breath was labored, and her heart was racing and pounding hard enough that Abby could hear it and feel it against her face.

Both of them were quiet for a long time… What exactly are they supposed to say about it? It was always slightly awkward after they fucked each other speechless. This part never got any easier to deal with. A sigh left Abby’s throat as she looked up, trying to gauge Ellie’s expressions, but as always, she was an expert at schooling how she was feeling on the outside.

“You okay?” Abby asked, sitting up slowly and looking into Ellie’s eyes. Her pupils were dilated and to anybody else, they could assume she had gotten high. Abby began to remove herself from Ellie, her face turning red at how their bodies stuck together in the most vulgar fashion. “Ellie, are you—”

“I’m fine,” Ellie remarked, rubbing at her face with both hands as she sat up off the floor, only to fall back on her palms when a wave of dizziness washed over her. “I’m always fine…”

“Yeah,” Abby muttered wordlessly, reaching for a towel inside of the emergency duffel bag that was kept at every lookout. She slowly wiped off her inner thighs and stomach before she went to clean Ellie up, only for the redhead to stop her. “Would you just—”

“I’m not a fucking baby, I can do it myself,” Ellie snapped, wiping her legs off and making sure the remnants of Abby’s slick wasn’t left on any part of her skin. “See? Fully capable.”

“Just…” Abby looked like she had more to say. Ellie waited, pressing her thighs together to try and regain some sort of modesty, but Abby just scoffed, reaching for her jeans and tugging them back on. Ellie looked disappointed. “We gotta get moving.”

Ellie knew she was the one in the wrong. Abby always tried this every time. She would ask if Ellie was okay, and if she needed anything. Abby always tried to clean her up, whisper words of praise, even tried to kiss her once when it was over… But Ellie wasn’t having it. She was cold, aggressive, and pushed all forms of aftercare away from the blonde like being fucked by her was the worst thing she could think of.

Abby refused to tell Ellie just how much it hurt her. Every time Ellie denied her advances, Abby felt her heart ache all over again… Funny, isn’t it? How the biggest, baddest person in Jackson is the one pining after the rudest bitch to ever walk the streets.

Abby was embarrassed for the rest of the patrol route. She felt angry, dirty even, as she watched her patrol partner act and kill like nothing had happened, and nothing was wrong. Like she didn’t just have Abby all over her and against her…

Would Ellie ever let Abby in? Would Abby ever stop simping for Ellie? Or the bigger question…

Would they ever admit to themselves just how badly they were in love with each other?

[sweatyracoon]

Touch Me Up

Summary: Your a new employee to JYP studios, and have been assigned to the group of Stray Kids; a makeup artist. What happens when one of the members catch interest in you?

Warnings: None?

Genre: Fluff

You watched as each of the boys took their turns for their photoshoot, barely making it in time to replace the other makeup artist. Her shift just ended, meaning yours will start in another five minutes.

It was difficult knowing when you were needed due to constant changes in schedules, for both the idols and the employees that support them.

You had only been with them a month, still learning about Korea itself and it's language.

You moved from America a little over five months ago hoping for a new start. And you were lucky to have landed yourself where you were job wise.

You saw the shades the boys were wearing, and intrigued by the theme. What was the theme? You couldn't tell, honestly.

But they did, however, look hot.

They are still in their ATE era, and their ideas have been pretty successful so far, so you weren't worried.

STAY have really enjoyed all that they had released. Including you.

You would never say it out loud to the boys, but you were probably one of their biggest fans.

"Y/n! We need you over here!" You heard someone say, making you snap out of your thoughts.

"Coming!" You responded, walking towards the man, your bag of makeup slung loosely around your shoulder.

When you stopped where you were needed, you saw a flash of green in your peripheral, making you turn.

You caught eyes with Seungmins, making your breath hitch. His hair was still quite long. You thought he was going to cut it, but I guess not yet.

It was fluffier than usual, making it look as soft as a cloud, and it was still his natural black hue, light bouncing off, shining to your eyes.

"What do you need, Minnie?" You asked him, digging through your bag.

"Touch me up," He said, looking at you without expression.

Your face turned red. You knew what he meant, but your mind can't help but take what he said out of proportion.

When you had the gloss in hand, you turned back, only to see him grinning.

"Touch up my makeup," He repeats, making it clear what he wants.

"I know what you meant," You mutter before twisting the cap, hearing a loud pop as you pulled the brush from the cap.

His smile closed, leaving his dimples on display while you brush it gently against his lips, not wanting the color to be too strong.

As you pushed it against his plump flesh, you saw the indent from the brush moving with you, making them appear larger than they are for a short while.

Moving from the bottom lip to the top, you watched as the same thing happened, focusing on the way his breath feels on your working hand.

You didn't dare look at his eyes, knowing that they were focused on you, staring deeply into your own.

His nose twitched slightly, making you halt your motions.

"Now press them together, please," You say, pushing the brush back into the tube before twisting it the opposite direction, sealing it shut.

He does as you request, but insanely slow, teasing you with amusement. All you could do was watch.

"Like what you see?" He grins, grabbing his hat on the chair next to him.

"Wha-wait what? No I'm just making sure it looks okay," You say flustered.

To make it look like you were telling the truth, you bring your hand up to his face, your fingers targeting his lips. You gently caress his bottom lip with your finger, swiping the under part to get the excess gloss.

His breath hitches along with yours, but before you could take your hand from him, he grabbed your wrist with his slender one, holding it in place.

"Am I good now?" He asks quietly, staring at you.

"Yes," You breathe back, not looking away.

His smile is small, but it's there.

He turns his head and nuzzles into your open palm, making your thoughts and heart race.

He places a light kiss to your hand, finally letting go.

"I'll see you later, y/n," He says with a wink, slowly walking backwards. "Don't leave,"

Your eyes widened, processing what he's saying incredibly slow. But once you understood, you nodded.

"See you,"

[residentrookie]

jegulus dads ‘i frew up 🧍’ microfic— 1313 words; sorry guys i was brain rotting too hard about this one (cw: mentions of throwing up)

in all his 27 years, regulus has never been a deep sleeper. so when the door to the bedroom creaks open at 3 in the morning, his eyes open with it. the room is still pitch black, and he wonders groggily if boots (their cat) pawed it open when a tiny, weak voice whimpers, “daddy?”

regulus is launching up in bed and turning towards the voice of his five year old son before thinking twice.

“what, baby? what is it?”

at his sudden movement, james shoots up in bed next to him. “—whatisit. haz?” he mumbles, flicking on a lamp and dousing the room in light.

there stands harry in his spiderman jams, hair an absolute bird’s nest and tears streaming from his big green eyes and down his sweet cheeks. regulus’ eyes water instinctively just looking at him. before having kids, regulus never knew what it was to empathize so automatically with someone else— but he felt harry’s emotions right along with him, the joy, the sorrow, and the pain too.

“i—“ harry starts, then sucks in a big stuttering breath, clearly trying to be a brave boy and not cry, “i-i threw u-up.”

at the admission he wails, like he’s just confessed to the most abhorrent sin and will now have to face the wrath of his two loving fathers, who are so light on punishments they sometimes worry harry will end up being the most spoiled brat alive. james and regulus share a quick look, what regulus would consider the “dad” look, before throwing back the covers and rising quickly.

surprisingly, they’ve planned for this. years ago. when they first started dating. james had asked regulus about this very scenario, and after minutes of regulus whining about never wanting children in the first place—so why does it even matter, james— he’d made his position clear.

“i don’t do vomit.” regulus told him firmly. “absolutely not.”

james had laughed. “fine by me. if you only knew how much of my friends vomit i’ve had to clean up over the years. i don’t even blink at it anymore.”

thus the responsibilities of this hypothetical situation were assigned. james was on vomit duty. regulus was on comfort duty.

“not sure i’ll be any good at that either,” regulus had said grudgingly, but james had just smiled knowingly, able to see a future that regulus couldn’t yet imagine.

james makes it to harry first and scoops him up promptly, letting him bury his face in his neck and sob. regulus comes up behind them and snuggles up to harry, kissing his small head and whispering reassurances.

“shhhh don’t cry, it’s okay, haz. does your tummy hurt?” james asks calmly, rocking them all back and forth soothingly.

regulus pulls back and watches harry nod. his cheek is rosy and hot when regulus puts his hand to it.

“come on, baby, let’s go take care of it okay?” regulus tells him, and james deposits their still-sniffling son into his husbands open arms.

“you know what time it is?” james asks, wiggling his brows. harry just sniffs and shakes his head. “time to be superdad,” james tells him, pointing at his faded superman t-shirt. then he gives an animated salute, puts one fist on his hip and the other high in the sky before jetting out of the room with some impressive ‘flying sounds’ that manage to make harry smile a little before he remembers that he’s actually very upset right now. regulus shakes his head at his wonderfully ridiculous spouse and starts towards the stairs, feeling harry’s hot tears gather in the crook of his neck.

after giving harry some medicine, they settle on the couch downstairs, harry in regulus lap and clinging to him. regulus rocks them for a few minutes, letting harry’s breaths slow as he calms down.

“papa?” harry sniffles suddenly, his voice so small.

“yes, sweetheart?” regulus asks, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“we need to have a funeral. like how we did for bobbi.”

regulus blinks. bobbi, harry’s goldfish, had died three days after james brought him home, leaving the two of them to explain the complicated matter of death to their three and a half year old. so harry had a vague idea of the concept and of funerals, though his only exposure has been the meager ceremony they’d patched together and held in their garden. sirius had given a speech and peter had cried.

“what? why?” regulus demands, scanning his son’s face. his bottom lip pokes out as his eyes fill with tears yet again.

“b-because i think i killed hippo,” he wails. “i-i threw up all over him— a-and ron said that throw up is like— like how supervillains spit out the acid and k-kill the good guys—“

regulus closes his eyes briefly, exhaling in relief. he makes a mental note to tell james to cool it on the superhero movies for a while— clearly it’s getting into harry’s head.

“no baby, hippo is fine. he just needs to go for a swim in the wash, and then he’ll come out as good as new.”

harry peels his head back from regulus’ chest, blinking up at home hopefully. “really?”

“really. i bet daddy has already put him in. shall we go check on him just to be sure?”

“yes, please,” harry says, politely. oddly, it makes regulus think of his mother, of how she had demanded her boys to be polite above all else, even in the face of abuse and neglect. james and regulus had done absolutely everything differently, and harry still turned out to be the sweetest boy on the planet. walburga can fucking suck it.

pushing aside the thoughts of his mother, regulus rises with harry still perched on his hip. they walk back upstairs, peeking their heads into the laundry room to find james, metaphorical sleeves rolled up as he hums to himself, rummaging through their linens. regulus truly married the only person in the world who can sing while cleaning up vomit at 3 in the morning.

james turns and smiles at them in the doorway. “my boys!” he says cheerfully, crossing the room to give harry a smooch on the head.

“he’s worried about hippo, darling,” regulus explains. “can you show him how he’s just gone for a dip in the wash?”

“who, hippo?” james asks. “oh he’s great. you know what he told me haz?” he leans forward as if confiding a secret, “he told me he’s been wanting a bubble bath for sooo long and he’s sooo happy he finally got the chance. he even said to tell you thank you!”

harry giggles. “no he didn’t. he doesn’t talk.”

james gasps. “well he certainly talks to me, harry. we’re the best of friends.”

“i thought papa was your best friend,” harry says and james’ face melts into the gentlest smile.

“that’s true, too. it’s a tie between hippo and papa.”

regulus rolls his eyes as harry laughs. they go over and stand in front of the washer. the top is clear, so harry can see all his stuffies (including hippo) swirl around in the sudsy water. after several moments of watching them spin, james nudges regulus, inclining his head towards harry.

regulus looks down to see their baby’s eyes closed, head heavy, cheek squished against his chest.

“his bed has fresh sheets,” james whispers but regulus isn’t quite ready to let him go. he looks up at james with a pleading face.

james, try as he might, has never excelled at being the hardass parent. so when regulus takes their son back into their bedroom, depositing him under the covers between the two of them, james just smiles and shakes his head. they climb into bed and turn towards harry, two parenthesis enclosing the small shape of their son, cradling him and keeping him safe.

regulus sleeps long and deep, one hand laced with his husband’s, the other resting on his son’s dark head.

[noxturnalnymph]

Devotion 🖤 I. Stronger Together (Ch 3)

CultLeader!Joel x OFC!Reader

Series Summary: When is it enough? When is it too much? When does Devotion become Obsession?

Visit the Series Masterlist for series warnings, cult info, timeline info, and HCs on ages. Reader has a nickname and some minor physical descriptions - is an OFC from Reader POV.

*This series is 18+ MDNI. I will not be listing individual chapter warnings as I don't want to spoil the plot of each chapter. Please see the series masterlist for entire series warnings to decide if this is for you.*

LAYOUT OF JOEL'S HOUSE PREVIOUS

I. Stronger Together

CH 3 (5.3k) One afternoon you come back with Bianca from your baths and Tess informs you that you’ll now be accompanying Joel to one of his weekly community meetings. There are the three nights a week that you all leave the house, but Joel also goes out after dinner the other four nights of the week, interacting with different groups in The Valley. Tess has always accompanied him to his Thursday meeting and she lets you know that you’ll be taking her place.

At the meeting he introduces you to the group, which is comprised of farmers who live further down the Valley, outside the safety of the town. You learn that they come together every Thursday to bring in the animal products, take away food, trade supplies, discuss safety issues, and spend some time socializing. The evening meeting with Joel is the last thing they do before they head back to their land.

With each passing week, he watches you come out of your shell more and he’s impressed by your demeanor. You assist the older folks with getting a drink and a bite to eat. You make conversation with them, easily giving them your time and attention. You nod and listen when they speak with Joel about their concerns. Most importantly, you don’t overstep. You allow him to speak, giving them his practiced lines, finding solutions to their issues and pacifying their fears.

You however, feel like you’re struggling to find your place at the house. In your attempt to fix the holes in Joel’s socks you accidentally sewed the socks shut, leaving Tess to pull the stitches and mend them properly. Tess gives you some rags and asks that you clean all of the surfaces in the house. She stops you ten minutes later when you can’t stop sneezing from the dust. She assigns you to the laundry instead, but the cold, soapy water makes your hands break out in hives. She makes a joke about you being allergic to hard work, but she doesn’t laugh. You think she was joking.

Sometimes you work outside with Rosie in the mornings, but you hate getting all dirty and smelling like earthworms. You pull up too many weeds that aren’t weeds and she sends you inside, urging you to use your talents elsewhere. What talents? You tag along with Sasha sometimes, and listen as she tells you how to set a trap for small animals, but you feel completely useless at her side. She’s good at so many things and you feel like a clumsy oaf, even more so when you trip in the woods one afternoon and scare off the deer she’d been tracking for an hour. She doesn’t attempt to hide her irritation the way Rosie did.

Kerri and Bianca try to use your help in the kitchen, but you burn all of the chicken on the grill your first night cooking. They switch you to helping with preparing the meals, but you cut yourself so badly with the knife that Joel threatens to take you back to the clinic and give you more of his blood. You stand against the doorframe with your arm above your head for forty five minutes before it stops bleeding and he calms down. No more kitchen work for you, he mutters as he holds you on the couch later, letting you rest while everyone else cleans up the meal.

All of the women are too nice to give you the dirty looks that you think you deserve. They all earn their place here and what can you do? Nothing. You try not to be sad the day that your only friend at the house, Bianca, moves out. Is she actually your friend, or is she just too timid to tell you off? You go up to the attic to help her pack up her few belongings before Tess sends you downstairs to help Kerri pack up to leave the room she’s been sharing with Sasha. 

You’re nervous that with Bianca gone you’ll be expected to take over her chores, which are a little bit of everything. You seem to mess up every chore you’re assigned. What the fuck are you supposed to do with yourself? As you walk down the stairs you hear Tess tell Bianca that this is for the best, and that she’s just getting bigger. You’d noticed Bianca gaining weight but you didn’t know that was a problem. Did Joel say something about her weight gain? Why would he care? 

You let your thoughts spiral a bit, wondering if Joel cared about your weight, if he would ask you to leave if you put on more pounds. Fat and useless, what a combo that would be. You’re not exactly skinny as it is, and you’re not even as nice looking as Bianca, with her kind, warm, brown eyes and her long, chestnut hair. She’s very shy and nearly silent but she’s very pretty. You see men look at her. Most people don’t give you a second glance, but that’s the way you prefer it. There’s a reason you chopped all your hair off and wore tight bindings across your chest for months.

You don’t want men looking at you. When a man looks at you he’s only thinking about one thing. He’s thinking what he can get out of you, what he can take from you; except Joel, you tell yourself. Joel doesn’t look at you like that. Joel doesn’t take, he wouldn’t do that. He still looks at you with wonder. He still has so many questions in his eyes about you that you’ve been slowly trying to answer. Maybe if you let him in, show him you’re trying to trust, he won’t care that you aren’t as useful in the home as the other women. 

–

Joel’s schedule is packed, making up for meetings he missed while he visited with you all day, every day in the clinic for nearly two weeks. It means you have less reading time together during the week, so your time together dwindles to holding hands under the table at mealtimes, quick smooches as he pulls you into his office between meetings, and nuzzling into each other outside your bedroom door in the mornings. 

Your only real alone time now is walking to and from the meeting on Thursdays. Each week after the meeting ends the group members filter out, some staying back to help you put away the folding chairs. As a group, you all walk together to the town square before splitting up; them heading out of town while you and Joel head back to the house. Each of these evenings allows you two a few stolen moments alone on the porch of the house before returning inside.

First you just spend them with your foreheads touching, noses brushing, and shared giggles between your pressed together lips. The second week Joel drags you onto his lap on the front porch bench, kissing and licking at your neck while you card your fingers through his hair. You start to panic when you feel him getting aroused underneath you, but the terrified voice in the back of your mind is muted when the front door opens and Sasha comes out for firewood, interrupting and ending your time alone together.

The following week is Thanksgiving, one of the few holidays The Valley celebrates. Joel makes sure you’re sitting next to him at the head table. There is so much going on, almost every single person – save for a small patrol – is gathered together for this feast. Everyone joins hands above the table while someone makes a prayer, but Joel doesn’t let go of yours for a long time afterward.

Even though you haven’t been getting as much alone time together, Joel feels like you’re still growing ever-closer. He has you next to him for this holiday meal so he can show you off. He wants everyone in The Valley to see that you trust him, that you’re becoming his. He notices your wide eyes scan the room, overwhelmed by the very large crowd of people and the raucous event. He leans over and whispers in your ear.

“What are you thankful for, baby?”

He sees your eyes cast down, trying to hide a shy smile. You squeeze his hand and meet his eyes. He squeezes yours back to ground you, to reassure you, like he’s taming a feral little animal.

The following week as you and Joel put away the chairs after the meeting, you hear a man call out a goodnight and you look up just in time to see the last farmer heading out the door. You turn in a circle to confirm there is no one else in the room with you and Joel, and your eyes come back to the door just as it clicks shut. The silence that follows is deafening. You’re completely alone with Joel. Completely.

What strikes you is not the all-encompassing fear that grips you; what strikes you is how this is not the usual fear you have come to know from being alone with a man. For once, you’re not scared of what Joel might do – by now you trust him not to hurt you. You have been mostly alone with him so many times in the last two months and he has always been gentle and respectful, never crossing your still-unspoken boundaries.

After he told you about his daughter, something inside of you shifted. For the first time in your whole life you thought that perhaps you belonged somewhere. Being here with him feels right, it feels like your destiny. You’re not scared of him doing something, you’re scared of him doing nothing. What if he doesn’t want you as badly as you want him? What if he got tired of waiting for you? What if he rejects you?

Joel sees you staring at the door with that look in your eye, the look like you want to run right through it, leaving behind a cartoonish hole in the door in your wake. 

“PJ”, he says, and your eyes find his, “Let’s put away these chairs and we can go.” 

–

He doesn’t try to hold your hand on the way home, worried that you’re too skittish for him to touch, sure that you’d bolt if he tried. You’ve never done that, you’ve never run from him and yet it’s always in the back of his mind. He’s so worried about losing you. He thinks about it all the time. It terrifies him.

The hour is late when you return to the house and you find it dark, everyone already in bed. You both head upstairs but instead of heading into his room as he usually does, he turns with you and stands outside your door. You tilt your head back to look up at him. Your hair has been growing out, looking more like a pixie cut now. He can just see the wet of your eyes twinkle in the darkness.

“Do you wanna come in?” you ask, your voice faint even in the silent house. 

A deep rumble emanates from Joel’s chest. He can’t enter your room. It’s been one of Tess’ rules since the beginning and it’s very important to her. The position he holds in The Valley, the way that everyone looks up to him, she said they’ve put him on a pedestal. And once on a pedestal you have to be very careful because everyone can see you. 

Everyone knows he lives with all of these women, and everyone knows that he sleeps with most of them. Everyone but you. He’s kept this knowledge from you on purpose. They are consenting adults, they each have their own space and their own autonomy. If they want to initiate sex with him, they come to his room. He doesn’t go to them, keeping it entirely on their terms. 

But how does he reject your offer to come into your room without telling you the rest? Without revealing all of his half-truths and omissions. It’s taken so long for you to trust him, he can’t destroy that trust. But won’t saying no hurt you too? He wants to say yes but he can’t. How the fuck does he say no to you? Shit. He’s already waited too long to answer, his silence has gone on for too long.

“We could… close the door,” you offer. His eyes clench shut.

Jesus Christ you’re going to kill him. His dick is aching in his jeans right now. He’s been waiting for you to make an offer like this for so long. Waking up every morning hard, having to jerk off like a teenager before he can even start his day. None of the women have even tried to come to his room for sex since he brought you down off that mountain. He didn’t ask but he’s sure they see him preoccupied with you. Hell, he’s damn near drowning in you.

He’s never been like this with a woman he’s brought into the house. Never kissing them in the kitchen or touching their knees under the dinner table. He’s never made out with one of them in his office between meetings or woken up early just to smell their hair in the hallway. He’s gone off the fucking rails and it’s all because of you. But he can’t break the rule, he can’t accept your invitation into your room. He also can’t tell you about the rule.

Your heart is going to beat out of your chest, you’re sure of it. Joel reaches one hand forward to grab yours, finally touching you. His calloused fingertips trace the inside of your wrist, gently moving across the delicate skin. You can barely see in the dark but you know he’s moved closer because you can smell him, feel the heat of his body radiating off him. His clothes smell like sunshine, line-dried in the crisp autumn air. You smell the day wafting off his skin, a hint of sweat and leather hits your nostrils.

Your knees begin to knock together and you’re so afraid that they’re going to give out under you when he rejects you. You reach your free hand up to brace yourself, placing it on his chest, feeling his own heart thumping wildly underneath. You barely hear him say not tonight PJ over the pulsing beat in your ears, but before you can react to his refusal you feel his arms snake around your waist and he’s pressing his lips onto yours, hard. 

He pushes you up against the open door frame of your room, his feet planted securely in the hallway. You immediately grant his tongue access to your mouth and he begins to explore it, for the first time. You’ve never felt his hot wet tongue against yours, and you think it just might be the thing that kills you. You moan into his mouth as you throw your arms around his neck.

He continues to kiss you with moving lips and licking tongue, your hands moving to twist in his curls – curls that are a bit longer than when you first met him. His arms roam freely up and down your back, pulling you close to him and pressing your hard nipples against the broad planes of his chest. You’re lost in the heat of him, the taste of him, the feel of his body pressing to yours. You’ve waited so long for this. You don’t know how long it’s going to last but you never want it to end.

Driven by lust, madness, or both, you cup your hand over the zipper on his jeans, palming his erection. It feels so big in your hold. He exhales a moan into your mouth and clutches his hand overtop of yours, pressing you into him more firmly, curving your fingers around the heft of it. Fuck, it’s so hard. You feel wetness dripping out of you into your underwear. Holy fuck you’re getting dizzy. 

Unable to even think straight, you don’t notice he’s let go of your hand until you feel it cupping the front of your jeans, and the noise that leaves your mouth is sinful. He slams his mouth overtop of yours to muffle your wail but it still echoes down the silent hall. You know he must feel the heat radiating off your core, he must already feel how embarrassingly wet you are. He brings both hands to the front of your jeans and undoes the button, pausing to look you in the eyes and wait for you to nod him on further. You do.

As he takes down the zipper you close your eyes and think this is finally it, you’re finally going to feel him where you need him the most. But instead of feeling his fingers skirt along the waistband of your underwear, you feel them touching your lips. You open your eyes and his face is inches from yours. He nods his head and tells you to open, and lets his index and middle finger pass over your lips and touch your tongue.

He doesn’t have to tell you to close your mouth, you do it on your own, closing your eyes again and letting your pooling saliva coat his digits. You lick your tongue between them, along his knuckles and the pads of his fingers, then you gently suck, running your tongue flat along the underside as if it were another part of him in your mouth instead. You wish there was more light in the hallway because when you open your eyes to look at his face you’re pretty sure he looks the way you feel.

He takes his fingers out of your mouth slowly, a trail of saliva connecting them to your tongue briefly, before he dips them into your underwear and slides them right over your clit. He wouldn’t have known of course, but he didn’t need you to wet his fingers, you were already soaking wet from just his touch. The state he finds you in sends jolts of electricity surging down his cock. 

He gently rubs his finger alongside your bundle of nerves, dragging them down to collect even more of your ample wetness. You scramble your hands up the front of his shirt, longing for skin-to-skin contact with him. You shuffle your fingers through his sparse chest hair and drag your nails over his hardening nipples, causing him to crash his lips against yours to silence his own groan this time.

He pushes his middle finger towards your hole and feels you nodding as he does it. His finger slides inside you so easily; you’re so fucking wet. He’s never felt anyone this wet before. You reach around behind him and shove your hands down the back of his pants, grabbing handfuls of his ass, squealing against his mouth when you discover that he’s not wearing underwear.

He continues to work his middle finger in and out of your tight hole, spreading his index finger to run it up alongside your exposed clit. He knows you like it because you’re whimpering and clawing at him non-stop. It’s so loud in the otherwise dead-silent house but he can’t bring himself to give a single shit who else can hear you. Every sound you make goes straight to his leaking dick.

He pulls his mouth off yours and brings his face to your hair, inhaling deeply. Today was your bath day and your hair smells like soap and lavender. He likes it but he prefers when it smells slept-in, smells like you. He lowers his mouth and sucks a dark mark into your skin just below where your neck meets your shoulder, then he brings his lips to your ear, biting and kissing your earlobe. 

He whispers in your ear; you’re so fucking wet baby, you’re so tight, can feel how wet you are, can you feel it baby?, I’m gonna smell like you after this ya know, you’re all over me, can you hear it?, you’re gonna feel me for days baby, for days.

You yank on his arms, pulling him as close to you as possible and orgasm with a squeal, shuddering in his hold and panting his name over and over into the hollow of his neck. He takes his hands out of your pants, glistening with your release, and greedily shoves his fingers into his mouth above your head. Once clean he brings his face to the side of your neck, nuzzling you and nipping at your skin there and breathing in your heady scent.

Before either of you get a chance to give any due attention to his painful, raging erection, Tess’ door opens and she comes out of the room to head towards the bathroom. You yip in embarrassment and cross into your room, closing the door in Joel’s face. Joel shoots Tess a pissed off look and Tess shrugs her shoulders.

“Sorry, it sounded like you guys were done,” she says flippantly as she closes the bathroom door.

Joel knocks lightly at your door a few times and you open it a bit, mortified at being caught acting like a couple of horny teenagers. 

“Don’t be shy, baby,” he coos. “We didn’t do anythin’ wrong.” 

That’s true. He made sure to stay outside of your room so Tess has nothing to be upset about. He leans his face into the crack of your door and you give him several kisses on the lips but then you hear Tess coming back out of the bathroom and you shut the door in his face again, muttering a flustered goodnight from the other side of the wood.

He turns to Tess again, visibly angry and she suppresses a smile. She resists teasing him verbally and instead kisses him on the cheek and wishes him a goodnight also, closing her door behind her. Joel takes himself into his room and fucks his fist – again – to thoughts of you.

–

The week passes quickly, alone time together still nonexistent as Joel’s responsibilities increase. He always seems to be out of the house on patrols, having meetings, and visiting community members. He argues with Tess about his schedule being too full and she tells him winter is hard, and that people need extra reassurances to make it through. She also reminds him, in a whisper, that he has spent a lot of time focusing on one person and ignoring the rest, and he needs to make up for that. His only response is a growl before he leaves the room.

Joel finds you outside the bathroom door one morning and you blush, realizing you’re wearing one of his button-up shirts, ready to defend yourself for pilfering it off the laundry line. Instead of admonishing you, he wordlessly pulls the open collar over your one shoulder a bit, observing the fading mark he’d sucked into your skin. He kisses over it gently and you think he’s having regrets about marking you like that, but you say nothing, a little embarrassed by the fact that you stare at it every morning in the bathroom mirror.

When Thursday comes around again you find yourself alone once more after the meeting, entering a house that is dark and quiet. Instead of going upstairs you both go into the kitchen for a glass of water, slowly taking sips from your glass before you lose all control and launch yourself at him. This might be your first time instigating this kind of behavior but your need for him fuels your boldness.

You grab at him everywhere you can reach, pulling him tight to you, feeling the hardness of his shoulders under your hands and the softness of his belly against yours. You pull on fistfulls of his hair and shove your tongue into his mouth, eliciting groans from him. You don’t even care how desperate you appear as you writhe against him, whimpering. You are desperate for him. 

You need him to hold you tight, to kiss you hard, to make you feel like a woman. You need to belong to him, to matter to him, to make him happy. You need him to give you purpose, to bring you joy, to make you whole. You need him to make you forget every man that came before him, every hand that touched you with bad intentions. You need to feel his body enveloping you. You need him to consume you.

He pulls you into the dining room and lifts your legs up to place your butt on the table’s edge but instead you wrap both legs around his waist. He growls at your aggressive move and pushes your back down firmly on the dining table, keeping himself against you. He begins to grind himself against your core, unable and unwilling to hold himself back.

Feeling like feral animals, you lick and moan into each other’s mouths as the table creaks beneath you. You shove your hands up the back of his shirt, clawing marks down him. He moves his face along your neck, taking deep inhaling breaths and nipping at your skin, debating on whether to give you a fresh mark. Fisting your hands in his hair, you tug on his locks and interrupt his thoughts, earning groans that he muffles into the crook of your shoulder. 

Suddenly the lights in the kitchen flip on, and Tess is standing in the doorway.

“Please,” she says calmly, “Not on the table where we eat.”

You clap your hand over your mouth, silencing your loud yelp. Joel pushes himself off the table, also startled by her appearance. You take the opportunity to scramble away and run up the stairs. Hearing your door slam closed, Joel turns to Tess, snarling.

“What the fuck, Tess? What the fuck,” grabbing the edge of the table in a splintering grip. 

“Why don’t you two just fuck already?” she chuckles, trying to rile him up.

“That’s what I’m fuckin’ trying to do,” he growls, slamming his fists down several times. 

“Don’t break my fucking table,” she snaps at him. 

Joel grabs her by the hips and pushes her face down bent over the table, slamming his body into her ass. Tess just lays there, letting him rut into her for a moment. He grabs her by the hair, yanking her up, and takes a big inhale into the back of her head, continuing to grind his pelvis into her. He takes a few more breaths and stops moving his hips, calming down. Eventually he releases her, pushing her away from him harshly.

“Yeah, I don’t smell like her, do I?” Tess says. 

He mutters something she can’t quite make out, still pissed off. She can see his softening erection but a wild fucking look remains in his eyes. She watches him point to the table several times before he opens his mouth. 

“That’s my fuckin’ table. I’ll do whatever I fuckin’ want to it,” and with that he goes up to bed. 

He jerks off in his room alone. Again.

–

Once again the interim week is relatively tame, as you don’t have much chance to be alone together. You manage to sneak in kisses and touches when you can, but your stolen moments are no longer innocent. There’s no more playful giggles or gentle caresses. You exchange lustful glances over the table, your kisses are laden with tongue and your touches are now groping and needy. 

You wake up every morning having dreamt of him all night, and spend every day wet and wanting, full-body shudders running through you at the memory of his hands and lips on you. Everytime you pass him in the hallway you ache for him, fleeting touches never fulfilling the longing you feel. You can’t get to sleep at night without touching yourself, covering your face with your pillow to muffle your pleasure. 

You don’t remember being this wound up over anyone in your whole life, especially not since the world ended and every day became a fight to survive. Touching yourself never brought you such relief before, but imagining it’s Joel touching you ignites a spark deep inside and your desire is driving you mad. Joel makes you forget how miserable things are, how scared you’ve been. He makes you feel safe.

The next Thursday you come back from the meeting much later than expected, Tess is waiting up – drinking tea in the dining room, a bit concerned. She sees you both enter, him practically carrying you inside and up the stairs. When he comes back down she goes to make some commentary about you two “finally” doing the deed when she sees a fresh wet stain high inside the thigh of his pants. Did he come in his pants?

“What the fuck?” she can’t help it from slipping out. 

He doesn’t meet her eyes, just shrugs his shoulders and shuffles into the kitchen for a drink. He doesn’t seem agitated like he was when she interrupted him before so she thinks he must at least be satisfied with whatever happened tonight. He passes back through the room and mutters a goodnight, heading upstairs without elaborating on the state he’s in or what kept you two so late.

She’s known Joel for many years and has felt a lot of things for him, but at no point did she let herself believe that he felt anything close to love for her. She had actually convinced herself that he was incapable of feeling love, and is pretty sure he’s convinced himself of the same thing. But what is this if not true intimacy?

She wasn’t sure about you at first, especially given your penchant for fucking up your chores. But you are friendly to your housemates and giving in the community. You’re kind but reserved, and although it takes you a while to warm up to people, Tess firmly believes that you’re a genuinely good person, and – most importantly–- could be truly good for Joel. She sees that Joel lets his guard down around you, and that you like Joel for who he really is, which is something he doesn’t show to anyone.

She knows he’s kept things from you, and wonders how much he’s been manipulating you in-between letting his true self show. Maybe that’s not the right word for what Joel does, manipulate. It doesn’t feel like that’s what he’s doing when you’re the target of it. It feels good, amazing even, because when Joel makes you feel like you matter to him, it’s intoxicating. It’s the best fucking feeling in the world.

She wonders if things are going to change, and how they might change. She thinks that if Joel can admit his true feelings and commit, then his relationship with you could change the very trajectory of this community. She and Joel worked very hard to build this community up but she knows that it’s stable enough now that a change like this won’t topple it. She quietly hopes it will change significantly.

She doesn’t love how subserviently women are treated in this community and has always wondered if it would transform if Joel took a partner. For a while she hoped that partner would be her, but that thought died out long ago. If Joel is seen in public showing love and affection for an equal female partner, it could benefit women and the community as a whole going forward.

She lets herself envision that future, where Joel embraces his feelings and makes changes in his home and the community, and the positive effects are felt all across The Valley. But the biggest hurdle will be getting Joel to admit to himself – and everyone else – the softness and vulnerability that you bring out in him. Letting himself love someone means opening himself up to loss, and if there’s one thing that Joel Miller does not do, it’s lose.

🖤

NEXT

Thank you endlessly to @papipascalispunk for helping me with this series and listening to me rant about Cult Leader Joel. 🫂 I appreciate you SO much.

TAGLIST (lmk if you wanna be added or removed) @strang3lov3 @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin @covetyou @iamasaddie @sr-lrn @clawdee @theywhowriteandknowthings @beefrobeefcal @merz-8 @speckledemerald @alltheseperfectimperfections @survivingandenduring @afraidtofear @millennial-teenybopper @missladym1981 @xdaddysprincessxx @lumoverheaven @ghoulettesinspace @brittmb115 @wintersquirrel @obscurexsorrows @littlevenicebitch69 @lulawantmula @pedroswife69 @joeldjarin

[threepandas]

Bad End: Preserve Us

You know how in conservation biology you sometimes try to introduce a pair to be mated and one will just... just fuckin' merc' the other? Just absolutely obliterate them in a hissing, growling, nightmare ball of fury? Before anyone can stop them? Territorial and (to put it lightly) "uninterested", dispite your desperate desire to save their species from extinction, and need for them to get frisky?

I know.

Holy SHIT do I know.

There's a lot of reasons. Ways you can (hopefully) get around it. But first? Is finding out WHY it happened. Was it just the one? The environment? Were they sick? Or... as is the case sometimes, did they decide their Handler was their mate? Some species only mate once. Are loyal for life. You gotta work around that.

Which is all well and fine and good.

When we're talking about ANIMALS.

Non-sentient, non-sapient animals! Not ALIEN SPECIES! What the ABSOLUTE FRESH HELL did they expect from me!? Compliance?! This was UNETHICAL! Monstrous! I had been trying to slip my gaurds long enough to radio for help SINCE I GOT HERE.

I hope the fuckers ROTTED in whatever their Gods considered a Hell.

"Conservation facility" my ENTIRE ASS. You can't run CONSERVATION EFFORTS like this on SENTIENTS. Eugenics loving, atrocity fetishizing, immoral BASTARDS!!! And they KNEW it too. They HAD too! Or they wouldn't be HIDING it! Fucking KIDNAPPING scientists! Biologists! Doctors!

I was on my ways to study Lekku monkeys!

God...

I'm? I'm so tired of being pissed.

Furious and outraged and SCARED. Horrified and sick. There are PEOPLE here. Kids! And I don't... oh god, I don't... H-How LONG has this been going ON? Why did no one NOTICE?

Every day I feel my heart break. The desire to scream and scream and never STOP, grow inside me. I have to get out. I have to get us ALL out. Get these people FREE. Do SOMETHING. But I am forced to "conserve" the species assigned to me. The group assigned to me.

It's killing my love for the field. Making a mockery of everything I worked for.

I don't... I don't think my hands will ever be clean again.

But I have to help. Do everything I can. Make hell a little kinder, if nothing else. At least while I figure out a way OUT. My group deserves better. The groups I do not work with, deserve better.

I disguise games as "testing". Pages and pages of meaningless numbers ans scores. INSIST that enrichment is the key to success. Diet is EVERYTHING. Oh, and habitat? Well unless we can mimic their habitat there's no WAY they'll "breed".

No, no, using machines would stress them out too much.

It's like you DONT want babies!

Who's the expert here? That's RIGHT! Dr. Cho, but FAILING her and like five other people? Me. And I know for a FACT they are pulling the same scam. We ALL fucking hate you. Dr. Cho has KIDS, you FUCKS. Hasn't seen her son in YEARS thanks to you bastards. He was engaged. She's probably missed his WEDDING thanks to you!

Getting distracted, spiraling again, gotta stop DOING that.

It wont help anyone.

But God, if my brain doesn't slowly feel like it's shorting out the longer I'm here. Stress is called the silent killer for a reason. Or what that something else? Fuck. I can't even look it up! Bastards cut us off from the galactic web. Full information blackout. Because of COURSE they did... can't risk us rightfully calling for help.

Getting the Feds involved to shut this hell pit of a black site DOWN. Or a "whatever it truely is" site. Because it sure as SHIT has nothing to do with conservational biology. Except maybe the abuse of it.

But that doesn't help me right now.

Focus, damn it!

The Yanderens. Old, absurdly rare, nearly extinct, with a home planet they'd reduced to uninhabitable wastelands millennia ago due too... something. No one knew what. There had definitely been fighting. It WAS documented they were excellent fighters. Ruthless ones at that. But it was ALSO documented they strongly pack bonded.

There had been a lot of strongly worded warnings on what few documation my captures were able to find, translate, then shove at me. But honestly? They said the same thing about humans. Ooooh big scary persistent hunters~ oh nooooo! Watch out for the omnivores with a history of war! Sins of the father and we are defined by our diets! Class systems! Let's all JUDGE each ooooootheeeeer~!

Yeah, no. Not buying it.

Especially when the "warnings" were so damn vague and poorly documented. All "the HORRORS!" and "we barely SURVIVED!". Cause honestly? The Yanderens I was watching over? Easily the most mild and temperate individuals I had ever met. No tantrums from the kids, no big emotional meltdowns, just curiosity and at WORST? Mild frustration.

It made everything ten thousand times worse for me, that these poor people were in this hellish place. They were calm. Curious. Meant for greater, BETTER things! They should be out, playing and learning. Exploring and enjoying peaceful strolls in some art gallery or zen garden somewhere! Not... not this sterile fucking LAB.

But then M-17 loses his SHIT.

And now I'm kinda panicking. Because F-6 is not just dead, God rest her soul (she didn't deserve this. Oh god. She was so SWEET.), but M-17 might just be too, soon. If I can't find out what HAPPENED. Because if he's "feral" or "diseased" or whatever other horrifying terminology they end up using? They DO something about it.

And I can't actually stop them.

I... I don't know if it was a trauma response. Or I did something wrong. I could PROBABLY pass it off as my needing more studies into their observed "mating habits"? That... that I somehow... turned it... uuuuh... dominance battle? Shit. Where are my notes?!

F-6 is DEAD and its all my fault.

She was such a cuddle fiend too. Always excited to hear about my studies, from before. My life. Wanted to join me after we got out of here. I never should have let her volunteer. Granted, she wouldn't have taken no for an answer. Wanted to spend the pregnancy plotting our escape. Asked me to help raise the kid once we got out. Had a whole grand plan. But I...And I...

God...

I should have said NO. Insisted. It was just so hard, when F-6 had made it all sound like it would be okay. Like she had a plan and all I need to do was trust her. Believe in her. Then we could be free.

I had hoped M-17 would work best. He was always the most agreeable and quick on the uptake. I figured... well... ha ha. God, I'm such an IDIOT. I should have CHECKED. Who KNOWS what happened before I arrived? What triggered I just accidentally rammed my foot into? FUCK! I sweep everything from me desk onto the ground. Don't give I shit that I'll have to clean it up later,

I had figured M-17 would be COOL with it.

This place is getting to me, isn't it?

Why the FUCK would anyone be COOL with getting jumped? Bred like an animal? Shoved in some random ass room, with a vaguely familiar stranger, and told "now fuck. We want a literal litter from you two"? All while some biologist watchs and makes god damned NOTES!?

Of course he fought back. OF COURSE he didn't stop!

The only one there he could trust was himself.

I...I'm becoming a monster... aren't I?

Oh god.

At least we're in the satellite facility. The gaurds are definitely going to rat me out, but the news will take time to filter back. And... and the Yanderens being so "dangerous" might work in my favor. I... I can spin this. I HAVE to spin this. I can't let TWO people die for my fuck up.

I promised myself I would get as many people out as I could. I refuse to back out now. Even if that means crying, puking, then going out there to lie my ASS off. This was TOTALLY NORMAL. In fact, expected! Yep! It means that's we've determined that M-17 is the alpha Yanderen! A thing that is both REAL and possible to BE!

I rinse my mouth, stomach empty. Crying has exhausted me. But I can't give up. Too many lives count on me now. I... I wish so badly I was just a nobody again. Just some random biology student, trying to make a name for herself. Being "important" is a CURSE.

I try not to chug my water as I half stumble out of the glorified shoebox that is my bathroom into the much larger and Fancier CLOSET that is my room. Truely, no expense spared, for the captives they ripped away from their lives. So glad I am here willingly and of my own volition.

I gather myself. Finally ready to go and try to untangle the mess I have made of everything. When a deep booming alarm rattles my bones. The lights flickering to red. Blast doors slide down, SLAM shut over the transparent recessed bit of wall that counts as my window, the door to the rest of the facility.

Trapping me inside my small room.

Almost immediately after, an EXPLOSION rocks the world hard enough to knock me from my feet. Only the bed's limited padding keeping me from a nasty concussion. The edge of it still ramming painfully into my shoulder. Another explosion. Then another. I sit for a long, terrible, second stunned.

The moment passes.

I scramble on my hands and knees for the in facility communication device that I had knocked from my desk in anger, grief. Not daring to stand lest I be thrown down again. I manage to find it as the world shakes again for the fifth time. Followed by what sounds like gun fire out in the halls.

I fling myself back towards my shitty little bunk. Drag every bit of padding and protection I can, down and under it with me. If the roof goes? I want shock absorption. If shots get through the door? I want something to slow those blasts down. Anything. ANYTHING! To increase my fucked chances of surviving.

I burrito up and wriggle back as deep as I can. The world muffled but ending just outside my crawlspace. Then I desperately try to get one of the others on the line. I got nothing but chaos. Running. Running. Hiding. And Dead.

Dead. Dying.

Remember me.

And GONE.

Some of them fighting with their groups too freedom. Some being targeted right along side their captors. Others savaged by the ACTUAL animals they had been working with, the one's Galacticly deemed too dangerous for effort like this. Someone or something had set EVERYONE free. A simultaneous attack on all fronts that our captors could not put down or escape.

The Yanderens were out there.

Oh god. Please let them be okay. They wer-

My thoughts ground to a halt as M-32 LAUNCHED his tiny body onto the screen of one of the security feeds I was desperately looking through. F-6 had figured out how to get us a backdoor to them a long time ago. M-32 was just a kid. A small, soft, cuddly little thing that loved to lean against me and crawl into my lap. All cherubic cheeks and cute little curls. Shy!

Yet I watched... in mounting horror... as like a lion on some unfortunate animal, he landed on a gaurds back. Small arms going around his body in a mockery of a hug. Head tilting so he could BITE at the back of the man's neck, small hands clawing and ripping at weak points in his armor, as he screamed. Thrashed. Tried desperately to get M-32 OFF of him.

There was so much blood.

My hands were shaking. So much, I accidentally hit the next screen button. Jerked my thumb back. But... but oh god. There was F-26. Using the butt of a rifle to slam down against the head of a scientist. Again and again and again. Long after the begging and thrashing stopped. I flipped again. M-4? No... please not M-4. Not the soft spoken and wise...

I watched as he grinned, a cold thing, and shot out another joint. His foot on the chest of the head scientist who had moved him to a different group. In the background, his supervisor lay dead. They had not died quickly. The head scientist was begging. A mess of tears and pain. M-4 shot another joint, pressing his foot down harder.

I wanted to be sick.

I flipped again. And again. And AGAIN.

H...Had I known them at ALL? Like demons wearing the faces of those I'd known. People I'd trusted. Not a SINGLE ONE was... oh... oh god. F-6. Had she been too? Would I have ever known? Was THIS what all those warnings meant? I couldn't think. Couldn't breath. Had... Had never had a panic attack but... BUT-!

I wheezed.

Shook.

"Oh, Clever giiiirl~" A familiar voice sang, before a blood splattered face flickered into being on the screen in my hands. "Where aaaare yoooou~?"

M-17. He'd somehow managed to take over the security cameras. That or the communication feed. His eyes were bright. A grin on his face like I'd never seen from him. ALIVE in a way I'd never seen him. The excitement transformed his face. No longer softly doll like, but something DANGEROUS. Unhinged. His eyes dilated and deadly teeth on display.

"Come out, come out wherever you aaaare~. I have so much to TELL you! We have so much to DO! I'm going to make you MINE sweetheart! No one else can have you. So come out. I won't hurt you much, I promise! Just gotta make you mine then we can leave okay~?"

Furious snarls echoed through the halls. Male and female alike. Old and young. I... I recognized each of those voices. What was HAPPENING?

"Aaaah? Did you TRASH really think you DESERVED her? Ha! Please." M-17 grin was cruel. Mocking. "You don't have a chance in hell of taking what's MINE."

His eyes seems to shift away from unseen enemies and back, somehow, to me. Warming to something euphoric. Resting his head on his hand as if to consider me. His fingers spread, stroking his own face, as if the desire to TOUCH was simply too great. As if what he was imagining was bleeding over into the real world.

"Oh clever girl~ my clever, clever girl~♡ I can't wait til it's just you and ME. Start think of where you want to go first, okay? We're going to get married. Have that child you wanted me for. All the things you ever dreamed~♡ I'm going to have you all to myself. No more annoying others. Ah~ can't wait to find you soon!"

"But first?"

"May the best of us Win."

[malrie]

for: @jasipereo, who told me i should what: in the burning maze, apparently they fly off together after jason dies and nothing happens at all. this is the nothing. wc: 1700

-

Piper had grown out her hair since Leo saw her last. He touched the ends of it, feeling the familiar softness between his fingers.

“Did you get taller?” she asked, voice strained from having cried so much. He didn’t see her expression; she was sitting in front of him on Festus, facing only the white sky. 

“I dunno,” he said, because he didn’t. Time was strange in that other place. To him, he’d been gone for only a moment. As if he hadn’t been lost at all.

She leaned backwards. Without having to ask, Leo let the internal heat from his body migrate to her. They were just below plane altitude, maybe four or five miles in the air. It was cold, but he wouldn’t let her be.

Had Piper not been there, Leo would have pried the casket open and crawled inside to lie beside him. He was sure of it. The instinct was nonsensical, even desperate, and still it pulled him like water down a drain. He wanted to see him again. He wanted to see him with his eyes closed, as though he were only asleep. And Jason had always been a peaceful sleeper. 

Back then, Piper’s iron grip on his forearm had anchored him. Maybe she felt the urge, too. Maybe they could have all fit inside. There, they could have dreamt as one, having found peace in a place where nothing could tear them apart. Together again.

“You did,” she replied. “Get taller, I mean. Just a little.”

*

Piper had a room in her grandpa’s ranch house that she hadn’t used since she was eleven. Leo inspected the off-white lace curtains, the stuffed animals on the bookshelves. She had a pink CD player and a Hello Kitty pillowcase. It was strange to be confronted with the idea that she had lived a life before him.

He helped her unpack what little she brought with her. Downstairs, Leo heard Coach’s booming timbre, comforting in its own way. He and Mellie would stay in the guest room with Chuck, leaving Leo to fend for himself in the den.

“What’re you gonna do now?” asked Piper, folding shirts and sorting them in a dresser.

Leo laid on her carpet, eyeing the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck on the ceiling. “Calypso wants to enroll in school. I tried telling her secondary education was a shithole, but she wanted to experience it herself. As for me, I’m never going back. S’one of the conditions I made for living at the Waystation.”

Piper paused in her folding. Then she started up again on a pile of sweaters. She lingered on a blue one that read: Edgarton Day and Boarding School. 

“I’m starting Tahlequah High next week,” she said. 

“I’ll be sure to make your grad party, beauty queen.”

He figured. Piper liked school enough; he knew she never missed an assignment at Wilderness. Meanwhile, Leo turned every packet he got into paper planes, letting them ride the Nevada gust out his dormitory window.

“If you’re not finishing school,” she continued, “what’ll you do? Help Hemithea and Josephine?”

“That’s sorta the plan.” Leo rubbed his eyes. The stars were too old to hold any glow. “I guess… I guess I just want something to keep busy. Maybe teach shop for the kids for however long. After that, I don’t know. Being in one place too long… I’m not real good at that.”

“So no camp?”

He couldn’t help but laugh. “No, no camp. You?”

“No,” Piper said, then laughed along with him.

He knew she didn’t mean she hated either camp, their friends, or their community—they only needed distance, measured and in moderation. Jason was everywhere, after all. His lifeblood was camp legacy. In a way, that was what had taken him from them. The gods had owed Jason ten times over and this was how he was repaid. There was nothing for Leo there, least of all loyalty. It seemed Piper felt the same, even if only mirroring an inch of his resentment. 

They ate dinner. Tristan still had some lost pallor, but his charisma was hard to chip at, especially when his daughter needed him. Toothless Chuck gummed around a piece of squash while the rest of them ate a meal cooked by a friend of the family. People had been in and out of the house all day; their fridge was stocked for the entire week. The McLeans had roots here. They were loved and welcomed. Leo and Piper had stayed inside her room like homebodies until the visitors had all left.

While Mellie put Chuck down for bed, Tristan and Coach cleared the table and washed the dishes. Piper told Leo that they’d probably go out on the porch and smoke some of her grandad’s tobacco pipes once they were done, a vice her dad failed to keep secret from her.

Snickering, they imagined Coach hacking a lung while ambling upstairs to her grandpa’s study. Her grandfather kept books on topics that ranged from Indigenous history to psychology to science fiction. Aside from the collection, there was a desk with a swivel chair and a large claw-footed single-seater sofa in the corner of the room, just by the window.

Leo grabbed a book off the shelf just for the fun of it and plopped down on the sofa. The words swam around on the pages. Even if he could read it, he doubted he could parse analytical biochemistry jargon.

“I used to come up here when Grandpa was doing his lesson plans,” said Piper. Tom McLean was a structural biology professor. “I’d beg for him to play with me, but he’d just say, ‘My love, you cannot have what you want the instant you desire it.’ I liked that. Not even then was it easy for people to say no to me. He was the only one.”

Looking out the window, Leo saw the shine of Festus’s wings in the darkness. The dragon was hunkered down in the yard, closest to sleep as automatons could get.

“I’ll leave in the morning,” Leo said. He rested his gaze on the horizon, which bled into the night. “Calypso’s waiting for me.”

“I know.” Piper came over to him, gently pulling the textbook away from his grasp. It forced him to look at her.

A beat passed. “I’m sorry, Piper. About Jason.”

She smiled wryly, placing Clinical Biochemistry: Techniques and Instrumentation onto the side table. She asked, “Why are you saying sorry to me?”

He wasn’t sure what she meant by that. She stood over him, the moonlight from outside overlaying her skin like a filter, the image of an aching spector. Her face was unreadable, but tonight her eyes were one color. It was borrowed, and it was the color of his own heart: Electric blue, as vibrant as the sky once a storm had cleared. Jason.

Still standing, she raised a hand, placing it over his arm in an innocuous touch. “You loved him, too,” she said. Leo’s hackles rose, but it was true and—now that Jason was dead—harmless. “Leo, we weren’t together anymore. I broke up with him. After you died, I couldn’t… I couldn’t work it out. Work us out. Because without you, it was like… Like the lights had gone out.”

His hand grabbed her wrist, wanting to rip it away, but he couldn’t. “Wait. I-I don’t want to hear this,” he said.

If only she had never brought it up. Mellie had told him earlier in the day, with Chuck on her hip and wearing a worried frown. Piper and Jason had split some months ago. They never explained further than what they had told everyone.

“I thought,” she kept going, “that if you had come back, maybe Jason and I could have—with you… But we never got a chance.”

“Piper,” he said firmly, getting up from the seat to grab her shoulders. “You have to stop.”

“It isn’t fair. Don’t you think it isn’t fair?” Jason’s eyes watched him shake.

“I’m leaving tomorrow, at dawn. I’m moving to Indiana. I’ll come for birthdays, special days. We’ll see each other at reunions. I’ll Iris you—every day if you want! It’ll be good. Like we always were. Like we were before everything. Don’t do this, Piper.”

“You can’t stay,” she whispered. “I know because it happened to me, too. It hurt to be with him because you weren’t there. And I know what you see when you look at me. What color are my eyes, Leo? Whose are they? He used to see yours.”

It had to happen, just once, even if never again for the rest of their lives. It wasn’t even their first kiss, which had happened a lifetime ago, on some forgettable rooftop in a place that never loved them. He shivered a little as her hands came up to his neck. There was salt in his mouth from her tears. Piper made small noises, gasping in increments when they could bear parting. They tumbled back to a bookshelf, hard edges jutting against Leo’s spine.

It was important that he was the one to speak first. Not because he didn’t trust her not to compel him, but to prove that he knew she wouldn’t. Not for this.

“I’ll leave in the morning,” repeated Leo, thumb rolling down her jaw. “That’s hours away.”

*

Leo got up before the sun did. Oklahoma mornings were crisp and new, almost impossibly so. The fog in the distance cleared around the McLean property, grass dewing with small beads of fresh water. Standing on the porch now, Leo knew this could be a good home, one filled with love.

Tristan McLean saw him come out of Piper’s room. He didn’t react much, only telling him to be safe on his journey back. He’d also shaken his hand like a real man and said, “She’s stronger than I’d ever hoped.”

“Stronger than me,” Leo replied, smiling.

Seeing him, Festus crooned in happy creaks, shaking out his stiffness. As Leo took off, he saw the curtains in Piper’s window move, almost nothing. Just in case, he brought up his hand to wave goodbye.

[maigo-san]

What are your zolu hcs?

this is inspired by a scene from the anime during Luffy's flashback post Marineford. It's the way Luffy doesn't cross Zoro's boundaries. At first, Luffy sees a lot of himself in Zoro and that's why he finds that Zoro can take the way he treated him (i.e. the manhandling, flinging around, teasing him relentlessly) and he was right to some degree, Zoro seems to tolerate pain despite not made out of gum so he does sometimes still yanked Zoro when he ran in the wrong direction and stuff like that. Zoro also does the same thing as him, pinching him, bonking foreheads, using his full power to fight Luffy, scolding or teasing Luffy back. But Luffy realizes that Zoro is an immovable force when it comes to things like sleeping or training and he stops bothering him. Sometimes he still asks Zoro to play with him as a way to share his excitement but he doesn't disturb him or poke him or steal his stuff anymore and just tap on Zoro's shoulder or his weight. Luffy doesn't even need to say anything because Zoro already knows what he wants and he also knows that his "clingy" captain likes to do this just for the sake of seeking Zoro. Sorry, it's such a small gesture but I will die on this hill because Luffy cares for Zoro as much as Zoro does for him

they call each other aibous/partners LOL either in the final saga or post-canon or when they get together. Had this idea after a Sabaody arc rewatch and saw RayRoger call each other that. Also why I find a lot of parallels between ZL and KidKiller. I find it even more fitting than right-hand man or vice-captain (but he could be all of them)

Zoro has a weird way with PDA. He doesn't do that much because he gets embarrassed by it. But he can't keep himself away from Luffy's personal space. Probably because Luffy does the same. He likes to sniff him discreetly; swing his leg on top of Luffy, acting like he was just nonchalantly chugging his beer; randomly pin Luffy down with his whole weight and falling asleep on top of him while Luffy looks so confused at first; press a palm on the back of Luffy's neck and pulling him to press their foreheads together while staring intensely into Luffy's eyes; neither of them saying anything until Nami told them to get a room; Zoro likes to bite Luffy, on his shoulder blades or his cheeks, due to cuteness aggression. He is actually the one who started it before Luffy developed a habit of biting him.

In modern AU, I really like to HC kindergarten/daycare/preschool teacher Luffy. His jobs can be pretty diverse, ranging from errand boy, to sex worker, to sumo wrestler, to boxer or MMA, to child care, to delivery service, pet sitter, warehouse operator, oil rig worker, beetle expert/scientist, and (a moot suggested) animal whisperer. Did he get a degree? maybe. Did it take him multiple tries to get a degree? could be. Did Sabo or Nami hook him up with a fake certificate? also possible. He might not even need them, this and that offered him after he helped them or something. While Zoro for me is usually pretty straightforward. A kendo athlete or teacher, anything by Luffy's side, bounty hunter or a hitman, or he gets paid to do the math equations in his classmates' assignments. At one point he was offered a data analysis or statistics job where he didn't last for a week because he got bored, had a bad attitude, and was often late due to getting lost

I have so many zl hcs I have not made any fanwork of, but these are the ones I thought abt at the top of my head so I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know what you think.

Bonus mature one to make this five hcs in total

Luffy bottoms, Zoro tops. Sometimes, Zoro is more of a side or touch-me-not, so they would use toys, hands, or tongues. Luffy looooves Zoro's mouth, almost more than getting dicked down. They either have quickies almost every day or they can go months without having sex so they don't have it planned out and they don't really experiment. One or both of them will just ask the other if they're horny or not, if they want to let off steam or not and just go at it. Zoro finds more pleasure in Luffy's reactions and looks than his own while in return, Luffy lets him in his most vulnerable state and gives him all his unbridled attention. Oftentimes, Zoro does it because he misses Luffy.

[cookii-moon]

Introducing… the Perfectly Neurotypical Ninja!!!

(I had an idea and thought it’d be funny)

our first incredibly neurotypical ninja is…

✨ JAY! ✨

Has zero volume control whatsoever

He can NOT be quiet for the life of him

There is no way he doesn’t have some form of anxiety disorder

Like his entire panic and fear definitely seem like anxiety to me

Has a plushie he still sleeps with for comfort and is emotionally attached to (which is super real of him honestly)

Panic attacks

He DEFINITELY has hyperfixations

Have you just seen him in general

That one short where he just starts running around on the roof

Also that one time he and Kai were supposed to train and got distracted by competition (Actually this could probably apply to all the ninja because they do this type of thing all the time)

Got so hyperfixated on dancing games that he learnt how to dance

I don’t think he can sit still it just doesn’t seem possible to me

(I’m not a Jay fan so I can’t point to much else off the top of my head but we’re all in agreement there’s no way he’s neurotypical right?)

Okay never mind, our FIRSt neurotypical ninja is…

✨ COLE! ✨

Talks to himself. A lot.

No seriously he talks to himself so much

Professional school dropout

Gets along great with animals and people who don’t fit in

Probably has owned a pet. Or five. (Probably a cat or a reptile) (he came around to them eventually and now he loves them) (dogs are too energetic and loud)

Most likely has depression

Definitely has sensory issues there’s no way he doesn’t

That one time he nearly had a breakdown from being overwhelmed. (Points to core shorts)

Dislikes metaphors (canon)

Wears the exact same hoodie without fail in every single episode where he has to wear civilian clothing (I think it’s a comfort thing at this point)

Probably taught himself several different ninja things he had no need to learn (why can he fight with a sword and nunchucks when he never uses either of them outside of a single special) (this also applies to shields and staffs and throwing stars but those are at least practical)

He says it’s to prepare but really he did it for fun

Has somehow not discovered his ninja special interest yet

(he physically can’t do anything else it’s too boring) (even when he’s not ninjaing he needs to practice once a day minimum or else he explodes)

Dances when happy/excited (definitely not a stim)

Immediately starts telling Jay about dancing when he enters the contest in a very excited manner (definitely not infodumping)

Has caused several misunderstandings due to bad social skills (he can NOT read the room for the life of him)

His best friend is Jay.

(even if he’s not autistic there’s no way this guy is neurotypical.)

(these are not the actions of a neurotypical person we’re all in agreement of that right)

Whoops… uh…never mind…our FIRST!!!! Neurotypical ninja…

✨ NYA! ✨

Terrified of failure

Like it haunts her she does NOT want to fail she has an entire arc devoted to it

Has a hard time letting go of things (she holds grudges A LOT)

This also includes things of sentimental value like Samurai X

Change is difficult for her just in general

SUPER stubborn

Definitely has a schedule that she envisions in her head but forgets to tell everyone else

(that short where she planned to spend time with Jay but he was going to the arcade)

Short temper especially on bad days

The more I write this the more I realize how little characterization she actually gets for most of the series

Justice for Nya honestly

(I’m assigning her neurodivergence I don’t care how short this is)

(I think autistic. But spicy.)

(probably also anxiety or OCD)

(do you see the vision)

….Okay so maybe not that one either- Uh… our FIRST!!! Neurotypical !!! Ninja!!!

✨ KAI! ✨

Has anger issues. Probably.

Super impulsive

No like incredibly impulsive. Ultra impulsive.

Craves attention but has really bad self worth issues

Hinges his worth on his powers (not healthy)

Wanted to be useful so badly that he convinced himself he’d get powers if he drop kicked Garmadon (it did not work)

Did I mention anger issues

Wants to be useful so he can protect!!!

That one time he and Jay were supposed to be training and-

Has zero patience

(I don’t know what flavor of neurodivergent he is but he’s neurodivergent somehow)

(once again I don’t pay attention to Kai there’s definitely more)

…Okay so this time for sure. Introducing FOR SURE our FIRST neurotypical ninja….

✨ ZANE! ✨

Do I even need to say anything

The entire episode “Home”

Social skills

Taking things literal

That one canon (?) book where he apparently has flashbacks to the ice emperor (im calling OCD or PTSD on that one Zane)

Also that one time he locked away bad memories in decoded (decoded is canon to me and the reason for that is mainly because it actually references ghost Cole (iirc) which is a miracle)

Yeah I think he has PTSD

that one time he hyperfixated on and roleplayed as a detective and then a pirate

probably more. Maybe.

That one’s a robot he’s disqualified. The FIRST, FOR SURE, NO MISTAKES, neurotypical ninja is…

✨ LLOYD! ✨

The fact he apparently has so much of starfarer memorized that he can nearly win a quiz contest thingy and the only thing that stopped him from doing that was that he hadn’t read a brand new limited edition issue

starfarer in general he is not normal about starfarer

Way too trusting for his own good

I would be more surprised if he didn’t have some sort of disorder considering everything he’s gone through

hes got to have at least something related to his trauma right

(This one is way shorter because. Again. Not a Lloyd fan. but. I think the starfarer thing is enough to push him into probably not neurotypical territory.)

(most kids do not know the entire plot and all the fun facts to a long running comic book series by heart)

Are you kidding me none of them are neurotypical?

Okay ne- what do you mean the last one

there’s those ones over there!!!! *points to Arin, Sora and wyldfyre*

Oh wait they’re also neurodivergent?

…..uuuuugh shows canceled then…. Sigh… Guess I’ll start up the Incredibly Neurodivergent Ninja show instead.

(disclaimer this is a joke)

(but they are all neurodivergent that part isn’t)

[neonacity]

SIREN CALL | Kim Doyoung x Reader

Warnings: stalking, animals eating other animals, cursing. Doie calls reader the b word. Smut though not too detailed. Overall creepy vibes.

A.N.: I wrote this in less than three hours and is barely proofread. Doyoung's Fact Check teaser is to blame. Disclaimer: I am not implying any likeness between my characters and their real counterparts. They are simply my muses for creative inspiration.

You've always felt it. The crawling pull of not-so-secret eyes on your back.

They're similar to the touch of ghostly fingers running down your spine, wanting and desiring from the shadows in secret. You've grown so used to it that it no longer makes the hair at your nape stand, though the familiarity was not enough to entirely quell the tingling feeling building at the pit of your stomach. You would try to keep yourself from physically shivering, determined not to let him know the effect that he has by simply watching.

Still, he stared.

Harder.

Longer.

Deeper.

You've only talked to him thrice. The first time was when you were introduced to the rest of the part-timers at the petshop you'll be working for the summer break. You completed the less than a dozen rotational crew of the store, but there was only one who stuck out to you the moment the introductions were done.

Kim Doyoung.

He was assigned night shift just like you, down at the fish section on the back part of the shop. His presence, however, did not call out to you for all the normal reasons. Doyoung was tall and lanky, his oversized dark hoodie hanging off from his wide shoulders lazily as if they were fitted for someone three times his size. His hair, dark with a tinge of blue, was closely cropped, emphasizing his almost sharp bone structure. He was pale—the likes of those that does not seem to see the light of day in the regular—and yet it was none of these qualities that made you choked up the moment you laid eyes on him.

It was his dark eyes that seem to drill deep into you, a stare so unwavering that it makes your knees buckle from the weight of it alone. He never gave you a smile or even a nod when he was introduced to you, but he kept you locked under his gaze, his pierced eyebrows barely moving to give away his thoughts even as you moved along to meet other members of the store.

Since then, his stare never left you.

*******

The second time you talked to him, you didn't really have a choice. You were asked to call in to fill in for a sick coworker and you had to work the same section he did for the whole shift. A good half of it, you tried to keep your distance from the quiet man who spent most of his time staring at the fish tanks—at least when his eyes weren't on you. Doyoung's gaze is not the type to trigger internal alarm signals... but they linger, like a long drag of cigarette that burns your throat even after you blew out the smoke.

"The Bettas. They like you."

You looked up from the tank you were trying to clean and stared at the man a few shelves from where you are. His eyes weren't set on you, leaving you to wonderel for a while if you simply imagined his voice or not.

"...I'm sorry...?"

Doyoung kept quiet for a while, his face lit up by the pale blue light of the aquarium he was staring at. Inside it, about half a dozen deep blue fishes swam languidly, their long flowing tails giving them the illusion of dancing in water.

"The Bettas. I think they like you," he slowly repeated this time as his eyes lifted to finally meet yours. The moment he looked at you, you slightly clenched at the soft rug you were holding. He was a good five feet away from you and still you could swear you felt his long fingers run through your body.

It took you everything not to shiver.

"What makes you say that?"

The man slightly lifted his pierced brows. Silently, you watched him press his hand against the tank. In seconds, the water dancers started moving close to the glass he touched, almost as if they were hypnotized. It was a strange but calming scene. One that was only broken by the spine-chilling words he spoke next.

"They aren't trying to eat each other today," Doyoung said simply. You looked at him in shock and you could swear you almost saw the corner of his lip slightly twitch. Silently, he pushed back from the tank and started walking away.

"You should stay here. Always. That would be nice."

*******

The third time you talked to him, it was not really a 'conversation.' You were walking home after work when you felt the familiar prickly sensation between your shoulders. It was dark, with nothing but the lamp posts lining the path crowding your peripheral vision. You did not need to see him to feel him though. In a moment of denial, it took you a minute to finally accept that there is more than just your shadow moving in the darkness as you tread your way back to your dingy apartment. Maybe it is the adrenaline, but you managed not to stumble on your steps and keep the illusion of cluelessness despite the hard beating of your heart. Maybe if he believes that you're unaware of his presence, he will not do anything bad to you today. You just need to reach your apartment... one street down, two more doors, just put the key and don't let him see the shake of your fingers. Then you'll be safe.

That night, he watched you from across the street, even if he cannot really see you from your upstairs window. Your message to him was clear despite the lack of words, and his the same to you.

*******

The fourth time is going to be the last.

It was a tiring round of cat and mouse and it's about time it comes to an end. You walked silently between the rows of tanks, silently watching the colorful caged up fish there. The room was dark, and yet the space glowed from the light from the glass containers stretched out on your sides.

You stopped right in front of the Betta fishes and noted in silence how most of them were clustered in just one part of the aquarium. They were moving in small motions, and it was not until one swam away that you finally understood what was happening. A motionless fish was in the middle of the pack... serving as fodder for the rest.

You parted your lips only for them to be covered again by a rough palm that went over it. Eyes wide, it only took a few seconds for your body to be pushed forward until you were pressing against the cold glass of the tank. There was a constricting force that almost choked you as it kept its ironhold on your midriff and you had to cough a few times to keep your airpipe open.

"Caught you."

The smile that followed those two words was sharper than any broken shard of glass that can draw blood and split flesh. Doyoung looked at your smiling reflection on the glowing tank and swore he could feel it sink into his skin.

"How did you know?"

The man didn't say anything for a while and instead only moved one of his hands downward to unbuckle your jeans. He wasted no time moving it and your underwear down, just enough for him to run his fingers up and down your slit. A broken moan of pleasure left you before your voice curled into a chuckle.

"Can't wait? You didn't answer my question—"

"Shut the fuck up, you bitch. You want this," he hissed against the shell of your ear as he unceremoniously buried two fingers deep inside your hole. You gasped, the shock of his action making you run your nails against the glass you're still pushed against.

"You planned this, didn't you?"

"You went into my house on your own. That was all you."

Oh, yes. Sure you might have been the one who created the collection of photos of him on your wall, but it was him who followed you home and let himself in to see it. Yes, you did apply for the job at the forsaken seedy petshop after taking an interest at the hermit boy working night shift there, but you didn't force him to like you or be obsessed of your little falsified innocent act.

Yes, it was you. But it was also him as well.

You drew your head back slightly now and briefly watched the Bettas dancing in the water. Another blink and your eyes focused on the reflection behind you, the man with the cropped hair and pierced brows wearing an almost pained expression as he finally freed himself from his pants and lined himself against your core. When he sank into your warmth, your sweet smile melted into a gape as your eyes rolled back in pleasure.

Yes, it was you all along. But it was him as well.

[lost-technology]

Explaining Vash Outside the Fandom!

So, today on another forum I mentioned Vash the Stampede. I mentioned him by way of "I don't ask myself WWJD? so much anymore as WWVtSD?" and explained "Vash the Stampede." I said "If anyone is unfamiliar with this name, go ahead and ask and I can fangirl all over you, but be warned, you will be reading all day." I got a taker. And then another taker who is a person on the forum who is straight up not having a good time right now and needs some distraction I feel - to read someone's dumb fangirling over a fandom they aren't in yet. So... I wrote up an essay explaining Vash the Stampede in Word and pasted it in shifts on the blog: (uck, looks like I'm gonna have to post this in shifts, too. Dumb tumblr!

*Flashes my fangirl license*  You asked about Vash the Stampede?  *Raises eyebrows.*  Big mistake.  You shall be here all day!  Vash is the protagonist of Trigun, an anime / manga by Yashiro Nightow.  Well, the manga is by him and there are two different animes to date, one originally airing in 1998 before the completion of the manga (and it gained the idea enough popularity that Nightow was able to continue the manga and purposefully took a different track to keep the story fresh.  Because he had to switch publishers the continuing story was titled Trigun Maximum).  As of 2023 there has been a reboot of the anime, Trigun Stampede, done in a cell-shaded CGI style that takes more cues from the manga.  It has done its own story elements, too, most notably having the City of July as a part of the story, making it almost a prequel, since the City of July is past tense in the other media.  A second set / continuation / completion of it is set for a future release date and as of yesterday, the “final phase” of the new anime will be titled Trigun Stargaze. Additionally, there was a feature-movie made in 2011 based solely upon the first anime titled Badlands Rumble, which is kind of the black sheep of the fandom (personally I enjoy it, find it very funny).  So, anyway, Vash is a tall blonde man with a Bart Simpson hairdo and a long red coat who lives on a desert planet with 10X the guns of ‘Murica.  There are two suns and five moons.  It’s a scavenger world where people barely eek out a living using a form of lost technology known as “Plants” – which are these energy and materials production entities housed in giant lightbulbs (or something more like tanks in Stampede).  No one knows how to create Plants anymore and few know how to maintain them, so everything is slowly dying (except, of course, the native sandworms.  Yep, there’s something Dune-like going on).  People live a half sci-fi half Old West existence and things are, again, very violent.  It’s a world where you have higher chances of making it out better as a bandit than a farmer.    Vash is a pacifist.  He is also an outlaw with Sixty-Billion-Double Dollars ($$) on his head because he has been shown to be capable of incredible destructive power.  Now, most of this comes accidentally from trying to weasel out of tough situations and people after him getting themselves hurt, but somehow towns fall apart.  Except for the City of July (or Jul-Ai in Stampede), which he did wipe out.  Under circumstances not of his own making or will, but the normal citizens of the planet don’t know that.  That was around 24 years ago in the first anime and in the manga.  July exists as of the beginning of Stampede.    Early on in the manga’s story, an insurance company that gets a lot of damage claims regarding damage he supposedly caused declares him a “Human Act of God” so as to avoid payouts.  He is assigned a pair of insurance agents, Milly Thompson and Meryl Stryfe, to follow him around to attempt to mitigate the damage he might cause.  In the anime, it is the same, except that his bounty is not removed for some reason.  (In the manga, the government removes his bounty per his “Act of God” status).  He is also known as the Humanoid Typhon, putting him in the same category as a destructive storm.  Vash-damage is thereafter treated in the same like as hurricane damage!  Honestly, this is one of the most creative things I have seen of any media – having the local superhero / super-cryptid followed by INSURANCE AGENTS. (I am fond of characterizing Trigun as “If Mayhem from the Allstate commercials was followed around by Flo from the Progressive commercials”).  (To Be Continued in Reblog-posts)

[apolloskazoo]

ELLIE & JOEL HEADCANONS PART 2

Here’s the part 2 you people (me) have been asking for. Once again 1k words because I cannot control myself

• When Ellie is looking a little down or bored and Joel isn’t right beside her, he’ll make a silly little face at her from across the room to get her to laugh a little. She always makes one back to get him to laugh, too. They can make each other laugh from literally across the room with one single look. 

• Joel keeps everything Ellie makes. Drawings, school assignments, anything and everything he can get his hands on. He has stacks of papers and other things Ellie has made just lying in his drawer or pinned up on the fridge. Ellie always talks about how lame it is, and how they’re not even good, and blah blah blah, but Joel just snatches that paper right out of her hands and pins it up on the wall because he LOVES HIS DAUGHTER. 

• One time Ellie got a cut, and while Joel was patching it up he jokingly said, “want me to kiss it better?” Ellie doesn’t understand what that even means and Joel has to explain. Now whenever she gets a cut she forces him to kiss it better because 1) it’s funny 2) to make fun of him when he said it the first time and 3) maybe she wants a Joel kiss, is that so much to ask for?

• In Jackson, Ellie learns that hardwood floors and socks can create a Very Fun Activity (sliding around a room in bare socks) and Joel has a near death heart attack every time she does it because he’s convinced she’s going to slide into a wall one day (she does).

• Joel 100% snores SO LOUDLY like the dad he is and Ellie complains about it non-stop, but in reality she can’t fall asleep without the sound of his annoying dad snores, whether they’re right in her ears or coming distantly from down the hall. It helps her know that he’s alive and okay and that he’s with her, and also it’s become like white noise since it was all she could hear during the nights they were traveling (she would tease him endlessly about raiders finding them by the sound of his snoring alone. He did not find it as funny as she did). 

• Joel is known as the “pun guy” by the other adults at Jackson, and whenever there’s a new resident they all tell them that if they have any puns, give them to Joel. The entire reason the name started up was because whenever Ellie was having a bad day, telling her a pun she hadn’t heard before would cheer her up, but he didn’t know enough of them—so, obviously, he went around telling everyone that if they knew any puns, give them to him. He has people approaching him and telling him puns weekly, and he suffers through it just to see the look on Ellie’s face when she’s sad and he tells her them to get her to smile.  

• Ellie eats things off of the floor. Don’t get me wrong, she’s NOT running around grabbing week old pieces of food off of the dirty ground, but she thoroughly believes in the five second rule and not wasting food (because of FEDRA school and not eating on the road and such, but I won’t get into that). So if she drops some food on the ground, she’ll quickly snatch it up and keep eating it, because of old habits. The first time Joel sees her accidentally tip her plate onto the floor, snatch it up in record speed, and keep eating it? He’s horrified. Speechless. Beyond shocked. Ellie Williams? Who? You mean the kid who just ate the same food that landed on the floor five seconds ago like some sort of deranged animal? Yeah, he didn’t know her, she was just some random kid. What do you mean, you saw him walking in with her when they first arrived? He’s never spoken to her a day in his life before, because if he had, he certainly would’ve taught her not to eat off the damn ground. He 100% pulls her aside, dumps the food into the trash, and lectures her on not trying to beat the world record of “person who caught the most sicknesses in under a week.” Ellie doesn’t see the big deal (“at least I’m not wasting food, Joel. And it’s hardly even dirty anyway, it was on the ground for, like, a second”) but after he starts listing off all of the diseases she could get she agrees to stop, if only to get him to stop talking. 

• Joel teaches Ellie how to build and fix things, and essentially teaches her all of the stuff he learned as a contractor and mentors her. He loves teaching it to her because it’s his work and he loves to share it with her, and Ellie loves to learn it, too. When he’s working on houses or repairs in Jackson, she tags along and helps, and she likes feeling like her and Joel share a skill together, plus she thinks building is pretty rad. Also, if she and Joel share work, they get to see each other more often, which is a bonus. They’re building buds. They have matching construction hats. 

• They take walks together, especially during the time when the sun is setting and it’s a bit cooler on hot days. Sometimes they just walk and talk, and other times Ellie brings her sketchbook and Joel brings something to carve and they walk to a river or back to the porch or somewhere peaceful, and they just sit down and do their thing. Joel works on what he’s working on, Ellie draws what’s around her or what’s on her mind. They just exist peacefully beside each other, silently bonding and doing their separate tasks beside one another. 

• Ellie pets every animal she sees. A dog is passing by? Joel, stop walking, she needs to pet him NOW!!!!! Is there a cat in the window? She will spend thirty minutes trying to get the cat to trust her enough that it will let it pet her, and an hour later it’s in her lap purring and whatever she was trying to get to has already closed up, and Joel is running to find her in a panic. She 100% brings a rat home one day and asks Joel if they can keep it (she named it Chef Boyardee Ratvioli. She does not, unfortunately, get to keep it). 

• Alternatively, Joel is such a big lame dad that he has to interact with every baby he sees. A baby is crying? Here, let Joel hold it, he’ll calm it down. Is that baby staring at him as he walks by? He’s waving and when the baby waves back he cannot control his smile. Yes, of course he’ll watch someone’s infant son for a second while they go to the bathroom despite not knowing either of them. Yes, he cries when he holds Tommy’s baby for the first time and yes, Ellie does indeed make fun of him for it (she cried, too, though, don’t listen to her lies). 

• Ellie has a hard time sleeping at night while they’re traveling, so instead of just lying down and struggling to sleep, she talks to Joel every. Night. About everything. She reads him stupid puns. She tells him dinosaur and space facts. She tells him funny made-up stories. She chats about literally everything and anything, and Joel is baffled on how much she can still talk after a whole day of walking. He complains non-stop on how he wants to sleep and she needs to shut up, but eventually he gets used to it and he even, gasp, looks forward to hearing her non-stop nighttime chattering, which usually ends in Ellie talking herself to sleep halfway through a sentence. 

Part 3 only if y’all like these and I get inspired again

[scotianostra]

On September 23rd 1880, John Boyd Orr, Nobel Peace prize winner, was born in Kilmaurs, Ayrshire.

John Boyd Orr's pioneering research led to millions of children across the UK being given free school milk from 1946 to 1971 when Margaret Thatcher, then education secretary, cut provision giving her the mick name Thatcher, "Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher”

Boyd Orr was born in Ayrshire into a religious and highly literate family, and it was perhaps inevitable that he should be destined for a career in teaching after studying theology. However, his studies at Glasgow University also opened up new avenues for him. He became interested in the theories of Darwin, and this led to a fascination with zoology.

When he graduated with his MA in 1902, he was assigned to a teaching position in the Glasgow slums to fulfil the obligations required by his scholarship. He lasted only a few days before resigning and going back home to Ayrshire where he was reassigned to a school in Saltcoats. There he completed his teaching but left as soon as he could, saying: "though I liked the children, I hated teaching them”.

Boyd Orr returned to university to study biology and medicine, and he graduated with a BSc in 1910 and MB ChB two years later. He only practised for one month before returning to university to undertake nutritional research. His MD thesis in 1914 was awarded the Bellahouston Gold Medal for the most distinguished thesis of the year.

On the recommendation of his supervisor, he was asked to be the first director of a new research institute in Aberdeen, which would later become the world renowned Rowett Institute. At the time of his appointment, it did not exist, but he would spend the next twenty-five years raising both funds and the profile of nutritional research to make it a reality.

The initial work to build the institute was, however, interrupted by the outbreak of war. Boyd Orr enlisted in the RAMC and saw active service on the Western Front where he was awarded both the Military Cross and the Distinguished Service Order. Later he would never wear the medals saying that the truly brave men had all died.

In the interwar years, he travelled widely and published extensively, emerging as one of the country’s leading experts in nutrition. He first came to national attention in 1936 with the publication of Food, Health and Income, a report of a dietary survey by income group, which revealed that the cost of a diet meeting basic nutritional needs was beyond the means of half the British population.

This led to similar studies being conducted in nineteen other countries and prompted the creation of a Commission of the League of Nations, which tried to formulate a global food policy. It became the forerunner of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Boyd Orr would become the Director General of the FAO from 1945-48. These were important years because the predicted European post-war famine was averted in part by policies put forward by the organisation.

Boyd Orr was no stranger to the challenges of developing and implementing food policies, many of which are still with us today. He spent his later career trying to persuade governments and presidents, organisations and companies to rethink the way they did things. However, he would often bemoan the fact that while he could persuade farmers of the importance of the nutrition of their animals, he could not stir their interest “in the food of their ain bairns, far less in the bairns of ither folks”.

His was a life filled with honours and awards, from Gold medals at University to military decorations to honorary degrees and more. He was elected Rector of Glasgow University and subsequently became its Chancellor. He was briefly a British Member of Parliament, and in 1935 he was knighted for his services to agriculture. In 1949, after he was awarded the Nobel Prize, Prime Minister Clement Attlee ennobled him as Baron Boyd Orr of Brechin Mearns.

Reading of Boyd Orr’s long career it seems he had a series of false starts and perhaps even failures. But he was no dilettante. He combined a powerful intellect with an admirable work ethic to achieve a mastery in everything he tried. That he chose to move from a career in teaching to medical practice, to research, to politics and then to governance and policy making was not evidence of mere restlessness but of a constant desire to do meaningful work.

Boyd Orr was at heart a man with an ambitious vision for the world, and he firmly believed that real peace and prosperity would only ever be achieved when no one was hungry.

The citation for the 1949 Nobel Peace Prize read: “for his lifelong effort to conquer hunger and want, thereby helping to remove a major cause of military conflict and war”.

[maboroshi-no]

Hamefura BluRay S1 Vol 2 SS

I have translated Maria's SS from the Anime Blu-ray special.

Series: My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! Title / Character: Maria Source: Anime BluRay S1 Vol 2 Synopsis: Maria is struggling to create new sweets for Katarina. Translation: maboroshi-no

Translation below ⮟

Maria

Maria: Hmm… Maybe I should make it a little sweeter.

I, Maria Campbell, murmured this while sampling the sweets I had just made in the kitchen.

Since the Academy of Magic had entered an long period of vacation, I had left the dorm and returned home.

I had finished the vacation assignments and had some free time, so today, I was challenging myself to create new sweets.

Baking sweets was a pastime I had since childhood.

Before, I was making sweets just to remember the happy times and motivate myself to do my best.

But now, I had come to make them because I enjoyed it.

"If I give this to her, she may be even happier. " When I thought this, a smile naturally formed.

Maria's Mother: I'm home. Oh, you're making sweets?

My mother, who had returned from grocery shopping, asked me this.

Maria: Yes. I've been thinking of a new recipe. She's looking forward to it, after all.

Maria's Mother: Do you mean Lady Katarina?

Maria: Yes.

When I nodded, my mother made a chuckling smile.

Because Lady Katarina visited my home, I had come to talk with my mother much more than before.

This made me so happy that when I returned home, I talked a lot with my mother about things from the Academy of Magic.

My mother listened with a wide smile. Then, when I finished,

Maria's Mother: You just keep talking about Lady Katarina~ You really love her, don't you?

After saying this, she chuckled.

Indeed, when I talked about things from the academy, I would naturally often end up talking about Lady Katarina. 

We did spend a lot of time together, but it wasn't the only reason. It was because my time with Lady Katarina was so enjoyable.

She was a duke's daughter and a prince's fiancée, and even among the female students of the academy, she had the best parentage. She should, properly speaking, not be the kind of person who would exchange words with a commoner like me.

But Lady Katarina didn't appear to mind it in the slightest, she readily spoke to me.

While some other high-ranking noble ladies acted like they didn't want to hear anything from a commoner. 

Also, Lady Katarina didn't only readily talk to me, she also said I was her friend.

Katarina: Maria, you're my precious friend.

Our social statuses were just so different, and yet she said this as if it were only natural.

I wished I could tell my childhood self that I was able to meet someone who would tell me this.

When I was five, I became "a magic wielder" after casting light magic.

Then, from that moment on, I wasn't "Maria Campbell" anymore. I became "the Wielder of Light".

As someone different who possessed the magic that was almost exclusive to nobles, in town, I was surrounded from a distance by not only the children but also by the adults.

Because of me, my mother was rumored to have had an affair with a noble. Our family relationships became strained and a distance gradually appeared between us.

The child me wished for my surroundings and my family to go back to how they were, so I put in all the effort I could.

After recalling the ones I had once made with my mother, I worked my hardest to make sweets and then brought them to school. But in the end, no one would eat them.

And like this, I was all alone for a long time.

Curled into a ball inside my bed, I would imagine someone appearing someday who would need me, who would tell me I was important to them.

When I would turn fifteen and enroll in the Academy of Magic, everyone there would possess magic, so I wouldn't be different anymore. I might be able to make some friends.

I enrolled in the academy believing this, but there, I was the only commoner and the only wielder of light, so in the end, things didn't change much compared to my town.

Rather, I was more alienated there and treated as a nuisance.

I might have to live like this forever. As I started to think this, Lady Katarina appeared before me.

Just like a hero, Lady Katarina dashingly appeared and protected me with her body when I was blamed for "getting favored treatment as a wielder of light".

Katarina: Maria-chan isn't getting such a thing as favored treatment. She's putting in great effort. Maria-chan always gives her all, we like her that's why we're staying with her!

She said these words.

The people around me wouldn't see me as anything but "The Wielder of Light".

And because of this, I had always wished this.

I wished for someone to see me as "Maria Campbell". And if it were granted, I wished to stay with this person.

But with everyone surrounding me from a distance, I thought this wish wouldn't possibly come true.

This was what I thought but Lady Katarina granted my wish.

She found me, she found the person called "Maria Campbell".

Until now, no matter how much effort I put in, people would say the result was only natural because I was the special girl with light magic. No one would realize my efforts. But Lady Katarina…

Katarina: Maria, you're such a hard worker! I need to follow your example!

She said this.

She didn't say that I could do it because I was special. She praised me for being able to do it after working hard.

At times, I couldn't help thinking that Lady Katarina could maybe use some mysterious magic. 

After all, Lady Katarina showered me with the words that I desired, that I had always wanted. My heart had been empty for a long time, and upon meeting Lady Katarina, it rapidly filled. Staying by Lady Katarina's side was very comfortable.

Maria's Mother: And so, these new sweets, what kind are you making?

These words from my mother suddenly brought me back to reality. I had been absorbed in my thoughts after unconsciously remembering about the old times and my time with Lady Katarina.

Maria: Umm~ I made jam out of fruits and used it as filling, but it doesn't seem sweet enough at all.

After I had said this, my mother…

Maria's Mother: Let me have a taste.

She bit into the lined-up sweets.

Maria's mother: You're right. The sweetness may be a little mild. Does Lady Katarina like it rather sweet?

Maria: Yes. She does, but since I'm using both jam and sugar, I'm also worried about it becoming too sweet. Getting the amount right is hard.

Maria's Mother: Is that so? I'll also give it some thought, so shall we make it together?

Maria: Mom, don't you have other things to do? Is it okay?

Usually, even after coming back from groceries, my mother would do all kinds of work. She should be busy at this hour.

Maria's Mother: The other things are not so urgent, I can do them later. Baking sweets with my daughter is rather my number one priority.

My mother said this and smiled.

Maria: Thank you, Mom.

I was a little moved to tears.

And like this, after many trials and errors, my mother and I created new sweets. It was such an enjoyable, joyous, and happy time.

Finally, when I gave Lady Katarina the sweets we made, it made her incredibly happy, and I felt very happy once more.