#holy shit its been ages since I posted anything here

[modernbastard]

Wait to sit and kneel, it’s just a Friday night.

[wintrwinchestr]

an overture of indulgence (joel miller x f!reader oneshot) 18+

summary: it's been a long time since you've seen joel, and some things have changed, but a lot has stayed the same. namely, how quickly he can still get you on his knees for him, ready to show him exactly just how much you like what has changed about him.

warnings: 18+, smut, post-outbreak, jackson joel, d/s relationship dynamics, pet names (baby, babygirl, sweetheart, sweet girl, etc), body worship, belly kink, talk of weight gain, belly riding, m/f masturbation, lil bit of humiliation kink, lil bit of edging, reader is an adult but age otherwise unspecified, reader is shorter than joel and has hair long enough to grab, let me know if i missed anything :)

word count: 4.3k

a/n: just fuckin outing myself left and right these days huh. idk what came over me with this one. started this late last night and here it is now. belly enjoyers rise!!!!!!! nice comments/reblogs appreciated if you enjoyed <3 you can't kink shame me bc i like getting bullied so now what. also i avoided daddy kink for once in my life please clap. i know i’m spoiling y’all this weekend don’t get used to it.

divider by @saradika

“...Joel?!” you shout, your leisurely walking pace quickly turning into a hurried jog as you leave Tommy behind, making a beeline toward the man you would swear on your life is Joel Miller. A small handful of years ago now, he was kind of your boyfriend, kind of not, kind of something else more complicated and unlabeled, because who can afford to put a label on anything in times like these?

Joel’s head turns in your direction at the sound of his name, and as soon as you spot that crooked scar across the bridge of his nose, you’re certain it’s him.

“Holy shit, I can’t believe it,” you half-cry, throwing your weight into him as you wrap him in a tight embrace. He’s much taller than you, but you still managed to knock him off his balance a little. He envelops your whole body in one of his signature, all-encompassing hugs, and it’s like no time has passed at all.

The two of you had ended whatever it was you had on good terms, no hard feelings or animosity shared between you. It was just hard to maintain any kind of relationship in a world like this, and trying to nurture romance in the Boston QZ was much like trying to grow a rose garden in toxic, radioactive soil. You can put as much care and effort and something like love into it as you have in you, but the circumstances will just never allow it to reach its full potential. The end of your “relationship” was mutual, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. Especially when he had disappeared one day without so much as saying goodbye.

When you had stumbled upon Tommy and a group of patrollers in the snowy forest outside Jackson just earlier today, you were alone, tired, and losing hope that this rumored safe haven even existed at all. You had heard crackles through the radio in the QZ about the community, and even though it sounded too good to be true, what else did you have to lose anymore? After months of travel and survival and pain and hunger, you’d never been so happy to meet a bunch of strangers in the woods in your whole life. You didn’t hesitate to get on the back of Tommy’s horse, and let him lead you to the sanctuary they spoke of.

As he was giving you a tour, proudly showing off their electricity, running water, fresh food, and clean houses, you had started to look forward to what the future may bring, for the first time in a long time. You could never have imagined you’d ever run into Joel again, that this is where he had ended up, of all places. And now here the both of you are, bodies pressed as tightly together as possible, breathing in each other’s familiar scents and never wanting to let go again.

Joel is the first to break the embrace, grasping your head in his large hands and frantically searching your face for any sign that he could be dreaming, that fate hasn’t really brought you back together again after all.

“Jesus Christ, it’s really you,” he breathes, and you swear his voice breaks just a little bit as he presses his lips to your forehead, closing his eyes as he does.

When he blinks them open again, he meets Tommy’s gaze, who’s standing quietly a few yards back from where you’re having your sentimental reunion. Tommy gives an understanding nod, and gestures that he’ll be waiting inside the community’s dining hall, gathering that whatever this is happening between his brother and some girl he only just met, he shouldn’t interrupt. Joel is grateful for many things today, one of them being the rekindled bond he has with Tommy, the other being how you somehow miraculously found your way back to him.

Small groups of other Jackson residents follow Tommy into the dining hall shortly afterward, and as the sun begins to set behind the mountains, Joel realizes it must be about time for dinner to be served.

He detaches his lips from your forehead, brushing some of your hair away from your face as he takes you in again. “You poor thing, must be starvin’ I bet,” he wonders aloud, giving you a sympathetic look.

“Kinda always am, just as a rule, but yeah,” you reply, trying to make light of your situation. Though, Joel doesn’t seem to find the humor in it the way you do.

“Long as you stay here, ain’t ever gotta worry about that again, that’s for damn sure.” He runs his tongue across his lips as he finishes his sentence, already knowing that whatever meal they’re serving tonight, it’ll be some of the most delicious food he’s had in a long time. He suspects you’ll feel much the same. “C’mon, let’s get you inside. Get you warm and fed for once in your life.”

–

Your heart, your stomach, your soul, all feel full as you relax into the comfortable couch in the living room of Joel’s cozy home. He wouldn’t even entertain the idea of you staying in an empty house all by yourself tonight, insisting that if you’d like some company while you settle in, you were more than welcome to his. He had let you spend as long as you wanted to in his shower, and he didn’t mind if there was hardly any warm water left by the time you were done. He sure as hell wasn’t paying the bill, and you deserved to feel truly clean. He can remember clear as day how he felt after his first Jackson shower, like he had stripped off a layer of grime he hadn’t been able to scrub all the way clean in twenty years. He had gone to Maria to get you some clothes and underwear while you were bathing, and set them silently on the sink counter for you to put on whenever you were done.

And now here you sit, feeling full and clean and satisfied and comfortable and safe, watching Joel stoke the logs in his fireplace as it casts the whole room in a honey orange glow. You take a moment to admire him while he isn’t looking, and even in the dim and flickering lighting, you can see he’s just as handsome as he was the last time you saw him. He looks older, with more gray in his longer hair and meat on his bones, the latter trait likely due to years worth of the hearty cooking you both indulged in tonight. He looks… good like this.

“It really is nice to see you again, you know. You look…” you start, not being able to help the way your eyes wander to his soft lower belly, the way it pushes taut against his tucked-in flannel shirt and just barely spills over the edge of his jeans.

He turns his head away from the fire to face you. You’re not very subtle in your staring, and he knows what you’re referring to right away. He huffs a light chuckle, trying to brush off the way he thinks you’re poking fun at him.

“I know, I know,” he acknowledges, placing a hand on his stomach. “Been tryin’ to get Maria to give me some more patrol shifts, see if I can get some of the weight off. But hey, you try havin’ three square meals a day for the first time in twenty some odd years, see what it does to you, huh?” He pivots his attention back to the fireplace, and he seems to turn his body further away from you on purpose, so that you can’t see the round profile of his tummy as much.

“No! No, it, um… It suits you. I was gonna say you look good, actually.” You’re quick in your reply, trying to make it clear that you didn’t mean to offend him, without letting too much on. 

He scoffs. “C’mon, you don’t gotta flatter me, sweetheart. I know I don’t exactly look the way you remember–”

“Joel, will you stop?” you interrupt, your voice laced with exasperation. “I’m being serious. Do I look like I’m making fun of you?”

He cranes his neck to look back at where you’re perched on the couch, and gives you a once over. “Guess not… Look a lil’ like somethin’ else, though, if I'm bein’ honest,” he says with a teasing smirk. And there he is again, the same quick-witted Joel you remember from back in the QZ.

You choose to engage in his banter, just to see where he’s going with it. “Oh yeah? And what’s that?”

He shrugs, beginning to mindlessly poke at the firewood again. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you look like you might like it.”

He’s just kidding around with you, trying to rile you up, you’re sure. But when he gets silence in return instead of the sound of you jumping to defend yourself with another playful jab, he turns to face you once more, and is met with your stunned expression. 

“Oh…” Joel looks down at himself, then back to you again, just in time to catch your eyes flitting from his middle back up to his face. “What, you like ‘em big, sweetheart? ‘S that it?”

The truth is, you do, you always have. It was never a requirement, of course, as the guys you’d been with before Joel all had varying body types. But you’d be lying to yourself if you said that your eyes didn’t linger just a bit longer on guys with a little more to them, with wider arms and thicker legs and a softer middle. You’ve never admitted your preference to anyone before, and Joel calling you out on it now has your face running hot, skin feeling prickly as he sees through you like you’re made of glass.

“I-I don’t– I mean, I do, kinda, but not like that… Well, it is like that, I just mean–” You stumble over yourself, fearing you’ve revealed too much, wishing you could rewind the conversation and just tell him it was nice to see him again, plain and simple.

Joel lays the fire poker down on the granite ledge of the fireplace, approaching where you’re sitting and cupping the side of your face with his calloused hand. 

“Sh, sh, stop, baby. ‘S alright if you do, nothin’ to be ashamed of,” he comforts, and it takes all the willpower you have left not to let your eyes drift down to his stomach, so close you could kiss it, if he’d let you.

“It’s just… I missed you. I thought about you all the time, wondered what ever happened to you after you left. Didn’t even know if you were alive until today. I’m just happy to see you… doing so well. To see that you’re healthy, and everything.” You swallow hard, hoping you sound convincing enough that he’ll let this go, forget all about your little admission just now. But of course, Joel is as stubborn as he’s ever been, and he doesn’t plan on releasing you from his trap now that you’re ensnared in it. 

“That’s sweet, baby, ‘s real sweet,” Joel says, softly, stroking his thumb across your cheekbone as he speaks. “Thought about you too, all this time. Practically every day…” He rakes his eyes over you, noticing the way his touch has you starting to melt already, how you’re looking up at him with your wide, needy eyes. “Why don’t you show me just how much you missed me, hm? How much you love seein’ me healthy, as you put it.”

You’re stunned into silence once again, jaw slack and pupils wide as you search his gaze for proof that he’s just messing with you, making fun of you just to watch you squirm. But you don’t find any.

“O-okay,” you agree in a half-whisper.

Joel smiles down at you, satisfied. “All these years later, still just the sweetest thing, ain’t you? You still just as obedient, too?”

You nod without even thinking, words catching up with your instinctual response a second later. “Mhm, yeah, I am…” You had forgotten how easy it is to submit to him, how good it feels to let the hypnotizing tone of his voice carry you somewhere far away from yourself, when you need it the most. Whether it was after a shitty day of working for shittier rations in the QZ, or after a harsh trek in harsher weather to a forested oasis, Joel always knows how to make you feel like submission is your most natural state. 

“Good… Kneel for me please, sweetheart,” he commands, and you obey immediately, his hand slipping from your face as you slide from the couch onto the woven carpet beneath you. Like second nature, your hands automatically fold themselves on your lap, remembering how you were never to touch Joel until he permitted you to. He takes note of this, and praises you accordingly. “Look at that, didn’t even have to ask. Such a good girl.”

He’s so enamored with you, he almost forgets where he was going with this until he watches your eyes flash to the growing bulge in his jeans, then back up to him. “Not tonight, sweetheart. Was thinkin’ you could put that pretty mouth to use on somethin’ different this time, hm?”

You knit your brows together, not sure what he means, but he doesn’t let you wonder for long. Slowly, he starts to unbutton his flannel shirt, starting at the top and working his way down. He tosses it onto the ground, then pulls his undershirt off over his head, adding it to the other discarded clothing. Without the confines of his slightly-too-tight button-up, you can see how much he really has filled out. Everything about his upper body is just a little more plush, with petal pink stretch marks adorning the soft skin in various places. You want to make it your personal mission to kiss each and every one of them, commit their exact coordinates on his body to memory.

There's a deep scar, you notice, to the left of his belly button, that has almost successfully disguised itself as one of those pretty marks. It’s definitely new since you saw him last, and it looks like it hurt, especially with the evidence of how crudely it had been stitched back together.

“What happened?” you wonder aloud, worried eyes glued to the healed injury.

He has to peer over the curve of his belly to see what you’re looking at. “Long story. Happened on my way out here, after I left Boston. Nothin’ for you to worry about, sweet girl, hardly even hurt. Forget it’s even there, most of the time,” he answers, still with a dominant edge to his voice that does a mostly good job of convincing you it’s the truth.

“Can… Can I?” you ask, waiting to receive his permission before you move your hands from your lap. 

“Yeah, baby, go ahead,” Joel allows. 

You reach out a small hand to gently trace over the raised scar, then press your lips to it with your hands splayed out on either side of your head, just barely pressing into his belly. He releases a soft groan, cradling the back of your head with one of his hands, applying the lightest amount of pressure to let you know this is where he wants to keep you. 

“Why don’t you keep goin’, sweetheart? Gimme some more lovin’ like that, know you wanna,” he encourages, and you think you get the idea now, what it is he wanted to put your pretty mouth to use for.

With his explicit permission to continue, you don’t need telling twice. You move your face to hover just in front of his belly button, admiring the dense salt and pepper happy trail that sprouts from where his jeans push into his soft skin. You drag your tongue along the hair, nipping at the soft curve of where it disappears into the divot in his stomach. He makes a noise in response, half pained and half pleasured, but he doesn’t stop you. Just for good measure, you place a kiss to the little blushing mark where your teeth had scraped him.

Almost of their own volition, it seems, your hands begin to knead at his stomach as you make good on your promise to yourself to kiss every single one of his stretch marks. You allow your tongue to dart from your mouth on the last one, and Joel sucks in a breath.

“Oh, fuck. Forgot how good that wet lil’ mouth feels on me, sweetheart. Keep goin’,” he says, voice coming out strained. His fingers curl tightly into your hair, and he begins to maneuver your face around his belly. You lave your tongue over his skin as he does, slicking him with wet, sloppy kisses. “Yeah, baby, you fuckin’ worship it, show me how much you like me like this.”

It’s a little humiliating, but just enough that you like the feeling. You’re breathing hard and fast, letting out little whimpers as your fluttering cunt begins to soak your underwear. He brings your face to a stop at the most tantalizing part of him, the part that truly evidences how much more he’s allowed himself to indulge since settling in Jackson. The ample curve of flesh that just barely conceals the waistband of his jeans, the part you’ve wanted to get your mouth on since you first saw how it strained the lower buttons of his shirt. You latch onto it, massaging the skin around it as you use your teeth and tongue to suck a mark into him.

A growl rumbles from deep in his chest, and he curses under his breath. “Like it that much, huh? Fuck, naughty thing, look at you.”

You’re so fucking turned on, you’re shivering, rocking where you kneel and squeezing your thighs together in an attempt to get some kind of relief. You let one of your hands drift to the hard shape in Joel’s jeans, and it seems he’s enjoying this as much as you are. He spots your pathetic little squirms as you rut against nothing, and then he’s using his grip on your hair to pull you up from the floor.

“Got an idea. Up,” he commands roughly, and you detach your lips from his belly to obey his order. “Get these off, there we go.” He pulls down your sweatpants and underwear, helping you step out of them. “Christ, you’re soaked,” Joel teases, eyeing the sizable wet spot in your panties as he tosses them aside to join the other forgotten clothing. He reaches a hand toward the apex of your thighs, teasing your wet pussy and gathering some of your slick on two of his fingers. You let out a tiny yelp, but let him play with you, and then he’s bringing his fingers in front of his face and examining the sticky strings of your arousal when he spreads them apart. “All this just from lettin’ you worship all this, huh?” he taunts, patting his stomach once for emphasis. “Who’d’ve thought? Not that I’m complainin’...”

He quickly rids himself of his jeans and briefs, then reclines onto the couch with a quiet groan, stretching out his body along the length of it. Your mouth waters at the sight of his cock, hard and leaking as it bobs against his belly, his precum adding to the dampness still there from your tongue. “Come sit, sweetheart,” Joel says, softly, motioning with both of his hands for you to come closer.

You grip a hand onto the backrest of the couch to balance yourself while you move to straddle him, prepared to sink down onto his length for the first time in way too fucking long. “Uh uh, not there, baby,” he instructs, smirking when he sees how you hesitate in confusion. “Take a seat right here for me.” Again, he pats that most tempting area of his lower belly, and you just about fall apart at the sight of how his flesh ripples in the wake of it.

“Yeah, there you go, good girl,” he praises, both hands gripping your waist as he helps you settle your weight onto his soft abdomen.

“I dunno, don’t wanna hurt you–” you start, but he cuts you off swiftly.

“You won’t, baby. I’m a big man, ain’t I?” he teases, flashing you a devilish and knowing smile. “Go on, sweetheart, ride it.”

You inhale a shuddering breath, then place both of your hands on his shoulders to hold yourself up. You start an experimental buck into his belly, and that trail of dark hair tickles your clit so perfectly. It takes a few tries for you to get the positioning and pressure just right, and then you’re truly riding him, using his full stomach to get yourself off while he watches. 

“God, that’s good. Use it, baby. You love me bigger, love that I’ve been eatin’ so good, prove it to me, c’mon,” Joel goads, and it spurs you on to grind against him harder, faster, as incoherent mumbles and curses tumble from your lips.

“Love it, Joel, you look so good, fuck. So fucking–mmh–so big, makes me so… so–”

“I know it does, sweet girl, I know. Makes you fuckin’ soaked is what it does, god damn. You gonna get my belly all messy, hm? Gonna rub your lil’ cunt all over it, get me all fuckin’ wet?”

“Uh huh, yeah, gonna… I’m gonna–” you whine, eyes shutting tight as your hips pick up their pace. You move your hands from his shoulders to place them on his stomach instead, grabbing at handfuls of his tummy in an effort to create something more solid to rub yourself against. 

You’re already embarrassingly close, the humiliating edge to your earlier worship having gotten you most of the way there on its own. So swollen and sensitive it almost hurts, you won’t need much more to reach your high.

“Not without me, you ain’t. Gonna be right there with ya. You remember how we used to do it?” Joel asks, as if you could ever forget. He’s referring to your many late nights, early mornings, in his bed or in a back alley or wherever in the QZ, where he liked to make sure you both finished at the same time. You’d always be the first one to reach the edge, because he’d focus all his attention on getting you there before him, just to make you wait. It was never something punishing, just something he liked to do as an extra bit of control and dominance, and he knew it always made your orgasms that much more powerful and satisfying when he would finally permit you to let go.

With your eyes closed, so focused on your own pleasure, you hadn’t noticed that he had reached behind you to start fisting his cock some time ago. But you can hear it now, the wet schlick of his hand moving up and down his shaft as he works himself. “Hold it for me, sweetheart, I know you can. Keep rubbin’ your pretty pussy against me, jus’ like that, almost there…”

You mewl, screwing your face up as you force yourself to slow down your thrusts, muscles tense as you try to keep your orgasm at bay for as long as you can. 

Thankfully, he must be worked up enough from seeing you fall apart for him so easily for the first time in so long, that his permission comes just a few minutes later.

“Come for me, babygirl, soak my fuckin’ belly, c’mon,” Joel growls, and you fall forward immediately, twitching and spasming and crying out into the soft muscle of his shoulder as you ride out the shuddering shocks of your orgasm. He groans next to your ear as he comes, and you can feel the warm ropes of his own release as some of them land on your lower back. You’re both wet, heaving messes, as you embrace each other for the second time today and work on catching your breath.

So exhausted from the day you had, you must’ve fallen asleep against his chest as you laid there, because then you’re being woken up by the dull scratch of his fingertips against your scalp and his familiar voice working its way through the thick fog that clouds your tired brain. 

“You alright, baby?” he asks, and you can hear that he’s smiling, amused at this sleepy little thing he’s got clinging to him.

“Mhm, jus’ tired,” you answer, a barely-there mumble of a sentence.

“I’ll bet… You wanna get cleaned up? Get all tucked into bed?”

You shake your head against his neck, and he chuckles.

“No? Whatcha wanna do then, hm?”

“Jus’ lay here. Missed you. Don’t wanna let… go…” 

Your sentence drifts off into silence before the temptation of sleep allows you to finish it, but Joel gets the idea. He smiles to himself, kissing the top of your head, and hugs you closer. Both of you are still sticky and damp, but satisfied. And together again. And that’s a hell of a lot better than the alternative.

So he agrees, and you stay like that for the rest of the night. Joel doesn’t worry about whether or not he remembered to set his alarm clock for his extra patrol shift the next morning, or if he’ll even hear it all the way from his bedroom upstairs, because it doesn’t matter anyway. He has you, and you made it very clear tonight just how much you like him exactly the way he is. 

Maybe, your rose garden can finally begin to bloom, now that the pair of you have somewhere safe and comfortable and healthy to try your hand at nurturing it again.

tag list: @beefrobeefcal @iamasaddie @rebel-held @dilfgestivo @zliteraturehoe @joeldjarin @kamcrazy123 @hellowoolf @rexamongthestars @stevie75 @luxurychristmaspudding @noisynightmarepoetry @mewantpeepaw @pedritoferg (if your name is crossed out, it won’t let me tag you!!)

[renthony]

I haven't enjoyed a Marvel movie since I stopped bothering to keep up with the MCU in 2014. I don't care for most Marvel movies. I think Marvel Studios is a case study in things that are shitty in the entertainment industry. But holy shit, pretentious posts along the lines of "haha, I don't watch Marvel films, I have real taste, go watch another movie!" are so fucking annoying.

Like, go put up your middle finger at some preps or something. People are allowed to watch whatever they want and enjoy whatever movies they want and make whatever fandom stuff they want, and that doesn't say anything about their intelligence or morals or character. It doesn't mean they are somehow bad at watching movies, or are too stupid to realize whatever nugget of wisdom ye high-and-mighty Marvel Haters think you're the only ones to understand.

Again, not personally a Marvel fan, but this whole "haha, I'm better than Marvel fans" relates to something I've been musing on about media analysis as a whole. There is a persistent idea that mass entertainment is inherently lower quality or less artistic because it's made for a wide audience, and that bad art isn't worth analyzing or engaging with just because it's low quality. In this mindset, the only art that has the possibility to be any good at all is 100% independent projects made by amateurs, and anything produced by a studio or with wide appeal is inherently poser art with absolutely nothing meaningful to say. In this mindset, you can't possibly learn anything or take anything from bad art, and if you find meaning in bad art, you're clearly just stupid and uneducated and have bad taste.

The thing is? Liking bad art is not a sin. Having a different opinion about what constitutes "bad art" is not a sin. Finding something entertaining despite its flaws is not a sin. Studying bad art is not a sin. You can learn a lot from bad art, you can learn a lot from interpreting propaganda, you can learn a lot from engaging with things even if you don't think they're very "good."

My vaudeville research keeps turning up author after author who talks about vaudeville as some sort of "point of no return," like the performing arts all turned to shit the second things were intended to be seen by more than a single audience for a single show. Popularity gets equated with lack of skill or quality, because all the performers were "just pandering to the audience" instead of relying on "real skill."

For one, what the fuck does that even mean, but for two, the theatrical quality of vaudeville isn't what makes it interesting and worth engaging with. Every single thing that ever came out of vaudeville could be 100% total utter garbage, but vaudeville would still be worth studying because of how influential it still is on arts and entertainment today. It has significant historical and educational merit. And some of it is still genuinely fun and entertaining, once you pick out all the things that didn't age well or were just plain bigoted. There's artistic merit in those old sketches and songs, and there's meaning to be drawn from plenty of it even here in 2023.

You want to learn about the Hays Code? Well, let's talk about how early films were shown on projectors on vaudeville stages, so vaudeville censorship went on to influence American film censorship. Let's talk about how we still use slang to this day that originated on vaudeville, such as "skit" or "one night stand" or "ad lib" or "the big time." Vaudeville is still in the bones of the modern American entertainment industry and pop culture, and you can't really escape that influence.

People in modern day use Marvel movies as proof that big studio films are singlehandedly responsible for the decline of art, and there is nothing to learn from them or see in them at all, ever. But to me, "Marvel movies are bad" is such a flat, uninteresting observation, because when it comes to media analysis, it doesn't really matter if Marvel films are good or entertaining. If you want to actually dig into the problems with big-budget summer Hollywood blockbusters, and the way they're impacting the industry as a whole, you have to go deeper than "pop culture is all stupid stuff for stupid people, unlike me, who isn't like other girls actually has good taste in media!"

There are so many more factors at play than "mass entertainment = bad art." Let's look at the ways capitalism screws over small creators and forces them to seek funding from the very same studios that fuck them over. Let's talk about how the actual workers in the industry are fighting tooth and fucking nail against the exact same things all the Marvel haters harp on about. Let's talk about studios that accept funding from the United States Government to turn superhero comics into propaganda films, and then threaten the actual workers with never having a career again if they complain or quit. Let's talk about how the actors are regularly abused and treated to hostile work environments.

Let's talk about the people who made the films, because the films were not made by a CEO pressing the "make movie" button. The workers made those films. The workers were exploited by those studios. Let's try giving a shit about them, instead of taking the "haha, Marvel fans are stupid and cringe" route.

There is so much more fucking nuance and detail and conversation about mass media as a topic, and boiling it down to, "art made for a wide audience is inherently shitty and has nothing to say."

You're not a better, more intelligent, more educated person just because you don't like Marvel movies. Making posts about how much better you are than Marvel fans does nothing to either explain or tackle the issues in the entertainment industry.

It just makes you look like a dickhead.

[zeibei]

Somewhat new-ish to your blog.. Currently geeking out about all the cute robot ship art I see here. I feel like I have been converted to be a real Freezeice truther.. never stop!!! I also noticed some Crashheat stuff here and there which genuinely made me drop my jaw because.. I didn't?? think there were any people who actively cared for them IN THIS TIME AND AGE?? Holy shit?? May I ask if you have any Crashheat headcanons, doodles (that you might not have posted yet) or literally anything else Crashheat related that you'd be willing to share.. I am a starving victorian child and would be so happy about the food..

- Sincerely, one of the last remaining Crashheat truthers out of like 5. Maybe. Yea let's go with five.

hehehe im glad!!! im always grateful whenever someone says they enjoy the freezeice art i make!!!!

but i currently don't have much to say and or share on any crashheat stuff since its been a while so uhhhh made some different kinda food for once?

but i promise theres more crashheat enjoyers out there!!! sometimes its hard making food (art and such)!!!

[musings-of-a-rose]

Build Me Up - Chapter 2

Pairing: William “Ironhead” Miller x f!reader

Word Count: 2600+

Rating: M for mature - 18+ only!

Warnings: Mature themes and some canon mentioned. Just like ao3, “creator chooses not to use warnings.” If you click Keep Reading, that means you agree that you’re the age to handle mature themes. Also by clicking Keep Reading, you understand warnings may not be complete in order to avoid spoilers for the story. 

Notes: So holy shit, it’s been a year and what, 4 months since I updated this fic? I stumbled upon this chapter in my drafts, 99% completed. I have no idea why I never released it! I am so sorry it’s taken me this long to post but I promise I have a plan for this fic and will update it in a more timely manner. Maybe. 

**Reader is not described

**If you want to be added to the taglist, join here or let me know!

Build Me Up Masterlist

General Masterlist

<&lt;Chapter 1

Will picks you up at 6pm to get some pizza before the movie. As dinner goes on, you can see he’s relaxing around you, seeing that you’re not going to run away. After pizza, you head to the theater to see some action movie. You honestly didn’t care what movie you saw as long as it was with Will. And now that you’re sitting in the theater, you hoped no one would be quizzing you on the plot, because you were hardly paying attention. 

After the popcorn and snacks were consumed, you laid your head on Will’s shoulder. He immediately lifted his arm and wrapped it around your shoulders, pulling you in as tight as he could in the theater chairs. For a few minutes, you just breathed him in: he was warm and smelled like pine and soap. Even with just his arm around you he made you feel safe, protected. Shit I really like this guy.

Then you noticed his hand, the one that had been resting around your shoulder. His fingers started tracing the skin on your shoulder, little invisible circles and lines being drawn on your skin, sending goosebumps across your arm. His touch leaves a jolt of electricity in its wake and you can feel your heartbeat quicken. Some explosion happens on screen and you don’t even flinch, solely focused on the lines he’s tracing into you.

Then his hand starts to move. Tracing lines across your collarbone and repeating the same motions there, the shoulder he just left tingling at the loss of contact. He stays at your collarbone for a few minutes before his fingers start to move lower, eventually lightly brushing across the very top of your boob, dipping below the cut of your shirt. 

Unable to stop yourself, you audibly gasp and chance a peripheral glance at his face, finding a smirk dancing across his face. Two can play at that game.

You snuggle in closer, allowing him more room to touch you, but at the same time, you place your hand on his thigh and echo his movements there, gradually moving your hand up his leg. You make it about halfway before he shifts in his seat, trying to covertly adjust himself. A smirk appears on your face now and you both sit there, continuing your movements, trying to see who cracks first. 

You never find out because the movie ends and you file out with the rest of the movie goers, Will chatting away about the movie. 

“What was your favorite part, Robin?” He asks as you pull out of the parking lot. 

“Uh…what?”

“Of the movie.”

“Oh. Um-” your brain desperately tries to remember something, anything from the movie. “-the car chase scene.”

“The car chase scene.”

“Yup. So cool.”

Will glances at you out of the corner of his eye. “Which one?”

Shit.

“Um, the second one?”

“The second one?”

“Yeah.”

“Robin, there weren’t any car chase scenes.”

Shit.

“Yeah there was!”

“No, there wasn’t. The movie was set in the 1800s.”

Will pulls into your driveway and you hop out of the car, quickly trying to think of an excuse as Will comes around the truck to walk next to you.

“Oh, yeah no I meant horses.”

Really?

“You mixed up cars and horses?”

“Yeah because of the…horsepower.”

He starts chucking. “What, Will?”

“You didn’t watch the movie.”

“I-I did!”

His smile is bright and as he stops in front of your door, he turns that smile to you, adding fuel to the fire that had been simmering inside of you, causing you to swallow hard.

“What was so distracting that you couldn’t even remember it was a Western?”

“I-” His eyes are boring into you, twinkling with mirth because he knows exactly what was distracting you. He just wants you to say it. 

“I was tired?” You said it more as a question and mentally chided yourself. 

Will takes a step towards you as you take a step back towards the door. 

“Tired?”

“Yeah-Yup.”

Another step. Now your back is against your front door. 

“I think you’re full of shit.”

“I’d like to be full of something else.” The words leave your lips before you can stop them, but a second later you don’t even care.

Will breaks almost immediately after your comment, pulling your chin towards him and kissing you, pushing his tongue inside your mouth as you dance yours around his. You wrap your leg around his and pull him closer, winding your fingers in his blonde locks and tugging ever so slightly. You feel how wet you already are and can feel Will straining against the denim of his jeans. 

He pulls back a moment later to look at you. “Can I come inside?”

“Oh fuck yes. OH you meant the house!” Heat rises to your cheeks as Will chuckles, kissing you once more before barely pulling back his lips. 

“I meant your house, but good to know.”

You kiss him deeply once more, tugging a little harder on his hair before you let go and push him back a step, turning to jam your key into the lock. You miss the keyhole a few times because Will’s hands have come to rest on your hips and he is flush up against you, using your ass to relieve some of the pressure building in his jeans. 

Finally, you shove the key in the lock and open your door, quickly stepping inside, Will never taking his hands off of you. You slam the door shut and lock it, tossing your keys on the little table next to the door. Will spins you around and grabs your hips again, kissing you deeply. He feels a little hesitant and you know why. Pushing him back slightly, you look up into his blue eyes and take his hand, pulling him with you as you turn on a few lights. 

“Living area-” you gesture around, “-kitchen,” you point across the room to an open concept kitchen. “Patio door is next to the fridge. It’s screened in but it’s an exit. This way-” you gesture to the hall “-on the right is a bedroom and bathroom and on the left is…my room. Also has a bathroom. No roommates, no pets. Windows all slide open.”

Will stares at you in awe. “How did you-…right. Your family.”

You nod. “Yeah. They always have to know where all the points of entry and exit are, if there’s any other living thing in the house, have their backs to a wall. I know.”

“You made sure we had a table where I could see the doors and have my back to a wall at dinner.”

You smile coyly. “Well, yeah. I wanted to make sure you were taken care of.”

The words barely leave your lips before he’s on you again, kissing you and biting your lips. He starts to walk you backwards down the hall as you unbutton his shirt and slide it off his arms, letting it fall to the floor. He copies and tugs your shirt up as you separate to raise your arms. It’s then you see his chiseled form, your hand reaching out to touch his abs.

“Holy shit, Will. You’re ripped.” 

His chest puffs out a little with pride at your praise and he slides his hands around you, making quick work of your bra clasp. It falls to the floor to join the parade of clothes down your hallway and Will moves his hands to open your pants as you try to open his. Your moves are desperate, frantic, both trying to move quickly. You back into your room as you both slide your pants down, kicking them off somewhere in the room. You move to take off your underwear, but Will grips your wrist. 

“Lay down on the bed.”

His command goes straight to your core as you scramble up your bed, trying to do what he said as quickly as you can. He crawls up your body, eyes dark with lust, and hovers over you as he kisses you again, leaving a trail of kisses down your neck before they find your boobs. He pulls one into his mouth and sucks hard and you cry out as he starts to swipe his tongue over your nipple. Your hand flies to the back of his head as you hold him there, moaning his name. He moves to the other boob and repeats the same motions, but this time he brings his hand up and pinches your other nipple just a little and you yell out at the slight pain. “Fuck!”

He starts a path of kisses down your stomach and stops at your panty line, his fingers pulling the fabric down just a tiny bit and he licks there, making his way around the shape of your panties. When he gets to your inner thighs he starts to suck a hickey, noticing the growing wet patch on your underwear. He hooks two fingers into your panties and yanks them down and off, tossing them across the room. He prys your legs open as he settles between them, staring at the apex of your thighs. He’s taking more time than you’d like and you swear you might die from anticipation. 

“Touch me Will. Please touch me.”

He gives you a smirk before his attention is back on your pussy, his hand sliding down your inner thigh and pausing just before he reaches your slit. You know you’re leaking by this point, swear you can feel it dripping down you.

Will picks his hand up and gently pushes his pointer finger inside you and you cry out at finally being touched. He pushes all the way in and slides his finger out before adding a second. He slowly slides his fingers in and out of you, watching as your arousal coats his hand. He slides his fingers in and then curls them, tapping around to try and find your spot. After a few taps, he hits something glorious, causing your body to twitch and you to let out a moan.

“There she is,” he says with a slight drawl. 

He starts tapping that spot inside you as he reaches his other hand around and gathers up some arousal from your leaking core and slides it up your slit, finally gliding up to rub small circles into your clit. 

“Oh fuckfuckfuck! That feels..” you get lost in the sensations, tense and beautiful at the same time. You feel that fire building inside you and you grip Will’s wrists, halting his movements, noticing his hips grinding on your bed.  

“I want you inside me when I come.”

“Fuck!” Will yells out as he pulls his hands from you, standing to yank his boxers off, his cock springing free. You see how endowed he is and you clench around nothing, your pussy waiting to be filled. He lines up with you, the tip of his cock touching your entrance and he grips your chin. 

“Look at me.” Your eyes meet his and he pushes inside of you, your mouth open in a silent scream as he slowly inches his way to the back of you. Once he bottoms out, he slides out just as slowly and you feel every inch of him as your pussy tries to grip him. He starts to push in again and you close your eyes, the sensations overwhelming you gloriously. He stops and tightens his grip on your chin.

“Look at me.” 

You lock eyes with him as he pushes in slowly again, bottoming out. He doesn’t pull out this time, but thrusts deeper somehow, which not only hits a spot inside you but also rubs on your clit. You whine out, your eyes still locked on his. He grips your leg and pulls it up on his hip, changing the angle and somehow going deeper. He moves with slow deep thrusts, watching your facial expressions and listening to the little sounds you give him as you move under him. 

“Oh fuck, Will. You’re..you…feel so..” You close your eyes again to relish the sensation and he lets you, focusing on his own pleasure. He leans down and takes a boob in his mouth and you whine loudly, curling your fingers in his hair. You tug a little and Will starts to speed up, moving a little faster. You pull his hair again and his speed increases and he nips at your boob, causing you to yelp a little in a pain/pleasure response. You suddenly feel like Will is really holding back, but you tuck that away to think about later as you feel your orgasm coming. 

“Will, I’m gonna-”

He grips your chin again and you open your eyes, a sea of blue staring back at you. Never pulling out, he makes quick, deep thrusts, punching that magic spot inside you and rubbing your clit. You yell his name, throwing your head back as he fucks you through it, digging your nails into his arms. Only a few short thrusts after he’s coming himself, letting out slightly high pitched moans as he fills you. He rests his forehead on your chest, both of you breathing heavy as you run your fingers through his hair. 

Will stays like that for several more moments before pulling out with a hiss, moving to grab something to clean you up with. You reach for the cloth but he pulls it back and gives you a look. Laying back down with your hands up in concession, Will pushes your legs apart and starts to dab at your sensitive core, your thighs jumping at the touch. You’re not sure what happened but suddenly the cloth is tossed aside and he’s knuckle deep inside of you, curling his fingers and pulling out sounds you’d never heard before as you grip the sheets, screaming his name when he leans over and sucks on your clit. Will sits up, wiping you off him with the rag as he watches you, splayed out and chest heaving. 

“Sorry, darlin’. I just couldn’t help myself.”

“Never…apologize…for that.”

He chuckles, this time actually handing you a cloth to clean up with. When you manage to walk to the shower, Will follows and you pull him in with you, pulling another orgasm each before the shower is done. After, you dry off and slide under the blankets still naked, turning to look at Will. He’s standing there, towel wrapped around his waist, looking…lost?

“Will? You just gonna stand there or?”

“I uh…do you want me to stay?”

“Oh. I mean, I want you to but you don’t have-”

“No, no. I’ll stay.” 

Will moves around the bed, dropping the towel on the floor before he slides in beside you, pulling you into his chisled chest and kissing the spot on your neck that starts to spark something between your thighs. 

“Night, darlin’.” Will whispers in your ear.

“Good night, Will.”

When you wake in the morning, Will is there, coffee already made and you think “I could get used to this.”

—----

>>Chapter 3>>

General Taglist:

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[nanawaffles]

Hey, I just wanted to share an opinion after reading one of your posts which I completely agree with. Apparently there's always been a lot of LoTR (am I even writing the abbreviation right, uh...) and I was aware that the movies exist. It's been like 20 years since I first learnt about this universe and I haven't watched the movies yet. I started, I tried, it just never got me, while lots of ppl around me were either lorebros or admiring those elves played by Lee Pace and Orlando Bloom. Yeah, that's how illiterate I am. Never planned to change, but came across the Haladriel ship last year, caught my eye, and this year... wait, is it the came dude who gave off Flynn of Tangled vibes??? I swear, if such a characters, such an actor was a part of those movie trilogy I would have watched them long time ago! I mean, this is absolutely golden, I had to dive deeper and I totally enjoy Haladriel dynamics like I haven't enjoyed a romantic ship in ages (life made me go for bromances somehow). But what else occurs... All of my friends hate the show, I dunno if I ever tell them I wanna watch it and find the Haladriel thing amazing. Feels stupid, feels like doing something wrong.

First if all, hi, I'm so glad you could share this. Secondly, yes, LOTR is the correct abbreviation. 😊 thirdly, I'm so happy to hear that rings of power is giving you a a bit of an entryway into the world, that's amazing, and you have no idea how welcome you are by a lot of us. I can't say all of us, unfortunately, but a ton of us are thrilled you're here and interested.

Lastly yeaaaah that's exactly my concern. You shouldn't ever feel bad about wanting to enjoy a piece of art; and i think the negativity about rings of power has done quite a bit of damage to those who would be most welcome in the fandom and just being able to enjoy it. Take it from a hardcore fan of the books, the movies, who has been on this train since i was a wee little one-- there's nothing wrong with wanting to watch it, or even finding interest in haladriel it's an interesting ship though it sure does anger folks I'll tell ya. But everyone and everything has a critic, and there's far more of a fanbase than a negative one. Even those who don't ship it find it an interesting dynamic.

I think the lorebros, like you mentioned, got very attached to Jackson's vision, though even that vision was flawed--and in some ways flawed quite heavily-- aaand its kinda become their holy grail. Like i love lee pace and Orlando bloom, but there is certainly a gravitas that got added, and more than that Jackson changed both characters in ways I'm not particularly fond of. Why, I'm not quite sure. Orlando bloom seems the type of guy who if you told him to troll 95% of the time just cause his character is 3000 years old and thinks everyone is a baby, plus screech at seeing a balrog because "oh fucking shit" he'd have a blast. What rings of power hits on with elves that the movies don't... is the humanity if you will. They're thousands of years old, with wisdom given as gifts from youth, and still fuck up horrifically. They're not these.. stoic beings who speak all high and beyond everyone else's comprehension. They fuck around, they tease, if anything they're humans without the inhibitions because they are so old and. They explore and sometimes that destroys the world.

And I'm talking pure canon on that. I'll shut up now though-- point is it's not wrong. Millions of us like this show and fully believe it's worth it.

i wish you well. And if you ever do watch it, know that I'm cheering for you 😎❤

OH ALSO hal as Flynn vibes is something I've not thought of but gosh... that explains a lot.

[cow-legs]

What are some of your favorite videogames? ♡ ♡ ♡

(extremely long post incoming lol turns out i have a lot of things to say on this subject)

usually i have too hard of a time trying to remember anything i like to have answers for questions like these but thankfully for this one i have answers prepared since this is something i try to think about a lot

realistically if i had to pick one single "favorite videogame" above the rest itd probably just, like, ocarina of time & majora's mask (i'm considering them to be one videogame because i said so, it;s a package deal), just on account of how much of an impact they had on me from an early age combined with just how often i Still go back to revisit them in one way or another, but this is just about the most basic boring answer a person can have for this question unfortunately

thankfully you asked for some of my favorites instead of just one so i can unveil my Actual list of favorites instead of the one that only holds the top spot by technicality and not because i actually like it "the most". all of my favorite games have such a range in style and quality it's hard to really compare them in any meaningful way

anyway

crypt worlds, space funeral, and off-peak are all pretty different games made by very different people but i usually group them together when talking about stuff like this since collectively finding them all back in the day at roughly the same time kind of shaped my perception of indie games as a whole which probably gave me a very weird and skewed perception of the media but who gives a shit really it's a perception i hold dear. (they weren't the first indie games i ever saw of course but they were the most personally impactful ones that made me go "holy shit, this is awesome, you can do literally whatever you want")

they've pretty heavily influenced my own games, too. there have been multiple times i've started a project and then days later realized "wait shit this is just space funeral again. i'm just making space funeral again but slightly to the left. fuuuck" which is a pretty good problem to have i think.

anyway,

gadget: invention, travel, and adventure is an old point and click game i found a few years ago that struck me by just how unique feeling its atmosphere is. strange looking people turn to you and say even stranger sounding things, the soundtrack feels like its having a nervous breakdown, the main character is given so few meaningful decisions/actions (read: basically none) by the people around them that it can barely be considered a game at all…it is a very fascinating experience, and one that i think back to a lot

i like Your Turn To Die a lot and am very excited to see how it ends, though i feel like i don't have too much to say on it here. one of those games that has me going "oh man i should draw more fanart for that one of these days" every time i'm reminded of it only to then remember that i Can't Fucking Draw right now lmao

myhouse.wad is something that extremely deserves to go on this list but a large part of my brain is telling me not to just because somewhere along the line i fucked up and became allergic to anything that has ever recently become popular & trendy on youtube because i don't want to look like a poser even though literally no one but me cares about where i hear about these things so i can only bring myself to include it if i also state that i played it BEFORE it was cool &all the streamers started covering it like some kind of shameful hipster. but for real though its awesome, very inspiring stuff. i wish my brain did not force me to want to distance myself from it for literally no good reason. fucking ocarina of time is on this list why is this the thing that makes you afraid of looking like a normie

i have a lot of appreciation for myst in a kind of "i've never played more than 5 minutes of this nor have i even bothered to watch a playthrough of it but i understand what you have done for me and the games i love that came after you" kind of way. i have purchased 3 different copies of it over the years as well as a copy of riven and i don't intend on playing any of them anytime soon. great game, probably. i wouldn't know.

i like a lot of kitty horrorshow's games but i don't really know what my favorite would be. lethargy hill is probably the one i think about most often though.

i like (the steam version of) dwarf fortress a lot and have been trying to play it more often. it is very funny having 80 hours in a game and still not feeling like you understand half the mechanics in it. figuring it out as i go along has been fun though. in a similar vein i also like elden ring a lot and despite being at over 160 hours on that one i still haven't beaten it. i need to get back to it before the dlc comes out but i stopped playing for so long that most of my muscle memory is gone…

for something much more recent than all of the above, absolutely perfect specimen is something really incredible that gave me a lot of stuff to think about, though it can be a little hard to recommend since it's extremely 18+ and has a whole big list of content warnings you definitely need to take heed of. extremely interesting work though, i like it a lot.

i'm running out of things to list off and should probably stop just for the sake of time even if there is more shit that deserves mentioning so i'll just end it off with CLONE ON NET YAROZE BABYYYYYY LET'S FUCKIN GO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 💯💪🙌💥💯💯

[padawansubscription]

The Refill.

Pairing: lyutsifer safin x gn!reader

Summary: a direct sequel to spilled milk (tea). safin brings you a gift to make up for your loss

Word Count: 1.5k

Notes: power imbalance/the start of a workplace romance (reader calls safin ‘sir’), mention of character deaths, two people mourning their familial losses, reader anxiety in the beginning

A/N: new year, new fic! it’s been ages since i’ve written anything here, so naturally i had to come back with safin. also, feelings are blooming in this chapter?? it’s about damn time 😭 and shout out to @crewman-penelope​ for always tagging me on your sunday safin posts! they’re great reminders that i love this wretched man

as usual, no beta reading. open to feedback! hny y’all!

You don’t like Primo. Sure, you’re no saint yourself, but at least you don’t manhandle people like he did. The man caught you by surprise. One moment, you’re leaving the office. The next, you’re pulled into a dark, mysterious hallway with instructions to follow him.

You were about five minutes in when you finally voiced your confusion. “Where are we going?” Are you going to kill me? Did Safin order this? Because of what happened last night?

He stopped, causing you to run into his back with a light “oomph!” Rubbing your nose, you looked over his shoulder, finding a flight of stairs that led to a dark entryway. If impending doom was an architecture, it'd be this.

“Go.” He stepped aside, gaze cold and void of any indication regarding your circumstance. If anything, he looked irritated.

You took your first step, then your second, before looking back at him. But Primo did little to nothing to ease your mind. With a sigh, you willed your legs to carry you to the very top until...

“Doctor.”

Safin knelt in front of a table. Ever the composed gentleman, he smiled upon your arrival and gestured to that mat on the other side of the table across from him. He held onto a cup of tea, its half-empty content evident of his patience. “Take a seat.”

“Sir,” you returned his greeting and obliged. Your eyes roamed the space around you, taking in its bare form. It felt unfinished, unused. Only the table, mats and lamp occupied the room. The cold concrete covered the walls from top to bottom with the exception of the left wall, which featured a peculiar gaping hole.

“I brought you a gift.” Your attention snapped back to the man on the floor. His smile widened. He almost looked...excited? It was an odd thought. You’ve seen Safin smile before but they were always composed and polite. This was borderline eager in your book. He lifted a cup previously hidden behind the table and—

“Sir. Is that boba?”

“From the very same shop.”

“How did you-? But,” you stuttered. As far as you knew, the island was miles away from any civilization. “Did you go to London today?” You asked, trying to connect the dots in your mind because your boss didn’t travel to London just to get you boba?

"No. Primo did.”

“For a mission?”

“For this.” He pursed his lips, head tilting as he scanned your expression. “You’re upset.”

“No! I- I’m just-,” the words failed to form until you finally exhaled, “I’m just surprised.”

"I see.” His smile remained, but it was tense, not quite reaching his eyes anymore. He slowly retreated his hands, the cup dragging along the table, leaving behind a trail of condensation.

"Wait!” You grasped the cup without thinking, your fingers brushing against his knuckles as you held onto the top. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. I’m just...confused and also kind of worried that I may have inconvenienced you over milk tea.”

His eyes dropped to your hand, then back up. “You can just say thank you.”

“Yes. Right. Thank you.”

“You’re very difficult to please.”

“I’ve been told I can be difficult overall,” you chuckled in an attempt to lighten the mood. But his frown deepened, and you swallowed hard as brought the drink to your lips. “Again, thank you.”

Holy shit.

One sip was all it took. The flavors hit your taste buds all at once; you’ve forgotten how sweet milk tea can be. The past two years haven’t been bland per se, but they were certainly nutritional and healthy, focused on sustaining the island’s employees in optimal condition. Sugar existed, but it was minimal. You may or may not have had some withdrawals in the beginning. “Shit,” you whispered, “This is good. I forgot how much I missed boba.”

“Tell me. What else did you miss?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Surely, there’s more to your past life than just boba?”

“I wouldn’t be so certain. My life wasn’t all that existing before the island,” you shrugged.

Safin held your gaze. He was waiting.

“I suppose I miss- Okay. I had this neighbor, Mrs. Fletcher. She had this wonderful cat with the world’s most unfortunate name—Gregory. He’s a small tabby, had a hook for a tail.” You crooked your finger in a demonstration. “Not that I need a cat,” you quickly added.

“I’m sure Primo wouldn’t mind,” Safin sipped his tea.

“I’m pretty sure he would, sir.”

“What else?”

“Um. Musicals? Music in general, I guess,” you rolled your eyes back and forth in remembrance. “I hate to say it, but I miss cooking. I used to survive on congee. But I can make a mean char siu with fig jam.”

“Char siu with fig jam?” He frowned, skeptical.

“It’s an amazing combination. I had this food delivery service that delivered five times a week. It was my favorite dish out of everything. The rest were kind of lackluster.”

“We can add it to our menu if you’d like,” he offered.

“Thank you, sir, but I think I miss the act of cooking more than the food itself.”

“What else?” He asked again.

So you answered. And he asked again. So you answered again.

You’re not sure how much time had passed, but it was enough to elicit a yawn from you near the end. The boba was long gone, now a mere cup of water. You can feel your guards coming down. Your answers were more casual, less formal now, emboldened by sleep deprivation. “What about you, sir? What do you miss?”

His fingers traced along the ridges of his cup. “I’m afraid I don’t miss anything.”

“There’s got to be something,” you pushed. Safin quirked his eyebrow. Damn, the sugar wasn’t helping.

Safin hummed as he turned the wall. You followed his gaze. There was that hole again. “My sister used to sing this awful lullaby,” he said quietly. It was almost a hushed whisper, like a secret in the fog.

You stilled at his admittance. Never once have you heard Safin mention his family. And while stories of his past circulated the island, they were part of exaggerated speculation that no one confirmed.

“Awful because she was a horrible singer, not because the lyrics were bad. Vadim was a better singer. And my mother...” He trailed off as his gaze lowered to his empty cup. It didn’t take a genius to know what he was thinking.

You knew better than to press for more. “I miss my parents,” you sighed quietly, matching his volume and secrecy. “Sometimes, I wonder if things could have been different. They were ill, but.. I don’t know. I just think that I could’ve done things differently. Be a better child.” Your tongue swiped across your bottom lip as you swallowed thickly. “Don’t think they’d be fond of your evil plan,” you smiled. “Anyway,” you cleared your throat, “at least we know what you won’t miss.” You leaned forward conspiratorially. “Boba.”

Safin blinked.

“Sorry, that was a joke. I-”

He broke into a chuckle, so sudden, so unexpectedly. It must’ve surprised him, because his hand shot up to cover his mouth, but it was too late. He was already laughing. The sound grew louder and louder despite its quiet and calm nature. And you found yourself chuckling with him, finding his soft laughter strangely contagious this late at night.

“I want to show you something.” He whispered. “Come.” He rose to his feet with the same eagerness that you saw before.

You hastily followed his steps as he approached the wall with the hole. Except, it wasn’t a hole. It was a window to a small garden. You gasped as the pond came into view. There were foliages and flowers on one side, and a zen garden on the other, raked to perfection.

A soft, orange glow highlighted each ripple of the pond, casting a shadow along the rough edges of the logs around it. Sunlight, you realized with a start. Your breath hitched as you looked up at the sky. It was a clear morning. No clouds in sight. The stars hid behind the warm hue among the blue, painting a perfect gradient on the vast canvas.

"My father’s garden,” Safin explained. “You could say it was his prized possession. It’s toxic, of course, but perfectly safe to walk around.”

Your vision blurred as the tears welled in your eyes. “It’s beautiful,” you sniffed, wiping your nose with the back of your hand. Was the sky always this beautiful? You couldn’t recall the last time you looked up from the ground. It felt foolish, in retrospect, to ignore such a sight. What else did you miss out?

“Doctor.”

You turned to Safin, only to find grey eyes watching you. The sunlight kissed his scars, and you couldn’t tell if his gaze only appeared soft because of the sunlight or not. He was glowing, ethereal. And for once, he looked young and handsome, far from the intimidating man whom you once avoided at all cost.

You blushed at the growing realization and quickly dipped your head in a faux yawn. “Something tells me I’m going to miss this,” you exhaled. “Thank you.”

“Of course, doctor.” He replied quietly.

Despite feeling his gaze on you, you refused to look him in the eye. Instead, you focused on the sunrise and calming your fluttering heart.

[styrmwb]

I beat World of Warcraft: The War Within (for now)

Every single word I am about to write I do so with the fear of god that none of it will age poorly

(also wow this is a long one sorry that my ramblings keep getting more rambly)

The summer of 2024 is the summer of "why do I have two separate MMOs that I want to play I hate myself", cause I already had FFXIV Dawntrail a bit ago, and now we got WoW, my first MMO love who I have had a horrible relationship with During BfA and Shadowlands and All That Blizzard Shit I was like Jaina in the scene of Warcraft III with the Culling of Stratholme "I'm sorry Arthas, I can't watch you do this." But then things (as far as I know) in real life are getting better, and then they did Dragonflight which in game was getting better and I'm over here tentatively having fun with a smile on my face ready for it to go bad at any time, and that's how I felt about War Within: This looks cool, are they going to be able to do it, or am I going to be disappointed once again?

And god. PLEASE DON'T LET THIS AGE POORLY BUT HOLY SHIT THEY LANDED IT SO HARD, I LOVED THIS EXPANSION!!!! I want to talk about why!!!! And like I said in Dawntrail MMOs obviously release more content (hell by the time I beat my set goals a raid came out (I did not do the raid), so I considered "beat" to be Loremaster (all the quests), all the dungeons, and all the delves so DON'T COME AT ME WITH "BUT YOU DIDN'T DO NERUB'AR" I WANTED TO WRITE A BEAT A GAME POST FOR AN MMO LEAVE ME ALONE

Story

This is what I was scared of. I love Warcraft, I love it so much I love the world, I love the lore, I love the everything, and obviously this game has had a... Not Great experience with respecting its own universe with... good writing. So I am understandably hesitant! Even Dragonflight which was a step in the right direction still didn't grab me in some ways and was a little cheesy I did really like the avengers assemble in the emerald dream though I'm not above that; so I didn't come into War Within expecting the best thing ever, but I really did appreciate how they did this.

Everything fits pretty well within the world, nothing feels like it contradicts previous info, it actually takes a lot from the existing world and expands on it; Xal'atath and the sword was Legion, Earthen have been a thing since Wrath, Nerubians have been around since WCIII, they got Kobolds, they got a healthy amount of previous guys you know from Dalaran/other people who happened to be on Dalaran (lmao) to really make the whole thing FEEL Warcrafty and not something kind of disconnected, despite the new concepts being introduced, which made me very happy.

The story itself was great. I felt invested fighting against Xal'atath because she fucked with my mans, and I really liked how much of a presence she was; involved in everything, but not to an annoying amount, and it didn't feel like the conflict with her was bullshit like the Jailor (they can still fuck this up we got several patches to go). I enjoyed learning about the Earthen, the Arathi, and the Nerubians, and like I said it all fit really well and I didn't have any moments of like "wait what the fuck why this"; even the Arathi felt pretty well explained "oh there's an empire somewhere else we haven't seen" cool and awesome, doesn't contradict anything already existing and opens up a new place in the future.

I think the one thing that was strange was how short the main campaign was. I hard focused it on my main and it wasn't enough to get me to max. But once I did all the Sojourner achievements I could see where the rest of the writing meat went, because so many of those side stories were amazing; some I'm genuinely surprised WEREN'T in the main campaign (the Haranir got like 2 steps in the main deal and then never showed up?? do the side quests to figure out anything about this person we put in the teaser cinematic; this is like my one beef with the main campaign, anyways). So many heavy emotional hits, stories that actually made me feel. The old Earthen losing his memories I think was a highlight for me.

What I really appreciated about every quest I did was the focus on emotions, on internal processing; like yeah, this is World of Warcraft. We fight a lot. There's a lot of fighting. But this expansion takes its own title to mean more than just being in the world, and focuses a lot on trauma, fighting with yourself, accepting yourself, connecting with others after trauma, and I really really appreciated that a game like this actually managed to slow down and question these little large things that it never really did in the past. Also, even with the deeper, more serious tones being so strong, the humor this time around is really great. There are a lot of moments in the main story and in the side quests that actually got me laughing out loud. Overall, I was really satisfied with all the story they gave me and I cannot wait to see if they are able to continue this upward trend to finish the expansion off.

I also want to say "stay a while and listen"s have been the greatest thing this game has ever introduced to give nerds like me more good writing while letting other players not have to suffer through it if they don't want to.

Characters

This is also an important section which was really hard to separate from the above; like I said, Warcraft does not have a great track record of how it treats its beloved characters who can be amazing at the highest of times (COUGH SYLVANAS SHADOWLANDS AS A WHOLE COUGH), so I was worried here. But the way our returning characters were treated, on top of the new characters, was really surprising.

Our Returning Friends:

Anduin - My fucking boy. I love Anduin, he is one of my favorite characters, if not my favorite character, in all of Warcraft. Seeing his struggle with himself hit really hard, and I really appreciate how they did it, it didn't feel disrespectful, he got moments to bring him up, he got moments that validated his current state; it hurt me to see the optimistic prince in such a state, and I love where his journey is taking him. He also calls me friend and that makes me happy Anduin if you were real I would be your friend

Alleria - I think her story is going to be cooked a little longer in the future, cause for this expansion she was often in the background hunting, but I love that despite the internal AND external things trying to keep her alone, she's not so far gone as to be separated from the people she cares about; I am actually excited to see how she'll play out. The fact that her and Turalyon still clearly love and care for each other despite the circumstances makes me happy.

Moira - I very much enjoyed that the Bronzebeard-Thaurissan family got such a spotlight this time around. It was great seeing Moira continue to prove herself as a leader with the action taken + the diplomatic role she placed herself in with the Earthen. The sidequest where she gets Fearbreaker was really a place for her to shine on her own. While I was a big fan of the trio of her, Magni, and Dagran, I can't help but feel like her portion didn't stick with me as much as the other two, but that could be a me flaw rather than a game flaw. I do hope she continues to get more screentime to show off.

Magni - Did not at all expect where this man was going. Depressed and angry speaker was an interesting way to start the expansion, and I enjoyed seeing him be able to reconnect with his family, to be freed from his prison (they hatched him!), and to really start his grandpa arc/hopefully make a relationship with his daughter arc.

Dagran - If you told me that the 3 polygon baby in Ironforge was going to be one of the best characters in a future expansion I would have been very surprised. He's such a nerd but in a really enjoyable way, and the connection he has with his family + Brinthe is really heartwarming to see. I want more of this 🤓 motherfucker

Brann - Not really a character in the main story, but he's here and I love it, except when he tells me that those webs will summon Nerubians, and not to stand in them. I hope he gets more uncle moments.

Khadgar - Fuck. This old shitty wizard is also top contender for favorite Warcraft character, so the way this expansion started gutted me. I was actually real life mad I wanted to destroy that stupid purple elf and all her spiders; I am so happy that he's fine I am going to put him in the best retirement situation possible and he can get his girlfriend and live the rest of his life happy DON'T YOU FUCKING DO THAT TO ME AGAIN BLIZZARD.

Jaina and Thrall - Did not get to be there lmao. Thrall really got the short end of the stick being on the loading screen. The Horde as a whole could have gotten more love this expansion, and this is coming from a man loyal to the Alliance. But also you guys got a lot in the past so uuhhhhhh fuck you lmao

Side note, where the fuck is Muradin; your brothers, your niece, and your great nephew are here, your brother hatched, Where Are You.

Our New Friends (and Enemies)

The Earthen - Initially, incredibly off putting. Why are they not scottish. But I really grew to love these robot dwarves. The council was all surprisingly great, Merrix has his whole sidequest where "oh he's a bad guy" no not at all he cares about his people, Baelgrim warms up to you and is the Obligatory Sacrifice Character, Adelgonn really showed the humanity these people can have, Brinthe was surprisingly funny and charming, and I loved to see her grow closer to Dagran (new aunt unlocked let's go). Overall, it was really cool to see this race of people show both their construct nature mixed with the free will they've unlocked. So much more interesting than I expected.

Faerin and the Arathi - Definitely the strangest part of this expansion, but incredibly cool to see. I was unsure going in, did they really feel like the fit in, their vibe seems a little separate from Warcraft and more Diablo-y or a different franchise, but I was really interested in their culture, the genuine nature their society had despite the traitors (like I was totally expecting Steelstrike to be evil not to have a cooking quest with her and her family); Faerin was likewise a surprise. I see the name "Lothar" and I'm like oh geez how are they gonna mess this up and I was instead greeted with a kind yet tough warrior who Has feelings and struggles with loss and is a wonderful friend to Anduin (the quest where you sit down with Faerin and Anduin might be one of my favorite sidequests ever).

The Nerubians - Ok so yeah we're all used to these guys being Bad Spiders Go Kill which they were def introduced as, but then you get to their zone and they're presented as their own society in such a cool way?? These are people! They're spiders, but they're people! The Severed Threads are a fun trio of characters that I enjoyed talking to. Honestly, surprisingly enough the Nerubians as a whole are like, really funny? There's a bunch of really good comedic moments, some played straight which hit the hardest. (Mr. Sunflower my beloved) I loved the split in society shown, the dislike, the Reason for dislike shown between the Ascended and the normal Nerubians, I could really feel the reason for dissent against the Queen (I haven't done Nerub'ar like I said but I do wish she was more present.)

Xal'atath - I said my main opinion earlier, she was a great presence in the story and I very much enjoy her as a villain. I really like the bonus dialogue you get if you've interacted with her before. I really think she has the potential to be one of the best major villains we've ever had if Blizzard plays their cards right (I am scared).

World (of Warcraft)

Dragonflight's zones were cool; but. Nothing really WOWed me (funny joke). Going into TWW, I thought underground was cool, but I wasn't sure at first. Looked at the little pictures for each zone, still unimpressed. Once I actually got Into the game and played it though, these are some of the best zones in the game.

I have these four screenshots, my favorite parts of each zone, and I still feel like I am not doing them justice. They're huge, they're so incredibly varied, and you feel like you can still breathe despite being underground (and they're confining when needed). I've always said that despite the lows, Blizzard's art department hard fucking carries the game, and they continue to flex. The cities are getting so much better at feeling sprawling and lived in, an evolution from the tiny Stormwinds of classic WoW. I love Khaz Algar so much. One of my favorite parts of my playthrough was when I entered Hallowfall for the first time, during the Beledar shifting event (not the story one! the random one), and I was amazed and confused. I don't think I've felt this mesmerized by the game since I was like 10 walking through Teldrassil. Something really special I also loved about Hallowfall (might be contender for top 10 zone of all time) is yes, this feels outside. There is grass. There is water. There is sun. But then you look at the land, you look at the rocks, the stalagmites, you look up and it reminds you that you're underground. There's so much spectacle here and I feel like I could go on and on and on about each zone and how amazing they are. (I'm ending this section now but I have to say I love Bug Suramar)

Music

Piggybacking off the last section, the music this expansion has been absolutely incredible, I haven't really hooked onto as much of the soundtrack as I have since BfA; Shadowlands really just had Maldraxxus and Revendreth and I honestly don't remember much of Dragonflight's, but here it's so strong. Isle of Dorn's windy outdoor flutes, The Ringing Deeps' sound of echoing mining, Hallowfall's beautiful choir, and Azj-Kahet's plucking spider sounds, it's all so strong, so memorable and unique.

Cutscenes

Really small section here but I love the cutscene work they've been doing. The fact that we get what used to just be in the prerendered ones in game??? The models look so nice there! Yeah sure my character looks a little awkward doing default standing they haven't mastered it like FFXIV yet but I LOVE the cutscene work. Even the lower quality ones have shown a lot of character. I think of the scene with Elrich and Brinthe, he still shows off and feels like an asshole, and you can clearly see the humorous frustration Brinthe feels at being interrupted. It's great.

Gameplay

I am the least excited to talk about the gameplay here, but I really do enjoy what they're doing this expansion. I love Delves and the solo content they're doing, I think their quest design continues to be engaging and fun (even though I was a little tired of the shout instruction randomly to get item/do task and all of the pulling slowly mechanics), and even though I'm not really a dungeon guy each one was incredible, they all excelled in presentation and vibe. The mechanics didn't really get me like I think Dawntrail's dungeons did, but I imagine they go harder in Mythic which I will not be doing.

The classes I played during my session of goals were Warrior, Evoker, and Warlock, which I had fury mountain thane (later slayer), arms slayer, augmentation chronowarden, and demonology diabolist. I really enjoyed the flavor they all brought, and in the case of diabolist it's SO fucking fun holy shit. I know not every class got something cool, and I will be playing those eventually (haha two of every class split between factions I have a problem haha).

Speaking of alts, I love Warbands. The fact that I got to work on loremaster, level Brann, and work on renown across 4 separate characters is an absolute godsend.

Last thought here; Skyriding is amazing. Yeah it was introduced in Dragonflight but I really just needed to be able to fly Invincible everywhere. The fact that Blizzard finally embraced flying and made it engaging by just making the zones huge is the best path ever.

I Have Talked So Much I Am Sorry

yeah i hate this expansion isn't it clear

I really truly desperately hope that WoW continues this upward trend, continues this energy forward. I want to be able to hit each patch, to look back, and still feel the same happiness and excitement as I do now for the game. WoW is a game I have loved for most of my life. I want it to succeed. I want to say that I love it and not be embarrassed. If we continue to have more times like what War Within is at launch, I have no doubt that those things will be the case. They just need to not prove my fears right. With all of this very very very long post said;

9.5/10. The most love I've had for Warcraft in a long while. Honest competition with Legion for favorite expansion. Please Don't Fuck This Up.

please help me i still feel like i could have talked more

[flowersbark]

Holy shit. Okay. Hi. I’m also a csa survivor. I’m legit so desperate for anything sort of recognition on this issue I’ve been having for almost 2 years now. https://www.tumblr.com/flowersbark/740288973409288192/fellas-is-it-a-proship-to-project-cocsacsa-on

It relates to this post, except I am going to get EXTRA personal on this.

Tw for r//pe, gr///ming, Self-h//rm, and csa (obvsly)

Okay so I also really really reallyyy don’t like proshippers, I am hypersexual, and I have zero access to any sort of help atp in my life. Now that I have those things out of the way right now, I am essentially in a dilemma a lot like that post. One major problem, it’s not me JUST wanting to project, it’s me wanting to BE in that spot of the victim again for some reason. And I mean like srsly getting assaulted again and all that horrible stuff. Like, i THINK these ideas, thoughts, and urges I have are called “intrusive thoughts”?? But I’m not sure. I’m disturbed by them regardless.

This has been so frustrating to deal with bc first of all, I’m not a victim to gr//ming, second, yes, I am a victim of csa at a young age, and third, I find myself having some sort of YEARNING to be hurt in such a way. (Not cocsacsa, just to not let things get mixed up btw) I have looked around on the internet for so long about this issue and I find NOTHING on it, like, am I just going crazy? Am I trying to cope with it in the worst way possible? Like, I genuinely don’t know, and it drives me mad because on one hand, I have this massive theory that it’s a mental attempt of “self- h//rm”, and then on the other hand, it’s a bizarre extreme version of yearning for touch and affection, but I’m just so unsure because I can’t find any other personal accounts of anyone else!

I acknowledge that your post wasn’t about this oddly specifc scenario, and I’m so sorry that this is so out of pocket, and possibly even counterproductive (idk) but as another csa victim, would you be able to offer some sort of insight? Is that something I can even ask for on here? It’s okay if you can’t, or don’t want to, I fully understand if I just never see a response to this. I really hope things get better for you and that you’re a having at the very least, a decent day regardless. Thank you.

Also p.s., sorry for not being able to answer that question, I myself am also uncertain on a definite answer for that. Like, the most I can say is that I think it’s okay to explore unhealthy dynamics, so long as they’re both acknowledged as bad/unhealthy/traumatizing things, and not put out to the public since people can take/look at things and get weird and nasty🤢 (so generally just used in a private and secure setting)

HI !!! uhh

first off, yes you can ask for advice, insight, anything. thats why i made this blog, other than to just vent to strangers. second, thank you for giving me your opinion on the csa proship situation.

i do think what you're going through are intrusive thoughts, and i get those a lot too. especially about going through what i did again, or worse. i also fucking HATE those thoughts, especially because my mind makes it by people i know irl, especially classmate im close to. it makes me feel disgusting and like im sexualizing and making my classmates horrible people when they ARENT. intrusive thoughts arent a reflection of who you are, theyre a reflection of who you DONT want to be, thats why theyre so disturbing.

again, the almost yearning for it is intrusive. it's also a trauma response. like how people who are used to being mentally abused will seek out and be with people that will treat them like that, its kinda like that. its not a good way to cope, but its not the WORST. as the absolute worst would be repeating the cycle.

im sorry if this doesn't help, its kinda just my word vomit with no revisions,, but i hope it does. it gets better, i promise. keep going.

[nonuggetshere]

OKAY, WAYWARD ROYALS AU TIME

PV in this AU is named Flower, which is what I'm gonna use instead of the acronym. Gonna use a read more because Holy Shit there's a lot once again

So like I mentioned in this post, their relationship was rocky at first. Pale King and White Lady were crushed by guilt and regret, and not only did they not want to deal with these emotions, but they were also under the belief that their child didn't want them in their life after everything that happened. So, they became distant and while they made an effort to be pleasant and respectful to them, it was nothing more than that. It was awkward, and Flower's insistence on continuing to act emotionless and only giving them short responses with either a nod or a shake of their head just solidified their idea that they didn't want them as their parents. Meanwhile, Flower thought they were angry with them and didn't love them anymore, so they started to avoid them too whenever they could to deal with these feelings of abandonment on their own. Communication is not this family's strongest suit.

But they do have to work together to get home or even to raise geo for supplies and to pay the stag that so graciously offered his services. So, whenever they arrived at another civilization, kingdom or otherwise, they'd split up and try to get the odd jobs to raise money and buy supplies. White Lady would default to selling the flowers and plants she grew, while Flower got an odd job here and there usually where somebody needed some muscle to help. Meanwhile, Pale King dusted off his hunting skills and would make tools and leather from the things they didn't eat to sell (he eventually taught Flower how to hunt as well). They'd spend a few days at any given place before moving on again.

At some point, Pale King and White Lady decide to try and at least bridge the gap somewhat between them and save up for a gift for them. It's a little rose made of gold with a light blue ribbon tied to its stem. They thank them and put the rose in their pocket before simply walking away.

They of course cherish that gift and almost cry from it when they're alone, but they would rather die than cry in front of their parents at that point so they quickly evacuated themself from their presence. Meanwhile, the Pale King and White Lady think they didn't like their gift and Pale King especially proceeds to have a mini-crisis about it, like "Oh God, what if they think we think their love is something we could buy?! We're so stupid!". Once again, like 99% of their problems would be resolved if any of these assholes just talked to each other.

But regardless of what their parents think, they keep that rose close and cherish it more than anything.

Enter trouble, stage left.

As I mentioned in the previous post, Flower has a near-death experience courtesy of One Motherfucker.

His name is Norel Stillbreath (people in this AU have surnames simply because I love picking surnames, especially fantasy ones (PK's and his family's surname is Palelight, go figure.)), a grapeleaf skeletonizer moth (when I made him I didn't consider the fact that he's a moth that important but now I find it hilarious that the source of their problems always seem to be moths.)

He's been obsessed with gaining immortality for ages and has eventually set his sights on void after meeting an escaped vessel years ago. Since then he's been studying this substance and hunting down any vessels to experiment on, many of which ended up dead as the result. He's managed to worm out information from a few of them so he knows about the Baby Pit and has been keeping track on Flower for a bit now, whom he's very interested in thanks to their status of a God. He's an absolute scumbag who only thinks to further his own agenda and I think he's a pretty fun foil to PK, though that part was completely accidental (didn't meant to make him a foil, I just thought "hey you know what'd be fucked up?" and made him).

When he learns that they're away from Hallownest he pounces on that chance right away and begins tracing their steps, eventually setting a trap for them with the help of an ant queen and her army whom he managed to manipulate onto his side. When they arrived at her kingdom and Flower was alone, they cornered them. It took a lot of manpower because they were a god, after all, but eventually, they brought them down, even if it took a lot of casualties on their side.

They're bound in chains and dragged away. Norel plans on keeping them pacified by keeping them just on the brink of death, where they need to use SOUL to regenerate constantly and so can never get enough strength to break out of their chains and not enough SOUL to cast spells or focus. He clips their claws too short and muzzles them as well, before they're thrown in a small, cold cell.

Their parents realise something was wrong when they don't show back up to meet up with them. To keep a long, boring part short, they manage to track down where they were after a week and broke into Norel's hideout to break them out.

Facing his imminent demise at the hands of two very angry gods, Norel decided to twist the knife just a little bit. A last hurrah before he plunges into the waters below after he flew too close to the sun.

"Where is our child?!" "Oh, it's your child now, is it?"

He mocks them, calls Pale King a hypocrite and says he's even worse than he is. Sure, he might have killed and hurt the vessels, many of whom were children, but at least he wasn't their father, somebody who should have protected them from the very evil he embodied. He ends by throwing that golden rose to them, now covered in blood and void and the ribbon torn.

They're shocked, they didn't think their child kept it.

"The brat wouldn't let go of the damn thing. Like a petty child refusing to let go of their toy."

They're clearly distressed, so he pushes it further. He mentions how they wouldn't stop crying and screaming for the two of them, putting on a childish, mocking tone.

He actually managed to get away, injured but alive, just because I want Flower to be the one to kill him later on. They deserve to go apeshit💜 Pale King wanted to follow, but his queen pulled him back and said that finding their child was more important

Pale King and White Lady find them barely conscious in their cell and break them out, and are taken outside and patched up. Their father hands them back the rose and their face lights up just a little. They keep it closer to themself, then pass out shortly after.

They immediately head off to the nearest kingdom with healing springs and try to make them feel as comfortable as possible on the cart. The two of them proceed to break down over this entire situation. They wonder if what Norel said was true, if they really cried for them for help and called them mum and dad. At that moment they decide to be better parents to them (plus, seeing Norel was almost like looking in the mirror, and PK Did Not Liked That. It did slapped some (more) sense into him)

They finally arrive at the kingdom and they help Flower get to the springs. Pale King sits with them while White Lady goes to get some food for them. He lets them lay their head on his lap and they almost doze off, they're so exhausted from everything. Then their mum returns with some sweet buns and they let out that soft "mmrp?" cat start-up sound (killing both their parents on the spot). They just rest and eat, and afterwards, the two finally apologise for everything and promise them they're going to be better people and parents.

That's pretty much THAT scenario, will make more posts and answer any asks y'all would like to send later but I've been writing this for a long while know and I need a break fkfbfjf

Some side notes though!

Flower/PV didn't take this beating laying down, the entire time that they were in captivity they fought back and gave Norel and his followers quite a bit of wounds. They're strong and resilient, and that bitch if a moth didn't manage to break them.

Also, I didn't make Norel just to make Pale King look better by comparison, I don't vibe with these types of characterizations. I just love a fucked up man 💜 Also when I first made Norel, PK was admittedly way more of a scumbag before I decided to rewrite FaaF (and by extension Wayward Royals) to make it sadder for me, aka the whole "they shouldn't have been loved and they shouldn't have loved back, but they were and they did anyway" thing I mentioned in the FaaF post. I also have AUs where PK is a complete asshole, because I love all shades of grey for this morally grey little rat. Just mentioning it so that people don't get the wrong impression about Norel, he's like that because I love complete scumbags that are unapologetically evil, not because I wanna make that wet tissue of a man PK look better by comparison

[eurydicees]

YOU WROTE 18K BY HAND?? i am so impressed i need to ask what you are writing about. holy shit u are like a god

oh my god ok THANK YOU for asking !!! also in the time since you asked this, i have written another 1,400 words by hand. Anyways. under the cut bc this got. too long.

so this was originally for the 50k big bang project, but it was cancelled so i'm gonna go ahead and talk about it publicly now. SO.

the sparknotes summary: it is an iwaoi post-canon coming of age relationship study !! it's about iwaizumi in california and oikawa in argentina and how they navigate their friendship while long distance. it quite literally walks through every step of their journey from graduation aoba johsai to meeting again at the 2020 olympics....the sheer amount of time i'm covering is why its currently ~88,000 words LMAO.

this fic is literally my little monster. it was supposed to be 30k. then it was supposed to be 50k MAX. it is now 88 thousand words long. anyways though i'm enjoying it.

it's a slow burn get together, but it's also a break up & make up fic. the idea is that they dated in high school and then had to break up bc of the distance--but i think they're probably going to get together in the end. the middle is a whole lot of them growing up and figuring out how they can have a healthy friendship even as adults and dealing with loneliness and adulthood on their own and really coming into themselves as people by the time that they get to the olympics.

i just finished parts two and three, which is iwaizumi's years at university. here are some BANGER lines, if i do say so myself:

after oikawa's visit to california, when he has to leave again:

Oikawa smiles at him, and with that, he takes the handle of his suitcase and walks into the airport. Farther and farther and farther away, until he’s disappeared from sight and Iwaizumi is standing alone again, next to the blinking red hazard lights and the sound of other cars’ wheels on cracked concrete.  He gets back into the car. He doesn’t really want to talk to Rich right now, or any one of his other friends or teammates. He kind of just wants to be alone.  So he turns off the hazard lights and puts the car in drive and then he takes the long way home.

when iwaizumi is talking to his friends about oikawa:

“It’s not a big deal,” he tries. “We’ve both moved on. It wouldn’t have lasted while we’re in different countries anyway.”  He does not mention that Oikawa had asked him to wait. He does not mention that he is—he is waiting, and he doesn’t plan on stopping. He doesn’t plan on breaking that promise to come home.  “Ah,” Em says, subdued.

during a drunken NYE call:

Iwaizumi can hear the flinch in Oikawa’s voice. “You miss me?”  “I’m not saying it again,” Iwaizumi says, and it sounds like it’s supposed to be angry, but it just comes out tired and sad. “Of fucking course I do. You’re—” “I’m what?”  Iwaizumi takes a shuddering breath. “You’re so far away, Tooru. You’re so far away and it makes me—fuck, fuck! I shouldn’t have called. I should—” “No!” Oikawa says it instantly, desperately, cutting off any idea that Iwaizumi should go. Which is good because as much as Iwaizumi wants to escape the embarrassment of this phone call, he doesn’t actually want to hang up. He doesn’t actually want to leave Oikawa now. “Stay. Please. Stay with me.”  Iwaizumi pauses for a moment, swallowing down Oikawa’s words and turning them over in his head before saying anything else. “Okay. I’ll stay.” 

anywayssssssss!!! it's been REALLY fun to write, but it's also like. an insane labor of love. this fic was my project for nanowrimo july of LAST YEAR, and it's my project again this year. isn't that crazy. so so so much has gone into this fic its literally driving me up the wall. it haunts my every waking moment and also my dreams.

but yeah i don't have wifi where i'm living for the summer, so i've been writing everything by hand and then typing it all up when i can use a hotspot on my phone. i also have the most amount of free time in my life than i have , like, EVER had in my non-child life. so i get to spend so much time writing, which has been sooooo fun. i am begging the universe to keep me from being burnt out bc i'm genuinely having the time of my life working on this.

ok phone's about to die gotta go. thank you for asking i want to talk about this SO bad. please feel free to ask me. please enable me i'm begging you

[reallyexists]

Another beautiful day in the dwarven fortress Bowloar, another goblin attack repelled. These guys tangle with a kobold thief and some weapon traps before limping away, less one hand between them.

Total fortress kill count is two giants, a kobold and one goblin(’s left hand). Yessir, things are looking up!

 Holy fucking shit.

I mentioned this little lady in the tags of that first giant post, and here she is again. There’s a downside to popularity, to be sure. She’s doubled in age since her last visit.

The werelizard child Usu Ramulabba infiltrated the fortress and just transformed outside our shiny refurbished temple. Our full ten-unit squad of mixed dwarves and humans is training in the barracks downstairs, directly next to the indicated stairwell. One of our glassmakers is a lot closer.

The glassmaker gets attacked and seems to be holding his own. It probably helps that the horrible night-beast attacking him is two years old.

A nearby tanner briefly joins the fray.

A dog valiantly attacks the werelizard child, and gets mauled in return.

The militia have made contact.

The dog dies on top of the temple altar, as the militia dogpiles the werelizard child and start to do some real damage.

The werelizard child is struck down by our courageous militia, its body and severed leg added to the invader corpse stockpile. Most civilians are horrified at the corpse of a human child, but the effect is somewhat ruined by the buggy sprite. I think the leg turned back correctly, though.

Now, the real fun begins. Who got bitten?

After combing the combat report, I find that two out of the three injured dwarves received bites that broke the skin. Nobody was killed in the attack, but these citizens are now incurably cursed, and will turn into werelizards at the next full moon. Presumably non-child ones. As much as it pains me, they’ll have to be exiled as soon as their wounds are treated.

The third patient, a wrestler, was being viciously grappled by the werelizard child right as it died. That must’ve been very humiliating for her, bested at her own game like that. But it’s over now, and she can get some much-deserved rest.

Son of a fucking bitch, man.

So I missed a bite in the combat report. It could happen to anyone.

The chief medical dwarf is in the tavern for this friendly fracas, and has the closest possible call. Literally the only dwarf in the fort with any medical skills.

At least our poor cursed wrestler goes down easily. Transforming in the middle of a packed tavern will do that. I comb over this combat report fucking meticulously. There’s no way I’m gonna miss another one of these fuckers. Sorry, tragically accursed fuckers. Everyone who got bitten gets the boot before they even make it to a hospital bed.

The tomb is filling up pretty quickly, although we’re reticent to bury all those dead visitors for whatever reason. The dead dwarf, Îton, is buried across from the dog that the child lizard killed. Looking in the coffin confirms that reverted werelizards just look like that.

We went ahead and made a statue of Îton, as well. Unfortunately the most notable things they did in life were moving to Bowloar last year and becoming a werelizard, and we are not commemorating that. Now hopefully we can get back to converting that outdoor pasture into a giant pit/drowning trap.

Fucking of course. In my defense, there were about 15 human poets in that room, and the combat report made zero distinction between them. Werelizard #3 doesn’t do anything but unsuccessfully attempt to shove, and is quickly beaten to death by a bunch of civilians including the high priest and a child.

What the hell is up with all our infectees having beast forms so much weaker than that human two-year-old? I guess that’s not really something to complain about.

Just a single casualty this time, who I’ve made damn sure didn’t get cursed. We’ll know how sure “damn sure” is in a few weeks.

Oh, we’re big enough for nobles now. Suddenly the werebeast problem doesn’t seem so bad.

[lunar405]

i've been obsessed with re4 remake's post credits scene . . like holy fuck capcom literally just simultanously confirmed & deconfirmed re5 remake [spoilers below]

ok for one thing this is easily the best ada moment in the entire game. one of my fav things abt re2 remake is that it gave ada some actual personality and made her a real character with actual depth

buuut in re4r, she's just as flat as she ever was, and her voice acting really doesn't help

don't get me wrong, i think it's fucking stupid that ppl are harassing lily gao; no matter how good or bad a performer does, they do not deserve to be harassed for their performance

buuut at the same time, i rlly don't care for lily's performance . it's very bland and it lacks the emotion of jolene andersen's performance in re2r, which gave ada a HUGE amount of real depth as a character in that game

most of lily's lines kind of fall flat for me, they're all delivered so awkwardly & almost robotically

BUT. in the post-credits scene, lily's performance was actually pretty damn great - partially because of how uncharacteristically for this game well-written ada is here

for once, ada feels like a real character, not to mention an actual person, whereas in the rest of the game, she really feels more like a walking plot device than anything

but, let's not forget the other character in this scene - albert fucking wesker finally shows his face in the remakes. ohhhhh my god. i was genuinely squirming in my chair when he came on screen and doing my best to hold in squeaks of joy

it's WESKER!! the highlight of resident evil 5!! the best villain in the entire series!! he's HERE!!!!!!!

when i first saw the scene i was like . "holy shit. they're DEFINITELY remaking re5." because how could they give us just a taste of wesker's sweet sweet villainy without planning on giving us more?

well, then it hit me. if ada doesn't bring wesker the plaga sample, doesn't that mean re5 literally can't happen? was this capcom's way of saying they're not remaking re5? and i mean, it would make sense for them not to, since re5 is one of the most universally disliked games across the series... so is resident evil 4 truly the last remake?

on the other hand, re5 could actually benefit from a remake. the original re4 is a great game that has aged exceptionally well, and really, despite how well its remake turned out, it didn't need a remake. but, re5 is a game with pleeeenty of flaws, and honestly, a ground-up reimagining is just the thing re5 needs to be potentially an actually good game. capcom knows that re5 & 6 have issues, which is why they immediately shifted back to survival horror after the (deserved) terrible reception of resident evil 6. so, they might also realise the potential value in a remake of re5, and recognise that they could potentially do the game justice with one.

personally, i think an re5 remake is extremely unlikely. i sure as shit wouldn't hold my breath for it. but, at the same time, i think it could certainly be done, and that it'd be worth both capcom & the fandom's time. re5 has the heart of a good game, but it's dragged down by its tone, writing, lack of horror, and its age. a remake could be worth it, i feel!

[pattywagon2go]

Followup Friday

Originally this week's Transit Talk Thursday was going to have a bit more detailed stabs at commuter rail systems, but for lack of time I had to squeeze it down to what you saw. But I did have some more stuff to say, so I figured I'd might as well release this as a followup to that post.

Again, don't take anything I say too seriously lol

Long Island Rail Road

Ah yes, the oldest railroad still surviving under it's original charter. Unfortunately, it seems like the schedules are as old as this railroad is, considering how hideously out of touch it is with what is needed in this day and age. Maybe this thing gets so much ridership simply because Long Island residents just choose to put up with it. If so, then that's sad really, since the LIRR is no stranger to axing itself because they can't figure out how to make the ridership go up. Oh well, at least we can soyface over the cool Electric Multiple Units they have...until you try to go to West Long Island and you have to transfer to a diesel train because that section isn't electrified yet. Fuck.

Metra

It takes a lot of genius to run a commuter rail, and in the case of Metra, that genius has gone to good use. Electrification? Pah, who needs that. Using Amtrak's retired GE Genesis locomotives? Screw you, it ain't EMD! Wait, what's that, you have a great deal on an old freight loco built by EMD? It will need to be re-geared and have Head-End Power added, which is going to be a pain? It won't solve the issue of our locomotives aging too quickly? TAKE MY GODDAMN MONEY ALREADY MOTHERFUC-

Excuse me. Now where was I? Oh, right...

Anyway, sorry, I got a little too carried away. Also, I have to remember to buy more of those really weird gallery cars despite ordering actual passenger cars from Alstom. Though in hindsight, the fact that it's from Alstom could explain why they haven't arrived yet. Thank you Alstom, makers of "exquisite" rolling stock.

New Jersey Transit

Ah see, here's a commuter rail that actually knows how to care for it's rail network! The Glorious Republic of New Jersey did the smart thing and seized all of it's rails across the state! Now we can run trains from heather and yonder! It's glorious!

What's that? There's this thing called "South Jersey"? There used to be tons of trains and rails down there that no longer exist and we have yet to do anything about it except for making the sorriest excuse of a commuter rail line to serve our state's version of Las Vegas? How many beers have you been drinking, South Jersey is a myth!

Ah, ain't nothing better than a commuter rail which knows how to care for its rail network.

GO Transit

Holy fucking good unholy godly fuckballs how many fucking park and rides do you need like this is ridiculous. This isn't even some elaborate bit I genuinely cannot fathom that for a majority of this commuter rail's life the entire system was basically park and rides for Toronto suburban commuters who hated driving into Toronto (not that I blame them). Like I can shit on the lack of electrification and the donkey-balls gargling schedules but like oh my god the amount of fucking parking that GO slapped their stations with is absolutely fucking ridiculous.

Metro-North Railroad

I honestly don't really know what else to say about this one that I didn't say in my original post. Yeah it shuttles people from the core of NYC to upstate NY suburbs and Connecticut, there's really nothing too special about this one, beyond the really weird electrification of both 12.5kV AC overhead wires and 750V DC Third Rail. I guess it works out since the trains that run on that line can tap into both so no transfer is necessary. Good job Metro-North.

Trinity Railway Express

Ah, it's the one I rode myself a little while back. The way I can describe this that I should have in the original post is "If the Atlantic City line on NJT was in Texas and it connected Dallas and Ft. Worth". It really wants you to think it's something better but honestly, it really isn't. It's just average. Oh and no level boarding is a massive fail in my book. Again, the bar is very low here and you're still ramming face-first into it.

And yes, I know other systems don't have level boarding, that still isn't excusable. This isn't me being a hypocrite.

MBTA Commuter Rail

This is another case of I really don't know what else to say about it since a good majority of its issues was due to MassDOT shooting it in the foot and then proceeding to ask "What made the MBTA shit?" afterwards. I will say though that the MBTA not electrifying is pretty stupid and it should be done, so the North-South Rail Link can be built at last. Seriously, Massachusetts, get on it.

Oh and obligatory "French company ruin American rail again" joke.

MARC Train

Good ol' MARC, ferrying people to and from the capitol of this incredibly "fine" nation and the location of the meanest sons of bitches in the state of Maryland and beyond since 1984. Also home to the incredibly mind-boggling decision of running diesels under electrified wire. I get it, the old AEM-7s are super old and the Siemens Chargers are more up-to-date, but to that I say "What was stopping them from buying some ACS-64s?" Hell even SEPTA bought some to replace their AEM-7s on their push-pull services. It's not like the ACS-64 was a lemon that everyone should avoid, yet MARC just bought some Chargers instead. What were they thinking?

SEPTA Regional Rail

Out of the entire list, I think the best commuter rail has to go to SEPTA, mainly due to its fully electrified network. But just because its the best among the ones here doesn't mean it's good. Far from it, in my opinion. SEPTA is a very flawed agency in general, and it needs to improve to serve the residents of Philadelphia better. Hell the entire joke about it in the original post was how SEPTA is basically doing fuck all to improve anything. Instead, they decide to find incredibly dumb shit like the Norristown High-Speed Line Extension to King of Prussia, the literal worst project you could have greenlit.

Caltrain

In a lot of ways Caltrain is basically Metra but for the Bay Area for California, due to the gallery cars and general frustration, except Caltrain is actively attempting to improve via electrification on most of the mainline. But unfortunately, because it's located in California, it gets knocked down a few places because of that. Extra points down because it's in the Bay Area.

Well, uh, oops, this turned more into a general critique midway through lol. Guess it's a good thing I didn't release yesterday. Regarding some future stuff, I think next week I may take off, as I kinda want to recharge my knowledge pool before I do another post, but in the meantime, I may introduce something new for next Monday. See you then!

[kariachi]

#i think u were the person that said once that its possible kevins mom was a rooter right?#i think *that* wouldve been an interesting thing to explore#and i know that they also had thoughts about explaining how aggregor was part of it#talking abt him being some like. genetically modified clone of kevin that was quickly aged#and like i *love* the shit that happened with argit i think its great that we got such a good luck at his character#but like... he almost feels like the only one that really had anything happen to him#like u were saying what the FUCK was the point of ragnarok if kevins dad wasnt even real#why do so many ppl know osmosians if they were all fake#assuming kevins mom isnt a rooter then how is SHE affected by her husband not being real??#its so fucking sad and so fucking FRUSTRATING that it couldve been SO interesting#but it was just. shoehorned in and had no consequences and affected absolutely nothing before OR after it happened#ben 10 (via @expired-blueberries)

I was! Her existence doesn't really make sense with the Rooters arc- we already know they would have to be able to get access to her to have fucked with her head enough to make Devin a thing, so why not just go to her to grab the information of where Kevin went rather than start shit with the local Plumbers? And if she was a Rooter then why not just fucking ask her? What happened between Absolute Power and Rooters of All Evil that neither of these were apparently options? We'll never know, because they only cared about retconning. And the whole thing with Harvey is... I did a whole post that touched on it I can't remember if I tagged, but Kevin's side of the story in UA aligns more both with what we know of what Kevin was capable of in OS, what he's like as a person even when he's gone around the bend, what's normal for young runaways, and what we get confirmed of his backstory by the Reboot. What Harvey's story lines up well with is Servantis's brand of gaslighting and guilt tripping to manipulate people, especially when one considers this is probably the closest Kevin came to trying to off Ben again and Harvey's appearance and argument did nothing but rile him up even further.

Add in that Ragnarok was supposedly supposed to be a Rooter and... I kinda have a headcanon, when it comes to Rooters-compliant stuff, that Kev's supposed mom was in truth his handler- since he was a sleeper agent- and that the whole Ragnarok deal was Servantis 1) getting rid of a Rooter who either gained a moral or tried to start shit, and 2) checking to see if Kevin was still, ya know, murdery, given it'd been over six months and he still had only even tried to really go at Ben once. It would certainly explain why she had no real reaction to her house getting wrecked, and why she just suddenly decided then was the time to exposition dump about how Devin died.

And that would have been such a fucking storyline! Kevin comes back to town to see his mom except, nope! Was never his mom, he's been a sleeper agent, she's his handler, and now that it's certain he's failed in his 'get close then snap and murder Ben' mission here's the Rooters to bring him back to the Null Void so they can work on the next plan. He manages to escape, memories repaired, and knowing Ben is the big first target sends the Tennysons on a wild goose chase as far as finding him goes while he goes to get Argit, only coming clean to some degree about what's going on-as in canon- when he realizes that he's not going to be able to get to Manny and Helen himself.

You could have the arc otherwise go the way it did, and it still wouldn't be great, but it would fill the 'okay but what about his parents' plothole and give the Rooters more background since viewers can look back and go 'oh holy shit' as far as fucking AF.

Meanwhile, if you don't want her to be a Rooter then that just means that, like you said, the question of 'okay but what about her, what about the fact somebody came in and implanted a whole fake husband into her head' still exists and, as with everything else, is never even hinted at.

Even fucking Kevin, who's the focus of the damn arc, only gets so much. He certainly didn't get any lasting effects we get to see. And like, there is Kevin stuff in the arc, there's good Kevin stuff, but so much is focused on the Tennysons and Argit and giving the backstory that we hardly get to see it. Kevin is so smart in this arc, and he runs a fucking double agent job like a dream against Servantis, his biggest hindrance is literally the Tennysons. And yet. Alas. Can't risk taking away from the two big goals of the arc- retconning everything we know about him and the hybrid Plumbers Helpers, and go 'look look we remember Ken 10 we remember that flashforward do you remember that flashforward'.

Even before we get into everything else, it was a fucking waste.

Annoying thing with the Rooters arc is that we never do find out what the fuck the Rooters had planned in the long run. Because the first-and-foremost matter is destroying Ben, yes, but Servantis may as well be holding up a big glowing neon sign saying "this is step three in a greater, larger plan". He grabs Kevin in the first episode of the arc and is talking about using him to make more amalgams, when discussing Kevin seemingly coming back into the fold he describes him as 'coming along nicely' like this is just a step in his training, when he sends the kids out after him in the flashback he refers to the Rooters 'subtle manipulations' and how Ben can't fuck them up, he's literally forming a group of hybrid child soldiers as if he couldn't just snipe the fucking 10-yo as he walks out of his elementary school, or fucking recruit him like the Plumbers already end up doing.

This is not shit you get from someone whose entire deal is 'this one child is too dangerous to live'! You don't see 'child has superweapon' and go 'well then I'll have to transform myself, my staff, and a host of children into hybrids through painful experiments and then train and damn near mindcontrol the children into going and killing the kid'. You don't talk about plans for making more, you don't talk like when the chips are down the big problem is the kid might get in your way, or like the kids you've sent out to kill him are still in training.

These fuckers had Intentions and Plots and they got completely dismantled before we could get an actual answer on what they were longterm.