#i actually had quite a few

[tuttle-did-it]

You know, it's genuinely sad to me that aging favourite character actors no longer have any fun murder-mystery tv shows to guest-star as murders on.

[cod-thoughts]

“Thought you’d sleep in for once,” Ghost muttered, leaning down to meet Price’s lips in a lazy kiss. It wasn’t rushed—just a slow, easy press of their mouths, like they had all the time in the world.

“Couldn’t,” Price murmured against him, his hands finding Ghost’s hip. He tugged him closer, their noses brushing together as Ghost kissed him again, deeper this time. Price’s grip tightened, but there was nothing hurried about it, just deliberate and steady, as if he was memorising every detail.

Ghost huffed softly when they pulled apart, the sound low and amused. “You’re insatiable, old man.”

“Damn right,” Price shot back, his thumb tracing slow circles against Ghost’s hip. “You’re the one who came in here lookin’ like that. Can’t be helped.”

Ghost shook his head, but there was no real heat behind it, just the faintest curve of his lips, knowing he wasn't wearing anything special. He leaned in again, his fingers slipping under the collar of Price’s shirt, brushing against bare skin. Their mouths met in another kiss, slower this time, like the kindling of a fire, warmth spreading between them with every touch.

Then it happened. Ghost shifted his weight, leaning into Price a little too much as Price tugged him forward. He stumbled, landing hard in Price’s lap, chair creaking underneath them, his thighs bracketing Price’s hips as the two of them froze for a moment, faces inches apart.

“Fuckin' hell,” Ghost muttered, his hands braced on Price’s shoulders as the faintest flush crept up his neck.

Price, for his part, looked completely unbothered—if anything, the grin spreading across his face was downright wolfish. “Now this,” he said, his hands sliding up to Ghost’s waist, “is a sight I could get used to.”

Ghost narrowed his eyes, his voice low and rough. “You’re enjoying this too much.”

“Can you blame me?” Price replied, his gaze flickering over Ghost—his broad shoulders, the way his muscular thighs framed Price’s hips, the faint pink staining the tops of his cheeks. “Should’ve done this soon as you came in. Hell, I should have you like this all the time.”

“Thought this morning was enough for you,” Ghost shot back, his voice a teasing growl, though the flush on his face deepened.

Price’s eyes darkened, his grin turning into something hungrier. “Not even close.” Wrapping his arms around Ghost’s waist, pulling him down just enough that their bodies pressed together, the solid weight of Ghost against him making Price groan softly. “You’ve no idea how fucking good you look right now.”

Ghost opened his mouth to retort, but Price didn’t give him the chance. He surged up, capturing Ghost’s lips in a kiss that was anything but gentle. It was feral, desperate, all teeth and tongue as if Price couldn’t get enough of him. Ghost let out a low, surprised sound, his hands slipping up Price’s shoulders to his jaw as the kiss deepened.

Price’s hands roamed, one sliding up Ghost’s back to tangle in his hair, the other gripping his thigh, fingers digging into muscle as if to anchor him there. Ghost groaned, the sound muffled against Price’s mouth, his body reacting before his brain could catch up. His hips shifted instinctively, pressing harder against Price, who growled in response.

“You’re gonna be the death of me,” Price muttered, his voice rough and breathless as he pulled back just enough to drag his teeth along Ghost’s jaw. His lips found the sensitive spot beneath Ghost’s ear, biting down lightly before soothing the mark with his tongue.

Ghost shivered, his fingers slightly tightening around Price’s jaw. “Thought you could handle it, Captain.”

“Handle you?” Price’s laugh was dark, his lips brushing against Ghost’s throat. “Barely.”

The room felt hotter, the air between them thick with want as their movements grew more frantic. Price’s hands were everywhere—tracing the curve of Ghost’s spine, squeezing his thighs, pulling him impossibly closer. Ghost leaned into it, his breath hitching as Price’s teeth scraped against his collarbone.

“John,” Ghost rasped, his voice strained, his usual composure cracking under the heat of Price’s attention.

“Tell me,” Price said, his voice a low growl as he kissed him again, biting at his lower lip before dragging him impossibly closer. “Tell me what you want, love.”

Ghost didn’t answer with words. Instead, he kissed Price with a desperation that said everything, his body pressing against him as if trying to fuse them together. Price groaned into his mouth, his hands sliding to Ghost’s ass, urging him to roll his hips into a sinful grind.

Whatever playful teasing had been between them was long gone, replaced by something raw and consuming. Snaking a hand into Ghost's hair, Price pulled him back with a gasp and looked up at Ghost, his chest heaving, his brown eyes burning with want as he took in the sight of his lover—flushed, ruffled, and completely his.

[elderwisp]

˚ʚ meet my couple: valentine's challenge ɞ˚

tagged by: @greglunvik @warmsol @moonlitfalls @lynzishell @misspepeshi thank you! i enjoyed reading about your couples! ꨄ︎ i tag: @flovoid @likelyamused @gvaudoiin-tricou @salemssimblr @omgkayplays @madebycoffee @living-undead @thebramblewood @galaxytittus @pleaseputnamehere

[ratwithhands]

Read Right to Left (Manga Format)

I have returned to watching demon slayer after a year and it came up while I was having a serious late night talk with my big sister. I was talking about the relationship between Michikatsu/Kokushibo and Yoriichi and it turns out we both see each other in Yoriichi's shoes and ourselves in Michikatsu's place. Definitely surprising, but really relieving to know that we both worry too much and we are not so far apart in skill as we believe.

This is technically the first piece of fanart I've ever made for the characters in Demon Slayer, I have made OCs before but I never drew an actual character from the story. For context this is mostly just a fun "what if" scenario with them meeting in the afterlife. I like to think Yoriichi's love would reawaken Michikatsu's humanity.

[gingermintpepper]

So, one of the most interesting things that's come from my recent exercises in writing the Olympians as young deities is all of the very fun and somewhat painful conversations that come from the young deities acquiring and consequently settling into their domains.

Apollo and Artemis especially have been really fascinating under the microscope. They start off identically, with extremely similar interests and similar domains over the hunt and wilderness. They spend their days under the stars and foraging for fruit and dancing and singing in the fields, two rustic god-children exploring and learning together. Then Apollo goes off on his own to slay Python.

Now, a lot of things change when Apollo kills Python. That is the act which transforms the bow from a tool of survival and sport to an instrument of murder, bloodshed and ultimately war. It is Apollo's first act of wrath which separates him from Artemis - both spiritually because she has not yet shed blood herself as a goddess and physically because it leads to his exile. Most importantly however, the slaying of Python is the act that grants Apollo his knowledge.

If violence is what first separates Apollo from Artemis then it is knowledge which keeps them apart.

This can refer to a lot of things; that Artemis continued to be at home with the wild beasts of the forests and mountains while Apollo grew to prefer the domesticated sheep and cattle, that Artemis continued to avoid mortals while Apollo grew to know their ways and endeavoured to teach them more. The point that has been the most interesting to me however has been Artemis, who remains free of slaughter, and thus remains pure and Apollo, who becomes acutely and entirely too aware of it, and thus must be constantly purified.

Apollo's infatuation with medicine specifically is the place where this becomes most apparent. When he leaves for his exile to travel as a mortal, without nectar or ambrosia, without power, Apollo is without the privileges of the divine for the very first time. He sweats, he smells, he grows weary when he travels, he grows hungry and thirsty. He experiences fatigue and nausea, the fever of sickness, the chill of infection, the delirium of poison. The blood Apollo shed does not only make him impure spiritually, it strips him of the purity of his birth and station. Likewise, medicine is not a divine practice. What use do the unkillable immortals have for something as finicky as medicine when they have nectar and ambrosia? Apollo however, knows of the pains of the flesh and the suffering of the mortal coil. He pursues medicine in all its horrors and difficulties because of the knowledge he gained with blood.

Artemis then, cannot understand the medical Apollo. When her brother returns possessed by this spectre of ill-gained knowledge, she does not recognise him. Who is this boy who scores the deer and studies the shape of their intestines before he cooks them? What good is there in rescuing a chick with a broken wing? The Apollo-of-the-Wild in her memories would have done the correct thing and left the thing for dead - let the forest take what is its due. Who is this Apollo whose hands are always stained to the wrist in the blood and gore of the living? What is his fascination with the mechanics of mortal bodies? Artemis does not know and Apollo does not tell her.

That has, by far, been my favourite effect of the whole Python watershed moment to explore recently.

[wickedcriminal]

I remember watching Riders of Berk for the first time and when Heather showed up I was absolutely convinced I was going to hate her

And then by the time I finished Race to the Edge I absolutely loved her so much 😭

[callmeahopelesscase]

High School Frenemy + various text posts

[psychomusic]

oc time again! + her town & culture (heavily inspired by pre-roman italic populations)

she is suri sauthon. her story is linked to my swtor imperial agent, tar'x, but most of her life except for the one year away where she meets him, is spent in a town in the mountains of mirial.

despite mirial being cold and desert, and many cities developing underground, her town flourishes thanks to a force nexus, venerated in the form of an ancient, sacred, alive crystal. the ecosystem of that mountain depended on what "the horned crystal" was capable of giving them, but mirialans couldn't live off of that alone, so they developed trade and some rudimental technology, even if oftentimes it was bought thanks to the highly profitable trade of a plant used to make medicines that slowed down aging and had overall healing properties.

note: everything that's generated by this nexus has these healing properties BUT they have to be processed, except for those who bathed in the waters of the cavity under the crystal - the "real" nexus, but not the worshipped one. the waters were sacred but they were not thought to be miraculous, unlike the crystal, who instead was thought of as the keystone of the ecosystem: without it, everything would fall apart (and that is partially true: the cavity was the "real" nexus but thanks to the crystal, also strong in the force, the properties were spread all over the mountains). those who bathed in the cavity's waters - so, all of the town, who had a sort of baptism there - could eat the plant, make whatever food with it, and not only that plant, but everything generated by the nexus, that, again, had similar properties. this allowed people to live up to normal life-spans without advanced medicines or, much, really. to those who didn't live there, though, after the processing, had incredible effects, slowing down aging - for those who took it regularly - and making people able to live up to half a century more than the average]

originally, there were four tribes of nomads that lived thanks to horned farm animals that decided to settle down into one bigger town and other smaller settlements, to live off of transhumance. this division of the tribes stayed into the political and social organization: every person belonged to one tribe specifically, and had slightly different rituals and culture. for examples, each tribe had their own priests and healers, with different techniques and traditions. the town, tho, was guided by a group of people in the high priesthood, a position you could reach only by having earned the trust of all tribes. those high priests had many roles: they guided the people into sacred processions common to all the tribes, they managed the trading with outsiders, they did the maintenance of the temple of the summit (the one that functioned as casket to the crystal) and created a special liquid to offer the crystal that helps it grow.

this particular temple was important because 1. it was very visible, from every angle of the town, and it became an important identity symbol; 2. it stored the venerated horned crystal; 3. it had the altar where sacrifices were made for the crystals. that altar had a hole connected to the cavity, that allowed the liquids to reach the underground; 4. it had various symbols: statues representing each tribe + the high priesthood, and typical mirialan tattoos carved into the wood of the trees that served as columns for the temple, symbolizing 8 values that who dared to enter HAD to have; 5. it was on the way to an important lake (called "mother lake" because the lake the town was built around to depended on the waters of that other lake) where they traveled to in important processions; 6. it was said that a the wizard who unified the tribes made it with its magic, making the plant grow to hold the temple's roof. this wizard was, actually, a force user, obv.

BACK TO HER THOUGH: she's daughter of one of the high priests, who was in charge of managing the trades with outsiders, and lives in a house on the mountains with her mother and him. her parents are from different tribes (that's one of the things that earned him trust from the 4 tribes): when a child is born from two different tribes, they don't pick one to allign to, but they're usually linked automatically to the one with more relatives in it (in her case, the father's tribe: she had many uncles and aunts on his side while her mom only had one sister).

later, though, she got quite tied to her mother's tribe due to a mysterious illness that only her mother's tribe healer was able to cure. she spent 4 years (from 10 to 14 years old) living with the healer and learned her secrets. to better study, she wrote them down. when she returned home, she studied to become a priestess with her father. at 22 (the average age: you can't become priest before your 20s), she was supposed to take a test and become a priestess, but the healer of her mother's tribe died and the tribe asked her to take her place. she couldn't technically do that, but both tribes estimated both her and her parents and she was allowed to become both. she then decided to try to become a high priestess, and became one at 25 (a quite young age). being part of the council, she tried to convince the various tribe healers to unite their knowledges and write them down, and eventually made it. healers still remained tribe based but they now had an "upper, inter-tribe level" similar to high priesthood.

years later, the sacred horned crystal is stolen from the temple by some Hutt mercenaries looking for a profit. given the trust she has earned from all the tribes and the fact that her father is the high priest that deals with outsiders (and she's been hearing stories and advice about it since she was little), she is the one tasked with getting it back. without the growing crystal, the keystone to their ecosystem, the village would have lasted only a few years. in hrr quest, she meets imperial intelligence agent tar'x laran and, as they "solve the mystery" and fight to have it back, they get closer. they'll get married and have a daughter, Vegoia (who's the only one who actually will get to the plot of my story. this was all background)

[sysig]

Caughtcha, gotcha, not letting go ♥ (Patreon)

[kookidough]

analysing vance hopper because he lives in my head 24/7 !

tw for like. literally everything the black phone covers!!!!!!

also there's some special effects gore rather far down in the post idk just i feel like i should warn you just in case

okay so before anyones like "but bee!!!! he only had 6 minutes of screen time in a 102 minute long movie!!!!! he was only on screen for 5.8% of the movie!!!!!" and to that i say i Know it was a real tragedy so a lot of this will be built on personal interpretation and subtext and stuff said behind the scenes and whatnot

so firstly i wanna rot about what his childhood/upbringing might've been like..... i havent quite decided on something definitive but i think we can take one look at his character and realise that is glaringly obvious he had a bad childhood, in one interview the actor that plays him (brady hepner) says "the background i had set up for vance is that the reason he was the way he was is his home life was fairly difficult, you know maybe his dad was either not there for him or he wasn't supportive, maybe he was fairly abusive, and so that creates a hair trigger sense of rage in vance" hair trigger meaning his patience is literally as thin as a strand of hair it does Not take a lot for him to snap

there more to it after that which i'll get into soon but yea thats the gist of it it's clear he had absent/neglectful/abusive parents and that would certainly contribute to why he's so angry all the time, maybe acting so explosive was the only way to get his parents' attention, either good or bad, so he just internalised that. obviously rage and anger issues like vance's lead to violence (not in all cases but in his case it does) and i think a neglectful and abusive upbringing would obviously expose him to more violence than a normal childhood would, therefore normalising it and desensitising him to it, whether he's seeing it play out in his own home and/or on television or something like that (because i doubt his parents would be the kind to monitor what content he's viewing)

i feel like he has little control over his life and that only adds to his anger, which in his case leads to a fight when his buttons are pushed too many times. i think he probably takes great pride in being the toughest in town and whatnot and winning fights and being perceived as strong and scary is good to him and helps him regain control/power, something he doesnt have at home. the rest of the quote from the interview i mentioned earlier states "this pinball machine could have been the only thing that he has in his heart that's like, good, like 'holy cow i did this, i set the score,' so when someone comes along and messes it up for him, it takes away the only thing that he has. i think that that's when he switches to a 'now you're gonna pay for that'"

similar to what i said about fighting, the pinball machine and his high score is something he has control over and its an important part of his reputation/image like. hes literally pinball vance ! and the whole thing about that high score being the "only thing he has in his heart that's good" implies that hes. well. pretty shit at everything else, which is pretty much canon if you remember that gwen said vance was held back twice in school. makes me think that while he's not the brightest in school he's certainly street smart

moving onto ermmmmm him getting kidnapped era because im sure youre wondering "well bee if he's so street smart then why did he get kidnapped" so may i raise two theories (this is. literally all i got and its not even concrete, me and my friend gray (@staggersz) tried to figure out how this could even happen and this is the most plausible thing we've got. so shoutout to him real quick he has had to deal with me being unnormal about vance for like a year and a half thanks king couldnt have done all this without my rotting buddy)

so either he got taken by surprise (most likely option) or vance's trust was gained first via getting given quarters at the pinball machine and small talk and shit like that but this is unlikely because i feel like it'd take a loooooong time for someone like vance to trust a some random stranger adult man when he clearly has issues with trusting and respecting people older than him and people with authority (e.g. cops, his parents, or school officials) so yea being taken by surprise would probably be the most realistic option, i always see people on tiktok being like "how did the grabber kidnap vance hes so strong!!!!" dude its a 15 year old boy against like. a 45 year old man who's already claimed two lives its really not gonna be a fair fight here

before i get into the next part i wanna quickly address a theory i absolutely Hate and it is so easily disproven and that is the theory that vance is the grabber's son or is related to him in some other way and i see it Far too often on tiktok and i HATE it. from what ive seen this all stems from his dream sequence where he kicks open the fence to albert's house and, presumably, goes inside after being dropped off by the police after the grab n go fight. idk if some people just straight up didnt realise this but clearly in real life he is going to his Own House??? in the dream it's only albert's house because this is how he chooses to show gwen the house she's trying to find her brother in, the house that he himself was killed in??? i hate the theory i hate it sm

the dream sequence itself is interesting though as the ghosts seem to only be able to conjure up what theyve seen in real life (like how bruce can picture the outside of the house and show that to gwen but the house number is all flipped and not right beause he doesnt know it) so vance being able to picture the house and the number and the gate and every detail would imply that hes seen it before, but im going to explain that away as either he got out once before like with finney's failed escape attempt, or the house is most likely on the route he walks to school or the grab n go or something and he hasnt actually been there prior to being kidnapped

mini rant over now onto being kidnapped i guess, so i used the missing posters to try and estimate a timeline of how long each ghost boy would've been in the basement for (although the missing posters are notoriously unreliable for details such as looks/height/age/etc, the dates seem to all line up). so we know the order is griffin, billy, vance, bruce, robin, finney, right?? if we use the poster date then billy was taken on may 4th, 1976, a month and two days after griffin was taken (april 2nd 1976). vance was taken on september 23rd 1977, almost a full year later (stay with me im going somewhere with this), and after that bruce was taken on july 18th 1978, again almost a full year later

its established in the movie that the grabber stalks his victims before he takes them (canon because we literally see the van watching finney and gwen as they walk home from school early on in the movie) but we dont know how long he does this for since griffin/billy and robin/finney were taken such short distances apart and then the others were taken such long distances apart, also it's possible he could stalk his next victim while the previous one is still alive, etc etc lots of confusing factors, but if i've done the maths right then the absolute maximum time vance could've spent down there is 9 months and 25 days, or 298 days, so erm . let that sink in !

howeverrrr in the movie gwen states that vance went missing "last spring" and september is definitely not in spring, meaning he could've been down there for a year or even longer. an explanation or excuse i could think of for the movie and the missing poster saying different things (other than the missing posters being known for some areas being wildly inaccurate) is that maybe he was taken in spring but wasnt labelled as officially missing until september, when he was properly linked to griffin and billy's similar disappearances and the mysterious grabber? i can imagine it'd be very easy for law enforcement, especially in the 70s, to dismiss someone like vance as a runaway until they get solid evidence that he was taken. idk though thats just my personal excuse / angsty headcanon for the difference in information

not sure what exactly killed him but we do hear from vance himself that "he took his time with me" so it was probably blood loss from a variety of injuries, if we look at him in his ghost scenes we can see his hair is absolutely covered in blood which indicates head injury, he clearly has a broken nose and bruising around his eyes as a result of it, he has these deep cuts on his abdomen area (apologies for the image quality but i believe they're like. sfx pieces you would wear under clothing)

and he also has just like. minor bruising (like the fingerprints on his arm) and other random blood splatters on his face and neck (assuming the blood down his neck comes from wherever he was bleeding on his head) so Yeah overall very unpleasant way to die obviously

okay now the part thats actually in the movie and it only took me 13 paragraphs to get here: vance as a ghost!! first thing i wanna point out is appearance wise i just want to say that when he's a ghost he's missing his choker and that fact Pains me. anyway personality-wise i feel like being violently murdered has, understandably, kicked his rage up to like. the highest level it could possibly go. he's insanely snarky and downright rude to finney on the phone, showing no empathy to the fact that finney is literally in the exact situation he was in

i feel like the whole "this is the nightmare end of your pathetic little life" and "if you knew what you had coming, you'd be fucking terrified" thing is definitely to scare finney on purpose and to get him to do something, vance might as well have just told him he's never going home cuz thats how it came across LMAOO, it is startling though because vance is clearly speaking from experience, that he was literally fucking terrified, and he is warning finney in his own weird way

the thing i think sets vance apart from the other ghosts is that while he does help finney, he does it for a different reason than they do. the other ghosts want finney to escape, to get out, to be free, to live, but personally i dont think vance cares about that. the only thing he wants is for albert shaw to be dead, for someone to seek vengeance, to do what vance couldn't. vance doesn't care if it's bruce or robin or finney or whatever boy could've come after that, he doesnt care as long as that man gets what he deserves after what he put vance through, and i see this through the scene at the end of vance's call where finney thanks him for his help and vance says, and i quote, "helping you? this isn't about you, fuck him! and apologies for being repetitive but to me it just literally proves that to vance, this isnt about finney or his escape, its just about revenge

we dont get to find out what happens to the ghosts once the credits have rolled, and i dont think we quite know enough about tbp's version of ghosts to guess what theyre up to, but i have a few theories :3 maybe theyre no longer bound to those two houses and they can now go anywhere they want in town? or maybe since their shared goal of stopping albert has been achieved, the ghosts can finally pass on to whatever is waiting for them next. i dont think vance would be content to pass on that quickly or easily as anger lingers, but i hope he'd be able to let go of it eventually, and hey we might find out in the sequel. i pray it mentions him cuz i will just die if it doesnt

sometimes, ok thats a lie, frequently i think about an au where he survived or escaped or whatever but ohhhh boy this post is already a train wreck so that au would deserve its own essay of a post :3 if u actually genuinely read this far then Wtf thanks for reading the ramblings of an absolute madman, only pure delusion could get like 20 paragraphs about a guy with 6 minutes screentime but hey thats how i roll, thanks again to my pal gray for letting me rot and thank u to my other pal ana for also enduring all this rot

hope u enjoyed my interpretation of vance hopper im going to crawl in a hole now and probably brainrot some more, thanks again for ur time :3

[beaulesbian]

⚔️ ONE PIECE || Zoro smiling & being silly - Fishman Island Arc ⚔️

[viperwhispered]

Too Little

Part three of Jamil (not) dealing with feels here we go. Jamil x reader, Jamil’s pov Previous parts: part one, part two

This was stupid.

Here he was, rolling around in bed, unable to sleep because thoughts of you filled his mind.

It had been futile of Jamil to think that he could simply brush your presence aside, that he could treat you like just another schoolmate and not let you consume his mind. 

Not when every quiet moment had him reach for his phone in hopes of a new message from you.

Not when you kept on finding new ways to make his heart skip a beat every time he saw you.

Not when he missed you more acutely every time you weren’t there.

So, despite his best efforts, his mind treaded those same paths, time and again, occupied by all the parts of you. Your expressions, your mannerisms, your words, every single detail committed to his memory and played over and over.

He suspected that at this point he’d be able to recreate most of your expressions just from memory. Your voice, too, playing so clearly in his mind.

Not to even mention those oh so tantalizing what ifs, supplying him with even sweeter temptations than the confines of reality and memory could provide.

What it would feel like to touch you, to hold you, to kiss you, to-

No. No no no. He would not go there.

Jamil could feel the heat burning in his cheeks and he rolled over, groaning into his pillow.

This was ridiculous. Absolutely preposterous.

Yet, there was no getting out of it.

He wanted you.

He wanted more of you, so much more than what he had.

Because each taste of you left him craving more, each glimpse made him want to uncover everything there was to you.

Even the parts you might consider ugly, as sappy as that was.

What kind of people did you like, anyway?

Charming? Intelligent? Funny?

Rich and influential? 

Did you even like guys? Or relationships in general?

Just the thought - relationship - made Jamil's cheeks burn even brighter, made his legs twitch under the covers.

Yet, somehow, it did not sound so bad.

To have you.

To be yours.

To know and be known.

He huffed and turned over onto his back.

As if his duties left room for something for himself, left enough of him to share with someone like that.

And would you like what you saw in him, anyway?

Yet, his excuses were beginning to sound more and more hollow.

After all, he was nothing if not resourceful, and so far you’d shown no signs of shying away, even as you dug your way deeper.

Jamil stared at the canopy over his bed with unseeing eyes.

He’d have to do something about this.

Because if he didn’t, he might just lose his mind.

But was the alternative any better? Could he even handle it? The full force of you, if - and it was a big if - you were to accept him.

Even now, when you looked at him in that particular way of yours… He never could hold your eyes for long when that happened. The softness and the warmth he saw were far too overwhelming, always forcing him to turn away lest he made a complete fool of himself.

If he were to have that, with the full force of affection intention behind it… How could he even bear it?

Like the other day… You’d found Jamil in the middle of his chores and dragged him away, his to-do list crumbling when you grabbed his hand and led him outside.

He was all too aware of how his protests had been half-hearted at best. How your sudden appearance, your touch had shut down every sensible part of him, leaving him unpleasantly raw.

And by the time he’d gathered himself, nearly convinced himself he had other things he should be doing instead, you were sharing ice creams outside Sam’s, to celebrate the first warm day of the year.

As if it wasn’t warm in Scarabia year round.

As if he hadn’t been too preoccupied by your happiness and enthusiasm to bring himself to heel.

Sometimes, it was all he could do not to be swept away by you, barely keeping his head above the surface.

So, what choice did he have but to act?

You’d made a home in his heart already, whether he asked for it or not.

All he could do was take control of what he could.

Eta: you can find part 4 here and part 5 / the final part here. Oh dear I'm starting to get tempted to write this from the reader's pov as well. Or maybe I'll just have to ramble about the thought process behind this at some point to get that out of my system. I also considered going to a more horny direction with this but decided to go with this kind of yearning in the end. But, if the horny version is of interest for y'all, maybe I can do that as an alternative / supplementary thing to this series, or some sort of a standalone at some point. Hope y'all enjoyed! One or two more parts are still to come. Tag list: @colliope @crystallizsch @diodellet @jamilsimpno69 @jamilvapologist @mazapanmiau @perilous-pasta @twstgo If you'd like to be tagged for any future works, do let me know! Also feel free to specify if you only want tags for particular kinds of works (like sfw/nsfw for example).

[stagefoureddiediaz]

I’ve been wondering if maybe Ortiz’s plan to split up the 118 will actually play out in some fashion - that after Eddie leaves we’ll see the 118 being divided up in some way (perhaps Gerrards cast iron plumbing isn’t so cast iron and causes the 118 to flood and need to be refitted so everyone gets temporarily reassigned) and Buck doesn’t take this well - on top of Eddie leaving. So instead of reverting to Buck 1.0 who sleeps around, we actually get the Buck 1.0 who went travelling - that he’s going to literally run in an attempt to escape the feelings he’s feeling - that his abandonment issues will manifest in him abandoning his firefam and actual family (as in the Hans) before they can ‘also abandon him’.

That we’ll see buck on the road and that will lead to him realising he’s in love with Eddie and end up with him turning up in El Paso - without a plan but needing to see Eddie - and confessing his feelings.

[mohntilyet]

i’m having illario dellamorte thoughts. what if instead of knowingly betraying lucanis he did it like, unknowingly. idk how this would work but i’m intrigued by what it gives us. illario ‘i accidentally caused my cousin’s death & can never tell anyone’ dellamorte. genuinely grieving. blaming himself. does he take advantage of the year before lucanis comes back?? does caterina still ignore him the whole time?? how different is the canon plotline once rook shows up with lucanis post-rescue…..

anyways i would love your thoughts!!

95% of what i do with illario operates on the idea that he is frighteningly competent so you can see why the way the crows plotline plays out in the game might frustrate me. it’s also this reason why i don’t actually think too much about “illario got lucanis killed, but didn’t mean to do it”, because i like the idea that everything illario does in his life is planned to the second and that he’s too well trained to mess up this badly, if that makes sense. with that being said. 5% of my brain power does sometimes go towards “and what if he just sucked actually” and it was a theory i enjoyed before the game even released. so i have in fact been thinking about this anyway LOL . maybe he tries to honeypot zara, accidentally actually reveals lucanis’ next assassination job, and zara gets rid of him as a ‘gift’. illario is horrified and that gets even worse when lucanis’ body shows up, and he assumes this must be because he spurned zara by leaving her and not having the guts to seize power.

i think we could make his inferiority complex worse. illario’s worst fear confirmed: he is as worthless as his grandmother believes he is, botching something so badly that he accidentally sentences his cousin to death when what he wanted was lucanis just… out of the way for a bit (maybe while he kills caterina. LOL. i still think his resentment of caterina trumps his jealousy for lucanis though those two things are very intertwined its hard for him to differentiate them). so incapable that he got the only person who actually supports him killed, and now he’s dreading the idea of becoming first talon. he doesn’t want first talon without lucanis backing him, and now the only person left is caterina which is suffocating and makes him even unhappier. at least he hadn’t lived through her alone, and now through consequences of his own decisions, illario has no choice but to.

i think that would affect his plans for talon because of how horribly he’d fucked up, and tries to mask it because if he suddenly actually doesn’t want to be talon that would be a red flag for everyone. lucanis coming back would delight him (talon is within his sights again if lucanis comes back!) and freak him out. i think the plotline would actually be pretty similar because of this freak out, so he still shows up to zara’s fight to cover his tracks. lucanis can never know, caterina can never know, because what little faith they have in him will be lost. like he committed fratricide and didn’t even MEAN to😭 ...corpse whispering still happens, and zara is like “ohhh that coward. he can never finish what he started, can he?” + “elaborate.” + “i gave him what he most wanted in the world and instead of being grateful, he ran away.” so lucanis finds out about what happened but feels a mix of “illario, you idiot” + pity because turns out he didn’t even mean for it to happen, and keeps his secret for now, otherwise he’d probably have to kill him.

i also think not meaning to kill lucanis would sour his feelings towards the venatori, who are a reminder of how badly he failed, so the alliance wouldn’t happen. this does mean if the story goes on as it does in canon, he has to take desperate measures another way and kidnap caterina for some other reason but i can’t think of why….. maybe a thing where illario is like “ok. lucanis is distracted by the elven gods. this time i just have to kill nonna for real and then nothing is in my way” and recruits disgraced houses or houses that don’t like caterina to do so? not sure tbh but i don’t believe caterina made it so far without making enemies lol. this would happen post bloodbath + corpse whispering— lucanis leaves his cousin unchecked because while he knows illario didn’t mean for him to die, he has no idea how far he would go to have caterina dead. teia could find out about this and send word to foil the kidnapping and assassination attempt

so ‘murder of crows’ is still about saving caterina, the illario-lucanis fight still happens, but it’s a little more hesitant and lots of “why won’t you just let me kill her? i’m doing this for the both of us”. he’s had to live with being the un-favorite, but never would have thought lucanis would actually pick caterina if it came down to it. with all of his missteps here, i think the final decision (and i think it should be like this in canon anyway) would be to imprison illario or kill him. imprisoning him is just a lot of “i can’t kill illario as much as he couldn’t kill me”, vs killing him as is expected from him as talon, and what he knew he would have to do after finding out about illario's failures. unlike canon, where illario is actually meaning to kill him and can be seen as a 'good crow' despite the sloppiness, here he's like. just bad at everything. the allied traitor houses that went against caterina would also have to be imprisoned or killed. no happy ending at all here, and lucanis still becomes first talon. now that i’ve written it out this is actually probably the worst ending LOL

the above sticks a lot to what is canon to the game (plot points, choices, etc) and i didn’t go very far away from it so it's like canon 3 inches to the left. tho my thoughts on this are not fleshed out* because i think illario works better as an antagonist character that sets things in motion !! not necessarily the villain in a cain-abel story, but a character who opposes lucanis while still not wanting to hurt him. that kind of discipline where he finds a way to get what he wants (first talon) without compromising what he also cares for (family) is so much more fun for me than a man who apparently just loses it and decides to enact a bad plan to get rid of his cousin. if he waited 20+ years to become talon i think he’d be more careful when it came down to it. if i had my way illario would be playing insane 5d chess to rival solas (insert black sails “i once thought that to lead, to be liked was just as good as feared. and that may very well be true. but to be both liked and feared all at once, is an entirely different state of being.”)

[braceletofteeth]

he's got the fire and he walks with it

[kyouka-supremacy]

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