#i almost never remember my dreams and when i do they’re almost never this silly??

[comfymoth]

had a dream someone sent me like 50 drawing prompts in one ask and when i woke up i started stressing because i thought it was real and i had to do them all. like i started setting up my ipad and everything. i checked my inbox cos i didn’t remember what they all were and Thank God it wasn’t there, but man my stress dreams are getting weird

[yuikomorii]

AYAYUI IDOL AU: Chapter 1

// I present to you… MY FIRST EVER FANFIC! It’s inspired by these headcanons and these posts. As mentioned before, in this story, the Sakamakis are simply regular idols with a vampire-themed concept; they’re not actually vampires or related. Since I noticed how much you all enjoy this kind of content and have been so supportive, I thought you might like a fanfic based on it. ☺️

I’m by no means a professional writer, and my style leans more towards the visual novel/otome game format. Even so, I hope you’ll like it! 💕

Voice announcement: Ladies and gentlemen, we have now arrived at our destination.

Before you disembark, please take a moment to ensure you have all your personal belongings with you. For your safety, mind the gap between the train and the platform edge as you exit.

We sincerely thank you for choosing our services and travelling with us. It has been our pleasure to serve you, and we hope to welcome you aboard again soon. Take care!

Yui: ( Eh? Is this…—! )

— eyes widen —

I’m here… I’m finally here!

Yui’s Monologue

I can’t believe my dream is actually coming true! All this time, this seemed like a childish wish but right now I truly am in Tokyo…!

Uuh… I’m getting a bit emotional, but can you blame me? It simply feels… surreal.

I never thought my father would agree to let me join a work exchange program in such a massive and dynamic city.

To be honest, I was half expecting him to say no, but it seems he believes in me more than I thought.

Knowing that he trusts me this much… it really makes me want to work even harder to prove he made the right choice.

Yes, that’s so. I will try my best to make father proud!

— takes big breath —

Yui: Nice to meet you, Tokyo. Let’s make this journey one to remember.

Place: Studio

Photographer: And~… pose! Ah yes, exactly like that! Keep on, keep on!

Ayato: ( Man, this shit is so tiring at this point. )

— smiles falsely —

Photographer: W-Wonderful…! Another one, thank you!

— keeps taking pictures —

Ayato: ( Can this woman stop blinding me with that flashlight already? It’s past 11 pm… )

Photographer: Now, a profile sho——

Manager: Hold on.

Pardon my intrusion, but I believe we already have enough pictures for today. Don't you think so?

Photographer: Eh? But we just got star— Oh my, it’s almost 12 am!?

G-Geez, my apologies. I guess the saying “time flies when you’re having fun” must really apply here.

— winks at Ayato —

Ayato: ( Gross! )

Manager: If more promotional pictures are required, we can extend the photoshoot to tomorrow. Watanabe-san, would it be possible for you to arrive earlier if that is the case?

Photographer: With such eye candy around, who could resist spending more time with him~?

Fufu, just kidding. I'll contact the director and get back to you with an answer as soon as possible.

Until then, have a good night! Bye-bye~!

— leaves —

Ayato: Haa… thanks goodness! One more photo, and I might’ve completely lost it.

Manager: I understand completely. Given your schedule, it’s clear you’re quite overworked. Nevertheless, it’s impressive how you still manage to perform so well.

Ayato: Heh… thanks.

— rubs eyes —

Manager: You look a bit tired, Ayato-san. Rest assured, the limousine should be arriving soon.

Ayato: Right, the limo is on its——

( Fuck! I can’t believe I almost forgot about it! )

Wait! Now that I think about it, I’ve got something else to take care of.

So… don’t mind me! Go ahead and take the limo; I’ll call for another one later.

Manager: Haa… Ayato-san.

You're not planning to do something that could get you into trouble, are you?

Ayato: O-Of course not! It’s just… no, it’s nothing important. Just a silly little thing I remembered I had to solve.

— tries to leave —

Manager: Ayato-san!

Ayato: Huh?

Manager: Do NOT let anyone see you, understood?

— Ayato nods and leaves —

???: You’re late.

Ayato: …!

Man, you almost gave me a heart attack!

Laito: My bad~. You came prepared at least, didn’t you?

Ayato: Yeah, yeah.

— puts cap and mask on —

Laito: Nfu, let’s go, shall we?

Place: Street

Yui: Uuh… come on! Why is no taxi in sight?

( It’s been two hours and I still couldn’t find my way to the Airbnb. )

( I knew Tokyo was huge, but I wasn’t expecting the transportation system to be this complicated… )

— looks at sky —

( It’s already late, huh? )

( I wonder if it’s safe for a girl to roam on these streets at this hour. Well, at least I hope it is, otherwise… )

Place: Private Night Club

Laito: Two Cosmopolitans. One for me, and one for that very fine lady over there, nfu.

Ayato: Another glass of Tequila.

Laito: Heh, another one? Is this the fifth by chance?

Ayato: I had a busy week, okay?

Laito: Ah, of course you did. After all, our Ayato-kun is the IT boy of this generation. Always swamped with brand deals, while the rest of us barely get a crumb~.

Ayato: …Not funny.

Laito: C’mon, don’t take it too seriously.

— pats his back —

I doubt any of us could care less about brand deals anyway. The idol job already pays well enough, and with barely any time for ourselves, why would we want to give up even more of our freedom?

Ayato: ( It’s not like it’s my choice though. )

Well, I can’t deny that the love I get is cool and all, but sometimes… hmm, how do I put it? It feels like people only like me because I’m an idol, y’know?

Laito: That’s to be expected, isn’t it? Fans often form a one-sided connection with idols simply because we’re constantly visible and accessible through the media, without really knowing who we are or what we’re capable of.

On top of that, you’re the visual, the face everyone admires. Who wouldn’t be drawn to someone who's not only stunning but also famous? It’s like the perfect package for embodying every girl’s fantasy.

Ayato’s monologue

Laito… he always knows what to say.

Seriously, this guy is so aware of everything around him to the point that it’s becoming unsettling.

And the worst part? He’s not just talking—he’s right, which is why it almost hurts to hear it.

At the end of the day, we idols are just puppets, carefully crafted to feed into the fans’ delusions. They don’t see us for who we truly are, but rather as a fantasy they can cling to.

And we, caught in the spotlight, are forced to live out that role.

Before becoming an idol, I was surrounded by people who kept me around because of my looks. At first, the amount of attention felt good, but as I mature, I realize just how hollow that really is.

I can’t help but wonder… if it weren’t for my appearance or status, would anyone actually treat me nicely? Would anyone be willing to accept me, flaws and all?

Heh… now I just sound stupid. As long as I’m an idol, I doubt I’ll get my answer anytime soon.

Waitress: Here we go, gentlemen. The Cosmopolitan and the Tequila.

Laito: Hello, earth to Ayato-kun, are you still in there?

— waves in front of his eyes —

Ayato: Yeah, yeah. I was just spacing out a bit.

Laito: Nfu, cheers.

Ayato: Cheers.

— they start drinking —

Ayato: Ngh…!

( My chest… it started aching! )

Laito: Hm, you good?

Ayato: Y-Yeah… I just— Ngh!

( It’s getting worse! )

I need some fresh air, that’s all.

— quickly puts on mask and cap —

I’ll be right back.

— quickly goes outside —

( Haa… Haa… what is happening…!? )

Agh… fuck!

( It hurts…! Could this be…—— )

— eyes widen —

( No… No, don’t tell me this is a real heart attack! )

Hnn… Ngh!

( What… what should I do now!? )

???: Quick! Please, drink this!!

— hands him water —

Ayato: Huh…?

— takes it and starts drinking —

???: A-Are you feeling better? I got another bottle in case you need it too.

Ayato: Haa… Haa… It’s okay now, all good.

???: Are you sure…? You really seemed in a lot of pain.

Ayato: Yeah… no worries.

( This girl… she just saved my life, didn’t she? )

By the way, uhm… thanks for that.

???: A-Ah, it’s nothing, really.

As far as I recall from my father, drinking water after alcohol can help reduce chest pain and lessen the severity of a hangover. I’m glad to see that it actually works.

Ayato: Heck yeah, I’m glad to see that it worked too, otherwise who knows how I would have ended up.

— the girl giggles —

???: You should be more careful though. Drinking too much alcohol can be very dangerous.

Ayato: ( Okay, mom. )

Yeah, yeah, I got it. I’m not usually like that.

Moreover… why exactly did you help me?

???: Eh? What do you mean?

Ayato: ( Could it be that she actually recognized me? )

( My face is practically hidden behind the mask and cap, and we’re in the dark, so there’s no way she could have, right? But if she did… )

???: Uuh… I suppose it was out of pure instinct.

Ayato: Instinct, huh?

???: Yup. You see, I heard you struggling, so there was no way I could brush that off.

Ayato: Hmm… But wait a minute, what were you doing all alone at this hour?

( What if she’s a stalker then? )

???: Ah… uhm… T-That’s a bit embarrassing to say out loud.

Ayato: Oh, come on, you straight up saw me about to drop dead from drinking Tequila. There’s no way this could be more embarrassing than that.

???: Actually… today’s my first day in Tokyo, and I’ve been struggling for almost 3 hours just trying to get to my Airbnb.

I tried taking the subway, but there were way too many lines, and I got lost at some point.

As for taxis, every time I tried to flag one down, the driver just ignored me.

Ayato: ( Nevermind, I’m taking it back. This might truly be more embarrassing. )

Pfft, why didn’t you call for a cab then?

???: I couldn’t find any reliable number…

Ayato: Hmm… Alright then.

I just arranged one for you. You’ll just have to tell them your location and wait for them to get you there. There’s also no need for you to pay.

— lends her money —

???: E-Eh!? Thank you… thank you so much! But I’m sorry, I just can’t accept the money!

Ayato: Nah, it’s fine, seriously. After all, you’re the one who helped me first.

Just promise me you won’t tell anyone about what happened today. Understood?

— the girl nods —

Ayato: Heh, great. Well, I guess it was nice to meet you. Now it’s time for me to return.

???: W-Wait! I forgot to catch your name!

Ayato: …!

( So she really doesn’t know me? )

It’s——

( No… it’s too risky. )

Oh look, the cab arrived! You should hurry up!

???: But—

( He left…? )

Yui’s monologue

As the taxi started moving, I found myself looking back, almost subconsciously, hoping to catch one last glimpse of that boy.

Today had been exhausting, but despite the strange circumstances in which we met, those brief minutes spent with him were oddly comforting.

I wonder who he is and what his life is like. It feels a bit silly, I know, to be thinking so much about someone whose name I don’t even know.

But there was something in his presence that made me feel in a way I haven’t felt in a long time.

Whatever it was, it stuck with me, lingering in my thoughts even after we parted ways.

My journey has only just begun, and yet I can’t shake the feeling that meeting him was no coincidence.

I really hope I get the chance to cross paths with him again.

[fatallyfalling]

Strawberry Wine ~ 𖤓

“ safe & sound “

{{ Peeta Mellark Headcanons }}

warnings: mentions of alcohol, canon Hunger Games violence/trauma, wholesome fluff, etc.

{{ word count }} 487

{{ prompt }} fluffy headcanons for our beloved bread boy !!

{{ a/n }} this is short & sweet while i test out Peeta’s character! I’m not sure what i exactly want to write with him since i’ve adored everlark for forever but for now please enjoy my silly happy thoughts! Some of these i’ve heard around the internet i think but i can’t remember where :[

Peeta Mellark, the ashy blonde from District 12 who stole the hearts of the Capital with his charms and sweet, boyish nature while also managing to tame a stubborn Mockingjay - Katniss Everdeen, and poured out his heart and soul to get back to her any way he could.

- Peeta is a morning person. He'll get up early and have breakfast ready by the time Katniss pulls out of bed (she learns to sleep in post-rebellion).

- His favorite type of bread/pastry is croissants. The tedious labor of laminating the cold butter block into the fluffy dough is cathartic in a way.

- Once, he tried to teach Katniss to paint. Once. Her attempt at trees looked more like crazy brown and green spiders but he still kissed her temple and had the painting framed, much to the girl on fire's dismay.

- Peeta doesn't like hard liquor - he never did. Effie hooks him on a strawberry wine made special in what used to be District 11, he's gifted at least one bottle every birthday or holiday.

- He's such a housewife no questions asked, hands down. Hungry? He'll cook. Thirsty? Anything you want. This man has to be physically removed from the kitchen during friendly gatherings so he can actually relax and enjoy the company.

- Also, his Dad lore is insane.

(speaking to his kids when they're older) "Oh yeah, your Mom tried to kill me once. but it's okay I made it even the next year so we're good now."

"One time I almost got eaten by a monkey in a fight to the death."

"Another time I took a spontaneous road trip, got held hostage, and then led a rebellion to victory alongside your Mom."

- Peeta teaches himself guitar so he can play along while Katniss sings. His chords are wildly out of tune at first, but he gets it eventually.

- Peeta doesn't like store-bought bread, saying his homemade loaves taste better (they do).

- He's a hugger, every hello and goodbye is met by a bear hug. His hugs are amazing as well, nice and tight but also comforting and warm.

- For a while after the war Peeta kept a journal on his nightstand to record his dreams/nightmares. Even if the text turns out to be chicken scratch in the morning Katniss still helps him decipher and work through it to solidify reality.

“What does that say ?”

“Uh… I think… no - wait, I have no idea,”

- Effie and Peeta definitely have wine nights to talk about their scary guard dog partners and how much they love them.

- Speaking of paint - it’s everywhere, all the time, mainly his hands. Oil paint is next to impossible to clean so almost all of Peeta’s shirts have some amount of color speckled on the sleeves or the thighs of his pants.

- Peeta also keeps a cookie jar of homemade cookies in the kitchen, they’re replenished every week with regular flavor swaps.

{{ tags }}

[petit-etoile]

chaos construct

pairing: astarion/tav wordcount: 4869 content warnings: no in-depth descriptions, but mentions of astarion's life with cazador. no in-depth descriptions, but durge!tav remembers torture by kressa and is haunted by memories of orin (unnamed), other tags: canon compliant, hurt/comfort, introspection, character study, codependency, blood drinking, gender neutral tav, the dark urge as player character archiveofourown: here. kiss prompt: ❛ 28 . a kiss over a scar . — here.

tag list: @azrielshadows1nger, @pandimoostuff, @faevi, @microskies, @foreverthemaraudersera, @queenofthespacesquids, @claryvoyantfray, @6doodlaang14, @anne-isnotokay, @itshimbotime, be added to the taglist here

summary: ‘It will be rotten work,’ you say softly. / ‘Not for me,’ Astarion promises. ‘I will relish in it.’

　　　　　　𝐈. ﹕previous fic　　　　𝐈𝐈. ﹕next

You lean forward and look into the mirror. You take your time analyzing each and every inch of your unfamiliar reflection. Carefully, you trace the tip of your finger along the thousands upon thousands of thin white lines forever painted into your flesh. You follow the carvings from your bruised lips down between your swollen collar bones until you can no longer follow them. You slip your night shirt over your head and drop it aside unceremoniously, bracing yourself. Your eyes burn dangerously.

There.

Unrestricted by the burden of clothing, you can see it all clearly now.

You touch the scars that Kressa Bonedaughter gave you with violent, shaking hands. In truth, you’re not surprised you’ve never noticed them before. They’re practically translucent but they are there, and you can see them now, and no matter how many times you scrub at your skin to remove them, they will never be gone. You try to rub them away but all it does is make your skin irritated and sensitive.

In the sunlight, your scars are easier to find now that you know what you’re looking for. I wanted to keep you for myself, she had said, I opened you up endlessly with my scalpels, and got lost in your insides. Disgust causes your stomach to churn. Your dreams come back to haunt you. The piles of bodies. A flash of red hair and dead eyes. Knowing, somehow, what to do when Sovereign Spaw demanded Nere’s head. You were the butcher of Baldur’s Gate.

You push your fingers against your mouth and sob hysterically. The truth will always be a part of you now: The Urges, the scars, the pounding headaches, the feeling of possession. It’s horrible and bloody and repugnant and worst of all, real.

There is nothing you can do to take away what you’ve done or what you will do.

It frightens you.

You whip around accusatorially. Astarion doesn’t mean to startle you but the look on his face says he’s been trying to get your attention for a while. You snuck away from camp a while ago to sit in front of this old magical mirror, and he must’ve waited as long as he could before the worry over your disappearance overcame him. He joins your side wordlessly, but he doesn’t look at you directly. He watches you through the mirror with muted fascination, torn between sorrow, between mourning . His expression is so twisted that you almost feel like reassuring him that everything is going to be okay. But you don’t know. You don’t know if you’ll be just fine. You can’t find the words.

You feel very silly all of a sudden.

You do your best to wipe your fingers across your face, smudging your tears down your cheeks and across into your hair. You wipe your hands on your pants and try to calm your shuddering breaths but it’s almost impossible. The air around you is too hot and too cold, and you can’t tell if Astarion is looking at you with pity because you disgust him or if he’s looking at you because he thinks he has to comfort you.

You never asked for this. You never desired the truth of what you were. You wanted it to disappear before anything became real. You turn away from him, trying to force your expression into something more neutral. All you can see is imaginary blood on your hands. You put your face in your hands and hiccup.

‘Don’t you dare hide,’ Astarion says. ‘Not from me.’

He’s gotten touchier since the day he confessed to you. Despite how hurt you had felt at some of the truth, you held him throughout the night until you had fallen asleep first, and when you had woken up, Astarion had still been curled in your grip without you ever having to beg him to stay. Now, he’s the one sliding his fingers across your shoulders so that he can hold you ever so gently in his arms. He presses his face into your hair. His grip is loose enough that you could run away if you wanted to, but you don’t  —  you never want to and you don’t think you ever will. You want to be comforted.

‘Talk to me, please,’ he says, voice strained.

‘What is there to talk about?’ you ask hollowly.

Astarion clicks his tongue against his teeth behind you and presses a tender kiss to the top knob of your spine, his breath warm against your chilled skin. You want to melt back into his touch, but the fear has caused your body to remain rigid. You wait for another headache to overtake you.

‘There is plenty to talk about,’ Astarion insists. He’s trying to not pester you, but patience isn’t a strong suit of his. ‘What are you thinking, my love? What are you feeling?’

You feel sick. ‘I’m a monster.’

‘Ironic,’ he quips.

‘You said it yourself,’ you say thickly. ‘You said that there are more stories about Bhaalspawn in Baldur’s Gate than there are vampires. Who knows what I’ve done, and I can’t even remember it all.’

His thin patience finally snaps. ‘Oh, stop it. If you want to be some terrible and frightening thing, so be it. Be a beast! But remember who you are talking to. You don’t get to sulk and mope and pout.’ He sounds resigned. ‘You don’t get to be worse without me and I don’t get to be better without you. It is our deal. Never one without the other.’

‘I almost killed you that night  —  ’

Astarion bites you, very gently, on the shoulder. ‘I almost did the same to you,’ he warns. ‘This isn’t a competition, you know. I don’t care about what has happened. I’m more interested in the future.’

You almost feel insulated with how blasé he is being about your recent discoveries. You dig your fingers into your own arms and try to formulate your thoughts carefully, but even you can feel how you’re trembling. Carefully, you lean back into his chest with an overwhelmed sigh and let him pamper you.  You don’t have to look to know that he’s watching you in the mirror. Astarion is determined to rub warmth back into your body, and you let his calloused hands roam without complaint. Somehow, you’re relieved he still wants to touch you.

All at once, you feel very tired. You’ve tried hard to not allow yourself to feel overwhelmed ever since the crash but it has been weeks and weeks of nothing but bad news. The more you learn, the more exhausted you feel, and the despair has bundled itself like a painful fracture in your ribcage. It hurts to breathe.

Every day you wonder how much further you’ll be drug down into the undergrowth. Elder brains, Bhaalspawn, avatars of gods and their whims…  Astarion presses a sore bruise against your side and catches the side of your head with his mouth, delicately kissing the curve of your ear while you flinch away from his touch. You peer at him anxiously.

‘I still remember what it felt like when I awoke,’ Astarion explains quietly. ‘My fingers ached from the digging, and I had cried myself to the point where I must have looked undesirable when I finally rose above my grave. Snot, tears, mud and gore from my change clinging to my skin. But unlike you, I could not see what I looked like. I had to wonder for years if my hair looked different or if my eyes had changed color. I knew they had, but I wanted to deny it, to deny him what he had made me. I knew I was a monster and I let that fear paralyze me for centuries.

‘I was a toy for when Cazador was bored. I was a weapon for when he needed blood. I was a creature for when he desired humiliation. Being nothing more than a spawn turned me into something almost unrecognizable. As horrible as the nautiloid was, as vile as this parasite is, I can’t help but feel as though it was somehow a blessing. I could have stayed angry. I could have betrayed you, stolen the other tadpoles and ran away into the night with nothing but power on my mind. But the nautiloid gave me something I never thought I would be allowed to have in this world. It gave me you, and I cannot lose you now. Do you understand?

‘You do not have to be a toy. You do not have to be a weapon. You do not have to be a creature. You know who you are now, and that is what matters in this world. I did not betray you then and I will not betray you now, so you must stay with me, my love. You mustn’t go somewhere I cannot follow you. You and I can beat this together so long as you believe in us .

‘I wish it were different for you, of course,’ he continues, and his tone is so anguished your heart squeezes itself into impossible shapes. ‘I wish I could sweep my hand across your belly and these scars would fade, but more than that, I want  —  I want you to realize you are alive , that these scars are reminders of who you were, but not of who you will be.’ Astarion digs his fingers into your flesh and you watch your skin against his, as he drags his hand across one of the more obvious scars that Kressa had left you. ‘If you wish to tear this world asunder, I am your weapon. If you wish to preserve it, I am its guardian.’

Astarion’s hand leaves your waist to grip your chin, forcing you to look at your own reflection. His thumb cradles your bottom lip and his other fingers splay against your cheek and jaw. He is protecting you from yourself better than your Guardian ever could. What he sees when he looks at you is not the wretched blood you’ve been cursed to bear, but the person you have become since forgetting. Even if your memories were to come in all at once tomorrow, Astarion would not care. If your urges became too much to ignore, he would not care.

You turn your head to force your eyes to meet his. You realize with a frightening hunger that you love him. You love him, and he loves you truly, and this was always meant to happen.

‘If you are to become Death, allow me to be your Dark Consort,’ Astarion whispers.

You swallow. ‘What if I want to be Life and create a new world in my image?’

‘I am your Arbiter of Souls,’ he vows, ‘and I will taste your ripe seed to see your fruit bloom.’

You feel the rush of heat sliding from your stomach into your cheeks before he even finishes. After all, everything you have done has led up to this. Your unyielding devotion. His unwavering faith. Admittedly, it’s an enticing thought. That you, in all your power, could rise to godhood as though it were nothing and slaughter the old pantheon as though they were nothing. Astarion would be there by your side to bask in the glory of your immortality.

You’re so very tempted… 

And Astarion only serves to tempt you further. He begins to take in every single one of your scars like you had before, only with his mouth instead of his hands, tracing the pale lines with plentiful kisses and his tongue. He mouths at your flesh as though he has never tasted your skin before, but he has, and you know he has. Even after all this time, he still favors your taste more than anything else.

Are you hungry? You can tell that it’s been a while for him from the way his hands flex with care to avoid bruising you. His hand grabs your throat again, his thumb pressed uncomfortably under your jaw. He shows great restraint with how he handles you. You could offer, but the words are caught in your throat. Are you hungry? Your eyes flutter closed and you imagine what the world would be like if Astarion drank you dry and replaced your blood with his until the curse of you is gone and the curse of him begins. Are you hungry? You try to push the thoughts away.

Ravenous, you think.

There’s something different in the air tonight.

It’s almost soothing the way that Astarion feeds on your agony. It’s as though he means to eat your desperation, to pull it from your muscles until there’s nothing left to eat. He busies himself in your body, drunk on how you’re malleable for him, intoxicated by the way you give into his whims as he twists and turns your body to look at the different scarring in the light of day. He doesn’t seem to care about anything else rather than appraising your body like a priest who intends on making a relic based on your physique.

And, if you’re being painfully honest, his touch is a welcome distraction from how overwhelmed you felt when you were alone. You did the same thing to him once, constantly poking and prodding about his vampirism. You remember his infinite patience. Astarion had tolerated the way you stuck your fingers in his mouth, spurned on only because he let you press your fingers against his teeth without complaint. He savored the way you apologized for pricking your finger on his canine just because you wanted to see what it would take to make that restraint snap.

Astarion runs his hands down your sides and memorizes every single line left in your flesh. You watch as he grinds his teeth to keep from doing anything impulsive. He desires you so distinctively. If you were to look, you would recognize how glazed over his eyes were and what that meant. He’s trying for you.

‘What if you grow tired of taking care of your Messiah?’ you ask to divert his attention from your throat. 

‘What kind of Disciple would grow tired of their Purpose?’ Astarion counters easily. He raises his chin defiantly. ‘I would never grow tired of the God I chose.’

You would have been skeptical before, but Astarion seems intent on making you a believer of your own regime. For a brief moment, you think you ought to be concerned that this is another manipulation  —  an unapologetic grab for power at your expense. You know better.

Astarion is building a shrine between your ribs, in your marrow and in your sinew. With his loving hands, he shapes you into the Temple of Bhaal anew. Your only task is to dethrone your father and take back the autonomy which ought to have been yours from the beginning. Like the Nightsong from Balthazar. Like Isobel from Ketheric. Like a lamb at a slaughter.

Your flesh is the bread and your blood the wine and Astarion is the most devout of your followers. Not because you saved him for perdition or because you tore apart the hells to save him while he rotted in his grave, but because of the life you have given him in the aftermath of his misery. You are the taste of freedom he so eagerly covets. You are the miracle he has yearned for ever since he pressed you into the leaves in the wilds that first night. You were his from the first taste.

‘It will be rotten work,’ you say softly.

‘Not for me,’ Astarion promises. ‘I will relish in it.’

‘For how long?’

‘For however long it takes,’ he says, and he means it. There’s no coy playfulness behind his words, only the intent itself. ‘I can be devout, you know. I will wash your feet and your hair, and write a scripture so beautiful even the Lady of Loss would be jealous of the devotion.’

Before, you might have considered these promises one of Astarion’s wild whims. One of his techniques used to draw in the unsuspecting, but you have always been something more than a rabbit for the fox to chase. The underlying hum in his voice is the power of the covenant he preaches. These might have been words months ago, but not to you, never to you. This is as sincere as Astarion can be. A genuine oath that rivals the words of a paladin’s honor. He lays his lust bare in your chest.

You slide to your knees with Astarion kneeling behind you. He grabs you by the throat again, and though he tries to be as gentle as he can, you can’t help but gasp at the roughness. He forces you to look at yourself, to look beyond the scars and at the future ahead of you.

You lean into his touch. He’ll never fully understand why, and that’s okay with you. For now, this is enough to keep you content. His hand around your neck, his other tracing every scar you’ve ever received, not even pausing over the recent scrapes and bruises from the battle with Ketheric in the very depths of your personal hell. Astarion has a touch that slowly consumes you  —  that devours you until there is nothing left. You tilt your head back against his shoulder and allow him to witness everything you have to offer.

Damn the hells.

Damn the heavens.

Damn everything beyond.

Astarion does not believe in gods. He does not believe in the kindness of men. If anyone else were to offer him a gentle hand, he would flinch away from the touch in disgust. But it is your hand that is outstretched and he takes it willingly in a marriage of trust. Now your soul rests alongside his, trapped in a cage of your making, as beautiful as a prized canary to be kept in a gilded manse. Together is where you belong.

‘Are we sinning?’ you ask.

He hums in consideration, and strokes your pulse absentmindedly. He bites at your neck again without breaking the skin and inhales. You close your eyes and know the truth.

‘I’m afraid this time we are, my love,’ Astarion confesses. ‘We are passionate heretics, you and I. No other word is as sacred as the one we have to seek to build.’

‘What will become of us?’ you ask.

He laughs against your skin and nuzzles into it. His breath tickles your skin and causes it to rise. Without thinking, he bites down on your shoulder again and groans when you cry softly.

‘What does it matter?’ he murmurs. ‘All we have in the world is us. Let them come.’

‘Are we sinners?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he admits. ‘I’ve been a sinner for quite some time. Did you know  —  Did you know your blood sings for me?’

‘Drink from me,’ you say. ‘A good consort should be strong at all times. Are you weak, Astarion?’

You feel his grin.

‘I am frail, indisposed, feeble without you,’ he says. ‘I am nothing if you are not by my side.’

‘You should say it again.’

‘Why, you’re being cheeky,’ Astarion laughs. He bites you with intent this time and draws blood. You look at yourself, at the heat in your cheeks. ‘I  —  am  —  nothing   —  without  —  you.’

There is nothing more you desire than being consumed. It’s different now. You might have sought Astarion’s warmth once before, but now you seek for something else underneath his practiced exterior. You are the illithid parasite on a hunt of sustenance, and you choose the way he mouths at your skin.

‘Now,’ he muses, ‘let me worship at your altar.’

Instead of biting down into your skin to continue to feed, he trails a line of kisses across your back and the edge of your neck. Over and over, he follows a path with his fingers first and followed by his mouth as if kissing the scars will cause them to fade into oblivion. It’s such a contrast to your conversation you don’t know where to begin. This is the intimacy Astarion chooses to show you.

Nothing else matters.

Baldur’s Gate does not matter. The Elder Brain does not matter. There is only one thing that Astarion seeks. Your happiness and comfort, and Astarion hunts for them with every kiss and thoughtful touch that the dedication makes you feel as though you’re fit to burst. No one has ever done that for you, not in this lifetime and the lifetime of whoever you were before . Your hands were calloused and for murder, not for love. You keep reaching for it.

What is love if not these selfish, unholy desires? When you close your eyes to dream, you imagine Astarion and his silver-white hair over you haloed by intense divinity, his cerise gaze unwavering, this intense loyalty, his practiced laughter and the gentle lines of laughter around his eyes. These dreams drown out the nightmares and the fear. Sceleritas Fel cannot take that from you.

You will not let Bhaal win.

Cazador made Astarion with the purpose of creating a lamb for the slaughter. Bhaal created you as the knife to be used in sacrifice. You would make them both pay for this betrayal of innocence. They have twisted you into something unrecognizable. Astarion might have bit out your throat once upon a time, but now he kisses the back of your hand and watches your expression carefully for any sign of discomfort. You have reminded him of the man he could have been.

‘I do not want you to hate yourself like I have hated myself,’ Astarion tells you, eyes troubled. ‘That isn’t to say you cannot grieve, but you mustn’t become lost. I need you here with me.’

‘You’re not afraid of me, are you?’ you ask. ‘Even though I…’

‘I will never be afraid of you,’ he vows, ‘but to be afraid for you, to worry…’

‘There are still things I want to do,’ you tell him.

You think of the red-haired woman who stood next to Gortash and Ketheric, and something about her causes the tadpole to move uncomfortably in your skull. You flinch at it and press your palm against your eye as if that will stop it. You remember something , but it’s hard to think, hard to follow.

Astarion smoothes his hands down your sides and rests them on your hips, peering over your shoulder at something you cannot see. You watch the worry slowly leave his face until there’s nothing left but smooth  acceptance, as if he too is coming to terms with what it means now that the truth of what you are has come into play.

Bhaalspawn.

Not just a spawn, but the favored child of Bhaal, inheritor of the throne of murder.

Underneath that mask, you are still you. The person you have created who is kind, who laughs and plays with tiefling children, who steals stuffed animals to give as gifts to Karlach and encourages Lae’zel to find the truth of Orpheus, who stood with Shadowheart before the Nightsong and encouraged her to choose her own fate, who willingly wades through the depravity of a mindflayer den to find Wyll’s father, who does not want to be another mistake for Jaheira to clean up, who wants to mend broken bones with Halsin, who wants to drink wine with Gale and listen to his stories of Tara.

The person you are now knows not the designs your father had in store. You are innocence reborn and safe from his defiled image. You cannot remember the cruelties of your past, and though you know that doesn’t erase them, it does bring a mild relief. The only proof you have of your sickness are the nightmares that plague you on the nights when your love is not enough of a salvation.

Astarion is devoted to you, as you are to him, as you always have been. You lean into his arms and allow him to kiss the back of your wrist before he embraces you once more, tucking his eyes against your neck so that he no longer has to bear the burden of understanding his reflection will never appear next to yours, no matter how hard you both seek it in the magic mirror. Your throat tightens painfully.

‘Thank you,’ you tell him softly.

‘I couldn’t leave you to your despair alone,’ Astarion says with a hopeless shrug. ‘The thought of you suffering the same as I… I brooded over my own existence for two hundred years with no one to comfort me.’ He mourns carefully. ‘I couldn’t let that happen again. Not to you.’

He takes your hand in his and presses on your knuckles, forcing your fingers to flex against their will. He turns your palm over in hand and stares at the callouses. It's as though he’s admiring a cat, your nails now your claws, his thumb massaging the tension in your palm so your fingers tremble slightly.

‘I’d have let it happen to Gale,’ he says off-handedly. You snort. ‘But not to you,’ he clarifies, dropping your hand and kissing your cheek. ‘I love you too much.’

He always says I love you so painstakingly soft as if it’s the first time he’s ever uttered the words. And with the proper meaning, you know it is. Astarion’s love is a slow molten fire that covers everything. It could be destructive if you let it, but you build with it and twist underneath the heat to forge something greater. Everything is so intense between you as if a chord pulled taut. The littlest bump sends it vibrating and you get lost in the sensation. You want him to say it again.

‘I love you,’ Astarion says, voice ravaged. ‘Whether you are pious or irreligious.’

You think of him as a pioneer of a new religion. He distracts you with the gentlest of kisses against the tip of your ear.

‘Are we sinning?’ you ask again.

‘We are sinning deliciously,’ he tells you sincerely.

You would be a liar if you pretended like it didn’t excite you. You have a chance to hold a new world in the palm of your hands with an executioner by your side. You make your decision  —  If there is to be a God of Creation, you would remake the world in your image. Jergal would rise back from obscurity, no longer embarrassed by his despised successors. You see a flash of red hair and chase it through the darkness, no longer afraid.

‘Drink,’ you whisper to him. ‘I want you to.’

Astarion tilts your chin to the side and bites down onto your neck with great care. It always hurts when he penetrates you for the first time, but by now, he’s learned to not be such a messy eater. These are the new scars that you accept. This is the person you seek to become. You close your eyes and relax into the feeling of sharp teeth and spit, and it’s like he sucks the venom from your veins. You float weightlessly as he seeks his fill.

He plucks your fruit easily with the prettiest of hands. Astarion swipes the goodness of you and brushes it against his lips, tasting it with the tip of his tongue and shivering at the flavor. He treats every time he feeds from you as if it is the first time. He savors your blood, is made man by your blood, until the pale red glow in his eyes fades into something more human . These eyes are the eyes that belong to your angel of death. You welcome it.

There are still battles to come, but you no longer feel as overwhelmed as you had this morning when you awoke with sickness in your stomach and your friends staring at you in a cautious, distant manner. There is now semblance of hope burrowed in your chest where your heart once was.

You say, ‘I want you to be there when I make a new kingdom.’

It means:

At the end of the world, it will be you and me and our memories, our friends and allies, our souls. You twine your fingers with his and let him manipulate you so that you’re facing one another. You no longer seek the mirror for encouragement.

It would not matter if it was this year or in one hundred years. The only certainty in life is that this was what you wanted. Astarion’s honest eyes and searching hands. You could turn into a mindflayer tomorrow and your last thought would not be of your doom and terror, but of this delicate flower you hold in your palms. It has sprouted from nothing with only tears as encouragement, and now it is your turn to be buried, to transform into something beyond your recognition. Only, when you dig your way through layers of dirt and brick, you would not be greeted by nothingness.

Astarion kisses you once, his mouth so tender it’s almost heartbreaking, and then again. He grazes your bottom lip with his teeth and bumps his nose with yours affectionately, murmuring, ‘Yes, my God of Murder.’

[vampiricstoryteller]

Moonlight 🌙 - Chapter 2

Hey y’all 👋🏾 I’ve finally got the second chapter of my first Richette series ready for y’all to enjoy. We’re in the thick of it now.

Read chapter one here

Read on A03 here

All mistakes are my own

Warnings: scary themes and moments, cursing

Chapter Two - Hand of the Devil

Richter is certain that he doesn’t fall asleep. He knows he doesn’t. And yet somehow the room around him and Annette changes, right before his eyes.

It starts with the walls, slowly they tighten in around them. The ceiling sinking in on itself like heated molasses. Bringing the feeling of impending doom to a boil in Richter’s unsettled gut.

His fingers are playing in her hair, counting the locs as he strokes from fuzzy new growth at her scalp down to solid golden tip. He’s been trying to ignore her pretty bare leg thats wedged itself between his in her sleep about an hour ago, her brown skin is softer than anything he’s had the privilege of feeling in a long time and Richter considers himself lucky that he’d chosen to keep his trousers on. They provided him with a way to hold on to his control.

He can’t lose focus because as outwardly peaceful as it is with Annette in his arms, draped half on top of him and a crackling fire keeping them warm; they’re still being watched. And it is closing in on them, moment by moment.

The shadow standing just outside the window is almost too dark to see; Richter has to really put all his effort into his stare and look hard to be able to make it out. But once he does he can’t unsee it.

Cloaked in pure darkness, blood red eyes that flicker with the fire, sharp blackened claws for hands and the jawbone of a jackal or wolf; Richter suspects they’re being targeted by a demon.

Annette is being hunting by a demon.

And Richter’s got to do something about it.

The demon must also be having similar thoughts about doing something because right when Richter is about to gently break away from Annette; it walks through the wall and the entire cabin is covered in darkness.

Richter tries to sit up, he tries to cluch Annette to him tighter but his body won’t obey. He can’t move, he can’t even open his mouth to speak and terror strikes his heart when the demon glides across the cabin and stands over them.

“Silly children.” A voice hisses down at Richter even though the jaw bone on the demon doesn’t move at all. “Wandering into my territory and thinking I wouldn’t sense a power like this.”

It stretches a boney, blackened hand out towards them and Richter’s heart leaps into his throat when he feels Annette’s limp body slowly beginning to rise up into the air.

He tries to scream, to sit up and yank her back down to the ground but whatever is holding Richter down is hardly fazed when his arms burst into sharp, thick sheets of ice.

As the demon glides towards the front door, floating Annette along behind it, the voice continues ringing in Richter’s ears long after they’ve disappeared.

“Silly little human children, the nightmare has already won.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Annette knows something is wrong when the rabbits she’d been coming to visit for years, suddenly have nothing to say to her. They’re young ones and they usually always want to talk about any and everything; she likes listening to them chat not only with her but amongst themselves.

However during this visit they’re quiet and tense, small red eyes watching the sky above and never really acknowledge Annette at all.

She looks to the sky too, trying to think back to the last time she went flying in a dream. Had the clouds been this big and imposing? Had the sun seemed so far away that even when in the air she couldn’t feel it’s warmth? Annette cannot remember, and it worries her.

It’s because of these bunnies that Annette realizes the coil of dread from reality has come with her into her dream world. It’s still twisting up her stomach and trying to climb her spine; she knows she needs to wake up.

She leaves the rabbits, or rather, they scramble suddenly and she takes that as a sign that it’s time to find the source of their erratic behavior, in the real world.

Annette runs, her feet silent on the forest floor as she ducks past tree branches and jumps over surface side roots. She’s unable to really feel her legs but her soul is acutely aware of the growing terror thats taking over her entire body. Something is terribly, terribly wrong both here in the dream world and out there in reality where Richter was.

She needs to get back to him, she needs to see his blue eyes and hear him tell her everything will be okay. Annette needs Richter.

Above her, the sky darkens and clouds gather with the rapidness of a powerful storm. It had never so much as rained in Annette’s dreams, and the fact that it was very clearly about to start right now warped her mind with terror.

She pushes herself to run faster, her feet slapping onto the ground so hard the skin on the soles surely must split. Annette keeps going, her arms and clothes catching on trees and vines but none of them are able to slow or stop her.

The sky goes dark, completely. She looks up, eyes widening in mesmerized terror at the massive black cloud that’s just eclipsed the sun, her sun. Her feet slap on the ground, dirt bursting between her toes, right foot then left then right then—

Where her left foot should meet ground, it meets nothing and Annette bites her tongue hard as she plunges into completely darkness. The forest floor opening up and swallowing her whole, her scream dying somewhere in the back of her throat.

Self standing walls for protection, right.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Richter thinks it’s his raw panic that manages to break him free from whatever spell the demon used to hold him down. Having Annette literally plucked from his arms and Richter being able to do nothing about it, sets off a primal rage inside of him. He clenches his fists until the bones in his hands almost break, his chest heaving with crackling anger and his arms surged with electric power that charged the spikes of ice erupting from him.

‘It took Annette. It took Annette. It took Annette. It took Annette. It took Annette.’

His mind spirals and his anger rises, passing each other in the middle of his chest and the moment they’re aligned with each other; Richter explodes.

He only knows it works because one moment he can’t open his mouth to yell then the next, all sound comes barreling back and it’s his scream of her name mixed with terror that finally bring Richter catapulting into a sitting position.

Shard of ice fulminate around him like fireworks, only they don’t disappear; as Richter’s vision clears and the dust of his outburst settles, he’s surprised to find the ice embedded in every viable surface close to him.

His breath comes out in huffs, the cold around him making each exhale visible in the barely lit cabin.

Richter scrambles to his feet, throwing on his shirt and shoes and securing his whip on his hip. Sprinting towards the front door, he seriously considers simply going through it the barricade and old wood but the logical voice of Annette tugs at the back of his mind; imploring him to not go charging loudly into the clutches of a nightmare demon.

He skids to a halt, jaw clenching as he tries to take several deep breaths. He needed a plan, he needed to attack the situation from an area that the demon wouldn’t see coming.

Richter inspects the front door, wondering how the demon was able to take Annette not only through solid wood but her own magical barricade. It shouldn’t have been possible.

“I need to think.” Richter mumbles to himself, trying to regulate the simmering rage in his chest. “What would Annette do? What would Alucard do?”

Richter paces the small cabin, his mind racing to go over every detail he could remember about the demon.

It had called this place a nightmare, its own territory where it thrives on fear. Which meant they were at their most vulnerable when asleep. So the number one priority was to find Annette and wake her up.

Richter would have to find the demons tracks, lure it away from Annette and figure out a way to pull her out of her dreams.

Easy.

Doable.

Richter could handle it.

He leaves through the back door, breaking away the ice he’d thought would help keep them safe. This time, he doesn’t bother to close the door behind himself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She falls for what feels like hours, wind whipping at her face and clinking the golden end tip jewelry on her locs together in a fury. It can’t be more than a few minutes, in reality; but Annette unfortunately understands very well that she isn’t in reality at the moment.

When she does finally reach the ground, or what she hopes is the ground, her knees buckle as she lands feet first. Her stomach lurches, vomit trying to settle at the back of her throat and Annette desperately swallows around it.

She turns in a circle slowly, unable to see or hear anything besides her own breathing in the complete darkness. Stretching a hand out in front of her, Annette inches forward to try and locate a wall or a door; something other than nothingness.

Annette shuffles along for several minutes, her ears straining to try and catch the sound of something, anything besides her own fucking—

At her feet, something soft brushes against her ankle and Annette flails backwards; trying to produce some kind of light with her magic so she can see what in the hell is going on.

Her back hits solidness long before she’s tilted far enough to have fallen over and Annette’s fingers scramble to grab hold to whatever it is thats stopped her. But her fingers grasp at air, cool little whippets of wind lick at her fingertips; fear closes Annette’s throat and she’s certain this is the end.

In the blackness above her, a voice descends with a gust of hot air.

“Silly little girl, playing with powers you know nothing about.”

Annette frowns, “I haven’t been—.”

A streak of light shoots across the darkness. Annette doesn’t feel it hit her, but pain blossoms on her cheek and warm liquid runs down to her jaw; dripping off into the blackness.

“Silly little girl frolicking in the territory of a nightmare king.”

To her right, Annette spots a figure walking towards her slowly. It starts out as a shadow moving against the inky back drop of nothing, gaining clarity the closer it gets as its wolf jaw bone crunches at a now stained pink with blood rabbit skull and it’s red eyes reflect a glare thats not of this dimension.

Her heart thuds against her ribcage in fear. A demon has made its way into her dreams and her mind. One of her greatest fears is coming true.

The closer it gets, the worse Annette begins to feel. Her head aches, throbbing in time with the steps of the demon; the tingle in her arms turning them painfully numb.

“Do you know what is done to humans that wander into my nightmares?”

She bites the inside of her cheek, pressing her tongue to the roof of her mouth and refusing to look at the demon once it steps in front of her.

It gives a great shudder, like an animal shaking its fur and the black claw not holding the bunny skull reaches for her.

“Humans hace such terrifying thoughts, their nightmares are always so delicious.”

Annette thrashes, trying to rear back out of the demons reach but her body is still tilted and suspended in midair. She can’t go anywhere.

“Silly little girl, your nightmares are going to taste divine.”

The tip of its claw presses into the middle of Annette’s forehead, and she begins to scream.

To be continued…..

Hope y’all enjoyed! Let me know what you think! Like & reblog 🤟🏾

[anonymous-dentist]

im living off q!archivists CRUMBS so maybe something about cellbit learning about phils past as the angel of death?? they bond a lil over their retirement/redemption arcs??? smpearth is CANON in my HEART ok

Phil knows Death. He likes to think he knows Her rather well, actually. He’s been around for long enough to know Her influence when he sees it, though it’s rare to see as much of it in one place as there is on Quesadilla Island. But it makes sense, really; between Bad and Phil himself, there’s plenty of death to go around.

But it’s Cellbit of all people that the crows attach themselves to. And Phil, frankly, doesn’t get it. Because. Because he’s Cellbit. He’s a nerd! He can fight alright, but that’s it.

Then Phil dreams of the birdhouse. And then he wakes up, and, for the first time, he sees the only black tendrils of death snaked around Cellbit’s arms and hands like tattoos. On that same day, he hears one of the newer crows mention a ‘God of Death’ living in Cellbit’s basement, which is concerning considering there’s one Goddess of Death and she’s A) Phil’s wife and B) not currently in Cellbit’s basement.

And then the two of them are sorting through documents in the Order and they get to a couple of Bagi’s submissions: photocopied pages right out of a child’s diary.

Cellbit hesitates when he sees them.

Then he hands them to Phil and says, “I can’t read her handwriting.”

Phil takes the papers. He looks at them. Reads them. Sees Cellbit’s name written in childish scrawl. Looks up. Sees a distant look in Cellbit’s eye. Sighs. Puts the papers in a neat stack next to his knee.

“Do you know why I picked that ‘death room’ of yours?” Phil asks.

Cellbit shrugs and picks up a photo Fit submitted to add to a new album. “I figured it had something to do with your… reputation.”

And that’s interesting, because the only two people who would know that reputation on the island are Wilbur, who Cellbit has only met twice, and Bad.

And Bad. Right, they’re friends, aren’t they?

(Once upon a time, Bad had mentioned all the souls he had reaped from those silly little “Hunger Games”, and he had mentioned the little human kid he had almost thought about recruiting to become his apprentice.

Now, Phil looks at Cellbit’s goggles and thinks that they look a lot like a pair that Bad used to own a long, long time ago.)

“Well,” Phil says, “you said that Death has to do with time, right?”

Cellbit gives him an unimpressed look. He’s too smart for his own good sometimes.

“It’s about how time can always run out, yes,” he flatly replies.

But that’s not quite how Phil remembers the explanation going.

There are dark circles under Cellbit’s eyes and blood under his nails. Phil knows after accepting these diary pages from Bagi herself that she and Cellbit had painted their nails the same color. Still, the red remains: an all-too-familiar color that fits Cellbit more than it fits others Phil has met.

“Or,” he gently says, “it’s about how time can never run out. Sometimes, that’s all you need.”

He picks up a new stack of papers, then, and starts sorting them as Cellbit stares at his own hands, flexing his fingers.

Time. It really can be the solution to all of one’s problems, or it can be the cause.

Funny, that.

[bbyannabeth]

silly little everlark drabble based on this post bc i couldn't get it out of my head xo

katniss’s breath falls even again after about ten minutes. he’s surprised it took that long considering it took almost an hour to talk her down from her nightmare. 

they’d only been sharing her bed for a week now, but peeta can’t help but feel like this is exactly where he was supposed to be. in the few months he’d been home before this, he had been able to hear her screams from across their lawns and he’d wanted nothing more than to help her. it hadn’t been his place, though. 

until he mentioned something to her once about how he could hear her and she’d reminded him of their nights on the train when he would rush into her room, hold her in his arms until she was quiet again. 

“we started sharing a bed, right?” he had asked.

“real,” she’d nodded. “effie gave us shit for it, but i never cared.”

“i remember we both started sleeping better.”

katniss had nodded. a moment of silence had passed between them before she said, quietly, “would you… want to do that again?”

he’d jumped at the opportunity and he’s barely been to his own house since. he likes her house more, anyway. there are more memories of life. peeta’s family had stayed at the bakery when he moved into victor’s village so his house is filled with nothing but loneliness. katniss’s house has ghosts but at least there are happy memories, too. 

he looks down at her, the way she’s resting against his chest. it was like clockwork, the way they fell back into each other so quickly. he’s almost amazed at how she can do this. he’d tried to kill her at one point, not too long ago, and now she sleeps on his chest with her guard completely down. 

though, he supposes it’s not too different for him. he’d been forced to fear this girl like his life depended on it, and now he has no issues trusting her when his mind is in the right spot. on days when he has his flashbacks, it’s another story but they both know that’s not really him.

carefully, so as not to wake her, he brushes her hair back from her forehead. she leaves it down most days now, and he loves it. she only braids it when she goes hunting or on particularly windy days she doesn’t want it in her face. 

even as gentle as he was, katniss shifts slightly at the movement. she doesn’t wake, but her hand curls into his shirt. she lets out a quiet sigh, almost peaceful. 

he isn’t sure what it is about the moment, but the realization slams into him. 

i love you, he thinks. 

nothing about it should be shocking, because hasn’t he always loved her? but again, the capitol had forced him to believe katniss was his biggest enemy. he hadn’t even realized until this moment that the love he’d once felt for her has been creeping its way back into his brain. now that it’s there, though, he thinks it was inevitable. peeta mellark was made to love katniss everdeen.

he isn’t sure what to do with himself for a moment. he wants to tell her, wants to kiss her, wants to do something to show her that he’s still really here. not even snow’s worst could take all of him away from her. but he knows doing something drastic will only scare her. they’re only beginning to mend things. 

he places his hand on top of hers, resting them nearly over his heart. his thumb glides over her knuckle. i love you, he repeats in his head over and over again, hoping she’ll catch the message in her dream. 

if there ever comes a moment that’s right, he’ll tell her. for now, though, he’s okay with letting this feeling live inside him. he always has been. 

[deathmetalunicorn1]

Hello! I'm in need of comfort from Papa Jack, so… could you do a little story about him trying to calm down the little reader girl who is crying really bad because at her school her whole class commonly ignored her and when she said something like "when I grow up I want to be x thing", both students and teachers laughed saying that he could never do anything.

I'm sorry if it's something strange, but since I was very little I was in a school where everyone treated me that way because of my tastes and family. Thank you so much in advance linda <3

-Jack knew immediately that something was wrong when you arrived home from school, and not because he could see your inner colors of sadness, but by the tears on your face.

-He immediately leapt to his feet, rushing over to you and kneeled before you, “Y/N, what happened my darling?” his hands were gentle, brushing your tears away gently as you sniffled, “My- they all-they all laughed at me!”

-Jack was confused but decided on trying to get you to calm down first, as you were starting to hiccup from crying so hard, before he would find out what was wrong.

-Jack picked you up, holding you close to his chest, radiating warmth only because he was furious, seeing you in tears, seeing that someone had upset you.

-After about twenty minutes you finally calmed down, letting your papa wash your face before he made you a cup of hot chocolate with extra whipped cream which made you smile brightly. Jack couldn’t help but smile as well when you unintentionally gave yourself a whipped cream mustache.

-Jack sat next to you, petting your hair gently, “Now then- tell me what happened?” you sent silent, looking down at your mug for a moment, still feeling upset about what had happened at school today.

-You hesitated only for a moment before you spoke, knowing that you could tell your papa anything, “We… my teacher taught us about careers today, about the different things we could do when we grow up. We had to draw what we wanted to be and then show and tell the rest of the class.”

-Jack was curious with what you wanted to be, because last week you wanted to be a princess, then the week before that you wanted to be a gladiator, and the week before that you wanted to be an astronaut!

-You sniffled softly, rubbing your eyes with the back of your hand as Jack pressed a soft kiss to the top of your head, silently urging you to continue.

-You looked up at him, your eyes shiny with tears, “I drew a tea party shop! Like the one you and Uncle Hercules and me went to. I want to open my own tea party shop!” Jack knew what you were talking about, it was a tea shop that offered afternoon tea parties.

-Jack’s eyes closed, remembering that fondly as you had such a big smile on your face because the three of your dressed up for it and you had so much fun.

-Jack’s brows furrowed in confusion, “What happened?” you broke eye contact, looking back down at your hot chocolate, the whipped cream almost completely melted now, “They- all the other students and my teacher laughed at me. They all said that was silly and my teacher said that wasn’t a career.”

-Jack felt his blood boiling, but didn’t let it show, he never wanted you to see him angry, “They’re the foolish ones, Y/N. Your dream isn’t silly- it’s admirable. You want to make other people happy- remember how happy you were when the shop proprietress brought the tea tower over and you made her smile- that’s what you want to do for others, right?”

-You nodded, your eyes sparkly, “Yes! And wear fancy aprons and make fancy cakes and tiny sandwiches!” Jack chuckled warmly, his eyes closing, “Then do it- if that’s what you want to do- I’ll support you. They shouldn’t have laughed at you- none of them should have, especially your teacher. It’s important for adults to inspire and empower children- no belittle them. She was wrong to that, Y/N, and your friends were wrong to laugh at you. Did you laugh at their dreams?”

-You shook your head, smiling up at him, “No I clapped and told them how amazing they were for wanting to be their own careers.” Jack pecked your forehead, “Then they should have done the same thing for you, because that’s what friends are for.”

-Your eyes were wide, and you smiled softly, calming down now as you hugged him tightly, “Thank you papa.” He smiled, wrapping his arms around you, hugging you back, “You’re welcome my darling. However… I don’t want this to happen to other students, so maybe I need to have a word with your teacher.”

-You didn’t hear the meaning behind his tone, but after talking for a while, you both had an idea, throwing a tea party at school, as the tea shop you went to did catering!

-Your friends were all in awe over the fancy (plastic) teacups and the tea towers filled with cakes and sandwiches the following day, all of them in awe and having so much fun as you beamed, telling them that this is what you wanted to do.

-Many of your friends apologized, after they said this was amazing but you reminded them that they all laughed at you and called your idea silly the previous day. Jack was happy to see you happy again, however your teacher wasn’t happy, as Jack put in a formal complaint against her for her treatment against you, finding it unprofessional and now she was going to be subjected to a review of how she did things in her class.

-However, she knew better than to mess with you until then, not with the chill she felt from your father when he arrived in the principal’s office that morning for the formal meeting. She couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling she had about him, one that told her not to mess with him or you.

[pastanest]

A/N: I’m really sorry but read-more links aren’t working on my blog atm, I’ve raised a ticket with Tumblr and they’ve registered it as a bug that they’re looking into but for now I can’t use them because they mess up the whole post :(

Eleventh Doctor x gender!neutral reader

Dating Eleven Would Include

so to begin with, he’d be awkward and clumsy as per usual

over time he gets more accustomed to the blossoming feelings for you and relaxes into them, being more open to flirting back

PDA comes so naturally to him he consistently catches himself out when he becomes aware of the fact he’s holding your hand, swung an arm around you or pulled you in for a hug on instinct

the Doctor is always going out of his way to do sweet things for you

he remembers every place you’ve referenced wanting to visit, every favorite food you’ve mentioned, every dream date idea that he has pried out of you with the least subtle questions and motivations you can imagine

and he uses all of that information to his advantage, regularly planning said dates out for you in the most beautiful places in the universe

a regular picnic? nono, not on the Doctor’s watch. we’re talking planets entirely made of meadows, as far as the eye can see, inhabited by sentient orbs of light that exist in complete peace and harmony, floating around amongst the flowers and creating a field of stars every time the seven sun’s set

a date at the cinema? try the biggest cinema screen in the universe that you have to sit 50 feet away from, with special goggles just to protect your eyes from the power of the light from the screen. 

“And it’s not just the screen that’s big, it’s the highest quality speakers ever invented, and they are completely invisible! 4D sound systems? Not here, 8D AND UP ONLY BABY! That does mean that if we see any movie with freak weather patterns, we may have to bring several changes of clothes to suit the climates they simulate around our seats. Which are levitating in total darkness. So we will also need a very powerful torch to find our seats. Which I have already invented, naturally. It plays tense music whenever it’s switched on.”

“That’s a lot to process, but I am stuck on the torch - why did you add tense music as a feature?”

“For dramatic effect, why else?!”

he’s fiercely protective of you 

we all know the look in his eyes when the Daleks rock up, the fury that burns when he recalls anything regarding the Time War; that’s the same expression that greets anyone or anything that causes you harm in any way whatsoever

he’s almost scared to admit that he’d tear a planet apart to find you, save you, fix any harm that has been done to you, if that is what it cost

whether you are with him through his regeneration into 11 or not, you show him parts of his personality that have been hidden for hundreds and hundreds of years, feelings he never thought he would be lucky enough to find again

and it terrifies him, of course, to consider what he lost in those feelings before, how he could lose you in a new, more painful way 

but you reassure him

with every hold of your hand, every bright smile, every hug, every laugh at one of his silly lines, every kiss, every whisper in the dark when he lies with you until you fall asleep in his arms, you comfort the Doctor that no matter what happens, you will find your way back to each other

you, the Doctor and River Song are absolutely in a three-way marriage

River flirts with you more than the Doctor and he’ll sulk about it

“Honestly, what’s the point in me being here?! Should I drop you two off on an isolated moon to engage in your…shenanigans?! Ooh, ‘shenanigans’, now that’s a good word, I should use it more often!”

you and River both know him so well and share your frustrations over his occasional idiocies the girl’s that get it, y’know?

picture this: the Doctor being so excited to see River but she just runs past him and straight to you because the two of you have orchestrated sleepovers in the TARDIS and routinely fail to let the Doctor know ahead of time iconic

the two of you never make it official, but it is understood on both sides that you are in a relationship and nothing will break that bond

and you are the happiest couple in this universe, and every other

[g0lightly]

tinfoil-encrusted brienne/sansa "foreshadowing" that makes me feral

so i love the blog @jonsaforeshadowing bc i think it's such a fun look at shipper goggles in this fandom regardless of your thoughts on that particular ship. while i do not ship j*nsa i think it's healthy to remember how absurd shipping in asoiaf is even if (especially if?) you are a shipper! largely bc like... what do we even think of as endgame in this series? being married? we know not everyone who marries in a feudal system even likes the person they're married to. also... pretty much anyone could die! and so many characters are thematically linked in significant ways that aren't necessarily romantic! so i think there's a ceiling on how sure anyone can be of any ship being endgame. especially since we may never get another main series book lmfao! so just want to be clear that i'm not coming at this from an angle of knowing better than people who prefer other ships, we are all equally right and wrong unless/until the series is completed IMO.

in that spirit i wanted to post my own niche shipper theories in wildly varying degrees of seriousness about brienne/sansa because i believe in gay ships' right to be as delusional as straight ships. mostly for fun but i'd being lying if i said i don't hope you read this and think "oh i never thought of them together but this eats! i should start shipping the one true pairing briensa and also read tumblr user g0lightly's post-canon fanfic mostly about them on AO3 🤔" while they’re my otp, I want to be clear that I only ship them as adults.

starting strong with the dumbest one: brienne's ancestor dunk has a romance with rohanne webber, a redheaded woman who has had several husbands/betrotheds die on her and eventually marries a lannister like sansa. i know ppl say this is about jaime bc rohanne is his great-grandmother but in the spirit of getting silly with "foreshadowing" jaime is now a sansa stand-in for the purposes of this post 🙂‍↕️

in AGOT sansa i, sansa says that joffrey is "so gallant, she thought. The way he had rescued her from Ser Ilyn and the Hound, why, it was almost like the songs, like the time Serwyn of the Mirror Shield saved the Princess Daeryssa from the giants..." as ned later points out, joffrey is nothing like the knights of the songs sansa dreams of. littlefinger's sigil is a giant. serwyn is one letter off from selwyn, brienne's father's name. perhaps brienne will help sansa get away from littlefinger.

mirroring (ha) the above point, in AFFC brienne vii, randyll tarly gives a whole speech to brienne about how he thinks her father would rather have a living daughter than a "shattered shield." while i think the shattered shield imagery in this text (also in F&B when jaehaerys has saera's lover executed and in ACOK sansa vi when cersei talks about highborn ladies' "golden shield" against SA) represents a "ruined" woman, i think the imagery is also evocative of a mirror shield.

in AGOT sansa vi, sansa reads about aemon the dragonknight, florian and jonquil, lady shella and her rainbow knight. sansa is related to lady shella whent and in ACOK brienne becomes a rainbow knight for renly's kingsguard. i can see brienne mirroring aemon the dragonknight in the sense that she and sansa would have a forbidden love like aemon and naerys but for different reasons.

in ACOK sansa ii, sansa prays for a true knight and a friend to champion her. of course, she gets dontos as her "florian" instead and learns that life is not a song. later in catelyn ii, catelyn meets brienne who later swears herself to bringing sansa to safety. catelyn notes her similarities to sansa. brienne is also connected to jonquil through her maidenpool chapters; does this mean sansa will end up with a jonquil rather than a florian? perhaps a jonquil darke type? idk but i want to believe!

also in ACOK, both brienne and sansa hang onto bloody kingsguard cloaks that were technicaly supposed to belong to barristan selmy. i have written about this in far greater detail here and here.

jaime is a sansa stand-in because they are both maiden-coded and called kingslayers (this is a deeply unserious point btw)

speaking of jaime, his attraction to brienne mirrors sansa's possible attraction to mya. both sansa and jaime are conventionally attractive characters used to being praised for conforming to their gender roles reckoning with the beauty of a gender-nonconforming woman when they have come to understand their own beauty through a conventional framework. i have also written about this in greater detail.

both sansa and brienne are paired up with a lannister twin who holds the gendered societal role they aspire to (queen and knight of the kingsguard, respectively). their respective lannister twins show them the dark reality of those roles while brienne and sansa fight to remain hopeful.

famous lesbian rhaena targaryen was too gay with larissa velaryon so larissa got shipped off to marry the second son of tarth. she also had a favorite from the vale named alayne royce. she also had a red-haired, mail-wearing favorite named melony piper - kind of like an inverse of brienne and sansa visually. her true love, elissa farman, was from fair isle which is kind of like the west coast version of tarth; they also had the same age difference as brienne and sansa. rhaena was the eldest sister, like sansa, and dealt with a lot of loss in her life due in no small part to the strength of her claim making her a sought-after bride. i am aware this proves nothing but i do seriously think rhaena is the in-universe historic figure sansa is most like. gay sansa confirmed!!!!!!!! (jk... unless...)

and finally, i present what is either my most tinfoil hat theory or my oh-shit-i-cracked-the-code theory: brienne is foreshadowed to be the next bearer of the hound's helm so when GRRM said there's "something there" with sansa and the hound, he was actually talking about brienne and sansa :) if you enjoy the idea of sansa finding love and beauty in a brave, gentle, strong protector figure with low self-esteem whose face is covered in scars but you also (very reasonably!) hate the idea of her ending up with a man who held her at knifepoint and tried to SA her when she was a child, may i suggest hound!brienne x sansa? again, on an age appropriate timeline!

and if you're curious what i mean by hound!brienne foreshadowing and shattered shield references, i've included my running list of quotes, an analysis of those quotes, and a conclusion below the cut bc this post is long! TW for canon-typical references to sexual violence.

i think the references to brienne being "the hound with teats" and later references to the hound cutting off women's teats may connect to pretty meris, a sellsword with the windblown who is theorized to represent what GRRM had planned for brienne after the five year skip. quentyn notes that it's said that men cut meris' breasts off. if this hardened sellsword is some version of GRRM's original five year gap plan for brienne, who's to say that she won't be the hound instead of a sellsword in the forthcoming books? but that's assuming we'll get more books lmao.

the threat of SA is uncomfortably present in brienne's AFFC chapters. whether or not brienne experiences the types of gendered violence mentioned above, i think that the hound's helm would provide brienne with safety from that threat of SA on the road. for male characters, on the other hand, it may just draw more attention from people who wish to kill the hound for (mostly) rorge's crimes. there is a lot of talk across the books and across POVs about the hound being dead. you get tyrion describing him as dead after the blackwater when we know that's not true, septon meribald (which kinda sounds like meris now that i think of it 🤔) tells brienne that he is dead, jaime talks a lot with the freys and lannisters about killing the hound. there's also a lot of talk about the hound killing other people, namely brienne and sansa.

since it's all but confirmed that sandor clegane is now the gravedigger on the quiet isle rather than the hound, i think that "death" in the context of the hound is about letting your old self die so that the new you may be born. brienne needs to let her rigid ideals about what it means to be a knight die and sansa needs to let her rigid ideals about what it means to be a lady die. i think that lady's death at least partly symbolizes the fact that sansa can be a perfect lady and still face dire consequences through no fault of her own. and for brienne, she will most likely learn through lady stoneheart that not all oaths can be kept.

some people take the below quote as romantic foreshadowing for sansa and sandor. i take it to mean that to sansa, sandor and his cloak represent the opportunity she had to escape the life of a dutiful lady in a castle. perhaps brienne will wear the hound's helm when she rescues sansa, and sansa will give her the hound's cloak -- brienne's very own kingsguard cloak -- to complete the "uniform" of the hound.

i also want to offer my debunk to the idea that sansa keeping sandor's cloak is marriage imagery. sandor does not give his cloak to sansa, he does not put it over her shoulders as is done in a wedding ceremony. he leaves it on the ground because he does not want to be a member of the kingsguard anymore. sansa chooses to wrap herself in the kingsguard cloak. to me, this signifies her growing disillusionment in the systems set up to keep her safe and the autonomy she has to leave that system. perhaps she will be brave enough to ask brienne to take her away from the eyrie (or wherever she ends up) when they meet (again, assuming we get more books lmao).

i think it's relevant that sandor's place in the kingsguard - and by extension, the cloak as a symbol - had originally belonged to barristan selmy. i did a thread on this in relation to true knighthood and brienne if you're interested in reading more. sansa has a heroic deed in common with barristan selmy that also involves the hound in ACOK: like barristan, she saved dontos hollard from execution by a cruel king that she was sworn to. sansa was sworn to joffrey as his betrothed and barristan was sworn to aerys as a member of his kingsguard. i'm not even anti-sandor, i just don't think that his redemption arc needs to or should include the girl he held at knifepoint falling in romantic love with him.

to conclude with my point about characters having deep ties within the text not necessarily equaling romantic foreshadowing, i want to acknowledge that i don't think brienne and sansa need to have a romantic relationship for these textual connections to be meaningful. one way another i think these two are meant to be important to one another's stories. however i think that putting these two together romantically would be a beautiful way to tie together some key themes (gender, true knighthood, romanticism, idealism) and set up some really interesting character development.

however the romantic in me loves the idea of the aemon the dragonknight figure in sansa's life being a woman, specifically brienne who has sworn to defend her without even knowing her. they're both women, so there's nothing for brienne to gain from sansa's claim and nothing for sansa to gain from brienne's claim. brienne is the gentle, brave, and strong person ned wanted for sansa and catelyn sent her in sansa's direction and i think that's beautiful okay :')

[karebear923]

Vice Versa rewatch ep 11

I can’t believe we’re at the penultimate episode!!!

Episode 11 is Real Red. Because now that they’re in love, nothing can keep them apart! They are passionate about their love and it gives them the strength to persevere! 💪🏽

Puen screaming out Talay’s name when he wakes up in the ambulance will always have me sobbing into my hands!!! 😭💔

So this is where the questions come in! If Tun was the one to dream and not Puen, does that mean Puen didn’t learn his intended lesson? I refuse to believe that because he did change for the better from who he was before the switch. I think maybe his last step before dreaming was telling Talay his real name. Maybe if he had gotten the chance to do it he would’ve dreamt that night too.

And we know that they don’t both have to learn their lessons in order to switch back because Tess has not been changed for the better when he and Talay switch back. Maybe he’s not exactly the same guy he was before the switch but he’s definitely not out there living his or Talay’s best life with the new lessons he’s learned 😒 I believe he definitely didn’t learn his lesson there.

Maybe Tess was meant to learn his lesson after the switch back though? Maybe Talay’s life wasn’t worth enough to him but clearly his own would be. And seeing how much Talay improved it would make him want/have to work hard to keep it that way. Idk man 🤷🏽‍♀️ they left some stuff up to interpretation in the end but I like to think he did end up changing for the better afterwards.

Ok setting aside the serious and being silly for a second, I would’ve loved to see Talay recognize Puen’s name written in the dirt and just have an over-the-top outward OMG moment like:

“wait Brad Pitt!? THE Brad Pitt!? I’m dating Super Famous A-List Actor Brad Pitt!?”

I just think that would be hilarious! 😄 (see previous posts for why I call Puen Brad Pitt)

Of course him sitting there in stunned silence for a moment made a lot more sense tone-wise 😅

But now it’s Puen’s turn to be devastated after searching for who knows how long for Talay and finally finding him to then realize he hasn’t switched back yet!!! 😭💔

Now I’m devastated because Puen keeps coming back to check if Talay has switched yet and Talay keeps coming back to see if the tide is low enough for him to travel yet and they’re both doing everything they can to get back to each other again but it’s literally just a waiting game at this point and there’s nothing they can do to speed things up! 😭

I’M CRYING REAL ACTUAL TEARS!!! Because we see that the glass house back in episode 4 is when Puen first fell in love with Talay! And he said the first thing he’ll do when he switches back is look for Talay because his only dream is to be with him, and as much as he answered with “gross” Talay agrees that the first thing he’ll do is look for Puen too and he’s so desperate to get back to him that he runs straight into the water which is what almost killed him the first time around and when finally he gets to the island he dreamt about he collapses exhausted but holds his pinky out because he’s keeping their promise to do everything to find each other and be together!!!

And I’m crying real actual tears because this show is top tier LOVE like I’ve never seen before!!! 😭😭😭 nothing matters but them being together!!!

Talay woke up in his world with his pinky out too 🥹 he’s keeping that promise no matter what!

I remember someone on here mentioning the art on Talay’s walls had all the colors of the episodes, with the last ep’s color still missing (to not spoil it before we could see it). Thank you internet super sleuths!

Talay’s crying face as he sees his mom again for the first time in TWO YEARS!! 😭

And now he has to rebuild his life again cause Tess ruined everything. But luckily this is a show with a happy ending and he is able to get his friends and his dream job back! I’ll always be mad at Tess for ruining things tho 😒 he never did better in this world, for Talay or himself.

After many failed attempts they finally reunite in their glass house of love!!! Talay says “Ai Dang!” and of course Puen knows exactly what he means cause he remembers everything about him!!

Their faces and their tears and the beautiful theme song playing in the background!!! They finally found each other again and I’m blinking my tears away so I can see better!!! 😭😭😭

They again counted the minutes and seconds cause every moment apart was agony 😭

But nothing can stop them now cause they love each other so much!! Fade to black on this beautiful moment!! 🥹❤️

And of course afterwards we get another Lays Moment™️ featuring Puen being horny for his mans! We love to see it! 🤭

Rewatching episode 11 just brought a flood of emotions back to me and I started crying watching it. Their love is just so big and passionate and the way they love and need each other gets me every time!! 🥹🥰

If I’m this emotional now I can’t imagine how I’ll be next week for the finale 🤧

[lumiereandcogsworth]

2, 7 (I might know the answer already BUT HEY), 9, 15, 19, 22, 31, 32, 40, and 44 (ps I might've said this before but I love coming onto your blog and seeing fifty batb gifsets back to back. genuinely makes me !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! inside)

EEEEEE thank you for the questions and HEHEH THANK YOUUU!!!!! i just simply love that film ???

2. what movie do you wish you could unwatch? well, doing my movie challenge, there have been a handful of movies that i’ve ended saying “that’s time i’m never getting back!” but ultimately i would love to unwatch “requiem for a dream”, that movie scared the hell out of me and i never wanna think about it ever again. i was already scared of doing drugs so i didn’t NEED THAT. it’s terrifying.

7. name a movie you’re emotionally attached to: HAHA yeah hmmmmm. have you met my beautiful beloved lawfully wedded film beauty and the beast 2017????? 💙💛💙💛💙💛💙 yes very emotionally attached. dare i say, autistically attached??? i simply love that movie SO much. truly a perfect film in my mind. there’s also others i’m emotionally attached to, of course, like forrest gump and lilo & stitch. but nothing compares to my wife🫶

9. guilty pleasure movie? what does this term MEAN!!! i’ve never understood. so this is a movie i feel guilty about liking, yeah? i’m looking through my letterboxd and i legit cannot find a thing. i have movies that i feel guilty about NOT liking because everyone else seems to and i just did not. but guilty about LIKING? i don’t know. everyone seems annoyed with frozen but i genuinely loved it. i don’t think that’s a guilty pleasure but that’s all i got for ya here 🫡 i don’t feel guilty about liking frozen but i do feel weird about mentioning it because everyone seems to be tired of it :(

15. do you like to talk during movies? or silence? it really depends on the movie/situation/who i’m with. but i will say across the board i DO get annoyed when it’s a movie i’ve never seen and someone is talking to me while the characters are having a conversation. like uhhh i need to know what they’re saying!!!! let’s be quiet please!!!!!!! but i’m never fully silent during movies with friends, i think commenting on silly things or the actors is part of the fun. i usually don’t talk when i watch with my family though because my mom definitely prefers silence 🤫

19. name a movie so bad it’s good: i’m also bad with this one because if i liked a movie then i’m not gonna think it’s bad afjskdj. idk, if i have fun at a movie i start looking at it through rose colored glasses lmao. i’m not a good movie critic and i hope i never am <3 was wonka (2023) good?? i had an absolute blast with that one but i have no idea if it was actually good. OH ALSO ACTUALLY, dracula untold (2014) - i do recognize that that was a pretty bad movie, and probably almost nobody’s favorite version of dracula, but i watched it for luke evans and i thought it was fun and the romance elements were very much enough to keep me enjoying it. but like yeah true that was not a good movie lmao. but also? yes it was <3

22. have you ever watched a horror film so scary you had to turn the movie off or walk out of the theater? there were two times that i SHOULD HAVE left the theater but i did not. the first was watching it 2017 with my brother, and i was scared and crying for like the last half hour, and he did ask me if i wanted to go but i knew he wanted to watch it so i said no lol. the second time was for “don’t worry darling” where i regrettably took my mom to go see it and we both hated it, it stressed us out so much and it was just truly an awful experience. we should’ve left but we were both thinking the other wanted to continue watching. and i think a little part of both of us DID want to see how it ended. it was dumb of us though sjdksj but we got a little trauma-bonded from it so that’s fun! lmao

31. do you remember the first movie you saw in theaters? i think it was flushed away (2006) and if i saw one before that i don’t remember. there’s a chance i saw the polar express (2004) in theaters but my parents debate if they just took my brother to see that or if i was there too. and i do not remember <3

32. are snacks a must or a distraction? A MUST. like yeah try to have a quiet snack if you can but oh yeah i be snackin’. that’s one of the many reasons it takes me so many hours to watch batb 2017, there will be at least one break where i pause and fully go to the kitchen to make a small meal lol

40. a film you think everyone should see at least once: boring answer probably but, forrest gump. also legally blonde. also the devil wears prada. also the incredibles. also shrek. also school of rock. also back to the future. also like, i’m glad i’ve seen some really iconic ones now like the matrix and alien. they’re pretty cool.

44. do you like to watch the same movie more than once? YEAH DUDE I GOT THAT MOVIE AUTISM. i was actually laughing to myself the other day when i realized that, currently, i’ve logged batb 2017 and scrooge 2022 both 17 times sjdksjdksj

batb 2017 will surpass it very soon, but then… come december… scrooge will probably beat it again. i become a madman for it in december. but anyway yeah i love rewatching movies. truly one of my greatest passions in life. i know that this year specifically i’ve been watching a lot of new-to-me movies but do not be fooled. i will Always love a movie rewatch 🫶

movie asks!!

[effyeffa]

a comprehensive list of (almost) all of my spotify playlists, sorted by theme

category 1: a bit of everything.

every feeling everywhere all at once opened by brian eno, closed by mitski, in between an eclectic mix of everything to scream cry and dance to  essentials. as the title suggests this is the music that makes up the foundation of my identity. funkadelic, air, spiritualized, y la bamba, weyes blood etc etc multitudes: similar idea but older. more hip hop in there, a little time capsule of 2017

seasonal playlists: these are closed chapters that won’t be altered

forbidden fruit february. self explanatory. aquarius season is for yearning and getting messy, thanks fiona apple idlings of march is when spring begins again, just barely but there’s a careful joy spreading. joyful tunes! this must be the place! spring has sprung and continues springing. instrumental interludes as standalone songs, everything sounds like water. the time that we wasted just hit like a wave begin again, another spring playlist. this time with childish gambino, laura marling, hayley williams, guns’n’roses, the classic combo april flowers. short and sweet, alice phoebe lou meets car seat headrest slowly come the saints of summer. do you remember when st vincent said daddy’s home well i made a whole playlist about it. mika is in there. genuinely no idea what was going on that summer. never ending summer, this IS the season of the witch. we love a strange mix of oldies and french and german new wave  i can’t believe summer is over and oh it’s so sentimental, it’s a cherry-coloured funk winter walking. it’s giving phoebe bridgers in the graveyard, mountain goats, springsteen, mother mother winter fruits: the first big thief singles off their latest album came out and sent me down this particular spiral. frankie cosmos and mitski, niche italian indie pop

playlists i still edit/add to, first: good moods.

still you. skinshape, biig piig, kadhja bonet, julia jacklin autobahn, a roadtrip playlist, best friends laughing, mostly italian 70s/80s many moons ago: it’s pop! it’s happy things! silly goofy times golden hour! an old one. started this in 2018, sylvan esso was big, king krule, her’s, clairo will you always love like this? dream pop. lesbianism. st south.  everyday’s a holiday: okay kaya and rex orange county, steve lacy vibes maybe i wasn’t there: kendrick, dijon, rosalía come on over & do the twist. they’re love songs. aching with nostalgia but happy coffee in bed is teetering on the edge between a lovely warm soup of emotions and desperate yearning clear the fog is where the yearning begins in earnest.

moody moods.

free drinks at the local bar, we’ve got mac demarco, the strokes, girlpool. you know the drill take me for a spin: something of a continuation of free drinks a few years later now including sam cohen, kevin morby. sad-ish music that still works if played in public ring: odes to being happysad on public transport in berlin, short and sweet peel you like a fruit. THEE playlist of psychological warfare.  i would be an electrician: if you enjoy julien baker’s happy to be here, the following ten tracks might do similar damage to your psyche  no more bad news from my jorja smith phase, also greentea peng, arlo parks gloomy. it’s the end of the world, sharon van etten said, and love is a losing game, and there’s stormy weather and love will tear us apart.  calm there’s definitely a flatsound track in there. be warned.  

and here’s three completely new ones, works in progress, not yet categorised:

touch. a very specific moment in time. listening to beach house and rhye with all my friends on a big couch, drifting off together, crying a little, holding on tightly all the in between: the only place that matters is by your side, mama you’ve been on my mind, only the strong survive, don’t think twice it’s alright. songs that transcend time and space transitional. seeing angels in everything

already this post is way too long. i have so many playlists, my god. i have a whole folder sorted by genre, one by decade, more by concepts and themes. i’m currently sorting through everything and thought i’d share my process, maybe you’ll find something for yourself new in my chaos :)

[sun-pluto]

tw: nudity mention but it’s just a basic slice of life from me

trying to learn how to let go of control and trust more in the people i care about and are around me the most. i used to survive in a house by being quiet and low-maintenance and never telling anyone a single thing about my activities. but that has changed since i’ve moved out and made friends i want to keep.

and it starts with my housemate(s). like literally, i’ve known them for almost a year, we’ve been living under the same roof for about a year as well and i’m still trying my best to be present with them and open up to them without my guard up. it’s hard because they’re not that close to me, but we’re still friends and can keep up a very good balance between being friends and being housemates to keep the place we rent clean. and i’ve been trying to separate what my mind sees as ‘duty’ and what should be a natural relationship and communication between friends. i have completely mastered the art of being a roommate, since with my own family i was already one. but to be a friend, is something i’m constantly learning.

and i think it starts acts of service with me HAHAHA. when i care about someone i start quietly, i do the dishes for them, i offer them my own food and groceries, i help them with their garden ideas and upkeeping small things that would’ve been none of my business but they’re open to receiving help. then i started talking to them more, not really saying much but just listening, and remembering their friends’ names and the stuff they’ve gone through and their dreams and their ambitions. their problems and their emotions. and i think the hardest part isn’t listening or offering advice, to me i think the hardest part is showing them how much i relate to them too. i can type a lot, but it seems whenever i open my mouth, i can’t say much. it’s a very chiron 3H thing HAHAHA i can never talk as much as i type. and i’m trying to now.

and i think it’s great that they’re learning things about me too, that im slowly not becoming mysterious or stoic to them but instead something (someone) relatable and safe to be silly around. now i joke more, i insert my stories a little more, i say “i get you” instead of “i’m sorry that happened”. i think the biggest milestone is hanging my nude calendar fundraiser photos on the hallway HAHAHA that’s when the walls really started to break and they know. plus it starts conversations with their friends BFKFNFJF it’s conservative nudity and it’s photos with animals but still. i think im slowly improving in opening myself up to someone who’s around me 24/7, and to not feel like an intrusion to an otherwise stable (most of the time) lifestyle of another person. and i’m trying to feel more comfortable in the spotlight, which is a ludicrous thing to say when i’m literally front and centre of the nude photoshoots and i’m comfortable with public speaking. what i mean is being the centre of attention with people i care about. that’s when i always clam up. i think too much about what they feel about me. and i’m learning to let go and trust they care about me too.

but anyway! just thoughts on my journey to healing and being a version of myself that i like. not that i dislike the version of myself now, she’s pushed me through some of the toughest times in my life (which is saying something given my life). but now i want her to be free and laugh more is all :)

[dicingvision]

Descent: Chapter 5

1 Step/3 Steps

I glance over at the alarm clock: 10:32 AM. My shift today starts at noon. I’ll have to get up soon. But right now, I’m frozen in place because I’ve got a sleeping Blaine on my chest. It’s like when a cat decides to curl up on you—legally, you are not allowed to move. Eventually, I’ll have to. Eventually is so far away though. It’s eons. Right now, all there is in the world is Blaine’s barely audible breathing. In and out. In and out. In and out. His head rises and falls as my own chest does, our breathing synced. Almost as if we are one body, one pair of lungs, one heart. 

My breaths are slow, relaxed. There’s no rush to take in air because I have all the air in the world. When the walls of my throat aren’t closing in, I don’t have to gasp for more. I savor every satisfying breath of it, all tinged with a hint of raspberries. The scent can never be removed from him, no matter how many showers he takes. And I wouldn’t want it to. Blaine and the fragrance of raspberries have become permanently intertwined in my head. You can’t have one without the other. 

I thread my fingers through his hair, twisting my forefinger round and round till a curl wraps around it. On mornings like these I get to see him without the gel—the man behind the mask, if you will. I’ve come to adore his hair, how full of life it is. The curls grow loose and springy between haircuts. I never realized how fast his hair grows. If only he’d let me enjoy the view for more than a few minutes before he rushes to slick it back. The curls move and bounce with him in their fleeting moments of freedom. I haven’t told him yet how much I love his natural hair—he’s so attached to his gel. Don’t get me wrong, I do still love his gelled look. It’s classic, old Hollywood handsome. My dream prince come true. Though I wonder how he became so obsessed with it in the first place. He can’t go a day without it. He stockpiles gel like canned food for an apocalypse. He’s such a weirdo. 

But he’s my weirdo. 

My fingers gently massage his scalp through all the hair. In his sleep, a little hum reverberates deep in his throat. The vibrations thrum against my skin, penetrate my chest. The sensation jumpstarts my heart into that familiar fluttery feeling. Butterflies. I try to look down to see if his expression will tell me what he’s dreaming about. At this angle, all I can see are his forehead, his eyebrows, the long fan of his eyelashes. What a handsome face he has. From what I can tell, his expression remains completely relaxed. Not a sign of stirring in sight. 

I can’t help but be jealous of him. How can he sleep so easily? For as long as I can remember, my sleep has been plagued by nightmares. Sometimes clear images, always familiar faces. Someone shouting, someone chasing. They know me too well for me to hide. They’re on my tail every time, weapon in hand or with their bare fingers, reaching out to get me. Words sharper than swords. My heart galloping in my chest, the breath stolen from my throat. Monsters haunting me. 

Both times Blaine moved in and started sleeping with me, the silly romantic in me thought the nightmares might stop. But as always, they come and go. I’ve had them since I was little, so I’m used to what’s routine by now: waking up a few nights every week in a cold sweat. They were about to get me, about to run me through or choke me with their bare hands. The worst nights are when I see Finn. He’s always cruel, always angry. He says things I try to forget but never can. He grabs me by the ankles with a viselike grip to pull me down into the grave with him. And I hate that this is the only version of him I can meet in sleep. Not my real brother. My hero.

Sometimes I wake up and forget it’s not real. I almost throw the sheets off and keep running—who knows where. But then the warmth of Blaine on my skin, the weight of his head on my chest, clears the panicked fog of sleep. A lighthouse in the storm. I’m back in my body, him cradled around me, anchoring me back in reality. Somehow he never wakes up. Miraculous. It’s better that way. I can watch his sleeping face, feel his unbroken breathing on my chest, and let the calm of his body seep back into mine until I can finally relax enough to get back to sleep. Last night, though, my brain stayed blissfully quiet the whole night. Not a single nightmare. I take it as another good sign. 

Read more on AO3 here.

[clairethecutepup]

The Dreams and Nightmares We Share... Bonus Content: Deleted Scene

From Chapter: "In Your Dreams (Too)"

Chapter one was originally planned to have things differently, with Seve and Alexis going to find Claire on their own; while Sarah and Jimmy would've stayed behind in the village to absorb the pigs' admiration (Jimmy mostly), until the two goats brought Claire back as the actual ones to (hopelessly) disprove her "dangerousness." This deleted scene takes place after Sarah and Jimmy return to the village, where they come across a searching Seve and Alexis (the latter searching a trash can's insides), after their run-in with Claire outside. Be warned: lacked revision and all, so a possibility of typos and whatnot, as it wasn't the final product.

“Hmph, I guess they could’ve just been freaked out because she’s so weird-looking…” Sarah rolls her eyes, “At least, it LOOKED like a girl, I guess…?”

“Oh, I wanna see!” Alexis lifts her head, the lid hanging off it, “I love ‘weird-looking’ things!”

Seve asks, “Is that why you filled your ‘playground’ thing with those sock monsters?”

“How could you NOT love them, Seve…? They’re so silly and a neat, new way for socks to be inside shoes!”

“Because they were always trying to literally kick my butt?”

Alexis then hops over to Sarah and Jimmy, foregoing her “hat.”

“Please, can you guys show me?” Alexis gives puppy dog eyes, “Where can I see it?”

“Good luck,” Sarah folds her arms, “she basically ran for the hills, after Jimmy and I got too close.”

“I admit,” Jimmy adds, “I can’t help but feel a little worried about the small thing… She seems to be quite the nervous wreck, and others seem to easily have it out for her.”

“Who cares?” Sarah looks at him, “She’s probably not even another ‘real’ person sharing this dream, or however you guys put it…”

Alexis grins larger, “I still wanna see!”

“... Just keep going THAT way,” Sarah points, “Maybe you’ll catch up with her, but you might wanna hurry…”

***

Claire catches her breath, after hiding inside a log that slightly sits behind the forest line. First, some “pig-hybrids” started screaming at her and panicking, now two “full-humans” were doing near-similar! Yet, Claire found the pigs odd… Sure, it was possible for SOME hybrids to look more like anthropomorphic animals, hence their nickname of “anthros,” but it’s quite rare for someone to have enough animal genetics for such a thing. Usually, the presence of paws or extra fur would be the ONLY further addition to the standard tail and ears-- excluding the paw pads that could be found on almost any hybrid’s hands, even when they’re of the standard humanistic nature.

Come to think of it, those full-humans were odd, too… Hybrids are just as common as those entirely human, the former even outnumbering the latter in Claire’s hometown, so why were they acting so terrified and surprised toward her? Better question: how did Claire get to THIS town? All she remembers is climbing out of this very log and trying to see if she could find any friends or family. Claire begins to sniffle, feeling all alone and scared she’ll never find her way back home. Unfortunately, that fear is about to be heightened, now that goat-girl has found wolf-girl. Alexis could never miss a big, blue tail sticking outside of a log.

She peers in, “Hi!”

Claire jolts up, easily standing on all fours without hitting her head. Before her equally-lengthened arms and legs can bolt off, she looks over her shoulder to see who exactly it is. Wait, was this ANOTHER “anthro” hybrid…?

“Oops, sorry!” Alexis continues, “I didn’t mean to scare you, I just wanted to see what you were like! So, can I? I promise I won’t bite!”

Well, this strange person wasn’t acting all scared and shouty, so maybe Claire didn’t need to get out of here…? Trembling, Claire slowly turns around, still having her arms serve as additional legs. Well, she’s not as “weird” as Alexis might’ve been hoping for, but that doesn’t mean she has no appeal! Those big, blue eyes, those big and soft big paws for hands-- how could Alexis NOT just need to squeeze her?! Claire barely had time to react toward the sudden oncoming hug, much to her horrified dismay…

“Oh my gosh,” Alexis squealed, “you’re so cute!”

Alexis always fawned over whatever non-goat creature was currently before her, whether it be: spiders, puppies, or whatever THIS was. Of course, many often dreaded the thought of her actually caring for such things, with Seve even fearing the idea of Alexis being trusted with a simple pet rock. Actually, mention the name, “Hamilton” and you’ll get a sniffle from Alexis, as she recalls the shattered rock she found herself burying the pieces of-- little coffin included. Not to say Alexis was some oblivious abuser to whatever couldn’t speak and all, she just had her… quirks.

Fortunately, Claire is luckier: Alexis’ hug is tight, but not crushing nor suffocating. Still, despite how kind and gentle Alexis may be, Claire is STILL being held by a complete stranger and without any comforting, familiar face around to help if things go wrong. Plus, Alexis’ appearance made the pup uneasy: there was something about the dreary and gothic nature to Alexis’ overall appearance, alongside the sharp horn and sharpness of her hooved digits… Alexis frowns at how Claire trembles against her and keeps her eyes shut tightly, as if expecting the goat to suddenly tear her apart.

“Aww, don’t be afraid…” Alexis nuzzles her head into Claire’s, “I really WON’T hurt you, I promise!” she giggles, “You’re so soft and tiny, how could those pigs think you were some big, scary monster?”

Claire opens an eye, finally believing that Alexis was more cuddler than murderer.

“Hey, Lexi, where are ya?” Seve calls out, “Did you get your fill of ‘weird looks’ or whatever?”

“I found her, Seve!” Alexis comes out, still holding Claire, “Say, do you think we could keep her around…?”

Seve folds his arms and raises an eyebrow.

“Hamilton.”

Alexis sniffles a little, but shakes her head and snaps herself out of it.

“I don’t mean it like I’m gonna ‘KEEP her, keep her,’ Seve, just keep her with us until we wake up!”

“I don’t know…” Seve looks up and taps his foot, “It feels kind of creepy to basically FORCE someone to just tag along with us.”

“Maybe she WANTS to!” Alexis then looks to Claire, “Please, come with us…? We promise to be a lot nicer to you than those pigs were…”

“Actually,” Seve protests, “MY treatment’s gonna depend on how YOU treat me first…”

Alexis repeats, “Please…?”

Well, it’s not exactly like Claire already had someone else to depend on currently… Not to mention, though intense as Alexis may come off to the pup, she genuinely seems to like Claire and probably won’t do worse than surprise hugs. Plus, Alexis’ friendliness and energy did have a soothing familiarity to it, akin to her “big buddy” of Leena. Claire nods, causing Alexis to tighten the embrace.

“Yay, we’ve got a new friend!” Alexis cheers, “So, what’s YOUR name? I’M Alexis, and THAT’S Seve!” she then notices the collar worn, “Oh wait, is it on THERE?” she takes the tag into a hoof, “‘Clarissa Vellll--’... Uh, Seve, how do you pronounce that other name?”

Wait, this girl wore a collar…? Was she someone’s weird pet? Well, whatever, Seve’s seen crazier in his dreams. May as well take a look himself… Only to realize he’s also plum out of luck on figuring out how “Vlcek” is supposed to be pronounced.

“I think we’ll be fine just sticking to the first name,” Seve sighs, then perks up, “Hold on, it looks like she’s got phone numbers on here…”

Oh right, Claire’s tag! Some preferred medical bracelets for those of health issues or… “mental concerns,” to put it nicely, and some found collars more convenient. Hey, in a world of animal-hybrids, such neckwear could be considered fashionable beyond standard pets. Maybe she could get them to call home and have her family take her back? She needs to literally point it out and tell them-- to the best of her abilities, anyway.

“Call home!” Claire smiles, “Call par--”

Claire freezes. Did she just speak out ENTIRE words…? 

“... Am I talking right?” she asks, “I think so…”

“Uh, yeah, you’re talking…” Seve raises an eyebrow, “So, you’re saying you want us to call your house or whatever?”

Claire nods, as her eyes dart around in wonderment toward her mouth’s sudden lack of missing syllables and letters.

“Oh, I know!” Alexis suggests,

[End of Content]