#i can't find a place or circumstances to make this work exactly. But I Want It

[crimeronan]

i'm very unlikely to be able to make this work which is why i'm posting about it instead of writing it but. i DESPERATELY want a bit in a princess luz AU fic wherein amity is just kinda like listen. luz. look. i honest to god don't care if you killed your dad. it's FINE. we ALL want to murder our parents sometimes. and i'm not just saying that because i don't want you to kill me too even though it would be so awesome for you not to kill me too

and luz, who is still in friendly princess-empress mode, which is VERY DIFFICULT for her to turn off in front of anyone other than hunter, is like whaaaat!! noo haha :) why would i do that :) i had an extremely normal well-adjusted childhood alongside my hunter :) i'd never Need to kill my dad :)

and amity is like. [head in hands] luz. listen. people who had normal well-adjusted childhoods don't openly have panic attacks every time their hunter is further than a whole entire two hallways away,

[forsworned]

Something good can work ft. Keegan P. Russ

cw: noncon themes, pnv sex, afab reader

There is a strange feeling that twists in your stomach as you approach Keegan's room. The door is left ajar, and you push it open, allowing yourself in to find him sitting on the edge of his bed, cleaning his gun. His balaclava is off and laid out on his nightstand, worn and distressed from use. He glances up at you for a moment; his rifle is completely disassembled, and he's taken the liberty to maintain his equipment.

"Hey, kid." His voice sends a frisson up your spine. You freeze in place, eyeing his physique. His navy loose-fitted tee lightly outlines his toned body, and his tactical pants are tight and baggy in all the right places as he manspreads. Bore brush in hand, his taut fingers, stained black with carbon residue, work meticulously to clean out the chamber.

He looks up at you again, noticing your unchanged form and expression. "What's on your mind, kid?" He sets down the bristle and grabs a microfiber towel to clean his hands.

Your eyes flicker to meet his wintry hues, and the lump in your throat starts to dissolve. "Can I ask you something?"

He notices the change in your usual demeanor and nods. "’Course."

You step closer to him, and he watches you intently. Your gaze is intense, as if you're staring into his soul. The words that fall from your mouth make his heart drop.

"Would you fuck me if I asked you to?"

The military prepared Keegan for many things, but this was not one of them. A beautiful woman, his teammate, asking if he would fuck her? No, the Marine Corps did not train him for such circumstances.

He only observes as you close the space between you two. You place your hand gently on his sturdy shoulder, sliding it to cup his face.

"It's not exactly appropriate," he murmurs, but he doesn't shy away from your touch. It stirs feelings he suppressed when you first joined years ago.

His hand finds its way to your hip as you straddle him, pressing against his growing erection. "But?"

You inch closer, pushing your chest against his, hovering over his pale pink lips. Keegan can hear the blood pumping straight to his dick, silently transfixed on your next move.

"Uh huh," you brush your lips against his mouth, and his hand fists at the fabric of your pants.

"[Name]..." he breathes out, letting his head hit the headboard to create some space between you, but your fingers make quick work of his belt, swiftly unzipping it with ease.

He doesn't exactly protest, merely squirms under your touch as you play with his exposed happy trail.

"I think you'll like it," you swallow thickly with anticipation. The situation is wrong, but he can't find it in himself to stop you. The way your hand feels as it slips under the waistband of his briefs is tantalizing. The pleasant tingly feeling of blood surging to his dick at your euphoric touches, the way you thumb over the precum creaming out of his tip, makes his thick brows scrunch in pleasure.

You take a moment to lower your lips to the swollen, red tip, lapping up his arousal. A strangled huff escapes him, and your lashes flutter as you peer up at him, laying your tongue flat on his shaft before standing up to undo your own trousers and letting them fall to the ground.

His Adam's apple oscillates as he fixates on the sway of your hips when you approach him and take your place on his lap once again. His glacial eyes, now darkened, fall on your glistening pussy, which is mere millimeters away from his cock. He no longer hesitates when he reaches out to touch your sopping folds.

"Yeah, you definitely don't need any prep..."

You suck in your bottom lip but push away his hand. "I'm ready enough," you state, hovering over him and wanting nothing more than to let him sink into you.

You lean over the edge of the bed and retrieve the condom from your side pocket. Keegan slightly narrows his eyes at you. "Christ, you were that ready?"

"Always." You tear the condom foil with your teeth before rolling it onto his dick. He bucks his hips at your touch. You grin down at him, relishing in how pliant he is for you. Licking your lips, you align yourself with him, and his eyes alternate between looking at your pretty face and your pretty pussy.

"Fuck, your pussy is..." His voice melts into a moan as he throws his head back, bottoming out into you. You dig your nails into his tanned flesh.

"So what?" You demand an answer from him as you relentlessly rock your hips against him. The real feeling is unmatched, your imagination could never conjure up the sight of his mouth hanging open and his death grip on your hips as you grind on him. The exhilarating feeling of dominating your CO is unparalleled.

"So—fuck, [name]." He shudders, involuntarily bucking his hips as he thrusts into you. It’s nothing but primal instinct at this point as you both drive into each other, using one another for the gratification that has been bubbling in your lower bellies—a fire that has been burning for too long.

"...so pretty." He chokes out, but before he can say another word, he feels his orgasm approaching. "Gonna—cum."

"Me too." You cry out, bouncing on his dick. He didn't even need to rub your clit to make you climax because the girth and length of his dick were hitting your A-spot so deliciously, so perfectly. You reach your peak, and soon you feel a wave of pleasure overcome you. Your pulsating walls push Keegan over the edge, and he rides the tides of rapture alongside you.

Your spine arches involuntarily as you both cling to one another, gyrating your hips until your fulfillment reaches its peak. A shaky breath escapes his lips as you lift yourself off him, not bothering to remove the condom filled with his cum. You reach for your trousers and underwear, slipping them back on with ease, and tidy yourself in his full-length mirror.

As you turn to him, you notice he hasn't moved a single inch. He's lying there, chest heaving, as he eyes you up and down. You pad over to him, place a tender kiss on his forehead, and smile. "Thanks, Keegs."

With that, you happily tread out of his door, closing it behind you and ensuring you hear the click before you leave. He listens for the sound of your footsteps as they fade until he hears nothing but the buzz of the AC. To say he’s bewildered is an understatement.

He lets out a labored breath, running a hand through his short-cropped hair.

"Anytime..."

[genericpuff]

wait wait wait, regarding that Minthe post, you're telling me that Rachel literally wrote the character as having BPD.....and portrayed her as an abusive mean piece of shit??? WOW. fucking WOW. sorry for being so angry, but even if she "retconned" that - it's still so god damn disrespective. as someone who has BPD it hurts so much to see my mental illness villanised :(

ugh I'm so sorry pal. and I don't blame you for being angry about it, like I don't even have BPD and I'M fucking pissed LOL like I can understand why Rachel might have wanted to backtrack from that knowing fully well that Minthe's story wasn't gonna have a happy ending, but writing her with BPD in the first place and then BACKTRACKING from it as soon as she likely got heat for it (or just realized it wasn't a good look) isn't much better because it means now all she's done is written the stigmatized negative effects of BPD into her character without showing the more positive outlooks of healing and managing. Maybe that was doomed to happen considering Minthe is someone who doesn't get a happy ending in the myths, but it begs the question of why she'd write her with BPD to begin with because in hindsight it really does seem like she just wanted to use it as a way to make her "evil".

But like, when you read the actual episode, you can SEE the potential there for character growth, you can SEE that she's aware of her actions - but doesn't understand why she's "like that" which is a VERY common feeling among people with undiagnosed mental illnesses - but it was never meant to be.

Like jfc not only is it HEAVILY IMPLIED, but again, the episode is literally called "Splitting". And we see exactly that with Minthe, who can't seem to rationalize with herself that she messed up.

But... that leads me to another point that I failed to mention in that first ask response: she DIDN'T mess up. Like, yes, she messed up by escalating it to the point of slapping Hades, but it wasn't her fault that she didn't make it to her date with Hades. Whose fault was it?

Continuously throughout the first season we see Thetis being an awful influence who manipulates and gaslights Minthe. They're "friends", but it's clear Thetis does not have Minthe's best interests in mind. In this very scene we see Thetis manipulate Minthe and even attempt to get her so drunk that she won't be able to show up to her date. And then of course when that plan works and Minthe freaks out, Thetis spins it around on Minthe in a very passive-aggressive way.

But of course, the narrative has to find a way to turn this whole thing on Minthe being the bad guy. Hence we get the slap which shifts the focus entirely away from what led up to it back onto Hades who has, in a lot of ways, put her in a situation that she can't control. And of course, being in those kinds of situations does not help with mental health.

Like, sorry, I'm really going off here now, but... the slap happens in Episode 76.

When is it finally addressed again? Episode 103.

It took Rachel nearly THIRTY EPISODES to finally bring it back to Minthe, and in that time the reader has spent SEVERAL EPISODES reading about how sad and lonely Hades is, and about how cute and lovey he is with Persephone. The reader has not had ANY time to reflect on Minthe's circumstances, because it completely pivots away from her to focus on H x P as a sort of distraction from the fact that Minthe is a victim in her own right.

And when it DOES return to Minthe in 103, we get this harrowing reminder that her entire life is dependent on Hades-

And once again, here comes Thetis to the "rescue", reinforcing the negative feedback loop that Minthe is trapped in where she's put in unhealthy situations. She drags her to a bar and the whole time Minthe is not having fun because she's understandably still reeling from what happened.

Now we DO get some character development here, where Minthe realizes exactly what I've just finished explaining, that Thetis isn't her friend, that she'd rather not have Thetis as a friend than continue being talked down to and manipulated.

But then, as we know, because Rachel still needs Minthe to be the "bad guy", the breakup between Hades and Minthe winds up being all about Persephone from a POV that attempts to villainize Minthe for being "jealous" (rather than focusing on how shitty Hades actually is for having an emotional affair with Persephone to begin with) and then Minthe goes right back to hanging out with Thetis anyways for the sake of having the "evil other girl" who wants to "ruin" H x P's relationship.

It's not until Season 3 that we finally see Minthe tell Thetis to fuck off for good, but by then it's too little too late, and Minthe has lost an entire character arc. Rachel tries to go "see! Minthe's life is so much better now that she's taking care of children!" but that's an entirely different solution to a problem Minthe never had. She never got treatment for her BPD. She just got away from H x P which, while is a good thing, isn't actually analyzed as such. It's treated more as a "good thing" for H x P and the readers, because now they don't have to be subjected to Minthe's evil scheming anymore, something something "the evil is defeated". And don't even get me started on this comic's problem with constantly resolving female characters' story arcs through motherhood.

It bums me out so fucking much. Minthe deserved so much better. She's one of the many characters in LO who make it so painfully ironic when they're done dirty, because despite Rachel's attempts to write a "feminist retelling" that focuses on "moving on from trauma", she's inadvertently done more damage to feminism and the stigmas around mental health and trauma through her assassination of grounded and realistic and relatable characters like Minthe and Demeter who are shown ZERO empathy or understanding for their actions (unless it can be done so by making Persephone and Hades into the heroes). It happens so often throughout the comic it almost feels like how the comic markets itself as a "progressive feminist retelling" is some sick joke that I'm just not getting.

[etherfabric]

Messages for Reassurance + Songs

Choose a pile by which picture you resonate with the most.

If your mind is too busy to clearly decide, take a few deep breaths, and use the finger of your non-dominant hand to hover over the images. One will give off the most subtle yet prominent signals, like tingles, a magnetic pull, or temperature. This is your pile. Multiples are also possible.

You are the ultimate authority over your life. I merely provide my perspective. Sometimes the Universe lines you up with something that doesn't resonate with your truth, so you have contrast to find out what does. Never give away your power.

Pile 1

Knight of Cups, High Priestess

The hope inside of you is not delusion. You are safe to go after the things that seem promising and enriching. The days where you couldn't hear your gut well enough to listen to it are gone. Serendipities of various sizes permeate your day to day life, and it feels almost to good to be true. Did you really make it? Yes, dear. You did. You embraced your shadows enough to bask in the sun again.

Of course this is no utopia, and the frights of the past have sharpened your foresight to real possibilities, but believe yourself when you can't feel any danger closeby. You are stronger, smarter, and in better company than ever before. Now all there is left to do is putting some weight in those timid steps towards your bliss. Don't worry about tripping - you'll land on your foundation and get up again, eyes forward, one foot in front of the other. You will get there as soon as you fully arrive internally, and you are so close to completion already. You will see it once you believe it.

Pile 2

6 of Wands, The Hanged Man

You are exactly where you are supposed to be, in the exact context and circumstances you see at this very moment, inside and out. The conditions are perfect for you thrive in. You might have to get a little unorthodox in your approaches, and the shape of other people's successes sometimes clouds your inspiration, but let good be good enough for now. Think of past you - they prayed to have what you have now.

Okay, yes, they were a little misguided in a few details of their wishes (thankfully rejection is divine protection), and in thinking once you would be here, everything would be perfect - life is still life, you are still human - but the lessons that led you here widened your understanding of how everything had to happen this way. Guess what, future you will look back at this very moment with the exact same wisdom and compassion.

You can work with what you have at your disposal and rightfully expect the glory of tangible progress. Just keep doing what you are doing already, keep it simple and managable, and there will be nothing significant standing in your way. Those bouts of stagnation? That's where the depth of your skills comes from in the first place. Just like muscles, the soul and mind need their periods of liminal passivity to come back with full force to charge you ahead. You are on the right track. You are doing great. You can be proud of yourself.

Pile 3

Page of Swords, 10 of Wands

Oh dear. It's okay to say you are tired. It's okay to break apart. It's okay to hurt and just want to quit it all. Why are you carrying all this by yourself, tasks and thoughts alike? Don't you know the relief once you put them both down? For the thoughts: Speak, write, scream. To somebody, or nobody. The most important part is admitting it. Then at least you are freed of the burden to act like everything is fine. I know you are scared, I know you wouldn't be in this situation in the first place if you knew for sure you could let go. But I trust in the magic of coincidences, and you reading this right now tells me you need to stop swimming against the current and let the flow carry you downstream.

Stop clinging to things that only stay if you wreck yourself. The tide will wash them out of your hands anyway, because soon you will reach your body's limits, and then the decision will be made for you. Let the dam break. Let nature take its course. You are so smart and truly believed the best, I can see that, and it's no lack of character that caused things to go this way. But this wasn't meant for you. I know it hurts. I hurt with you. But once you stop fighting gravity, you will be drawn to what is truly for you. Put the burden down. I know you had the best intentions, but it's over. You can rest now.

Pile 4

9 of Cups, Knight of Pentacles

You already know this, but slow and steady does indeed win the race. Instead of doing a million things exhausting yourself, you are focusing on a handful of daily tasks, knowing they will lead you exactly where you want to be. Time and consistency are on your side. You know you don't have to be perfect and can always pick up where you left off. Appreciation from outside sources resonates with your own satisfaction about how things are playing out for you.

Your longterm goals seem closer than ever. You have your routine down pat, and trust in your ability of finding even better tweaks and spins for it in the future. This calm air of confidence looks so good on you! You have earned it. You can read the signs relative to your success, know which road to take, and which pitfalls to avoid. You feel incredibly rich and know how to pass the time until certain things come to fruition. It used to make you anxious when you were faced with slowpaced processes, and you fell back on less sustainable approaches to selfsoothe. Now you appreciate the journey itself, even welcome the delays, so you have ample time to smell the flowers on the side of the road.

[sordidmusings]

Thirsty Thursday with Lucky Brat Buggy

Summary: Buggy plays a game of Fuck Around and Find Out that he isn't actually ready for. Luckily for him, he fails upwards yet again - when he can't take the repercussions, you soothe him with the declaration he's been dying to hear

A/N: I just wanna break Buggy and then put him back together again. Also, my kink is finding out love is reciprocated during sex so this happened 🤡 This was one of the attempts at a part of Switching Up Roles that went in a wildly different direction than I wanted for that request. I liked where it was headed though, so I rewrote it and made it its own thing

Word Count: ~2.1k

Warnings: afab!reader (no pronouns or gendered terms), NSFW, both are mentioned as switches but this has sub!Buggy and dom!reader, dirty talk, p in v, beggy Buggy, creampie, claiming/possessive sex, brief brat taming, healing insecurity with Pussy Power

Enjoy, my beloved freaks ~(=ↀωↀ=)~

~ ~ ~ ••• ✦✦✦ ••• ~ ~ ~

Buggy is being a brat. Not just his usual teasing and toying that’s a part of his charm. No, he’d decided that he wants to try being a brat where the “b” is for “bitch” and he’s bringing it into the bedroom. He’s telling you that you’re “too slow” or he’ll “never cum like this”. It’s pissing you off even though you know it’s all lies and you know that that’s exactly what he wants. It’s easy to see his game because all those insults come out between satisfied moans and his body (that’s totally not going to cum) is sparking at your touch like a live wire. It’s easy to see because it’s been your game to play for him before too. Unlike him, however, you’re good at keeping your head enough to know when he wants you to back off. He’s even had the gall to try out demanding things from you, when he was the one who’s been asking you to be in charge through this mood of his.

At first this obvious game of his was cute, but recently he’s acting like he wants you to snap, even though he knows hard-domming pushes your comfort zone. Buggy would never want to actually cross a boundary with you, but he was certainly dodging the non-verbal warnings you’ve been putting up to tell him he’s sprinting towards one right now. You’re usually good at taming him, proven by the absolute wreck he is right now, but somehow he’s still saying snide shit to push your buttons. When he puts in the effort to taunt, “Can’t do any better?” with a self-satisfied smirk, you decide you’re done. 

“Fine. You do the work,” you order, voice stiff and angry. You flip off of him and onto your back and Buggy follows only half a breath behind. His movements are fumbling and desperate as he reclaims his spot between your thighs and immediately pushes back in. He shudders from the relief of being back inside you. He looks at you with wide and nervous eyes, clearly not expecting this to be his punishment. His arms shake as he holds himself up over you and his hips make slow, deep grinds into you, punctuated by the little shakes that keep running through his body. The panic of losing control of the situation he created, while also being forced to perform in that circumstance, has finally broken that stubborn streak. And, oh, does he fold so beautifully under the stress. 

“Please. Please, please, need you to do it. Need you to make me feel good - you make me feel so goooood.” Buggy can’t control his voice, one moment it was a breathy grumble and the next a whining sob. His hands clench and unclench in the sheets beside your head as if they are stuck in the motion of pawing at your skin, but he’s too timid to put his hands back on you.

“Oh, baby, you can’t do it yourself?” you coo condescendingly, placing your hands on his cheeks to help center his gaze on yours. It works for one blissful second, where you get to witness how hazy those gorgeous sea green eyes are, before he shuts them and leans his face into one hand. Buggy turns and peppers it in eager, pleading kisses. Tingles shoot from your palm where you feel his stubble and his hot puffs of breath.

“No. No. Need you,” he gasps between ongoing kisses. Your other hand trailing back to thread in his hair distracts him for a second before he’s back to his insistent kissing, huffing, grinding, trembling. The hand in his hair becomes a tight fist, stilling only his kissing and directing his attention back to your face. His hips only become more insistent.

“And do you deserve to be fucked, my sweet little toy?” You prod. Even though your tone is light and teasing, all his movements come to a stop. You don’t even think he’s breathing anymore. His eyes become a kind of tearful you aren’t fond of and he begins to curl in on himself. You act quickly.

“Ah ah ah, sweet thing,” you breathe out. The words go to him in the gentlest tone you’ve ever gifted to anyone. Your hands are back on those warm, stubbly cheeks. “It’s okay, sweet star, you’re okay. If you can’t answer, I’ll answer for you.”

You flip the both of you over again smoothly, the hand you’d used to tug his hair now cradling the back of his head. Buggy loosens up a little, feeling safe and guarded underneath you. You get up on hands and knees and crawl forwards, leading him backwards up the bed, until his upper body is cushioned amongst the pillows piled against the headboard. Settling back on his lap, you begin grinding gently on his cock. Instead of taking it back in, you keep it hugged tight between his stomach and your cunt, where it slides between your sopping lips and rubs at your clit. You’re happy to see that even with the lowered intensity in touch, Buggy is still filled with pleasure and tingling, unable to slow his breath.

“You belong in my bed, getting fucked by me,” you tell him sternly. Buggy nods along like the good boy he is. “You’re the only one I let in my cunt.” He can’t hold in his whimper. Your smooth grinding continues, but now he can’t handle being denied that promise of being inside you.

“Please,” he begs, pressing his hips upward in the only way he can think to let you know what he wants. One hand leaves his face to move behind you and tease over his sensitive balls. Your next grind forward lines his head up at your entrance, one skilled finger props his cock steady, and you slide back on the whole length of his cock, dragging your clit along his happy trail as you go, all without breaking the pace of your hips. Buggy moans loud and sinks deeper into the pillows in relief.

Your hand moves back to his face again and begins brushing away all the stray hairs clinging to his sweaty, spitty, teary face to join the mess of blue sweeping out around him. The tenderness of it has more whimpers breaking out of Buggy, while he turns to follow your touch. 

“Only you can make me feel good,” you promise him, starting to add more weight to your movements. “Only wanna see your pretty face. Only your body and that perfect cock feel so good to touch, make me cum so hard.” You clench around him to emphasize your words, earning a warbly “-hah- fuh-s’good”. 

Between admiring the details of his face and aiming the fat head of his cock to prod from g-spot to cervix, you start to get distracted. All the details your body is receiving - the contrast between the texture of sheets and Buggy’s burning skin, the scratch of short nails appearing and disappearing as he gropes your thighs and hips and stomach, the musk of sex mingling with the ambience of blown out candles, aging maps, and wet wood - all of it is flooding your brain and making each sensation better, making everything feel so much. Another sweet plea from Buggy recenters you.

Your hips start to bounce and each impact pulls the feeling of being stretched open on Buggy’s thick cock all the way to press through your hips, making your bones feel like they're being spread wider. “Gods, your cock is so good, makes me so full,” you moan, making Buggy throb with the need to cum. He scrunches his eyes closed and throws his head back to reel himself in. You take advantage of the opening and begin sucking more red marks on his throat. He trembles at the wet stripe you lick up his neck. You spend a moment nibbling his ear before trailing kissing along his sharp jaw. When you reach his open mouth, you capture him in a ravenous kiss.

The way you kiss him is greedy and possessive, full of tongue and teeth, and Buggy matches you with eagerness and fervor. He happily lets you steal every breath from his lungs. Both of you get lost in the mirrored sloppy heat between your open mouths and clapping hips. Neither of you can grab enough of the other, you gripping at soft hair and bobbing throat and him holding onto working muscle and bouncing skin.

When you take a short moment to pull only an inch away, you growl at him, “You think anyone else is good enough to kiss me?” Your lips are immediately back on his, but he manages to sneak out many weak “no”s between your working mouths.

“You’re mine, love,” you say, leaving no room for questions. “You’re my love, my sweet man.” Buggy’s head spins from your words, and the insatiable tone of your voice. He feels high from being desired and possessed by you.

“Again,” Buggy sobs. He doesn’t think he’d make it if that was the only time he gets to hear you say it. 

You pull his hands from your thighs to entwine your fingers and press them into the pillows beside his head. Staring into his eyes, you repeat, “You’re my love.”

“More,” he whines and you’d never heard him so needy. It goes straight to your head and your cunt and you’re not gonna last. 

“You’re mine-” your body starts to give so you cave over him and let all your words and breath right into his ear. Buggy’s cock is pulsing so heavily in you and you’re amazed he hasn’t cum yet and the way your walls have swollen to make every contour and vein on him pull at you have you losing control of your own voice, each exhale gaining a note of a moan. “-mine and I love you and I -hah- you’re mine, love. Mine, mine, mine-”

Buggy had been desperate to hear you say those words to him from the moment he met you and they have him cumming harder than he has in his entire life. He yelps and grabs your hands so hard it should probably hurt but you can’t feel it; your brain is too full of the feeling of his cum boiling you from the inside out and the sounds of him beginning to chant, “love you, love you, love you” in a broken voice, and you finally cum.

Your orgasm has you looking as pathetic as Buggy with how you shake and gasp out keening moans. For a moment, your mind whites out and you’re not sure if you’re completely numb or feeling everything at once. When a tiny bit of your mind returns, you realize you’re still clenching in strong waves, sparking lights through your skin, and your muscles burn with bliss and you’ve never cum this long and it just won’t stop. Buggy is just as lost below you and he’s sure that he’s run out of anything left to give you but his balls still pound and his cock still twitches and his nerves are so loud they almost ache but he’d scream if something switched the feeling off. Instinct allows both of you little grinds of your hips that help you stay trapped in these roiling waves of pleasure until you can’t handle any more.

The moment you can think again, you’re checking in on Buggy. You cup his face so you can examine and admire him. For a moment you think he’s passed out, but he turns to lean into your hand. You spend a few minutes just breathing together while you caress his face and hair. Buggy studies the feeling of your breaths guiding him, your body weight sheltering him, and your fingertips treasuring him to hoard them away in his memory forever. 

When Buggy manages to crack his eyes open, the first thing he does is say, “you love me.” He breathes it out with joyous disbelief, the kind only achieved at the other side of a chase you never thought would end with a catch. You take in his face - flushed pink, covered in tear tracks and smeared makeup, sharpened by his jaw and cheeks and stubble, softened by his hair and lashes and expression - and you’re sure that you’ve never said or heard anything more true. You cover that messy, wonderful face in many, many kisses, making sure quite a few land on your favorite nose in the world, and finish with a long, chaste kiss on his lips.

You smile sweetly and Buggy is positive he’s never seen anything he likes more and that he’d do anything to see it forever.

“Yes,” you promise. “I love you.”

[helslastangel]

Moon Conjunct Venus + Moon Trine Ascendant Synastry Based on My Personal Experiences 🔞

This may not resonate for everyone, so if it doesn't hit, please let it miss. There are 18+ topics included this so minors, do not interact. 🔞

Their Moon conjunct your Venus

This aspect is wonderful if you're both feeling each other. They can and will read you like a book without even needing to turn the first page. If you've ever seen or been in one of those couples where the one person knew exactly what the other one wanted or needed, without ever discussing it, even once? Yeah, those are the vibes here. You will be loved exactly the way you want to be loved and if things don't work out, there is a good chance the breakup could leave you feeling destroyed for quite some time, even if you were never in a relationship.

This aspect can make it very difficult to be "just friends" with if either person wants more from the connection, but even platonic friends with this synastry aspect will be the kind of friend that you give the spare keys to, can call at 4 in the morning whether for an emergency or just to sob about something stupid, and who you allow to come over without calling first-in fact you welcome it and aren't surprised to come home and find them asleep on the couch or something like that. Like this is the friend that you're more like family with, if you're not in a romantic connection.

If you ever get in a mood and start talking about "everyone this" and "people always/never that," they aren't offended because it doesn't even cross their mind to think they're included in that pile. There is no guarantee that things will always be perfect or work out with this placement, obviously it depends on factors in the whole chart and other things like time, place, circumstance, and so on. And of course, anyone who can read you accurately has the ability to use that to manipulate and harm rather than help and support you, but that's a risk of life in general. All I'm saying is: with this aspect, when it's good, it's DAMN GOOD.

To give you an example, I had this synastry with a Scorpio moon several years ago (I'm a Scorpio Venus). We met at an event and hit it off so well that we were talking outside the venue for nearly 4 hours, annoying his friends and mine. Ended up bringing him home with me and I fully expected him to disappear into a cloud of dust the next day, but he didn't. We didn't end up working out beyond friends with benefits, but he's NEVER been rude or unkind to me once. Extremely patient, always calm no matter what and very sweet to me whenever we run into each other somewhere in the city every couple of years.

The way he handled me emotionally was just beautiful, I can't think of another way to put it. Most of my friends at the time would ignore anything I did creatively - not him, he found one of my books and posted it on his story with a cute caption saying how much he loved intelligence and that he was proud of me. The type to show up in the rain and keep me company when I was sick (back when I lived alone), even though he had class, work and practice all that day. The first time we hooked up, I was getting my laundry together and wondering why he hadn't left yet. He picked up the bags talking about, "Nah I got 'em, lead the way to the laundromat, why would I leave you to do this by yourself."

TMI / TW (mentions of sexual activities, body fluids, menstruation/periods) so again, minors, get out of here and the rest of you proceed with caution or skip to the next paragraph.

He was very much empathetic and also body positive-absolutely nothing seemed to gross him out. I have so many examples, but let's go with something both extreme and spicy. I was bundled up, laying on his shoulder and trying to deal with menstrual cramps while we were watching a show and him going, "Oh you know I read somewhere that orgasms can ease those, may I?" I'm there like, may you what? sure?? I'm curious?? Next thing I know, he's got a towel down, yeets the tampon and dives in head first talking about "a period ain't stop nothing but a sentence." And, well? All I'll say is.. at least ONE man knows where the clit is! ibuprofen, who? where? 😂😈

Obviously that's a bit much if you're a vanilla type (but a Scorpio moon + Scorpio venus? baby we was freaks, what can I say? lmfao) but this is just an example I mention because the important part is not once did he bring up getting off himself. No hinting for a quickie or a BJ like you might expect. I even offered because I was used to guys doing seemingly selfless gestures only to be guilt-tripped shortly after, and he was just like, "Sorry, what? No, you're not feeling well, I wanted you to feel better, plus I don't need to get off all the time, I read it's healthy to ignore the urges sometimes." (Idk if you could tell, but he REALLY likes to read, loll).

That's what I'm talking about with the Moon-Venus conjunction. This kind of synastry will vary in the specific ways it's expressed of course, but all other things being equal, someone with their moon conjunct your venus will intuitively know what you want and need to feel loved, and it works because it blends very well with their own emotional needs. If the moon person tells you they enjoy doing something for you or with you without expecting anything in return, believe it. It sounds like a lie because of the types of people who would lie about that, but with this aspect, chances are they meant that shit.

Not only that, but you'll feel like you've known them for a long time. That's because you'll also understand their emotional expression on an intuitive level. This isn't as one-way as it could sound. Oh, no, not at all. You will feel like you've met before and find yourself making time and space, and finding energy for them even out of thin air. You could live in a tiny studio that you'd never share with anyone and then find yourself cleaning out your closet on a Sunday afternoon to "make a little space" for their extra work uniform or even as tiny as keeping an extra toothbrush, clearing a hook in the bathroom, keeping their favorite snacks in the fridge, stuff like that. You'll generally feel at home with each other and trust can build VERY quickly. Others could even wonder if you're okay, especially if you're normally a paranoid person.

With Scorpio moon guy, he accidentally left his wallet the first time he left my place and I called him when I found it. His response was "Oh I left it at yours? Oh good, that's okay then, I'll come get it at some point this week, let me know what days you'll be home". He knew me for less than 24 hours at the time, lol. 3 months later he had the door code to my place and there were two toothbrushes and two towels instead of one LOL, trust was never an issue and it certainly wasn't the reason we didn't work out either! We basically just couldn't really keep pace with each other because... we had a 6 year age gap. Completely different life stages. I have a feeling if we both were a lot older, it would have worked out. Literally nothing else was wrong with us.

Now, that was with me being the Venus (and Ascendant-see below) person. I'll be honest, as a Capricorn moon, I'm curious about how it would be if I meet a Capricorn venus romantically. I wonder how that would play out all the time, and I think I'll let that remain a mystery until it happens, then I'll hopefully still be blogging then and come back and tell yall about that too. THAT BEING SAID... I do have this aspect (as the moon person this time) with a platonic Capricorn venus friend I had for nearly 13 years. We would literally be in each other's houses (and hair and business lol) all the time. We had yearly festivals we always went to together, talked almost everyday, knew how each other was feeling before the other one would even say anything. Mopped each other up off the floor when going through shit. She punched a guy I was dating who cheated on me, and I introduced her to a mutual friend who I thought she might like to date, and then cussed the hell out of him when he didn't pull his weight like I thought he would. Things like that.

The friendship ended nearly 7 years ago but I miss her every day. I remember what happened, but in hindsight, it seems so foolish now and I miss her every single day. We would have been friends for 20 years by now and I don't have a lot of regrets in life, but that is one of them. She hurt me but I handled it so poorly both before and after she reached out to talk that it just destroyed the entire foundation of our friendship. I haven't even tried to get over it because I don't want to. To me, that would be just disrespectful, I feel like it's something I need to carry with me as a reminder to do better next time. I'm sure you see by now that this is a quite an intense and dynamic placement!

Bonus Observation:

Moon Trine Ascendant Synastry

If someone with their moon conjunct your venus ALSO has their moon trine your ascendant, WHEW that is hot. Not only will the emotional connection be strong, but they will find everything about you on the outside just as enticing as the inside.

They genuinely enjoy the way you express yourself and can have a lot of patience for any shenanigans you might get up to. These people will watch you from across a crowded room all evening and suddenly appear by your side just before you leave to tell you they think you're attractive and want to get to know the rest of you beneath the surface. And it's rarely ever creepy. They'll know just how to approach you. I've had this synastry aspect a few times and it's always been like that. Genuinely charming. Perfect rizz.

This kind of synastry, as I said earlier, will leave you in absolute shambles if things don't work out, especially if you don't encounter this synastry often in your connections. Personally, I'd consider this one of those aspects where one or both of you can feel like the other was a soulmate, or "the one that got away," and end up being celibate or single (if romantic), or becoming asocial (if platonic) for a long time after splitting up. That or cycling through a series of awful relationship and friendship rebounds in an attempt to find them in another person.

Not too much on me for this, but there's a country song by Colt Fold that I'd loved for half a decade now called 4 Lane Gone. I'm sure there are other songs out there that would capture this better, but this is the one that stuck with me.

Something about the way this artist captures the feeling. Wistful, you can tell dude is acting strong, but knows damn well a good thing just got royally fucked up. Maybe I'm just melodramatic (I'm water dominant after all), but have a listen and see if you get what I'm talking about.

Idk. From my experiences with these aspects (been lucky enough to experience it with more than one person), I'd say it gives a pretty good idea of how either side could feel when it ends. Probably more so the Moon person, though, as they're likely to react like this to either a) being the one to end the relationship prematurely and regret it, or b) being blindsided by the Venus/Ascendant person up and leaving, and taking so long to process and recover from the shock, that by the time they chase after them...they're...well...four lanes gone. Lol.

Lyrics

[Verse 1]

Been raining for three days

On the fast track to the highway

Trying to save a little time

Lord I never should have tried

Taking this back road shortcut

Now I’m way stuck, so sunk

I’ll never catch her now

So I just put the tailgate down

She’s probably somewhere doing 95

I got nothing but this cooler and time

[Chorus]

I cracked one waiting on a ride

Two or three just to pass the time

While she’s headed to a new town

And I’m too lost to be found

She probably thinks that I don’t care

Stuck in the rut in the middle of nowhere

And just my luck I’ll be here all night long

Man, I’m bummed out back road buzzed

And she’s four lane gone

Yeah she’s four lane gone

[Verse 2]

Every empty beer can makes me

Miss her like hell, man I can kick myself

For the place and the shape I’m in holding me back

Yeah my wheels keep on spinning

And she’s ticked off blacktop fast

[Chorus] x 1

[Bridge]

While I’m stuck here all alone

With a midnight natty light

One more chance I’ve blown

[Chorus] x 1

[Outro]

I’m out here all alone

Yeah she’s four lane gone

She’s four lane, four lane gone

Yeah she’s four lane gone

She’s four lane gone

[heavyhitterheaux]

Meet Me At the Atlar Part 2

AN: The time has finally come!

Synopsis: You have to deal with the aftermath of learning that your fiancé has cheated on you with your older sister and has apparently gotten her pregnant

Pairing: Joe Burrow x Reader

Read Part 1 first

Joe Burrow Masterlist

Please Do Not Repost My Content Anywhere

You felt as if you were in the Twilight Zone with what you had just heard Marlene say when there was a collective gasp that filled the room.

All you did was turn around to look at her to see her staring right back at you and not backing down. Both of your parents looked at the two of you in confusion.

"You are literally nothing but a two faced bitch and I hope that nothing good comes to you for the rest of your life." You softly said while shaking your head in disbelief.

"Well it's not my fault he wanted me!" She shrugged and you could tell that she didn't really care about your feelings. She got what she wanted and that was to your surprise your fiancé and a baby.

"You're an adult and you are just as responsible for your actions as he is. So do me a favor, never speak to me again in your life. And as for you…" You started to say as you turned around to face Joe and simply shook your head in disbelief as all of the guests had their eyes on the two of you but not for the reason that you wanted.

You slipped off your engagement ring and played with it in your hands.

"I'm just going to pawn this seeing as there will be absolutely no reason for me to wear it again. Consider this over."

"Y/N, wait a minute! I can explain!" Joe exclaimed while trying to grab your hand, but you quickly snatched it away from him.

"God forgive me. I am in the lord's house about to curse again but HOW CAN YOU EXPLAIN FUCKING MY OLDER SISTER AND GETTING HER PREGNANT AT THE SAME TIME AS ME? HOW?! HOW DOES THAT WORK? PLEASE EXPLAIN THAT TO ME SO THAT I UNDERSTAND."

"I-...."

"Exactly."

All you did was shake your head as you picked up your dress to make a run for it back down the aisle as Camille, Alex, and Raina ran behind you leaving everyone else standing there.

You could hear Joe yelling for you as well as both of your parents, but you just couldn't bring yourself to speak to any of them.

Once you were outside, you were trying to catch your breath in between the tears that began to roll down your face. Camille along with Alex and Raina stood there comforting you as all three of them brought you into a hug.

"I know, let it out." Alex said as she soothingly rubbed your back as you let out a hiccup.

"But come on, I don't want anyone to see you like this." Raina suggested as she already knew that Joe was more than likely making his way outside to find you.

All three of them led you to the limo that was supposed to take you and Joe to the reception and simply told the driver to take all of you back to the hotel. Camille crawled in behind you but before she did, she threw your bouquet on the ground seeing as you didn't need it anymore.

All of you simply rode around in silence before anyone said anything.

"What do you need us to do? What are you thinking right now?" Raina asked as she played with the hem of her dress.

"That I need to get the fuck out of here." You answered as you started to massage your temples.

"Well where do you want to go?"

"A place where I can lay low for the rest of my pregnancy because I want nothing to do with him and nothing to do with her either."

"Oh, I have an idea. My parents vacation house in Denver. No one will look for you there." Camille piped up and said.

"Will they be okay with me staying there?"

"Girl, considering the circumstances without a doubt. They love you and will probably want to kill him when they find out about this because you already know people can't keep their mouths shut."

"I need to go to the hotel and get out of this dress and grab clothes."

"And then we're going to the airport."

"But…"

"We need to at least make sure you get there safely. We'll stay with you for a few weeks and then come back home. There is no way in hell we are letting you out of our sight in the emotional state that you're in. When we get there we'll find an OB/GYN that takes your insurance and get you set up with everything that you need. Your kid is going to be just fine because they have you for a mother. And I will make sure he doesn't find you, so we'll start by getting you a new phone when we get there. And I'm blocking him because I know for a fact he's going to ask me where you are."

"I just… Marlene. I looked up to her and wanted to be just like her all for her to go behind my back when I get a little bit of happiness. I always supported her through every single break up, when she dropped out of college, totaling our father's car, and that's not even half of it. As far as I'm concerned, I don't have a sister anymore."

"Yes you do have a sister. You have us. And we're going to support you through this. You don't need him and truth be told you never did. You've always been amazing in your own right."

Once back at the hotel, you got up to your room and slipped off your dress with the tears still cascading down your face. The clothes that you packed were not appropriate for Denver's weather, but all that could be resolved once you got there and you simply slipped on a Bengals hoodie with one of your black shirts underneath along with some sweatpants before sliding on your shoes.

When you were finished packing up all of your things, your wedding dress was still laid out on the bed and you simply stared at it.

The two of you were supposed to be having your first dance as a married couple at the reception right now, but instead you were about to disappear and pray and hope that he didn't find you.

You took one last look at it before deciding to leave it there on the bed.

You walked to Camille's room and knocked on the door and she answered it having all of her bags in tow too.

"You ready? Where's your dress?"

"I'm ready and I left it on the bed. I want nothing to do with him and besides he's the one who paid for it."

Camille stifled a laugh as she reached over to take your hand and tightly squeezed it.

"Come on, let's go. Hopefully there's a direct flight and we won't have to worry about layovers."

Luck was on your side because as soon as you got to the airport, there were a few direct flights to Denver that would be taking off in two hours or less.

Once settled with your tickets and going through TSA, all of you decided to find a Starbucks since you had been craving a caramel ribbon crunch with extra caramel. This entire time your phone had been going off and not once did you look at it knowing that it was probably Joe along with your parents and the rest of your family. You doubted that Marlene was one of them and you were praying and hoping that she wasn't.

When all of you got to your gate and were waiting to board, you pulled out your phone to find a string of messages and calls and most of them being from Joe which you weren't surprised by. However, there was one from Marlene and you quickly opened it.

Mar- I would tell you that I'm sorry, but the bottom line is that I'm not. He should be with me and not you. So go run along and cry in a corner like you always do when you don't get your way. That's all it seems like you're good for anyway. Can't wait to start my family with Joe and I'll send you pictures of the baby.

"That stupid ass bitch has some absolute nerve." You muttered and Camille quickly took your phone to see what you had been talking about.

"No the fuck she didn't." She said as she grabbed your phone and also showed Raina and Alex.

"Karma is a bitch and I can't wait until it comes for her. How dare she hurt her little sister like that? And you would do absolutely anything for her. I don't know how many times you've bent over backwards for her." Alex piped up and said while sipping on her chai latte.

"I'm just so happy and thankful that I have you three. I just…. I really thought he was the one."

"Well he didn't give you any reason not to think that he was! We were rooting for him! Insert Tyra Banks meme. Like you two are or were perfect for each other. Ever since he kept making eye contact with you at the game we all went to, I knew it was a done deal. We all knew it was just a matter of time before the two of you walked down the aisle. I'm so sorry that he didn't realize what he had in front of him."

"And he's never going to be able to get me back. I don't care what he does, my answer is always going to be no." You quietly said while trying not to cry. You were still so in shock about what just happened, and you did cry earlier but you had a feeling that tonight would be ten times worse and it would hit you like a ton of bricks.

After you had taken off back down the aisle with your bridesmaids following you, all eyes were then on Joe and Marlene.

Both of Joe's older brothers looked at him confused, but your mom was the first to speak.

"I…. Marlene…. How? How in the world did you think that this was okay? And Joseph, don't even get me started on you."

Your father was giving Joe the death glare and had to be held back by your uncles as he was heading straight towards Joe.

"You broke my youngest daughter's heart by going for my oldest? You asked for my permission to marry her and go and pull this shit? And Marlene, why am I not surprised? You can't see anyone be happy except for yourself."

"I…." Joe started to say but was immediately cut off by your dad.

"No explanation is about to save you because there is literally no excuse for this."

"I'm not apologizing because he wanted me instead. It was only a matter of time before he left her for me anyway."

"I was NEVER going to leave her for you and I don't know how many times I have to tell you that. Besides, I don't even know if that kid is mine! I know that Y/N's is!" Joe piped up while running a hand through his hair.

"I mean does it even matter at this point?" Jamie asked while looking at his younger brother.

"But…"

"I mean on the plus side Marlene is pregnant." Your Aunt Diandra said and your mother immediately rolled her eyes.

"You cannot be serious."

"I'm happy for her in that regard!"

"Do me a favor." Your father said as he approached Joe who could admit to himself how intimidated he was at the moment since your father was an ex-NFL player himself.

"Stay away from Y/N and you better consider yourself lucky if I even let you near my grandchild that she's carrying. And as for you Marlene, I taught you better and since you decided to break up what would have been a happy marriage, you can get out of my house until you can learn to show respect to your sister."

You had been in Denver for about three weeks and was settling in as best as you could. It didn't take long for you to find your own place, but it wouldn't be ready until the end of the month so you were still staying at Camille's parents house.

Your daughter was growing at a normal rate and you couldn't have been more excited for her to get here. However, there was one major problem.

Her father.

Headlines broke the next day about what happened between you and Joe and you had gone ghost. You had gotten a new phone and you only had a few numbers. Since you changed your number also, the only people that had your number were your parents, Camille, Alex, Raina, and both of Joe's brothers. You figured that you would at least give them updates to let them know that you were okay, but Joe didn't deserve that.

You were at the point where you didn't want him in the delivery room and quite frankly you didn't want him near you for the rest of your pregnancy. The last thing you needed was for her to sense that something was wrong with her mother and be under stress. You wanted for him to stay far away from you and her for that matter. However, you wanted your daughter to have a good relationship with him, despite what he had done to you.

She deserved to know him and have him in her life even if you didn't want him in yours. When it got closer to your due date, you had to make a decision if you actually wanted him there with you. If course one side of you is saying fuck him, while the other still has a soft spot and want to share that important moment with him.

Camille had just gotten back to Ohio the day before after making sure that you were okay even though she knew you weren't. Her heart broke every time the two of you talked and she could see it in your eyes how much of a struggle this was for you and for good reason.

She had been waiting for her Chinese take out order when she suddenly heard her doorbell ring. She quickly got up to answer it and immediately rolled her eyes when she saw who it was.

"You aren't my Chinese take out." She said while staring blankly at Joe.

"I…. Camille. I need to talk to her."

"Hmm, talk to who? Your fiancé that you betrayed? Do I have that right? What makes you think that you deserve to be anywhere near her?"

"Come on Camille, I know you know where she is."

"What makes you think that Burrow?"

"Because you're one of her best friends! Just… I need to talk to her! She's pregnant!"

"What you need to do is leave her the fuck alone. You weren’t concerned that she was pregnant when you were going around sticking your dick in places that it doesn't belong. You and Marlene can go fuck yourselves. I know exactly where she is and I'm not fucking telling you so get the hell off my doorstep."

"Just… is she safe?"

"What is it to you? She's good. That's all you need to know and as of right now you aren't allowed in the delivery room. Have a good night." Camille finished speaking as she slammed her front door in his face.

Once the door was closed, she immediately sent you a text.

Cami- Your baby daddy is looking for you

You- 🖕🏽🖕🏽🖕🏽

Cami- Lmaoooo he showed up on my doorstep and I promptly told him to fuck off

You- And that's why we're best friends. I love you for this so thank you.

Cami- You absolutely never have to thank me for protecting you. I got you for life, you know this 💕

You- Look at Baby Burrow's Godmother coming through!

Cami- Are you still giving her his last name? 👀

You- I'm on the fence about it to be honest

Cami- Well whatever you decide I'll support you 100%

You- 🥹

After another month and a half and a whole lot of delays, you were finally settled into your condo and currently folding up clothes in the nursery. Just the week before, your parents along with your best friends threw you a baby shower and loaded you up with anything and everything that you might need for her first year of life.

However, you also felt some type of way when you looked on instagram to see that your extended family threw Marlene a baby shower as well despite what she did to you. From the time that you could remember, you were always in her shadow and you never quite felt that you were good enough. They put Marlene on a pedestal no matter how many times that she might mess up while they acted as if you didn't exist. But Marlene used to never let that slide until she decided to be a backstabbing bitch.

But you knew that she was going to get hers in due time, and you couldn’t wait to see it unfold right before your eyes. If you had done your math right, you knew that her due date was coming up soon and wanted nothing to do with her or the baby.

Almost a week later, Marlene was trying to do anything and everything to get into contact with you as tears were streaming down her face as her newborn son cried hysterically in the background.

She messed up and she messed up big time.

She hurt the one person in the world that she knew would have her back through anything and had a feeling that you would never forgive her for the rest of both of your lives and for good reason.

She kept calling your new number that she had gotten from your mother's phone and it was steadily going to voice-mail.

It was the sixth time when she decided to finally leave you a message hoping that you would answer her.

"Y/N, baby girl. I am so so sorry. Please call me back so we can talk. I know I hurt you and I feel terrible about it. I hurt the one person that has always been there for me. I… I'm calling because I got the DNA results. Joe wouldn't take no for an answer to getting them and….. I get it as to why. Um, I said all that to say that the baby isn't his."

Taglist:

@hoodharlow

@nattinatalia

@a-moment-captured

@wickedfun9

@keiva1000

@dandelionwrites8

[hyenafu]

I know this might seem like a bit of a random question, but what are some criticisms of Slightly Damned you can't stand, and what are some you think are at least somewhat valid? I only ask because I do have a few problems with the comic (not really gonna go into here because I don't want to come off as too critical obviously) but I feel like some of the more noteworthy ones have been too long established to just change it altogether, and the best one can do is make something better from its foundation (which I must say, you've done a really good job at ^^)

The complaints that I think are the most unfair are by bigots who think my comic is only getting more inclusive because I'm pandering to wokeness or whatever. These people are also the most likely to misgender me and have no idea what they're talking about. They just can't stand the bare minimum of gay and are often hypocritical, using fallacies as the basis of their arguments. It's tempting to want to argue back, but when has that ever worked on the internet? I think the most valid complaint is that the pacing of the comic is too slow. Sure. Not much I can do about that one. My comic alone doesn't pay all my bills. If I focus exclusively on work, I get depressed, so I have to goof off sometimes. I'm just one person. I don't have a team. I'm doing the best I can already. Another valid complaint is that people don't like my blend of humor and drama. Sometimes readers find it inappropriate or jarring. It's valid because I recognize it as a difference of opinion and understand why they feel that way. But I don't care. I like my weird mix of goofy faces and drama. I sometimes make jokes during periods of great stress in real life. I love all the wacky faces and over-the-top cartoon action among dire circumstances in comics like One Piece and Usagi Yojimbo. Like, it's just my style, man I don't seek out unsolicited advice about my comic. Some people may think that's snobbish of me, but the truth is, very little of what you find that way is actually valuable.

"And as to those critics, she said that she’s managed to do something that might make us all better off- she doesn’t read the comment sections. In perhaps the most roundabout poignant part of the talk, she likened receiving feedback about her work as being like consuming food. She would take a pie from someone she knew and trusted but compared taking unsolicited barbs from strangers as “licking a handle on the subway.” She used to pay very close attention to that kind of critique because she felt that it somehow would make her a better creator but ultimately decided that it was only toxic." - I HAVE SEEN OLIVIA JAIMES, THE CARTOONIST BEHIND THE NEW NANCY, by Rocko Jerome (2018)

Besides the outright hateful sentiments, a lot of unsolicited criticism can be categorized as "I don't like this story because it didn't do what I wanted it to do." Which is fine. I do the same thing when I try to process stories and talk to my friends about them.

But I don't get in the author's face to tell them I think they did a bad job. At the end of the day, no matter how crap I think someone's story might be, I'm not psychic. I don't really know if they did exactly what they set out to do. For example, people have never stopped giving me crap about the death of certain characters. But their whining has only made my convictions stronger. I don't like when other stories don't take deaths seriously, with a real sense of permanence and grief that is not easily solved. To someone else, seeing that character be alive might have solved all sorts of problems they had-- but that's not my story. I've had someone tell me that the focus on Buwaro and Kieri's mushy romance is too distracting to the main story. I don't think that person knew that a large part of why I started making this comic in the first place was as a vehicle for my OTP. I also want to make said vehicle entertaining and worthwhile. If I didn't succeed for that person, that's fine. But don't tell me that half the reason I made the comic is distracting from it. What do they know about what I want? What do you really know about what the author wanted to achieve? That isn't to say that my comic is immune to scrutiny. Of course it has problems; every story has problems, depending on your perspective and the basis by which it's getting judged. I've solicited and received thoughtful criticism and helpful advice from teachers, my advisor, my friends, and from reading/watching tutorials. Some I agreed with, others I chose to ignore. Sometimes it just took a while for me to come around. I hope I never stop learning and improving. Like you said, I have to keep working with the foundation I already set. But I don't feel trapped by it; my creativity is being challenged in new ways. I have a lot of playing pieces and now I get to see what kinds of connections I can make between them with my older, more experienced (both good and bad) mind. Since Slightly Damned is a story serialized over a long period of time, a certain amount of it is made up as I go along. I do have plans and goals, of course, but I'm also discovering this world alongside my readers.

[mins-fins]

daydream — [ huang renjun — 엔시티. ]

where huang renjun knows exactly what he wants.. he just can't say it | now playing ✯

walking out on his unwanted date is surely rich, but renjun has much more important things to worry about.

leaves crunch under his shoes as he nears the familiar bus stop, lips pursued and hands remarked by the sandal of his bag. if they're bruised red, he'll worry about that later.

he stops by the mini entrance, the sky shrouded in darkness, seems the stars have receded tonight. he leans against the cold metal, smile neutral. "um.. hey".

you glance up instantly, the freezing wind brushing past you two making your hair lift in a manner reminiscent of a slow motion movie shot. it's cute. "you just get off work?"

your nod is slow. "yeah".

he scratches at the side of his arm, anxiety creeping up behind him like a surprise. "can i join you?"

your smile is a beautiful response, and you scoot over to make space for him, your shoulders lightly brushing against each other as he sits. the smoke from your cigarette continues wafting into the air, but you don't take another hit. "no good night kiss?" you begin, tease on the tip of your tongue.

renjun has half a mind to chuckle at that one, his eyes flitting in another direction. "no" he shakes his head, eye roll barely visible. "too busy judging his strange meal choices.."

you snort at the reply, a snort that gets a laugh out of renjun, you find that much funnier than you probably should've. "okay, if you want good tempura, i know this great soba place you should try".

renjun again laughs, his smile full of pure euphoria. shit, he doesn't remember the last time he smiled so hard. "i'll keep that in mind".

a small silence settles between you two, renjun entertaining himself by reading the labels on the nearby pole. another smile again blossoms onto his features, the street lamp cascading over you makes you appear almost angelic in a sense. "i don't remember the last time i've laughed so hard.." he places a hand on his knee.

you glance his way, and he continues: "it's been a while since i've been able to.. just be myself".

your smile is inviting and renjun simply snickers at his circumstances. "and how long have i been dating these assholes? trying to give love a shot".

the touch of your shoulder is a comforting sense, and you simply suck your teeth. "i get what you mean, he wasn't your thing anyway".

renjun's shoulders raise in amusement. "don't even know what my thing is anymore".

you nudge him lightly, an action that passes as an affectionate gesture. "hey i never got.. uh— your name, your real name" you chuckle in between terms. "you know i'm always calling people mr that or mrs this".

renjun finds his giggles endless tonight. "renjun".

your eyebrow raises, cigarette still tucked between your fingertips. "renjun?.. um, benevolent?"

he clears his throat. "it also means kind or handsome".

you hum, taking another hit of your cigarette as you blow the smoke out between your lips. "that checks out.."

his eyes can't exactly widen subtly, and you catch sight of it, because your both quick to burst into resounding laughter. "it's— it's a beautiful name is what i mean!" you hide your mouth behind your hand, but renjun's smile doesn't falter.

his snickers continue for a few seconds, and while it seems impossible, he manages to avoid eye contact. "thank you.. um, uh— i'm sorry, what's your name?"

you chuckle before even beginning your reply. "y/n".

renjun knows, he already knows, he's read your name tag more times than he can count. he's heard your hoard of coworkers shout it more times than he can count, each time his eyes trail you leaving your shift at the restaurant, he can't help but feel the taste of your name on the tip of his tongue.

he stares down at the ground for a few seconds, pressing his feet together. "have you always noticed me?"

maybe he's getting cocky, but maybe he also just wants it. renjun can't exactly put it into words, but he so badly wants to know. your nod is so reassuring he smiles before you even utter a reply. "yeah, yeah i always do".

renjun straightens up in his seat. "i'm sure you meet tons of people per day i shouldn't exactly stand out—"

"well you aren't exactly hard to miss".

in a sea of faces, you choose to remember his.

"do you take the bus here?" is his next choice of inquiry, hands gripping at his sides.

"yep, every single day".

renjun bites at his inner cheek. "you don't have to wait her—"

"i want to" he's quick to respond, keeping his hands at his sides.

you place your own into your lap, just barely biting back your smile as silence drifts again. "i'm starving" you opt to state, fingers gripping at the sides of your jacket.

now it's renjun's turn to nudge you. "maybe you can show me that soba place".

it's an offer that's much too enticing for you to turn down, and your smile simply grows wider. "sure".

and yeah, maybe two dates in the same night isn't exactly the way to go, but there's a difference, huang renjun is 100% sure he wants you.

[fiddles-ifs]

[ID: A banner-style graphic featuring a coyote's open mouth on a dark black background. Orange all-caps text near the bottom of the image reads: "happy birthday Greenwarden." /end ID]

Happy birthday to my firstborn problem!! I'm trying really hard to not think about how long it's actually been, but to celebrate Greenwarden being mysteriously old I'm posting a former Patreon snippet! I'm also announcing that 1) I quit me day job, and 2) I'm going to be compiling a bunch of Greenwarden shorts that would have gone up on Patreon if I had kept it up. More on that to come when I get all my ducks in a line.

GRAVEROBBING AND NECROMANCY FOR DUMMIES

Marianna & Tracker. 16+. Grimdark Fantasy AU. Scofiddle Pepper Rating: Bell Pepper.

Content Warnings: Blood, minor wounds, implied mind-control, mentions of death.

Mausoleums always have a certain smell — mold, mildew, cracking damp stone. The decay of rock and mortar, but never flesh. The sarcophagi are tightly sealed with both wards and wax, partially to keep the smell at bay. No air, nor Light, nor hands will ever creep inside them. The Silent Mercies do their grim work and do it well, keeping them locked up tight. Then they leave — that's the extent of their dues to the dead.

They can count themselves lucky. Corpses don't exactly make great company. Particularly when some of them are itching to come back.

You can't help but feel like there are eyes on you, your torch cutting through the dark, damp guts of the tomb. An intrusion. Indigestion. The violent, flickering orange light makes the shadows greasy. You'd use a magelight, but you're already dancing on the razor-thin line between bravery and stupidity; you don't want to risk waking something. Someone. 

They were people once, allegedly, but you know what pride morphs people into.

Particularly powerful necromancers resist even the cleansing fire of holy Light, their sentience existing in each molecule of ash, slowly piecing themself back together with sheer will and hate. It may take hundreds — maybe thousands — of years, but eventually they will come back. So, the Temple does what it can. The liches are bound, still conscious, and placed in a sarcophagus. The sarcophagus is sealed — with prayer, with wax, with chains and locks both physical and magical — and a mausoleum built around it. The Silent Mercies make their rounds indefinitely, strengthening the wards and installing ever more complex locks. Hundreds of years turn into thousands.

The hopeful end result is a stark raving mad lich warlock that will, if all goes well, blissfully prefer the judgment of the Light before they suffer one more second of silent, unmoving, stagnant solitude. Time and again the methods of the Temple are proven effective. Terrifying, and effective. Most choose to vacate their own bodies than live in the dark for an undetermined amount of time. Unable to move. Unable to see. Slowly withering away, mummifying, rotting in your own skin. Whatever you’re going to find will not be human anymore – if it was ever human in the first place.

You cross the dusty, time-ravaged stone floor to the sarcophagus at the far end of the room. It's a short walk. Mausoleums are traditionally small, most especially the ones outside of temples, reserved for the vilest of the old guard, the lichkings who dared to try and defy death. Beings that rejected humanity, even rejected immolation, and should not under any circumstances be within spitting distance of a residential area.

Zoning laws: the bane of all undead tyrants. 

There's only one — which is nerve-wracking. It sits placidly on a raised dais set with small, half-melted candles, as if it’s waiting for you. A frozen slime trail of old wax meanders down the dais, caught in time. The thrum of magic tickles your fingertips. Brushing, like a cat would, up against your palms and skittering up your arms. Both a beckoning and a warning. Temptation.

It's wrong. A singular coffin is like finding a singular roach. Not wholly uncommon, but it sets your teeth on edge. 

It means one of two things: either the Temple managed to burn the master’s undead servants, even the stubborn ones. Or, worse – they’re afraid of what it might do with nearby corpses, even sealed away.

Your arms itch. You set your torch in a conveniently placed wall sconce and start working to get your mind off things.

The Temple of Light may not like to admit it, but what they do is magic. The prayers wielded by their paladins and clerics are incantations; the talismans created by their monks are charms, woven out of somewhat less mathematically inclined sigils. Magic. They hang and burn people for it in the streets, but it keeps their mausoleums tightly locked and their church in power.

Like any spell, a prayer can be broken with a little bit of reverse engineering. And you are very good at breaking things.

Maybe it's the uniqueness of your situation, or maybe you were just created with something special, but seeing the patterns in the weave and weft of magic comes second nature to you. Almost like a physical thing. A golden projection of arcane artistry.

It's a complicated spell; the Woodsman lived hundreds of years ago, long enough that even its very name was forgotten. The ward is centuries of layers, each one getting more and more complex as the Silent Mercies learned what incantations and motions were most effective at keeping the dead at bay. Trails of cold, melted wax dripping down time. A beautiful puzzle, just for you. You're always half-giddy, knowing that you may very well be the only one who can truly see the work, the history behind it, and that you might be the only one smart enough not just to break it to pieces, but coax it open.

Enough. You need to be fast.

Your forehead tenses, brows knit as you start reversing half a millennia of spellcraft. Delicately, slowly, you work out the motions, but in reverse. A twist of your hand, fingers curled, your arm moving in hypnotic diamonds and stars and spirals. Shapes designed to trap and contain. The fingers on your other hand open and close in the same fractal rhythm half a canto ahead, parsing out the right steps in the dance before you walk the dancefloor.  You're a conductor, ripping carefully crafted sheet music to shreds. The torch flickers.

There's no sound but your own short, elated huff of laughter when your hand slides into place at the ward's terminus. Deep in your hindbrain, a lock falls open with a satisfying click!

“Don't move.” 

Oh. That's a sword — you feel the tip of it caressing the nape of your neck. Slowly, carefully, you raise your hands to the sides of your head. You’re unarmed, and thankful you have gloves on.

“Turn around.” 

It’s not like you have room to argue.

You’re face-to-face with the tip of a shiny, well-polished blade. The silver coating makes your back teeth itch. You feel it vibrating, still coming down, hypersensitive to atomic changes in the air. You’re also face-to-chest with an extraordinarily tall cleric in their classic white and gold armor. An immediate, violent chill settles into your spine.

She’s hard-faced, hair cut bluntly short; she gives you the impression that her only expression is scowl. You prepare yourself to fire and run. It’ll set your research back months – maybe even a year – but you’ll live.

“Explain yourself.” You’re taken aback by that – you do a quick three-point look around the room and with your head and then spread your hands out a little further.

“I mean,” you say, “I think we both know I’m not supposed to be here.”

She doesn’t like that. Her hands choke a little tighter around her sword grip, leather squealing and platemail clicking as she shifts even deeper into a fighting stance. The sword gets a little closer to your face. A sweat breaks out between your shoulder blades.

“You’re a mage.”

“And you’re a cleric.” Impasse. Stand off. Stare down. Neither of you are willing to make the first move – maybe she’s hoping for a peaceful resolution. That you’ll go gracefully to the stake.

Fat chance, but something changes when she opens her mouth to reply.

You don’t like the look that falls over the cleric’s face – wide eyed, eyebrows to the hairline, mouth half-open. The blood leaving her face. The slight tremble in her steady hands. Fear.

Slowly, you twist your neck to look behind you.

The Woodsman’s coffin is open – a deep, yawning blackness slides out of it, liquid trapped inside thin film. On the coattails of the light-drinking sludge, a skeletal hand slides, damn near leisurely, out of the sarcophagus. What follows is a horror of ancient science. Half human, half… something else.

The antlers crown its head, but the head is canine, deep pinpoints of light inside empty sockets. Mummified skin knits across bone, thin as paper and patchy in places. Its teeth are bare to the world and yellowed with centuries. You watch the slick, black flesh form an amorphous mass beneath the skull, the arms nothing but bone haphazardly slapped onto an overgorged slug.

You were hoping it wasn’t in there – everything you’ve learned told you it had probably vacated its body years ago. There had been no activity for so long – no plague of nightmares, no major possessions, no strange activity in the flora and fauna  – and yet. The Woodsman slithers out of its unlocked tomb on a tide of melted void-flesh, rises on it until it has to bend, its shoulders scraping the ceiling of the mausoleum. It opens its mouth wide – skin and gristle clinging to its jaw in loose strings – and shrieks.

It’s shrill and piercing. You’re concussed, briefly, slapping your hands over your ears. You feel it – in your head. Scraping the inside of your skull, dark wordless whispers in your hindbrain. It knows you. It sees you. It’s in your head.

The cleric pushes you behind her, nearly to the door in the tiny mausoleum. You’re confused – still concussed. You don’t run.

“Go!” She shouts, swinging and hacking at the growing sea of rotting flesh. She swings too wide – the silver-steel scrapes against the walls of the mausoleum and sparks. The Woodsman just keeps growing. One by one, the candles and torch are swallowed whole. A deep, endless black. A tidal wave of nothing. 

You’re not about to argue. You turn tail and run out the door.

Two steps past the tomb, you stumble to a stop. A quick, hard-breathing glance behind you lets you know that the cleric already isn’t doing well. She’s fighting like an animal, punching what she can’t cut. Every slice is swallowed up by more reeling, lightless flesh. You still feel the Woodsman’s scritching little claws, furrows in your soft, pliant brain. Every iota of you recoils away from it. But that cleric – she let you go. 

You look down at your hands. The dark leather gloves, fingertips worn, the edges frayed.

Shaking, you slip them off your hands and leave them in the grass.

You grab the back of the cleric’s breastplate and yank her back into fresh air, swapping places in one smooth transition. You don’t know what she sees. If she notices the dark, blue-black corrupted skin of your hands or the bright runes squirming over your arms while you reach deep in yourself for something destructive. The bands around your wrists and throat mark you as a Thing – something broken loose. The Woodsman tugs at your tattered ghost leash with an interested spiritual hand, head cocked. Your programming demands you kneel for consumption, and your knees twitch before you get yourself back under control. You almost see a wink of recognition.

Little homunculus, the Woodsman whispers, curling around the base of your skull like a cat, so far from home.

“Shut up,” you say, and light up the room.

The Temple of Light has claimed the lichkings reject holy fire and immolation – they just haven’t tried something hot enough. Your fire is pure destruction, white with heat, blinding against the greasy black corruption sludge coating the walls. The Woodsman shrieks – pain, rage, confusion. Spikes of pain explode behind your eyes, and you burn them away too.

You wade through the muck, scorching it all to ash, beating the Woodsman back until it tries to seek refuge again in its sarcophagus, huddling in the pit. A child taking refuge in a cellar.  Curled at the back of a cell. Useless, useless.

You reach out with a flame-licked hand and clamp down hard on its muzzle.

“Shut up,” you hiss, and watch fire make cracks in its skull. It rakes your arms with bony claws, opening bloody gashes in your flesh. The blood sizzles and evaporates almost instantly. 

The Woodsman’s head explodes with a loud crack, bone shards ripping through the skin of your cheek. The rest of it goes limp in a heap. What’s left, you turn to coal dust, just in case. When you’re done, all that’s left of the Woodsman is a greasy soot stain coating the floor, walls, and ceiling. It’s a little gruesome. Reminds you uncomfortably of blood.

You coax the flames back in, lower and lower, wobbling with exhaustion, until a comfortable, warm dark swallows you. There’s light in it – ambient, soft reflections of the moon outside. The sarcophagus is a welcome resting spot, using its high lip to stay half-standing. Even then, you see little spots in your vision, the edges going blurry. A few drops of blood slide out of your nose and splatter on the ground. Your ears are ringing.

“You’ve got red on you.” You jump.

The cleric is standing there, wiping blood and slime off her face. One of her eyes is nearly glued shut, an open wound on her brow pouring red down her cheek and under her collar. You give her a once-over before you weakly tilt your chin up.

“So do you,” you say. She nods – holds out her hand.

“Marianna.”

Cautiously, you cross the floor on shaky legs to take it, and give her your name. The one you picked for yourself – it feels nice. To introduce yourself, for once. She almost crushes your hand. You’re comparatively weak.

“You saved my life, mage,” Marianna says. You grin with a mouthful of bloody teeth, an acknowledgement.

Then, your body finally gives up. You’re blissfully unconscious before you hit the ground.

[jojotichakorn]

i started penning a post about how i always find it narratively unsatisfying when an arc ends with a conclusion the following arc breaks, regardless of how realistic the repetition of the same mistake might be, which is still true, but i actually want to talk about something else right now.

i feel like, at least at this stage, jack is in a position that is both generally unrealistic and untrue to the specific events of the series. 'jack and joker' has a clear focus on poverty and money and class issues, but it seems to treat jack in a very special way. he somehow manages to stand on the moral high ground above other characters. specifically, other poor characters. which is, first of all, a little ridiculous, since he was indeed a debt collector and, in fact, almost became the boss's son. and, second of all, is generally Not Great, because it does idolise the idea that if you "just try hard enough", you won't "allow" yourself to be backed into a corner and therefore won't have to do bad things.

now, don't get me wrong, i am not saying that our characters who have made mistakes are completely blameless. tattoo did shitty things (and hoy followed suit), safe did shitty things, hope frankly admitted to enjoying doing shitty things. however, if we zoom out a little, we will see that all these characters are in a situation that is inherently unfair to them. we have all of these poor people in immense amounts of debt and then we have this disgusting rich motherfucker whose entire wealth is literally based on making their lives as miserable and unfair as they are. and i think that, in this particular case, the series would have actually benefited from a dichotomy. don't get me wrong, i'm usually absolutely brimming with nuance and also asking "what lies outside of it?" but this shall be my exception. (though you could say that joke already brings some nuance to it - he is initially from a well-off family and he actively makes choices to the benefit of poor people, despite it resulting in him being ostracised from said family and its riches).

jack walks the line of being poor and managing not to do anything "too bad" like he is a fucking circus performer on a wire. and, don't get me wrong, he is genuinely a selfless character. he makes choices that a lot of other characters in the same circumstances wouldn't make. he remains in debt and continues working for the boss because he keeps trying to help people and pay off their debts first - that is admirable. however, he himself was already set up for more success than others. sure, being forced to become a debt collector isn't a walk in the park, but most other debtors didn't even have that choice. jack has to work for the boss in order to stay afloat - that is an undeniably hard task. the other people the boss collects debts from, however, have to come up with a lot of money out of thin air - that is not simply a hard task, that is an impossible one that is designed to trap them in the cycle of doing this impossible task forever. that being said, ultimately, jack is still poor. his own hamster wheel should be somewhere around the corner, that's always the case. this idea is where i wish they would have taken jack's arc.

from the moment when he refused to marry rose, there was no escape for him. finally, much like our other poor characters, he found himself stuck between a rock and a hard place. (and i think that it's very thematically appropriate for jack's particular "i can't do this anymore, i deserve to live a full life" sentiment to be connected to love, since he is, after all, a lead of a romance drama). he made the decision to say "no" and from that point on, he was completely and utterly fucked. because, realistically, that conversation that he had with the boss after refusing rose was insane. i don't know what he would have done to jack exactly, if that was a genuine conversation and there was no exchange of jack's freedom for the ring, but it would not have been anything good.

so i wish jack had to make the actual tough call there, instead of having joke save him all on his own (and later take the fall for it). and if it was, at least in some capacity, jack's decision to steal that ring, he would finally be placed in a situation where every other poor character already inevitably found themselves in. because the entire system is rigged against all of them and they are eventually always forced to do things that they should have never even had to consider in the first place. but they deserve better than living a life set up for them by evil rich people who literally live off of their suffering and they are allowed - no, at some point they simply have no choice but to - fight for a better life.

this, in my opinion, would have been a much more powerful message and - not to circle back to my personal preferences - would have also not left us with joke making the very same mistake that we decided we should never make again at the end of the previous arc.

[mxtantrights]

no ordinary human

a/n: okay so after this, will be a final part. I didn't have any idea y'all would like it this much but thank you so much for the notes and the comments! fair warning since it's gonna end soon, buckle up because I wanna give you some angst. I hope you enjoy!

The wind feels good against your skin. You hadn't been able to just sit down and relax for a while now. And by a while you mean three years. That's how long you've been here for.

Three years of living in another place and longing for home.

Three years of several unanswered questions.

You lean your head back and close your eyes, holding your arms out. Work had been busy these past few weeks. And you haven't taken any time for yourself in between that and trying your best to understand your place here.

You don't notice that someone is behind you until they finally speak up.

"I hope you don't think you can fly."

You don't jump at the sound of another voice though. No, because you're technically still living in a nightmare. Not a lot can scare you anymore.

You turn around and find the source of the voice.

"Amren, I don't think I can fly." you answer.

"Good, because I have a question for you."

"Go ahead."

"Which one will you choose?" she asks.

You clear your throat. You know exactly what she's talking about. Or, you know who she's talking about. You've had this dilemma for more than a year now.

-

When Eris visited you for the second time, it was a few months after he first met you. He apologized and told you that he was trying his best to help you. You took it at face value and accepted it.

But you didn't, well you couldn't, forget that feeling deep inside of you. That he was lying but you still trusted him. Even though you didn't know him.

It's not until the third visit that you inquire a bit more about him. He seemed surprise that someone would ask about him. That someone would have questions for him.

He seemed to answer truthfully and politely. And he even ask your some questions of his own. Not that many, and they were merely basic ones.

But after that third visit he seemed to visit more often. Even if it was a quick drop in to ask how you were doing. He showed up almost every Seven days to see you. Even though he had not progress on getting you back home.

The two of you fell into a routine. Sometimes he'd bring little trinkets. Other times he'd teach you something about the current world you're living in.

It was something delicate between the two of you. You'd be a bit mad to say that you didn't find him attractive when you first met him. But that feeling only grew the more you spent time with him. He was infectious.

Sometimes he would smile and you would think that he never done it before. That he's not used to it, but he does so indoor presence which makes you feel special.

-

"Well, who says I even have to make a choice? Maybe none of them think of me that way. After all I'm just an ordinary human." you say.

Amren scoffs, "No you're not an ordinary human. And these aren't normal circumstances."

"Even if I agreed with you, for a moment, they were my friends first. I wouldn't want to ruin that."

"Azriel liked you from the moment he saw you, he just didn't want to say anything."

That stuns you. Amren takes in the look on your face and you try your best to reign it in. But you can't and she can't help but to laugh at you.

"Oh between the little things he does and how he speaks to you, you didn't put it together?" she asks you.

-

For three years Azriel has been a sort of unspoken calm in your world. From the moment you met him and he helped to get you out of Beron's hold. Of course you didn't trust him, or any of them, for the first four months.

But at some point you did. And it wasn't because of some nice gesture or fancy gift, though they did all try those routes. Azriel was the only one to realize what you needed without asking. Space.

It wasn't until one night you woke up from the worst nightmare you ever had since arriving in their world, that he denied you your space. You were clawing at your skin and screaming in your sleep.

He had jumped in, waited for you to wake up and calmed you down from there. You never had a nightmare after that.

Azriel worked his way into your life unconsciously. Whenever Amren couldn't train you, he would. And he wouldn't hold back either. No matter how many times you told him that you were still human.

Somewhere along the lines you became friends. He'd hangout with you once or twice a week, work schedule permitting. And he would invite you to family dinners sometimes.

When you decided to move out and get a place on your own he was the first one to support you and help you find a place. He helped you move and even offered to stay a couple of nights with you if you wanted another soul in the house to talk to.

He visited the most out of everyone. Always dropping by, always around to talk.

Azriel and you didn't get too deep. You didn't have to, really. It was like the two of you understood each other. The gaps of silence between the two of you were never awkward, they were welcomed.

-

"Why wouldn't you tell me this before?!" you ask incredulously.

Amren rolls her eyes, "You're not a child. Neither are they. And anyways there are other circumstances that you don't know about."

"What other circumstances are there? "

Amren sighs.

"I really think you should talk to the two of them about this." she answers.

"You brought it up!" you say.

"I know, because it was pestering me. But now I realized I opened a box that wasn't mine." she replies.

"Are they here?" you ask.

She nods her head, "Yes. In the ballroom talking to each other. Which is a sight in itself."

You clear your throat, trying to muster the courage needed for what is bound to come next. And you walk out of the terrace. You bid Amren a goodbye as you step inside.

Almost as if they're waiting for you, the both of them stand by the front door. They turn to face you when you enter the room. You try to not let the nerves over take you as you walk over to them.

Once you're in their vicinity, you speak. Or you're going to, but they both beat you to it.

"We need to speak to you." they say a the same time.

Eris opens the front door and beckons your forward. You say nothing as you walk through the door. As you walk and walk down the long hallway to your old room, you can hear their footsteps behind you.

It takes a few more moments before all three of you are in a room. You take a seat on the bed and look at the both of them before you. The both of them look like they are trying to figure out who is going to speak first.

The shadowinger crosses his arms over his chest.

"I do have to confess something to you." Azriel says.

Your eyes go wide. You wonder if he was okay with just confessing his feelings in front of Eris. Surely he knows that you and Eris are tiptoeing a not so friendly line too.

"The reason why I come around more than the others, it's because your'e different. I haven't met anyone like you and the feelings I have for you are not what I'm used to." he continues.

You nod along, "You have feelings for me?"

"Yes. That's what I'm saying." he agrees.

Your eyes flutter over to Eris, who doesn't look shocked at all. You're a bit confused.

"And you?" you ask him.

He smirks, "I have feelings for you too. A bit different than what he feels, some might say stronger-"

Azriel nudges Eris. The red head lets out a breath.

"But I haven't been forthcoming to you, since we've met." he says.

"about your feelings?" you ask.

"We didn't meet for the first time in this room. We met earlier, when you first got here." Eris answers your question.

You stand from your seat.

"You met me when I got taken?"

"No, after. When you ended up in the autumn court. I took you in." Eris confesses.

"No you didn't, I would remember-" you cut yourself off.

You remember having that conversation with him a while ago. How he has certain powers. Mind tricks. All certain things he can do to person's mind. Especially to a human mind, untrained and fragile.

"You knew your father had me and you did nothing?" you whisper, mostly to yourself.

Eris steps forward but you hold out your hand. The flash of hurt that crosses his face is palpable. You don't like seeing him hurt but after hearing what he just said, and all that comes with it, you can't find it in yourself to stop it.

"I couldn't go against him, I told you that I have plans to remove him." he tries to explain.

You nod sourly, "And why let a silly human girl get in the way of those plans."

"I don't think that." Eris tries to correct you.

But you can't get another question out of your head. You look at Azriel and he's looking at your already. Face stoic. No emotion behind his eyes. He just confessed to having feelings for you but he looks so different right now.

"You knew." you say to him.

He nods once, "I did."

"And you said nothing."

"It wasn't my place-" he starts.

"Oh my god! I can't believe this, I just fell for it. I actually fell for two people who lied to my face every single day. Since I landed here I've been a pawn and I still am."

"You're not-" Eris starts.

"I am! I still am. Why did you even tell me any of this tonight?" you ask out of breath.

Eris looks over at Azriel. The shadowsinger uncrosses his arms from his chest. They both look at you then.

"We think there is a way to send you home."

[cripplecharacters]

My girlfriend is writing a story that, after meeting me and hearing my experiences, she realized was about a (fantastical) disability and she decided to intentionally lean into that. As someone with a (real) disability, I have been a sort of beta reader to make sure that she is using her work to amplify stories rather than talk over them - she's been doing a great job on her own, largely in part because she's been asking me the right questions before writing scenes.

However, yesterday she made a post asking for help with the event that caused this fantastical disability, because the most logical cause is something big and flashy, while she wanted it to be something kinda mundane. In her own words, "most disabilities don't have flashy origin stories, they come from everyday things."

In reading the replies to this post, it came to my attention that people who have inorganic internal parts - pacemakers, replacement hips, etc. - would not survive the flashpoint. This felt wrong to me, but not because of how gruesome the image was, but because the overwhelming majority of people who have such parts are disabled. Everyone affected by the event is disabled thereafter, but a large swath of what I've been referring to her as "pre-disabilities" just wouldn't exist.

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't necessarily find this to be a bad thing per se. It's background details and the actual story is going to take place almost two decades later. It's worldbuilding that might not even see print, depending on how important that detail is to the story.

My issue is that, as she is writing a story intended to help talk about disability, it feels problematic to kill off a significant portion of pre-disabled characters in the background. I've brought this up to her and she does agree it sucks, the issue she has is that scientifically, it is more realistic.

I bring this question to you guys because the two of us are unsure how exactly to proceed. Do we just ignore internal inorganics entirely and let those with them survive even if it's not realistic? Is it okay to let them die for the story? Is there some middle-ground option that isn't coming to either of us?

(I can provide more detail if need be about the story.)

Hello

Basically, you have to be willing to use some Hail Mary complete and utter random caveat that you add in after the fact to keep a bunch of people from dying.

I don't know exactly how this "flashpoint" works but let's say it deactivates technology. Maybe things like a pacemaker, which is embedded inside of a human, can't be affected because the flashpoint couldn't affect it through the layer of biological matter. Maybe you make this a futuristic where all internal implants are made using biochemical engineering because, I don't know, maybe that gives them a longer life in the human body. Maybe the flashpoint is basically a giant magic put hey, lucky us, internal disability devices aren't made of magnetic metals, or maybe, again, they're made of modified biological tissue.

Basically, you need to completely bs it. It doesn't matter how realistic it is, the flashpoint is fake but disabled readers are real. You can do anything, it's your story, so if you want the disabled people to live, you can create a caveat that would let them live. And no one can say "that wouldn't work" because yeah, it would, because you said it would work in a world that you have complete and utter control of.

Don't be afraid to grasp at straws.

Mod Aaron

Thank you for your ask! Please don’t have people killed for having a specific disability! It’s hard to give more information without knowing what the ‘flashpoint’ is, but you could have the event target metals that aren’t used in humans if that’s the issue. You could also make the event something that wouldn’t target a specific group of people, you don’t have to change the whole story, just the side effects of the event. As mod Aaron said above, it’s your story and anything can go, so please don’t put an unnecessary mass extinction event.

I’d also say killing off a specific minority group for a story, whether or not the story is about that group, is a bad thing. People with implants should be allowed to see themselves in fantastical stories and not be told that they’d just be dead so don’t bother. As you said this happens in the background, this side effect isn’t integral to the story, so why add it? The readers are already suspending disbelief that this event happened in the book, so why not let them suspend disbelief that people with implants won’t be killed in this story?

Have a good day!

Mod Rot

[ghouly-boiiiii]

Hey, y'all! Sorry I haven't been around much this month. I've been dealing with some personal stuff, but I'm working on the last chapter of My Name Is Cooper and it should be ready to post soon!

On another note, I've been watching a lot of Fallout lore videos lately and it's been really fascinating! (Spoilers for Fallout 1, New Vegas and the show ahead!) Even though I've been playing the games for years, there's a lot I didn't know. Like the story of The Master / Richard Grey in Fallout 1. First off, what a design! He's gotta be one of the most grotesque and horrifying character designs and concepts in any video game I've seen. And all the different voices. It's chilling! I didn't know the original Fallout game was so disturbing. And I love it! Also, I've just always loved the look of these old games. I used to love Baldur's Gate 2, which Interplay also worked on (or rather a division of it), so it's kinda nostalgic looking at the old Fallout graphics, which are very similar. Very cool! I might have to give it a playthrough some day!

Second, I found it interesting how the show kind of takes things from the games and mirrors them. Like it's not the same characters or circumstances, but the themes remain the same. For example, in the show, Vault-Tec's solution to end war is to eliminate everyone else so that they are the only faction left. Which is exactly what The Master tried to do as well, but with super mutants. I think it's pretty cool how they went full circle, using this recurring theme, (because they aren't the only two factions with this philosophy either in the lore) pulling that idea from the very first game and working it into the show as one of Vault-Tec's primary motivations.

I also found out that Bethesda brought back many of the original creators for New Vegas, so it makes a lot of sense why people say it's the best Fallout! I'm currently playing through New Vegas on my YouTube channel. (I have one full video and a bunch of shorts, but I took a break because, well, I became a little Ghoul obsessed, hehe. But now that I'm almost done with my first fic, I'm gonna start doing more videos again!) So come check it out if you want! I kinda spoiled some things for myself when it comes to Mr. House, but it's also made me want to play the game even more! Also, with the second season apparently taking place in New Vegas, it's basically a necessity at this point!

And! I have also discovered yet more instances of Ghoul / Human relationships in the Fallout universe. If I remember correctly (I can't remember the specific video now, and it would take forever to go back and find it, so bear with me lol) there's a female ghoul prostitute your character can sleep with in New Vegas. And also a ghoul named Gob in Fallout 3 (whom I vaguely remember from way back when I played it, but forgot his story) who appears to be in a secret relationship with a woman he works with, who is also a prostitute (but not a ghoul lol).

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO yes, Ghoulcy is absolutely %100 on brand for Fallout. People be fuckin' ghouls all over the place. So if Fallout's gonna have a romance of any kind, it's gonna be with the hot ghoul character and his narrative foil, y'all. Yup. That's just how it is. It's canon peeps, case closed!

[hikari-hellspawn]

ART COMMISSIONS OPEN! FINANCIAL HELP DESPERATELY NEEDED!

The title is what it says on the tin; I'm opening up art commissions, because after my next paycheck I don't know how much I'll be getting after that, or how much, and I'm desperate for work and some kind off income because I am literally in danger of losing a place to live. I need need NEED income if I want to continue to, well, live.

My Ko-Fi

My deviantART

NOTICE: I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO REJECT ANY COMMISSIONS THAT I DEEM INAPPROPRIATE. THIS INCLUDES ART CONTAINING HATE SPEECH/HOMOPHOBIA/TRANSPHOBIA/APHOBIA/RACISM/BIGOTRY/ANTISEMITISM/ETC.

How do I pay you? I take payments via my Ko-fi or PayPal (h.m.reed@mail.com), half before I start the sketch and the other half on delivery. That is set in stone; I will not accept any kind of cryptocurrency or things like Amazon or Walmart gift cards as payment. None of those can be used to pay rent, and paying rent is exactly what I need.

Do you do NSFW? Not at present; I'm not comfortable drawing NSFW content, though doing shirtless and swimsuits are fine. However I won't draw sex, and I won't draw straight-up full-frontal nudity.

Do you do furries/anthros? I'm not gonna lie, I don't have much experience drawing anthros--THAT BEING SAID, if you want to commission me to draw an anthro character or your fursona, it's definitely on the table and I'll do my danged best--even if it takes a bit longer than non-furry/anthro characters.

Do you draw mecha? I...have zero experience drawing mecha. Do I like mecha anime? Yes (Evangelion my beloved). So this is a soft no on my part, purely because of my own lack of skill with the subject matter.

Do you draw horror and/or gore? Hard no. Not simply because I can't draw said gore (which I can't, same reasons as the mecha explanation above), but because it's another one of those things that I'm not 100% comfortable drawing at the moment.

^HOWEVER, this question comes with a caveat: I will draw eldritch horror. Y'know, eyes where they don't belong, tentacles, pulsating masses, bodies that're just...weird? Those are fun. So, negotiable, but keep in mind that if you want slasher-type stuff that ain't my jam.

Will you send me progress pics? YES. At every stage of the process, I'll both scan the image and take photos to make sure that what I'm working on is the direction you want to go.

What about reference images? If you have references you want to provide, whether they're drawn by you, someone else, google image search, etc, then I'd appreciate it so I have an idea of what your character looks like. Written descriptions are also fine if you don't have any visuals--basically, if you know what your character looks like and you have some way to communicate that to me in a way that puts us both on the same page, we're good.

Can I use your art as an NFT? NO. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WILL I ACCEPT A COMMISSION TO CREATE NFTS, IF THAT IS THE REASON YOU WANT TO COMMISSION ME THEN GO FIND SOMEONE ELSE.

Can I use your art to train an AI algorithm? NO. AI art is the reason why artists like myself are being pushed out of work; if you're only commissioning me to get hold of some works so that you can train an algorithm to make more based on my style, then you don't actually want to buy art; you're just looking for some excuse to screw yet another artist over.

If I don't have the money right now, can I just pay you the full amount later? While I understand the desire to buy art but not having the funds, the whole reason I'm opening commissions is because I don't have enough money to survive. Paying me half now and half upon completion is non-negotiable, because I can assure you my need to be able to make rent and feed the Fuzzballs (aka the cats, please ask me about them I will go total Maes Hughes on them because they are PERFECT) is as strong as yours to make sure your expenses are covered as well.

Are the prices negotiable? To an extent, though the prices you see in the image above are the minimum; I won't go lower than these.

I want something that isn't listed on here/I have an unusual request, can you do it? That is something we'd have to negotiate, but it's not off the table. I do some weirdo drawings for myself in my free time (I've graced several servers I'm in on discord with the little wonders known as Eyeshrooms, no I will not elaborate here), so I can do other weird stuff too (as long as it's SFW).

Do you have more art examples I can look at? Yes! I have a deviantART page, though due to the company's own exploitative and artist-harming features they've rolled out, I've been working on glazing everything in my gallery there (if you haven't heard of Glaze and Nightshade, they're both really cool and you ought to check them out, seriously I really really really want to start using them both on my art SO BAD but I CAN'T) and migrating to Inkblot and Cara.app. Once I have links to both of those, I'll add them to the post!

You said traditional art...can you do digital? No, unfortunately; I don't have a device powerful enough to run a good art program (not for a lack of trying; attempts at experimenting with Krita have only resulted in it crashing the laptop I've been using, which is bad because it isn't even mine), nor do I have the funds to be able to get one--and I don't know when, or if, that'll happen. This circles back to the initial problem; I don't have the funds to pay for what I need to survive, which means I literally cannot afford to save for a new, more powerful laptop for myself. As it is, I've been borrowing my roommate's laptop for everything I need to do that requires the use of a computer, as mine died back in 2020 and I haven't been able to scrape together enough to even get a bare-bones basic one myself.

If there are any other questions you need me to answer, then please please PLEASE send them to me in a DM here and I'll do my best to answer them! And please, I'm begging you, I'm begging you so much, even if you don't buy something please spread this around I need the income desperately. I'm not lying when I say that my ability to continue living is in danger, I literally do not know if I'll even be able to pay my rent next month. I need every penny I can get, just to be able to have a chance of surviving, and what determines if I can keep a roof over mine and the cats' heads and if we're out on the street with nowhere to go is very much determined by if I can get commission work. So even if you can't buy anything, or only get a headshot or two, please spread the word. Reblog this. Share it in tweets. Post the link to this post on Facebook, link it on Discord, if you have friends who are looking to commission art tell them because I'm desperate and terrified that I might not have a place to live come October. I'm begging, please, I need the help. I need the help more than I can put into words. I don't want to die.

(Also big shoutout to @nomnomroko for putting together the commission sheet, thank you so much!)

[accidentally-in-fictional-love]

🤔🦉🌶️ please <3

Sugar and Spice - Spicy Jack Delroy Headcanons

Warnings: Gender-neutral reader, exhibition/voyeur tendencies

Notes: Tried to have a nap, couldn't hack it, back up again for more writing :3c Tried to keep these just on the cusp of NSFW so the smut emoji has more weight to it, but these are indeed a bit spicy hehe they're all reader-coded so I hope that's okay, thank you so much for the request, I had a lot of fun with these ones 😏💗💗💗

loving Jack Delroy is like loving two people at once: the charismatic TV show host who smiles for the cameras, and the real him who only shows himself when all the cameras are gone

he's so engrained into being a showman that even when you're alone with him it feels like a performance, but not in the way that makes you think he's presenting a false self, more like he can't help but constantly tell you everything you want to hear; this mainly comes out when the lights are down and his hands are on you, his voice low as he reads your every cue and promises you everything you want him to do to you

as such, his dirty talk is top notch, always guaranteed to send heat exactly where he wants it once he's made up his mind to make you come undone

he loves to show you off, your arm always entwined with his own when you're out in public so everyone knows that you're his, the proof of that in every paper

you have your own designated seat in the front row of Night Owls, and while he's perfectly fine while the cameras are on him, being that close but unable to touch you while the commercials are running and everyone's eyes are off him often leads to him stealing you away with a smile to the nearest hidden corner

his dressing room is a constant place to sneak away to before and after his shows, so much so that you've started hiding spare clothes and supplies in the back of the topmost drawer just out of sight

sometimes he likes to leave the door unlocked, just so he can hold you down and keep you keening as people walk around just outside, the threat of Leo or Gus walking in and seeing how he couldn't wait to get you home only heightening every touch

he loves being able to please you, his favourite position being between your thighs as you mess up his perfectly combed hair and wrinkle his pristinely ironed suits

he craves your attention at all times unless he's seriously working, needing to be near you and make contact in some way even if it's just your legs draped over his as he makes business calls on the couch

for as much as he loves to see your reactions to his promises, he thrives on your praise even more, your whispers of how wonderful he is, how good he makes you feel, so weak to it that you have to be careful what you say when you're around other people

while he prefers to gently hold you and cover you in kisses wherever he can reach until you're a blushing mess, he also loves it when his soft kisses get you too hot under the collar until you become desperate for more

he loves to put on shows for you, from slowly and methodically stripping as you watch to make you want him, to touching himself while you're kept at bay until he's ready to let you do whatever you want to him, your eyes on him his favourite and most potent aphrodisiac

his kisses often taste like whiskey and cigarettes, the strengths of which actually able to tell you when he's stressed, but you telling him he's doing a good job and buttering him up until he's putty in your hands can be a good remedy

for as easy as he can control you just with that devilish mouth on your neck, he's surprisingly easy to control right back, liking when he can drop all pretense and worship you whenever you feel the desire to ask

while he tries not to show it, he can be very jealous and possessive under the right circumstances, and seeing you with anyone else can get him to speak louder, gain everyone's attention so he can be the only one focusing on you, his hand finding its place on your hip and holding you close

he loves being able to mark you up with lovebites, and while they're mostly kept out of sight so you don't have to overdress, he instantly goes weak when you wear them with pride on your neck, no makeup to cover them up from the world

he's teased you before with the idea of using a camera in the bedroom, but for the most part he just takes photos of you to decorate his private office at home with to your embarrassment (you not-so-secretly love to indulge him though)

he loves using petnames with you, using sweet ones in public and coded ones for when he wants to let you know he needs you, but there's only one he uses when it's just the two of you at home, wrapped in each other's arms

due to his days in radio and now TV training him well, he's very composed whenever things start to get steamy, so if you can push his buttons in all the right ways and make him lose that composure, babble nonsense and groan into your ear due to how badly he wants you, you know you're seeing his truest self