#i had to start writing down these little bits of character development that i do for gen 4 so that I don't forget and can build on it

[for-stories-maybe]

So, this idea hasn't left me for *looking at the clock* at least four weeks. This is my first post of this kind and length, so bear with me for a bit, I need to get this out of my head so someone can write fanfic about it if I never get to reaction/animation. (Disclaimer. I've only been in Xianxia recently, and I know even less about China and traditions, so feel free to point out if I'm messing up somewhere)

Crossovers are fun, aren't they? I've been stuck on genshin for 3 years now and I mix it with everything I can get my hands on. Of course, having become familiar with svsss, my brain could not miss the opportunity.

I present to your attention!

Archons (+Neuvillette) in SVSSS!

I will focus on one specific version of this idea, but if you want, I can make a post about different variations later.

The point is simple and obvious, the 7 Archons + Focalors and Neuvillette enter the world of SVSSS during the childhood of the Qing generation, about 10-15 years before Luo Binghe was born (I'm not sure if the exact age of the characters has ever been mentioned, so this is my best guess). Isekai could be the fault of the System, but I like the idea that the Archons fix the plot without even knowing it exists too much.

At first, everyone is shocked and confused (Furina and Neuvi are crying, hugging Focalors), but after searching around, making sure that they are no longer in Teyvat (Celestia's absence in the sky is very obvious) and that they have no idea how to return home, the Archons decide to do the next logical thing – to adjust, settle down and spend a more thorough investigation.

Zhongli becomes an unspoken guide: the setting, culture, people, and even the language of this place are very reminiscent of Liyue from about 1,000 to 2,000 years ago. The Archons change their names, pick up clothes, Zhongli and Nahida (and Venti) teach the others the Liyue (Chinese) language, and they look for ways to earn money. This is where an interesting aspect of this world is revealed – cultivation. Upon arrival, the Archons noticed that something had changed in them - the developed abilities to perceive and use qi and everything that follows from this.

The principles of cultivation existed and were practiced in Liyue, but were not as widespread or accessible, few achieved immortality in this way, it is easier to obtain Vision. Right now, only the exorcist clans are doing this.

So, yes, their new bodies, in addition to the slightly altered appearance, received a certain level of cultivation. I'm a little lame at this, but from what I've understood, the following turns out: Venti, Zhongli, and Raiden have a Spirit Transformation stage, Nahida, Focalors, and Neuvillette have a Nascent soul, Mavuika has a Core Formation, and Furina either also has a Formation or a Foundation. We don't have much information about the Tsaritsa yet, but let's assume that either the Core Formation or the Nascent soul. Without much choice (Nevillett is definitely annoyed that he doesn't have as high level as the three Archons), they continue to develop their level. + they all have a strong affinity with their own element.

Before we move on to the plot snacks, let's quickly go over what our transmigrators decided to do after they settled down a bit:

Venti (Tian Ling) is still the same drunken bard, wandering between towns and villages, singing songs and playing music for food and alcohol. He also listens to the wind, which whispers gossip to him from all over the world. Later, he started playing pranks on arrogant Immortals, as well as collecting dirt on important people cough Old Palace Master cough.

(Long) Zhongli – oh, that old man doesn't sit around. He has the most useful knowledge (because of the similarity of cultures) and he is a jack of all trades (interest in the life of his people has been affecting over the past few thousand years). It was Zhongli who started the business that brought them considerable profits and reputation – jewelry business. Morax has the "Earth Sense", which, in addition to sensing everything that steps on the ground around him for many kilometers, gives him knowledge of the exact location of various ore deposits and mines. Get jade, gold, and so on? Not a question. Do you want variety? Handicrafts made of wood and clay sell well among low-income citizens. At first they were traveling merchants, then they settled in some city/settlement, and when they started picking up homeless children, a small sect was formed.

Raiden Ei (Lei Jianshou) is a wandering cultivator at its purest. When her fellow Archons don't need her help, she just roams the country, taking orders for monsters. There are few things that can really challenge her (I was thinking, but how often in this case did Ei come across one of the many, MANY aphrodisiac poisons? If she were still controlling the puppet (it just got itself a qi system), would all this not affect her? Oh, what a potential!). Raiden also occasionally visits the demon world, probably causing a stir there and disappearing without a trace~

Nahida (Ye Zhi) – oh, this little girl is HUNGRY for knowledge about the new world. She spends most of her time in Zhongli's company helping him with their business, Venti tells her world gossip, Furina sometimes takes her to concerts. Others often bring her books or get admission to various libraries of noble people/clans for her. She is also the one who mainly looks after the orphans they are gradually recruiting.

Furina (Shui Zhuying) – this girl wants to promote Art! She often teams up with Venti and sometimes Mavuika for her music shows. She mixes the styles of Fontaine and China (Liyue), even accidentally at first, and then intentionally influences fashion and trends.

Focalors (Shui Zhuqian) – of course, she helps Furina with her performances and preparations, but she akts more like Nahida: she helps with business, looks after children, collects knowledge. She also often engages in diplomacy, along with Zhongli, Neuvillette, and Mavuika.

Nevillette (Shui Jiaoban) – he mostly travels with Furina, to protect her. He watches people, reads books. He is looking for everything about the laws of this place and other intelligent species besides humans.

Mavuika (Huo Guozhan) is like Raiden, she spends most of her time Hunting, sometimes performs with Venti and Furina, and also trains children.

The Tsaritsa (Yin Lian) mostly travels, especially in the demon world, and tries to spend less time in the company of other Archons.

(I was thinking of adding "character sheets" here, but this post is already taking too long to create, I can make separate posts later.)

So, the foundation has been laid, now we can talk about the plot.

First of all, the Shen brothers! There are many options, but let's focus on the fact that Shen Yuan (transmigrant) the eldest, and Shen Jiu is the youngest with a difference of a year. Yue Qi and Shen brothers were orphans on the streets and later slaves. SY had health problems, and although SJ was younger, he took on the role of a "responsible" brother, taking care of the elder's well-being, so that his too kind and naive Yuan-ge would not be deceived by evil adults.

But in the end they are separated. Shen Jiu is sent to the Qiu Manor, and Shen Yuan is later given to some wandering medical practitioner. Imagine the horror and grief when, after several visits, Qi-ge comes very sad and, having beaten the answers out of him, A-Jiu finds out that the wandering doctor has left the city with his Yuan-ge. They no longer know where Yuan-ge is or if he is even alive.

Oh, how it breaks little A-Jiu. Qi-ge then goes to the sect and promises that he will train, look for A-Yuan, and return for Xiao-Jiu to either reunite the brothers or continue searching together.

Shen Jiu has little hope, but he believes in his Qi-ge.

Meanwhile, Shen Yuan is not doing well.

Our unfortunate transmigrant ended up with some arrogant NPC villain who wants to achieve immortality through science, because he is complet zero in cultivation: no makings, no talents + a bunch of rejected attempts to get into the sect. He tests his experiments on child slaves, and also sells all sorts of concoctions to stupid rich people.

SY is a particularly profitable investment, because although he is sick in himself, his cultivation base (natural talent + attempts to meditate based on his knowledge from a previous life) supports him well, which means he is potentially more resilient and will survive more experiments than ordinary children.

So yes, he wanted to check it out, but it turned out to be sideways for him. The System is to blame for everything!! (By the way, does Shen Yuan have a System? The issue is under discussion)

So what's all this about? The sale of the Shen brothers takes place about 2 years after the arrival of the Archons in this world, and they get to know SY 2 more years later. Zhongli has already gained a good reputation, Archons have recently rebuilt several houses on neutral mountain as a base, but they are still mostly nomadic traders half the year. One day, they (Venti, Zhongli, and Nahida) arrived in the city to trade and decided to stop by the fair/market. Venti and Zhongli started quarreling as usual, Nahida was distracted for a minute and then bam! Some people grab her and drag her into an alley. It turns out that these slavers urgently needed a little girl, whom they almost immediately put in front of the doctor.

Nahida quickly understands what's going on, warns her Archon brothers ("I'm kinda kidnapped by slavslave traders here, which you probably be glad to deal with, but in the meantime I'll go with the doctor. He clearly has more children (learns from a conversation with him), which he experiments on.") and goes to the monster's lair. The doctor has an estate in the middle of nowhere so that he won't be disturbed and it will be harder for the slaves to escape. There, Nahida meets Shen Yuan (who quickly notices how strange this kid is).

SY is the (self-proclaimed) chief responsible in charge of the experimental child slaves, looking after them when he himself is not suffering from another fever, malaise or surgery. He tries to calm and make her comfortable (girl is completely calm), she asks him about the other slaves, and then Venti appears.

Tian Ling (Venti): Your problems with doctors are truly impressive, little radish. Did you really forget your apple for the day? Says a guy in aquamarine green robes, playing with that apple in his hands. How did he get here in the first place? Wait a minute… "Did this kid just make a reference to 'an apple a day keeps the doctor away'? What the hell, there was definitely no such saying in ancient China! Although in the novel from such a hack author-" Ye Zhi (Nahida): You're punctual as always, Ling-ge. A-Yuan and I were just discussing how to get the other kids out of here. Tian Ling (Venti): Yes, you're right. We need to hurry up before everything turns into a pancake. Shen Yuan: Excuse me?!

They actually manage to escape and take the child slaves with them, but at the last moment the doctor appears with a couple of henchmen. A fight ensues, in which SY manages to sacrifice himself to protect Nahida, Venti throws all the villains into the building and then…

A shiver runs down their spine as pressure builds up in the air around. High above the manor, a man stands on a sword, his brown robes fluttering in the wind, and even at this distance, Shen Yuan knows that the man's eyes sparkle with gold, promising retribution. "Show-off," Shen Yuan hears Ling-ge snorting to himself, and he would have easily agreed – this scene reminds him too much of a superhero action movie – if the sky hadn't abruptly darkened and a WHOLE FUCKING METEORITE hadn't crashed out of the thickening black clouds onto the damned doctor's estate! WHAT THE FUCK, AIRPLANE, WHERE DID YOU HIDE THIS OP CHARACTER??!!

Venti, Nahida and Zhongli take the sick children to their base (where Focalors spends most of her time), treat and take care of them. Shen Yuan is very confused about this strange group of NPCs who barely fit into the world of PIDW (except for Long Zhongli, he's like a native here), whether they're scams, but they're full of contradictory signals. (If SY has a System, then he remembers very well the prohibition on disclosing his transmigrant status, but on the other hand, how would the System… not recognize these people? Which is very strange.)

Shen Yuan soon tells the Archons that he has a brother whom he would very much like to save from the cruel Owners, but he only knows the surname of Qiu, not the location. It takes a couple of months to search (- a few more slave trading networks) and they find the Qiu mansion. Zhongli and Focalors come to Qiu with a desire to "buy" Shen Jiu, diplomatically threaten to inform the high ups about all the illegal affairs of this family (Venty found out), and the boy is quickly given to them (they inform anyway).

At the time of the rescue from Qiu, SJ is 13, SY is 14, and YQ is 15.

Shen Jiu, of course, is in terrible stress, quiet horror and caustic anger - exactly as long as he does not see Shen Yuan. His lively and healthy Yuan-ge, right there in front of him, smiles that warm smile and takes him into a safe and secure embrace. A-Jiu will definitely not let his Yuan-ge out of his sight in the coming weeks.

Depending on how much drama you want, Shen Brothers will go to Cang Qiong Sect in a year or later. The archons (mainly Zhongli, Nahida and Mavuika) gave them a base and knowledge, and given their potential in cultivation, they are eventually accepted despite their age. Shen Jiu goes to Qing Jing, Shen Yuan to the Beasts Peak. And either they reunite with Yue Qi before he drew his sword, or they join the sect shortly after he was locked up in the Lingxing caves, which is why it takes a whole year before they can meet. I have a dramatic scene for the second option)

Yue Qi runs straight from the caves to the Qiu manor, only to have them laugh in his face that the Jiu boys haven't been with them for a long time. Yue Qi leaves the manor with nothing, as if in a daze, he wanders away from the city, on the verge of qi deviation, his hands clenching his grip on the sword. His thoughts spiral, and the boy falls to his knees. So many years of work, sweat, blood and pain for one purpose, when Xiao Jiu had not been there for a long time. He didn't even manage to find a trace of Xiao Yuan. Qi-ge is really pathetic and useless. He failed his dear people, couldn't keep a single promise, didn't- "Aya, buddy, breathe deeper! At this rate, you'll suffocate before I can say 'apple'." Yue Qi blinked. A bright young voice like a spring breeze pulled him out of a spiral of dark thoughts. The young man managed to barely control his panicked breathing and look at the speaker. The man, even the boy, looked barely older than Yue Qi himself, in clean, bright turquoise robes, dark hair, and large green eyes full of worry and playfulness. Yue Qi averted his gaze and bowed his head. "This one apologize to Gongzi for the unworthy appearance. This one-" "Aya, don't do all this official stuff with me. Not a fan," the young man's eyes darkened. "Besides, there's nothing unworthy about feeling emotions. And considering the situation…" His throat tightened at the reminder, but now, with a clearer mind, the phrase aroused suspicion. "Does the young master know anything about the situation of this?" "Mmm, there's a little bit here and there," the young man plopped down on the ground in front of him, and Yue Qi almost recoiled from such careless and disrespectful behavior. "Name is Tian Ling, to friends just Venti, the bard carried by the wind. The wind speaks to me, and when it told me about my child's desperate plea, I couldn't ignore it." He grinned and leaned closer to the young cultivator. "We can't let Qi-ge do something stupid and reckless again, can we?" This time, Yue Qi couldn't help but shudder. His eyes widened in shock, disbelief, and a spark of hope as he stared into Tian Ling's kind eyes. Not happening. No one calls him Qi-ge except- "A-Jiu and A-Yuan have been waiting for you in Cang Qiong for a year now. Come back home, Qi ge."

(I'm not crying, it's just pollen) This is the main tie of the Shen brothers arc, the details can be specified separately. I tried to connect the Archons with as many canon characters as possible. For some, there are more ideas, for others there are fewer. For example:

As the main researchers in the group, Focalors and Nahida (although more than Nahida) could eventually start publishing some scientific reports (with rare cameos from other Archons, Neuvillette definitely has something to say about their legislation.) Focalors' topic is medicine, Nahida's – properties of various plants and animals. On the basis of one of the reports, they could have started a business and then a friendly correspondence with the young Mu Qingfang.

Liu Qingge could definitely cross paths with Raiden and Mavuika a lot on his night hunts. And fought them. Even purposefully tracking them down for revenge. Mavuika could give him a couple of lessons about teamwork and the power of friendship.

In later years, Yue Qingyuan could get to know Zhongli and Neuvillette (and Furina) at some official events.

The Tsaritsa saved baby-Mobey and has since plunged into demonic politics.

Getting to know Shang Qinghua would be fun. Imagine that he is on some kind of An Dean's mission as an apprentice and runs into Venti, who is singing a slightly reworked version of "Toss a coin to your Witcher" in the middle of the street. How many misunderstandings will there be until they figure out that, yes, they are transmigrators, but not from the same world?

Oh, Tianlan-jun is also an interesting topic. His love and interest in human culture is a good opportunity to make friends with Zhongli (a strong and wise man who nevertheless shares his admiration for humanity), Venti (a funny guy with a sense of humor and dirty songs) and Furina (a bright talented lady actress who promotes a "new" style of theater that It's very much to Tianlan-jun's taste.)

That seems to be all for now… Well, what do you think?

Masterpost

[fundielicious-simblr]

(Kyleigh's POV)

After the Celeste's wedding weekend I rushed back home to do loads of laundry and finish packing up the RV for our travels to my parents. It was such a blessing to have the family all back in town (barring Beckett and Mandy - though we did send a tonne of pictures and videos back and forth to make them feel included) for another family wedding. Zoe announced her pregnancy just before this loads of chatting about appointments and ultrasounds and kids clothes. We're headed to my parents for the christmas and new year period, so it's been heads down and focus mode on in preparation for travel. I've been to see my doctor and we had a scan for baby, all is looking good and I'll all set to see the doctor when we come back in a few weeks. Since we're planning to be gone for a bit longer than usual, I've gotten in contact with a doctor in Brindleton Bay that I can see in case I need anything while at my parents'. We've scheduled the work on the house to start in the spring once all the snow has melted, in the meantime we'll have an extended stay at my parents house before coming back to Newcrest and staying at the big house until the house is livable again.

No matter the state of the house, there's always going to be someone who needs a little extra special time every now and again. Violet has such an open heart and is getting better at expressing herself more and more, and one day she had a terrible down day that just wasn't letting up. She shared her heart with me and we had a bit of prayer time and that made her feel just right! Once she was feeling better she asked to feel the baby, the more pregnancies I have the bigger my bump gets earlier. All the kids love feeling their new brother and sister in my belly, though right now it's still too early to feel any movement.

We're currently on a homeschool break right now for the holiday season, but Rose still loves writing down notes. She's always writing something, be it letters to friends and family or her notes from sunday school. She's taken it upon herself to write letters to the senior citizens that we visit with our ministry to the retirement homes, she wants to personally wish every single one of them a Merry Christmas & a happy new year as she knows that not all of them have family to go visit during the holiday season. We're going to post all her letters before we go so that they can get them in time for christmas.

[dollgxtz]

A Dragon's Claim

Word Count: 10.9k

Tags: dragon!sylus x fem!reader, smut, cunnilingus, breeding, creampies, biting, slight injury, some bleeding, primal kink, courting rituals, mating rituals, sylus has two cocks :333

Summary: Sylus begins to act strange and you think he may have caught some sort of illness. He's strangely warm, irritable and eating more. However this "illness" turns out to be more intense than you could have ever imagined... (˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ )

"You're wrong," he murmurs, voice husky and edged with something raw. "You’re fertile. I can smell it on you." You freeze. His lips ghost just beneath your ear as he continues, tone smooth and reverent. "Your scent is different now—sweet, ripe, like fruit at the peak of bloom. The warmth of your skin, the rhythm of your pulse...your body sings to mine in ways you cannot hear. But I do." His hand tightens at your waist, possessive, anchoring you to him like you might drift away otherwise. The heat in his eyes is no longer just desire—it is intention, it is instinct honed over centuries, it is him answering a call your body didn’t even know it had made. "You're ready. Now," he growls, the final word laced with a quiet sort of reverence, as if he were speaking a truth ordained by something far older than either of you.

AN: Okay so, this fic was SO fun to write I may have gotten a little carried away hehe. This was a little bit out of my comfort zone but I am so happy with it!! Plus it was about time I did a oneshot for dragon!sylus. After what he went through he deserves as many babies as he wants ;(

Enjoy!!

Sylus had been unusually irritable lately, and it wasn’t just in the way he grunted or snapped when spoken to—it was in everything. His eyes seemed sharper, flicking around like he was constantly on edge, and his tail, which normally lay relaxed behind him, had developed a twitchy, agitated flick. He wasn’t acting like the level-headed fiend you’d come to know and love.

Even he seemed aware of the shift; there were moments he paused mid-sentence or mid-motion, as if catching himself acting out of character. When he returned to the cave after hunting, he couldn’t seem to keep still. He paced the stone floor in restless circles, ran his claws along the wall, muttered to himself under his breath. His whole body seemed to vibrate with pent-up energy, with something unspoken roiling beneath the surface.

His appetite had doubled, maybe even tripled. He devoured whatever meat, vegetables, or fruit he managed to scavenge or hunt for the both of you, sometimes not even bothering to sit down before tearing into it. He would eat so quickly it was like he hadn’t tasted food in days, and when he was done, he still looked unsatisfied. It was primal, instinctive, like something inside him was demanding more than he could give it.

And then there was the heat.

He’d started to feel noticeably warm to the touch, which was strange for a reptile. The first time you noticed it was when he brushed past you, and you flinched, startled by the heat radiating off his skin. Since then, it had only intensified. Whenever he hugged you, lingered too close, or let his fingers graze your arm, you felt it—his body running hot, almost feverish. It was unnerving. And his touches had changed too. They weren’t violent, but they carried a kind of hunger, an urgency that hadn’t been there before. He gripped a little tighter, held on a little longer. Like proximity alone wasn’t enough to settle whatever storm was brewing inside him.

It worried you terribly. Was he getting sick? Could dragons even get sick? The question gnawed at your thoughts, carving out little pits of anxiety in your chest no matter how often you tried to push it away. The heat that seemed to bleed from his skin, the sharp glint in his eyes that hadn’t been there before, the unpredictable mood swings and restlessness...it all felt off. Like something inside him had shifted, and you didn’t know if it was something natural or something dangerous. You'd never seen him like this. He wasn’t just irritable, he was volatile. Every movement held tension, like he was wound too tightly and one wrong word might snap him in two.

You knew better than to voice your concerns aloud. Suggesting he try any kind of human treatment would go over about as well as trying to leash a wildfire. He’d scoff, roll his eyes, and brush you off with a dismissive sigh. Sylus was proud, fiercely so. Stubborn as a stone wall, and not exactly someone who tolerated being fussed over. An illness? He'd laugh at the implication.

Still, you couldn’t just sit back and watch him burn from the inside out.

So the next time he finally dozed off—after hours of pacing, mumbling under his breath, and tossing scraps into the fire like they’d wronged him personally—you waited until his breathing evened out and his face slackened. He lay sprawled out on the nest of furs you’d both piled near the hearth, the orange firelight casting shadows across his angular features. One arm was thrown loosely over his chest, the other curled slightly beside him. His chest rose and fell in a rhythm that looked almost peaceful. Almost.

You moved with painstaking care, the cool, damp cloth in your hand trembling slightly from how tightly you gripped it. Your feet barely made a sound against the stone floor as you approached, every step deliberate. When you reached his side, you crouched slowly, heart hammering so loudly you were sure it might wake him before you even got the chance to touch him. You leaned in, gently pressing the rag to his brow, hoping the cold would cut through the heat pouring off of him like he was lit from within.

For a brief moment, you felt relief. He didn’t stir. Maybe, just maybe, he would sleep through this.

But then something shifted.

Without warning, a firm pressure clamped around your wrist. You gasped, flinching, and the rag slipped from your fingers. Your gaze dropped, heart stalling in your chest, as you realized his tail had slithered around your arm in one smooth, silent motion. Like it had a mind of its own.

His eyes snapped open a second later, glowing faintly in the dim light, red pupils slitted and sharp. He looked at you without blinking, like he’d known what you were sneaking up on him the entire time.

"And what exactly do you think you're doing?" he murmured, voice husky with sleep and something else—something darker. There was a flicker of amusement there, curling at the corners of his lips, but beneath it was something far more intense. Possessive. Primal. Like he wasn’t just waking up, but awakening to something deeper.

You swallowed hard, mouth suddenly dry. Your heart thundered against your ribs like it wanted to escape.

You opened your mouth to answer, but the words caught in your throat, stuck somewhere between nervousness, concern and something you couldn’t name.

"I'm helping you, silly. You're sick," you mumble, voice soft but threaded with a note of stubborn concern. Your lips purse, irritation flickering across your features as you glance down at the thick coil of his tail still looped possessively around your wrist. "Now let go of me," you add, trying to sound firm despite the tremor in your voice.

To your surprise, he does. The tension releases almost instantly, the pressure around your wrist vanishing as his tail retreats. You exhale a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding, rubbing at your skin where the warmth lingered.

"I am not unwell," he says after a pause, voice rich and steady, threaded with an unmistakable certainty. "Only mortals burn with fever."

You frown, eyebrows drawing together in quiet frustration. "Yeah, but... you've been acting really strange lately," you reply, your voice lowering, touched now with genuine worry. "You’re restless, snappy, and you never eat this much. I just...I want to make sure you’re okay. That you’re not hurting."

The confession slips out before you can think better of it. You stare at him for a moment longer, searching his unreadable expression for some crack, some tell that might confirm or deny what your instincts have been screaming.

And then you move, slow and tentative, inching closer to him as if drawn by an invisible force. When you rest your head lightly against his chest, you feel the heat radiating off him in waves, hotter now than it had been earlier. His body is solid beneath you, unmoving, as if he’s forgotten how to breathe. The sound of his heartbeat thuds against your ear, rapid and deep, like a distant drum.

You think, for a moment, that he might relax.

But he doesn’t.

Instead, his entire frame stiffens. There’s a flash of tension through his shoulders, and then his tail moves again—but not with the idle instinct of before. It wraps around your waist in a slow, deliberate spiral, the grip firm but not cruel. He lifts you effortlessly, his strength startling in its subtlety, and then plants you down several feet away from him.

You blink, stunned, arms still half outstretched in the air where you had been.

The new distance between you is not just physical. It feels like a chasm, sudden and inexplicable, heavy with all the things he won’t say. You sit in silence for a heartbeat too long, the echo of his rejection ringing in your chest like a hollow bell.

He avoids your gaze, eyes cast to the fire, jaw clenched tightly.

"Hey! You can't ju—" you begin, voice raised in disbelief, frustration bubbling over—but the look he gives you stops you dead in your tracks. It's not angry or loud, but it carries a quiet authority that slices through the air like a blade. His eyes flash with a warning, cold and unreadable.

"Silence, love. Sleep on the other side of the cave tonight," he says, each word deliberate, clipped. There is no room for negotiation in his tone. It’s final. Commanding. His eyes close again, as if your protest doesn’t deserve his attention. Like the matter is already settled in his mind.

The dismissal stings more than you expect.

It hits like a slap, raw and disorienting. You reel back a step, mouth parting slightly as you try to process the flood of emotion that crashes down on you all at once. Hurt. Confusion. Anger. They churn in your chest, thick and suffocating. What the hell? All you had done was try to help. You had stayed up, watched over him, worried yourself sick, and this was how he repaid you? By pushing you away like a child being told to go to their room?

Ugh. Stubborn. Always so impossibly, frustratingly stubborn.

Your jaw tightens as the ache behind your eyes starts to burn. He didn’t get to do this. Not after everything. If he thought you were just going to walk away, tuck yourself into the far corner of the cave like a scolded pet and let him suffer in silence, he clearly didn’t know you as well as he should.

Because humans don’t give up on the ones they love.

"Sylus!" you bark, louder this time, anger sharpening your voice. You stomp across the stone floor toward him, every step punctuated by the slap of your feet and the pounding of your heart. "You know I’m not doing that! I’m not going to just curl up in the corner like you didn’t just say that to me!"

He says nothing, but you can see his jaw twitch. That slow, deliberate breath leaves his nostrils again—heavy, controlled. Tired. Still, he doesn’t open his eyes. Doesn’t look at you. It’s like he's deliberately trying to sever whatever invisible thread connects the two of you.

You press your palms into your thighs, trying to ground yourself, fighting the overwhelming desire to scream. "What is wrong with you? Just talk to me! Look at me! Say anything!"

But all you receive is silence. Stubborn, infuriating silence.

Your fists tighten at your sides. The cold cavern air suddenly feels stifling.

Fine. You could be stubborn too.

Without thinking, you finish crossing the cave, heart pounding loud enough to drown out your better judgment. Every step echoes with stubborn purpose as you close the gap he created between you. You don't hesitate. You don’t ask. You simply act—climbing over him, swinging a leg across his large body, and settling yourself squarely atop his waist. The furs beneath you shift and rustle, but he doesn’t stop you. His brow furrows slightly, the only sign he even notices, but otherwise, he remains infuriatingly still.

Still silent. Still distant.

You lean down slowly, hands braced on either side of his torso, and fix your gaze on his face, searching for some flicker of emotion—anything to tell you he’s still there beneath the silence. The heat rolling off of him is overwhelming up close, like standing too near a smoldering hearth. It curls around you, prickling your skin, quickening your breath. The air feels thick, heavy with unspoken things.

"Sylus..." you murmur, your voice low, raw with feeling.

No response.

"Sylus! I know you can hear me!" you bark, sharper now, frustration rising with each second he continues to ignore you. Your heart twists painfully.

Still nothing.

You sigh, the sound long and defeated, your chest aching with the weight of his silence. Carefully, gently, you lower your forehead to his, hoping maybe the closeness will shake something loose. His skin burns beneath yours, unnaturally warm.

"I just want to know what’s wrong with you," you whisper, voice so quiet it nearly disappears in the cavern's stillness. "Guess your species are terrible communicators."

Still, he doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t open his eyes. But you feel it—something in him coiling tight, like a rope being pulled taut. He may be still, but he’s not unaffected. Something inside him is shifting, stirred by your proximity, your touch.

Acting on instinct and desperation, you close the small distance between your mouths and press a kiss to his lips. It’s meant to be fleeting, a soft reassurance. But it lingers. Longer than it should. Your lips stay, pressed gently to his, drawn in by the heat, the subtle shape of his mouth, the restraint that pulses beneath his immobility. Your eyes slip closed as your hands move—one cupping the side of his jaw, the other resting on his chest, feeling the erratic beat of his heart.

Then you feel it. A breath. Deeper. Shakier. His chest rises and falls faster.

And in a blink, the world flips.

One moment you’re above him, tethered by warmth and hope—the next, you’re on your back, the furs catching your fall as a gasp escapes you. "Ah!" The air leaves your lungs in a rush. Your eyes fly open to find him hovering above you, strong arms braced on either side of your head. His large body cages yours in completely, heat surrounding you like a second skin.

His eyes are open now. And they are glowing.

There is something feral in his expression—not cruel, but ancient and wild and hungry. His gaze drags across your face with a depth that makes your breath hitch. Every inch of him is tense, restrained, as if holding back something that wants very badly to be unleashed.

He still hasn’t spoken.

But he is no longer ignoring you.

"You're making it very difficult to control myself, love," he growls, his voice like gravel softened by heat, thick with restraint and something darker coiled beneath it. The words roll over your skin just moments before his lips do. His breath fans against your neck—a warning, a promise—before he dips his head, and you feel the sharp, precise puncture of his teeth sinking into your skin.

This isn’t a playful nip. This isn’t a teasing show of dominance. His bite breaks the surface, deliberate and deep. You feel the sharp pain bloom instantly, a white-hot flash that steals the breath from your lungs. A gasp escapes you—startled, raw—and your hands fly up to clutch at his shoulders. Your fingers dig into him as your back arches against the sensation. Warm blood trickles down your shoulder, and your skin tingles where it flows.

You weren’t unfamiliar with Sylus's biting. He'd always had a possessive streak that came through when things turned intimate or emotional. But this—this felt different. It felt desperate. Like he was trying to root himself in you. Like something inside him was slipping, and you were the only thing keeping him from losing his grip.

His mouth lingers at your neck, his lips now parted just slightly. You feel the tremor in his breath before his tongue slips out and glides across the bite. Slow. Deliberate. He licks away the blood he’d drawn, and the pain dulls under the hot, wet press of his mouth. In its place comes a deep, spiraling heat that blooms low in your belly, tightening your grip on him.

"S-Sylus..." you breathe, barely able to form the words. Your voice trembles. "If you were just...er, in need—you know I would've helped you ages ago."

Still, he doesn’t answer.

You feel the way his body stiffens slightly against you. His hand slides up along your side, slow and controlled, as though he’s still deciding what to do with the storm inside him. Then, he leans in again and presses his lips gently to your neck, just beside the wound. This time, the touch is less claiming and more conflicted—like he's trying to soothe something in himself rather than stake another claim.

He stays there for a long moment, breathing in the scent of your skin, your blood, your closeness. You feel the tremble in his chest where it presses against yours, the tension in his jaw, the way his fingers twitch as though resisting the urge to hold you tighter. The cavern feels impossibly still around you, as if the very walls are holding their breath.

At last, he lifts his head. His eyes meet yours, and for the first time tonight, he looks completely unguarded. They glow faintly, with a trace of something wild, but it’s the emotion in them that catches your breath—raw, aching, afraid.

"It's more than that," he says, his voice rough and frayed at the edges. Not defensive. Not ashamed. Just...honest. Like every word costs him more than he knows how to show.

You stare at him, heart hammering, throat tightening.

Oh no. It's bad news, isn't it?

The thought slams into you with the force of a crashing wave, stealing the air from your lungs. You blink rapidly, trying to keep your vision clear, but the sting in your eyes wins. Tears begin to well, hot and fast, blurring the edges of your world as your chest tightens with dread. Something in his voice, in the way he looked at you—it had to mean something terrible. Something irreversible.

"What is it? Please tell me you're okay!" you blurt out, your voice cracking and shaking as panic rises up your throat. Your hands cling tighter to him, desperate and trembling, fingers curling into the fabric of whatever covers his back. As if somehow, your grip could keep him from slipping away. As if love alone could hold back whatever awful truth he was about to reveal.

Sylus blinks, visibly startled by your sudden burst of emotion. The intensity in your voice clearly catches him off guard. His eyes, once glowing with wild tension, soften slightly. His expression shifts—no longer hard and guarded, but touched with a flicker of something else. Something gentler.

Wordlessly, he draws you closer. His arms wrap around you more securely, with purpose now. Not to restrain, but to reassure. His hands press to your back, his warmth enveloping you like a cocoon. His voice, when he finally speaks, is low and deliberate. A slow drag of velvet.

"No need to fret," he murmurs. "All is well."

You pull back just enough to look up at him, eyes wide, your breath caught halfway in your lungs. Your heart pounds in your ears. There’s a moment of suspended silence where you brace yourself for the real answer.

"It's just mating season."

You freeze. Your body goes still, and your mind... blanks.

Of all the explanations you had been preparing for—a curse, an ancient affliction, some kind of irreversible breakdown of his control—that had not even crossed your mind.

Mating season?

You blink once. Twice. And then the realization crashes over you, dragging with it a rush of relief and a sudden, absurd clarity. The heat, the irritability, the pacing, the biting, the overwhelming hunger—both physical and something deeper. It all made sense now. It fit together like puzzle pieces you hadn’t realized you were holding.

You let out a breathless huff, lips parting as the tension begins to unravel inside you.

And then you laugh.

A full, startled, ridiculous laugh bubbles up from your chest and bursts free before you can stop it. It catches you completely off guard, but you can’t hold it in. The absurdity of it all—the sheer contrast between what you imagined and what it actually was—breaks something loose in you.

You double over slightly, pressing your forehead into his collarbone as your shoulders shake with the sound. It’s laughter born of relief, disbelief, and the strange, heady rush of realizing everything isn’t falling apart.

Sylus stares down at you in silence, his eyes narrowing slightly. Clearly, he doesn’t find your reaction particularly amusing. If anything, his expression deepens into a look of resigned irritation, as if this wasn’t quite the response he expected.

But still, he doesn’t pull away. His arms stay around you, anchoring you to him, the heat of his body steady and real. His tail curls lightly around your leg, a quiet, instinctive motion. Protective. Possessive.

And despite the glare he levels at the top of your head, there’s no real venom behind it. He lets you laugh, lets you melt the fear from your chest with every shaky breath, until your voice begins to soften again.

Eventually, you lift your head, wiping at your eyes with the back of your hand.

"Is something humorous?" he asks, his voice low, edged with a faint note of offense, though there is no true malice behind it. His eyes narrow slightly as they study your face, as though trying to decipher the cause of your sudden laughter. But even in his quiet suspicion, his arms never loosen their hold around you. If anything, he draws you closer.

You shake your head quickly, the laughter dying in your throat as a rush of guilt creeps in. "Honestly, you had me scared" you say, your voice softening, breaking slightly at the end. "I really thought you were going to die on me."

That doesn't seem to ease him. He exhales through his nose in a deep, low grunt—not dismissive, but something closer to acknowledgment. The sound vibrates against your body, a warm, strange comfort. Then, with a fluid, instinctive movement, he adjusts your positions. His strength is effortless as he shifts, guiding you until you're lying beside him on the furs, your body drawn into his larger frame like a puzzle piece clicking into place.

His arm curls around your waist, securing you against his chest. It isn’t just for comfort—there is something possessive in the gesture, protective, as if he’s anchoring you there by will alone. The heat of him envelops you entirely, bleeding into your limbs until the cold stone floor feels like a distant memory.

"Does this mean..." you begin, your voice barely more than a whisper. But the thought drifts before it finishes, scattered like leaves on the wind. You have so many questions tumbling through your mind: What does this mean for him? For you? Is this temporary? Instinct? A sign of something deeper? But they all blur at the edges, softening under the pull of exhaustion.

Your body is finally registering the toll of the night. You had stayed up far too late, keeping vigil while Sylus paced, brooded, fought himself in silence. You hadn't let yourself rest until he did. Now, the weight of sleeplessness pulls at your limbs like gravity, and your eyelids feel impossibly heavy.

Outside, the first blush of morning glows gently. Sunlight begins to pour through the narrow cracks in the rock that serves as the cave’s natural door. The pale beams stretch across the stone floor like golden fingers, warming the air with soft radiance. The quiet sounds of the wilderness beyond stir faintly, muted by distance—birds beginning their morning calls, wind rustling through high branches.

Sylus doesn’t answer your unfinished thought. He merely presses closer, lowering his head to the crook of your neck. His breath fans across your skin in slow, even waves, and the low, rhythmic sound that rumbles from his chest is unmistakable. A purr. Deep and velvety. Content.

The sound settles into your bones, a vibration that eases the tightness from your shoulders and lulls the last frayed edges of fear from your heart. There is something incredibly grounding about it—like being cradled by the earth itself. One of his hands rests on your waist, fingers spread, as if silently promising that you are safe, that he will not let go.

You close your eyes, breathing in the scent of smoke and warmth and him. Despite the adrenaline, despite the questions that remain unanswered, your body begins to let go. Your thoughts drift. His purring fills the quiet like a lullaby spun from heat and breath and unspoken devotion.

Sleep takes you gently.

And you surrender to it, wrapped in Sylus’s arms, as the light of a new day filters through stone and silence alike.

As the days passed, you began to notice other, more subtle changes in Sylus's behavior—the kind of shifts that spoke not just of mood, but of instinct, of ritual. Of purpose.

It started gradually. At first, it was the gifts. Sylus had always brought you little trinkets here and there—a gleaming stone from a riverbed, a silver ring once forgotten in the ruins of some fallen estate, or a flower pressed flat and preserved between scraps of parchment. But now? Now he returned from his ventures with arms full of treasure.

You began to receive things that looked as though they had been pulled from the vaults of kings. Gemstones the size of your knuckles. Necklaces heavy with gold and set with fire-bright opals. Crowns, actual crowns, one with a missing jewel that he promised to "replace shortly." Delicate filigree bracelets and earrings of such craftsmanship that you wondered if they had come from the hands of mortals at all.

You accepted them, of course. How could you not? They dazzled the eye and stirred something deep within your chest—awe, gratitude, wonder. And then there was the way Sylus looked at you when you accepted each piece. The way he watched your reactions with quiet intensity, hunger and satisfaction warring in his gaze as your fingers traced the contours of every offered treasure.

"Is this suitable to your liking, beloved?" he would ask, voice a rich hum in your ear. There was always a thread of tension in his tone, a need that ran deeper than pride.

You’d smile and nod, sometimes laughing softly at the extravagance, sometimes whispering thanks as you leaned into his warmth. That always seemed to satisfy him. His shoulders would relax, his tail would curl in closer around you, and a low purr would rumble from deep in his chest.

And the gifts didn’t stop with jewels and gold.

His hunting habits changed too. Where once he had returned with modest catches—a brace of rabbits, a string of fish, the occasional deer—now he came back with trophies that left you reeling. Massive elk, towering wild boars with tusks the length of your forearm. Game that would feed you both for weeks. And then, one evening, he returned dragging behind him the largest bear you had ever seen.

Its massive body sprawled across the cave entrance like something out of legend. Thick fur matted with snow and blood, claws that could gouge stone. You stood frozen in the firelight, staring at it, unsure whether to marvel or panic.

Sylus merely stood beside it, chin slightly raised, one clawed hand resting on its flank like a proud hunter presenting a trophy.

"For you," he said simply, as if it were nothing.

You had blinked at him, stunned. "Sylus, I...I don’t even know how to cook that."

He grinned, utterly unbothered. "Then I will learn."

The gifts. The feasts. The constant nearness. The careful watching of your every reaction. You had thought it was simply Sylus being more open, more affectionate in the wake of your recent closeness.

You were trying not to overthink it. Truly, you were. Every part of you wanted to believe that all the changes were just instinct, affection taken to a slightly obsessive level. You’d chalked up the treasure hoarding, the feasts, the increased proximity, the way he hovered just a little too closely sometimes—all of it to simple fondness. Maybe even a primal form of love. But nothing could have prepared you for what awaited you after returning from a brisk walk one particularly chilly afternoon.

The moment you stepped through the threshold of the cave, you froze in place, heart lurching with confusion.

Sylus had completely transformed everything.

Gone were the scattered, mismatched piles of pelts, the half-organized piles of gold, the signs of his usual indifference to comfort or aesthetic. In their place was something deliberate. Thoughtful. Nest-like. The entire back of the cave had been cleared and restructured, centered around an enormous bed of furs that had been meticulously arranged. It looked almost ceremonial in its care.

The old sleeping area had been expanded, padded with thick layers of fur and hide—including the bear pelt from the beast he had dragged home days ago. It now lined the center of the nest, skinned, cleaned and softened into a thick, luxurious base. Softer animal hides had been layered on top, and the perimeter was reinforced with woven branches, dried moss, and feathers, creating a barrier of warmth and comfort.

It wasn’t just for practicality. It was beautiful.

There were little details everywhere. Smooth stones from your favorite riverbank placed in a pattern near the fire pit. Bits of dried herbs—the ones you loved for tea or the scent they gave when burned—tucked into the seams of the bedding. A string of beads you thought you’d lost was now nestled between two thick furs, as if it had been intentionally displayed.

You stood there for several seconds, mouth slightly open, completely unprepared.

"Sylus..." you breathed, your voice caught somewhere between awe and bewilderment. "What’s the meaning of all this?"

He looked up at you from where he knelt, smoothing out the bear fur with surprising tenderness. His expression was completely unreadable. Calm. Focused. As if this were the most natural thing in the world. "You were shivering at night," he said simply. "This will keep you warmer."

That might have been enough for anyone else. Practical. Logical. An easy excuse.

But his eyes told a different story.

He watched you too closely. Not just to gauge your reaction—but to savor it. There was something ancient and yearning behind the glow in his eyes, something that vibrated in the silence between his words. He was waiting. Not for your thanks, but for your approval.

Noticing your lack of response, Sylus's expression begins to shift. The warmth in his eyes dims, replaced by something sterner, more guarded. His tail flicks once behind him—a sharp, agitated motion that echoes his growing unease. He straightens his spine, his jaw tightening ever so slightly.

"Do you not like it?" he asks, his voice quieter now but unmistakably tense. There’s something beneath his words that makes your chest tighten—disappointment, certainly. But also something rawer. Doubt. Hurt. The faint tremor of vulnerability from someone unaccustomed to feeling exposed.

Your eyes widen, and guilt rises quickly in your throat. You hadn't meant to be silent for so long. You were simply overwhelmed—by the effort, by the meaning behind it all. But now, seeing the shift in his posture, the way his eyes avoid yours, you realize how that silence must have come off.

You quickly close the space between you, reaching out instinctively. Your hands lift to cradle his face, palms warm against his heated skin. You guide his gaze back to you, gently but insistently, your thumbs brushing over his cheekbones. His eyes flicker up to meet yours, searching your face as though still bracing for rejection.

"No," you say softly, firmly, your voice thick with emotion. "I love it. I really do. It's beautiful. I just...I don’t understand why. You don’t have to do all this. The gifts, the meat, the rearranging—I was already happy. I was perfectly content with how things were before."

Sylus doesn’t recoil. Instead, he leans into your touch just slightly, as though the reassurance eases something deep in his chest. The tightness in his shoulders begins to uncoil, and the tension etched into his brow softens. A quiet exhale escapes him, almost inaudible.

"You laughed," he murmurs after a moment, his voice roughened by something too ancient to be called simple sorrow. "When I spoke of mating season. I assumed then that you deemed me unworthy as a mate—ill-fitted to claim or keep one such as you."

You blink, taken aback. The memory of that moment resurfaces—your burst of laughter, the disbelief, the release of tension you hadn’t realized he was carrying so heavily. It hadn’t been mockery. But now, you see how it must have been received by someone like Sylus—a creature whose understanding of humor, especially human levity in the face of instinct, is limited by centuries of solemn tradition and a worldview where gestures hold more meaning than words. 

"So...the jewels? The meat?" you ask gently, your voice cracking slightly as realization begins to sink in.

He lets out a low, almost frustrated huff, glancing to the side. His tail curls around one of your ankles without thought, anchoring you to him in a quiet, possessive motion. "To prove I can provide for you," he says simply. "And for our offspring that I hoped you'd bear."

The words hit you like a wave, your breath catching in your throat. Your heart swells and shatters at once, a knot forming deep in your chest. He really wanted a baby with you? To form new life? With you??

Because that was it, wasn’t it? This powerful, ancient creature—so feared, so composed, so unreadable to others—was doing everything in his power to show you his worth. Not by demanding your affection or asserting his claim, but by showing you how he could build a life around you. Make a place for you. Prepare for a future, one you hadn’t even considered yet.

He had rearranged his entire world to make space for you in it. Courted you to prove himself just as many of his species had done with their mates.

You looked at him now with new eyes, your throat tightening as you caressed the edge of his jaw.

"Sylus...you don’t have to prove anything to me. I never doubted your strength. I never doubted you for a single second. Sometimes humans laugh when we feel relieved. That's all."

You notice that he seemed to perk up ever so slightly, though his expression remained unreadable. His posture straightened by a fraction, the glow in his eyes shifting with something new—not quite relief, but intrigue. A subtle ripple of tension unwound in his shoulders, though he tried to mask it.

"Mortals laugh when they feel better?" he asked, voice low and gravelly, as if the question itself was unfamiliar. There was a curious tilt to his head, the tone almost scholarly—as if he were cataloging your species' behaviors like one would study a rare flame.

You nodded, giving him a gentle smile. "Yes. Laughter is...a release. I wasn’t mocking you, Sylus. I was relieved. It meant you weren’t dying. And...I think you would make a wonderful mate. And father. To our baby."

His grip on you suddenly shifted, tightening with sudden purpose. Not in a threatening way, but in a way that grounded you firmly against him—possessive, almost reverent. His pupils expanded rapidly, red irises eclipsed by black. A primal heat surged behind his gaze, burning steady and intent. You felt the growl in his chest before it even reached his lips, a low, rumbling vibration that poured through your body like a tremor.

"Then...you accept?" he asked slowly, the words thick with restrained emotion. "You will take my seed into you? You would bear my offspring?"

Your heart skipped a beat—no, several. Blood rushed to your cheeks, and you could feel your pulse hammering in your throat. He said it with such conviction, with none of the coy hesitations or evasive phrasing you were used to. Just truth. Raw and full of meaning. The ancient kind of promise that didn’t ask, but waited.

You hesitated, swallowing hard. "I mean...I do have my doubts," you admitted, fingers curling against his chest. Your fingers graze the edge of his scales. Your voice trembled slightly under the weight of his gaze. "I don’t think I’m strong enough to carry children of yours. Dragons are...different. Your children, they’d be massive, wouldn’t they?"

You tried to laugh. It came out tight, nervous. A shaky sound that barely carried.

But Sylus didn’t laugh. He didn’t smile. Instead, something deeper flickered behind his eyes—a hunger, yes, but also certainty. Purpose. Legacy.

A low, pleased growl rolled from the depths of his chest, his breath warm against your skin. You gasped as you felt his tail move, the strong, silken muscle winding slowly up your leg. It caressed your skin with practiced control, the movement deliberate. Purposeful. The hem of your dress lifted inch by inch under the teasing weight of his tail.

"Nonsense," he growled, and this time his voice was like smoke and stone. "You are more than capable. I would never choose a mate who was not capable of the task. Your body, your spirit, your frame—they are all sufficient. More than sufficient."

His claws ghosted over your hips, drawing you in closer, like a hunter gathering something sacred. You felt the heat of him, not just his body but his intent, his longing, the centuries of instinct that pulsed just beneath his skin.

"I'm not even sure if it will work..." you murmur, your voice laced with uncertainty. "Humans only ovulate for a short time. If that window's already passed—"

Sylus moves before you can finish. His body leans into yours with quiet purpose, and in an instant, the air shifts between you. His breath ghosts over your neck, warm and steady, and you shiver as his nose traces the delicate line of your throat. The movement is slow, deliberate—not just intimate, but instinctual. He inhales deeply, the sound low and resonant like something ancient stirring in his chest. The rumble that follows isn’t quite a growl, but it thrums through you like thunder beneath the earth.

"You're wrong," he murmurs, voice husky and edged with something raw. "You’re fertile. I can smell it on you."

You freeze.

His lips ghost just beneath your ear as he continues, tone smooth and reverent. "Your scent is different now—sweet, ripe, like fruit at the peak of bloom. The warmth of your skin, the rhythm of your pulse...your body sings to mine in ways you cannot hear. But I do."

His hand tightens at your waist, possessive, anchoring you to him like you might drift away otherwise. The heat in his eyes is no longer just desire—it is intention, it is instinct honed over centuries, it is him answering a call your body didn’t even know it had made.

"You're ready. Now," he growls, the final word laced with a quiet sort of reverence, as if he were speaking a truth ordained by something far older than either of you.

Your breath catches, your face flushing as your heart pounds against your ribs. You can feel the heat rising in you, pooling low, your body reacting before your mind can catch up.

You search his face for doubt, but find none. Only certainty.

So, you were ovulating, and he could smell it—and worse, he wasn’t just aroused by it; he was called by it.

You feel your nerves ease, if only a little. Sylus was dependable—fierce, steady, and impossibly sure in the way only something ancient could be. For all his intensity, he had never once let harm come to you, had never faltered in his protection. And now, with the weight of everything shifting between you, that truth brought the smallest measure of calm. If he said he would keep you safe, you believed him. If he said he would protect the life growing between you, you knew it to be a vow etched in something deeper than words.

The idea of having a baby had once seemed distant, more fantasy than reality. Something soft and quiet that belonged to another version of your life, another world entirely. But now? Now it felt inevitable. Natural. Fated. Like every step had led to this moment, and all that was left was to lean into it.

He wanted this with you. You could see it in everything he did: the nesting, the offerings, the way he curled around you at night like a guardian warding off the dark. His every action had been leading here, even if you hadn’t recognized it at the time. And though nerves still fluttered in your chest like a thousand wings, the deeper truth remained. You wanted it too. You weren’t entirely prepared, not yet, but you were ready to say yes.

You looked into his eyes, your heart thundering, and gave a small but certain nod. "Okay. I accept."

Those three words changed everything.

It was as if a switch had been flipped inside him, something primal and powerful released from its cage. You barely had time to react before he swept you off the ground with effortless strength. You gasped, your hands clutching at his shoulders as he cradled you against his chest, his expression focused, almost reverent. In mere seconds, he had crossed the room and laid you gently down on the massive bed of furs he had so meticulously prepared—his gift to you, his offering.

The nest was impossibly warm, soft and inviting, wrapping around your back and shoulders like it had been waiting for this moment. You could feel the heat of his body above you, the power in his frame held taut just beneath the surface. He hovered for a breath, eyes raking over you, and then his tail moved—snaking up one leg, coiling slowly with deliberate grace.

The fabric of your dress tightened as his tail looped beneath it, and you barely had time to gasp before you heard the slow, purposeful sound of it tearing. With practiced precision, his tail shredded the fabric, beginning to peel it away from your body with a hunger that had been restrained for too long. Each thread undone was like a silent declaration: mine, mine, mine.

You felt a rush of cool air against your skin, and your breasts were exposed to his gaze. You could sense his eyes on you, drinking in the sight of your bare skin and hardened nipples, you felt a shiver run down your spine. Your breasts bounced slightly as you shifted, and you could feel his gaze following the movement, his eyes hungrily taking in every detail.

You instinctively tried to shield yourself, your arms moving to cross your chest, but he was quicker. His tail wrapped around your wrists with gentle but unyielding strength, keeping you exposed beneath him. Vulnerable. Claimed.

He leaned in closer, breath hot against your skin, and you felt it hitch as he studied you like something sacred. There was a deep rumble in his chest, not quite a growl but something more ancient—a sound of possession and awe.

"This will not be gentle," he murmured, voice low and rough like gravel smoothed by fire. "But do not fret. I will take care not to hurt you, beloved."

His words settled over you like a brand, searing into your skin. There was something sacred in them, a promise forged not in softness, but in strength—and devotion.

And the way he said it, with such conviction and tempered need, made your breath stutter and your fear crumble, replaced with something far more powerful:

Desire. Acceptance. Surrender.

His voice was a low rumble, "I want to see you. All of you." His eyes met yours, seeking consent, respectful despite the fierce hunger within. You nodded, your heart still pounding, but the fear was gone, replaced by a strong lust you didn't know you had.

He reached for the remnants of your dress, his touch gentle yet firm as he pushed the rest of the fabric off you. It slipped down your body, leaving you bare except for your undergarments. His breath hitched, his gaze roaming over you, worshipful and hungry.

"You're beautiful" he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. "Like a dream I never dared to have." He leaned down, his lips met yours, a soft, tender kiss that belied the intensity of his gaze. It was a question, a request for permission to explore further. You responded, your body melting into his, your lips parting to deepen the kiss. He tasted of smoke and spice, a heady combination that made your head spin. His claws, those large, warm claws, traced the curve of your neck, your shoulders, your breasts, leaving a trail of fire in their wake.

You gasped, breaking the kiss, your body arching into his touch. He smiled, a slow, predatory smile that sent shivers down your spine. "I want to hear you," he whispered, his breath hot on your ear. "I want to hear every sound you make, every gasp, every moan." He captured your mouth again, his tongue delving in, exploring, tasting. His hands continued their journey, tracing the curve of your waist, your hips, the soft flesh of your thighs. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of your undergarments, pulling back to look at you.

He slid the underwear down your legs, his eyes never leaving yours. You felt a shiver of anticipation and vulnerability, but the heat in his gaze, the raw desire, kept you from feeling exposed again. He stood up, his tail unwrapping from your waist, and you missed the contact instantly. But he was back in a moment, his hands on your knees, gently pushing them apart.

He knelt down, his gaze still locked with yours, and you felt a jolt of surprise and excitement. His rough claws traced up your inner thighs, his touch feather-light, sending shivers through you. You could feel the heat of his breath on you, and you squirmed, your body aching with anticipation. He smiled, a slow, knowing smile, and leaned in.

His long tongue found your aching bud, hot and wet, and you gasped, your body arching off the pile of furs. He made a sound, a low growl of pleasure, and the vibration sent waves of sensation through you. He gripped your thighs, holding you in place as he explored you, his tongue and lips driving you to the edge. You could feel the pressure building, your body coiling tight, and you grasped the furs beneath you, your knuckles turning paler.

"Thank you for agreeing to give me the gift of new life" His gaze held you captive, even as his tongue continued its torturous, delightful dance. You felt a flush spread across your body, your cheeks burning with a mix of embarrassment and arousal.

But you didn't look away. You held his gaze, your breath coming in ragged gasps, your body writhing with each flick of his tongue. He groaned, the sound vibrating through you, pushing you closer to the edge. You could feel it, the pleasure building, coiling tight like a spring ready to snap. "Sylus," you gasped, his name a plea on your lips.

He growled in response, his fingers digging into your thighs as he redoubled his efforts. The room spun, the golden light blurring around you. Your body tensed, every muscle coiled tight, and then, with a cry, you shattered. Waves of pleasure crashed over you, drowning you in sensation. You felt Sylus's claws on you, steadying you, his tail wrapping around you, holding you close as you rode out the storm. When the world came back into focus, you found yourself cradled in Sylus arms, your body still trembling with aftershocks. He was looking down at you, his eyes soft with concern and something else...a deep, profound satisfaction.

As you finally noticed the absence of his usual belt, your eyes widened in shock. There, at you waist, were not one, but two substantially sized cocks, side by side, both throbbing with desire. You could've sworn he only had one before?? A wave of heat rushed to your face, and you felt a surge of panic. You tried to wriggle free, to create some distance, but Sylus's grip only tightened. He growled, a low, primal sound that sent shivers down your spine, as you managed to shift into a crawling position. But your brief moment of triumph was short-lived.

With a swift move, he grabbed you around the waist, pulling you back towards him. You could feel his hot breath on your neck as he forced you face down onto the soft furs, his body pressing heavily against yours. "You cannot run from this," he rasped, his voice thick with lust and determination. "Be still." The fear that had been lurking within you surged back, filling every fiber of your being. You knew, with a certainty that was both terrifying and exhilarating, that there would be no escape. Not this time. Not until he had marked you, claimed you, bred you. His need was too great, his desire to leave his seed within you too strong to change your mind now.

As Sylus began to push his first cock into you, you felt a searing pain and a sense of being stretched to the limit. You realized, with a jolt of fear, that he hadn't been lying when he said this wouldn't be gentle. His cock was like a battering ram, forcing its way into your tight pussy with a ferocity that left you breathless. He let out a fierce growl of pleasure, pushing himself as deep as he could possibly go inside your walls.

He pumped feverishly, his hips moving with the strength and power of a beast. You groaned, your voice hoarse and barely audible, as your pussy was forced to take the pounding he was giving you. The sensation was overwhelming, a mix of pain and pleasure that left you gasping for air and gripping the fur beneath you.

His cock was huge, and it felt like it was tearing you apart, stretching your walls to the limit. You felt like you were being ripped in two, your body struggling to accommodate the size and strength of his thrusts. But Sylus didn't seem to care, his face twisted in a snarl of pleasure as he pounded into you with reckless abandon.

You were at his mercy, unable to escape the torrent of sensations that he was unleashing on your body. Your mind was a jumble of pain and pleasure, your body torn between the pain of his thrusts and the thrill of being taken by a creature so powerful and dominant. You felt his second cock rubbing itself between the rounds of your ass.

As Sylus continued to pump into you, his face twisted in a snarl of pleasure, he leaned in close and whispered in your ear.

"You'll never want for anything, beloved," he growled, voice low and reverent, thick with the weight of promise. It wasn’t just a statement. It was a vow. An oath carved from the bones of instinct, older than memory and heavier than gold. His breath was hot against your neck, his words brushing over your skin like fire.

"Not once," he continued, a possessive rumble threading through each syllable, "not once you're full with my children."

There was no shame in his tone, no hesitation. Just certainty. Purpose. He spoke like a dragon made flesh, a creature built for legacy, for claiming, for protecting what was his with unrelenting devotion. His hand traced your side as he spoke, the motion slow and reverent, as if feeling the space where new life would soon grow.

"Yes...yes give me as many children as you want Sylus, I want them all..." you begged, feeling yourself beginning to drool into the furs.

Your voice was barely above a whisper, but it seemed to have a profound effect on Sylus. His eyes flashed with a fierce light, and his face twisted in a snarl of pleasure.

Without warning, he pulled his cock out of you, the sudden withdrawal leaving you feeling empty and uneasy. But before you could even catch your breath, he flipped you around, his hands grasping your hips and pulling you back onto his cock. You felt him shove his cock balls deep inside you once again, the sudden invasion making you gasp with shock and pleasure.

You were stretched to the limit, your body struggling to accommodate the size and strength of his thrusts. But Sylus didn't seem to care, his face twisted in a mask of pleasure and desire. He pumped into you with a fierce intensity, his hips moving with a rapid, pounding rhythm that left you breathless and gasping. You felt his second cock sliding in harmonious rhythm across your stomach as he continued to pump the other inside you.

Sylus's movements grow frantic, each thrust more desperate than the last. The heat builds between you, an unstoppable force that drives you both to the edge. His breath hitches, and you can feel the tension coiling in his muscles, ready to snap.

With a final, forceful thrust, he slams deep inside you, a low groan ripping from his chest as he cums. The heat floods into you, a searing wave of release that leaves you both gasping. As he rides out the last pulses of his climax, he leans forward, sinking his teeth into your shoulder. The bite is sharp, claiming, sending a shock through your body that mingles with the aftershocks of his release.

You're both slicked in sweat, your chests rising and falling in a staggered rhythm as you cling to each other, trembling and utterly spent. The cave around you is dense with heat and the scent of exertion, the air thick enough to drink. Your skin is flushed, tingling, every nerve alight from the intensity of what has just passed between you. You feel the large amount of cum he shot inside you begin to spill out, making your thighs stick together. It’s hard to tell where your body ends and his begins—his warmth wraps around you like a living cocoon, steady and ever-present.

Every breath you take is his, pulled in from the narrow space between your mouths, and every exhale becomes a shared offering. His body is heavy over yours, enveloping, protective. You’re still reeling, caught somewhere between bliss and disbelief, when Sylus leans down and claims your lips in a kiss—fierce, unrelenting, yet reverent. It isn’t rushed. It’s deep, meaningful, and possessive in a way that leaves your heart pounding anew.

"Can you help me up?" you whisper, voice trembling, your limbs aching with fatigue. You lift a shaky hand, fingers brushing the fresh mark on your shoulder. The skin there is tender and warm, a physical memory of him etched into your flesh.

Sylus pulls back just enough to look at you, a small smile touching his lips. There’s affection in his gaze, but it’s layered with something else—something feral, possessive, unwavering. You blink at him, puzzled by the look he gives you, your breath catching as your body anticipates an answer.

"We aren’t finished, beloved" he murmurs, his voice like a caress wrapped in iron. The timbre of it thrums through your bones. He motions to his other member, still throbbing with need on your stomach. "I still have seed stored. I told you this would not be brief. We won’t be done until I am certain—utterly certain—that my seed has taken root."

The words wash over you like a second wave of heat. You feel it building again—not fear, not even hesitation. Just the slow, inevitable rush of anticipation. Your breath shudders as he presses closer once more, and the look in his eyes makes your heart stutter. He is so sure. So devoted. So...inescapably yours.

This isn’t just instinct anymore. It isn’t mere biology. It’s a vow, an offering, a claiming that comes from something sacred and ancient within him.

And as his lips brush against your throat, his tail curling possessively around your thigh again, you know one thing for certain:

Sylus isn’t finished.

And this becomes abundantly clear as he pushes his second cock inside you.

The next two days blur together in a haze of heat and aching limbs. Sylus is relentless—a creature driven by instinct and obsession, bound not just by desire but by an instinctual need to claim and secure what he now considers his. The cavern is filled with the sounds of breathless gasps, low growls, and the slick sound of bodies tangled in devotion and purpose.

There is barely a moment to rest. He presses into you again and again, each time with a ferocity that leaves you trembling, breathless, dazed. He rarely lets you catch your breath before pulling you close once more, whispering possessive promises into your ear, vowing over and over that he will not stop until he knows that his seed has taken root.

Still, there are brief breaks. Moments when he leaves to hunt, returning with food to replenish your strength. He never brings back just a meal—he returns with offerings: rare fruit, tender meats, things he’s sure will sustain and strengthen you. His eyes scan you for any signs of weakness, worry carved into the lines of his face even through the veil of lust that constantly clouds him.

One such time, you had tried to redress yourself, more out of instinct than shame. But when he returned and found you clothed again, his eyes darkened, the low sound of displeasure vibrating in his chest. He had stalked over to you, roughly tearing the garments off of your body, scattering them on the stone floor in pieces.

"Sylu-"

"No," he murmured, his voice low and rough, "You are to remain bare for me. Ready. Always."

And with those words, he had taken you again roughly, until the floor was soaked in his cum, as if to remind you that your body was his haven now—a vessel for something sacred. And this continued hourly, even when you had just awoken from a nap. He simply would spread your legs and begin pumping himself inside you. You welcomed this of course, figuring he was just following what his instincts were telling him to do.

Eventually, his frenzy began to slow. The fire that had once consumed him now burned low and steady, replaced by a quieter, more reverent form of devotion. Weeks passed in a blur of rest, warmth, and gentle touches, and then came the shift—he began to note that you smelled different. His sharp senses detected it before you felt a thing. He would murmur it against your skin, nose pressed to your neck or your belly, voice thick with wonder.

"You carry new life," he’d whisper.

At first, you rolled your eyes and laughed it off, teasing him for being so certain. You didn't want to get your hopes up. But soon, you began to feel it too—a flutter, faint and flickering like butterfly wings deep within. The first time it happened, you froze, a hand going instinctively to your belly. Sylus noticed immediately, his head snapping up, eyes wide.

"Did you feel it?"

You nodded slowly, hand still pressed to the gentle curve of your stomach. He was elated. Absolutely overcome with joy. He knelt before you and kissed your belly with a soft, contented purr rumbling from deep in his chest, his tail wrapping protectively around your ankles.

True to his word, he kept his promise. You never wanted for anything. He hunted only the best for you, brought the juiciest fruit, the most nourishing roots. He prepared meals with painstaking care, even if he didn’t eat most of it himself. When your back ached or your feet swelled, he massaged you with surprising tenderness, his large hands easing every knot and tension from your tired limbs. At night, he curled around you like a shield, his wings a blanket of protection, whispering soft things in a language you didn’t always understand.

Eventually, your clothes grew too tight to wear. Your belly swelled gloriously with life, and you gave up trying to force yourself into fabric that no longer fit. You wandered the cave freely, naked and glowing, your hands always resting protectively on your rounded stomach. Sylus didn’t mind in the slightest. He thought you looked divine.

Even in the later stages of your pregnancy, when walking made you tired and your body ached from the weight of his child, he still looked at you with hunger in his eyes. He remained ever ready to take you, though now with more patience, more gentleness to not hurt you or the baby. His touches were slow, reverent, his need no less intense but guided now by something softer—an unshakable adoration.

To him, you were more than his mate.

You were the future of his lineage. A living miracle he worshiped with every breath.

He was awoken one morning by the soft, fragile sound of you whining beside him—a breathy, instinctive noise that sliced through the quiet like a blade, shattering the peace of dawn. Instantly, he was alert, his senses snapping into sharp focus. In one smooth, practiced motion, he propped himself up on one elbow and leaned over you, red eyes scanning your body with fierce, frantic protectiveness. His hands hovered inches from your skin, as though afraid to touch and yet desperate to find the source of your distress.

When he found no visible wounds, he moved lower, his tail curling around your leg and lifting it gently. What he saw next made him still completely—and then smile, slow and reverent. A sheen of clear fluid glistened at your thighs. His chest swelled with emotion, and a warm, knowing glow filled his gaze.

It was time.

His breath caught in his throat, and the world seemed to narrow around this one miraculous truth. He leaned down, pressed his forehead to yours, and gently shook you awake, voice husky with emotion. "Wake, beloved," he murmured. "The hour is upon us."

What followed was the longest, most grueling day and a half of your life. The cave became a sanctuary of primal sound and sacred pain—the sharp edge of your cries echoing off the stone walls, the slow, rhythmic cadence of your breathing, and Sylus’s steady, grounding presence through it all. The space that had once been a den of passion now transformed into a place of birth and bond, of new beginnings.

He had prepared for this, of course. He always did. A nest of soft animal pelts had been lovingly arranged just days prior, thick and warm and perfectly layered to support your aching, straining body. You lay upon them, your skin damp with sweat, hair plastered to your temples, your belly tightening again and again with each new contraction. The pain was searing, unforgiving, your body fighting for every inch of progress.

And Sylus never left your side. Not for a moment.

He positioned himself behind you, his body acting as both cradle and shield. His larger frame curved protectively around yours, arms curled reverently over your middle, claws softened and carefully restrained so they wouldn’t harm you. He rubbed slow, grounding circles into the swell of your belly, the weight of his presence a balm against the storm.

His lips brushed your shoulder often, murmuring affirmations and praise, voice a low, calming purr that vibrated through your bones. His tail coiled gently around your thigh, anchoring you when you trembled. Whenever you cried out or whimpered in agony, he was there—not panicked, not shaken, but steady. Fierce.

"Breathe, my love," he whispered again and again, the words threaded with admiration. "You’re strong. So strong. You were made for this."

There was never a flicker of doubt in his eyes. He watched you with awe, holding space for your pain and your power, never wavering. His devotion took on a quiet intensity, every touch purposeful, every breath synchronized with yours. When you broke down in tears, sobbing through another wave of pain, he kissed your temple, held your hand, and wrapped you tighter in his warmth.

He treated you like something sacred—not just the mother of his child, but the miracle who bore his legacy. There was reverence in the way he touched you, in how he shifted with you through every hour, how his purring grew louder as your contractions deepened. You were his whole world in those moments, and he made sure you felt it.

As the hours stretched into exhaustion and time lost all meaning, he remained your constant.

And when the sharp, piercing cry of a newborn echoed through the cave, Sylus felt the breath leave his lungs entirely. The sound struck him like thunder, powerful and sacred, and his eyes locked on the sight before him: you, cradling the small, wriggling form against your chest. You were slick with sweat, flushed from exertion, but your smile—soft, exhausted, and full of wonder for your new baby—was the most radiant thing he had ever seen.

He moved toward you reverently, as if approaching something divine. But as he leaned in closer, a deep instinct stirred within him, passed down through countless generations. His tongue flicked out ever so slightly, and his body tensed with the urge to clean the newborn himself—the way his kind had always done.

You caught the motion and gave him a knowing look, gently placing a hand on his cheek. "No licking," you whispered with a tired laugh. "That’s not how we do it."

It took some convincing, his instincts hard to quiet, but he eventually yielded, watching with wide-eyed fascination as you showed him the human way. Warm cloths, gentle strokes, soft murmurs of comfort.

He knelt beside you, silent and attentive, absorbing every detail.

And though he did not get to perform the ritual of his bloodline, he found something just as profound in learning yours.

Together, you welcomed new life in a way that blended two worlds into one.

[meowse]

That AMA marks the end of Dragon Age.

In my opinion.

I'll start by saying that I have played all 3 of the previous games repeatedly, I've loved the series for 15 years, more than half my life. These games inspired me to become a writer and they've shaped a lot of my tastes and interests in shows and writing -- to say they were formative is kind of an understatement. Don't want to go on and on about how much I loved them, that's not the point here.

I didn't care for Veilguard for pretty much all of the reasons people have already discussed at length on Reddit and Tumblr. The writing is comprehensively bad, the romances are easily the worst Bioware has written by pure virtue of having the most cookie-cutter pacing and shallow characterization I've seen across their games, the lore has been shafted in every direction, and the nuanced storytelling and roleplay I came to expect from the series has been taken out back and shot in the head.

All, apparently, in the name of a "clean slate". It seems to me that, rather than familiarizing himself with the existing lore of the game he took the creative reins on, Epler clearly had a vision for Dragon Age (or perhaps a different IP entirely) in his head that he decided to transplant into the game (and possibly Trick? But they've said so little beyond defending their work that I can hardly theorize what direction they were coming from). That being a sanitized, wildly self-contradicting, morally absolute shitshow focused on distancing itself from the previous games as much as possible. Now, I know it's unrealistic to blame one person entirely, and I don't blame him entirely. Corinne was there. Trick was there.

But if it wasn't already evident from the numerous interviews Epler's given on the game as well as his participation in the Q&A's (while the actual lead writer of the game has been completely absent in not just the marketing, but in most fan-related interaction pre and post-launch outside of BSKY), this AMA seems to have confirmed, more than anything else, that Epler doesn't understand the game nor does he understand its audience. Neither does Corinne Busche, who despite being Game Director for only the last two years of development, has been answering lore questions a) like she has any fucking clue and b) like she thinks Dragon Age is a cozy-gamer IP, meant to appeal to people that want uplifting stories with uncontroversial characters, morally upright heroes, and unquestionably evil villains.

So as of today's AMA, I think I've finally had enough. We're just outright retconning the lore in Reddit AMA's now, I guess. Among other things. I'll provide a few examples, just so we're all on the same page.

This was part of Epler's response to why Solas didn't have his cult following in the game (insert "We Kind of Forgot" meme here):

Solas' experience leading the rebellion against the Evanuris turned him against the idea of being a leader. You see it in the memories - the entire experience of being in charge ate at him and, ultimately, convinced him he needed to do this on his own. And his own motivations were very different from the motivations of those who wanted to follow him - he had no real regard for their lives or their goals. So at some point between Trespasser and DATV, he severed that connection with his 'followers' and went back to being a lone wolf.

The fact that this (the not caring bit) directly contradicts the writing in the actual game is absolutely INSANE to me, moreso than the lack of Solas's spy network (which he apparently carried with him for 10 years only to conveniently drop right before the ritual? Because he clearly had them research Rook?). But in regards to the not caring -- here's a line from Solas's memory of killing Mythal in Veilguard, which. I'll get to Mythal in a minute:

Why should I not tear down the Veil, and bring back immortality to all the elven people? They deserve it!

Which is it? Does Solas care about the people he's saving (the venn diagram of people he's saving vs. the people following him is surely a circle, i.e. elves) or not? Does he even care about the spirits trapped behind the Veil anymore or is it just convenient to abandon them and have him only care about elves, now? What happened to saving The People? What happened to him not identifying as an elf in his conversations with a Dalish Inquisitor? And what the absolute fuck happened to him wanting to bring back the magical marvels (that the ancient elves did in fact achieve) that were greater than anything we see in Thedas today? Here's what Epler has to say about elven magic, now:

I do agree that the elves have had their place in the sun at this point. [...] The thing about the Evanuris is that, ultimately, they were able to take a very specific type of magic and shape it into doing what they wanted. But even their understanding of magic was only skin deep [...] Even the magic that Tevinter wields, the magic of the Southern mages, is different from what the Evanuris used. The magic of the Evanuris is powerful but it's sterile, and it's constrained. So while the Evanuris have made magic work in a way that's more predictable and understandable, it's not the only kind of magic out there, and even then, I'd say they understood it at a very surface level. People were confidently describing how the natural world worked back in the 16th century. Very few of them were right.

First of all, Tevinter has been stated in previous games to have clumsily adapted ancient elven magic for their own, but they did adapt it. To the point where even Solas is surprised that Corypheus achieved effective immortality -- by binding himself to a dragon the same way the Evanuris did. So, cool, more contradicting the lore here. "They understood it at a very surface level" you mean when all of the magic of the Fade wasn't locked behind the Veil? You mean when magic flowed freely through the world? What do you mean, Surface Fucking Level? The entire point of the Dalish elf culture is what they lost; this wasn't the ancient elves thinking the sun revolved around the earth, the Veil was their fucking Library of Alexandria burning. Oh my god. I still cannot believe he said this.

And how have the elves had their day in the sun? I'm sorry, was Arlathan not given to... the Veil Jumpers? Instead of the Dalish? What happened to all the Dalish clans in the south, who had no infrastructure when the world was apparently blighted to hell? I guess they're just gone now! They've had their day! The story of the Dalish and the Evanuris is over (also confirmed in this AMA), and it apparently ends with the final snuff of the candle that is their culture. Congratulations, Chantry, you've won! Only took two genocides and a double blight, but we're done with the Dalish now! We get your mind-numbingly superficial factions instead!

What happened to Mythal, by the way? What happened to "She was betrayed as I was betrayed, as the world was betrayed! Mythal clawed and crawled her way through the ages to me, and I will see her avenged!" What happened to the reckoning that will shake the very heavens? John's answer to this:

People grow and change over time. Mythal's essence - and in particular, the fragment of her spirit that Morrigan carries, that she got from Flemeth - is not the same Mythal who he knew millennia ago. Centuries of living in this world and being around the kinds of people Flemeth found herself around - the Hero of Ferelden, Hawke, the Inquisitor - changed her views, and made her realize her own culpability in turning Solas into the kind of person he is now.

Oh, right, okay. So she was pissed for like a thousand years, got her big speech about the impending "reckoning" out 10 years ago, and then she just chilled out because the last 3 heroes were neat people. What a fucking joke. And yes, here is the confirmation that the Evanuris story is over --

The story of the Evanuris is done - the gods are dead (or imprisoned) and Thedas is in a state of flux and uncertainty. I imagine that whatever happens next is going to be a surprise to everyone, including the people of Thedas."

So I guess Mythal's reckoning is never coming. One of the most fascinating characters in the series, shrouded in mystery for those first 3 games, PROMISING US a blaze of glory, only to fizzle out in this one. Again, and I can't emphasize this enough, for Epler's clean fucking slate. And we've not just tied up her story, but also the Veil and the Blight:

When Solas bound himself (or, depending on your ending, was forcibly bound) to the Veil, it severed the connection that the Blight had to the waking world. The reality is that the Veil has been leaking ever since the Magisters first entered the Black City, and the dreams of the Titans gave it its terrible and awesome power. Now that the Veil is fully repaired, the Blight lacks that motive force, and being so close to the epicenter of that change has stripped the Blight in Minrathous of its vitality. It's calcified now - dead - and Bellara/Neve no longer suffer its effects. If they'd been anywhere else, further from that epicenter, it would've likely been different and they still would be looking for a cure.

So the Veil is permanently fixed now because our half-dead Dread Wolf bound himself to it (a decision I still don't understand) and that somehow fixed every single hole ever poked in it. Fully repaired. No more holes, no more "Veil is thin here" because tons of people died in the same spot, nope, we're washing our hands and leaving it (and the spirits) behind us because we've wrapped up both the series-long Veil storyline and the blight storyline in a big red bow.

And Epler tells us Solas not only bound himself to the Veil but fixed it entirely in one fell swoop, no ritual required, just a little slice to the hand. Again, all in the name of a clean slate, so any future installments or media centered around Thedas can turn away from this story.

Then there's this. What we can expect from future installments, I freaking guess. The aforementioned roleplay getting taken out back and shot:

Q: "What lead you to the decision to step away from active conversations with the companions as in previous Bioware games, where you can initiate them at any moment and ask exhaustive questions?"

John: "For us, because of tech limitations, it became a choice between exhaustive investigate conversations, or letting the companions move more freely around the Lighthouse. With the kind of experience we were going for, one where seeing the team grow around you is paramount, we felt that seeing them interact in common spaces (and in each other's rooms) made more sense."

Literally confirmed that they chose companions moving freely about the cabin over ... interacting with them outside the handful of cutscenes we got. Who in their right mind would think this was a good call in a Dragon Age game? A series that quite literally prides itself on complex character interactions and storytelling? So they could... sit in different places? Are you kidding me?

They don't see an issue with the game's reception. They don't have any interest in addressing or responding to criticism. They're either happy with their choices or EA's got a gun pointed at their heads, I'm honestly not sure anymore. I used to believe the latter was true, but looking at both Epler's and Busche's responses today, I'm inclined to believe the former.

So I think that's it for the series. Not that I thought it was going to get another game after this, but on the absolute off chance it did, what would be the point? The best stories were ruined. Anything left they have to tell is going to read a lot like Veilguard -- superficial, morally absolute, flagrantly disrespectful to the lore, and delivered in a very poorly written package.

[cursedcola]

Prompt: Couples will evidently begin to mimic their better half after some time. What traits do you steal from him, and vice versa? Fandom: Twisted Wonderland Characters: Everyone - because I want to and I’m amidst fleshing out all my Yuu/Character dynamics + designs Format: Headcannons. Masterlist: LinkedUP Parts: Heartslabyul | Savanaclaw | Octavinelle (Here) | Scarabia | Pomefiore | Ignihyde | Diasomnia A/N: Putting all my brain rot from my notes into something cohesive. Contrary to my love for ripping your hearts out, I've come with some fluff this time around. BTW you may or may not already do things mentioned - I write my works with a specific Yuu in mind for each character so this is based on them. Just a reminder.

Habits You Steal:

Bargaining (Inherited AND Developed): No partner of Azul's is a shmuck. Not because of his standards (a little bit), but because you will learn to negotiate through trial and error. Being his pearl does not exclude you from daily verbal tango. He can and will still come after Ramshackle if given the opportunity. What? Just come stay in Octavinelle. He won't even charge for it, and you can bring Grim. He is always three steps ahead. Buying him a present is like the world's most daunting task, because he somehow already knows what's inside the box. Every. Time. Even if you shop a year in advance. Don't even start with arguments. He has a rebuttal for EVERYTHING. There is never a winner, only a settlement because he is so stubborn (and you equally so. Pride is contagious). As adults you're constantly exposed to business deals and sometimes have to deal with handling negotiations. Not to mention people with grudges against Azul attempting to shmooze their way through you. Only to find that you are just as manipulative.

"Pearl, Jade says that our deal with the Bas triplets for the next semester has been renewed? I hadn't scheduled their extension meeting until the first Saturday of next month. Would you have anything to say on this?" <- Long story short, the triplets tracked you down to beg for help in getting out of their work contract with Azul. He was always fair, and they entered willingly. No corruption on his part...but they were hell bent on not working in the kitchens with Floyd anymore. Solution? You managed to shmooze an extra week on their terms, in exchange for not being put on Floyd's shift anymore. Azul is so proud - but don't do that again. You're the one telling Floyd he doesn't get to play 'spot the difference' with the triplets anymore. Not him.

Smell Sensitivity (Developed): Nothing shanks the nostrils like sea brine. No pun intended. Lingering around Octavinelle equates to constantly smelling fish. Most students there come from the coral sea and don't mind it. Others only stop in for a quick bite to eat, and don't stay a moment more. The Mostro Lounge just has a potent smell that can't be found anywhere else. Like McDonald's french fries...but fish. Grim loves it, you now get nauseated when a scented candle is lit.

"Must you pinch your nose? Think of my- Octavinelle's reputation for a moment" <- Azul is brewing a scent masking potion as we speak. You're really hitting his pride here, even if you can't help it.

Glasses Wipes (Developed): Octopunk heats up when you so much as touch him in public. Then his glasses get foggy. If you wear makeup, its smears on his skin (to which he acts unbothered, but we all know it's a ruse). He obviously carries a hankey but having some wipes on hand is a nice gesture. Unnecessary, but sweet-ish.

Refined Pallet (Inherited): The cup ramen and foraged greens just do not cut it anymore. Not when Azul's made a VIP menu over at the lounge just for you. Sure, the place has a variety of options but he'll always get Floyd to cook up whatever you're in the mood for. At a discount (since Grim can eat him out of pocket). Have you ever had 100% dark, sea-salt chocolate imported from the coral sea? Ever tasted it in a rich devil's cake, baked fresh with only the best ingredients? Betty Crocker, who???

"I must say, your diet could still use some work - do not look at me that way. The twins found your hidden stash of instant noodles during our 'occupation' at Ramshackle. Under the stairs, pearl? Really? When was the last time your sodium was checked?"

Aversion to Sea Food (Developed): You will never understand how the Coral Sea students are okay with the Mostro Lounge. Neither what was running through Azul's head when he decided to open a SEA FOOD restaurant. Honestly? Red flag. One you ignored, but still a red flag. The existence of merpeople and therianthropes is still new and novel to you. To each their own, but you can't eat any sea creatures knowing that it could be - no, it can't be? Floyd's always joking that Azul is tasty but...it's just a joke, right?

"As much as Floyd loves to special make your chicken strips with wedges...why do you never order from the public menu? I assure you, Mostro Lounge is supplied with only the highest quality - h-huh? What crazy thoughts are you having?! Honestly!" <- This explains so much. He always thought you stared at the food with envy, because Grim would eat your pocket out and leave you to sip on lemon water. He had to force the special 'vip' meals down your throat at the start. is this why you're so uncomfortable having lunch with Floyd and his weekly Takoyaki binge?

Appraisal (Developed): Ever see those shows where a professional goes around to antique markets, and can point out forgeries, fake gems, etc. by eye? That is Azul. He's a collector of gadgets and gizmos aplenty - anyway. Strolls through antique marts, coin collecting showcases, and other marketing events will undoubtably train the eye over time. No scammer will ever shmooze ya out of house and home. Sorry Sam.

Habits He Steals:

Jacket (Developed): Mermen run cold. The uniform blazer Azul dons is more-so just for show than anything. Clothes are overall a novel concept, since most in the coral sea dress minimalistic (or not at all). The lounge runs quite chilly as well. Not enough to deter customers, but the perfect temperature to get uncomfortable after a few hours. Now Azul has many jealous bones in his body, and would rather drop dead than see one of the leech twins loan out their blazer so you can nap in the back room (they're doing it on purpose). Azul often offers his coat out to you the moment you walk inside - so often, that all the part-time workers know if you're on lot if he's walking without it.

"I need my jacket back, please. Why? N-no particular reason. Do I need an excuse to wear my own clothes?" <- Ruggie - Mostro Lounge's most reliable and simultaneously difficult part timer, mind you - was the first to pick up the correlation. If the VIP lounge was shut, and Azul was out doing quality rounds? It meant you were in the back, and he was in a better mood. The perfect time to sneak a platter unnoticed. Azul must take precautions.

Snitches Get Stitches (Developed): ONE perk of living with ghosts. Honey you get ALL the tea on campus. You just need to butter them up with a game of pranks and it’s ripe for the taking. Now, who do you think is going to make full use of this? Azul. They won’t give it to him directly because it’s more fun to make him frustrated. Which means he has to go through you. *Which means* he gets very crafty in buttering you up for details.

Midnight Hour (Developed): This mainly applies to his adult years. Wherever he goes - business or otherwise - you come with more often than not. As a youth his dealings were important - yes. Yet he was still getting his swimming legs in business and his primary demographic was students. Contrary to his pride, Azul wasn't someone important. Someone actually worth targeting like the Briar Prince. The real world is much more risky. You can help with negotiations and running facilities. You might 'think' he is tossing you into the end zone with all his ambitions...but no. Any dealings with high-stake confrontations are handled only after midnight.

"Two-o-clock in the am hours. That is the latest I can offer - well, it seems we've reached an impasse. This deal clearly is not worth my effort, if such 'accommodations' are beyond your capabilities. Allow one of my partners to escort you off the premises." <- Let's make one thing clear. No contract is ever worth putting you at risk. One twin (usually Jade) will remain at his side, the other (Floyd...because he's honestly not the best for negotiations. More guard dog material, and has fun hanging out with you) back with at the house/hotel. Azul doesn't trust 'anyone', and the Leech family is obviously in business with him. He takes no chances, screw probability, and can't kill the inner control-nerd in him. He's never out past three-am and would rather you feel a bit left out then dead somewhere in the Stillwater.

Land Legs (Developed): Considering he will be on land more for the foreseeable future, Azul puts more effort to building his land legs. Not that he wasn't trying before, but there wasn't any guarantee that he'd be working the land beyond NRC. So with the reassurance that 'something' (someone) will require his attention on shore, he decides to invest the effort. Azul will not get on one of those flying deathtraps past academy years though. He's getting a license and pulling up in a new Bugatti.

Pictures (Inherited): Much to Azul's chagrin, you love photos. Maybe it's because you have little to recall from your own world. Maybe it's because you're in the photography club. Maybe it's because you love his misery - but you are always taking photos. At first he insisted that you never get him in the frame. He hates them. Still does, do not misunderstand...and the idea of someone having so many with him included eats him up. Yet his insistent denials do lessen, and he tolerates them. You cannot post them anywhere. Yet...he will only 'mildly' grimace when looking at them around your house. Only because who the heck is coming over that he hasn't approved of?

"This picture? Ah...that is my dear pearl. They are breathtaking, are they not? I truly am the most fortunate man alive. Ah. My apologies, let's return to discussing the contract terms. May I see your completed punch-card?" <- And because you're in them too. As a youth, he kept your photo on his desk in the lounge. Sometimes a client would ask about you, and he'd lapse for a moment before folding the frame down and out of their view. He'd tuck it away whenever you came around, but would talk to it when alone. About his day, his work, whatever first year came crying because Floyd used them as a dart board - and dare I say that he'd keep a family photo in your later years together. Azul hates pictures of himself, but not as much as he loves ones of you. Look at him. Big softie.

—

"Of course. I have remarkable potential as an instructor, do I not? Is it not a great fortune to have me as one's partner? Take this as a lesson that your boss can influence even the most lost souls." == Azul shows no reservation. The moment he caught two part-timers gossiping about your 'conversion' to the 'dark side'. Why, he was positively beaming. His grin wide with a touch of something sinister. Gossip is fine, but they should know better than to do so in his den. Anything noteworthy would undoubtably reach his ears with time, but oh was it a joy to watch them squirm. Honestly. They're fortunate that he's in such a good mood - what was intended to be slandering has just made his day. They're still getting put on shift with Floyd though. He's merciful, yet no martyr.

Habits you steal:

Foraging (Inherited): You are always looking around for plants to propagandize. It's like stealing but not - because Crowley doesn't have any 'rules' about it so...heh. Free food. Jade's a living encyclopedia when it comes to botany and agriculture. He's the whole reason you've got a mini apothecary going in the kitchen and that instant-noodle stash got amped up in flavor. What? you ever add some fresh mushrooms and green onions to that instant chicken yakisoba? Mwah. The mountain lover's club needs to look out, 'cause the Ramshackle Prefect is about to bleed campus dry for every last specimen.

Yapping (Developed): Spinning off the above 'route'. Many people think Floyd's the talkative twin. Nah. This motherf*cker does NOT shut up. He treats you like his second conscience, asking questions he doesn't expect to be answered and giving commentary like your own personal narrator. Who needs thoughts when he literally says everything before you can think it? Floyd salutes you - 'cause finally. Finally, it isn't him subjected to Jade's inner spiels. Sorry Shrimpy, you are a sacrifice he's willing to make. If you ever break up or fight with Jade - Floyd's going to hunt you down - he can never go back. Never.

On a side note, you're an excellent listener now.

Tea (Inherited): Do you hate tea? No you don't. Not Jade's tea. There isn't much to comment on here, other than you will develop a taste for his Atlantic Twice-Seeped Water-Lily brew. You'll be craving it every night if ever sent back to our world (as if that'll happen). Mixed with honey from the Afterglow Savannah and served in a baby-blue ceramic cup that has a shimmer handle. That's your mug, by the way. He has other brews...some improvised and caution is indeed extended. They're tasty for the most part though.

“Ah, just smell that aroma. I developed this blend made just for you, my dear. I’m not one to seek out sweet floral notes for my tea, yet this flavor is an acquired taste that pulls you in for more. I finish the cup without realizing each time” -> Jade can be sweet himself, when he wants to be.

Wearing gloves (Developed): Jade makes you touch weird shit. All the time. Unprompted. He also makes you eat weird shit, but more often than not you can escape by shoveling his experiments onto someone he can get a more interesting reaction out of. Classically condition him not to feed you the weird shit by being unresponsive - off topic. Point is that with his obscene collection of terrariums? Plus being pulled along for foraging quests? You will be touching unknown and possibly poisonous plants, bugs, dirt, maybe some aquatic creatures like toads and fish. For all that is good, keep a pack of rubber gloves in your schoolbag. Keep a pair of insulated leather gloves in your breast pocket at all times too. Hand Sanitizer as well. Who knows when you’ll be elbow deep in murky water riddled with mysterious rainbow moss. What makes it rainbow? You don’t know and Jade won’t say. He does quip that it changes colors with emotions. Screw Twisted Wonderland and it’s freakish botany.

“Oh my, would you look at that vibrant shade of purple. Why are you so frightened? These are meant to be happy ‘bonding’ times for us as a couple, isn’t that what you said? Fufu - oh. Hurry up and put it in this jar. You’ll ruin the sample at this pace,” <- In truth, Jade saw red blooming at the edges of the moss and called quits before your nerves turned to anger. Fear? Amusing. Especially since you have more harmful ‘house plants’ growing on the mantle back at your dorm. Curtesy of Jade himself, of course. Azul doesn’t let him store his more precarious collection in Octavinelle and what you don’t know won’t hurt you. Yet he won’t push the jokes too far, since so few ever come out foraging with him. No no. He needs you to continue as a willing participant. Don’t get angry at him just yet, there are still so many places to explore and the day is young!

Doppelgänger Paranoia (Developed): The Leech twins tried to pull that shit where they swapped places for a day. Therefore you are now freakishly paranoid of Floyd trying to take Jade’s place to pull a prank. It is no help that Floyd is insanely good at mimicking his brother and vice versa. Sure, you could make a keyword or ask Jade to wear something special as a give away. Mark him. Maybe make an excuse of it being a thing human couples do and stick a pin on his lapel. Yet there isn’t a guarantee that he won’t just let Floyd in on it to see what happens. He’s a jerk like that, but your jerk nonetheless.

“Your caution is entertaining, and I do find all this extra attention flattering. Yet there are more taxing worries to mull over, wouldn’t you agree? Surely I’ve earned enough trust to circumvent any doubts in that mind of yours?” -> Do you know that the twin-swap was just a one time trick? Probably not. Doing it again would be boring with no novel results, but Jade does love watching you squirm with suspicion. He’ll offer an assurance eventually, and it will be your call to believe him or not. Until then? He has no problem being under your watchful eye. It’s quite cute, after all.

Habits he steals:

Grammar Control (Developed): Purely to piss you off. Coming from another world - your dialect isn't exactly the same as everyone in Twisted Wonderland. There are region specific languages, and then there is the common tongue. For simplicities sake, let's just say that everyone in TWST can speak common tongue and transferring over gave you this ability. Except (like Epel) you carry a heavy accent - and Jade loves to play grammar police. Your irritation never ceases to amuse him. That's right. He's the train kid from the 'Polar Express'. Just less nasal.

“Let’s try to capture that illusive letter ‘R’, shall we? You don’t want to give onlookers any more ammunition as a respectable prefect.”-> Says the only person using this as ammunition, except for Ace when he gets really snappy and Riddle’s mild cringe when your accent butchers a toast at the Unbirthday party. At this point you’re hearing ‘red leather, yellow leather’ and ‘mark went on a lark after dark’ in your sleep.

Routes (Developed): Another one with the need to have a bit of control. Just a bit. Get ready to roll out of bed at the ass-crack of dawn, because he will be there at five-am sharp to haul you back to Octavinelle (or on a hike. Saturday's only). Isn't it a human custom to stick close to your partner? He's just making sure you're cared for. Which is why you exist attached to his hip most days

Symbiosis 1 (Developed): Only a mild-note for Jade. His brother, noted below, takes this concept more to heart. Jade uses it as an enhancing factor to an already “well-rounded” relationship. The law of the sea dictates that those stronger will enter a ‘pact’ with weaker creatures - protection in exchange for care. You are not in need of protection with that frosh posse and stubborn head of yours. Jade mostly uses this ‘symbiotic relationship’ as a way to get you to do things for him, and to talk down your impulsive behaviors from time to time. Aka you won’t create excessive trouble if it means he feels ‘bound’ to go with (as if he wouldn’t be overjoyed to get in some chaos)

Observation (Developed?): Jade...knows everything about you. It's infuriating (to you, not him), but you are still a potential client regardless of his personal interest. Hobbies, tastes, your worst and best subject, weaknesses -all categorized. Azul and his business come first. Yet you're the only student on campus that has a 'doctored' file. Why?

“I never realized you are adverse to crowds. Yet you handle navigating Night Raven with no difficulties? Is this a mere preference, or would you prefer to find somewhere quiet while I accompany the others? What do you need?” -> (During Playful Land Event) He can't get the finer details without asking questions. There is no source for information about your world or your person other than your word of mouth. His unique magic would be easy - but it's just one question. One, and you might be too resilient for a response. Where's the fun? What makes this a habit is that Jade's keen eye becomes sharper.

Ramshackle (Developed): Bro just moved in. I’m serious. He got permission by pulling a favor. Azul doesn’t let him keep the more precarious plants in Octavinelle, so Jade has overtaken the kitchen with potted flora and fungi. Floyd is enthusiastic that he doesn't have to share a room - what? Twins don't always stick together. Those two probably fight more than they get along. Plus with Jade at Ramshackle it's an excuse to go see what's up with Shrimpy and maybe play with torture the little freshies you hang around with. It’s chapter three but you aren't booted out and have to deal with both Leeches every day. Seven preserve you.

—

“I let my excitement get the better of me for a moment…please, continue as if I am not here. My apologies.” == How rare for Jade’s mask to slip in front of his underclassmen. He was able to brush it off - giving a fib about his clubs upcoming excursion (not entirely untrue. He is excited to go for a hike with you this weekend). Yet the normally dull gossip of his dorm-mates was too much to bare. Not because your changes are becoming more pronounced, but because these little fish are foolish enough to think it’s making him soft. Enough to gossip so blatantly in his earshot? Gods, they make his job much too easy.

Habits you steal:

Leering (Inherited): Floyd...oh dear. He has this habit of staring holes into the back of your head. Anyone's head, really. His presence is intimidating, and it's hard not to pick up what’s going on in his head. There's a catch to this though. You only leer at other people when he isn't around. Too busy with the man in question to bother 'people-watching' (unless you're actually pissed). Riddle is constantly on edge now because he has TWO people giving him the heebee-jeebies. Prefect, it was bad enough you were taking influence from ADeuce. Now the Leech brothers? Well, he'd still take you over Floyd any day. At least you won't try to act on that unsettling aura...yet.

“Somethin’ on my face?…why’re you staring at me like that? Unless you want my attention? Hehe, ya shoulda just said so!” <- Floyd can do it to you, but you can’t to him. Not unless you want to be suplexed and squished tightly for hours on end.

Impulse actions (Inherited): Chaotic energy anyone? Floyd needs a partner who is one of two things - can kick his ass on occasion so he'll play nice, or who will match his freak. Since matching the strength of a Moray Eel isn't something most humans can do? Well, maybe a bitch slap here or there but be aware he is letting it happen. Just know. Better be playful too, not no actual challenge. Point being- you need to match his freak. No buzz-kills.

“Ne Ne~ Yanno, I’ve never seen those super fancy fireworks you land people like to set off. Wanna go get some and rig the - eh? You already got them?….Hahaha Shrimpy’s getting gutsy. I’m so happy” -> His eyes are practically glowing with anticipation. You’re now Azul's third headache 1000%, someone get that man an Asprin.

Snacks (Developed): Floyd can EAT. The only one with a stronger appetite is Jade, but he has a better control over his hunger. While their bodies changed to look human, their appetites did not decrease. Going with ‘symbiosis,’ Floyd gets a bit needy and talks like you’re his internal clock. Jade’s the yapper but Floyd just expects you to know what he needs. So you will always be carrying a selection of snacks (Grim gets in on this) in your bag/purse. Also fidget toys. Not for eating, but to give him when you’re stuck anywhere particularly boring. Props if you can somehow get a two-in-one with the twisted wonderland equivalent of those Air Heads Pull-Aparts.

Lullaby and Goodnight (Developed) : Instant calming effect. Merfolk are very particular with music and are sensitive to vocals. Floyd in particular is super picky. You could be the worst singer on the planet (Floyd will give you half-assed lip for it if you are, in all fairness) but the easiest way to calm him down is with music. It’s cringey and unrealistic to us land-folk but there’s plenty of singing in Atlantica. So humming a soft lullaby for him while sitting together won’t earn any looks in Octavinelle. Unless you sound awful, to which he will punt anyone that speaks out. Not that they would, since a calm Floyd is a godsend no matter the means achieved.

“Did I say you could listen in, hah? Sounds to me like someone’s in the mood for ‘my’ kinda song….don’t move, Shrimpy. This’ll be quick.” <- Good or bad - doesn’t matter. Getting to hear you is Floyd’s privilege. He’s a bit possessive of it, to be frank. So if someone butts in when he’s in the middle of calming down, Floyd’s going to be pissed to the max.

The Little Mermaid (Inherited): Drags you down to the sea at every opportunity. Don’t fight him, just guzzle the vomit-inducing potion and get a move on. Floyd doesn’t care how much a mer-transfiguration potion costs, Azul can take care of it. Floyd hates being restrained to dry land, and hey. He’s up here, so it’s only fair you go down into the sea trenches too. Don’t worry, he won’t take you anywhere too dangerous. He’ll even teach you how to get your sea legs - fish legs? Look. He teaches you how to swim in your mer-form, which he is severely disappointed does not resemble a shrimp.

Habits he steals:

Phone Privileges (Developed) : Floyd’s cellphone is normally in DND mode at all times. The only exceptions are Azul and his Momma - Jade was one too up until they came to dry land. There’s only so many mushroom photos and long voicemails about random crap that Floyd can take. Oh - and you’re an exception now. He saves all your voicemails - some for callbacks to win arguments and others to play when he’s about to sleep. You just better be careful when you call him and what for, also always pick up if he calls you. Otherwise there’s going to be one angry eel lurking by your bedroom window. With ‘first-contact’ privileges, all the unflattering candid pics he has of you are just a click away from being shared if he feels like it (teases but wouldn’t do it. Well, unless you really are ignoring him. Be warned)

Using F*cking Doors(Inherited) : Yes. Yes, you read that right. Floyd loves to parkour across campus. The amount of times he’s snuck into Ramshackle through that tiny circle window in the attic is frustrating. You’re seriously considering bolting the thing shut if it keeps him off the roof and on the ground. Y’know, for someone who can’t fly a broom? He sure has no problem climbing brick walls with his bare hands like some kinda cockroach. A Leech cockroach. Jamil’s worst nightmare good god. After the sixth-or-so heart attack, Floyd’s not allowed anywhere near Ramshackle if it’s not through the front door. The ghosts have strict instructions to punt him…to which he took as a challenge (because of course he did). Until a window was smashed, and you sent hellfire down upon him.

“I said it was an’ accident! What more do you want from me, huh? It’s your fault anyway for sicking those ghost fish on me - Urk…fiiine. I’m sorry or whatever” <- Always will back down the moment you come across as genuinely pissed. Usually with a grunt and hiss under his breath, kicking his foot before stalking off to cool down for a bit. Always fixes whatever he broke or tries to make amends once his mood is less sour.

Symbiosis II (Developed): Paired with the above 'match his freak' and second rendition of Jade's. Except Floyd is 100% serious. Floyd's going to do right by you, but you've got to do right by him. People are going to wonder why the small-pint prefect is sitting here covering one of bro's shifts (they feared for your life when you basically told him to 'fuck off', knowing he was angry after getting scolded by Azul) but that's how it is. Floyd's symbiosis is different than Jade's. He's more impulsive, yet also more predictable with what he needs. The definition of "no one can tell me to do shit except my spouse" 'cause symbiosis is a mutual respect and trade. No one can pick on you except for him. No one can help you the way he does. He is not going anywhere. Ever. Bonded for life - that kind of ‘sappy shit’.

"I already said I don't wanna... ughhh, babysitting those frosh fishies is so booooring. Can't we just ask Azul to lock 'em in a tank or somethin'?.... ALRIGHT, Little Shrimpy. I get it already so stop yammering in my ear...." <- Floyd's the softer brother, if you can believe that. Acts of service are what get him and he thrives on being needed. So you'll be doing it a lot to earn that compliance from him. Be the iron fist that gets him to back down, and simultaneously the one slipping him a few party poppers to set off at one of Heartslabyul's tea-parties as a reward.

The ✨Fashion✨ (Developed) : Surface-world fashion is one of Floyd’s special interests. Oddly enough? You’re a perfectly-sized dress up doll. It’s cute how large his shoes are in comparison to your feet. Hah! You look like a clown clobbering around in those things. He 100% gives you a pair of light up sneakers that sparkle when you walk - makes it easier to find you in crowds. Not that he needs to. Mostly it’s just for fun. He’ll even get a matching pair so you don’t feel zeroed out.

VIP Menu (Developed) : Floyd has a ‘secret’ menu over at the Mostro Lounge. He’s the head cook, don’t ya know? Makes real tasty dishes. C’mon, praise him. He’ll add a few dishes just for you since you’re so picky - that’s a bad trait to have for a broke Shrimp by the way. Good thing he’s around to make sure you’re eating.

“Oi! I told ya that was for you. If the lil’ seal’s hungry he can get somethin’ off the menu on his own…unless he’s lookin’ for a squeeze?” <- One major gripe Floyd has with Grim is how he’s always mooching off your plate. It’s fine if Azul’s picky with his food, cause that’s Azul. You’re different ‘cause in Floyd’s mind responsible for you. Again. He takes the symbiosis thing more seriously than Jade, and will poke your cheek relentlessly and comment if it’s lost it’s squish. He always serves you something to eat, even if you don’t order. Doesn’t let anyone else prepare it either.

Protective (Developed) : At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Floyd is very attentive. He’s clingy as hell and always looking for an excuse to have a good tussle - you’re his favorite person to screw with. Yet only himself, Azul, and Jade get the green card to look at you with anything other than respect. Cause he knows they don’t mean it - and even your little freshman buddies don’t get a pass. Maybe the seal since Floyd could squish Grim like a grape and he knows it. Leona’s almost gotten many challenges for the whole ‘herbivore’ thing.

—

“ ‘s nice, right? What’s better than one of me? Two, hah! Jade might have my face but now Shrimpy’s got my personality” == Finds the situation funny for like, an hour? Maybe two? Doesn’t matter because ‘Shrimpy is Shrimpy’ - plain as that, really. He gets more joy out of teasing people when they find out you’re with him. As if Floyd gives two sh*ts what other people think? Nah.

[sadprose-auroras]

'Dulcissima' - Lucius Verus x Fem!Reader SMUT

dulcissima: Latin; my sweetest

A/N: My god. I saw Gladiator 2 yesterday, and this utter filth just came pouring out of me. A major shoutout to everyone who has BEEN writing for this character, I just had to contribute my little part. Reblogs and feedback are greatly appreciated!

Also take a shot every time I mention his big blue eyes and massive arms like hello I'm sorryyyy can you blame me!!! Also it starts off a bit shaky but trust me stick with it! I just can't not have some kind of backstory y'know

Word count: 3.3k

CONTENT WARNINGS: smut, breeding kink, brief size kink, cumplay, vague oral fixation, brief mentions of colonisation and injury

RATING: 18+. By clicking 'read more,' you are confirming that you are 18+

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Pressing the cloth against his skin made him wince, the muscles in his arm jump, and though you typically would not, you pulled it away.

“I’m sorry, but I must,” you said gently, and it occurred to him that nobody had treated him with such humanity and sweetness in such a long time. “It will be over soon.”

You continued to clean his wound as gently as possible, trying to ignore the heat emanating off his body simply due to your proximity. To distract him, you decided to make conversation. You were no stranger to what it felt like to be a slave. For your home to be destroyed, to be dehumanised in such a monstrous way.

“Hanno, where is your home?” you ask, as you continue to work.

“My home no longer exists,” he said with a level of defensiveness, eyes lowering to the floor. “Not as it once did.”

“My ancestral lineage hail from Aduatuci. My parents, my parents’ parents, have all been slaves. We do not know any different,” you said. “But I have dreams of a free Rome, one of hope. I have heard of it, and I know it can exist. If not for myself, then maybe for my future children.”

The lilt of hope in your voice softened his shoulders immediately, and he finally made eye contact with you.

“Numidia. Numidia was my home. I was taken as a slave as they took our land. I will not know peace until I see the world you speak of.” You nodded with understanding, carefully placing your hand on his knee. His demeanour was completely different to the survival instincts you witnessed in the stadium. He was kind, gentle.

“I believe we can fight for that kind of world,” you reassured.

Once you finished tending to him, you gathered your supplies and stood up to leave.

“May the Gods bless you, Hanno,” you said. He reached out to grab your hand as you turned to leave, a lightning bolt of electricity shooting through you. You turned back.

“Wait,” he said, letting your hand go. “Will you come and see me tonight? Please? I could do with some company.” The vulnerability in his bright eyes made your heart melt.

“Of course.”

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Somehow, yourself and Hanno developed a bond. It became a cycle. Each time he was forced into the arena, you watched with a pit in your stomach, tears welling in your eyes. Each time he was victorious, the relief that flooded through you was incomparable. Afterwards, you would tend to his wounds, talking about your hopes and dreams for the future. He would speak of his life back home, tell you all about his childhood and his father.

Each night, you would sneak into his cell to talk more. It had dawned on you that he was your only friend. The only person who had ever understood you.

One night after a horrifying battle in the arena, you snuck in to see him. Drawing your hood down, you nodded to the guard at the door who allowed you through. He had also become an ally to you both, closing the door behind you and moving away to give you some privacy.

Hanno, or Lucius, as he had recently revealed to you was his name by birth, was sitting with his hands clasped together, gazing thoughtfully at the floor, a crease between his brows. When he saw you, his leg ceased shaking and he stood up to embrace you. His strong arms engulfed you, and you immediately relaxed at the familiar feeling. The prospect of losing the familiarity between you was becoming more and more frightening to you. An air of heaviness clouded this particular visit. It felt different this time.

“I am so happy to see you,” he breathed out, pulling away, caressing your arm. Casual touches between you were comfortable and common, especially considering you were required to touch him all the time when tending to his injuries. And yet, every single time, a shiver ran down your spine. Likewise, every time he pulled away, you could feel yourself physically tense once again. He made you feel like you could breathe.

“I thought I was going to lose you,” you murmured, your bottom lip trembling, with what you weren’t entirely sure. It was like every time you saw him, your inhibitions were lowered more and more. You spoke without thinking, acted without speaking. It was dangerous.

“Oh now, dulcissima.” His hand caught at your chin, raising your head to look at him. Your heart immediately began racing rapidly, face flushing. The endearing term all the permission you finally needed, you gently cupped his face, gazing into his stark blue eyes, his long lashes. They stood out against the dirt on his face, the stained red blood smeared across his forehead. A shiver ran through you as his eyes flickered in pleasure.

“Han-“ you began. “Lucius,” you settled on for now. You could never decide what to call him. Either way, he was still the same. Strong, tender, solid, beautiful. Yours.

“I will always be yours, can you not see? This life and the next. You cannot lose me.”  

Unable to come up with any eloquent answer, you decided actions were more powerful. As if your lips had a mind of their own, you raised up ever so slightly on your toes to kiss him, your lips slotting together perfectly. His kiss was soft and gentle as you tested out the feeling with one another, his hands moving to protectively cup the sides of your face, thumb stroking your cheek making you exhale through your nose. Your lips explored his, moving together in perfect harmony, coming up for air every few moments.

Your head was spinning with desire, everything else in the world fell away when he kissed you. His hands had moved into your hair, fingers threading through it, not quite pulling. Your hands seemed to have a mind of their own, running all over his bare back, sides and chest. The feeling of the hard muscle underneath your fingertips, especially when you could feel it jump with sensitivity, made you want to lick your wet tongue all over his body. You wanted, needed, to devour every inch of him.

Hanno’s kisses grew hungrier by the minute, hands massaging and tugging your hair now, pulling it free from its style. You moaned into his mouth, which made him pull away for a moment and press a finger to your lips.

“You must be quiet, dulcissima.” You fought the urge to buckle your knees at the sound of such a sweet term in his rough voice.

“I know,” you murmured against his finger, absentmindedly scratching your nails down his back as you spoke, revelling in the way his mouth opened slightly at the feeling, eyelashes fluttering. “I will be, I promise.”

“Do you?” he asked, finger now teasing at the entrance of your mouth. You nodded ever so slightly, taking his finger in your mouth, swirling it with your tongue. You closed your eyes, coating his finger in wetness, moving your mouth up and down exploringly.

“Mmmhmm,” you moaned as an answer around his finger. The way he was watching you with hooded eyes, bottom lip taken between his teeth, was making the wetness pooling between your thighs impossible to ignore. He gazed at you as if you hung the stars, as if you were a goddess he was worshipping.

You took your mouth off his finger with a pop, and he began to trace it down your throat slowly, leaving a trail of your own spit. You trembled under his touch, lifting your chin to allow him more access. He reached the swell of your breasts, continuing down between them. You pushed your garments down off your shoulders, arched your back to close the gap between you, chest heaving in desperation. You would feel pathetic if it was anybody else. But he made you feel so safe. You could completely be yourself, express your desires.

“My Lucius, my strong one, please,” you breathed, hungry hands now tugging at his hair. “I need you to take me. Make me forget everything. I want to only remember you.”

Without warning, he swept you up in his arms, a gasp escaping your lips, as he expertly laid you down, hovering above you. You took a moment to take him in; his pink, pillowy lips, tousled hair, scruff beard, shining eyes. Not even the midnight sky, nor a sunset, or a shimmering ocean, was so breathtaking.  

“My love,” he scanned your face, causing your heart to skip a beat. “My love,” he repeated himself, beginning to kiss down your neck over your shoulder, across the top of your breasts, sucking and nibbling. Your entire body filled with goosebumps, and you briefly considered that you were not being nearly as quiet as you had hoped. It was so difficult when he was making you feel this overcome with ecstasy.

“I need to feel your skin on mine,” you whispered, tugging at his clothing. He lifted himself off you, standing before you. He removed his loincloth, tossing it aside, his erection standing before you. Your mouth watered as you took the sight of him in, face becoming impossibly hot. His manhood was proportionately large and thick, much like the rest of his broad, toned body. It made you feel so delicate in comparison. Various images flashed in your mind’s eye. A large, strong hand coming down hard on your ass. The other wrapped around your throat. His back muscles flexing as he pounded into you from behind, his hand over your mouth to keep you from screaming.

“You are so-“ you began to say, but couldn’t find the right words. Before you could finish your thought, he moved towards you again.

“Can I undress you?” he asked, hands moving steadily down your clothed body. You nodded vigorously.

“Please,” you squirmed, fluttering your lashes at your love. He motioned for you to sit up so he could pull your tunic off your head, placing it on the floor. You were left entirely bare, and if it were anybody else in front of you, you would feel self-conscious. But the way his fingertips gently stroked your sides, his big blue eyes bore into yours with care and understanding, made you feel like a goddess yourself.

“I want to worship you,” he began, covering his body with yours, mouth covering one of your breasts. “Lay you on an altar and pray over every single part of your body,” he murmured as he took your nipple in his mouth, swirling his tongue. You gasped, hands gripping his shoulders for stability.

“Tell me what else,” you whispered.

“Well,” he said between wet kisses over to your other breast. “Once I worshipped you, my goddess,” he said as he began to suck on your other nipple, tweaking the first with his fingers, making you arch your back. “I would then ravage you,” he said, not giving you a chance to respond except to moan into his mouth as he kissed you, the kiss all tongue and desperation. His beard was scratching at your delicate skin deliciously. You ached to feel this on your thighs.

You began to grind against his body as you kissed, attempting to relieve some frustration. You could feel his hardness pressing into your stomach, and it made your mouth water.

“Lucius,” you groaned into his mouth, perhaps a little too loudly.

Shhhhhh, he placed his hand over your mouth, tutting at you. He kept his hand there, his other one tracing a line down your stomach. Your entire body was shaking as you spread your legs apart, drops of wetness falling down your thighs.

“Quiet, my love,” he whispered, one singular finger finally, ever so gently, tracing your folds. Your eyes rolled into the back of your head, bucking up into his hand. You needed more.

He noticed his reaction, groaning to himself. He couldn’t help but give you what you wanted. He used two fingers to apply more pressure, running up and down your soaked folds, hitting your clit and making your body twitch each time. He watched in amazement as you writhed in both desperation and pleasure, guiding his hand with your bodily movements.

Something switched in you at that moment, and you pushed his hand off your mouth, flipping yourselves over so you were now hovering above him.

“I need you in my mouth, lest I die,” you said breathlessly. He looked amused at your dramatics, but you felt his cock twitch against you.

“We wouldn’t want that, would we?” he said, and you both chuckled. Wordlessly, you turned yourself around so your pussy was over his face, his cock standing proudly in front of you. It was throbbing, looking almost painful. It made you love him even more, that he wanted you this badly.

“So beautiful,” you murmured, using your thumb to swipe the precum dribbling out of his head, licking it curiously. His deep growl was animalistic, and you felt his nails digging into your ass as he took you in his mouth, devouring you just as he promised. Simultaneously, you moaned as you licked a stripe up the underside of him, spitting a generous amount before slowly taking him into your mouth.

Being unable to see him only made you feel closer, as you could feel his mouth reacting to what you were doing. At the same time, his suctioning and licking of your pulsing clit, licking up and down your folds, was making you groan against him, the reverberation contributing to his pleasure. You began to grind your hips against his face in rhythm with your head bobbing up and down, eyes fluttering open and closed in bliss. His beard scratching against your inner thighs was painfully delicious, even more so than your imagination. You could barely breathe with how fast you were taking him in your mouth, but you did not care.

When he took your clit between his teeth and gently tugged, you gasped in pleasure, making you gag. You pulled him out of your mouth, a line of spit following. You felt the vibrations of him laughing against you. You turned around so you were face-to-face again, your legs trembling.

“Did that feel good, my darling?” he asked, unable to help himself from drawing circles on your bundle of nerves with two fingers as he spoke.

“I-Oh-So-G-Good,” you choked out.

“Would you like me inside of you?” he asked, teasing your entrance with his fingers.

“Yes, please,” you begged. He wasted no time in flipping you over once again, using his strength to pull your legs up onto his broad shoulders, your ankles intertwining behind his neck.

“I am yours, yours, yours,” he repeated like a mantra. “Yours,” the last one came out with a groan, as he swiftly entered you halfway. Your breath was taken away in the best possible way, his thickness impossibly stretching you out.

“You’re so big,” you moaned, shaking your head, inadvertently clenching around him. He gritted his teeth.

“It feels so right. So right to be this close to you. I need you every day, every night, all the time,” he rambled, as he pushed all the way into you, bottoming out. You nodded rapidly in agreeance, finding it difficult to speak.

“Is that okay?” he asked, intertwining your fingers together above your head. You nodded again, licking your lips. Your mouth had gotten a little dry from hanging open in pleasure.

“I want you to fill me up like this forever,” you answered, tossing your head side to side deliriously. “I will always need you.”

Something flickered in Lucius’ eyes. He dropped one of your hands, instead pinning both of your wrists down with one hand. He used the other hand to draw circles on your clit, as he began to move inside you. Slowly, gently at first, but not for long.

Before you knew it, it felt as it he was going to split you apart. He was grunting with each thrust, your promises to keep quiet entirely forgotten. The rhythmic sound of your wetness as he moved in and out of you echoed throughout the cell, and it was quite possibly the most melodic sound he had ever heard. You could feel him deep within you, hitting your cervix which took your breath away each time.

Beads of sweat were forming on his forehead, the veins in his arms protruding out. You moved your hands so he was no longer holding your wrists down, and he complied immediately. You needed to touch him. With shaking hands, you ran your fingertips all over his chest and stomach, feeling the muscles flexing with each thrust. You worked your way up over his shoulders, up his neck and into his hair, then back down to his arms. You dug your nails into his biceps, surely leaving marks.

“Fill me up with your seed, dulcissime,” you echoed his sentiment from earlier. “Make me ripe with a child so that we may carry on a hopeful legacy for generations to come.”

He groaned, profanities escaping his mouth in a deep, guttural voice.

“Say that again,” he demanded, fingers still circling your swollen, aching clitoris.

You gripped his hair in your hands, pulling him close to whisper in his ear.

“Get me pregnant, dulcissime. I need your hot, sticky seed inside of me.”

This undid both of you. You reached for one another, mouths slotting together in harmony. You stifled your moans with kisses, as you felt him spill inside you and warm you up. The feeling sent you over the edge, as you pulled his hair even harder to steady yourself. A warmth flowered all the way from your sternum to your extremities, your pussy pulsing around him as you rode out the high. Your entire body felt like it was floating, spots clouding your vision.

“My love, my darling,” Hanno murmured, his stomach rising and falling rapidly as he tried to catch his breath. You kissed again, as he cupped your face gently.

Wordlessly, he gently, achingly, pulled himself from inside of you, and you both watched in awe as the point where your bodies met were no longer together. His seed was dribbling out of you, coating you and making you itch.

“Can I clean you up?” he asked gruffly, barely waiting for an answer as you sighed out, “God, yes,” as he moved down your body so his face was crowding between your thighs. He licked a swipe up you, making your entire body twitch with aftershock. You practically screamed, the overstimulation almost too much to handle. Almost. You shoved your fist into your mouth to stifle the noises.

You watched through hooded eyes as he licked up every drop of his own seed, grinding onto his face, chasing the pleasure. You were delirious, not a single thought in your mind beside Lucius. When he was finished, he wiped the corner of his mouth with his thumb, and you moaned out loud at the sight. He returned to kiss you once more, and you could taste the familiar taste on his tongue, making your stomach swoop with desire.

Pulling away for a moment, he rolled over onto his back, pulling you with him so you were folded into his side, leg draped over his, his large arms engulfing you. He pressed a gentle kiss to your sweaty temple, wildly juxtaposing his actions from mere moments ago.

He gazed down at you with those incredible eyes, sighing blissfully. He moved a piece of hair from your face as he spoke his next words.

“I hope you know I meant every word, dulcissima. I want to build a future with you, for you, for our children. I vow to always protect you.”

You pressed a sweet kiss to his lips.

“We will build our home together,” you replied. And for the first time, the future you imagined, a future full of hope and possibility, felt closer than ever before.

[felassan]

EuroGamer: 'BioWare knew the deepest secrets of Dragon Age lore 20 years ago, and locked it away in an uber-plot doc'

Original creator David Gaider on how "some of the big mysteries are being solved".

Rest of post under a cut due to length and possible spoilers.

"As I write about the secrets hidden in Dragon Age's mysterious Fade, and as I uncover some of them playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard, one question keeps rising up in my mind. How much did BioWare know about future events when first developing the series more than 20 years ago? That's a long time, and back then BioWare didn't know there would be a second game, which is why Dragon Age: Origins has an elaborate and far-reaching epilogue. Why lay so much lore-track ahead of yourself if you don't think you'll ever get there? But look more closely at Origins and there are big clues suggesting BioWare did know about future Dragon Age events. There are obvious signs in the original game, such as establishing recurring themes like Old Gods and the Blight and Archdemons. But there's also Flemeth, Morrigan's witchy mother, who's intimately linked to events in the series now - more specifically: intimately linked to Solas. Does her existence mean Solas was known about back then too? There's only one person I can think of to answer this and it's David Gaider, the original creator of Dragon Age's world and lore. We've talked before, once in a podcast and once for a piece on the magic of fantasy maps, where we discussed the creation of Dragon Age's world. And much to my surprise, when I ask him what he and the BioWare team knew back then, he says they knew it all. "By the time we released Dragon Age: Origins, we were basically sure that it was one and done, but there was, back when we made the world, an overarching plan," he says. "The way I created the world was to seed plots in various parts of the world that could be part of a game, a single game, and then there was the overall uber-plot, which I didn't know for certain that we would ever get to but I had an understanding of how it all worked together. "A lot of that was in my head until we were starting Inquisition and the writers got a little bit impatient with my memory or lack thereof, so they pinned me down and dragged the uber-plot out of me. I'd talked about it, I'd hinted at it, but never really spelled out how it all connected, so they dragged it out of me, we put it into a master lore doc, the secret lore, which we had to hide from most of the team.""

"This uber-plot document was only viewable on a need-to-know basis, he says, and only around 20 people on the team had access to it - other senior writers mostly. And even though Gaider left the Dragon Age team after Inquisition, and then eight years ago BioWare altogether, meaning he didn't work on The Veilguard at all, he believes - by looking at the events in the new game - his uber-plot lore "has more or less held up". That's impressive. What's even more impressive, or exciting, is that back then he also envisaged a potential end state for the entire Dragon Age series - a point at which it would make no sense for the series to carry on. "I always had this dream of where it would all end, the very last plot," he says, "which I won't say because who knows, we could still end up there. But the idea that this uber-plot was this sort of biggest, finite... That the final thing you could do in this world that would break it was there as a 'maybe we would get to do that one day'... There was just the idea of certain big, world-shaking things that were seeded in that arc, some of which have already come to pass, like the return of Fen'Harel." You've read that correctly: the idea to have Fen'Harel, also known as the Dread Wolf, reappear, was seeded all the way back then, way before Inquisition - the game in which he does actually reappear. But the concept for Solas, as a character who was Fen'Harel in disguise, was a newer idea. "That spawned from a conversation I had with Patrick [Weekes] and a number of other writers," Gaider says, "as an idea of 'what if you had a villain that spent an entire game where he's actually in the party and you get to know him?' Now, the god version and his larger role in the plot, yes that was known, but not that he would be presented as a character named Solas." Fen'Harel being known about means the other elven gods were known about, which means all of that stuff Solas reveals about his godly siblings - that they're not gods at all but evil elven mages he locked away behind the Veil - was known about back then too. "Oh yeah," Gaider says. "Everything that Solas tells you [at the end of Inquisition DLC, Trespasser]: it's all part of that original uber-lore - that was all in our mind." But why have so much lore if you're not certain you'll get to ever realise it? Well, to create a believable illusion. By creating an "excess" of lore, as Gaider describes it, Origins made Thedas feel like an old and believable place. A place with history, rather than a Western set that was all facade and no substance."

"BioWare also did something canny with the lore it did relay then, too: it shared it through the voices of characters living in the world, making it inherently fallible. In doing this, Dragon Age veiled its truths behind biases. The church-like organisation of the Chantry proclaims one truth, while the elves and dwarves proclaim another. Sidenote: you can experience this yourself through different racial origin stories in Dragon Age: Origins. This way, there's no one, objective, irrefutable, truth. "To get the truth, you kind of have to pick between the lines," Gaider says. So even though elven legends are coming true through the existence of Solas and The Veilguard's antagonist gods, it doesn't mean that's the one and only truth. There's truth in what the Chantry teaches and what the dwarves say, he tells me, which ignites my curiosity intensely. BioWare has also been tricksy in how it's rubbed out the lore the further back in time you go. "In general, the further the history goes back, we always would purposefully obfuscate it more and more," Gaider says - "make it more biased and more untrue no matter who was talking, just so that the absolute truth was rarely knowable. I like that idea from a world standpoint, that the player always has to wonder and bring their own beliefs to it." It leads into a founding principle of Dragon Age, which is doubt - because without it, you can't have faith, a particularly important concept in the series. It's where the whole idea of the Chantry's Maker comes from and with it, the legend about the fabled Golden City - now the Black City - at the heart of the Fade. This is the very centre of the lore web, and, I imagine, it's close to the series endpoint Gaider imagined long ago. All secrets end there. Did Gaider know what was in the Black City when he laid down Origins' lore? That's the question - and it startles me how casually he answers this. "Oh, yeah," he says. "What was in the Black City: that's the uber-plot. I knew exactly. "Was it as detailed in the first draft of the world?" he goes on. "No. I had an idea of the early history because that's where I started making the world. So the things that were true early-early: I knew exactly what the Black City was and the idea of what the elves believed, and what humans believed vis-a-vis the Chantry - that was all settled on really early. Then I expanded the world and the uber-plot bubbled out of that.""

"Gaider shows me the original cosmology design document for Dragon Age: Origins as if to prove this - or rather for the game that would become DAO. The world was known as Peldea back then. I can't share this with you because I see it via a shared screen on a video call, and because Gaider doesn't want me to, mostly because the ideas are so old they're almost unrecognisable from what's in the series now. But I can tell you it's a document that's just over a page in length, and that there's a circular diagram at the top showing the world in the middle and the spirit realm ringed around it. And on that document is reference to the Chantry's beliefs about a God located in a citadel that can be found there. Gaider says BioWare knew about Fen'Harel (the Dread Wolf) 20 years ago when it was developing Dragon Age: Origins, and that he'd one day reappear. The Fade wasn't known as the Fade back then, either, but as the Dreaming, because it's the place people go when they dream - an idea that lives on still. And if that sounds familiar to any fans of The Sandman among you, it should. "I'd say The Sandman series was probably fairly prominently in my head," says Gaider. "I liked that amorphous geography that was born from the psyche of collective humanity. I'd say yes, if I was to point at something specifically, that's probably where the very first inspiration of it took root." It's a lot to take in, but it reinforces the admiration I have for Dragon Age. Just as I have when hearing about the creation of my other favourite fantasy worlds, such as A Song of Ice and Fire, I begin to understand the magnitude - and the deliberateness - of the plotting that went on. I wonder if one day the Dragon Age series will end in the way Gaider first imagined, albeit slightly altered by the many other pairs of hands shepherding it along now. What a curious feeling it must be to know, so many years in advance, where things might go. Where that end is, I don't know, but I do know we'll take a significant step towards it in The Veilguard. After all, we're coming into contact with gods who were there at the recorded beginning of it all. "Yeah - we have access to people who can tell us the truth from first-hand experience," Gaider says, "although again, it depends on what the writers did with it. But if they continued the tradition of Dragon Age, you never know for sure if Solas is telling you everything, or what you're learning is the entire truth. "But yes, some of the big mysteries are being solved. I mean, will they one day definitively tell you about the Maker? Will we crack the big mysteries of the world and just make them answered finally? And does that ruin one of the central precepts that Dragon Age is founded upon? Maybe," he says. "Ultimately, that lore, when you make it big and you hint at it and hint at it and hint at it, it becomes a Chekhov's Gun of sorts. Eventually you got to pony up.""

[source]

[campbell-rose]

Ok ok i'm a liar oops. Saw the Millie short (I have thoughts) and the season 2 trailer and i had to do my poor sweet underdeveloped bird girls justice.

Octavia is virtually the same personality wise, except she has hobbies that Stolas is completely unaware of but Stella supports fully. Specifically taxidermy, which Stella finds fascinating. I don't vibe with the design after staring at it for a while, but this was just a doodle and potential colors, i'll have to draw Stolas and then figure out her colors.

In demon lore, Andrealphus teaches lots of things, but he is said to teach astronomy, so i decided Stella (as her name would suggest) is very knowledgable on the subject and star gazes. I gave her a galaxy esc dress similar to Stolas's s1 ep7 outfit and changed her colors a bit.

They have a good mother/daughter bond in this because if Viv can't write a good mother figure then I'll do it myself dammit.

Stella is basically now all the fan theories before she was boiled down into a shitty one dimensional abuser to make the uwu gay bird sympathetic with a bit of my input.

She is the younger sister of Andrealphus, who married her to Stolas as a way of moving up in the world - as Stolas is a Prince and Andrealphus is a rank below him as a Marquis. Stella initially was distraught but tried to be good. She tried to find common ground, seeing as both her and Stolas liked stars, but they never clicked fully. When Octavia was born, Stella shifted her attention to her and started being passive aggressive to Stolas, letting her years of anger out on him in little jabs. Things along the line of her throwing a not divorced party but she doesn't loudly insult him in front of her guests.

When Stolas cheats on her with an imp, she's fucking furious. She's given up her entire life to this man, to bring her family name higher and her husband cheats on her with an IMP. The lowest of the lower class, and now her gossipy high society friends she's spent years getting into the good graces of will know. So she's a mix of fucking furious and just a tinge hurt. She's not justified btw, i just want to show her side of things for once because Viv is allergic to developing female characters.

She adores Octavia in my version. Utterly adores her. So of course she takes Octavia and tries to keep her away from Stolas as much as possible. She loves her daughter and wants to raise her better than she was raised.

That's all I might do a Sallie May and Millie redesign again who knows

[dduane]

Hi, Diane, I have a technical writing question for you: How do you decide how long a chapter is?

I've noticed a trend among mass market books of authors adopting the James Patterson style of chapters lasting a page & a half to three pages, but sometimes not even half a page. It's infuriating, especially when action on a single scene is split amongst them. I grew up learning that a chapter is an association of scenes, & that breaks were left for major scene and/or expository changes. If a book had 30 chapters, it'd be 400 pages long. Now I have 215-pages novels with 45 chapters!

You've always delivered a really good, fairly even, page & word per chapter count. So what's your thoughts on how it should be defined, & perhaps any on this metastasizing trend?

I haven't been entirely clear about what to do about this since I first started seeing this divergence of chapter lengths happening. (And bear in mind, this is a wide spectrum to be dealing with. There are books of Terry Pratchett's that have no clearly defined chapter breaks at all.)

My own take on it in the short term has varied depending on what book I was writing, and what rhythm the interactions among the characters were expressing. Sometimes written character business can happen very quickly, over a few pages: sometimes it has to happen more slowly, as it does among real people—a series of interactions, a pause, then further ripening developments and interactions.

Patterson is well known (I think) for having a house style... because I'm sure it'll have been a good while since he wrote anything but the high points of any given book himself. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the house style reinforces his own preferences, which would seem to be for very short interactions... that "short attention span" we've seen being discussed for so long, and getting shorter and shorter all the time.

I think it's safe to say I refuse to go that road. I want to allow readers time to sit in the characters' business (as it were) and think about what might happen next. I'm not afraid to allow the readership time to speculate about what might be about to occur before the next sequence of events sets in.

Is Patterson afraid to allow this? (sigh) I may have been a psych nurse, but I decline to attempt to read another writer's mind: that's a sure path to a headache. Is it possible that writers are as susceptible as their readers to that short-attention-span problem... and unwilling to attempt to slow it down for fear of being seen as somehow "behind the times?"

Damned if I know. Again, I decline to judge. But I sure as hell know how I'll behave on my own ground.

...Let me suggest a possibility to you, looking forward. Patterson's rhythms have all become the same because his (for certain values of "his") books have all become the same. ...And who's to blame for that? Readers are well known, in the industry, for wanting to read the same thing again and again, just a little bit different. That's not the readers' fault any more. They've been trained to it. And the market reflects their training.

You, meanwhile, get to set your own rhythms, and (ideally) allow the reader to settle into them, if they find other aspects of your voice congenial. Just because the Patterson modality seems to be all over the place at the moment, doesn't mean that it will continue to be. The market, gods help us, is all about the New. Someday (gasp) Patterson will be Old. And then what? Will slow slowly start to become cool? Tough to tell.

For myself, I write in a lot of different modes (gods help me, right now over on Bluesky we're discussing the possibility of a paranormal travel agency German [or maybe Swiss] Christmas market cozy murder mystery); and every single one of them requires a different rhythm according to the subject matter, the thought processes of the characters, the rhythm of the story itself and of the characters making their way through it, the way the action expresses itself throughout this story, etc etc. I can't imagine what doing it the same way all the time, regardless of the story's and the characters' imperatives, would feel like. Deadening, at the very least. And isn't writing about being, and becoming, more alive, not less??

If I've got a message, it's this: Let Patterson go his own way (for whatever values of "his"). None of us are going to be him, any time soon.*

I think you should write in the rhythm, and with the chapter breaks, that best suit the story you're telling. If some of your readers don't like those... fine. Others will. Whether they like to hear it or not—and some of them won't—like books, readers too are ephemera: they come and go. Your job is to be faithful to the story as you conceive it, and the rhythms and chapter breaks you feel it needs. The story has no one else to depend on.

So: get busy being God in your own creative universe, and ignore what other gods are doing in theirs.

HTH!

ETA: Historically I've had a tendency to use the "shopping list" method described over here for my outlining, and that's routinely determined chapter lengths to some extent. (i.e., if there were ten items on the list, and [thereafter] ten chapters in a 100K-word book, then that means 10K chapters.)

...Except when I feel a chapter needs to be subdivided, or combined with another one and then the whole thing chopped into three. Or when more entries get added to the master list. I look to see how a chapter "feels" when weighed in the hand of the mind: too long? too heavy? too short? too rushed?—and then adjust its length accordingly.

So briefly: my own basic rules are guidelines, to be broken when necessary. Yours should be, too. Only experience will teach you when this is necessary. But that's just another part of the Craft. "We learn by doing..." :)

*Though do we want to be?

[ataleofcrowns]

Hey! I love AToC and have been following its development for a few years now. But whenever a new chapter was released, and I sat down to read it, I often found it hard to carve out time to do so. So, it got me thinking - if it’s hard for me to read it consistently, how much more difficult must it be to write it consistently? It is admirable the act of writing this takes, And while I’m sure there are slower periods in the whole process, it’s inspirational how you dedicate time to writing. I write sometimes, definitely not a lot, and I want to dabble in a few short stories. So, how do you put in that time or really cultivate that habit of writing - especially when pesky "IRL logistics" get in the way? Are there any specific rituals or routines that help overcome such circumstantial challenges? I’ve been in a bit of a rut with the pen lately, and honestly, hearing anything - whether it’s how you approach sitting down to write or just your thoughts on the process - would be incredibly helpful at best and, at the very least, really interesting to hear! Appreciate you sharing your thoughts if you’re able :p

I take an ice bath, chug 6 cans of energy drink back to back, sit down and white knuckle my desk while yelling "LOCK IN" and write 10k words in one hour-

Ok but seriously, I appreciate the ask!! 💖

And honestly it's just a matter of forming the habit, at least for me. I try to write at the same time every day. For me that's in the evenings since I'm more productive at night, but other people might feel more productive in the morning or the afternoon, it all depends! Once it becomes a habit it's much easier to switch your brain to Writing Mode around the same time every day.

When you first start trying to form the habit, don't be down on yourself if you don't get a lot of writing done at first. Try to write things that pique your interest, even if the scenes or snippets aren't in chronological order. Getting something on the page is what's most important!

Also, don't be too hard on yourself while writing, and try not to edit while you write either. This is a bad habit I used to have that I had to unlearn because of my perfectionism, but it's perfectly fine to have a bare bones first draft that you can return to filling out later. Your first draft is not supposed to be perfect, so just focus on writing it first, and evaluating it later.

And write what you feel inspired to write! Like, sometimes I can't be bothered to write out descriptions or character actions, but I get inspired to write a certain conversation between characters, so I literally skip all the descriptive words and only write out the dialogue. Other times I feel inspired by worldbuilding that I want to add, or an environment that I really want to describe, so I write snippets for that, etc.

I also like setting wordcount goals for myself because I get a dopamine boost when I hit the target and it feels like I accomplished something. If you go that route, start out small! Like 250 words every day for example, and as you get into it, bump it up little by little. It also feels good if you go over your wordcount goal, at least for me.

Some other minor things that have helped me: putting on background music (ymmv), removing all potential distractions by closing everything on my pc and fullscreening my writing program, ensuring I have a place where I can write uninterrupted, drinking my favorite tea, motivating myself with rewards for once I hit my wordcount goal (snacks/video games/watching a show).

I hope any of this is useful for you!!

[wings-of-ink]

Plans, Updates and News!

The Future (and why that's a little scary)

Hello everyone! I hope you are all safe and well.

I wanted to make a post to keep everyone in the loop of where I'm at personally and what that means for the future of my creations, and also give an exciting update!

How about the update first! After some concerns brought to my attention via this post. I decided to change the MC's best friend (Lakota's) name. I received a lot of feedback with reassurances that it was okay to keep this as his name, but at the end of the day, I realized it still has the potential to do harm. That's not what I'm about. Even if most people feel okay with this, someone out there may genuinely not be. The name is easy to change here, and it's not something I feel comfortable trying to justify or anything like that. It hurts me and readers less to change the name than it could by not changing it.

So, I had subscribers on Patreon and Ko-fi vote on a new name! I chose a list starting with 7 names. Voters narrowed down the selection to a top 3. The first 7 were: Kuno, Thamir, Emre, Lailoken, Kalei, Avi, and Asa. After the first round of votes, we narrowed it down to: Emre, Lailoken, and Kalei.

And the winner is...

Emre!

The name will be updated in a future patch!

Up next, I'll give you a heads up on future developments. Here I'll dip into a bit of my personal life. I'm not dipping too far for my comfort zone, and I might put a few things...delicately. But I want you to know what's up and where my head is at right now and why.

So, the second IF is likely not going to happen right now - I think (more on that below). I am not writing this to "stir the pot" or create fear or debate, but it's no secret that things in the States are super not okay. This happens to be where I am. My future is feeling rather uncertain and unsteady and some days I am just scared and not just for myself and loved ones. I am not going to go into all the little details, but my time is already at a premium with working full time and my personal life, and that free time is about to get a bit more narrow in the next 6 or 7 months.

I am prioritizing God-Cursed and Subscriber benefits and have decided that now is not the time to start a second project. I would rather focus on getting GC updates out if my extra time will have more limitations.

Now, the reason I said "I think" it's not going to happen is that - frankly - I'm at risk for suddenly losing my job. Yaay, go me! Part of what I do is funded through the federal government. I'm not employed through them directly, but no money for social services means I'm out of work. If this happens though - I'll have the time for a second project! Yaay???

My partner and I have some emergency plans in place for all kinds of things that might happen be it job loss or something much worse. If this happens, I will prioritize and expand my subscriber benefits to help us survive financially until more work can be found. I am already looking for a new job since the uncertainty is...difficult.

So, if I do find myself with extra time and still employed, I will work on a short story-based IF instead where you can romance 1 character per story. It will be much easier to produce than a fully plotted game. It will likely be a subscriber-only project, but full stories should be released at once (fully interactive with optional spice of course). If I lose my job, you can expect details on a new public IF shortly after, lol.

Okay, moving on to happier things...March is like...here. And March is Duri-month on Patreon and Ko-fi! Around the middle of the month you can expect a cute extra story featuring our favorite demigod for the "Crows" tier and a spicy extra for the "Ravens" tier. I anticipate posting around the 15th or 16th.

Here's a sample!

Currently chapter 6 sits at around 15k words and the first section of it is done (just needs some editing and the like). I'm also making my way passage by passage in previous chapters to improve grammar, word choice, coding, etc....

Anyway, I think that's everything! Take care and be safe!

~Lunan ^_^

[linkyychan]

I had to draw one of my favourite scenes from ISYH, Ochako is such an amazing character and seeing her growth was so satisfying

Go read the fic on this link. It's by @firesign-18, i've finished reading the fic a few days ago and it was suuuuch a ride. I'll leave my thoughts below the read more 🥹

HI! if you're reading this..... i went a bit crazy reading this fic it was such an amazing work. If you haven't read it yet, don't read what I'm gonna write here.

I was recommended this fic months ago but I put it aside because there weren't that many chapters out yet and i just KNEW i needed a bunch of chapters out before starting it, cause i would have trouble not reading it all so fast after reading just the summary. That was a fantastic decision, it was so worth the wait.

I want to talk about it in sections so i can explain my thoughts properly :') There's so many aspects of the fic I loved and I wanna take the time to explain because I never really do it and this time I want to..

First the beginning and the little changes: We start off with our favourite, miserable Ochako (yay canon!), except this time it's even worse cause even less of her fight with himiko was recorded. I was kinda scared there but of course i shouldnt have doubted for a second. Anyway, Himiko is alive!! and the heroes got a way to salvage the footage of the tgck fight from Ochako's mind, so it gives her hope again :)

I wanna move forward a bit after Himiko is back because I wanted to talk about something I like to wonder a lot: how do you write a redemption arc for himiko toga post last war. I've read a bunch of fics with the same premise and I always love those who get a bunch of people to come together to help her achieve it. I love the UA involvement, as well as All Might, Miruko and Ochako of course. And the concepts of the strikes and conditions are very realistic, I liked seeing how we were gonna achieve Hero Himiko someday. All the process explained, I love when its this detailed!

I do wanna talk about another aspect before jumping into the tgck big stuff: OCs. I love OCs so much. There's Dr Ellie and the Spares who are the most important here. First Dr Ellie- whats not to like abotu her. She's been helping Himiko for a long time now, we grew to know her too, and she has a badass past, we were all gonna like her. Now the siblings: yeah i do think it's a big decision to make the villains OCs, and it really worked because they were so well developped. I went to a whole lot of emotions with them, from anger (*cough* chapter 43), through sadness and joy :') They were easy to sympathise with, and i just love how again, everyone decided the "save them" route. It really fit well with Himiko's story.

OKAY now tgck my beloved... i am so happy they got together-ish relatively fast because oh boy were they down for each other so bad. I love how it tackled their lives in relation to their future job as hero, this is a part I'm always curious to see. I really prefer when a future where Himiko is alive doesn't revolve 100% around Ochako. I want to see what she could do herself, grow with others and I think this fic accomplished this perfectly. I like that she's able to forgive herself and grow and imagine a future where she is thriving. Himiko means so much to me as a character and she was written beautifully. For Ochako, I love it soo much when she's strong and so skilled and she's pushing her limits. I loved exploring her grief and her hopes, then her struggles with selflessness vs trying to be a bit more selfish for a change. These two complement each other so well. That was such an amazing read, I'll probable have to read it again in a few weeks to relive it all.

Anyway I'm not sure who took the time to read all this, I don't usually do comments or something besides a few heart emotes here and there but for that fic, it was so good I just wanted to write something and now I've spent a long time writing :') It just hits all the boxes in tgck tropes for me so it was a blast to read!

(Also shout-out to possessive Ochako, i really love her being as crazy for himiko as himiko is for her....)

[satorusugurugurl]

heyy!! how ru? soooo, i was thinking about jjk men found out that reader has problems with food, if you are okay with it, could you write it? if you r not its okay! you are a great writer and i love reading your stuff!! kisses!

JJK Men: When You Have an Issue With Food

Characters: Gojo Satoru, Nanami Kento, Ryomen Sukuna

Word Count: 3,907

Warning: Themes of eating disorders, issues with food, negative body image, suggestiveness, fluff in the end

A/N: Thank you for the request, Nonnie! As someone who has struggled with issues regarding an eating disorder, this took me a bit of time to figure out, but I feel proud of it. Please seek out resources if you struggle as well! There are so many helpful resources that have helped me!

Gojo Satoru:

Satoru loved sweets. He developed his love in high school when stimulating his brain, which led to him developing a sweet tooth, so you could always count on him to bring home all sorts of sweets, which was nice. You enjoyed it until someone at work mentioned that it looked like you gained weight. You brushed it off at first, but it struck a nerve when she said you might lose your boyfriend if you continued eating the sweets. Did you put on a few pounds since you started dating Gojo? Was it all the sweets you had been enjoying with him?

The comment had you poking at your stomach in the mirror with a pout. That woman blatantly announcing their view in front of your coworkers was rude. It was embarrassing and had you questioning if Satoru had noticed if you gained weight. You need to stop indulging in sweets, or more people might start making comments about your weight. Or the worst-case scenario was that Satoru would leave you.

That same day, you went straight to the gym when you got home. You heard footsteps rushing to the door when you returned to your apartment. Satoru nearly tackled you as he kissed your cheeks repeatedly as you headed for the kitchen.

“Hi, Toru!” You giggled as Satoru shuffled with you into the kitchen, not once letting you go. “How did the mission go?”

“It was boring! I wish I could’ve brought you with me!” White strands of hair fly as he yanked his head away from your face. “But I brought you home some souvenirs.” He handed you a pink bag with a cute cat label. “Macaroons from France! This shop is known for its take on different flavors. Peanut butter and jelly blueberry and cinnamon roll. I bought one of every flavor for us to try.” His smile was wide and warm, leaving you feeling sick.

“Oh, thanks.” You placed the bag onto the counter with an evident frown. One Satoru saw your unenthusiastic reaction, and it made him pout.

“What’s wrong? You love macaroons.”

“I do. I just—” Nausea twisted in your stomach. “I can’t eat them anymore.”

The combination of ‘I do’ and ‘I can’t’ had Satoru reeling in stunned silence. “What do you mean you can't? Did you develop a macaroon allergy while I was gone?”

“No, I can’t keep eating sweets, Toru.”

Satoru could tell something had happened while he was gone. Usually, you jumped at the chance to try an exotic sweet he’d bring home. For you to be so dismissive wasn’t like you at all. He’d only been gone for a week, and suddenly, you had an aversion to sweets.

His fingers gently grab your chin between his thumb and forefinger. The second his eyes meet yours, he can feel your anguish. Tears glimmer in your eyes as a little hiccups sound in your chest. Seeing you in such a state had your boyfriend searching you for injuries only to realize it wasn’t on the surface but deeper.

“Sweetheart.” The tenderness and concern in his voice make you cry harder. “Baby, what’s wrong? Talk to me.” Satoru pulls you to the couch, sitting you directly on his lap.

“M-My c-co—“ si s wreck through you as you try to speak, “my coworker—”

“Your coworker what? Who do I need to Hollow Purple?”

Satoru runs his hands gently up and down your back, which is soothing. “They were asking if I gained wei—weight. A-And they said that I would lose you if I gained more.” His hands stopped moving, and his eyes widened in disbelief.

“I’m sorry. What the fuck did you just say?”

You spilled your guts out, telling him everything from what they said to you to going to the gym. Never once amid your rant did he interrupt you. He just held you, pressing kisses against your tear-stained cheeks until you shuddered with a sigh once you were done.

“Baby, my sweet, beautiful girlfriend. Fuck them. Fuck those assholes; God, I hate people so much.” His hands grab your hips, making you straddle him to stare into his eyes. “I think you’re beautiful just the way you are. If you want different souvenirs, I’ll bring you something different. If you want me to bring you back, I will.” His hands gently stroke at your tear-stained cheeks. “But don’t let a bunch of assholes dictate what you can and can’t eat.”

Sincere cease the stream tears. “You think I’m perfect?” A smile graces your face, causing Satoru’s heart to flutter.

“Yes! I love you, whether you indulge in sweets or focus on going to the gym. Regardless of your choice, I’ll support you, whether I bring you home more treats or join you at the gym; say the word, and I’ll support you no matter what.”

You gently pressed your lips against him. To which he gladly reciprocated, holding you tight as you messily made out like horn-crazed teenagers. You happily munched on the macaroons Satoru brought home the next day at work when your phone rang. The woman who had commented on your weight, Tadashi, appears on the caller ID, making you roll your eyes

“Yes?” You asked, licking the crumbs off your lips.

“You have a delivery here in the front.”

You rush to the lobby and pass other assistant supervisors into the waiting room. The delivery man is hidden behind the arrangement of your favorite flowers. You melted as you stepped forward, the floral scent drawing you in.

“Hi, those are for me.” You helped your hands out to the vase.

“Yes, they are!” The flowers lowered, and your grind blindfold creased as he stared down at you.

“Toru?!”

“Just had to remind you how perfect and loved you are!” he placed the flowers down before rubbing his arms around you. “I also want hollow purple the assholes who hurt you.”

“No, Toru, please don’t do that.”

While murder was out of the question, Satoru decided on a different approach to let your coworkers know how much you were loved. He wrapped his arms around you before dipping you in front of all of your shitty coworkers just before kissing you. He made such a scene making out with you and grabbing your ass that you were left a blushing mess. He finally managed to pull away; he flipped off the woman who had made such terrible comments to you.

“Hope this proves that I’m never going anywhere.” he slaps your ass again, drawing a squeak from you. “She’s mine forever and always, no matter what!”

Nanami Kento:

Ever since high school, you have had a food issue. When you were a child, your grandparents often commented about you cleaning off your plate or having seconds. They would frequently call you chubby or warn you that man would like a woman who finished her meals before him.

Because of their comments, you never ate as much as you would like. Purposely leave as much food on your plate as possible without starving yourself. While the habit was unhealthy, it pleased your grandparents to the point they finally got off your back about your plate and weight. After their deaths, the harmful habit caused by their poisonous words scarred you your whole life.

No matter how hungry you were, you never finished your plate. A handful of the entire plate was eaten at every meal you ate. If you were still hungry, water helped with the lingering traces of hunger. Because of your seemingly peckish behavior, you were called a bird throughout high school and even into adulthood. You didn’t see it in a bad way. You were eating the way you did, which never bothered you. You were happy and content with your choices until you started dating Nanami Kento.

When he first asked you out, you thought the good-looking man was pulling a joke on you. Much to your relief, he was serious. He wanted to take you out for dinner and drinks, which you excitedly agreed to. Nanami took you to the best restaurants in town, and it was. You moaned as you ate until you had to force yourself to stop, as you were dangerously getting close to finishing your plate for the first time in years.

Your grandparents' words haunted you as you reluctantly put your spoon down. That was the first time he picked up on your issue. The way you assured him that you were full when your eyes still lingered on your food or how you moaned when you took a bite of the sweet dessert, going in for another spoonful only to freeze and drop your spoon.

Something didn’t seem right, but Nanami wouldn’t pry on the first date. Perhaps you weren’t that hungry, or you were nervous around him. There was no point in bringing it up right now. He wasn’t even sure if he’d get a second date.

But he got that second date and the third, and soon, he became your loving, doting boyfriend

A boyfriend who noticed you not cleaning your plate off wasn’t just a one-time occurrence but a habit of yours. No matter the meal, breakfast, lunch, or dinner, you never finished your plate. Even when you complained about how starving you were, you never ate until you were full.

You never looked satisfied whenever you ate; one would even say that you looked disappointed whenever your plate was taken away at restaurants. Or when you close the lid on your unfinished bento box. You wanted to eat, but something was preventing you from pushing past the limit you made for yourself

Nanami didn’t want to pry or embarrass you by bringing it up, but he could no longer hold his tongue after the two of you had gone to dinner. You stopped eating, and while he finished his meal, you chugged down an entire glass of water. Clearly, you were still hungry but not wanting to eat.

He decided he needed to bring up the manner in the comfort of his home, away from watchful eyes. So Nanami invited you to his condo for a homemade dinner featuring your favorite meal.

It was so good. The flavors were perfect, mouthwatering, and nearly orgasmic. You moaned eagerly, shoving more food into your mouth, losing yourself in the delicious meal made by loving hands; Nanami watched you while sipping on his wine, watching you eat until you stopped eating like always. The disappointment was evident on your face as you reluctantly put your fork down.

Now was the time to act.

“Darling, is the food not to your liking?” A sense of dread burned in your stomach as you looked up from your half-full plate at your boyfriend

“No, it was good! I’ve never tasted something so tasty.”

Nanami placed his wine glass down, licking his bottom lip. “ Are you just not hungry?” You shook your head, cheeks burning. “Then why don’t you eat more Love? You clearly want to.”

“But I don’t wanna lose you—”

Not expecting that to be your answer, Kento pulled his chair to your side, sat down, and gently grabbed your hands. You flushed as he brought them towards his mouth, pressing gentle kisses against your knuckles. Your boyfriend looked so distraught over your answer as if it had wounded him to the soul.

“Why do you think that? Have I made you feel if you were to finish your food, that would result in me leaving you? If I made you feel that way, I’m sorry.”

“Ken, no, no, wait a second.” Your fingers squeezed around his hand. “You didn’t do anything remotely close to making me feel that way.”

“Then why do you think you’d lose me if you were to finish a meal in front of me?”

Swallowing at the lump of dread in your throat, you sighed. “Well, it’s something my grandparents always used to say.” You told him everything about their crude remarks and terrible advice. You also confessed that despite their passing, their words still haunted you, making it hard for you to finish meals.

“That has to be the most asinine bullshit I’ve ever heard.” Kento snapped, irritation carved into his features. “People are so cold and cruel. They don’t understand that words can impact a person for the entirety of their lives.”

“Kento—”

“I can assure you that I would rather you finish your plate than starve yourself. Food is one of the many joys in life that is better shared and company.” He closed the small distance between you. “If you finish your plate, I won’t be disgusted or turned off. I promise you it’s the opposite; seeing you happy and enjoying yourself makes me happy.”

“It does?”

“You always look so happy when you eat something you like.” Nanami picked up your fork and is holding it out for you. “So please don’t let the cruel words of terrible people dictate how you live your life. I won’t be leaving anytime soon, so please eat as much as you’d like.”

Hearing those words from him, the man who stole your heart, made your soul soar. Confirming that your grandparents were terrible people and that he wouldn’t leave you left you feeling overjoyed. Like you had been set free. It was like Kento had taken bolt cutters to the chains wrapped around you for years. That rush of relief had you eating more food off your plate with a happy hum.

You ate all the food off your plate for the first time in years. Nanami grinned as he gently stroked your head, elated to you, so happy and satisfied. Seeing you in such a euphoric state delighted him; words could not describe it. Nanami Kento was falling hard for you, and he couldn’t wait to see what the future holds for you both.

Ryomen Sukuna (Modern AU):

“Big bro!” Sukuna Thomas is a slice of toast on Yuuji’s plate. “Bro!” The smaller boy pouts at his brother, who ultimately ignores him, tossing a butter knife into the sink. “Brother!”

“What?!” Sukuna snaps, running a hand down. His little brother is unfazed by his tone, happily munching away on the toast he had prepared for him.

“Big sis forgot her lunch again!” Yuuji always referred to you as his big sister, even though you were dating his older brother. Sukuna made a mental note to discuss calling you by either your last name or first name, whatever you preferred, when you got home from work.

“No, I handed it to her,” Sukuna is about to call Yuuji a brat for lying when he spots your Bento box wrapped in a cherry blossom cloth on the entrance table by the front door. He swears you’d lose your head if it weren't attached to your body. This was the third time you had forgotten your lunch this week. “Dumb little brat.” he snatches it off the entrance table to put it back in the fridge for you. “She’d if it wasn’t for delivery services and convenience stores. Always forgetting her shit.”

“She didn’t forget it.” Yuuji’s addition has his brother shutting the door to the fridge to box still in hand.

“The hell you mean she didn’t forget it?”

The smell of sterilized wipes makes your empty stomach twist. Maybe the fasting and the protein shake in the morning weren't cutting it anymore. This meant you would have to eat a bit more, which was something you didn’t want to do. Not when your beach trip with Sukuna and the boys was around the corner.

“Hey.” One of your coworkers tapped her knuckles on the door of the exam room you were cleaning. “Once you’re done here, you can take your lunch if you want.”

“Lunch?” You laugh, pulling your gloves off and tossing them in the trashcan. “If you count a protein shake as lunch, I’ll take it.”

“Oh,” your coworker covered her mouth, “ I think I just ruined the surprise.” Surprise? What the hell was she talking about? “Your boyfriend is in the lobby with your lunch.”

Oh fuck.

Without another word, you rushed through the office, heading to the lobby. Sukuna stood by the front desk with a scowl over his tattooed face. He was pissed, and you weren’t sure if you wanted to face him, but the plot to hide vanished the second his crimson eyes shot in your direction.

A chill ran down your spine as the sheer coldness in his gaze had you frozen in your spot until he motioned for you to come over with his index and middle finger. You approached him, smoothing out your scrubs, avoiding eye contact at all costs, which lasted for a second before Sukuna could use his fingers to lift your chin, forcing you to look into his eyes.

“Let’s take a walk.” The sharpness of his tone left no room for discussion

“Okay.”

He at least waited until he was outside to turn and glare down at you. You would have to thank him for that. “Care to explain how you forgot your lunch?” His jaw is clenched, and the veins are popping out of his neck as he attempts to hold back his anger.

“I uh—”

“And before you even think about telling me ‘you forgot’ for the third time this week, long and hard about how you wanna answer my question.”

“I left it behind.”

Sukuna nodded with a scoff. “So does this mean you haven’t forgotten your lunch all week, or have you purposely left it behind?” You give him a guilt-ridden nod. “Why?” His being short and questioning your motives was exactly how you imagined his reaction if he found out what you were doing.

“Because of my diet.”

“Diet, the fuck you mean your diet?”

Your cheeks burn as he repeats the word diet ten more times as if repeating it will help him understand your reasoning. Sukuna listens to you sigh in defeat before sitting on the fountain's edge in front of the medical complex where you work. His frustration blinded him so much that he didn’t notice how you pulled your bottom lip between your teeth or how your leg bounced anxiously.

He sat down, putting your bento box off to the side. “Why are you skipping meals on this ‘diet’?” The bastard was using air quotes now.

“My coworker showed it to me. Two meals with protein shakes and eat only one big meal or day I could tone up.”

“So you’re basically ‘starving’ yourself to tone up?”

“Can you stop using air quotes?”

“I will once you tell me why you’re skipping meals for the shitty diet you don’t even need to be on. If you want to focus on your health and getting toned up, do it. I’ll go to the gym and show you how to use the machines. I’ll even spot you. But so that you know, I think you’re perfect the way you are.”

“You’re obligated to say that because you’re my boyfriend.” Your attitude in your tone has said boyfriend glaring daggers. “You’re muscular and buff, and I’m—“ you pout, “ I’m just me.”

“Yeah, and I want you, all of you.” He’s getting fed up with the piss-poor attitude you have going on. “What’s with the self-hate.”

Sukuna was expecting more attitude or possibly the silent treatment, but you didn’t; instead, it was quiet as your delicate fingers rubbed against your pants. “I-I bought a new swimsuit for the trip to the beach and—” your boyfriend perked up, interest peaked. “And it’s a little snug in some places.”

“Snug?”

“Yeah.” When you first got the swimsuit, you saw nothing wrong with it, but a friend of yours pointed out that your bottoms were a bit snug in the ass region—seeing that your beach trip was two weeks away, your coworker recommended the not-so-awesome diet you were on since you wanted to tone up; because if your friend thought it was snug. You could only imagine what your boyfriend would think. “I just wanna look good for you.”

“Oi.”

“Ye-mph!” Just as you turned to look at him, he shoved the tip of a rice ball into your mouth.

“I need to see you in those bottoms.” There was a certain cuteness with how he puffed his cheeks out as you eagerly chewed on the rice ball. Once you finish swallowing, you grab it by the end and pull it out, holding the remainder of it in your hand

“You want to see?”

“Of course, why the fuck would you listen to some nobody? Let me see them, and I’ll tell you what I think.”

That was the last thing you wanted, but you knew he wouldn’t let this go until you did. Taking another bite of the delicious rice ball, you sighed in defeat. “I’ll show you, Sukuna,” He flicked his finger against your forehead. “What was that for?!” He shoved the second rice ball into your mouth, silencing you.

“For being a dumbass, eat your lunch and bring those bottoms back to my apartment.” He pressed a kiss against your cheek. “I gotta get back to work, but don’t forget I love you the way you are. Please don’t starve yourself because you assume I wouldn’t like something on you.”

You ate all your lunch while dreading the mere thought of him seeing you in the bottoms, which your friend had deemed too tight. The anxiety of what was to come had your day flying by, and before you knew it, you were peeking your head out of the bathroom of Sukuna’s apartment. Your boyfriend sat on the edge of the bed, watching you closely.

“Promise you’ll be honest. I’m dead serious, Kuna.”

“Promise.” When you stepped out of the bathroom, Sukuna’s eyes widened at the sight of the tight red bottoms you wore. They were snug and all the right ways. They were hugging your hips and the curve of your ass perfectly. The color complimented your skin tone. You were so fucking perfect. Your friend must have told you that your bottoms look too snug because they were jealous of you.

Sukuna stood up, crowding you against the wall, inhaling sharply as you hit the cool wall. Your tattooed boyfriend sunk to his knees, his lips and teeth nipping at your thighs up to the curve of your hips. The warmth of his mouth, how you gasped, your hands gripping the pink tufts of hair.

“Kuna.”

“Throw those fucking shakes away, babe. These are perfect.” His voice was muffled as he nipped harder at your skin.

“You don’t think they’re too snug?”

“No, they're perfect.” He whispered, drawing closer and closer to your core. “Now, let's have our own little experiment. I wanna see how well they do—” crimson eyes meet your panting flushed face, “when they’re wet.”

Forever Tag List:

@darkstarlight82 @pandoness @nealeart @simp-plague @sugurubabe @chilichopsticks

[darlingdaisyfarm]

⸝⸝ american dream ˚.

he says he's a businessman, but his pockets are full of fake cash

author note: i actually started writing this as a one-shot fic and wanted to end it in filthy smut, but i got a little bit inspired during the process....... now honestly, i love the idea. it’s not that canon-compliant, but who cares?? also, i’m not from america, so sorry if anything here sounds dumb aghgh :( i dont really know if i should develop it into smth serious or just leave it like that, so idk if it's chapter one or just one shot but im anyways leaving tags for the whole idea i have in mind. i would be glad to see ur opinions on this

tags for the whole fic: Stan Pines x reader (Steve Pinington because he's hot), conman Stanley Pines, enemies to forced travel companions, enemies to lovers, comedy i guess?, supposed to be slow burn but im bad at writing it, gritty realism, homelessness and survival, lots of crime, sexual tension, eventual smut, dirty talk, mutual destruction, partners in crime, morally questionable characters, fake identities and passports, au i guess? because Stan’s stanmobile is broken

All that was left in his palms was next to nothing, a couple of crumpled bills and loose change rattling with every movement. His hands were dirty, rough, calloused from heavy bags, cracked from the cold, knuckles rubbed raw from arguments he lost. And that damn bruise under his eye was still warm and throbbing, reminding of how easy it is to fuck up your last dollar if you say the wrong thing.

The storm hadn’t let up, and he had no choice. Up ahead, a neon sign flickered in the darkness, seconds away from burning out. “low prices, lower standards!” if he had a choice, he would've kept walking, but Stanley never had choices.

The door let out an obnoxious creak when he pushed it open. Behind the counter sat some guy in a wrinkled tank top and, hearing someone step in, he lazily lifted his gaze, looked at the person in front of him up and down, dirty, drenched, exhausted, before sluggishly sliding a key across the counter.

“Fifteen bucks.”

Stan didn’t even bother arguing, he already knew the room would be awful. Could tell by the smell in the lobby, the peeling paint on the walls and the stains nobody had even tried to scrub out. So he dumped the money on the counter, swiped the key, and moved down the hall, careful not to touch the walls.

The room was worse than he expected. Long, packed with metal beds, at least ten of them, maybe more. The mattresses all varying levels of fucked-up, one even had a spring jutting out like a rusty knife. In the corner, a bathroom, if you could even call it that. The faucet leaked constantly, and the toilet. . . yeah, best not to think about the smell coming from there.

But Stanley wasn’t the type to be picky. He’d been through too much to start acting delicate now.

He dropped his suitcase beside one of the beds and, sitting down, rubbed his tired face with both hands. Accidentally, his fingers brushed against the bruise, sending a sharp pang of pain through his skin. He hissed. It hurt, but in a way, it felt good. At least it meant he could still feel something.

The storm outside picked up even harder.

Stanley knew all he had to do was make it through the night. Just one more night in a long string of nights he wouldn't remember. If sleep came, it would be short and restless. His stomach grumbled, but he’d long since learned to ignore hunger.

And yet, there was something ironic about all this. Here he was, Stanley Pines, the free spirit, a boy with attitude, as his mother used to say. Once a promising athlete, as that one family friend had called him, ruffling his brown hair. And now he was just a washed-up liar, spending his last few bucks on a bed in a room where someone had probably died. Fate had one hell of a sense of humor.

He leaned back, staring at the ceiling. Somewhere in the next room, a tv blared some ad promising happiness a better life in three easy steps.

Yeah, if only life was that easy.

But Stan had stopped believing in easy a long time ago. He didn’t believe in simple ways out. All he had were his fists, wits, and his ability to get back up every time life knocked him down.

And he'd get up after this night too.

Tomorrow he’d hit the streets again, try to scrounge up some cash, tell himself that tomorrow would be easier.

He already knew it was a lie.

But sometimes, a lie is the only thing that keeps you moving.

In his dreams, Stanley was happy. No debts, no street fights, no counting pennies, no that one goddamn night when dad threw him out like some unwanted troublemaking mutt. Just him and a giant, disgustingly delicious burger. Meat dripping with fat, cheese stretching in long strings, sauce dripping onto his fingers. Stan tore into it, starving. Oh, god, ohh fuck. The best burger of his life. And bacon. Crispy, salty bacon.

Stan remembers bacon and coffee in the mornings, remembers a warm kitchen, the smell of fresh bread. And toffee peanuts, sticky and sweet, caramel-flavored, tasting like childhood.

Somewhere something clattered. Close enough that it shouldn't have been here.

Stan jolted awake so fast he almost rolled off the shitty, creaky bed. His heart hammered against his ribs and his mind latched onto one thought. Cops, fucking cops. He barely had time to say his mental goodbyes, to his brother, his mother, and—

In the doorway stood someone drenched, exhausted, with an oversized duffel slung over one shoulder. Dirty rainwater dripped from their boots and ran in slow rivulets down their face.

“Oh, shit, sorry. Didn’t know someone else was in this piece of— uh, shitty place.”

Stanley blinked. Looked around, still trying to process what the hell was happening. He had just been in heaven, his greasy, cholesterol-filled heaven, and now—

Now some random stranger from the streets had just stumbled right into his shitty motel room.

“I just closed my eyes!” Stan mumbled.

You threw your bag on the floor and scoffed, shaking the rain off your sleeves. “right, sorry for disturbing your precious sleep, your highness.”

“Oh, you better be sorry! I was dreamin’ about a burger. The juiciest, fattest, most delicious burger. And bacon. Bacon, man! Do you even know how long it’s been since i had bacon? And toffee peanuts! goddamn caramel melting in my mouth like—”

“Jeez, calm down, okay? man, you need therapy.”

“I need a damn burger!”

You smirked, shrugging off your soaked jacket. Water dripped onto the wooden floor, which was already sticky from years, no, decades, of dirt.

“Well, i don’t have a burger. But i do have a half-eaten snickers somewhere in my bag. Interested?”

Stanley looked at you like you had just offered him a brick instead of food.

“You think a snickers can replace bacon?”

“No? But it’s got peanuts. That’s protein. Protein is good for you.”

“You don’t get it, do you? It’s not just food, it’s nostalgia! It’s my damn childhood! It's waking up to the smell of bacon in the kitchen, my mom humming some old tune, me stealing a piece before my brother—“ he cut himself off, grimaced, and flopped back onto the bed. “forget it.”

You finally looked at him properly and only now noticed that he looked like he’d been through hell. “Rough night?”

“Rough life.”

You both went quiet. The storm outside raged on, shaking the flimsy motel walls under the force of the wind.

“So,” you finally said, rolling your shoulders, “we’re roommates now?”

Stanley snorted. “Seems like it. Welcome to hell, buddy.”

You flopped onto one of the empty beds, and the moment you did, the loudest creak imaginable ripped through the room, making both you and Stan clap your hands over your ears. Using your foot, you pulled your heavy-ass duffel bag closer, which created yet another horrible sound. You rolled your eyes and started wringing out your sleeves, water trickling in thin streams down onto the ancient, mildew-scented carpet.

“Jesus, what the hell is this weather? it’s like god himself wants me to suffer.”

Stanley, still grimacing, lazily turned toward you. “tell me about it. This place ain’t much better either. I think the walls are moldy.”

You eyed the peeling wallpaper, noticing the unsettling dark substance oozing out of the corner. God, you didn’t even wanna know what the hell that was.

“Yeah, well. Beats sleeping outside.” you said nervously.

Stan chuckled but didn’t argue. He watched as you fussed with your wet clothes for a few seconds before finally speaking up again, in the most pathetic tone imaginable. “Uh, so. . . you said somethin’ about a snickers?”

You looked up, and your heart almost burst, because this grown-ass man with a black eye and a permanent scowl was looking at you with the saddest, most puppy-eyed expression known to mankind. You felt like you had personally caused every single one of his problems. What a goddamn actor.

“Oh my god,” you pressed a hand to your forehead. “Fine. Knock yourself out. Bag’s on the floor.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. Practically leaping off the bed, he snatched up your bag and started digging through it, clearly on the hunt for the promised candy bar.

“Jesus, what do you even keep in here? bricks? dead bodies?”

“Yeah, first one to ask gets to be the next one in there.”

Stan snickered but kept rummaging. Finally, he pulled out the snickers, unwrapped it, and—

“Oh—oh my godd—” your eyes widened at the unexpected, borderline obscene sounds.

He literally moaned when the chocolate hit his tongue, tilting his head back, eyes shut in pure bliss. You stared at him in absolute disgust.

“Dude. Ew.”

“You don’t get it,” he groaned, taking another bite. “it’s been weeks since i had chocolate. Weeks! I was startin’ to forget what joy tasted like!”

“Yeah, that was a good one. I wanted to steal a twix too, but almost got caught.”

Stan froze mid-bite, eyebrows shooting up in pleasant surprise. “Wait. You’re tellin’ me, you steal too?”

You smirked, holding out your hands. “Duh. What, you think i have money for this crap?”

“Holy shit. We’re like, the same.” he shook his head, still in shock. “man. all this time i thought i was some kind of lone wolf, strugglin’ through life, hustlin’ my way through this shitty world. Turns out i got a partner in crime?”

“Ehh, sorry to break it to ya, but you ain't that special.”

Stan scoffed, finishing the candy bar. Although he clearly remembered when he kept rummaging through your bag, his hand suddenly stilled and he found something. Something that made his eyebrows climb higher and higher. He didn’t say anything. And neither did you. Stanley was good at pretending everything was okay.

You kept wringing out your soaked clothes, searching your bag for something dry, while Stanley swallowed the last bite of his snickers like it was the last chocolate bar he’d ever eat in his life. And, honestly, judging by the way he looked, that might just be true.

He was watching you until finally, his curiosity got the better of him. “So. Who the hell are you, anyway?”

You didn’t even look up, still rummaging through your things.

“Somebody who gave you food.”

Your answer made his mouth twitch into a grin, and he nodded. “Yeah, well, that’s a good start. Sharin’ food is a sacred bond, y’know.”

“Uh-huh. Sacred.”

“But seriously,” he rolled onto his side, propping himself up on his elbow, “you steal, you crash in shitty motels, you carry. . . whatever the hell that was in your bag, what’s your deal?”

You shrugged lazily. “No deal. Just life.”

Truthfully, your head was killing you, and all you wanted was for him to shut up. But he clearly wasn’t planning on it. You winced, rubbing your temples. “jesus, you talk a lot.”

“Aaand yet, you answer everythin’. Means you don’t mind.”

You squinted at him. “No, i’m just too tired to tell you to shut up.”

He snorted. “Yeah, sure. Keep tellin’ yourself that, buddy.”

You rolled your eyes, peeled off another layer of your damp clothes, and hung it over the back of the bed. Then, without stopping your rummaging, you nodded toward his face.

“What’s with the bruise?”

He immediately pulled a smug expression. “you should see the other guy.”

You kept digging through your stuff, barely paying attention to his cheap bravado. Yeah, yeah. Seen it, heard it, met plenty like that.

“Hmm. And the truth?”

Stan scoffed, but when he realised you hadn’t even acknowledged his first joke, he made a deeply offended face. “Wow. You weren’t even listenin’ to me?”

“Nope.”

He huffed and waved a hand. “Eh, whatever. Owed some guy money, didn’t have it, got this instead.”

“Fair trade.”

“You’d think, huh? So where you from, anyway?”

You kept rifling through your things, but your voice turned colder. “Not from any state.”

Stan raised a brow. “Oh. so you’re not even from the U.S.?”

“Documents, visas, all that crap. Long story.” you nodded.

He dragged out a slow “huh.” and fell quiet for a moment. Then, as if he suddenly remembered that conversations were supposed to go both ways, he said, “new jersey.”

“Huh?” you squinted.

“Where i’m from. new jersey.”

You made a mental note. Oh, great. An american. Then you glanced at him again. . . Grimy, exhausted, full of problems, broke as hell. The perfect representation of the american dream. . .?

You had no energy left for this conversation. You’d had your fill of socializing for today, just like you’d had your fill of adventures. That snickers bar had cost you enough. So you decided not to reply, just shrugged and turned away.

Your wet shirt was clinging to your skin, and it was getting unbearable. So you started taking it off, not particularly caring that someone else was in the room. There were bigger concerns.

You turned your back to Stanley as the fabric hit the floor with a soft thud, exposing your spine.

Stan froze, just staring. his gaze dragged down your back, and then he just kept staring.

Directly. At. You.

You felt it prickling at the back of your neck.

Silence. Way too long of a silence. Long enough to make you frown as you slowly turned your head.

“Dude.”

He immediately looked away.

“What? i ain’t lookin’.”

“Bullshit. You were literally staring.”

He grimaced, turning away harder. “Yeah, well. Not my fault. You’re the one strippin’ in the middle of the damn room.”

You rolled your eyes. “Gosh, it’s a back. Grow up.”

Stan muttered something under his breath, yanked his blanket higher, and grumbled, “Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Just warn a guy next time.”

You finally pulled on a dry shirt and flopped back onto the cot, exhaling. The rain was still hammering against the window, the wind howled, and the ceiling creaked ominously.

You glanced over at Stan, who was already curling up, about to knock out. “Wait.”

He cracked one eye open, barely awake. “hm?”

“Never asked. What’s your name?”

That made him blink. And immediately Stan started thinking. Of course, he should lie. He always lied. Threw out fake names like poker cards. Steve Pinington. Stetson Pinefield. Hell, maybe John from Alaska? No, Stan, that's too dumb.

He squinted at you through the dark room, until he finally said. “Call me Steve.”

“Steve?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Steve.”

You rolled your eyes. “Right. And i’m the queen of england.”

“Holy shit. Pleasure to meetcha, your majesty.” Stan stuck out a hand like he was about to shake yours.

But you swatted it away. “Okay, Steve. Whatever.” then you gave him your name.

“Well,” Stan tested your name on his tongue, stretching, folding his arms behind his head, “This been a real thrill, but i’d really like to—“

“Is that your car outside?”

He froze. “What?”

“The shitty, beat-up thing that looks like it’s been in five accidents and somehow survived.”

He pushed himself up on an elbow. “Hey! That’s my baby you’re talkin’ about.”

“Why didn’t you just stay there, then?”

He groaned dramatically and flopped back down. “Ugh. Somethin’s busted. Gotta fix it. But i need a real good mechanic, and guess what? I got no money.”

“So you’re tellin’ me that thing is just. . . sitting there, useless?”

He sighed. “Not useless. just— okay, yeah, maybe a little useless. but it’ll run! probably. Just needs a little love. and, y’know. Not to blow up in the process.”

You nodded thoughtfully. “so you’re afraid your car might explode.”

“Eh. Fifty-fifty chance.”

you nodded again. “Solid odds.”

“Right?”

You both finally settled in, pulling the blankets higher, and before long, you were both out cold.

But you weren’t given much time to sleep. A sharp, hysterical scream shook the motel walls, and you flinched, jerking from the suddenness of it.

“Where is he?!” the door burst open with a crash, and a man stormed into the room. The same guy who took the payment for the room. What the fuck? You hadn’t even processed what was happening before he jabbed a finger at you.

“WHERE IS HE, BITCH?!”

You panicked, looking around. And only then did you notice. Steve was gone. That fucking bastard just. . . disappeared.

You swallowed, feeling your throat dry, trying to wrap your head around it, and just as you were about to ask what the hell was going on, the man took a step toward you, his face twisting with rage.

“YOU FUCKERS SCAMMED ME!!”

“Huh?”

“HE PAID ME WITH COUNTERFEIT MONEY, THAT LYING PIECE OF SHIT!!!”

You didn’t even have time to react before he grabbed your arm, squeezing so hard it hurt.

“AND YOU, BITCH, YOU’RE IN ON IT TOO, HUH?!!

Counterfeit money? That dumbass gave him counterfeit money?

“I’ve never even seen him before in my life!”

“DON’T LIE TO ME, WHORE!!!” he shook you.

What the fuck. What the actual fuck!

“L-listen, man, i have nothing to do with this, okay? i didn’t even know he—“

“SHUT UP!!!” he raised his hand, and you realized he was actually about to hit you. And this shit, this fucking bullshit, was not even your fault. All you could do was grab your bag, sending a snickers wrapper tumbling to the floor, and bolt for the window like crazy.

“STOP, YOU BITCH!!”

However you were already climbing over the windowsill, jumping, falling, crashing into the mud. Pain shot up your ankle, but you couldn’t stop.

His voice roared behind you, “I’LL FIND YOU!!!”

But you were already sprinting down the wet road with that disgusting cold rain slamming into your face, mud clinging to your boots.

You were fucked. You were alone. On the street. In a foreign country. With no money.

And all thanks to that fucking bastard.

That’s how you end up on the street again, with a fucking bag, dirty boots, and realisation that the world is just a giant piece of shit you’re now neck-deep in. Rain’s pouring down and you can’t even remember what it feels like to be dry. Your hair’s soaked, clothes clinging to your skin, and your stomach is damn empty, a hollow ache that’s turned into this dull, throbbing pain gnawing at your insides. And the funniest fucking part? None of this is your fault. But does that matter? No. The guy at the motel is probably already calling the cops, waving around those fake bills, and now you’re not just homeless, you’re probably a wanted criminal.

Fantastic.

No money, no food, no Steve, no fucking anything. But no time for existential bullshit, you gotta get the fuck out of here, and quick. But how the fuck are you supposed to leave when you’re broke as shit? Bus tickets cost money. Taxis cost money. Even hitchhiking isn’t an option unless you wanna roll the dice on getting murdered in some psycho’s trunk.

You walk. And walk. And fucking walk.

And it’s humiliating, the way your stomach growls loud enough for people to hear, the way your soaked clothes cling to you, the way you have to press yourself against buildings just to shield from the wind. Your last meal was half a snickers bar and now even that feels like some luxurious memory from a past life.

You need money. And fast.

So you do what desperate people do, you start looking for work. Not a real one, obviously, because legally, you don’t even exist. So you walk into the first rundown diner you see, a place so grimy it’s a miracle the health inspectors haven’t shut it down yet. The guy behind the counter, fat, greasy, way too friendly with hamburgers, doesn’t ask questions. Just tosses you a filthy apron and says your shift starts now.

You carry plates and wipe sticky tables. Put up with customers who act like you’re not even a person, just part of the furniture. Some leave tips and others leave disgusting looks, but you pretend none of it matters.

Until you spill a drink on some guy, who said very nasty and dirty things to you and the manager, who’s been drinking all day in his office, just decides he doesn’t like you. Either way, you’re out on the street before you can even say “go fuck yourself.”

Fine. Fuck them.

Next, you try cleaning. Sounds easy enough, right? Just wipe shit, take out trash, don’t ask questions. But the people. Oh god, the people.

One guy stares too long. Another asks if you “do more than just clean.” You hear something in the next room that sounds exactly like a body being dragged across the floor, and before they can assign you your first shift, you’re already bolting out the backdoor, deciding you’d rather starve than end up as another missing poster.

So you adapt and start lying. The first lie is awkward, stumbling, barely convincing.

You become a lost tourist, a poor, helpless tourist with tears in their eyes. “i need to get home, but i got robbed, could you please help?” some people believe you, some don’t, but sometimes a few bucks land in your palm.

Actually pretending to be a lost tourist works. Not always, not on everyone, but enough to get you through a night. Enough to buy something cheap from a gas station. Enough to keep you from completely breaking.

But you’re still homeless, from time to time sleeping under bridges, curled up in your too-thin jacket, cursing Steve every time you hear a car pass because he’s probably in his fucking shitty car right now, dry and warm, while you’re here turning into a human popsicle.

Every night, you promise yourself if you ever see him again, you’re gonna punch him. Right in the jaw.

But then one day, you watch some lady on the street doing tarot readings. Honestly, she's dramatic as hell, but you see the way people eat it up. How badly they want to believe the bullshit she’s spinning.

And that’s when it hits you. You don’t need luck to survive. You just need a better lie.

So you become a psychic, not a real one, obviously. But you pick up quick because you watch, listen and learn.

You sit out on the street, put on a knowing expression, grab the hand of the first idiot who stops, and start spewing bullshit about “long fate lines,” “hidden symbols,” and “a rich soulmate just around the corner.” And people eat it up.

God, they’ll believe anything if it means hearing their future is bright. And you don’t blame them because you wish you could believe it too.

“Oh, i see a great love in your future!”

“Yes, you’ll be rich one day, just wait!”

“Your life is about to change in a big way!”

So the money starts coming in. Not much, but more than before. More than the waitress job and more than begging. For the first time in forever, you don’t feel like you’re at rock bottom.

And soon you’ve got enough to get the hell out of this cursed city.

Here you are, trying to catch a bus, because if you stay here even one more day, you’re either gonna get arrested for illegal stay, or get eaten alive by the homeless, or worst of all found by the people who were supposed to make sure you never crossed the border in the first place. Okay, last chance, last hope. Standing on the roadside, you're scanning the cars, forcing a practiced smile, as if you’re not freezing your ass off and your legs aren’t burning from exhaustion.

The bus finally arrives, late as always, Because yeah, why would anything ever be convenient for you? The city is already deep asleep, leaving the streets empty, and that silence unsettles you. You’ve always hated silence. Especially this one that makes you glance over your shoulder and wonder if you should even get on this bus at all. But you don’t have a choice so you throw the money at the driver before he can say anything, drag yourself to the back, where you can sprawl out by the window and maybe catch a few minutes of sleep. You’re already hauling your heavy-ass bag, dreaming about collapsing into a seat, when you see—

WHAT

That bastard, slouched in the corner, legs widely spread, brown hair is even messier than before, his gaze lazy, but the second he spots you, his eyes widen just a little.

You stop and stare. So does he.

“You. fucking. asshole.” you throw your bag onto the seat beside him, the sound echoing through the empty bus, but you don’t give a single shit.

“Hey, what the fuck, lady?” Steve or whatever the hell his name was raises his hands, as if he has no idea what’s happening, as if he’s genuinely fucking clueless about why you’re yelling at him.

“Oh, don’t you fucking “lady” me. You left me, you piece of shit.”

“Listen, doll, it's not like I—“

“Oh my fucking god, don’t ”doll” me either, you goddamn motherfucker.”

You hate the fact that he acts like this is funny. But he's not dumb, he knows you’re ready to kill him.

“I did what I had to do, you know! you should be grateful I didn’t wake you up.”

“Grateful?” you laugh, because at this point, it’s not even anger, it’s pure, unhinged hysteria. Grateful? Fucking seriously? “that motel guy was about to fucking kill me!”

“Well, did he?”

“No? but that’s NOT the point!”

Stan rolls his eyes. You can literally see him gearing up for some dumbass excuse.

“Ohh, come on, sweetheart, i knew you’d make it. You don’t look like someone who’d die that easily!”

You feel your face burning with rage. “Oh, oh, fuck you. Fuck you so much. you know what? I should've stolen your damn car.”

“Oh, you should've?” he smirks. “please, id love to see you try.”

You narrow your eyes. “next time I will.”

“Sure, good luck with that.”

You're aware that he looks you up and down, soaked, pissed off, hair a mess, but alive. And the bastard has the audacity to look. . . pleased?

“Anyway. nice seeing you again. Name’s Bill, by the way.”

You snap your head up. “wasn’t you Steve?”

He freezes. Then grimaces because he just realized he played himself. “. . .Yeah, well. i have many names.

“And no brain cells. But oh my fucking god. Was that even your real name?”

He leans back against the seat, already bored of this conversation.

“Who even gives a shit about real names, huh? names are just a concept.”

“A concept?”

“Yeah, you know, just labels people put on you. But they don’t mean shit. you can be whoever the fuck you want. Today I’m Bill. Yesterday I was Steve. Who knows what I'll be tomorrow?”

You press a hand to your forehead. “You are literally the dumbest person I have ever met in my life. I can't believe i—“

“Aww, thank you.” Stan interrupts you.

“That wasn’t a fucking compliment.”

“I’ll take it anyway.”

You exhale. No, seriously, you’re too fucking tired for this.

“You know what, fuck it. I don’t even care anymore. I’m sitting here, and if you open your mouth again, I swear I’ll strangle you.”

You're so cute when mad. That makes Stan grin. “ohhh, so we’re traveling together now?”

“No.” you're wrinkling your forehead.

“Sounds like we are!”

“Shut the fuck up.”

The bus rattles down the highway, lights flashing past the windows, and you're doing your best to ignore the fact that you’re stuck in the same goddamn vehicle as this absolute idiot. Unfortunately, he’s here, sitting right next to you, breathing the same air, and worst of all, he’s enjoying it. It's obvious by the way he smirks and sits all sprawled out like this is his personal limousine and you’re just some random hitchhiker who happened to stumble into his kingdom.

You take a deep breath. You need to calm down. Just count to ten, breathe and—

“Man, you are so mad. I literally feel the steam coming out of your ears. Are you always like this, or is it just me?”

You squeeze your eyes shut. “it’s just you.”

“Oh, I feel so special now.”

You clench your fists. God, he’s such a dick. But something about his words sticks with you, that moment when you mentioned his car, and then the question pops into your head.

“Wait a second. Didn’t you have a car?”

Stan blinks, then makes the most pitiful face you’ve ever seen. “Oh, my baby. . .“

“Your what?” you immediately frown.

“My car! My precious, my one and only. . .”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

He sighs dramatically, placing a hand over his chest looking like he's talking about a dead relative. “I had to sell her.”

“What?”

Stan nods, staring out the window like some tragic movie character. Oh shit here we go, you think.

“Yeah. . . she’s gone now. Sold her to some guy named Bud.”

“You sold your damn car?”

“Had no choice, sweetheart.”

You stare at him, unable to process this information. “and what the hell did you do to end up in a situation where you had to sell your fucking car?”

He shrugs, way too casual about the whole thing. “oh, you know. fucked up. I'm a screw up after all.”

You stare at him, waiting for an actual explanation, but he just keeps grinning that lazy grin like this whole conversation is just a fun little game for him. And that pisses you off even more.

“You are literally the worst person I’ve ever met.”

Stan snorts. “Oh, come on. Don’t act like you’re sad about it. Or what, were you hoping to move in? live in MY car?”

“NO, you idiot! but I was hoping you’d stay the fuck away from me instead of sitting here, ruining my life even more!”

He leans too close, invading your personal space, grinning. “Bold of you to assume I would even let you touch my baby.”

“Are you kidding me, you idi—“

Stan throws his head back, laughing loudly, and it’s the worst sound you’ve ever heard. “Oh man, you are so easy to piss off. I love it.”

“I hate you. Shut up.”

“I know. And no, i wont.”

You roll your eyes, turning away, deciding you’re done wasting your energy on this asshole. But your stomach has other plans as it growls too loudly, and suddenly you remember that the last time you had a proper meal was. . . well. Way too long ago. You dig through your bag and pull out real food. Warm, actual food. Not a goddamn snickers like last time, but something that smells so good your mouth starts watering.

You still remember the motel. You remember this asshole munching on YOUR snickers and moaning like he was in heaven, knowing damn well you had nothing to eat.

You pick up a piece, put it in your mouth, close your eyes and—

“Mmmhmm.”

Stan’s head snaps toward you immediately.

“What the hell are you doing.”

You open your eyes, smirking, and take another bite. “just enjoying my food.”

He squints at you. “you’re fucking with me.”

“Am I?” you close your eyes again, letting out an exaggerated sigh. “Mmhh. God, this is so good.”

“Okay, stop.”

“Stop what? enjoying my food? Oh, no, no, no. I should savor it.” you take another bite, chewing as slowly as possible, staring right at him.

He’s getting nervous. And his stomach starts growling too.

“So what, not even gonna share?” Stan looks at you, demonstrating you his puppy brown eyes.

Without breaking eye contact, you put another piece in your mouth, chewing as slow as humanly possible.

“Why the fuck would I share with the person who got me almost killed?”

He gasps, clutching his chest like you just stabbed him. “oh, please! it’s not like I ever needed your help!”

And with that, he yanks open his suitcase, clearly expecting something great, warm, tasty and instead. . .

Nothing. Well, except for some sad, rip-off band-aids.

He stares at them, slowly closing the suitcase. “man, life sucks.”

Finally, the bus screeches to a stop, tires rattling against the old asphalt, and you’re not even sure whether to be relieved or not. Sure, you got out of that place, the one you definitely shouldn’t have stayed in, but now you’re here, some other godforsaken place you don’t even know what to do with. But that’s not a problem anymore. At least you know what comes next. Unlike some people with fake names.

You stand, grab your heavy duffel bag, and Stan does the same with his suitcase. The entire ride, he didn’t shut up for even a second, but now that you’re outside, he’s way too quiet.

You steal a glance at him, he's standing there, gripping his suitcase like a little lost child, brushing his thick fingers over his mustache, scanning the darkness as if he's looking for something.

And it bothers you a little. Not because you worry about him. Just because Steve never gets this quiet for no reason. But you don’t care.

Honestly, it’s even better this way.

You adjust the strap of your bag and start walking. Slow, but determined. You don’t need this idiot. You don’t trust him, not after what he did, and not after he screwed you over. Yeah, maybe you’re no saint, but at least you never betrayed him the way he betrayed you.

And now, when he’s in even deeper shit than you are, why the hell should you stay?

But of course, he just has to open his damn mouth.

“So what? You just leave?”

You stop, exhaling sharply. “um, what do you expect me to do? take your hand and lead you like a lost puppy?”

“I mean, that would be nice.” he smiles awkwardly.

You roll your eyes and turn, meeting his sad gaze. “look, Steve if that's even your name, you got me in enough shit already. The last thing i need is you making it worse.”

He scoffs, rolling his eyes right back at you.

“Oh please. Don’t act like you weren’t already knee-deep in trouble before me.”

“Yeah, but at least i was handling it! Unlike some people.”

Stan narrows his eyes at your answer. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means, at least i still have my business. I still got people to scam. What do you have? Failed cons and a car you had to sell to some guy named Bud?” you smirk, shaking your head.

His face twists in mock offense. “Hey, Bud was a great guy! very talkative! he even gave me some advice—“

“I do not care.”

“Man, you’re so heartless.” Stan sighs.

“And you’re a liability.”

He opens his mouth to argue, but then he just stops. You see it hit him, even if he tries to play it off. Stan hates losing, hates to realise that someone else is better than him at at least one thing he thought he was good at, scamming. And right now you’re doing better.

He could say it’s not a competition, but for him, it always is. And that feeling, that he’s falling behind, pisses him off more than anything.

But when Stan blinks, shaking the thought off, he notices he’s standing alone.

You’re already gone and that makes him curse under his breath, glancing around, but you’re nowhere in sight.

“Well, shit.” he stands there, alone in the dark, and for the first time in a long time, he has no idea what to do.

But he has money. Shit, at least he has that. Thanks, Bud.

Stan glances around, thinking this place feels too dark and too empty so it makes him uncomfortable. He needs to get somewhere with people. Somewhere with a motel or at least a spot to crash for the night.

He walks, humming under his breath. Whatever, he doesn't need you, he doesn't need anyone. He's free spirited Stanley damn Pines, right, ma?

He turns the corner and something heavy slams against his head. Stanley doesn’t even get the chance to curse before he stumbles forward, collapsing onto the pavement with a dull thud and everything goes black.

[seventeendeer]

my lifelong special interest in sonic the hedgehog has both a very sincere side (those little animal characters are so cute! these games are fun! yay bright colors and the power of friendship!) and a side I can only describe as "morbid fascination with all the ways a long-running franchise can try to do a million different things and none of them are good or right or nourishing to the human spirit"

today, I would like to take you all on a special journey through the latter !

did you know that, at a conservative estimate, there have been attempts to create a recurring love interest for the blue man himself no less than FIVE SEPARATE TIMES. MORE IF YOU COUNT THE ONES THAT WERE NOT SUPPOSED TO LAST

below is Madonna (left) and Breezie (right). Madonna was a damsel in distress type character Sonic would've been saving in an early draft of the OG 1991 game. Breezie was a temporary love interest in the 90's cartoon, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, who seems to be inspired by the scrapped Madonna concept.

another scrapped love interest was Tiara Boobowski, who was at one point in development going to be a playable character in Sonic X-treme, a game intended for release in the 90's, though it never materialized. it seems her story went through a few different iterations before development ceased. she has the dubious honor of being the first "princess" character created for the purpose of being Sonic's love interest, which would be revisited at least two more times in other contexts.

the first love interest to stick around for a while was Princess Sally Acorn, developed from the squirrel critter design in the early games into a major supporting character in the 90's cartoon Sonic SatAM (left), then kept around in various iterations in the comic book spin-off series published by Archie Comics (middle + right) until the series' end in the mid-10's. she was in an on-and-off relationship with Sonic over those decades, for better or for worse, and they had by far the longest running romance arc out of all of Sonic's love interests to date. after suffering every romantic melodrama plotline imaginable, she was unceremoniously booted from the franchise when the rights to Sonic comic books were moved over to IDW Publishing. rest in peace, Sally, you didn't deserve any of that. at the very least for five minutes towards the end, she stopped dating Sonic and it was implied she started dating her long-time gal pal, Nicole, so she had that going for her for a little bit. counting our blessings

speaking of romantic melodrama, the Archie comics also gave Sonic a temporary love interest in Mina Mongoose because they wanted to write in a love triangle. there was a "main characters all grown up and starting nuclear families" future story at one point where they married Mina off to Tails instead, which somehow felt deeply cruel to both Mina and Tails. "hand-me-down love interest" is a bad, bad vibe for everyone involved

a few years on, in the mid 00's, the games were having their own weird little time giving Sonic a short-lived romance arc with new addition to the cast, Princess Elise the Third, who only showed up in the game Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) and managed to lay one singular smooch on Sonic's corpse to bring him back from the dead, disney style, before she was banished from the franchise due to a monumental amount of backlash (against both her character and the game as a whole). I'm beaming hostile psychic waves into sega's headquarters until they bring her back with better writing and none of that stupid shit. they did it with Silver, they have no excuse

and of course we finally have the one. the only. the most persistent girly of all time who's been trying to marry Sonic since 1993 and is still truckin' on in the year of our lord 2025 even though he's slippery as an eel and he "don't wanna" and there's kind of an uncomfortable age difference and reciprocated romance has over time become more or less outlawed by Sega because it never really pans out for them for some inexplicable mysterious reason. everybody's favorite hyper violent child psychic AMY ROSE !!!!

great character!! has always had so much potential to do her own cool thing if only they'd let her!! if they don't drop the stupid "kinda love interest, kinda not" aspect of her character soon, I'm going to start CRYING BLOOD!! FREE HER <3

anyway honorary mention also goes to Blaze the Cat (left, game continuity, still active), Bunnie Rabbot (center, Sonic SatAM + Archie comics, goners with the Archie series cancellation) and Fiona Fox (right, Archie comics, also goners, same deal), who, while not introduced as love interests, have all been put into some kind of romantic context with Sonic at one point or another just because

(and also while not really relevant to the topic at hand, I would be remiss not to give a special shout-out to the multitude of male characters who were most likely never intended to have any romantic connection to Sonic, but because this series is shonen anime inspired and the rivalries get crazy, our boy still has to hear shit like this on the regular)

and like, you know I've probably forgotten some more girlies out there, too. Sonic the Hedgehog has been pelted with potential romance arcs since the day he was created, and I'm sure there are more out there lost to time/my shoddy memory.

and it's just ... so profoundly morbidly funny to me. unstoppable force (heteronormativity) VS immovable object (misogyny). countless futile attempts to convince kids across the world that a cool guy like Sonic TOTALLY GETS GIRLS, DAMN IT, HE IS FULFILLING HIS HETEROSEXUALITY QUOTA, WE PROMISE, combined with this utter disinterest in sufficiently developing female characters who can effectively fill that role. even Sally Acorn, who was put through hell in the spin-off comics for DECADES serving as the designated narrative romantic punching bag, would eventually go gentle into that good night without fanfare because porting her into a new continuity would just be so much worrrrrk ughhh she's not even Sonic's girlfriend anymore so whateverrrrr

though as much as a massive L as this is for women, at the very least these poor girls are taking the obligatory main character romantic subplot down with them. taking one for the team here. Sonic is so fast and so smooth, those cringey romance plots just slide right off the wind screen of his character and I at least love that part. I love that it never works out and our protagonist remains utterly unpairable. and I hope nothing ever sticks. and I hope the current staff continue to get better at writing female characters just for the sake of having some cool girls around who are interesting in their own right. and may a thousand more cynical, sexist, half-assed attempts to awkwardly shoehorn romance into stories where it doesn't belong wither and die just as spectacularly, booyah

[anantaru]

Hiya! I just came across your post about what would happen if you said the ‘safe word’ in bed with Alhaitham and ayato.. I was wondering if you’d maybe be able to do it with Kazuha, Xiao and Scaramouche? I’m so curious aha

If you don’t want to I completely understand but I just really like your writing style 🥺

cw. saying the safeword, angsty, fem! reader

a/n. hello loves, quick side note: this is an exception since i had already planned to write them in this scenario as well, please don't send thirsts with more than one character in the future <3 ty and enjoy

— kazuha

kazuha blows his hips into you, hard, precise storms of his thrusts finding your dribbling cunt and in any other typical case, you would've twisted and turned to have him deeper in you, arch your back when he licks his tongue over your neck to wet the skin— specifically to have his cock crowd you this way, until you're seeing nothing but glittering, white stars.

thus far, it didn't develop into the same thing and you begin to wonder why you haven't felt your best tonight. involuntarily you start to sense how you're clenching down on him, wrapping your trembling arms around his chest and hiding your face into his sweat-troubled neck, his pulse throbbing on your cheek.

for some reason, you thought that if you were to calm yourself down, without telling kazuha how you really felt, it would simply go away but again, this time it didn't and nothing was as important as voicing your concerns and discomfort during sex.

he closes your already troubled breathing state when he moves down to sloppily make out with you, ramming the head of his cock into your deepest spots while excitedly running his hand down your core to play with your little clit and stimulate you further as you did something he never thought he'd ever have to encounter nor witness.

you voice, cry and yell out your safe word over and over, right against his cheek when his eyes shot open in disbelief, large and wide, glossed in unwavering worry. every little sound of you felt like it’s multiplying by a tenfold, and you can’t stop.

kazuha pulls out immediately, pacing his eyes over your shaking figure back and forth, watching you again, back and forth, "my love." he says quietly, loosing the beat of his heart when he witnessed your tears spinning out of control. to be sure he was doing what was necessary, he decided to pull away the blanket which was clumsily thrown over you both in order to make it easier for you to breathe, not leaving your space, but he didn't lay a finger on you, the last he would want now was to cross any more boundaries and it eats him up inside, quietly crying.

"do—" his heart sinks, and so does his voice, "do you need water? are you thirsty? please.." absentmindedly, you run your fingers over his upper arm, but the panic in you, for whatever reason it had emerged, is all-consuming and couldn't be shaken off.

your stomach was in knots and you can barely catch yourself, but you also didn't want kazuha to leave you, voicing him clearly, although with a silent tone, that he should please stay. he directly nods in agreement, placing his palm on top of your agitating hand, telling you to take your time and that it was okay, in fact, you had nothing to worry about, he won't leave.

— xiao

xiao's rough touch and mundane scent was everywhere around you, perceivable and invading your nostrils. you loved it whenever he was a little rough with you, almost feral, pleasing your body until you're shaking from aftershocks of his skilled thrusts.

that time, he twists his fingers around your nipples, just a bit but he did it repeatedly, like you would if you were turning a particularly sensitive knob— and your mounds of flesh were beginning to burn, while his groans were getting louder, showing sweet euphoric need, through with a loud, fast smack of his hips repeatedly finding your soiled cunt.

in combination with him stimulating you on many parts at once, you suddenly began to feel tense and sore, experience an abnormality like you can’t focus on anything, not on him, especially not on the pleasure that of course, was feeling amazing and well but it also didn't.

your heart was racing greatly and you started to sweat profoundly, cold, washed over sweat untangling over your spine and forehead. subtle hints, such as tapping his shoulder were getting you nowhere, and it only made your situation worse as time passed.

"xiao!" you cry out in an instant, not knowing what to do as his blows got even faster, pistoling into your tight pussy, thinking you're enjoying it as much as he did. "xiao, please stop!" and you squeal your safe word and panic one last time before he immediately stills himself, as if you turned off a switch in his brain, making him reach down to push you away.

his gaze hovers around your face, and that's when he saw it, crystal clear, your scrunched together expression that was signaling no sorts of pleasure and he couldn't settle on looking at you for too long, it was beginning to eat him from the very within and his chest was heavy, filled with stones that kept him chained to the ground, so he gets up to sit next to your quivering body.

xiao was speechless, did he really just inflict clear, hurting pain on the person he loved the utmost, more than himself for that matter.

his once, with pleasure glowing eyes, take on a haunted look, open wide in helpless circles, not knowing what to do. if he were the same person before he met you, he would've left and punished himself for what he did but he knew, he just knew that it would make this situation even worse. so he decided to stay, although he didn't say much at first, he did everything in his power to help you, when you so desired any help of him.

it's when he speaks for the first time, "i'm—" and gulps down, eyes burgeoning with tears yet they do not slip, "i am so sorry." his neck grew corded with tension, jaw evertight as he bites down on his cheeks, "so sorry, so sorry.."

"please don't leave me." he continues, xiao makes the tiniest noise in his voice, a worried hitch in his breathing, and for a moment you think he might be leaving you instead, starting to think again that he wasn't enough and that you do deserve better than him. but he settles back down, he doesn't leave and you would lie if you say it didn't surprise you.

you brush away the spilled, dried tears on your cheeks, "i could never leave you." and take his hand to kiss his knuckles, "it's okay."

— scaramouche

scaramouche had immense power, you knew of that and how strong and rough he could get. he easily hauls you off his throbbing cock to abruptly push you into the mattress, hovering on top of you now so he could look and read your sinful expressions, gather and indulge in them while you relish in him fucking you with his fully erected cock.

your bottom lip quivers, and tears had since long been rimming around the sides of your eyes and in any other cases it would be an implication that he was doing a good job, "fuck— fuck, that feels so good." he groans out, ramming his hips into your split hole and groaning out when you clench around his girth.

truth is, he was way too fast and needy with you tonight, making it not possible for you to catch a single breather as he uses your cunt as he pleases, taking you in and out and hoisting you back and forth his leaking member. by this time, you could barely look at him with a clear vision, tears parting from your lashes at last when you cry out in gulps and chokes— the stretch on your cunt aching and forming into anything else than pleasure.

while your first moans were fallen on deaf ears, those in particular that slipped past the tip of your tongue now, made his skin shiver.

"wait— no, no." he quickly pulls you off when you began to uncontrollably sob under him, really not knowing what had caused all of this. he was quick to brush away the tears on your face, "i'm— I'm sorry, please don't cry." his touch for now, had been completely different than just moments ago, now it's warm and soft again, understanding and full of sorrow.

he swallows dryly, unable to wet his parched throat, he hated himself very much right now, his muscles stiffened when you decide to look at him. "i'm sorry." you suddenly state, "this is so embarrassing." confusing him even more and archons knew why you were apologizing in the first place, because you absolutely shouldn't.

"don't." he pushes a warm blanket over your cold, shaking body, "don't apologize." he adds on, "you're not at fault, you hear me."

his eyes soften when you nod, searching for his touch, eyes blood shot but you really needed him to hug you right now as he pulled slow circles on your hips, opening his arms for you so you could easily rest your head on his chest. "i was too rough with you tonight, right?"

"i mean—" he quickly retracts his statement, panicking and smacking himself in his imagination, "that's not important, take your time, don't speak and take your time."

"wait, but you can speak.. if you want."

you answer back with a breathless laugh, placing him in an even more confused state but you would lie to yourself if you'd say he wasn't adorable in his stuttering and his desperate attempts to make you feel comforted. "can we lay like this for the night?"

"of course." he affirms you immediately, "you don't have to ask." silently grazing his hand from your hips to place it on your dampened cheek to cradle your face, sweetly kissing your forehead and smiling.

"everything you want."

©2023 anantaru do not repost, copy, translate, modify