#i lost the groove for a bit but i'm back into it now

[magiefish]

Crossed 10,000 words. I guess this is a novella now 🙃

I've written like 7000 words for a short-story in six days. What the fuck is wrong with me.

[crescencestudio]

๋࣭⭑ Devlog #41 | 5.28.24 ๋࣭⭑

It's hot girl (/gender neutral) summer season

HAPPY MAY!!

Hope you're all doing well <3 We're already getting into summer, which is a little crazy to me. The year is flying by! Before I get into what we actually did this month, it wouldn't be a May devlog without our annual Mermay celebration!

Look at those locks. His Ariel/Rapunzel era fr

Since I already had updated Mermay pieces for the Alaris LIs, I decided to do one for our beloved Van this year ^^ Hope you all like it!

For writing this month, I spent a lot of it catching up on Etza edits. Being totally transparent, I wasn't Completely Happy with their route when their draft was finished. But now that I've started the editing process with Wudgey, I'm really excited to see how their route is shaping up!!! We've been fleshing a lot of little interactions out with their route, and I can already see Etza's character really starting to shine with these edits ^^

I've also been chipping away at Kuna'a's route! While it's nowhere near finished, I'm hopeful that this upcoming month will be the month of Kuna'a now that I don't have a bunch of releases I'm trying to balance. His route is also one of the ones whose outline is more fleshed out (Druk and Etza I would say were the least fleshed out, which might be why they also took a bit longer). So I'd love to see Kuna'a's first draft complete/almost complete by the next devlog!

This month, I had to dust off my art skills tbh LMFAOIJSDF. It's been.... a WHILE since I've made CGs since I've been in the writing and coding dungeon for so long. So most of this month's art updates are me getting tilted from redrawing an ugly sketch over and over.

I DID manage to get the Van Mermay piece out. And I also was able to sketch out Kayn's Tragic End CG; that leaves only one CG that has to be sketched out! Currently, six of their CGs are finished, two need to be rendered, and one needs to be drawn still.

And since Kayn's CGs are mostly done, I've started drawing Fenir's. I was actually able to finish one because I basically Locked In when I made it, so here is a sneak peek!

Kisses his little pink nose

You might notice there's not toooo many updates on this month's devlog. The reason for that is because this month, I spent a lot of it recovering both mentally and physically. April shenanigans and those back-to-back releases took a lot out of me, and after going full speed basically since this year started, I learned I REALLY needed a break. That coupled with the concussion I got made it so that most of this month was focused on recovering and then getting back into the groove of things.

Another thing I tried to focus on this month was finding a balance in my workflow. Going into this month, I felt like I was on the verge of a mental breakdown almost every day, in large part because I have a lot of big things I'm trying to accomplish this year. Between finishing my dissertation, Alaris, and a personal big event that I have to plan, I have a lot on my plate this year, and it's made it easy to get overwhelmed as the months pass by. So I wanted to find a balance between all three that didn't make me feel like I was also falling into insanity. After talking to beloved Wudgey of @herotome fame, I've started adopting a schedule that gives me enough structure and flexibility to feel like I'm making progress without going crazy and getting lost in the sauce.

While it's still early in the process, I'm really happy with the balance I've hit, and I'm feeling much more like myself now compared to a month ago!

I caught up on quite a few things in my backlog this month, which made me happy ^^ I always like to learn from and support other devs, so finally being able to return to that helped with the recovery process <3

I don't have any actual fanart pieces, but there are a couple of games I'd like to highlight!

First of all, of course I must talk about our hot girl (/gender neutral) summer cross-promo. If you haven't checked out these games, I can't recommend them enough!!

Links to each game can be found on the Alaris Game page under the magic and mystery otome section!

Specifically, Save the Villainess, The Good People, and Thorn for the Villain are amazing games if you're into thriller/political games layered with mystery

The Silent Kingdom (which I played recently and is AMAZING) and Dual Chroma (Otojam 2023 ALLY) have added mechanics of RPG for exciting action-adventure fantasy stories

Lost in Limbo, Obscura, and Snow White Ashes are BEAUTIFUL dark fantasy games. I've played all three of these and they have some of the most beautiful writing and visuals... BIG FAN OF ALL OF THEM.

Mask Beyond Lies and Sigh of the Abyss have that epic fantasy adventure appeal to them, in a way that I think is similar to Alaris! And Pearlglow Cafe (another Otojam 2023 ALLY) is a very lighthearted and charming game for those of you who like the comfy vibe that most of my stories have!!

Some other games that I played are Favor (@favorvn) by beloved @concreteparasite which is SOOOOO stylish. If you've played Binary Star Hero by Connie, you can expect that same stylish, dark, sultry vibe from Favor. If you haven't checked out either of those games by Connie, I can't recommend them enough, especially if you like yanderes. There is so much aesthetic and atmosphere to them!

I also played Where Winter Crows Go by @prikarin who is a VERY talented developer (and one I'm sure many are familiar with). I had a lot of fun romancing Crowe and both the MC and him have such strong personalities, it was so fun seeing their dynamic!!!! The CGs were also made by anta, who is the dev behind Thorn for the Villain, and they're BEAUTIFULLLLL. Each one has so much style and rly has a professional look to them. Can't recommend enough if you haven't played already ((heads up that it is another yandere game for those who can't do yandere!))

Okay I've yapped enough. If you've made it this far, you are god's strongest soldier LFMASLDIFJ. See you all next month with hopefully some exciting progress!

[onyx-syn]

How LA! Buggy reacts when you give him head vs him giving head

Warnings: Smut, Usage of Devil Fruit Powers, Female Reader, Female Receiving, Blowjobs, Pussy eating, Some Handjobs, Flirting, Some Degradation, blood mention, Unprotected Sex, Praises, and Pet Names

*Don't steal my writings and claim it as your own*

*18+ Only*

A/N: SO ITS BEEN A WHILE SJXNWJJD I KNOW. I've been busy a lot lately and lost a bit of motivation too, but I'm slowly getting back into the groove of things! So take this 💙🌹

Buggy

Receiving Head

🌹 Oh the clown of many talents and tricks. Always up to put on a show for his dear beloved fans. But, can he handle the extravagant talent of your mouth sucking skills? On himself nonetheless? Now that, is something he has to see with his own eyes

🌹Buggy himself Is more of a receiver than give in general so when you're giving him head, he feels like he's in paradise. He feels like the biggest super fan of yours when you give such a show, making him feel an assortment of different emotions, overriding him with pleasure

🌹At first when you brought the idea to him, he thought you were just playing around and teasing him, you didn't actually want to suck a ugly looking clown off now do ya? Well, surprisingly enough for him you did want to

🌹This big esentric clown who would torture anyone that stood in his path, was now puddy in your grasp, feeling your ‘lovely’ touch on his cock. It's such an unnatural state to see him in, but you aren't against it

🌹 Buggy's body is sensitive to your touch, shivering as he melts into your touch. The underside of his cock and tips leaves him in a state of ecstasy as you give those parts attention with your lips and mouth. The tip and underside of his cock are so sensitive to him, if you put most of your attention onto them Buggy’s hand will grasp the back of your head trying to settle down your movements but not entirely stopping you either. He loves the thrill of teasing from you when it comes to pleasuring

🌹Buggy grits his teeth, trying to hold back any moans or groans from leaving his lips but it's no use. If you two are in a isolated place, or in a private area such as your quarters, he'll be whimpering, begging and mewling for you to keep going, despite cursing to himself at the fact that he's begging for you

🌹He’s definitely down whenever you now bring up the idea of giving him head, he’s in love with it. Feeling your warm mouth covering him, it’s almost like cockwarming but better (he would tell you this with a cheeky grin). He tries to have some control when you go down on him, he doesn’t want everyone to think he’s some bottom ‘bitch boy’, but you dearly know the all so truth of how he truly is when he’s alone with you

🌹Feeling your tongue slide up the underline of his cock, all the way up to his tip sends shivers down this man spine it's unbelievable

-“F-fuck fuck fuck…” Buggy says aloud, gritting his teeth.

His knuckles become white from gripping his thrones armrests, the wood chipping off from the strength of his hands.

He throws his head back in ecstasy. His Adam's apple bobbing; huffs and low groans leave his red smeared lips, feeling his body become a puddle in your hold.

He feels your hand wrap around the base of his muscled flesh, stroking it softly. It sends shock waves to Buggy above you, as he grips the back of your head pushing your head further into his cock. He can feel your wet lips wrap around his flesh, your tongue swirling around the muscle, teasing the underside of his tip.

His attention snaps back down to you, eyes fluttering to stay open. The pressure in his stomach tightens. His chest rising up and down as the pleasure takes over him.

His fingertips start to massage your scalp, bringing a light mewl out of you around his cock. “That's it”, He whispers, huffing a chuckle before hissing. You licked a pretty sensitive spot of his cock, where a redden vein was at.

“You're doing such a good job sweets… so… so good, shit” He tells you truthfully, feeling the pleasure overrun him.

He grips that back of your head tighter, pushing you down more until your nose is curled in his blue locks at the base of his cock. You can hear the clown rumble out a dark chuckle.

“That's it, that's a good showstopper~”

Your tongue swirl around his veins, tickling them with the small bumps of your tongue. The feeling was unimaginably filled with euphoria for Buggy, gasping at the feeling.

The pleasure built up in his stomach releases, coating your mouth in his liquid. He tries to hold out for a period of time. He loves the feeling of your tongue swirling around his cock, coating it in your saliva, as you choke on his cock. He loves it, that's why he tries to hold out for as long as he can.

But, in cases like this, it's too much, too much pleasure to leave unrewarded in such a short amount of time that he gives into it.

Buggy collects himself, composing his body as his hips shutter after release and pleasure overrides his body. By then, your positions switch. Now you're laying back, watching the blue haired clown position himself between your legs. A mischievous grin covering his paint smeared face.

“Open sesame sweets, I want a bite now~”

🌹It's safe to assume that the evil jester of the East Blue himself is a moaning mess for the showstopping performance done on his cock by you

🌹If you asked him to leave his cock with you before he leaves for an important mission or meeting, he won't stop you. But it's mostly because he loves the thrill of it. Trying to keep calm and composed as he can feel his cock being sucked, covered in your love and saliva. Even more so when he feels your walls clench on your cock, he has to ball his hands into fists so he can control the urging sensation raging through his body

🌹However, there will be days where he'll like to switch things up. Taking more control during these private moments between the both of you (maybe even doing a public performance if you are up for it~) He'll grip your scalp more harshly, making you take his cock deeper and deeper down your throat without mercy

🌹The cock sucking can be torturous, but he tries to make up for it with aftercare on mornings that he isn't busy. Going down to the kitchen and getting you a nice drink (any of your choice but if it was up to him, alcohol-) and some food, soft food so it isn't too hard on your throat

Giving head

🌹Now, it may have taken a bit to let him in on the idea of giving him head. But giving you head would take way longer to ease him into the idea

🌹Why you may ask? Well, it's quite simple, Buggy is insecure about his nose. He already is annoyed that his nose gets in the way of a lot of stuff and he feels as if it'll get in the way of him giving you pleasure

🌹But in reality, it actually gives the opposite effect, very much so. He’ll be keeping you still, his gloved hands gripping you hips, your legs and thighs over his shoulder squishing his head as he kisses your intimate parts with such ease he’s like a natural pussy eater

🌹His canines are a bit more sharper than regular canines of human teeth, so when he goes down on you, dragging his lips and tongue down your soft stomach, his teeth slightly grazing your skin sending a tingling vibration throughout your body

🌹He’ll dip his face into your thighs, leaving pretty bite marks. Small droplets of blood will be dripping down your thighs, but Buggy, as messy as a performer he can be, cleans up after himself. He’ll lick the blood away, kissing his bite mark, as in a sort of ‘‘claiming’’ way as he puts it

🌹His nose adds pressure onto your clit, the weird small bumpy texture of his nose almost acts like a small vibrator, attacking your clit with such pleasure as you feel his tongue lick up between your folds, coating his muscle in your wetness

🌹When he goes down on you, he acts so fool of himself like he’s not slightly nervous on the inside. Curses to himself when his nose bumps your clit on accident, an embarrassed pink red appearing underneath his makeup. But when he hears a low moan leave your lips, he pushes his nose against your clit, hearing the same moan leave your lips. That’s when he found out his nose has another purpose then being a nuisance

🌹As he goes down on you, his hands love to roam your body. He'll roam your thighs around his head. His hands grazing your skin as his skin contacts your waist and stomach, caressing them as he kisses your pussy more and more

🌹Towards the end, your pussy is covered in his makeup smeared all over you, His red lipstick stained on your folds, entrance and clit, “his painting” as he likes to call it whenever he sees the aftermath of his relentless torture on you

- Buggy grips each side of your thighs, his hands ungloved leaving indents on your thighs. He pushes both of them so they crush his head making him in return keep his head in place. His lips and tongue never leave your cunt, painfully licking up your folds slowly.

A low moan escaping your wet lips as you can feel Buggy slowly start to speed up his pace, his nose putting more pressure onto your clit, sending a tingling vibration throughout your lower half.

You shamefully hump his face. Your teeth biting your bottom lip trying to contain the unholy sounds leaving your mouth.

Buggy, on the other hand, is not to please with your movements. He detaches both hands, making sure to keep his arms pressed onto your thighs. His hands grip onto your hips, putting your humping to a halt.

You lift your head up to look down at buggy, sweat droplets sliding down each side of your cheeks and forehead.

The view of Buggy from this angle is perfect. His makeup smeared all over his face, covering your thighs and pussy in it. The smeared makeup just barely covers the bite marks adorned on your inner thighs made by yours truly. His river eyes shimmering in the oil lanterns light as they look up at you with a mischievous intent behind them.

Your eyes watch in dismay as Buggy retracts his tongue from your cunt, a trail of saliva connecting his end of his tongue and your drenched pussy.

A dark chuckle rumbles out of Buggy followed by a cheeky grin covering his face. “Be patient, sweets, the show has only begun and I haven’t even gotten to the best act yet~” He warns you.

You whine at that, throwing your head back in annoyance. “For fuck sakes Buggy!” You say aloud to him, your cheeks burning from the hotness occurring. “Just fuck me already” You mumble out.

Buggy rolls his eyes at you, "Yeah yeah, I hear ya, but I'm warned you ..."

The moment those words leave his mouth, he dives right back into your cunt, detaching his tongue so it focuses your clit and folds.

A shocked sound of pleasure escapes your chest, your body jiggling with the fasten pace of his tongue fucking your folds and clit.

Your eyes dilate with ecstasy once Buggy detached his cock -situating himself on his knees on the bed- holding onto it as he proceeded to slowly insert it into your cunt, occasionally bumping into his tongue but only a smidge.

A groan emits from him, his eyes shuttering to stay open. With the way your walls feel clenching down on his cock, his tongue slobbering all over your pussy walls and clit, the noises you're making with your mouth and body; he can feel his stomach tighten like a coil ever so slightly.

His eyelids hover open, an evil devilish expression appears on his salt kissed skin. Looking down on your cum worthy face.

"That's it baby~" He whispers to you, going faster and faster as he fucks you with his cock and tongue. "you're doing such a good job for me... Just a little bit, more ... That's it, that's my showstopper~"

🌹 While it does take him a bit to suggest the idea of him going down on you, he ends up loving the act and idea way more then he originally thought he would

🌹 And just like with the blowjobs before, if you ask nicely (mostly because he loves hearing you beg all so nicely for him, it's a turn on for sure) he'll detach his tongue and leave it with you while he does business in his office

🌹 Luckily, with your guys room being close by the main office of his, he still has some control and sentient in his tongue. His eyes close ever so often as he loses his breath, feeling his tongue lathering your pussy in his salvia and feeling your tight walls clench on him, it's a whole 'nother feeling that he's never experienced before, not like this at least

🌹 He loves hearing the noises you make while he eats you out, both together and when you're both apart. In his office he'll start to pump his cock whimpering for you, when he more then likely can walk over to the next room and fuck you. But he likes to be a good boy for you when he wants to be one~

[funfettifrills]

Hi! I was wondering if you could do a platonic Husk fic where the reader hasn’t regressed in a while and when they do they’re just a big ball of feelings and tears

It’s been a rough week

🎲 Caregiver! Husk x Agere! Reader drabble [platonic] ; Simple Comfort

;; A/N: I'm sorry you've had a rough week!! Thingsll get better 🫂 sending you much much love!! 💖💖 I hope this fic is good enough to bring some comfort ! ( ´ ꒳ ` )

;; Word Count: 889

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You found yourself sitting at the bar in silence, your head laid on your arms as you attempted to regulate the incoherent turmoil of emotions that prodded at your mind. Lost in thought, you could only stare down at the surface of the bar and peer into the grooves of the brown wood. Analyzing any imperfections with your eyes as you fell into a dissociative state.

"Somethin' up?" Husk had finally spoken up from the other side of the bar, flashing you a friendly yet concerned look. Even when you weren't in little space, Husk always let his grumpy walls down around you. He could read you like an open book and easily sense when you needed a shoulder to lean on.

"I dunno.." you replied softly, keeping your gaze downwards as you traced your fingers on the counter in a poor attempt to distract yourself. It was as if your stress and worries were all drastically piling up in your mind. The fact that you hadn't been able to regress in a while only worsened things.

A part of you was pushing away regressing, the mental block was disrupting any means of being able to properly release the tense emotions that took hold of your mental state.

"There anything I can do to help you out, kid?" Husk asked, resting his elbows on the counter as he leaned towards you.

He knew you well enough by now that an "I don't know" alluded to an upset mind. He didn't want to pry but he still couldn't help but worry over you.

Hearing the name "kid" was the wrecking ball against the mental block that you had been stuck with.

You finally looked up at Husk with wide eyes that were forming tears. Being able to regress after a long time of not doing so was an instant release for all of the emotions you had been burdened with.

You failed to form words, you could only sniffle as tears fell. Husk frowned in worry, making his way around the bar's surface.

"C'mere kiddo, I got you." He spoke softly in comparison to his usually tense tone, scooping you up in his arms and making his way to a couch for a more comfortable area to release your emotions.

As he carried you, you could only cling to him. Hiding your face in the crook of his neck while tears poured. He didn't care about the tears that were to wet his fur, he was used to this by now and only cared about whether or not you'd be okay.

Once sat on the couch, he kept you in his lap. With your chin resting on his shoulder, he lightly rubbed your back while bouncing his leg a bit.

"Shh, I got you, kiddo. You’re okay." He cooed and repeated in simple comfort.

You continued to cry and let out shallow breaths, you melted into his hold as you finally expressed your pent-up emotions.

After a few comforting moments of allowing you to sob, the cat spoke up,

"You wanna talk about it?" He spoke carefully, not wanting to overwhelm you if being verbal was too much for you at the moment. "You don't have to use your words if it's too much."

You moved your head from his shoulder to look at him, preparing yourself to speak up. Tear streaks lined your cheeks with a visible pout.

Husk gave you a comforting smile as he gently wiped the tears from your face, waiting for you to talk.

"Big feelings.." You spoke simply and childishly, being unable to grasp the weight of your pain verbally. "Overwhelming." Was all you could get out. Recalling what you were feeling only welcomed more cries. The sight would generated a pang of sadness in Husk, he was always quick to worry when you weren't doing well.

He brushed your hair away from your damp features, combing through it in a comforting motion.

With your simple words, he was able to grasp your worries. Husk was good at being terribly observant of you and others in general. His strong intuition was a strength when it came to being a caregiver.

"I know it's overwhelming, Sweetheart. Emotions are a lot, but you gotta feel them." He explained, "Keeping them in does you no good. You're allowed to feel sad, or grumpy, or anything at all, Kid. And I'll always be here when you need me."

You let out a small ‘'kay,’ his words were enough to soothe you. You took in deep breaths to finally regulate yourself as you cuddled more into Husks' embrace. His hold was warm and his fur was surprisingly soft, being in his arms was adjacent to being under a cozy blanket. You could hear (and feel) him lightly purring which was something familiar that helped to ease your moments of stress.

He smiled down at you and gave you a small squeeze,

“I'm proud of you for feeling such big emotions, being able to show ‘em just means that you're brave.” Husk praised, he was relieved that he was successful in attempting to help you out. His praise went straight to your heart, internalizing it greatly.

He ruffled your hair which caused you to giggle a bit.

“You're a lot braver than I am, Kid.”

[hatkuu]

wow no one has mentioned this yet????? ig i’ll be the FREAK to do it: vamp!kylar will absolutely eat the hell out of u when u have ur period 🧛 he can probably smell when it’s approaching too and gets so excited. esp bc he gets so fixated on when ur ovulating so when he knows ur period is coming he’s like a fruit fly and starts rubbing his hands together all giddy like

- 🎀

oh my gosh yes. yes. i was too embarrassed to write about it but. period sex with ANY kylar constantly floats around my brain. vampire kylar would be sucking on his fingers like he'd just ate a drumstick from kfc. finger licking good HAHSJSJAK

afab reader, period sex, period mentions, reader wears a skirt, general creepy kylar stuff., kylar's weird scent kink thing is in this too...

drabble continued utc!

I think the first time you're having a period with your freakish vampire boyfriend around - he's visibly on edge. Kylar's gnawing at the palm of his hand while sitting next to you in the cafeteria, sweating as his other hand grips on the sleeve of his hoodie. You note that he is looking at everything and everyone except you.

You'll reach out to touch him, placing a reassuring hand on Kylar's shoulder.

"Are you okay, Kylar?"

Kylar flinches back like you've just burned him - eyes bulging out of his head as his hands quickly shield his face from view.

"Y-Yes! I-I'm fine! J-Just—"

He peeks at you through his fingers, pupils dilated until only a sliver of green remains.

"—I-It's just really hot i-in here."

You throw him a weird look, rolling your eyes as you stand up from the cafeteria table. You absolutely cannot deal with this shit right now. Being hit with wave after wave of crippling cramps, the last thing you needed was your boyfriend being noticeably disgusted with you. You shuffle awkwardy, trying not to cause yourself more pain as you stand. Does Kylar hate you now? Is he scared of you? Fuck, you don't know if your irritability is stemming from the slick, sticky blood feeling between your thighs or your boyfriend - lost in his own little world - ignoring you when you need him most.

A strangled, panicked sound escapes Kylar as you stand. The hand covering his face reaches outward, snatching your wrist with a disturbing amount of strength. You try to slip out of his grip - upset that now he wants to touch you - but he does not relinquish his hold no matter how much you tug against it. He exhales shakily, his nails dig into you - they've gotten long - really long.

"Y-You can't go— You can't."

You try to pull away with more force, spluttering with confusion as Kylar refutes your struggle with ease. He can't possibly be jealous - you've spent almost the entirety of this week with him - he's staring at you with this horrible, anguished expression. It's the last thing you want to see today. Your bottom lip twitches beneath your teeth, tears pricking your eyes in frustration.

"Kylar! Stop being so weird— What is wrong with you today?"

Your scuffle turn heads. You can feel so many eyes on you, looking at you and Kylar, laughing as they see Kylar's hand is latched onto your wrist. Only then do you notice the gaunt, sickly shade of his face. Heavy, darkened bags rest under his eyes. His lips are chapped too, more than they usually are. Speckled bits of dried blood rest in between the grooves of each crack. Kylar twitches, sweat slicking his choppily-cut fringe to his forehead. He looks ill. He tugs you closer, talking in a low tone that makes your stomach churn.

"You're— You're on your period."

What. The. Fuck.

You don't remember telling him it was that time of the month? How does he know—

"W-What? What does that have to do with anything?"

"J-Just— c-come with me—"

He breathes in shakily, composing himself as his eyes trail up your form, lingering far too long on the juncture between your shoulder and neck. He stands to meet your height, breathing heavily as you flood his senses with a scent that is so undeniably you. Sweet, but not too sweet. It makes his body buzz with a sickeningly fuzzy feeling. His mouth fills with sailva as you hold his gaze, scrutinizing him with your cutely furrowed brows and a jutted-out bottom lip.

"I-I need to tell you something."

You can see the desperation in his expression. His other hand shakes at his side, aching to latch onto you and never let go. Festering like a fresh wound, Kylar's carnal urges get the better of him. His other hand grabs your shoulder, pushing you closer towards his chest.

He smells different. Like dust, dirt and nothing all at once. He doesn't smell like garlic and pepper. Normally, you're assaulted with the scent of the plants - but strangely - it's gone entirely. You look up at Kylar, brows still furrowed in confusion because this is your boyfriend but... something is inherently wrong about him.

Kylar tugs you out of the cafeteria.

You don't struggle.

-

"I-I need to taste you—"

"H-Huh?"

Kylar pushes you into the dilapidated storage closet, slamming the door shut behind him as he grapples you against the wall, panting against your mouth.

"I haven't— You smell so good, a-and I just need this," He cuts himself off, snapping his gaze toward you incredulously from his position against you. He visibly shudders, twitching as he falls forward onto his knees, grounding himself between your thighs. He eagerly tugs your school skirt down, panting as he is met with your panties. "I-I need this. N-Need to feed f-from you— no one else."

"W-What! Kylar! We are in school right now! It'll be too messy a-and it'll get all over you-"

You choose to ignore your boyfriend's weird phrasing of eating you out. 'Feeding' from you is new.

His forehead rests heavy against your swollen uterus - you don't know what he's doing - until Kylar leans closer to your clothed pussy and begins sniffing you. Sniffing you - and moaning like he should have gotten between your thighs the moment you sat next to him in the cafeteria. You squeak, latching your hands in his hair in a pathetic attempt to steer him away from your bloodied thighs. Your tightened grip doesn't deter Kylar. He groans loudly, unashamed as he tilts into your touch, panting puffs of hot wet air against your skin.

"Y-Yes! Oh, y-you have to let me— you smell so perfect, j-just—ah—just let me taste you,"

He's so close, so close to snapping and just biting into the soft skin of your thighs. His eyes dart between your face and your clothed heat. His jaw is clenched tight, gnawing at the skin on the inside of his cheeks. Strained to the last thread of his patience, Kylar lets out a hoarse, weak sound. His fingernails jab painfully into your thighs, carnal desperation evident in each action. Despite this, he looks up to you, teary eyed from the struggle of holding himself back.

"P-Please."

You nod, loosening your grip in Kylar's hair as he practically vibrates with excitement. He tugs down your panties, eyeing the pad that sits at the seat of them as his tongue slides over his bottom lip hungrily. You whine as his fingers nestle themselves against your overly sensitive folds. Slick with blood and wetness, Kylar's fingers prod at your folds, eagerly pressing against the spots that make your knees weaken against his hold.

Kylar's tongue inches out to lave at the smeared blood across your inner thigh, moaning at the taste. He latches onto you, lips forming a tight seal against blood-slick skin, mixing red with clear saliva as Kylar's teeth brush against you. Two particularly sharp teeth nick your inner thigh and you tug his head backward as his fingers continue softly rubbing at your clit. He presses an apologetic kiss to the wound, affectionately licking at the punctures, careful not to let any of the blood spill onto your white school shirt.

"I-I knew it'd be good—" He gasps, his mouth and wet tongue making quick work of your other blood-smeared thigh. "Y-You're so—ah—so, so, delicious, my love."

You blush, opening your eyes to look down at your boyfriend. Kylar's still twitching with excitement, tongue hanging out in anticipation as he nears your pussy. You whine weakly, pulling on his hair as dull throbbing cramps torment your lower abdomen. Kylar smiles at you, eyes much brighter - looking far less ill than before, too. He pulls his fingers away, admiring the sticky sheen of blood that coats them before quickly popping the digits into his mouth and moaning at the taste. He pushes you backward against the wall of the closet, spreading your thighs wide enough for his head to fit snugly between them.

He licks a stripe against the seam of your folds, eagerly lapping up the blend of arousal and blood. Your hands weave in his hair, pushing his nose against your clit as Kylar laves at your pussy, humming as your thighs trap him against your heat. Kylar groans, savouring the sweet, metallic taste of you against his tongue. He pushes closer, nestling his nose against your clit just close enough that with each press of his tongue against your entrance you cry out in pleasure, hands tightening in his dark hair. Kylar fucks you with his tongue until you're sobbing, wrapping an arm around each thigh to hold you firm against his mouth.

He moans as you grind against his tongue, chasing your release that hums deep within your core. Your grinding stutters as the coil burns hot within your stomach, tightening until it snaps.

You cry out as you cum, squirming as Kylar continues to hold you against his face. He groans, lapping up your arousal as it seeps onto his tongue. Your thighs clench against his head, quivering as Kylar slows his licking into gentle, loving laves against your pussy. He smiles as your hands fall from his hair. Kylar presses a loving kiss to your pussy, inching upward to press a kiss against your bloated abdomen as well. Even though he just gave you the most intense orgasm of your life, he's still so intimate with each of his actions, no matter how lewd or messy.

He pulls up your panties, your skirt, and readjusts the rest of your clothes before fixing his own.

Kylar stands, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, then licking up the blood collected on it. He looks undeniably better than before; gone is the sickly tone of his skin, the heavy bags under his eyes, and now his eyes hold a twinkle that doesn't falter. He helps you up with ease, pulling you into his chest and nuzzling into your neck.

"Thank you," He whispers, smiling against your neck, pressing soft, affectionate kisses to the damp skin. You return his embrace even as your legs still tremble from the onslaught of pleasure Kylar gave you. You feel better now. Your boyfriend isn't disgusted at you. Quite far from it, actually. So you'll ignore that his teeth are sharper, that his skin is as cold as a cadaver's, that you swear his eyes were red at one point. He's your boyfriend. His strange, newfound affliction for blood doesn't mean anything. Your head falls forward onto his shoulder, breathing in his new scent of dirt, dust and nothingness. He giggles at your newfound neediness, rubbing your back in a soothing motion.

"Let's do this again tonight, okay?"

[arjwrites]

— Hiii!! I wanted to ask if you could write a angst/comfort Castiel x Winchester!Reader (She's she older sister🥹). Where basically the reader is hunting nonstop to try to vent her anger and Castiel is trying to make her get a break or smth? (Make them cuddle please <3!!)

And I'm so happy to see an active supernatural account omgg‼️❤️‍🩹 (And sorry if it's difficult to understand my request, English is not my first language and it's a little confusing for me </3)

Numb- Castiel x Winchester!Reader

A/N- HI ANON! Thanks so much for being my first ever request! I hope I did this ask justice. Thank you so much for reaching out, feel free to let me know what you think (and don't worry, your English is fantastic!) <3 Summary- Reader is Sam and Dean’s older sister. After a series of unfortunate events, she finds herself separating from her brothers to deal with her own shit the only way she knows how. Castiel, however, has a few things to say about it.  Warnings: Not a whole lot- less than canon level violence, some angst and hurt. A little bit of Cas love <3 -

It had been a hard few years for your family- let’s face, it, a hard few decades. After watching your brothers go through more trials, more heartbreak, more loss than anyone should ever go through in a lifetime, you were weary. Your sweet brothers, so young when they were thrust into this fight. You all were, of course- you were only 6 when everything changed on that fateful night in Kansas. The three of you had grown immeasurably close over all the years of hunting, and it was always your job to keep a watchful eye over the boys. 

You never could have expected what was to come for your brothers. They had faced so much more than you could’ve ever imagined. You were at their side every step of the way as a fierce protector and frequent caregiver. But Sam and Dean were always the eye of the storm- the chaos of the world circled firmly around the two of them. You were a side character time and time again. And that was okay- you played your role, you did everything you could to support your brothers as they went to hell and back. But when one too many demons started chirping in your ear, taunting that you were useless, that you being there only slowed them down, and when your brothers did a less-than-convincing job of assuring you otherwise, you decided you’d take a step back- get out of their way. 

The only way you could describe the feeling was numb. For nearly as long as you could remember, your whole purpose was to protect Sam and Dean, to do anything for them, to keep them safe. And now, you were cast aside, left without a role to play in their big fight. 

It took about a month for you to find your groove. At first you were lost, dodging calls from your brothers, holing up in dingy motels and dirty bars, unsure of what to do with yourself. That was until you heard of a case in the town over from where you were staying- a vamp nest that had been picking at the local population. So, armored only with your own recklessness and loss of purpose, you went in swinging, taking down the nest without so much as a scratch. That was the first time the numbness subsided long enough for you to feel anything. The pure unbridled hatred that coursed through your veins in that moment was the fuel that had been carrying your broken body for nearly six months now. 

Case after case after case. Hauntings and demons and vamps, a shifter, a werewolf or two. You had slashed through every adversary you could track down, careening down the coast and leaving a path of supernatural destruction in your wake. There was no time for breaks, and no need for them. If you let yourself sit with your thoughts for too long, there was no telling what you would do. 

Most recently, you had tracked down a demon with a particularly smart mouth. After being thrown around like a ragdoll and acquiring your fair share of bumps and bruises, you had trapped the demon and begun to exorcise him- but not before he could start talking. 

“Little brothers are lost without you, you know.” The demon gazed down upon you, flashing black eyes and a spreading grin. His tone was taunting, spiteful, designed to confuse and disorient you.

“You shut your goddamn mouth,” you retorted, dousing him in holy water. “You don’t know my brothers.” The latter half of your sentence came out as a whisper, and it was unlikely he had heard you over the sounds of his own screams. 

With the demon exorcised and thus the hunt complete, you soldiered back to your motel room for another night of restless sleep. The anger from the mention of your brothers was still coursing deeply inside of you. Were Sam and Dean really lost without you? Was the demon just saying that so you’d go home and get in their way again? Along with the deep gash that lined your left side and the likely dislocated shoulder, your body also carried with it a confusion and weariness you hadn’t felt since striking out on your own. Yet again, you were letting demons get into your head. 

Arriving at the motel, you unlocked the door and flicked on the buzzing fluorescent light to see a figure standing with their back turned from you. The presence felt deeply comforting and familiar, yet you still drew your gun in anticipation of attack.

“They’re looking for you, you know.” The low, gravelly voice rumbled, traveling slowly across the room as he turned to face you. Castiel. 

Your response was stalled as you processed his arrival. 

“I doubt it, Cas. It’s better to be out of their way. And you know it too.”

“You don’t understand, they were just trying to protect you, but it was not-”

“That’s MY JOB, Castiel. I protect THEM!” Your outburst took the angel slightly aback, drawing a look of concern to his face that you weren’t sure you had seen before. Still, you continued. “But if they don’t want me there to save the world with them, that’s fine. I’m still going to take out every other goddamn thing I can find in the meantime, to protect them the only other way I can.” 

“Y/N. Who protects you? What good do you do to anybody if you’re dead?” Castiel seemed desperate, growing heated in a way that felt out of his nature. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you protested as you cast your gaze away from him.

“Y/N, I have been watching you. I have been here with you many more times than you have realized. But you were too blinded by your own rage and hurt to see. I have done everything I could to protect you for this whole rampage, but this time I could not, and you got hurt.” The angel closed the gap between you as he spoke, grasping a hand around your arm and letting his grace seep into the wound. His proximity was close, and his grip was tight- it felt like he was holding on to you for fear of what would happen if he let you go. You felt the warmth of healing radiate through your extremities, and though it probably wasn’t from the grace, you could feel the comfort reach your heart.  

Your numbness had shifted. Before, it had always been cold and empty, sharp in a way. It was a numbness that begged to be filled, to be pushed away and stifled. But now, with Castiel’s presence, numb felt soft and warm. It relaxed your entire body and relieved you of tension stretching back further than you were even sure of. 

“Y/N, it is time to rest. You have been a soldier since you were only a child. You must let yourself be. You need to come home.”

This was a softer Castiel than you had come to know before you left. It was still Cas, of course- everything you had always loved so dearly about him, but he felt much more human. The concern in his eyes, the poignancy of his words, the way he so clearly loved and cared for you enough to watch over and protect you for months, all while dealing with his own world of problems. 

And he was right. You had run for too long, drowned out your problems and destroyed yourself in the process. All of the exhaustion, aches and pains seeped into you at once. There was nothing left in you to protest. 

“Okay,” you succumbed. “I’ll rest.”

“I’m glad. You can let me know if you need anything. I will listen in. Perhaps I can bring you home tomorrow, after you sleep.” Cas stepped back, getting ready to blip away, when you used the last bit energy in your system to reach back out to him.

“Wait.” You knew what you needed from him, but you were scared to ask. The room stood painfully still, Castiel’s blue eyes locking with yours in confusion, his gaze as intense as ever. 

“Will you please stay?” 

The broken whisper of your voice left nothing for you to hide. You had crumbled right in front of Cas’s eyes. Something inside him hurt, a sharp feeling in his stomach he hadn’t yet felt before. 

“Yes. I will stay,” he nodded with a deeply furrowed brow. 

So the two of you climbed into the motel bed, Cas hesitating but following your lead. Once you both had settled, he found himself melting into your touch. It felt much more natural than he ever would have thought. He had propped himself slightly upright, while your head met his chest and a leg wrapped one of his. His arm draped over you, rubbing gentle circles into your back, keeping time with the rhythmic heave of your breathing. It was peaceful, he had to admit. He understood why humans did this. 

Your own thoughts echoed that same satisfaction. Though there had been a guardian angel watching over you all along, you could finally rest now that you could feel his presence. It didn’t take long for you to drift off- the chance to just lay with Cas lulled you to sleep much faster than you had ever anticipated. As you slept, your grip around the angel tightened from time to time- like you subconsciously feared he would be gone when you woke up. 

Thankfully, Cas wasn’t going anywhere. It was about time someone was there to protect you.

[honey-beann]

This is a weird way to come back into writing fics again, but here's a very vaguely edited fic that I wrote a while back to get me back into the groove of posting. I hope you like sick reader x snarky bastard fics lol.

Thoroughly Analyzed (rk900 x reader)

Word Count: 1,005

"Oh fuck off, Gavin, I'm not sick!"

You all but sputtered, your cheeks dusted a light pink as you stood in front of your friend and coworker's desk, arms crossed and hip cocked to the side while you eyed him with as much disdain as you could muster.

"Are you being serious, dumb ass? You babysat Chris' kid while it had the flu four days ago, and now you're drinking tea and popping cough drops at your desk like it's your job. Just admit you were an idiot and go home."

You scoffed, glaring at Gavin as you moved away to sit down in your desk chair before turning it to face him once more.

"It wasn't a bad idea for me to babysit the kid, Reed, and I definitely did not get sick because of an eighteen month old child. Now do you have anything of substance to say, or can I finally get back to work?"

You watched as Gavin rolled his eyes, chuckling slightly under his breath as he turned his attention back to his monitor,

"Yeah yeah, whatever you say, loser. Good luck nursing yourself back to health without taking a day off work."

Fighting the urge to flip off your coworker, you instead turned your gaze towards your own monitor, only to find yourself looking right above it and into the eyes of your department's rk900 model android, who had long since been dubbed 'Nines'.

You swallowed thickly, wincing shortly thereafter at the pain that action caused within your throat before catching yourself and forcing a polite smile,

"Hey Nines, what's up?"

You asked as casually as you could manage, watching as the android in question raised a brow before motioning towards Gavin, who had started watching your interaction the moment you'd spoken aloud.

You shrugged, trying not to pay your human coworker too much mind as you cleared your throat again awkwardly before attempting to speak once more, though your voice did sound notably strained this time,

"Reed told me last week that babysitting Chris' kid while he was sick was a bad idea because it was sure to get me sick too. I told him that my body was strong enough to fight off whatever an eighteen month old had, and he bet me twenty bucks that I'd be too sick to come to work within the week. That was four days ago, and now he's doing his best to convince me to go home since he's gotten it in his head that I caught the flu from the kid."

Nines' gaze was cold and stern as he stood, his arms crossed as he took a step closer,

"Did you?"

He asked, and you allowed yourself a moment to get lost in said gaze, however cold it may have been, before snapping out of it, remembering your promise to keep things professional at work.

Wouldn't want anyone catching on, after all.

"Wha- no, of course I didn't."

You sputtered nervously, hearing Gavin chuckle as he watched you from his seat, clearly amused and more than a little entertained.

"Are you sure about that, Detective?"

Nines pressed, taking another two steps closer to where you were sitting as he watched you calmly, a slight smirk making its way to his lips all the while.

"Because I have noticed a bit of a drop in your performance throughout the past two days, and it is part of policy that sick employees remain at home for necessary rest."

You shivered at the sound of Nines' voice, but did your best to play it cool despite your physical reaction to his now significantly closer presence.

"I-I'm fine I promise. I think I've just been a little tired, is all..."

You trailed off as the android in question moved to stand directly beside you, his hand falling to the back of your chair and turning it in his direction, thus forcing you to face him head on as he gazed down at you intently, that smirk remaining all the while.

"Oh really? Well, if you're just tired, I don't suppose you'd mind a routine test of your health?"

"A routine test of my health? No but what exactly-"

You were cut off by a pair of familiar lips crashing into yours as an equally familiar hand moved to cup your chin, tilting your face upward as you gasped into the kiss, eyes fluttering closed against your will. You remained this way for several seconds, until finally, Nines pulled away, humming as he looked down at you with both amusement and exasperation evident in his expression,

"According to my analysis of your saliva, you are suffering from the common flu, detective. Please gather your things and allow me to bring you home. I will inform the captain of our absence."

Unable to argue, you nodded meekly, your hand briefly raising to touch your subtly bruised lips before you snapped out of it and hurried to get your things together, trying desperately to ignore Gavin's shocked expression all the while.

Nines, on the other hand, seemed eager to bask in your shared coworker's surprise, and was in no apparent rush to leave, gathering his own belongings with the swift and relaxed ease that seemed to come so naturally to him.

Once everything was together, however, he made no effort to poke at Gavin further, simply guiding you by your elbow to the door as Reed began to follow suit, sputtering various questions, most of which were nonsensical and jumbled.

Eventually though, as the front door loomed before the two of you, Nines did stop and turn towards the man, his lips twitching upward ever so slightly as he smoothly withdrew his wallet from his pocket before reaching into it, his gaze never leaving Gavin's all the while.

"Oh, and thank you for your concern for my partner's well being, Detective Reed."

He said cheekily as he handed the man in question a twenty dollar bill before exiting the building entirely with you at his side.

[hotteoki]

pirate king (j.y.h)

pairing: pirate jeong yunho x fem reader

genre: strangers to lovers, alternate dimension, pirate au

wc: 4k

cw: mild language, weaponry

notes: i wrote this with the layout of the ateez ship in mind (the one in the 'illusion' mv but with blond yunho cause he 4+4 the halloween ver of deja vu

xtra - tysm @woosluv & @ssaboala for beta reading for me! <33

"all eyes on me now! if you still doubt mine, it's too pointless. we're still young and wild, we gonna find new world to be mine!" yunho's fingers moved along the quote carved into the compass he's had since who knows how long.

yunho's head was lifted up forcefully by hongjoong's pointing stick poking his forehead. "you're going to get lost later on the island if you don't listen to me right now," hongjoong tilted his head, stepping back to the blackboard. "captain, i mean this in the nicest way possible, we've been over this, like, six times in the span of a week. we'll be fine," yeosang called from across the room as he tapped his telescope against his other palm, still dodging wooyoung's outstretched arms every now and then.

"you all say this but i know one of you is going to get into some shit and i'm going to have to be the one to clean it up," hongjoong sighed, dropping his pointer onto the ground lazily, "okay, come on, let's get off the ship. remember the plan, and wooyoung, stop trying to kiss yeosang's face. you can do that when we come back."

yunho kicked the ladder down onto the dock, stepping off the ship first. the crew split up, him going into the left path trailing into the cave. they all knew exactly what they were looking for, and the lengths each and every one of them were willing to take to get it.

it was peaceful until a rustle attracted his attention. yunho paused, pretending to re-lace his shoes, his eyes darting to his left, the direction where the sound had come from. when it was calm for the following minute, yunho slowly stood to continue his journey, putting on an oblivious façade, his hand subtly inching for his sheathed cutlass with every step.

yunho wasn't stupid. he's had enough experience to know not to doubt his senses at any cost. true to him, the snapping of a branch immediately heightened his senses. he swiftly cut through the thick, tall grass, eyes meeting with ones belonging to an innocent doe.

as the doe ran off, yunho only noted then how it was running along the path he was on. the cogs in his head whirred in confusion as he wondered why a deer wouldn't run away from a potential predator, rather in the same direction as him. that thought never escaped as he trudged on, praying the cave he was walking towards would appear before him faster.

and lo and behold, there it was.

if yunho hadn't been looking for it specifically he would've missed it entirely. it blended in perfectly with the shadows of the swaying trees, outgrown weeds guarding the entrance, vines crawling around, all leading straight into the depths of the cave.

peeking into the darkness, he checked every corner, sharp eyes darting here and there. finally, they landed on an unusual glimmering spot. yunho stepped closer, cautious of the fact he was now exposed to any potential predators hiding deep in the cave.

he was about a meter away from the shining rock when he realised it wasn’t a rock at all. it was an hourglass etched into the cave walls, almost like the cave was built around it over the years. he breathed out a light sigh of relief upon feeling the grooves of the rock nearby. it wasn’t etched in that deep. he could easily pull it out with a bit of help.

he allowed himself a few more minutes of admiring the hourglass. the cromer, its name was. an hourglass with the ability to lead them to an alternate dimension, where they could escape this timeline that caused each and every one of them so much pain and loss.

after stealing books from other pirates, following leads from old legends, tracking down their ancestors' footsteps, seonghwa had finally found a map hidden deep in the journals of an unknown pirate, their initials and writings long faded within the centuries. the joy the crew had felt when they located the hourglass after years was a night yunho could not forget.

just as he was about to turn back and find his crewmates, yunho was greeted with the sight of the very doe blocking his exit. when it was made clear that the doe had no intentions of moving at all, yunho unsheathed his cutlass. this was no ordinary animal.

his theory was proved right when a gust of wind blew against his face. removing his hand from his face and opening his eyes, he tried to conceal his shock. where the doe had stood before was a girl about his age.

“you’re a shapeshifter.” you raised your eyebrows at his statement, “obviously.” “i thought they didn’t exist anymore after hunters hunted them down ages ago,” yunho still had his cutlass held in front of him, wary of this new stranger. “yeah, i know. that was centuries ago. there’re still a few of us left, but most of us don’t want to be found.” “you’re not one of them, though,” yunho pointed out.

“and with good reason,” you stepped closer as yunho stepped back. sighing, you held up your hands in surrender, “do i look like i’m going to attack you or something?” “you can never be too careful,” he shrugged.

“i’ll tell you an easier way of getting that hourglass without taking this cave down.” yunho’s arm faltered, “what do you mean?” “this entire island relies on the life within the roots, the air, the animals, you know, all that shit. you break this cave the entire island goes down with it. you and your crew would never make it out alive.”

he swallowed. he wasn’t sure if you could be trusted. shapeshifters were known to be tricksters, always up to no good. what if you were playing with him and he could’ve saved precious time taking the hourglass instead of talking to you? after meeting your impatient eyes, he finally decided to play it safe.

“what do you want in return?” “get me off this island,” you replied instantly. the lack of hesitation in your voice made yunho believe you’ve had thought about this for a long, long time. he sucked in a breath through his gritted teeth. the crew couldn’t just find an extra person for charity. they were already rationing their supplies amongst themselves, adding another person might as well be a goodbye to their albeit uncomfortable but familiar living.

“take me with you or no hourglass. your choice,” you crossed your arms, tone firm. yunho swallowed again, putting his cutlass away and rubbing a hand on his face, “you’ll have to talk to the captain.” “fine, then take me to him.” “you can’t just-” yunho wanted to scream. despite being a pirate since birth, he’d never experienced a situation like this, and he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do.

“you know what? fine, let’s go find him,” yunho pursed his lips. he knew for a fact hongjoong would never agree, but how else were they supposed to get the hourglass? it wasn’t like they could just bow their heads and march back onto the ship and off.

reminding himself of the crudely drawn map in their meeting room, yunho walked for what felt like hours with the intensity of your glare burning the back of his head. he thought he could drop onto his knees and thank the heavens the second he saw the familiar back of hongjoong.

hongjoong darted up at the sound of foreign footsteps, swinging his pistol at your face out of instinct. “she wants to speak to you,” yunho deadpanned, annoyed at the situation he was currently in. hongjoong lowered his pistol slightly, aiming at your chest now, “what do you want?” “i’ll talk when you get this pistol out of my face,” you frowned.

“i’m the one with the upper hand here, you really shouldn’t be making demands.” “considering i’m one of the remaining residents of this island who knows what you’re looking for and how to get it without dying, i don’t think you are.” hongjoong made a face, “and how do i know you’re telling the truth?” “you pirates. always so nervous about everything you see,” you paused, “i want to get off this island, you can help with that, and in return i’ll give you the hourglass.”

yunho looked for a reaction from hongjoong. when he was met with none, yunho was almost disappointed over the fact that his captain was considering his answer. “okay then,” hongjoong put his pistol away, “lead the way.” yunho felt his cheeks flushing at your cheeky smile. sure, he disliked you and your cocky attitude, but he wasn’t blind. anyone could tell you were gorgeous.

“i told you guys one of you was going to get into some shit. now look who’s cleaning it up?”

≡☆

it took a while for the entire crew to be gathered in the tiny cave the cromer rested in, all squished together to get a look at the hourglass while poor mingi stood on his tiptoes at the mouth of the cave. yunho watched in awe as you lifted your hands up, determined to keep his eyes open, only to be slapped with another aggressive gust of wind blowing in his face again.

he blinked cautiously, not realising his eyes had shut involuntarily. yunho vaguely felt his breath hitching at the infamous hourglass held in your hands. the gentle glow of each individual grain amongst the heaps of sand shimmered, tugging on his attention, while contrasting with the simple and plain metal supporting the phials.

“so?” you shifted your weight, waiting for something to happen.

and something happened indeed.

one look from hongjoong was all the crew needed as san shoved you to the ground, with seonghwa snatching the cromer from your grip and tossing it to jongho, the rest sprinting back to their ship. yunho followed his crewmates swiftly, but not before throwing his head back and yelling a quick “sorry!”

in his defense, he was sorry. just not sorry enough to feel guilty about it.

he nearly crashed straight into wooyoung’s back as he skidded to a sudden halt, confused as to why they stopped. sitting on the edge of the ship, legs swinging with an unamused expression, was you. but how…

“you really think you can outrun a doe? how self-centered.” hongjoong stared right back at you, irritated, “you can’t come with us.” “then i’ll take that back.” “i’d like to see you try,” he retorted, pistol now in hand again, “you can outrun me but can you outrun a bullet aiming straight for your head?” you huffed, “i’m not asking you to adopt me or anything, i just need you to drop me off at the nearest island.”

“bullshit. you’re saying you want to go from one island to another?” jongho scoffed from beside wooyoung. “i can’t leave this place without company. please just-” you sighed, and yunho could tell you felt defeated, “please just take me with you.” if he didn’t feel guilty enough, he definitely felt bad now. “cap, maybe we should take her.”

hongjoong gave him an odd look, clearly bewildered, “you were the one who insisted on leaving her.” “yeah well, i kinda feel bad for her now. she’ll stay with us for a few days maximum then we’ll just drop her off somewhere,” yunho briefly glanced at you, lowering his voice now, “i mean, maybe she really can’t leave. what, are we just going to dump her here?”

“i say we make her a deal,” yeosang chimed in, “she can live with us until we locate a nearby island, but if we arrive and it ends up being a bad one, she can’t argue and climb back aboard.” hongjoong nodded approvingly, “yeah, that sounds good.”

yunho watched as your face lit up when he repeated their deal to you. he silently swore to himself to always bring happiness to you during your stay if it meant he could catch a glimpse of your endearing smile again.

≡☆

yunho had volunteered to wrap up the cut on your arm you earned from san’s shove, despite seonghwa usually being the one to tend to the crew’s injuries. he led you down the stairs and to the medical room (which, really, was just their meeting room with a medical kit placed on the table), kicking away scraps of used bandages to the corner, praying you didn’t see them.

as he sat you down opposite him and began prepping the bandages, he began to wonder about you. where were your parents? how did you manage to come onto the island? why did you not have friends? what-

“you look like you have questions.” his gaze snapped up from your arm to your eyes, “no i- well, yeah, kind of.” you laughed lightly, “it’s okay, i get it. i’d be confused too.” yunho hoped you took the redness tainting his cheeks as embarrassment from being caught rather than his giddiness from your laugh. he motioned for you as he got started on wrapping your arm.

“i used to live on a different island, where my parents were. i met this guy, chan, and after being friends with him for a year or so, he offered to take me on a trip with his seven friends. i agreed. i honestly don’t know why i did. it was a spur of the moment thing. i followed him to the docks, where his ship was. turns out he’s a pirate and he’s the captain, much like your crew, actually.

“they said they wanted to go find some ‘treasures’, i just assumed they were joking around. they said they wanted to find an hourglass, i think one of the crew, hyunbin or whatever, said it belonged to his father. i remembered having heard some legends about it, and offered to lead the way. we searched for months, and finally found it on this island.

“when we arrived, they began arguing over who got to have it; they all had a different timeline in mind. someone wanted to go find their dead parents, someone wanted to rescue their girlfriend, it was- it was a lot,” you closed your eyes, throwing your head back, “we weren’t even from this timeline, for fuck’s sake! they fucked with the cromer as soon as they got their grubby hands on it, knowing damn well it was a full moon! i don’t even know what happened, to be honest, either that, or i can’t remember. it doesn’t matter. i don’t want to anyway.

“i think it’s something to do with the stupid hourglass. my theory is it passes down ownership to whomever it deems worthy to hold it, eliminating the past owners. that’s how i ended up alone. i tell myself they each left one by one, but it still bothers me how cursed magic like that exists. i don’t know, the whole thing’s really messed up. i guess being the holder gives you power to hide or expose it to others, because, well, as you saw, i could play around with its surroundings.” yunho hummed, taking in all the information.

he tightened the knot on your bandage, breathing out through his nose and rocking on his chair, “well, now that i know a lot about you, ask me anything you want.” “anything?” you lifted your head up again, eyes wide. yunho smiled, “yeah.” you leaned forward, head resting against your palms, “how are you so cute?”

yunho began spluttering, rocking a bit too far back on his chair, nearly falling over until you grabbed his hand, laughing at his reaction. as soon as he steadied himself, he yanked his hand away, feeling like his entire skin was on fire. you had a proud grin on your face, “i’m playing with you. though, really, you are cute.” he was genuinely convinced right then and there that you were the human form of heaven itself with the way his heart was palpitating.

the only dilemma yunho was having with himself was the fact that you couldn’t stay with them.

he liked to think that you shared the same thought as him.

≡☆

somehow, hours later, yunho found himself next to you on the beach, admiring the sunset from afar. “i haven’t had company in ages,” you commented, “it’s nice. especially since it’s you.” yunho had really wanted to kick his feet and giggle over your bold words, but he opted for a light chuckle.

“do you ever miss your old timeline? or dimension, or however you say it,” he regretted his words instantly at the sad look on your face. “all the time. i had a boyfriend, you know? he tried to stop me from going. i ignored him out of spite because of the amount of arguments we got into before i left. they were mostly to do with chan, he never trusted him, and neither should i have.”

yunho ignored the new, strange sense of jealousy he was feeling, and placed a gentle hand on your shoulder, “you wouldn’t have known.” you only gave a weak smile in response. “so tell me about your boyfriend.” you stiffened up slightly before relaxing again. if yunho wasn’t staring at you, he would’ve missed it entirely.

“well, he was the sweetest guy i’ve ever met. people compared him to a puppy all the time because of his energy,” you hesitated, “he had dyed blond-ish hair, a cute smile, a great sense of humour. he was tall, and was really popular. he always knew just how to cheer me up when i was down. he was considerate, caring, kind, he was everything.” yunho felt himself slowly getting upset. how could he ever compare to him? he sounded perfect.

“jealous?” you teased, nudging him. “not at all,” yunho rolled his eyes, playing with his compass again. he watched your eyes lower onto the very object, a soft look in them. “of course you still have it,” you murmured. “what?” yunho furrowed his brows. had he heard correctly? “it’s nothing.”

≡☆

nighttime rolled around and eventually all of them gathered around; yunho had found himself subconsciously scooting closer to you, landing himself a knowing look from mingi.

while your eyes connected with the flames yeosang started minutes ago, yunho couldn’t help but admire every inch of your carefully sculpted face. it was funny, wasn’t it? how he, at first, hated your overconfident demeanour, your demanding character, your addictive voice, your adorable laugh… huh. maybe he’d never hated you.

“so are you guys going to hide it now that you have to wait to use it?” you tilted your head curiously, and yunho wanted to choke a fistful of sand down his throat to contain the squeals that were threatening to bubble up with how absolutely beautiful you were. he shrugged, “most likely.” “the full moon’s in three days. where would you hiding it for three days?” “up san’s ass,” wooyoung laughed, before getting smacked by san.

yunho couldn’t bring himself to laugh at wooyoung’s immature joke. not when he now knew that he never had a chance with you to begin with.

but hearing your contagious laughter made him think of how lucky he was to have met you at all.

≡☆

“i know you, yunho, and i know you like her-” “like is an exaggeration.” seonghwa rolled his eyes, “just listen to me. she’s not going to be staying with us for long, and if you keep giving yourself a chance to get to know her, you’ll end up getting heartbroken.” “but isn’t that the point? maybe, when we use the cromer and get to a different dimension, maybe we can be together there…” he trailed off at how ridiculous he sounded. “that’s not how it works, and you know it,” seonghwa’s tone was now stern, almost to the point of telling yunho off.

“she clearly likes me too, can’t we at least enjoy the little amount of time we have together?” mingi tossed an arm around yunho from behind, “i say go for it.” “of course you’d say that,” seonghwa tsked, before continuing, “i’m asking you, as part of your crew, and your friend, to think this through.” “i am thinking this through!” yunho insisted, “i’d rather go through a heavy heartbreak than leave her with a bunch of ‘what if’s. i really do like her, seong-”

“no, you’re thinking this with your plan of finding her in a different timeline. yunho, you can’t do that. do you know how risky that is? ignoring the fact how we’ve only known her for a day too!” “of course i know,” he hissed, “but i don’t care how risky it is. i’m doing it.” “love at first sight, some might say,” mingi patted yunho’s shoulder. “oh, don’t get him started on love now,” seonghwa groaned. “love is a stretch, but i definitely find her interesting enough to want to be with her.” “just say you like her, yunho. everyone and their mothers can hear your giggles at night in your room,” hongjoong teased.

yunho’s face flushed, “i don’t giggle!” with that, he left the tiny crowd and stormed off to the meeting room. to his surprise, you were sitting at his regular seat, examining his compass. he left it there?

“so you want to be with me?” you raised an eyebrow, running a thumb over the quote the same way yunho does. “what- no?” yunho scoffed, taking a seat beside you. “i heard you guys. you get loud when you’re defensive. it’s okay, it’s cute.” yunho was at a loss for words. grasping for straws to change the topic, he gestured to the compass, “why did you say something like ‘i still have it’?”

you grew silent, and yunho thought you hadn’t heard him. he was about to repeat his question when you opened your mouth to answer, “i knew you, jeong yunho.” he flinched at the full name coming out of your mouth, “how…” “in my timeline. i knew you.”

you had the same stiff posture as you did on the beach, and yunho recalled what you were talking about during that time, “your boyfriend…” “yeah.” suddenly it all made sense. the dyed blond hair, the puppy personality, tall… yunho had heard every single one of them.

“we were together?” his voice was barely above a whisper. you nodded sadly, a bittersweet smile plastered, “i never got to say sorry for not believing you.” “well, at least i got an apology now,” he wrapped his hand around yours, the compass in between your interlocked fingers, and the cromer, your chance of a new happily ever after, placed on the table just centimetres away.

networks - @kflixnet k-labels kbookshelf neverendingdreams-net straykidsland @k-films

[crying-fantasies]

Loved your Prowl/Constructicons/reader thing you wrote earlier!

I'm especially intrigued by the way you write from Devastator's perspective and about the gestalt psyche as a whole, any headcanons about that? (no pressure!)

Thank you for your kind words!

Well, it's mostly based on what happened in RID and the combiners wars, where, from time to time, you can see mainly the thoughts of the center of the combiner and the thoughts of the very combiner in between, a psyche born from every component, and it was just so cool to me, because in the way it acts and how it talks you know who is inside, of course, it changes between the gestalt's own team.

I remember, back with G1, every component needed to have a personality component, as in their own "me" had to be hard enough to not get lost inside or something like that, and if that didn't happen the combiner would be weak, and sometimes I link that "me" with the idea of "what I want to do" in order to form a combiner.

If there is consensus over at least one thing, a combiner can happen, or you use the Enigma of Combination and create one by force, whatever goes your way, really, but in the second scenario you must see if it can stay together because launching together 3 or more bots can result in all of them going their way without a real objective and simply fall apart.

Defensor, for example, can transform since all the protectobots share a single ideology: "I must protect my people and I must protect the defenseless humans", because we've already seen how this specific combiner treats humans as they were his kids, that comes from Streetwise, maybe a little bit of First Aid is what handles the main idea since Defensor is also know for having medical knowledge to some point, the part were he stops to think before going full rage? That's Hot Spot alright, but that fury when the innocent is in danger's way? That's Blades, the part that tries to calm the wounded? That's Groove, they aren't exactly close to one another, but sharing a similar, if not exact, objective in mind is what makes Defensor, but their differences show in how they can't keep their force shield together for more than a few seconds.

Devastator, it's been said time and time again how the constructicons all share one thing, rage, anger, be it against the autobots or whatever, their rage is what forms the most iconic combiner of all times, but it isn't perfect, in almost every continuity Devastator is an amalgam of different mechs that didn't want anything to do with one another (like, majority of all the decepticon gestalt teams) but by Megatron's order it must happen because it just must, hence you have a strong as fuck combiner, but that's it, there is no great procedure and the constructicons have been burned from this, in the early comics you motive how Mixmaster wasn't as crazy as be ended up for example and Scavenger's anxiety is also more notorious, Bonecrusher is mad all the time like Long Haul and Hook is way more fixated on making everything perfect, they're all mad at something, just look at Scrapper, who wanted to be away fromt them for a moment, and what happened to him, most irregular components merged together must remain together to be sane since now they are tainted with one another and it can cause insanity.

Now, Devastator with Prowl, finally there is no only anger in their shared mind, there is options, thousand upon thousands of options than the whole team has ever seen, than what Devastator even had the processor to even imagine, and Prowl gives him something that he never had before: the idea of freedom, and they all love it because Prowl is a mad, gray freedom that they would die for to be real.

Then we have perfect child, perfect team and perfect combiner: Superion, whose whole gestalt team is in synchrony by force, because it's Superion himself that put his components in mute an goes on his way, using the shared idea of destroying the decepticons of his components to keep going and not falling apart, but this is a bad movement, since there is no center there is no bond, no talk, and Superion struggles to even talk or do something as simple as moving something if it isn't related to eliminate the decepticons.

Now, if we put in something they want, or at least one of the components want, you may catch the interest of the others or the combiner itself, as it happens with Prowl, the constructicons and Devastator, because they share it, and depending from how they take it you have a different result, and since the constructicons are awful and insane Prowl's little human conjunx is also theirs to some degree now, so, somehow in their beaten psyches, Chainbreaker is also theirs.

Devastator hasn't been formed since it's time of great peace (freaking finally) but he'll also go along the lines of "if he is yours then he is mine, since you're a part of me" kind of thing if he sees Chainbreaker, more prepared when all his components know about Prowl's progeny, not like with reader when he was hit with the revelation during the bond, and just for the record, the son of a glitch that asked you out was Bonecrusher.

[poraphia]

hellooo I was laying in bed and had an idea, what if the reader and Wilbur had been talking for a bit like flirting yk, and there streaming (reader isn't a streamer just visiting?) and they get on the topic of birthdays and Wilbur is like "oh when's your birthday I actually don't know!" And it turns out the readers a capricorn (I'm hoping u get this reference and I'm not embarrassing myself)

"A Capricorn, oh, Fuck That!"

➵ PAIRING! cc!wilbur x capricorn!reader

➵ CREATING! 10.12.23 | 940 words

➵ CONTAINING! reader is a capricorn, wilbur and reader being flirty, geogeusser, wilbs singing accoustic

➵ SAYING! poraphia finally doing her requests?? YUHHH im in class rn as im writing this LMAOO. sorry this isnt like my best writing but im tryna get back into the groove

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

“Wil, help me!”

The tall man sat back in his chair, smiling smugly as he leaned back. I puffed up my cheeks in frustration as I had lost another round of Geogeusser against an annonymous user.

“I feel like at this point your viewers are stream sniping just to publicly humiliate me.” I sighed. Wil chuckled, now sitting up and scooting his chair close to his desk to examine the screen with me.

“Come on, I know you can do better than that.” He said, clicking the exit screen button. I turned to him, making a pouty face. After he finished adjusting his stream so that his webcam was now in full view, he turned to me. He tapped my nose with his index finger.

“Boop!” He giggled. My frown immediately curved into a smile as a small blush crept on my cheeks. He withdrawed his finger before tapping my nose again. “Boop!” He repeated.

I laughed, waving his hand away. “Okay, okay! I’m not mad anymore.” I looked at his other monitor to examine the chat. “Chat says they want to do a QnA. Should we do a QnA?” I asked. Wil placed his arm on the head of my chair, almost wrapping his arm around me.

“I don’t see why not.” He said, smirking. With his free hand, he reached over to his mouse and turned on text-to-speech donations. Curious, I scooted closer to him to watch his movements. He tilted his head toward mine, leaning into my prescence. “Alright, chat, I turned on donations. Ask away.”

I leaned my head on his shoulder as I watched the chat zoom by on his laptop. My eyes then trailed onto his computer monitor, realizing that his gaze was also on the monitor, admiring our position.

“Hey Wil and (y/n)—!” The text-to-speech voice filled our ears, making me holt back from the sudden noise.

“Ah! Wil that thing is loud!” I complained.

“Whoops, hold up.” He reached over and clicking on some things.

“—random question, but do yall believe in star signs? and what are yall star signs?” the text-to-speech finished it’s question. I tilted my head a bit, slightly thinking.

“I think they’re interesting, but I wouldn’t say I’m a total advocate.” Wil answered. “I like doing little jokey jokes with them though.”

“Oh yeah! That one bit with Charlie when you guys were sailing around in Origins?” I asked. Wil and I had watched the premiere of that video together the day it uploaded.

“Yeah— Oh you know what, that makes me wonder,” He turned his chair fully to look at me. “When is your birthday? I’m sure you’ve told me at least once but it probably just slipped my mind.”

“Wowww, and I thought we were friends.” I teased, crossing my arms.

“To be fair, I forget my own birthday!” Wil argued.

“That’s because you make up fifteen different birthdays for every stream.” I sighed. I turned back around to face the monitor.

“Touche.” He quickly muttered. I laughed, shaking my head. “So, when’s your birthday?” He asked.

“It’s in January, so I think I’m a capricorn?” I said, unsure. I watched Wilbur’s eyes widen a little from the monitor before a sly grin forming on his face. I turned my head to look at him.

“What? Is there something wrong with being a capricorn?” I asked, the confusion seeping into my voice. I looked back at chat only to be met with “A CAPRICORN??” and “YOOOOOOOOOOO”

“Can you give a moment? I need to get my guitar.” Wil said rather ominously. Without a space to talk, he got up and rushed to his bedroom to grab his instrument. In turn, I was left with thousands of people seeing the outright bewilderment on my face.

“Chat, I’m scared, what’s going on?!” I quickly uttered with a breathy laugh lightening my words. Wil came back shortly, clutching his guitar by the neck. I scoot my chair back for him and the guitar to fit back into frame.

“Sing it with me if you know the lyrics, chat, and I know you know the lyrics.” He quickly tuned his guitar as I stared at him dumbfounded. He played a few strings, testing to see if they were making the right notes before playing a familiar strumming pattern.

I bobbed my head to the words, listening to his breathy voice sing the lyrics he had written himself. His eyes fluttered close as he hunched down a little, feeling his music. He finished up the first verse, transitioning onto the verse.

“I’ve been scared of sleeping with the lights on. Know she’s not there. I know she’s going to his flaaat!” He tilted his head a little as he hit the high note. A smile unknowingly crept up on my face. “A capricorn, oh fuck that!”

“What the— Wil—!”

“They say sex sells I know that!” He ignored my shocked expression and continued playing.

“Wilbur!” I exclaimed again. I tried to sound upset, but in reality, my lips were pulled back into a wide smile. Eventually I sunk back in my chair, admiring his concentrated expression as his fingers grazed against the steel strings. His hair gently resting on top of his forehead, covering his eyes as he turned his face down to his guitar.

He could insult my star sign all he wants. As long as he does it in that pretty voice.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

a / n ~ reblogs, replies, likes, any notes of any kind are super appreciated! if you'd like to be in my taglist or an anon, my inbox is always open :D

[willalove75]

The Estate | Lady Dimitrescu x Fem!oc Chapter 2

Summary: Your first day of work continues and you try your best to impress your new boss.

Warnings: 18+ minors DNI

Tags: Fluff? Dash of angst at the end, not much else to tag for now!

I'll add more tags as needed!

Notes: Chapter 2! I am trying to make this a genuine slow burn so it's going to take a tiny bit to get going (especially to get to the fun smutty stuff - but don't fret, it will definitely happen!) but I hope you all stick around and enjoy the ride! I have a lot of great things planned for this fic so stay tuned!

After Alcina leaves for her meeting you get settled at your desk. Opening the new laptop box you're surprised to see it's a new MacBook. You were expecting some kind of crappy ThinkPad. Once you're settled and hooked up to the two monitors you start diving into the estates social media accounts. Switching between checking them out on the computer and seeing how they look on your phone, you start taking detailed notes of your initial impressions. You note a few analytics you were able to find and you write down some ideas on how to improve the channels.

After you vetted the social media channels you look at the past marketing strategies your predecessor had laid out. Impressed with the work they had put into the strategies, there wasn't much that needed changing. Most of the things you tweaked were more personal preference than anything else.

You thought it would take time to get back into the groove since it's been almost two years since you've done any of this, but to your pleasant surprise it was seamless. Before you know it you have half a dozen pages of written notes on the social media accounts and marketing strategies. Although you're not sure if it's because it's your first day on the job and you want to impress your boss, or because it's been so long since you've been able to sink your teeth into something like this and you're making up for lost time. Glancing between the monitors and your notebook, invested in your work, you didn't realize Alcina came back from her meeting and was standing in the doorway watching you.

With her arms loosely crossed over her chest, leaning against the doorframe, Alcina watches you for a few minutes as you work. Observing you as you look between your notebook, writing what looked to her like very detailed notes, and your computer screen. You're completely oblivious to her presence. The corner of her lip curls up just a little as she hears you muttering to yourself. She's impressed with your diligence, but is curious if the effort you're putting in now will last or if you're just trying to impress her on your first day. Dropping one arm, she gently knocks against your office door.

You're pulled from your hyper-focus when you hear a soft knock on the door. Looking over, you see Alcina leaning against the doorframe, one arm laid across her chest.

"Oh! I'm so sorry I didn't see you there." You say as a blush creeps across your cheeks.

"No apologies necessary," She says, her voice as smooth as velvet. "I see you've made some progress with the social media channels?"

"Yes, I was able to go through them. Not as thoroughly as I wanted to, but enough so I could get an idea of where everything stands."

"And what are your thoughts?"

"Oh, did you want me to go over everything now?"

"I would. I am very curious to know what your thoughts are, especially since you came so highly regarded from your previous employer."

You feel your heart almost leap out of your chest.

"You- you talked to my last boss?"

"I did. I do with all of my potential employees, especially those with a two year gap in their CV's." She says, raising an eyebrow at you.

You let out a nervous chuckle and you feel yourself getting warm.

"Wh-what did they say? If you don't mind me asking, that is." You quickly add.

"That you were an excellent addition to their staff. That you are brilliant at what you do and that it was a pleasure to work with you. Your boss also mentioned that he was sad to see you go but wished you well."

A blush creeps across your cheeks. You really liked your old job, but after everything happened you couldn't stay - you couldn't do anything for two years honestly.

"Oh, well, that's really nice of them to say. Did he, um, say anything else about my resignation?"

"Only that you resigned due to a personal issue outside of work."

A wave of relief washes over you, you weren't ready to have that conversation with your new boss - not yet at least. There was a part of you that thought you were insane for calling your old boss, asking him not to mention details of your resignation. But it seems like the conversation paid off, and as usual, you were able to trust him.

"Oh, good." You say with a little too much relief. Alcina tilts her head and her eyes narrow a bit at you. "Not good, I meant, it's nice to know that he respects the privacy of his employees, past and present." You say, trying to save yourself. Alcina purses her lips a bit, you can tell that now she's even more curious about why you left your last job and why you haven't worked since. "The last two years have been, difficult, really difficult actually. But things are finally getting better and I'm really excited to be working again, to be able to put my skills to good use."

Alcina can't quite make heads or tails of your situation. She knows you have a 3 year old, so she was one when you stopped working, "Perhaps it had something to do with her daughter? Or maybe something happened to her. Maybe she was sick? But she looks healthy." Although Alcina knows better than anyone that looking healthy doesn't necessarily mean you are healthy. She wants to push you for more information but not only does she know that's incredibly unprofessional and inappropriate, she can tell you're avoiding talking about it so she lets it go for now.

"Then I would love to see your skills." She says as she walks up to your desk and stands behind you.

"O-okay." You say, looking up at her. She looks down at you and the corner of her lip just barely curls into a smile, her blue-grey eyes boring into yours. Fuck, she's gorgeous. You take a subtle deep breath to calm yourself and inhale the scent of her perfume. It smells expensive and mature, but also pretty and calming. It completely distracts you for a moment. You can hear her shift her weight from one leg to the other behind you and you snap back into the present.

"Is there anything in particular you want me to start with?" You ask, looking up at her over your shoulder.

"No, just show me what you've done so far." She replies with a wave of her hand.

You flip to the first page of your notes and start from the beginning. Starting off with the estates Instagram page, you tell her your thoughts on the visual aspects, the layout, the images themselves, how they could be improved, captions and hashtags that could be utilized more often, ideas for reels, stories and posts that can promote events and day-to-day operations. Next you move to the Facebook page, showing her some of the analytics you've collected, how the page can be improved, etc.. You go through the rest of the social media channels; telling her that embracing newer apps like TikTok and more professional ones such as LinkedIn can help drive traffic to the other social media accounts as well as the website. Alcina rolls her eyes at the mention of "TikTok" which makes you giggle a little.

"Something funny?" She asks with an unamused edge to her voice.

"Oh, no, sorry." You say, freezing in place. "It's just, I've seen that reaction quite a lot when talking about TikTok and it always makes me laugh a bit."

"What about it is funny?" She doesn't sound offended, at least you don't think she does. God you hope you didn't offend her on the first day.

"Because it really is a stupid app, it's like Vine but for Gen Z kids." She gives you a look when you mention "Vine," which lets you know that she doesn't know what that is. "Uh, Vine was a short form video social media channel, you could only make six second videos and it was mostly used by Millennials and some Generation Xers. It became massive quickly and a lot of the videos turned into popular memes. It was only around for four years before it was shut down, but it had over like, 200 million users or something crazy like that. Anyway, TikTok is similar to that. It's definitely hard to take it seriously when there's a lot of ridiculous videos on it. It's so massive and so popular, it would be stupid to not utilize since it can drive so much traffic to our other socials and even drive people through the doors."

"Is that your professional opinion?" She deadpans. You look up at her, confused. "That it would be stupid to not use it?"

Biting your lip for a second, you realize that what you said without thinking could easily have come off as if you're calling her stupid. With no way of digging yourself out of this one you shyly reply "Yeah."

Alcina quirks and eyebrow and her eyes go back to the screen.

"Interesting, continue."

After you go through the rest of the social medias and a little bit of the analytics that you found, you move onto the marketing strategies your predecessor left. Alcina is quiet but nods her head along as you go over what they left and what your thoughts are on it. After you mention the few things you plan on changing you make it a point to let her know that it's more for personal preference rather than professional reasons. She looks pleased as you go over what the person before you left and she gives you a nod of approval when you tell her what you plan on changing.

"I like the changes you plan on making and I agree with you in terms of personal preference. John was brilliant but I couldn't stand the way he did things. But how he did what he did worked so I had no real qualms with it. I already know I prefer your way."

"Thank you. It seems more logical and straightforward doing it like this, at least to me. I try to keep things as simple as possible so there's little room for error or miscommunication."

"Those are all things I appreciate. Very well done Kathleen, I must say I am impressed." She places her hand on your shoulder and you have to stop yourself from relaxing into her touch.

What is wrong with you? Have you really gone that long without physical contact? There's a part of you that thinks that it's just her putting you under her spell - whether she knows it or not. But you quickly push that thought out of your head. She's your new boss for gods sake! You need to get laid. You make a mental note to give your friends-with-benefits guy a call this week.

"I must say, I had my concerns when I hired you. I was aware of the fact that you've been out of work the last two years. My main concern was that you would be a bit rusty right off the bat, but just from what you've shown me you've already been able to put those concerns to bed. I am pleasantly surprised and happy to see that your work is just as wonderful as the work in your portfolio." Alcina gently squeezes your shoulder and takes her hand away.

"Oh, thank you so much. I really, really appreciate that. Please let me know if you have any other concerns so I can do my best to ease those as well." You say with a smile.

For a moment Alcina looks impressed but just as quickly as the look appeared, it disappeared.

"My only other concern would be that you strive to impress me early and then fail to do so after the first few weeks. Which I certainly hope is not the case. Aside from that, I believe you're going to do a wonderful job here."

"I absolutely understand. I know I tend to hit the ground running, but I can assure you I have the endurance to keep up the pace I've set."

"We shall see about that." Alcina says as she heads towards the door. "Wonderful work Kathleen. I am looking forward to see how well it all pays off."

Once Alcina is out of sight you lean back in your chair and exhale. It worries you a little that she seems to have some doubts in you. But from her perspective, you can understand why she would and you try to not let it get to you. You pick up your phone and you realize that you were with her for over an hour. There's no way, it felt like you were talking to her for maybe 30 minutes. How did that take over an hour?! And how was she standing there in those heels for so long without fidgeting or sitting down? That thought alone bewilders you. You're sitting for most of the day and you can't wait to get your shoes off the second you walk inside. She gave you a thorough tour of the place and stood there for over an hour and walked away like it was nothing? You were impressed to say the least.

With only a few hours left in your day, you decide now is better than ever to have lunch. After debating for a few minutes if you should shut your door or not, you decide to close it to give you a few minutes of peace while you eat. As you're eating your lunch at your desk, you scroll through Facebook and Instagram mindlessly. Michelle hasn't texted you since this morning so you're assuming everything is fine but you text her anyway to make sure. She responds a few minutes later with a picture of Emma asleep, taking her afternoon nap. The door to your office flies open and almost slams into the wall, causing you to jump in your seat.

A young, redheaded girl walks through the door with a backpack slung over her shoulder. When you jump she notices you and jumps too, letting out a yell.

"OH MY GOD WHO ARE YOU?" She yells.

You sit there for a moment in shock, unsure how to answer. This girl can't be older than 16, who is she? And what is she doing here?

"I-I'm Katie, the new marketing and social media strategist. Uh, who are you?"

The sound of heels against the floor takes your attention away. When you look at the door, Alcina is standing there with an unamused look on her face. She's looking at the young girl, you almost feel sorry for her but you're grateful she's not looking at you like that right now.

"Daniela." Alcina says through her teeth.

"Hi mommy!" She says, amping up the sweetness. Daniela wraps her arms around her mother and Alcina returns the gesture. She looks up at Alcina and Alcina arches an eyebrow at her, very well aware of that fact that Daniela is trying to soften her up so she doesn't get in trouble.

"Hello bug. Did you forget that our new marketing and social media strategist was starting today?"

"Yes, sorry mamă."

"Mhm." Alcina mutters before placing a kiss on the girls forehead. She pulls away from the girl, leaving one arm around her shoulder.

"Kathleen, this is my youngest daughter Daniela. Daniela, this is Kathleen."

"Wow you're pretty!" Daniela says.

You try and fail to bite back the smile that crosses your face and Alcina lets out a low, wait did she growl? That's what it sounded like, towards her daughter.

"Sorry." Daniela says, looking down at the floor.

"Its okay." You say with a smile. "It's great to meet you Daniela."

"It's nice meeting you too Kathleen!" She says, the excitement in her voice suddenly back. "Can I call you Katie?"

"Daniela." Alcina warns.

"It's okay," you say to Alcina with a smile. "Yeah, you can call me Katie."

Daniela's face lights up and she looks at her mom, beaming.

"So Katie, what's your favorite color?"

"Daniela that's enough." Alcina says, softer this time. "Kathleen is busy and has work that needs to get done. Your shift doesn't start for another 30 minutes, why don't you go find something to do until then?"

"You work here?" You ask, your words leaving your mouth before you even realize it.

"Yeah!" Daniela says, turning towards you. "I wait the tables, I can't serve alcohol until I'm 18 so I can't be behind the bar like Cass, but I can't wait to learn how to bartend! Mamă," she says, turning back towards Alcina. "where am I supposed to go now? There is where I would hang out!"

"You can stay in my office bug."

"Ugh. But your office is so boring!"

"I apologize draga mea but that seems to be your only option. Unless you want to start sweeping the tasting room before your shift starts?"

Daniela pouts at her mother who looks down at her adoringly.

"Fiinnneeeeee." She says, defeated. "Bye Katie! It was really awesome meeting you!"

"It was great meeting you too Daniela."

Daniela walks out and heads towards her mothers office and Alcina turns towards you.

"I apologize, again, for my children's behavior. Daniela seems to have a never-ending amount of energy. I would like to promise it isn't always a zoo with them around, but-"

"It's okay, really. I get it." You say with a smile.

"I appreciate your understanding. Now that you met two of my three girls, I'm sure you will meet Bela tomorrow. She only has one morning class and is usually here for the rest of the day. If you would like, I can have her show you what she's been doing with the social media channels tomorrow and have her start to gradually hand over the reigns."

"Yeah, that sounds great."

"Excellent."

Alcina turns on her heel and walks out of your office. You almost completely forgot about your lunch so you scarf it down quickly and get back to work.

As you're focused on working out the latest marketing tactic, you hear a "pssst" at your door. Looking over, you see Daniela, now in a white button down shirt and black dress pants, her long red hair is pulled back tightly into a ponytail.

"Hey Daniela, is there something I-"

"Shh!" She says, putting her finger over her lips. "I don't want mom to hear. She'll get mad at me for bothering you." You can't help but giggle at her and she steps further into your office. "Sorry if calling you pretty before embarrassed you. Mom is always telling me I have to think before I speak but you're just, super pretty, and I just blurted it out and-"

"Daniela," you say and you notice her starting to spiral. "it's okay, I'm not upset, I promise. Thank you for the compliment."

Daniela tilts her head at you, almost as if she's confused that you're not upset with her. She squints her eyes at you, as if she's trying to decipher something.

"You're different. I like you. I'm going to give you a new nickname."

"And what nickname will that be?"

"I don't know yet, but when I know, you'll know." You look behind her and see Alcina standing behind Daniela with her arms crossed over her chest and eyes narrowed at her daughter. How did she not make a single sound in those heels? And how long was she there for? Alcina clears her throat and Daniela jumps and turns around, looking like a deer in headlights.

"Mamă!" She says, trying to butter her mother up again.

"Don't even try."

Daniela smiles wide at her mother and turns back towards you.

"Bye Katie!"

"Bye Daniela." You say with a smile.

Alcina's eyes don't leave Daniela's head as she turns and leaves your office and Alcina follows behind her.

"Ce ti-am spus despre deranjarea ei? Nu înțeleg cum ai întârziat la tura ta, în timp ce ești aici de o jumătate de oră." (What did I tell you about bothering her? I don't understand how you're late for your shift meanwhile you've been here for half an hour.)

"Imi pare rau mama!" (I'm sorry mom!)

The rest of your day goes by rather smoothly and by the time you know it, you're packing up your things and getting ready to leave. Before you go, you stop by Alcina's office and knock gently on the door.

"Come in."

You open the door and Alcina looks up from her computer and smiles.

"Ah, Kathleen, is it the end of the day already?" She asks, more to herself you think, and she looks at the clock.

"Yeah, it went by fast. Is there anything else you need me to do before I go?"

"There is not, thank you. But I did want to speak with you, do you have a moment?"

"Absolutely." You say and she motions to the chair in front of her desk.

"So, how was your first day?" She asks, taking off her glasses and giving you her full attention.

"Honestly, it was great. I feel like I got a lot done and made some great headway on the new campaigns and strategies."

"I'm very happy to hear that. Is there anything you're unsure of or any questions you have?"

You pause for a moment to think.

"Um, not right now, but if something comes up I will let you know."

"Excellent. I'm glad you had a productive first day. I am looking forward to see the things we spoke about come to fruition."

"So am I."

"Well then, if that's all, I will see you tomorrow. Have a wonderful rest of your day Kathleen." She says with a smile.

"Thank you, you too."

After getting your stuff from your office you walk through the tasting room and see Daniela.

"Katie!! You're going home already?!"

"Yes ma'am!"

"Will you be here tomorrow?!"

"Yes I will be!"

"YAY!"

"Daniela." Cassandra growls from across the room. Daniela shrinks down a little and looks up at you apologetically.

"It's okay kiddo." You say, giving her a gentle smile. Daniela's face lights up again and she gives you a big smile.

"I'll see you tomorrow Katie!!"

"See you tomorrow Daniela." She heads over to one of the tables and you turn towards the bar to say goodbye to Cassandra. She glares at you and turns her back to you. "Alrighty." You say quietly to yourself and head to the car.

You pick up Emma and talk to your in-laws for a bit, giving them a brief recap of your first day. They both seem happy for you and you sense a little bit of relief from them too, but you know neither of them would ever say it out loud. When you get home you talk to Marge, giving her the same brief recap and she tells you she's proud of you. With Emma in tow the two of you head upstairs. Emma insisting on walking up the stairs herself since she's "a big girl."

Once dinner was eaten and cleaned up you gave Emma a bath and put her to bed. When she's finally asleep you pull out a bottle of wine and pour yourself a glass. With your wine in hand you sit on the couch and flip through a few suggested shows, settling on re-watching a few episodes of your favorite comfort show. After finishing the wine and relaxing for a bit, you get yourself ready for bed. Before you know it, you're fast asleep. It's the fastest you've been able to fall asleep in a long time and you're grateful for it.

When you open your eyes you find yourself in that all-too familiar field. Where the sky is clear and blue and the green grass is blowing in the wind.

You look around and finally spot the figure in the distance once more. Your heart clenches in your chest and you try to move towards it but you can't. No matter how hard you pull against your legs your muscles won't budge. The harder you fight against the led in your legs the harder it becomes. A silent cry rings out into the air and you find yourself becoming more and more desperate to move.

When you look up, you see the figure begin walking towards you. No matter how loudly you try to call out to it no sound passes through your lips. It closes half of the distance between the two of you before stopping once more. With one final desperate pull you're finally able to move your leg. Your movement is so slow, it feels like cinderblocks are tied to your ankles but you continue moving closer.

The shadow across the figures face lightens just enough so you think you can make out who it is. With your heart hammering inside of your chest you try and push forward faster. Just before the shadow falls away the figure begins to fade. You try and scream. You feel it reverberate through your vocal chords but again no sound comes out. Desperately you try and push forward faster, trying to reach it before it disappears.

Just as you reach out to touch it, it vanishes.

"NO!" You scream.

Your voice echoes through the valley. It combs through the tall grass and expands in the air reaching as far as the eye can see. Tears stream down your face and you fall to the ground on your knees. Another wail tears through your vocal chords. The sound flies through the air and as if it hits a wall, it reverberates back to you.

Your eyes snap open and you shoot up out of bed. With a ragged breath your eyes scan the room and you realize you're in your bedroom. You put your hand over your chest and you feel your heart hammering away inside of your ribcage. The sound of your alarm goes off again and you shut it off. Dragging your hand across your cheeks you realize you're wiping away fresh tears.

Looking down at the empty side of the bed you feel your heart ache. You grab your necklace from around your neck and trace the heart shape with your fingers in an attempt to ground yourself. When you feel your heartbeat finally settle you decide to get out of bed and get ready for your second day of work.

[cryptid-artha]

Shit has Hit the Fan

Shit has absolutely hit the fan over here. I got completely and utterly stabbed in the back and lost my financial security. I'm going to have to start doing commissions again to make ends meet, and I have been out of the game for a quite a while. I never thought I'd have to again, but it seems like I have to. It sucks. But it is what it is. Nothing I can do about it.

In short, there was an emergency. My brother made an attempt on his own life. He isn't blood related, but he was my brother where it counts. We have some doubts that he actually did it to himself, but that's something else entirely. My wife called a friend, who rushed over and saved his life. He had a business he started with my wife. It was doing quite well, but not quite breaking even yet and he was still helping to fund it while my wife worked on bringing in the money. It could have broken even by the end of the year, even with the expensive office space we had. But, he completely pulled out, blocked contact with us, and completely fucked us and our other business partner over. After lying to us for weeks, and letting all of his duties slip until things ended up in a bit of a hole. Long story short, we are losing the office space, and had to lay off our two employees. We are able to scrape together enough resources to keep going, and it should be making enough for a roof and food, but it's going to be extremely tight until we regroup and find a new groove. If he had just waited, money WOULD have come flowing back in, but he backed out entirely, without any warning, after lying for potentially weeks. If he had to back out, I wish he'd just said something, so we could scale back and be more prepared. I feel hurt deeply hurt, and very deeply betrayed. This fucked everything up for my wife and our partner, and has caused such extreme stress we're all basically shutting down. We had financial stability. We didn't have to worry about food in our stomachs or a roof over our head. We didn't have to worry about having running water, internet, phones and electricity and now we have to struggle to make ends meet while picking up the pieces. We poured everything into that business, and it was paying off. And then the person we thought was our brother completely abandoned us and fucked us over. My wife thinks we're gonna be ok, and I do agree with her, but having extra money will REALLY help until things stabilize again. I want things to go back to normal... but, they never will. I have to find a new normal. Anyway. In light of this whole shitstorm and the loss of my financial stability, I am going to start pushing my Ko-fi more. https://ko-fi.com/arthademon I intend to have commission discounts, both in stream and out of stream, discounted adoptables, free adoptables, free bases, discounted bases, and other perks. Every little bit helps and even a little bit of a steady monthly income will help relieve some of this stress.

I will be doing commission streams and getting my queue knocked out between streams. I just hope I don't have to do this long. I hope we can get our stability back.

[pixelnrd]

hello! ive binged your blog this past week and have been so invested and impressed with how professionally everything has been done. I particularly liked the snippets of your 'process' you've hinted at in other asks. I havent been around since the beginning so i wanted to ask what inspired you to undertake such a large project! or, rather, did you expect it to be as big as it became? each generation has 70+ daily posts, their portrait headshots, family portraits... i love it! were you trying to build an audience when you started out? was it a covid project that you had time to build a huge queue for? i think ill be starting my own narrative simblr here soon and i'd love to hear your thoughts or advice about your journey with it, if any.

Hello and thank you for such a lovely message, it's so nice to receive feedback on the quality of my Decades Challenge because I do put so much effort in behind the scenes thanks to my agonising perfectionism!

As a project it has grown beyond what I thought it would be, to a point that I had to reign it back in in early-2022 because I couldn't keep up. I'll put more detail under the cut ✨

The Langstons started as a covid project in 2020. I was an unemployed student with a lot of time on my hands. I'd done legacies before and was pretty good at getting close to the end so that was the 'project', to do the Decades Challenge. And while looking for inspiration like cc and builds etc I found simblr and discovered people were posting their Decades Challenges here with narrative attached. By this stage I'd already played a fair bit into my Langston family (they had 4 kids by that point) so I decided to start posting my sims as well, which pushed me to put a bit more effort in with shots, story, editing etc because I had imposter syndrome. I didn't intend for there to be much narrative or story, and I think that's pretty obvious when reviewing the 1890s Langstons, but it started to grow as I was posting because I wanted to give my sim characters justifications for their life paths I was sending them on... and it all kind of took off from there, as a Decades Challenge story.

Covid over 2020 and 2021 in my country forced us into hard lockdowns, and over those 2 years I had heaps of spare time for home-based hobbies - so I just kept pushing myself to keep going with my Decades Challenge for something to do. I got really into creating storylines and costuming and wanting to do the project 'justice' because of how much effort was going in and how many generations I needed to cover to finish it. Then I stared doing lookbooks, creating portraits and character pages, and then making cc (which was a fun side project).

I wanted to build an audience at the start because I wanted to gauge whether anyone was as interested in my sims as I was in others', and when I stared getting feedback and responses to my posts it was very validating and flattering, so that spurred me to keep up. I never dreamed it would get the audience it has now! It's nice being told that something you are making is good. IRL at the time, I was pretty miserable - I graduated my Masters without a job, I was trying to conceive and failing, I was lonely due to covid and lost some of the best years of my 20s - but simblr made me happy and was a distraction from those hard things and so I really poured effort into the thing that brought me happiness.

2022 and 2023 forced me to pull back from my Decades Challenge project due to pregnancy and becomming a parent. It felt very natural to drop it at the time, but since finding my groove with parenting and my new life I still want to finish this project because it's been nearly 4(!) years of effort and I'd hate to leave it so close to the end. So that's why I'm still here - in a reduced capacity to what I was in 2020 and 2021 at my peak - trying to get it done. I don't post lookbooks or do cc anymore, because I just don't have the time anymore. But everyone is so encouraging, I have made some nice friends here and I'm constantly in awe of and inspired by the sims, content and stories others are creating. There is so much more potential for historical gameplay in the years since I started my Decades Challenge - farming! horses! infants! - and I hope that my project has inspired others to have a go! That's the best legacy I could hope to leave...

[writing-fanics]

a duet turned solo

carlo x fem!reader

summary: carlo and y/n sing Feel together something she once loved doing

warning: spoilers for lies of p, angst, mentions of death, first time writing for lies of p

song

"Close your eyes.' She sang, as her fiancé Carlo played the piano. Her voice was music to his ears. Her singing matched no other person in Krat, in his words. 'Come to me. Feel all right. Just dance with me all through the night.' She sang, closing her eyes and nodding her head to the gentle music. A smile grew across her lips as she opened her eyes, and turned towards her lover.

She tilted her head playfully and smiled. Looking at him lovingly, 'Turn it out. Close to you.' She continued, her voice echoing throughout the room. Her voice so gentle and soft but powerful, as if putting all her emotions into the song. 'I feel good. 'Cause I just know feeling of you. Give it to me baby.' She continued, looking at her lover knowingly.

'Fe-'

'Feel all right.' Carlo sang, and she looked at him and shock. She smiled happily as the solo became a duet, 'I feel good.' She sang, leaning closer to her lover. 'Just want you to step with me,' She sang, following the beat.

'dance with me,' Carlo sang.

'here with me,' She sang.

'feel all right!' The two sang together. Enjoying every second, 'I feel good on you all right. To make a groove all night.' She sang and leaned her head against his shoulder smiling. She loved moments like this with him just the two of them together; he's playing the song on the piano and she sings and on occasion, he'd sing along with her.

She lifted her head from his shoulder, 'Close your eyes.' He sang sending her a glance, 'Come to me.' She sang leaning closer and smiling, as her heart skipped a beat. 'Feel all right.' He sang.

'Just dance with me all through the night.' She sang, and she looked at him, 'Turn it out. Close to you.' She sang, placing her hands on her lap. 'I feel good. 'Cause I just know feeling of you.' He sang, looking at her knowingly just as she did moments ago.

'Give it to me baby.' She sang, looking at him smiling her heart swelling. There was no end to it. Every time she keeps falling deeper and deeper in love with him.

'Feel all right. I feel good.' She sang, looking up at the ceiling getting lost in thought about their future together. One thing is for sure, they'd most likely end up moving out of Krat. Once they've got enough money. Buy a house, maybe have some kids. 'Just want you to step with me,' She sang, her attention falling back towards her lover.

'dance with me,' He Sang

' here with me,' She Sang

'feel all right!' The two sang, together staring into each other's eyes longingly. The love the two share for each other could be felt throughout the room, 'I feel good on you all right. To make a groove all night.' She sang, and quickly kissed her lover on the cheek.

'Feel all right! I feel good.' She sang slowly, scooting closer to her lover. He smiled softly, Just want you to step with me, dance with me, feel all right!' She sang,'I feel good on you all right. To make a groove all night.' She sang. 'Close your eyes.' She sang, closing her eyes.

'Come to me. Close your eyes.' She sang, watching as Carlo finished the song. She bit her lip nervously and placed her hand on her stomach. She turned towards her lover and opened her mouth, "Carlo, I'm p-" Her eyes widened and her heart sank. As Carlo started coughing up blue blood, into his hands. She looked at him worriedly and placed her hand on his back as his coughing got worse.

She opened her eyes and noticed the empty space beside her; she stared down at the piano tears in her eyes. As the song ended on the gramophone, she stared at the piano blankly.

Unable to play a single note, nor to sing the song. Her passion and love of singing had died the day she lost everything and everyone she loved. So those simple pleasures that once brought her much joy.

Now, it only brought pain and sadness. Carlo and her had their whole life ahead of them a future together. A happy one, just the two of them together with the possibility of a little one down the line. Singing songs and playing piano together as a family in their free time. But now all that's gone and here she is sitting alone without the love of her life.

[m3rricat]

I feel like I've lost my writing groove pretty bad, but I'm determined to dip my toe back in today especially after a kind commenter reminded me of one of my favorite bits I wrote which shows one of the major things I want to do with this fic; namely, have the support go both ways, and not just have Wyll be Astarion's rescuer/therapist. From Chapter 16 of Advocatus Ardens:

As the haggling between Tabris and Serla began, Astarion stuffed his selected items back in the pillowcase and started off down one of the aisles. The place was deceptively large, with every odd and end you could think of (and plenty more you couldn’t imagine) sitting on rickety, tall shelves. Wyll followed in his wake. There were only a couple of other customers wandering, but still he and Astarion kept their voices low, pointing out both the fantastic and the astoundingly mundane, laughing at their own stupid jokes as they wandered. Something about it. It hit Wyll at just the right angle, without warning. Things were feeling so ordinary. He had a case. He had just had brunch, of all things. And now he was poking around some weird hole-in-the-wall shop with a friend just because. Just for fun. Like he had done so many weekend mornings back home. Wyll turned away slowly, hoping it didn’t show on his face. That everything was catching up to him all at once now that things has just started to steady. Now that he had a moment to let himself think back on everything. Everything that he’d lost. “Wyll, what the hells is—” Astarion stopped. Wyll saw him out of the corner of his eye, halted mid-gesture toward something high on the shelf. “Darling. Are you alright?” Wyll squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head. Took a deep breath. “Sorry, I—this is just so. Normal. It makes me think too much about…” Wyll swallowed his next words against the lump that rose in his throat. But the tears were coming. It was a lost cause. He stood like an idiot as they gathered at the corners of his eyes. Astarion tried to smile, shakily. “Well. Can’t hardly blame you, dearest. I’ve been freed. More or less. But this… this is rather a downgrade for you.” His smile strained. “Normalcy like this must sting.”  “I’ll get over it. I promise,” Wyll said hurriedly. “It’s not that it’s not… nice. I just wish we could do these things without a sword hanging over our necks. I wish you could have that.” Astarion tried to settle his expression, but his voice wavered. “One of these days you really have to stop flipping everything to make it about someone else. I hereby give you permission to throw a raging tantrum. Just for you.” Wyll barked a laugh. Then it all caught him again, dragging him down into the crushing depths of memory. “Sorry,” he whispered, as he tried to school himself back into shape. Astarion stepped forward. His hand alighted on Wyll’s upper arm like a songbird. Then his grip firmed. Steadying. “Don’t you dare be sorry,” he whispered, sharp with feeling. Then he added, softer, “It’s only fair, you know. I had my own breakdown last night.” That tugged another short laugh out of Wyll. Astarion smiled. Then put on a mock-serious tone. “But it’s an even trade, understand? One breakdown for me, then one for you.” Wyll’s voice cracked slightly. “Understood.” Astarion's hand squeezed, then dropped. Wyll’s arm moved slightly, trying to follow the loss of touch. “I need to apologize,” Astarion said suddenly. “I’ve been rather… shocking toward you. And you’re the last one that deserves it.” “Don’t. I get it, what you’ve gone through—” “Can you not get it, for once?” Astarion cut in, frustration and warmth tangled. “Maybe I—maybe I don’t want that to be acceptable, for me. I was trying to harden myself toward you, to protect myself. But I don’t actually want that.” He looked up at Wyll from under dark lashes, those astonishing eyes pleading. “You’re so good to me, always. Maybe I want to get better. Be better. To you.”

[angel-of-the-moons]

Nothing Is Lost

Khonahu x Fem!Reader

TW/CW: Mentions of drugging/roofies, allusions to rape but nothing happens, murder, kidnappings references, Khonshu being an asshole but one who won't just leave you hanging, Reader gets her baby wings!

MINORS DNI I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR CONTENT YOU CONSUME

A/N: Thanks to everyone who voted in the poll! Just a reminder; every single variation had hints as to what's happened in the past; and little Easter eggs >:3.

Taglist: @drinkingwithkhonshu @astrosphereblog @themostegotisticalgirl124 @patchesofwork @lialiwasneverseen

Chapter 14:

Starting Lessons

"Try again." Khonshu sighed boredly, resting his long beak on his knuckles as he sat on the boulder nearby.

You panted, your body sagging with exhaustion as you glared at him, "Alright, you goddamn vulture!" You wiped some sweat from your brow. The cheeky old fucker gave you his staff to practice with, and your arms were tired.

The inherent magical properties helped focus your magic as if under a magnifying glass, helping you figure out the right "flow" that best suited you, Khonshu had told you. It was going to be used as a tool to focus your skills until you didn't need the "crutch" anymore. Until you could weave spells and cast them with your own hands.

"This fucking thing is heavy." You wheezed, callously letting the golden moon at the head dip into the soil and snow, scratching a groove in the snow to reveal the dark earth beneath.

Khonshu rolled his head a bit--if he had eyes, you knew he'd have been rolling them--and stood up with a raspy grumble, "Whiny little runt." He calls you.

Every lumbering step he took only made your irritation grow, even as he stood before you in his full imposing height.

"What more do you want from me?" You groused, not backing down. You didn't even so much as flinch when he leaned down, invading your personal space.

He reached out with a large, long finger and tapped the staff; and instantly it felt lighter. Almost the same weight as the broom you usually pushed at work.

"There. Will you stop your whining?" He scoffed as he leaned back again.

You lifted the staff and drop it a few times, gawking, your mouth agape. "You're telling me you could have done that the whole time??" You look back up at him, "Why didn't you lead with that?!"

"You did not ask." He stated with a casual shrug, returning to sit on his boulder.

"And, aren't you concerned at all about anyone seeing us?" You asked, sweeping your arm out before you. You two were sitting in the middle of Central Park. Yeah, it was half past midnight... But there were plenty of homeless people and police that walked the park at night.

Hell, even the wayward superhero or two...

It was as if Khonshu could pick your thoughts out of thin air; "I placed a ward. Nobody will see us if I do not let them. Not even that sorcerer, Strange."

"Strange? As in Doctor Strange?" You gasped.

"Of course. Do you have rocks in your ears?" He asked, tipping his head to the side. The bastard.

"I'm not deaf." You hissed, your hands tightening around the ancient staff in your grip.

"Then why ask obvious questions? Now--again. Trace the rune I showed you."

You groaned loudly and sighed in defeat, holding the staff out like you were going to stab the air.

Now, the rune went like--

"Gah. Widen your stance. If you cast it improperly you will be thrown aside." Khonshu scolded, waving his hand. You widened your feet, twisting the staff in your grip.

But apparently, that wasn't what he wanted. It was obvious when he got up once again, muttering beneath hushed breaths as he marched back up to you. He reached out to you, spreading your hands down the shaft much wider than before. Then, with one of his feet, nudged one of yours until you are standing, wide-legged.

He put his hand in between your shoulders and pressed lightly so you hunched inwards just a bit--the staff now in a perfect position to guard your upper body if you were struck.

However, you were flustered--and not in the fun way--when he just... did that to you. He didn't seem to notice, or even care, at all as he stepped back away.

"There. Now," Khonshu sighed, sounding as though he were a disappointed father scolding his child.

"Again."

Your shoulders ached. Your back ached. Your legs ached. Your everything ached.

"Motherfucking--bitch ass bird-headed bitch." You grunted under your breath.

Your jerked forwards and stumble, earning a few weird looks from two women leaving the bar you'd passed. They couldn't see what you felt, however. Or hear what you heard.

What you felt was a hefty smack to the back of your head--like a parent brain-dusting their rowdy child for causing a ruckus in a church--and what you heard was a rather snide voice:

"You will learn respect, you little pest."

"Go get bent, you old bastard." You muttered, shoving your hands in your pockets with a huff.

You felt a chill slip down your spine as a lock of your hair was pinched and twisted back. Almost like a child pulling their sibling's hair. You wondered, honestly, why Khonshu didn't do more.

If he hated this so much, surely someone with his god-forsaken ego would lurch at the chance to abuse their power? Hell, someone with his powers in general... should have abused them by now, right? So, why...

That's when it hit you. It wasn't that he didn't want to...

He couldn't. Something was stopping him. That had to be it, right? What, you wondered, could stop a literal god from--

"Go back to that bar." He commanded suddenly.

"As much as I'd like to drink, Khonshu, I'm going home to go to sleep." You sighed, shaking your head.

Your jacket was yanked on, making you stumble back and almost fall on your ass into the slushy snow. "What the hell--"

"This is not a request. Do not order anything alcoholic." He hissed at you.

Though you couldn't see him, you knew he was hovering; judging by the chill that so easily penetrated your otherwise warm clothes. What was his damn deal? Why was he so insistent that you go into this hole-in-the-wall?

"Why?" You grumbled. "What's so interesting about--"

"Do not question me!" He hissed, shoving you back towards the bar. "I will instruct you in what to do. Now go!"

You grunted in frustration, but relented. If it got the old bastard to shut the hell up, you supposed you could at least grab something sweet to boost your mood...

The bar stunk. It smelled of body odor from the old bikers and few homeless who were pissing away their few bucks for some liquor; as well as the sickly-sweet scent of marijuana and cigarette smoke.

The latter normally wouldn't have bothered you overmuch--but combined with the smell of spilled liquor (and even a hint of someone having pissed themselves, or thrown up on their own clothes) it had you nearly nauseated.

You shouldered your way through the noisy, rambunctious crowd. You felt a gnawing pit form in your stomach because you knew eyes were on you.

You'd never been to this bar before; this was unfamiliar territory for you, and you feared it brought you the wrong kind of attention... What was the old man thinking?

You awkwardly sit in the bar stool; the seat cracked and the stuffing poking out as it squeaked and creaked under your weight. The older woman behind the bar has a cigarette hanging out of her mouth--and you having worked at previous bars knew that was a big no-no, that it was not only a safety hazard, but also a sanitary one--as she was cleaning out a pint glass with a ratty cloth.

You suppressed your urge to shudder at how gnarly it looked and smiled politely at her, "Do you have a drink menu?"

She laughed, her voice slightly scratchy, "The hell kinda place you think this is, toots? Do we look like a bougie-ass cocktail club?"

You smiled thinly, the corner of your mouth twitching in irritation--customer service was clearly not high on this woman's purview. Not that you enjoyed it yourself back in your days as a bartender; but you knew that ensuring your patrons were happy and had fun were great ways to get big tips. This woman on the other hand, didn't care.

"Um--can I have a virgin daiquiri, please?"

Her nose crinkled and she flicked her cigarette ash into a nearby tray, "You come to a bar and order something with no booze? You a church girl?"

"Ha... I suppose you could say that, now..." You reply stiffly, your fingers tapping the sticky countertop. You didn't want to even think about how long it had been since the damn thing had been properly cleaned and disinfected...

"Gah, fine, girly." She turned, looking for the proper mixers and glass. She eyed you over her shoulder, quirking a thin, penciled-on eyebrow at you, "You want strawberry or peach? 's all we got, sweet cheeks."

"Ah... Peach is fine."

"Riiiiiiiight." She replied with a short, going to mix your drink.

"Basic bitch." You heard her mutter under her breath.

You gritted your teeth; feeling eyes take over your body and making goosebumps creep up your spine and making your hairs stand on end. You have a casual look around the bar and spot a small table with three men and one woman.

One of the men had their arm around the girl, laughing obnoxiously in her ear at something one of his friends said. You weren't sure why, but something had you on edge.

Whomever was looking at you before, didn't seem to be doing it, now. But the uneasy feeling didn't subside.

"Do not panic," Khonshu's voice murmured in your ear. "I am here. I will talk you through this."

You sucked in a tight breath and let it out, relaxing your posture a bit. Despite being annoyed at how he had been invading your personal bubble the past few whatever-it-had-been at this point... you were thankful you weren't currently alone in no-man's land.

She slid the drink to you, the contents sloshing a bit, no ice cubes to keep the drink chilled. Most places, you found, tended to serve them with ice by default. You yourself had yet to meet a person who liked them at room temperature.

"Thanks." You muttered, looking into the glass. You weren't sure yourself if you were thanking her or Khonshu for his reassurance.

She noticed how you stared at the drink and sneered, "Sorry if it's not to your likin', princess--but you didn't say if you wanted it on the rocks or not."

"Oh, don't worry--" You lie quickly, grabbing the drink and sipping it. It was sickeningly sweet. Too much mixer and syrup; the crushed peaches mixed in were bitter and unripe. "--It's fine."

"Yeah, I'll take your word for it." She says, rolling her eyes as you slip a few bills onto the counter--overpaying more to get her away from you than to be generous--and stuffing them into her bra. Again, another unsanitary thing that made you shudder.

You watch with disappointment as she takes shots with a few patrons, smiling and joking with them as opposed as to how cold and rude she was to you. Poor conduct, how on earth was this place still even in business? You had half a mind to report them to--

"The table you spotted before." Khonshu's voice said to you. "The men with the lone woman."

You casually spin your stool around, leaning back on the bar as you take a hefty swig of your drink, letting him continue as you discreetly glanced towards the party he mentioned.

The man hanging on the woman seemed to be getting too handsy with her--the poor thing looking like her skin was crawling from the way her nose scrunched.

"They intend to drug her." He told you, almost making you choke on your beverage. "You will stop them."

You turn back around and hunch over your drink, muttering, "Easy for you to say, old man. You're like, nine feet tall. I appreciate the confidence in my baby magic skills, but seriously--"

"You can do this task," He says matter-of-factly. "All you need to do is act inebriated. They do not know your drink isn't mind-altering. Nor do they know if you had been drinking elsewhere before coming here. They are not paying close enough attention to you to see you are able-minded."

That... made sense. But what were you...

Once more, he seemed to pluck your thoughts like low-hanging fruit: "Act as though you are nearly incapacitated. Drink your fill in one go to put on an effect. Spill the young woman's drink on her before the man has the opportunity to slip the drugs in her drink."

He paused a moment, allowing his words to absorb before continuing to speak to you once again, "You will leave this bar with them, and bring them to the alley past the next street corner. Continue to act inebriated. I will be with you the whole way, do not worry."

You shivered, adrenaline beginning to thread its way into your bloodstream when you feel Khonshu recede; as if he was the music that was being drowned out by the crowd in the bar. You fist your drink tightly before tipping your head back and shotgunning it, trying to get into your best "shit-faced" mode. You've never been the whole "blackout drunk" type; so you had to draw on from what you've seen firsthand from others as well as online.

You pretend to be unsteady on your feet, wobbling as you step off of your stool, beginning to sing along to the radio in off-key, slurred speaking--even going so far as to pretend to hiccup and wretch--as you made their way over to their table.

Their demeanor shifts as you close in, the men becoming guarded as you approach them on shaky feet.

"Heyyyy!" You croon, slipping your arm around the woman's shoulders, knocking into her and discreetly tipping the glass of bright, cherry red cocktail onto her nice pastel pink top.

She gasped and immediately pulled away, her mouth agape as you cover your mouth and overdramatic shock, "Ohhh! I thought you were my fr--frriend!" You say, trying to wipe at the stain, only making it worse, "I'm sh-sorry!"

"Ah! I don't know you! You ruined my--" She whined, her pained expression making you feel very guilty. You could tell that was probably her favorite too; one she would now have to throw away because of this stunt you were pulling.

"I--I'm gonna go to the bathroom." She groans, turning to stomp away towards the back, her leather boots squeaking on the floor.

You turned to the mean, swaying slightly as you pouted, "I jus' thought she was my frien'.... was s'posed to meet me here after I left tha other place..."

You felt a disgusting viper strike at the inside of your belly when the men shared looks and toothy grins, "Ah, well," The oldest one said, adjusting his flaking faux-leather jacket. The prick was trying too hard to lean into the 80s greaser stereotypical biker look, and the smell of whatever disgusting cologne had you wanting to blow your nose all over that shitty Walmart-brand plastic jacket of his.

"Hey, you're here, now, baby." He continued, slipping his arm around you, instantly making your fear spike and your mind struggling to fight your "fight or flight" mode. "Come on, party with us. We'll keep you company, right boys?"

His two friends nod, raising their beers and drinking messily with laughter; the way their eyes gleamed at a conquest--willing or otherwise--made panic rise in your gut.

"Calm down. You are not alone. Play into your role." Khonshu's voice rumbled to you, "They will not harm you. They will be lucky to survive what you will do to them."

You kind of hated that what he was saying sat right with you--you weren't really the "beat someone within an inch of their life" kind of person. Even when it came to self-defense. You believed in incapacitating them long enough to get away. But if what Khonshu said was true, about their intentions with that poor women...

Rapists of any kind deserved to be castrated. Among other nasty and violent things you fantasized about when you'd heard horror stories from other women--hell, even the things you saw on Law & Order--and from what you yourself had narrowly dodged.

The viper in your belly calmed somewhat; a fiery rage it began to coil around for warmth took precedence.

"What d'you say we take our party somewhere else? I know a bar with waaaaay better drinks than the shit Tilly serves." The man holding you said in your ear, his breath slimy as it dropped down the sweaty skin on your neck.

"Okay..." You replied out loud, keeping up your drunken facade--you could just barely make out a shadow passing over the table, the silhouette undeniable.

"Aaron, pay the tab." He ordered, swinging you around to head towards the door, his other friend following quickly, leaving the third behind to rush up to the bar and pay before following suit.

The cold outside immediately hit you; making you shudder.

Even the typical stench of the city that you'd become accustomed to was more welcome than the oppressive scents in that dive. You let the men continue to lead you, subtly influencing their steps as you followed the route Khonshu instructed you in.

And, he was right. Past the stop sigh at the corner, there was an alley that was lit by a nearly burnt out light to your immediate left.

You took the opportunity to lurch forward, pretending to get nauseous and gag. This didn't seem to deter the men, even as you fled to the alley to curl over the nearest trash can.

Like stupid lemmings, they followed you.

And predictably, one of them grabbed you and pushed you up against a nearby wall, his hand gripping your jaw tightly as your heart sped up; beating against your ribs like a frantic animal.

"Press your index finger to his chest and trace the rune I showed you earlier. Flick your wrist like you are swatting a fly."

You do as he says quickly, your finger shaky and snagging on his jacket as you do, but you manage to trace the rune--the symbol faint and golden as it hung in the air between you. Your assailant looked down at it, his brows furrowed.

Before he could process what was happening, you flicked your wrist out and watched as he went flying out into the street, slamming into a nearby car hard enough to deny the metal; the alarm blaring viciously loud in the cold night air.

"Holy shit." You breathed, staring at your hands in sheer awe. The adrenaline was pumping like a powerful drug within you and you turned, getting into a ready stance like Khonshu had bullied you into practicing. Yes, you didn't have that obnoxious staff, but it made you feel more steady on your feet as the other two rushed at you.

Time slowed almost to a crawl as Khonshu instructed you once again, "Curl your thumb into your palm and thrust your hand out, after that, duck and roll away. Do it, now!"

You took in a sharp inhale, and right as the men reach your space, you reached out for the closest one; thrusting your palm out and shuddering at the sound of bones cracking beneath an unseen force. He didn't go flying like the first one, instead he fell to his knees, gasping desperately for air and clutching his body gingerly.

When the other man swung his fist out to punch you, you ducked down, spinning into a roll; the icy slush helping it be more fluid than it would have been any other day--albeit messy--and watch as he stumbles, crashing into the wall you were just in front of, your chest heaving with heavy breaths as you watched his friend collapse into unconsciousness.

"Rise to your feet and kick between his legs--" Khonshu quickly instructed you, "Then I want you to slam the heel of your palm into his face."

You rose to stand with a slight bounce on your heels, trying to stay light on your feet as the man turned to glare at you, "You little bitch! When I'm done with you, you'll be beggin' for--"

You cut him off by swinging your leg up as hard as you could, right into his groin--feeling a sick sense of satisfaction as his voice left him in a strained wheeze. You squeezed your fingers together and when he fell to his knees to look up at you accusingly, you slammed the your hand up into his nose, the crunch of bones once again assailing your ears and the coppery scent of blood filling your nostrils as he fell onto his ass and into the dirty snow and ice.

He spat out a glob of blood, shakily climbing to his feet as his eyes narrowed on you in pure blind fury; "You fuckin' little whore! I'm just gonna fucking kill ya!"

"Fuck you!" You spat back, your palms itching furiously, the faint glow coming from beneath your skin again.

"Now, trace the--"

You didn't give Khonshu the chance to finish speaking. You balled your fist and punched as hard as you could, sending his head knocking sideways with a gnarly twist; unbeknownst to you, severing his spinal cord.

As soon as he tumbled down into a limp heap, you surveyed the carnage you wrought with Khonshu's guidance. The adrenaline giving way to pure euphoria, and the knowledge that you'd very likely saved a woman from being brutalized, traumatized--or even worse--making your heart and mind soar with the feeling.

"Ah..." You sighed, your voice shaky as everything soaks in. Khonshu appears before you, nudging the last corpse with distaste.

"I did not tell you to--"

"Ah--HAH! Hahahah!" You began to laugh hysterically, bouncing on your feet as you ran your fingers through your hair, spinning in place.

You stomped your feet, pointing at the bodies both dead and unconscious-- "Fuuuuck! You!"

You looked up at Khonshu, your eyes wide as you pointed, "I did that! Me! I did!"

"Yes, you needn't prance about like a cat bringing home a dead bird." Khonshu sighed at you.

"I--! I just--I fucking saved somebody, and..." You felt your body lurch from within--like you were on an elevator that came to a sudden stop.

"I--I did--I did--I--!" You wobbled on your feet as Khonshu turned to stare at you. You felt something warm and wet drip down your face.

You swiped at it and stared at the bright red blood on your sleeve that continued to drip steadily from your nostrils.

"I... Oh, that doesn't look too--"

The last thing you were aware of was Khonshu leaping towards you in a blur, and then--nothing.

Khonshu sighed as your body went limp in his arms. He cradled you as though you were comparable to a sack of rubbish; hanging off of him in sheer dead weight.

You learned quickly, it seemed. It was both relieving to know and frustrating at the same time. Relieving because it meant he would not need to tutor you overlong in the ways of ancient magic--frustrating because you so quickly took to it that you became overconfident in your own abilities and knocked yourself out.

"Troublesome little pest." Khonshu muttered, looking around at the scene you'd created--painting some of the dirty white with bright red--some of it your own.

Yes... you may have overworked yourself. But you did do a good job of following his instructions up to that point, saving that woman the men had planned to essentially torture.

Khonshu adjusted his grip on you, brushing the blood rivulets from your face with his wrapped fingers.

The car alarm finally silenced, and Khonshu was aware of frantic shouting heard--the young woman and others. The siren of a police car could be heard getting closer and closer.

"Hurry!" He heard the woman shout. "I think I saw them drag her this way!"

He leapt up into the sky, perching with you still draped in his arm as he watches the woman scream, her mouth agape in horror at the scene as several other concerned patrons and citizens rushed into the alley where you had been moments before.

Khonshu huffed to himself, feeling pride in the fact that there were still some people willing to come to the aid of strangers who needed or--or at least, whom they thought needed it.

Justice, he felt, was served this night. The young woman could go home safe, only mourning the loss of her shirt. The men you had felt watching you were not sizing you up out of malicious intent--but because they saw a young woman alone in the dead of night in an unfamiliar location. They were concerned for your safety.

Bodies were collected, the living transported to the hospital.

Khonshu knew the mortals would find out that the men you'd fought had careers stretching well into their youths. They had become so confident in their abilities that they willingly left DNA in the women and young girls they would drug and abduct--and in some cases, killing and dumping.

The city would rest easier from now on, knowing three monsters had been dealt with. Justice had been served.

The first thing you were aware of was the feeling of sand beneath your feet; the grains shifting to flutter over your skin and slide between your toes.

Your breath leaves you in a ragged gasp as you look up, and see the walls of a narrow canyon stretch for untold lengths up into the sky--the faint ribbon of blue almost invisible from how high it was from you. You look ahead, and behind, nothing but the rocks and sand to greet you.

Your feet feel like lead weights as you walk on into the canyon; "H-Hello?" You called out desperately, wrapping your arms around yourself.

"Is anybody there?"

The further you walked, the colder it got and the more the canyon seemed to close in on you. When the canyon began to squeeze down on your shoulders, you turned to try and flee back the way you came; panicked and scared.

But, the way had changed. It was just as narrow as the way you had been headed. You felt a sob creep into your throat as you pressed on; headed forward once again, no choice but to endure as it squeezed you more, and more, and more...

Until you couldn't breathe. You flailed, and screamed, trying to get something--somebody--to come and save you.

But your squirming only made it worse; you felt the sand shift beneath you, flooding the canyon like water as gnarled, withered hands began poking out of the roiling dunes to claw at your skin, grabbing onto your dress and staining it with their dirty fingers.

You screamed again as the hands closed around your face, beginning to cover your nose and mouth, until only one of your tear-filled eyes stared at the sliver of sky above you.

And when you blinked, you were on your hands and knees in a temple.

You patted your body down, checking for any injury; and, upon finding none, you sighed with relief, staring up at the statue before you.

You say like that for however long had passed, watching as the paint and gold began to flake away into a decrepit, withered facsimile of what it had been moments before; blood dripping from the eyes and flowing like a stream towards you.

You panicked again, shuffling to your feet as you turned to run.

But as you did, something hit you so quickly it was a blur--the air punched from your lungs in a sharp gasp.

You retained your footing, and when you looked down you saw it. The blood from the statue running between your feet like a swollen creek breaching its banks, as red as the blood that seeped out and soaked through the white dress you were wearing; dripping down your body from where your belly had been so callously... stabbed? Sliced?

You didn't know, all you know is that you were frantic, trying to stop the bleeding even as you fell to your knees.

Your body was growing colder, your vision going dark around the edges as your essence seeped from you like a flood.

Everything around you sounded muffled, like you were under water.

You could just barely make out a voice, so soft and almost inaudible:

"I'm sorry. I do love you."

Chapter 15: Link