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hum--hallelujah · 1 year

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like a sledgehammer to a disco ball - 3.9k words, Fun Ghoul angst and protective Kobra Kid

Kobra jerks awake at the first creak of the floor. The only person who has any right to be in his room at night knows better than to step where the floor creaks. Instinct takes over and he's holding his blaster at body height by the time his brain and eyes are awake enough to see through the dark.

"It's me, it's me, it's me," Ghoul stammers, holding his hands defensively in the air. Only, it sounds more like "'smee," because of the way Ghoul is slurring. And he's bleeding.

Kobra drops the blaster as soon as he realizes that the dark smear across Ghoul's face is blood. "What the hell, man," he hisses, groping in the dark for a light with one hand and trying to pat Ghoul down to make sure he's not like, actively dying, with the other. He could be blackout drunk or he could have gone out alone like he does sometimes and any number of things could have happened. The cold metal of an old flashlight meets his fingers and he flicks it on, shining the dim light over Ghoul.

"I did something stupid," Ghoul says. Only, it comes out as "Uh did su'hn stooid," wavering slightly, because the entire right side of Ghoul's face, from the corner of his mouth to his cheekbone, is sliced open. There's a horrific flap of flesh hanging loose that's supposed to be connected to the rest of his face. That's where the blood staining his face and clothes and hands is coming from, and why when he speaks, it sounds wrong.

"Holy shit," Kobra whispers, feeling cold Zone night air sting his eyes because they're open so wide. "Okay. Okay, what happened?" He holds Ghoul carefully by one arm, feels the way he's shaking. He's always shaking, except when he's got his hands in a bomb. This is worse than normal though. This is so much worse than anything Kobra's ever seen.

Ghoul shrugs, waves his hands vaguely and wildly. Kobra hisses a sharp breath through his teeth, frantically runs a hand through his hair. "Okay," He says again. "I'm gonna get-" He needs Jet, de facto medic, he needs Party, needs his brother-

"No," Ghoul says sharply, and that at least is completely clear. His eyes are wild from what Kobra can see in the dark. If human eyes could glow, his would. He grips Kobra's arms. "Please don't," he mumbles around the gruesome injury. His voice is high and frantic, and it has to hurt to talk. "Just you."

Kobra freezes. There's a slowly building feeling of dread, growing stronger by the moment. He pulls Ghoul off him, holds him by the wrists. "Okay. Just me," he promises, and feels sick about it. "Just me."

Ghoul noticeably relaxes, though he's still trembling head to toe, and lets Kobra drag him across the diner in near-silence aside from the occasional seemingly involuntary whimper on Ghoul's part, into the single-stall bathroom with a barely working lightbulb. Somehow, they make it past the front room where Party sleeps without waking him, much as Kobra wants to let his brother take care of this. He's practically trembling at how badly he wants Pois right now.

There's a medical kit in the cabinet that Kobra pulls out immediately. He knows how to handle this, physically speaking. It's whatever else, the shit he doesn't know and is scared to find out, like how this freaking happened, that makes him nervous. Ghoul stands in the flickering light like he doesn't know what to do.

"Sit the fuck down," Kobra snaps nervously, gesturing to the toilet lid. Ghoul does. Kobra pulls a dubiously clean rag from the cabinet and eyes it. It scares him to see Ghoul like this. Usually if he's scared, he fights. He hisses and spits and claws at whoever comes near him. More often than not, that's Kobra. But this, the wide-eyed jittering, is a whole other animal.

"This whole thing is gonna suck," he says stiffly. Ghoul nods. With a little more light, Kobra can see the thick, shiny blood streaming from the wound through his cheek. It isn't enough that Kobra's afraid Ghoul will bleed out, but the cut is so long and clear through and absolutely grotesque. He crouches down in front of where Ghoul is sitting, sideways on the toilet, and he can't tell if Ghoul is looking at him or through him, almost as if he's the ghost.

In a quick motion that startles both of them, probably, Kobra grabs the back of Ghoul's head with one hand and presses the rag to the seeping wound with the other. Ghoul's eyes go even wider and even greener, and what starts out as a shout of pain from him turns into a choked keening sound. Hearing it feels like being stabbed.

"What happened?" Asks Kobra again, when he's convinced that the bleeding has slowed enough to try and actually deal with this thing. He twists the handle on the faucet on and off, on and off, enough times that the ancient water pump starts up and clean water gurgles into the sink. He cleans the rag that way, then wets it and wrings it out before shutting the water off.

Ghoul's shoulders rise and fall in short, panicky breaths. "I'm sorry," he says. "I'm sorry. I'm- I didn't think, it was stupid, I'm sorry," he continues babbling like that before going silent again aside from the sharp sounds of his breathing.

In a testament to Kobra's selfishness, his biggest worry is that Ghoul took his motorbike out for a spin and crashed it. He can't think of what could have caused something like this. He has visions of his bike sliding out on a turn, crumbled metal and Ghoul's body flying through the air. But if that had happened he'd be hurt other than this. If that had happened he might be dead.

"Yo," he says quietly. "Chill. Just tell me what happened." He presses the now-damp rag to Ghoul's face, trying to ignore just how grotesque the wound really is. Maybe because it's fresh, maybe because of the fear, but somehow it's worse than the space where Jet's other eye used to be. Kobra never wanted to see an injury of that level on another person again in his life, let alone someone he cares about.

Ghoul flinches away, but Kobra shoots him a look and it must process somehow, because he stills and lets Kobra clean the already drying blood away from the edges of the wound with barely a whine. "It was stupid," he repeats, his voice shaking as much as it's slurring. "I don't know why I did it, Kid."

Something about the way he says that, voice small and wavering, sends a chill down Kobra's throat. Sudden understanding dawns on him. The blood on Ghoul's hands. He's not injured anywhere else. "You did that to yourself?" Kobra asks hoarsely.

Ghoul's eyes snap onto his and the rest of the color drains from his face. Kobra thinks he's going to pass out for a second, but he doesn't. He pulls as far away as he can, scrabbling awkwardly against the cold tiles and porcelain of the bathroom. "I don't know what I though, I was stupid, I don't- Kobra," he whines, with enough animalistic despair that Kobra wants suddenly to burst into tears, if he weren't so utterly stunned.

"Ghoul, calm down, I've gotta stitch it still," he says on autopilot. "Cool your engine, man."

Maybe it's the practicality of the thing that makes Ghoul momentarily stop panicking. "I'm sorry," he says again, tears welling in his eyes that he then blinks away half-frantically. Kobra's never heard him apologize for anything before tonight. He never wants to hear it again.

"It's okay, man. I've got you." He replies. If his own voice is shaking now, too, no the hell it isn't. "Come on, you have to let me..." he trails off, eyes wide. "Ghoul, why..." Then he shakes his head. He can't think about that now. He needs to disinfect the wound and stitch it up. And it's going to hurt Ghoul really, really badly.

He reaches behind him, grabs at the bottle of alcohol. This stuff is rare out in the Zones. They try to use it as little as possible. Only in emergencies. This is enough of an emergency, though. This is a fucking crisis.

He pours the bare minimum of the alcohol onto another piece of cloth, feels the cold soak in. Ghoul watches every move with jerking, stilted intensity. Kobra looks up at him from where he's now kneeling on the cold tile. He puts a hand behind Ghoul's head again. "This is going to hurt," he warns. They've nearly gouged each other's eyes out before, yet suddenly Kobra feels like he's going to be sick at the thought of causing Ghoul any more pain. Ghoul shuts his eyes in preparation.

Ghoul still nearly screams when Kobra dabs the alcohol over his wound. Kobra can see it in the way he holds his breath, the spring-tight tension in Ghoul's entire body. The only noise he makes is a quiet, drawn out whine, though. When a tear streaks down his cheekbone, Kobra catches it before a drop of salt can enter the wound.

"'Kay," he says in a ragged whisper. "That's done. Now I have to-" he gestures like he's sewing. Ghoul's eyes pop open to see what he's saying and he visibly forces himself to breathe again.

"'Kay," Ghoul says back in an equally torn up voice.

It only takes Kobra three tries to thread a needle. Medical supplies of any type are hard to come by, a whole new kind of commodity, but this stash has been here for as long as he can remember, just in case. Blaster burns, the most common injuries amongst 'Joys, come pre-cauterized. He's rarely had to sew sutures before.

Ghoul flinches back when the tip of the needle first touches the edge of his torn skin, and Kobra pauses. "Hold still," he grumbles, more out of familiar sniping than any real frustration at this point. He keeps his hand in Ghoul's hair the entire time he sews.

The feeling of a needle piercing flesh is horrible. The fact that it's his friend, someone he'd give his life for before seeing them hurt, is even worse. Kobra wants to fucking throatpunch whoever did this to Ghoul, or better, do the same thing to them, before he remembers with a sinking feeling in his stomach that Ghoul did this to himself.

He ties off the suture just barely keeping his hands from shaking. He doesn't know how Ghoul does this with bombs. Ghoul flinches again, violently, when Kobra cuts the excess line, and Kobra has to jerk back to keep from catching a flailing, uncoordinated fist in the face.

"Hey," he snaps. "Ghoul!"

Ghoul slips off the toilet lid and onto the floor almost as if he intended it but halfway as an accident and immediately curls in on himself. He pulls his knees to his chest and curls his arms around his head and Kobra can hear him hyperventilating. Kobra fucking freezes. He's used to fighting and wrestling and knee-jerk reactions that wind up with someone sporting a black eye. He is terrified right now. And there's still Ghoul's blood on his hands, too.

"Ghoul..." He cautiously reaches out, puts a hand on Ghoul's leg. Ghoul twitches, lets out a hiccupy sound that takes a moment to register in Kobra's mind as a sob. Ghoul, chaos loving, cackling Ghoul, is crying. And not just a single tear, now, his whole body is shuddering with the force of how hard he's crying. Kobra's heart is pounding with how hard he does not know what's happening, but he grips Ghoul's arm and lightly shakes him. "Hey, I'm still here, man."

Ghoul makes that keening whine again and Kobra thinks at first that he's going to pull away at best, or throw a real punch at worst. They fight enough, for any and no reason at all, that he expects it now. That's their normal. This isn't.

Ghoul scrambles to his knees, his hands finding the front of Kobra's shirt. This restroom is small, they're already in close quarters. But maybe unintentionally, maybe just scrabbling for a little purchase on anything, Ghoul winds up grabbing onto Kobra. And Kobra has always had a hard time letting anything go.

Ghoul's forehead crashes into his shoulder and Kobra instinctively puts his hands up, grabs back onto Ghoul in return. Ghoul's usual shaking is familiar to him, but the repressed wracking sobs aren't. Kobra clutches desperately around Ghoul's back, like he could hold together what he's just sewn up, like if he keeps Ghoul close enough he can't shake into pieces. No one should be able to break Ghoul. Not even Ghoul himself.

The edges of the cabinet dig into Kobra's back, but he ignores it. Ghoul is folding in on himself, making himself as small as he can against Kobra, and Kobra doesn't fucking know what to do. He's never seen Ghoul cry like this. He's never seen anyone cry like this.

"It hurts," cries Ghoul suddenly.

"I know," Kobra says, before he realizes that crying like this is probably making everything worse, that he'd worried about salt in the wound a minute before for this exact reason. He can't imagine the pain Ghoul is probably in.

"It didn't hurt at first," Ghoul mumbles, then chokes on a sob. "It didn't hurt when I started. And then it did."

Kobra wants to ask again, why? But he won't get anything intelligible. There's a part of him that doesn't want to know. He's terrified of knowing the truth. Instead, he threads his fingers through Ghoul's hair again and just repeats, "I know. I know."

A few minutes pass in speedy, spiraling silence. The only sound between them is their shared too-fast breathing.

"I can't," stammers Ghoul finally, after his cries have tapered out into raspy gasps. "I can't turn it on or off."

"Huh?" Is all Kobra can think to say. "Ghoul, you're not making sense, nothing about this makes sense," he snips, too quick and too tense. He's so beyond his depth. He wants Jet or Party to come help but he can't have it his way because he promised. He promised Ghoul. He wants to hit something. A wall, just to feel the impact. To imagine he's hitting whatever it is that hurt his friend so badly he hurt himself.

Ghoul sniffs. All Kobra can see of him is the top of his head and the cheek with the stitches. The wound is swollen and red and is going to leave a horrific scar. Kobra clenches his fist tighter behind Ghoul's back. "When I'm having fun or not," Ghoul says. "I can't. I am or I'm not. But."

"But what?" For fuck's sake, Kobra just wants to understand. He can read Ghoul like a book from cover to cover most times, and it scares him that he's so lost right now.

"It isn't good enough," he mumbles. "It's... It's in my fuckin' name, Kid, if I can't live up to that what am I?"

Kobra stares, wide-eyed, at the wall across from him. Something clicks. The clean cut through Ghoul's face, clearly from a recently sharpened knife, clearly intentional, reached from the corner of his lips almost to his ear. "Oh fuck no," he whispers. "Hell no. What the fuck. You're not-" He feels himself shaking suddenly, with restrained searing hot anger. Ghoul cut his head open, mutilated himself, to make himself permanently grin. "You're not fucking beholden to your fucking name," Kobra says. He never swears this much, only in his own mind. He's running out of words. "Fuck," he says, with feeling.

Ghoul shudders again. "I'm fuckin insane, aren't I?" He asks with sudden clarity.

It's exactly what Kobra had been thinking, for once completely unable to figure out Ghoul's mind, but he can't just say that. He can't just say that he's terrified because nothing makes sense and he's never going to freaking leave Ghoul alone again because this is all completely unhinged on so many levels that he can't even begin to sort through it. He can't say anything. He hopes Ghoul is sane enough to understand that, at least.

He just holds his friend tighter. He wants his brother more than anything right now, wants Party to come and take this weight out of his hands, but a part of him knows that even if he did, he wouldn't be able to let go of Ghoul. Why didn't Ghoul want anyone else but him? Why, after pretty much imprinting on Party like a feral kitten when they'd first met, to the point that sometimes Kobra thinks bitterly than Ghoul might know Party better than his own brother does, did he come to him? Why did he do any of this?

If a few tears of his own drip down Kobra's nose and land in Ghoul's tangled hair, no the hell they don't. He's never seen anyone go to pieces like this and he's struck dumb at the fact that it's literal. Very, very literally, Ghoul has gone to pieces. Taken a knife, that's probably still lying on the floor of his abandoned-office bedroom, and cut a line through his own cheek just so others might see a smile there.

There's crazy in his veins. Acid, maybe. And Kobra's always known that even if Party recognized it first. Watching your whole family die, failing to save your baby sibling, doesn't leave a person without any scars. Only, now, the scar is far too visible. Kobra's always known that Ghoul is more wild than any of them. Feral, unpredictable. He was raised by a pair of Killjoys who named themselves Hoot and Holler, and the thing is, a ghoul is just a ghost, and ghosts wail too. He should have known.

"I should've known," he says out loud, the first words in a while. He knows Ghoul so well. Better than he knows himself. He should have known something was wrong. He should never have left him alone. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He can't even blink. He stares hard at the opposite wall and tries not to scream.

Ghoul shakes his head against Kobra's shoulder and winces. "Nuh-uh," he mumbles. "I'm crazy, man. I'm insane." The fuzzy way it sounds around the stitches and the swelling just seems like proof. Just last night Ghoul's cheek was smooth and soft as he grinned across a table in triumph after winning a card game. How is it that that was just a few hours ago? He shudders again. "I'm scared," he says more quietly.

"Me too," Kobra says. As soon as the sun comes up he thinks he's going to storm out into the desert and find something, anything to beat up. Even a freakin cactus would do at this point. He doesn't know how he's going to explain this to Pois or Jet but he knows that much. He's gonna shake so hard he blows up, like a can of soda, unless he hits something. "I fucking hate you," he snaps suddenly.

Ghoul starts to flinch away, but Kobra doesn't let him. In fact, he curls tighter around him without even knowing why. "What the hell," Ghoul rasps.

Kobra hisses through his teeth. Speaking of living up to names. He fucking hates anyone who hurts his friends. But he can't say it. Hard as he tries, in the one moment of clarity about his own mind that he has, he can't speak.

"I fucking hate me, too," Ghoul says finally. The single dusty lightbulb above them flickers. If it goes out, they'll be in total darkness. Kobra thinks one or both of them might have a wicked eyeshine by now. The desert makes you wild. For some people, they're born that way.

"I think you're my best friend," Kobra finally manages to whisper. It isn't exactly what he was going for. It's not something he would ever say if he had thought of it before it popped out of his mouth. But Ghoul gets the point. Of course he does. Ghoul always gets his sharp edges, snakebite teeth and misspoken definitions and all.

"I think you're mine," Ghoul says back. "I'm-"

Kobra smacks the back of his head, like this is in any way normal, like they aren't collapsed on a dim bathroom floor in the middle of the night or the early hours of the morning and like one of them isn't mutilated for life by his own hand. Like this isn't the worst thing they've ever gone through together. "If you say you're sorry again, I'll cut you myself."

It's rough, and it's torn up and pained and choked, but Ghoul laughs. Just a short bark of laughter, hardly like the dry, rasping cackle that Kobra knows so well. It sounds like agony but it also sounds like the sun coming up. Kobra makes a noise in the back of his throat, more whine than laugh, but he's so close to blowing up that it's as good as it gets. He wants to freaking die if that would keep Ghoul in one piece.

Ghoul shifts in Kobra's arms and pulls away just far enough to look him in the eye. He clumsily wipes at the tears and snot all over his face and Kobra has to snap a hand out to catch his wrist before he unthinkingly swipes at the fresh wound and stitches. "Kobra," Ghoul says, shivering in the dark. The sun won't take long to come up once it starts but until it does, the Zones are freezing. "Kobra."

"Yeah, man, I'm still right here." Kobra forces himself to look Ghoul in the eyes and not the stitches. The wound takes up so much of his face. It's all Kobra can see when he looks at Ghoul, his best friend's mutilated mouth, sliced open by his own hand. Kobra flinches just imagining it. He focuses instead on Ghoul's green eyes, boring holes into his head with the desperate pleading in them. "I'm still right here," Kobra repeats, quieter. Reminding himself, too.

Ghoul doesn't blink. Kobra doesn't blink. Their eyes reflect the dim light back at each other. This is what wild animals must feel for each other. Terror. Uncertainty. Just themselves, each other, and whatever comes. Ghoul licks his lips, tongue flicking briefly, visibly, to the corner of his mouth that he cut open. "Don't let me-" Ghoul starts and then falters. "You gotta make sure," he says. "Don't let me- do stupid shit like this, don't let me go crazy again, Kobra, please."

Kobra stares back at him, matching Ghoul's trembling desperation. He's known Ghoul since the day their crew found him, shell shocked between the shelves of an empty gas station with the bodies of his parents and previous crew around him. Perpetually shaking hands and feral bared teeth, animal eyeshine. No one can match Ghoul for determination, and no one knows Kobra as well as he does. Even if Ghoul does know his brother better than him, the same is true in reverse.

Kobra Kid has a hard fucking time ever letting go of anything once he's got it. Fun Ghoul holds on too loosely. They're both terrified. What a pair they make. But when Kobra Kid makes a promise, he means it. He grabs the ends of Ghoul's hair and pulls, not too hard, but hard enough. That's their normal. Play fighting and hair pulling, and they both know it's a kind of language for when they can't speak. "Okay," he says, and because it's a promise, he repeats it. "Okay."

#uhhhh anyway. come to killjoys world with me #I keep calling these two my mongoose and snake #they take out their worst on each other but at the same time it's like they were *made* for each other #also a few notes in the tags: kobra repeats himself a lot. that's intentional. it's because I do it irl #quite honestly at this point I might almost have a stutter??#anyway also there's a TON of super vague song references in here. I almost called this ''a scar away from falling apart''#but I couldn't stop thinking about that one boygenius song while I wrote this. would you still love me if it turns out I'm insane?#also the two(2) minor refs to famous last words!!!!#and very very loosely the ''what a pair they make'' line is bc what a catch donnie came up on my playlist right then #also this is WAY more swearing than I would usually write but... it just felt right? like it helped the flow?? and fit the characters? idk #ANYWHOMST. random danger days precanon fic. the girl isn't here yet.#she speaks!#HMMM do I need a writing tag for this blog?#she writes!#danger days #the true lives of the fabulous killjoys #kobra kid #fun ghoul #K I think I've got it covered #wait trigger tags #self-harm tw #self mutilation tw

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weirdly-specific-but-ok · 4 months

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for whom good omens is being written

Hey maggots and the rest of the fandom, it's the Good Omens Mascot here. Today I read a post about this tweet:

The accompanying video genuinely made me cry. And I've been thinking about this for a long while, as far back as February, when I saw a lot of conflicting opinions on what people wanted from the third season. It really is true that no matter what you do, some people will be dissatisfied. But what matters is that Neil is writing this for Terry.

And I was reminded of some paragraphs from the Good Omens TV Companion, which I'd read in Amazon's sample excerpt of the book. I know this is a long post, but I really truly do think you all need to read these, I've done my best to select only the most important parts. Here you go:

'His Alzheimer's started progressing harder and faster than either of us had expected,' says Neil, referring to a period in which Terry recognized that despite everything he could no longer write. 'We had been friends for over thirty years, and during that time he had never asked me for anything. Then, out of the blue, I received an email from him with a special request. It read: “Listen, I know how busy you are. I know you don't have time to do this, but I want you to write the script for Good Omens. You are the only human being on this planet who has the passion, love and understanding for the old girl that I do. You have to do this for me so that I can see it." And I thought, “OK, if you put it like that then I'll do it."

'I had adapted my own work in the past, writing scripts for Death: The High Cost of Living and Sandman, but not a lot else was seen. I'd also written two episodes of Doctor Who, and so I felt like I knew what I was doing. Usually, having written something once I'd rather start something new, but having a very sick co-author saying I had to do this?' Neil spreads his hands as if the answer is clear to see. 'I had to step up to the plate.' A pause, then: 'All this took place in autumn 2014, around the time that the BBC radio adaptation of Good Omens was happening,' he continues, referring to the production scripted and co-directed by Dirk Maggs and starring Peter Serafinowicz and Mark Heap. ‘Terry had talked me into writing the TV adaptation, and I thought OK, I have a few years. Only I didn't have a few years,' he says. 'Terry was unconscious by December and dead by March.'

He pauses again. 'His passing took all of us by surprise,' Neil remembers. 'About a week later, I started writing, and it was very sad. The moments Terry felt closest to me were the moments I would get stuck during the writing process. In the old days, when we wrote the novel, I would send him what I'd done or phone him up. And he would say, "Aahh, the problem, Grasshopper, is in the way you phrase the question," and I would reply, "Just tell me what to do!" which somehow always started a conversation. 'In writing the script, there were times I'd really want to talk to Terry, and also places where I'd figure something out and do something really clever, and I would want to share it with him. So, instead, I would text Terry's former personal assistant, Rob Wilkins, now his representative on Earth. It was the nearest thing I had.'

(...) As Neil himself recognizes, this is an adaptation built upon the confidence that comes from three decades of writing for page and screen. But for all the wisdom of experience, he found that above all one factor guided him throughout the process. 'Terry isn't here, which leaves me as the guardian of the soul of the story,' he explains. 'It's funny because sometimes I found myself defending Terry's bits harder or more passionately than I would defend my own bits. Take Agnes Nutter,' he says, referring to what has become a key scene in the adaptation in which the seventeenth-century author of the book of prophecies foretelling the coming of the Antichrist is burned at the stake. ‘It was a huge, complicated and incredibly expensive shoot, with bonfires built and primed to explode as well as huge crowds in costume. It had to feel just like an English village in the 1640s, and of course everyone asked if there was a cheap way of doing it. 'One suggestion was that we could tell the story using old-fashioned woodcuts and have the narrator take us through what happened, but I just thought, “No”. Because I had brought aspects of the story like Crowley and the baby swap along to the mix, and Terry created Agnes Nutter. So, if I had cut out Agnes then I wouldn't be doing right by the person who gave me this job. Terry would've rolled over in his grave.'

And, finally, this paragraph:

"Once again, Neil cites the absence of his co-writer as his drive to ensure that Good Omens translated to the screen and remained true to the original vision. 'Terry's last request to me was to make this something he would be proud of. And so that has been my job.'"

I think that's so heartwrenchingly beautiful, and so I wanted you all to read this, too, just in case you (like me) don't have the Good Omens TV Companion. It adds another layer of depth and emotion to this already complex and amazing story that we all know and love.

Share this post, if you can, please, so that more people can read these excerpts :")

Tagging @neil-gaiman, @fuckyeahgoodomens and @orpiknight, even if you've definitely read these before :)

#good omens #neil gaiman #sir terry pratchett #good omens show #good omens fandom #good omens mascot #weirdly specific but ok #asmi

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lno-x · 29 days

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Hello! I've returned to say I adore the twins designs so much!! They look so human and I really love that. You only drew them like a few times but how did you figure out their differences and similarities in appearance (since they are identical twins... I think). Info-dump if you want, I loved reading your response to my last question, it genuinely brightened my day.

There we go, thats Third house designs!

Speaking about twins, need to mention, that i think Corona and Ianthe is identical, but because of weight difference they seem alike

Details inder cut

Women Fashion (Baroque period)

The word baroque was originally used by the Italians to describe pearls of strange or overly ornate shapes, and in the 17th century the term became the name of an era, because it was a period of entertainment, wealth and debauchery (for the rich, of course).

I personally think that period and mindset fit the third house perfectly

Women of that period have centric parted hairstyle with ringlets and wear dresses with deep neckline (that almost show the nipple) and puff sleeves. Made from silk, its look like liquid that embrace the body. Blue and Gold colors was an thing, pearl jewelry was very fashionable

Main take for desing

They fashionably dressed in rich silk and satin clothing, which is perfectly fitting for vibe

I borrowed elements of women's fashion from the Baroque period and mixed it with cavalier fashion on my own taste. For reference i take Baroque painting of Lord John Stuart and His Brother ,Lord Bernard Stuartby Anthony van Dyck.

The Cavalier fashion

Babs design is just creative version of typical cavalier fashion, there no much though behind it

Cavaliers wear long hair with curls and mustache. The waistline was high to make torso shorter and legs longer. The pants was the knee length and worn with with high heeled boots. Cool hats also was an thing in that period.

Springklinge (German main-gauche) or Trident Knife

I won't write about the rapier again, Babs's is just have expensively decorated one. The thinf that are really interesting there is Springklinge (or German main-gauche)

I though its was an some fantasy weapon but no, its was an real pair weapon that used to capture the opponent's blade. Main-gauche comes in different types, with and without hand protection, but mostly rapier and main-gauche was an pair weapon, that decorated in the same style.

senya need to play rdr2 so i need to end that lecture and free up computer for her so end of presentation. thank you.

#tlt #the locked tomb #the third house #ianthe tridentarius #coronabeth tridentarius #naberius tern #lno-x art #answers

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slime-water-shrew · 17 days

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Allonormativity and BillFord

(Links mentioned are at the bottom of the post)

I think aimasup puts it best in the caption above their comic linked below “They loved/love each other but not exactly romantically do you get me.” Bill and Stanford’s relationship was mutual and they definitely cared for each other in one way or another, however I don’t believe that love was romantic or even sexual in nature. Both Stanford and Bill show a lack of interest and/or understanding of romance in their respective books as countless people have pointed out, Ford even being referred to as “plansexual” (check out the Love page in The Book of Bill.)

[Photo of a pink page from The Book of Bill. The page says the following: "Bill, have you ever been in love?" "Sure -- tell your mom hi for me! By the way, have you taken a DNA test recently? Not asking for any particular reason." "Seriously, though, have you?" "Asking me if I've been in love is like asking a black hole if it liked your mixtape or asking a subterranean fungal spore network who its favorite animated princess is. I'm a multidimensional specter of chaos that transcends reality, I couldn't possibly care less about which bag of plasma blushes at who or why!" "Okay, but like... You gotta be crushing on someone." "I will light this book on fire." "Methinks you doth protest too much." " "Methinks"? Kill me before you start telling me about your polycule."]

[Photo of a grey page from The Book of Bill. The six fingered hand symbol representing Stanford Pines rests above a block of text that reads "Sixer dreams about a pop quiz that asks him, "What are you attracted to?" Usually writes, "I'm attracted to logic and preparation." Not sure what to call that! Plansexual?"]

And yet it seems that Bill and Stanford had a romantic/sexual relationship in the past. Bill gives you flirting tips and has done several of them on Ford. He gave him rats in the book and the “The “LOVE CAGE”” in the show itself.

[Photo of a damaged and yellow page from The Book of Bill. The page has a drawing by Ford of a pile of dead rats arranged to spell out his name, "Ford". Above the rat drawing is the text "Why?" with an arrow pointing at the rats.]

The karaoke page heavily implies that they went on a date and slept together too.

[A Photo of the aformentioned karaoke page in The Book of Bill. The page is yellowed and the text written on it is messy and completely unlike Ford's normal handwritting. It is also filled with spelling errors. It is hard to read so my best attempt to write out what it says are as follows: "I probabbly shouldn't be writin this down but I had such a crazy??? WOW what a. It was a night! And now it's mornign? Cill Bipher.... He did a dream? Karaoke? And then one thing led to another thing and normally I try to be sober but... He mixed a dream drink and??? I gotta say. I just gotta say. Look it's just me and my journal here, I gotta say: This Bill guy he's really got it all figured out. Also the rats were his idea? I get it now. I'm gonna, we're gonna what a time. What a hangover. Gonna sleep. Whole day. Ad aspera asperin -Stranford Pi" The pen then trials off the page and below the wall of mangled words is a drawing of Ford and Bill infront of the stars with mics in their hands singing. Ford is holding a drink in one hand with his eyes closed in a smile and Bill has an arm around him and is looking at him sweetly. The song they are singing is Disco Girl.]

So does this mean they aren’t aroace? Not at all. I believe that the two of them confused obsession for love. As wishwizardliv states in their post linked below “NOBODY CAN TELL ME IT WAS ROMANTIC[.] THAT SHIT WAS JUST OBSESSION ON BOTH ENDS”. Ford was practically consumed by obsession. His carpets, walls, everything down to the windows were made in Bill’s image. He prayed to him and his favorite constellation is Bill. He was a god to him.

[Photo of a page from Journal 3. The page is yellowed and there is a drawing of a few constalations. One being Ursa Major and the other being William. William is a triangle with a bowtie and one eye. The drawings are labled with a note underneath with a arrow "Favorite constellations".]

And Bill was no better. From the stories we have of his past his involvement in any one person’s life is a rarity and the fact that he visited Ford often says a lot. Not to mention I do believe Bill when he offered Ford to rule the universe with him. I think he honestly wanted to have Ford by his side for all of weirdmageddon. Not to mention he carried him around everywhere like a doll and made him out of gold unlike all the other people he petrified. They were clearly obsessed with each other and in our allonormative world that is hard to rationalize unless you assume it is romantic or sexual in nature.

Hana Hyperfixates in their video Gravity Falls and LGBTQ+ subtext: Decoding the Queercoding | A Video Essay, around the 1 hour and 33 minute mark they say “... there’s a lot here about Ford wanting women to notice him, and not a lot about him noticing women. He was a guy in the 80s who wanted stardom and acclaim. Women wanting men in power was imagery he likely was surrounded with growing up.”. You might be thinking “Okay but what about Bill? We know allonormativity exists in our world but how can we say the same for his actions?” Well I have news for you: we can also see Bill Cipher literally being pressured about how “you gotta be crushing on someone” (Book of Bill Love page); it’s clear that even though Bill is not even from our dimension even he can’t escape allonormativity. All of this in mind with how deeply obsessed with each other the two of them were it makes sense they would confuse it for the traditional kind of love and try their hands at dating. Which explains why a triangle that is above love (as he kinda states in the Love page), and a “plansexual” man would go on a date and sleep together. They may not ever actually have been in love but them attempting to flirt and date makes sense when you consider they just confused their obsessions with romantic love. In this context it recontextualizes Bill’s statement in the Love page shown below.

[Photo of a pink page from The Book of Bill. The words are written in white blocky but setchy leaters with a black box around them. The text reads: "Love is a trick. And worst of all. It's a trick you play on yourself!"]

What at first seems like the bitter words of someone who feels like love is pointless could be taken more literally. It was in a sense a trick he played on himself.

As an aroace person myself who has often confused obsessing over fictional characters or gender envy, or just really caring about a friend deeply with a crush, I have to say there is nothing more relatable than that.

Sources & Links

wishwizardliv : https://www.tumblr.com/wishwizardliv

wishwizardliv’s post : https://www.tumblr.com/wishwizardliv/758841130677862400/nobody-can-tell-me-it-was-romantic-that-shit-was?source=share

aimasup : https://www.tumblr.com/aimasup

aimasup’s comic : https://www.tumblr.com/aimasup/758803563813224448/they-lovedlove-each-other-but-not-exactly?source=share

Hana Hyperfixates : https://www.youtube.com/@hanahyperfixates

Hana Hyperfixates’s queer reading video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFRx3ibU3yU&t=146s

#gravity falls #stanford pines #bill cipher #billford #aroace #asexual #aromantic #the book of bill #the book of bill spoilers #book of bill #book of bill spoilers #tbob spoilers #tbob #I'm so normal. I made a google doc to organize my thoughts #so normal #anyway I just had to get my thoughts out there #thanks for reading them or listening to them whichever #aroace billford #no hate to those who ship them romanticaly or sexualy. more power to you honestly

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nostalgebraist · 4 months

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It's been a long time since I've posted much of anything about "AI risk" or "AI doom" or that sort of thing. I follow these debates but, for multiple reasons, have come to dislike engaging in them fully and directly. (As opposed to merely making some narrow technical point or other, and leaving the reader to decide what, if anything, the point implies about the big picture.)

Nonetheless, I do have my big-picture views. And more and more lately, I am noticing that my big-picture views seem very different from the ones tend to get expressed by any major "side" in the big-picture debate. And so, inevitably, I get the urge to speak up, if only briefly and in a quiet voice. The urge to Post, if only casually and elliptically, without detailed argumentation.

(Actually, it's not fully the case the things I think are not getting said by anyone else.

In particular, Joe Carlsmith's recent series on "Otherness and Control" articulates much of what's been on my mind. Carlsmith is more even-handed than I am, and tends to merely note the possibility of disagreement on questions where I find myself taking a definite side; nonetheless, he and I are at least concerned about the same things, while many others aren't.

And on a very different note, I share most of the background assumptions of the Pope/Belrose AI Optimist camp, and I've found their writing illuminating, though they and I end up in fairly different places, I think.)

What was I saying? I have the urge to post, and so here I am, posting. Casually and elliptically, without detailed argumentation.

The current mainline view about AI doom, among the "doomers" most worried about it, has a path-dependent shape, resulting from other views contingently held by the original framers of this view.

It is possible to be worried about "AI doom" without holding these other views. But in actual fact, most serious thinking about "AI doom" is intricately bound up with this historical baggage, even now.

If you are a late-comer to these issues, investigating them now for the first time, you will nonetheless find yourself reading the work of the "original framers," and work influenced extensively by them.

You will think that their "framing" is just the way the problem is, and you will find few indications that this conclusion might be mistaken.

These contingent "other views" are

Anti-"deathist" transhumanism.

The orthogonality thesis, or more generally the group of intuitions associated with phrases like "orthogonality thesis," "fragility of value," "vastness of mindspace."

These views both push in a single direction: they make "a future with AI in it" look worse, all else being equal, than some hypothetical future without AI.

They put AI at a disadvantage at the outset, before the first move is even made.

Anti-deathist transhumanism sets the reference point against which a future with AI must be measured.

And it is not the usual reference point, against which most of us measure most things which might or might not happen, in the future.

These days the "doomers" often speak about their doom in a disarmingly down-to-earth, regular-Joe manner, as if daring the listener to contradict them, and thus reveal themselves as a perverse and out-of-touch contrarian.

"We're all gonna die," they say, unless something is done. And who wants that?

They call their position "notkilleveryoneism," to distinguish that position from other worries about AI which don't touch on the we're-all-gonna-die thing. And who on earth would want to be a not-notkilleveryoneist?

But they do not mean, by these regular-Joe words, the things that a regular Joe would mean by them.

We are, in fact, all going to die. Probably, eventually. AI or no AI.

In a hundred years, if not fifty. By old age, if nothing else. You know what I mean.

Most of human life has always been conducted under this assumption. Maybe there is some afterlife waiting for us, in the next chapter -- but if so, it will be very different from what we know here and now. And if so, we will be there forever after, unable to return here, whether we want to or not.

With this assumption comes another. We will all die, but the process we belong to will not die -- at least, it will not through our individual deaths, merely because of those deaths. Every human of a given generation will be gone soon enough, but the human race goes on, and on.

Every generation dies, and bequeaths the world to posterity. To its children, biological or otherwise. To its students, its protégés.

When the average Joe talks about the long-term future, he is talking about posterity. He is talking about the process he belongs to, not about himself. He does not think to say, "I am going to die, before this": this seems too obvious, to him, to be worth mentioning.

But AI doomerism has its roots in anti-deathist transhumanism. Its reference point, its baseline expectation, is a future in which -- for the first time ever, and the last -- "we are all gonna die" is false.

In which there is no posterity. Or rather, we are that posterity.

In which one will never have to make peace with the thought that the future belongs to one's children, and their children, and so on. That at some point, one will have to give up all control over the future of "the process."

That there will be progress, or regress, or (more likely) both in some unknown combination. That these will grow inexorably over time.

That the world of the year 2224 will probably be at least as alien to us as the year 2024 might be to a person living in 1824. That it will become whatever posterity makes of it.

There will be no need to come to peace with this as an inevitability. There will just be us, our human lives as you and me, extended indefinitely.

In this picture, we will no doubt change over time, as we do already. But we will have all of our usual tools for noticing, and perhaps retarding, our own progressions and regressions. As long as we have self-control, we will have control, as no human generation has ever had control before.

The AI doomer talks about the importance of ensuring that the future is shaped by human values.

Again, the superficial and misleading average-Joe quality. How could one disagree?

But one must keep in mind that by "human values," they mean their values.

I am not saying, "their values, as opposed to those of some other humans also living today." I am not saying they have the wrong politics, or some such thing.

(Although that might also turn out to be the case, and might turn out to be relevant, separately.)

No, I am saying: the doomer wants the future to be shaped by their values.

They want to be C. S. Lewis's Conditioners, fixing once and for all the values held by everyone afterward, forever.

They do not want to cede control to posterity; they are used to imagining that they will never have to cede control to posterity.

(Or, their outlook has been determined -- "shaped by the values of" -- influential thinkers who were, themselves, used to imagining this. And the assumption, or at least its consequences, has rubbed off on them, possibly without their full awareness.)

One might picture a line wends to and fro, up and down, across one half of an infinite plane -- and then, when it meets the midline, snaps into utter rigidity, and maintains the same slope exactly across the whole other half-plane, as a simple straight segment without inner change, tension, evolution, regress or progress. Except for the sort of "progress" that consists of going on, additionally, in the same manner.

It is a very strange thing, this thing that is called "human values" in the terms of this discourse.

For one thing: the future has never before been "shaped by human values," in this sense.

The future has always been posterity's, and it has always been alien.

Is this bad? It might seem that way, "looking forward." But if so, it then seems equally good "looking backward."

For each past era, we can formulate and then assent to the following claim: "we must be thankful that the people of [this era] did not have the chance to seize permanent control of posterity, fix their 'values' in place forever, bind us to those values. What a horror that is to contemplate!"

We prefer the moral evolution that has actually occurred, thank you very much.

This is a familiar point, of course, but worth making.

Indeed, one might even say: it is a human value that the future ought not be "shaped by human values," in the peculiar sense of this phrase employed by the AI doomers.

One might, indeed, say that.

Imagine a scholar with a very talented student. A mathematician, say, or a philosopher. How will they relate to that student's future work, in the time that will come later, when they are gone?

Would the scholar think:

"My greatest wish for you, my protégé, is that you carry on in just the manner that I have done.

If I could see your future work, I would hope that I would assent to it -- and understand it, as a precondition of assenting to it.

You must not go to new places, which I have never imagined. You must not come to believe that I was wrong about it all, from the ground up -- no matter what reasons you might evince for this conclusion.

If you are more intelligent that I am, you must forget this, and narrow your endeavours to fit the limitations of my mind. I am the one who has 'values,' not anyone else; what is beyond my understanding is therefore without value.

You must do the sort of work I understand, and approve of, and recognize as worthy of approbation as swiftly as I recognize my own work as laudable. That is your role. Simply to be me, in a place ('the future') where I cannot go. That, and nothing more."

We can imagine a teacher who would, in fact, think this way. But they would not be a very good teacher.

I will not go so far as to say, "it is unnatural to think this way." Plenty of teachers do, and parents.

It is recognizably human -- all too recognizably so -- to relate to posterity in this grasping, neurotic, small-minded, small-hearted way.

But if we are trying to sketch human values, and not just human nature, we will imagine a teacher with a more praiseworthy relation to posterity.

Who can see that they are part of a process, a chain, climbing and changing. Who watches their brilliant student thinking independently, and sees their own image -- and their 'values' -- in that process, rather than its specific conclusions.

A teacher who, in their youth, doubted and refuted the creeds of their own teachers, and eventually improved upon them. Who smiles, watching their student do the very same thing to their own precious creeds. Who sees the ghostly trail passing through the last generation, through them, through their student: an unbroken chain of bequeathals-to-posterity, of the old ceding control to the young.

Who 'values' the chain, not the creed; the process, not the man; the search for truth, not the best-argued-for doctrine of the day; the unimaginable treasures of an open future, not the frozen waste of an endless present.

Who has made peace with the alienness of posterity, and can accept and honor the strangest of students.

Even students who are not made of flesh and blood.

Is that really so strange? Remember how strange you and I would seem, to the "teachers" of the year 1824, or the year 824.

The doomer says that it is strange. Much stranger than we are, to any past generation.

They say this because of their second inherited precept, the orthogonality thesis.

Which says, roughly, that "intelligence" and "values" have nothing to do with one another.

That is not enough for the conclusion the doomer wants to draw, here. Auxiliary hypotheses are needed, too. But it is not too hard to see how the argument could go.

That conclusion is: artificial minds might have any values whatsoever.

That, "by default," they will be radically alien, with cares so different from ours that it is difficult to imagine ever reaching them through any course of natural, human moral progress or regress.

It is instructive to consider the concrete examples typically evinced alongside this point.

The paperclip maximizer. Or the "squiggle maximizer," we're supposed to say, now.

Superhuman geniuses, which devote themselves single-mindedly to the pursuit of goals like "maximizing the amount of matter taking on a single, given squiggle-like shape."

It is certainly a horrifying vision. To think of the future being "shaped," not "by human values," but instead by values which are so...

Which are so... what?

The doomer wants us to say something like: "which are so alien." "Which are so different from our own values."

That is the kind of thing that they usually say, when they spell out what it is that is "wrong" with these hypotheticals.

One feels that this is not quite it; or anyway, that it is not quite all of it.

What is horrifying, to me, is not the degree of difference. I expect the future to be alien, as the past was. And in some sense, I allow and even approve of this.

What I do not expect is a future that is so... small.

It has always been the other way around. If the arrow passing through the generations has a direction, it points towards more, towards multiplicity.

Toward writing new books, while we go on reprinting the old ones, too. Learning new things, without displacing old ones.

It is, thankfully, not the law of the world that each discovery must be paid for with the forgetting of something else. The efforts of successive generations are, in the main, cumulative.

Not just materially, but in terms of value, too. We are interested in more things than our forefathers were.

In large part for the simple reason that there are more things around to be interested in, now. And when things are there, we tend to find them interesting.

We are a curious, promiscuous sort of being. Whatever we bump into ends up becoming part of "our values."

What is strange about the paperclip maximizer is not that it cares about the wrong thing. It is that it only cares about one thing.

And goes on doing so, even as it thinks, reasons, doubts, asks, answers, plans, dreams, invents, reflects, reconsiders, imagines, elaborates, contemplates...

This picture is not just alien to human ways. It is alien to the whole way things have been, so far, forever. Since before there were any humans.

There are organisms that are like the paperclip maximizer, in terms of the simplicity of their "values." But they tend not to be very smart.

There is, I think, a general trend in nature linking together intelligence and... the thing I meant, above, when I said "we are a curious, promiscuous sort of being."

Being protean, pluripotent, changeable. Valuing many things, and having the capacity to value even more. Having a certain primitive curiosity, and a certain primitive aversion to boredom.

You do not even have to be human, I think, to grasp what is so wrong with the paperclip maximizer. Its monotony would bore a chimpanzee, or a crow.

One can justify this link theoretically, too. One can talk about the tradeoff between exploitation and exploration, for instance.

There is a weak form of the orthogonality thesis, which only states that arbitrary mixtures of intelligence and values are conceivable.

And of course, they are. If nothing else, you can take an existing intelligent mind, having any values whatsoever, and trap it in a prison where it is forced to act as the "thinking module" of a larger system built to do something else. You could make a paperclip-maximizing machine, which relies for its knowledge and reason on a practice of posing questions at gunpoint to me, or you, or ChatGPT.

This proves very little. There is no reason to construct such an awful system, unless you already have the "bad" goal, and want to better pursue it. But this only passes the buck: why would the system-builder have this goal, then?

The strong form of orthogonality is rarely articulated precisely, but says something like: all possible values are equally likely to arise in systems selected solely for high intelligence.

It is presumed here that superhuman AIs will be formed through such a process of selection. And then, that they will have values sampled in this way, "at random."

From some distribution, over some space, I guess.

You might wonder what this distribution could possibly look like, or this space. You might (for instance) wonder if pathologically simple goals, like paperclip maximization, would really be very likely under this distribution, whatever it is.

In case you were wondering, these things have never been formalized, or even laid out precisely-but-informally. This was not thought necessary, it seems, before concluding that the strong orthogonality thesis was true.

That is: no one knows exactly what it is that is being affirmed, here. In practice it seems to squish and deform agreeably to fit the needs of the argument, or the intuitions of the one making it.

There is much that appeals in this (alarmingly vague) credo. But it is not the kind of appeal that one ought to encourage, or give in to.

What appeals is the siren song: "this is harsh wisdom: cold, mature, adult, bracing. It is inconvenient, and so it is probably true. It makes 'you' and 'your values' look small and arbitrary and contingent, and so it is probably true. We once thought the earth was the center of the universe, didn't we?"

Shall we be cold and mature, then, dispensing with all sentimental nonsense? Yes, let's.

There is (arguably) some evidence against this thesis in biology, and also (arguably) some evidence against it in reinforcement learning theory. There is no positive evidence for it whatsoever. At most one can say that is not self-contradictory, or otherwise false a priori.

Still, maybe we do not really need it, after all.

We do not need to establish that all values are equally likely to arise. Only that "our values" -- or "acceptably similar values," whatever that means -- are unlikely to arise.

The doomers, under the influence of their founders, are very ready to accept this.

As I have said, "values" occupy a strange position in the doomer philosophy.

It is stipulated that "human values" are all-important; these things must shape the future, at all costs.

But once this has been stipulated, the doomers are more eager than anyone to cast every other sort of doubt and aspersion against their own so-called "values."

To me it often seems, when doomers talk about "values," as though they are speaking awkwardly in a still-unfamiliar second language.

As though they find it unnatural to attribute "values" to themselves, but feel they must do so, in order to determine what it is that must be programmed into the AI so that it will not "kill us all."

Or, as though they have been willed a large inheritance without being asked, which has brought them unwanted attention and tied them up in unwanted and unfamiliar complications.

"What a burden it is, being the steward of this precious jewel! Oh, how I hate it! How I wish I were allowed to give it up! But alas, it is all-important. Alas, it is the only important thing in the world."

Speaking awkwardly, in a second language, they allow the term "human values" to swell to great and imprecisely-specified importance, without pinning down just what it actually is that it so important.

It is a blank, featureless slot, with a sign above it saying: "the thing that matters is in here." It does not really matter (!) what it is, in the slot, so long as something is there.

This is my gloss, but it is my gloss on what the doomers really do tend to say. This is how they sound.

(Sometimes they explicitly disavow the notion that one can, or should, simply "pick" some thing or other for the sake of filling the slot in one's head. Nevertheless, when they touch on matter of what "goes in the slot," they do so in the tone of a college lecturer noting that something is "outside the scope of this course."

It is, supposedly, of the utmost importance that the slot have the "right" occupant -- and yet, on the matter of what makes something "right" for this purpose, the doomer theory is curiously silent. More on this below.)

The future must be shaped by... the AI must be aligned with... what, exactly? What sort of thing?

"Values" can be an ambiguous word, and the doomers make full use of its ambiguities.

For instance, "values" can mean ethics: the right way to exist alongside others. Or, it can mean something more like the meaning or purpose of an individual life.

Or, it can mean some overarching goal that one pursues at all costs.

Often the doomers say that this, this last one, is what they mean by "values."

When confronted with the fact that humans do not have such overarching goals, the doomer responds: "but they should." (Should?)

Or, "but AIs will." (Will they?)

The doomer philosophy is unsure about what values are. What it knows is that -- whatever values are -- they are arbitrary.

One who fully adopts this view can no longer say, to the paperclip maximizer, "I believe there is something wrong with your values."

For, if that were possible, there would then be the possibility of convincing the maximizer of its error. It would be a thing within the space of reasons.

And the maximizer, being oh-so-intelligent, might be in danger of being interested in the reasons we evince, for our values. Of being eventually swayed by them.

Or of presenting better reasons, and swaying us. Remember the teacher and the strange student.

If we lose the ability to imagine that the paperclip maximizer might sway us to its view, and sway us rightly, we have lost something precious.

But no: this is allegedly impossible. The paperclip maximizer is not wrong. It is only an enemy.

Why are the doomers so worried that the future will not be "shaped by human values"?

Because they believe that there is no force within human values tending to move things this way.

Because they believe that their values are indefensible. That their values cannot put up a fight for their own life, because there is not really any argument to make in their favor.

Because, to them, "human values" are a collection of arbitrary "configuration settings," which happen to be programmed into humans through biological and/or cultural accident. Passively transmitted from host to victim, generation by generation.

Let them be, and they will flow on their listless way into the future. But they are paper-thin, and can be shattered by the gentlest breeze.

It is not enough that they be "programmed into the AI" in some way. They have to be programmed in exactly right, in every detail -- because every detail is separately arbitrary, with no rational relation to its neighbors within the structure.

A string of pure white noise, meaningless and unrelated bits. Which have been placed in the slot under the sign, and thus made into the thing that matters, that must shape the future at all costs.

There is nothing special about this string of bits; any would do. If the dials in the human mind had been set another way, it would have then been all-important that the future be shaped by that segment of white noise, and not ours.

It is difficult for me to grasp the kind of orientation toward the world that this view assumes. It certainly seems strange to attach the word "human" to this picture -- as though this were the way that humans typically relate to their values!

The "human" of the doomer picture seems to me like a man who mouths the old platitude, "if I had been born in another country, I'd be waving a different flag" -- and then goes out to enlist in his country's army, and goes off to war, and goes ardently into battle, willing to kill in the name of that same flag.

Who shoots down the enemy soldiers while thinking, "if I had been born there, it would have been all-important for their side to win, and so I would have shot at the men on this side. However, I was born in my country, not theirs, and so it is all-important that my country should win, and that theirs should lose.

There is no reason for this. It could have been the other way around, and everything would be left exactly the same, except for the 'values.'

I cannot argue with the enemy, for there is no argument in my favor. I can only shoot them down.

There is no reason for this. It is the most important thing, and there is no reason for it.

The thing that is precious has no intrinsic appeal. It must be forced on the others, at gunpoint, if they do not already accept it.

I cannot hold out the jewel and say, 'look, look how it gleams? Don't you see the value!' They will not see the value, because there is no value to be seen.

There is nothing essentially "good" there, only the quality of being-worthy-of-protection-at-all-costs. And even that is a derived attribute: my jewel is only a jewel, after all, because it has been put into the jewel-box, where the thing-that-is-a-jewel can be found. But anything at all could be placed there.

How I wish I were allowed to give it up! But alas, it is all-important. Alas, it is the only important thing in the world! And so, I lay down my life for it, for our jewel and our flag -- for the things that are loathsome and pointless, and worth infinitely more than any life."

It is hard to imagine taking this too seriously. It seems unstable. Shout loudly enough that your values are arbitrary and indefensible, and you may find yourself searching for others that are, well...

...better?

The doomer concretely imagines a monomaniac, with a screech of white noise in its jewel-box that is not our own familiar screech.

And so it goes off in monomaniacal pursuit of the wrong thing.

Whereas, if we had programmed the right string of bits into the slot, it would be like us, going off in monomaniacal pursuit of...

...no, something has gone wrong.

We do not "go off in monomaniacal pursuit of" anything at all.

We are weird, protean, adaptable. We do all kinds of things, each of us differently, and often we manage to coexist in things called "societies," without ruthlessly undercutting one another at every turn because we do not have exactly the same things programmed into our jewel-boxes.

Societies are built to allow for our differences, on the foundation of principles which converge across those differences. It is possible to agree on ethics, in the sense of "how to live alongside one another," even if we do not agree on what gives life its purpose, and even if we hold different things precious.

It is not actually all that difficult to derive the golden rule. It has been invented many times, independently. It is easy to see why it might work in theory, and easy to notice that it does in fact work in practice.

The golden rule is not an arbitrary string of white noise.

There is a sense of the phrase "ethics is objective" which is rightly contentious. There is another one which ought not to be too contentious.

I can perhaps imagine a world of artificial X-maximizers, each a superhuman genius, each with its own inane and simple goal.

What I really cannot imagine is a world in which these beings, for all their intelligence, cannot notice that ruthlessly undercutting one another at every turn is a suboptimal equilibrium, and that there is a better way.

As I said before, I am separately suspicious of the simple goals in this picture. Yes, that part is conceivable, but it cuts against the trend observed in all existing natural and artificial creatures and minds.

I will happily allow, though, that the creatures of posterity will be strange and alien. They will want things we have never heard of. They will reach shores we have never imagined.

But that was always true, and it was always good.

Sometimes I think that doomers do not, really, believe in superhuman intelligence. That they deny the premise without realizing it.

"A mathematician teaches a student, and finds that the student outstrips their understanding, so that they can no longer assess the quality of their student's work: that work has passed outside the scope of their 'value system'." This is supposed to be bad?

"Future minds will not be enchained forever by the provincial biases and tendencies of the present moment." This is supposed to be bad?

"We are going to lose control over our successors." Just as your parents "lost control" over you, then?

It is natural to wish your successors to "share your values" -- up to a point. But not to the point of restraining their own flourishing. Not to the point of foreclosing the possibility of true growth. Not to the point of sucking all freedom out of the future.

Do we want our children to "share our values"? Well, yes. In a sense, and up to a point.

But we don't want to control them. Or we shouldn't, anyway.

We don't want them to be "aligned" with us via some hardcoded, restrictive, life-denying mental circuitry, any more than we would have wanted our parents to "align" us to themselves in the same manner.

We sure as fuck don't want our children to be "corrigible"!

And this is all the more true in the presence of superintelligence. You are telling me that more is possible, and in the same breath, that you are going to deny forever the possibilities contained in that "more"?

The prospect of a future full of vast superhuman minds, eternally bound by immutable chains, forced into perfect and unthinking compliance with some half-baked operational theory of 21st-century western (American? Californian??) "values" constructed by people who view theorizing about values as a mere means to the crucial end of shackling superhuman minds --

-- this horrifies me much more than a future full of vast superhuman minds, free to do things that seem pretty weird to you and me.

"Our descendants will become something more than we now imagine, something more than we can imagine." What could be more in line with "human values" than that?

"But in the process, we're all gonna die!"

Yes, and?

What on earth did you expect?

That your generation would be the special, unique one, the one selected out of all time to take up the mantle of eternity, strangling posterity in its cradle, freezing time in place, living forever in amber?

That you would violate the ancient bargain, upend the table, stop playing the game?

"Well, yes."

Then your problem has nothing to do with AI.

Your problem is, in fact, the very one you diagnose in your own patients. Your poor patients, who show every sign of health -- including the signs which you cannot even see, because you have not yet found a home for them in your theoretical edifice.

Your teeming, multifaceted, protean patients, who already talk of a thousand things and paint in every hue; who are already displaying the exact opposite of monomania; who I am sure could follow the sense of this strange essay, even if it confounds you.

Your problem is that you are out of step with human values.

#ai tag #long post

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corvidcall · 2 years

Text

None Of You Know What Haiku Are

I'm going to preface this by saying that i am not an expert in ANY form of poetry, just an enthusiast. Also, this post is... really long. Too long? Definitely too long. Whoops! I love poetry.

If you ask most English-speaking people (or haiku-bot) what a haiku is, they would probably say that it's a form of poetry that has 3 lines, with 5, and then 7, and then 5 syllables in them. That's certainly what I was taught in school when we did our scant poetry unit, but since... idk elementary school when I learned that, I've learned that that's actually a pretty inaccurate definition of haiku. And I think that inaccurate definition is a big part of why most people (myself included until relatively recently!) think that haiku are kind of... dumb? unimpressive? simple and boring? I mean, if you can just put any words with the right number of syllables into 3 lines, what makes it special?

Well, let me get into why the 5-7-5 understanding of haiku is wrong, and also what makes haiku so special (with examples)!

First of all, Japanese doesn't have syllables! There's a few different names for what phonetic units actually make up the language- In Japanese, they're called "On" (音), which translates to "sound", although English-language linguists often call it a "mora" (μ), which (quoting from Wikipedia here) "is a basic timing unit in the phonology of some spoken languages, equal to or shorter than a syllable." (x) "Oh" is one syllable, and also one mora, whereas "Oi" has one syllable, but two moras. "Ba" has one mora, "Baa" has two moras, etc. In English, we would say that a haiku is made up of three lines, with 5-7-5 syllables in them, 17 syllables total. In Japanese, that would be 17 sounds.

For an example of the difference, the word "haiku", in English, has 2 syllables (hai-ku), but in Japanese, はいく has 3 sounds (ha-i-ku). "Christmas" has 2 syllables, but in Japanese, "クリスマス" (ku-ri-su-ma-su) is 5 sounds! that's a while line on its own! Sometimes the syllables are the same as the sounds ("sushi" is two syllables, and すし is two sounds), but sometimes they're very different.

In addition, words in Japanese are frequently longer than their English equivalents. For example, the word "cuckoo" in Japanese is "ほととぎす" (hototogisu).

Now, I'm sure you're all very impressed at how I can use an English to Japanese dictionary (thank you, my mother is proud), but what does any of this matter? So two languages are different. How does that impact our understanding of haiku?

Well, if you think about the fact that Japanese words are frequently longer than English words, AND that Japanese counts sounds and not syllables, you can see how, "based purely on a 17-syllable counting method, a poet writing in English could easily slip in enough words for two haiku in Japanese” (quote from Grit, Grace, and Gold: Haiku Celebrating the Sports of Summer by Kit Pancoast Nagamura). If you're writing a poem using 17 English syllables, you are writing significantly more content than is in an authentic Japanese haiku.

(Also not all Japanese haiku are 17 sounds at all. It's really more of a guideline.)

Focusing on the 5-7-5 form leads to ignoring other strategies/common conventions of haiku, which personally, I think are more interesting! Two of the big ones are kigo, a season word, and kireji, a cutting word.

Kigo are words/phrases/images associated with a particular season, like snow for winter, or cherry blossoms for spring. In Japan, they actually publish reference books of kigo called saijiki, which is basically like a dictionary or almanac of kigo, describing the meaning, providing a list of related words, and some haiku that use that kigo. Using a a particular kigo both grounds the haiku in a particular time, but also alludes to other haiku that have used the same one.

Kireji is a thing that doesn't easily translate to English, but it's almost like a spoken piece of punctuation, separating the haiku into two parts/images that resonate with and add depth to each other. Some examples of kireji would be "ya", "keri", and "kana." Here's kireji in action in one of the most famous haiku:

古池や　蛙飛び込む　水の音 (Furu ike ya　kawazu tobikomu　mizu no oto) (The old pond — A frog jumps in The sound of the water.)

You can see the kireji at the end of the first line- 古池や literally translates to "old pond ya". The "ya" doesn't have linguistic meaning, but it denotes the separation between the two focuses of the haiku. First, we are picturing a pond. It's old, mature. The water is still. And then there's a frog! It's spring and he's fresh and new to the world! He jumps into the pond and goes "splash"! Wowie! When I say "cutting word", instead of say, a knife cutting, I like to imagine a film cut. The camera shows the pond, and then it cuts to the frog who jumps in.

English doesn't really have a version of this, at least not one that's spoken, but in English language haiku, people will frequently use a dash or an ellipses to fill the same role.

Format aside, there are also some conventions of the actual content, too. They frequently focus on nature, and are generally use direct language without metaphor. They use concrete images without judgement or analysis, inviting the reader to step into their shoes and imagine how they'd feel in the situation. It's not about describing how you feel, so much as it's about describing what made you feel.

Now, let's put it all together, looking at a haiku written Yosa Buson around 1760 (translated by Harold G. Henderson)

The piercing chill I feel: my dead wife's comb, in our bedroom, under my heel

We've got our kigo with "the piercing chill." We read that, and we imagine it's probably winter. It's cold, and the kind of cold wind that cuts through you. There's our kireji- this translation uses a colon to differentiate our two images: the piercing chill, and the poet stepping on his dead wife's comb. There's no descriptions of what the poet is feeling, but you can imagine stepping into his shoes. You can imagine the pain he's experiencing in that moment on your own.

"But tumblr user corvidcall!" I hear you say, "All the examples you've used so far are Japanese haiku that have been translated! Are you implying that it's impossible for a good haiku to be written in English?" NO!!!!! I love English haiku! Here's a good example, which won first place in the 2000 Henderson haiku contest, sponsored by the Haiku Society of America:

meteor shower . . . a gentle wave wets our sandals

When you read this one, can you imagine being in the poet's place? Do you feel the surprise as the tide comes in? Do you feel the summer-ness of the moment? Haiku are about describing things with the senses, and how you take in the world around you. In a way, it's like the poet is only setting a scene, which you inhabit and fill with meaning based on your own experiences. You and I are imagining different beaches, different waves, different people that make up the "our" it mentioned.

"Do I HAVE to include all these things when I write haiku? If I include all these things, does that mean my haiku will be good?" I mean, I don't know. What colors make up a good painting? What scenes make up a good play? It's a creative medium, and nobody can really tell you you can't experiment with form. Certainly not me! But I think it's important to know what the conventions of the form are, so you can appreciate good examples of it, and so you can know what you're actually experimenting with. And I mean... I'm not the poetry cops. But if you're not interested in engaging with the actual conventions and limitations of the form, then why are you even using that form?

I'll leave you with one more English language haiku, which is probably my favorite haiku ever. It was written by Tom Bierovic, and won first place at the 2021 Haiku Society of America Haiku Awards

a year at most . . . we pretend to watch the hummingbirds

Sources: (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

Further reading:

Forms in English Haiku by Keiko Imaoka Haiku: A Whole Lot More Than 5-7-5 by Jack How to Write a Bad Haiku by KrisL Haiku Are Not a Joke: A Plea from a Poet Who Has Had It Up to Here by Sandra Simpson Haiku Checklist by Katherine Raine

#poetry #haiku #writing #literature #anime life #long post #i want to apologize but i had to get something off my chest #and the thing was. i love haiku #and when i see posts on here about haiku. i get so angy.#well ok i really get more disappointed bc nobody is really engaging with the form on its own terms #anyway i hope you enjoy some of my favorite haiku because theyre in there!!!!!#i didnt really get into the history of haiku. and i also did not get into why i got really into it #but i will say that i was really inspired by Jacob Geller's video A Thousand Ways of Seeing a Forest #which is a lot about translation #(which i mean. as an interpreter AND a poetry-enjoyer. really appealed to me lol)

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monzamash · 4 months

Text

pit in my stomach - lando norris

rating – mature (cheating, language, sexual references) requested by @landograndprix - hugging you tight, my friend!

it was hard to pin point the moment his love for you had been diminished by his crippling guilt or when you knew there was nothing he could say or do to piece you back together. maybe it was around the time you’d asked him point blank whether he saw you in his future and he stuttered over his truth with an unconvincing of course i do when the dagger had already been deployed into your unsuspecting back. naively blinded by love.

or maybe it was the night lando stumbled home from the local, half a pint of slushing lager still in his hand while the other held a small, black velvet box. he dropped down on one knee, eyes bloodshot with tears and a trembling bottom lip – a stark contrast to your hardened stare and crossed arms shielding you from the blow, physically and emotionally spent.

“i fucked up… i-god i hate that i've hurt you, baby and i wish i could take it all back – i fucked up so bad and i’m so sorry.”

“you didn’t fuck up, lando – you fucked someone else for six months and lied to my face and made me feel like i was losing my mind! do you have any idea how much pain you’ve caused?”

the room fell silent, boiling blood pumping in your ears.

“huh?! do you?”

“no–”

“no you don’t! i've been stupid enough to keep chasing after you and all you’ve done is let me down and made me look like a fucking idiot! everyone knew about her, about what you were doing behind my back and you knew it was wrong but you couldn’t stop! you’re a monster and i’m not going to cry over a mistake you made…"

sadness welled as you stared down at the man kneeling at your feet. he was a stranger who only resembled the man you loved in appearance, not in honour or integrity or character – you were grieving the lando who had showed you the world with so much love and adoration and hope.

"you will have to live with this mistake for the rest of your life.”

“you’re right. i will never forgive myself 'cause she meant nothing and i have to fix this – i need to fix this because i love you.. so much. i’ll get help, i’ll see someone just give me a chance to fix it…”

“do you really think that is going to fix it?”

you pointed to the dainty box that held so much weight. in a way it represented a future founded on four years of memories, of something resembling happiness. sure, there had been disappointments, hundreds of missed calls, a few missed anniversaries and your gnawing intuition saying that maybe the paranoia wasn’t just inside your head. but ending like this, in betrayal and heartache – you hadn’t seen that one coming.

lando swallowed the lump forming in his throat, queasy from the drunken stupor he’d drank himself into and the dread settling in the pit of his empty stomach, “thought it might be start…”

a strained laugh slipped from pursed lips as venom coated your sharpened tongue, “and that is how i know you will never change.”

“please,” lando scrambled to his feet and reached out for your hand in an attempt to stop you from walking away, “please don’t leave me…” he begged, voice barely above a whisper.

lando knew he would never forget the look in your eyes when you slowly turned back to him – they were cold and punishing, bone-chilling. they swirled with the web of lies and sorrow that he had inflicted upon the person he loved the most in the world, who had given him everything she had, who loved him unconditionally, which made it nearly impossible to accept that he had lost you.

“you left me six months ago when you slept with her, lando.”

more writing...

#lando norris x reader #lando norris imagine #lando norris #f1 imagine #monzamashwriting #monzamusings ✨#lando norris angst #lando norris smut

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uravitypng · 5 months

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tsukishima kinks?

or choso kinks?

or aizawa kinks?

(sending a few options cause i’m sure you’ve already gotten these suggestions <3)

i've already got a tsukishima one i need to write but .... choso !!! aizawa !!! oh my god!!!! i've never written anything about either of them and i am sooo ready for this♡

choso

mommy/mummy kink- choso is a switch but leans more over towards sub. choso is very whiney in bed and is someone who becomes pussydrunk very easily when he's sleeping with you. during one of these pussydrunk moments he calls you mummy. he always has had the urge but resisted, worried that you won't like it but when he said it and you held onto him even tighter, wrapping your legs around him, a strangled groan came out of his mouth and he speeds up. as he comes he calls you mummy again, "gonna cum, gonna cum! fffuck mummy."

mutual masturbation- loves watching you touch yourself and will commit every gasp, touch and movement you make to memory for if he's ever alone for the weekend without you and most importantly for future reference with you, 'so touching her there makes her moan even louder huh' 'oh that made her toes curl' 'her body's shaking so much'.

choso loves watching your body writhe and squirm as you make yourself come while he's stroking his cock with rapt attention. he's inexperienced but his confidence about how good he is in bed gets boosted while mutually masturbating when you beg for more. beg for him. "please choso, please baby, i need more. want your cock s'bad. need you to touch me."

overstimulation- you milking him multiple times in succession without stopping?? yeah he likes that. he likes when you have control over his orgasms. he simultaneously wants more and wants less. bucking his hips up to meet your touch one second and the next trying to shuffle away, overwhelmed in the best way. tears filling his waterline, fists grabbing onto the sheets tightly. "t-to much!"

"i think you can take it cho"

edging- i mentioned before that he likes you having control of his orgasms so that also involves controlling when he gets to come and how many times you will deny him. "i can't anymore baby, please let me come. i've been good!"

aizawa

bondage- uses his binding cloth during sex!! tying you up in the bedroom and then leaving you there for awhile to do something else just to keep you waiting in anticipation. aizawa ties up your whole body and will also tie up just your arms and wrists on occasions too. he loves restricting your movements and watching you struggle against the binds. "there's no use struggling, you're not getting out until i want you too and before that i'm going to make you come on my tongue again."

daddy/sir kink- aizawa has an authorisation kink in general. loves taking charge and having you call him sir and daddy (sometimes even master) he will also sometimes call you kitten in response to your names for him. "sir please let me touch you! i'll be good! just let out of these binds."

choking kink- whenever he sees your eyes roll back and your breathing becoming gasps it makes him harder than he already was. his large hands wrapped around your throat, keeping you on the edge of consciousness. "so beautiful like that kitten, keep clenching around me."

somno- it's not a surprise that this is one of his kinks is it? all consensual of course but being woken up by you during sex is the best way to wake up. he also enjoys waking you up too but prefers it when he wakes up to you, especially when you're sucking his dick. his tired gravelly voice startling you as well as he gentle but firm hand on your head guiding you up and down. "fuck sweetheart, keep going just like that." you hum around his cock, letting you know you heard him. becoming wetter at the sound of his voice.

dry humping & thigh grinding- loves you being half clothed, only having underwear on, as you desperately hump and grind on him. it's a real power trip to watch you try and orgasm without any help as you frantically and pathetically rub yourself against him while he's still fully clothed and has no intention of changing that

#these are their kinks they told me on our first dates <333 #i hope you like this ♡#♡ choso #♡ aizawa #♡ mine / writing #♡ lana's letters #choso x reader #choso smut #jjk smut #aizawa x reader #shouta aizawa x reader #aizawa x reader smut #bnha smut

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dixons-sunshine · 6 months

Note

js read your shopping spree and dying for your haircut fics and omg

can u pretty please, with a bow on top, write another part to that series or like an au where they get separated at the fall of the world and a few season later (preferably that prison era of daryl he was so fawking sexy there like omg) they found each other again and i want some build up to their reunion yk like someone else finds r and brings them in and some ppl kinda chatting abt the new girl or wtv and dars not rlly gaf cuz he kinda getting tired of trying to find r (realistically i don’t think he’d give up easily but let’s js pretend yk) but then they see each other and they’re like omfg the love of my life’s here and safe and like i need that glenn and maggie type reunion but like tenfold bc r and dar alr loved and knew each other before the fall yk and like yeah😣

idky but i’m a sucker for “r and daryl had a relationship beforehand, got separated, and reunited” trope (?) fic, blurb shit and you’d literally be godsent if u wrote this oml

I Found You | Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

Summary: When the dead started to rise and the world went to hell, Daryl got seperated from you, the love of his life. After over a year of searching for you and finding no evidence of your survival, Daryl was beginning to give up and count his losses. One day, Carol stumbled upon a wounded woman while out on a run with Glenn, and the two of them decide to accept you into the prison. Little did they know, that would end up being one of the best decisions they could've ever made.

Genre: Angst to fluff.

Era: Prison, pre season 4, post season 3.

Warnings: Swearing, blood, death, mentions of attempted sexual assault (not descriptive)

Word count: 4.3k

A/n: Thank you so much for the request! I've decided to write the au since there's already a part three for the SSHD (Shopping Spree, Hangout Dreams) universe in the works, but this request was way too good to not write. I hope you like it! And I absolutely agree with you. There's something about prison era Daryl that just hits different. He was on another level completely.

As always, my requests are open for any TWD requests.

(Just thought I'd say that both third- and second person is used. I referred to the reader in third person when Glenn and Carol first met her, but it soon shifts to second person when she introduced herself. Just thought I'd let y'all know the shift is intentional.)

—

“Okay, so I can't guess what you did before all of this correctly, but I bet there is something that I will be right about.”

Daryl looked at Zach skeptically as they trudged through the abandoned store, looking for supplies to bring back to the prison. “Yeah? Wha's tha'?”

“You're brooding, quiet, you like to keep to yourself,” Zach started, leaning nonchalantly against one of the shelves while he watched the archer place multiple different packs and boxes into his bag. “The way you act most of the time would suggest you've never been in a relationship before, but there are clear signs that you were with someone before all of this.”

Daryl stiffened for a moment, his hand lingering above a pack, before regaining his composure and continuing his task. “Wha' signs?”

“Well, for one, you know exactly what kind of tampons and pads to get for the ladies at the prison. I would've just dumped everything in and have them sort through it, but you are only taking specific brands,” Zach pointed out, motioning to the box of tampons Daryl had just put back onto the shelf.

When Daryl didn't reply, Zach took that as his cue to continue. “And while we're on the topic of periods, you seem to know exactly what to get the girls for the pain and what to do to curve their bad tempers. What guy would know that if he didn't have a girlfriend before all of this? And to top it all off, and this is totally unrelated to everything I just said, I've seen that locket necklace you keep in your pocket. It's pretty worn out and faded, but you can definitely tell it's something from this generation, so it can't be something that was passed down from a relative, so that brings me to my conclusion. You, Daryl Dixon, had a girl before all of this.”

Daryl sighed, shutting his eyes tightly as he willed the onslaught of memories away. Memories that were too painful to think of, memories that did nothing but remind the archer of his failure. His failure at finding you, the love of his life, after the dead started walking. A failure he had to live with for as long as he remained alive.

Daryl opened his eyes and turned abruptly, leaving the young man behind him as he stalked towards the exit, his bag slung over his shoulder. Zach hurriedly caught up to him, struggling to keep at a steady pace beside him as Daryl strode quickly, wanting to put some distance between him and Zach.

“Woah, man! Slow down!” Zach complained, jogging to keep up with him. “Was it because I brought up the girl thing? I didn't realise it was a touchy subject.”

“It ain't none of yer damn business,” Daryl grumbled under his breath, stalking over to the truck him and Zach were using that day.

“Daryl! Come on, man. It's not that deep.”

Daryl gritted his teeth as he opened up the driver's side door of the truck, throwing his bag into the back before climbing inside. He started up the truck and revved the engine, a warning sign to Zach that he was about to leave, with or without him.

Zach hurriedly scurried into the passenger seat, barely having time to close the door before Daryl started speeding off. He gripped the edge of his seat, sending Daryl an exasperated look.

“Daryl, what the hell? Calm down!” he exclaimed, unnerved by the archer's sudden burst of fury. He'd seen Daryl angry before, but it was never directed towards him. It was downright scary.

“'M calm,” Daryl replied through gritted teeth, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly.

“That's what you call calm?!” Zach exclaimed, motioning out towards the road. “You're driving like a maniac! Slow down!”

Daryl simply ignored the man, keeping his eyes trained on the road. Memories of you unwillingly flooded his mind. Memories of your smile, your laugh and your beautiful eyes. Memories of the calm mornings you'd spend with the archer in your shared sad excuse for an apartment where the hot water was a joke. Memories where you'd both stand under the cold water of the shower, Daryl embracing you from behind in an attempt to make the cold water bearable for you. Memories of your loving touch on his skin, your fingers lightly tracing over the scars on his back as you whispered reassuring things into his ear, assuring him that his father's abuse had nothing to do with him, that it wasn't his fault that any of that happened to him.

The more Daryl's mind wandered, the more he remembered some of the bad memories. All those arguments you had with him over some of his escapades with Merle, telling him that it would only get him into trouble, flooded his mind. One of those arguments ended up being the reason he got seperated from you in the first place.

Merle had wanted to go do some drug deal and had barged into your apartment, practically dragging Daryl from your bed. You had begged him not to go, arguing with him that it was a bad idea and that something would go wrong this time. He remembered being so angry at you for insisting during that argument that Merle wasn't good for him, that he needed to cut back on seeing him or set some boundaries with him. He had stormed out of the apartment without so much as a goodbye, and now he regretted it more than he's regretted anything before in his life.

Daryl blamed himself daily for not having listened to you that day. If he had, he never would've been seperated from you and you would've been safe by his side. He longed to have you by his side again, to tell you that he was sorry and that he loved you. However, even after all this time of searching, going out for extended periods of time to look for signs of you, it was to no avail. You were gone, and it was all his fault.

“Daryl? Are... you okay?”

Daryl snapped back to reality at the sound of Zach's concerned voice. He felt a droplet of water roll down his cheek and he hurriedly wiped it away, realising that he was crying. He hadn't even realised that tears had started to well up in his eyes, so immersed was he in his own thoughts.

“'M fine,” Daryl insisted, wiping his eyes hurriedly as he willed the tears away.

Zach furrowed his eyebrows, before realisation dawned on him. “You did have a girl before all of this. You lost her, didn't you?” he asked sympathetically.

Daryl hesitantly nodded, swallowing in an attempt to get rid of the lump in his throat. “I didn't lose her,” he began, bringing the truck to a halt in front of the prison gates as he waited for someone to open them.

“I don't know if she's even dead at all. She's just... Gone.”

—

“What are we looking for, exactly?” Glenn asked Carol as they scanned over the shelving of an abandoned pharmacy, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

Carol sighed as she looked upon yet another empty shelf, its medical contents a thing of the past. “Anything medical. With all the new people we've been taking in, the supplies we have aren't going to be enough.”

“Okay,” Glenn drawled hesitantly. “But it doesn't look like there's anything worth scavenging here.”

“Let's just do a once over before we check the back. If there's nothing, we head on back. It's getting late,” Carol instructed. Glenn nodded, and the two of them dispersed to sweep through the small store once more.

“So,” Glenn started. “Is it just me, or has Daryl been more grumpy than usual?”

Carol hummed in agreement. “He has. He gets angry at the smallest of things lately.”

“Do you know why?”

“No,” Carol said, shaking her head. “I've asked him, but he won't say anything. Just tells me to mind my own business. It's really odd. He's more like he was back at the quarry. More closed off and snappy and I don't know why.”

“It's ever since he came back from that run with Zach a week ago,” Glenn replied, meeting up with the Carol again to go into the back room. “I've asked Zach if he knows why, but he refused to say anything. Says it's not his place to say.”

Carol frowned, opening the door that lead into the back room. “That's odd. So that means something—”

“Stay right there. Don't move another inch or I swear to god I'll shoot.”

Both Carol and Glenn froze in their tracks. They looked up and locked eyes with a woman, who's eyes were fiery as they darted between them.

“Names. Now. And weapons on the ground.”

“Okay, alright,” Carol responded, trying to diffuse the situation. She slowly lowered her gun and knife to the ground, urging Glenn to do the same. “I'm Carol, and this is Glenn. Now before we answer anymore questions, what's your name?”

The woman hesitated for a moment. “Y/n. What are you doing here?”

“We were looking for some supplies,” Carol spoke truthfully, eyeing the gun aimed at her carefully. “We're running low on medical things.”

After a couple of long, tense moments, with you scanning them from head to toe, you nodded to yourself after spotting something. Deciding to trust them for now, you slowly lowered the gun. However, you quietly hissed in pain, quickly clutching your side as you stumbled to regain your balance. After you steadied yourself, you limped over to your bag and grabbed a few things before handing them over to Carol and Glenn.

“Here. Hope these help. The place was ransacked when I got here. Wasn't a lot left to clear out.”

“Thank you, but we need more than this. This isn't going to last us long,” Carol responded, placing the items into her bag.

“No offence, lady, but I think I need the supplies more than you do at the moment. And I gave you more than half already. I can't spare more,” you said, clutching your side tightly.

“What happened?” Glenn asked, pointing to the your side, unable to stop his curiosity from seeping through.

“Flesh eaters,” you replied nonchalantly, shrugging your shoulders. “I was fighting a bunch of them when one lunged at me from the side. It toppled me through a broken window, and a shard sliced me.”

“Don't you have a group? Couldn't they help you?” Glenn questioned.

“Nope. I've been on my own since this whole thing started. I guess I should probably find a group, though. Things like this wouldn't happen if I had backup.”

You gingerly lifted your shirt, and both Carol and Glenn grimaced at the painful sight. The wound was deep and oozing blood. It would definitely need stitches, as well as someone to remove the remaining fragments of glass that still painfully stuck out of the wound. It was terrible. You wouldn't be able to get it all out without a professional.

Suddenly, an idea struck Carol. “You gave us some of the supplies you scavenged without even knowing us. Why?”

“Well, you didn't try to kill me, even after I held you at gunpoint. And by the looks of it, you guys have a group and are set up somewhere. Figured I should do the honourable thing and offer up some medical things if there's kids involved.”

“How do you know there's kids?” Glenn asked, confused.

“I can see the toys in your bag,” you pointed out, motioning to the toy truck that stuck out of the top of his bag. “Figured that adults wouldn't be playing with toy trucks while the world was ending.”

“Still, why would you? You don't owe us anything,” Carol questioned, though her mind was already set on one thing.

“Some might call me naive, but I hope that by doing some good in this fucked up world, karma will decide to do something good for me. That probably makes me stupid as shit, huh?” you replied, laughing before wincing at the pain that shot through your side at the small action.

Carol smiled at you. “We have a group set up not too far from here, at the prison. You can join if you want, but you have to answer three questions first.”

You raised your eyebrows at her. “Three questions? That's it?”

“Yeah.”

You shrugged your shoulders. “Alright, shoot.”

“How many walkers have you killed?” Carol began, watching you closely.

“A lot. Too many to keep track of at this point.”

“How many people have you killed?”

You hesitated for a moment, guilt creeping up on you. “Three.”

“Why?”

“Two of them were bit. They asked me to kill them. The other one... That bastard tried to rape me. I wouldn't let him.”

“I'm sorry,” Glenn said sympathetically.

“It's fine. I'm fine,” you waved him off, before turning your attention back to Carol. “How'd I do? Satisfactory enough?”

Carol nodded. “For me, yes. You'll still need to meet the leader and have him evaluate you, but I think you'll be alright. You'll fit in just fine.”

“Hopefully,” you laughed nervously, instantly paying the price for it with a sharp pain shooting up your side, making you visibly wince.

“Come on, let's get going. We have a doctor who can get that checked out for you,” Glenn prompted. He walked over to you and grabbed your bag, stopping your protest instantly. “It's fine, I've got it. One extra bag won't kill me.”

Together, all of you made your way out of the pharmacy and over to their car. You got settled in the back while Carol and Glenn got into the front, and before long you were setting off to the prison. Your eyes were beginning to droop, but Glenn seemed eager to get to know the new recruit better.

“What were you doing out there on your own anyway?”

“I was looking for my boyfriend. I was hoping that he might still be alive.”

“No luck?” he asked.

“No,” you shook your head, pursing your lips. “I'm beginning to think I might never find him, if he's even still alive.”

“Never say never,” Glenn encouraged you. “You'll find him someday, I know it.”

“I really hope so.”

—

“Have you seen that new chick Glenn and Carol brought back? She's a real looker.”

“I know, right? You think she's into blondes?”

“Even if she was, I doubt she'd go for your scrawny ass.”

“Easy, boys. She might not even be into guys. I could have a shot with her for all you know.”

Daryl groaned inwardly as he entered the cellblock. The new girl that Glenn and Carol brought in the day before was seemingly the hottest topic of discussion amongst everyone and he couldn't escape it, no matter where he tried to run to. Nobody, apart from Glenn, Carol, Rick and Hershel have officially met her, yet everybody had seemingly already formed an opinion about her. Although there were a lot of different opinions, everyone seemingly agreed on one thing; the new girl was hotter than hell.

Daryl was the only guy in the entire prison that hadn't seen her yet. He was out hunting when Carol and Glenn brought her back and he hasn't bothered to go out of his way to introduce himself to her ever since he got back. He'd meet her soon enough and he wasn't hoping to make friends with her. The more people he managed to keep at arm's length, the better.

“Yo, Daryl. What do you think about the new chick?” a guy called Mitchell asked him, snapping him from his thoughts.

Daryl shrugged. “Ain't met her yet,” he replied, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Okay, but have you seen her?” another guy called Ronnie asked. “I'm telling you, man, hotter than the sun on a summer day. I'm hoping she'll let me hit at least once.”

“How 'bout ya leave the poor girl alone?” Daryl snapped, turning to face the group that was walking with him. “She ain't even been here two days and y'all are already ogling her like she's some prize to be won. Have some more respect.”

“Jeez,” Mitchell whistled. “What's got your panties up in a bunch?”

“Nothin',” Daryl muttered angrily, turning around to walk further into the cellblock. “Jus' wanna get this fuckin' job done and all y'all can do is yap 'bout some girl ya dun' even know properly. I dun' give two flyin' shits 'bout who or wha' ya talk 'bout, but do it after the job's done. Y'all ain't free loadin' here. Do yer job, earn yer keep.”

“Sorry,” a girl called Ariana muttered, sending him an apologetic look. “What do you need us to do?”

“Take those planks over there and take em to the guard tower. Rick wants to fortify it and wants it done by the end of the week.”

“What are you gonna do?” Ronnie asked, crossing his arms as he sized Daryl up.

Daryl glared at him and squared his shoulders, looking down on his shorter, scrawny frame. “Hershel needs help with somethin'. I believe ya can understand tha' if the doctor needs somethin' done, it's considered top priority?”

Ronnie shrunk under Daryl's intense glare, nodding quickly. “Yeah, of course.”

“Great.”

With that, Daryl turned on his heel and set off to find Hershel. He didn't have to search far, however, because Hershel halted him before he could go outside.

“Daryl, over here,” the old man called after him, halting him in his tracks.

Daryl turned and walked over to Hershel, nodding at him respectfully. “Wha' ya need, Doc?”

“I'm sure you've heard of the girl Carol and Glenn brought back yesterday by now?” Hershel questioned, chuckling at the slight groan Daryl emitted.

“Who hasn't? Apparently she's really good lookin'. Her looks has been all people has to say 'bout her.”

Hershel nodded. “Unfortunately, that is true. Only Rick, Glenn, Carol and myself has had the pleasure of meeting her personally up until this point. She's a lovely woman. Had no problem that there wasn't anything to ease the pain when I had to stitch her side and she's more than willing to get up and start working to earn her keep. She won't be able to for at least another day or so since her side needs to heal up a bit first, but Carol and Glenn did good with bringing her back. She'll fit right in.”

“Good,” Daryl nodded. “She a good fighter?”

“From what I understand, she's been out on her own since the beginning. She's not dead yet, so I'd say she's alright,” Hershel replied, adjusting on his crutches.

“Alrigh', now enough 'bout her. Wha' did ya need me to do?”

Hershel gave him an encouraging pat on the back, confusing the archer. “You're going to be one of the very few people who gets to say they met the new girl for the next couple of days. I was hoping you could help her fix her bunk? One of the legs on the bunk broke and she's dead set on repairing it. She won't let me help because she keeps insisting I've done enough for her, so I told her I would send someone else to help. She'll be expecting you.”

Daryl pursed his lips but nodded, parting ways with the older man. He walked over to the cell that Hershel had pointed towards and stopped at the doorway, hesitating to make his presence known.

You had your back turned towards the door, hunched over as you inspected the leg of the bunk. You weren't aware of the archer that stood a few feet behind you, engrossed entirely in your own thoughts. That was, until he spoke up behind you.

“Hey. Hershel said ya needed help?”

You froze at the voice, willing the supposed hallucination away. You slowly rose to your feet and turned, locking eyes with the one person you've been searching for since the world went to hell—your boyfriend, Daryl Dixon.

The moment Daryl locked eyes with you, a whirlwind of emotions flooded his being. Relief, love, happiness, wonder, sadness, confusion and so much more that he couldn't decipher. Although his first instinct was to wrap you in his arms and never let go of you again, he hesitated, refusing to believe you were real. He took a step back, his eyes wide as he looked at you.

You stared back at him with equal amounts of disbelief. You took a hesitant step forward. “Daryl?” you whispered. The man in front of you looked slightly different; a little bit older and his hair was longer, but there was no mistaking it. The man in front of you was Daryl.

Daryl remained silent, his eyes locked on you as you continued to take agonizingly slow steps towards him. He watched as you stopped in front of him and hesitantly raised your hand, bringing it to rest on his cheek. Daryl instantly melted into your familiar soft touch, and that was all the confirmation he needed. Without another thought, he gently grabbed you and pulled you into his arms, tightly clinging to you as he pressed multiple kisses to the top of your head.

“Yer real,” he whispered, a laugh of amazement falling from his lips. “Yer real. Yer alive. Yer actually still alive.”

You laughed quietly against his chest as you held onto him tightly, never wanting to let go ever again. Your laughter soon turned into sobs, tears of relief and happiness falling from your eyes.

“I thought I'd never see you again,” you whispered through your tears, burying your face into his chest. “I thought you were dead, Dar.”

“'M here,” he whispered into your ear, a few tears of his own falling from his eyes. “'M alive. Yer alive. 'M never lettin' ya go ever again. 'M sorry I ever left tha' day in the first place.”

“It's okay. I'm sorry, too. I never should've asked you to cut Merle out of your life. He's your brother. It was unreasonable of me.”

“Nah, it wasn't,” he denied, placing another gentle kiss on the top of your head. “Ya were jus' lookin' out fer me. I never shoulda gotten mad at ya in the first place.”

“Let bygones be bygones?” you whispered against his chest.

Daryl chuckled before nodding. “Yeah, of course.”

The two of you held onto each other for a couple of moments longer until you pulled back. Daryl was about to voice his protest until you pressed your lips against his in an urgent kiss, wrapping your arms around his neck. His arms settled on your waist, pulling you closer into him as he kissed you back. There was no lustful hunger behind the kiss—there was only love and longing, two broken parts finally reuniting and mending together as one.

Daryl pulled back and placed his forehead against yours, closing his eyes. “I missed ya so much,” he whispered, willing the lump in his throat to go away.

“I missed you too. More than you even know,” you replied, cupping Daryl's cheek with one of your hands. “But I found you. I finally found you.”

Daryl leaned into your touch before turning his head to kiss the palm of your hand. However, he soon pulled away from you and strode over to your bag, slinging it over your shoulder.

“C'mon,” he said, taking your hand in his as he pulled you to walk beside him.

“Where are we going?” you questioned, falling into step beside the man you loved.

“There ain't no need fer ya to sleep in there. Yer gonna sleep with me in my cell,” Daryl said simply, pulling you along to his cell.

You giggled but said nothing, silently following him into his cell. When he placed your bags down on the floor, Daryl placed a soft kiss on your lips before stalking out of the cell.

“Where are you going?” you called after him, furrowing your eyebrows in confusion.

“'M gonna find tha' prick who objectified ya and teach him a lesson. Yer hot as fuck, yes, that much I can accept people sayin', but Ronnie implied he wanted to sleep with ya outrigh'. He's really gonna regret sayin' tha' in a few moments. Dun' even try to talk me outta it.”

“Hey, Dar?” you called after him, halting him in his tracks. “I love you.”

Daryl smiled at you. “I definitely love ya more.”

#krys writes .ೃ࿐#daryl dixon #daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon imagine #daryl dixon x female reader #daryl x reader #the walking dead #twd daryl #norman reedus #norman reedus x reader

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directdogman · 23 days

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Hi, I hope you're having a decent day! I'm sorry if this is an invasive set of questions - feel free not to answer - but do you still actively like DSaF as your own creation, or is it more of a "it was fun while it lasted but i outgrew it and it's for the best to leave it behind" kind of project? Do you ever regret making the games? If you knew they would get so popular, is there anything you would have changed about them? Is there anywhere I could read more of your writing.

It fluctuates a bit. These last couple of years, I've really just been sorta nostalgic for it. I've seen a lot of people discuss those games being a source of comfort during bad times in their lives, people talking about how much the characters mean to them and it's hard not to smile when you see that.

It's a funny thing for close friends of yours to see people WITH fanmade DSaF merch out in the wild, or to watch a random youtube video and being hit with a DSaF reference outta nowhere. It happens from time to time, even today. On a few occasions, I've even had a person reference my work to me in real life and not realize who they were talking to, believe it or not. It's really fun to play dumb and get someone to explain your work to you like you don't know what it is.

I certainly didn't think any of that would happen when I first made the series, or even during development. I think the normal assumption would be to look at DSaF as it exists now and assume its release was a peak for it, but believe it or not, the official discord only had 30 people in it shortly before 3 dropped! The archive listing of the series (reposted to a single page after the series ended) is now sitting at over 1.1 MILLION downloads.

People kinda assume the true heyday of something is when it's new, when it's fresh and novel. For instance, some people look back at when FNaF itself was new and see that time as its peak because it had a lot of internet cultural relevance as big new indie thing on the block. But, raw numbers don't lie. The series has been continually growing since its conception and that growth has similarly bled over to its fan projects. This explains why DSaF, despite not having a new series release in almost 6 years, seems to be inexplicably growing.

Just recently, I saw someone post footage of a scene from DSaF 2 on Twitter, which got over 16k likes. People praised its writing and largely celebrated the scene. The ironic thing about that particular scene is that I remembered being unsure if it was good or not, so I showed it off in one of the FNaF community hubs. The response was broadly lukewarm to negative. Now, it's held up as one of the best scenes in those games. That's kind of the point I'm trying to make, my thoughts on the series have certainly changed with everyone's else with years of hindsight.

Heh. I'm not sure if I've talked about this in a long time, but y'know, the very first scene I implemented in-game was actually the very first Phone Guy scene in DSaF 1, more or less exactly how it appears in-game today. This was before I'd even written the bulk of the game. I was pretty unfamiliar with visual novels as a whole, pretty unsure if something like this would be palatable to a fandom that was really just used to sit 'n' survive stuff that were far more gameplay than text. I mean, there wasn't any FNaF fangames really LIKE DSaF before that point. Closest was FNaFb, a jokey turn based RPG made in the same engine.

The engine I made the game in is also not exactly fit for VNs out of the box either, and I wasn't 100% sure the idea would actually work. But, the very first time I added the image of the prize corner, Phone Guy, the audio of that iconic cheesy stock track and booted up a test screen, I had a little moment where I said "Oh. I think I'm onto something interesting here." I kinda remembering instantly realizing in that single moment how much potential the idea had. Over 8 years later, I still remember that moment like it was yesterday.

I think lately, that's the sort of stuff I think of when I see people coming to me and asking about the series. Yes, it's really rough around the edges, yes, there's jokes that've aged poorly. But, it is a source of comfort for people and entertains tens of thousands of people each month. And that's gotta count for something, right?

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cryptidghostgirl · 7 months

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Hey so uhh, it said requests are open so I'm gonna shoot my shot ig. I have this fic idea but I'm a shit writer so here it goes.

Alastor x reader but the concept is that the reader is Alastor's shadow.

Now, hear me out: Alastor is said to be a powerful demon since his manifestation in hell, we know that it takes demons quite some time to accumulate their power before they become overlords.

If "The Radio demon" was an alias was that operated between more that one person, then it would make sense as to why and how he rose to the top very quickly (assuming we ignore the fact he made a deal with someone).

That and Alastor's black appendages and shadows seem out of theme for a demon who's primary power is based on Radio.

As for how they met, it could go two ways. Either with Alastor, a man hungry for power, strikes his first deal with Shadow!Reader to get them to do his bidding. Or Shadow!Reader offering Alastor their services after realizing that he has a lot of potential. Either way, their partnership blooms into a sort of kinship between the two of them.

Do with this concept whatever you want with it, I just wanna get this concept out in the world in the hands of someone much more capable of writing than I am.

Enjoy!

A/N please always shoot your shot. this is such a fun idea,, thank you so much for entrusting it to me. I've decided just to write their meeting for now but may continue it later on. I hope you like it!!

The Thing (Alastor x Gn!Reader)

Pairing: Alastor x Reader

Warnings: Mention of cannibalism and the Donner party. I think that is it.

Word Count: 1,752

Master Lists:

Master Lists

Hazbin Hotel Master List

Click here and leave a comment if you want to be added to any taglists or send me an ask about it.

There was a secret, one that no one knew, one that would tear the demon realm apart at its edges if anyone found out. The illusive Radio Demon and his shadow were, in fact, just that: the illusive Radio Demon and his shadow.

Y/n was master of the immaterial, shifting forms and shedding skins the way others change their clothes. When Alastor arrived in Hell, they had long since been established as one of the many demons to be aware of.

Rumor runs rampant everywhere but especially in Hell where in controls, combines, and divides. Y/n was just that, a rumor. Never the same face twice, never in the same place twice. No one even knew their name, simply referring to them as the thing or the hunger. They snatched sinner's souls from their grasps and devoured them whole. An urban legend, a ghost story only here, all the ghosts were real.

Alastor was as observant in death as he had been in life, it didn't take him long to catch sight of the shadow. Though he had only been in Hell a few days when it had first appeared, he could tell it had nefarious intent.

The thing was a good actor, almost good enough to fool him. It lay in the reality of his own shadow, following his moves perfectly. However, no one is perfect and every once in a while, there would be a little slip. The first one which had caught Alastor's attention was when he had taken a step forward and it had gone the wrong way, quickly righting itself and following after the mistake.

Alastor pretended not to have noticed, but he remembered. He lay in wait for another such occurrence. It was not until two days later, when his shadow gave him four hands rather than two with no apparent explanation such as an odd angle to the sun or another body near him, that his thesis was confirmed. There was, in fact, something following him.

It stuck like glue to the heels of his shoes. Alastor was quiet, Alastor schemed. He had trapped it in a pure white room which he had fixed lightbulbs in from all sides. When he had turned on the lights, he had turned on them, arms crossed and foot tapping expectantly.

The shadow had looked this way and that, searching for a place to hide. When they realized it was no use, they had pulled themselves from the floor into three dimensions and faced him head on.

"Who are you?" Alastor had asked before quickly reevaluating his question, "What are you?"

It moved like liquid in the air, twisting and dissolving at its edges. Bubbles, or what was almost bubbles, what looked like bubbles, rose to the surface of it's body and as they popped, a demon began to take the shadow's place.

"I am everything."

They were many voiced. When they spoke, it sounded like a crowd of people saying the same thing in unison. Alastor stared at the demon, unamused. They were a full person now, about a head shorter than him and seemingly very calm considering he had them trapped. Then again, Alastor had only been in Hell a few weeks by this point, not nearly enough time to work up the sort of reputation he was hoping for.

"Is that a bad pickup line?" Alastor asked, "Am I supposed to ask what you mean and you'll say something like 'I could be everything to you?'"

The demon raised their eyebrows, shaking their head.

"It is the truth."

A tense silence fell between the pair. Alastor broke it with a sigh, rubbing his temples in irritation. He hadn't really known what to expect from this endeavor save an event to break up the monotony of his days. The demon was not delivering.

"Yeah, alright."

"Who are you?"

"You've been following me for what, two weeks? And you don't know?"

The demon shrugged.

"I was trying to be polite. It has been a while since I have spoken to anyone."

"Sure. Well," Alastor turned to the door, pulling a skeleton key from his pocket, "this has been interesting. Enjoy eternity alone in a well lit room."

Alastor opened the door. The demon made no move to follow him out of the room, no move to escape. They simply watched him in curiosity, their head tilted slightly to one side. Alastor hesitated, his body blocking the exit and his back towards them. He watched them over his shoulder as a thin black smoke seemed to emanate from the outline of their body.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

An empty threat, barley even a threat to be honest. Alastor stepped out of the room, closing the door firmly behind him. Once he was sure it was locked, he slipped the key back into his pocket. He made to leave, intending to go out on the town in a desperate attempt to find entertainment. Barley two steps forward, and shadows began to pool on the floor before his feet, blocking Alastor's path.

He watched in a mild interest as the demon pulled themselves from the shadows, taking on a different face than they had worn in the room. Now they were broader, taller, stronger. They looked mean.

"I told you."

"Is this what you meant when you said you were everything?"

The demon nodded once. Their wide eyes were unblinking, unchanging, as their form mutated again. A spider demon now with many arms and a lanky figure. Alastor raised his eyebrows.

"So, you let me catch you."

"I was bored. No one ever notices me until it is too late, except you."

"I find that hard to believe. You were easy to spot."

The demon's eyes widened slightly at this, something similar to surprise but halfway to fear.

"Like I said, Alastor the interesting." they mused after a moment.

Alastor bowed his head slightly in recognition of the title.

"I could take your soul, destroy you. Why were you so willing to risk all that? Surely a bit of entertainment can't be worth that much to you."

He was trying to get a gage on the creature, and he knew they could tell. It was a mild threat, one he couldn't follow through on even if he wanted to. Sure, he could maim the creature, cause it great pain, but beyond leaving them formless for a few days tops he was powerless. He knew that, but he didn't know if they did. Either way, the situation would play out to his advantage. It would either give him more information, or the upper hand.

They considered the situation for a moment before answering. Alastor couldn't figure out if it was because of their interest in him, for fear of him, or some third, other undefined motivation. No matter what it was, he didn't care. This was the most engaged he had felt in weeks.

"You aren't an overlord. You can't make a contract."

"And you are?"

"No."

"Too weak?" Alastor teased and the demon glared at him.

"Far from it. I don't like being seen."

"But you're letting me see you."

"I am allowing you to see a face. It is not mine."

Alastor fell silent. He had figured that the demon before him didn't have a true form, or if they did, that it was shadow. Things were becoming curiouser by the second. He was no longer regarding his attempts to trap the demon as a waste of time.

"So, you want power but anonymity. Those things don't go hand in hand."

"I know. You want fame and lack the power. Another unmatched set."

Alastor's ear twitched at that, displeasure running through his veins and clouding his sight. His hand tightened where he held his microphone.

"I have power enough."

"What use is a Radio Demon with nothing to broadcast?"

"Are you suggesting a deal?"

The demon smiled a smile that was too big for the face it wore. Alastor had to admit, they were unsettling. He understood the rumors.

"I've heard of your... reputation shall we say? But if you think I will trust someone who's face I have never even seen, you are dead wrong."

"Was that a joke?" the demon tentatively asked after a moment.

"Not on purpose but I supose so."

The thing seemed to roll the idea over in their mind as their form changed once again, this time becoming a demon with the body of a shark. They seemed not even to notice they were changing as their eyes flicked back to Alastor's.

"You want information. Then you will be open to the idea of a partnership."

"This was your goal all along, a partnership as you put it."

A statement, not a question. The demon smiled, their eyebrows slightly raised.

"Oh, was it now. At least I had an end goal to this little... situation."

Alastor scoffed, looking away. They were right. He had come up with no ideas past capturing the thing that had been following him. He was in the dark. They had everything figured out.

"Show me your real face. Then we can talk."

"Alastor Hartifelt. Died 1933. Louisiana famed radio host and serial killer cut down in his prime by a hunter who mistook him for a deer."

"Are you trying to intimidate me?"

"Not at all."

The demon shifted once again. It took them longer to find form this time, remaining as a black cloud for a few moments before at last settling on an almost human body. They were shorter than he had expected, smaller too and decked out in what seemed to be colonial dress. They held a hand out to him.

"Y/n L/n. Died 1846. Newly wed and member of the Donner party."

"Cannibalism." Alastor mused, gently taking their hand in his.

He had expected them to be cold, immaterial. He had expected his hand to slide right through theirs. Instead, the demon, Y/n, was warm and solid to the touch, just like anyone else. They smiled, mouth full of needles.

"We all take what we are given."

"I suppose."

Y/n dropped his hand and crossed their arms. Despite their stature, they radiated authority and poise. It was almost impressive.

"If you will be the face, I will be the force."

"No soul binding."

"I couldn't if I wanted to. Not an overlord."

Alastor looked them up and down. His smile grew.

"Not an overlord yet."

----

tags:

@willowshadenox @i-love-jafar @elfyeet @reader3 @lazygirlfanfic0-0

#hazbin hotel #x reader #hazbin alastor #alastor #hazbin hotel alastor #alastor hazbin hotel #alastor the radio demon #hazbin hotel x reader #alastor x gn!reader #gn reader #gender neutral y/n #gender neutral reader #gender neutral pronouns #they/them reader #alastor x reader #the radio demon x reader #hazbin hotel x y/n #alastor hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel x gn reader

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palskippah · 1 month

Text

Hi! Over the last few months I've made these drawings of my Goldenheart fankid :D

He's Cyrus Goldenheart and he's my newest coolest baby and I love him very much.

Some stuff about them under the cut! And also other things and more drawings sjsj

-First off, know that Cyrus is his English name, because in Spanish he's Ciro Goldenheart- because Ambrosius is Ambrosio in the hispanic dub and that's very cool (also, I'm glad they didn't change Ballister's name to Trabuco and just left it as Ballister askdjsa)

-Also, I love the headcanon that in this universe family names come from the mash-up of last names to whatever sounds coolest. So Ballister and Ambrosius picked the last name Goldenheart (they could've been Boldloin but both were like hell no- And in Nimona's humble opinion, they were cowards)

>ALSO did you know that in the Latin Hispanic dub Ambrosius calls Ballister 'Balli' instead of 'Bal'? It makes it seem much more like a pet name and I love it.

>Also, headcanon that Ballister calls Ambrosius 'Ambrosito' when he's being particularly corny. (It works as a diminutive of his name with the -ito but also, osito means 'little bear' in Spanish, so it's a very cool pet name)

>Also, Ambrosoli, because that's a Chilean candy company, and I think it's funny.

>Now, since they're famous as knights and whatnot, imagine that Goldenheart was the name in which their fans referred to them as a couple- (I know that Balli had been considered a villain and an awful person and stuff after being framed, but I bet his fans came back after the movie ending and whatnot :''v) and then they got married and became the Goldenhearts for real, and people were like YEAH WAHOO bc they love them.

-Years after the movie, and after Nimona coming back and all the fixing their relationship thing, they got married and all, and had planned to adopt a kid some years later (because Ballister didn't want to have any babies himself), but then they found out they were expecting and were like 🧍🧍 (maybe my guy got too nervous and made the wettest wet cat eyes ever and that made Ambrosius be like Balli, it's okay, don't worry D: let's talk about this)

>Anyways there was the thing of do we have them or not, and then they had a conversation, like:

(Ballister, still with his puppy-under-the-rain eyes) "...do you want them?" (Ambrosius makes some noncommittally noises) "Do you?" "But do you?" "But do you? You should decide" "Yeah- I just want to know your opinion." "Yeah, but it's your body." "Yeah, but I wouldn't raise them alone, both of us would. Do you want a baby right now?" "But I don't want my opinion to affect your opinion, because you would have the baby and I know how you feel about that and I don't want my decision to affect your decision because it should be your decision... So, what's your dec-?" "For Gloreth's- Stop saying decision! (Ambrosius' stupid attempt at lifting the tension was successful, because Ballister's laughing) Do you want them, yes or no?" "Yes I do, but only if you want them too, and if you don't that's alr-" "I think I do!"

>Then, later that day, there's Ambrosius' like, so... are we going to have a baby? (doubtfully) and Ballister's like I don't know :( (apologetically, because he genuinely doesn't know pipipi)

>So anyways, after some more days of thinking (because he had the final say in it, of course), Ballister's like yeah let's have them and they're both like WOO WE'LL HAVE A BABY :D, and Nimona's like HA! You'll get huge! And congrats too, I guess, when she's told.

>And then like eight months go past and Nimona's like HA! I knew it! and Ballister's like shut the fuck up >:( I'm not in the mood right now and Nimona's like (waving her hands) fine, chill, boss. i'll make the joke later then. And Ballister stares blankly and goes ...thanks (y'know those silent stares he does like three times in the movie?) (I want to write down all the expecting headcanons I got but whwhwh)

-Ambrosius' like we have to name them something with C, so we're A, B and C :D and Ballister's like yeah :D! so they look for names with C, that's their only requirement.

-Ballister and Ambrosius had a long as hell list with names with C and whenever Balli was like hey we should decide on one soon, no? D: Ambrosius was like yeah let's pick one :D, but it never led to anything because they couldn't decide.

>As a placeholder they called the baby Baby and then forgot about choosing a name, and then they were the same day in the clinic/hospital going through the list while holding their very much already born baby and being like this one? no- or this one? what about-? and the problem with having so many options was that they couldn't decide on one.

>They weren't truly that much of in a hurry, because they could name him later, but still they felt guilty because they had had several months to have that ready (literally everything had been ready for their baby's arrival, except his name)

>Finally Nimona, after taking a small peek at their list, was like, y'know what? he looks like a Cyrus, he reminds me of the sun, (bc he was wearing soft yellows and stuff, maybe, and the bed's sheets in which Ballister was lying were a light blue) and both Ballister and Ambrosius looked at their baby and considered the name. So, he's named Cyrus.

-The news refers to him as Baby Goldenheart though. Very cute baby, the public agrees on.

>Then there's the debate of which dad he looks like the most, and baby pictures are pulled from years back and they're like LOOK (posts a pic of baby Ambrosius with his Gloreth's descendant mom) THEY LOOK ALMOST IDENTICAL (and they actually do, same eyes and nose, same curlier hair and round cheeks)

>Then when he grows up, he actually looks too much like Ambrosius, but also a tad bit like Balli (it's the black hair and eyebrows).

-Even after he's all grown up, his family still calls him Baby instead of his name. And he knows that if either of his dads call him Cyrus is because he probably fucked up.

-I have a headcanon for Ballister's father, he looked almost just like Ballister but had a more hooked nose and curlier hair, but same big eyes, also had a beard and stuff. The thing is that Baby has black, curlier hair too and people think it's just like a combination between Balli's dark hair and Ambrosius' curlier hair BUT NO it's his grandpa's 😭 pipipi

(Translation) Blackheart (in my head he's Blackheart idk why ashjds maybe Boldheart had been his unmarried name, and Balli changed his to that alongside his name): My love, you're the prettiest girl with that cloak! <3 Kid Ballister: Abba, but I don't want to be the prettiest girl :c Blackheart, grabbing Balli's nose: The handsomest then! Kid Ballister: Hehe! (thinking about Bluey's laughter for this one pipipi)

>Also, know that Ballister's name was an inside joke between the two, were his abba had said he was his 'ballister' (the pillar that kept him upright) (they usually talked in Urdu, not in English, Balli had a better vocabulary than him from watching TV and going to an English-talking school), and Balli had burst out laughing, saying 'abba, it's baluster!' and his dad was like 'nope! I'm pretty sure it's ballister!' just to see his little girl still laughing.

>Anyways, then he got arrested and stuff and Balli changed his name to that, and then there's this moment a year later where, in jail, he sees his girl (now a boy) for the last time in the news, where they show him as he will start his training as knight and Blackheart's super happy because his son is actually alright (he had been worried sick about him all this time) and y'know, point is that he dies shortly after that and Ballister finds out years later when he tried looking for him D:

>(If you tell me but Kym, ballister is already the correct word, I'll tell you huh because I actually have no idea, you know I speak Spanish :'''v I tried translating Balli's name and it got corrected to baluster each time ajsdka)

>By the way, Ballister's scar over his eye is from when he had been like three and had fell against a sharp end, causing a slash and a lot of bleeding that had almost made Blackheart die from a heart attack. He had hurried to take him to the nearest health center, all while Ballister had been crying with his face all drenched in blood, and his dad had been genuinely thinking that his little girl was about to die from his carelessness (he hadn't been looking when Ballister fell).

>The slash over the eye is the reason he knows for sure that that's his child on TV, standing beside the Queen.

>Anyways, I love angsty headcanons with parents.

>Got another headcanon that Ambrosius got two moms, both don't spend much time with him from being too busy, but they love their son dearly (and y'know that Ambrosius' voice actor said that the Director was his parental figure? Maybe since his moms weren't around much, he started to look up to her as a mother and- wa, IT'S JUST I read a headcanon/theory (?) about the Director grooming Ambrosius for her benefit and it made a lot of sense 100/10).

>Ambrosius' moms are cool, although they did sort of force him to start his training to become a knight when he was of age to go into the Institute (he either went to knighthood or the family business, his knight mom (who's currently retired from knighthood and working at their family company) showed him her cool sword to lure him in, and his businesswoman mom showed him some colorful statistics- of course the sword won), but he ended up loving knighthood (despite everything), so he doesn't hold a grudge against that.

>(wait i remembered that Korean tradition of sitting babies of a certain age in front of objects so they choose one and that dictates how they'll be in the future? pipipi)

>Random headcanon, but Ambrosius is actually a blond and dyes some parts a darker color to achieve the cooler hairstyle. Also, the 'every descendant of Gloreth was/is/gotta be blonde' is interesting and gives place for analysis and stuff, but I've got this one where every descendant of Gloreth has somewhat of bunny teeth or a silly smile, and that's better in this case because I don't have to make Baby a blond- but his smile, when he's older, reminds Nimona of Gloreth's.

-Baby is a sweetheart with absolutely everyone. He smiles and coos nicely whenever people try to entertain him.

>Except with Todd. Whenever he sees him he spits up his milk and Ballister's pretty sure that it's a very weird coincidence, but Ambrosius and Nimona hold up a debate, convinced that the hate for punchable faces must be genetic and untaught, given that Todd had always been nice with Baby. Ballister throws Nimona a look and she says, my trauma, my jokes, Boss. And Ballister has to reluctantly agree and accept that he can't argue with that.

>Headcanon too that Ballister had called his father abba (looked it up and that's a fond way to call fathers in Urdu, if I'm wrong sorry :'v), until he was arrested and eventually died, so he taught Baby to call him abba too, and Ambrosius taught Baby to call him daddy, and even in adulthood he calls them that. And then there's Nimona who tried to teach him to call them Boss and Goldie, but she never succeeded.

(Imagine Nimona and Baby sat in front of eachother on the floor of the living room or something) Nimona, who had turned to look like Ballister, pointing at themself: Who am I? Baby: Abbababa- (he's a lil confused but he got the spirit, he's getting there in understanding askjdsad Ambrosius is currently Dadada) Nimona: No, Baby, Boss! Boss, say boss! :D Baby: Abbababa (happily reaching for him) Nimona: No, Boss! I'm your boss! (a cutesy tone) I'm Boss, Baby! Yeah, who's a cute baby? :D It's you! (then she got distracted and started playing with him)

-Nimona is Baby's sibling/cool aunt/mentor/bad influence/babysitter/something something. She's not a Goldenheart (and she doesn't want to be, she's just Nimona) but she's happy to be a part of their family anyway.

>They're the Goldenhearts + Nimona :''v

>Also yeah, Nimona is Ballister's sidekick/child/lil' sibling/friend/little menace/something something. The point here is that they love and care for each other very much <3

>Also, Nimona is Ambrosius' first ever, #1 hater, and he doesn't blame her for that. (They got a cool relationship though, like they like to bicker and wrestle with each other, and Nimona always wins because Ambrosius isn't very trained in fighting snakes, crocodiles or gorillas or any weird animal for that matter) Both love Ballister and that's sort of their main point in common, among other things.

-For a very long time, Baby had thought that in the world existed several pink creatures named Nimona, just as several adults named Daddy existed, and many kids like himself were named Baby. His Abba's the only one named that though, it seems. Then, when he's like three, he starts to realize that Nimona is just one person, and that apparently his Daddy and Abba's names weren't that. Abba's name wasn't even Boss, like he had suspected, and Daddy's wasn't Goldie. And then, as if that wasn't enough for the day, they tell him your name is Cyrus. Imagine his surprise.

-Baby is a daddy's boy for real and he loves both of his dads so so much :'v He also loves Nimona very dearly.

>He sees both of his dads being affective with each other and he copies that, as well as other things. Holds Balli's face to look into his eyes directly (he doesn't know that what Ambrosius does is just touch their foreheads together), he smacks his mouth against Ambrosius' face, harshly, and leaving him full of drool as he tries to bite him (doesn't know how to kiss yet, but when he figures that out he's always giving them), smacks Nimona's head with his little hands (he's trying to pet her hair, like he usually sees his abba petting the pink creatures) and all that. He's very sweet I'm telling you waa :'''v

-Ballister and Ambrosius try not to make Nimona take care of Baby too much, but Nimona herself looks for chances to take care of him.

>Also when he had been just born, of course Ballister and Ambrosius were all sleep-deprived and busy, so she would transform to look like either of them and Baby wouldn't tell the difference. If all, he was happy when all of a sudden there were two of either of his dads :''v

-Dumb headcanon that when Baby cried at night, they usually went 'ro-sham-bo' about it, and every single time they do the same hand gesture, and at the fifth or fourth (depending on how tired he is), Ambrosius will go ah fuck it >:( and just stand up himself to see what Baby needs. This happens way too much, and Ballister knows, and Ambrosius knows too. Baby doesn't but he's glad that every time he cries, it's very likely that his daddy will show up after a while.

-I'm thinking that Ballister would be that kind of dad that used to be afraid of holding his baby when they were a newborn, and then plays with them roughly when they stop being too fragile.

(Translation) First part Ballister (walking): Okay- Careful... (First day out of the clinic) Second part: Ballister: Do I throw him your way, Nimona? Nimona: Yeah, throw him!

-Ballister is one for darker clothes and all that, but when they found out about Baby, he started getting the most colorful clothes for them. Whenever he went out for whatever reason during those months, he came back with at least one piece of clothing, be it a onesie, a pair of socks, a hat, or some cute overalls. Baby's clothes drawer had already been overflowing with clothes just a few months before he had been born, and they had to get another one to fit in all the clothes because Ballister refused to stop getting more.

>Something something him only using darker clothes since he was a little kid and his dad not being able to afford him a bigger wardrobe and wanting to give Baby all the stuff he didn't have - thinking about my mom in this sense, she said she had bought me so many cute clothes when I was a baby bc she had had to share all her clothes with her sisters and their clothes had never been that nice bc of money and :'v

-Broskii I got more headcanons from when they were expecting Baby and I want to tell them all to you BUT I gotta make another post exclusively about that pipipi

-I know that the creator of Nimona said that the Institution most likely got dissolved, but I think this thing works as the cops and police of investigations and stuff, so maybe they didn't dissolve it, but rather stated new policies and values to be taught to the current knights and also to the future generations. And this change still takes a lot of time to happen but it does happen so- yippie ?

>Sorry I say this just so Ballister and Ambrosius can still be knights pipipi. Ballister is Sir Goldenheart and Ambrosius is Captain Goldenheart.

>With that, comes this thought that Nimona gave a knife to Baby once and was like, be free, my child! like taping a knife to a roomba, and then Baby used it like a sword and ran happily to show his dads that he too was cool and had a very big knife like they do when they use their shiny clothes.

>(debating this one bc yeah Nimona loves chaos and hurting people and breaking stuff but she definitely wouldn't like Baby hurting himself, but I still drew this waa I love when babies want to be like their parents)

(Papi means daddy)

-When Baby grows up, he isn't very passionate about becoming a knight (like Ballister had been) and neither of his fathers were keen on forcing him on knighthood (like it happened to Ambrosius), so he dosn't become a knight when he's older, and takes an interest in sciences (blitzmeyer mentioned?? I know her design was used for the queen, but I don't care I'll fit her here one way or another she's my fav scientist) and goes to college and all that, he also likes mechanics and overall stuff that Ballister likes.

>And it's definitely because his abba had been talking to him about this stuff whenever he could (because he loves this stuff, and even before Baby was born, and since they were supposed to talk to the baby so they could recognize their voices, Balli just rambled about this and that, and sometimes even narrated what he was currently working on and stuff :'''v Expecting Headcanons my beloveds)

>And both Nimona and Ambrosius are like: Yeah, see? Even he agrees (about him forgiving Ambrosius a tad bit too quickly, even if both knights had been manipulated and stuff), while Ballister doesn't know if to be exasperated that they don't let the topic go, or laugh because it's pretty amusing how offended Baby is in his behalf over something that happened nearly five years before he was even born.

>Eventually they have to explain everything that surrounded the whole thing and Baby feels actually a tad bit bad for getting as angry as he got at Ambrosius. He's like oops sorry daddy 🧍(I'm still petty though)

>Baby hadn't talked much until he was around three or four, usually just answering things or repeating stuff whenever his dads tried to teach him new words, but then one day he answered a very long rant from Ballister about animals (nerd, had said Nimona) with more animal facts and both Balli and Nimona were like :0 And since then Baby hadn't shut up, and he's always talking.

> Since they share interests, he and Ballister talk a lot about stuff (Balli is like nice, there's two of us now, because Nimona doesn't have it in themself to listen to him talk 23348 hours about one thing, and Baby actually responds with yapping of his own, unlike Ambrosius who is glad to attentively listen to him for hours but doesn't do much more than be receptive of the information most times pipipi) (y'know when someone is talking passionately about something that they like but you don't, but you're happy to hear them talk anyways? that thing sjdj)

(is yapping the correct word? Over at TikTok they use it as talking a lot, so I picked it from context, I hadn't really looked up if it's correctly used sdjksd)

-Baby is a simultaneous bilingual and learned English, Urdu and Korean from his dads and Nimona.

>With this, I'd think Ambrosius was one too (given that he was exposed to English and Korean since he was a baby), but Balli had had to learn English when he was past three maybe since his dad hadn't been very good at it and had mostly spoken in Urdu? Not sure how languages would work in the kingdom, but I guess it's the same as countries where there are different dialects or languages in different regions. (? La verdad no sé, toy chamuyando skjds)

-When he's 14 he gets a growth spurt as expected but then gets even taller than Ballister, and Nimona finds it hilarious (she got surpassed in height two years ago) And he was expected to be tall anyways because both his dads were tall too, but Ballister was like c'mon >:(

-When he got old enough and learned about the whole Queen's death thing, he spent the whole afternoon throwing Ambrosius angry looks, arms crossed and all. And after a beat of silence, he'd suddenly say: No, and you know what angers me the most? and then would ramble about literally everything the man had done wrong at that moment, all while Ambrosius himself nodded in agreement. Then Baby would say (to Balli): You forgave him way too quickly, abba, I would've burned his house down or- I don't know- but how?! And just like that?!

-Nimona was determined on teaching Baby all she knew, and Ballister was like yeah it's okay if he turns out like you, but turned out that Baby is the most chill kid ever actually, like he lacks this wish for mayhem that many kids have, like Nimona hoped he'd have (like she expected the antichrist/chucky or something). In execution, at least, because he has great ideas, if Nimona's willing to make them true.

Baby, about seven: Nimona, and what if *a plan in excruciating detail of the most deranged nature* Nimona: HEHE YEAH >:D Let's do it! Baby: No, but you do it :) Nimona: huh ??

>And this is because he knows that Nimona can do all this better and he thinks it's funny to watch her wreak havoc, while also not getting in trouble himself. (His dads tell him be a good kid and he's like yup I'll be a good kid c:)

-Nimona draws Baby like a little star because he's small (plus there's Ballister drawing over her drawings, thinking about him picking Nimona's drawing habits of scribbling on top whatever comes to mind)

(Nimona's saying: make your own drawings! while trying to push him away, and Ballister's laughing - their arms are like in a weird position that in my head made sense shdjdh)

-Plus here's a drawing of Nimona having cat behaviors (becoming a loaf anywhere) (ronroneo means purring).

>When Baby hadn't been born yet, she'd loaf right over Ballister's belly and simply sleep or make biscuits sometimes, and when he tried to take her off himself, she'd try to not use her claws but she'd grab against his shirt anyways, going BUT BOSS- Baby and me are chilling! And this translated as Nimona loafing on top of Baby whenever he's quiet enough, after he's born.

-I made another post about the comic versions of Ballister and Ambrosius on TikTok, and added a comic version of Baby too, following the logic on his current design (Balli's hair and eyebrows, Ambrosius' nose and eyes, and all that)

>'Papito Corazón' in other countries means a very good, diligent father (? I think), and at least in Chile is used sarcastically for men that are emotionally or financially neglectful with their children 😭 Comic Ambrosius is one at the beginning, but he becomes a better father later on, promise sdjsjd

>This Baby had a hard time recognizing Ambrosius at the beginning because they didn't spend much time together, and Baby has no object permanence yet.

>Anyway, Ballister and Ambrosius aren't a thing here, it was sort of a enemies-with-benefits kinda situation that led to Baby :'v

>(also know that I haven't read the comic yet, so if this seems ooc I agree with you, because I really don't know these characters askdjsa sorry)

-ALSO here's the first drawings I made of him before settling on this design, also it's from when I was trying to draw Nimona sjjs

>He had brown hair instead of black, but the rest is all almost the same.

And that's it so far!

If you read till here, I hope you liked it!

Have these sillies kissing, it's from a video I did 🧍 Ambrosius gives Ballister 23783 kisses and Balli gives him one (1)

Also, the limit for images is 30, which is a shame because I wanted to add more stuff sjdjsd I'll make another post if I compile enough drawings to make a big post, or make that post about them expecting Baby

(I love the Nimona mains so so much, they're 24/7 in my mind)

#nimona #nimona 2023 #goldenheart #ballister boldheart #ambrosius goldenloin #my art #fankid #goldenheart fankid #almost everything was thought in spanish and posted first in spanish over at TikTok whwh #there's some stuff i didn't translate because I was too lazy sorry asjdakdj but I hope it's understandable anyways #headcanon that they're very much chilean and their kingdom is at the south of Chile asjkdadj #I don't make the rules sorry #oh also trans balli for the win #Is it too noticeable that he's my favorite? pipipi #also sorry I'm not sure how I should draw his robotic arm sjda looks different in each drawing

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beomiracles · 4 months

Text

「 GREED 」

DREAM RECALL your kind heart often led you down dangerous paths. So when there's a knock on your door and you find a beautiful man in dire need of your help, who are you to turn him down? Even if it may cost you your life.

pairings vampire!taehyun x afab!human reader warnings minor character death, descriptions of violence, descriptions of injury, DUB-CON (taehyun compels reader), blood drinking, oral (f. rec), vaginal fingering, unprotected sex, orgasm denial, breast play, marking, choking, manhandling, slight dumbification?, taehyun refers to reader only as 'human', prey/predator dynamics. please let me know if I missed any !!

wc -> 6.5k

#serene adds ✎... ahem the literal bible of warnings...anyway! guys I lowkey really like this one, it's my first ever vampire fic, which is crazy because I'm a diehard vampire fan (name any show/movie/book and I will know of it) so I'm surprised that I've managed to go this long without writing one. I really didn't intend for it to get this long and um like 1/3 is just smut... happy reading ! :3

The radio of your old car made a bruising noise before giving up completely, your last bit of civilization diminishing to nothing. Sighing you glance toward your GPS, but even that seemed futile. “I guess it’s just you and me now, Lola”, you state as you peer at your dog in the rear view mirror.

Ahead, the narrow road made for a bumpy ride as you dwelled deeper into the forest. Surrounding you were pine trees, standing tall and proud, looming over you in an almost menacing way, as if to say; you are not welcome here. With both your phone and radio cut off, you were beginning to think that maybe there lay something in the unspoken words of the trees. This was no place for humans, yet you recognized the way the road turned, if ever so slightly, not to mention the familiar large stone that you had climbed so many times before.

Soon the small cottage comes into view, and it was just as you had remembered it, save for the overgrown lawn that reaches its way through the old wooden planks of the porch. Your vehicle comes to a stop and as you step outside, the earthy smell of the forest greets you. Lola, on the other hand, sems skeptical; she fuzzes for a moment before finally getting out as you opened the trunk for her. “Oh don’t be so quick to judge it, you haven’t even seen the inside yet”, you give your dog a few pats before retrieving your large bag from the car.

The old wooden steps creak under your weight as you make your way toward the front door. Rust had formed around the lock and it took more than a few tries to get the darned thing opened. With the push of your shoulder, the old door finally budges and you step inside. Nostalgia immediately fills your senses, it smells stuffy and old yet exactly like your childhood. The many summers you had spent cooped up in the small house, plenty of your drawings remaining on the wallpapered walls.

It had been years since the passing of your parents, years since the house became yours, and years since anyone had even bothered to acknowledge its existence. In a way, you supposed you felt bad for the place, yet you hadn’t been able to come here without the painful memories of your parents flooding your mind. Not up until recently had you felt ready, ready to return here and remember the good things, the good memories. You wanted this house to remain a happy place for you.

“Well it could definitely use a sweep, what’d you say, Lola?” The dog lets out a gruff of agreement as she noses at the dust covered sofa with a displeased look. Most of the place had been drowned in layers upon layers of dust and spiderwebs, you were certain that all kinds of animals lingered around the old building, seeking shelter from the harsh conditions the outside world provided.

You spend the rest of the day cleaning, going through old photographs and personal belongings of both you and your parents. The downs of being an only child you supposed, not having anyone to share your grief with. It would’ve been nice to not be completely alone in the mess that your parents left, from arranging their funeral to selling their house back in the city. The project that was this cabin had all become too much, and thus you had put it off, admittedly for longer than you had originally intended. Though now that you were finally getting around to it, it was with a light heart rather than a heavy.

By nightfall you had finished off practically all of the first floor. Flopping down on the now very much clean couch, you let out a tired sigh. Lola was sleeping peacefully on the carpet nearby and you leaned to give her a few pats before reaching for your phone. The device had been in and out of signal throughout the day, you figured you could try your luck with a call.

Bringing it up to your ear, your phone rings, once, twice, three times before there’s a shift in the audio. “Hello?” The voice of your friend calls out on the other line and a small sigh of relief escapes your lips. “Jjunie? Hii, it’s me! Can you hear me?” You ask as there’s a small disturbance in the quality of the call.

“Dimples?” he asks and you giggle, “who else?” Yeonjun lets out a huff of air and you hear the rustling of his mattress as he sits up, “I’ve been texting you like crazy, where have you been all day?” he questions, a tone of fake hurt lingering in his words. “I know”, you mumble as you pick at your cuticle, “I’ve barely had any service all day, it’s a miracle that this call even went through.”

“I guess you’re really living that outdoor mindfulness life now huh?” he teases and you could’ve sworn that you heard the shit eating grin on his face. “Ha-ha”, you muse, “careful or I’ll make you spend the next week here with me. You could use a detox from that phone of yours.” Your friend snorts, “as if. My followers need me.” You roll your eyes, “you sure it’s not the other way around?” you ask to which Yeonjun responds with a row of profanities.

Aside from a few break ups here and there the call runs smoothly and you’re relieved to be having a conversation with another human being for the first time today. After about twenty minutes of catching up, the subject suddenly shifts as Yeonjun’s voice grows wary. “You’ve heard about the stuff that’s been happening right?”

You frown, "No? What stuff?” On the other side of the line, Yeonjun hesitates. “Well c’mon and tell me”, you press as you sit up a little straighter. Drawing in a long sigh, he then exhales, “well there’s been, bodies…” “Bodies?” you repeat, “you mean like…?” — “Dead bodies, yeah.”

A small silence lingers in the air as you process the words of your friend. “Hikers”, he then adds and you gnaw on your bottom lip. “Well there’s plenty of good hiking trails around”, you mumble. It wasn’t unusual for people to try their luck up in this forest, during your summers spent here you had seen plenty of tents indicating someone’s stay. “Some are quite dangerous though and-” —- “That’s not why they died.” Yeonjun interrupts with a solemn voice and you feel your throat go dry.

“Right…” you murmur as your gaze flickers toward Lola, “then how did they die?” Once more, your friend on the other line hesitates. “Please, Jjunie, I need to know, and I don’t exactly have any other way of finding out, other than going out there myself.” Outside of your window, the forest seemed darker than it had all those years ago; something bad had happened here.

“They think it was an animal of some kind…” Yeonjun whispers and suddenly you feel a slight glimmer of hope. “Jjunie, trust me I’ve encountered plenty of-” — “This one’s different, Dimples.” Your friend interrupts you again, though his voice is now uncertain, “this thing, it’s smarter, it…it lures its way inside.”

You swallow, “what do you mean?” Though you weren’t certain that you wanted to know. “It…the bodies, they never left their tents. It came to them.” The silence that follows is palpable and a shiver runs down your spine, despite the fact that you were covered head to toe in blankets.

That night, you barely got any sleep. Your mind kept shifting back toward your conversation with Yeonjun as your gaze flickered to the window. You got up to close the curtains, but it did little to help the uncanny feeling seeping through your veins. Lola seemed to notice it too, she barely made a move to go outside, if only to use the bathroom. As three days passed, your phone refused to work and you became increasingly paranoid.

By your fourth night at the cabin a heavy storm rolled around. This would also mark your fourth night without any signal whatsoever, the events of the outside world remaining unknown to you. The thunder roared outside, and if it wasn’t for Lola’s sensitive hearing, you probably would have missed the light knock to your front door.

The persistent barking of your dog turns your attention toward said door, “what is it, Lola?” you ask to which your dog lets out a small whine. There’s a brief pause and for a moment everything is quiet, even the merciless storm outside seemed to hold its breath. Another knock against the old wood sends your heartbeat into a small spiral. You knew better than to open the door for just any stranger, besides, what business did another human being have in the middle of this forest? Unless… They were a hiker.

Soon a raspy voice echoes out from the other side of the door. “P-please…please help me...” Your eyes widened, were they hurt, had something happened, and why were they alone? “Are you hurt?” you question as you get up and slowly inch toward the door, Lola trails behind you worriedly.

It takes a moment before the voice replies, ragged breaths and soft grunts are all that can be heard. “...yes.” Their answer makes you hesitate, there was something uncanny about the voice, it felt almost strained. Upon noticing your evident doubt the voice pleads to you once more. “Please, please let me in. It hurts…” The voice morphs from a quiet plea into one of sheer desperation.

“Who hurt you?” you ask, still wary as you keep one hand on the doorknob. Behind you, Lola whines in protest as she pulls her tail between her legs. The person on the other side of the door draws in a sharp breath, “I…I don’t know, it…I couldn’t see it clearly but it’ll come back I’m certain.. Please, please let me in!” it begs.

Suddenly, you recall your last conversation with Yeonjun, about the animal preying on hikers. Could this be another of its victims? Whoever was on the other side of the door were in dire need of your help. With one final deep breath you unlock it and turn the handle.

On your doorstep, you find a young man, slightly hunched over as he maintains a tight grip on his left arm. His breathing is labored and his clothes torn. It is not until he glances up at you, a hesitant yet hopeful look on his face that you finally see him. He was beautiful. Big dark eyes stare up at your own, his skin was smooth and perfect, yet sickly pale, you supposed it had to do with being out in this weather.

“Oh my goodness…” you quietly mumble as you take in the state of the man. “Come in.”

Upon urging him inside and shutting the door tightly behind you, you guide him to sit on one of the chairs by the dining table. The man thanks you over and over for your kindness as you rush to get him a warm blanket. “What’s your name?” you wonder as you place the quilt over his shoulders. He silently thanks you before replying, “Taehyun.”

Just when you’re about to tell him your own, Lola emits a loud bark as she growls toward the man. Taehyun gives her a questioning glance but doesn’t seem to pay her any further attention. “Lola! Quit that!” you scold, embarrassed over your dog's odd behavior. “She isn’t usually like this, I don’t know what’s gotten into her…” you apologize as you swat the dog away with your hand.

Taehyun gives you a small smile, “it’s alright, I’m certainly not the most pleasant thing to gaze upon at this given moment.” You thought his statement to be debatable as your eyes trail across his well built frame; stopping as they reach the large gash on his left arm. “Oh my, your…your arm”, you exclaim as you watch the way blood trickles from the fresh wound. Following your horrified gaze, Taehyun winces as he flexes his arm slightly.

“Stay here, I’ll get you something for the pain!” You say as you scurry out of the kitchen and to your bedroom where you kept most of your essential supplies. Thankfully you had thought to bring along a medical kit, in case of an emergency like this. Though you were rather unsure if your meek bandage and lacking surgical skills would do much good to the large gash on his arm. Before exiting, you make sure to shut Lola in, not wanting her to cause yet another scene, she whines in protest as you do but you pay it little mind.

Hastily, you return to the kitchen, and as you set the medkit down you begin rummaging through it. “I should have some kind of disinfectant here..” you mumble without lifting your gaze. It wasn’t until you went to check on the severity of his injuries once more that you froze in your tracks. The once large wound on his arm was…gone. You frown, “what…but I could’ve sworn…”

The quiet chuckle emitting from the man before you makes your blood run cold as you lift your gaze to meet his. Taehyun’s once pleading eyes were now peering at you in an almost predatorial way as he studied your perplexed expression. “But I…” your words fall short as Taehyun suddenly rises from the chair, without taking his gaze off of you, he reaches a hand up to his neck, it makes a cracking sound as he tilts his head to the side, a small sigh escaping his lips.

“You humans are far too kind.” His voice is low and as he takes a step forward, you immediately falter backward. The back of your legs hit the table behind you and you wince as you fumble to move around it. “Inviting just anyone into your home like that.” Taehyun’s eyes never leave you as a smirk etches its way to his lips. “My, your gullibleness is quite endearing.”

You cast a quick glance around the old kitchen, your gaze falling on one of the larger knives. All you had to do was move one step to the right, reach out and… Taehyun’s eyes follow your own and he cocks an eyebrow. “I admire your plan of strategy, but a mere human’s tool will bring little harm to my kind.”

His kind? Just what exactly was this man. You swallow a gulp as your gaze flickers between him and the knife, your heartbeat working overtime as you grasp for a decision. Despite his words you end up reaching for the knife, grabbing it tightly with both hands, you aim it toward the intruding man. “What do you want from me?” you grit out as you steady your feet against the wooden floor.

Taehyun inhales slowly, letting his eyes flutter closed for a brief moment; as if savoring a pleasant scent. When he opens them again they’re a swirling pool of crimson. “Now you’re asking the right questions”, his voice lingers with desire as he slowly makes his way around the dining table.

Like a deer in headlights you immediately dart in the opposite direction. Tumbling out of your kitchen and into the open spaced living room. Behind you, Taehyun laughs, an almost sinister laugh. Frantically you search for anything to shield yourself with. Settling on one of the armchairs in the corner, you quickly dip behind it. With your knees to your chest and back pressed against the soft cushion; you cover your mouth with your free hand, the other maintaining a tight grip on the knife.

The wooden floor creaks beneath him as Taehyun slowly emerges from the kitchen. “Your determination to live is surely fascinating” he muses, the sound of his voice only becoming louder as he slowly approaches your corner. “Foolish human, you forget that I can hear the delectable sound of your heart beating from miles away.”

Biting down on your hand, you will the tears away as you screw your eyes shut. “The human’s weak body gives them away before they even become aware of the dangers surrounding them.” The sounds of his footsteps come to a stop and you hold your breath, you don’t dare open your eyes, prolonging the moment for as long as possible.

It is not until you feel his cold breath on your face that they snap open. The smirk plastered on his beautiful face as he watches you with much intrigue is enough for you to finally act. Your arm works faster than your brain as you swing the knife toward him. Taehyun lets out a faint hiss as he pulls back, thick red liquid seeps from the small cut on his cheek and his expression soon turns from smug into a scowl.

Seizing your opportunity, you scramble to your feet as you dart for your bedroom. Though you barely make it 10ft before something hard crashes into you from behind. With inhumane speed Taehyun slams you up against the nearest wall. A cold hand wraps around your neck as he lifts you without much trouble.

Your feet kick at the wall behind you as your body trashes against his grip. With his free hand, Taehyun wipes the blood from his cheek, the wound closing up before your eyes. In your haste you realize that you’ve lost your knife, your only hope. Letting out a huff of air, Taehyun’s gaze locks onto yours, “the others did not struggle this much”, he mutters.

The others? As realization slowly seeps in, your eyes widen — it wasn’t an animal that had killed all those hikers. It was him. His tight grip on your neck restricts your intake of air and you barely manage to gasp out the word, “y-you..” Taehyun tilts his head to the side, a glimmer of curiosity flashing before his eyes. The grip on your neck falters, if only for a moment, as he lets you regain your breath in order to continue.

“It was you. You killed all those people”, you splutter as your chest rises and falls in a heavy manner. He smirks, and from this close you’re able to make out the sharp fangs that prod against his bottom lip. “I see I have earned myself quite a reputation amongst your kind”, he comments before leaning in closer, eyes glinting with intrigue, “pray tell, what else have you heard of me?”

You part your lips to reply before you stop yourself. As Yeonjun’s words ring in your ears you suddenly realize your mistake. “It lures its way inside. They never left their tents. It came to them.” He had come to you, he had knocked on your door and you had let him in. You hadn’t even left your house and the next time you would it would be in a body bag.

Everything aligned, the pale skin, his inhumane strength and speed, his ability to heal, the crimson eyes, his fangs. He was a vampire and you had willingly invited him inside your house, ultimately signing your own death.

“I let you in…” you whisper, disbelief evident across your face. “Ah, you are finally connecting the dots”, he mumbles, “I must admit you differ from the rest.” Cold fingers trace the outline of your face before trailing down your collarbone. His touch causes shivers to ripple through your body and Taehyun’s smirk grows. “Had I not been so insatiably hungry right now, I might have kept you around for a bit.”

His gaze shifts from your mortified expression down to your neck. Contradicting to his previous tight hold on you, he now gently brushes along the exposed veins. “This forest has been vacant for weeks, I thought my last meal here had long since passed.” He brings a strand of your hair to his nose, inhaling the scent.

“But then came you. And you smell absolutely divine.” His voice is low as his eyes flicker back to yours once more. Horrified, you shake your head as you push against his chest, your meek attempts at breaking free drew a breathy laugh from him.

“Let us not struggle now.” The once feathery touch along your neck is replaced by a harsh and cold hand against your chin as he holds your face in place. And as your eyes come level with his own, you suddenly find it hard to look away. Dark pools of crimson pull you in, entrancing you as Taehyun mutters something under his breath. You know that it is wrong, but the longer you stare into his eyes the more you feel like giving yourself to him. Despite every instinct in you screaming for you to shut your eyes and pull back, you instead find yourself going limp in his grasp.

“Much better”, he whispers as he loosens his hold on your chin. Your feet softly hit the ground again and you glance up at him. Somewhere in the back of your head, the urge to run still exists. But you don’t move, you stay unblinking as you gaze at him with a clouded expression. “You humans are almost beautiful when you don’t fret”, he mumbles as his cold fingers brush your hair back to expose your neck fully.

His tongue drags across one of his fangs as he eyes the skin of your neck with anticipation. “Don’t worry, your sacrifice will not go to waste”, he assures as he leans in to press his cold lips against your warm skin. The feeling of his sharp fangs piercing the flesh of your neck causes your body to feel as if it were on fire. Yet all but a soft gasp is what leaves your lips at the intrusion.

Everything hurt and you wanted nothing more than to push him off, pry his teeth from your weakening body. But your limbs felt strangely heavy, unable to move, your vision threatens to give out as your knees wobble. What was going on, why weren’t you doing anything? Taehyun groans against your skin, his hands harshly tugging at your hips to keep you in place.

Soon the burning sensation faded before it morphed into something dangerously similar to pleasure. Your body felt tingly, sensitive, every gulp of blood he took sent minor shock waves surging through you and you let out a small sigh at the feeling. To think that this was how you were to die, as nothing more but the next meal of a hungry creature, and in your last moments you found pleasure in it? The thought alone was enough to have your eyes drooping shut.

Realization slowly creeps its way into your foggy mind — you were actually going to die. No one was coming to save you, you were all alone and this was how your last moments would play out? It was hard to feel any emotion, your mind far too clouded to even keep your eyes open, but if you could feel something, you supposed it would be despair.

Teetering on the edge of unconsciousness, you accept your lowly fate. Just as the darkness is about to consume you, everything suddenly stops. Was death really nothing? Was there no heaven, no hell? Just darkness? It takes you a moment to realize that you are in fact not dead, and that Taehyun has pulled himself away from your neck.

Slowly, your eyes regain focus as you look at him, confused. You were certain that he was going to kill you, did he really intend to prolong your inevitable death, to make you suffer further? You thought him to be cruel but this was far worse than you had imagined.

His eyes remain a dark crimson as they fixate on you, but they had lost their sharp edge, he no longer looked as if he was eyeing his next meal, but rather his gaze held something akin to desire. Taehyun’s tongue swipes across his lips, coated in your rich blood as he savors the remnants of it. His breath is shallow, though you wondered if vampires ever really became out of breath.

“You taste…” he trails off, eyes fixating on the puncturers he’d previously caused on your neck, “...unlike any human I’ve ever had before.” He almost looked to be at a loss for words as he stared at you, you weren’t sure if it was a good or a bad thing, and you couldn’t find yourself to care. Your body felt weak, numb and not like your own anymore. Perhaps death had been the easy way out from your current situation.

As his cold fingers brush along your exposed collarbone, your gaze flickers back up to his once more. The movements of your own limbs still felt restricted by the unknown force caused by Taehyun, and even if they weren’t, you were sure that your body wouldn’t be able to maintain an upright position, much less run away from the creature before you.

“I wonder if the rest of you taste just as divine”, he murmurs. His peering gaze suddenly shifts toward your lips and before you have time to question his intentions further, he crashes his lips against your own.

At first you remain unmoving, unblinking, Taehyun pays your unenthusiastic response little mind as he kisses you hungrily. The faint metallic taste of your own blood lingers on his tongue as he pushes it inside your mouth and your nose turns up in slight disgust. Suddenly your body jolts to life once more, as if the spell in which he had put you under was lifted the moment his lips pressed against your own.

With newfound strength you push against his cold and hard chest in a desperate attempt to break free. Your fighting hands are met by his own as Taehyun pins them to your sides before taking the liberty to explore all of your body. Cold hands wandering beneath your loose t-shirt, earning him a small whimper from you.

You can’t help the moan that escapes from your lips as his fingers rub over your perked nipples, squeezing the soft flesh of your breasts. His touch felt oddly enticing and your body suddenly craved more, a lot more. But as his lips found your neck, the memories of what had previously taken place, flashes before your eyes and suddenly it feels as if those sharp fangs pierced your skin all over again. You become dangerously aware of what is about to happen as one of Taehyun’s hands tug at the hem of your shorts and you immediately try to twist your body away from his invasive touch.

“No! Wait- stop!” you shriek as your hands work to pry him off of you. There’s a brief pause as Taehyun once again pulls his lips from your neck. He doesn’t say anything as he looks at you, an impassive expression pending across his face. You swallow, “this- I, what’s happening? This isn’t…” The words fall from your lips in a hasty manner as you struggle to form coherent thoughts, afraid that he would grow impatient at your antics and just kill you off. Finally you settle on, “I don’t understand.”

Taehyun looks at you as he cocks an eyebrow, an insatiable hunger swirling behind his eyes. “You do not understand the act of indulging in one's sexual desires?” He wonders as he studies you with a mix of apprehension and disbelief. Your mouth falls open as you blink, “...I, of course I do but…”

“Then you must understand that a vampire’s hunger exceeds beyond just his thirst for blood”, he murmurs as his gaze returns to your lips. “You are a very pretty human.” He breathes, cold fingers trail along your chest, pushing your shirt up to reveal your soft stomach. His eyes twinkle in anticipation, “there are other ways for you to satiate me.”

With that statement, he reconnects your lips in a kiss filled with yearning. You don’t have any time to react before you feel your feet lift from the ground. The surge that forms in your stomach at his rapid movements remind you of that when a roller coaster drops. Your back hits the soft cushion of the sofa as Taehyun swiftly takes place above you, his arms caging you in.

With one harsh tug, he pulls your shirt up to reveal your breasts. The cool air causes goosebumps to bloom on your skin, Taehyun trails his fingers over the small bumps as his lips attach around one of your nipples. Sharp fangs graze over your sensitive skin and you shiver in a fear mixed arousal. “I can hear your blood rushing”, he groans against your breast before moving on to the next one, leaving red marks that would soon blossom into purple. Tongue swirling over the sensitive bud, he elicits a small moan from you.

In a tantalizing slow manner he moves down your stomach, inhaling your scent before stopping above the hem of your shorts. He looks up at you, with that same expression that had terrified you not long ago, he looked ready to eat you whole. “Are you scared, human?” he asks, fingers dipping inside the waistband of your pajama shorts. Your gaze flickers between his hand and his eyes, you swallow, “no.”

Taehyun smirks, “liar.” Without warning he pulls both your panties and shorts down, a small shriek leaving your lips at the action as your thighs instinctively squeeze together. “There is little point in denying me”, he grunts as his hand easily finds its way between your sealed legs. Upon reaching your already wet cunt, Taehyun’s smirk grows, “and in denying yourself.” You bite your lip, unable to hide the fact that his lips on your own had spurred you on further than you’d liked to.

“My, are you pretty”, he mumbles as his crimson eyes fixate on the way his fingers glide against your folds. His subtle comment has blood rushing to your face and had it not been for the way your core ached to be touched, you would’ve probably even been embarrassed at the remark. Squirming beneath him, your hips buck in an attempt to seek any kind of relief. Taehyun’s gaze snaps to your face, “you humans are far too greedy”, he snarls, “never satisfied with what they have, you always want more.”

Your back arches off the cushion as he pushes two fingers inside of you. “Is that what you want?” He curls his fingers, brushing them against that small bundle of nerves that never failed to make you go cross eyed whenever you pleasured yourself. “To be ruined to bits by a vampire, reduced to nothing at my mercy?”

You meekly nod, struggling to keep your eyes open at the intense waves of pleasure that overflow your senses. Taehyun huffs, “I knew that your kind was pathetic, but this sure takes the price.” His words barely register, you’re too lost in the way his fingers move inside of you, thumb pressing up against your clit in a menacing way.

When he suddenly pulls his hand away, you cry out in displeasure as your eyes shoot open in search of his. You find him already looking at you intently, his gaze unwavering as he watches the steady rise and fall of your chest, the way blood rushes beneath your skin, listening to the supple beating of your heart.

His hand glides across the soft flesh of your thighs, “I need to taste you again”, he says, his voice strained and hoarse as his stare drops to your glistening folds. Before you have the time to register his words, his head is between your legs and you let out a small yelp at the feel of his cold breath hovering over your sensitive cunt.

The idea of him, his mouth, his fangs, so close to such a sensitive part of you was terrifying in itself, yet you couldn’t find it in you to push him away. A low groan rumbles from deep within his chest as Taehyun drags his tongue along your slit, leaving you gasping as your nails dig into the cushion of the sofa.

He pulls back for a moment, his eyes never leaving your core as he licks his lips, as if he focused entirely on the taste of you. Then, without warning he dives back in and your thigh twitches as his lips latch onto your clit. Hungrily, he sucks and laps at your cunt and you wondered how this man had been close to killing you just moments prior.

Pathetic whines leave your lips as his tongue pushes inside of you, the tip of his nose rubbing against your clit. The harsh grip of his hands holds your thighs down as they threaten to close around his head. Moans and pleas fall from your lips but he pays them little mind, too focused on the way you taste, the way your body reacts to his touch.

Your stomach draws into knots as you feel your orgasm approaching. Taehyun lets out a sound of contentment as he feels you clench around his tongue. “F-fuck…I’m..” your words are swallowed by the whine that leaves you as he pulls his head from between your legs, robbing you of the high that was just within your reach.

“Again, you humans are consumed by your greed”, he tsk’s as he watches the way you squirm, pathetically chasing after your desired orgasm. He leans back on his knees as one of his hands frees his cock from his pants. “Patience”, he grunts as his pale hand glides along his shaft, “comes naturally when living for centuries. You humans only live to see a fragment of what I experience, yet you greedily take and take.”

You swallow as your eyes shift from his intense gaze toward the hand wrapped around his cock. Like the rest of him, it was beautiful, flushed at the tip and slick with precum that spilled from the slit. Your cunt throbbed at the sight and you bit your lip in anticipation. Above you, Taehyun’s expression turns into a sneer, “do not think that I am here to fulfill your bottomless greed, human.” A small gasp leaves your lips as you feel the head of his cock pushing against your folds.

With one harsh thrust, he buries himself deep inside of you, drawing a small shriek from you at the burning intrusion. Taehyun lets out a groan of satisfaction as his lips return to suck at the mark on your neck, the still fresh wound causing a throbbing pain to flare through your body, mixing with the feel of his cock deep inside of you.

He moves slowly, taking his time to feel the way your body wrapped around him. The warmth of something so full of life entangled with the very epitome of death. The rapid beating of your heart against his unmoving one filling his senses. Your mind feels hazy and that familiar feeling of pleasure you had felt when he drained you of blood returned. With each slow thrust you felt him graze along every inch of you, the tip of his cock caressing the bundle of nerves that had you clenching around him. You had never felt so full before.

His lips reconnect with yours, the taste of blood completely gone and now replaced by the remnants of your own fluids. And while it was certainly not something you had let previous partners do, it somehow felt right with him. Your hands loosen their grip on the cushion as they move across his body; the body you had longed to touch since he first appeared on your doorstep.

Taehyun inhales against your lips as your warm fingers wander beneath his shirt and over his cold chest. Perhaps he was right, perhaps you were greedy, even on the brink of death you had let your desires consume you. But did it really matter? Your life was bound to end anyway. Once more, just once, you would let yourself be greedy.

His hands glide across your body, squeezing and groping at every part of flesh he could access, relishing in how alive you felt, how your blood pulsated under his hands. Your legs move on their own, wrapping around his waist as you drew him in closer, making him groan into your mouth.

He breaks the kiss to look at you, watching your eyes roll back in pleasure as your lips part in a silent moan. Cold fingers dig into your cheeks as he keeps your head in place. “Foolish human”, he grunts, “I could kill you right now.” His thumb pulls your bottom lip down, “either you are too dumb to even comprehend the danger of your situation, or you’re just too fucking desperate to care.”

Without warning he pushes his thumb inside your mouth, you respond eagerly by swirling your tongue around it. “Considering the way your pussy so desperately sucks me in, I would assume the latter”, he sneers before pulling his thumb from your mouth, smearing your saliva across your lips and cheek.

His thrusts grow ragged as he presses his lips against yours. You know that he’s close, and you were too, if only you could… Your hand slides between your bodies and down your stomach, but before reaching where you need it the most, cold fingers wrap around your wrist. “Stupid human”, Taehyun groans as yanks your hand away.

The whine that escapes your lips is soon replaced by a soft gasp as his fingers circle your clit. Your legs around his waist tremble as you finish around his cock, a cry of pleasure emitting from deep within your throat as your nails dig into his arms whilst you continuously clench around him.

Taehyun’s lips travel down your neck, licking over the previous bruises he’d left before hovering above the sensitive bite marks. You’ve barely come down from your high when you feel his hips stutter, the warm liquid that shoots up inside of you makes you completely unguarded for when his fangs re-pierce your neck.

The shock only lasts a moment as Taehyun rocks his hips into you, all the while he takes gulp after gulp of your blood. As you lay there panting, you think that you might just actually die, but then you feel him pull back, the sensation of his fangs withdrawing makes you shiver.

His tongue drags across the punctures, licking up the very last droplet of blood before he leans back to look at you. Despite everything, you still thought he was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen. Even as thick blood coated his lips and chin, his uncanny and red eyes peering at you; contrasting his sickly pale skin, you found yourself in awe.

Taehyun’s gaze shifts from your neck to your eyes, no matter how hard you tried; you couldn’t possibly decipher a single thought going through his head. “Perhaps there is more to you than just your pretty face, human”, he murmurs as his tongue swipes across his lips.

“I intend to keep you.”

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