#i'm actually already stupidly attached to her

[thebramblewood]

The concept is goth chic vampire who's intimidating not because she could drain your life force at any given moment but because she's the coolest person you've ever laid eyes on.

Hair by @sunivaa Clothes by @serenity-cc, @trillyke, @its-adrienpastel, @greenllamas, @clumsyalienn, @miikocc, @sokea-cc, @aharris00britney Shoes by @jius-sims, @serenity-cc Thank you to all!

[himbosandhardwear]

Steddie I 2.3k words I Angst I Hurt/Comfort I Idiots to Lovers I SFW

The phone rings at a quarter to six, not an unheard of time for someone to call on a Friday evening, but he's not expecting anyone, so he lets it ring out until the machine gets it. Screening phone calls has become the new normal in the Munson abode. 

“Hey, Eddie, it's me.” There's a weird pause and then he gives unnecessary clarification. “Steve. It's Steve. You there?”

Eddie's already heading toward the phone, so he's still laughing when he picks up. “I can't believe it took me six years to figure out what a huge dork you are.”

“Me? Why am I a dork?”

“Because you just talked to my machine as though you've never called here before. It was weird. You're weird.”

Eddie hopes this comes across like the compliment that it is. Sometimes he says things to Steve and he's not sure if they land the way he wants. This time does land, thankfully, as Steve chuckles softly. 

“So what's up?” He asks, hoping he doesn't sound too eager, like he's desperate for a hangout.

“Oh. Um. So, I was wondering if you're free tonight?” 

Eddie punches the air a few times. “Sure am. What’d you have in mind?”

“Movie? The Hawk is playing some disgusting horror flick I assume you'd be into. And, uh, maybe food. Burgers or something.”

“Or something,” Eddie teases. He's practically floating on air, which is embarrassing, but Steve doesn't know that. “Sounds like a date,” he says, stupidly. 

Steve doesn't respond right away, the seconds stretching to infinity before he clears his throat. “Well, yeah. I hope so.”

Static fizzles through Eddie's brain. “What.”

“I hope it sounds like a date. Cause. You know.”

“I don't know,” Eddie manages, brain still skipping gears. 

“Because I'm trying to take you out. On a date.”

Okay, yes, Steve has become one of his closest friends over the last five months, and yes, sometimes Eddie flirts with him because he's a red blooded American faggot and Steve is smoking hot, but never in ten thousand years would Eddie predict this happening. It doesn't make sense. 

“Date?” He chokes out. 

“Is that okay?” Steve asks, soft, nervous. 

It's so okay Eddie can't fathom it. “Uh huh.” 

“Cool. I'll swing by at eight?”

“Cool.”

“Awesome. See you in a bit.”

And then, just before Steve hangs up, he hears it, the thing that makes everything that came before it suddenly make sense. 

Laughter. Robin's donkey braying laughter, coupled with cheers from at least three other people. 

So yeah. That checks out. It hasn't happened in years, not since middle school, before Eddie got too scary for girls to fuck with, but it's not the first time someone got dared to ask Eddie out. 

He slips down the wall and lands with a thud on the linoleum, cold water seeping through his veins as the implications become clear. The people he thought were his friends got together, without him, and thought it would be hilarious to dare Steve to ask him out. And he did it. He actually did it. And Robin! Her being in on it is almost worse. He really thought better of her, queer geek solidarity and all that. 

Has every interaction with these people been fake? Why bother? It doesn't make sense, but then again, he'd only recently let his guard down, started to believe they really liked him, wanted him around. It never made any sense that they liked him in the first place, Steve especially, he'd been wondering when the other shoe would drop and now here it is. Sort of wishes they'd just left him alone after everything and not gotten him attached like he is. It hurts. Logically, he knows he'll be fine, he has Wayne and the CC boys and some casual friends in Indy, he'll be okay, but it still hurts. 

What if this forces Dustin and the other kids to pick sides? He doesn't want that. Maybe he should just bite the bullet and move away, make the decision easier for them. It's about time anyway. He'll need to borrow some money from somewhere to fund the move but-

A knock on the door startles him out of his spiral and he jumps up on instinct. The clock on the stove says it's 7:55. He's been staring at the wall for two hours. A second knock snaps him out of another spiral.

“Jesus Christ,” he snaps upon seeing Steve Harrington at his door, dressed to kill. What a waste.

Steve's still lovely face drops as he takes in Eddie's ire. “What's wrong?”

“What's wrong?” His voice grates. “How fucking far were you planning on taking this bit? Bucket of pigs blood rigged at the diner? Maybe you drive me thirty miles outside of town and leave me there? What?”

Steve looks equal parts confused and horrified. Caught out too early to satisfy the parameters of the bet no doubt. “Eddie…”

“Save it. Take your gas station flowers and fuck off.” He slams the door behind him, it gives a satisfying crash, much better than the trailer's old door. 

He stands on the other side of it, not sure what to do with himself, when he hears a pathetic, “No, no, no, no,” and, “I don't understand,” and, “Eddie. Please.”

“Fuck! Off!” He yells at the door. If he has to endure any more manipulation he might actually get violent. Wouldn't be the first time he thought about attacking Steve Harrington. The anger is good, he needs it. As long as he's angry he isn't thinking about how bad it hurts. 

A minute goes by without a peep from Steve, but he also hasn't heard a car door slam or start up or drive away. Eddie slinks over to the porch window and peeks out. Steve is just sitting bent over on the top step, both hands in his hair, stupid bouquet of flowers at his side. The sight twinges in Eddie's guts, something like guilt squirming around inside. He doesn't want to acknowledge it but it gets harder to ignore the longer he watches Steve, alone and practically curled up on the stoop. What would be the purpose of that if he only came as a joke? He assumes maybe Steve is just upset that he didn't get to pull off his probable months in the making scheme but…the longer he watches the harder it gets to convince himself that's what's happening. 

Steve is crying. He can tell by the uneven breaths he's taking. The odds are getting slimmer that this is some manipulative tactic. If Steve is genuinely upset Eddie can't just ignore it. 

He opens the door. 

Steve immediately scrambles to wipe the evidence off his face, which is gut wrenching. If he's still faking he deserves an Oscar. 

He doesn't turn when Eddie approaches and sits gingerly at his side. He doesn't try to provocate, just sniffs as quietly as he can with his face turned away.

Eddie, for his part, doesn't know what to do next. His anger has left him, which was the only thing keeping him afloat. He suddenly wishes he hadn't left his cigs on the coffee table.

“I'm not sure what happened between when I called and now but I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you.” He turns toward Eddie but doesn't make eye contact. “If you changed your mind, that's…fine, I guess. But please don't be mad at me. I don't think I can take that right now.”

Guess we're hashing this out.

“What happened was I heard everyone at your place having a laugh at my expense. Did you think I wouldn't figure out what that meant? You're not the first person to ask me out as a joke. Amy Johnston asked me to the Snow Ball as a dare in the 8th grade.”

There's that horrified look again. He reaches out like he wants to touch Eddie's knee but Eddie startles so badly he wrenches his hand back. 

“You can't think I would do that.”

“I can and I do.” His fingers are itching for that cigarette.

“Eddie. Please look at me.” 

He does but only because Steve sounds like he's on the verge of a nervous breakdown. His wet, puppy dog eyes are going to be the last thing Eddie's sees before he dies, he just knows it.

“They weren't laughing at you. They were laughing at me. That wasn't a prank at your expense, it was a fucking intervention, for me to pull my head out of my ass.” He stares at Eddie with his wide, imploring eyes. “I swear to you. On Dustin's mom.”

Eddie's cheek twitches. “If Claudia drops dead you've gotta raise Henderson yourself, you know that, right?”

“Gladly.” He gives one big sniff, done with hiding how fucked up this has made him. “Rob was laughing because she was happy, and everyone else was cheering because they were proud of me, that's literally it. ‘Finally ask Eddie on a date’ mission was a success. Until, you know, this part. I'm sorry you thought we would do something like that to you. Did we…or did I maybe, do something to make you think we weren't friends?”

Now Eddie is crying. He should just dig a hole and lay down in it. 

“Hey,” Steve scoots over and timidly places a hand over Eddie's clenching fingers, “it's okay. You don't have to tell me. I just want to make sure you know we love you. I don't want you to ever think otherwise.”

Okay, not helping with the waterworks.

“It's not your fault,” he manages to convey between hiccups. “I'm just an asshole who assumes the worst in people.”

Steve's thumb rubs gently over Eddie's wrist bone. “For good reason. I get it, you haven't had a lot of people in your corner, huh?”

He shakes his head, hyper aware that he's dribbling snot.

“Hey,” he pats Eddie's arm, pulling away slowly, “why don't we just stay in, order a pizza?”

Eddie sniffs, nods. Date canceled then. Good job, Munson. 

“I'll dump these,” Steve picks up the flowers, “don't know what I was thinking. Dating mode autopilot I guess.”

Eddie, feeling hysterical, lunges for them. “No! They're mine!” He crushes the bouquet to his chest. He's imprinted on them. If they disappear, any chance he has of going back to date mode will disappear with them. 

Steve stares at him, eyes ping-ponging up and down from the flowers to Eddie's face. He probably thinks Eddie has gone mental, and he'd be right. He hides his face in the purple and orange petals, destroying them irreparably no doubt. One would think he would be all cried out but he's been mainlining mountain dew all day so he must be extra hydrated.

“Eds. What's wrong?”

“Besides the obvious?!” He screeches, still hiding. 

“Yeah.”

“I fucked it up. You actually wanted to date me and I fucked it up.” 

Without warning, Steve has him bundled up against his chest, flowers crushed even more between them. “You didn't fuck it up. I just didn't think you'd want to go out tonight, after all this. It can still be a date if you want. An inside date.”

“If I want? You are certifiable, of course I want,” he mumbles into Steve's perfect tits. “I can't believe you want. You were really brave and I yelled at you.”

“Already forgiven.”

“You look really nice and I look like a hobo.”

“No more than usual.”

That startles a laugh out of Eddie. He smacks Steve on one of his perfect tits. His face is probably a lost cause but he does attempt to mop it up. “Sorry I made you cry.”

“Pfft,” he waves that off as though it were nothing, “for about three minutes I thought I'd let my friends talk me into blowing up one of my favorite relationships, that's all I cared about, really. If you're not mad at me I'm good as new.” He gets all sheepish for a second. “Also I've been crying off and on all day. Those assholes showed up at my door at ten am. I sobbed for forty five minutes over that time I called Johnathan a queer.”

“You said what?” King Steve shit, Eddie imagines.

“Yeah, and a lot worse than that too, if you can imagine. Don't worry, he beat my ass good over it. And he says we're square since he banged Nancy while we were technically still together.”

Eddie boggles at the ease with which all of this is said. Killing monsters really puts some shit into perspective, he supposes.

He glances up when Steve stands, brushing his hands off on his skin tight jeans before holding one out for Eddie to take. 

“C'mon. Inside date. We'll do a redo of outside date next weekend.”

He lets Steve pull him up. “Okay. You gotta let me get the pizza though.”

He beams at Eddie, sunshine incarnate. “Deal.” 

It occurs to Eddie, as he pulls a huge plastic Pacers cup out of the cupboard to put his flowers in, that Steve Harrington actually likes him. Romantically. Even though Eddie is a big dumbass. 

“Hey,” he drawls.

Steve glances over from where he's artfully posed at the opposite counter. “Mmm?”

“We should probably make out.”

Steve matches Eddie's casual statement, only failing where his cheeks are going red. “Oh yeah?” 

“Yeah. I'd hate to waste all this time and money just to find out on the third date we're not compatible. Sexually.” 

Steve, who has never been shy about flirting, slinks over to him, fingers travel lightly over the cut collar of his Megadeath T-shirt, sending Eddie's heart into overdrive. “You're so right. Couch or bed?”

They never do manage to call for pizza.

[horizon-verizon]

I can't believe I'm going to say this but... HotD writers should take a page from Philippa Gregory's playbook (the writer of the books that became the white princess/queen).

She is infamous for saying "ok this sure didn't happen and it's just a rumor BUT WOULDN'T IT BE COOL"and that's how you end up with Elizabeth and her mother being witches, Lizzie and Katherine being more active instead of English flowers, the princes in the tower living, and Elizabeth threatening herself.That woman may have many critics but making her women passive is not one.

Alicent should have been more politically active (just like the books SAY), Rhaenyra shouldn't have lost her fire, Rhaenys and Laena just didn't, nothing they did with them was right and we should spend more time with the children.Baela's arc of being attached to Jace and fighting to the end for Rhaenyra is one that should have been told.What it meant for Rhaena not to have a dragon should have been explored not as the show does (which in the end is still about Daemon and Aemond and not about her) but because her family is under threat and possible attack And she can't be an active part, does she struggle with taking a political role? Does she feel helpless or confident in her abilities?

There is literally a lot of fabric to cut and explore, even with Helaena.Helaena as a dreamer not only contributes nothing to the plot but also made her more boring because it made her "out of reality"Helaena knew that her father was sick, does she know why they are looking for Aegon? How much did she know about the conspiracy?She is calm during b&c until she has to pick and choose what is apparently most politically expedient. How did she feel about her role in the usurpation and since she is the only one Rhaenyra speaks warmly about what was their relationship before?Did she also think that her position of queen (consort) was owed to her?

With Baela and Rhaena it was to delve into what we already had with Helaena they had to ask themselves the questions above and decide how to answer them to create their character, a character that regardless of Whatever they chose would be convincing.Having an ability never explored or used and no history around her simply makes her... As important as a table.

Excelent points, anon. To quickly discuss this part alone more time:

She is calm during b&c until she has to pick and choose what is apparently most politically expedient.

This is honestly what kills me the most abt her character in the show and having those "dreams"--I can put aside (with great restraint to bite) the lore-stomping act of making her not only not actually dream but never try to communicate with her non-offspring family about them...but if she supposedly knows about her kids' dying....she's just going to sit there and LET IT HAPPEN? Until the very last minute?!!!! How does that make sense? How is this not a parallel to that atrocious moment where Alicent--after years of telling all her kids to prepare against Rhaenyra and that she doesn't deserve the throne and perhaps has stolen it from them, that she is an enemy to their very lives--"forgive" Rhaenyra when she apologizes in episode 8?!!!! how does Alicent justify this to her children?! to herself? See, this was the beginning of my hate spiral towards her writing, before I was just annoyed and stupidly hopeful, but this broke the last straw. It's so clearly sexist bc it cuts off the rage a woman accrues until a man interjects with some passionate demand or imploration to stop--a way to "lay down the law" self-sacrificingly!!! It flips into her becoming "helpless" in the face of male violence seconds later with Aemond as she's unbale to stop him from confronting his nephews.

Back to the ask. Very much all this. I love how you expanded on Rhaena, but esp Helaena. That's what i meant by people using the text, context, etc. already present in the work:

Helaena knew that her father was sick, does she know why they are looking for Aegon? How much did she know about the conspiracy?She is calm during b&c until she has to pick and choose what is apparently most politically expedient. How did she feel about her role in the usurpation and since she is the only one Rhaenyra speaks warmly about what was their relationship before?Did she also think that her position of queen (consort) was owed to her?

TANGENT: When adapting, think of the questions you have or others first/second times had when you/they read the text!!! Not the "it has to be this, because that's how we'd treat it in real life". If you really cared to portray women as people with a determination to claim agency even when all seeming signs show attempts to smother that (just bc you were in a socially oppressive society, doesn't mean that you were going to always accept being a victim), you can still present disturbing shit in a relationship, but of a certain kid of interaction is not indicated in text....DON'T INCLUDE IT!!! Don't go the easy route! (HBO and most projects fo into DV without really enabling the women to resist or punish that, so it's the "solution" to the problem of not knowing how to develop female characters who have had all this power but also many obstacles)

Those first/second questions inspire the imagination for more questions which breed possible different paths of character development. That's exaclt what Philippa Gregory did when she was presented with the opportunity to create strong female chaarcters when she could have gone the aged-old white mane route and did what Condal did.

Never read her books, I'm banking on anon and my having watched both The White Queen and The White Princess, which I loved! Yes, very diff authors, diff stories, different worlds, relaity vs fictional historical...but doesn't GRRM not take inspiration from those real texts to make F&B? And do not Condal/Hess and Gregory share the same position of using "historical" reputations and descriptions of noteworthy women that were written by old tired men with agendas (as most European histories before the industrial era--and even then--are ) to create their own versions of that given information?

Go nuts but think first within what is in the text/context the writer wrote out and then let the fandom decide for themselves what is "possible".

I miss Domina. A historical drama right up my alley, that one was.

Really, it's more a matter of faith or belief, but still.

[wordtotherose]

"Astarion- I- I need Astarion- Please, where is he? Astarion!" 

He hears her from the hallway, kicking off his shoes, and breaks into a run when she screams his name this time.

"ASTARION! Please! I need- let me go- let me go- please- I need him!" 

He's up the stairs in a flash. The door is thankfully already unlocked so it cracks into the wall and bounces back to slam into him but he's across the room before it can. They've been in this house two days. Two days. He'd left her for barely two hours to go find some miscreant to drain until near death in a back alley because the move has sapped Elizia of all her energy. All of it to the point that he hadn't wanted to leave her alone, had sullenly and indirectly asked Shadowheart to come over to be there if she woke before he was back. Didn't want her to wake up alone in case it was from a nightmare. Again. 

And it seems he was right to do so, stupidly overprotective as it has made him feel. It probably isn't the moment to feel vindicated but he does, he does. 

They had agreed on keeping separate bedrooms to ensure they each had space to themselves, space that is purely their own. Of course that doesn't mean that they're not still attached traumatised hip to traumatised hip. He'd left her sleeping in his bed, a note on the pillow next to her and Shadowheart downstairs in their kitchen organising Elizia's new array of alchemy ingredients. 

"Astarion- As- Astarion- Please- Shadowheart, please, where- where is he? I need him safe, I need him here." 

Continue Reading on AO3 or after the cut. Prompts welcome through asks!

The bedroom is spacious but not large enough to feel empty, even with only the bare bones of furniture. A desk and chair, a wardrobe, a feinting couch that was a house warming gift from Gale of all people, and of course dark, heavy curtains over the window with matching drapes around his bed.

Elizia hasn't heard the door, going by her uninterrupted pleas, so he moves slowly despite the tension shaking his hands as he hears her whimpering and Shadowheart whispering reassurances. He is gentle with parting the drapes around his extravagant four poster bed, telegraphs his movements before he follows them through even though Elizia doesn't look over. Shadowheart has her palms cradling her friend's face and so turns her to look at him as he slowly crawls onto his knees in front of them both.

"He's here, Tav, see? He's here. You need to breathe for me, your lungs can't take this for much longer. You are going to knock yourself out." 

Elizia looks a mess. Her babbling is worse still.

A complete and utter bedraggled mess. Cheeks stained with tears, eyes manic yet unblinking as she darts her gaze over Astarion over and over again. The loose night braids he put in earlier are sleep mussed and he can only hope she hasn't been scratching at her scars again. Shadowheart isn't restraining her wrists so he tentatively guesses not. She is clutching at her stomach though, like she's in physical pain, which she likely is. Her chest is delicate nowadays, the exertion of the panic she's drowning herself in cannot be helping.

"Snap out of it, spawn," Shadowheart hisses, not unkindly.

"Right. Sorry. Yes." 

Elizia whines in terror at hearing his voice and it breaks his dead heart yet again. How many times since the end has it cracked? How long until they can move on, together? 

"Astarion, you... you're not-"

Shadowheart backs away, waiting until Astarion has Elizia wrapped in his arms tight and safe. Secure. As protected as he can possibly make her feel as she sobs into his chest. He presses a kiss to the top of Elizia's head, over the tips of the lines of her scars, then against the point of the ear not listening to his slow, undead heartbeat.

"I'm here, darling, I'm real. I'm here." She's nodding but he doesn't trust for a second that she's actually believing her own senses right now. He shoots a look at Shadowheart, demanding an explanation.

"She slept on her front, her rib moved and caused swelling, I think." Shadowheart, no longer having to focus on keeping Elizia from hurting herself further, strokes down her friend's sweat-ridden back with a blue glow radiating from her fingers, he feels more than sees Elizia's relief. "She must have woken up mid-night terror or something, I haven't gotten a word out of her besides your name and asking where you are."

He sighs, not in exasperation, just...tired. Tired of a world that sought to put them through agony again and again, even after everything this woman has given, has sacrificed, has suffered. All that he has suffered alone and scared and doomed to experience over and over because he screams the prettiest, because his pain is the most beautiful. He cannot begin to imagine seeing Elizia's hurt as anything but horrible. Awful. Something he wishes he could prevent, not just soothe. 

"Thank you," he says, and he truly means it. 

Shadowheart nods and leaves them be. He isn't in a state of mind to ask if she's leaving entirely or not. He'll find out later either way. The much more pressing matter is of the half-elf clutching at him with scrabbling fingers, skin fever hot through her nightshirt which really is one of his camp shirts.

"Elizia, my darling, I'm here," he nuzzles her cheek, draws her up into his lap, speaks into her ear as he nudges her into his neck and shoulder, feels the damp grow from her tears into his own clothes. "What can I do? I don't...I don't know what to do, my love. Should I keep talking?"

Elizia nods, her nails dig into his shoulderblades then retract as she rambles an apology, her sobs hitch but start to settle too. 

"That I can do. I can do that. Are you comfortable? Do you want to lie down?" 

He cradles the back of her head, knows how heavy she can feel when exhausted, has listened to her try to explain the effort it can take some days just to keep her head up. Like the weight of the scars, of the damage done, is too much for her to carry. So he will gladly help her bear it now.

"Can I..." She trails off, relaxes into his hold but doesn't hold back with any sort of strength. 

"Can you what, pet?" He asks as he kisses up and down her earrings again, tilting her head up to reach the hinge of her jaw. "Ask and it is yours."

She turns into his lips, like a flower turning to the sun, and as the sun around which she has, somehow someway for some reason, decided to revolve her life he will lend her what warmth he has. He presses kiss after kiss to the curve of her cheekbone, the line of her brow, the freckles dotted from hairline to the corner of her mouth. Waits patiently for her to find her words.

"Can I touch you? Please? I- you were gone, Astarion, I did everything and you still died, you still-"

"Hush, Tavaril, I'm not dead." He pauses, reconsiders. "Well, I am, but I'm not dead dead. Gone dead. It was just a dream, I promise."

She starts to pull away, wiping at her own tears, and he realises too late that he didn't answer her question, she's pushed herself back to the headboard before he can reach her to pull her back. 

"I'm sorry, I'm a mess. I shouldn't- it's not for you to have to- you don't have to, I shouldn't have asked, it's your body, you are your own, I promise I know that." 

"What?"

"I'm fine, I'll be fine," she continues, already looking around as if for the best way to leave the cosy space he's made with decadent pillows and numerous blankets. "I apologise, I didn't- fuck, I didn't remember- no, not- realise. I didn't realise for a while that it was, like you said. A dream. Just a dream. I'll-"

"Do shut up, darling, and let me speak." 

Her mouth closes with an audible click. He waits for her to look at him then pulls his shirt off, speaking whilst he does. "If you'd given me a moment to answer fully, you would already be touching but now you may as well let me lie down first." 

She nods, valiantly keeping her eyes on his, not drifting down to his body and gods if that doesn't make him feel safe too. Not seen as a sexual object but as a loved person. A person beloved and who can bring her the comfort she so desperately wants, needs. He makes himself comfortable next to her and opens his arms. She falls into them slowly, hesitantly. With a roll of his eyes he smiles and pulls her on top, settles her carefully as she rolls her eyes back at him. 

"Touch away, my sweet, I'm all yours. However you'd like, we have all the time in the world."

"Tell me, promise you'll tell me."

He pushes up onto his elbows, kisses her with every ounce of care he feels, the entire infinity of it. She pulls back first.

"I love you too," she whispers. 

The bed is delightfully soft as he drops back down, hands behind his head as he smiles up at her. There's a myriad of quips he could make now but he doesn't want to interrupt whatever thoughts have got her looking so pensively at his chest. She aims for the dip between his collarbones first. Her fingertips are warm to his own chilled skin, callouses less defined than they used to be. For the first minute she watches his face closely. He meets her gaze from below hooded eyelids every single time, watches steady and trusting as she runs her fingers through the trail of white hair curling from his navel down to beyond his trousers. She doesn't so much as look like she considers going further, below the belt, simply moves on to run her thumbs into the slight divots of his hips above his waistband. It's...new. To be touched like this. To lay still and let himself be...not used, never used, not by her. She'd throw herself on her own blade all over again if he so much as insinuated such a thing and isn't it odd, isn't it wonderful, to know that so solidly in his bones? That he doesn't have anything to fear from her. Heartbreak, maybe, one day, but even so, if that is her choice then so be it. Falling on a blade is not so far a thought were he to force her to stay. 

Lips over his heart.

He jolts a little in surprise and she freezes in turn, looks up at him questioningly. "Astarion?"

"You're okay," he answers, approaching dazed as he marvels at the darkness of her eyes without candlelight or a celestial body shining from the sky.

"Are you?"

"Yes, yes, I- I am. Just let me know when I can get my hands on you too, my love, but I will restrain myself for now, as you so wish."

"My generous hedonist," she murmurs the words into his stomach, runs her hands up and down his sides. 

He laughs at the absurdity of the contradiction and she follows the sound up and up to his neck where she mouths at the faint hint of a pulse he carries still when he's freshly fed. It's not hard to guess what it is that's on her mind, easier still to give her permission. She is, after all, on the side away from his bite scars, considerate as always. One day, he thinks, he wants to try pushing her past consideration, past her boundless concern over him until she takes what she wants from him without asking. He wants her to know, to trust, to believe that he will intervene if he needs but otherwise that she is safe to want, to desire and act upon it. He wants to see her lose control. One day. If she agrees. For now he bares his neck, as she has done for him so many times and as he did the last time on the roof of the Elfsong under the moon. She pauses, waits to see if he's stretching or offering and when she has her answer he can't bite back the moan from escaping as she nips at his skin before latching on, his fingers tug at his own hair to stop himself from reaching for her. She doesn't hurt him, doesn't make him bleed, but she will leave bruises that could last anywhere from an hour to a day depending on his blood intake. 

"Elizia," he groans, arching up into her, enjoying the sensuality of her shirt- his shirt- their fucking ruffled shirt on his bare skin, she rolls skin between her teeth, pinches with her canines then retreats with a pleased hum.

He's relieved to see more life in her eyes when she leans over him, brushes the tips of their noses together before kissing his forehead. 

"Thank you," she says.

"You're done already?" He asks and it comes out far too close to needy for his comfort so of course he tries to cover it up with a flippant dismissal. "Not that you need carry on, I'm glad I could help, of course. And with so little effort required on my part, you may as well have told me to lie back and relax. Though I might have assumed the evening to go a little differently then, I suppose."

"Astarion?" 

"Hmm?" He fears he looks somewhat manic but she's smiling and she was screaming for him and not in the good way not so long ago, one can't blame him if he's a little off his game.

She tugs on his wrists and he stiffly lets go of his hair, keeps very still as she kisses each knuckle all whilst maintaining eye contact. It's like she's looking into his damned soul and he sort of loves it. 

"You can touch me if you want." She lets go of his wrists. "But I can also probably fall asleep on my own now, if you want some space. I...thank you, for giving me this. I'm..."

"Grateful," he offers quietly, twisting his wrists to intertwine their fingers.

"Grateful," she repeats and there's a tinge of sadness to the echo, a misery he knows is growing in her with every bad day, difficult hour or overwhelming moment like the one just passed. 

He wants to roll them over, rest his weight like a heavy blanket over her as she's fondly remarked upon enjoying since they started sharing bedrolls way back in amidst the Shadow Curse. But as with so many things, changes must be made and to do as he wants might hurt her further, a risk he doesn't care to take, quite frankly. Instead he lies her down next to him, relieved when she understands it as the silent request for her to stay that it is, to let herself be cared for. Something she is utterly, profoundly shit at, as he's discovered. He prods her to roll over so he can curl around her back, one arm stretched out under her neck and holding her close, palm pressed against her stomach under the shirt, fingers spread as he feels every shift of her breathing.

"Sleep, pet. Tomorrow we'll try that cloak you bought and it will be a new day."

"A new day," she echoes into the pillow, fingers circling the wrist by her head. 

"Exactly."

[therealvinelle]

Wait this is super late and already February BUUt

what was your tumblr blog wrapped? Favorite ask of 2023? Most thought provoking?? Strangest ask of 2023?

Better late than never! Although we have an immediate problem: I have absolutely no recollection of which asks I received in 2023, so we'll have to dig through my drafts for this one (as interesting questions are the ones I start answering only to be overwhelmed by, and then shove into drafts where they are forgotten).

So, looking through my 2023 drafts we have:

Most thought provoking

Which Agatha Christie plot would Carlisle actually stand a chance of solving? Like he wakes up human and is told he's the famous Hercule Poirot, what's the best case scenario there?

Anon has no idea how much joy they bring me when they ask me to think about murder mysteries, my only gripe is that anon is clearly not a Christie veteran because while Poirot was her most famous detective, the woman had lots of detectives. Poirot, Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence, Superintendent Battle, or one-off characters such as Calgary in Ordeal by Innocence. The one-off characters are typically ordinary people who suddenly find themselves in the middle of some insane plot unfolding (see: Calgary finding out that he was supposed to be a hanged man's alibi, now he wants to set things right, or the narrator of Crooked House who got engaged to a nice girl only to find out her family is insane).

All of this to say: Carlisle doesn't wake up as Poirot, he is the Poirot, our Christie hero of the day who gets entangled in a conspiracy of some kind.

Which means I'd have to think of an Agatha Christie-esque plot of my own to fit Carlisle into it, and then explain how he solves it and this frankly is a fic, not a tumblr post.

Kudos also go to the person who very stupidly asked me why I'm so obsessed with Alphard Black recently when he's a non-character in the Harry Potter franchise, they got this reply. (TLDR: I squinted at the Black family tree until I'd gone insane.)

Favorite ask

Somebody asked me about the RMS Titanic :')

Also this one: Voldie metamorphosis anon here, I can't believe someone already asked you that lol. Weird! Now that you're a wizard terrorist with mind control spells, what terrible Oslo city planning decisions would you interfere with?

Splendid question, anon, but I was overwhelmed and just wanted to type "Barcode. Barcode!! THE PLANS FOR GAUSTAD SYKEHUS" and attach lots of pictures of Ullevål hospital, my beloved, and ended up stepping away from the keyboard with my hands in the air.

Strangest asks

I'll just list a few as I scroll down my inbox.

You have purgatory, where there are Tom Riddles from different "universes". What would Edward Cullen's purgatory look like? Are they all sad because they're in hell? Do they have complex polycules? They don't talk to each other at all? I want to know your thought What gets me about this one is the first sentence, where we take a Purgatory of Tom Riddles for an established fact. I feel @thecarnivorousmuffinmeta probably made a post about it at some point except neither of us have any recollection of such a post actually existing.

Do you think the cullen would like you Never have I felt more like Regina George walked into my inbox than when I received this one. No, anon, and I know you know it too.

klaus wants to date rebekah & elijah ?? would you please explain I've never been more flabbergasted than by anon watching one of the CW Incest Shows and being shocked, just shocked, by the idea there might have been hints there. I wonder what anon made of Wincest, I really really do.

[simpforchuchu]

Oh how about Fujio with Sachio’s sister??

Fujio x Sachio's Sister

a/n: Hii! Here is your request. I hope you like it 💕🥰

Sorry for the grammer or spelling mistakes.English is not my main language so...

Thank you and love you 🥰

Warnings: usual hnl violence

• We know that Sachio is a very protective big brother.

•  He is kind hearted, calm and cold

•  Considering Yui, I believe he is very attached to his family and will do anything to protect them.

•  But he won't teach his sister to fight unless she wants to. He doesn't want to force her.

•  He will always be there to protect her

•  A sister 1 year older than Yui and 1 year younger than Sachio

•  She would probably be someone in the middle of the these two's personalities

•  She is calm but more friendly, kind-hearted but can be rude when necessary.

•  I imagine she is very attached to her older brother so she can be a scary person sometimes

•  Sachio definitely doesn't want her fighting but she's strong enough to defend herself

•  I think she will meet Fujio at the temple on that hill.

•  She knows how stressed Sachio is dealing with their family, and that's why she's quite worried. She had gone up the hill to get some relaxing time, and there was another person on that hill who was dying to befriend her that day.

•  I think Fujio's aim at first was just friendship.  Yes y/n is quite a pretty girl but he just wanted to cheer her up in that moment.

•  I think Y/n would be pretty cold to him at first.  Her brother strictly warned her not to trust men.

•  But I'm sure Fujio's silliness will eventually make her smile

•  "Wow you have a beautiful smile!"

•  LIKE HER ONII-CHAN 😭

•  Y/n will tell him that day about her brother for a while, not knowing that he already knows her brother.  How much she loved him, how hard he was struggling, and how she wanted to protect him.

•  Fujio listens quietly and then plays a few more jokes to make her smile and they leave after sunset.

•  Neither of them thought they would see each other again :')

•  After Sachio's return with the big fight, Fujio will come again while y/n and Sachio are spending time on the hill again.And yes that chaotic encounter will happen

•  "OI YOU ARE THAT IDIOT LAST TIME!"

•  Fujio will be taken off and probably pouting.  Of course, Sachio will watch the two fight for a while in surprise.

•  Eventually they'll talk about how they met and Sachio will smile when he sees how ridiculous they both are.

•  I think the duo will meet often and get closer after that day.

•  They're both aware of their feelings but won't show it.

•  Fujio will be careful as she is Sachio's sister

•  I think y/n would feel comfortable talking about this with her brother.Sachio trusts Fujio.Instead of hiding it like Yui, she'll want to get ideas from him

•  I even think that at first y/n will think her feelings are one sided so she will be pretty upset talking to her brother

•  "It's okay Nii-chan. I love him and that's all" He doesn't believe what she said with a bitter smile.

•  But I feel Sachio is a good observer.  So I think it would be easy to realize that actually Fujio likes her too

•  An unexpected and sudden confession, I think they'll both end up grinning stupidly and that confession will be on that hill again

•  Maybe for a little while no one will know, but there is no attempt to hide it.

•  Fujio is too clingy but y/n doesn't trust anyone so I think he'll be careful. 

• Doesn't want to bore her

•  I think Sachio will soon find out.  Y/n probably will tell and he's happy that his sister is happy

•  But he will still make them feel that he is a big brother

•  "If you upset my sister, I will break your every bone in your body."

•  I really think Fujio is a boyfriend material.

•  He will always make her happy, and definitely knows how to have fun

•  And when she's sad, I imagine he'll wrap her in the blanket and hold her tight in his lap

•  He is not very knowledgeable but does everything to make her feel loved

•  He's not very rich, so someone to collect and gift her flowers.

•  Maybe someone who will make a crown of flowers and put it on her head (I'm sure he's  watched a lot of videos for this)

•  He'll introduce her to all of his friends, he wants her to get to know his family 🥺

•  I think he'll be visiting Housen often.  Y/n doesn't need to be there, he likes to spend time with Sachio and tell him how happy they are

•  They are like friends with his mother, so he will definitely tell her about his girlfriend.  Maybe he will never shut up...

HnL taglist : @straysugzhpe @tiddly-winx @satraninalane

[spaceymarz]

[SPOILER ALERT: Mask Girl all episodes]

TW: rape

i'm almost done with episode 2, and i already completely regret starting Mask Girl. i fell head over heels in love with Mo-mi immediately.

she's so GIRLY POP! i relate so hard to her delusional crush on her boss, and her keeping her passion an online secret because no one irl would get her the way the internet does. i also stupidly let "Handsome Monk" get my hopes up, and thought he was a genuinely nice guy she could have a real romance with, especially after the disaster tornado that was Mr. Park. the way he spoke about her beauty — claiming that he was from the US and telling her that she fit the beauty standard here more — all made sense to me, because that's genuinely how i think about her. while Mo-mi is obviously supposed to be an "ugly" character, i think her face is genuinely beautiful in a high fashion, Vogue kind of way, and all of the characters in this show just aren't the girls that get it!! it has become clear to me, though, that the show creators did not intend for me to find her face as beautiful, especially since i looked up the actress and discovered that she actually has an entirely diffrent, "prettier" face irl.

so obviously Hamdsome Monk is no longer an option, and i want Mo-mi to stay far far away from Mr.Park, i thought Ju Ohnam might be our real prince. AND I WAS IMMEDIATELY PROVEN HORRIBLY WRONG! i know that i shouldn't have hoped for even a second that my lovely angel Mo-mi would end up with that disgusting incel porn addict weeaboo slime monster, but i was DESPERATE 😭 i though this might be a circumstance of the very DCOM cliche of "loser girl chases popular guys just to realize that her real male lead was the loser boy who was right beside her the whole time", but no, of course not! i guess the way he accepted her with her true face, comforted her when she needed support, daydrempt of professing his love to her (albiet, the daydream ended in a public blowjob), and KILLED A MAN AND HID THE BODY FOR HER made me forget about the flaming hot red flag that is the creepy ass sex doll he keeps in his house apartment and pretends is his Japanese girlfriend (?)

before i started watching Ep2 i looked up the ending, because i could already tell that my precious Mo-mi was a character doomed by the narrative, and discovered that she fucking dies in the end, GREAT! usually if i'm not in the mood to be traumatized by a K-drama, i just won't watch it, but atp i was already too attached to Kim Mo-mi to only get to see her in one episode. again, i regret my decision to keep watching this show as i lay in bed writing this to procrastinate getting through the rest of the rape scene. in my research, i did accidentally find out that Mo-mi murders Ohnam after this tho so i guess that will make me feel slightly better.

moral of the story: i might write Mask Girl fanfiction where Handsome Monk is actually a nice person and Mo-mi gets to be the main character in a cute, silly, stupid rom-com, instead of the cinematic tragedy that is Mask Girl.

[n7punk]

Okayyyyyyyy now the informational version of the doll post is up, I get be all silly casual editorial over here :3c I was gonna do it as a reblog but honestly the doll post is already so stupidly long, I'm just gonna do it separately and I'll link it in the replies on the main post, but this post is Not gonna make sense unless you read that first lol

a) I dont think the bodies coming from two different lines is super obvious, but once you know it, things click. Bow's arms are weirdly narrow for his size compared to the girls’ proportions, for instance, and though he is the tallest in the show, he's especially tall in this line. You can even see it down to their underwear. Often dolls have a few molded lines on their body to represent underwear and give the illusion of "decency" when undressed. The girls have a single thin waistband line, She-ra has none (she needed not to if her Battle of Bright Moon doll was going to work), and Bow has a much thicker waistband with further details like seams and a fly (for some reason, but Bow now wears tighty whities I guess).

b) I know the bodies “came of DC Super Hero Girls” but I really wish I had more details than just that quick comment. That makes it seem like Adora, Glimmer, and Catra all came from the same line. I know Adora and Shadow Weaver are using the same body, and I’m pretty sure Catra is too because I found photos of Adora undressed on ebay and she had a weird circle outline on her back like there was an optional hole that was filled in, but like, why did that line even have a model with a tail hole? We know Glimmer is a “curvier sculpt,” so did that line already have some body diversity or did she come from another unnamed line? I don’t know, and I don’t have the dolls to compare. I'm just assuming it's a different body type from the same line since that’s all that was said (listen, I need to be told things very directly and clearly or I feel like I might be getting them wrong. Remember when I didn’t think I was autistic? Wild).

c) She-ra's accessories (well, her gauntlets and boots) are a little big for her and there's gaping. You can see it a bit even in the promotional pictures and it’s not surprising given the budget on these dolls. It probably gets worse with heat, though, so shipping might exacerbate the issue. Maybe the best time to move these dolls is winter LOL

d) She-ra's peplums are attached to her clothes and not her plastic emblem, which I think you can guess, but putting it out there in case. It's still confusing to me why her peplums are sparkly (and transparent for the core design). It's the one big "miss" in the designs from the show (well, Catra's outfit is also weirdly mesh up top and the color is off).

dd) Honestly all of She-ra's skirts are fucked, but everything about her Battle Armor doll is weird. I did a whole other post about how weirdly budget Battle Armor She-ra was compared to the other dolls despite being twice the cost. I mean I know Swift Wind is in that set so two models raises the price, but he seems pretty budget too, so like… what the hell Mattel.

ddd) Oh yeah, the tulle of the regular skirt is actually shockingly high quality. Like tulle is a Bad Texture for me (go back to the autism bulletpoint) and I don’t mind this. I mean I’m not gonna seek it out, but it doesn’t make me recoil and it’s soft enough to not cause me issues. I can say that about very few tulles.

e) I don’t know if this is a difference between digital model and final production or if SDCC She-ra got a slightly different accessory cast then the regular one, but if you look at the 3D model for She-ra’s chest emblem, it shows one thick bracing bar up her spine. In the final doll, it’s two bars, thinner and a bit further apart, that basically frame her spine, with one bar attached to each half of the emblem. And of course, it hooks together with pegs. Those aren’t shown on the model either and that's why I’m inclined to say that is just an earlier model of it. No stock photos of SDCC She-ra show her back under the cape, though, and checking it would necessitate removing her from the packaging, which I’ve never seen anyone do.

ee) Also, I didn’t know how to describe it well so I just didn’t put it in the post, but her regular cape isn’t straight across in the back. Rather, it has a v cut and “straps” that are sewn to each shoulder, so the top set of pegs and the crossbar for the emblem actually show through, but her hair covers it anyway. Once again, IDK about the SDCC one because I've never seen the back of her.

f) Shadow Weaver’s stand is hot garbage. It’s just a stick between her legs with tiny curves to (supposedly) cup each leg that she’s supposed to essentially balance on. Traaaaaaash. They're assuming no one will take her out of the packaging, ig.

ff) Okay also, Shadow Weaver's top isn't exactly a monastic scapular, but idk how else to describe it. Usually those drape over the shoulders and then are tied around the waist, while hers actually has a sleeve and is sewed together on one side, but then it has the long extension from a scapular, so I'm just going to use that to describe it since it's a fantasy bullshit amalgamation.

g) I know it seems like I have a Monster High bias (and I do) because I mention it multiple times, but since the guys leading the SDCC exclusives were two big minds behind it, it seemed like a valid comparison to draw. I researched what else the other team members did, but when I only turned up 3 out 4 of the modelers (Arpine, Kittaya, & Sean) working on Barbie and I couldn't say "all of them" anymore, I stopped looking since it really wasn't relevant. Monster High ended up being a good touchpoint due to being made by the same team/company, one of the dolls having its body come from that line, and it being the only other doll line I know literally anything about. Since Monster High (G3, anyway) costs nearly twice as much as these dolls (15$ vs 25$), they also felt relevant when it came to things like painted hair. Annalise specifically hyped up the dolls all having real hair? So I'm just kind of guessing that's something that isn't a given on dolls at this budget (and probably, unfortunately, especially so for textured hair). Again, pretty much everything I've learned about dolls has specifically been because of this line lol. I like looking at the new Monster Highs but I really don't know shit.

h) Also, I don't know how doll hair length is measured so I just went with 6 inches in the post, but regular She-ra has 5-7 inches of hair, depending on if you're supposed start at the base of the head or top of the head. Also I was using a ruler so. Not the most accurate.

i) I got kind of ambiguous answers on what counts as an articulation point, but at the end of the day the She-ra dolls have less than Monster High (I can say this definitively) and Monster High is listed as 12 on Dollect while She-ra in incorrectly listed as 13. There are 11 separate joints, with some also including a hinge so you can properly pose them, but I can't give you a list of what joints bend multiple ways or if any are ball joints (IDK how to identify one, I think I’ve made it obvious I'm out of my depth here). The joints are really stiff in my experience but they would probably loosen up if you worked them more, I’m just not going to take that risk.

j) Actually this should be up with the She-ra info so it's out of order but I'm not positive Battle Armor She-ra has the same hair as regular? In listings it looks shorter but it's hard to tell because it could just look different from being played with and when she's in box you can't tell since it's behind her. It seems really weird to me that every She-ra is so similar and so different at the same time so I really don't know. They might even be made out of different kinds of fibers. Like for the SDCC exclusive I'm pretty sure they prioritized looks so the hair might be made out of "worse" material as a result if it displays well (I mean, I know there's reflective strands in it, and those usually feel Bad). There's a lot of upgrades and really cool packaging for only an added 5$ for each doll so cutting some corners on those might make sense. These dolls are made on a relatively tight budget at the end of the day.

I wish I could get hands on with all these dolls because I think I could make the post way better then, and if I ever do manage to learn new info I’ll update the post, but I've done my best lol. Hopefully this post answers any questions people might or might not have about the dolls since they're kind of Difficult to actually get and check out yourself

[valentinehorrors]

You're my only desire

(TW: bl00d mention)

Something was wrong.

Casey already knew he was different than other people, a little more insane and more willing to put himself in danger, yes. He was stupid, something else that was not new information.

But truly, he put himself in a very stupidly dangerous situation.

At first, he thought that Mikey was just isolated. Keeping secrets that were driving him insane, that all he needed was someone he could be honest to. That's who Casey wanted to be, someone Mikey didn't have to hide to.

Then shit got complicated. Because the more Casey learned about Mikey, wanting to be his one friend, the more he realized there was a reason Mikey was hiding.

Then his own thrill seeking, danger loving, stupid side kicked in. Casey has always been well-meaning, a good heart, but willing to do whatever needs to be done. Mikey was a whole new shade of gray that Casey was not ready for.

The more Casey thought about it, the more he fought himself over it. Initially, Casey thought that Mikey had just been dealt a bad hand, a shitty as hell hand. The human wasn't sure what he would do if he had the same needs as Mikey, would he have done anything different?

Mikey isn't really malicious right? At least, Casey hopes he's not. Besides, he's not really in a place to judge, he's pretty fucked up in the head too.

After all, his first thought at seeing Mikey, bloody, surrounded by torn apart bodies, was "that's kinda hot." It probably also helped that he had kinda saved him. A bunch of thugs and none of his vigilante gear, if Mikey hadn't had shown up...

Yeah, okay, a lot of mixed feelings. Mainly two feelings actually, the feeling of "Holy shit this guy can kill me" and "Holy shit this guy will kill anyone for me."

But there's also... "If I don't stay, there's not gonna be anyone else able to reel him back."

He felt bad whenever he had that thought though, he didn't want that to be the soul reason of their friendship, because truly it wasn't. Besides, even if it came to that, he had no idea if he would even be able to.

Little did he know, he wasn't going to be needing confirmation for much longer.

"So, you don't like April? Like at all?" It was another one of their late night talks, same rooftop. They were leaning against each other, back to back. Mikey's shell wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world but Casey didn't really mind or care. Said human was also preoccupied with Mikey's kusarigama. He was curious and the turtle let him fiddle with it.

"No. I greatly dislike her." Mikey said, as cold as ever.

"Like why though? She's chill ain't she?"

"Originally, it's because she was someone new to take into account. A lot is taken into consideration when it comes to my mask, part of the reason it works so well is because I know how my family works. Someone new added risk, she could catch on to my tricks, or find some discrepancy. Unlikely, but possible. She was an unpredictable variable that annoyed me."

Casey hummed in response as he swung the blade by the chain, careful not to hurt himself or Mikey. At least he thought he was being careful, then Mikey grabbed the handle before the blade could collide with Casey's shoulder, without needing to even turn his head. Casey chuckled nervously as he took it back and continued fiddling with the chain. "But anyway, why now?"

"What do you mean?"

"C'mon Mike."

"... You."

Casey paused, turning his head to try to look at Mikey. Ending up way closer than anticipated, the human's head on the turtle's shoulder. Mikey's own eyes at the same time turning to Casey, that familiar shiver going through him. "Me? I'm why you hate April?"

"Yes... It's no secret Casey. I'm... attached to you..."

"Obsessed more like." Casey lightly joked

"As though you don't enjoy it."

Casey's not sure why he blushed at that, other than he's fucked in the head. "Shut up. Still, it's just joking. Don't think she's into me at all either. I just like pushing at her buttons and sometimes she fucks around right back. Just teasing."

"I am allowed to still not like it, or her." There was a slight furrow of his brow, it was the most Casey had ever seen of Mikey aside from his unnerving smiles.

"Oh shit," Casey paused, thinking over his words, "you... really hate her huh?..."

Mikey nodded, "That doesn't mean I want you to stop being her friend. Don't misunderstand. Besides, it would be far too suspicious if you changed your dynamic so drastically."

Casey chuckled nervously once again "right..."

There was a tension in the air the second the girl's name was brought up. Casey had been worried but as the conversation moved on and the tension dissipated, he dismissed it.

He really shouldn't have.

Casey wasn't exactly sure how he did it, but he knew Mikey was watching him almost 24/7. Sometimes it was even a comfort to feel that familiar shiver pass through him. He recognized the difference now, knowing when he was simply cold versus Mikey watching him.

But something felt off today, he wasn't sure what it was, but something was up. Mikey usually just checks in on him every once in a while, but this time he swore Mikey's eyes just didn't leave him at all. He's not necessarily complaining, the whole situation had a thrill that Casey could never resist, Mikey was right about that.

It was just a thrill. Just some fun. Yes, Casey knew that Mikey was deadly, he saw it first hand. Hell, he had been pretty shaken up initially. But clearly Mikey had a handle on his darker side and his whole hunger thing. It was just a thrill. Mikey was always so mindful of his mask and keeping up appearances, he'd never endanger it.

...

Casey never thought he'd walk in to the lair, and see a kusarigama blade over the girl's neck.

[i3utterflyeffect]

I know absolutely nothing abt Wandersong so I can't ask any specific questions (;;-o-) BUT!!!!!!! take this ask as blanket permission to talk about any thoughts u have on the game that u want to, canon or AU

if u want some prompting, I saw ur MRD crossover and went 👀👀 I'm curious what ur AU changes from the game(s)!

oh!! okay so basically im going to split this into parts hang on

BUT. YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO PLAY WANDERSONG ITS SUCH A GOOD GAME. ITS SO FUN AND YOU WOULD LOVE MIRIAM AND BARD THEY'RE SO LOVABLE

ANYWAY!!!!!!! godbard au will be under the cut in case its not way too horribly late for you to not be spoilered sfdgklgslg

Mad Rat Miriam

ok aside from this post basically. the combo means that miriam has a much longer time period that mad rat and instead of the entire world ending it's just her. audrey is basically herding her towards a cat and i feel like she's actually pretty violent before bard is like 'NOOO STOP IT'

bard may have been a cat but they're very nice and would not kill anyone. because that is mean and they are NOT mean. they may have been a stray but they'd always just beg for scraps from humans instead and give them the wettest eyes if they try to feed them a mouse.

mim is also still very distant from other people bc yeah she's still a lab rat and she's learned to not be too attached to other ppl and beside she's already alienated bc she's Weird. so bard is really the first time she's been friends with someone and the fact that she's going to die upsets her deeply. but she's glad she got to meet this stupidly nice little heart because god they're too nice but also they're so friendly and kind to her despite everything.

audrey is very much a beastie of instinct and instead of describing herself as a 'rat god' she more describes about as miriam's 'hero', 'guardian angel', whatever fits the bill for that sort of thing. even tho she very much is not and is scaring miriam into going where she wants since mim is not really a huge fan of the wish thing

a lot of the cities of wandersong is just a bunch of stray rats living and Fucking Chilling. and rat god is still a sort of legend thing but it's kind of a horror story where people go wandering into nowhere and never return.

ALSO. the heart battle is so fucking insane i bet. like bard HATES the idea of fighting miriam but they have to do SOMETHING because clearly mim isn't in her right mind. a lot of the fight is a test of patience i bet bc of this

also also! another counterpart of jack is dream king but he DOESN'T CARE about eating mim at all. lazy guy. audrey is not happy about this.

king of hearts is the main one tho since he starts drowning in place of jack and mim decides to save him!!!!!!!!

most of the monsters in general are just hallucinations

anyway miriam and bard have just this strangely similar dynamic to mad rat and heart. violence and 'be nice to people please :)' + Provider Of Beats

plus it's interesting to explore something where the person with their head on straight is bard bc you don't really equate someone happy-go-lucky like that to be the most realistic between the two! usually it's the pessimist but nah its bard this time <3

godbard au

anyway so basically i want to talk about audrey here bc she's been accused of killing bard and since she's basically forced to come along with miriam and bard she's very upset.

BUT. something very important: i feel like she believes in thought crimes.

she's always prided herself on heroism and she never really thought about it before but after some time around Normal People as a Normal Person she starts to get fucked up over her new thought patterns that she developed by being a hero

this gets even worse when bard and miriam start treating her with genuine concern and kindness because she hates them, and she's certainly thought about killing them

as people start talking abt her she becomes more self conscious and it eventually comes to a climax as she is found out and people go on a full-on witch hunt over her

she's very very prone to violence and as she realizes how fucked up her destiny to end the world is she goes into a downwards spiral as she begins to think about awful things more and more and about if she HAD killed them and watched the life drain from their eyes (and she wouldn't have even felt bad)

and if she finds her sword she only gets worse as the intrusive thoughts get worse and more within reach of being completed and she can't take it

and. um

basically i gave her ocd hours. and i feel like i'm correct <3

[dreamcrow]

This is slightly more than 500 words but there was an Attempt;

Before she can say anything, though, he's already walking over, setting his stuff down lightly on the counter. Then, he reaches for a pocket—she thinks it's a pocket, anyway; his hand moves too quick to see exactly where—before producing a pristine, ice-blue, very new iPhone.

She is, suddenly, stupidly conscious of her ancient little dinged-up Moto. She definitely doesn't scoot it away behind the register, wtf. If Little Mx. Hipster-Possibly-Kidnapper has something to say about it, he can say it to her face.

But after just a few seconds rifling around in his messages—he only turns the phone around to her.

Most of the screen is taken up by a photo. A selfie, showing a tall punk-type boy—oh, definitely cute—standing behind a girl, teeny-tiny, who's gleefully taking the picture in front of what looks like a bathroom mirror. These two are definitely festival crowd; she knows the rennfaire type, she is the rennfaire type, she's pretty sure she's seen that exact green hair/deer makeup/fairycore combo in Phoenix last year. She realizes, with a pang: oh, no, these kids actually look kind of cool.

There's a message attached. The guy wants her to read it, evidently, scrolling down for her after letting the photo sink in. It immediately makes her feel roughly eight thousand years old; it's spelled so haphazardly, chock full of dumb fancy alternate characters that aren't even ~aesthetique.~ She half has to sound it out to make any sense of it.

There, your proof. Nari ſays to tell you ſhe's a Legende at babysittinge, actually, & also to ſtop worryinge; because we are fine, thou greate nuiſance (her wordes, not myne).

She ſends also this meſsage, that I'm pretty sure can't be put in letters, but whiche after manye obſcenities (also hers, honeſt) ſeems to ſound roughly like—

The messages continue on for some time like this—mildly irritated, definitely written by a teenager (seriously, who spells that badly on purpose?), way too personal for her to want to keep reading. But she has to admit: they don't seem entirely antagonistic.

Something still nags at her. Wanting first to protect the girl, and her weirdly familiar-looking kid chaperone. But...

Jasmine thinks back, suddenly, to when she was eighteen. To when she'd made it all the way to Bakersfield, sniffling and red-eyed and panicked but still, somehow, scraping together the bus fare, foolish gay heart stuck like a fishbone in her throat. Her mom had kept texting all through the night, no matter how hard Jasmine had ignored her, terrified at the imagined contents of all those unread messages.

She remembers, too, when her mom finally caught up to her. How good it had felt, when she'd finally let herself crumple into those strong brown arms.

Oh, she thinks. Oh, God dammit.

She takes a deep breath. "Alright," she huffs. More to herself than to him. "I—okay. Alright. Whatever. Say I believe you." She tries to make her voice stern, as if her decision hasn't already been made. "What makes you think they passed this way?"

(On an unrelated note: it is so nice to have text formatting options in asks now!)

ikr!! what a time to be alive 😂 and ooo, what a juicy snippet to start us off. and from a fic i never expected to become so fond of!

the entire premise of a sip from the devil's cup is "how can i make the stupidest concept imaginable (dread ancient ice jerkass unconsciously grooving to britney spears in a 7-eleven) actually kind of tender," so it gave me quite a lot of room to play with character and detail (two of my favorite things). the first of these, at least to me, is why does skrael have an iphone? well: the easy answer is that he can't get annoying texts from douxie without one, and my priorities are impeccable. 😂

the slightly more complicated answer is: phones are a really powerful signifier. of course he has an iphone, because he's not paying for it and these are the species of device most loudly touted as The Best. of course he has a blue one, because it's got to Match. (would bellroc have a red one? ah...) once he's had it for more than a few months, you bet your ass he's going to have a perfectly normal number of phone charms. he keeps it in hammerspace because that's where he keeps all of the little things he needs to hand, or at least all the things that don't fit on the little chatelaine i imagine him with; he's trying to pretend to be a normie in this obviously human store, but not, like, very hard, so even though the magic isn't ostentatious he definitely still uses just straight-up magic to bring it out. jasmine can't quite see it clearly for what it is because she doesn't quite realize, yet, that such magic exists, let alone right under her nose. ╮ (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) ╭

a lot of the fun i had writing jasmine, tbh, comes from being on the cusp of—but not yet slipping over into—that realization. it's very close to the fun i have writing barbara, tbh. she's—i actually had a lot of trouble trying to hold myself back from inventing jasmine's backstory, as you can see from the bit about her being a gay teen runaway! this aspect of her in particular resonates very strongly i think with some advice you gave me once about foils and complements. but again, also: so, so much of what i love about characters like this is looking at how reasonable, average people react to…decidedly un-average circumstances! even before jasmine catches True Sight in the mirror, she can tell something is up. but even if the guy is weird…she can tell, too, he's trying not to cause too much trouble. and then the incomprehensible ancient divine/monster meets the everyman modern mundane/human in the middle and alchemy happens.

…or something like that, anyway. 😂 there's also a lot to be said about humanizing the divine/monster in this—of course jasmine feels how he misses nari, how soft he is about bellroc, all of that after he unequivocally burnt down the apple store, god—but also about making the mundane exceptional? jasmine knows she's taking a risk by helping this stranger. she works among The Public, in a very specific field! but at the same time, she remembers what it was to have run from her own family. while she knows it's not the same for everyone who does so—i think i did a decent job showing her hesitation, here—she chooses to believe the best of this very strange and frankly offputting person she's never met before. one of my absolute favorite brands.

(there's probably a whole separate commentary track for whatever's happening with douxie and nari here, but unless someone's curious, i'll just say: i had a TOTALLY NORMAL amount of fun figuring out where all those long esses should go. 😏)

[sandradoodles]

oh my gosh, I love you adrienette bffs and ladynoir obsessively in love with each other idea. it gives amazing development and irony to both main ships of the love square at the same time! can’t imagine the looks of adrien & marinette’s faces when the reveal happens and they’re just like, “I can’t believe how stupidly in love I was and still am with you?? I should be thrown but I want to marry you even more now???”

(This is the original post, for the uninitiated; anyone who is interested should please check all the tags and comments over there because people have expanded on the idea in absolutely brilliant amazing ways that I never would have thought of. TEAMWORK IS BEAUTIFUL, I love this fandom.)

I have developed such a fast attachment to this au haha. Best Bros Adrienette and Actual Couple Ladynoir have sooooo much potential for consistent development throughout the whole story, more so imo than the actual canon setup. I do have an idea of how I think events would progress and cobbled various scenarios into this rough timeline fic that devolves into notes and then almost-fic again and then more notes at the end because I can't seem to decide if I'm writing a real thing or just yelling my story ideas at everyone. Either way, I WROTE A LOT, hope you enjoy!!

----

Seeing her ladybugs repair everything for the first time fills her with a sense of wonder and triumph, erasing her first mistake with Stoneheart so thoroughly that she feels like they repaired something inside of her as well. Ladybug's confidence swells, and she thinks to herself: yes, they can do this!

"All right, now we've got to get out of here before we transform back!

"Wait-- Ladybug!" She stops and turns back to her new superhero partner, who reaches out to take her hand. She allows it, considering what they just went through. "That was incredible." A smile spreads across her face. He's as much in awe of her new powers as she is, it seems, and he's right. They've done something incredible together.

"I’ll be quick. I just want to say..." He rubs the back of his neck with his free hand. "I know I was a little over-eager before. Getting the chance to be Chat Noir, it changes everything for me."

He's been full of jokes until now, and this sudden rush of sincerity touches her. They don't have much time before they transform back, but she's transfixed, unable to bring herself to hurry him along for some reason. Her face feels strangely warm.

"I was already looking forward to being a superhero, and now, knowing that I get to do it all with you? Well..." He gives her a grin, back to playful sauciness, but this time it doesn't trigger her impatience. She isn't sure what it's triggering. "I'm ready to follow you anywhere."

She ends up barely getting to cover before her earrings run out of time, and she tells herself that her heart is pounding because of the close call. But that is definitely not the reason.

----

As soon as Nathaniel--well, the akumatized version of him--leaves her room, Marinette leaps to her feet and transforms. What a crazy day! She’s going to have to think of something clever if she wants to manage this situation from both the Marinette and Ladybug sides...

There’s an alert from her yo-yo before she can fully settle on a course of action.

“Hey Chat Noir,” she answers, trying to sound casual. “How are things going with Chloe?”

“Oh, charming.” She is privately beyond pleased to hear the dripping sarcasm. “Listen, she did give me a clue though, by accident. I think the villain might be after this girl--” There’s a chime from her bug phone. Ladybug checks the screen to see a picture of herself (her other self, that is), giving a wide smile and cheesy victory sign. “Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Pretty cute, isn’t she?” 

“Wha-- buh-- you think-- Marinette-- cute?” GET IT TOGETHER, GIRL; why is she talking like this all of a sudden??

He laughs, a dreamy sound even over the phone.

“Not as cute as another girl I know. It sounds like there’s something wrong with our connection, so I’ll make this quick. Can you keep an eye on her? I’m sending you the address.”

“I-- I can’t,” she stammers, trying to figure her way out of this one. “You’re going to have to do it. I've got... a special mission!” Oh no that sounds so fake; he’s going to figure her out--

“Great! Chloe can do her own homework.” Okay, he’s just relieved. “I’ll head right over there.” He hangs up without further question and she experiences a moment of relief herself before the panic sets in.

Wait, Chat Noir is coming to her house? Noooo, what if she turns into a complete babbling disaster again? 

(Spoilers, that is exactly what happens.)

----

The first time Marinette suspects Adrien of being Chat Noir she is very uncomfortable with the possibility. It doesn’t even make sense, like why is she even considering something so insane... Just because they have the same allergy?? Chat Noir is a handsome, confident, utterly swoon-worthy daredevil; Adrien is a very nice, kind of awkward, and totally naive boy in her class. Once she gets the tiniest piece of evidence that swings in favor of them being different people, she is more than happy to lay that silly theory to rest.

After a while, she's put the thought so far out of her mind that she forgets she ever had it in the first place.

----

“There’s this... girl.” Adrien blushes, and he looks so adorable that Marinette just wants to put him in her pocket.

“A giiirl? That is so cute! Who is she? Do I knooow her?”

He flaps his hands at her, possibly regretting the decision to say anything. It’s too late now; Marinette is like a dog with a bone.

“No, no, you don’t know her. She’s my-- my pen-pal!”

“You have a pen-pal?” Well, if that isn’t just the sweetest thing she’s ever heard. And kind of sad. Was that his only way of making friends before he was able to come to school? 

“Right. And sometimes we... video chat?” He’s so awkward; why does it sound like he’s asking a question?

Marinette continues to press.

“And you liiike her?”

Adrien hesitates, and she thinks about how rarely he must have the chance to talk to anyone about his feelings. He’s barely allowed to leave the house (seriously, the scheme she had to come up with just to get him permission to visit her today...), his mother is gone, and his father might be one of the most emotionally withholding people on the planet.

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” she assures him. “But I might be able to help you out. I can give you insight, from a feminine perspective.” It’s a bold claim from a girl sitting with her legs spread-eagled on the floor and croissant crumbs on her shirt.

“She’s... so amazing,” Adrien sighs, and at that moment a new level of friendship unlocks between them. Love guru Marinette is on the case. She’s already formulating a plan; gosh, she is going to help this sweet naive boy so much and definitely not make everything more difficult for anyone involved!

----

Ladybug saves Chat Blanc but wrecks her own heart in the process. Now she's seen for herself what it would mean for her to act on her feelings for her superhero partner. Her love doomed him to the most miserable existence she can imagine; how could she ever allow herself to risk that happening again?

But she's shown Chat Noir too much of her hand, too much of her heart. In order to convince him to give up on her, she has to do something unforgivable: she has to lie to him.

Two days later, Marinette and Adrien are hanging out in the safe space of her room. He sighs and admits, "She turned me down. She said... there's someone else."

He looks absolutely wretched, and Marinette immediately flies into a frenzy. That sounds fake, just-- utterly ridiculous (and you know she wouldn't borrow words from Chloe of all people unless they actually suited the situation.) Who would turn down Adrien? He's kind, and cute, and multi-talented, and tons of other positive things! She tells him as much, with a great deal of emphatic gesturing and stomping back and forth across her room.

"You can't give up, Adrien! Promise me you'll keep trying!" Even if her own happiness can never be realized, she will NOT allow the same fate to befall her friend, who deserves some happiness more than anyone!

The next day, after they've captured the latest akuma, Chat Noir catches Ladybug by the wrist before she can yo-yo away.

"Hey, I'm about to change back!" She still has a good three minutes and they both know it, but the feel of his hand is dangerous and she wants to run.

"I have to tell you something first. I... I'm not giving up. I'm in love with you, and my feelings aren't going to change. I just want you to know that." He releases her hand as soon as his declaration is finished. She wants to throw her arms around him. She wants to throw him off the roof. She manages to keep herself from acting on either impulse, and instead just... bails without a word.

Later, as Marinette lies in bed with her insides doing some sort of crazy churning, fluttering dance between guilt and hope, a thought worms its way into her brain: isn't the timing of her love life and Adrien's a bit... coincidental?

She doesn't voice this thought aloud, to Tikki or even herself.

----

Ladybug keeps up the facade as best as she can, though there are times where her acting becomes so flimsy she just knows Chat can see right through her. Surely all of Paris can see right through her.

Then one day everything really falls apart.

"I don’t... I don’t know if I can do this.”

Chat Noir is right by her side, as he's always been, despite her repeated attempts to create some distance between them. His hands come to rest on her shoulders, firm and reassuring, and she leans in towards him despite herself. "Don't say that, m'lady... You're going to be an amazing guardian. I know it."

"No, I--" She shouldn't be saying this, not to him. But she can't go to Alya, who is too curious for her own good and would want all the details she can't share, and Adrien... Well, Adrien would be the perfect person to talk to about her anxieties if not for the fact that Kagami has somehow gotten it in her head that he and Marinette are, what? Secretly in LOVE with each other or something? Marinette can't confide in him right now; she needs to give them both some space so he can figure out his feelings and ask Kagami out already, then she'll realize that Marinette was never a threat and they can all be friends again. (And Adrien can fully move on from his mystery girl, who only seems to hurt him lately.)

Until then... staying away from him is painful, more than she wants to admit. The pressure, the isolation, the fear of failure have all been creeping up on her so long. Why does it feel like she always has to be the responsible one, always has to make a sacrifice so that someone else can be happy?

“I’m so tired,” Ladybug admits, a faint quaver in her voice. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up-- being responsible for everything, protecting other people, always... lying to everyone.”

"You've never lied to me," Chat Noir says, and tries to put his arm around her shoulders. She ducks away from him.

"Are you serious? I lie to you all the time! I've been lying to you since the day you told me how you feel about me! Don't tell me you really think--" 

Wait.

Wait. 

How is she only just now realizing that Chat Noir... is an idiot? 

"Do you actually believe I’m not in love with you?" She’s been fighting so hard but her true feelings are still so obvious, aren't they? Aren't they??

Apparently not. He’s just... staring at her, absolutely dumb-founded. Oh no. She knew she shouldn’t have said anything, this was a terrible idea, now she has to figure out how to fix this before it blows up in her--

That thought falls right out of her brain because Chat Noir has now pulled her into the kind of embrace that Marinette used to have wistful daydreams about on a regular basis.

“Do you mean that?” he asks, breathing the words into her hair, and his voice is actually trembling with hope. How she wishes she could feel the way he does, like the doors of possibility are flung wide open. Even for a second...

“Of course I do, but--” The words start tumbling out of her mouth, and before long she's telling him things she never meant to tell him, about her feelings, about her fears, about Chat Blanc. Not everything about Chat Blanc; even as all her walls are crumbling, she shields him from the worst of it. But she shares enough for him to understand.

“And that’s why I’ve had to keep pushing you away, pretending like I’m not in love with you! If I let it happen-- if I tell you my identity--”

He interrupts her with a brush of his hand against her cheek. “I’ve never needed to know your identity to be in love with you.”

She somehow manages to meet his eyes. How is he like this? She just told him that he might end up miserable, alone and devastated if he takes a chance on her, and his response is to make a tender declaration that weakens her at the knees.

"Did you even hear what I just said?"

"I heard you,” he assures. “But... just because that happened once doesn't mean it's the only thing that can happen! It could be something different this time, something incredible. We could be something incredible."

Something about his sincerity is infectious. She's dizzy, his words are giving her a fever. He loves her so much.

"Please... take my hand, m'lady. We could go anywhere together."

She doesn't bother with his hand. She grabs him by his face, feels the exact plunging physical sensation that accompanies a leap from a tall cliff, and kisses him with the fervor of a love long deferred.

----

AND BOOM, power couple Ladynoir is a thing. There are a few bumps in the road but about 95% of the dysfunction that arises in S4 (in canon) is eliminated because they TALK TO EACH OTHER and RESPECT EACH OTHER’S FEELINGS. Chat Noir is all too happy to bring in new team members because she trusts him with the details (and it’s hard to be jealous when you’re getting regular smooching time with your superhero gf.) He’s her #1 confidant and he knows it. She can finally let herself trust someone else and step out of the pressure cooker that is her own expectations/need to control everything all the time.

Meanwhile bff Adrienette have been working on the problem of Adrien’s crappy life (in this au the dodgeball conversation from Risk happens about two seasons earlier and without requiring the influence of an akumatized villain.) With Marinette having his back, Adrien is able to start looking forward and thinking about what he wants for HIMSELF and his OWN FUTURE. His entire circle of support is expanded because Marinette helps him assimilate more closely into their friend group, and because her parents have essentially adopted him. He gets the chance to process the fact that his father is a terrible person in a gradual, healthy way (which better prepares him for the eventual revelation that the guy is a legit supervillain.)

Felix has to come up with some new sneakiness to take Adrien's place in Risk, because Adrien turns down his offer to help in this version. Later, when Ladybug tells Chat to de-transform and prevent Strikeback from duplicating his power, he has nothing to prove and actually listens to her, meaning... he's not around when she comes up with her plan to recruit a new hero. She goes to grab Adrien, her dear friend, and Marinette lizard brain knows something is wrong but she tells herself it's because of the akuma, and because not having Chat by her side is messing with her head too. They capture the akuma and defeat the sentimonster, Strikeback never gets to Cataclysm anything and Paris is 90% less destroyed than it is in canon, so things seem pretty good until the inevitable happens and Felix steals Ladybug's yo-yo.

Panic attack in Adrien's room. Miraculous, gone. When Adrien throws open the bathroom door, Ladybug hasn't run off yet because Marinette needs him--Adrien, her friend, the person who hands out second chances like candy. It's a character trait that annoyed her when those chances were being handed to Chloe, or Adrien's father, or anyone else she deemed undeserving, but now Ladybug is the one who's made an unforgivable mistake, the one who’s lost everything--

"You can't blame yourself," he insists, and he's putting his arms around her for some reason, pulling her close. "If I'd only told you before... I've wanted to so badly, from the beginning. This wouldn't have happened if you knew who I am... m'lady."

She clings to him. While everything else collapses around her, one thing suddenly falls into place. She's been in love with Adrien Agreste this entire time.

----

And THAT'S AS FAR AS I'VE GOTTEN IN ANY DETAIL. Adrien doesn't totally blame himself for the mistaken identity, he just helps her lift some of the blame off herself. I feel like there's a good chunk of time where Ladybug knows who Chat is but they mutually agree she should stay anonymous. The Ladrien is GLOWING. Marinette has to pretend everything is normal and also like she's not absolutely head over heels in love with her bff, which is... exactly as convincing as one would expect. The final reveal is beautiful!!

[mirkosintern]

Crawlin’ back to you

pairing: dabi x fem!reader

genre: smut with a lil angst and fluff if you squint

notes: reader is a member of the lov, set in the meta liberation army arc (before the war!), possessive dabi, wowee this is my first work!! I never expected myself to be able to write a piece but here we are ehehe this was inspired by a certain tiktok actually. U may have already noticed but the title is from the song do I wanna know? by the arctic monkeys<3

warnings: 18+, unprotected sex, breeding, cum play, dubcon-ish?, toxic relationship, degradation, vulgar language, alcohol

word count: 3k

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That the nights were mainly made for saying things that you can't say tomorrow day Crawlin’ back to you Ever thought of callin’ when you've had a few? 'Cause I always do Maybe I'm too busy bein’ yours to fall for somebody new Now I've thought it through

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Dabi wasn’t one to do feelings. He’s screwed numerous women, but they were nothing more than some toys to fulfill his sexual needs. Neither did he want to have feelings, nor did he need to. Afterall, his side hoes who begged to stay with him even after all the degradation he’s given them disgusted him the most. He would snicker at their pathetic attempts and cut them off ruthlessly.

However, you were an only exception.

No, he did not have feelings for you, he swears he never did and never will. But you were different from his other disposable sluts--he kept you around. He didn’t ghost you, instead, he kept coming back. It is only because you’re a member of the lov as well, he thinks. You are easy to access since you’re always around the lov base, and he doesn’t even have to worry about getting caught by civilians or stupid bitches who suddenly decide to turn him into the police. You guys were practically co-workers with benefits, fuck buddies where the “buddies” part is questionable.

Dabi didn’t mind that he made an exception for you until that night. That very night where you sleepily decided to crawl into his arms after a rough round and whispered him how you loved the rough texture of his skin against yours. That very night where you pressed delicate kisses beneath his jaw. The moment of intimacy—making his heart pound and warmth spread beneath his cold skin—was threatening. You were threatening.

That’s where he cut you off completely. He did not knock on your bedroom door located in the lov base anymore. He stopped sending those “you up?” texts at 3am. He didn’t even lock eyes with you or talk to you anymore.

It feels as if something heavy dropped inside you, squashing your heart to the point where it’s painful. You try your best to ignore the pang in your chest and remind yourself that you guys were nothing more than co-workers with benefits. However, the enduring heartburn only functions to make you realize how attached you were to him. He’s Dabi, the biggest scumbag you will ever meet, what did you expect? What were you thinking? It should be no surprise this happened, right? But having to encounter his stupidly handsome face every day was not doing any help. You are a girl with dignity, you tell yourself, trying your best to ignore his strong scent of campfire and cologne drowning you every time you guys are in the same room.

The pain is suffocating you for weeks, and you finally decide to completely get over him. The night Dabi brings a bimbo to his room and fucks her loud enough for everyone in the lov to hear—for you to hear—you’re done with everything. You step outside, get drunk, do anything to numbify the pain the raven-haired guy has caused you, and even meet a nice-looking guy who seems to be interested in you.

You are doing good without Dabi.

You don’t need Dabi anymore.

You are not letting him get to your head.

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A party.

League of villains is all about privacy, but they also started having some fun after uniting with the meta liberation army. Now they had sufficient money, people and place to throw parties every now and then without the danger of getting caught by civilians. Afterall, a number of heroes were in their side as well.

“Not gonna lie, you guys do know how to host parties.” Keigo smirks, picking up a glass of bourbon whiskey. “It’s fuckin’ lame,” Dabi answers as he downs a glass of liquor.

“So, what happened with y/n?” Keigo throws a suggestive smile.

“The hell you mean what happened with her?” Dabi frowns.

“Y’know, didn’t you guys used to be a thing or something?”

“Nah, she was an occasional fuck and that’s it.”

“Oh really? The Dabi I know never fucks a same bitch twice though. I thought she was something special.”

“Special?”

“Yeah, thought maybe you actually wanted her.”

A smug grin appears on Dabi’s face. “Never even liked her.”

“Have you seen her and her new boyfriend?”

The smile is quick to vanish from his face after hearing the word boyfriend. Dabi’s eyes widen, immediately glaring at Keigo. Before he could say anything, Keigo tilts his chin to point something.

“There they are.”

Dabi turns his head only to find you clinging onto some guy’s arm. Your cheeks are flushed –a pretty, pink glow on your face—as you bat your eyelashes at the guy. Bubbly giggles escape from your lips while you stare at him through half-lidded eyes. The guy’s arm is secured around your waists, pulling you closer to him.

Dabi sees red.

His entire body freezes as his grip around the liquor glass tighten. Dabi doesn’t say anything for a moment, but there is no way Keigo wouldn’t pick up how his cerulean eyes are flaming at the sight. “Well, I thought you knew.” Keigo pats Dabi’s shoulder. “Wouldn’t matter anyways right? You never liked her.”

“…Right.” Dabi takes another sip from the liquor, his eyes still fixed to you.

Keigo’s words are true; at least they are supposed to be true. Dabi didn’t have feelings for you. He doesn’t do romance. No feelings were ever involved with any of the women he’s slept with, and he made sure of it. It was so clear for Dabi without a question.

But why is it unable for him to erase the sight of you with some guy as he forces himself to sleep that night? Why are your sweet giggles echoing his head? Why can’t he get rid of the thought of you in that tight, black dress that perfectly complements the curves of your body? Why is the moment where the guy places his hand on your inner thigh replaying in his head? Why are thoughts of you messing with his mind?

“Fucking hell.”

Dabi gets up. This was fucking annoying. You were truly fucking annoying.

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You tilt your head to check the glowing digits of your digital clock on the nightstand. 2:15am. It’s late, and you haven’t even taken off the dress you wore to the party. You are too tired both physically and emotionally. You’ve done quite a decent job in entertaining the man who’s accompanied you through the whole party, but it was truly an energy-consuming task. You and him walked around as if you guys were the happiest couple in the party; but the truth is that you guys aren’t even properly dating yet. Solely because you have constantly been refusing to properly answer him asking you to be his girlfriend. It’s not that he’s bad looking or anything, but the idea of being with him just doesn’t sit right with you. Ever since you’ve met him, he couldn’t keep his hands off you without asking you anything about consent. You always had to pull his hand away with an uncomfortable smile, yet he never took a hint. However, when a dating rumor about you and him started and spread quickly, you didn’t try to correct anything. Maybe it was because you wanted to pull out a reaction from a certain villain. Maybe your unusual actions at today’s party; clinging onto the guy and laughing at every single word he spoke; was to make Dabi witness how happy you were.

 Truthfully, you were dying inside.

 What was even worse was that none of your attempts seemed to bring an ounce of reaction from Dabi. When have you become so pathetic and desperate? You feel tears welling up in your eyes, hot and burning, but you don’t want to cry. Not for an asshole like him. You take out your phone, find the guy’s name, and text him that you don’t want to see him anymore. You feel a little guilty, thinking that you may have used him to provoke something from Dabi, but your thoughts are too worn out for you to comprehend anything. You flop onto your bed and bury your face in your pillow. You huff out a deep sigh, and the soft texture of your cotton pillow feels warm on your cheeks. In all honesty, you were thinking about Dabi the whole time you were at the party. Whenever the guy’s hand creeped up your thighs or gripped on your ass, you imagined it was Dabi’s, trying your hardest to feel something from the contact.

 You weren’t over Dabi. You never were. Realization hurts, leaving a sour feeling in your mouth.

 Your body shoots up at the sudden, loud slamming sound emerged from your door. Your teary eyes widen at the lean man slamming the door shut. “Dabi?” You ask, not believing your eyes. “What the hell are you doing here?” Without an answer, Dabi’s one hand reaches for your throat as his other hand grips your wrist. His large body is towering over you, and you feel your bed shift as he dips one knee in the mattress. His sapphire eyes pierce through your soul, and you can feel his raging anger just from looking at him.

“You’re such a pain in the ass, y’know that?”

“Dabi, what are you-“

He doesn’t let you finish the sentence, pulling you in for a heated kiss. Your lips open reflexively, enabling him to deepen the kiss. The kiss is aggressive, and he doesn’t know whether it is because of his anger or his pent-up desires towards you that he has been suppressing. The kiss gets sloppier over time, hot and wet with saliva and tongue. He lets go of the grip on your wrist and starts tracing your inner thigh with his thumb, and you let out a soft moan. You finally pull away from the kiss to catch your breath, but he doesn’t cease to caress your thigh. Instead, he lowers himself to your ear. “You seem to really love thigh touches, don’t you?” His low voice and hot breath brushing the shell of your ear sends chills down your spine.

“Huh?”

“I always knew you were a slut, but never knew you were this much of a whore. You would bend over any guy who offers you some touches, right?”

Tears swell in your eyes again at his vile words, but it’s hard to talk when his knuckles are repeatedly brushing your clit.

“I’m… not a slut…nngh.” Suppressed moans escape your lips.

“Yeah? Why are you making those sounds then?”

“Dabi…”

He yanks your dress up and dips two fingers inside your lace panties, making you let out a weak yelp. Dabi raises his brows with a smug grin on his face.

“Oh, so she indeed is a slut huh? You get this fucking wet from a kiss?”

His two digits start pumping inside you, and you grip on his white shirt at the sudden sensation. Your gasps and moans get louder, and you suddenly feel his wet lips against your neck. Dabi sucks hard, making sure to leave dark purple marks from your jaw to your neck and shoulder, as he repeats the step of curling his fingers and pulling them inside and out your hole. “Dabi…too fast.” You whine out. “Yeah?” A sadistic grin appears on Dabi’s face. “Be a good slut and take what I give you.” His thumb reaches for your clit, making your legs shiver.

“Nngh…stop, I’m gonna… Dabi I’m gonna cum.”

“Stop? You want me to stop?”

“No!”

“Do you deserve it though?” he slows his pace while teasing your clit. “Beg.”

It’s humiliating, really—but do you have any other choice when you are this close?

“Please, Dabi… I’ll be your good slut. Please let me cum!” Your desperate cries have him pumping his fingers fast again, and soon you’re seeing white. Hot drops of release coat Dabi’s fingers as he pulls out.

“Say ah.”

“A-ah.”

You obey, and Dabi sticks his digits inside your mouth. Your mouth wraps around them immediately, sucking as if it’s a pacifier. “Good girl,” Dabi says as he pats your head, and it makes your stomach swoop with sick pride.

The bulge in his pants is becoming painful, and he contemplates on fucking your mouth. But he’s too impatient; He feels the need to abuse your cunt right now. He wants to hear your screams and cries as he proves who you belong to.

“Take that off.” Dabi gestures at your dress, and you start undressing as he demands. Dabi pulls down his sweatpants and boxers, causing his cock to spring out. It’s so pretty, you think, and you can’t help but admire his red tip, glistening with precum. He pumps his length a few times and lines it up with your entrance. You inhale a sharp gasp as you feel his whole length inside you. It feels so full; it feels as if he’s gonna split you in half if he starts moving.

“Ah, too big.”

“I know.” Dabi looks down on you. “Take it like a little slut you are.”

Before you could even talk back, he is moving inside you. Your moans blend with the noise of the bed creaking; a perfectly harmonized orchestra to Dabi’s ears.

You knew Dabi wasn’t one to prep you or go slow, but you feel like he’s going way rougher than usual. His wild thrusts have your head lolling backwards, and Dabi does not miss the chance to take a hard bite on your neck. You scream out of both pain and pleasure, and you feel two hot streams of tears on your flushed cheeks.

“Aww, she’s crying.” Dabi says in a mocking tone. “Bet you love the pain.”

Humiliation fills your chest and you turn your head away, but Dabi quickly grabs your chin with one hand, forcing you to directly face him.

“Who’s the one making you feel this full?” he asks.

“Y-you.”

“Did he ever make you feel this way?”

Wait, he? Who does he mean by he? Your alleged boyfriend? Could it be possible that Dabi was doing this out of jealousy? You try to comprehend, but it’s impossible for you to think clearly, not when Dabi is fucking you stupid. “No!” You shout.

Dabi’s free hand reaches for your clit and starts rubbing circles. “Tell me, who does this pussy belong to?”

“You…” You try to answer, but he suddenly lifts up your lower body and slams into your cervix in the right angle. It has you moaning even louder, your insides spasming around his cock.

“I can’t hear you.” He smirks sadistically.

“You, Dabi, it belongs to you! I belong to you!” You’re screaming his name like it’s the only word you know, making his cock twitch. “That’s right. You are all for me, all for me to use. Just a pathetic little slut for my cock.” A satisfactory grin appears on Dabi’s face.

Dabi lowers his body down and grunts directly into your ear as he thrusts even faster. The sound of his skin slamming into yours is so erotic, and you can feel how close you are.

“You wanna cum huh?” His words have you nodding frantically, babbling incoherent words. Yes Dabi—wanna cum so bad—wanna be yours—wanna be your good girl—please, dabi.

“Then do it. Make a mess on my cock.”

“Nngh, Dabi!” You scream out his name as euphoria washes down your body. His release follows you soon enough, painting your walls white. You feel warmth filling your belly while his groans echo in your ear. You’re still sobbing and panting after he pulls out, without any energy left to move. As your blurry vision starts getting clearer, you feel his warm skin and the sting of his cold staples against your back. His long arms wrap around your oversensitive body, pulling you closer to him.

“You’re messing with my head.” Dabi rests his forehead on the back of your shoulder.

“Huh?”

You’re confused, but Dabi doesn’t elaborate. His ego doesn’t let him do such thing.

“When you said you belonged to me, did you mean it?”

You bite your lower lip, not knowing how to respond to his sudden question. Millions of unspoken words and feelings are hanging in the back of your throat, creating a huge lump. You swallow them all and spit out a question instead. “Do you want me to belong to you?”

“Yeah.” Your eyes widen at his unexpected response, butterflies fluttering inside your chest. “Be mine.” His low voice vibrates against your soft skin. Your heart melts at his words, and you cannot stop your feelings from overspilling anymore. At that moment you both realize; you and Dabi were meant to crawl back to each other, no matter how hard you both try and struggle.

“I’m yours.” You smile, “I’m all yours.”

[haropla]

Nat, as a person who absolutely loves Gundam Seed and got into gunplay by building the HG strike: yassssss go off

oh MAN I blast Seed every opportunity I get and then some and you're still following me? you're an actual diamond.

anyway, far be it from me to criticize anyone getting into gunpla because they liked the story/characters it's tied to or even because it was formative. my first gunpla was an HG revive guncannon because 0079 was my first series and I love kai so damn much. but I just cannot look at this manga with cute girls creating mainline cosmic era gunpla with any sort of good faith or just look at it in a vacuum.

with seed having its 20th anniversary next year, this is very much a deliberate decision, a ploy in order to scrape together every little scrap of attention they can get for the very nationalistic, misogynistic parts of the franchise. this series that, on the surface, is meant to be cute girls bonding over a hobby normally considered embarrassing weird otaku stuff, did not just appear out of nowhere independent of literally everything it's attached to, be it seed/destiny, gunpla, or gundam as a whole. if IRL people still like gundam seed while still acknowledging it's got some real problems, that's fine! absolutely no one is immune to liking bad media or liking media others really hate. but these characters are constructed for the sake of marketing and drumming up attention for some real terrible series that are are still bizarrely popular, and that is a fact regardless of how un/popular this manga will be.

for how unreliable gundam wiki is, it at least tells me that the older lady (she's 30, apparently) didn't touch gunpla before the manga started. so presumably that one got into gundam seed for...its writing? like. you're telling me that this lady got sold on seed's fujobait when amuro and char are right there?? (and garma. holy SHIT garma's stupidly popular. there's an entire au manga I'm convinced was created for the sole purpose of shipping him and char without it being problematic). and if it wasn't for fujobait reasons, then was it really just deep (tm) themes about self-determination and pursuing pacifism? I've already gone on at length about how horseshit the writing is on basically every level, so that means she either doesn't mind or outright likes the nationalism and very rampant misogyny that goes on in mainline cosmic era. and even if it frames seed as a formative experience--again, this character was deliberately created to be shaped by a terrible series. I'm very much not interested in following a character like that, regardless of how irrelevant it is in the manga. not to mention characters like this are meant to be "relatable." Do Not Want.

at least with og build fighters, there's an emphasis on sei and reiji really making the build strike their own, especially when there's a big character beat that has sei break apart from what he likes about gundam so he can come up with something original. but in the official art for this gunpla manga, you have the girls holding up straight builds of the strike and destiny, which are framed and built up as symbols of Japanese imperialism overcoming every obstacle in the way of hypocrisy-laden pacifism by way of violent, merciless conquest.

basically the only way this manga will actually redeem itself is if the high school girl slaps that destiny kit out of her hands and slams down a stargazer in front of her instead.

[once-upon-a-ouat]

I'm super curious, OQ & Rumbelle?

Did you absolutely have to ask about Outlaw Queen? Okay, I will try not to bitch and just lay out my thoughts when it comes to just the writing.

OQ started out really cute and adorable and I was honestly rooting for them in 3B, although, in hindsight, it was all very rushed. They had to have them in a relationship in exactly 6 episodes (9 if you count the flashbacks) and I get it that they were pressed by time constraints if they wanted to do the whole Marian thing, but that’s the thing - they didn’t have to! The moment they brought her back, I knew the ship was absolutely fucked. Further proven in 4x03 with Robin’s behavior (that scene where he kisses Marian just annoys me so much but I promised not to bitch). Both Regina and Robin were in the wrong in 4x08 and I may give Regina a pass for that, considering everything she’s been through, but not Robin. Not to mention that he wasn’t even a little happy when Marian was woken up (nobody bring up Zelena into this because back at the time that episode was written even the writers hadn’t known it was Zelena (and that is very apparent but I need to stop)). The whole Zelena and her pregnancy thing was absolutely outrageous, it wasn’t handled at all and it basically didn’t go anywhere for Robin’s character or for his relationship with Regina (since we didn’t even see them discuss how to deal with it) and what was the fucking point of it, really? Don’t get me wrong, Robin Jr is a real delight, I love her so much and Zelena made a lot of progress since she became a mother, but just... what were they thinking when they wrote that? They clearly weren’t thinking at all.

Season 5 was supposed to have Robin as a major character, yet, he was nowhere to be seen. He didn’t do absolutely anything except for almost get killed and then get killed, so why did they even bring him back from New York? Should’ve left him there with real Marian and brought Zelena back some other way tbh. There was zero character development for him, he barely had any time, his relationships with ANYONE else weren’t further developed and then they just fucking murdered him to move along Regina’s storyline and because he was fucking useless. His character potential was absolutely and painfully wasted as he was used as a prop for Regina and Zelena and their relationship, and I am getting really angry over here. For what it’s worth, I did enjoy OQ in 3B, they were really cute and I had my hopes up, but their relationship was completely ruined by some of the worst writing I’ve seen on the show. This is probably in my top 3 major pet peeves with OUAT’s writing as a whole. They just wasted so much screen time and potential there and that left me kind of repulsed with the canon reality of OQ. I can only enjoy this ship in fics nowadays tbh. Fanfic writers seem to have a better grasp on what is the proper way to develop that particular relationship and how to handle the trials Robin and Regina had to face. (I tried to contain the angry but I don’t think I really succeeded there so sorry for that. I did my best but this just gets me every time.)

I already talked about Rumbelle a bit here, but I will throw in some more thoughts.

I feel like I need to finish my rewatch of the series in order to reach a final conclusion as to how I feel about Rumbelle. I did like them a lot as well as I had some major issues with them. Aside from the writing in seasons 5 and 6 which I was really not a fan of, I am still not sure how I feel about the relationship itself and what its very existence entails.

To elaborate on that, Belle has claimed many times that she accepts Rumple’s darkness but would like him to be a better man which is understandable. However, I am not completely convinced of this since she didn’t just want him to not be evil and murder people or ruin their lives. She pretty much wanted him to be a hero which was in Rumple’s abilities but at the same time it wasn’t really... See, this is what I mean when I say I need to rewatch all of the relationship development because little moments that represented the nuances I am looking at are most certainly escaping me and I can’t really make up my mind. What I’m getting at is that I don’t think Belle should’ve accepted the fact that he kills people and be okay with it. I’m very far from that thought. But she wanted him to change his ways completely which Rumple had the potential for but not really the desire and motivation tbh. Also, how much can you change before you’re a completely different person? And isn’t love falling for the person as they are? So basically what I want to say here is that Belle always saw the man behind the beast and she loved him, but what about the beast? She said in 5B that she accepted that part of Rumple as well but did she really? I am not completely convinced about that. And again, I don’t think she should’ve been okay with all the evil deeds he’d done and kept doing. And I’m not even sure what balance they could’ve reached there (not ruin everyone’s lives but still make deals that might be unfavorable to the other person? Only make deals that benefit both parties without strings attached? I don’t really know, that’s the thing!).

Not to mention Rumple’s million fuck ups, all about the same thing. You’d think that after centuries of making the same mistakes, he would’ve learned but nope, nope, he didn’t. Honestly, turning him back into a Dark One in the end of 5A was such a stupid ass decision on the writers’ part. They were finally past that, why did they have to bring it back? After all the hard work and heartbreak we went back to ground zero because the writers couldn’t figure out another conflict for the Rumbelle ship. They were just reusing the same problems that Rumbelle had faced a zillion times in the past and, honestly? I really wish I hadn’t been here for it. It was just painfully stupid and stupidly painful to watch when they had other options for conflict (Rumple was abandoned by both parents and ended up abandoning his son. With a new child on the way, why not make that the central conflict of his arc? And have Belle struggling with the fact that they are trapped in Storybrooke while she’s always wanted to see the world? And Rumple being unable to do anything about that since he’s not the Dark One anymore and them having to work through those thoughts? Just a few suggestions, you know?)

Anyway, this got more negative than I wanted it to be. I don’t hate Rumbelle, I actually like it a lot, but I would’ve cheered for different writing choices tbh. Let’s just leave this off here before I can add more negativity to this.

[raeofgayshine]

ok so i love mercedes and i like brittany

i love tina's style and artie's singing is so good

everyone else i'm p neutral about so far!

so the song sam auditioned with, billionaire? most of the songs they do i don't know but i actually know that one!! it's by gym class heroes and i know it bc patrick from fall out boy sang it with them at a show they did

also they did the only exception from paramore which was v exciting bc i did not expect to hear any music i like in this show alsksls

Mercedes is fucking amazing, and her friendship with Kurt is genuinely on of my favorites. Ever since that “Bust Your Windows” moment and the episode ending with her apologizing to Kurt and being so chill about his coming out, ugh just sold on them. She’s a good fucking character.

Brittany is very sweet, and as the show goes on she gets so much development to her character which obvi we love to see.

Also yeah Tina has an amazing style, and Kevin Mchale (Artie’s actor) has such a good good voice you’re so right.

The one thing Glee had going for it I guess was that it did tackle a lot of songs, sometimes just because they were popular, but some characters do tend to have actual styles they lean into which is cool. They definitely tried to do different stuff but some songs were a lot better done than others.

I actually like quite a large amount of the music from Glee, but see my sister hates it because I often will hear a song and go “Oh! That was on Glee” and it’s the only place I know it from. Like “The Only Exception”? I still think I’ve only heard the Glee version of it, and I like it but maybe it’s just because I have associations with it. For some characters, like with Kurt and Blaine, I prefer their versions of songs just because I really love their voices (And singing voices are a Big Thing for me). And some I just can’t bother to look up the real version. So many of my playlists are scattered with Glee songs including my Christmas one and my sister hates it so much.

Jonathan Groff my beloved <3. Whatever I feel about Jesse, he sang some good songs.

Also so sorry for rambling but you watching Glee is reawakening my hyperfixation and I might have said this already? Idk but I’m tempted to start rewatching not the whole show but my favorite parts (because clips easier for brain to focus on) just because I am not consumed with thoughts of them. It’s just,,, such a show that has everything I could ever love and by that I mean such a stupidly abundant amount of music and characters I can so easily get attached to