#i'm on the wilderness farm

[ranger-kellyn]

i love whenever i finally get the Cliques achievement in stardew bc it's rarely ever the same characters and this clique for this save file is. Fascinating

[fictionadventurer]

Why was "Mrs. Gaskell" used as a way to dismiss her as an author? As if she's just a middle-class wife and mother who can't care about anything beyond the cozy and the domestic? This should be something to celebrate! She was a wife and a mother and an author!

And not just one who's writing stories for her children. (Not that there's anything wrong with writing for your children--Tolkien writing for his children gave us some masterworks--but it is the expected path of a mother of the period who wants to write.) Gaskell wrote stories examining big societal issues like labor and technology and the class divide. She's living proof that a woman doesn't stop having a brain or caring about the wider world once she has a husband and children. She managed to write stories that have become part of the literary canon and raised a family. Why was this used to frame her as a lesser author when she managed to do more with her life? It's amazing that an author with that background got to be part of the literary conversation, and it should be celebrated more.

[auryborealis]

This is why I haven't been active lately

[silent-partner-412]

so i've heard many things about the fabled living hat in our very stardew valley. i've seen youtubers try and fail to obtain it in 100 day challenges. i've heard of statistics of 1 in 100,000, or 1 in 10,000 if you're playing on a specific farm and kill a specific enemy on that farm. i do not care about hats, i do not care about this item. i think it's a bit ugly to be honest. but, lo and behold, on my current run, i check my inventory randomly to see this.

i was truly flabbergasted seeing this. it will likely never happen to me again. also i will immediately take it off now because it is so ugly. but i will always remember this moment regardless.

[witchywithwhiskey]

Ari + 28. “take it like a good girl and stop whining” + 82. “you think your begging is going to change my mind?"

a fruitful afternoon in the strawberry field

pairing: farmer husband!ari levinson x female reader

warnings: 18+ content (minors dni!!!), smut, breeding kink, piv sex, outdoor sex, creampie, no condoms, cockwarming, dry humping, daddy kink, little bit of mommy kink, dirty talk, praise kink, little bit of bratting, light bdsm, begging, teasing, pet names (wildflower, honey), aftercare, fluff, established relationship

word count: 2,500ish

a/n: ahhh Eva it took me a little while to come up with a fic from these prompts, but i have a feeling you'll enjoy this one 😅 (at least i hope so!!) i'm pretty happy with how this turned out, and i especially love the concept of strawberry farmer ari levinson. i just love him so much and i hope everyone else does too!! ♡♡

The spring sunshine was warm against your skin, the soft breeze caressing your face and the day seemed all the brighter because you were standing next to your husband, Ari Levinson, in an open field of growing strawberries. And he was looking particularly handsome on that spring afternoon. His brown hair glinted gold in the sun, his cheeks rosy with the heat, and when he looked at you, his blue eyes sparkled like the surface of the sea.

While your thoughts were wandering, Ari was bent down, checking on the growth of his strawberries, which were just beginning to turn from green to red as the warmth of spring deepened into the heat of summer. They would be ripe soon, and in just a few weeks, the fields would be swarming with people who came from all over to pick their own strawberries at Ari’s farm.

But on that spring afternoon, it was just you and Ari, the strawberry fields stretching out around you until they ended in the tree line that separated the farm from the wilderness beyond. You were alone, and your husband looked far too enticing kneeling in the dirt he’d sowed himself for you to pass up an opportunity to show him how much you adored him.

Which was how Ari ended up on his back between the rows of strawberries, your knees planted on either side of his hips and your bare pussy rubbing against the bulge in his jeans. Your sundress fluttered around your thighs as your hips rocked, your hands pressed flat against Ari’s stomach, your fingertips digging into the layer of softness that cushioned his muscles beneath.

“That’s it, wildflower, take what you need—rub that achy little cunt all over daddy’s bulge,” Ari rumbled, his big hands gripping your hips. Neither of you paid any mind to how he was rubbing dirt into the cotton of your sundress, making you just as dirty as him. “Does it feel good, honey?”

You mewled your response, tipping your head back so your face was turned toward the sun. It felt better than good. Ari’s bulge was thick and hard between your thighs, and your slit was already so wet and messy, it made the slide against his rough jeans feel deliciously wonderful. You felt like you could ride Ari’s bulge for hours and never get tired of it. 

But then Ari thrust his hips up from beneath you, bouncing you on his lap and your eyes flew open, finding your husband’s gaze as he stared up at you like a goddess made mortal. Your inner walls clenched around nothing and you whimpered, your arms trembling as your elbows gave out and you collapsed against your husband’s chest. Sizzling pleasure raced down your spine and through your nerves, making you shake and shudder.

“Need your cock, daddy,” you whined, your fingers grabbing fistfuls of Ari’s shirt as you clung to him, your hips still writhing as you stole as much pleasure from his bulge as you could manage. Lifting your head, you sought your husband’s gaze again, giving him your most pitiful pleading look. “Need you to fill me up, wanna feel your big cock stretch my little hole, daddy, please.” 

Ari brushed the backs of his fingers over your cheek and he gave you a regretful look. “Condoms are in the house, wildflower,” he said, his words a reminder that you were off your birth control. And if you’d thought about it harder, you’d have remembered it wasn’t a safe time of the month. 

But you weren’t thinking about the risks or what the two of you had previously discussed. You were thinking about Ari’s cock splitting you open and and his seed spilling deep in your cunt. You were thinking about your belly growing round and swollen with Ari’s baby. You were thinking about your husband breeding you. 

You wanted it so badly, it took your breath away—it was all you wanted. But it wasn’t what the two of you had decided. Still, you were so needy, you couldn’t stop yourself from begging your husband for his cock, even if he wouldn’t breed you. 

“I don’t care, daddy,” you whined, pushing yourself up until you were sitting on Ari’s lap again. His bulge was so hard and heavy between your thighs and you couldn’t stop yourself from rocking harder on it. “I need you—I need you,” you cried, barely stopping yourself from begging him for a baby. Your voice was high and thin and pleading, and you held Ari’s gaze as you trailed your fingers down his chest, hooking them into the hem of his jeans. “I’ll be good, I swear,” you promised, giving him an innocent look.

Ari huffed a laugh and rolled his eyes, but his mouth was curving into a grin like he couldn’t help himself when it came to you—and you knew he couldn’t. Ari knew you well enough to know what you really wanted, and you knew your husband well enough that you knew he was close to giving it to you.

“You’re gonna be good for me, huh, honey?” Ari rumbled, his grin spreading wider and his blue eyes sparkling up at you. “So, that means you won’t start begging me to put a baby in your belly when I’m balls deep in your sweet cunt?” Ari asked dryly, raising a playful eyebrow at you. 

Your core clenched at Ari’s words and you instinctively pressed down harder against his bulge, your pussy dripping onto his jeans and soaking the front of his pants. But you ignored your body’s response and nodded, an eager smile on your lips. You knew you were lying, and you knew Ari knew you were lying from the long look he gave you, but you both decided to play along anyway.

“Fine, fine,” Ari huffed, biting back a laugh that shook his chest. His hands gathered the skirt of your sundress and pushed it up until he could see your slick cunt rubbing idly against his bulge. You watched his eyes darken and his mouth curve into a hungry smirk. “Take daddy’s cock out, wildflower.”

You didn’t need to be told twice. Your fingers fumbled with the button of his jeans for a moment before you managed to get it open. Then you pulled down his fly and reached inside to take his cock in your hands. He was thick and long and perfect and you smiled as you stroked him reverently. But you were too impatient to do more than that, pushing yourself up onto your knees to line yourself up with the tip. 

You were plenty wet, but Ari was so big and thick that it only took the head of his cock pushing into your tight hole for you to start whining. “Daddy, daddy, you’re so big,” you mewled, raising your hips and pressing down again, taking another inch of his hard cock inside you. 

“You begged for this, wildflower,” Ari said through gritted teeth, the muscle in his jaw popping as you sank your hot cunt down on his cock. “Take it like a good girl and stop whining.” 

His filthy words sent a shiver down your spine and a low moan slipped from your lips as you pushed down on his cock, taking him deeper. Your pussy ached at the stretch, but it was a delicious kind of pain and you wanted more of it. Lifting up, you slammed back down on Ari’s cock, taking him another couple of inches. 

“Oh god, daddy, it feels so good,” you cried on a gasp, fucking yourself on Ari’s cock as you took him deeper with each thrust. 

His hands gripped your hips, holding your dress up out of the way so he could watch you impale yourself on his cock. Otherwise, he laid still between your thighs, content to watch you do all the work, which only made you hotter. 

Your hands let go of his shirt and began playing with your tits, groping yourself through your dress. “Fuck, daddy,” you moaned, fucking yourself on his cock, taking him deeper with ever downward thrust. “Your big cock feels so good in my tight little pussy, daddy, just wanna ride your dick all day.”

“Don’t know how long ‘m gonna last, honey, you feel like heaven around me,” Ari murmured, his voice warm and thick as honey on a hot spring day. “So tight and warm and perfect—your perfect pussy wrapped around my dick.” He groaned when you sank down the final inch and your bodies were joined together to the root of his cock. 

You moaned and rocked your hips, feeling his cock shift deep inside you, the tip kissing your cervix and making you clench hard around him. You knew you’d promised to be good, but your need for your husband to breed you was too strong. 

“When you come, come inside me,” you murmured, the words slipping from your lips before you could stop yourself.

Between one moment and the next, Ari’s eyes caught yours and he sat up, one of his hands wrapping around the back of your neck and holding you still on his lap while he half-heartedly glared at you. 

“I thought you were going to be a good girl for me, wildflower,” he rumbled, his voice low and dangerous in that way that made you shiver. Despite the growly tenor of his tone, you knew there was no anger in your husband, and you gave him a playful smile.

“We both know I was lying, daddy,” you said sweetly, innocently batting your lashes at your husband. You leaned in until your lips were ghosting over his, teasing him. “Besides, we both know you love it when I beg you to fuck a baby into me,” you whispered, confidence in your sultry tone. “You wanna plant your seed in me and watch my belly swell with the child we made together, don’t you daddy?”

Ari growled and captured your lips in a fierce kiss, showing you exactly how much he wanted what you described. When he pulled away, he pressed his forehead to yours. 

“We decided to wait until the summer to get pregnant, honey,” he rumbled, reminding you of the conversations you’d had when you weren’t drunk on his cock. But his free hand was urging your hips to rock on him, making it impossible for you to care about what you’d decided before.

You moaned helplessly, feeling Ari’s cock twitch and throb inside you, the tip rubbing against a spot that made you see stars. Pleasure was swirling through your body, your clit grinding against the base of him, and it was too much. You couldn’t have stopped the words from flowing from your mouth even if you’d wanted to.

“Knock me up, daddy, please, I wanna have your baby,” you begged desperately, uncaring of what you and Ari decided before you’d gone into the fields and sank down on his cock. “I can’t wait until the summer, I want you to put a baby in me now—breed me, please, daddy, daddy, please, please, please.”

Ari groaned as his hand tightened around the back of your neck. “You think your begging is going to change my mind?” he growled, pressing hard, suckling kisses to your neck, his beard rasping over your skin and his teeth nipping at your jaw. “You think your sweet pleading is going to make me forget what we decided?”

In one fluid movement, Ari flipped you onto your back, laying you down in the hay that covered the dirt between the rows of strawberries and he settled his hips between your thighs. His cock sank even deeper into your cunt and you moaned mindlessly, tossing your head back against the soft ground. Ari pushed your knees up toward your chest until you were bent in half in a mating press. His eyes, wild with hunger and desire, met yours, and his mouth twisted into a needy snarl.

“Because it did,” he growled and began fucking you hard and fast. 

His big cock bottoming out in your tight pussy made you scream in pleasure, your fingers diving into your husband’s soft hair. You clung to him while he rutted into you like a man possessed—like a man intent on breeding his wife.  

“We’re making a baby today, honey,” Ari promised, ducking down to capture your lips in a messy, brutal kiss. “I’m fucking you full of my seed right here in the strawberry field until you’re ripe and swollen with my child.” He trailed kisses down your cheek until his mouth was right next to your ear. “You’re going to make such a pretty mommy, wildflower.”

Your whole body clenched at Ari’s filthy words, and all you could do was chant, “yes, yes, yes, daddy, daddy, daddy,” as he pounded into you. Your pleasure built quickly, and it wasn’t long before you were mewling and moaning and writhing beneath Ari’s big body, only for him to pin you down more firmly and reach between your bodies to find your clit.

Ari rubbed your tight little button in harsh circles and you were helpless to the pleasure. You came with a shrill cry, your head tilted back, face turned toward the sun and the smell of earth and strawberries filling your senses. Your body clenched tight, your hands fisting in your husband’s hair as your pussy squeezed his cock. 

With a low groan, Ari followed you over the edge, mumbling, “Gonna make you a mommy, honey, can’t wait to see you round with my child—so pretty, so pretty—my pretty little wildflower.” He pressed deep inside you, and you felt his cock throb in your cunt, his seed spilling into your womb while he groaned his pleasure. 

Ari rocked into you, making you moan as he fucked his come deeper inside you, until you were both trembling with the overstimulation. Digging an arm beneath your back, Ari flipped you both over so he was laying on the ground and you were sprawled across his chest. His come leaked out around where his softening length was still lodged inside you, but neither of you could be bothered with trying to clean it up yet.

The spring sunshine was warm on your back and Ari was strong and sturdy beneath you, his heart beating against his ribcage under your cheek. You smiled to yourself and hoped that Ari’s seed would take. You couldn’t wait to have a child with him, even if it was a little earlier than you’d planned. 

Lifting your head, you caught your husband’s eye and were happy to see he looked just as content as you felt. Leaning up, you caught his lips in a kiss that said everything you needed to say—you loved him, you appreciated him, you couldn’t wait to grow your little family with him. And he returned your feelings in kind, kissing you back. 

The two of you stayed out under the spring sun longer than you’d originally intended when you’d tagged along with Ari to check on the progress of the crop. But it turned out to be a fruitful afternoon in the strawberry field—though it wouldn’t be until well after the strawberries had ripened and been picked that you learned just how successful your spring romp had been.

[memories-of-ancients]

A Fascinating Book I'm Reading

One of the best non-fiction reads I've read in a while, it's not a military history book, but details specifically the Confederate government, culture, society, the legal system, and economy.

What I find most fascinating about the book was just how fucked up the Confederacy became even from the early outset. Especially in terms of law and order. Due to the incredible manpower demands most men of military age either enlisted or were later conscripted into the army. This resulted in severe manpower shortages at home. When this happened, the system of slavery the Confederates were fighting for became a grave liability as there was no one left to control the millions of slaves that populated the south. As a result, whole plantations of slaves would run away and form free communities in the wilderness, surviving by pillaging plantations and farms, or robbing travelers on highways. In Louisiana there was a slave town hidden deep in the swamps that housed 2,000 people! At the same time thousands of Confederate soldiers were deserting as the war started going bad. Many soldiers found that their homestead and family was falling apart in their absence, so they deserted. These deserters were declared outlaws, and as a result many banded together, formed groups, and made a living as bandits and marauders.

At the same time many officers in the Confederate army who were garrisoned in specific places became de facto military dictators and warlords over the territory they controlled. They often disobeyed the law and refused to carry out orders issued by the Confederate government, but due to manpower shortages and the disorganization of the government there was little that could be done to reign them in. Often, these warlord Confederates acted as bandits, pillaging the territory they controlled not just for food and necessary supplies but for valuables as well. In many cases, whole towns and even counties rebelled against Confederate military authorities as they were sick of being pillaged by warlord Confederates. A good example was Jones County, Mississippi which actually seceded from the Confederacy as a result. Often, these rebel towns and counties survived by banditry and became marauders themselves just to make a get by.

According to the author, by 1863 much of the rural south was in a state of lawlessness and anarchy with the countryside controlled by bandits, marauders, independent towns or counties, pro-Union enclaves, and military warlords. Like bruh, this would be a good setting for an open world RPG game, perhaps something set in the Red Dead Redemption Universe.

Anyway if you are a Civil War buff I highly recommend this book.

[thatsmzbitchtoyou]

Mz. Bitch's Masterlist

Started: 2/24/24 Last updated: 12/18/24

Due to inline link limits, please click on the story name to start reading and follow the chapter links. Thanks little darlings! Love y'all!

MARVEL

Bucky Barnes *One shots Sex Pollen My Alpha Got Nothing On You Part 2 Movie Night Please Come Back Vibranium & Stainless Steel Shy Dream Girl A little help from my friend Angry baby? Throw It in the Dishwasher Part 2 The Boss Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 I.T. Time to Heal A Very Cutesy, Very Demure Halloween Regrets & Apologies Quite a Workout Part 2 Part 3 Overheard Oh Sister Let's Go Down Little Sea Storm I may be a real bad boy...but baby I'm a real good man Zhihn moya Flirty A Bumpy Ride Part 2 Fire! Lots of Love Things Are Not As They Seem It's Been a Long, Long Time La Muerte Deja Vu Soldat Blood and...Balsam? *Series Breaking the Class Ceiling **Finished Bucky Barnes is a middle class clerk. He needs to marry well to take care of himself and his father. Y/N Y/L/N is the heir to a millionaire fortune, who is blunt, no-nonsense, flirtatious, and looking for a partner. Everyone is vying for her hand. Can Bucky ever win? Pretty Pointy Smile **Finished Bucky was born different, and has been judged for it ever since.  His father has had enough and sells him to the circus.  The acceptance and love of his newfound family, and the beautifully fierce ringmaster, help him realize he’s not the monster everyone else made him out to be. Sugar Mama **Finished Bucky is overworked and struggling to get by.  The bills are piling up and he’s consistently in the red with no end in sight.  Y/N is a billionaire’s daughter, entrepreneur and philanthropist having a hard time finding true friends or love.  She has a proposition for him. Marriage of Convenience **Finished Y/N’s father is gone, and he leaves it all to her.  But in 1880s Oregon, she can’t own land without a husband.  Under the threat of it all being taken away by a land hungry Sheriff, what’s a girl to do with no prospects?  Maybe one of the cowboys on the farm can help… The Temptation **Finished Father Barnes is devout, steadfast, and undeterred by flirtatious congregants.  So why does this fallen angel tempt him so?  You cannot serve two masters.  Will he choose God, or his heart? Norsemen & Anglo-Saxons **Finished Princess Y/N has a secret that her parents are ashamed of.  A conquering Viking chief recognizes the gift she has.  Will they be able to bring peace between warring people, and maybe find love along the way? Stranded **Finished Tossed overboard and lost at sea, Bucky washes up on an uninhabited island.  Injured, lost and scared, with little to no wilderness training, he fights to survive.  But is he really alone? The Fuck Up **Finished Bucky fucked up.  A few times.  Will his best friend ever be able to forgive him?

Naughty Nanny **Finished Bucky had a lovechild from a one night stand.  He barely even remembered it, and was surprised to find a baby on his doorstep 9 months later.  But one look at that little girl and he knew she was his and that he’d die for her.  The only problem was, he knew nothing about babies, and being an Avenger meant he couldn’t just drop everything and be a dad full time.  Then he found the perfect nanny…or so he thought. Run, pretty girl, run **Finished Even with the safeguards put in place after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., the remaining Avengers find themselves on the run after the American government falls into disarray.  The code word is sent, and they’re officially fugitives.  Bucky makes a run for the safe house set up for emergencies like this where the Avengers are told to meet up, but on the way saves the pregnant agent turned payroll specialist that he was partnered with.  Will they make it before she goes into labor?  Or at all?

Pretty P.A. **Finished Y/N has been the personal assistant to the most influential and famous fashion model agency director in the industry for the past 13 years.  They’ve decided to retire, and are leaving the agency in the hands of their protege and former model, Bucky Barnes.  He seems plenty qualified, and Y/N is excited for a chance to work with him.  Change always takes time,  but the new insanely hot boss is distrustful and hesitant towards her.  The Gorgon **Finished The village nearest the mountain by the sea has a generations-old tradition of offering sacrifices to the monster in the mountain to gain favor and keep its wrath away from the people.  Every person starting from the age of 15 has to take a turn in making the journey up the mountain to the mouth of the cave once a year to drop off the gifts…and it’s a journey that some never come back from.  Y/N took her turn when she was 15, and now the rotation has come back to her again.  If the gift isn’t given by the autumn solstice, there’s no telling what harm the creature will wreak onto the people.  With a seemingly insurmountable obstacle in her way, will she make it to save her and her people?  Can a monster have a heart? Dreamboat **Finished Y/N, her brother Steve, and his best friend Bucky all moved out West for a new start after Y/N was almost caught up and hurt in a rival gang fight.  Steve wasn’t in shape to fight in the war, but Bucky was drafted.  While out West, Y/N finds herself in trouble again from the local bar owner.  Steve is suddenly drafted for an experimental division of the army, but leaving Y/N alone isn’t an option.  Bucky comes home needing help, and Steve comes up with a crazy compromise.  Sweet Pumpkin **Finished Bucky is struggling with the dating world and knows that if he ever hopes to have a serious relationship, that he needs to get through his touch deprivation issues.  It’s not that he doesn’t want to touch people, or them to touch him, but after decades of pain he doesn’t know how to accept physical intimacy from others, or how to give it himself.  He hires Y/N, an intimacy coach and professional cuddler, who comes highly recommended.  Will his heart be able to distinguish between a service given versus real love?

Yes Mama **Finished Bucky Barnes has made quite the name for himself in the underground mob boss world.  But he’s not the boss.  Just the face of the Family. 

A Pirate's Life for Me **Finished Captain Bucky Barnes and his crew on the Armored Star are the most fearsome pirates in the known world.  They’ve given the British fleet a run for their money as they try to free the enslaved and take from the rich, but they could have never guessed how the British empire would retaliate against them.  When a new pirate ship appears and lays waste to all in its path, will Bucky and his crew be ready for the wrath of a woman scorned?

The Witch and The Doctor **Finished Bucky thought he could make a difference, getting a medical license and trying to change people’s minds.  But the 1600s New World is a harsh place with cruel people.  After being accused of witchcraft he makes a run for it, facing the dangers of the woods and the rumored witch that lives within them.

Peter Parker *One shots Emotional *Short Series Tasty **Finished Peter just wanted to have one night of fun.  Then that night of fun almost killed him.  Now it won’t stop haunting him.  And he’s loving it. 

*Series The Young Duke **Finished Queen Y/N is running out of time.  At 35 years old she has to marry and make an heir to the throne, but all suitors so far have been unsatisfactory in one way or another.  Duke Peter Parker is the young Duke of Queensland, and his family is on the brink of ruin due to his parents’ failures and famines throughout the years.  He needs to find an advantageous marriage to save his family’s estate, so when an invitation from the Crown comes, he jumps at the opportunity.  Will it be a match?

Steve Rogers *Oneshot Sex Pollen

*Series My Queen **Finished Steve Rogers is the newly inherited Duke of Brooklyn, struggling to fix the mistakes of his parents while enduring an overbearing, matchmaking mother.  He has no intention of anything romantic in his future, but will a forced love connection with the Queen change his mind?

Fortuna Major **Finished Steve Rogers came home from World War II shell shocked and overwhelmed by the place he once called home.  After losing his mother he and his injured best friend Bucky decide to find a quieter, slower way of life to heal from the war.  They head out west until they hit Fortuna, California, and get jobs in the lumber industry.  Steve comes across a local lodging for miners and lumber workers, and falls head over heels for the female owner who takes no man’s shit. 

Stucky *Oneshot Three's Company

*Series Emerald Hallow **Finished Steve Rogers wants to move on.  He wants to forget Peggy, and dive into the 21st century.  But this man of the past doesn’t know how to navigate being an Alpha in a modern world of skittish Omegas.  He prides himself on his self control, never wanting to harm or scare them, until something just smells too damn good. And he's not the only one who smells it...

Actors

Sebastian Stan *Series A Patient Man **Finished Sebastian swore to never fall for another co-star again. Until Y/N drops into his life.

[voluptuarian]

another thing that's weird about adults who make an identity out of reading children's books is what they hold up as representative of the values they find in YA/young reader's fiction. They typically bring up wish fulfillment fantasy, morals and clear cut lessons, adventure stories with mild peril, strong centering on friendship and found family, and stories that make them "feel good" and are extremely light on genuinely challenging themes or ethically dubious situations.

Meanwhile when I was neck-deep in YA as a kid in the 90s and early 2000s this was the kind of stuff I was reading, other kids were reading, and that was winning awards, being highlighted on shelves and recommended by librarians:

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, in which a teenage boy survives a plane crash and is stranded in the Canadian wilderness and forced to survive on his own for months. He is ultimately rescued but is permanently altered by the experience. His navigating the drama of (I believe either currently separating or recently divorced) parents is also a major plot element.

Virtual War by Gloria Skurzynski, where real-life wars have been eradicated and instead are fought virtually, (inspired, if I remember correctly, by the disastrous results of a previous nuclear conflict) by specially chosen champions who are trained in combat strategy from childhood. Throughout, the three child champions are forced to question and push back against what the government has told them is the truth as well as against their own prejudices, including toward one of their own who is considered a "mutant" due to his dwarfism; it also details the grueling hours-long "war" in which the kids watch thousands of little 3D soldiers get blown up and dismembered and leaves them feeling genuine guilt for participating in.

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George, which focuses on a teenage Inuit girl who is orphaned, forced into marriage and sexually assaulted, then runs away and ends up lost in the Arctic and survives by befriending and living with a pack of wolves.

Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse, in which the heroine lives with her parents on a failing farm as the Dust Bowl is beginning, accidentally sets her pregnant mother on fire resulting in her mother's lingering death and the death of her baby, and the girl herself being permanently maimed, after which she and her father become estranged and she eventually tries to run away.

Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene, which follows a young Jewish American girl on the WWII homefront who befriends (and falls in love with) a German POW, and when he escapes, hides him in her home for months; eventually the prisoner is caught and killed and the girl is sent to prison after being ostracized from the community and disowned by her parents.

The Ramsey Scallop by Francis Temple, where the heroine, engaged since childhood to her current fiance, is sent on a pilgrimage with him as way of working out his trauma from serving in the crusades. Neither of them feels ready to get married and the fiance is dubious about doing much living at all, but they're able to get to know each other and build trust on the road. It's been ages since I read it but I'm pretty sure there's a scene where a hot single guy who helps patch up an injury she sustained then offers to have sex with her, which she decides to turn down.

Music of the Dolphins by Karen Hesse, where a feral child who has been raised by a pod of dolphins is rescued and taken to a center for rehabilitation. The whole thing follows her progress at understanding to how to be human, and eventually her decision to reject it all and go back to her dolphin family.

The Last Book In the Universe by Rodman Philbrick, whose hero is a teenage orphan living in a purposely abandoned dystopia, ostracized by his community for being epileptic, whose only friends are an old man who is the last literate person in the community and a monosyllabic feral child. The split between the have-nots and the haves, who live in sheltered futuristic cities, and discussion of privilege (one of the main characters is a girl from the cities who comes out to do charity work in the dystopian district) are major themes, and violence is a regular occurrence, including toward the finale when the boy's mentor is murdered by a mob while he watches.

(And of course there's Among the Hidden and its sequels by Margaret Peterson Haddix which I never read, but my sister did, and I know at some point a whole bunch of child characters are massacred by the government because it upset my sister so badly she cried.)

And I couldn't forget The Dear America series, which includes:

character who is finishing high school as the Vietnam War begins and watches her social circle split nastily over the issue, lives through classmates and friends getting drafted, and ends up working at a hospital as volunteer where she is assigned to help disabled veterans

character whose mother (and I think siblings), as well as numerous fellow travelers die while traveling alongside her on the Oregon Trail, and later accidentally poisons to death several of her friends after picking a look-alike plant for their dinner; only one survives, who she eventually marries

character who is kidnapped by a local native tribe and eventually adopted, then marries a fellow captive, only for him and other friends and family to be killed when the tribe is attacked by Europeans, putting her into a total crisis of identity and conflicting loyalties

character who is taken from her tribe to be put in residential school, during which she is forcefully acculturated, severely bullied by another classmate, and a childhood friend of hers is accidentally buried alive

multiple books about immigrants in the 1800 and 1900s which highlighted struggles with poverty, cultural pressures, and prejudice; one of them follows a pro-union factory worker who watches as multiple friends die in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, and another whose father imports her to America at 13 to marry a coal miner

most of these stories emphasize the young protagonist ending up in situations were they are either on their own, or so alienated from the adults around them that they might as well be. The protagonists have to assume the adult duty of taking care of themselves, but also of thinking for themselves and making their own decisions and judgements about their lives and the world.

they are also going through big changes, often ones created by their parent's decisions, and which they frequently dislike or are straight up Bad for them. This contrasts with later, when the protagonists are able to make decisions for themselves-- often this comes through hardship and abandonment, but ultimately allows them to control their narrative going forward.

the setting and events are often harrowing, deeply unpleasant, and put the protagonist and their friends in danger of victimization by forces around them. Obviously this is exciting for kids to read, but it also allows them to see someone their age on their own, entering into Adult situations and taking on that role. It's also a break from the overtly positive or cartoonishly (but usually un-seriously) bad circumstances that dominate younger kids fiction and an introduction to the idea that life is just terrible most of the time, sometimes massively and unbelievably so. (It's going from the early childhood story of Madeline's thrilling adventures escaping forced labor in a factory, to the older kid's or YA story of seeing the protagonist work at one day after day, getting injured, having friends get sick, and then watching a girl's scalp get ripped off by the machine, something which creates not excitement but genuine horror and sympathy.) These plots also allow adolescents a chance to experience Big Emotions (like the ones they're about to fall head-first into themselves) in a stable, safe way. All of this aims to create a bridge from the juvenile reality to the genuine, adult one. Trite moral lessons are dispensed with in favor of allowing the child to go out and start thinking for themselves. And especially in stories like the Dear America books, it allows a look at things that happened in the past that we have, or should learn from, but also allows for a fuller emotional, ethical, and empathetic development.

often the introduction of sex is part of the story, from initial experiences of attraction (and the resulting self-consciousness, jealousy, etc.) but also sometimes actual sexual experience. Especially in the historical stories, marriage is also frequently part of the story-- either again, as a fantasy introduction to adult experiences, or as a realistic detail separating a child's historical experience from current ones and creating a better understanding of the hardships historical people went through.

and most include some form of rejection of prevailing authority and thought. Instead of blindly "doing what your parents tell you to" these protagonists must do what they think is practical or ethical. The boy in Hatchet cannot wait for an authority figure to guide him, he must figure out how to survive entirely on his own, while the kids in Virtual War are old enough to begin questioning the entire structure they've been raised in, and to develop empathy for figures that structure has deemed outsiders; the heroine of Music of the Dolphins decides the entire experience of being in human society is not for her, and returns to living with animals.

So these books offer harrowing circumstances, protagonists who are isolated literally or through moral or political alignment, and who must learn to live on their own and make decisions for themselves, often in defiance of prevailing attitudes. They usually emphasize finding one's place (even if that place is completely alone and unsupported), fostering understanding and sympathy with others, even with people who are considered "undesirable," who are different, or who have behaved badly to you in the past. And they frequently involve violence, budding sexuality, exploitation and abuse by authority figures/structures, and a heaping helping of death, including the deaths of beloved friends and family members. What is "feel good" and "unchallenging" about that? And like, I can't speak for what YA is bringing to the table now, but these people are overwhelmingly adults, they were reading YA at around the same time I was, I don't think it would be possible for them to have somehow missed the plethora of books with these hallmarks. So where did they get this idea that YA is some land of comfort where no complicated idea can ever reach you? Even Harry Potter is full of them, and we know they read that!

[optimist-pine]

Eloquence

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Reader

Warnings: implied injury, implied past emotional abuse

Summary: A short one shot/drabble.

Era: Season 2, the Farm

Daryl has never had much of a thing for words. His whole life he'd toed the line; two steps away from saying the wrong ones and paying the price. Words shine a light upon thoughts (which he preferred to keep to himself), and feelings (which almost always got out of hand.) They had perhaps been the worst weapons of his past, like hammers demolishing and striking down relentlessly instead of building up. Intentional or not.

After Merle left, blessedly taking his limited vocabulary with him, a rather peaceful silence emerged. It wasn't long before the absence grew to become it's own annoyance though, and that's when he found himself drawn to new words - yours. He'd never found words beautiful until he really heard you speak. As skillful and precise as a master practicing their craft, each word a genuine and perfect combination of head and heart. For the first time Daryl was intrigued enough to truly listen.

That didn't change how he was wired though. His frustration only grew each time he proceeded to act on his own impulsiveness and snap at someone, or when he reacted in the way he despised most. It felt as though his admiration for you in that regard was pushing all of his own shortcomings to the surface.

Regardless of his own insecurities, you must've at least found him to be a tolerable conversationalist. With increasing frequency he'd suddenly find himself the object of your attention, inquiring about his opinion on whatever the group had been discussing, or even just asking about him on a more personal level.

Most often though, you'd ask him to explain some aspect of hunting, tracking, or other obscure wilderness knowledge. Every time he immediately felt like an idiot, your patience and attentiveness making him nervous enough to stumble over some words and forget others. 

"See how tha' one got cut off all sharp an' attan angle?" He asked, gesturing with the toe of his boot at a stem eaten off a few inches from the ground. "An', there ain't any leaves left."

You crouched down to get a better look at what was left of the little twig. "Rabbit?" You guessed, squinting up at Daryl's face.

A quick nod. "Yup." He replied.

"Yes!" You stood, pumping your fist in mock victory with a laugh. "You're a good teacher, Daryl." You smiled at him and his heart did a tiny summersault.

Truthfully you were quite intuitive. He'd barely had to teach you much of anything, and definitely nothing worthy of being praised for. "Naw." He grunted, turning to continue on your trek trough the woods. "Best get a move on."

"Hey." You huffed, jogging a bit to catch up with his quick strides. "I really do appreciate you taking the time." You grabbed his arm, pulling him to a stop. You didn't start speaking again until he met your eyes. "You do make a good teacher. Unless you think I'm a liar." Your eyes were as unwavering as your grip on his arm and it made him feel like some unfortunate raccoon caught in headlights.

Your sudden firmness caught him off guard. Where your fingers wrapped around his bicep his skin practically burned, the heavy Georgian heat weighing down on him. He swallowed and then managed to scrape together a, "Course I don'."

Immediately the corner of your mouth quirked up. With a hum of satisfaction you released him, continuing your search for Sophia.

---

The next evening Daryl was more than relieved to hear your voice. Earlier that day the two of you had split up on your search in order to cover more ground, and after barely making it back in one piece himself he couldn't help but worry until your return. 

Breathless, you called out his name, peeking into the bedroom that had become a sort of infirmary, your face twisted up with... worry? "Oh, thank God." You gasped. 

He was pleased to see that you looked no worse for wear, but still he didn't like you being so upset for no reason. It agitated something within him to be anyone's burden. "What're y'all worked up about, woman?" He asked.

You hurried to his side, trying to slow your breathing. "Carol said you'd been shot in the head. I just- I..." You panted, eyes darting around, inspecting all of him enough to make him feel self conscious.

"Ya what?" It came out more gruffly than he'd intended.

You shook your head. He couldn't recall ever really seeing you at a loss for words. "I was afraid that you..." Your hand started to stretch towards him before you pulled away. "You're okay?" You asked, eyes wide.

He almost wished you hadn't pulled away so soon. Just to see if your touch still burned like it had before. "Yeah." He said quietly.

You hovered over him, apparently in no hurry to leave. He realized he didn't actually want you to leave, in fact, he desperately wanted you to stay, to have your company instead of being confined to this perfectly quiet room alone. Selfishness began to bloom inside him and he longed to hear you, to have your attention all to himself. He was certain your voice would soothe and heal more powerfully than any medicine or even time itself. Was it wrong to want that from you? 

"Could ya read ta me?" He asked before he'd even decided to let the words out.

The red on your cheeks from the summer sun began to darken. "What?" You asked, slightly taken aback. Your eyebrows were drawn together as they always were when you were thinking. 

He hadn't meant to say that aloud; sounding like some sort of small, scared kid asking for a bedtime story. Hell, he'd never had any of those even when he was a kid. "Sorry, nevermind." He muttered, pulling the covers up and turning his back to you.

"No, no. I can." You blurted, maybe a little too loudly. "That sounds nice. Haven't had the time to read, what with the end of the world and all." You laughed dryly. Had he made you uncomfortable? You sounded nervous the way you were rambling - he could hear your boots shifting on the hardwood floor. 

The bed creaked as he rolled back over, but there you were, a small smile unhindered by the grime and dirt sprinkled across the rest of your skin. "Any uh... any requests?" You asked.

"Whatever ya like." He replied, then added, "Nothin' trashy."

And as you sat on the bed beside him, the soft candlelight flickering gently across your features in the darkness, his heart slowed and an unexpected warmth filled him. It was as if every kindness he'd ever experienced was multiplied, each one crammed inside of him until he was practically bursting and then the feeling flooded over him bringing the warmth to every part that he thought was doomed to stay cold forever. 

He listened to the melody of your words, watched the way your eyes were losing the struggle to stay open, felt the heat from your side pressed ever so slightly against his. He felt like a child again, the overwhelming desire to be protected that had never been fulfilled when he was young. In this moment he felt more love than he had his whole life. 

As sleep finally claimed you he quietly set the book aside, pulling you down into the comfort of the bed. He hesitated to blow out the candle, secretly relishing the peaceful look on your face. As the red glow of the wick faded away, he promised himself that someday he would have the words to tell you everything.

[alexanderwales]

Alright, here's my dream Stardew Valley style game, designed for my own tastes.

You come to a small town with the usual twenty to thirty people. It's in the middle of nowhere. It's a fantasy town, and no one actually farms anymore, partly because it's only questionably profitable, partly because a lot of the knowledge has been lost. Instead, everyone uses these magic doodads which are very powerful but also very limited. The tavernkeeper has a doodad that makes him a single kind of weak ale and a single variety of off-tasting wine. The clothier has basically a square mile of linen to work with, and everyone wears her drab clothes. Tools are made from a doodad that the blacksmith owns, not even made of any actual metal, just a material that wears away after a month and needs to be replaced by a new copy from the blacksmith's doodad. People get their meals from the doodads. They get their medical checkups. It's all a bit shit.

Because I'm a worldbuilder at heart, I would have this all exist in the wake of a large-scale war that depleted the town of its fighting-age population, with the doodads being a sort of government program to ensure that more of the lifeblood of the town could be drained away. And for there to be some reason for the town to continue existing, perhaps the government is harvesting some resources necessary in the creation of doodads. That's enough for a pro-doodad faction and maybe some minor drama with them, though I do like the idea that the only reason things are Like This is because there was a war and things got bad. It's not necessarily a bleak town, but there's definitely a listlessness to it, a "what's the point".

So you're a farmer, but no one is really a farmer anymore. Maybe there are a few books, but you don't learn farming from books, you learn it from practical experience; that's a lot of what this game is about. When you start, there's no one to buy seeds from, there's just a bunch of wilderness where farms once stood, now all long overgrown.

So you go out and forage, for a start, and you clear the land, and you pay attention to the plants and how they can be used, and you start in on making recipes with them, maybe with the help of your grandfather's old, partially incomplete books. You find some wild corn that's a descendant of the old times. You find some tomato seeds in an urn. You discover potatoes because you see them dug up by a wild boar, which itself was once a domesticated animal.

In my ideal game, you need to pay attention to the soil quality, to how far apart things are planted, to what crops work well together. Farming is a matter of companion planting and polycultures. You get some chickens by giving them consistent feed, and you keep them around because they're natural pest control. Your climbing beans climb the stalks of your maize. You're attracting pollinators. (From a gameplay perspective, yeah, we probably put this all into a grid, and you have crop bonuses from adjacencies, and emergent gameplay that comes from all that, some plants providing shade, others providing nitrogen fixing.) You're a scientist making observations about the plants, maybe with your incomplete book giving you confirmation on the nature of all your crops once you hit certain production goals or a perfect specimen or whatever.

Cooking is the same. There has got to be a system that I like better than just "combine tomato with bread to get tomato bread". I'm pretty sure that it's some variant of the actual process I use when cooking, which is making sure that things are properly cooked, balancing flavors against each other, adding in a little salt or acidity or umami or whatever. Time in the kitchen, in this game, is often about making meals, ensuring that if you have a fatty piece of meat you have some asparagus that's coated with lemon to go with it. (From a gameplay perspective, I think building the dish once is probably sufficient and it can be automated after that, and building the meal is the same. I don't want to play this minigame every time I'm cooking a dish, I just want to play it a single time until I have good knowledge of the best way to grill a BBQ chicken breast with a homemade sauce.)

But if we're having a little minigame here where we pay attention to how long we're cooking the kale to make sure that it's the right texture, and we're paying attention to abstractified mouthfeel and palette, then we can get something else for free: variation. See, you're not just cooking to get an S grade, you're cooking for people with different tastes. The cobbler has a sweet tooth, the librarian loves fruity things, the mayor cannot stand fish, that sort of thing. From a gameplay perspective, maybe we represent this with a radar graph with some specific favorite and least favorite individual flavors, and maybe it's visible to the player, but the important thing is that player gets feedback and have a reason to strive for both "good" and "perfection" and some of this is going to depend on the quality of the ingredients.

And this is, gradually, how the town is brought back into the fullness of life. You're not just cooking for these people, you're also selling them food, and they're making their own recipes, and all the stuff that's not food is making their businesses not suck anymore. After the first test keg of ale goes swimmingly, the tavernkeeper wants more, a lot more, and puts in an order for hops, wheat, grapes, anything he can use to make things that will improve nights at the tavern. The clothier will skeptically take in wool and spin her own yarn, and then eagerly want more, because how awesome is it to have a new textile? There's a chemist who is extremely interested in dyes and paints, and wants you to bring him all kinds of things to see what might be viable for going beyond the ~3 colors that the doodads can provide.

So by year two, if you're doing things right, you're the lynchpin of the revivalist movement. People are now moving to the town, for the first time in decades, because they hear that you're there and doing interesting things with the wilderness. Maybe there are other farmers following in your wake, but maybe it's just new characters who are specifically coming because a crate of wine was shipped to the capital city. Maybe some of them bring new techniques for you, or a handful of plants from a botanical garden, and there are new elements for the minigames, or maybe some automation for the stuff that's old hat.

I think something that's important to me is that there's a reason for the crops you plant and the things you do. I always like these games best when it feels like I'm doing something for someone, when I can look at a plot of cabbages and think "ah, those are the cabbages I owe to Leon". Where these games are at their worst, everything is entirely fungible and I've planted eight million blueberries because they have the highest ROI.

And yeah, in most of these games, there are other minigames like fishing and mining and logging and crafting, and since this is just a blog post and not a game, I definitely could massively expand an already sizeable scope.

I think for mining the player would use doodads of their own, and maybe you could make a mining minigame out of that, using the same planting tile system to instead create an automated ore harvesting machine that plumbs the depths of the earth (possibly dealing with rocks of different hardness, the water table, and other challenges along the way).

Fishing is a question of understanding the different fish species, what they eat, where they congregate, and then setting nets or lines, since I have never met a fishing minigame I really enjoyed. Again, there's some idea that the player is gaining information over time, building up a profile of these fish, noticing that some of them go nuts when it rains, understanding the spawning season, that they go to deeper water when it's cold, etc.

Crafting really depends on what you're crafting, but if you're reintroducing traditional artisan processes to this town, then people are going to need tools and machines and things. I'm not sure I know what a proper crafting game looks like. The only experience I have to draw on is wood shop, where I made wooden boxes, cutting boards, and picture frames. Since this is an engineering-lite puzzle-lite game, you could maybe do something in that vein, e.g. defining a number of steps that get you the correct thing you're trying to make, but ... eh. I love the idea of designing a chicken coop, for example, or building a trellis if I want my climbing beans to not need maize, or whatever, but I don't know how you actually implement that. There are definitely voxel-based and snap-to-grid games where you build bases, and I tend to find that fun ... but it's mostly cosmetic, for the obvious reason that doing it any other way than cosmetic requires programmatic evaluation, which is difficult and maybe unintuitive. The closest I think I've seen is ... maybe Tears of the Kingdom? Contraption building? But I don't know how you translate that to a farming game. Maybe I should ask my wife about this, because she's always doing little projects around the house (an outdoor enclosure for our cats, a 3D-printed holder for our living room keyboard, a mounting for our TV).

Making an interesting crafting system is difficult, which is why pretty much no one has done it.

And if I'm talking pie in the sky, without concern for budget or scope, I want the villagers to all have a mammoth amount of writing for them. I want petty little dramas and weird obsessions, lives that evolve with or without my input, rudimentary dialog trees that let me nudge things in different directions. This is just an unbelievable amount of work on its own, it would be crazy, but I would love having a tiny little town game where sometimes other people would fall in love. I would like to be invited to a wedding, maybe one that happened because I encouraged the chemist to hang out with the clothier, and in the course of working together on dyes, they fell in love. With twenty people in town and another ten that come in over the course of the game if you hit the right triggers, I do think this is just a matter of having a ton of time/budget. You write tons and tons of dialogue so there's not much that's repeated, you have some lines of conversation between characters that are progressed through, you have others that trigger off of events, and then you have personal relationships between NPCs that can be progressed through time or with player intervention. Give single characters a pool of love interests, have their affections depend on their routine which depends on what's changed in town ... very difficult to do without spending loads and loads of time on it though.

Anyway, that's one of my dream games. No one is ever going to make it, it would be a niche of a niche, and as scoped here, is too much for a small team to ever actually finish, let alone polish. But it's the sort of thing I'm imagining in my head when I think about playing Stardew Valley and its successors.

[negrowhat]

Friends. Homies. Fam. Here is a list of SOME of the series I'm IMPATIENTLY anticipating the most. No one asked for this but I just felt like sharing.

Your Dear Daddy. The moment I saw Poonpun in that pink silk robe with the thigh tattoo and wearing that anklet in the promo pics I knew I wanted the series immediately. Obsessed! I'm excited for Fluke to be a lead finally because he deserves it and he and Poonpun seem to have excellent chemistry. I'm looking forward to Saitharn being saved by Sila who seems to be lost himself. I'm looking forward to watching Saitharn put it on Sila so good the first time that he decides that he's going to secretly rescue him and love him and worship him...because I know this whole tea farm debt is going to be a guise to keep Saitharn. I just know the series is going to be *chef's kiss*

Century of Love. I don't even know what the plot for this one is but the BTS pics are letting me know it's going to rip me in half. I'm expecting some scifi, soulmates, action, hurt/comfort, maybe some sacrifice, and romance. I'm most excited that we're getting more DaouOffroad and most importantly Daou's buzzcut because he looks soooooooooo good with it.

This Love Doesn't Have Long Beans. IDK man...I don't even care about cooking series like that but I'm excited for more SailubPon and even more excited to finally get some GarfieldBenz after PB viciously teased us with them. I'm also looking forward to Sailub breaking every single health code while he fucks Pon across that industrial kitchen. And also??? Benz's character being unapologetically flirty with Garfield's??? GIMME!

4 Minutes. Highkey thought it wasn't even happening anymore because...well you know. But now Bible has a new partner and I'm excited once again. I just know 4 Minutes is going to break us all into pieces and I'm excited to see Bible shine like the star he is and I'm excited to see how his chemistry is with Jes. And I just know the aesthetic of the series and the actual plot is going to be 20/10...BOC sure has the funds to turn this series into a masterpiece.

Jack & Joker. YINWAR HAVE FINALLY RETURNED TO US! And they're not in school! Whoever they work for heard us say we wanted that Bonnie and Clyde criminal lovers series they dangled in our faces with that one fanmeet and decided to deliver. I'm excited to see Joker being the cheeky seemingly trustworthy mastermind thief and Jack doing whatever he can to protect him because he knows he won't be able to stop him from skillfully robbing people blind. I need more criminal romances in my life.

SunsetxVibes. Wild we're getting this before Big Dragon 2/The Movie. Even wilder that this series is ALSO based on an mpreg story. I am not particularly interested in omegaverse BUT just like Pit Babe I am making an exception because I know I'm going to enjoy the series and I miss MosBank. We thought the chemistry was insane with Big Dragon but they are closer than ever these days and I know it's going to translate beautifully one screen. Much like the title, I'm here just to vibe because I know the plot is gon be a mess.

[cherrycola27]

(blood)lust

Warnings: Blood, language, whump. 18+Minors DNI. Banner Credit @thedroneranger

A/N: Hey, y'all. I'm dipping my toes back into writing and trying my hands at some whump for Whumptober. This is the first of 3 TGM Whumptober fics I'll be releasing!

...........................................

When most people thought about immortality, they idolized it. They coveted the idea that they could cheat death, make a fortune, or travel, or be a part of the future that everyone dreamed of but would never be around long enough to see.

Yes, the idea of immortality had a certain air to it that drew you in like a moth to a flame, and no ever really thinks about the consequences. Just like the moth going toward the light, unaware of the fate that was waiting for it, he too was enticed by the idea.

Moreover, he was more drawn to the idea of not dying in a medical tent in the Carolina wilderness, miles away from his home, fighting for a nation that didn't even exist yet.

He was young, barely twenty-five, able-bodied, and brawny from years of working on his family's farm when the revolution broke out. He had so much to live for, so many things he wanted to do. So when the field doctor with the mysterious eyes came to him offering a cure to all of his pain and suffering from the gunshot wound to his shoulder that would surely end his life, he agreed without hesitation.

Looking back now, he realizes that maybe he should have turned the doctor down and died with the rest of his friends. The pain that came after he agreed was far worse than any gunshot. The sound of the blood rushing through his ears was louder than any cannon fire, and the burning sensation in his veins was hotter than any camp fire or summer day back on the farm.

But peace came after that. For a while—at least. Then came the thirst. The one that no matter how much water or wine or ale he drank—it couldn't be quenched. Then there was the hunger. The deep, insatiable hunger that no meal could touch. The hunger that hurt so deep in his stomach that he thought he would surely parrish as he stumbled through town that night.

Until he stumbled upon the man in the alleyway, too drunk to walk, that had cut himself on his whiskey bottle. And that's when he smelled it. The blood. Fresh and warm and oozing like red gold down the man's fingertips and onto the cobblestones. And it that moment, he knew exactly what he needed to satisfy the craving that nothing else would touch. In that moment, he realized what the doctor he'd never seen again had turned him into, a creature he'd only heard about in tales that parents told to scare their children.

That night, as he feasted, he had an epiphany, he'd been granted a gift, and he wasn't going to waste it.

.......................

Two hundred and some odd years later, he didn't feel the same about his "gift" as he did back then. In fact, it was more like a curse. He was damned to wander the earth forever, which meant he was damned to be alone. He'd watched everyone he ever loved die. First, starting with his mother in the winter of 1781, then, his wife and son ten years later during childbirth. He'd tried saving them the way the doctor had done for him, both times, when he'd sunk his teeth into the soft, supple flesh of their necks and tasted their blood, he couldn't stop. It was like a demon possessed him, inhibiting him from hearing their cries and blinding his vision until he'd drained them dry, leaving their bodies limp and lifeless in his arms.

For a while, he vowed never to try again and never to love again until he knew he could find a way to keep her forever.

So, for the next two centuries after the death of his wife, child, and mother, he practiced. Starting on small animals at first, working his way up to larger ones, the eventually people.

He'd successfully master the art of turning, and now, he needed to find the perfect mate. Someone to spend eternity with.

He suspected that it would take him a while to find the right one. He certainly wasn't expecting it the night he walked into the bar and was hit with the most enticing scent he'd ever experienced.

He followed it until he found you.

You were exactly what he was looking for. You were probably around the same age that he told people he was. You were beautiful. A stunning natural beauty that drew him to you.

An aura that called him. A beacon of light in his darkness.

So, he walked right up to you, and asked "can I buy you another drink?"

You turned to the handsome stranger who'd offered to buy you a drink and gave him the once over. He oozed charisma and charm. His eyes, that could only be described as golden, sparkled as he flashed you a stunning smile.

"Sure, thing. I'll take another tequila on the rocks." You told him. He laughed before ordering one for each of you.

Once that glasses appeared before the two of you, you cheersed before extending your hand and introducing yourself.

He took your out stretched arm and brought the back of your hand to his lips, and placed a kiss there. "Charmed to meet you, darling. I'm Bradley, Bradley Bradshaw."

Bradley didn't miss the way your pulse quickened as he held your hand. Nor did he miss the blush that crept to your cheeks. He continued to sit there at the bar and talk to you for hours. And the longer he did, the more it affirmed for him that you were definitely the girl he had been looking for you. You'd been the perfect girl to have around forever. Now, he just had to convince you of the same.

..............

If Bradley has learned anything in his 273 years of life, it's patience. If he was going to convince you to be his eternal bride, he knew he'd have to play the long game. He wasn't deterred by the fact that it may take months, maybe even a few years, to convince you. He had been waiting to find someone like you for over two centuries. A little longer wouldn't hurt. Which is why he was perfectly fine in agreeing to take the relationship that was budding between the two of you as slowly as you wanted.

Bradley had also learned to be discreet about who—what he was. As the world moved on, and his age stayed the same, Bradley made sure never to stay in one place for too long. He also learned that taking jobs that kept him away for long stretches of time helped provide the perfect cover for when he needed to sneak away and feed.

Right after he was first turned—the fledgling stage, he would later learn what it was called— Bradley wasn't as careful when it came to choosing his meals. Anyone who had the misfortune of crossing his path when his thirst arose would become one of his victims. He couldn't bear to be around people because the tangy metallic scent of their blood drove him mad with need.

Later, he learned to control it. He could function in society and keep up the act. And for a while, it worked. Until he took the wrong person as a meal.

She was the daughter of the local pastor, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. After she disappeared, the police began looking, asking questions. Bradley became paranoid that someone saw him, that he wasn't careful enough.

So he fled town and vowed to himself that he'd only feed on people he knew wouldn't be missed. Criminals, the homeless, vagrants, and vagabonds with no one to come looking for them, no one to ask questions.

He'd come to San Diego about ten years ago, claiming that he was twenty-two. Shaving his mustache and letting his hair grow helped make it believable. The one thing all the stories get wrong about being immortal is that your hair and nails stop growing. They don't. And for that, Bradley was thankful.

Because of this, he learned he could spend about fifteen to twenty years in one place before speculation arose. A shaggy haircut and a beard can do wonders for a person.

............

Maybe that's why it was so easy for you to believe that Bradley was thirty-three. Despite the fact that he seemed like an old soul, wise beyond his years.

He also told you he was in the Navy and that he was an aviator, which meant he had frequent deployments and trips for work that he couldn't tell you about. Which is why you never questioned him when he told you he was leaving for a few days or weeks or months the longer the two of you were together.

You never suspect that half of those "trips" and "deployments" were, in fact, times when Bradley traveled somewhere to feed.

He was smart. Making sure to go to a different state, so if what was left of the body was ever found, it could never be traced back to him.

He had a system, a routine, a schedule that worked and kept him under the radar and undetected for decades. It worked for him, and eventually, he would share his secrets with you, and the two of you would stay in the shadows together forever.

...............

You were busy in the kitchen of the house you and Bradley shared. He was due back from his latest deployment today, and you wanted to make sure he had a hot meal waiting for him. You wanted to make sure he had plenty of fuel for the plans you had later for the two of you.

Not that he ever seemed to need it. Your boyfriend had the most amazing stamina. More so than any partner you've had before. He told you it because he was an elite fighter pilot, the top one percent, and being the best at everything was in his blood. You had to agree with him. Bradley could go for hours, drawing orgasm after orgasm from you, and never asking for more than one of his own in return.

You shivered as you flipped the steaks that were in the grill pan you had on the stove. You pulled the one for Bradley off the heat while leaving yours to cook a bit longer. He always preferred his more on the rare side, while you favored a more medium cooked steak.

You'd just finished setting the table when you heard Bradley's keys in the door. "Honey!" You squealed as you launched yourself at him. He easily caught you and held your frame against him.

"Hello, My Darling Girl." Bradley smiled as he kissed you passionately. His lips glided across yours before he trailed them across the column of your throat, stopping when they reached the juncture of your neck and shoulders. He grazed his canines over the pulse point that was thrumming just below your delicate skin.

"Bradley—" you groaned into his neck, gentle pushing on his chest. "Yes, Darling?" He asked you, pulling you closer to him. "I made dinner." You chuckled. "We can eat later. I missed you, My Darling Girl." He whispered against your ear.

"No, I want to make sure you have plenty of fuel in you for the plans I have for you later." You laugh again before dragging him to the dining room for a hot meal, blissfully unaware that the food you made would have no effect on your boyfriend.

That night, you let Bradley carry to your shared bedroom and strip you down the crimson lingerie you'd chosen specifically for the occasion. You let him tear the delicate lace from your body with his teeth, and then, you let him make love to you for hours until both of you were sated and his cum was dripping down your thighs and sweat covered your skin.

In the early hours of the morning, Bradley lay quietly beside you, watching the gentle rise and fall of your chest as you slept. It had been two years since that faithful day he met you and knew you were destined to be his mate. As he watched you, he knew in his heart that it was time to tell you about his plan. Hopefully, you wouldn't take much convincing, and under the next new moon, he'd take you up to one of his—hunting— cabins and change you. He'd find a perfect first feed for you, and teach you everything you needed to know. Then, once your fledgling phase was over, the two of you would have a bonding ceremony to seal your love forever.

Bradley could feel that the time was coming soon. All the work he'd put in. Moulding you—grooming you— shaping you into his perfect mate would soon come to fruition.

.....................

Bradley had been acting—different— the past few weeks. Not different in a bad way, but doting on you much more than normal. He'd taken you out to a few fancy dinners, bought you some new clothes, and he came home every day with a new flower arrangement. He'd also given you the most beautiful necklace you'd seen. Honestly, you weren't sure how he afforded all of this, and when you asked him about it, he told you not to worry. He'd been so calm lately. You hoped he would be that way when you gave him the news you'd just received.

You waited patiently in the living room for Bradley to come home. When you heard his keys in the door, you jumped up to greet him. "Hello, My Darling Girl." Bradley smiled before kissing you passionately.

"Bradley, come sit. I have some news to share with you." You told him as you led him by the hand to the couch. His mind raced with what it could be.

Could you be pregnant? It wasn't unheard of for his kind and mortals to have a child together. That was how he lost his first wife, Elizabeth, and his son, Nicholas.

Her body couldn't handle the labor. Thankfully, Bradley knew what to do this time. If you were pregnant, he'd start the changing right before you gave birth. The strength the change offered you would see you through the labor.

His heart raced at the idea. Maybe this was the second chance he'd been waiting for.

"Bradley." You let out a long exhale as he sat there waiting patiently.

"Yes?" He eagerly replied.

"I've been offered a job!" You told him excitedly.

"What? You already have a job." He said dejectedly.

"I know, but this is a promotion. Head of the new office in Virginia. Isn't that wonderful? I know it might take some time to get your transfer in, but my office is willing to work with us. You could be back home! We would be so much closer to your family!" You bounced with excitement on the balls of your feet.

"Darling, it sounds like a wonderful opportunity, but I'm happy here. I don't want to move." Bradley told you. His voice was more stern than normal. Your smile fell from your face.

"Wha—what do you mean? Bradley, this is everything I've been working for. I've supported your career with your deployments and moves more times than I care to count in the past few years. I know it seems like a lot, but this is what I've always dreamed of. Why can't you see that?" You pleaded with him.

Bradley inhaled sharply. "We aren't moving to Virginia. That's final." He said with no room for argument.

Rage bubbled inside you. How dare he say that to you. After all you'd done for him.

"You're right. We aren't moving. I am." You deadpanned.

Bradley turned on his heels. Your words hit him in the chest like a dagger. No, he thought. No, no, no. After all the work he'd done, there is no way he's letting you leave him now. You were staying with him whether you liked it or not. Bradley had worked too hard to let you go. He'd spent decades learning to control his temper. The unbridled rage that could come with what he was. He'd kept it under wraps for decades. But hearing you say that you'd give him up so quickly? It caused something inside of him to snap.

................

You weren't sure what was happening. One minute, you were packing a bag to leave. The next, you felt a jolt of pain shoot through your neck. Then, your whole body felt like it was on fire, burning from the inside out. You cried out for Bradley, begging him to help you, to save you from the invisible attacker. But instead, all you heard was a voice that almost sounded like his, whispering in your ear that it would all be over soon.

...............

When consciousness came back to you. It was slow. The first thing you noticed was the smell. You weren't wrapped in the warm vanilla scent of your home. No, you were somewhere near the woods. You could smell the dirt and hear birds somewhere in the distance.

The next thing you noticed were the sheets. The soft cotton ones of your bed had been replaced by a stiff and scratchy flannel.

You slowly opened your eyes and sat up. You didn't recognize the room you were in. The walls were bare and wooden. Some kind of a cabin, maybe. You swung your legs over the side of the bed, and that's when you felt it. The thirst. The overwhelming urge to drink. But you didn't want water. You wanted something else. You just didn't know what.

"Hello?" You called out tentatively, unsure of who else was there.

"My Darling Girl. You're finally awake." You whipped around so fast you made yourself dizzy. Bradley stood before you, his large form leaning on the door frame. Only something was off about him. He wasn't the Bradley you once knew. He stepped forward and smiled, and for the first time, you noticed how prominent his canines were. Had they always been like that?

"Bradley. Where am I? How did I get here? Did you—did you kidnap me?" You shriek, eyes darting around the room. You try to breathe, but you can't get any air into your lungs.

"Darling, calm down. You're going to hurt yourself. Tell me. How are you feeling?" He says so smoothly.

"I feel like I want to know what the fuck is going on." You spit at him. "Where are we?"

"We are at one of my hunting cabins. I figured it would help with the adjustment if we weren't near people." He tells you

"H—help with what adjustment?" You say as you clear your throat. A burning sensation creeping in. "What—what did you do to me?" You say as you being to claw at your skin.

"I changed you—for the better. I made you perfect. The perfect mate for me for all eternity. I know it must be a shock, but you'll get used to it. I'll help you, My Love." Bradley tells you as he glides across the room to you and turns your towards the mirror you hadn't noticed before. You look in it and see yourself, well, almost yourself. Something is different. You just can't place it. You trace your eyes over your features, and then you see them. Two small puncture wounds on your neck. Your hand flies to to them.

"Don't worry, they'll go away. But these—" Bradley says, and he pulls your gums back to reveal your new elongated canines, "these are permanent."

You run your tongue over your teeth and wince at their sharpness. "Don't worry. You'll get used to them." Bradley assures you, taking a step back. Just then, you hear a thump in from another room. "Ah, perfect, looks like it woke up just in time." He smiles.

"What do you mean 'it'?" You ask him harshly. "Your first feed, My Darling Girl. I know you feel the thirst. Every fledgling does. I know it did. Believe me, your first feed is always the hardest, so I brought you one. I wanted to make this as easy as possible for you." He says almost kindly.

"Easy? You wanted to make this easy on me? Bradley, you kidnapped me and brought me to the middle of nowhere and turned me into a—a—a—" you can't finish your sentence.

"Vampire. It's okay, you can say it, dear. I turned you into a vampire so we can be together forever. Of course, I hadn't planned on doing it this early, but when you said you were going to leave me, I knew I had to act then. I've spent the past two years grooming you into the perfect mate for me. I knew it was you from the first time I picked up your scent at the bar. Ideally, you would have willingly let me change you, but it doesn't matter now." Bradley tells you calmly.

"You've been planning to do this to me ever since you met me? How could you! I trusted you! I loved you. I thought you loved me?!" You wailed. "I do love you. That's why I did all of this. Why I brought you to my hunting cabin. Why I found a first feed for you. Why I've practiced for years getting the art of transforming right. All for you." Bradley says.

"I'm not the first person you've done this too?" You ask in disbelief. "Well, I had to practice to get it right. After I lost my mother and my first wife because I failed at transforming them, I vowed never to do it again until I perfected it. I started on small creatures and then worked my way up to people. But don't worry. I killed them after. I couldn't have a bunch of my own creations trying to kill me." Bradley laughs.

"First wife? Creations? What the hell is wrong with you. How could you ever think I'd want to spend my life with you after what you did to me? How long have you been like this?" You fire questions at him.

"I was born in 1751, changed in 1776 by a field doctor during the Revolutionary War. I've been practicing turning since about 1900. But I never let my creations live long after I turned them, lest they take revenge and try to kill me. You see, the movies and the books have it all wrong. Garlic and wooden stakes aren't what kills a vampire. We can only be killed by a dagger through the heart by our creator or one of our creations. A creation killing their creator also reverses the effects. Turns them human again. I couldn't risk that so I made sure to take care of that before it became an issue." Bradley explains to you.

"You see, I've been alone for so long. I was married to a wonderful woman, Elizabeth, but she died during childbirth. I couldn't save her. I vowed to myself that I'd never love again until I could keep her forever. And you were the one I choose for that, My Darling Girl. You're special, perfect, my perfect mate. I picked you out of everyone." Bradley tells you as he cups your face. You look in his eyes and don't see the man you once knew. He's long gone, replaced by this—monster. But if you wanted to survive, you knew you'd have to play into his fantasy.

"I see now. It all makes so much sense. Now I know why you didn't want me to leave." You say what he wanted to hear.

"Exactly. And in one year's time, when your fledgling phase is over, we'll have a bonding ceremony, sealing our love with a blood pact, so we can never be separated." Bradley tells you with a smile.

"That sounds wonderful." You lie to him. "I knew you'd see my way. Now, let me help you with your first feed." Bradley smiled as you let him lead you by the hand to the other room.

...................

Lying to someone for a full year is much harder than anyone expects. But you knew if you wanted to survive, and for your plan to work, you had too.

You looked at yourself in the mirror one last time. Even though this wasn't what you wanted, you looked stunning. A long-sleeved, lace, stark white gown hugged your body. A crown of blood-red roses on your head. Exactly what Bradley wanted you to wear.

You stepped out of the cabin your home, no, your prison for the last year and made your way across the field. The bright light of the full moon illuminated the area, causing your dress to practically glow in the light.

Bradley was standing near the edge of the clearing, waiting for you. You could see the glint of the bonding dagger in his hand reflecting in the moonlight.

"My Darling Girl. You look breathtaking. You have no idea how long I've waited for this moment." Bradley praised you as he took your hand in his.

"Are you ready?" He asked you. "I've been ready." You smile at him.

Bradley takes the dagger in his right hand and makes a slice across his palm, then hands it to you. Your fingers wrap around the grip tightly.

"I've been dreaming of this moment all year." You tell him. "I've been counting the days."

Bradley smiles, unaware of the true meaning of your words.

You grip the dagger tightly and raise it up. Bradley waits with baited breath and watches your palm, ready for you to slice the skin. Instead, he feels something sharp pierce his chest. He looks over to see your hand wrapped around the dagger that is now in his heart.

You pull it out and watch the blood drip from the blade, staining your once pristine gown.

"My—My Darling Girl. What have you done?" Bradley asks you as he stumbles back. More blood oozes from the wound as he drops to his knees.

"I'm taking back my life. And I'm not your darling girl anymore." You sneer before he collapses dead on the ground, eyes wide, mouth open in a silent scream.

You feel the exact moment he dies. You feel it in the pain, searing through your body and leeching out of every pore of your skin. You feel as though you may die, but you know it's worth it.

You black out and fall to the dirt.

When you finally wake up, it's daylight. You run your tongue over your teeth, and the once sharp canines are gone. You stand up and find that your white dress is now a deep shade of maroon, and the man you once loved has shriveled up to almost nothing. You give his remains a kick, and they turn to dust, blowing away in the breeze.

You pick up your dagger from last night and walk back to the cabin and find the bag you pack. You sling it over your shoulder and grab the keys hanging from the keyring near the door. You climb into the blue Bronco that had once belonged to Bradley and drive away from the cabin, from the woods, from him, and from the nightmare, you just woke up from.

Tagging those who might be interested: @shanimallina87 @teacupsandtopgun @desert-fern @roosterforme @daggerspare-standingby @dakotakazansky @startrekfangirl2233 @na-ta-sh-aa @katieshook02 @beyondthesefourwalls @je-suis-prest-rachel @soulmates8 @horseshoegirl @djs8891 @roosters-girl @rosiahills22 @dempy @callsign-magnolia @alchemxx @gretagerwigsmuse @mshistorylover @bradshawsbaby @seitmai @kmc1989 @bcarolinablr @waywardhunter95 @hisredheadedgoddess28 @whatislovevavy @inkandarsenic @jiminie-08 @dingochef @laracrofted @skipchat @princess76179 @schoollover @cheyrenee @angelbabyyy99 @bobfloydsbabe @sunlightmurdock @sebsxphia @atarmychick007 @queenlmno @sweetwhispersofchaos @mamaskillerqueen @withahappyrefrain

[fictionadventurer]

I didn't realize just how much Little Town on the Prairie meant to me as a book. I've barely started and every bit feels iconic. This one and Little House on the Prairie feel more like home than most of the other books do.

[heedmywarnings]

A Step by Step tutorial on how to not die

(In SAGAU) By yours truly, your ol' pal, Narrator~

Let's see how you fare, can you, whoever "you" are... complete this most wondrous tutorial!?

--

Step One: BELIEVE

oH, you're in a game? Don't just stand idly, you're in an open world game, silly! And fantasy at that, laws in your world do not apply in this world most of the time.

So you best believe (I'm still bejeweled) that you are in a game.

--

Where the hell am I? How did I wake up in a patch of grass...?

...Wait, is that... Violetgrass? No, no, I'm just delusional, I think I pulled an all-nighter on Genshin again.

I'm probably just in a hyper-realistic dream or something. This isn't some isekai fanfiction.

☒

--

Step Two: Assess!

LEt one be different from the rest, as a certain someone had said. Every AU is different from the rest, so you must assess and collect knowledge of your situation!

Are you a revered God, or a hunted Impostor? Or are you just some ordinary guy living in a simulation?

--

If this a dream, I can just wander off and do stuff right? Whatever, I'll wake up anyways.

The first thing I need to do is figure out my current situation.

☑

--

Step Three: Avoid & Approach

Don't staLl. Once you've assessed your situation, you must certain situations that would cause conflict, and approach situations that would be in your favor.

...that's it.

--

"Have you heard? The Creator has announced an Impostor wandering around..."

"Oh my! I hope they catch them soon..."

Don't tell me I'm in a SAGAU fic...

FUCK.

So, I need to lie low and not enter any if the nations. The Rainforest in Sumeru won't be favorable because if the Forest Rangers.

Venti is the Wind God and Wind is well, everywhere so Mondstadt's wilderness is out of the question.

If I traverse somewhere far from Liyue's Harbor and the Adepti Mountain, or whatever it's called... I can hide within the terraformation, right....????

☑

--

Step Four: Survive.

Congratulations! You've done the three Previous steps! Now you just need to survive, right? Can't be that hard.

Just collect resources, seek shelter and maybe grow crop farm! Just avoid anyone and everyone, become a misanthrope or something.

--

[sanguineterrain]

Could I humbly request Dullahan (basically a headless horseman with a whip made from a spine) Jason giving reader a ride on Halloween? If not, that’s okay.

what a delightful prompt anon! i took some batman-inspired liberties here, so jason is more of a regular headless horseman than a dullahan specifically (kept the whip tho bc man, what a badass weapon). but omg it fits him SO well. hope you like it!

headless horseman!jason todd x gn!reader. spooky themes. i guess it's a different time period -- i was imagining 19th century. reader knew jason before he died.

send halloween requests!!

****

You should've taken a carriage.

That's all you can think as you cross the border from Clarence County to Gotham County. You've been walking for an hour, and you're only just entering Gotham. The sun went down ages ago.

It's mostly wilderness outside of the city, and it's generally safe. Rich folk build vacation cabins in these woods. Others hike and fish along the river.

You still should've taken a carriage. Even if no people pose a threat to you out here, the forest is still dangerous. Bears. Snakes.

...Things not of this world.

No, you can't think that way.

Your basket of farm goods makes your arm ache. You switch it to your other hand. You're beginning to think that making this trip wasn't worth it at all. Certainly not if a bear mauls you.

A twig snaps and you jump about three feet in the air. You skitter away from the tree line, heart beating fast.

You wait. You have a glass bottle of milk to throw at whatever comes out of the woods.

Nothing. Silence. The trees might as well be dead.

Slowly, you untense, muscles slowly going slack. A twig probably didn't even snap; it's only your imagination. Yes. Right.

You tuck the milk back into your basket and adjust yourself, continuing your trek.

"Awful late to be out."

This time, you do throw the milk bottle. It lands with a thud in the soft dirt. The voice speaks again. He sounds amused.

"You missed me."

You whirl around and gawp. How had you missed a man on a horse? Surely you would've heard footsteps or the jingle of the straps.

The horse is huge, with a shiny, black coat. Its rider is proportionally large, broad shoulders straining his crimson hood. You can't make out his face, the opening nothing but a void. You squint, but grow dizzy when you look too hard.

It's such a strange thought, but your first instinct is that you know the rider. Intimately so. Like an old friend.

The horse is a shadow, the edges of its mane blurry. It nickers and drags its hoof over the dirt. It also has a hood, so you can't make out its face either.

The hooded figure watches you from his horse. At least, you think he does.

"Are you lost?" he asks. His voice echoes strangely, like it's coming from underground.

"No," you say immediately. "I'm on my way back to Gotham."

Most people have enough sense not to challenge Gotham citizens.

He tilts his head. You wish you could see his face.

"I can give you a ride. I'm headed there myself."

There is a red knight's helmet tied to the saddle. You look at it, then at him.

"I'll manage," you say. "I know my way."

"It's dangerous to travel alone on foot. Especially so late."

He dismounts the horse. Even on the ground, his presence is overwhelming. There is a long, bone-white whip fastened to his hip. Are those...?

"What's in the helmet?" you ask.

"Why do you think there's something inside?" His voice echoes again.

He goes and retrieves the bottle of milk you threw. It isn't cracked, which is fortunate. He opens the basket hooked over your arm and gently places the milk inside. Your heart pounds the entire time.

"I won't hurt you," he says, stepping back. "Gotham is my city. You are mine to protect."

"Gotham belongs to the Bat."

"Not for much longer," he says, almost snarling.

You look at the horse, which has been eerily still. The moon is high in the sky. Stars dance outside of the city smog.

"If it makes you feel safer," he says, voice softer. "You can hold my whip. If I do anything you don't like, you can be sure I won't do it again."

You don't like that idea; you hope you don't have to use the whip on him, though he is a stranger. But you like his voice, even if it echoes oddly. And you like how gentle he is, how calm his horse remains. You are sure he won't hurt you, even though there is no proof for you to confirm that.

You extend your hand.

"Alright," you say. "Please take me home."

He pushes you onto the horse, who doesn't even stir when you get on its back. Then he mounts with ease. He slides his whip out and gives it to you; on further inspection, you realize it's a spine. The horse takes off at a gallop, and you cling to the hooded man so you won't fall off.

"Are you a soldier?" you ask, wind biting at your face. He is cold but full of strength.

"I was."

"What should I call you?"

He thinks for a moment, steady under the brutal pace.

"You may call me Red Hood."

"Haven't you got a name?" you ask.

"I did," Hood says. "I'm not certain that it's mine anymore."

He sounds young. You wish you could see his face.

You arrive in Gotham sooner than you should, even on horse. Hood dismounts again and helps you down, strong hands on your waist. You land on the ground in a whoosh, and Hood holds you for a second longer than necessary. You linger against him and squint, trying to find his eyes. You can't.

"Will you show me your face?" you ask.

Red Hood immediately steps back. You hold your basket to your chest.

"You'd never forgive me if I did," he says, and the echo is back.

"I feel like I know you," you say, stepping towards him, and Hood puts more distance between you.

For the first time, the horse whinnies. It's a ghastly sound, like it's in pain, and you flinch. You spin around to see what spooked the horse, but by the time you do, it's gone.

And so is the Red Hood.

The whip, however, is still wrapped around your own waist; it's your only reminder that he was here at all.

[yandere-collections]

Your post about yandere! small town is absolutely delicious 💞 Please tell us more about them!!!

I'm glad you like it, thank you so much!

So to begin with, a little bit about the town itself. There is only one road in and out of town and it is several turns off the highway. The only people who come into town on a regular basis are truck drivers delivering goods to the local shops. There is almost nothing in town to appeal to regular tourists except for camping under the stars as a way to get away from the modern world. You may encounter some people taking advantage of this isolated society to run from their past out there.

Despite having a relatively small population, the town itself is rather large as the wilderness is technically incorporated since around 15% of people living in cabins out there. The rest is a densely packed downtown, with shops branching off Main Street and roads leading to residential districts. Of course, your neighborhood is one of the densest (and most expensive) with many hastily built apartments surrounding you.

The nearest city is almost an hour away by car. Since regular civilization is so far away, most produce and dairy come from local farms. However, most citizens will still make a trip to the city every once in a while to get non grocery items like medicine and hygiene products at a cheaper price since local stores have much higher prices (for everyone but you). People may try to gain favor with you by bringing you things from the big city that you can’t find in town. 

There is a church in town that later became the community center when no one used it. If you yourself are religious and want to practice in a house of worship, other townsfolk will join you but it won't get used beyond that. You may or may not notice that people only practice said religion while you’re present and that there aren’t followers of other beliefs in town. Little do you know, the church/community center has an underground floor kept completely hidden from you. This is where the temple dedicated to you resides. Here, there are paintings of you and random things that have been stolen from you, along with benches and an altar for citizens to worship and pray to you. 

Living within the church are your most dedicated disciples. These people devote themselves to tending to your shrine, taking a vow to never leave once initiated (the only exception is if you wanted to invite them out- they would never deny you anything). They will also punish sinners (anyone who doesn’t respect you enough or tries to take you out of town) and keep the church free of fighting as it is considered holy ground, never to be tainted by spilled blood. They are well respected among the community and enjoy special privileges. For instance, since they never leave and can’t encounter you in public, the little time they do get to spend with you is never interrupted. They also get free information about you from brokers and have access to a live feed of your whereabouts from the librarian.