#idk where this is going i didn't plan it at all i just randomly got an idea and sat down and wrote it in one sitting and

[zara-renata]

So I had one holiday prompt that I couldn't include in the big holiday prompt fic I posted last week, and I also have been receiving some really sweet and cute ideas that weren't exactly requests, but the ideas were so nice that I wanted to write something for them. I've gathered them into one story that I hope isn't disappointing. I had intended to do separate, cute little drabbles, but I had a bad day the other day and somehow uh, really dark angst happened, and then I used the ideas people sent for the comfort half of the fic? So please forgive me for just... taking it as dark as you can go before including the sweet, cute ideas that people requested. I hope you like the result anyway, although please read the content warnings. Several of the people who sent requests/ideas apologized for doing so, as if sending the ideas was 'too much', but you don't have to apologize for sending asks. My requests are open, and I like seeing everyone's ideas even if I don't end up being able to write for them, or if I tweak them a little to make them work for the story that comes out of my brain despite my best laid plans to stick to an outline.

The river | ao3 | masterlist

It's Christmas Eve, you're at the end of your rope after an absolutely awful year, and you decide to end it all after pushing everyone in your life away. Sylus pulls you from the brink and convinces you to keep going.

Sylus x fem reader, Sylus x mc, hurt/comfort, angst, grief, banter, fluff. CW: attempted suicide, depressed thoughts, NSFW, Sylus penetrating reader (this is not sex ed, do not follow these idiots' example, no discussion of condom or birth control, this is fantasy and we're not going to worry about that in the fic)

Ask #1 You asked to keep sending silly little ideas for you to write so I thought I'd give my own request! After Caleb and Gran (supposedly) die it's pretty much canon that MC refuses help from their friends and isolates themself in certain ways. I always imagine MC sometimes sees Sylus as "the only one they have left" since he is the only one who goes out of his way to check up on MC. But MC kinda grows to resent this and has a moment when their drunk/really going through it and basically ask Sylus why he doesn't leave them be so they can just rot away in peace. Sorry if this is too lengthy or I'm overstepping! Brain worms are getting to me

Ask #2 Okay, so random thoughts here, but do you know that superstition that’s like, “the places where you have moles on your body show where your lover kissed you in a past life”? But like… can you imagine what it would be like if MC had a mole in the exact spot where Sylus bit her during Abyssal Mark (cus I have one there lol) and then that superstition randomly gets brought up, only for MC to show him that mole and Sylus is just s h o o k??? N e way that’s my random thoughts lol (sorry if this is a lot 💀)

Ask #3 I love the way you write the MC and I find myself relating to them at least 99% of the time. Sometimes I just imagine them giving Sylus one of those "Do you like me? Circle yes or no!" Love letters to Sylus because they are terrified of rejection -> i wrote the MC in this story really, really depressed, so if this didn't hit the spot for you in terms of fear of rejection, let me know, and I can include your prompt in another story idea I had before this one that's a lot lighter and sweeter before I got hit by the angst truck that this fic turned out to be. just let me know!

Ask #4 the last holiday prompt! -> idk if anyone sent it yet but from the xmas prompt list, i would love to see what you do with number 8 -> I'm so sorry that this is what I did with it, I hope you like it anyway😭

Thank you everyone who has sent me ideas! If you've sent me a request and I haven't answered it yet, it's because I'm still intending to do something with it.

Here you are. Again.

At the end of a long day. A long week. A long year. 

A long rope.

It’s the dark, this time of year. 

Maybe. 

You’re restless. You’ve passed through the Deepspace Hunters Association doors for the last time this year. Empty days of leave stretch before you.

Normally, it would still be light out, leaving this early. But not now, this deep into the year—it’s already full night, as you leave work early.

The bright lights of the building pour over your upturned face as you look back, just once. You don’t know what for. You’ve successfully severed most of the ties you had built before.

Before everything.

Tara, Xavier. After Caleb, Josephine—they reached out, over and over, and you bit their outstretched hands with your sharp, sharp teeth. 

You snapped enough times that they keep their distance, now. 

They’re still kind. 

Tara still comes, sits on your desk, shares tidbits of gossip during the workday. But she no longer invites you along to karaoke, to after-work drinks with other coworkers.

You and Xav work in sync, as you eliminate wanderers. He walks you to your door at the end of the day. But he no longer offers to lend you books. No longer invites you to the bookstore, or to try new restaurants.

You watch his broad back as he walks away from you, down your apartment building’s hallway. He feels as far away as a star in the velvet night sky.

It’s not their fault. You did this.

You wanted this.

You turn away from the warm light beaming from the Association as you leave early, the Christmas lights glittering in the windows, the holiday party you’re skipping still in full swing in the open, sleek company restaurant area on the ground floor. A division-wide shindig, to celebrate the end of the year, the holidays.

The night is cold. Fairy lights, nets of bright pinpricks in the dark night, cover the trees lining the sidewalk. Decorative light displays stretch across the busy road at periodic intervals, over the canals that parallel the streets, the gondolas and tour-boats festive under their own lights, red ribbons flapping in the cold winter wind.

You think about how they never recovered a body.

Only Josephine’s ashes fill an urn, sitting in a cold niche of a quiet columbarium. Caleb’s urn is empty.

You start walking, fast, along the busy sidewalk. People are out shopping, scurrying to tie up last minute errands before the city shuts down for the holiday tomorrow.

You want to unzip your coat. Unzip your uniform. Unzip your skin, your ribcage. Leave all these pieces of yourself behind, for others to puzzle over. To sweep up with the rest of the refuse left over from festive party goers on the street. You want to dissipate in the cold winter air like your breath with each cursed inhale, exhale.

You settle for beginning to jog to the metro station, your feet carrying you faster, faster, your boots heavy on the sidewalk. You see it lit in the distance, but you can’t stand the thought of being underground right now. Buried alive, with all the other people. You sprint past it. 

You’re graceful enough to duck and weave, not disturb anyone else, until the crowds thin.

You’re running, running, the city is streaming past, like the tears from your eyes. Wet from the cold, because you haven’t cried since waking up, your ears deafening, Caleb’s silver chain glittering in the firelight on the walk up to your grandmother’s burning house.

Tears won’t bring a body back.

You don’t know how much longer you can stand this.

The days, one after another. Alarm, moving through the dark to get to work. Moving through the dark to get back to your apartment at the end of the day.

The pain—your only constant, now. The only thing you expect, have to look forward to, day after blurred day. 

An echoing emptiness, like an urn without ashes. An emptiness that feels so full that your skin could burst with it.

You think about your apartment. The festive city outside its windows. The half-opened bottle of wine in the fridge, the only thing in it.

You veer from your neighborhood. Keep running. You’re sweating under your winter coat, your heavy Hunter uniform. It doesn’t matter.

You run, and run, and run, until you run out of streets, sidewalk.

Just the river, wide and black. There is a bridge, soaring over the water, in the distance. Its lights reflected in the water, along with the urban nightscape. Stars above, stars below.

You could drown in them.

You look at the bridge.

You could drown in it all.

There’s no one left, after all.

Who will miss you?

You slow. Stop.

Your breath is heavy in the quiet air. Fairy lights sparkle here, too. Pretty swooping light displays top each lamppost along the river path. 

You would have gone to identify the body, as you did with Gran. She didn’t look like herself. Not even a sleeping version of herself. They did their best, reconstructing her face. But it wasn’t the stitches, the bruising. It was that she simply wasn’t there anymore. Like a stranger’s body on display. An empty house after the residents have been forced to flee in a night of unimaginable violence. 

But running your hands through her hair, one last time. It soothed something in you. Enough that you could breathe in the cold mortuary air. Could nod. Could watch as they covered her again. As they escorted you out into the bustling hospital hallways, to stand under cold fluorescent lights. To stare vacantly at the wall, until you felt a strange, familiar feeling. You looked up, saw Zayne watching you, at the end of the long hallway. You stared at him, memorizing his beautiful face. His dark hair. His severe, cold loveliness. You let yourself look one last time, and he let you. Through the people filling the hallway, each walking with purpose, they were a blur and he was  across the world, across time, a part of your past that should never have reappeared in your present. It hurt too much, to look at his beautiful, distant face. He left you behind, once. He should have stayed gone. You can’t stand to experience the loss again, the loss you felt every time he listened to your heart, expressionless, a stranger with a beautiful, familiar face from your past, a past in which Caleb was still alive. 

You looked at Zayne one last time, across a bustling hallway in a place full of life, of death, and he let you. You then turned, headed to the reception desk. You switched doctors, hospitals.

You blocked his number, so you’ll never know if he sent you a text, tried to call and ask why, after. He let you walk out. Which is as it should be.

You wanted this.

The water churns under the whipping wind, the fast current. It looks so cold. Cold enough to numb. Cold enough to finally put out the fire that’s been burning in you, ever since you woke up, your ears deafening, Caleb’s necklace shimmering in the flames.

You think of running your hands through his hair. Something the fire robbed you of—it would have been your first time, your last time. He would pat your head. Call you pipsqueak. Ignore your protests to not mess up your hair, to not treat you like a little kid. But he would always duck out of the way anytime you tried to return the favor, tease him, tousle his hair. His pretty brunette hair that always looked so soft. Now you’ll never know how soft it really was.

You look at the water. You look at the bridge. The car headlights meteors streaking along their guardrail-gated orbit.

You think about going home. Waking up tomorrow, Christmas Day. The silence. You think about going back to work. Killing wanderer after wanderer. Wondering which one will be the one to finally kill you.

The days blur. The constant emptiness echoing inside your apartment, inside your ribcage.

You look at the water. You look at the bridge. You imagine running your hands through Caleb’s hair for the first, the last time. A tender goodbye you’ll never have, because they never found his body.

There’s no one left to miss you.

Your phone vibrates in your pocket. You fish it out.

Rafayel no longer calls, or texts you words. He just sends photos, every once in a while. Mundane details of everyday life, rendered extraordinary through his artist’s eye. Paintings he’s working on. A foreign landscape. Leaves glistening with dew. The moon, waxing full.

You haven’t answered in months. You look at each one, tuck your phone back in your pocket.

You look back at the water. Think about taking a photo of the reflected stars, the thin crescent moon in the black waves, think of sending him one last response. But even you’re not that cruel. You don’t want him to realize later, that he was the last one to say anything to you.

You don’t open his text. You block his number. Tuck the phone back into your pocket.

You start to walk toward the bridge. As you walk, you keep your eyes on the path, its edges. Decorative, smooth stones line the walkway along the river embankment. You pick them up, here and there, as you walk. Slip them into your coat pockets.

Eventually you run out of room in your coat pockets, add more to your pants pockets. 

You turn your eyes back to the bridge, looming now.

You think of your empty fridge. Josephine’s empty face. An empty urn.

You’re ready to scoop out what’s left of you, leave it behind on the sidewalk, smoldering as the cold night finally smothers the endless fire, the only thing left inside you. Maybe it will warm someone else, in passing. A last good deed, from you to someone in the world.

A metal staircase, leading up, up, into the black sky, mirroring the dark river, your heavy boots echoing. The cars are loud. If you close your eyes, they could be the rushing waves of an ocean, instead of a river of traffic, above a river of water.

You keep your eyes open. You’re not going to pretend that you’re not doing what you’re doing, now. You’re not at the ocean, its pure salt air drifting through your hair, now whipping around your face. You’re on a busy, exhaust- and oil-stained commuter bridge on the night before Christmas, having cut your ties with everyone you have always known never wanted or needed you in the first place. What’s the difference if a wanderer kills you tomorrow, or if something kills you today? Just empty time, blurry days, photo frames without pictures.

The guardrail isn’t so high as one would guess. It’s an easy step up. An easy step over. You stand, looking back over the city where you were raised. The city that contains all the past versions of yourself, from the moment you were pulled screaming into life from a mother whose face you’ll never know, through to now, an empty shell of a person. If your fellow hunters could see inside you, they’d mistake you for a wanderer and put you down, like the scientists who experimented on you, your own grandmother, did years ago.

Since learning that Gran was one of the people who fucked with your heart, you have often resented that she and her colleagues weren’t successful in finishing the job years ago, when they had the chance.

But now you wonder, standing over a dark, freezing river that reflects what’s inside you now, maybe they did finish it. You just didn’t realize it. Not till tonight, as you look down in the mirror of the rushing water, far below.

Even now, the tears won’t come.

What use are tears, when they can’t bring a body back. When they can’t wash it clean. When they can’t lovingly touch it, one last time, soft strands of hair under your fingers.

Your tears, your heart, your suffering, your existence—useless, for the entirety of a life you can only half remember.

You wonder if it’s the dark, tonight. Why tonight, and not yesterday? Why not six months ago? 

Because it took that long to sever the ties binding you here?

Now you are assured, no one will miss you. It will take days before anyone even notices your absence because of your holiday leave.

You hope that they’ll assume it was a wanderer. Bad luck. Wrong time, wrong place. A modest little plaque on the wall of heroes, even though you know you’re no hero.

In the end, it doesn’t matter why it’s tonight, and not any other night.

No need to be dramatic, pretending there’s meaning in the meaningless.

You put your hands on the guardrail, the metal colder than your freezing hands. You lift a heavy booted foot. Take a deep breath. 

It’s so cold. It will be over before you know it. You’ve read that from this height, it’s the impact, and not the drowning.

You’ve always had dreams of flying. 

You lift your other foot, arms thrown wide for balance, just for a moment. The world feels so big, here at the end. The stars above, the stars below, the doubled crescent moon. You’re ready to drown in it all.

You only have one hope.

I don’t want to be reborn.

You breathe, empty your mind of Tara’s earnest smile, Xavier’s soft laughter, Zayne’s steady hands, Rafayel’s flashing violet eyes. Josephine’s empty face. Caleb’s soft, untouchable hair.

You let yourself fall.

You’re flying. Your heart is soaring. Your heart is seizing. The relief, the terror, mingle. You can’t scream, even if you wanted to.

You’re flying and it’s everything you ever dreamt, until it’s not.

Your body jerks, abruptly. Your hair whips down, lashes your face. You grunt with the impact against… nothing. You’re suspended over the water, drifting in the air. The wind tugs at your stone-weighted coat.

You twist away from the water, craning your neck to look up, up, back at the bridge.

You have withstood the uselessness of tears for almost a year now. But now, you want to cry so badly the pain of the need steals your breath.

You knew he was cruel. You knew he was merciless. You knew that he hated you. You just didn’t realize how much, until now.

You hang suspended over a dark, rushing river, wrapped in scarlet and ink tendrils, looking up into the sneering face of the one person you refused to think about as you made your final decision tonight, at the end of your desolate, half-remembered life.

His evol begins to lift you, away from the merciful impact, the numbing water. You, your past, your heart, the memories and despair and stones filling your pockets seem weightless, wrapped in his power.

His usual mask of bored indifference is gone. He is finally showing you his true face, what he must always feel when he looks at you—fury and disgust.

He says nothing, as he pulls you from the depths, back into the world. As he sets you gently back on your heavy feet on the sidewalk in front of him. His evol evaporates, winter breath in the wind.

He looks at your face with his wine-dark eyes. Looks at the water. Flicks his gaze back to your face.

You will not cry in front of this man. This man who hates you so much he won’t even let you seek the peace of death. Death, which has always been too good for you, but not for the people you loved the most.

You clench your jaw as the fire re-ignites in your chest. The flames you had tried so hard to scoop out, to leave behind.

You don’t want to feel this much anymore.

If you speak, you know you’ll cry. You can’t stand it.

Maybe, with enough repetition, he’ll get bored. He gets bored so easily, after all.

You turn, try to launch yourself over the guardrail again.

This time, it’s not his evol, but his arms that wrap around you, pull you back from the fall.

You struggle, throwing your elbows, kicking, throwing your head back, hoping to catch his perfect nose, break it under the hardness of your stupid, useless skull.

He says nothing, just holds you tighter, wraps one arm around your waist, the other over your chest, his big hand cradling the side of your face, pressing your head back into his own chest, as he hunches over you, an immovable wall of warmth. As you fight to break free of his hold, you are wrapped in his scent—cloves, gun oil. 

Sylus.

Eventually, you tire yourself out—despite all of your strength, it is no match for his. He holds you against himself easily, as you pant, lungs burning with the effort, the sweat warm once again under your Hunter’s uniform. You become aware of a whimpering, the keening of a wounded animal.

It’s coming from your throat. Your eyes burn. You go limp in his arms.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. A voice like warm liquor in your veins. You think he’ll let you go. You prepare, hoping you can get to the guardrail again. Maybe this time he won't be so fast. But instead of releasing you, getting away from you as fast as he can, the arm around your waist moves up, cradling your upper back. He scoops his other arm under your legs, holds you against himself like you’re a delicate princess, if you were anyone else. But because it’s you, he’s probably just holding you like a useless sack of shit that would be too annoying to drop. He begins to walk, his stride steady, brisk.

He looks down into your face. “I bought a dress for you. Silk. A design like stars over a flowing river. That’s the only river you’re allowed in tonight, kitten.”

You stare at him. His breath puffs white in the cold air. The face of disgusted fury is replaced by his usual bored mask.

Why is he doing this to you? He wanted to kill you, just a few months ago. Why not let you do the job for him?

He is the only person in your life who didn’t take the hint. Who kept showing up, after you made it clear that you didn’t want their presence anymore. That you couldn’t handle the ties, because ties become nooses, snapping your neck when the other person leaves you behind.

When he showed up where you were, in a ‘coincidental’ meeting on the street, on a jog, you would turn, move in the other direction. He would match your stride, doggedly pestering you with questions, asking you about your evening or weekend plans, telling you silly stories from the N109 Zone, Luke and Kieran’s latest antics. Sometimes he’d just walk in contemplative silence, thumbs hooked through his belt loops, or jog quietly next to you, never losing his breath, never complaining about the pace.

When you would routinely see him at various restaurants you were headed to in order to pick up takeout, you’d leave your food, immediately turning and hurrying away. When the same food was delivered to your door half an hour later, you’d refuse to answer, letting the confused and irritated delivery man leave. A half hour after that, the same man would be back, yell through the door that he had instructions to leave the food even if no one answered, and then he’d make good on his promise. You were faced with the choice of either letting the food go to waste, or eating it guiltily at your kitchen island.

No matter how many times you told the delivery person of the almost daily packages you received with no return address that you didn’t want to accept delivery, they would always insist that their instructions were to deliver regardless of recipient response. You were welcome to bin the items after receipt, but if you didn’t accept, the packages would just pile so high outside of your door that you couldn’t reach your apartment anymore.

You would accept, and then donate whatever exquisite item was inside to women’s shelters, children’s homes, university museums, soup kitchens, fundraiser auctions. No matter how clear it was that you wouldn’t accept anything from him, Sylus never stopped sending you gifts.

When you were sick, he’d show up personally, barge into your apartment when you were too tired to look at the doorbell camera before answering, a duffel bag gripped in his big hand filled with fever reducing medicine, homemade soup from his home chef, painkillers, hot water bottles, cooling pads, muscle pads, vitamins. He’d lounge on your couch, manspreading, insisting that he wouldn’t leave until he saw you swallow the pills and drink a gigantic glass of water.

He’d wait until you lay back down on your messy bed, until you fell asleep. He’d be gone when you woke again, but your apartment would be clean and your fridge and freezer would be stuffed full of healthy pre-prepared food.

You were half-convinced he was just buttering, fattening his prey before getting bored and mercifully ending its life.

Tonight, you are now fully convinced.

“Did your tongue freeze in your mouth?” he asks, descending the stairs you had just walked up, thinking it was your last time ascending them. “Do you need mouth-to-mouth to warm it up again?”

You scowl at him, at how appealing the idea of Sylus’s tongue in your mouth is, even now. You hate yourself, your traitorous body for being drawn to him, even now. “What’s the point of talking, when you never listen?” you grind out, your throat sore. You hadn’t realized how much your animal wailing had wrecked your throat. At least the tears are no longer so close to the surface that they’re threatening to spill.

“I listen to every word out of your beautiful mouth,” he counters serenely, with that same inexplicable kindness that makes your heart hurt. So at odds with how you know he must really feel about you. “I just listen to more than your mouth in order to hear what you’re really saying.”

“What?” You stare at his beautiful face, the way the lamplight illuminates its sharp features for a brief moment, before the night swallows it again as he moves between lampposts on his way… somewhere. Back the way you just came from.

He spares you a glance. “Your mouth says one thing, while the rest of you is screaming something else.”

You feel the blood draining from your face. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

One corner of his beautiful mouth lifts. “Don’t play dumb, kitten. You’re too smart for it to be convincing.”

You were just falling into the river. You were just about to be free. How did you get here again? In this man’s arms, his smug, roguish smile filling you with the unease of being seen. 

“I mean, it wouldn’t kill you to be a little more honest about the fact that you want people to fight for you, right?”

You begin to struggle again, shame lancing through you, making your body unbearable to be in. You know it’s weak, to have wanted so desperately that the people you were carving from your life would see what you were doing and stop you, place their hands over yours holding the cleaver, gently push it down, down, until it dropped from your grasp—how desperately you wanted them to step into your space, hold you tightly, just like this man who sees right through you is holding you now. You wanted Tara to keep inviting you out with your ridiculous colleagues, to sing your heart out at shitty karaoke clubs, to forcibly drag you to sleepovers and arcade nights. You wanted Xavier to push himself into your apartment, try to bake something horrible in your oven, sheepishly offer to go to the bakery with you instead when the fire alarm inevitably went off. You wanted Zayne to walk through the crowd to reach you at the other end of the hallway after you identified Josephine’s body, to ask to take your hand, to ask how you were doing, even though you knew you wouldn’t have been able to answer. You wanted Rafayel to keep inventing excuses for you to visit his studio, to keep insisting that he needed you to accompany him to expositions and fancy lunches as his bodyguard. 

But none of them did in the end, and that’s okay. You kept pushing them away, because your terror of their leaving was apparently bigger than your need for their presence in your life, and at least if they were already gone, as they inevitably would be, you’d finally be free. 

But the last person you would want to see this utterly humiliating need inside you, exposing you like this, is the one looking down at you right now with deceptively soft, all-seeing eyes.

You know the feeling, this need, of pulling away and pulling away and then being heartbroken when people finally let you is weak, and pathetic.

You may experience weak and pathetic feelings, but you’re not weak or pathetic. Not at your core. You were prepared to do what was necessary, to save yourself from the pain of your emptiness, the fire raging inside your chest. You weren’t asking anything of anyone. You were doing it all on your own. 

Not a burden. 

Never a fucking burden. 

You clench your teeth, buck in Sylus’s arms.

He just holds you tightly, a straightjacket for the insanity that you’re feeling, the insanity of this man, out of all the people in your life, stripping you of your masks, flaying you so that all of your most tender, shameful parts are exposed to both him and yourself.

“Stop that. You’re just going to tire yourself further, when I need you tonight.”

Of course. The quid pro quo. He helped you with the auction, the Aether Core. Now you owe him. He doesn’t give a fuck if you live or die—he just can’t let one of his assets destroy itself before it fulfills his purpose.

You go limp in his arms. Turn your head away from him.

He continues his train of thought. “No, it wouldn’t kill you to tell the truth to your friends, so you decided to take matters into your own hands, huh? Telling the people in your life that you actually need them wouldn’t kill you, so why bother, right, when you can just jump off of a fucking bridge?” His voice sounds like the night you met him. Controlled anger. Disgust. Accusation.

Then there’s something wrong with her.

You thought you had killed everything inside of you already. The yearning for human connection. The kindness of a friend. Family holding you in their arms. You thought you had scooped out most of it, even as some of it rekindled when he pulled you back from the fall.

But the way you’re hurting now, at the memory of his hate, the reminder that the people you love won’t fight for you even if it would be fighting against you, and that this man, for all of his false generosity, never cared for you from the beginning, that his gifts and his visits were all what you knew them to be, all along—a bored predator toying with its prey before using it and consuming it. 

You let your thoughts drift back to the bridge, push your pain away. Feed it to the fire. When he’s done with you, maybe you won’t even have to jump.

“Just shut up, Sylus. I’ll help you with your problem tonight. Just promise me you’ll toss me over yourself, when you’re done with me,” you tell the night, because you still can’t bring yourself to look at him.

He stops walking. The wind is so cold against your face. You wish he’d snap your neck, right now. You’re so fucking tired.

“Look at me.” His voice is low. Menacing.

You watch the water. Wonder how long it would take if you just walked out into it, without jumping. Just walk in with your stone-weighted coat and let the cold paralyze you, the current pull you under.

“Look at me, my heart,” he whispers. The change in his tone, his bizarre endearment, has you turning your head, looking up into his face. “That is one promise I can never make you.” He looks like he’s in pain. You don’t know why. He leans down, rests his forehead against yours, hunching his big shoulders, lifting your body in his arms so he can meet you. His breath is warm against your lips. “Please don’t talk to me like that.”

You want to snort. It’s rich, coming from him—the same man who is telling you not to tell him to shut up, after all the things he said to you as he starved you, strangled you.

“Please don’t tell me to kill you. To hurt you. That hurts me.”

You stare up into his face. See the sincerity in his eyes. The wind whips your hair. He wasn’t upset that you told him to shut up, but that you asked him to kill you? “What does it matter? Aren’t you going to, in the end?”

“Why would I stop you tonight, if I wanted you to die?”

Of course he won’t answer outright. When has Sylus Qin ever answered a direct question?

“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Why bother stopping me, unless you just need to use me and then be done with me? I can’t be that irreplaceable. Just get someone else to put on the dress, and let me get on with my fucking life. Someone who you can train to say just the right things, at just the right time, who’ll look good in whatever fancy shit you want to put her in. There’s gotta be easier idiots than me to serve your purpose.”

He closes his eyes, breathes in the cold night air. When he opens them, you have to look away. You can’t handle whatever is in them. “I know I hurt you, when we first met. That I said cruel things to you. I’m sorry.”

You laugh, even as your heart wrenches at this strange apology. Of course he doesn’t explain what offended him so much about your existence at the beginning. Why he treated you exactly how you deserved. Probably just whatever he saw when he used his Aether Core on you. He saw the echoing chambers of your empty, fucked up heart and was enraged that it was you, and not someone worthy, who would absorb the Aether Core. “There’s never been any need to varnish the truth, Sylus. You almost choked me to death the day we met. You should have fucking finished what you started,” you sneer. “Why does no one ever finish what they start?” You think of Josephine, her researcher cronies. Think of Caleb, his promise to return, the last text he ever sent you. Your fucking parents, who you will never know.

You don’t expect an answer.

And yet, you’re surprised when Sylus wordlessly releases his hold on you. Lets you slip from his arms, sets you back on your feet. You settle in your heavy boots, the weight of your coat, the stones in your pockets, grounding you to the earth.

The lamplight shines in his silver-sheened, wind-tousled hair. His cheeks are red from the cold.

Of course. Of course.

No tool is irreplaceable.

You’re not irreplaceable.

You finally said the right thing, to push him away.

This is it. This is it. This is it. 

Your mind returns to the bridge. Your hand is holding the cleaver, dripping with the blood from the last unwelcome tether to your life.

You try to memorize his face, just as you did Zayne’s, but for some reason looking at Sylus’s face hurts you so much more despite having known him for so little time. Just a sigh, in the timeline of your life. The warm glow of his irises. The softness of his lower lip. The pride in his shoulders, his nose. 

Maybe you didn’t want to think of him before jumping because you had fallen in love with him, despite the fact that any affection he offered was counterfeit—the steady way he breathed next to you on a jog, the way he spread out on your couch, his dry humor, his intelligence, his piercing gaze, his kindness that was actually more cruel than if he had just tossed you out and never bothered to look for you again after the auction.

You knew it was fake. You knew it was calculated. You knew that the reality was, because he had told you from the very beginning—

Don’t tell me that you like me. Is this all so you can get my attention?

Clearly you’ve read too many fairytales.

And yet you had believed, in the bright moments of receiving his kind attention, in the fairytale. Just for a heartbeat. A raindrop, splattering on the ground.

You thought that you couldn’t bear to see what it looks like when Sylus finally tires of you pushing him away, and stops reaching out, as everyone else has. 

But with just a few words, you’ve finally managed to do it. He set the burden of you down, and now he’ll walk away, replace you with some other beautiful, breathing tool.

You learn in this moment that you actually can bear it. You can bear anything, as long as you know that very soon, you won’t have to bear anything at all.

“You wanted the truth?” you say, suddenly, the relief flooding through you that the worst has happened, that you’re now actually free. You think of the fabric of the dress, liquid stars over a night river, and wonder whose body it will caress, with Sylus’s big hand on her waist, his gentle fingers drifting across her collarbone, his forehead pressed against hers, for whatever ruse he needs to run tonight, on Christmas Eve.

He grows still. Watches you carefully, as if searching your face for a trick. You look back at him steadily, scooping everything inside you out, letting it splatter onto the sidewalk, here along this dark riverbank.

“Will you give it to me?” he finally asks.

“As a parting thank you gift, for cutting me loose.” You nod. Take a shuddering breath of the frigid air. “Here is me telling you the truth: you should treat the woman who ends up wearing the dress you got with more gentleness than you did me at the beginning. You could have the world eating out of the palm of your hand, if you skip the cruelty at the beginning and just treat people the way you treated me in the last few months. She’ll do anything for you, I think, if you do. Because somehow you made me love you, despite our beginning. I could bear to cut everyone else loose but you.” You laugh, and the sound is like icicles snapping, shattering on the ground. “Thank you for doing it for me, instead. It’s probably the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

You smile at him. 

You don’t know why you’re surprised that he just frowns deeply, brow furrowing. 

Well. That’s okay. You never expected him to be pleased to see your face, smiling or not.

“Good luck, Sylus.”

You turn, begin to walk back the way you came, for the second time tonight. Your thoughts are already at the bridge. You’ve been falling for months now. Soon you’ll finally hit the crystal water and shatter. 

You hope you won’t be reborn.

“You said you love me.” His deep, low voice is carried by the wind.

You stop, turn your head. “Stupid, huh?” you ask, wondering if he wants to pour salt into the wound you just willingly exposed to him.

“Why would you love someone who treated you the way I did?”

You turn fully, face him across the night, one last time. “You’re so fucking funny. I’ve always appreciated men who can make me laugh.” You shrug. “And I’m a pathetic fool. You pretended to be kind, and I lapped it up like the thirsty dog I am.”

He tilts his head, takes a step towards you. “That’s all?”

You take a step back. You don’t need him and his pretty face, his delicious scent any closer to torment you.

You offer him more truth. “Of course not.”

“What else?”

You sigh. “What does it matter? We’ll never see each other again.”

He shakes his head. “Indulge me.”

So salt, it is. You press your fingers into the most tender part of yourself, peel yourself wide open. “Your cleverness. How sweet you can be when you want something—strangely pliant, for such a big, powerful man. The self confidence you have. I could say, do anything and you did so well pretending to never be embarrassed of me. You made me believe, very briefly, that you really wanted to be with me, do anything, go anywhere, just because I was there. It’s quite impressive, really. I can see why you’re so good at business. You’re competent. You’re beautiful to look at.” You pause, shake your head in turn. “But you already know all that. You know why you’re loveable. You made me feel cherished in a way that no one ever has, even as I was pushing you away. But honestly, those are just parts of you. They don’t fully cover what it is about you that makes my heart ache when I look at you. I love you because you’re you. Even hearing your name makes my heart race. Seeing your shoes in my foyer, because they were on your feet. The curve of your wrist, because it belongs to you. I know it’s pathetic, and stupid.” You shrug again. “Can’t help it, though.”

He stares at you. 

You prod him. “Is that enough?”

“How can you ask if that’s enough, when it’s everything?”

You look at him in confusion. “Huh?”

He takes a step towards you, frowning. “Are you only telling me all this because you think I’ve finally given up and allowed you to push me away, because I set you back on your feet?”

You take a step back, as he takes another step forward.“What do you mean ‘I think’ you’ve given up?” You squint at him.

“Did you only tell me all this because you’re going straight back to the bridge to try again?”

You take another step back at the intensity of his face, his question. “What does it matter? You don’t have to worry about what happens to me after this.”

He takes two steps. “You tell me you love everything about me, and then you plan to fuck off and leave me alone again?”

Okay, this was a mistake. You don’t know why he’s mad, but he’s mad again. “I’m sorry.”

You don’t know what else to say. You’ve been sorry your whole life. This is yet another miscalculation. You should have just left. What did you think would happen if you told him how you feel? That he’d be happy about your pathetic heart bleeding pitifully for him?

He strides over to you, his long legs outpacing your own. “If you’re sorry, don’t fucking do it.”

“What?”

He looks down into your face, so close you can smell him again, you can see the fine lines around his eyes as he frowns. “If you’re really sorry for loving me, for ever meeting me—which are the only things you have to be sorry for, then make it up to me by staying. Don’t leave me. Don’t push me away anymore. Just stay, and love me.”

You huff. “Are you really that desperate for help tonight?”

He lifts his hands, places his palms on your cheeks, his long fingers dipping into your hair. “No, I’m desperate for you tonight. It’s Christmas—I don’t give a shit about the holidays, but I know you do. I want to spend it with you. You made me watch you jump off of a goddamned bridge. What would have happened if I hadn’t already been on my way to you?” He sounds so upset. You’ve never seen him like this. The fear is naked on his lovely face.

“What the fuck are you talking about? What does it matter? You said you could get someone else for the dress, for tonight.” You’re so confused. Why is he acting like this?

“I didn’t say any of that. You suggested that I replace you with someone else, I set you on the ground to make sure you were looking at my face, that you were listening to my words when I told you that you’re irreplaceable. That no one else will do. That after watching you almost die, I can’t continue being cautious and trying not to frighten you away anymore.”

“You… what?” 

“You love me. Right? You weren’t lying?” he looks uncertain, like he can’t quite believe it.

You can’t bring yourself to lie. The truth is out. You’re witnessing the fallout. There’s no point in backpedaling. “Yeah.”

He nods, once, decisively. “Okay. That’s enough.”

You sigh in relief. Maybe he’ll let you go, finally, finally.

He checks his chunky watch, the platinum flashing in the lamplight. “There’s still time.”

“Time for what?”

“For my plans tonight. Come.” He closes the distance, sweeps you into his arms again, cradles your body against him like something fragile.

“What plans? Listen—” you start to argue.

“No. Now it’s my turn to speak, and for you to listen.” he squeezes you tightly. “Today was the last day you spend alone. If you can’t live for yourself, then you can live for me, until you remember why you want to live for yourself again. No matter what you say, or what you do to get rid of me, it’s not going to work.”

You can’t even process what is happening. “What are you—?” you begin, but he cuts you off again.

His voice is strained, rough. “You love me. So you have to take responsibility. You have to stay.”

You don’t know what to say. 

I’m desperate for you tonight.

You can’t believe this. He hates you. He has hated you from the beginning. He was so kind to you because he wanted to use you for something he never bothered explaining to you. He needs you for your resonance, your amplification of his powers.

You’re irreplaceable. No one else will do.

Because of your resonance?

I don’t give a shit about the holidays, but I know you do.

He carries you along the wind-swept riverbank, through the frigid night. Stars above, stars below.

You made me watch you jump off a goddamned bridge.

You didn’t think anyone was left to care.

You were so careful, severing ties like arteries, so that you wouldn’t leave the world with more pain than you found it. It was already bleeding so much.

You just were so tired of bleeding with it.

As if sensing the turn of your thoughts, Sylus carries you to the edge of the river’ embankment, where the concrete falls away, drops into the water.

He sets you down again, but doesn’t let you go. His big hands slide down the outside of your coat, dip into your pockets.

He pulls out a smooth stone. Turns it in his hands.

“I’ll never understand how someone so light can weigh so heavily in me,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “But you’re a weight I’ll carry for as long as you let me.”

His ember eyes flick back to yours. He hands you the stone.

“This is your conviction that the world won’t miss you, if you’re gone. You will hold it in your hand, one last time. And then you will throw it in the water.” He wraps your cold fingers around the stone. Somehow, his fingers are still warm.

You grasp it, look up into his face. You see yourself in them. It hurts, to be seen so clearly. You’re so ashamed. “How did you know?”

He closes his eyes, shakes his head a little. Opens them. “I looked into your soul, the day we met. I know you’re too soft-hearted in this life to kill yourself if you thought it would hurt someone else. You don’t carry that spite, anymore.”

In this life.

Anymore.

You can’t bring yourself to ask him what he means. You only know that once again, Sylus Qin has seen inside you, has seen you, in a way no one else ever has.

“But I don’t think anyone would miss me. I made sure of it.”

He huffs. “You’re a fool, if you actually believe that. The people you’ve pushed away still love you. But if you can’t believe that yet, then you can’t pretend to yourself that you’re disposable anymore, if for no other reason than I’m standing here now, telling you that I would miss you.”

You think of Tara, sitting on your desk, nudging a steaming latte she got for you on her way to work toward you, asking if you’ve heard the latest about Simone and Andrew.

You think of Xavier, walking you to your door at the end of a nasty wanderer encounter, reaching out, brushing a bit of mud off your cheek, then smearing it across his own cheek. See, we match now.

You think of Zayne, waiting across a busy hallway, patient, letting you choose to approach him, and respecting you by letting you walk away.

You think of Raf, the beauty he shares with you with every photo, the funny strings of emoji that don’t demand an answer.

“How do you know, that they would miss me?” you ask Sylus quietly.

“I’ve been watching you for a long time, sweetie. Do you think I haven’t seen your friends’ faces when you walk away from them?”

You clutch the stone in your hand. “I don’t think I can change my thoughts, my conviction, just like that.”

“You love me, so you have to try. Throw it. Every time you try to drag it back up, I’ll remind you that you threw it away, and you can let it stay at the bottom of the river.” He reaches up, caresses your cheek with his fingertips.

You want to cry. You want to cry, because you’re so afraid. If you let yourself believe that people love you, you have to stay, for them. You have to feel, every day, the weight of grief, of existence, the pain of being alive, of being inside yourself, your body. The hollowness will return, even with your friends, even with Sylus filling most of it.

It’s like he can read your thoughts as his eyes devour your face, as his fingers tuck a lock of hair behind your ear. “I won’t let you pretend, anymore. You love me, and I will not survive if you aren’t here with me. So you have to stay. We don’t have to accept that life is a curse. We can fight back. Make it something better.”

“I’m scared,” you say.

His eyes are so tender, as he watches your mouth form your biggest truth, set it free in the night. “I will protect you, until you can protect yourself again. There’s nothing to be afraid of, if we’re together.”

You want to believe him. Your heart beats painfully behind your ribs. The moon is a sharp crescent in the sky. 

But you’re a weight I’ll carry for as long as you let me.

“You’ll really stay?”

He finally smiles, a faint Sylus smile that feels like a grin. “I told you. Today was the last day you’ll ever be alone. You can’t get rid of me now, no matter what you do, or say.”

You turn, holding the stone in your cold hands. You think of all the lies you’ve been telling yourself, about your friends, your place in their lives, because you were so tired of living with an unnameable grief, one you carried inside you long before Caleb and Josephine died, but whose loss compounded, made unbearable the original sorrow.

And I will not survive if you aren’t here with me.

You don’t know why he feels this way. Does he love you too? He hasn’t said so. Can he even love you, in the way you love him?

Does it matter? 

It’s enough, that he says he’ll stay. That he wants you to stay alive. That he’ll help remind you, when the whispers drift back in your mind, telling you that you’re just a burden, that no one actually loves you, would miss you when you’re gone. When the hollowness echoes so loudly it’s all you can hear.

You lean back, lift the stone, throw it as hard as you can, as far as you can, into the rushing river.

You don’t hear its splash over the wind.

You turn back to Sylus.

He dips into your pocket again. Pulls out another stone. “Your guilt, for having lived. For having been born.”

You take it from him. Let your mind drift. Feel along the contours of your memories, the jagged, missing pieces, all the way back to when it fades to black. You throw the stone.

You don’t see it sink to the riverbed.

He dips into your pocket again. “Your shame, for needing others. For being human, and imperfect. For not being able to do it all alone. For wanting to be loved.”

You take the stone. “Is it really okay?” you ask, helplessly. There’s no point pretending everything he is saying isn’t true. “To want these things, when I haven’t earned them?”

He steps closer to you. Places his hands on your shoulders, draws you in. “There is no okay, or not okay. There is no crime and punishment, no transgression, no sin. How can it be shameful, to want what you were born to want? Why does love have to be earned, instead of just given?”

You lean into him, press your face into his chest, his thick wool coat soft against your skin.

“I don’t know.”

He reaches into your pocket, places a stone in your other hand. “One for your shame, one for the idea that love must be earned. Throw them.”

You lean back again, and it’s already too far away from him. But you throw each stone, and they disappear under the cold water.

“That’s enough, for now. We’ll take the rest home.” He draws you back into his arms. Lifts you without effort, stone-filled pockets and all. The weight of all of you.  “When you have thoughts of shame, of guilt, of not being loved, we’ll come back. You’ll throw them again. Until they’re all gone. We’ll gather other stones, when other feelings make life unbearable. I’ll come with you, as many times as you need.”

Sylus carries you along the path back to the road that snakes along the river. His motorcycle gleams under a bright lamppost.

He settles a helmet on your head, checks to make sure it’s secure. Puts his own on. You sit behind him, cling to him. Rest your head against his broad back, close your eyes. The motorcycle is loud, and he drives it carefully through the busy, holiday bustling streets, until he reaches your apartment building. He holds your hand as he leads you through the front doors, as he stands quietly beside you in the elevator, his red, warm eyes never leaving your face in the elevator mirrors. He leads you to your front door, waits patiently while you unlock it with your cold finger.

In the hallway, he kneels at your feet, unlaces your tall boots while you look down at him, the soft fall of his silver hair, his big, nimble fingers working the laces.

He then removes his own boots. His coat. He’s wearing a garishly bright Christmas sweater, with prancing reindeer. He hangs his coat on a peg in the wall. He turns, slowly unzips yours. Eyes flicking between the zipper and your face. He gently lifts it from your body, again like it’s weightless, even though it’s still filled with stones. He pulls it from your arms, hangs it next to his.

He pulls you further into your place.

The first thing you notice is the warmth. It’s so warm, like someone came in while you were gone and turned on the heating.

The next thing you notice is the Christmas tree. The one you didn’t get this year, because the thought of the holidays without Caleb and your grandmother was unbearable.

Beautifully, tastefully decorated. Silver and gold, twinkling lights. Its pine scent fills your place.

Sylus moves to a record player on one of the cabinets along your living room wall. A record player that wasn’t here before you went to work today. He fiddles with the arm, and suddenly Joni Mitchell’s River fills your house.

It’s coming on Christmas

They’re cutting down trees

They're putting up reindeer

And singing songs of joy and peace

Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on

He walks back to you. “Is this okay?”

I wish I had a river so long

I would teach my feet to fly

Whoa I wish I had a river I could skate away on

The music flows around you, paralyzing you. You stare into his face, into the warm glow of his eyes. How could you have missed this? The way he’s looking at you now? Through all the long months since the auction?

He tried hard to help me

You know, he put me at ease

And he loved me so naughty

Made me weak in the knees

Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on

The words wash over you, through you. The scent of pine warms you, memories without form filling you with the sense of home, safety, love.

I made my baby cry

I'm so hard to handle

I'm selfish and I'm sad

Now I've gone and lost the best baby

That I ever had

Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on

He takes your hands in his, thumbs across your skin. “Is it too much?”

You think of how cold it was, standing on the guardrail of the bridge. 

You were running toward the bridge, while Sylus was filling your home with warmth.

What would have happened if I hadn’t already been on my way to you?

You think of him spreading out on your couch, as a fever raged through your body. You think of your freezer, filled with food. You think of the takeout boxes, still steaming, sitting in front of your closed door.

You think of him hanging delicate ornaments on a fragrant tree. 

I made my baby cry

You shake your head, the enormity of what almost happened filling you. The enormity of the choice you made, that you enacted, until Sylus pulled you back from the rushing dark.

You start to shake.

“Kitten?”

“It’s not too much,” you say, teeth chattering. “It’s wonderful. Thank you.”

He stares down at you, seems to make a decision. “Shower. Now.”

You nod, moving away from him, but he follows. 

Inside your small bathroom, he takes up the entire space. He peels off your hunter’s uniform, tosses it beyond the open bathroom door. His gaze flicks from your undershirt, your underwear, to your face. “Do you want me to leave?”

You think of the dark water, an impact that never came. Sylus plugging in the record player, choosing a record with one of your favorite Christmas songs on it. Placing it delicately on the turntable.

“No. You promised you’d never leave me alone again.”

He smiles a little. “I mean, leave the bathroom.”

“No. You promised you’d never leave me alone again,” you repeat.

He stares into your eyes. Nods. Lifts your undershirt. He reaches behind you, unhooks your bra with the same agility that he unlaced your boots. He lifts it from your body, watches you as he lifts it to his nose, inhales.

You shiver.

He tosses the bra behind him. Kneels. Pulls your underwear from your hips, down your legs. You step out of them. He stands again.

He leans over, his ridiculous, festive sweater soft against your cheek, as he reaches past you to turn on the shower faucet. As he messes with the knobs until steam begins to fill the small space. He nudges you forward, past the sliding glass door and into the small shower cabin, letting the hot water pour over you. You turn, watch him through the clear glass. He picks up your underwear, watches you as he lifts it to his nose, inhales as he did with your bra. His eyes close for a moment, and then open. He tucks the little slip of fabric into his pants pocket, sits on the closed toilet, rests his elbows on his knees, and continues to watch you.

You let the hot water flow over your tired, cold body. You stare at Sylus’s face, let it fill your vision, blot out the rushing river, the impact that never came, the idea of everything you would have missed, if he hadn’t pulled you out. Everything you would have missed, in such a short amount of time. What else would you miss, if he hadn’t caught you? If he could give you so much within an hour, how much would you have missed in a day? In a week?

What have you been fighting, this whole time? 

Just yourself. 

You think of the stones at the bottom of the riverbed, instead of your body. Your conviction that you’re not loved, your guilt, your shame, instead of you.

You stare at the man who handed you each one, and told you to get rid of them, instead of yourself. The man sitting in your tiny bathroom, filling it with his big body, his even bigger presence, staring at you, staring at him.

You stop shaking.

Reach for the body wash, lather your hands. Run your hands along your body, under your armpits. He frowns, eyes on your hands. You palm your breasts, dip between your legs.

He lowers his head, eyes still on your hands, rests his full lips on his long steepled fingers.

You finish lathering your body, let the water wash it away. He’s too far away, even this close, on the other side of the glass.

As you turn off the water, he stands, lifts one of your towels from the rack. Holds it out for you. You step into it, him, let him wrap it around you. He turns you both, so that you’re looking in the bathroom mirror, which is mostly fogged.

“Better?” he asks.

You nod, soaking in his warmth at your back, the steam of the bathroom. 

You have a question, a question you can’t bring yourself to say out loud yet.

You reach out with one hand. Trace a finger through the fogged mirror.

Sylus watches you, resting his chin on your shoulder. 

Letters, a question.

Do you like me? Circle yes or no

Sylus smiles again, lifts an eyebrow. He reaches out, takes your hand in his. He circles no with your finger.

You frown, heart sinking, but Sylus just whispers, “Patience, kitten,” and flattens your palm across like. Guides your finger again, just above the erased like, drags it through the moisture in an elegant script.

love

He then gently sets your hand down. Lifts his own, circles with one long finger, yes.

He watches your reaction in the mirror.

You had no idea.

This whole time, you had no idea, even though he was showing you, with every ‘chance’ encounter, his pestering you with questions about work, life, his silly stories about the N109 Zone. His packages at your door. Fever medication, a big glass of water shoved into your hands.

You think of the rushing water, what almost happened. What you almost missed.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me believe you still hated me?”

He looks down at you now, away from your reflection in the mirror. His eyes trail your face, down your curved neck. He palms the back of your neck, his thumb drifting along the side, over a mole there.

“Have you heard of the myth that where we have moles is where someone kissed us in a past life?”

Even if so much has changed between you in just the last few hours, you’re reassured that Sylus Qin still can’t answer a straightforward question with a straightforward answer.

You shake your head. “No, I had never heard of that.”

Sylus smiles, and it looks a little sad. He leans down, presses the softest of kisses against your skin, the mole there. “Like most human legends, it’s a pretty lie. Not quite true.”

You laugh. “I could have guessed as much.” You tilt your neck, enjoying the press of his warm lips on your skin for the first time.

He opens his mouth, runs his teeth over where he just kissed you. Bites, gently.

You shiver again. Press your neck into, instead of away from his teeth.

He bites harder.

You gasp.

“I was afraid I’d frighten you with the enormity of my feelings for you, when in your mind, we’d only just met,” he murmurs against your neck, his saliva, the indentation of his teeth hot on your skin.

He bites again, presses himself into your ass through the towel. You realize he’s hard.

You forget about the last part of his sentence. Had you not only just met?

You lift your hands, let the towel unfurl from around your body, let it drop to the floor.

You almost died tonight.

What have you been fighting this whole time?

Just yourself. 

He tried hard to help me

You know, he put me at ease

You turn in his arms. He’s breathing hard, cheeks pink.

“You love me?”

He closes his eyes. Opens them. Shakes his head. “Love isn’t intense enough.”

“Adore me?” You lift your arms, wrap them around his neck. Pull his face closer to your own.

He shakes his head again. “Still not enough.”

“You won’t survive without me?” You lift on your toes, his soft sweater almost unbearable against your sensitive nipples.

He nods. “You’re getting closer. Can’t breathe without you. When I saw you jump…” He swallows, thickly. “You might as well have pulled me down with you, beloved. If it ever gets to be too much again, take me with you. I’ll never leave you alone again. Promise me the same,” he demands, big, calloused hands running up your naked sides, the fabric of his dark jeans rough against your body, where your thighs meet, as he helplessly nudges against you again with his hips, his hard dick behind his zipper.

I'm so hard to handle

I'm selfish and I'm sad

“I wouldn’t have known, unless you told me,” you breathe against his lips. “Promise that you’ll tell me how you’re feeling from now on, and I’ll promise to take you with me if I can’t leave the stones in the riverbed, even with you here.”

His voice is deep, rough like the fabric of his pants against your sensitive skin. “Deal.” He closes the distance, presses his soft lips to yours. Licks into your mouth.

And he loved me so naughty

Made me weak in the knees

His hands drift down your sides as his tongue dips into your throat, as he swallows your noises of pleasure, just from kissing him, his hands on you. He grips your ass, urges your legs around his waist. He carries you out of the tiny, steaming bathroom, manages not to knock you against the doorway, or into any furniture on the way to your bedroom, even as he continues to kiss you, as your hands in his soft hair probably block his peripheral view. He lays you down on your bed, the puff of your duvet. It’s so warm in your place that you’re not even shivering. You watch as he pulls his cheerful sweater and undershirt over his head, tosses them to the floor. As he unzips himself, hastily yanks down his pants and boxers, his socks. He blankets you with his big body.

You wrap your arms around him, pull him tightly to you, arch your breasts into his chest. He leans down, runs his nose along your cheek, inhales the scent of your hair at your temple. You just feel each other, for a long stretch of time. His soft chest hair against your skin, the silken skin of his dick between your thighs where he just leisurely rubs himself against you, as your palms run down the muscles of his back, the line of his spine. You’ve refused to think of him like this, ever since he wrapped his hand around your throat. You couldn’t bear his beauty, through all the long months that followed. You fled, every time your heart raced at the flash of silver as he approached you, met you where you were, over and over and over.

But now he says he has loved you, through it all. That he’ll never leave you alone again.

You let yourself feel him, under your hands, under your tongue, as you lick into his ear, feel him shiver. As you squeeze your thighs together, offering him a tight, snug space for him to keep pleasuring himself, as you feel your own wetness begin to coat your inner thighs, his cock, the longer you feel him on top of you, inhale the scent of his skin, the ever-present gun oil, the cloves, his clean sweat underneath it all.

After a lifetime, or only a few minutes, he leans down, says softly into your ear. “I want you. Tell me you want me too.”

“Can’t you tell?” you ask, bucking a little, squeezing him with your legs again.

He makes a low, pleasured sound in his throat. “I want to hear you say it. You’ve gone through a lot tonight. I need to know you actually want this. That you’re not just—” his breath hitches, as you move your hips again, as his dick slips between your wet, soft places. “That you’re not too tired to say otherwise, not thinking straight.”

“Use your Aether Core on me. Then you’ll know that my body is telling you what my mouth would, if I said the words.” You smile at him, teasing. 

I wish I had a river so long

I would teach my feet to fly

You had wanted to fly. You had settled for flying for a brief moment, before shattering. 

But Sylus is offering you constant flight, under, over, along his crow’s wings.

You think of the rushing water. The tide of cars behind you, the wind whipping your hair. You almost missed this. You don’t want to waste any more time.

He lowers his forehead to yours, breathes, speaks against your saliva-slick lips with his own. “I don’t want to use my Aether Core on you. I want the words in your mouth, in your heart. I want your free will, your freely given consent. I almost lost you because I tried to force you, at the beginning. You believed I hated you, this whole time. Don’t ask me to force you again, my heart.”

You understand. You accept his request, his demand. “I want you, Sylus.”

He exhales, shifts above you, slips his wet cock between your legs, slides into your body with gentle, firm, graceful waves of his hips.

You whine, the feeling of fullness layering into the pleasure of the warmth of his skin, the taste of his tongue. For once, the feelings inside you threatening to burst out of your skin are so good, instead of painful, so pleasurable, that you can barely stand it. 

He kisses you, his velvet tongue big, heavy in your mouth. You suck, whine again as he lifts a hand, palms your breast, begins to thrust into you.

You are filled with him. His warmth. The size of him.

You widen your legs, wrap them around his thick ass. Urge him with your own body to move faster, to fuck you harder. He gives you everything you want. Just the pressure of his body against yours has you coming, the release bright, sudden—you shake with it.

Your pleasure seems to trigger his. He grunts, roots into you, buries his teeth in your neck, bites where he bit you before, over the mole on your neck. The sting makes you clench, and he whimpers, groans, comes with a jerk of his hips.

He slows, still filling you, still pleasuring you, as he lifts his head to look into your eyes.

You stare at each other, breath mingling, warm between you. 

You smile at him. 

He smiles at you. Nudges your nose with his.

“Can we do that again?” you ask.

He laughs, low and surprised. “Yeah,” he says, kissing you softly. “Just tell me, and I’m yours, anytime, anyplace.”

“I’m telling you.” You move your hips, feel his cum drip drown your ass. Feel him gasp at your movement.

“Now?” He’s surprised again.

“Problem?” you grin at him. 

“Fuck no.” He kisses you, hard. Slips out of you. Flips you over, lifts your hips with one big hand, pressing his other between your shoulder blades.

He presses his cock back between your legs, the slide easy and wet, and fucks you until you come again, until he blankets your back with his sweat-slicked, matted-hair chest.

“Was that enough, your highness?” he teases.

“I’m telling you,” you pant, wondering what he’ll do. 

“As you wish,” he murmurs, before flipping you again. Before watching your face as he slowly, leisurely works himself, his cum into you, makes you come again. 

In the morning, the sky through your windows is heavy, dark, gray. You wake slowly. Turn your head, find Sylus’s sleeping face next to yours on the pillow. He’s lying on his stomach. You take in the dark sweep of his lashes, his generous mouth, slightly parted.

You slip out of the bed, use the bathroom. You wander into the living room, gaze at the Christmas tree, its twinkling lights.

It’s Christmas.

Caleb and your grandmother are dead. 

But you’re still alive.

Your body aches from Sylus’s efforts, but it feels good. For once, it feels good to be inside your body. To breathe deeply.

You think of riverstones, sinking deep in the riverbed.

You know that the feelings tied to them will try to rise, clawing to the surface again.

We’ll gather other stones, when your feelings make life unbearable. I’ll come with you, as many times as you need.

Your eyes drift to the top of the Christmas tree. It’s empty.

“I thought we should finish it together.” Sylus’s warm arms wrap around you from behind. He leans over your shoulder, kisses your cheek softly. “Do you want to do the honors?”

You smile, wrapping your hands over his forearms around your waist. “You’re taller.”

“Use me as much as you like, kitten.” He turns, grabs a pretty golden glass tree-topper from your kitchen table, hands it to you. He lifts you up onto one shoulder, easily, and you fit it gently over the highest point of the tree. He holds you against him, as he lowers you. You slide along his body, until he sets you gently on your feet again.

You both stand, admiring it for a moment. It’s beautiful, like the rest of the decorations.

You hug him, look up into his face.

“Merry Christmas, Sylus.”

He smiles down at you, ruby eyes twinkling with reflected light from the tree. 

You would have missed this moment, and all the moments like it, if Sylus hadn’t stopped you last night. You shudder, hug him more tightly. 

You know your feelings will return. That no one person can solve a lifetime of wounds. But you promised him that you’d try. That you’d stay. You can only do your best.

You hear your phone vibrating, reluctantly pull away from him, head to your coat in the hallway where you thought you left it last night, but Sylus stops you. He points at your kitchen island. Your phone is lying on the counter. You look at him in confusion, but go to check it.

You’re shocked at how many missed texts you have.

From Tara.

Xavier.

Your eyes widen.

Zayne, who you thought you had blocked, months ago.

Rafayel, who you’re sure you blocked last night.

Each one is a response from a text you never sent. Telling them Merry Christmas. Telling them you love them. Telling them you hope to spend time with them soon.

None of them shame you, call you out on your behavior of the last year. Even Zayne simply suggests that you try a new bakery, that you’ve been in his thoughts, that he’s relieved you felt comfortable enough to reach out. Rafayel sends a bunch of firework emojis, suggests blowing shit up on the beach for New Year’s.

You turn to Sylus.

He looks steadily back at you, silver hair sleep-tousled, wine-bright eyes glowing.

Your eyes feel hot, and you realize you’re crying, the tears fat on your cheeks, dripping down your neck. 

This is the first time you’ve cried since you woke up, your ears deafening, Caleb’s necklace bright in the reflected fire.

Sylus walks over to you. Leans down, licks the tears from your cheeks with his warm tongue, one after the other. He kisses you, ignoring your suddenly snotty nose, your morning breath.

“If it’s too much, we can take it slow. We can throw more stones in the river. But please answer your friends. You need them. And you’re a fool, if you can’t see that they need you too, if that makes you feel better about your own need.”

You continue to cry as you wrap your arms around Sylus’s neck. As he gently sways with you, to music that isn’t playing. He hums, and you think it’s Joni Mitchell’s The River, but you can’t be sure. You smile against his chest.

A thought occurs to you.

“Last night, you said there was still time. That you had plans for us, a pretty dress for me. What did we miss?”

Sylus sighs, holds you closer against himself. “Don’t worry about it.”

You stop, look up into his face. “What did you have planned, Sylus? Are you sorry we missed it?”

He smiles at you. “Oh yes, so sorry I got to spend all night fucking you instead of going to a holiday concert featuring the organ.” His voice drips sarcasm. “But we can go tonight, if you’d like to make it up to me.”

You laugh, bury your face back into his chest. “And here I had planned to suck your cock while watching a black and white Christmas film marathon tonight,” you say forlornly. You smile into his chest as he chokes. “Oh well, the concert it is.”

He just laughs, rich and deep, and continues to sway you slowly in your living room.

“Merry Christmas, my heart,” Sylus says against your hair, in your pine scented apartment, as snow begins to fall outside your windows, as your phone continues to vibrate, filled with the love of your friends.

Here you are. Again.

You’re so grateful, to be here, again.

[dumpster-diving-rat]

How I think bsd characters (Port Mafia) would react if you hugged them

(Not all members of the PM are here, just the ones I will write for)

Ryunosuke Akutagawa

-Probably thought you were trying to attack him at first

-Literally almost used rashomon on you when you got closer

-And then you hugged him, and he freaked out x2

-Quietly hugs you back in some confusion

-"Why me?" he doesn't understand why you hugged him

-He's a little thankful you did though, it just means you aren't really afraid of him, or afraid of being near him

-Lets go after a while, quietly thanking you for the hug

Higuchi Ichiyo (don't really plan on writing her too often but idk)

-Freaking out, blushing, and probably even fangirling all at once

-Hugging you back immediately, thinking about how this is one of the greatest moments ever

-Doesn't want to let go, but does after a few minutes

-Thanking you for the hug, trying to act normally without freaking out

-Happy for the rest of the day

Chuuya Nakahara

-The most confused person on earth

-You just randomly walked up to him and hugged him? Now he's wondering what's going on

-Is this a type of prank? What're you trying to do?

-Confused yelling at you to ask what you're doing

-Slowly starts to hug you back

-Stays silent for a while and just stands there hugging you

-If you're shorter, he'll put his head on your head or shoulder, and if you're taller, his head is against or on your shoulder (by against I mean his forehead is close to your shoulder but not directly on it)

-Starts calming down a lot

-When you feel safe near someone you love, it can lead you to get tired and sleepy because of that safe state of mind

-Needless to say, he is very tired right now

-He is enjoying this moment a lot, and plans on doing this way more often with you

Oda Sakunosuke (I don't really plan on writing him at all tbh, but I'll still put him here anyways because why not I had this idea at like 3 or 4 am)

-You were in the orphans room when you hugged him

-It surprised him slightly, but he hugged you back

-The kids noticed, and decided to attack you both with hugs as well

-You got knocked onto the floor with Oda, while the kids giggled and smiled and continued hugging you

-You started laughing too, and the kids basically surrounded you both while hugging you

-You couldn't really see, but a slight smile was on Oda's face while he continued to hug you and the kids

-He will definitely remember this

Dazai Osamu (not the 15 arc, this is when he's 18 for clarification)

-If he knew you well enough, he'd let you hug him, honestly if he didn't know you that well he'd probably shove you off of him

-He doesn't exactly hug you back, he just let's you hug him and slightly rubs your back

-Doesn't really enjoy or not enjoy it, he's pretty conflicted with what he's feeling

-After a minute or so, he finally hugs you back

-He has one arm around your waist and the other closer to your shoulder, where your shoulder blade is

-He's hugging you pretty tightly, almost afraid to let you go

-If you're taller than him, his head is against your chest (closer to where your collarbone is) and if you're shorter than him, his chin is on your head

-The hug lasts for longer than expected because he doesn't want to let go, he doesn't want to lose you

-I can see him barely speaking during this hug, but also he might just start venting slightly while joking about his problems

-Might start asking for more hugs, probably even daily

-Enjoys the feeling of you hugging him, even if he didn't at first

Thank you for reading! If there's anything you'd like to request, you could message me or comment it. I have put off figuring out the ask box like the professional procrastinater I am, but I will figure it out soon enough hopefully. If you do request something, do not make it NSFW, noncon or dubcon, and no incest please. I hope you enjoyed reading this ♡

[pseudoartistpostsstuff]

Ik you said you’re on break but that’s okay! I can wait lmao

I’m obsessed with your yandere lu writings. I would love a yandere Time x fem reader where he like extra creeps on reader? I’m talking like spying on them n shit and maybe stealing an article of clothing just bc it smells like them

Lord help me that sounds so weird

Why am I like this

Help

Thank you so much for requesting for my boy Time!

Notes: No no I like your way of thinking, give me your worst. Me, personally, I can be way worse than that lol

In fact, I may have accidentally made this creepier than I meant to, idk

By the way, when I said underpants in this I meant those white pants thing Link uses, which is probably called tights or something, but I didn't want you guys to read this and imagine reader with, like, fishnets by accident lmao

Time has anxiety and I'll not elaborate

I was gonna post this tomorrow, but ya know

TWs: Yanderism, stalking, suggestiveness, clothing stealing.

Yandere! LU! Time x Reader

In a way, Time was like a cat.

There was no way you could just ignore random articles of your clothes going missing every time you went to bath.

No matter where you went to clean yourself, it was like one part of your outfit was picked out by hand and evaporated, be it your undershirt, underpants, socks, and sometimes even your underwear!

You tried everything to prevent it, hiding your clothes, setting up traps… You only drew the line when it came to anything to do with poison, since you couldn't bear to possibly end up killing an innocent animal just for the sake of clothes.

Even if said clothes somehow always ended up randomly returning unscathed to the rest of your laundry.

Time and time again, this topic was brought up in conversations with the men you traveled alongside. Yet, for some reason, the matter was also time and time again swept under the rug. It never got solved, neither did it ever get discussed, more often than not.

Starkly different from your point of view, Time found it pretty cute how you got all fussy over some little clothes, clothes which he could easily just make you throw away and buy new ones, it's not like he was lacking the rupees for it, after all.

Yet, he couldn't find it within himself to keep pressing on that matter, not when you looked just so embarrassed protesting against the idea of throwing away your under clothes, stressing about how comfortable your clothes were and about how they were your favorite because of that exact reason.

From what he's noticed, you barely ever wore anything else, no matter how many clothes they could offer you, which was proof of just how much you adored that outfit, each part that composed it having been carefully thought out before being picked out by your hand back when they first went to the market to look for an appropriate Hyrulean attire for you.

It was more than obvious by now that you weren't planning on getting rid of it any time soon.

Still, despite all your best attempts to keep your clothes safe, you couldn't really stop them from randomly disappearing, that is, unless you stopped bathing, and that was something you obviously couldn't even consider doing.

So, you simply sighed with resolution as you took off your clothes to once again go into the river next to the camp, wanting to wash off any grime that may have rubbed on you from the last battle the Links went through before you guys left for the next village.

A little ways down in the same river, you knew the other men were washing themselves, that way, a scream would be all they needed know to come over to help you, should anything happen.

Not that anything had ever happened to you while you were bathing.

You kind of felt like you were being watched, but then again, you learned to not pay attention to that, after all, your brain always seemed to like playing tricks on you, be it making you think you saw the shadows in the corner of your eye moving, or strange noises coming from bushes, all of which always proved to be absolutely nothing at all. Especially the strangely distinctive smell of Time rubbing off on your clothes...

Besides, whenever you looked around yourself to see if your senses were correct, you'd only be able to hear the calm silence of the river waters, almost as if the fish itself held back from swimming every time you tensed up.

The regular calming ambiance noises returned when you finally stopped being paranoid, going back to washing yourself with a relieved sigh, knowing the feeling of being watched was just a product of your tricky mind.

Sound doesn't travel much underwater. Should it be sounds of heavy breathing, sounds of something much larger than the river fish swimming, or even the heavy sounds of metal boots sinking into the sandy floor of the river with every step their wearer took.

Time observed with certain amusement as you walked around the shallow part of the river, your head just above the surface, your feet dangling dangerously near the deeper part. One wrong step and you could risk drowning.  

However, you seemed to be having fun while cleaning yourself, enjoying the cool, clean water. The elder, though, was having his own fun watching you.

He had to give it to you though, no matter what you did, your movements were always so captivating to him. He had already seen a lot in his life, many races, creatures and even monsters. Yet you had such a… Human way of behaving. Even if humans were so alike hylians, you still seemed different in a way, a very good way in his eyes.

What was even more interesting to him was the fact that you were still different from the other humans he'd met through his life.

More often than not your actions were unpredictable and random, not at all serious, it was like you somehow weren't very phased after getting kicked out of whatever universe you originally belonged in and into another. An universe that was extremely dangerous and distinct from yours. His universe.

You were very, very far from your home, yet he could still see some of it in the way you spoke, behaved and reacted to the things and beings around you.

Sometimes, he'd catch himself becoming infatuated again with the stuff that he was already used to, simply because you seemed so surprised and excited by them. 

Things he saw in his everyday life and just happened to ignore. Places, people, animals, creatures, plants, you name it. You gave him a renewed view of life, the whole "enjoy the small things in life" a concept so simple that still managed to make him feel truly alive again.

When he was with you he felt like Hylia and the Golden Goddesses themselves were paying him back for all heroic deeds he performed. In his eyes, you saved him.

In no time, watching the stars with you became a new routine, you were always so interested in them, yet still didn't seem to mind when he preferred to do something else, as to avoid looking at the moon.

Therefore, counting and catching fireflies was the next best thing.

And before he even noticed, he had bought an extra satchel at the market just so he could collect and buy those things that reminded him of you, things he noticed you pointing out whenever you saw. Pretty rocks, shiny crystals, colorful shells, and even those silly little trinkets that, in his eyes were useless, yet brought happiness to yours.

You'd even managed to make him blush the other day, when you told him he was acting like a cat, placing gifts by your bedroll at night, while you were asleep.

Yes, you made him blush. Him, The elder, The Hero Of Time that was also The leader their group, a group made up of the strongest men known in the history of Hyrule.

But, in a way, you were actually correct. 

Cats are very attached to their favorite person, enough to follow them around and watch them do the most simple things, like sleeping, or bathing.

He didn't feel like admitting to those things though, especially not to stealing your clothes.

At first, he assured himself that he was doing all that watching just to make sure you were safe, after all, bathing time was the only moment of the day when you were “fully alone” or so you thought. Time would never forgive himself if you accidentally got hurt because of his lack of attention to you, even if the “hurt” in question was merely a scratch on your knee from accidentally slipping while bathing.

He knew better than anyone that too much peace meant something bad could happen at any time, and too little peace was even worse! Therefore, there was no middle ground, you needed to be protected at all times. And the fact he also got a little fun out of guarding you didn't hurt anyone. After all, what the eyes don't see, the heart doesn't feel.

He didn't even try lying to himself about stealing your clothes, he wasn't that delusional, after all, liking your smell didn't sound like too good of an excuse to tell you, should you find out about that little habit of his.

In a way, he wasn't even hidden right now, per say, he was just not in plain view. 

In fact, sometimes even hoped you saw him, so that he'd be able to stop just watching and join you already.

After all, you wouldn't be able to get hurt if he was right there beside you, right?

Let him keep pretending that's the only reason he wanted to join you in the bath.

[pumpkinsy0]

outsiders characters as events from my silly ahh summer camp. i don't know how i survived for a month at a time there tbh

ponyboy: me going gollum mode over the hunger games book. it wasnt even a joke at that point i was struggling. also the pivotal turn my life took when i read hatchet. like i was reflecting and allat

darry: the DELECTABLE ahh lunches. idk what they did but they were so tasty. like i would have the best nap of my life after muching down on that

johnny: me crying myself to sleep that one time, some girl was like "erm miss counselor!!! i think insert name here is crying under her sleeping bag!!" and my bitch ass counselor who i HATED like she was my arch nemesis started trying to calm me down which made me even more upset. and earlier that day i was trying to feel included in a conversation w a semi friend and some cunt went like "no ones talking to u" when i was Literally just sitting there.

dally: that horse they assigned me that would not do anything asked of him. also one time he like broke out of his stall and was just walking around?? he was an interesting fellow. he was silly tho

soda: me getting sick from eating 2 much cereal. i was writhing around bc tummy ache 2 much later in the day. to be fair i did eat more than 10 servings of cereal.

steve: us having no air conditioning in the cabins. we had to bring our own fans. i had to shower multiple times a day bc I was sweating so much.

twobit: some girl mixing chicken and jello together. also me falling out of a bunk.

cherry: that time during horse and tack when we watched a movie bc it was too hot outside so we went in. but the movie was rlly sad and I cried

that was then… this now… ones

bryon: me almost drowning during one of the swimming performances. like I was lowk choking on water while under the sea was playing in the background.

mark: again that one damn counselor i hated so so much. like i was planning her downfall. why on God's green earth was she singing riptide while we were trying to sleep stfu

m&m: i would start randomly crying so often. i would miss lots of classes bc i would just be in the bathroom bawling for various reasons

angela: girls being so so mean to me. like it was a problem.

curly: me throwing hiking boots at a girl I didn't like

tim: them having to ban making slip n slides in the bathrooms. i didn't ask and i didn't want to know

most of these things aren't too relevant anymor but they kinda funny so here. i mean expand on these if u want. i can't put them on my blog bc it's not a TO blog but they need to be put somewhere

u made me remember this time where i just woke up weak as hell and my aunt had to literally spoonfeed me multiple bowls of cereal, to this day idk exactly HOW i got that weak, that has never happened to me before and it hasnt happened since

BUT ALSO i remember going to this summer camp and somehow someway we got into this gender prank war and im just pushing that onto all of em

and THEN there was this other time i was in this summer?????christian????school camp thing????? and look im an atheist idk what i was doing there i showed zero interest but my cousins and sister was also there, and for lunch we were going out which i dont think anyone else was doing bc my teacher asked “r u SURE u wanna go???” and i rhink she was pushing me to stay but i said yea and left immediately and i giggle at that and i think pony wluldve done the same, i wanted OUT🗣️

[gamerbearmira]

Orchids and Lilies might be my new favorite AU and I need more of it now (please). I don't know if you already have any ideas for this AU, but I kinda took it and ran with it, so here ya go. It can be all about how Isabela realizes how awful she was to Mirabel and her slowly fixing that relationship one step at a time while also slowly creeping out of that senorita perfecta box, maybe even leading up to the events of the film and Isabela helping Mirabel save the miracle. It'd be really fun to see that, especially how differently the scenes with Bruno would go, I imagine some of the cracks inside Casita's walls would slowly fade as Isabela and Mirabel fix their relationship and Bruno might make that connection, maybe Isabela would even be a part of the original vision, standing next to Mira, with the vision not only showing a cracked Casita but a crack between the sisters. OH! and I've got the perfect idea for what Bruno's second vision would show, it would show Dolores! The girls will talk with Dolores who will admit she loves Mariano, and Isabela will admit she doesn't want to marry him, leading to Dolores having that "what else can I do" moment as she realizes her dreams aren't impossible, I imagine she'd go wild in her own way, detailing all of her romantic fantasies, it'd be so much fun. And yeah, Isabela would still be courting Mariano, the proposal dinner still happens too, she hasn't completely broken out of her golden child role, Mirabel may or may not know about how Isabela really feels.

YEAHHHHHH I'M GLAD YOU LIKE IT GRAHHHHHG 🦅🦅

Honestly I'd love to give more, but this was sort of an idea I had festering in my drafts and randomly decided to finally draw for 😭 I didn't get very far, at least not past the points in the post.

BUT YOUR IDEAS ARE SO COOL❗❗ I definitely did imagine and want them to get closer and make up, like I said, it's essentially a canon divergent; a "what-if" for what would happen if they made up soon in a way??? Anyway, they def pull up to Luisa too, she's not a major focus but they figure it out pretty fast. If they got problems, Lord knows the others do too 😭😭 anyway, I think Mirabel might have an idea on how Isabela feels and pieces it together, pretty quickly, idk

Anyway, yes!!! Dolores!!!! I do also agree that Isabela hasn't completely broken out of the mold. Not quite. But you know, it does help that Dolores does confess. How she goes wild I have no idea yet 🤓☝ but maybe they do try and come up with a plan to either stall or cancel the dinner or mess it up somehow without anyone getting in trouble. You know making it seem like an accident.

Silly idea that since Luisa's problem might be resolved earlier, it could go to Camilo cause. Where's harm in focusing on the warm siblings. Antonio's fine lmao but. Idk Camilo feels like he's always seen as another person and not himself??? Like people always ask him to use his gift to be someone else but not him and he just wants to be him. Bro needs to drop the mask and be straightforward 👹👹👹

This is low effort but 🌚

[ravisinghs-wife]

hii, luvvv

could you write an imagine or a headcanon about percy jackson x tall!fem!reader

Percy Jackson Hc

a/n: hii! I included both, I hope you like it:) englisch isn't my native language so pls respect that<33

warnings: none, I'm pretty sure (let me know if I missed any!)

word count: 0.7k

Masterlist

you meet each other in his third year of camp

you went to the same military school that Bianca and Nico went to and are good friends with them

Percy and co. rescue you and the di angelo siblings from the monster and bring you to camp

the hunters also offer you to join them, like they also offered Bianca, but you say no

at camp percy shows you around and you discover that the girl that fell from the cliff was his best friend, and was named annabeth chase

you try to comfort him, but it ends up being a bit awkward since you didn't know her name until five seconds ago

he first hates it that you are taller than him because he is just an awkward teenage boy that things that something like height says something about someones character

when you first find out that he doesn't enjoy you being taller than him you start to tease him about it

he hates it

he starts to love it tho when you get to know each other better

however

when the camp nearly wins in capture the flag against the hunters because of you, they are impressed by it since you had no paper training and still and such a big impact in their almost-win

they ask you again to join them, but when you again say no they offer you to join them on the hunters quest to help artemis

when percy joins the quest uninvited you are first kinda angry because they clearly said that he wasn't allowed to join you guys, but are later thankful for his once unwelcome join since he saved your life from another monster and stuff

you two get closer on the quest until you become really good friends

you would help him hold the sky and have matching hair strands with him

he comforts you when Bianca dies since you were really good friends with her

you get together between the fourth and the fifth book

you pick him up after school to go watch a new movie in the cinema

that doesn't work out how it was planned because you two got kicked out from the movie theater because you were talking too much

after you two got kicked out you walk to his home and bake some blue cookies after his mom's recipe

it ends with a flour fight and both of you are covered in flour from head to toe

while cleaning the mess he randomly starts rambling about how much of a speacial and good friend you are of his and that he never wants to loose you

it's pretty obvious what he is trying to say

you try to also say something but he doesn't let you

"but what I'm really trying to say is that I couldn't live with-"

"percy-"

"no, let me finish. So I-"

to shut him up you bend down to kiss him

that's how you got together<33

his mom is pretty pissed when she comes home, seeing the whole kitchen covered in flour but her anger quickly vanishes when she finds you two sleeping on the couch while the credits to Nemo play

but anyway

he gets super exited when you res your head on his shoulder

he tries to hide is blush, which is kinda hard considering that his whole face is red like a tomato

you always have to bend down to kiss him<3

he is such a golden retriever boyfriend

he loves pda and cuddling

annabeth would simply try the new tactic for capture the flag to you, but percy just cuddles you and claims that it is his "boyfriend duty" to cuddle you all the time

he'd love to be the little spoon

you two would always dye your matching hair strand, from where you fought atlas and hold the sky, in another color every month

he'd always beg to dye it blue

you do literally everything together, be it sparring or watching your siblings

he'd definitely love pottery, so you sometimes would sneak out at night and drive to the city do visit a night course of pottery (idk if that exists, but let us just pretend that it does for the story)

making soup or cereal bowls for each other<33

always baking blue pancakes together for every minor event (birthdays, holidays etc. )

sometimes you'd tease him while doing it and hide the blue food color from him

he only gets it back in reward for kisses

he says he hates it but he secretly loves it

don't tell that anyone tho

[inanisomnia]

Hiiiii

Can you do some headcanon chishiya x reader where reader looks really arrogant but in reality is soft and shy?

Thank youuu!!!

lay me gently.

fem! reader x chishiya shuntaro

warning/s: mild profanities, slightly ooc! chishiya, mentions of ... (idk what's the term, someone tell me pls) forceful interactions... ??? WTF

ins.note: i'm currently reading tshoe (the seven husbands of evelyn hugo) that's why im not really active here in tumblr again... but no worries since i alr laid out the plot for entropy of chaos tot i'll upload it soon hehe

also if u enjoyed reading this, kindly let me know by liking or reblogging this post ^^ (only do it if its okay with u <3 ) ily all !!

- okay this is kinda tough but imma try

- we all know how deadly, and dangerous each game is in borderland and that's the beauty of this place – it brings out the human and true motives of each individuals ;

- and chishiya shuntaro, like the observant man he is, noticed you leaning on the beach's columns on the side, your left hand gripping your right elbow – away from all the jumping, drunk, wasted people on the dancefloor.

- you have a phlegmatic expression painted on your face, eyes lazily scanning each people up and down then switching to another individual then scoffing.

- someone randomly approached you, and he instantly recognized its someone that you're not close to since ever since you joined the beach, you never seem to approach anybody, seemingly annoyed at everyone's company.

- surprised, you looked at him up and down, eyebrows knitted together in ... is it confusion or irritation ? he can't seem to decipher what it is.

- you shook your head, and crossed your arms, and straightened your posture, away from him, signifying that you're not interested in whatever the man was saying to you.

- chishiya analyzed you closely ; you strike him as someone arrogant, and boastful – someone who's hyper independent, a woman who is a know-it-all when he first saw you at the beach.

- but are you, really ?

- the man paced a little closer to you, his drunken state visibly irking you as you step back the moment he got closer to you.

- you walked away from the man, eyebrows furrowed in annoyance, but you were grabbed by the wrist.

- chishiya didn't know what took over him, but he just suddenly picked up his pace towards you and wrapped his arms on your shoulder.

- "what seems to be the problem here, princess?" (but ofc in nihongo ++ with his hoarse, alluring voice, faints)

- you seem taken aback but you went along with it, "im sleepy. lets go?"

- wow

- just wow. chishiya was shocked by how your voice sounded so mellow, so soft, so tender - a complete contrast to his husky and gravelly voice.

- upon reaching a desolated hallway, he lets go of you. you thanked him and asked him how could you repay him, but he dismissed it by shaking his head.

- you smiled.

- and bid your goodbye.

- well damn. you were nothing what chishiya has thought.

- you have a tremendously soothing voice, the one that's not overly forced to sound like that, but naturally.

- ever since your encounter with each other, chishiya kept tabs on you every now and then, trying to make sure if you're okay and unhurt – from the games and the people here at the beach.

- sometimes he would go up to you to casually mention tips on how to win games in his own way. he would notice how surprised you would be when someone goes up to you unannounced, and how baffled and quiet you would be when someone tries to strike up a conversation with you.

- but with him, you seem to relax a little, and chishiya doesn't know why he's bothering to befriend you, he doesn't need anyone who'll weigh him down on his plan.

- but you're an exception, plus you're not a burden. you're intriguing and reliable, cunning, yet reserved.

- after a while, you seem to open up to chishiya, and god, he doesn't realize it yet, but he's falling for you, bit by bit. you were far from what he expected of you.

- he adores watching you analyze the world before you, he loves how tender your touch was on his skin, he adores your soft smile, the sound of your laugh.

- little did he know that he was abstractedly memorizing your features - the creases in your eyes whenever you laugh, smile, how your eyes sparkle -

- a part of him unconsciously swore that he'll protect you, and soothe you on all your anxiety-ridden days, hours, just as how you pacify all his inner demons that he himself couldn't understand.

- he just wished that he met you before waking up in this hell.

[xsoulxsilencex]

So Arc 10 is over and man, what a meh arc. (ranting incoming)

The main point of this arc was Yuamu trying to becoming Otes, wasting so much time to get Monster Reborn in her hands just to ultimately fail at reaching her goal and paying a big price for her bs in the shape of Yuhi's memories. Well that and Yuna taking over Mutsuba Town with the help of Yuamu.

Yudias? What was he even doing? Oh, he beat Fukamura - wait no, that's on Kuaidul. But he beat Luge again. That's it? He made a deck to make Yuamu unable to use MR just to use it himself which did nothing on him anyway? So not even some "crazy Yudias state thanks to MR" we got for the arc final? He's our freaking main protagonist! Why are the writers barely do shit with him?? I didn't even care for his interactions with Kuaidul because what we got in the last episode felt like "Oh yeah, Kuaidul exists, quick have him talk with Yudias before the arc is over" to me.

Zwijo? Declared himself as Yuamu's protector and fighter, defeated Yuhi in a duel and later showed Zeyet and Sabyuas how to buy cards while looking like a proud dad. The majority of time, he was really just wasting time or following Yuamu around. If he had been at least a double agent who would've secretly helped Yudias and co. but no, he really did nothing relevant. He was just like "You don't have the resolve like Yuamu" at Yuhi just to get shocked at what Yuhi eventually did as his "resolve".

Yuhi? This hurts to say as he's my fave character but boy, wtf was HE even doing this arc? So he hangs out mostly with Yuamu's gang, duels Yuamu once to protect Damamu (his best moment of the arc imo), most of the arc is "Idk what I can do to stop Yuamu", stupid shopping episode where he seems to have found resolve at the end of it just to go back to "I can't duel her" in the arc final - until he randomly decides it's time for HIM to become Otes. Because he's Yuamu's big brother and must protect her. Aw, so sweet of him becoming the previous show's central antag just to protect Yuamu so she can feel bad about it and start her redemption in the next arc. :))

Yuamu? God, Idk what to say about her now besides I absoutely don't feel bad for her. Heck, after Yuhi said he's gonna become Otes, what did she do? Kneeling down to hug Kuyamuya and cry. I thought YOU wanted to become Otes, Yuamu? Why did you just accept Yuhi doing what he did? When he took away your duel disk, why didn't you bother fighting him? Why were you just standing there with a sad face? You didn't have to agree with what Yuhi was doing! Look, if Yuamu had been badly hurt by Yudias' attack or even unconscious, I could've seen Yuhi stepping in and take over for her because she wouldn't have been able to stop him. But she wasn't hurt at all! She fell down for a moment and the rest of the duel, she just stands there and watches. And *I* am supposed to feel sad or emotional about her going "Yuhi, Yuhi" at the end while shedding tears for her brother? In general, it took her the arc final to realize what she's putting Yuhi through and openly admitting to be sorry for that? What about the rest of Mutsuba Town, Yuamu? Damamu deserves an extra sorry from you.

The Darkmen? With the exception of Fukamura, they kept on being stupid and cheering at every shit Yuamu did despite they are said to have "gained wisdom". Zeyet and Sabyuas questioned Yuamu for like 5 minutes until they went back to "Dark Meister is best, you're just a hater" at Fukamura. Also Bruyea is so irrelevant, he didn't even get a single duel in this arc unlike his fellow Darkmen.

Yuna and Asaka? They get to duel each other which should've been a great duel considering Goha vs Mutsuba but was just bleh in the end. Obviously, Yuna had to win (as if they would let Asaka beat her) but the worst part was really Asaka being exposed as some hypocrite by having always planned to become Otes herself and on top of that, was jealous of Yuamu going with that plan instead?? Sure, maybe Yuna exaggerated a bit but Asaka having had becoming Otes in her mind as if it wasn't enough that first Yuga and then Yuamu wanted to do this. Also zero foreshadowing for Asaka's plan? The writers really just pulled that twist out of their butts.

Manabu and Epoch? Manabu got to duel Phaser which is cool but ofc, he had to lose. Epoch didn't even get a duel (surprisingly) but could magically break out of the dark matter + Luge's ice power mix.

The side characters are barely worth mentioning since besides the arc final, they were also not doing much. Chupataro's back just for being used for "comedy" by being creepy at Yudias in the Meeeg-chan cosplay. Ranran is back to play vessal for Damamu who had MR just to becoming sick eventually. Mitsuko and Tamako are now part of Rovian's curry squad and Mitsuko got ignored by Zwijo again. So funny, that never has happened before. /s

As you see, I really have not many positive feelings about this arc. If others enjoyed it, I really wonder what exactly? Yudias did barely shit, Zwijo did barely shit, same goes to the Ohdo twins.

Next arc we have to deal with Yuhi as Otes (another "Ohdo wants to be Otes" arc but this time, one actually became him - Velgearians who?) and Yudias will have to stop him and undo the Otes bs. As mentioned before, this might be also the arc for Yuamu's "redemption" since she was all sad about Yuhi losing his memories. Idk if Zwijo will continue following Yuamu, following Yuhi instead or actually leave to support Yudias.

Btw, would absolutely not be surprised if arc 11 is when Yuga returns. I mean now with Yuhi having his Otes phase and Yuamu and Yudias having both failed to become him, maybe Yuga will show up to take over the Otes role. Well that or he simply helps Yudias and co. to redo the whole Otes bs so Yuhi can be back to normal.

[cobaltperun]

Absolutely loved the fluff we got this chapter and man this really was a breath of fresh air after the previous angsty chapter we got!!

-I seriously see jenna keeping both the reader's shirt and jacket and randomly wearing it whenever she has to go out . Also random h.c. but after they get together , jenna steals a lot of reader's clothes and while reader can't exactly do the same because of their obvious size difference , she goes and steals Jenna's jewellery cause that woman has absolute impeccable taste.

The hug was so good!! We need more moments like that where reader is just getting hugged tightly cause she seriously needs it after the backstory you gave her.

The "They'll love you just like i do?????" hello?? are we even trying to be subtle at this point cause wtf? and "“I love you too. Jenna, you mean so much to me," like homegirl isn't even trying to keep things casual and friendly between them anymore. They were just one second away from kissing each other.

-Put Aliyah , Barbara and Enrique in a room please. i wanna see the chaos that ensures like damn that girl came in one chapter earlier and i am already in love with her.

- I am really scared about what would happen when jenna's family realizes that reader's in fight club with the way her father was reacting to just seeing reader's knuckles. Also marcus's line when he realizes that jenna and reader were alone in a room was so fucking funny!

-Won't lie , reading about reader's past was really hard and just seeing how she steels and hides her emotions so nobody knows about her feelings and pain was really hard . Her going to fight clubs and being unable to quit makes a lil bit more sense after this chapter.

-Did the watch logan together or they didn't get the time to do that? Cause i desperately want to know Jenna's reaction to the gas station scene XD.

-Washing dishes together in comfortable silence ? Holding hands under the table while dining with family ? Being able to lift the other's mood by just being near them ? Making the other laugh when nobody else can do that ? Stealing each other's clothes ? Can't sleep properly without the other person being with them? Idk about you but that sounds a fucking lot like married behaviour.

I can't wait for the next chapter!!This one was a real treat <3

Hope you are doing well and taking care of yourself!!

-👾

Have I told you recently that I love you? Because I do!

Jenna is keeping those, and she is going to be a bit of a thief. Reader might have to figure something out as well and your idea is perfect. Here's another one. Jenna's headphones? The spare ones anyway.🤣

Reader does need hugs, good, long hugs, just like the ones with Jenna in these past two chapters! And no, no subtlety whatsoever, they are just being direct at this point and trying hard to pretend they are just being friends.

You know who is missing in that group? Hugh. Add him and Reader and Jenna are doomed, death by teasing guaranteed. 🤣🤣

And now we get to the more serious question. The reaction won't be good, I can tell you that much. Jenna's dad is a cop, her mom is an ER nurse, neither of them will be happy. That's chapter 10, you won't be waiting long. Speaking of Reader's backstory, at this point you got the base of it, and fragmented information, you could piece it all together, but the actual flashback will take place in chapter 11.

They still didn't watch Logan, that'll be next chapter. I did intend to have it in chapter 8, but that scene alone is over 2k long and I really wanted to go to sleep 😅 I might not be getting all the reactions, but you'll get the fun ones.

And married couple? Damn, you described it perfectly! And yeah, I really can't thank you enough for these, you honestly make writing this story so much more worth it. I'm sitting here looking at everything I have planned and hoping it ends at chapter 45 and doesn't end up being longer than The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but the response like this honestly makes it worth it even if it does reach those lengths!

[katnaxel]

Hey so idk ur ocs so just go off about your fave. Talk about em. Gas em up. Talk about them like a parent talks about their child. Embarass them!

I can't pick my favorite because I love them all, but I will talk about Vasyrrin as he's recently finished his campaign!

Vas is the second son of a lesser family to the lesser court of his drow home in our homebrew campaign. His home life was quiet in the sense that any sudden movement might cause an eruption of conflict, but he had no qualms keeping his head down alongside his older brother and just doing what needed to be done within the family mines. Unfortunately for him, his mother had plans of grandeur for both of her sons, and the two were quickly sent to be soldiers due to their large builds. Vas' brother, Vynlar, fell upward and became a crowd favorite in the Pit (or a gladiatorial arena) and was later dubbed Champion of their court. This put a lot of pressure on Vas to preform just as well, if not better. Unfortunately for him, he was never as good as his brother, and this lead him down a road of grueling punishments, isolation, and constant fights in the Pits. He became a brute, armed with a hammer rather than a sword, and grew cold and calloused to those around him.

Fortunately, he found himself on the surface after a mission gone wrong, after he was sent to exterminate an escaped enemy during a clash of the Courts. He and a drow named Valjasna (played by @anna-yells-stuff) were now free of the madness of their home. They were quickly scooped up by slavers, and sold off as exotic goods. A long boat ride later and they found themselves as farmhands in the human nation. This is where the campaign began - they were randomly selected and voluntold to go deal with The Corruption, a 30yr blight that was slowly swallowing the land. He would do what he was told, as that's all he's ever done, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

The early days were rough. Vas was explosive, determined to be respected as a person, not a lesser being. He also hated mages, and the fact that our assigned leader was a High Elf Wizard only created more tension. But, over time, the gang realized that Vas' real problem wasn't the need to feel powerful, but it was the fear of being disposable. The party assured him he wasn't something to be beaten and thrown away if he failed, but that they also needed him to protect them instead of turn on them whenever he was scared. And slowly, over time, he got better. Underneath all that snarling violence was a pretty chill dude that just wanted some peace and quiet as he tried to unlearn years of toxic behavior.

However, that all changed when Vas, and the party, learned about the secret weapon his mother had turned him into. The BBEG arrived, and said "Looking Glass." Vasyrrin was now mind controlled, and a puppet of the enemy for the months that followed (as IRL I had to move across the country tehe)

He was put on the throne of the very kingdom he was once a slave in, a pawn in the game of Arch Mages and Royalty looking to establish their view on world order with the Corruption looming overhead. His party was captured and prisoned, but eventually broke out and managed to help Vas break free of his spell. One crazy fight with a mad mage later, and the party escaped the castle.

At this point though, the party was at a breakneck speed to end the Corruption, and Vas was left with a paranoia of questioning which reality he was in at any given time. The party ranger, Briar (played by @shahenor ) took the time to check on Vas, and the two grew very very close at the end days neared.

And we did it! We fought the Corruption, The Undead Dragon, and the BBEG - which turned out to be the Human King Augustus himself, who was feeding an endless supply of adventurers to the Corruption in the name of immortality. We even met the God of Gods, and made a wish to cleanse the world. The Corruption was gone, and Vas was officially free of his bond with the party, some of which he never really liked. With it confirmed that their mission was complete, he simply turned and walked off. No longer would he be a pawn in someone else's schemes, he was to live his own life by his own rules and finally be left alone. ...Well, alone after one last night with Briar of course...

And that's it! That's the story of Vasyrrin Khalazza!

[gren-arlio]

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Part 3 of Waku Puyo Extras. (And a fairly big announcement for translations.)

Ah, I'm running out of images, the Waku Puyo images, so the tride and true "Post Manga panels I do understand," got me covered. If I don't got anyone on my side, I know the Waku Puyo Manga does. Amen.

(Context for this page and a few others is Satan having a nightmare about Schezo and Arle marrying, and wakes up in a cold sweat. It's so goofy, and seems exactly like a Satan Nightmare, but the art goes hard.)

Heya, Gren here, and welcome to Part 3 of Waku Puyo Extras, the series where I find random videos about a route and go off from there because, even though I'm in the English Puyo Puyo Community Discord and have been lurking in the lore channel for like 3 years, I'm not verified yet because I'm scared to speak to the Ciel Bot. So if a mod or something SOMEHOW sees this...what're the odds for one, and two, idk we can talk via DM's or somethin' about lore.

(I really do want to speak there someday. Seems fun, I'll probably quietly add some details for this game onto specific characters pages.)

That aside, I'm here today to provide the community with more text and stuff to read.

Today's post will cover the following scraps I found while looking for stuff:

A video where Serilly appears again. Once again, Schezo and Serilly speak to each other, small but interesting.

A video that has a Rulue encounter and...that's about it. I'm really looking for scraps. Today doesn't have a whole lot.

Talk about the Manga for a bit. I plan to do this for most of the Extra Episodes, since it seems fun to do. Gonna specifically talk about Schezo and Serilly because...you know with everything going on, I think it's a nice start.

However, the scraps will become actual meals sooner or later because of two simple reasons. The first is that there's a whole video I'll translate that...has ALL 3 CHARACTERS...trading with Witch, starting next week, and that'll be Waku Puyo Extras Episode 4.

Yeah this girl really won't leave alone, its been like half a year of this stuff. Oh, what I do to translate. Oh and the video has Succubus too IG

Witch still is my 3rd favorite character though for the lunacy I've dealt with from her. Joking aside:

The REAL announcement:

About 2 weeks from now, I'll be trying my best to translate Arle's Route for this silly game.

That's right, I'm gonna do another Route that totally didn't take me 6 months to finish the main storyline. Waku Puyo Extras will still be real, trust me, but they'll be like filler episodes like in Dragon Ball, bits I release if the current video I'm translating is taking too long and/or if I just randomly feel like it. I will still also be doing minor Schezo Route stuff as well, and still take requests for all routes, so as usual, if you got a goofy screenshot to send me, DM me.

Big announcement away, it's time for the videos themselves, starting with:

Serilly Stuff:

...I did say I'm scraping for stuff. These things are so miniscule in the grand scheme that you could probably come to these posts just for the comedy act I try to put up.

The episode posted has been fully translated already, being Episode 3, for the record. Imma just translate the Serilly stuff.

But with that;

Timestamps: (...They're at the start of the video, but there's 2 different occasions, so...rip?)

Serilly 1: (0:05)

Serilly 2 (0:32)

...I wish I were kidding, it's that little. Lmao

With that out of the way, this marks the Readmore section of the post. Thanks for reading if you're not interested, and let's continue if you're enjoying this.

Serilly 1: (0:05)

Schezo:

This is such clean water, I can cleanse my heart there...

...Wait! What's a Dark Mage doing getting cleansed!?

Woman's Voice:

What're you doing here huffing by yourself?

Schezo:

Hm? I remember this voice from Water Paradise...

Serilly:

It's me, Serilly.

Schezo:

Oh, what're you doing here?

Serilly:

When I'm here, it feels like my mind and body are at ease.

Schezo:

...Yeah, seems like it.

Serilly:

I know, right?

(...And so, Schezo talked to Serilly for a bit.)

Schezo:

...I better get going.

Serilly;

Okay, but...come back soon!

Schezo:

Yeah, if I ever feel like it.

-----

Serilly 2:

Serilly:

Oh! Mr. Schezo!

Schezo:

Hey.

Serilly:

You're really here again!

Schezo:

(W-Why am I blushing!?)

Serilly:

???

(Schezo had a small chat with Serilly.)

Schezo:

...I'd better get going.

Serilly:

Okay, but...come back soon!

Schezo:

Yeah, if I feel like it.

-----

Yeah, so some speech repeats itself at the end, but hey, Schezo seems to enjoy her company, a rarity nowadays. I'll go deeper when the manga portion comes up but so far, that's what you're getting.

And now, The Rulue Stuff:

This goofy video here is actually Episode 6 of the translations I've done here. I just missed a single talk coming from Schezo and Rulue. (Not even Minotauros. Guy is just nothing now.)

I'm not gonna timestamp this one because it's a SINGLE interaction at the start. I promise I'll make this up somehow.

So, with that...here's the interaction.

-----

Rulue Interaction: (Start of the video)

Rulue:

Oh, you haven't given up your chase, have you?

Schezo:

Mind your own business. In fact, you should be the one to give up!

Rulue:

No more from you. That magical item will be mine.

Oh-ho-ho-ho, good luck on your wasted endeavors. (She says efforts here but...why not make her sound more sophisticated?)

Schezo:

That magic item will be useless for a meathead like you.

Yes, for the sake of the treasure, I cannot lose!

-----

And...that's all for the translations. Not much, but I'll compensate with the manga.

For those who are unaware, Waku Puyo has a manga that wildly differs from the story of the game. Lot of characters got redesigns, most notably Witch, Incubus and Honey Bee have a MUCH bigger role, Lagnus is real, and tags along with Arle, (I'll talk about that next Extras Episode.) and even some new faces.

Since the 10 image limit is goofy, I'm gonna limit myself to specific things about the Manga. Plan is:

Talk about Schezo and Serilly because there seems to be a lot with them going on in Waku Puyo as a whole. I'll also mention Honey Bee too.

Lagnus tagging along with Arle, along with a couple of goofy pages I found.

Maybe Rulue's side of stuff...? This one I'm iffy on right now so currently it's in the air.

Since I'm unfortunately incredibly committed to my work, I decided to translate the Serilly section of Volume 2 and 3 of the Waku Puyo Manga. (For the most part...)

Here's how it goes.

It actually starts with Serilly hearing noises from the lower floors and becomes nervous at that fact, hoping her only friend, Satan, will come to help her. Schezo and Honey Bee (his ally who has the hots for him,) find her and realize that during the fight with Suketoudara, he said that she isn't exactly a fighter, and they should try to reason with her.

Due to the 10 image limit, I'm skipping a good amount of pages and really showing off highlights. However, I'll explain the thing entirely. Here is the Google Drive with the Manga, courteously given by Puyo Preservation.

Schezo then tries to chase her, scaring her, and he grabs her arm, which leads to this page.

Honey Bee is pissed at the fact that they're holding hands and all that, meanwhile Schezo and Serilly are about as shocked. Serilly begins to actually sob, asking them to not bully her, while Schezo asks to give him the orb, and if she does, she won't get hurt. However, he's swinging his sword, which causes Serilly to get more nervous, leading to Schezo giving Bee his sword to not scare her off.

Surprisingly...it works. Serilly isn't as afraid as she was before, and Schezo asks if she know where the orb is, to which Serilly stutters a bit. For no reason, Honey Bee tries to threaten her, leading to Schezo hitting Bee away.

Serilly says they can't have the orb because her "friend," Satan, told her to guard it. Schezo gets mad at that, saying that a friend should be there for you, not be barking orders, and Bee herself adds onto that, saying that if he was her friend, why did he lock her in a room?

Unfortunately, Serilly says that she doesn't mind being locked here forever, as if she leaves, Satan will hate her, and she'll lose her only friend. She explains that she's never had a friend and was bullied all her life, so she doesn't want to risk it.

Finally, Schezo has enough and says that she Satan isn't her friend, and that he manipulated her, leading to a similar case of what happening during the game...Schezo giving therapy.

Honey Bee insults Serilly AGAIN for her actions, and Serilly sobs while saying she's sorry for everything, leaving Schezo speechless after smaking Bee away. (Unfortunately, 10 image limit. Won't be seen.)

However, the 3rd picture below is when Schezo tells her to stop crying and that he'll...be her friend, if only she gives up her unhappiness, which she agrees to.

The events are similar to the Game, even the part where Schezo thinks that he feels like he's preaching, and doesn't care if she's happy or not.

As Honey Bee basically insults her more, Suketoudara appears absolutely livid at what Schezo is doing to Serilly, and...basically tries to drown him. However, Serilly doesn't want to lose her new friend, so she rescues him, leaving Bee and Suketoudara shocked, even though Schezo had to save her too.

Leading to this.

This beautiful artwork.

Schezo knocks out Suke for a bit, and he and Serilly look at each other, before looking away, blushing, leading Bee to get upset with both of them, saying they probably flirted in the water.

Even though Bee is pissed at how Schezo is carrying Serilly, they're both ok, but Schezo sustained a injury to his forehead, which leads to Bee comically trying to wrap band-aids around him.

Suke wakes up, saying that was the first time he ever saw Serilly help someone like that, which even she's shocked by. Bee though, says that it's natural to help someone you care for. Serilly goes up to Schezo, and gives him the key to the orbs. After that, Schezo tells Suke to bring Serilly away from the place, which angers him, but agrees to, before Schezo and Bee walk away.

However, Serilly yells at them to stop, before asking Schezo if he'll meet with her again.

Shown below is Schezo saying yes, if he ever feels like it, much to Bee's chargin, before they set for the door...which has Incubus in it.

While it's just a section, it's a really, REALLY good section, and I feel like a writer/developer really wanted Schezo/Serilly to be real so they went all out here. And props to them, they did it well, and made some cool scenes.

With that...I believe this it the end. See you all next week.

Hope you enjoyed the show.

[thefinalcinderella]

As always thank you for the tsurune novel translation!

Btw have you finished reading the 3rd book or are you still reading while translating? I'm curious as what are your thoughts so far about the 3rd book? I personally think the 3rd book is really too jarring with the prior books and I wonder why. In addition to the sudden surge of new characters, I really can't tell where the plot is going nor what the author is actually aiming for or the focus of the book, which I can tell easily in the previous books. I also find it hard following the jumping train of thoughts in all the chapters so far, it's like every new plot is jumbled up and one storyline isn't even finished before it jumps to a whole new arc. Idk if it's just me who feels that way or not...or if this style of writing will continue to the end of the book so I'm curious to know what you thought as the translator. Thanks!

You basically summarized my thoughts on this novel! Honestly when I read the synopsis I was like "...so what's the book about?" and while slice of life novels can get away with having a loose plot, I feel like there should still be an arc or something like that. Tbh the author has a tendency to randomly jump topics or scenes in the earlier books as well, but it's a lot worse in this book.

My personal theory is that the author was compelled to put this book out in conjunction with the movie and S2. The publisher probably wanted to repeat their Violet Evergarden success, considering how the novels got a big boost with the release of the anime and movies. There's such a big gap between this book and v2 that I got the feeling that they didn't plan to write book 3 (I feel like book 2 had a somewhat open but satisfying ending). Tbh as I translated the novel I got the feeling that the author had no idea how to fill up 200+ pages bc they couldn't think of a plot so they put a lot of random stuff in the book and wrote them in a vignette-style, so you got chapters made up of separate scenes that are only tangentially related. Idk how to explain it but it feels like when I'm trying to bullshit my way through a 10 page essay and I don't have a lot of coherent arguments, so I just try to write a big single paragraph on each page so that I'm at least reaching the page count. I think adding so many new characters was also a way to fill up pages, although it's all moot if you don't use them well. Having Minato and the others jump all the way ahead to their second year (v2 ended in summer of their first year so it's a pretty big jump) was probably a way to justify introducing new students.

I haven't really read ahead, but I do know some of the scenes that happen later in the novel and they are just as random as the earlier scenes imo. I think the novel would have read better if it was structured more like a short story collection. It pretty much is one anyways and I feel like there's a lot of characters from the previous book that could have their own spotlight, and we could see the characters' pasts or something like that.

Anyways I hope if there is ever a book 4, the author would be given the time and help that they need to plot it well.

[pocketramblr]

any totk thoughts (just from osmosis bc idk if you've played it)

i haven't played it or really sought out watching it but i still have things from osmosis and i will say them,,,,, under the cut. very disorganized and randomly spoilery etc etc

Things I Would Have Done Differently If I Were Sonia

1- Been named "Zelda" instead. (nin10do you COWARDS are you really scared to have two different characters separated by untold generations named zelda NOW??? NOW YOU THINK THATS CRINGE???? fool. You did that in your first ever sequel and it was amazing. now you look scared and stupid. kill the part of you that cringes instead. In my head her name is Zelda and i dont care.)

2- not married that fake "Rauru". Like. OG Rauru is a cool fat ancient sage with an animalsona who protects the nukes away from everyone else and when you accidentally mess it up he hides and keeps you safe until you can go fix it. This new one is some imperialist that everyone is sooo obsessed with because his waist is snatched now. Or maybe i'll be more generous and say it's because they're furries that's more fair. But still like. Please there are others to simp over. he was all "oh im the first king of hyrule' and i was like 'oh.... no you're not'

(its actually ok that we have um. yet another first king of hyrule. Because we can have 3 first kings of hyrule, since we have 3 iterations of ganondorf now too. but we should still have 3 first zeldas. and we only have 2. because they messed up sonia. come on it would have been all NICE AND CLEAN AND BALANCED if there were 3 first kings, 3 first zelda, and 3 ganondorfs. This is the series about 3!!!!! but.... well perhaps next game we can have a third first zelda. perhaps i can be patient.)

(also love that we have a 3rd ganondorf. do you know how often i had to explain he does in fact reincarnate and that fsa ganondorf is a different one from oot? but now everyone knows theres more than one but less than the number of links even if they dont know exactly how many ganondorfs there are so. close enough! now ill just pretend he had a 3rd seperate origin story as well instead of 2 origins shared between 3 come on let the guy have something.)

This is unrelated but I think the Zonai are the evolutionary link between Ooca and the botw!Rito (since they did not evolved from the zora like ww!Rito). They look kinda dinosaur-y to me. i guess they're supposed to look kinda goat-y too? and rabbit-y???? i dunno i think they're generally fun. And also might be the results of unethical sheikah experimentation yeah i don't forget the temple of shadow............

OH and im very glad (our) Link wasn't the hero from the tapestry with Zonia. theres apparently some other Zonai hero with red hair who's briefly in it? i wish that Zonai was also named Link and got more to show but i was really not a fan of time-looping this poor link too, he had enough of that with the 100 year nap. if i can't have a gerudo link, at least we have a zonai hero maybe

but also in sooooo many fics i reserve the right to completely ignore this game. if it doesn't fit where i planned it didn't happen. this is like hyrule warriors to me. in another timeline.

LOVE all the yiga stuff and getting to fight with friends now. its what link deserves and his friends deserve. LOVE LOVE that Zelda and Link are so codependent there's not a word in the hylian language for them. i am a qpr truther for this particular zelink but i think that if these two were offered a way to fuse into a single being they would at least STRONGLY consider it. unhinged. love them.

incredible outfits for link and i love slowly discovering them as art passes my dash.

The way this world is even more open than botw is such a feat, the open engineering is just fabulous. I hope to see a new drone every week. Torturing the koroks is just. its horrible but i laugh every time .kjhghjkkjhjk whyyyyy these poor little tree dudes (*chanting 'crucify this one too' in my head*)

the way this game tried to both continue the botw 'honoring past games' and did a new 'gaslight you about the other games never happening' is a wild balance. Like, TWINROVA SHOWED UP??? in what i think is a very subtle detail in a memory??? maybe there's more of them in the game but it seems to be the same level as like 'hero of the winds' mentioned plus some salt around hyrule. excellent love that. but i also just saw a post gushing about how great it was that this game made this link theeeee most important specialist hero eeeever and the master sword was only ever for him and um. i just hope that isn't true. i think this game should add and not take away.

but hey twinrova showed up and there was that cool goth gerudo too!! i stan her.

oh and redeads in gerudo town or whatever it was? AMAZING. gerudo town was all spared from the calamity in the first game with no guardians making past the desert so having the town taken over and terrifying with the upheaval is just a good show of stakes stepping up.

OH!!!! and my number one favorite thing is that Link can make a drink that he was too young to order in botw. funniest possible thing that dude can do.

[fizzingwizard]

another house I've been working on...

This is what happens when you want to build a ranch... but you want to also make it kind of cool and modern... but also quirky and eco-friendly... and the sims living it are a weird mix of grunge and rancher and rock and roll... basically I was very indecisive, also there's a reason I usually stick to small houses lol. I like it for the most part but still a WIP.

was really fun to build a barn and stable, just wish I could properly get the cow in there (i did try with resizing and hiding the cow shed, but that trick is broken in my game. sometimes it works sometimes it keeps saying it's blocked) also the ceilings/ ceiling paint appear and disappear at will lol. still happy I could build a loft.

didn't take interior pics yet bc still working on it but I did cap these two rooms because they amuse me. the first is like the secret den where all the good honest hard-workin' ranchers go to play thrash metal at midnight lol. the walls are sound proof >_> and I just like this bedroom for my weird grungy emo girl. It's not what I wanted as a bedroom when I was a teenager, but idk, it was fun to put together.

it was fun to chill with sims so much this week. i gave myself eye strain and didn't do a lot of the other stuff I meant to do 0:) i do love the aesthetic in sims, i like to watch the shadows and light changing, the sound of birds and rain and rivers. seasons was the best pack XP

and im so happy we have sleeping bags now so we can sleep under the stars xD living vicariously through my sims

wanted to give sim!snufkin the new hat with the glorious feather but... it's even more gaudy than the other one. holds its shape too well and the brim is so flat (tho I like that it's broader). it's more important for snufkin's hat to be floppy than for it have a big feather. le sigh

as ive said my game is well and truly bugged. today, randomly, the firepit just stopped working. kept saying some interactions were blocked when they weren't. reset didn't help. also trying to mount a horse... every time the sim would get a little further, a little further, a little further... then poof, the game would teleport him and the horse back to just standing around. what worked with that was to move him and the horse to a different lot. suddenly they could ride no problem.

also I really love that all the animals interact with each other. the cat and sheep are always in the chicken coop. however I've encountered a problem with the sheep. with chickens, they're objects, and you can take care of them even if you're a visitor to the lot (ie they're not your chickens). horses count as a person, so you can't treat them the same, but you can cheat their needs if you have to. sheep, though, don't seem to have a way to cheat needs because they're objects. but unlike chickens, visiting sims can't take care of them. I went to visit a friend and found their sheep all dirty. I even got a pop-up saying the sheep was planning to run away and i was like what do you want me to do about it lol? there's no option for my sim to take care of a sheep that isn't theres. I don't get it.

[tumbling-down-the-hall]

What do I want in my relationship?

Little surprises. Not Pokemon cards. Something that actually made you think of me.

Random notes. I love reading notes. You wrote me one back when we first started dating. I still have it. But you haven't done anymore.

It feels like you've stopped caring about "winning" me over. And it hurts.

You try but you don't. You brought home strawberries from work because you know I like fruit. Cute. You got them out of the blue slip cooler (which means free) so it goes out of date faster.

You take out the garbage and recycling but only on your days off.

You randomly bring home Pokemon cards. Why pokemon cards because once upon a time we opened them together. But now you don't play the game and we don't really collect them anymore. You keep saying we could sell them. But you haven't.

You complain about not having money but when it comes to having alcohol you always seem to have enough money for that but not enough for us to have a proper date night.

When was the last time we actually had a date night? When was the last time we dressed up to go out? The Christmas party? We didn't do shit for our anniversary because you got me sick and then we didn't do anything following that. You bought steak and shrimp or something to make a nice dinner for the two of us and then you ended up eating it all.

Last time we went out it was to the tulip fields. We don't go out together anymore. We don't do anything together. We sit in the same room sometimes. But you are always on the computer.

Your brother made a comment that y'all were raised to be independent so you are used to not needing people or needing to do things and just being around us is good enough. But idk that doesn't feel like enough when we don't do anything else.

The 2/2/2 plan would have worked. Every 2 weeks a date night, every 2 months a weekend out and every two years a week away. We used to have a date night once a week when we didn't live together. Once we started living together that stopped happening. We don't even eat dinner together.

I want to be able to depend on you. But I can't. I can to some degree but I really can't. I know you would take care of me. And I know you rarely say no to me. I feel like I'm always saying no to you. But that's not going to change. I don't want to play a game that you have already played through multiple times. I was having fun playing v rising with you but clearly that's gone.

What do you want from me? What do you see in me? What are we? What am I to you?

What do you need out of this relationship besides sex and touch?

He wants to one day get married to me. I am his lady.

We sat and talked about some of this. I yelled at him for using why's so often. When I told him I didn't like something he kept asking why and it pisses me off. I didn't hit him with my book but I almost did. I grabbed him afterwards. And kinda shook him. And yelled in his face. We continued talking and I apologized for it. I told him about the love and care manuals and how I know his but it feels like he doesn't know mine. And how I didn't know if that was him not caring or me not opening it for him. And then I started crying really hard. So hard I couldn't breathe through my nose. So I started laughing because of how bad it was. I laugh at stupid things all the time.

Prior to us having the conversation I got so mad instead of hitting my hand. I bit my arm. And you can tell .. it was a really hard bite. I have a bruise over Saturn now. Or I will definitely have one it's just red right now.

He annoys me 75% of the time and I annoy him 25% of the time. It's not balance but it is what it is.

He asked me if I wanted to be in the relationship and I told him I don't know. There are times where I'm like yes obviously but then there are other times that I'm immediately like why am I still putting up with this bullshit.

Idk if he is trying to get better. But I know I am. And I also know that even if this relationship has an expiration date. I'm glad it has happened. (I read a short story about relationships having expiration dates and idk it made me feel better about my own relationship and if it ends it ends. )

He wants me to have fun and be able to hang with friends. And while I love that he wants that for me. I don't trust my friends to look out for me. Gamer says I get more ambitious when I drink and yeah that's part of the reason I was able to sign karaoke but it was also because it was a song I know REALLY well.

I kinda hate that my friends (and boyfriend) want me to drink to have fun. Gamer made a comment about me having this burden on my shoulders and I don't need to have it. I don't need to sit in the corner and be the watcher. I can be part of the games. I don't think fast enough to be in the group. But at the same time I know I do. I've made stupid comments before that has made everybody go into an uproar and they still will.

I think some questions that I need to think on are why don't I feel safe. Why do I feel the need to be in control? What happened when I was younger that has made me this person. I don't think I'm a type A person but I also know that i have tendencies and that is okay.

Do we think he is going to remember the conversations we had? Given that he drank and hadn't had any food? Probably not. But that's okay. Maybe I can do better at round two when it comes up.

[buried-stars]

5, 10, 17, 18, 22, 24 & 25 for your guy goro :3

yippee!

5) Out of all your fanworks that include [character], which is your favourite?

it literally has to be in the ashes of everything; i wrote it (checks calendar) four years ago because i was annoyed that all the recovery fics had a shu//ake basis, and because i was pissed at atlus (but who isn't). anyways multiple ppl told me it was the best goro they'd ever read and im still riding that high. i genuinely want to go back to that AU at some point because it makes me feel like im in a salad spinner but in a good way

10) What’s your favourite piece of fanart for [character]?

oh that's so hard to choose. this one is hilarious and this one makes me feel like im trapped in the happy monkey circle (compliment)

17) What’s a book, movie, or show you think [character] would like?

i think goro would get really into dimension 20, assuming it had japanese subtitles. also i think alongside featherman he was rly into warrior cats as a kid and it never quite left him.

18) Type [charater]’s name and tell us what the autocomplete suggests as the next word

nothing funny comes up immediately but if i keep pressing the middle option, i get: "goro akechi is going to arrive soon" which is the thought i have every april that makes me pick up the game again

22) Give us a headcanon for [character]

he used some of his first paycheque he got from shido on a hellofresh subscription thinking it would help him figure out how to cook for himself and it went so poorly (fire) that he decided it was better to stick to instant foods/convenience store bento

24) What’s your favourite thing about [character]?

this is so hard to put into words. idk it makes me a little insane that he tried to ask the pt for help ("it is even possible that he is being controlled by someone") despite claiming to hate them he finds genuine camaraderie with them. bro really thinks he has a perfect facade but also randomly trauma dumps. i love him. he goes out of his way to protect the rest of the pt on 11/20 by telling shido he can arrange something "after the election" (since he was fully planning on betraying shido by that point) because he doesn't want to hurt them. he didn't even want to hurt akira. the siu director literally says the medjed/okumura plan was "much too brutal to be [goro's] own idea". head in my hands. also he quite literally saves sumire's life. it's one of the very last things he does before he disappears ;-;

25) What’s your least favourite thing [character] said or did?

idk when he fucking DIED? ik the "death=redemption" thing is bigger in jpn but i don't like it :( i need him to face the consequences of his actions. also that weird scene circa third palace where he's weirdly mean to makoto and not his like. regular grumpy mean but just being a dick for no reason ("you're just the good girl kind of pushover") like literally what was that about dude. you're supposed to still be the detective prince at this point