#ill figure out what to do with this page if worse comes to worse

[yuauaua]

Okay so, my sims era may be gone..

So what has happened in the last few hours is:

I accidentally deleted my Sims folder in Documents, including the mods folder while clearing space on my PC, which all got permanatly deleted since its 200GB +, 38,595 files.

I recovered those files using a third-party app and placed as many files i could get back, back into my Mods folder.

However, when I tried to open the game, every single piece of CC and Mods are marked corrupted and I cannot open the game.

Iv'e tried repairing my game to no avail

If anyone has solutions, please send them to me, I am not tech savvy so idk what im doing. If the only solution is redownloading everything again, I'm not sure if I'll continue playing.

[ragnars-tooth]

so very quick and sketchy but i was getting vague designs for all the tldc ladies down in one place

not so sure on gwendolen and gwilanna and i havent looked back at the books for details yet but these were just a quick cool down for the night 🫶

[moonstruckme]

not sure if you’re taking requests buttttt poly!marauders but they’re kinda overprotective bfs and she sneaks out to go to a party with marlene or her girlfriends but they find out and show up at the party 💞

Hi don't worry, I am! I think it should show on the requests page linked in my pinned post, but please let me know if it doesn't, I'm still figuring tumblr out and often mess up! I hope this is alright honey, I tried to go for the angst but honestly the more I write the more suspicious I become of my inability to write our boys being anything other than soft with reader! I'll try to work on it but in the meantime I hope you enjoy this <33

cw: mention of concussion symptoms, including nausea, nothing intense or even very descriptive though

poly!marauders x fem!reader ♡ 906 words

You’re aware that the internet had said you were supposed to avoid bright lights, loud sounds, and movement when Remus had looked it up after an unfortunate fall that morning. Just like you’re aware that when your boyfriends left you at your apartment a few hours ago, they’d been trusting you to follow those instructions. But you’re also aware that the internet had led you all to believe your concussion was mild, and that Marlene only has one birthday a year. Damned if you were going to miss it. 

So yeah, you feel a bit queasy as your eyes struggle to track the movement and voices around you, but that’s nothing compared to the contentment of being with your friends. Lily has assigned herself the role of your caretaker, checking that you’re alright every few minutes and shushing anyone who raises their voice too loud around you, and Marlene has attached herself to your side, telling you how much she appreciates you in between beer-scented hiccups. 

“And you’re so nice to come tonight,” she’s saying now, brushing her fingers clumsily but sweetly through your hair. “I can’t tell you how much—uh oh.” 

You have a premonition of ill fate even before the hair on the back of your neck stands up, and you follow Marelene’s unfocused gaze to the curly-haired boy coming towards you.

“Happy birthday, Marls,” he says, his smile only appearing slightly strained, before he turns to you. “Hey, sweetheart. Let’s go home, yeah?”

“Jamie,” you say quietly, and Lily and Marlene leave the couch to give you as much privacy as a party allows. “What are you doing here?”

“Everyone here’s been posting, and you’re in the background of half the pictures.” His smile slips as he crouches in front of you, disappointment in his eyes. “You know you’re supposed to be resting,” he says softly. “C’mon, let’s go.” 

You’re glad that he’s here instead of Remus or Sirius, who surely wouldn’t be as careful about not embarrassing you. James is less stern than the others, and though you feel a bit guilty for doing so, you press that to your advantage. 

“I haven’t drank anything but water,” you say. “That’s gotta count for something, right? And look.” You brush your hair behind your ear, showing him the earplugs you’d put in before arriving. “I’m being careful, see? I’m alright, Jamie, and it’s Marlene’s birthday. Let’s just stay, both of us, okay?”

James looks nearly apologetic. “Remus and Sirius are waiting in the car.” 

You groan, but allow James to pull you to your feet, waving goodbye to your friends with a pout. He supports more of your weight than you really need him to as he walks you outside, where Remus sits in the drivers’ seat of the idling car. Dread settles, along with dull resignation, in your stomach. 

Sirius is in the backseat and you hope James will get in first, but he lifts you in before him, placing you between two of your three upset boyfriends. You can’t look at any of them, allowing James to buckle your seatbelt for you as an oppressive silence, worse than the bass that had brutalized your head inside Marlene’s, stretches out between you. 

True to form, Sirius is the first to breach it. 

“What the hell were you thinking?”

You sigh. “I’m sorry.” 

“You have a concussion! All you had to do was stay home and rest. That website said that lights and loud music—say, the sort of things you’d find at a party—would only make things worse.” 

Normally, you’d argue with him. No matter how hopeless it seems, no matter how obvious it is that Sirius is going to win, you can always meet him head-on and at least make your point. But tonight, with your head throbbing and something about your very being feeling fundamentally wrong, you can’t muster up the energy. 

“I know,” you say. 

Sirius goes silent at the acquiescence in your voice, and he looks at Remus in the rear-view mirror, unsure of how to proceed. James puts a hand on your knee, a tiny gesture of comfort even though he’s upset with you too. The motivation that had driven you to Marlene’s and through the party is wearing off, and you feel suddenly, embarrassingly teary. 

“Do you feel sick?” Remus speaks for the first time, and though his voice is calm, the absence of his usual terms of endearment leave no doubt that you’re still in trouble. 

You clear your throat of the tears that are trying to clog it. “A little.” 

“We’re bringing you to our place to rest.” It’s not a question. “We can go get some things from your place tomorrow, but tonight you can just wear our stuff. Think you can eat something before bed?” 

It’s worse that he’s being kind to you. You’d been prepared for a lecture, but being taken care of is worse. It brings the vulnerability you’ve felt since the frightening pain and dizziness of that morning to the surface, and you keep your face turned towards your lap as your eyes become wet. “Yeah, I think so,” you say, and your voice cracks slightly when you add, “I’m sorry.” 

Sirius makes a sympathetic, pained sound from beside you, and James abandons all pretense of anger, tucking your head under his chin. 

“We’ll talk about it later,” Remus says, a bit more gently. “For now, just try to relax.” 

[andromeda-nova-writing]

Plastic Off The Sofa

Fem!Reader

Summary: Rest when one is injured it is important to take as to not strain an injury any further. It is equally important to take care of those who have been injured and check in on them to make sure they are okay.

Words: 2,982

AN: This fic is inspired by the song of the same name. I highly recommend you go give it a listen if you. haven't heard it yet. It's a song that discusses a deep love where you are willing to put everything on the table and accept each other's flaws. It very much fits how I see these two

It was rare that Y/N took a sick day. Most times when she did it would land on days she was to work on the surface, which made today a double rare. She was sitting on the sofa in her apartment taking a sick day forcing herself to listen to her own advice and rest. She wasn't ill. Not even seasonal allergies were causing a sniffle. Y/N had spent the day before teaching her younger cousins different dancing techniques. It was a fairly normal occurrence for her. But with an unlucky fall and the pain she felt from her ankle, there was no way she'd be able to easily move in the Fortress. Hell, there wouldn't even be an easy way of getting to the Fortress.

So all she could do was sit on her sofa and rest her ankle. At least she had books she could focus on getting caught up on. Most of the day had been spent resting much to her annoyance. Despite getting rest, she felt restless like she needed to move around already. At least by tomorrow morning, she should be able to walk with little interference from her ankle.

Her mother had dropped by around noon to check on her with lunch in tow. Along with the get-well cards her younger cousins had made so fast. It was quite sweet of everyone. It's not like it was a major injury. She had gone through small ones like this every three or four years. There really was no big fuss to be made over it. Yet, the fuss they were making was still touching. Bringing comfort knowing that if it had been worse her family would be there for her.

So she sat there on her sofa too engrossed in her book to notice that it wasn't her mother knocking at her door. “You know where the key is!” She yelled out. It's something her mother never had taken the wrong way. If anything it was something they had become used to yelling at each other every now and then. It was a simple way of just letting the other know that they couldn’t make it to the door quickly.

She flipped a page in her book as her front door opened. Her back was to the door. “I told you I would be fine to make something small for dinner. You do understand I can still take care of myself, mama.” 

“Last I checked I wasn't your mother,” Wriothesley spoke before closing the door to her home.

Y/N's eyes widened as she quickly closed her book placing it on the coffee table before rushing to tighten the robe she had over the short nightgown. “What are you doing here?” She felt severely undressed for company with the cool touch of the silks feeling like flames against her skin now.

“I had some papers I had to drop off for Neuvillette and I figured I could at least come by and check on you.” It was hard not to let his eyes drink in the sight of his girlfriend. She looked relaxed with how dressed down she was. If anything it made him feel a bit overdressed for his visit.

She kept her eyes away from him, avoiding turning around to face him. Her face felt so warm. “I appreciate the visit. I just had a bad fall yesterday. I've just been following the advice I'd give to anyone else today.”

“It's good to know you're okay.” He let out a small laugh watching her struggle to use the dainty robe to cover up more. He took his jacket off and moved closer to the sofa. He placed the jacket on the front of her which she had been trying to cover up. “Better?”

“Thank you. To be fair I didn't expect any company other than my mother. If I knew you were going to stop by I would have gotten dressed. This just feels a bit inappropriate.” She pulled the jacket close using it as a way to hide that she remained in her pajamas all day long.

“You're overthinking again.”

“No, I'm not overthinking. I should go get dressed.” She reasoned as a quick way to fix her predicament.

“Yes, you are. You were in nothing but one of my shirts last week lying in my bed. I think we've crossed that line a long time ago to call what you're wearing inappropriate.” If it had been a year ago before they had gotten together, he would have given her privacy to go change. He probably wouldn't have even shown up at her doorstep. Wriothesley thought the shyness of seeing each other's bodies had already left that first night they had been together in his bed.

“But silks just feel more exposing than one of your shirts. Doesn’t help that I wasn't expecting to see you today.” The last sentence she spoke came out a bit more mumbled than the first.

Wriothesley laughed before leaning down to kiss her forehead. “Let’s agree to disagree on this one.” He tried lightening her mood. “Am I at least allowed to sit next to you while you tell me what happened to your ankle? Or are you just gonna sit here being a shy mess?” 

She frowned at his teasing. It sucked not being able to think of a good comeback. With her luck, she would probably be able to think of one long after the time had passed. “I guess you can sit next to me. And are you sure you want to know what happened to my ankle? It’s not that interesting.” She warned.

“It's the least you could do. The woman who subbed in for you practically interrogated me about how we were doing?”  Wriothesley shook his head at the memory of the morning.

“Was she short with red hair?” She moved over enough, creating room on the sofa for Wriothesley.

He sat down placing his arm on the backrest of the sofa. He tried to be comfortable while also giving her just enough space. Had it gone his way, she would have been curled up in his arms as they talked of their day. “Yeah, she had a nose ring too.”

Y/N leaned her back against him. Maybe she had been overthinking earlier. Sometimes it was easier to accept that fact even if she wasn’t sure of what exactly had caused her overthinking. “Elizabeth means well. She's just always getting her heart broken and just doesn't want it to happen to anyone else.” 

“Could have fooled me. It felt like she was waiting for me to slip up.”

Y/N laughed. “Well, I'll let you know if you passed her test.”

“Now what happened to your ankle?” He asked still wanting to know what had happened even if she found it to be a boring tale.

“I was teaching some of my cousins different techniques for dance. I was demonstrating something from ballet when my aunt's dog thought that would be a wonderful time to jump at me. See nothing that interesting.” She downplayed the simple event.

“You know ballet?” Wriothesley asked wondering how it hadn’t been brought up before.

“Navia wasn’t lying when she told you my mother put me in so many dance classes.”

“I just didn't think you were the ballet type.”

“It's not like I have a reason to talk about dance with you. Even then I don't practice It anymore. Haven't for the past seven years.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s nice, it's just not what I wanted to do in life.” She explained not feeling the need to go any further. It wasn’t important to discuss. There was no need to focus on what she considered a small unimportant aspect of her life.

Wriothesley nodded in understanding. “So what have you been doing while you were resting?”

“Mostly reading. It has been a day of rest. I’ve done nothing of interest.”

“Was The book interesting at least?”

“It's interesting but not cause it's good kind of interesting. One of the ladies at work thought it would be fun to have a monthly book club. I just didn't think that this was her taste.” She thought back on what she had read throughout the day questioning if she should have just stuck to something she would have chosen for herself.

Wriothesley moved his free arm towards the book that lay on her coffee table. He picked up the book looking at the cover. “I'm glad that's the reason you're reading this. And you had me thinking I wasn't doing well enough in the romance department.” He teased as he put the book back. It was a book that had made its way into the Fortress a few years back making it something he had checked out of curiosity. 

“What would possibly make you think that?” She asked, entertaining his nonsense.

“You see, my girlfriend doesn't care to explain to me everything that happened to her ankle.” He began listing. “She suddenly finds it inappropriate for me to see her in silks despite having seen her in far less.”

“Wriothesley, did you come here to check on me or tease me?”

He ignored her second question remaining focused on her first one. “What's worse is that if she's worried about what she's wearing around me, I'll never get to kiss her. It would be horrible to make her uncomfortable.” He was being overly dramatic just to continue teasing her, even if his dramaticness contained an ounce of truth.

“You have issues, Ri.” She rolled her eyes with a smile before sitting up. Her words had no bite remaining playful, even when what she had said was something that held a level of truth. His jacket fell off of her onto the sofa as she moved. “I'm going to go get changed.” Y/N stood up making sure not to put too much weight on her hurt ankle.

“What if I don't want you to?” It was a question that was a tad selfish but it didn't hurt to say what was wanted. It wasn't like his wants were being forced on her. However, her wanting to change did make him question things. So all he could do was push the boundaries they had already broken once before. “How could I judge you for being comfortable in your own home when I'm the one who showed up unexpectedly?”

“Wriothesley…” her voice trailed off.

“I want you to be comfortable around me.” He tried playing it off with a laugh. Maybe he was just thinking too much into things himself. “Maybe I should just let you rest before I talk too much.” His words were softer as he forced out the sentence.

She looked at his face slightly defeated but filled with longing eyes. “I like hearing you talk.” She sat back down next to him. “You know I wouldn't have even told you where I hid the extra key if I didn't feel comfortable around you.”

“Yeah, I know. I just probably need to go back and get proper rest if I'm talking like this.” Wriothesley explained to not worry her. 

“Maybe I let my overthinking get the best of me. Don't let it get the best of you too.” Y/N placed her hand on his cheek. “How am I supposed to listen about getting out my own head if you just start doing what I do? You've done everything to make me feel comfortable around you. You’re even good about asking if I'm comfortable with the smallest things.”

“What else am I supposed to do? I know I'm not the nicest-looking guy around. I think I saw a kid hide behind their mom on the way over.”

“And I'm sure you gave them the sweetest smile.” Y/N placed a hand on his thigh giving it a gentle squeeze. “I know I said that I'm dressed inappropriately but I think it’s just the shock of you being here. I  got used to only having my mom check on me. I do appreciate that you’re here. I wasn’t expecting it even if you’re just here cause you had to drop something off.”

“I would have checked on you regardless. If not me going on my own, I'm sure Sigewinne would have dragged on up here.”

Y/N laughed at the mental image of his words. “It is funny to see her dragging you to the infirmary. I think it was my first month down there when I saw that for the first time.”

“She made a big deal out of it that time. I was nowhere near needing to go to the infirmary.”  Wriothesley shook his head at the memory.

“I thought it was cute.”

He rolled his eyes. “I don't think I would call that cute.”

“It calmed my nerves down back then. You know I only started working in the fortress as a way to get away from my problems.” She shook her head at her past self and smiled at what that choice had brought her in the end. “It might have been one of the few times I smiled that month. Seeing that you let Sigewinne drag you around was very cute.”

“I still wouldn't call it could cute.”

“Would you rather I call you cute?” She was half teasing.

“By any chance when you fell, did you hit your head too?” He teased back with a smirk knowing how her reaction was bound to go.

“You try standing balanced on your toes with a dog running at you!” She crossed her arms leaning back into a sofa before looking away from him. “I can't believe I attempted to give you a genuine compliment and you think it's out of an injury. I'm starting to think you really did come over to tease me.”

Wriothesley’s hand dropped from the back of the sofa onto her shoulder pulling her in close. “I haven't teased you once yet.”

With a roll of her eyes, Y/N turned her head towards him. “Now I know for sure you are just messing with me.” She tried to force a laugh down. “Quit looking at me like that.”

“Is it wrong to admire you?”

“You look like you are planning to do more than just admire me.”

“Only if you let me.”

“I let you know where the key to my home lies. I let you stay in my home despite your unannounced visit. I let you see me in my nightwear. Yet you still ask if I will let you. I think you know what I'll let you d-”

Was it right of Wriothesley to shut her up with a kiss? Considering the mini speech she gave it felt entirely right. Which only became reinforced by how she melted into the kiss. To be fair all he had craved was a few short kisses from her at least to make up for the ones he would steal from her while she was supposed to be working in the Fortress. They were always worth it even though every time she’d kick him out of the infirmary unable to hold back a smile or a laugh. 

Y/N had pulled away from the kiss, moving herself onto his lap effectively caging him in on the sofa.

“I thought your ankle was hurting.”

“I’ve been resting all day. I’ll be fine.”  Her hands had wandered onto his chest where she had begun to play with his tie, giving it a pull ever so lightly bringing him closer.

“Just making sure. I wouldn’t want you stressing your injury just cause eager for anothe-” He had been caught off guard,  a welcomed change.

Y/N pulled him in close, placing a peck on his lips. “You definitely don't get to judge how I take care of an injury. I think I've lost count of how many times I've had to get on you about taking care of yourself.” The unintended double entendre lost on her for a second.

“I might listen more if you got on me like this.” Wriothesley kept a hand on her back keeping her close. The other hand was left on her thigh almost still as his thumb traced small circles.

Y/N barely had a chance to roll her eyes before she had been kissed again. She pulled away only for Wriothesley to keep planting kisses on her face. “I doubt you would.”

He spoke between kisses. “I’d listen to you read one of those medical books I see you going over on your breaks.”

She laughed. “You mean the medical records I’m writing in while I’m working?”

He kissed her once again. “Yes, those.”

“I know you’re joking but that is very much against the law for me to read to you unless it involves me trying to get a patient to the surface for more intense medical care.”

He leaned his head back. “I know what I said but if you start explaining anything like that for work again right now I will just leave to pick up dinner for us instead.” He warned, trying not to let their mood get ruined.

“You're lucky. I could have gone into chemical formulas or how there's a painkiller derived from mold.” She joked partially. There had been quite a large number of times that Wriothesley had walked in on a long discussion on the origins of certain drugs. As much as he cared for her, it was one of the driest conversations to ever witness repeatedly.

Wriothesley rolled his eyes. “I am begging you to shut up.”

“Do better at making sure I can't talk then.” She knew her words were bait, a challenge that she hoped he would take. Her face looked akin to a siren that was ready to invite him underneath the waves. And Wriothesley was happily willing to make good on what she told him to do.

[lady-harrowhark]

hello, can you explain to me in more clarity your “waxen” theory regarding Ianthe? I’m not picking up on what this implies but it’s making my brain itch.

Sort of! Totally fair question, I just don't have a lot of clarity myself in that I don't have a fully formed theory lol. There's definitely some links and parallels in verbiage that are pinging on my radar, so I do think something's funky, but I wouldn't say I'm fully on board with this yet. I'm just playing in the sandbox Tamsyn has provided us, tossing out ideas and thinking out loud. But I can go into some more detail, and add some more thoughts that have occurred to me since I posted that last night.

(Here's a link to the post in question, for context)

Anyway! So let's first lay out all the times we get someone described as some type of wax. At various points in HtN, we get the descriptions "a shoddy wax cast of some more beautiful sculpture," a "wax figure in a pink dolly dress," a "wax figure in pale purple chiffon," and "waxen face" for Ianthe. We also see that descriptor used a few other times for other people throughout the series. In GtN, Harrow's parents' bodies are called "waxy" and the first introduction of Protesilaus (as the beguiling corpse) says he was "waxen looking in the sunlight." In NtN, Kiriona's skin is said to have a "weird, waxy quality," then Naberius's skin is called "waxen" when they first meet up with Ianthe, and again a few pages later it again references the "waxen, handsome face". What I'm getting at here is that every time this sort of description is deployed, it's in reference to a dead body that's been preserved, manipulated, and is essentially masquerading as a living person... except for Ianthe.

We also know there are a multitude of times that she's described as looking like a poor copy of Coronabeth. There's that "shoddy wax cast of some more beautiful sculpture" line, her first introduction calls her a "starved shadow" of her sister ("or the first an illuminated reflection [of Ianthe]," and actually, off the top of my head I don't know that we ever see their descriptions framed that way again... I'd have to investigate this more later, but this might be the only time that Corona is described as a "better" version of Ianthe, rather than Ianthe being a "worse" version of Corona, which is interesting), there's a point where it says "The second twin was as though the first had been taken to pieces and put back together without any genius. She wore a robe of the same cloth and colour, but on her it was a beautiful shroud on a mummy," etc etc etc. I know there's more, but I'm too lazy to go pull the rest of the quotes and you get the picture by this point I'm sure. So nearly all of these situate her, at least visually, as a copy or approximation of Coronabeth, and one that doesn't quite live up to original at that.

So now let's pick apart this snippet of conversation we overhear between Silas and Ianthe at Magnus and Abigail's dinner party a bit. Ianthe says she was born via "surgical means," which I'm assuming is referring to a C-section delivery (or whatever the necromantic equivalent is) and notes that Corona is a few minutes older. Silas seems surprised (or perhaps concerned?) that they "risked intervention" and Ianthe says Corona had "removed [her] source of oxygen". At this point Silas says, "A wasted opportunity, I'd think." I had always taken this for him just being a dick and implying he wished she'd died in the womb, but coming back to it with this new angle... well. She says "Corona's birth put my survivability somewhere around definite nil." And I'm wondering if that doesn't tie to Harrow's comment about infant deaths generating "enough thanergy to take out the entire planet." Basically, could Silas have been implying that the Tridentarii's parents wasted an opportunity to use the thanergy from baby Ianthe's death to power up Corona?

Harrow says that twins are an ill omen, but the text hasn't come back to that as of yet. Given the difficulty necromancers experience with pregnancy, I'd imagine twins would could be especially dangerous and that in and of itself could be considered an ill omen. Ianthe's comments certainly suggest that their mother carried the pregnancy, although I don't think we know for certain whether she was a necromancer. I am so intensely curious about the Tridentarii's childhood and their parents; we get so many gestures towards some really twisted family dynamics, but very little in the way of concrete explanations. Particularly relevant here, I'd love to know more about their father wanting a "matched set" and how that came about. Did they intentionally plan for twins from the start? Was it only once they knew they were having twins that that became a factor? What's the significance there?

Outside of those "waxy" descriptors, Ianthe tends to be described as much more sickly looking than even other necromancers. We know that necromancers on the whole tend towards a phenotype of physical weakness, but even still, there's an emphasis on this with Ianthe beyond that. This might be due in part to narrator bias (coughGideoncough) or the direct juxtaposition between her and Coronabeth's vivaciousness, but what really jumps out at me as contributing to this effect is how frequently she's described as being colorless, pale, washed out, bloodless, pallid, anemic, etc etc etc. It very much makes me think of the way the color drains away from Colum (and even the rest of the room and the others in it) when Silas is siphoning. Silas himself is also often described as colorless ("mayonnaise uncle," "milk man") but not so much in a way that implies frailty as much as I read it as implying a stark coldness, in line with the very black-and-white moral authority he presumes to wield, a purported "purity", much different than Ianthe's colorlessness. With Ianthe, you get a sense that her palette ought to have been or perhaps was closer to Corona's, but the color's been drained away; where Corona's hair is described as golden, Ianthe's is "canned butter", for example. Almost like the life's been siphoned out, one might say.

So to kind of circle back around, do I actually think Ianthe is dead or a corpse like the other "wax" figures we've seen? Nah. Between Harrow and Palamedes, and especially Palamedes's medical necromancy, I think we would have heard about it by now if that were the case. But I do think it's entirely plausible that she's had a bit of a brush with death and that perhaps she's never quite fully come back from, and I do think she's being intentionally positioned as somewhat adjacent to death. If their parents were wanting twins from the outset, perhaps they used necromantic means to encourage the conception. Or if the pregnancy was as high-risk as I suspect it was, perhaps she'd died or nearly died at birth and been resuscitated. Their parents may have gone to extremes to keep her alive, to maintain their matched set. Given the themes of this series, I do feel it's necessary to draw a distinction between "resuscitation" and "resurrection" although they are curiously adjacent to one another. For all the text has grappled with dying and staying dead, dying and coming back, dying and choosing whether or not to return... we haven't touched on what something like a "near death experience" would look like. I'd imagine having that sort of experience, even at an incredibly young age, might lead one to be fascinated with, to use Ianthe's own words, "the place between death and life... the place between release and disappearance."

[vickyvicarious]

I found Miss Westenra in seemingly gay spirits. Her mother was present, and in a few seconds I made up my mind that she was trying all she knew to mislead her mother and prevent her from being anxious. I have no doubt she guesses, if she does not know, what need of caution there is. We lunched alone, and as we all exerted ourselves to be cheerful, we got, as some kind of reward for our labours, some real cheerfulness amongst us. Then Mrs. Westenra went to lie down, and Lucy was left with me. We went into her boudoir, and till we got there her gaiety remained, for the servants were coming and going. As soon as the door was closed, however, the mask fell from her face, and she sank down into a chair with a great sigh, and hid her eyes with her hand.

The way that Lucy keeps up the cheerful act until they are fully alone means that she's not confiding in anyone in her house. We already knew she wasn't admitting her poor health to her mother, but the servants also seem to warrant the same act. Maybe this is because she doesn't trust them not to report back to her mother, or because she has trouble admitting her illness to anyone who doesn't confront her about it first (Mina, at least due to the graveyard sleepwalking, and Arthur both fit this bill). Regardless, it means that she gets almost no time to relax in her own home. She has to pretend everything is okay unless she's completely alone, and the way she immediately wilts here shows just how heavy a burden that is on her as she feels worse and worse.

I'm really happy that she is able to confide in Jack. Again, maybe it's simply that Arthur already figured her out and now that things have come this far, there's no point in hiding - or maybe it's because she is closer to Arthur and Jack than anyone else living in her own house. Both are quite sad in different ways, but at the least it means she can finally get some comfort by being honest about her difficulties. And she does seem to be making the effort to confide as fully as possible - she tells him about the sleepwalking in Whitby, the dreams, the sleep she wants to resist, the trouble breathing... pretty much everything (at least that she knows about). It is an effort, even now - that's made clear when she says she hates talking about herself, but she does it anyway because she knows Arthur is worried for her, and she wants to ease his worries. (Of course, she's also scared and in pain herself, but Lucy places those concerns below others' feelings.)

I also like how it's made clear that this is all consensual. Arthur said previously that Lucy was reluctant to involve Jack at first, but that she agreed. And we see here that she's still a bit reluctant to do the act of telling him, but she's definitely willing to be fully honest with him. More than that, she gives express permission to let Arthur in on all the details of her illness and treatment. For now, at least, all three of them are on the same page of working together to help Lucy.

[watatsumiis]

Reader with chronic headaches series - Dottore edition

Yes. this is self indulgent. I deserve it because head hurty and i can just feel its gonna get worse. As bonkers as he is, i think he'd be a great person to have look after you when you're not well (provided you have a close bond with him). Be aware that this is heavily based off of my own experiences with chronic headaches and migraines (and what I do to look after myself when I have them), and is not indicative of everyone's experiences.

Content: Gender neutral reader (implied to have chronic headaches and/or migraines), pre-established platonic relationship with Dottore, just. general Dottore warning, he's a little creepy and likes to keep lists about people.

At first, he's weird about it. He's trying to note down your symptoms and figure out exactly what's wrong, giving you solutions that (surprise surprise) don't work. It would almost be sweet if you didn't know he saw you more as a puzzle to solve at this point.

The idea of chronic illnesses is like a challenge to this man, he's so annoying about it, constantly bothering you about your symptoms, asking you to chart your headaches, where you'd rate them on a scale of one to ten, etc., at this point, he's almost more of a headache than the headaches themselves.

Eventually though, he calms down a bit and starts being actually helpful. He's very observant, so he picks up on the common signals you give off when you've got a headache or a migraine coming on, even if you don't notice them yourself.

When he notices, he'll have someone wordlessly bring you a cool glass of water and your pain relief of choice, sometimes even offer to take over your more menial duties to remove some stress from you.

He takes careful note of what you do to help alleviate them and will replicate those actions, sometimes sternly ordering you around when you're continuing to try and push yourself further. Being of such a high rank, he's easily able to take advantage of it to give you a day or two off.

He'll usher you into a quiet, dark room with a nice cool temperature and a pile of blankets, making sure you're stocked up with plenty of water and your preferred brand of pain relief, while nattering away about what he thinks may be the root cause of your pain this time (as much as he tries to eliminate all potential causes, some still manage to slip through the cracks).

He's uncharacteristically tender with you when you're in pain, especially if he feels guilty for not noticing before it got as bad as it has. He's gentle and speaks in a soft, low voice that's both easy to understand and listen to even through the ringing in your ears.

Though he's used to how your symptoms manifest, it doesn't mean that he worries any less - he still checks up on you just a little too often, but he always tries extremely hard not to disturb you, especially if you decide to take a nap or have a lie down.

He makes sure you're extra stocked up with your favourite snacks, blankets and comfort items, and might even try to find you something simple to keep you entertained that isn't too much strain on your head if you get bored or restless (you're not sure where he got these colouring pages from, but they're well made!)

The amount of documentation he keeps on you is almost unnerving, there's enough there that, even when he's not around, there'll be someone who has been given a briefing and knows exactly what to do to help you.

Once you're feeling better, he scolds you if you overworked yourself or acted too stubborn, insisting that he's a doctor and you should listen to him.

Overall, he's a great person to have take care of you when you're not feeling a hundred percent. He's willing to field almost any request if it'll get you back up and feeling well again.

Please don't repost, steal, copy or otherwise plagarise my writing! This includes posting translations to other sites (without credit + permission).

[misslavenderlady]

Hello Lavender I recently came across your page your writing is wonderful and I love it. May I request demon The lost boys + Micheal x nun reader smut very smutty if your up for it. I can’t wait to read this wonderful story you have planned out :).

Mary On A Cross 🛐

David/Marko/Dwayne/Paul/Michael/Female!Reader

Summary: Just because you're a holy woman on sacred ground doesn't mean you're safe from the temptations of Hell. The true test of your faith will be when five demons come to play~

Thank you @xxryn for the writing request! I appreciate your patience. This came out so much longer than I planned. I'm not Catholic (or even religious for that matter), but I did a lot of research about the church and nuns. Forgive me if some stuff isn't accurate.

WARNINGS: Nsfw/Smut/18+ Readers Only, Dub Con, Nun!Reader, Female!Reader, Virgin!Reader, Sex Dreams, Temptation, Religion Kink, Shame, Confessions, Prayer, Demons/Incubus, Teratophilia, Flirting, Pet Names, Groping, Pretending to be a priest, Sex on an Altar, Sex in a church, Group Sex, Vaginal Sex, Taking virginity, Nippleplay, Licking, Spanking, Dom/Sub, Clit rubbing, Mutual masturbation, Circle jerk, Dirty Talk, Praying, Creampie, Sex feeding

“Bless me Father for I have sinned. It has been a week since my last confession. These are my sins.”  

You really felt like a failure for having to do this, but it was absolutely necessary. The struggles you were dealing with had worsened recently, and you feared that your will was being tested. Still, you had to be strong. That was why you were in the confessional, sharing your sins with the hidden priest.  

For as long as you could remember, you were devoted to your religion. It was a significant part of your life growing up. You attended many christenings, weddings, and funerals held at your family’s church of choice. Rain or shine, you went every Sunday to sing and pray. Your teen years were a balancing act between academic life and your duties for the church. Every authority figure in your life praised you for being such a good kid.  

So that’s what you decided to devote yourself to as an adult. You knew nothing of life besides faith, so you followed the path to becoming a nun. It was no small task to complete, yet you were more than dedicated. You gave up your luxuries, promised your vows, and joined your convent to live a humble life that was fully devoted to God. It was hard work, yet you handled it with ease.  

That was, until recently.  

Temptations had begun to creep into your daily life, attempting to slip into the cracks of your spirit and corrupt your very soul. Though such things would seem normal to an average person, you were a woman of God. You had to be disciplined, and you knew the smallest tests of faith could spiral out of control.  

It had started with rather sensual dreams that you had in the dead of night. Every time you slipped into a deep slumber, visions of handsome men and bare bodies danced around in your mind. They whispered lewd promises and sang out the most depraved moans you’d ever heard. The first time you had such a dream, you had woken with a start, completely drenched in sweat. You were sure you were ill with some kind of fever.  

But it didn’t stop after that.  

It was a bit different each time. Sometimes you saw a blond. Other times it was a brunet. One night, the voices promised to be gentle and make love to you. The next night, the voices demanded to fuck you like a wild animal. It made your head spin with each passing night. Though you never really remembered the faces when you woke up, you always had a dripping heat in between your legs. Cold showers had certainly become your friend.  

The shame you felt was getting worse. Everything you knew about sex was from the educational courses in school long ago. That, and there were some rather colorful remarks made by the boys whenever you wore a skirt to class. Such temptations never swayed you before, but this time was different.  

You desperately tried to pour yourself into your work. You chanted plenty of Hail Marys, spent hours each day praying and read the bible over and over again. Whenever a charity event was planned, you were the hardest worker involved. Your fellow nuns were so proud of the work you did, yet you still held a pang of guilt deep inside.  

That’s why you were confessing these sins today. You shared these erotic dreams with the intention of clearing your conscience.  

“I cannot silence these dreams, Father,” you said in exasperation. “It has gotten to a point where I can feel my mind slipping back to them during the day. Whenever I try to do my work for God, I see these images of lust and I feel...dirty.”  

“I see. While you are a faithful woman to God, it is important to remember that you are still human. We all have temptations that make us stray from the path, but we all find our way in the end,” the priest explained to you. “In fact, you truly have not done anything wrong for these are visions beyond your control. After all, you have not done anything to act on such desires.”  

Your stomach twisted with guilt. It reminded you of your days of youth when you confessed to silly things like sneaking a treat from the cookie jar or lying to your parents about where you went with your friends after school. You never did anything truly wild, but the guilt made you feel small and weak.  

“That’s the problem, Father. I...like those dreams. I find myself wanting to act on the desires they give me. Wanting to experience that pleasure...oh God, help me, I’m so ashamed...”  

Every time you dreamed of sexual conquests beyond your wildest imaginations, you felt the need to quench your thirst grow stronger and stronger. There was a time long ago when you had realized how good it felt to rub yourself on your pillow, but you were too scared of the consequences to complete your pleasure. The temptation to explore your body and satisfy the lustful ache was worsening.  

“My child,” the priest interrupted your thoughts. “You are not alone in this world. There will always be love and appreciation for who you are. These dreams are a test for you, nothing more. A test of what you are truly capable of. It may be scary, but you must have faith in yourself. Perhaps you will find that you will become stronger than you ever imagined. It will all be okay in the end; I can promise you that.”  

You exhaled, still wary of what you were experiencing, but feeling a lot better thanks to the kind words of the priest who listened to your confession. There was genuine care in his voice, and you appreciated him for not being judgmental of your struggle.  

"Should you find yourself facing the temptation again, come to the sacred ground of the church so you can share these struggles alone with God. You may find that solitude will provide the clarity you need to overcome this challenge and come out stronger than ever." 

That was certainly something you could do. With a hail Mary and a thank you to the priest, you stepped out of the confessional. You would keep his words of guidance in mind as you went about your duties for the day.  

With the moon shining down to bring another beautiful night, it was time to sleep. Your plain, white nightgown was draped over your frame, ready to keep you warm and safe during the hours of slumber. You prayed before tucking yourself in, asking for a dreamless sleep.  

Though as you shut your eyes and drifted off, that prayer was swiftly proven to go ignored.  

It was so innocent at first. Nothing but pure silence in your dreams as you rest. Then the familiar forms of your frequent visitors appeared before you. They weren’t entirely clear in your vision, but you knew these were the men you had seen night after night. One stood out more than the others, a faded image of platinum hair and a long coat. Even with his face hidden, you knew he was smirking. He always was.  

“She’s ready for us,” he purred. His voice was muffled as if he was speaking underwater. A gloved hand reached out to you, caressing the side of your face. Even in your sleep, the sensation felt so real. It made you want to squirm away, but your body remained paralyzed. 

“Now now, my pet. Do not fight us. We’ve waited for this night for so long.”  

The other figures moved closer, each moving to a different side of you. They trapped you in a circle, hovering over you. You could not see their eyes, but you certainly could feel them watching you. Never before had you felt so vulnerable.  

Playful giggles teased your ears, mocking you as their hands caressed your body. Still, your ability to move was taken away and you could not get yourself to wake up. The more these figures played with you, the stronger your fear became.  

You were under their control, up until the moment when the leader of this nefarious gang of dream monsters finally revealed his eyes to you. Yellow. Sickly yellow in a sea of red.  

“It’s time to wake up.” 

The spell was broken, and your eyes shot open. Your body was free and immediately shot up in a panicked jolt as your senses finally came back. Goosebumps were littered across your skin and your heart was pumping faster than ever. Those hands that touched you. They felt so real. Like it wasn’t in a dream.  

That wasn’t the scariest part though. What truly struck fear into your heart was how wet you were. The slick in between your legs could not be ignored. Your thighs clenched together, trying to fight off the tingling sensation that taunted you so. Even though the dream frightened you, it enticed you as well. The battle for maintaining your status as a holy woman was still going on.  

You had to fight for your faith. 

With a toss of your bed sheets, you slipped on your shoes and dressed in your robe and habit. A bible was held in one hand and your rosary beads in the other. The cover of darkness cloaked you as you maneuvered around corridors and corners, making your way to the church.  

You knew the path well. Day and night you prayed away in the church of your convent. It was a place of safety, and seeing the familiar statues and stained glass when you opened the doors immediately washed away most of your fears. The soft glow of candlelight beckoned you, giving a warm welcome as you kneeled in front of the altar. With the sign of the cross, you prayed. 

“Lord, with your bright and open heart, forgive me for showing darkness to the light. Putting my back, to what is right was wrong, and I have sinned against you. Forgive me, O merciful one, because I have relished my wrongs and I am sorry for what I have done. Lord I am ready to continue following in your footsteps. Take me from the dark. Hear me now, O lord. Amen.” 

Satisfied with your prayer, you basked in the silence of the church, taking the time to think about what you had done. You were strong. You were devoted.  

But you certainly weren’t alone.  

“Now what's so bad about the dark~?” 

Your eyes shot open at the sound of a voice speaking to you. It wasn’t across the room, but rather right behind you. Turning your head around, you were face to face with a visitor in your church. A man towered above your kneeling form, dark clothes draped over him, and hair striking platinum.  

This man was so very familiar. Though you didn’t know who he was, your gut was telling you that this was someone you had seen night after night. Still, you couldn’t believe such a thing. Surely, this was not the one that danced around in your dreams. It had to be some kind of coincidence. 

“Wh-who are you, Sir?” you questioned timidly. With your eyes locked on the man, you rose to your feet, clutching your rosary as tightly as possible.  

The closer you got to him, the better you could study his features. He was a truly beautiful man. Stubbled cheeks and icy blue eyes. You were a celibate woman, but you were still human. The priest you spoke to had reminded you of such a thing when you went into confession. Still, you would not be swayed.  

“Why, my sweet little darling, don’t you recognize me?”  

Your heart dropped in your chest. The blood in your veins went ice cold. This couldn’t possibly be happening.  

“I think she’s shy, David.” 

The new voice immediately made you jump in fright, as it was spoken right next to you. While clinging to your chest, you looked to the side to find a man with dark hair and eyes gazing intensely at you. Where on Earth did he come from? 

“I think you’re right, Dwayne. What’s goin’ on with her, Paul?” 

To the other side, a shorter man with flowing curls of gold eyed you hungrily. There was pure wickedness in his hazel eyes, and you did not like that at all.  

“Wait a minute, who wants to know, Marko?”  

Another. Right behind you. A shriek came from your mouth as you spun around, coming face to face with a blond-haired, blue-eyed man lounging casually on the altar. The four strangers snickered at your reaction, clearly amused by your fear.  

This really wasn’t good. You were a woman all alone in the church, surrounded by four incredibly intimidating men. There was no way any good could come out of such a situation. All you could do was grasp at the cross around your neck and pray to God to show you mercy.  

The one they called David took your hand, moving you so you would face him again. His smirk grew wider as he brought your hand up, kissing the back of it. The way his beard scratched at your soft skin made you feel dizzy. A twinkle danced in his eye, no doubt from the amusement of how timidly you reacted to such a gesture.  

“We’ve been visiting you night after night, my dear,” he cooed. “Surely you would recognize the sounds of lust we sang to you while you slept~” 

Before you could even get a word out, the other three men pushed in closer to you. They each moaned and whispered lewdly, perfectly clear for you to listen. Your cheeks flushed at the sounds, completely overwhelmed. All the while, David watched with delight.  

“I...STOP! Stop it!” you cried out. “I don’t know who you are, but you’re not welcome here!” 

“Awww that’s not true, sweetheart,” Paul giggled behind you. “Aren’t all God’s kids welcome and all that?” 

“I dunno, Paulie. We’re not exactly related to ‘God’. Quite the opposite,” Marko added. 

Something about that made your stomach churn. There was something far more sinister in what he meant. You trembled as the boys traded looks with one another. They surely weren’t up to any good. You were about to find out just how dangerous they truly were.  

“I think it’s about time we show you exactly who...or rather what we are~” David smirked.  

You didn’t know what to expect by such a confusing statement. It was only when the blue in David’s eyes faded away and the glow of gold took its place that you realized how grave the situation was. They were the same demonic eyes you saw before you awoke.  

And the transformation only got worse.  

Before your very eyes, David and the other boys morphed into inhuman creatures. Their figures towered higher and their hands stretched out longer, talon-like claws growing from the tips. They salivated with mouthfuls of fangs. The clothes on their bodies faded into mere clouds of smoke, leaving their beautiful figures completely bare. Without the clothing, they had the freedom to show what they had been hiding behind their backs.  

Deep, crimson wings unfurled from their shoulders, stretching out to present their truly massive size. The shape and form mimicked that of bats, only far more jagged and sharp in appearance. Impish tails slithered out as well, slithering across the ground much like snakes.  

You were speechless. Horrified. Demons were right here in your church, completely surrounding you. Your body felt hollow, nothing but the void of dread swallowing you whole. There wasn’t even strength in your voice to scream.  

If it weren’t for the doors of the church opening up at the other side of the church, you would have been paralyzed with fear for eternity. Your prayers must have been answered because a priest was standing in the doorway. Young and strong, just the hero you needed.  

"HELP ME, FATHER!" you screamed out, finding the strength to push past the demons and sprint straight into the holy man's arms.  

"What's going on here?" he asked, holding you close. You already felt much safer in his embrace. His voice seemed familiar. Comforting.  

"There are demons! Real, unholy demons on sacred ground!" you cried out. He held you tighter as you hid from the sight of the monsters. "You must perform an exorcism at once! Please!!" 

The priest soothed you, holding you close to his chest. Demonic laughter taunted your fears. You couldn’t understand why they were so powerful in a church, but you had faith in the priest and his ability to cast them out. They had to be vulnerable in some way.  

“I’m so sorry. I really am. Please forgive me...” 

Before you could even ask what he was apologizing for, David spoke out to him directly.  

“You did your job, Michael. Get out of that ridiculous disguise and bring our little lady over here.” 

In a flash, your heart stopped in your chest. The man who you thought was coming to your rescue was one of the monsters. He proved it as much as he transformed before your very eyes. His chest and arms shifted around you morphing into unnatural length. The priest disguise faded away and his own pair of demon wings stretching outward. 

Gazing into his glowing eyes, you could swear there was still a human glint remaining. Perhaps his guilt was true for betraying you. Still, that certainly didn’t stop him from lifting you up into his arms and holding you tightly so he could carry you back toward his beastly friends.  

“NO! God in Heaven, save me!!” you screamed out, striking Michael’s chest with your fists in vain.  

“God ain’t here, babydoll~” Dwayne chuckled. 

“We’re the only beings you’re gonna worship now~” Paul added.  

Your body trembled as the five beings watched you carefully. They were so much bigger and stronger compared to you. When David reached forward to caress your cheek, you winced, fearful of how easily he could hurt you.  

“C’mon, darling girl, there’s no need to be frightened,” he cooed. Michael passed you to him, whispering another apology before letting you go. David smiled down at you as he carried you up the steps that you had been kneeling on just moments ago.  

“We’re not here to hurt you. Nor are we here to bring you to Hell. That’s not the kinda thing we do with humans~” 

He nodded towards Marko, silently signaling the curly-haired demon to clear the items at the altar so he had space to put you down. The man smirked with delight before swiping his claws over the table, letting the holy objects clatter to the floor below.  

You felt utterly dirty being laid down over the altar from the look of mischievousness in his eyes. There was a growing fear of just what would he would do. How could you possibly trust his word to not bring you any harm? 

“My brothers and I are very special demons,” he explained. You whined as his clawed fingers gripped at your habit. That too was tossed aside, letting your hair become exposed. “We are incubi. Do you know what that is, dear?” 

As a matter of fact, you did.  

They were creatures that fed on the desires of man. Usually, they manifested in dreams and had “sex” with their victims as a way to obtain their energy. Now all of those dirty images you dreamt of made sense. They were the monsters that tempted you so with lust.  

“I’m sorry, honey. David’s kind of mean about these things,” Michael chimed in. He was perched at the other side of the altar, fingers petting your hair as an act of kindness. “I told you, they are nothing to be ashamed of. We’re more than happy to give you the things you want. We feel good when you feel good.” 

Now you were really upset. You looked at Michael with disgust in your heart.  

“You....you monster! I trusted you! I didn’t talk to an actual priest! My sins....oh they haven’t been forgiven...” 

While you wept in fear and frustration, the other boys crowded. Though you wanted to scream out in terror, you silenced yourself when you found no danger in their touch. The boys shushed and cooed in your ears, kissing and massaging you while David and Michael still held you down.  

They were demons. Monsters that would surely destroy you. And yet, their touch made you feel....good. Amazing, in fact. You had never experienced the embrace of a lover, yet they were far more delightful than you had anticipated.  

Surely it was their power influencing you. Clouding your judgment.  

“We’re still good on our word, darling. Our very nature is to bring pleasure to beauties such as yourself~”  

David's fingers traced over your hipbones, teasing you before slinking over your inner thighs. Though you tensed at how close he was getting, the others lulled you back into your sense of calm. 

“We’ve had our eyes on you for quite some time now. We sent little Michael here to act as our eyes and ears and study you better. You are truly an adorable thing. Sweet. Innocent. Virginal.” 

A soft gasp fell from your lips as his hands slipped under your robe, claws pulling at your underwear. You shivered as the fabric slipped down your legs. All around you, the boys eyed the garment with hunger, no doubt getting anxious to divulge in your body.  

“We don’t just want to take you, my dear,” David whispered. You shook terribly as he grabbed at your legs, opening them up like the gates of Heaven. He was pressed up against your lower body, teasing you with his length. This was really happening.  

You were going to lose your virginity to a demon. God would never forgive you for this, but your body would never want to forget it.  

“Tonight, we’re going to make you our bride. And that means....consummating the marriage~” 

The last thing you heard before he sunk in was the devious laughter of his demon brothers. Immediately, your back arched and your cunt clenched, so unfamiliar with such a sensation. To your shock, he slid in easily, despite being so massive. You hadn’t realized how soaked you were up until that very moment. God, you really had been so blind to how much you wanted this.  

“Fuuuuuck, this pussy is perfect,” David growled, his voice far too low and distorted to be human. The others watched in delight, each enjoying the show. Still, they didn’t forget about you.  

Dwayne’s tongue and teeth played with the skin of your neck, finding patterns that made you squeal the loudest. Marko’s hands lewdly groped you through your robe, pinching the sensitive nipples underneath to make them stand out. Paul joined David’s work, nimble fingers traveling down over your clit to start a circling motion. It reminded you of your previous experience with experimentation.  

Michael was truly the sweetest out of them all. He held your face in his hands as he leaned in to kiss you. He wasn’t a deviant like the others. There was genuine romance in the way he kissed. It gave you that fluttery sensation in your stomach that your friends in school had talked about.  

“Are you frightened now, my little love?” David asked, watching you closely.  

“I....ooooh..mm!!....a....l-little...” you mewled. He filled you so deeply, it was impossible to concentrate on anyone but him. “Oh....I’ll tr-truly be sent to Hell....for th-this....” 

That made the others giggle playfully. You had broken your vow to God, and they were enjoying every moment of it.  

“Aww dontcha worry, babygirl,” Dwayne cooed in between licks. 

“Why don’t you say one of your prayers?” Marko suggested, flashing a fanged grin.  

“I’m sure God will forgive you for getting your cunt filled in a church if ya do~” Paul teased as he picked up the pace, getting you to wiggle and sigh some more. 

While your body was caught up in the intense pleasure, you got your mind back on the prayer you said every day. David threw your legs over his shoulders, pushing in deeper inside you. Seeing you so helpless was truly driving him wild. 

“Our Father, who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy Name.....Thy Kingdom come...oooh...Thy will be d-done in earth....A-As it is...nmmm!..in heaven..” 

You prayed quietly, gripping tight to your rosary as David kept up his thrusting. He and the others were so wild, yet they worked so perfectly together. Your attempts to cling to your holy ways only added fuel to the fire within them. They each toyed with you more and more, hungry for you in all your innocent glory. 

“Say it louder, pet,” David demanded. He struck your ass with a spank to further the point. “Be a good girl for us~” 

“Give us this d-day...our....our daily bread...aaahh...and forgive us our trespasses, as w-we forgive those that trespass....f-fu..against us..!!” 

There was something happening inside you. Something that you never experienced before. It was growing stronger by the minute, ready to consume your entire being. It made your mind go fuzzy, and it paired well with the fast thrusting of David’s cock. Your voices and sounds of sex echoed off the church walls.  

“That’s it, sweetheart~” Michael whispered. He and the others had each begun to stroke themselves while David took you. The flush in your cheeks only got stronger when you saw their massive cocks around you. They all made the most vulgar sounds.  

David was fucking you faster now, no doubt to chase his own rising pleasure. You didn’t know what would happen, but you wanted it.  

“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil...For....For thine is the kingdom, th-the power, and the gl...glory...For....e-ever and ever....Amen!” 

By what was surely a miracle of God himself, you managed to finish your prayer. Just at the right time too, as your built-up desire finally overcame you, hitting you swiftly with pleasure.  

“OOOhhh my God, David!!” you cried out for the demon. Your beautiful voice calling his name finally allowed the incubus to climax as well. He pushed himself in as much as he could, cumming deep within your sacred body. His brothers followed closely, all growling out while they marked you with their seed.  

You shuddered from the unfamiliar sensation. It was so warm and gooey on your body, and it absolutely ruined your robes. Still, all you could truly think about was how amazing they looked after all of it. David, especially, was looking quite satisfied.  

They hadn’t lied. You truly had an amazing time. If they weren’t monsters from Hell, you would have thought it was like being blessed by an angel. They certainly were beautiful enough to be such beings. But while you were feeling drowsy with how relaxed you were, the five of them had a newfound energy. After all, they technically had just fed.  

And by the way they were licking their lips and eyeing you carefully, you had a strong feeling they wanted some dessert too.  

“Ooooh you’re never getting rid of us now, sweet girl,” David purred. “We’re gonna have a hell of a night with our new wife~” 

Tag List: @ghoulgeousimmaculate @britany1997 @6lostgirl6

[save-me-phantom-ghoul]

Had a break down and spiralled into some old insecurities, so why not comfort yourself through projecting onto your favorite lil guy :3

Content Warnings! : lots of talk of self deprecation, mentions and depictions of self harm, break downs

If I missed anything please let me know and I'll add it to the warnings for future viewers

Right anyways here's 1k words of phantom ghoul being mentally ill

Ah, Thats.. Not right

It wasn't supposed to have him do this, it was supposed to be quick and easy, just fill out the quiz and hit submit. This page shouldnt have popped up.

What happened? what did he do wrong? He filled everything out right, got almost all the answer right. He did it right, why was it wrong.

His face started to ache with the furrow in his brows and frown at his lips, his eyes darting back and forth trying to piece together what could've gone wrong, where did he mess it up. It was at the start wasn't it. He thought the prompt sounded wrong, but nothing else was popping up when he refilled the information.

An ugly feeling started pooling in his stomach, his throat felt raw. Quickly exiting out of the page, and opening it back up, he tried clicking on the test again.

Nope. He's officially, royally, fucked up. Unable to do anything or figure something out he starts to panic.

Why is this happening, he did it right. He was supposed to do it right. It was supposed to be easy. Everyone else did it just fine. Why didnt he. Why couldnt he do it right, he can't do anything right, always fucking up, always doing it wrong, always messing up someone else's day with having them help him, always angering people because he couldn't do a simple task.

It wasn't your fault.

He can't do anything right. why does he even try.

Trying is all someone can do.

He knew it would've messed it up and it did.

You did what you thought was right.

It wasn't right!

Shut up! it wasn't right and it's your fault!

Take some fucking responsiblity for once!

You couldn't figure out something so simple, it's easy, why couldn't you do it!?

...

He's tired of this.

Of here.

He grabs his phone from where it got tossed on his bed, opening Aurora and his' messages

Mr.Bug: rory I messed it up:(

Mrs.Bug: the test?

Mr.Bug: yeah, I don't know what happened

Mr.Bug: I struggled to sign in and then had to sit through the most mind numbing 30minutes of ai voice speach ever and when I finished the test it wanted me to pay like, 100 dollars :((

Mrs.Bug: pits Ant how did you do that 😭

Mr.Bug: Idk! D:

Mrs.Bug: I'm so sorry, phantom, we'll figure it out tomorrow with the group and stuff

Mr.Bug: okay 😞

The sound of his head hitting the wall behind him nearly echoes in the silence of his room. He feels his throat tighten, and his body tense. He doesn't want to cry, he hates crying. It makes his head hurt and his face swell.

He bites his lip in a useless attempt to stave off the break down crawling up his throat. And with the first few tears the carefully curated dam breaks, his hand coming up to rake through his black and white rats nest of a mane, the greasy feeling of unwashed hair making him feel worse. his body shaking, aching in the strain of being quiet.

The walls of the ghouls rooms were pretty well soundproofed, any inside noise thoroughly muffled to near perfect muteness. But he didn't want to risk the off chance that the others grew super hearing. Or his room specifically, just wasn't soundproofed. Knowing his luck one or the other would end up being right. So he kept quite, muffling his strained sobbing behind his hands and a blanket.

His mind goes on a whirlwind of self deprecating thoughts. This has happened to many times, he's been here for to short of a time for that many faults to stack so high. It towers over him, over Swiss, or Aether, even over Mountain, in his mind.

His mind quiets, his body relaxes and hands slide down his face. Deep breaths, blink back the tears, grab your phone and at least warn Aether of your fuck up.

He does so, shakely reopening his phone, this time to Aether and his' messages. The devices clock glaring an ugly 12:34am at him.

Mr.Bug: me when I break down over a silly little test because I managed to fuck it up and you'll have to help me fix it somehow tomorrow :,3

AetherEther: tbh, not that surprised 😅

AetherEther: I'll help you tomorrow

Mr.Bug: I'm so so sorry :(

AetherEther: it's alright

He was hoping for some positive, understanding words. Hoping the way he said it would ease the disappointment. Well, he got the understanding part.

It hated how his eyes swelled with tears as he read the responding messages. Throwing the headphones he had around his neck to the end of the bed and yanking at his smooth horns. Fucking Pits! Not surprised. Not. fucking. surprised.

Oh he knew the older quint didn't mean it like that, he really did, but his mind read the words and all of his insecurities roared. He clenched his teeth and pulled his horns harder.

The ache was a nice distraction from the horrible feeling of crying, but it wasn't enough. He needed more, he needed something sharper, stronger, longer lasting. He wanted-... No

No you can't do that, you promised her you wouldn't, you're better than that. It's been so long, you've done so well you can't ruin that over a stupid test.

Something else then, his nails, his fingers. His hands fall from his achey head to his bare shoulder, digging right above his shoulder blade and scraping up. His nails were to dull in this half glamoured form to break his skin, but the pressure on the muscle paired with the gritting of his teeth was close enough.

He hoped it'd bruise

He wants it to bruise

Do it on your forearm so they see

He digs his fingers into the back of his shoulder, next to where they had ended their journey up.

His nails dug in a bit more than the pads of his fingers this time, a sharper, more welcomed pain

Yes that was a bit better, he wanted more of that, needed more of that kind of pain

A rather harsh sob broke past his clenched teeth, and he curled in on himself. He digs his thumb nail, longer than the other due to a nail picking habit, into the underside of his upper arm. The sting of it was sharper and longer lasting than the previous tries.

As he dug the nail in, anger filled his body. He couldnt do anything right and they all expected that of him. It was expected. Lords below he really was useless. He was tired of this, he wanted to go home.

Wherever that was.

He doubted it was here. He didn't know where else home would be, the pits definitely weren't, here wasn't.. So where did he belong.

Did he belong?

What use was he to the world if he couldn't even do something so simple?

Please, he wanted a home.

Lords please, he needed to belong somewhere.

Let me be needed.

[varteeny1234]

POSTING THIS ON TUMBLR DOT COM :D

Summary:

Marma1ade flipped through the pages of yet another spellbook. She knew already that there would be nothing about the void or its magic, especially not about how it affected people. But still, she needed a distraction from the weird feeling it was giving her. If the void needed to be fed, then it would scream. Marm knew this much. It would scream at her, and only her, until she let herself fall down into its grasp and be consumed, a willing sacrifice. A tradition, at this point- they almost had a whole system. But the void had been silent for days, now, not so much as a faint ring or a misplaced block anywhere. ~ Marm is hungry.

Words: 5671

Chapter: 1/2

Warnings (PLEASE READ): Temporary character death, graphic depictions of violence, described nausea but no vomiting, intense blood and gore, cannibalism and all the emotions that come with that, extreme guilt

No romantic ships, but centers Avid & Marm's friendship :D

Marma1ade flipped through the pages of yet another spellbook. She knew already that there would be nothing about the void or its magic, especially not about how it affected people. But still, she needed a distraction from the weird feeling it was giving her.

The writing in her book blurred in her vision, the words not sticking. She must have re-read this section about six or seven times, now. That twinge in her gut wouldn't go away, the light ache in her teeth just enough to be a bother. The void hadn't actually done anything, really, but somehow she just knew that it was the reason she was feeling ill. If only she knew how to cure it, or how to get the void to tell her how to cure it.

If the void needed to be fed, then it would scream. Marm knew this much. It would scream at her, and only her, until she let herself fall down into its grasp and be consumed, a willing sacrifice. A tradition, at this point- they almost had a whole system. But the void had been silent for days, now, not so much as a faint ring or a misplaced block anywhere.

If this illness kept up for another few days, she'd go and talk to someone else about it. It had only started that very morning, so it couldn't be any immediate effects of void contact. More likely, there was just something weird stuck in her code from when she fell last time. Repeatedly falling into the void like that likely wasn't good for her.

At first, it had actually felt like when she was hungry. Unfortunately, eating a full meal hadn't done anything for either the twinge or the ache, and so she'd crossed hunger off of the list of potential maladies this could be. And now, virtually every cure she could think of- respawn included- had been tested and proved fruitless, so all that was left was to busy herself with random tasks to just give herself something to do.

Marm sighed, flipping the page.

She still didn't really remember what that section had said.

~~~~

Evening fell over the Mangrove swamp, the last rays of sunlight sparkling on the many pools of water and the amethyst crystals in the ground, a faint breeze making the vines rustle and the branches of the trees sway ever-so-slightly. Marm was still feeling the weird feeling, and if anything, it had only gotten worse as time passed. She didn't know what to do. She gripped her fishing rod tighter. After spending most of the day poring over her books, and gaining nothing from them, she figured that fishing for lily pads was a better use of her time.

What she hadn't anticipated was that being outside, closer to the void, would make her hands and feet spark with magic.

And not even her natural swamp magic- her gifted void magic. Shining silver sparkles, resembling stars, danced at the tips of her blackened fingers and toes. They fell to the ground below her and fizzled out, but Marm wondered why her void magic was manifesting even more physically.

"Oh, what do you want from me? What is happening? Do you even know?" Marm asked aloud. If anyone was listening, they might have assumed she was talking to herself. For all Marm herself knew, the void wasn't listening to her at all and she was just talking to herself.

As she expected, the only response she received was silence. The void was usually silent when it didn't want something.

No matter how much she racked her brain, she couldn't figure out why the void made her ill if it didn't want something.

A short time later, a tug on her fishing line brought her out of her own head. It was a fish, a salmon. Marm slumped over, and added it to the others. She recast her line, and continued to wait. When she did, though, she realized that the sky had darkened significantly since she last looked at it. She should probably go to sleep, soon- maybe rest was what she needed?

The fishing line came back up with a small scrap of leather attached to it.

Marm got up and retired to bed for the night. As she closed her eyes, she realized with a frown that she wasn't nearly relaxed enough to sleep. Her illness was still bothering her, enough so that she was too uncomfortable to sleep.

Oh, well. She could just lie here and hope for the best...

~~~~

The next morning, Marm awoke with a barely choked-back scream. 

Her jaw felt like it had been broken and then put back together again, and she only realized she'd bitten her lip when she tasted blood. Opening her mouth made the stabbing feeling oh so much worse. 

The little sleep she'd gotten last night was interrupted by fits of discomfort, and the constant clenching and unclenching of her jaw had added soreness on top of the full-blown agony that she was currently experiencing. The feeling in her gut was almost worse than that; she could barely stand up with the help of the windowsill. Her hands and feet were itching where the void had infected them, and she didn't need a mirror to know that her eyes had darkened like they always did when she used her void magic. 

Her feet didn't want to be stood on, clearly, since her legs gave out underneath her and she was left with her elbow keeping her upright, hanging on the windowsill and leaning up against the wall. Gently, gently, she let herself slide back down onto the floor. 

For a period of time whose exactness was unknown to Marm, she lay there on the floor of her small hut, curled up and clenching her fists around handfuls of the fabric of her dress. Eventually, the pain subsided enough for her to think clearly-ish. 

Oh, she felt so hungry. 

She dragged herself over the floor to the chest in the corner, where she was able to find a few pieces of cooked fish. Normally, they would have been quite appetizing, but for whatever reason, the thought of eating cooked meat was nauseating to Marm. But none of the raw meat that she had looked good either. 

Maybe she could force herself to eat a piece of fish, to tide herself over until she could find whatever it was she needed to eat. Or she could call someone else to help. That might work, actually- Marm put the fish away, but before she could reach her comm unit to send an emergency help message to everyone else, a loud voice called from above the island. The itching sensations grew worse, and Marm absentmindedly licked her lips. 

"Marma1ade!" The cheerful voice belonged to none other than Avid, founder of OSSHA. The reason why the void was hungry. The reason why she was hungry...

"Marm? Where are you? Are you in your hut- oh my gosh, are you okay?" 

The door to the hut swung open, Avid not having bothered to knock, but Marm didn't really care. Someone had come to find her, and he would help her. His bright magenta eyes were full of worry, but she didn't pay that much mind. 

HE was here. AVID WAS HERE. SHE NEEDED HIM-

Marm lurched forwards, unable to stop herself, another pained gasp ripping from her throat. She knocked into Avid, and the two fell down into the swamp. 

They landed with a splat, and Avid grimaced. "Agh, Marm, what the heck? You got my fur all muddy! What's going on with you?" 

If she could think straight, she might have responded, but she was completely overwhelmed by the fact that she knew what she needed now, and she could get it. Her fingers dug into the slimy mud and muck of the swamp. 

"Marm? Should I call someone for help? Uh... your eyes are all funny." Avid was standing, now, above her. His leg was within her grasp, she saw. She reached forwards, gripping onto it, as tight as she could. But before she could latch her teeth into his flesh, he slipped out of her grasp. Damned mud. "Let go of me!" Avid stumbled backwards.

Quickly! She needed to act quickly, now. Before he flew away again, leaving her here alone, to starve-

"Something's wrong, I know, but you're acting really weird, and I don't like it. I don't like anything to do with the void or your new weird magic, you know this! So please, enlighten me, what's going on-" 

The second time Marm tackled him, she made sure that he wasn't able to get away. She landed on top of him, seeing his eyes widen in pure terror as she bit down into his left shoulder. She pinned down his free arm with one hand, stopping him from fighting her off.

Blood filled her mouth, and monkey fur, and it tasted good. She needed this, she needed to feed, she needed more! 

The first chunk Marm had taken out of him was mostly skin and fur, so she took another bite, relishing the metallic taste. The stuff underneath his skin was way better.

The last dregs of guilt she felt for hunting her friend like this, like he was simply prey, evaporated into nothing as the ache in her jaw began to fade. She swallowed what she'd bitten off. Her stomach still hurt a little bit- she hadn't eaten her fill yet. But she would... oh, she would. Even if Avid's fur felt weird in her mouth. His screaming (the sound not unlike her own, just before he arrived) was background noise as Marm tore another piece out of his shoulder. Her teeth were a lot sharper than she remembered. 

That was a good thing!

Her void magic was sparking all over the place, the tiny stars now shooting in all directions like fireworks. The itching wasn't really an itch anymore. Instead, she could just feel raw power flowing around her limbs. She was hardly in any pain or discomfort at all anymore. In her short distraction, Avid tried weakly to push her away with his injured arm, so she promptly grabbed it and bit off half of his hand. The small bones crunched nicely, splintering between her teeth. The other half went soon after. 

She'd made a complete mess of both herself and Avid. Both of them were covered in blood now, along with the swamp muck. Avid's left arm was completely mangled, and he wasn't really screaming anymore, but he was paler than Marm had ever seen him before, and was breathing heavily. Marm wondered how his ribs would taste. 

She tore open his jacket and shirt with her nails, which were also considerably sharper than she recalled. His chest was rapidly moving up and down, so she didn't get the best first bite out of his ribcage, but the crunch of bone cracking was satisfying to both hear and feel. 

Peeling back his skin, she could see his ribs even better. A voice in her head, one that she figured was the last of her sanity, reminded her that Avid would in fact die almost immediately if she ate any of his vital organs. Well, then, she'd save those for last. 

The meat on his ribs, though, she would eat. First, though, she bit off Avid's right arm above the elbow to incapacitate it, then used her now-free hand to grab a rib and pull. 

Past-her had thought the sound of a rib cracking a little bit was nice, the pop that the complete break made when it snapped off was enough for her to devour the rib completely with hardly a second thought. This bone was a lot harder to chew than Avid's hand bones, but no matter- her void magic shattered the thing inside her mouth like it was glass. 

Marm decided that she liked the taste of his ribs better than his arms, so carefully, one by one, she began to break off pieces of them. She left about a third of them, so he'd be alive just a little longer- he could respawn when she was finished. 

His severed arm went down decently fast, and since it was, well, severed, Avid at least didn't feel it when she tore off sections of his muscles into strips. 

Marm would never eat regular food again, now, this was too good for her to ever go back... why would she ever need to eat things like carrots and fish when Avid was here? He would come back after this, perfectly fine, like this had never happened, like Marm had never tackled him to the ground and eaten him alive piece by piece until she was satisfied and her hunger had completely gone away. 

She let her bloodied hands fall onto his chest. A weak thumping sound came from just below them. 

Avid's heart. 

How did a person's heart taste? Even before she'd gotten her void magic, she'd wondered once or twice what it would be like to bite someone's heart. Well... now, she had the perfect opportunity, provided she did it quickly. Avid wasn't going to stay alive much longer. 

With more care than she'd taken at all so far, she pried open the front of his ribcage, and reached inside, letting her hand hover for just a moment over his warm beating heart, feeling it, and then as fast as she could, wrapping her hand around it and pulling it out of his chest and forcing the entire thing into her mouth and down her throat. 

It tasted of the iron in his blood, and was wonderfully savory, with just a hint of sweetness to it. In her hand, it had been deliciously warm, and soft while blood leaked from the severed arteries.

What remained of Avid disintegrated into dust underneath her, but the pool of blood stayed, and so did the delicious feeling of being full. Marm closed her eyes, basking in it. 

She could feel the blood and gore underneath her nails, and streaked down her face, and all over her dress and in her hair. 

But the satisfaction of a good meal was worth it. Her void magic wasn't acting up anymore, her body was back to the same way it had been before- save for her unnaturally sharp teeth, at least. 

She ran her tongue over the sharp points. She could taste the last remnants of her meal, proof of what she'd done-

Oh...

The magical high or whatever had fueled her while she fed (fed!) drained out of her. With it gone, the full weight of what she'd just done to Avid hit her like a hammer. Suddenly, the feeling of blood underneath her nails made her want to throw up. 

That wasn't an ideal situation, since she would probably just get hungry again and this would happen all over-

She all but threw herself into one of the water pools, scrubbing her skin clean of Avid's blood, all the while repeating to herself in her mind over and over again it wasn't your fault. You weren't in control of yourself. It wasn't your fault! 

A sob choked its way out of her throat. Then another, and another. 

Would it have been better if she just stayed hungry and in pain? If Avid had never had to be eaten alive? He had to have respawned by now- where was he? Was he back at the Jungle kingdom, still mentally recovering? Had he gone off to find someone else, with the goal of trapping her somewhere she couldn't hurt anyone again? Marm realized she minded the latter option less than she probably should. 

She just couldn't let herself be near any other of her friends, not when she could lose control of her own mind and body and attack them like this! 

Looking in the water below her, she caught sight of her reflection. Even in the blurriness, she knew she looked just as much of a mess as she felt... and, she noticed, her eyes were back to their regular, ordinary purple. They appeared completely untouched by void magic.

Marm didn't want to go back into her hut yet. Instead, she crawled underneath the roots of one of her trees. The sprawling limbs and thick, leafy vines shielded her from view- not that anyone would be coming over to see her, if Avid told everyone else what had happened, that he'd been ambushed and then eaten alive by Marm, and that for their own safety the Mangrove swamp should be avoided at all costs, and Marm herself was dangerous-

She hadn't even noticed her breathing had picked up. She was getting dizzy, too. Her thoughts continued to spiral, all she could see was Avid's terrified expression when she attacked him and all she could hear was the sound of him screaming and she couldn't remember if he'd said anything or if he was in too much pain to form words at all. Her hands found their way to her hair and were tugging at the long, messy curls, the lily pad she wore as a hat and the orchid flowers behind her ears had fallen out at some point, the last things that might have made her look less scary. 

The taste of blood was sickening. She forced her mouth to open, spitting out a glob of her own saliva mixed with the blood dripping from where she'd cut her tongue on her own too-sharp teeth. The sight of it as it hit the water and dissolved sent another wave of guilt flooding through her systems. She slammed her body into a clump of roots. Tears were flowing freely down her cheeks. Her hands were shaking, her teeth were chattering, her scalp tingled where she'd pulled her hair, she was still hyperventilating.

What had she done? What had she become?

~~~~

An unknown amount of time had passed when the sound of something other than Marm's own crying or the wind rustling in the leaves reached her ears. Unlike earlier, when it was Avid's screeching that found her, it was the faint whistling of an elytra and the whoosh of a rocket. 

Still crying, wiping snot on her sleeve, she quieted down. Footsteps softly padded around the area- only one pair, though. Marm would bet good money that whoever it was was staring at the puddle of blood next to the staircase of her hut. Hopefully, this person would assume it was just another accident and there was no need to investigate further. 

Sadly, luck was not on Marm's side. The footsteps grew louder, coming closer and closer towards the tree she was hiding under. They stopped just outside of the cover. 

Then, they spoke, and the sound of their soft, gentle voice made Marm feel like her stomach had dropped down into her lower gut and her heart skipped a beat. Her head snapped up, staring in the direction their voice had come from.

"Marm? Are you in there?"

She half-gasped, half-sobbed. 

Why would Avid be here? Why would he be even want to see her, let alone be actively looking for her? He should have been somewhere far away, where she couldn't hurt him! She didn't answer his question- she was almost scared to breathe. 

Avid didn't pull back the curtain of vines that shielded her from his view. "Marm? I... I really need to talk to you. You scared me real bad!" He chuckled. She couldn't see his face, but she imagined him awkwardly trying to laugh off the tense situation, and a hint of a smile tugged at the corner of her lip. "Uh... you're, like, yourself again, right? You're not planning on attacking me out of nowhere?"

"'M sorry," she murmured. Her voice was just as shaky as she'd expected it to be. Marm didn't trust herself to say anything, and especially didn't trust herself enough to pull back the vines, to properly see Avid. Being probably okay meant that for all either of them knew, seeing him would just trigger whatever weird void magic that had been active before... but then again, she thought, last time it had been triggered by just Avid's voice. Maybe it'd really, actually be okay for her to see him?

But because Avid was Avid, and he was kind of dumb, he took that as a go-ahead to crawl into the pool and sit right down in front of her. To his credit, he still looked a little shaky, but his eyes looked more worried than anything else. She was still covered in his blood. That at the very least was certainly unsettling.

Marm didn't know what had happened, and she didn't want Avid to ask, she didn't even want to talk. Her head hurt and she just wanted to curl up and hide away for... until she felt safe letting herself be around other people. Which would be a long time. Avid was out of luck, if he wanted answers. The void still hadn't told her anything. 

The two sat together in silence. Avid was fidgeting. Marm still had her chin tucked into her knees, eyes cast downwards, occasionally glancing upwards to see if Avid did anything. He didn't, except look confused, but what he could be thinking about was a mystery. 

Suddenly, he sucked in a breath. Marm looked up properly, tired eyes drooping, but she was looking. Avid opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again and spoke. 

"So... I'm going to assume it was something involving void stuff. Something you probably didn't know about before, like, today. Is that right?"  At least he had the courtesy to ask a yes-or-no question. She nodded plainly, and did her best to give him a deadpan stare. He hummed. 

"Yes-or-no questions only, for now?" Marm nodded. "Alright... yeah, that's fair. So the void or its magic inside you or something relating to those things made you go all weird, and you didn't know. Did it start this morning, when I came to see you?" She shook her head. "Huh. Within the past couple of days? I'd have noticed if you were acting weird before then." Yes.

While Avid thought over that, Marm began to trace small patterns into the mud. Under the water, though it was foggy enough she couldn't see it, the mud was soft beneath her fingertips. It helped to ground her. 

Avid started to talk, again. "I'll be honest, I still have no idea what the void could have done to you, but I don't think it meant to hurt you, because it really, really seemed to want me to come back here." 

Now that wasn't something Marm expected to hear- she kept running her fingers through the mud, but the confusion had to have been obvious on her face. 

"Oh, yeah. As soon as I respawned, I was, well, a little bit out of it, you know? But the void didn't like something I was doing, because it started to make an infernal screeching noise after about fifteen minutes. I remembered you saying that that meant the void was probably hungry, but I wasn't about to throw myself into the void to feed it or anything, so I didn't. I was worried about you, of course, but also wasn't sure whether I wanted to come back here just yet, in case I'd get, well, attacked." 

Marm silently thanked him for using the word attacked instead of eaten. 

Avid sighed. "It didn't freaking shut up. I couldn't do much around my base with the noise, and I don't even remember what I was doing when it happened, but I tried to jump down into the Underswamp. And, well, I missed. I could've sworn I put a landing pad there. But I fell into the void, and nothing happened other than I respawned again." He threw his hands in the air, frustrated. "So I knew then at least that the void wasn't trying to kill me. I decided, why the heck not, I'll come and see you. If you're feeling better, then you might be able to help me, and if not, then I'd probably figure something out." 

He looked up and grabbed a leaf off of one of the vines growing around them. He held it for a moment, then started rubbing at it. "As soon as I saw the sign that declared I was officially in the Mangrove kingdom, the void stopped its racket. I looked around, but I didn't see you anywhere, but I did see the... mess. There were some smears on the ground that led over here, and I guess you know the rest."

Once again, neither of them said anything. 

That was certainly a strange story that Avid had told. She'd been the only one the void ever tried to scream at, but it went to Avid? And it wanted him to come see her? 

Almost as if it felt bad for doing whatever it was that it had done to her. 

With some of Avid's side of the story, Marm could make a little bit more sense out of this situation, even if it still wasn't much. If the void felt bad about Marm's illness, then it wasn't likely it had done anything on purpose. 

What did she know about the void? All of it was from her own experience- none of the information on it could be saved in any books, and she'd looked. 

The void was sentient. It lived below the lowest building height. It could transmit corrupted messages from other people, and it screamed at them when it needed something, which was usually a sacrifice, because it needed to consume people to keep the balance. 

Wait a fucking second. 

It needed... to consume people. It got hungry. Only a person's sacrifice could satisfy it. 

Marm's eyebrow twitched, and her stomach turned over. The nausea had come back full-force. She swallowed back the vomit, but she couldn't stop the new wave of tears that poured down her cheeks. Her hand that was under the water in the mud clenched a fistful of the stuff, and she felt it seep out from between her fingers. Suddenly, the feeling was too close to that of Avid's blood, and she shook out her hand, rinsing the mud off. Her other hand came up to her mouth, and she let out a single sob. 

Somehow, the connection between her and the void had wound up with her gaining its need to eat. Its need to eat people. 

But Marm wasn't some eldritch being under the world, she was just a player that got caught up in the world of ancient magic. She wasn't made to do that sort of thing- 

Only she was, now, she thought. Her teeth and nails were so much sharper, and stronger, too. She'd been changed. 

What would she do? When the void was hungry, she simply fed it, and everything went back to normal. It got hungry regularly... would she feel that way as well? Every once in a while, have to consume the body of one of her friends so that she didn't suffer from whatever horrible things would happen if she starved? 

"Marm?" 

Avid was leaning towards her, his arm outstretched.

He- he still wanted to comfort her, to make sure she was okay. She was, physically. She didn't think she was going to end up attacking him again. If her theory was correct, it would be a while before she needed to eat again. Her arm shook as she took Avid's hand. 

Still unable to get any proper words out, she opted to pull herself through the mud and water and sit next to him. 

"Do you just want to sit here for a while?"

Yes. 

~~~~

Marm sifted through all the thoughts in her head, trying and failing to come up with the best way to phrase hey, Avid, sorry about spontaneously jumping on you and literally eating you! It might have to become a semi-regular thing, if I'm right! 

Because saying it like that, while it might have been accurate, wasn't happening. 

"Hm." She sighed. Avid was fiddling with his leaf again. At her quiet hum, he glanced over. 

"You feeling better? Do you think you can talk again?" He murmured. 

Taking a deep breath, she managed to croak out, "Yeah... thank you, Avid." 

He gave her a smile. "Of course, that's what friends are for. Um... I'm ready to talk about... you know. The thing that happened," he stuttered. 

"What, my void magic having the unfortunate side effect of making me lose control of myself and eating my friend alive? That thing?" Marm raised her eyebrows, deadpanning. Avid rolled his eyes. 

"Uh-huh. That. So, even if we know it was your void magic that did it, I'm drawing a complete blank on why it did that, do you have any ideas?" 

Another deep breath. "...Actually, I think I do." 

"Wait, really?" His eyes widened. 

"I think- at least, I'm pretty sure- that the void's need to eat somehow transferred over to me through the magic. I don't know why, or how, just that my teeth are sharper and my hands are stronger, and seeing you this morning when I had been feeling the hunger for a day literally made me lose my mind." 

He whistled. "Wow. That's... wow! It makes a little, teeny-tiny bit of sense, though? Wait... the void has to- ugh, I hate this- eat somewhat often, according to you anyways, or else it'll start going after bridges and things. 'The balance will be disrupted' and all that. Right?" 

Marm had a suspicion she knew what his question was. "Yeah. Unfortunately, I do think that I'll have to eat every once in a while. I don't think I could handle it if not, nothing I tried could get rid of the feeling- and it only ever got worse." 

"That must have been- that sounds awful, I'm really sorry you had to go through that," Avid gently rubbed the back of Marm's hand. "If it helps, I don't hold it against you for any of it. I'm never going to be a fan of the void, but you're still my friend, and that won't change because you were corrupted by some ancient, powerful entity!" 

Strangely, he looked guilty for a second. It was gone so fast she assumed she imagined it. She cared more about Avid's real, verbal assurance that he was still her friend. He wouldn't have come over here to see her if he didn't want to be, again, but hearing him say it out loud still solidified it for her. 

"I'm glad. I was a little worried you'd be mad at me, or at the very least be uncomfortable around me."

Even so, just because he didn't hold any hard feelings for an accident didn't mean he'd be okay with any... future incidents. Marm would still need to eat. If Avid wasn't okay with it, she could probably find someone else to help her, but explaining the situation to anyone else didn't sound fun.

Oh, well... better to ask now and get it over with. 

"...I have a question. It's okay if the answer is no," she began. Marm carefully considered how she phrased her next sentence. "I told you already that I'm probably going to get hungry again. Would you... ugh. Hang on." She tugged on a strand of her hair. "If, or when I start feeling weird again, could you... help me?" 

Avid bit his lip. "Well, I guess it does make sense to ask me. It's alright with me, I think, as long as I get a quick heads-up beforehand and all that. I don't really want to be surprised. That part wasn't very fun- who am I kidding, none of it was fun. It hurt a lot. But if it's something you need, I'm not opposed to an arrangement of sorts." 

Marm teared up again. She didn't deserve a friend like Avid. "Oh, thank you! I don't know what I'd do without you- of course I'll let you know. It was a full day at least before it got bad enough to hurt, I'll definitely be coherent enough to know what's happening before I lose control." She squeezed his hand once and rested her head on his shoulder, hiding her face, relieved. 

"Wait, it was hurting you? You never mentioned that part!" Avid's voice was incredulous. 

"...Oops?" 

"Marm!" He dropped his head on top of hers. "You were dealing with pain on top of weird void corruption? How bad was it?"

"When you get hungry enough to really, really feel it, only ten times worse. I was running on pure adrenaline when you found me." 

His silence must have been that of horror, because he tightened his grip on her hand just enough for her to notice. 

"I'll come see you before I let it get anywhere close to that bad, don't worry, Avid. It just feels a little weird in the beginning, mild discomfort at the most. I'm fine," she tried. He grumbled a bit in response. 

"Stupid void, why does it have to do this..." 

She snorted. Avid really did hold a burning hatred for all things relating to the void, and it seemed that every new thing he learnt about it only fueled that. Marm herself only really disliked this one specific side effect of her void magic!

It would all be okay in the end, though. Avid was there for her, he was her friend, and he would let her eat him when she needed. 

She smiled into his shoulder. "Thank you, again. I'm glad we're friends." 

"Always, Marm." He shifted, moving so he could hold Marm's hand with both of his. "I've got you."

They stayed there for a while longer, in the mud, under the mangrove tree, hidden by the vines. 

[nightcolorz]

Hiii. I love your acc and the analyses you've made of TVC characters; reading your posts has expanded and helped me articulate the ideas I already had. Anne Rice as an author was very revealing, I mean, by reading her books and analyzing the characters and their dynamics, you get a lot of information about her as a person. That's very interesting. I think all authors put a bit of themselves into their works, but with Anne Rice it feels more personal, maybe because there are quite a few books following the same characters. What do you think?

omg thank you so much 🥹❤️ the makes me so happy. I agree wholeheartedly with ur take on Anne rice. The books are suuuper personal, sometimes to the point where I almost feel like I shouldn’t have access to them 😭 like I’m reading someone’s weird diary. I think this was because her writing functioned as her only outlet. like iwtv was so visceral and sad bcus it was such a raw unfiltered expression of her grief, and the rest of the books all follow the same format (to varying degrees of quality lol).

When it comes to the characters, she was open about how every character is in some way representative of a part of her (especially Lestat and Louis). U can analyze for days how Louis and lestats evolutions r akin to witnessing evolutions of Anne rices mental health, Louis her former self insert created during probably the darkest time in her life later becoming a representation of what she considers the worst parts of herself that she is ashamed of and being basically cut from the series, and Lestat going from an embodiment of her fraught relationship with her husband in iwtv to in tvl a power fantasy who she wishes she was like to at the same time a mouth piece for her existential dread and loneliness and anxieties

The way that lestats religious crisis and manic breakdown from Memnoch to blood canticle aligns perfectly with Anne rice’s own religious crisis and sudden shift in her work is so crazy to me😭 and then there’s Anne rice literally using Lestat as a blatant mouth piece to scream at the audience in the iconic blood canticle opening monologue of course, how could we forget. A lot of the time the personal nature of these books makes the technical quality of them worse, but even still it is one of the major reasons why I love them so much. Part of it is that reading something so personal and unfiltered, where u get the impression that the author wasn’t thinking at all about how it would come off to people while writing it, makes it feel almost more real to me? Or more authentic? Reading tvc sometimes makes me feel like I’m reading actual history or personal accounts from real people. And the bad writing and offensiveness and heaps of bullshit and the pages of unrelated tangents adds to this in a way 😭. Like yeah this is exactly what reading a biography by a hundreds of years old vampire would be like lmao.

I love interpreting themes in these books so much because I often feel like Anne rice didn’t place them there on purpose. She had a very “I’ll just write whatever is in my mind and the themes will happen on there own” approach, and they did! and for someone like me analyzing it is super rewarding. Figuring stuff out that the author wasn’t even aware of, basically. Tvc are rich with meaning in a way that only these books are, and the personal nature and the lack of thought into meaning or themes is I think majorly responsible. For me when it comes to fiction, I like to do the work. And Anne rice throwing her personal as hell freak sex vampire yaoi with the most agonizing portrayals of trauma and mental illness ever no editing no forethought out into the world definitely gives me room to do the work 😭

Also, I tend to really only enjoy art if I feel like it is a messy reflection of the creator. I’m not sure why but I can never really get into something unless I can see some of the creators flaws or baggage reflected in the work 😭 I feel like art isn’t rlly art to me if I don’t feel like a know the person who made it a little too well after seeing it. There’s something really special about finding out the worst parts of someone in a book, honestly. I love reading these and being like there is so much wrong with this woman and I know way too much about it 😭 she’s horrible but I’ve lived in her mind and I don’t wanna leave.

I admire in a way Anne rices unhinged abandon with how blatantly vent-like and unfiltered her books were (literally unedited 😭). She got extremely lucky making a career from it, typing out all her insane thoughts and feelings into gay vampires and becoming rich and famous. A girl can only dream for that life, I do that shit for free on a03. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered anything published that has the same energy as tvc in this way. The only thing that comes close would be like, a quotev fan fiction I read for laughs written by a ten year old in 2010 who is unintentionally revealing way too much to me about their semi concerning home life 😭. It’s wonderful! Thank u Anne rice for ur beautiful scary lack of shame u have given me so many things to write about on tumblr

[purrincess-chat]

For the writers truth or dare ask: 🌿❄️🍄

Give some advice on writer's block and low creativity

So, this is something I've actually been dealing with a lot over the past year. Some of it is out of my control, but the other side is just a general lack of motivation. Here are a few tips I've found that are helpful for me:

First, identify where your block is coming from. Is it because a scene isn't working and you don't know how to fix it? Is it because you don't know what to do next in the story? Is something else in your life stressing you out? Do you suffer from a mental illness that may be making you feel disconnected? Once you recognize what kind of block you're facing, you can find ways to overcome it.

The way you handle your block is going to depend on what kind of block it is. For me, I've been dealing with a lot of outside stress in my personal life that doesn't usually leave me with much mental energy to devote to writing or even some of my other hobbies. In cases like that, I've found it's best to be patient and kind to yourself. I've been working on managing my stress and taking breaks to fight the burn out. If this is the case for you, I can tell you it's sadly a slow process depending on your circumstances. Be kind to yourself, write when you can, and don't beat yourself up if you are struggling, it will only make it worse. Try to rebuild a habit of writing. Maybe set aside a certain time every day or every other day to write, even if you can only manage a few words. Building a habit will help you get back into the swing of things. If your daily life is too hectic to allow for that, then put the writing down and take care of your business. Sometimes things are just more important than writing, and you shouldn't feel guilty for putting aside a hobby. Life is hard. You'll get there.

If your struggle comes from being stuck on a particular scene, I have a couple of remedies that usually work for me. One way is to skip ahead and bridge the gap later, so for me if a conversation between characters isn't going how I want, or what happens more to me is filling in exposition between conversations, I might skip ahead to the next portion of the scene or chapter that I can clearly picture in my head and work on that for a while. Often times I find when I go back to bridge the two sections later, it's a lot easier seeing where exactly I need to end up, and I can usually fix the problem with a sentence or two that was previously tripping me up. The second option that I also sometimes run into is if I follow a particular thread and find out it's a dead end or just not flowing how I want, I might cut a chunk of the most recent bits I've written. Sometimes I delete it, other times I just cut it and paste it either further down on the same doc or by itself onto a blank doc. That way if I decide I want to keep it or add it back later, it's not totally gone, but sometimes going back and rewriting a particular bit that isn't quite working how I want gives me a fresh start to try something else. Writing sometimes is throwing things at a wall until something sticks. It's okay to delete something you've already written or cut it. In fact, oftentimes it's needed. It can be frustrating when you realize something you've spent a lot of time on just isn't working, and you have to cut it, but in the end, if it will fix the issue, it's unfortunately time to swallow your pride and just cut it.

On the other hand, if your block is coming from just not knowing what to do next in the story, I have a few options to re-spark inspiration. First, I recommend rereading over what you've written. Get a sense for what you already have on the page or in your notes. Next, revisit the source material you're writing from if you're writing fic. Sometimes I find that putting myself back into that world helps me put myself back into the characters heads, and sometimes getting a renewed sense for who the characters are and what drives them can help me figure out how they would react in a given situation or what choices they might make. Third, ask yourself what your end goal is, then work on figuring out what you need to get your characters or plot there. I know a lot of people don't like outlining, but if you find yourself running into this issue a lot, it might be worthwhile to figure out a system that works for you. I utilize a number of different kinds of outlines when I write. I usually start with a bare bones outline and summarize each chapter in a sentence or two. What is the main focus of each chapter? After that I work on a more detailed outline and fill in the blanks, focusing on what I want for each character throughout the story. What challenges will they face, what lessons do they need to learn, what flaws are they going to overcome, and how are they going to grow? Once I know that, I work on putting them in situations that will accomplish that. Sometimes, when you're making things up as you go with no real plan, it can be easy to write yourself into a corner. Planning a little bit ahead of time can help you see where you're going and hopefully avoid pitfalls. If you've already fallen into a pitfall, I'd recommend advice I gave earlier and go back to the point where things went wrong and cut the parts that aren't working and try a new approach. Writing takes patience, and you don't always get it right the first time. That's perfectly fine, just keep trying.

Some other remedies that work for me are taking time to clear my mind and refocus on the story I'm telling. I may go for a walk, or clean my room, or listen to a song that reminds me of the characters/story. I'm not the best example of it, but also sometimes reading other people's work (professional or otherwise) can spark inspiration, or studying the way they tell their story can help you figure out how to tell your story. Also, keep in mind that you're not going to crank out 3k every single day. Sometimes all you can manage is 500 words or even one sentence. That's fine. Every day is different. Just keep going. It's difficult to give a blanket piece of advice because everyone suffers differently. Hopefully any of this advice was helpful 😅

What's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

Ooo, so it depends. I have a lot of ideas all the time, and I love all of them in different ways for different reasons. I've been dipping my toes into the LoZ fandom lately, particularly the botw/totk side. I've been working on a Zelink fic that picks up right after botw ends and bridges the gap between botw and totk following how they began recovering from the calamity, so right now that is my dream fic, I suppose. I've also been working on my secret project for ML that I'm not quite ready to reveal yet, but it's another Adrinette centric story (surprise, surprise, Cat) where the reveal has happened and they're together, but things aren't as wonderful as they'd hoped. As for who will write them, ehhh me 😅 all of my ideas are things that I would write. But typically if I post about something publicly like in one of my brain dump posts, I don't mind if other people get inspired by the idea and want to write it. 🤷‍♀️

Share a head canon for one of your favorite ships/pairings

I'll give two because my brain lately is oscillating between love square and Zelink.

For the love square, I headcanon that Adrien would be the dad that wants to take his kids to do everything that he couldn't do as a kid, and Marinette has to reel them back in bc I don't care if it's fun for you, you can't take our five year old skydiving. Let's just go to Disneyland 🤦‍♀️

For Zelink, I headcanon that post botw, pre totk when Zelda is a teacher at the school in Hateno, that Link often brings her a picnic lunch, and they sit outside under a tree in the school yard and eat his cooking while talking about their day. I also hc that Zelda would absolutely rope him into teaching PE to the kids.

[sketchybardlings]

the brainrot continues (ref: this post)

since my dysgraphia is worse when I'm writing by hand I'll try to note down what all of this says (plus some extra stuff i couldn't fit on the page)

the basic premise of the Growing Pains au is that Headspace (and by extension Stranger) keep going on after the events of the good ending. even if you heal a great deal your old coping mechanisms and traumas don't just disappear. if anything they evolve to suit your new environment/life. they change. they Grow. which is where our friend Stranger seems to be right now. he's dealing with one of the worst things that can befall a young person(?) such as himself, Puberty. don't get me wrong its traumagenic ill-informed dream creature puberty but that's what it is regardless. with his specifically he's aging at the same rate as Sunny is himself, although he's 4 years behind his dreamer, making him 14 and Sunny (and the rest of the young faraway crew) 18, or 17 going on 18 if your being pedantic. this is mental and physical, maybe even metaphyical if you count how headspace is reacting to it.

on the physical side he's a clear amalgam of 12 year old and 16 year old traits, both of which taken from the last time sunny saw basil before the gap, and the first time he saw him after (+ notable traits from current day Basil/Sunny, like their scars, real and fake). Sunny doesn't really have to much of a concept of what basil looked like in the in-between (of how he looked for that matter) so headspace definitely has to fill in some gaps to try and give stranger a useable form, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. a lot of this trial and error leads to a lot of stretch marks(sorry about how badly drawn they were in the last post, they were a last minute addition), mostly on his arms and legs, straight up and down, making his very much 12-ish year old torso look a bit dwarfed next to his elongated limbs. don't think headspace has really figured out a way to make his torso any bigger, not without severely fucking up his organs in a way that cant be pleasant, so it seems to be waiting until he's big enough for the 16 yo one to make sense, but he's gonna look real weird in the mean time.

as for the mental its... an adjustment. he and Omori always knew a lot, had a lot of power and influence and experience, but they were still always mentally 12 yo, frankly so was Sunny after the incident. so once The Truth was out and Sunny started living his life again all of them kinda got shunted back into growing as people again. Sunny is overwhelmed, Omori is in denial, and Stranger is confused but accepting. what about the outline thing tho? that is headspace's doing. part of the reason Stranger didn't have outlines in the first place was to take away his recognizability, and the reason why everyone else had purple outlines was to tie their identities back to Mari, the fantasy of headspace is for her afterall, and what else to define everyone else but her signature color. this has not remained in future years tho, most everyone in headspace gaining their own signature hues, not excluding Stranger. he's started to gain very faint ones all over his body, getting more opaque in some areas, concentrating most on his eyelashes and flowers (his flower crown that fell off and settled on his shoulders). not sure witch color i want them yet, maybe even in the au that may not even be set yet, its not like he can rely on basil's color anymore, let alone mari's or any other person's. i'll keep tinkering on it and see what i can come up with. so that's what i have for the Growing Pains au, i still have a lot more on my mind and a lot of what ive said here is subject to change, so if you guys have any questions about this i would LOVE to hear them seriously. my askbox is open.

[cavalierious-whim]

Blessed Be the Soiled Shirt (NeuWrioLette)

Neuvillette's rut comes early and though he doesn't spend it with Wriothesley, Wriothesely still finds a way to help out. Part of 'By the Strange Pull'. Read here on AO3. Also, follow me here on Patreon!

--

He is in a mood. 

Up until this point, his ruts have been a minor annoyance, a relatively mild, biological need usually handled by squeezing his cock dry between his palms. Occasionally, he requires a partner. Once in a blue moon, his alpha rages enough to breed another full, but Neuvillette has always prided himself on holding himself in check, above those baser instincts. 

This time, his blood rages. His rut burns through his veins. He is frazzled beyond repair, cracking at the seams, his edges unraveling. Absurd. Annoying. He has work to get done but as he tries to read through reports the letters dance about the page as his vision swims. 

Sweat clings to his brow. He groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

He has no time for this. He already jerked off once earlier to no avail. Heat simmered through his veins despite a speedy orgasm, and he’s since maintained that slow boil throughout the entire day, burning the edges of his arousal even now. 

Oh, he’s needy. His alpha begs for more, begs for him to go out and seek someone willing to take his knot, and the worst part is that not just anyone will do. Neuvillette thinks of tanned skin and calloused fingers; of leather and tea, and a deep laugh. Broken and busted knuckles soothed beneath his fingers, and biting kisses that linger too long. 

His elbows settle onto his desk and he buries his face against his palms. “Pathetic,” he whines. “Archons, I’m so—” 

It wasn’t due for weeks. He’s so regular that a timepiece could be set by his cycle, and yet this rut snuck up on him, sneaking its teeth into his being before he could stop it. He would’ve asked. He had a plan. There would have been wining and dining, and a nice gift set of the finest teas before he propositioned Wriothesley as a rut-mate. 

And Wriothesley would have agreed, eagerly, and with a proverbial tail-wag. Neuvillette thinks that makes this entire thing worse. He can still seek him out, he can—

A morose groan as he tries to ignore his aching erection and further thoughts of Wriothesley. 

He turns back to his paperwork and ignores the curling of his gut. The sweat that drips down his face. Thoughts of Wriothesley’s bruising kisses, which only leave his cock twitching and harder than before. How perverse. Neuvillette is better than this. He’s practiced and proud, he’s a centuries-old dragon, not a slave to his instincts—

He grinds the heel of his hand against his tented erection because he’s so fucking desperate. 

A knock at his door causes him to jerk. He swallows, his throat dry. Gods, he needs water. He always needs water, but right now he really needs water—

“Neuvillette?”

Cold dread slithers down Neuvillete’s spine. Wriothesley. Just on the other side of his office door. His alpha begs him to tear it from the hinges and drag him inside. He stands abruptly and goes to the door—and just barely manages to stop short of it.

“Sedene said you were feeling under the weather so I thought I’d come and check on you.”

“I—” Where does Neuvillette even begin? Wriothesley isn’t a fool. Anyone within a hundred feet of this door would be able to smell it, him, his rut. The door is cold underneath his palm. “I’m managing,” he finally murmurs. 

A pause from the other side of the door. “Are you, though? You sound… well. You sound miserable.”

“A miscalculation. This was unexpected and I am ill-prepared.”

“I figured.” He what, now? Neuvillette peels back and stares at the stained wood of the door. “I didn’t come to stay. I didn’t think you’d… look, I brought you something. That’s all. It’ll help. I think. Maybe. I hope.”

Sigewinne must have sent him. Sedene likely sent for inhibitors, or some sort of tincture to lessen his rut. It’s a little too late for that but he’s willing to try anything at this point. His thoughts linger a little too long on Wriothesley’s concern. The stuttering is annoyingly cute, and in a rare moment of giving into those baser parts of himself, his alpha leans into it. 

And then he clears his voice, remembering himself. “That is kind of you.”

“Right. So I—uh. I’ll open the door and you can just… grab it, I guess?”

This shouldn’t be so awkward. They are not teenagers despite how they court. They know how this works. His hand still shakes as his fingers curl around the handle and he pulls his office door open.

Wriothesley jumps in surprise. He inhales, his nostrils flaring and his mouth falls open, slack. There is a moment when things turn heated—and not in a good way. They both tense. Neuvillette’s skin crawls at the feel of another alpha in his space during such a vulnerable time.

But then he remembers his scent, leather and tea, and Wriothesley’s scorching hot words against his ear as Neuvillette palmed his cock that very first time. 

It is a miracle Neuvillette maintains a shred of his dignity. 

“Wow, you look…” Wriothesley swallows, his throat bobbing. 

Neuvillette watches. Neuvillette’s eyes bore into his skin, watching every little twitch, tracing over every little scar. He’s dying for a taste. A nibble. To sink his teeth in and—

Wriothesely shoves a bundle into his arms. “Okay, there you go. I’ll see myself out. Let you have some—” He laughs, a short sputtering sound, and then makes a rude gesture. And he would know, wouldn’t he? Wriothesley isn’t some wanton omega, he’s an alpha too, and he knows just what sort of hormones are raging through his veins. 

“Wriothesley.” Neuvillette moves before he realizes, his fingers curling around Wriothesley’s wrist. A sharp grip. His claws dig in. His thumb is pressed against the pulsepoint and he can feel how quickly Wriothesley’s heart beats. 

“Yeah?” His voice comes out raspy. Hoarse. A little too deep, tinged with want. 

Neuvillette yanks him close and kisses him, uncaring of who’s lurking in the halls, or who might see. Wriothesley gasps into his mouth and Neuvillette’s tongue slides right in. He devours him. His fingers dig into his wrist as he holds him there, that bundle squished between their chests. He licks into Wriothesley’s mouth and moans, hot, heady pleasure rising in his being. 

Wriothesley nips at him. He kisses back, all fangs, all tongue, nothing but pure, unadulterated lust. “Gods,” he hisses against his lips. “I—”

Neuvillette jerks back. So hot. Dizzy. His head spins as his rut rages. Embarrassing. His alpha begs for him to claim and Wriothesley already has his neck tipped back, the column of his throat right there. He dips close and buries his face into the juncture of Wriothesley’s neck. 

“I appreciate this,” he murmurs. “But we—”

“Bad timing. No, I agree. Not that I don’t—Fuck. You know what I mean.”

He does. This is the sort of thing that needs to be talked about. Neuvillette does his best to inhale his scent and commit it to memory. 

And then Wriothesley says, “This just means you’ll like my gift, though.”

Neuvillette blinks. “Your gift?”

“Look, just lock this door and handle yourself, okay? And for fuck’s sake, rest.” Wriothesley hesitates. Worries his lip between his teeth, then tilts his chin up, and kisses Neuvillette again. Short and sweet. The sort of things lovers do, not a rut-crazed alpha and his unusual partner. 

Neuvillette sighs. His alpha calms—surprisingly—and the heat relaxes into a gentler simmer. 

Wriothesley pulls away and scrubs the back of his neck. “Right. So… Later. After—well. If you need me, you know where to find me.”

“Thank you,” says Neuvillette. “You’ve done me a kindness.”

Wriothesley’s genuine smile curves into a smirk. It’s the last thing that Neuvillette sees before he shuts his office door.

#

Wriothesley has not done him a kindness. 

Well, no, he has. And he hasn’t. All that placid calm that just washed over Neuvillette turns turbulent the moment he unfolds the bundle. 

A shirt; button-down with long sleeves. Soft and loose cotton dyed a dark gray. Rumpled despite being folded, clearly having been worn. Or slept with. Or dragged over every inch of Wriothesley’s body. Neuvillette can practically feel the way his eyes dilate, how his nostrils flare wide.

He brings it close, shoving his face into it. Leather. Sweat. Black tea and orange peels. Unfettered alpha. His own dragon rises, jaws gnashing. But then Neuvillette groans, remembering this is Wriothesley, that he’s obsessed with his scent. Everything settles deep in his gut all the same. Arousal floods through his being at both the chase of another alpha and the promise of a fight. 

Neuvillette shakes out the shirt. It hands from his fingertips limply, cut long enough to be tucked in. Wide across the shoulders. Nearly to his thighs. He pauses. His cock aches, twitching in his trousers. 

He too is dressed down, sans his typical coat. Too hot, too much sweat. He’d felt like his skin was crawling so he ditched it earlier in the day, opting for his thin undershirt instead. Neuvillette brings Wriothesley’s shirt to his nose again and inhales deeply. His bones loosen. His cock hardens to its limits. It isn’t so hard to imagine he’s on the brink of popping a knot from thought alone.

He is not like this. Gods, he’s better than this. Where has his decorum gone? Has it been so long since his last proper fuck that the mere smell of his willing partner is about to bring him to his knees? Neuvillette is prideful, having risen above his alpha. Calm and composed. Level-headed when so many others are not.

But at that moment he’s a slave to his desire, to those old instincts crawling to the surface as he drowns in Wriothesley’s scent. 

“Fuck,” he curses. Entirely out of character. Unbecoming of him. “Archons, I’m—”

He’s what? Weak? Desperate? No, no, to be needy isn’t weak—and Wriothesley knows that. It’s the entire reason he brought him this gift, why he didn’t look at him with disgust, but rather that damnable smirk, knowing full well just what it’d reduce him to. 

Neuvillette slips an arm into the sleeve, pulling the shirt on. He’s taller, but Wriothesley’s wider, and despite the difference, the shirt still hangs on his frame loosely. He crosses the room and drops to the settee unceremoniously. 

He’s given in. There is no use in pretending he is not gone. Neuvillette settles back into the cushions, spreading his legs, squeezing the bulge of his cock through the fabric of his trousers. Then he turns his face to the side and tugs the collar close. 

Wriothesley wore this. The tang of sweat assaults his senses, sinking into his pores as he drags his nose along the length of the collar. His alpha should hate this—and it isn’t as if his dragon is quelled. There’s a soft rumbling underneath his skin, mildly unsettled, but it’s drowned entirely out by the lust of his rut. 

And he would just blame that, his rut, the hormones, the need to breed another full. It would be easier. But Neuvillette knows that even outside of these vulnerable hours he would still have tugged this shirt on to try and memorize the scent. He’d still be fucking his hand to the thought of Wriothesley, a keening cry whistling from his lips as he wonders how tight he’d be around his cock. 

He undoes his trousers and shoves them down around his thighs. Just enough to free his length, just enough to get his hand around it. He sweeps his thumb over the tip and whines. What a mess. Wet and leaking. Needy. So desperate. 

Even the stroke of his hand isn’t quite enough. No, he needs—

“Wriothesley,” he hisses, taking the damnable shirt and wrapping it around his cock. The fabric, though soft, scratches at his cock but he doesn’t care. He nips at the collar, his tongue teasing it, catching the leftovers of whatever Wriothesley left behind. 

He wore it, slept in it, left it in his sheets. The cotton is drenched in the smell of him, and all for one purpose. It takes nothing to imagine him bent over, ass in the air. He’d snap. Probably. Gnash his teeth, but ultimately submit. Wriothesley would open up perfectly around his fingers, tight and slick with oil. And Neuvillette would feed his cock in slowly, enamored by how wide his rim stretches. 

Neuvillette hasn’t fucked him yet. The timing hasn’t been right. Everything has clicked into place and they’ve had their fun, but it’s usually him who is bent over the desk and coming on Wriothesley’s fingers. His alpha begs to claim him. He wants to see Wriothesley squirming on his cock as he breeds him full. 

Oh, he’d be handsome. So perfect, face flushed pink and pressed into the bed. Neuvillette had a plan; a plan that was wrecked the moment his alpha craved for more. His rut came early and he isn’t so uncouth to call Wriothesley up for a quick fuck so he’d locked himself away to handle it alone again.

But then the kiss. The shirt disguised as kindness when meant as a tease. Wriothesley fucking his tongue into his mouth, and even if only for a moment, it proved nearly too much. Neuvillette nearly dragged him into his office right then, and Wriothesely would have dropped to his knees without complaint. 

Neuvillette gasps. Sucks in fresh air, does anything he can to stave off his orgasm. This should be savored. Another time he would drag the shirt across his skin slowly. For now, he just squeezes his cock tightly and strokes, gritting his teeth at the friction. 

A groan. A soft, hitched pant of Wriothesley’s name. He doesn’t typically knot but it swells nonetheless, and no amount of pressure is enough to satisfy it. One hand chokes his knot so tightly that he nearly goes cross-eyed. The other strokes his length, pretending it’s Wriothesley and he thinks—no, he knows—his next rut will not be like this. He won’t be alone, he’ll be tucked away in a bed, his face buried in Wriothesely’s nape as he clings to him.

He comes with that thought seared into his brain, with Wriothesley’s name on his tongue, both a cry and a curse. His hand is soiled. The shirt tail is drenched in his come. It is both satisfying and not. For the moment, his lust is quelled. But his knot—he groans, his instincts feeling as if they’ve been cut short. The pleasure is muted. Not enough. 

Neuvillette whines, a pitiful, keening sound that he hides in the collar of Wriotheley’s shirt. The fuzzy haze that settles over his brain is, at least, enough to drag him under for a while. 

“And for fuck’s sake, rest,” said Wriothesley, worry pinched between his brows. 

A bitter laugh. “You damn well know this is your fault.” 

That smirk, the one flashed his direction right before Neuvillette shut the door in his face. A quiet, teasing thing. His blood slows, almost like the start of a hibernation. A low purr settles deep in his chest. Neuvillette doesn’t bother to clean himself but manages to at least pull his trousers back on. He curls into the pillows and somehow, sleep tugs him under.   

#

Sedene gives him a knowing look but waves him to Neuvillette’s office without complaint. 

The door is unlocked. It’s dark when he lets himself inside and it smells like the inside of the Pankration Ring Locker Room after a string of good brawls. Neuvillette. Gods, he smells him everywhere, his rut thick in the room. Wriothesley squirms in his skin, caught between running and wanting to fuck his hand. 

Not the point. Nooooot the point. 

He finds Neuvillette draped over his couch, his trousers undone at the waistband. Covered in his spend, crusted over after he passed out. A dreadful mess. 

Wriothesley sighs and leans over. “Been there,” he murmurs. It’s then that he notices. His shirt. Neuvillette wears it, his chin tucked to the side, nose shoved into the collar. Wriothesley swallows at the sight. “Shit, you can’t just…”

Of course, he can. He gave him the damned shirt. And it helped—clearly it did, but Wriothesley didn’t mean to—

Neuvillette stirs with a soft groan. 

“That’s my queue.” Wriothesely only came to check on him and bring a few other things. He knows—gods, he knows. He’s spent god knows how many ruts popping knot after knot to the thought of this ridiculous man. And now Neuvillette wears his shirt steeped in his pheromones. And he sleeps, dozing easily. Comforted.

His alpha curls in his chest, content. Wriothesely dips forward and kisses Neuvillette’s forehead. Then he peels back and forces himself to leave. 

On his desk, Wriothesley leaves three things: Painkillers for that headache he knows Neuvillette has. A jug of fresh water, the fancy kind that costs too much. 

And another shirt, this one crisply folded and a little less rumpled, but nonetheless freshly doused in his scent. 

[misslisamiray]

Time for the other thing I promised (and sorry it's a day late): An update on the Rick and Morty fanfic I'm writing! With bonus pic of the pretty space-themed binder it resides in. Also, from this post on, said fic will be referred to by its actual title.

Current page count: 80!!! (Which is so much longer than I expected this fic to get, but I am not complaining.) Status: Not done yet, but I'm entering the final stretch. I've given up on setting a goal date for when it's going to be finished, but I feel like I can now safely say SOON. Also, until the full fic is up on Ao3 & ff, you'll now be getting excerpts every Thursday!

Summary: Rick has a nasty cold... which he initially tries to pass off as an alien virus that can mimic any illness. Morty does his best to take care of him, and Rick (of course) makes things so, so much more difficult for both of them than they need to be. No one is surprised.

Meanwhile, Beth and Summer are out of the house, and Jerry is searching in the attic for the 90's anime VHS he's sure will help him figure out EXACTLY what to do (keep in mind he's the only one who still believes Rick's alien virus story). 😅

And now, without further ado, excerpt & dumbass title reveal below the cut!

Excerpt from Down With the Rickness by MissLisaMiray

"That's more like it. Okay, Rick. Here you go." Morty sighed. He carefully filled the medicine's accompanying measuring cup to the top line and tried to hand it to Rick.

"I don't want it." Rick grumbled, waving it away.

"Seriously?! Why not?" Morty asked, exasperated.

"It looks gross. I'm too stuffed up to tell, but it probably smells gross, too. And I know it's gonna taste like shit. So no, I don't want it." Rick explained, stubbornly turning his head. Morty barely held back a scream.

"Are you kidding me?! I thought it was gonna be something about this stuff being inferior to anything you'd make, so you were like, insulted by it. But it's just that? Of course it's gonna taste bad. Doesn't all medicine? Just swallow it quick and get it over with." He held the cup in front of Rick, who shook his head and continued refusing to take it.

"Of course this would be the one thing in the whole damn universe you won't drink. Rick, come on! It's for your own good. Stop acting like a 4 year old and take it!" Morty argued, climbing onto the bed and shoving the small cup in front of Rick's face. Rick opened his mouth to argue further, which Morty took advantage of by quickly pouring the medicine in before the old man could react.

Furious, the second he'd swallowed it down, Rick began sputtering, "Ugh, that's even worse than I thought it would be! Cough! Cough! What the hell, Morty?! Not cool! You can't force strange liquids down people's throats like that!"

"You think I enjoyed any part of that?! And don't be so dramatic - alI I did was make you take some cold medicine. Also, there's no way that's the most disgusting thing you've ever swallowed." Morty pointed out.

"Well, if nothing else, I can't argue that part. Still, that shit is foul. Yuck." Rick complained, still looking disgusted. He grabbed his flask and took a swig to wash away the taste. Morty considered saying something about that not being a great idea, but quickly decided it was a losing battle he wasn't interested in.

[1moreoffkeyanthem]

Will I be projecting this into a South Park fanfiction at some point probably very sorry in advance to either Kyle or maybe Tweek but tbh I gotta rant real quick about my supremely awful day

(Cut for both severe anxiety and possible eating problem triggers)

So like I act and stuff right. Low budget independent shorts, projects for the local film school, things of that nature. And I had a shoot today for a class that’s essentially focused on filming an 8 page script in 12 hours, teaches the students professionalism, all that.

I woke up anxious for reasons I couldn’t pinpoint, wore Kyle socks under my costume for powers, figured I’d be okay once I got into the swing of the shoot. I was not. There was this chunk of very specific scientific dialogue that I just COULD NOT get to come out in the right order, and what did my bitch ass brain do? Fucking spiraled with it. Which made talking harder, which made the “YOURE A FAILURE YOURE A FAILURE” internal dialogue worse, and it continued. And I had a goddamn panic attack on the soundstage.

I wound up shaking in the green room literally crying, someone had to go get my husband from the editing suite because they didn’t know what to do, I could HEAR the professor talking to his class about “when talent has emotional problems during production it’s important not to let them know they’re holding up the shoot”, and the worst part? This was less than an hour before we broke for lunch.

And I’ve vagued about this before, but I’m a recovered anorexic. About five years ago, I did the whole outpatient thing or whatever, was in therapy for a while for it, almost had to drop out of college for it, all that shit, and for the most part I consider myself to be fine now. But that mentality pops up every once in a while, and that shit is AWFUL.

The AD called for lunch, and my first fucking thought was “you don’t fucking deserve to eat you worthless piece of garbage”, and like NO BRUH TF?!? Having a goddamn stroke on set is literally no reason to punish yourself, like if anyone else was having a gnarly anxiety day I would absolutely be encouraging them to take it easy on themselves, hydrate and eat, whatever they need, so how fucked up is it that I couldn’t do that for myself. I did wind up having a slice of the college film student set staple that is little cesars cardboard ass pizza bc Opposite Actions, but it was a huge mental struggle.

It’s definitely worth noting that NO ONE was nasty to me about my breakdown, at least not to my face, even though I was completely fucked in the head afterwards for the remainder of the shoot. I’ve worked with a lot of these people before, they know me and know it was just a bad day, and one of the girls I worked art department with on a previous feature was script supervisor for this one, and she came into the green room and sat with me, stopped me from biting at my fingertips because I hadn’t realized I was making myself bleed, kept me from hyperventilating until my partner got there. The director got with his team to work out what footage they could get until I was more steady. The AD checked in constantly for the rest of the shoot. The other actor was incredibly sweet and shared anecdotes from his stage acting days to cheer me up whenever I’d get anxious over a missed word in a take. No one was a dick to me. At all.

Except myself.

I don’t like to consider myself mentally ill, despite the fact that I know there’s no shame in it; I’m diagnosed with anxiety and depression, plus the whole eating disorder thing, obsessive compulsive disorder, I’ve been told I should get evaluated for autism (tbh yeah probably) like yall I’m a fucking disaster. But no one, NO ONE will ever be as hard on me as I am on myself. Also, it was a student production the Friday before spring break. They cut shots and wrapped early because nobody wanted to be there.

If you can step back and put shit In perspective, it helps. Unfortunately I’m very bad at that.

Very sorry for the rant being a person is fucking stupid but at the end of the day I love helping people tell the stories they want to tell and also wearing south park socks under my 1950s scientist costume.