#insane power couple core

[deluzionalfantisea]

Boots and Brawn (SoldierZhanna)

I REAAALLLLYYYYY needed some Solly Zhanna art with the proper height differences

SOLLY IS THE SHORT ONE ‼️‼️💥

[themyscirah]

BROOOOOOOOOOO

[cuckoobutinmoderation]

CUNNING-lingus

You felt so small under his gaze. He held all the power despite being the one on his knees for you. Your body was burning and squirming and trying to crawl away, pleading for mercy. But he held you so tight.

He could have pinned you in place with just his lustful eyes.

His tongue alternated between lapping over your clit and thrusting in and out of your entrance. You were drenched with desire. Your wetness mixed with his saliva and he lapped at it like a starved man.

Your face was red and your cheeks felt hot. You were in heaven. He placed a few hot, open mouthed kisses on your inner thighs. The sudden loss of warmth from your core, coupled with a distant tickling sensation of his lips made you almost cry with need.

He began kneading your breasts with one of his hands while the other spread your legs apart so he could shove his fingers inside your cunt. He immediately found that sweet spot that made you gasp and moan with ecstasy. The pads of his fingers curled and rubbed that spot while his mouth returned to your bundle of nerves. Your body spasmed with every jolt of pleasure that shot through your body. Your eyes kept rolling to the back of your head and closing but you kept them open. Looking into his own. He was proudly taking in the sight of all the sweet agony he put you through.

You felt your clitoris becoming numb from the relentless strokes of his tongue. But there was a new sensation starting to form faintly somewhere deep inside. It throbbed and grew stronger and stronger, spreading to your stomach, your breasts and down to your legs, making them shake in his grasp. Your whole body was shivering. Your orgasm was building higher and higher and then, something snapped and it all collided back into you. You went completely limp as it raked through you, raising goosebumps and driving you insane.

It lasted for a good couple of minutes, flooding his mouth with your wetness which he cleaned up, licking hungrily and not wasting a drop. You were twitching and sobbing and crying but he kept at it. You tried to push his face away, begging him to stop.

Finally, he looked up. His hand began massaging your sore muscles and he started kissing your legs and feet. You felt satisfied but exhausted. Your eyelids were closing on their own. You could barely move an inch.

To your horror, you felt him climb on top of you.

"My turn to come?"

[strawbeelemonade]

Imagine: Being Miles Morales’ best friend but also your a bit insane

•_•_•_•_•_•_•_•_•_•_•_•_•_•_•_•_

🕷- Miles used to be so scared of you

🕷 - Even before you started a mutual friendship you sorta just…. kept appearing.

🕷 - He wasn’t sure when he became desensitised to you. but he likes to think his new double life of being a crime fighting upstart has given him a bit of a tolorence.

🕷 - Miles will now watch you eat an apple from the top down, core, stem and all, and literally not say anything.

🕷 - Your so consistently insane in such a harmless way, it’s kinda nice.

🕷 - He wishes you would stop picking up wild animals, though.

🕷 - Seriously stop. at least one of them will have a fatal disease.

🕷 - You keep venturing into the underground subway to play with the New York rats. Nothing bad has happened yet but that doesn’t mean nothing will.

🕷 - Don’t get me wrong. Miles isn’t overprotective or anything, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still worry. Your one of his closest friends.

🕷 - He’s not sure what he’d do without you.

🕷 - So please take the rat out of your jacket pocket. Please.

🕷 - Oh but it’s so cute!!

🕷 - You are Cinderella actually.

🕷 - Miles stumbles across you as his spider-sona surprisingly often.

🕷 - Not always when your doing something illegal, so he kinda forms this double friendship with you.

🕷 - It’s hard because he forgets your not supposed to know who he is!!

🕷 - He keeps forgetting to deepen his voice and act macho. You just make him relax so easily.

🕷 - I like to think His powers are particularly in tune with body language, even if he doesn’t mean or want to. And it can become so incredibly exhausting. all the extra information and interference is unrelenting unless he’s completely alone or has his headphones on.

🕷 - But you’re different. You let Everything rest on the surface. You say what you think, and miles found after a couple of months of knowing you that you’re actually more deep thinking then you like to let anyone realise.

🕷 - Your completely willing to sit in total silence with him. It’s so relaxing.

🕷 - The closer you both get the more he starts to see that you are actually a total sweetheart.

🕷 - You remember little things about him, your willing to go through great lengths for him. He knows that no matter where the both of you are or what your doing, you are ready to drop anything and everything to come to him if he needs you.

🕷 - He doesn’t demand it from you, but…

🕷 - You show up outside his dorm window at 3am all on your own ok?!

🕷 - He just mentioned he was having trouble sleeping!!! It’s not his fault!!! … but he’s not complaining either.

🕷 - So yeah, you put him at ease.

🕷 - Which is why it comes to no one’s surprise except miles when you bust him within the first two weeks.

🕷 - It scared the shit out of him. The next time you saw him as spider man you were like “Yo, Miles”.

🕷 - Y/N PLEASE.

🕷 - He asks you how you found him out, And you laugh and claim his mask made him look like he’s bad at Spanish. He socks you in the shoulder and you laugh harder.

🕷 - He then timidly asks if you’ve said anything to anyone.

🕷 - You tell him you don’t have deep enough conversations with anyone else TO tell.

🕷 - He understands what your trying to say.

🕷 - It’s actually a lovely little moment.

🕷 - As Spider-Man, he’s gotten to know an even crazier side to you. The fact that that was possible scared him a bit.

🕷 - Miles always wondered what you would get up to when he wasn’t around. You would disappear for hours, even days at a time. But you’d always come back.

🕷 - You were like an outdoor cat lmao.

🕷 - Turns out your a bit of an adrenaline junky.

🕷 - “Y/n this is a 7 story building and there’s no stairs how are you up here.”

🕷 - You liked feeding the pigeons… which was… yeah. Ok, fine.

🕷 - Miles wasn’t sure how his parents would react to you. He wasn’t ASHAMED but… Was he worried? Definetely.

🕷 - His dad is a COP.

🕷 - When He gets home from a couple hours of patrolling New York after school he has a heart attack when he sees you sitting on the couch nursing a drink while chatting to his mom.

🕷 - Your not fake, your still you. but you make a conscious decision not to pull out the rat in your pocket until you both head to his room to hang out.

🕷 - He’s much more emotional then he likes to make himself out to be. He’s still trying to figure himself out, He’s still only 14 after all.

🕷 - So hearing you drop deep emotional wisdom at 2 in the morning is a fucking EXPERIENCE.

🕷 - The deep conversations you have (and, now that he’s thinking about it the meaningless ones as well) feel like precious moments. They leave a lasting affect on him, your presence makes him feel safe.

🕷 - He’s not sure how to say all that out loud though.

🕷 - He doesn’t have to. you already know.

🕷 - His parents are happy to know that he’s made you as a friend. No matter how much or little they really know about you, anyone with eyes and two working ears can tell that your a good kid.

🕷 - You probably end up in the hospital a lot.

🕷 - Like a lot a lot. You are in so many wrong places at so many wrong times…

🕷 - An arm in a cast is considered a small case when it comes to you.

🕷 - Miles wonders how your still even alive this point!

🕷 - foreshadowing

🕷 - After you become more acquainted with miles’ family, you start getting visits from them!

🕷 - Especially If you don’t have any stable adult figures in your life.

🕷 - You get in a lot of accidents and fights. And it starts getting worrying. You don’t go looking for any trouble but you don’t let the criminal population of New York stop you from venturing out at night, either.

🕷 - In the waiting room Your all smiles and laughs. Nothing fazes you it seems, even under extreme amounts of pain. so it makes them relax a bit.

🕷 - But they are MUCH more willing to let you practically walk in and out of their house whenever you need a Homebase to fall back on.

🕷 - Mr. Davis does NOT enjoy getting called out late at night over a complaint of a homeless person loitering on a bench and it’s literally just you.

🕷 - What are you doing out here young lady/man/ster.

🕷 - Sorry sir I missed my bus

🕷 - But why were you sleeping outside!

🕷 - Eepy.

🕷 - Let them help you please you don’t have to do things on your own.

🕷 - You’ve only gotten lucky enough to be attacked a handful of times.

🕷 - But when the opportunity arises you are so ready.

🕷 - Remember how I said you were crazy in a harmless way? Forget I said that.

🕷 - Miles has literally watched you rip an old (albeit loose) stop sign out of the ground and beat a mugger over the head with it.

🕷 - He was not ready.

🕷 - You don’t even have any powers that he knows of. No super strength or healing. No heightened senses to protect you.

🕷 - Miles is in awe of you sometimes.

🕷 - he’s saved you from trouble a

Handful of times.

🕷 - you’ve literally got Spiderman looking out for you.

🕷 - If anything happens to you

He will freak the hell out.

🕷 - you might end up being room

-mates at his new school

🕷 - No matter how low he’s feeling he knows that you’ll find a way to make him smile.

🕷 - You find the craziest things to do, there’s no where you’re not willing to venture and there’s nothing your not willing to play with.

🕷 - Unfortunately Miles suffers from the terrible ailment of being a teenager 💔 (and also occasionally having terrible bouts of anxiety)

🕷 - often times he just feels so painfully uncool. He catches himself asking if he’s really cut out for this life. Not just about being the next Spider-Man, but also in the the-American-dream-is-not-real-and-I-don’t-have-a-future kind of way. He worries if he’s failing underneath the weight of his burdens. That he’s a loser.

🕷 - But you don’t let him feel that way when your around.

🕷 - You make him feel like he’s cool. You make him feel like he’s funny. like he’s the most interesting person in the world, your so unshakably and enthusiastically invested in him and his successes!

🕷 - You celebrate with him when he wins small fights. When he saves people. When he gets higher grades on exams.

🕷 - He doesn’t feel insecure standing next to you, even when your personality is as chaotic as it is.

🕷 - Miles isn’t sure sure how he got so lucky to have met you. He doesn’t realise you feel the same about him.

_•_•_•_•_•_•_•_•_•_•_•_•_•_•_•_•

[whatifyoulivelikethat]

bad boy, sad girl, m | myg

maybe you are not that into me i hate to admit it, honestly if I take one step closer take a couple of steps back it’s like this again, sick of love – bad boy, sad girl by SEULGI ft. BE’O

pairing(s): yoongi x reader

warnings: rated M (18+) for language; smut (fem reader, rough sex, cowgirl, fingering, public sex at a beach at night on the hood of a car, blowjob); Yoongi's POV

--

The silence was so deafening that it threatened to tear apart the ocean.

“Love is a sandcastle,” he finally said.

They stood beside each other but the distance could not be greater.

“What shame is there to lose to the water, then?”

He didn’t have an answer to that.

“I really would have preferred to be drowned by the water than torn apart by you,” she said, stepping back and away from his beautiful garden of colorless roses.

-

He tried not to feel the cavity in his chest with her hands around his neck.

Her fingers fanned over his shoulders, palms over his clavicles, and he stared into her eyes as she took him anywhere but home. She didn’t take away his breath. He did that on his own, holding it prisoner in his lungs, his hard knuckles digging into her hips, pushing down, clenching his jaw at the hellish tightness that threatened to consume. He did not fight it. Fighting against that insanity was futile.

He also never wanted to win in the first place.

Heated physicality. Her fingernails turned inward, tattooing half-moons into his memories, rolling her hips into his in a vicious, visceral smack. Her chin lifted, an eyebrow raising, her lips parting. The pleasure crawled into every nerve, poisoning all reason, and he watched her messy hair slide down her shoulder when he tilted his hips and drove himself in, again, deeper. Her palm pressed against his sternum. She snapped her hips into his crotch and he hissed, feeling his cock swell into slick, punishing walls. Again. Again, and again, until it was countless and indescribable. The scent of lust began to prevail all others.

Heavy, sweet, stained with bitterness.

He tried to get back into his head, tried not to be dazed by the haze, tried but gripped tighter, each thrust blossoming desire more intense than the last. Chasing. Wordless. Exhale out, harder. Her eyes cast down and he stole that moment of safety, watching her breasts bounce in the air, hard nipples sticking straight out, core tight, his glistening length disappearing as he felt her hands slip off his shoulders, twisting the sheets next to his quivering throat.

His head snapped back.

Her pussy squeezed all around his length in a powerful spasm. All of his muscles tensed to the point of burning, his vision becoming bursts of light underneath his eyelids as her orgasm surged through him, his breathing stuttering when she felt her continue regardless, growl in her chest while her hips slapped down. Power veered like a seesaw, from her hips to his hands, locking his hold to keep her body still, slamming his hips upward with a breathless moan.

He tried to remember why.

Why didn’t matter in the face of euphoric oblivion.

He felt her lean forward, hot gasp on his exposed neck, the angle nearly driving him over the edge, but he steeled his resolve and thrust again, again, loud and hard and with all his might, the pace following the rapid pulse thundering in his ears, half-opening his eyes to a tangled black maze he could barely see through. His own hair. Didn’t matter. He wasn’t searching for details.

Just confirmation of reality.

She was looking down, her heated breath washing over his shivering chest.

“F… Fuck!”

He gritted his teeth and screamed in his throat, forcing his hips up as they flinched, the thin thread inside him snapping, his throbbing cock spilling into the condom with thick, twitching spurts. The border of pain and pleasure undefinable through the intensity, gasping, pressing his hard fingertips into her soft ass.

He tried not to think about it.

Not when his teeth sank into her shoulder.

Not when his hips descended again, making a loud, irreversible, wet smack.

Not when her fingers closed in around his forearms and patterned him with aching pink lines.

He didn’t moan her name and she didn’t breathe his. He just pushed himself to the brink of death and, when he reached that point, he switched to bury his fingers up to his knuckles, drenching his hand with her slick, painting himself with bruising kisses and her teeth marks over his neck, anything for the rush, anything for the crushing wave to overwhelm one of them again.

All so he could siphon off her ecstasy and make it his own.

It was selfish stealing and he didn’t care.

She put her clothes back on while he stared at the ceiling. She didn’t ask what they were. He didn’t ask how it was. He didn’t say anything at all, the soreness killing him less than the silence. She left.

He sat up.

She stared at him from the open bedroom door.

He froze, startled at his incorrect assumption. She tilted her head, bundled in a black and white flannel, tight black crop top, and baggy black pants with chains on them. The clinking sound had ceased for several minutes. Perhaps he had been far too deep in his thoughts to gauge time correctly.

After an eternity, she ticked her chin at him.

“About what you said.”

He could only reply with a silent shift of his eyes. She waited. He flicked his gaze back.

She smiled.

It was disconnected from this moment.

“We hide behind ambiguity to avoid facing inevitability.”

He frowned.

She turned around and left for real this time.

-

“What?”

He paused, his hand on her forearm, his lips over-bitten. She didn’t understand his hesitation.

“What did you mean by the word ‘inevitability’?” he asked, hot all over.

She scoffed.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

His body trembled, craving the fix, but he denied it, shaking his head instead. She sighed, pulling back. The dark, swirling ocean was right there. Right in front of them, cold and life-sucking in the depths of the night. The car simmered on idle as if it was an irate, unwilling participant to this rendezvous. She stared out to the water, diving into it with her eyes, leaving the acid smoke of the lustful air that had saturated seconds before.

“What do you even want, Min Yoongi?” she snapped.

“Want?” he echoed. Gave his usual answer. “Nothing.”

She glanced back.

“Then what’s the problem?”

He held her gaze for a moment before looking down at his pale hands that he had abused through guitars, wood-working, and clutching a pen too hard. The scent of pressed paper still clung to his skin, or at least it seemed that way from all the notepads he had torn up in the past week, trying his best to give words to a concept that gave him a damn headache.

“What do you want?” He retorted question with question.

She let out a rapid-fire breath.

“You to give a definition to this nothing you speak of,” she chuckled.

The sound died out like a scream.

They stared at the water that simply roared back. It was too vast to stay silent, even from this distance. He chewed on his lower lip. After a few minutes, he lifted his hand and reached over, placing his palm on her bare thigh. It was easy, for she was wearing a black t-shirt dress with a heavy dark denim jacket over it, and her knees were far apart, not caring about ladylike status in this situation.

He turned his head slightly.

Their eyes met.

“You done philosophizing?” she asked.

He didn’t reply. Just leaned forward to close the distance. The setting was it. The time of night were all bad decisions came to light. The ocean sound masked soundless gasps and breathless moans. Moonlight streamed down only to be reflected away by the mirrored surface commanded by its pull. Their pocket of darkness could not be intruded upon unless someone was deliberately looking for the same type of sinful seclusion.

Right place.

Desperation could create warriors and innovators. Her knee braced against the edge of the hood of his car as his exhale drifted into her open mouth, shuddering when he slid inside. The condom wrapper skittered away, chased by the wind, but they were too locked in embrace to notice. Hips flush, moving in unison to the waves. The ocean threatened, but their bodies burned away the cold with wicked friction and blinding need. One arm wrapped around her waist under her jacket. Her still-warm, still-sticky arousal stuck to his crotch and balls. He thrust deeper, slow. Her fingers tangled into his hair. Stings of pain from her insistence and his head hooked forward, increasing the hurt, catching her lips with strings of saliva between them. His other hand was planted onto the car hood, straining to maintain some measure of control.

Wrong person.

She was balanced on tiptoe of a heavy black boot and one knee, but inside she pulled him in, tight and wet and closer, pulsing all around his length, forcing him to close his eyes and tip his head back, thrusting harder, rougher, succumbing to the indecency of this high, gasping to the sound of water crashing into sand.

“You can start the car.”

The used condom was crumpled up into a wad of take-out tissues.

His lungs hurt from the salt and exertion.

“There’s much better than me, you know,” he said, one hand on the wheel and not touching the ignition.

He didn’t look at her.

“And yet you keep calling me,” she replied.

The dark sea slapped against the shore.

“You don’t have to answer.”

He couldn’t hear it that well though the closed car doors.

“I don’t.”

He waited her for to elaborate. She did not.

He started the car.

-

He tried to breathe.

She looked down at him, his taste clinging to her lips in thick white smears.

“Everyone loses when it comes to life. The way to win is to not give a fuck about the rules.”

Her pink tongue slid out and licked away the remnants.

His brows furrowed.

“What?”

She shrugged. His chest was on fire. The desire below had barely subsided. His nerves were still shooting blanks. She tilted her hand, his trapped between her arms. Her hair curled around her shoulders and brushed against his naked torso, creating a cocoon of illusionary safety.

She stared into his eyes.

“You seem afraid to be a loser, Min Yoongi. That’s all.”

His palms were on the bed, behind him, holding him up on shaky ground.

“I do not lose,” he exhaled, his voice gravelly with annoyance.

Her lashes lowered. She removed her arms from his shoulders. Her hair swept away from him, their closeness disappearing with it. He stilled. It would have been better not to reply after all. She slipped between his knees again. He stiffened, watching carefully. Her fingers fanned over his white thighs, leaning in again.

She paused over his half-hard, still leaking cock.

Looked up.

“What shame is there to lose to the inevitable?” she asked.

And swallowed him.

He tensed, the pressure of persistent tongue and slippery softness eating away at his introspection. The simulation circled around the base, slowed, lazy licking accompanied by the slow scratch of nails on sensitive skin. His balls glided over her fingertips, nudged forward into the tip of her tongue as the back of her throat choked the swollen head of his cock. Consistent control and power. Her lips pressed around his girth, forward, back, fluttering pleasure that mounted to something unbelievable.

His high rose like the swell of a wave and crashed just as violently.

He could feel the way his cock twitched and hit the back of her throat, shivering into the steady pulse of muscle curl around him. She slid back, forth, so slow it was serene, a heightened suspension prolonged by pooled saliva and wet softness.

She waited.

He pulled himself together, strings and all.

Stared at her under a curtain of black, his hair barely an obstacle to those knowing eyes.

“Love is a sandcastle,” he said once more in between pants. “Flimsy and held together by what will destroy it eventually.”

She nodded.

Agreeing.

“And devotion will be a choice you make every time you call,” she said, his taste still lingering on her breath.

He breathed out, unable to think straight.

He held out his scarred hand.

She took it.

it's a misunderstanding i'm not a bad boy, bad boy, bad boy i don't want to make you cry like a sad girl, sad girl, sad girl

--

masterpost

[itstheoneshot]

Kinktober Day 10

Crying - Gyuvin

!sub Gyuvin

“Don’t cover your pretty face, honey,” You coax him, interlocking your fingers with his and moving his hands away, holding them tight, “I want to see you like this.”

Gyuvin pouts at you, blinking a few times to clear his eyes, and a couple of stray tear drops fall down his puffy cheeks. You made him this way, although you hadn’t satisfied yourself yet, you needed more, you needed to see him bawling.

“You look so pretty when you’re upset,” You giggle, readjusting your position in his lap so that you can touch him, your hand wrapping around his cock effortlessly, loving the way that he whimpers as you grasp, “Sweet boy, it feels good, doesn’t it?”

You are gaslighting him, knowing how overstimulated he gets so quickly, knowing that you can overwhelm him with only a few strokes of your hand, finger swiping over the slit to wipe away the droplets of precum that make their way to the surface. His hips buck underneath you, in an attempt to get you to work him harder, chasing the feeling of you on him, knowing that at some point you will give in too, he prays that it is soon.

This isn’t the first time, and he should know better, but your sweet boyfriend is quite… gullible, forgetful, and it is easy to trick him into thinking you will be nice to him, it is as if he forgets every time you are intimate, that you are so fucking into making him fall apart first.

“My beautiful boy,” You smile at him, your free hand cups his cheek, you lean forward to press your nose to his, keeping his eyes trained on yours as your hand moves up and down, “Tell me how you’re feeling baby, no need to be so quiet.”

Gyuvin stutters over his words as your grip tightens, and you revel in the way that his cock twitches in your hand. He is close, you have lost count of how many times you have got him to the edge, his mind is mush, dazed and confused and so, so, so desperate.

“Wanna come,” He mumbles, his blush deepening, “Gonna come, baby, make me come.”

He is telling the truth, and you know he is closer than he has been so far, but you press your thumb over the slit and cease your movements, leaning forward to kiss him as he cries out in pain. You are killing him, slowly, but surely, driving him insane with the work of your hands, your power over him is too much, he has no control and you won’t ever allow it.

“Oh honey,” You sigh, your voice drenched in condescension, using the hand on his cheek to pinch it gently, tears well in his eyes as he stares at you dumbfounded, “Does it hurt?”

Gyuvin kicks his feet as the tears start to fall, unwavering as if a faucet was turned on, all of the teasing has broken him and he just looks so fucking pretty when he cries. You kiss his cheeks, feeling your lips as they wetten, licking the salty tears away before kissing his face again, and then finally kissing him on the lips too.

He whimpers into your mouth as you force him down onto his back, hovering over him now you release your grip on his cock to play with his hair instead. You act bored, disinterested, but you make sure that your bare core rests on his cock, letting him feel how wet you are, almost as wet as his beautiful face is from how much he is crying now. Soft sobs escape him as he tries to pull himself together, but he is basically a shell of the man who you had with you an hour ago, now with only thoughts of release and an end to the pain he is in.

“Hurts, really really hurts,” He blubbers, his hands on your waist try to push you down, he is desperate for some sense of control, but so weak from emotional exhaustion that he can’t do a thing, “Please, please I can’t take it, help, please, help!”

It is impossible to deny him any more, as his cock twitches against you, and you find yourself intuitively leaning up on your knees to line him up with you, and effortlessly letting go to take him fully in. He fills you up, and you fall forward to meet him at his level, kissing him as you wipe the tears from his eyes, though they haven’t stopped yet.

His eyes are puffy and red now, lip quivering as he moans while you ride him, and you cannot get enough of it. He looks pathetic, such a sweet, broken angel, taking his reward with all of the love for you, gratefulness and admiration and downright obsession, exactly as you need it too. He knows exactly what to do to get you there, his hands moving downward, one to grab your ass, the other to play with your clit, urging you closer and closer with every moment.

Suddenly Gyuvin regains his strength, unexpectedly you find him on top of you a moment later, quicker than you could even process the movement. His eyes are still teary, though the crying has come to a stop, too preoccupied with filling you again, taking only another second to find your hole and bottom out, this time in control, you spread your legs wider to accommodate him, so that you can lift your hips up and give him a better angle. You take him deeper than before, head spinning as he hits the spot inside you that makes you see stars.

“Gyuvin-ah,” You gasp, the pleasure hitting you with the force of a ten tonne truck, “Holy shit, don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop.”

You are the one slurring now, body rocked with the intensity, Gyuvin’s remaining tears drop down onto your face as your high ascends, breaking through without warning, fast and hard as Gyuvin’s thrusting speeds up to try and match it, unable to hold himself back anymore he comes harder than he has in so long, the pent up endless edging finally over, painting your insides white with the abnormally large load he releases, filling you to overflow and spill on the bed sheets below you, but neither of you care about the mess.

“Thank you,” Gyuvin murmurs breathlessly, collapsing beside you after he pulls out slowly, “I really, really needed that.”

———

Kinktober 2024 Masterlist

[apas-95]

abt the 'exit strategy for capitalism' thing obviously the natural advantages of socialist states will lead to their uncontested military and economical dominance in the coming decades, at which point they'll have both means and motive to buy out bourgeois interests and their 'possessions' and transition the economical system while there's no easy way for imperial core states to outright end these trends, their policies obviously do affect the economical development of socialist states and there's probably enough variance to shift the timetable on all this happening by a couple years, so y'know exert whatever influence you have on the particular flavor of capitalism that's in vogue if done well (and what I'm seeing rn actually gives me hope for that) the capitalists at no point have an incentive to burn the whole thing down out of spite bc they keep earning right until they don't, you know how the saying abt ropes and hangings goes (and if done poorly and they cling to and suck dry the last scraps of the world's economy they control at least everywhere else should be out of reach by then) and my main concern with a revolution is actually that one will 100% get accused of having foreign backing, at which point you just needlessly raise the odds of some general deciding he (or she #imwithher) might as well let those nukes fly (even if they're losing, especially if they're losing) But it's all w/e, I could be convinced either way, this all just makes a lot more sense to me than a succesful imperial core revolution that doesn't end with the northern hemisphere irradiated

fundamentally the notion of a peaceful transition out of capitalism is simply not in agreement with reality. no class has ever abandoned the world stage without fighting to maintain itself, and the imperial core is already both undertaking massive violence and war against the sections of the global south it already has under its heel, and preparing for high-intensity conflict against the communists that have slipped its shackles. there is no point where the bourgeoisie would simply peacefully allow themselves to be stripped of power.

the point of nukes is exactly *why* there has to be revolution within the imperial core, rather than having the rest of the world do the job for them - there is precisely one place the US has no nuclear deterrent against, which is itself. if the thing we're supposed to fear is that both 'the US military's high command, likely facing severe mutiny, rather than ordering a negotiated surrender during civil war, decides to nuke themselves' as well as 'the US strategic missile forces, upon receiving the order to nuke themselves, carry it out', then so be it - such a fundamental strategic insanity would be just as likely to start a nuclear exchange even if there weren't a revolution - which brings us to the final point.

world war is on the horizon. the economic reasons for world war remain as they did a century and a half ago. the world has been fully carved up, and the profits are drying out. the imperialist blocks, principally the US and EU, are driven to compete against each other for their holdings, first peacefully, then through proxy war, and finally through direct conflict. as it was a hundred years ago, the buildup of war is accepted on all sides with the target of the socialist bloc and the potential for its pillaging, but (as has already started breaking out among larger and larger regional powers) any conflict of this sort would manifest as general war and looting, as desperate, recession-wracked imperialists take opportunity as it presents itself. in inter-imperialist war the most ruthless techniques are used, and a nuclear exchange would not be off the table -- and, fundamentally, the conditions that lead to world war are the same that lead to instability, insurrection, and revolution within individual countries.

war is, at this juncture, an inevitability. the only question is whether revolutionary war will win out over unjust war, will convert the war between nations to a war between classes. we are against war, but we are not afraid of it.

[dangermousie]

Hey dangermousie some time when you're feeling up for an ask: what are your favorite webnovels? Like danmei, bg, general fiction, anything. You've shared so many intetesting sounding novels in other posts so I was curious what some of the top favorites are? I remember Sha Po Lang, Ever Night, and The Dreamer in the Spring Boudoir (which I'm reading because of you ToT)

I love this ask! I am gonna limit myself to 35 novels or we will be here all night. The usual caveat is - this is very personal. You will see that out of 35 (well, 36) novels, there is only one modern, there is a lot of angst and things like noncon and unhealthy relationships don't bother me. But I dislike harem infights and protags who are too OP.

35 I Became the Older Brother of the Heroine in an Abusive Novel by Liu Gou Hua (danmei) - a lovely novel where one half of otp is healthy and wholesome and the other abused feral wreck who melts under sanity and care.

34 After the Disabled God of War Became My Concubine by Liu Gou Hua (danmei) - our MC is a modern person who transmigrates into a historical bad guy who apparently married a captured and crippled general who eventually healed, escaped and committed a lot of murder to avenge his humiliation. Poor historian MC transmigrates right before the wedding and is desperate to avoid the fate of having his head hang on the city gates for three years in the near future. Good luck! This has such a wholesome (yet not boring) OTP. Proof that healthy doesn't have to be dull.

33 You've Got Mail by He Dan Bai (danmei) - the sex in this one is gonzo and biologically questionable but the love story is wistful and sweet and somehow both hilarious and involving two rather damaged people.

32 The Blue Whisper by Jiu Lu Fei Xiang (het) - the novel is a bona fide angst masterpiece, which really delves into what it feels like to be imprisoned or to love and what makes you you. I sniffled throughout.

31 The Paranoid Emperor’s Black Moonlight Shizun by Chen Sensen (danmei) - a really screwed up disciple and a really decent master have some insane entanglements. To say more would be to spoil but if you want some intensity, angst, groveling and utter codependency and did I mention ANGST? this one is for you!

30 Demon King's Repayment by Gong Xinwen (het) - another delicious Gong Xinwen tale with a powerful ML dedicated to capable FL. This one is a great fantasy plot (I keep imagining it as an animated series) and a sprawling cast of amazing secondaries (and secondary OTPs - there is, I swear, an OTP that is Dong Hua x Feng Jiu done thru GXW lens) to boot.

29 Accompanying the Phoenix by Jiu Lu Fei Xiang (het) - the one that just got adapted into The Legend of Shen Li, this is high adventure and cottage core and funny and tragic and powerful ML being putty in the hands of capable FL and just EVERYTHING.

28 The Counterattack of the Cannon Fodder Chambermaid by Jia Mian De Sheng Yan (het) - I remember starting this and loving the realistic feel and the heroine and wanting to stab the hero. Yet the end I was on board with both the hero (who was abused and is rather autistic-coded) and the OTP. Anyway, heroine is a servant who was a concubine in the last life and got killed as part of a rich family’s harem intrigues. In this life, she just wants to keep her head down but her life gets derailed anyway. She gets sold away and eventually made a servant in the household of an exiled prince who takes a fancy to her and she endures it because what choice does she have? All she wanted was to serve out her term and become a small time merchant. This is quite realistic about lack of options for women, especially lower class women or upper class male attitudes (ML is never vicious or mean to FL but it does not initially occur to him to wonder if she fancies him or enjoys being his concubine or w/e.) It is a DELIGHTFUL slow burn tho as they grow to love each other and grow together and become one of the most wholesome cnovel couples out there.

27 The Black Moonlight Holds the BE Script by Teng Luo Wei Zhi (het) - so fucked up, so good, with monster hero who learns to love and be human and heroine who learns to love and be human (but from the other side, her tower of perfection), with a complex plot and no easy outs.

26 The Grand Princess by Mo Shu Bai (het) - a husband and wife who really drifted apart and ended up killing each other (or did they?) get a second chance as they are reborn as their younger selves. This has a great plot, a competent set of protags, and slow burn with complexity and trauma and somehow yet lightness. Plus awesome secondary OTPs!

25 Copper Coins by Mu Su Li (danmei) - a monk and a dragon? More likely than you may think. This is smart and wistful and made me cry; the romance doesn't kick in for the longest time and it doesn't even matter.

24 The Golden Terrace by Cang Wu Bin Bai (danmei) - two smart and principled (yes, they both have principles different though they may be) men navigate their arranged marriage, their past friendship and their past break up, become a super couple (one of the healthiest danmei couples I’ve ever read and proves healthy doesn’t have to be boring), save the country and bring down the emperor or two and just generally this is my rainy day book.

23 Long Wind Crossing (Destined) by Mo Shu Bai (het) - two functional lovely people fighting the world and growing up together and forming an amazing marriage.

22 Mistakenly Saving the Villain by Feng Yu Nie (danmei) - so underrated. A perfect h/c fantasy with the most functional MC and fucked up ML that never puts even a toe wrong with a premise that could go seriously bad so many different ways, instead telling a funny, moving story of love helping you heal.

21 I'll Be the Male Lead's Sister in Law by September Flowing Fire (het) - one of my all time favorite novels. Heroine is made to marry a disabled nephew of the emperor. He used to be a victorious god of war but went mad and now is basically locked away and kept as a beast. GOD I LOVE THIS NOVEL SO MUCHHHHH! So much hurt/comfort and awesome OTP and after he eventually recovers, all he wants to do is to fight and murder things and dote on wifey. MMM. He’s honestly one of my fave MLs.

20 The Rebirth of a Star General by Qian Sha Cha Ke (het) - not a typical QSCK at all, this one has a heroine who wakes up after being killed by her awful family; in her past life she was a general whose glory went to her cousin but here she chooses to start anew. Revenge is secondary to her - forming a new life and healing are really the focus. Also the OTP (FL and a male general with his own tragedy, and her former schoolmate) is just EVERYTHING!

19 Nan Chan by Tang Jiu Qing (danmei) - it reads like poetry crossed with a nightmare. One of the most unusual novels I've read and with the most alien set of protagonists I've ever read and believably so (a personification of a sword and a cannibalistic fish), I can't even describe this in any way other than a deity-centric paean to atheism.

18 The Rest of My Life by Mo Shu Bai (het) - the sole modern on this list, this is a novella about an aftermath of a regular office worker with a regular life and a regular husband being raped. It's a hard hard read but it's amazing.

17 To Rule In a Turbulent World by Fei Tian Ye Xiang (danmei) - gay Minglan is my elevator pitch. Well that or "what happens if you stick cottagecore and crucifixion in one novel."

It’s a BL novel but honestly, it’s a slice of life period novel with fascinating characters and setting that happens to have a gay OTP, not a romance in a period setting per se. It’s meticulously written and smart and deals with character development and somehow makes daily minutia fascinating (I never thought I’d find daily farming things interesting but here I am.) Farming, politics and the sudden horrors of war all intermingle perfectly.

Our protagonist, You Miao, is the son of a fabulously wealthy merchant, sent to the capital to make connections and study. As the story starts, he buys a sex slave on a whim from his friend (OK, wait wait wait don’t go, why are you bailing :P) Basically You Miao sees his friend’s servants beating someone to death, feels bad, and buys him because, as we discover gradually and organically, You Miao may be wealthy and occasionally immature but he is a genuinely good person. Let's back up - You Miao - our protag. He is the main reason I love the novel. It’s hard to write a character who is wealthy, kinda spoiled, sometimes immature and still make him eminently likeable. You Miao is also smart, pragmatic, funny, surprisingly laid back, a people person, and with a stubborn streak a mile wide. He is not perfect in any way but he is a real living breathing person I came to love.

Anyway, the ostensible sex slave he buys is a barbarian from beyond the wall, named Li Zhifeng. It’s touch and go if the man will survive but eventually he does and You Miao, who by then has to return home, gives him his papers and lets him go (not before they have some pretty explicit sex because hey - You Miao is all ‘why not, might be fun to try’ and LZF is “dude saved my life, why not.’ One of the things I love about the story is that there is no instalove - both sex and love make sense in the way and the order they happen; the two bang on a semi regular basis long before their feelings fully develop into love, which is pretty gradual and realistic.) However, LZF decides to stick with You Miao instead, both out of sense of debt for YM saving his life and because he genuinely likes him. One of the pleasures of the novel is watching LZF slowly transform from a piece of wood automaton into a genuine person who allows himself joy or temper.

So meticulously written, so smart, so vivid, such a cast of secondary characters (that friend who was beating LZF to death ended up being one of my favorite, most tragic characters in the novel because the author gets people are complex.)

16 The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System by MXTX (danmei) - a pastiche parody of web novels that somehow is both witty and makes me genuinely feel desperately for the protags. Go read!

15 Dandere General and His Lord by Gong Xinwen (het) - God, I love this one. Heroine transmigrates from modern world into a brutal slave-holding world at war (think something like Warring States era.) Our heroine transmigrates into the body of a noblewoman who just hung herself. When she comes to, she discovers that woman’s twin brother was the ruler of a city poisoned by a rival claimant and the besieging army of said claimant is about to take the city and original occupant of the body and the rest of the family chose suicide as a way to avoid dishonor. Our heroine refuses, schemes with advisors to pass as the brother and rally the troops. Once the invaders are defeated, she keeps on the masquerade and rides off to one of the never-ending wars “she” is summoned to. Our hero couldn’t be farther from this. A slave and a son of a slave, he’s escaped a horrific, starving childhood during which he narrowly avoided being murdered or raped, and ended up in the army. When the story opens, he distinguished himself in battle and as a reward, he and a few of his fellow slave warriors are invited to a banquet, where they are given some alcohol and to be playthings of any nobles who want them. One of them does not survive this but ML is lucky - heroine feels terrible and so “claims” him for herself. Instead she just tends to his wounds and sends him back. She does not fancy him or anything, she is just a human being with a conscience. And the story goes from there.

14 The Marquis Is Innocent by Peng Lai Ke (het) - this is the set up of very beautiful yet utterly cold-hearted woman marrying a ruthless, powerful man who eventually ends up on top of the murder pyramid. And a relationship that starts as a political arrangement with the husband not caring for her but then the ruthless scheming murder machine falls hard for her while FL actually does not, not yet. It takes a long time. This is such a glorious slow burn (I think by now you realized I love slow burns) and it takes her a very long time to open up or for him to realize that is what he wants (he's a very believable period man who finds it hard to admit he can actually have his happiness based on a woman) and there are steps forward and back and it's glorious, glorious!

13 Thousand Miles of Bright Moonlight by 罗青梅 (haven't seen it transliterated) (het) - one of my ultimate favorites, this would make such an epic drama! A smart as hell but cautious and wounded heroine, a hero who is a monk and a warrior but also terribly ill and such a vivid world and amazing secondary characters (heroine’s brother is possibly my favorite supporting character of all time) and so much angst and happy ending. Both the protags are such intense, good people longing for happiness but not daring for it. This has an amazing romance but it’s not romance-centric if it makes sense - ML doesn’t appear for a while. But once he does, it’s worth it!

12 Mountain and River Pillow by Mo Shu Bai (het) - a tender intense and tragic slowburn which shows the limits of knowing what will happen and the fight to reestablish the family with an amazing amazing OTP. Heroine transmigrated into her past self; this time she chooses to go through with her arranged marriage instead of running away for love (it ended badly) but her knowledge fails to prevent her new sweet husband and his whole family murdered in battle and framed for treason. All that is, except for her husband's youngest brother, barely adult and left with an almost impossible task. In the past life he managed but it hollowed him out. In this one he has a sister in law to assist so...Anyway, both the protags are smart, good, intense and amazing people and I love them separately and as an OTP. By far my favorite MSB novel.

11 Those Years In Quest of Honour Mine by Man Man He Qi Duo (danmei) - another really underrated gem, it’s funny and heart-breaking and made me laugh and sniffle within pages of each other. Its two protagonists are both walking wounded but also good people, and watching them find happiness despite all the horrors the world threw at them, watching them take care of each other is so lovely. Also, someone once described the ML as “Lan Wangji gone feral” and that is just A++++

10 The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by MXTX (danmei) - we all know that one is there even any point describing it.

9 Nightfall/Ever Night by Mao Ni (not romance centric but het) - so long but also so smart and unusual and bloody and tho it’s not primarily a romance, you will never see another ML who loves his FL as much as Ning Que does his Sang Sang. And the worldbuilding and the plot and the characters and just so so bleak.

8 Wu Chang Jie by Shui Qian Cheng (danmei) - are you an emotional vampire? I am and this novel is a banquet. In a highly fantastical setting, we meet our protagonists - the sunny Xie Bian and the intense and surly Fan Wushe. Xie Bian is a human who assists his master in conveying souls to the underworld and making sure no mishaps happen. Bian is concentrated sunshine in human form and to meet him is to love him. When the novel opens, his drunk master brings back another human to be his shidi and assist with duties - said human is uncommunicative, intense and surly Wushe. Bian is excited to have a shidi but little does he know that a story dealing with the horrors of past lifetime is about to start.

Anyway, why WCJ? So many reasons. It has such a dark bleak worldview - this world is a horrifying system where powerful cannibalize each other’s cores for an impossible chance to ascend, where gods have sealed off their realm and all that’s left is neverending human misery and hell (the only way you’d see a deity is if they’d been sent down to suffer over and over and over), where even reincarnation doesn’t fix things and bad acts are often unpunished. And the novel then asks - is it worth being a good person in such a world? More, is it worth being a good person in such a world when nothing good has ever happened to you and you have been repeatedly betrayed due to your goodness? And the answer, on Bian’s part, is an uncompromising yes.

Ah yes, the other reason to love this novel - the protagonists and their fucked up fucked up relationship. Bian (who was Prince Ziheng in the past life) is so genuinely good. But he is that rare thing - good but not saintly, noble but not cloying. So much of the novel is his getting taken apart over and over and barely able to put himself back together every time but his soul is still as amazing as ever. And then there is Wushe (who was Prince Zixiao in past life, Ziheng’s not-bio-related brother.) Wushe is not a good person. He is a monster. And he loves Bian/Ziheng more than his life and his soul and the entire world but he’s also the one who hurt him more than anyone else ever could and did it over and over. His love survived a literal century of torture in the worst kind of hell and refused the usual memory loss of new life. But it also humiliated and broke Ziheng down to his constituent parts.

One of the things that is so fascinating to me about this novel is the question of what can be forgiven/what should be forgiven/what kind of expiation is enough/can you ever love someone who you loved so much and then he hurt you so badly and is now repentant? And it never sweeps trauma under the rug or hand waves it away but deals with it head on. If you want healthy relationships, you should stay far away from this novel but if intense insane ones with a feral barely human one capable of destroying the world leashed by love and guilt to the sane deeply good one is your bag, come right in. There is also the world building and the fact that yes, the big fall out between Ziheng x Zixiao is based on not knowing all the facts but it’s not “why can’t you talk?! This is dumb!” But is totally in keeping with both events and their characters. It’s reasonable for Ziheng to do what he does and for Zixiao to misunderstand and decide Ziheng is now his biggest enemy (but still one he’s fixated on) and for Ziheng to never be able to clarify. Anyway, once again this is trigger warning central so please heed those, but if they are no issue, this one is wonderful.

7 Stars of Chaos (Sha Po Lang) by Priest (danmei) - so smart and so much clever world building. There is enough politicking to satisfy a Qiang Jin Jiu fan, it’s steampunk, and our two protagonists - Gu Yun, the empire’s most powerful general, who’s loyal to the empire despite being badly wronged by it, and Chang Geng, a cursed prince with barbarian blood and horrifying childhood - are wonderful separately and together. This is a huge slow burn but it’s totally worth it! They fall in love with each other’s hearts and brains and ability as much as anything. (Yes, this is the one with the yifu thing. Gu Yun is made Chang Geng’s foster father when he rescues him and brings him back to the capital as a way to keep CG safe in imperial strife. They are 12 and 19 at the time so clearly it’s never a parental relationship.)

6 Heaven Official's Blessing by by MXTX (danmei) - I love it’s sprawling narrative and cast, I love its inventive setting and picaresque story. It’s hilarious and can make me cry. But the novel’s place on this list is due to Xie Lian who is part Kenshin part drama WWX part pure goodness wrapped in heartbreak and trauma wrapped in sunshine.

5 (tie) The Emperor’s Beloved Ugly Girl by 一味相思 (haven't seen it transliterated) (het)- Our heroine is the unlucky laundry maid A’Chou. She is a di daughter of an upperclass family but her family got destroyed in one of the political upheavals of the time and A’Chou, only a small child at the time, was the only survivor and was made an enslaved laundry maid. Due to various events, at the start of the novel she is a laundry maid in a minister’s household and the minister’s beloved daughter is having a fit because she’s supposed to marry the former Crown Prince which may have been great a few years back but Crown Prince had since been deposed, tortured, imprisoned and now is living in the middle of nowhere under conditions that are too meager to be called house arrest. And he’s seriously crippled too. Understandably, the young lady doesn’t want to marry him! She’d rather kill herself and so she does. And so, a desperate plan is hatched - why don’t we pretend the laundry maid is the di daughter of the minister’s household and send her off? And so A’Chu is sent as the bride. She arrives to discover a broke, seriously injured man on the verge of death…and we go from there. This is so gorgeous and tender and slow in just the right way and like AAAAAA! Secondary OTPs (one of which is MM) are also epic.

5 Wishing You Eternal Happiness by Peng Lai Ke (het) - this is almost tied with Dreamer as my favorite het web novel ever though it couldn’t be more different from Dreamer, with its hard-edged and hard-souled protagonists ruthlessly cleaving their way to the world and, eventually, each other, its smart cynical air. Except in one thing - the world of Wishing is just as bloody and dark. Its two protagonists are gentle, deeply wounded souls who may find salvation in each other but even something as basic as safety almost seems out of reach. Jliafu, our heroine, is neither a modern-day transmigrator, nor some exotic princess or demoness. She is very much a period woman of her time, from a weathy merchant clan, whose beauty is her curse. You can tell the novel’s tone from that utterly bleak opening chapter where she, a favorite concubine of a capricious dying emperor, is ordered to be buried alive with him and is not even given the “grace” of white silk but slowly suffocates in the coffin, scrabbling at the lid. There is no grand threats of vengeance on her part, not dramatic opera events. Just despair and death. The whole introductory chapter is haunted by emotional ghosts - the empress’ unrequited love for the monster on the imperial bed (turning into desire for Jiafu’s suffering after he dies), the emperor slowly dying in his prime after waging too many wars, and his fear of being haunted by Pei Youan, a brilliant if sickly minister who died of illness long ago on one of imperial campaigns. There is no triumph for anyone, only loss.

When she wakes up as still a young woman, all she wants is to escape the same fate. There are no plans for power or revenge, only a desire for survival. And so she latches on asking for help from Pei Youan, the only man in her past go-around who showed any consideration and desire and ability to protect her, though he barely knew her. Pei Youan is probably my favorite het web novel ML. Despite his brains and ability, he drifts through life. In modern terms, he clearly has depression. One of the biggest, best joys of the novel is watching these two very good, very quiet, very wounded people discover happiness and love with each other. I sort of want to cry just thinking about it, tbh.

4 Ballad of Sword and Wine (Qiang Jin Jiu) by Tang Jiu Qing (danmei) - a dense political tome that takes a while to get going but then it’s a runaway train. In a fictional dynasty, Shen Zechuan, the only remaining son of a disgraced aristocratic family and Xiao Chiye, the younger son of a family of generals guarding the border join forces (and then something else) to get power and pull down the dysfunctional system.

This is so elegant and smart (a rare web novel I’d recommend to anyone who just loves solid period fiction) and you probably need a notebook to keep track of the politics and military strategy. These characters are very very smart not just because the author says so.

As to the characters, there is a large cast and I love many of them, but for me the novel is made by Shen Zechuan and Xiao Chiye. SZC is gorgeous and delicate and icy and can kill you before you have time to blink. Saddled with the sins of the family he had no pleasant interaction with, he claws his way out of hell (seeing the sinkhole he was trapped in, literally as well) to take down those who wronged him but also to amass power so all the tragedy and corruption won’t happen again and the whole rotten system comes crashing down. XCY is a military genius who is trapped as a hostage in the capital because the court doesn’t trust his family. He longs to return to the plains of home and to take his rightful place. The two men start out as bitter enemies, then reluctant and sniping allies, then as friends and eventually as one of the most gorgeous, tender, swoony OTPs. Anyway this is one is a bona fide masterpiece, equal parts smart and emotionally intense.

3 Dreamer In the Spring Boudoir by Bai Lu Cheng Shuang (het) - my n1 het novel on this list, smart and fierce and don’t really read this for romance because it does not start until really late, but ice cold heroine x ice cold hero both of equal brains and ruthlessness is everything. I went from loathing the ML to finding him fascinating to adoring him (and yet he softened around the edges only for FL, he never became “nice”) and loved FL throughout; secondaries are epic. If you read only one non-danmei web novel, make it this one.

2 Stains of Filth (Yuwu) by Meatbun Doesn't Eat Meat (danmei) - another novel by the author of 2ha. Clearly she just pushes all my buttons every time. This one is much shorter and has a plot that is twisty but less twisty than 2ha. Still, all that means is that intensity and the pain are more concentrated. Aristocratic Mo Xi and former slave Gu Mang were both legendary generals of the empire and lovers. But Gu Mang betrayed the country and switched to the enemy. Now he is back as a peace offering by that country and Mo Xi has to deal with the fact that his feelings are as strong as ever.

This novel!!! So much pain and intensity!!! So many amazing plot twists and supporting characters. The same bleak world view, the same unjust society, the same protagonists doing right things despite the cost. Mo Xi’s intensity and inability to let go (he’s imprinted on Gu Mang and that’s it) is romantic, bone-shakingly intense, and tragic all at once. And oh Gu Mang! So many times I just wanted to reach into the book physically to protect him. The novel deals with unjust societies, memory versus personality, what it’s like to be good in a bad universe etc. And it both made me sob and giggle, repeatedly, and sold me on literally death-defying (but not honor-defying!) love. Oh, and special shout out to the fact that like 2ha, you may start out hating some characters and end up a rabid fangirl (cough Murong Lian!)

1 The Husky and His White Cat Shizun (2ha) by Meatbun Doesn't Eat Meat (danmei) -my n1 forever and ever.

Taxian Jun, the horrific cultivation emperor of the world who razed cities and destroyed sects, is surrounded on his mountain. The righteous sects are terrified to confront him but tired of living, Taxian Jun consumes poison and dies by suicide at the age of 32. And opens his eyes as 16 year old Mo Ran, Mo Ran long before he became Taxian Jun, Mo Ran who is excited at a chance to save the one person he loved and lost. Oh, and to deal with his loathed shizun, the unapproachable and strict Chu Wanning, his past life’s biggest enemy.

I have no idea if it’s objectively the best on this list but it hits every trope I love, its bleak worldview (the world will change only incrementally but that’s enough, average person will not appreciate the sacrifice but it’s still worthwhile, and love is worth everything) mirrors mine, and the sheer complexity of the plot and cascade of plot twists each of which is insane and yet completely logical, is amazing (this is a rare novel where it’s even more fun to reread than read for the first time because you keep seeing all the hints and trail crumbs laid out that you did not see the first time.)

And the characters!!! I mean, this novel has multiple universes/timelines, a side trip to the Underworld AND the demon realm, a plot more twisted than a store’s worth of pretzels and yet the thing that hits me the most are the characters. Mo Ran is my favorite web novel character of all time and I love Chu Wanning so. All the secondary characters are wonderfully written (and some of them made me bawl) and they are all complex. My opinion of all of them changed many times over; the novel doesn’t make it easy to love some of them but then you do and it’s so worthwhile! That slow change is one of the delights of the novel - I started out disliking the unpleasant, superior Chu Wanning and cruel, callow Mo Ran and then I loved them so so hard and cried for them so so hard and was in awe of their heroism and sacrifice and selflessness and capacity to love.

Oh, and the fact that this novel does something almost impossible - it has its protagonist start out as so clearly irredeemable and then slowly and painfully and thoroughly redeems him (without ever letting the reader forget what it is he needs redemption for.) Also, for a novel that made me cry so hard I felt ill, this book is just so damn funny with the most sarcastic sense of humor imaginable (the serious angst doesn’t even kick in until 90+ chapters!) Anyway I should stop or I will write a dissertation. But this is the one web novel that I would put in my top 5 not just web novels but any novels in any shape or form. The plentiful trigger warnings are there for a reason so stay away if they are an issue, but if not, if anyone hasn’t read it yet, what are you doing with your life?!

[rottendollface]

Guilty.

Character: Wriothesley.

Warnings: NSFW, female reader, OOC Wriothesley and Neuvillette, religious cult, mass suicide, psychological manipulations, gaslighting, corrupted court, unrequited love from Wriothesley to reader, unhealthy obsession, toxic care, forced unequal marriage, unhealthy self-criticism, unprotected gentle sex, oral sex (reader receiving), 18+.

W/C: 3240.

In the DNA of every Fontaine citizen there was a primal fear of the Primordial Sea. Some of the citizens were happy to convince themselves that it wasn't a fear – just a placidity with the notes of hidden anxiety. Others were counting days and seeking for the proof of the prophecy coming true. Your father belonged to the second category.

He was a good speaker and did know how to manipulate other people's feelings. He was blessed with good fantasy, lively tongue, and commitment to his ideas. He would rather die than betray his ideals – thanks to this impressive core strength, he was able to become a preacher for a group of people that was waiting for the end humbly. Your father's mind was gone and he, drugged with the sense of power, created a cult of Primordial Sea, where he and his followers were praying for the Judgment Day to come. Their insanity was ineffable: the whole cult decided to commit mass suicide as a prey for the Primordial Sea. Your father told his followers that after their death, their souls would beg the Primordial Sea to pour on the Fontaine to purify the sinners, and the evil would be erased. He managed to make people think that the whole nation of Fontaine was born as a messiah. But something went wrong: everyone, except your father, had died.

The trial was rough and humiliating for you; there was only you left in Fontaine as your mother left the city right after her husband became a preacher. The Chief Justice Neuvillette was furious, you could swear his piercing gaze was directed not on your father only, but on you as well; Neuvillette himself insisted on your presence and prohibited you from leaving the trial. You could hear people in the courtroom whispering behind your back: they were discussing every detail of your family life, laughing scornfully at your destroyed reputation. The whole clan of yours was disgraced, and you, as the only alive representative of it, was meant to take this burden on your shoulders. You were thinking about leaving Fontaine, too, but you missed the opportunity. During investigation, you got into a list of suspects and was banned from leaving Fontaine for a couple of years. Your innocence was proved, but the authorities promised to keep an eye on you, as they still believed you were affected by your father's ideas.

For the whole trial, you couldn't take a handkerchief out of your eyes. You were crying silently, praying for this grotesque performance to end. The white cotton handkerchief of yours embroidered with pink roses was wet with tears and felt disgusting when you pressed it to your skin, but you couldn't help but cry about your ruined life. It was a triumph of justice and the funeral of your youth. Not a respected man would ever marry you or hire you on a prestigious job. You were doomed to lead a miserable life until you would be able to leave Fontaine.

Wriothesley was here too, and he was observing you carefully. He knew you well since adolescence and the whole situation left him in shock, but with a pleasurable aftertaste. Previously you wouldn't even look at him and now you didn't have a choice but to go to him if you wanted to save the remnants of your reputation and provide yourself a life without hardships. Wriothesley wasn't lucky to fall in love with you since the very first moment he met you at a tea party between honorable families, but you were fascinated with another boy. Wriothesley knew your engagement fell apart, so he was blessed with a good chance.

Despite his social status, the title of the Lord of the Fortress of Meropide left its mark on Wriothesley's reputation. Respected as usual, he silently became unwanted at many events and parties, as if the spirit of jail and the aura of social outcasts he had to work with were following him everywhere. This isolation affected Wriothesley, making him distant and cold. The more time he spent at the Fortress, the fewer reasons for leaving it he had seen. Maybe if you agree to become his woman, he would taste the pleasure of simple walks and visits to the cafe again.

Wriothesley noticed you looking at him and he gave you a nod, you gave him back a forced sorrowful smile and turned your head to Neuvillette. Even in a state of full emotional breakdown you were beautiful: your puffy and red eyes with clumpy eyelashes, the reddened tip of your nose and your swollen red lips awoke long forgotten desires in him. Your hair with two small and messy braids that were framing both sides of your charming face left him dreaming of just one touch of it. Rose gold locket with a print of a flower on your neck begged Wriothesley to replace it with the one with his family's symbol; and this mourning black dress on your fragile figure needed to be torn off of your body and burned in a fire along with this tragic past of yours, Wriothesley believed. You were a heroine of his dreams, and Wriothesley was determined to become your knight in real life.

You didn't look at all the relatives of the victims of your father's deeds. You paid them a stated compensation, but money couldn't bring back their loved one – it was impossible for you to endure talking to them as the guilt was covering your whole existence and turned you into a silent shell of a man. You had to sell all the furniture and tableware, all your jewelry except family heirlooms and plenty of your dresses were sold, too. The more you tried to hold the family estate and the heritage your ancestors made in your hands, the faster it fell down, as if your touch was diseased. When the trial ended you were the first to rush out of the courtroom.

You got into debts trying to pay off legal costs and to feed yourself. You applied to dozens of jobs but all of them were silent. The debt papers were multiplying and there was no way for you to escape the vicious circle, until one morning you got a letter with a black wax seal and the emblem of Wriothesley's family. It was short and cold. Wriothesley stated that he paid for all your debts and invited you for a private talk to the Fortress of Meropide. Your hands started shaking both from fear and gratitude, your mixed emotions made your heart beat so fast it was hard to breathe. You cried all your tears already and your face grimaced in a painful cry without any tear. You didn't expect Wriothesley to stand by your side when everyone else turned their backs on you, he had no reasons for helping you: you had always been allured by someone else and rarely found a moment to spare on him. You suspected that he had romantic feelings towards you and this made you avoid him even more. For you Wriothesley was just an acquaintance and you were afraid to give him a false hope. The only time you initiated a talk with him was the day of his promotion to the post of Lord. It was short and simple: just a greeting and a small present with a congratulatory card. The present was so simple and unsuitable for the occasion, yet it seemed like a great idea for you to present to Wriothesley a set of your favorite pastries. It was the best pastries on the whole Fontaine but you didn't even ask him if he liked them.

Wriothesley was waiting for you nervously. You came right at the appointed hour. Before he could tell you a thing you hugged him, pressing his mature figure to yours tightly.

'Words can't express my gratitude to you, Wriothesley.' You whispered loud enough for him to hear. Stunned, he even forgot to hug you back, and you let him go right when he wanted to embrace you. 'You wanted a private talk, and I'm here. Still, I can't understand why we have to do it in the Fortress…'

You shivered and looked around with pain in your eyes. It worked, Wriothesley thought, noticing every detail in your appearance that showed him clearly – you were exposed and ready to accept everything he would offer to you. The extreme degree of despair that you felt coming through the cold moldy corridors full of murderers, thieves and rapists made you distressed, and the escort of Clorinde with her attentive eyes watching your every step didn't make it easier.

'I hope you understand all the seriousness of the situation you ended up in,' Wriothesley started with a calm assured voice. 'Your life fell apart in a moment. My life is crumbling slowly. The best we can do is to stay together. Your reputation will be restored, you will live a happy life again, I promise you I will take all the responsibility for it in my hands.'

'I appreciate your tenacity, but how? It's impossible, dear Wriothesley. I will leave Fontaine after the end of my travel restrictions, just like my mother did. This is the best I can do.' You answered him with sadness. Leaving behind the great history of your family, the manor and a carefree life that you once had, and the lovingly tended homeland was hard, impossible even, but you couldn't endure the way your friends were turning their faces away from you on the streets, hiding their hands inside their cloaks just not to have a handshake with you.

Dear Wriothesley… Those words were sweeter than honey when spoken out of your lips. It seemed like he ignored everything you said after, his gaze fixated on your lovely face as he admired it. He dreamed of those words, of the private moments, of the simplest conversation – and now he had it all at his plate.

Wriothesley's tone was stern. 'The stain on your reputation is indelible. You shouldn't think that a simple escape will erase it – it will make everything even worse, everyone will think that you are guilty, just like your father. You should stay in the city and forget about your plan.'

'Why?' Your eyes filled with tears. 'How can I stay here if everyone despises me?! Merchants close their shops when they see me coming! I'm pushed out of society just because of my father! I am the one tortured with terrible inner guilt! This is a miracle that you are talking to me, you are the only one whom I'm talking to in a month! I'm so sorry to the one who lost their relatives, but they are not the only victims and no one feels compassion towards me!' You cried like an animal wounded by a trap. Your lips were trembling, as you tried to prevent tears, but it didn't work and an uncontrollable stream poured from your tired eyes. You covered your face with your palms, but your shuddering shoulders unrevealed your hysterical, bitter, full of anger and sense of helplessness crying.

Wriothesley came to you and hugged you softly, carefully, not to scare you away: he pressed you to his body, one of his hands held your back and the other was patting the back of your head. You felt safe for the first time and took your palms away from your face.

'Marry me, and your problems will be gone.' Wriothesley whispered, pressing his cheek to your head. His touch was full of need and love, he held you in his hands tightly, as if you could melt and disappear, and was the most precious part of his life. Seconds before your answer were the most agonizing in his entire life.

You bit your lip until blood while thinking chaotically, choosing between honesty to yourself and all the goods you could have from pairing with Wriothesley. You respected him, admired him for his character, but you never loved him. And he loved you – the terrible guess turned out to be true, and guilt pricked you once again. All this time your cowardly silence was hurting him. Even now he was ready to put at risk his own reputation only to save yours. The selfless things Wriothesley was ready to do for love – you never deserved him.

'I will…' You could feel how your heart dropped, and how Wriothesley's heart started beating faster from excitement. He was the happiest man on Teyvat, and you were the most despised in your own eyes.

You moved to Wriothesley's house before you got engaged. He insisted on it, as he believed that your manor was full of negative memories and he wanted you to rest before the ceremony. Everything was just like Wriothesley said: people started treating you better after you were announced as his fiancée. The wedding was small, only for the closest friends, and there was no one from your side.

'I see the results of my help,' Neuvillette said, patting Wriothesley on his shoulder, when you were busy talking to Sigewinne. 'Treat her well. That is the only way you can atone your foul trick on her.'

'Sure, Chief Justice.' Wriothesley chuckled. 'You don't have to worry about it.'

Wriothesley's authority was strong enough to affect people's opinion. If he believed you and thought of you as a good match for him, then it meant that you were a decent woman, disgraced by your father's deeds. Slowly, you became welcomed again. The society that once cruelly pushed you out, was pitying you. You were able to attend parties, but Wriothesley didn't share your happiness.

Every time you got an invitation he was here to remind you, that those families turned their backs on you when you needed their support. He claimed them unworthy of your presence, he told you it would be better if you stop befriending traitors. You were surrounded by traitors, Wriothesley believed, and all your surroundings needed to be changed.

You tried to brush it off, but deep inside you knew – Wriothesley was right. Instead of noisy parties you preferred to spend your time at home, having a conversation with Wriothesley and drinking tea with your favorite pastries. He was so generous towards you: your every whim, your smallest wishes were done. Your laugh and joyful shine of your eyes were his best payment – he wanted nothing, but your smile. The only reason Wriothesley came home was you waiting for him. He knew you would meet him and give him a greeting kiss, then ask him about his day. It was an unchanging ritual, a rule of your and his family. While on work Wriothesley dreamed of your gentle touch, of warmth of your lips against his. He couldn't forget how blessed he was to share the most intimate moments with you. Your body was supple and took everything Wriothesley gave to it. Usually a rough lover, he couldn't treat you the same way he treated other women. His hands undressed you, traced your curves gently, with adoration, as if he was touching the masterpiece made by Archons themselves. His lingering touches were mixed with his wet kisses on your body. Your soft skin got hot from the simplest touch and Wriothesley used it to his advantage. You laid under him, exposed and needy, and Wriothesley started from kissing your lips until they swell. His tongue slipped inside your mouth to tease yours, he sucked on your lips and bit the lower one to hear you gasping. Wriothesley's fingers were caressing your breasts, pinching your nipples lightly only to prepare them for his tongue. He sucked on them alternately, playing with them with his tongue and wetting with saliva. Before entering you Wriothesley had always spared a moment for teasing you by using his mouth. He opened your thighs with droplets of your wetness glistening shamelessly on your skin, his lips reached your swollen clit immediately. He licked on your pussy hungrily, adding stimulation but denying you cum. Wriothesley sucked on your clit, licked on it while his fingers circled around your clenching hole, then stuffed you and bumped on the sensitive spots inside. When he replaced his fingers on his tongue, Wriothesley showed it inside as far as possible, pressing his lips firmly to your opening and fucking you on his tongue.

Your wet pussy took his massive cock easily and hugged it tightly. Wriothesley felt the pulsation of your overstimulated walls and pounded on you in a calm rhythm, leisure even, to let you feel all the pleasure when his cock hit on your deepest parts. Once you begged for more, Wriothesley went faster, going hard, his hands on your hips pressed you down on his cock roughly. The faster and rougher pace drove you mad, you couldn't hold your screams in your throat. Wriothesley could go on you for hours before cumming, and you accepted all of him, as your pussy couldn't get enough of his cock. Usually quiet, Wriothesley became loud when he was close to release, his grip on your body was so tight it left bruises on your skin. You were the first to cum, and your climax on his cock made him cum too, scorching your spasming pussy with his seed.

From your side you tried to do everything for him, showed him as much affection as you could, but the feeling of falseness accompanied you at your every deed and made you sick of yourself. Wriothesley couldn't have enough of you, he needed to be with you for the whole day and even at night he was hugging you to his chest so tightly you couldn't escape. His sleep was light and he woke up every time you left the bed. Wriothesley shared your every hobby, and you did the same with his, even though you didn't like them. When you wanted to go for a walk, he came with you even if it interrupted his own plans. He tried to do everything together with you: cooking, cleaning, resting, sleeping and being awake. Wriothesley wasn't tired of you, but you felt the opposite. All the hours he spent at work were just like a pure blessing from Archons – it were hours of tranquility and silence. You were afraid to ask for more private space: you still felt that you owed him. He had plenty of money that he spent on you without any hesitation, he restored your family manor and treated you like a queen. You didn't have to work, but you searched for a job – of course, Wriothesley noticed it. He sat you up in the Fortress of Meropide, so you two could see each at work too. It was the best job a woman could dream about: with a good salary and easy duties to perform. When he had a free minute he always came to your office, knowing perfectly that you had already finished your job and were helping other girls with their stuff. If you refused to spend a lunch time with him, referring to the strains of work, you felt stink-eye gazes from your colleagues which lead to a self-loathing.

In the storm of complicated feelings, the only one, that had never left you, was guilt.

[ominous-horse-noises]

final finale thoughts!!

things i loved about the finale

QUEER GODDESS PATHEON YEAAAAAAH!!! i thought it was such a good way to find a happy medium between kristen committing to a worldview that felt authentic and nuanced without being catholic™ about it

everything to do with the scene of Ankarna trying to offer retribution to each of the bad kids, and each of them making peace with past wrongs instead of continuing to stew in it. i love growth!!!

FIG AND KRISTEN MIRRORING ANKARNA AND CASSANDRA

everything to do with mazey and fabian. of all the fantasy high couples aside from fidayda, these two feel the most like they make sense together- they have similar interests, they have similar values, fabian had a crush on her even when she was being 'uncool' (eg. twister) and how mazey actually picked up on that and appreciated the way he used his perceived coolness to extend it to others who might be picked on otherwise. this is the couple i most hope go the distance even post aguefort adventuring academy (again, aside from figayda ofc but i literally cannot imagine those girls breaking up over anything)

fabian's fetus sibling outnemesising him despite fabian building an animosity towards them the whole season before they were even conceived. peak fantasy high insanity

controversial but i thought the maryann/gorgug being introduced and canonised in all of 15 minutes was hilarious. it was very teen of them in a way that felt authentic. my ideal scenario for them is an end of year fling that becomes amicable exes bc they truly have nothing in common beyond thinking the other is hot (real of them) but i dont have a strong opinion on whether they should break up or not

also maybe controversial but i like that kalina is straight up bloodthirsty. she felt like an equal opposite to bakur- rather than being a devoted servant who became corrupted by proxy, she was trying to corrupt her deity into a form she preferred. thematically it extends to the complementary opposites thing ankarna and cassandra have going on (though i get it might be a reach).

"... thats a four. you know what it's for we don't have to talk about it"

squeem

riz coming in clutch with the character arc right at the last moment. i joked ab his neuroticism being part of his natural swag, but im glad murph not only made sure riz FINALLY addressed the way he was burning himself out, but also that by extension, he was burning out both fig and kristen bc riz has a very calculated idea of 'success' and while he had the best intentions, those two dont fit neatly into it

THE HOLD PERSON OVER THE LAVA??? RIZ'S 'very good on paper, but no practical application."??? i screamed

a second blimey-related divine intervention roll by K2 leading her to getting pinnochioed into a real straight british girl, in real non-dnd britain, is the best thing thats ever happened in fantasy high. a simulacrum was so powerful brennan had to do the dnd equivalent of sending her to a barn upstate.

adaine and aelwyn talking about killing their mother over icecream can be something that is so personal...

siobhan's incredible play with the earworm??? phenomenal, i gasped out loud

fig maybe moving into fabian's house even after she drops out so fabian won't be alone again... what if i threw up blood actually

i liked kipperlilly copperkettle being confirmed to be rotten to the core. 'the ritual looks very different when one accepts rage willingly' GOOD!!! i like evil ambitious teenage girls who try to burn the world down to get what they want. i get why they didnt bring her back, that detail definitely cemented her as in the zayne/penelope category of 'past villains who could possibly be redeemed'

FIG AND AYDA MY LOVES!!! sorry but not even the lesbian goddesses are doing it like these two. brennan put his whole pussy into creating ayda aguefort and my life has been changed forever

zac once again dming K2's alternate universe campaign

things i hated

ik it was payoff to the running bit and it made me cackle when it was revealed, but the implications of hallariel and gilear having a baby are so bad to me. fig talks up gilear a lot, and sure, he came around to being a good dad to her, but gilear has objectively been a shit stepdad to fabian and hallariel... is hallariel. its got to sting was watch your mom be basically catatonic for your entire life, and then suddenly prove that she was capable of being an present mother the whole time- just not for you. im hopeful that senior year will address this though!! lou has always been so good giving his characters' weighty emotional arcs that feel satisfying

i dont like the implication of trackerbees getting back together. i never thought bladebees was good beyond a realistic rebound, but trackerbees was SO codependent together, i dont think its a coincidence that kristen had her best emotional intelligence moments when forced to think things through on her own. tracker always struck me as kind of a 'fixer' type, like she feels most comfortable with someone she can act caretaker-y to (hence bouncing off kristen to another girl who had similar issues). i really reaaaally hope they dont regress back into their s2 dynamic

ruben's memory wipe. i thiiink the implication is that those who were the most willing to follow through on porter's orders maintained more of their memories bc they were in control of themselves and those who didn't were compelled into obedience (which might be why ivy and oisin remember more), but it wouldve been nice to actually see the lucy/ruben close friendship brennan said they had with him sobbing and apologising to her

it felt very weird that kristen didnt get some kind of resolution to her yearlong gentle prodding at bucky?? i think ally got sidetracked with the possibility of kristen getting back together with her ex that it kind of slipped from their mind (maybe bc to them the ankarna vision of her upbringing was kristen resolving her feelings towards her family but still), but considering all of elmville was coming apart, i feel like bucky's faith could've been swaying into doubt pretty easily. idk maybe bc ive become a trackerbees hater over the season but it felt annoying that that was what ally focused in on and not their character's more meaningful relationship with her little brother

[avelera]

I think one reason social class stuff is such a big part of how I write Dreamling is because, at its core if you accept them as a couple, if Hob and Dream are some level of perfect for each other, destined for each other maybe not literally but perfectly matched thanks to the supernatural omniscience of someone like Death setting them up together on purpose based on her greater knowledge of all living things, then it is such a powerfully egalitarian message for a romance.

If Hob really is the one person in all of existence that can handle Dream's bullshit, if he was only given the chance and the time for them to grow into being partners to one another, it's such an insanely profound message. It means that out of billions and billions of people over billions and billions of years, a commoner, a literal peasant was born with the qualities to be a match for one of the most powerful beings in the universe. That being born into the right class be it titles or riches or magical birth right don't actually matter as far as what makes two people suited to each other.

Even if you narrow it to just, say, the sweep of human history, that Death only picked a partner for Dream best suited for these few thousand years of written human history, maybe just for the lifetime of our planet, the message still holds without going all cosmic.

It means that an entirely normal person with no blood right at all, no inherent magical powers, no divine destiny, nothing to distinguish him even from the other soldiers at his table, someone who was born into one of the worst time periods to live through, living an entirely average life that would never make it into any history books except as a footnote, one of billions of people the great stories will simply forget, actually was extraordinary in a way that might have otherwise gone unappreciated but Hob would still have been here, his life still would have happened even if he never got the chance to explore the full potential of his resilience to immortality and his love of life.

If Hob's superpower that allows him to be a match for Dream is simply wanting to live so much that he can withstand the gift of immortality on a level that we rarely see in fiction, that alone is huge. Just some guy from a rainy little island with an entirely common profession of being some peasant soldier, manages to withstand the hardships of time better than immortal beings who were literally born into that existence and into the power and theoretically the supernatural comfort to polish away a lot of the day to day trials that would make living as a human for that span incredibly difficult, like hunger, and losing loved ones, and the daily grind of hardship.

Dream has all this power at his disposal, he is a being of the ultimate privilege. He can literally craft a realm for his comfort, people to be his companions who are best suited to serve him and his needs. Yes he is bound by a function but even that function is one of the richest parts of life: stories and songs and joy and sorrow. The things we toil for the rest of our life so we can carve out the time to indulge in those things. The truly great experiences. That's his job. Not saying it couldn't wear on you, only that it's not like he's Despair or Destruction or even Destiny, bound to helplessly watch all of time unfurl when you already know what's going to happen. Dream has one of the most desirable roles of all of the Endless, at least in theory. He's completed insulated by supernatural levels of privilege: powerful, male-presenting, beautiful, a literal monarch, with a kingdom of beings designed to serve him. The one inherent difficulty he might be argued to have is some form of clinical depression and of course the general traumas that accumulate over so long a lifetime. Not to dismiss it, or say he's not allowed to suffer, profoundly from this and what he's experienced, just to be clear that others have suffered from those things too without the other tools he has at his disposal. He is desperately alone and lonely too, which honestly makes it even more profound for him to have someone who wants to reach out to him.

So to say that Hob, who was not born with any of those privileges or tools, indeed, was born into one of history's most difficult centuries at a time when England was nothing more than a backwater and, yes, Hob is white and male and able bodied, etc, he does not have those privilege marks against him and that will mean more as time goes on and England rises to be a world-dominating superpower and being from there will evolve into a true privilege, but keep in mind, Hob's also from a time where his class, his birth mean he doesn't actually count as part of the "in crowd" of privileged people. He could never be part of his own government, he would not be invited to read or write or be any sort of force in the world. Until the century he was born into it was a vanishingly small likelihood someone like him could ever be more than a serf, legally bound to remain a serf no matter any ambition he might have had. If not for the extreme population loss of the Black Plague granting social mobility out of necessity, Hob could have lived and died as a serf, leaving no other record of his existence.

Instead, Hob's joy, his will to live, and his resilience to withstand eternity that he has as just one of his human qualities, puts him on a level with actual literal gods and creatures more powerful than gods. It means that there is no blood right or inherent structure that makes Dream better than him such that Hob would be inherently a poor match. It means just a guy, out of trillions, was best suited to be the lover of something as old as the universe and more powerful than a god. Because he could handle Dream's bullshit. Because his inherent joy and resilience made him a match to someone who more than anything needs someone like him who can put up with their bullshit, withstand it, look forward to seeing him, actually long for his presence in a way none of Dream's peers do.

That's just... wow I know I'm explaining myself in circle at this point, but I just can't get over it sometimes. Maybe it's the history buff in me just obsessing over someone so, so minor in the grand sweep of history being matched with someone so singularly powerful in this universe as Dream. But if you go with the popular headcanon that Death picked Hob just for the reason of being the best person in the world to be at least Dream's friend but maybe his lover and eventual partner, wow, that really just says something about birth and blood and magic not being the measure of any single beings actual importance to one another, I'm obsessed with it.

[maedelin]

THIS JUST IN!!!!!

Apparently Rogue's character is "ruined" for being interested in Magneto and for not lovin' Gambit the "right" way while he also has previous love interests and an ex-wife in XTAS *blocks and side-eyes blogs like remylebeaugambit* Makes me embarrassed to be a Remy fan rn.

If so-called Rogue fans are so uncomfortable with legal adult Rogue being attracted to Magneto in various media , maybe they should read a Kitty Pryde comic instead or stick to just watching that (actually pretty good ngl) high school AU that is X-Men: Evolution.

Heck, even Sid the sloth from the Ice Age movies gets less slack for dating the much older Brooke who also got magically de-aged just like Magneto. And nobody's saying that Sid is a victim and Brooke is a groomer because the Ice Age fandom is more normal than Rogneto antis and so-called fans of Rogue and Gambit's characters.

Agreed and well met, Traveler! I loved X-Men: Evolution as well. I'm fine with characters having many ships. I'm fond of calling it an armada. :) And my own personal cry is: Monogamy? In this economy?!

I agree with you: the age discourse is just awful. It's so upsetting to me. It's the most basic, reductive, simplistic argument. You can count the years but you add no value or depth to them.

It's not about Rogue being ruined it is about Rogue being ruined for *them*. Reading literacy and comprehension as well as looking at texts dialectically (at the least) is on the wane. You couple this with a strange "purity of concept" that seems to permeate our media, and we get this issue.

If you like a character, then that character is a statement on *you*, *your integrity*, *your morals*, *your ability* to be right. Therefore Rogue doing something against the perceived norm of the story (a story with low stakes, mind. We're less comfortable living in a state of unknowing even more these days) is not only an insult to Remy, but it is also an insult to them, their viewership, their expectations of the character, and ultimately a reflection of themselves.

We see then the knee-jerk reaction to distance, define, and denigrate. Suddenly, we're as obsessed with purity of character and dictating their "best practice" motives. They have to find a way to explain away the fault. Sometimes it's pushed back on the writers (especially if the writer is female...thinking Rebecca Sugar here and the SU writing pool) but often (especially for female presenting characters) the blame is shifted on a literal thought concept. It's insane!

X-Men is a soap opera with powers. Also, the most important thing to remember in my book is the main core of it: the X-Men are people. Not gods (sorry Krakoan Magneto, still love you, baby) but human beings who wish to coexist with you.

With laser beam eyes.

[maelswife]

*awkwardly rubs back of my neck* sooooo uh how do u feel about Meliodas X Elizabeth??

oomf... you don't know what you started

So ngl, with this question at first I was like... its obvious, isn't it? Cause if you don't like Melizabeth, why are you even watching 7ds when the 1st season is 90% them? But then, I feel like this is actually an important question.

Meliodas and Elizabeth have such a deep connection which I So admire. Imagine leaving your family and whole race behind, breaking the world's laws for your love? Thats actually insane.( ´Д｀) I'm not the biggest Meliodas fan on its own, but Melizabeth is like, THE couple of 7ds.

And here comes the catch

Melizabeth is the core couple of the series— without them none of the action would have happened. The fact that its hated on so much is literally... like what?? So many people make jokes including Meliodas groping Eli, or with that one scene in s2 where he's like "Back off my woman." AND THATS THE ISSUE!! ITS SEASON 2!!!!

SO MANY of these idiots online haven't endured season 3 and 4, and are the first to judge. The fact that they only take THIS ONE SCENE speaks for itself. Meliodas saw 106 Elizabeth's die on his eyes after falling in love with him. Liz DIDNT EVEN HAVE THE CURSE ACTIVATED!! Her death was because of Fraudrin, and if Meliodas was there, it wouldn't have happened (yet). After 3000 years, he was already so broken— and mind you, with his original power from the Holy war still— that he destroyed a whole kingdom out of grief, AND THEN HAD ANOTHER ELIZABETH SHOW UP IN HIS LIFE RIGHT AFTER!! People don't know the fact that its been 3000 years of pain and MAKE HIM SOME DELUSIONAL PEDO??? UGHHHHH

I adore Melizabeth and will defend it with my life online.

[werewolf-girlfriend]

ive been enabled so let me share some of my thoughts on how to get ur art noticed online

if u want Engagement on ur posts then i believe that its critical to make people care about ur art. the easiest way to do this is to appeal to something they already care about, like fandom, aesthetics/subculture, current events, having fun (people love humor!). a harder but perhaps more fulfilling route is to talk about ur own ocs and projects enough until people start caring about them too

theres an infinite amount of topics people care about out there so id suggest picking something u already care about urself and channel ur art energy there. trying to make art for the most popular things out there regardless own interests is an exercise in misery, id advise against it..! if im allowed to get superstitious for a moment, i do believe that even untrained eyes can tell whether a piece of art was fun to work on or a chore. and besides! if ur having fun then its easier to create more, and the more u create the more chances ull have at getting lucky and having a post seen :)

on a very related note, art is a way to communicate ideas so the quality of the idea being presented in a piece of art is paramount to how popular a post will be. what i mean by this is that technical skill isnt the primary determinant of a posts popularity. if all your posts are portraits of original characters then people will have a hard time connecting with your posts and theyll keep scrolling, even if those portraits are masterpieces! the major exception to this is probably other artists, who ive found usually have a greater appreciation for the technical side of art (we can only speculate as to why..!)

lemme finish by saying that making popular posts and being good at art are two entirely different skillsets, ive seen many incredibly skilled artists with jack shit for notes because they dont give people a reason to care about their stuff NOT TO MENTION its a huge game of luck whether a post will get seen. so dont go insane in pursuit of recognition!

(i dont want to make this post too long so ive included examples from my own art and their note counts with my analysis after the break)

hello and welcome to the extracurricular segment to this post :) i bring yall two pieces from my art blog @werewolf-artfriend:

here we have a portrait of my fursona that im still proud of and a sketch suggesting "what if sniffers (from minecraft) were the size of mountains?" (let it be noted that the sniffer sketch was posted right during the minecraft mob vote = peak interest in the subject of sniffers).

the portrait at the time of writing has a crisp 30 notes, whilst the sniffer sketch has over 2000 notes. from the same artist, on the same blog, posted only a few months apart. i believe this is a good example both of the power of a piece of art having an interesting idea at its core AND of a piece appealing to the interests of the masses

this is of course just two convenient example posts, but i have experienced fan art of popular topics getting thousands of notes a couple of times now, amidst my other furry shit that these days get around 200-300 notes in comparison

this may sound like a really long winded way of saying "fan art make the world go round" but i just want to point out the nuances that

1) it matters what u make fan art of: if a fandom is small or dormant (waiting on new canon content for example) then clearly less people will be excited about the fan art you make. dont expect 10k notes on ur post if the average recent post in the fandom gets around 200 etc etc

2) it doesnt have to be fan art! ive also had some of my bird art get thousands of notes because people simply like birds :) and this applies to ANY topic people care about! the world rly is your oyster on this one

anyway i think ive started rambling dhgdjhgd thanks if u read this far! i hope i got my point across! and if ur feeling down about ur art not being seen then just keep at it okay! keep creating and keep having fun! keep sharing ur ideas and perspectives with the world and ur audience will eventually find u! i love you!

[chronicmisfit]

Showing my friend IkeVil

So a few warnings before I get into this: Alfons slander, Roger slander, Victor slander, Rude language in general, many random twisted wonderland references, and some risque images of a couple characters.

Sorry some of the coloration is fucked, I tried to fix it and can't.

Me = Orange Him = green

Alr here’s the first guy

He looks like he'd call me slurs while also being the gayest mf ever

sksksks Anything else?

Bro must struggle playing piano with them long ass purr nails I respect the dedication HE GOT THE COLOR PALETTE OF THAT ONE ROBOT THAT EVERYONE ON TWITTER IS MAKING CORN OF BOOTHILL??

Okay I will tell you about him now, and I want you to react again once i do His name is William Rex, he is one of my favorite two, he has the power to command someone to do what he wishes against their will, and he likes to help people become their own master.

Alright azul 2.0 I see what you’re doing Does he have a cringe gamer bf to top it off

He’s not the one I would compare to Azul

OOO I wanna guess which one it is

His curse is called the Curse of the Self-Righteous Monarch, so he's evil Riddle William’s* Is

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Alright so stick in the ass guy, I get it replying to 'William’s*', William Afton Ar ar ar ar

Next guy

That’s a whole ass final boss of twinks

Pfffff okay before I tell you more, do you or do you not think this is the guy who I would compare to azul

err no

you’re right

doesn’t give azul vibes from that stare He gives tiktok fuck boy

This is Liam Evans, he has the power to turn invisible from the curse of the Curious Cat (che'nya core), he is depressed and is so curious that he keeps trying to do things that would kill him

nvm i take back he’s cooler than any tiktok fuckboys

adfjhsflasjfhkdhkjlasfd HOW IS HE COOLER

Depressed Rizz or smth

Fair Next guy

sighs Sighs Sighs

what

Smash, sadly

ajdsalfjhkjasfd

IT’S THE LEANING ALRIGHT

that’s fine he’s the most normal boyfriend-wise of them all

BAHAHAHAH

if you ignore the pathological lying

All fictional husbands have to be a little insane its fine

His name is Harrison Gray, he has the power to tell when people are lying from the curse of the lying fox. He likes to read mystery novels.

I like him I want him

Lemme send you a NSFW pic if i can find one

WOOOOO

MC is a girl btw (L moment)

L MOMENT BUT HE’S FINE SO ITS ALR

next guy

Damn you thought you could slide in a french guy and have me not notice/j

HE’S ACTUALLY NOT FRENCH

AHAHAHAHAH

HE’S A BRITISH NOBLE

God bless

This is Lord Elbert Greetia, he is an Earl. He has the power to make someone see their saddest moment when he steps on their shadow (he has trauma from this). His curse is the curse of the Greedy Queen (Vil core). And he has an obsession with hoarding beautiful things (he is the yandere of the cast)

Dragon Core with the last one

dragon core omg you’re right I almost forgot this asshole’s name ;~;

HE LOOKS LIKE AN ASSHOLE

HE'S SUS (i still love him, but he aint a fave)

AHAHAHA

His name is Alfons Sylvatica, he can change people's perception by touching the nap of their neck and whispering in their ear. His curse is the magic mirror. He has probably fucked half the cast of this game.

Me personally? I think he’s cringe

OKAY BUT-

LOOKIT HIM

… Tempting

yes Exactly Next guy

NVM THAT ONES UGLY IM SORRY HE’S SCARY

adljhkfajkdfasdfafas

HE SCARES ME

I HATE HIM TOO DW

(Note: He grew on me since this convo)

HE’S WORSE THAN THE PREVIOUS I HATE HIM GET HIM AWAY FROM ME WHYS HE SO UGLY HE LOOKS LIKE HE’D HOLD AN ALPHA PODCAST

His name is Roger Barel, he can hear anything within 100m of him (selectively, so he wouldnt hear you fucking harrison). His curse is the traitorous huntsman (rook core but looks like trey). He drinks beer and wont stop flirting with Alfons' MC You see the resemblance right?

I hate that I see it Trey I’M so sorry you have to be compared to an ugly ass bitch

pffff Next guy

btw lemme know when you think someone might be the guy that reminds me of azul

emo He’s either really nice or manipulative ass

You’re right he’s def one of those

my bet has to be on the latest

wym

I mean he looks manipulative AGAHAHAH Sorry emo boy if you are not…

His name is Ellis Twilight, he has the power to bind people's hands together by tapping their head via the curse of the briar thorns. He is obsessed with happiness and will do anything to make someone else happy (once they have their happiest moment he will kill them) ([friend] likes him- [friend] is banned from playing the game for 2 more years tho)

Awe he's so sweet!!!! (What the fuck) AHAHAH

THIS GAME IS NSFW AND [friend] IS BB

AHSHS Yeah I could’ve guessed it was

like in alfons' route (unreleased rn) it goes so into detail-

I want him dead Negative rizz

AND ALFONS USES HIS POWER TO MAKE MC THINK THEY'RE LOVERS LIKE- IN CHAPTER 1 OR 2

BROTHER THIS GUY STINKS

Next guy

Is this the azul

There's only one more guy after this so i wanna wait until i send his pick before answering just so you know all the options What do you think of this guy

I like this one I would Bottom text Would He may look a tad bit evil but i’ll allow it

replying to ‘i like this one’, I don't (similar to crowley ah-)

OH A LOSER SO I LIKE THIS ONE EVEN MORE

This is Victor. We don't know his surname. We don't know his curse. We don't know his power. BUT HE IS THE DAD OF THE GROUP, dad jokes, cockblocking harrison and MC, magic tricks

(NOTE: I figured out what his power is since then-)

I want him

kskssksksks There’s like- no content for victor On tumblr

(NOTE: I found which tag the victor content is on)

I hate it here

Final guy

OH HELLO SAILLOOR

REAL

Is THIS the azul one

YES

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OFC

remember william-? he was one of my favorites? (one moment i need to get some images)

YEA

I’M MARRIED TO WILLIAM AND THIS GUY

HAHAHAHA WIN

HIS NAME IS JUDE JAZZA, he can put someone to sleep by tapping their forehead via the curse of the thirteenth wizard (idk why wizard, it's just malleus core-). HE IS A MOBSTER, A SADIST, AND HE GETS OFF BY BULLYING MC, I LOVE HIM He’s ellis’ boss btw

more like dude zaza BAHAHAHA

Jude and William are my husbands <3

Got two hands for the two of them

Jude legit would give you a check and tell you to write whatever number you want on it... but then make you work to pay him back for it. So he is sugar daddy, but also kinky William canonically would use his power on MC for sex while he's drunk So you like- Harrison, Victor and Jude?

responding to the william info, DAMN Nods

I’m gonna be doing harrison’s main story route after I finish william’s I’ll send you any nsfw or near nsfw ss i see

IM WINNING

[jeynearrynofthevale]

Just watched the Connor McDavid: Whatever it Takes documentary and my main takeaway is that he’s insane but here are a bunch of random notes and pics:

““If it was up to my mom, we probably would’ve been a skiing family”

The drive, that’s who he is, he’s always been that way, since he was probably 3 or 4, he refused to let his parents help him get dressed and he would carry his bag everywhere, the bag was bigger than he was

“He’s intense and he’s competitive”

Bobby Orr said when he was 15 that he was gonna be the greatest skater to ever play

Tracy Wilson: Olympian and skating coach “what I love about Connor is it’s all about power, doesn’t matter how it looks, it’s about getting there”

Kassian “we haven’t seen a player like that in the game in maybe forever”

McDavid “at the end of the day, you’re still playing an nhl game, but that’s not much to hang your hat on” in reference to being out of the playoffs

“Right on the post square and I just felt the pain right away, thought I’d just broken my leg into a couple pieces”

They keep replaying him going into the net at top speed and it’s fucking horrible to watch

He whispered to me “I think it’s broke”- Kassian

“I was having flashbacks to Stamkos’s energy and I know stammer really well”

Stamkos texted therapist: “did he break his tibia?”

“If I could do it all over again, you’d like to take it back”- giordano

Team physical therapist asked if he could move his leg and told him he could either try to get up or call the gurney. Connor said “no, no, no” and stood up even though he was worried and thought his leg was going to give out”

“I held it together until we got though the tunnel and then I was just a mess” it took them 10 minutes to get back to the room

He said “stop, just give me a second”

3 guys had to hold him up the way back

Lauren “it was really hard when he called me, he just said “I think I broke my leg””

Brian “he was really upset and in pain, as a parent it’s hard”

Kelly: “it’s the worst thing in the world”

“Maybe in hindsight it would’ve been better if it was broken”

Never realized the infamous scene where Leon squeezes Connor in the hallway is from this.

Grade 2 strain of his pcl

“Hey dad, just want you to know I’m going for a second opinion in Colorado Springs”

Doctor told him it was a full pcl tear where tears on bth sides of his miniscus, “tore the popliteus right of the bone”

Full reconstruction of the knee, pcl, and popliteus would require a year recovery, doctor said he needed to do it asap, within a few day

“He was distraught, very, very under described”

His mom wanted him to have the surgery

Surgical intervention is to give it stability back

Had to make decision in 48hrs about whether or not to operate.

“He was very emotional and it was very difficult for him to talk.”

3rd opinion in LA: 2nd doctor is right about the issues but thinks the surgery is risky and doesn’t believe in it, wants to try to rehab it

Had to make that decision at 22 in 24 hours

Pcl cut right in half, back of knee joint completely torn, popliteus also completely torn, lateral and medial meniscus are both torn, crack in front of tibia from where he hit the post

“Hockey is my life”

He wanted to hear that he didn’t need surgery

His rehab guy literally lived with him

7 days a week, 10 hrs a day

50% chance to get him maybe skating again by end of summer

He was in a hyperbaric chamber daily for 40 days, 2 hours at a time

Claustrophobic in a literal tube

“At one point, doctor cleared him to flex his quad muscle”

They had to keep the injury as secret as possible, didn’t tell Ken Holland how bad it was

He would call his mom right after every mri appointment

He was in the pool all the time working on his knee

While rehabbing, his core specialist was like “might as well work on everything while we’re stuck here” and they worked on his core, pelvic floor, rotational movement, spine, everything

Gymnastics coach also helped

Didn’t want him to skate till September

He went on the ice with just his dad on his doc’s recommendation before September

He was so happy to be back on the ice with his father, completely changed emotionally that day

You can really see how much he loves just skating

He was so happy to know that even if he couldn’t fully heal he could still go on with the brace and skate

He’s so smooth in these skating exercises while in an insane brace

“One thing to be out there playing the game but another to do it at the level he was capable of”

Tracy Wilson did in their own words “edging” with him for afternoons, taking him through all sorts of movements and exercises without his brace

Opening night started to look like a possibility

He wanted to be there for training camp

He decided not to participate in biosteel

He wanted to play in all 7 exhibition games even though most veterans only did 4

“Like my first game all over again”

Seeing him on opening night was incredible for his training people

Okay, seeing the canucks slashing at him and shoving him into the boards in the home opener is now making me so protective

“He willed himself back”