#it feels pretty damn close to a real AR

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

Watching an airsoft review of that VFC XM16E1 on youtube from a fella in the UK and he was *mildly* criticizing the gun for still feeling like an airsoft gun, contra some other VFC replicas that he thinks feel more like a proper weapon

and I don't mean to play my Yank Card but I'm not sure if he's got a genuine point or if he just doesn't know what a real AR-15 feels like because, uh

it feels like an airsoft gun

[kaija-rayne-author]

I wrote something hard today. It's long. Please mind the content warnings, this one is heavy.

We Must Remember

ON DECEMBER 30, 2023 BY KAELENRHY/Kaija Rayne

Content Warnings: AIDS epidemic, queer death, queer abuse, child abuse, child neglect, mention of attempted rape, sexual harassment in the form of catcalling and whistling.

My generation of queers, the ones who came of age in the middle of losing most of a generation of our queer siblings… we don’t talk about it.

It’s got to be pretty obvious why we don’t. I can’t think of a queer person who knew they were queer who didn’t lose someone. And we all lost when it comes to some people. Freddie Mercury, for one, the lead singer of Queen. He died a day after announcing his diagnosis in 1991. He was 45 years old.

And there were so many others.

I’ve been aware of the lack of people who lived through it talking about this for a while. But it really brought it home to me when I asked my eldest, who is openly queer, if they knew what the AIDS quilt was. They didn’t. And generally, they’re interested in queer history, so tend to be better informed than a lot of queer youth about our collective history. It helps that I was a history teacher at one time and have always lived and breathed teaching it to anyone willing to learn.

So, here’s a story from a time I hope never to see again, but one which, when I look at the world, I deeply fear is coming back.

The moral panic we see now is like déjà vu for people like me. It was this exact same moral panic that caused medicine, and most of humanity, to completely ignore it as loved ones died. To treat human beings without the care or respect any human being deserves simply by drawing breath.

I grew up in the mountains in a very Christian cult-like atmosphere. It was honestly so close to being an actual cult. There really is such a minuscule difference. But it wasn’t an official cult. Just… very poor people backbiting each other any way they could. Praying like good people on Wednesdays and Sundays, but doing anything they wanted every other day of the week. You’d think with all the mountains around, they’d have anything better to do than gossip. But gossip ran as life’s blood. The internet didn’t yet exist in private homes in that piss hole in a snowbank. There were 3 churches in the town, and 6 bars. For 300 people. The closest store was a good 20-minute drive away, the closest library an hour.

Christ, it’s hard to remember these things. It’s been 33 ish years since this story happened in real life, and I still don’t want to revisit it.

But it’s important.

The memory of this day is ingrained on the inside of my skin. I can almost feel the heavy summer sun.

Sad Summer Day

I’m around 14 years old. I’m barefoot, because my family doesn’t see the point of buying shoes for summer wear. Feet toughen up just fine.

I’m wearing a fourth or fifth-hand t-shirt that is far too see-through and cut-off jean shorts. The tickling of the strings falling against my thighs as I walk is a soothing sensation to me. I’m finished with my chores, the horses are cared for, the dog fed, the abusive younger sibling has stopped screaming and throwing things at me because I wasn’t a suitable big sister and had gone to hide in her room. I’m an embarrassment to my allistic sister. I’m an embarrassment to my mother too. If she ever crawls out of the bottle long enough to give a shit about anyone. My brother lives elsewhere.

I stink. I don’t know that or understand it, but I stink. Getting clean means swimming in a scummy mountain lake most evenings. My mother hasn’t taught me anything about personal hygiene. She smokes like a damned chimney and always smells of booze. There is no way I don’t smell bad. We had bath nights once a week in the winter. The only reason I knew my period was a thing was school health class.

I hang around in the barn a lot. Or in the ancient maple tree in the pasture. Ar Bazara is my beautiful Arabian mare. Her hide is the stunning red of particularly vociferous sunsets. She often patiently lets me lie on her back with a book open on her rump while she grazes. My new goat, Esmerelda, is still adjusting to not being the house goat she was used to being. She’s miserable, mourning her friend and old life. I do what I can, but it doesn’t help very much. Goats grieve as much as humans do, maybe more so.

It’s my job, and escape, to walk to town and get the mail for my father, who works more than not, and can’t get to the post before it closes at 5pm. I have no idea when or if my mother will come stumbling in blind drunk.

I hope to see my friend, who lives at the top of the road to the post office. He hasn’t been feeling well. Wrapped up in a quilt in his mother’s rocking chair on the porch is how I’ve been finding him lately. It’s not very odd, it never gets truly warm in the mountains, so people in heavier clothes or a blanket around their shoulders isn’t uncommon. I think nothing of it.

He’s a relatively recent addition to my life. He moved into his mother’s house last year. Esmeralda had been his, but he’d asked me to take her last week and love her like he did. I really don’t see it coming, or maybe I don’t want to add up the clues.

He’s my only friend there. He looks much older to me, but in reality, is likely in his late twenties. He wears dark tortoise-shell rimmed glasses, always has interesting books to read and ideas to discuss. He’d made it out of the mountains, so has seen so much more of the world I long desperately to experience for myself. His butterscotch blond hair is always a curly mess, and he’s always running his hand through it. I hope I can sit on his porch steps, picking at splinters, while he tells me another story. I’m not supposed to talk to him. No one does in that town. We might catch it, if we do so much as look at him. But I like him, and he treats me like a combination of younger sister and wild animal. He always speaks in such a gentle, calm tone. A tone I never hear at home. Except for the day he gave me Esmerelda. He couldn’t talk through the tears he was trying to hide.

My aunt lives next to him and warns me away every time she sees me. I suppose she likely told my parents, but my parents either aren’t there or are drunk. He’s the only adult in that town other than my grandmother, who even sees me. Much less talks to me like I’m a person. My aunt is happy enough to take his money to make an extra portion of food for him when she cooks for her family every day. She drops it off on the porch and will only take the dishes back if they’re soaking in bleach water when she comes to get them.

I’m tanned dark brown. My mother kicks us out as soon as the snow melts and we’re expected to stay out until dusk. But I’ve got my summer colour, my hair is frizzy from the yearly perms, and sun-bleached. The stench of lemon juice in my hair is still strong, but I know better than to not use it every morning. Having my mother yank the black, spiral hairs out of my head hurts worse. But I hate the smell of lemon juice in my hair.

It’s a short walk to a mountain child. Though if you’d called me a child then it would’ve infuriated me.

I am still a child, a very naïve one. I only know the words gay and lesbian because I’ve read the OED cover to cover. But they’re nascent, formless concepts to me. I’m in the midst of my first crush. A girl in my class with the prettiest brown eyes and lush, curly hair. But, I’ve told no one.

There’s sand on the sides of the beaten-up tarmac of the road. I’m avoiding walking on the road itself because prickers from wild roses and blackberry bushes are vastly preferable to burnt feet.

In shade areas, the mounded sand is cool, a treat to dig my toes into, and there’s a place where rain makes interesting patterns in the sand. I stop there for a short time to look at the swirling patterns in that section. It’s different every time it rains.

The air is heavy, like a wet wool blanket, presaging another evening rainstorm. I cuss because it means I won’t get to swim that night. If I want to rinse off, it’ll be in the cold rain. Hopefully, there won’t be thunder. Loamy earth and the particular faintly metallic scent of slightly damp, lichen-covered stone coat my tongue with a musky taste. The lighter, higher sweet honey note of spreading dogbane makes the walk smell like a slice of heaven. They’re poisonous, of course, but they’re beautiful and one of my favourites. Bunchberry shows little red splashes of colour. Orange hawkweed is blossoming, and so is the milkweed. Soon there will be so many monarch butterfly caterpillars I’ll have to watch where I step. The unnatural stench of old, oft-tarred tarmacadam adds an unwelcome element of human activity to the interesting scents.

The forest sings, murmuring to each other with the slight breeze that’s the only coolness I’ll find unless it rains. And the creaks and groans of the poplar and birch trees provide a symphony. I walk by my grandmother’s house. She’s outside tending to her flowers and checking the bird feeders, so I wave instead of meandering over. My grandmother loves to talk. I’ll stop on the way back. I’m later than usual going to get the mail because of my sister’s abusive outburst.

My hands are stuffed in the far too small front pockets of my shorts. My hand is tightly wrapped around the mail key. I always hold it in my fist, my father says it’s a trust, and I don’t want to blow it. A hopped-up pickup truck with a custom paint job, jacked tires, and glass-packs roars by. The boys inside and riding on the bed cat call me, but I don’t understand it.

By this time in my life, my mother has dived into a bottle and never looked back. She taught me to drink on hanged man’s bridge when I was 11. Vodka. She’d already moved on to vodka from wine by that time. In a lot of ways, I didn’t have a mother anymore, if I’d ever really had one at all in anything other than the physical sense.

It’s 1990. Big hair is falling out of fashion, but I still have the perm that my (at the time) stick-straight hair needs to look like Bon Jovi.

It’s mid-summer, the sun is high in the sky and it won’t get dark until after 9 pm. I won’t have to go inside until 10. The voracious bugs are preferable to listening to another argument. And Gram will let me in and likely feed me. Maybe my brother will be there.

As long as I’m on my father’s or grandmother’s land by dusk, I don’t have to go inside. The crab apples aren’t quite ready, but I pick one to eat, anyway. The bitter, tart juice is still green-flavoured, but it fends off my hunger. I didn’t get to eat my food; I cleaned it up from where my sister had thrown it at the wall and took it out to the hens. I wonder if they like grape jam?

It’s not the first time I’ve been hungry. Hunger is basically my ground state. So much so that I don’t even feel it when I’m hungry.

I pause on hanged man’s bridge. Just for a moment, while I warily scan the church parking lots at the end of the road.

They’d kicked me out when I was 12, but if the minister sees me, I’ll get scolded for breathing. I’m lucky, the lots are deserted and I continue on my way.

There’s no tree cover here, but there is down by the water. The beavers are busily building a dam that the men will burn come fall. It makes me sad because I can see kits with their parents. Beaver has a lot of fat in the fall, so it’s good meat.

I turn left at the end of the road and walk past another not-so-distant relative’s house. I stop for a moment to pet the Percheron workhorses who obligingly hang their heads over the fence so I can pluck handfuls of fresh green grass for them. Their slobber on my hands is green, but it doesn’t register as anything other than something to wipe off on my butt. I love these gentle giants, but the sun is lower in the sky, so I hurry on. I pass two more relatives’ houses. I have a tendency to walk with my gaze on the ground, partially to make sure I don’t step in anything, but partially in hope of finding a new, interesting stone or a bone for my collections.

So, I just… don’t notice. I’m in my own head a lot, working on stories. I started writing 3 years before.

There’s a sharp, rattling sound I associate with caster wheels and I look up.

My friend isn’t on the porch and he can’t tell me any more stories.

The glaring canary yellow of haz-mat suits screams brightly from his faded house. They look like aliens to me. Fierce, terrifying aliens. We don’t have TV, or rather, we don’t have TV reception, so the only reason I know what the suits are is because of my long habit of reading encyclopedias.

One of them is roughly handling his body as the other wraps a second roll of cellophane around him, over and over. They’re great yellow spiders as they finish wrapping my friend in cellophane and put him on the emergency bed from the ambulance. There aren’t any lights on, it’s turned off, and the driver has his booted foot hung out the window while he looks at a playboy. He whistles at me and winks. I hear one of the aliens say the body bags are too expensive to waste on trash. One of them fetches a floral sheet from my friend’s home. They wrap him in that.

I stand there like a rock has landed on my head.

I’m mute. I can’t even make myself move to go yell at them for laughing over my friend’s body and trading slurs for him as if it’s a game. Even if I were brave enough to confront adults. Which, I am not.

They very carefully take the gurney to the ambulance, avoiding all possible touch with the cellophane cocoon. The straps are so tight around my friend’s body that if he could feel them, he would have cried.

The doors make a doubled, muffled thump and the engine of the ambulance starts. It jerks me into movement, but I’m too late. They drive off.

They haven’t closed his kitchen door. So I do it, thinking in that odd way that he’ll be sad when he comes back to find it left open. I never have seen inside his house and I don’t breach his privacy as I close the door.

I have no way to lock it, and he told me he hasn’t any family left.

I step quickly down the top of the searing hot grey metal culvert cover to my aunt’s large backyard. I’m grateful to not run into my cousins. One of whom has already tried to rape me. I can fight him off if I have to, again, but all I need is to escape. I hopscotch across the brook and into the old potato field. I leap like a yearling deer from one mound to the next before I can disappear myself into the forested lands on my dad’s property. I practically live in the forest, and my friend’s habit of treating me like a wild animal isn’t off. I am.

The next thing I clearly remember is hugging Esmerelda’s neck, finally understanding why he’d asked me to take her.

Finally understanding a lot of things a 14-year-old probably shouldn’t have to think about.

I never did get the mail that day. I had to scour the area I’d walked to find the mail key I’d always been so careful not to drop.

Years later, when I was 19, and I’d escaped those fucking mountains, I was in university and doing very well. The only semester I didn’t hit the president’s list was the semester I had mono, and I still made dean’s.

I and a couple of others had recently been thrilled to get the B added to the LG group (lesbian and gay). Bisexual erasure is still prevalent, and it was worse then.

It was meeting night for the club, and one of my friends, one of the first openly gay men I knew while understanding what that meant, had a square of heavy white cloth. He explained it was for a project to remember those we’d lost to AIDS.

I took it home to my dorm room that night and feverishly embroidered a little grey goat wearing a green collar and a shiny gold jingle bell. I’ll never know why he named her Esmerelda.

The last time I visited those mountains, just before our move to Canada… I walked over with my eldest on my hip to look at my friend’s house. The door gaped open like a missing tooth in a smile, but no human scavengers had touched anything. (In those mountains, scavenging is a way of life. It’s a testimonial to their prejudice and discrimination that his home wasn’t pillaged.) The roof had fallen in at some point, always a danger in those mountains, from the weight of snow. The porch step I’d sat on to listen to his stories had fallen off and lay almost rotted through. I stood there looking at his house for probably longer than I remember. They’d closed the post office. The workhorses had been sent to make dog food when the man of the house died and his widow couldn’t care for them. Pound for pound selling them to the butcher was more practical.

My mother sold Ar Bazara just before she left my father. My beautiful mare had died at her new owners from pneumonia not long after I’d graduated high school.

Fall asters bloomed, making shockingly bright splotches of colour around his house. No one would even go close enough to do the neighborly thing and mow the tiny area of land that went with the house. Perception was everything to those people. It wouldn’t do to be perceived as less than a ‘good Christian’. So it spoke volumes that no one had shoveled the roof or mown the lawn. The only way people survive up there is by banding together when needed. My cousins may shoot each other (true fact) but they’ll band together if someone threatens from outside.

My grandmother was gone. Still with us in the flesh, but Alzheimer’s took her from us long before she actually died. She didn’t even remember I had a kid.

My father had cut the ancient maple tree I’d loved so much for firewood years before, sometime when I was in uni.

There weren’t any horses anymore. Esmeralda had gone. She never recovered. The sweet, gentle goat I’d agreed to love turned vicious and mean. I didn’t know how to help her and no one I dared ask could help. My father made me get rid of her when she butted him in the knee.

I kissed my little one’s head when he reached up curiously to touch a tear on my cheek. I doubt he’d ever seen me cry before that. I don’t cry easy. My therapist has me working on relearning how to cry.

That isn’t a problem right now. I can barely see to type. No matter how many years pass, I can’t forget the tearing, sticky sound of the cellophane as they wrapped my friend up. I can’t forget the things they said about him while wearing those stupid haz-mat suits. Which they hadn’t even been wearing correctly. I can’t forget and it’s so bloody hard to remember these things, much less talk or write about them.

Within my lifetime, we’ve seen amazing changes in queer rights. But I, and a lot of older queers, are watching the current political climate of the world and… we could so easily lose everything we’ve gained.

Trans people are always the canaries in the coal mine; always the ones sacrificed first. They will come for the rest of us.

If you’re queer, don’t ever fall into the trap of thinking it’s ancient history. I’m currently 47. This day happened 33 years ago. Don’t fall into the morass of thinking our rights can’t be stripped from us.

They can. And I fear, deeply, that they’ll strip our rights from us again. We could so easily fall down the slippery slope until all of us are disrespected as my friend was. He died alone. And I suppose I should be grateful my aunt noticed right away, that anyone noticed at all. He was a pariah. He’d come home to die after his partner did, only to face massive social exclusion by people he’d grown up with. My aunt only fed him for the cash. Even then, barter was still common. Hard cash wasn’t always easy to get.

I went to the cemetery to try to find his grave and plant some flowers on it. I found where it was supposed to be. Right on the very edge next to the pine forest. Just a slight depression marking what was likely a cheap pine coffin, if they even paid him that much respect. There wasn’t a crematorium anywhere close by. So they’d stuck him as far away from the other dead people as possible. As if the dead could catch it. We didn’t name it. It was the illness variety of the boogeyman. If you don’t name it, it can’t find you.

Starflower had grown to cover the area, so at least I know every spring he has a blanket of small, ethereal white flowers. We lost most of a generation of queers due to medical negligence and reprehensible cruelty from humans to other human beings.

But these stories shouldn’t die with us. Queer youth need to understand what we lived through so they don’t get too complacent. I’ve fought for queer rights since I was 14 years old.

My eldest can just be openly queer. Something I’ve never been able to be except for a few short years in university.

I don’t want to see us lose our rights again.

I don’t want another misunderstood, abused, hurting queer kid to have to watch as their only friend is wrapped in cellophane and denied the honour of a body bag. Denied the honour of a decent grave with a simple headstone.

We’re already losing queer rights. Please don’t be complacent.

Phew, so… I’m a sobbing mess. If my work of words touched you, please consider a tip or becoming a patron. We live in poverty. My husband is recovering from one of the likely three back surgeries he needs for his broken back. We have two autistic/ADHD kids and finding a job is impossible. I’ve been looking since January 15th, 2023. I have $50/$1220 I need for rent for January. We can’t get any government aid because I’m an immigrant.

Far too many queer creatives live in poverty. I’ll do a series of these memories as I can. They’re very emotionally difficult for me to write, but I feel they’re very important things.

http://ko-fi.com/A630KKM

https://www.paypal.me/KaelanRhy

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

Cloud City, Chapter Thirteen - a Malevolent AU

Parker touches his cheek. “Few more days. I’ll make them good.”

“Good?” says Arthur, very tiny. “I just want to hurt John.”

“You will.” Parker’s tone is vicious. “But you don’t have to hurt, too. Come on. I’ll treat you like a king until it’s time—and when it is time, it won’t fucking hurt. You have my word.”

It’s a lie. Arthur knows it’s a lie. He sniffles. “Okay."

TW: major character death

AO3 || Masterpost

-------

Arthur waits, sitting against the wall by the window, head back. He isn’t sure how Parker found which building he was in, but he’s not hugely surprised when Parker arrives.

The door creaks. Parker stands in the opening, taking in this room; the mirror, the table. Taking in the fact that Arthur has used his tie to knot his left hand to the leg of the table.

“What the fuck is this?” says Parker.

“Where Asenath told me to go. Hi.”

Parker’s approach is slow and cautious. Of course it is; this screams trap. “So what did Asenath tell you when she let you go?”

“She said the ritual we’re trying to stop is yours.”

“Did she.” Parker hasn’t even crossed half the room.

“Yeah. Got me real worked up over it, too.”

“Obviously. You went pretty nuts at the end there.”

“Oh, no, that came after. I went nuts because that’s when I found out what John did.”

“Ahhhh,” Parker breathes. “That makes sense. No wonder you lost it.”

“I couldn’t—” Arthur’s voice breaks, and he takes a moment to look away.

His left hand suddenly tries to get loose. It yanks, jerking against the table, but that's old wood, and heavy, and it makes no progress.

“Quit it!” Arthur snarls. “You’re getting what’s fucking coming to you!”

“Wow,” says Parker. “Wow.” He straightens. “What the hell happened to you?”

“You know what,” says Arthur, gasping.

Parker crouches in front of him. Reaches up; thumbs his tears away. “This really messed you up, huh?”

“My daughter,” Arthur whimpers.

Parker’s shoulders lose tension. “All right. So what’s your actual plan here?”

“The one I told him? Luring you in. The actual one? Trapping his ass. I meant it, Parker. I’m dying either way. I can feel it.”

“Shit,” says Parker, looking him up and down.

“I don’t… I don’t care anymore,” says Arthur. “But I won’t let him have me after everything.”

“Funny,” says Parker.

“What's funny?” says Arthur.

Parker tilts his head. “After all that, he didn’t tell you who did kill your daughter?”

Arthur stares.

Arthur! Don’t listen to this!

“No,” says Arthur slowly. “He did not.”

“Figures,” says Parker with a shrug. “If you mean it, then… just come with me. I’ll make it better.” He reaches into his jacket and takes out a strange piece of twine; even in Arthur’s failing vision, it glows a sickly green. “This’ll stop him from acting. You sure about this?”

“I’m sure.”

No! No! Arthur, you idiot! That’s real! I can’t fight that! Arthur! Ar-

Parker ties it around his left wrist, tight; it’s scratchy.

And Hastur goes silent, voice cut off.

Arthur exhales, head down. Very softly, he starts to cry.

“You sure you want to do this?” says Parker.

“I’m dying anyway. You think I don’t know? It’s over for me. Maybe I just…”

“It won’t hurt,” lies Parker, who’s always been good at lying, and takes out his pocket knife to cut Arthur’s tie from the table. “Got a few more things to prepare before it’s ready, but… if it helps, you’re not damning the world.”

Arthur laughs weakly. “That room was pretty awful.”

“Yeah, that was on me,” says  Parker. “This close to His ascension, it’s gonna be messy. But listen: that’s because He wasn’t here to clean it up.”

Arthur’s untied. He’s free. He could move any way he wants. He doesn’t move. “Clean it up?”

“Arthur… you think I’d serve some weird rot-god? That’s what they fed you, and you think I’d do that? Me?”

“Yeah, it didn't add up,” says Arthur. “But I don’t understand.”

Parker lifts him. “Come on. To your feet. He’s going to fix it, Arthur. That’s what He’s going to do.”

Arthur knows his eyes are wide. He doesn’t have to try to fake anything. “How? I won’t see it. Tell me. How?”

“No, you won’t see it.” Parker looks regretful. “I’d hoped it wasn’t you. I really did. Thought I could keep you.”

“Keep me? What, like a budgie?”

Parker snorts. “Come on, pal, you’d at least be equivalent to keeping a rat.”

Arthur’s laugh is unplanned. He wipes his eyes. “Sure. So tell the rat what he’ll be missing.”

Parker looks intense. “Freedom. From all of this. The gods, Contracts, all that shit. He’s going to bring the Dreamlands to us—fuck, you don’t know what that is.”

“Sort of? Asenath tried to explain, but she went way over my head.”

“I can believe that,” says Parker dismissively. “Think you can walk?”

“Almost. Her stupid mirror hurt a lot more to use than I expected.”

Parker touches his ruined earlobe, and Arthur winces. “That’s ugly.”

“Feels ugly,” says Arthur. “Hurts.”

Parker leans in slowly and—as though this weren’t creepy in the slightest—licks Arthur’s torn earlobe.

Arthur inhales.

“Thought you’d like that,” says Parker. “Yeah. He’s fixing it. No more gloom in the sky. No more fear from the Wastes or the water. It’s gonna be rough for a few years. You have to destroy the bad before you can build the good, you know? Like tearing down an old building.”

“So that’s what I saw in that room,” says Arthur.

“Yeah. That’s what that was—but He’s not here, so He couldn’t fix it.”

Arthur exhales, head down.

Parker touches his cheek. “Few more days. I’ll make them good.”

“Good?” says Arthur, very tiny. “I just want to hurt John.”

“You will.” Parker’s tone is vicious. “But you don’t have to hurt, too. Come on. I’ll treat you like a king until it’s time—and when it is time, it won’t fucking hurt. You have my word.”

It’s a lie. Arthur knows it’s a lie. He sniffles. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Come on, Arthur,” says Parker, as tender as he ever has, and holds out his arms.

“Thank you,” Arthur whispers, and leans into him, breathing into his neck, returning his embrace.

Parker gasps.

Arthur’s shoulders shake. He straightens, crying, and steps back, wobbling badly.

Parker stares down at the dagger in his stomach.

They’re both still, other than Arthur’s quiet sniffles. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“That…” Parker steps back unsteadily, as though about to fall over. “It’s so sharp, I didn’t even feel it go in. Feeling it now, though.” He looks up. His eyes are wide; it’s the first time Arthur has ever seen fear in them, in five years. “Why?”

“You know, I almost didn’t?” says Arthur. “I meant what I said. He betrayed me. I’m furious at him. And I want to believe what you said.”

“I didn’t lie!” says Parker.

“I know. You told what you believe. But you know what did it? Do you?” Arthur wipes his face on his sleeve. “You know who killed her, don’t you? The way you asked that. You know, too. And you kept it from me just as much as he did.”

Parker sways. Dark blood—too dark—spills down his front, staining him, pouring on the floor like a bottle of overturned oil. “Yeah,” he says, and now he sounds angry. “Of course I fucking know.” And he falls to his knees, splattering his weird blood.

“So you both fucking betrayed me,” says Arthur. “And so this is what I chose.”

“You don’t know what—” Parker coughs, and a bubble of blood pops from his mouth, staining his face, dripping everywhere. “You don’t know what you’ve done. It all has to keep going now! All of it! We’re fucking slaves, puppets for their entertainment!”

“That’s the thing, isn’t it?” says Arthur. “Both of you told me you needed me to save the world.” His lips are tight. “Maybe I don’t think a world where a little girl gets murdered and the murderer is let go so her fucking dad can be manipulated is a world worth saving.”

Parker stares. His mouth works. And he laughs.

It’s wet, unsteady, and he’s already swaying. Dark veins like some horrible fungus have poked out from beneath his collar, climbing his face, sliding from beneath his sleeves to cover his hands.

Arthur’s breath quickens.

Parker goes down on all fours, breathing wetly, dripping so much blood. “Figures,” he says, and looks up. “I’d pick the one son of a bitch so stupid that he doesn’t even know he…” Parker falls over. He thuds onto the floor and lies completely still. His exhale is his last; the black veins continue to grow, distending his skin, and their rope-twisting sound is the only thing that remains.

Arthur tries to step toward the door and can’t. He overbalances, flails to avoid touching Parker, and falls back onto his ass, gasping.

He’s sobbing. He can feel his heart stuttering. The Contract, he supposes, is probably safe, given what Hastur said, but he’ll never see it done. He doesn’t want to die in silence. Not alone. Not after everything. “Did that banish you?” he says. “Did… did this thing do that?” It would figure. He sobs again. It just would figure. Weakly, he works at the twine on his left wrist.

He lacks the strength to just snap it, so he chews it. Whatever’s on it makes his mouth slightly numb, but teeth work, and it finally comes loose. He expects to tune in to Hastur yelling, to a rant in progress, but he does not. The silence… "Hastur?" he says, tiny.

His left hand rises and caresses his cheek. I'm here, Arthur. I’m here.

Arthur grips that hand with his own and cries on it, clutches it to himself.

Hastur lets him, stroking his cheek with fingertips. There, there. Arthur… I’m very impressed.

Arthur laughs thickly. “Sure.”

You’re dying. You know that, don’t you? He sounds warm. Gentle. Calming.

It’s a kindness, that tone, and one Arthur does not feel he deserves. He makes a small sound.

I do enjoy those little whimpers of yours, Hastur says, pulling his hand away. I thought they were distracting in the very beginning, but they’ve grown on me.

“Good for you,” Arthur says, searching for his handkerchief.

Arthur. I am about to do a very necessary thing. Brace yourself. You can weather it.

“Huh?” says Arthur, wiping his eyes. “Weather what?”

This. Y' mgahnnn nglui!

Arthur’s whole body jolts.

He feels like he did the one time he touched a lamp cord that wasn’t properly shielded; feels like he did when he got shot, three years ago, right in the side. That jolt, that punch of force strong enough to knock a man off his feet, that burning tingle racing through his veins, and he can’t even cry out.

Y' mgahnnn nglui!

The floor shakes, rumbling as if with an approaching train.

Y' mgahnnn nglui!

The air changes, the pressure shifts; Arthur’s ears pop, painfully, and then his good eye flickers dark.

He cries out.

Is this Harvesting? Is that what this is? This doesn’t feel like being poured out like holy wine, but maybe this is preparation. Maybe this is necessary.

He knows it’s deserved.

Arthur can’t even breathe in, can't move or make a sound. All he can do is endure.

HAI MGAHNNN!

It all stops, just stops. Arthur's panting is loud.

Then his sight flickers back, both eyes suddenly working, filled with golden light. Slowly, he turns his head.

The mirror is ablaze. It’s so bright his eyes water, briefly blinding, but he can’t stop staring, can’t stop trying to see, and he blinks at it, one hand raised against the glare.

There’s some… place… through that mirror.

He can’t see it right. It’s like it’s more than three dimensions; gold and black seem to be the primary colors, and there is a depth to it, a weird feeling like if he somehow could step into that mirror, he’d fall and fall forever and never stop.

“Hello, Arthur Lester,” says a voice he knows, a voice he's lived with for five years, but it’s no longer coming from his head.

It’s coming from the mirror.

“What?” Arthur whispers.

“It’s good to see you with my own eyes. My, we have some work to do, don’t we?” And what comes into view is—

What he sees is—

It can’t fit in the mirror. It’s too big, too much. It can’t fit in his mind. It’s too big, too much; it’s more than anything he’s ever seen, its upper half humanoid, its lower a mass of writhing black tentacles. It wears a gleaming yellow cloak, brilliant and beautiful, and its face is covered with a white mask.

And it is—

That is a god. Arthur knows. Has never seen one before, and it doesn’t matter. He knows: he is staring at the King in Yellow, and he cannot look away.

“My little detective,” says the voice, which rumbles under Arthur’s hands and knees with every syllable (and his left hand feels it, too, but he can’t parse that now). “It’s time to go.”

Art by by luneatic-art on Tumblr.

[ID illustration: A drawing of Arthur and the King in Yellow.

The King is coming out of a golden mirror that sits in a corner of a dusty, bare room.

Black tentacles are sprouting from the mirror and slithering towards Arthur, who is sitting on the ground and recoiling.

He has his hand up in front of his face as if to brace himself, and the King in Yellow’s giant form looms over him. A tall window illuminates the room in a harsh green glow.

At Arthur’s feet rests a bloodied dagger.

/End ID]

“This can’t… you’re… Hastur?” Arthur whimpers.

And it’s that laugh, and it has never sounded so wicked and so eager and so dark. “Oh, Arthur… yes. It’s me.”

“Can’t… where is… how can you be this?” And in spite of the shock of his soul and his mind, a tiny tendril of rage lifts its head. “You lied again?”

That laugh. He could drown in that laugh, or pull it over him and sleep safe, or hurl it at his enemies to make them explode. Arthur cries out.

“Arthur… I lied to you. I did. And now, I am no longer. You’ve done well. You stopped my brother from his foolish plan. The makers and jugglers of the universe celebrate your uncertain victory. You’ve won some interesting bets! I am very pleased with you.”

Arthur stares. It’s becoming harder to think the longer he does; the King fills his thoughts, shoves them aside to make room for himself.

The King—Hastur—holds out one enormous black hand. “I am the King in Yellow, Arthur—and it’s time to fulfill our Contract.”

Arthur can’t blink, can’t look away from that mask, and so doesn’t notice the tentacles sliding out of the mirror like curling mist. Doesn’t notice until they grab him, around his ankles, around his waist. He cries out and panics, struggling. “No! Wait! Wait!”

“Shhh,” says Hastur, says the King in Yellow, slowly sliding him nearer. “I told you I’d arranged everything. Don't you want to know who took your daughter's life?”

Arthur freezes. Even now, in this moment, this takes precedence over all. “Who? Who did it?”

“You did.”

The words make no sense. He stares. He laughs, sharply, then falls silent again “Wh… wh… what? What?”

“You killed your daughter, Arthur. You didn’t mean to; it was an accident. But it. Was. You.”

No. No, this can’t be happening.

Memory flashes—

That night, that horrible night, case gone to shit, bad guys off on a technicality. They’d done a drive-by, shot up his office, and after a long and fruitless day trying to deal with cops and damages, he’d gone to Jack’s Bar and gotten fucking drunk.

He’d wished Bella was alive to take the kid for a few days. He wished he had anyone to lean on, anyone he could ask for help, but he didn’t. He didn’t.

And he was so fucking drunk as he got home that the quick tap of running feet almost didn’t get through, but it did, and he panicked.

Those punks, those criminals, coming at him because it was his testimony that nearly got them hanged, which meant someone had told them where he lived though that was off the books, and rage joined the fear in his head.

And he raced into the apartment and closed doors and windows, and was that them pounding on the door or his heart pounding his head? And there was a fight, a firefight, a bad one.

Neighbors called the police.

He had no idea how long it lasted. Probably only moments; he couldn’t tell.

And by the time it was over, it no longer mattered. He’d managed to shoot none of them. They’d managed to shoot his kitchen, his living room, his huge, heavy radio.

They’d managed to shoot his daughter.

In her bed, asleep. Clean through, not even time for her to wake up and struggle.

And Arthur—

The sharp flash of memory, unnatural, in a wave, rising like Dagon’s sea, Hastur doing this somehow—

Screamed and screamed, clutching his girl, wouldn’t even let anyone take her to try to help, because why bother? She was cold when he found her, so it had happened early enough on that she…

She lay there, and he hadn’t known.

She died because of him, because of his involvement in this case, and—

“We don’t have any way to know who shot her,” they told him, and they wouldn’t listen, and he screamed and clutched his child and yelled in the police station and yelled at the morgue, and the bad guys got away, and—

" What do you mean, they all had alibis?"

It hadn’t been them, hadn’t been the men he assumed, but someone had shot his daughter.

And no human could ever tell him who.

So.

So he—

And so he had—

Arthur gasps as though he hasn’t breathed in years, and finds himself held in the air before the mirror, face to face with a god.

With his god.

“This will hurt,” says Hastur, “but then… I’m fairly sure you want it to.”

That night.

Panic that night, hearing (he can see them now, as if from a million other eyes) just some stupid teenagers running down the street.

Panic, hiding in his apartment, heart pounding, incredibly drunk.

Hearing neighbors overhead, just talking, maybe dropping something heavy.

Remembering earlier that day, ducking in terror as they shot his old office, remembering the spray of wood chips from his desk hitting his face, hitting the wall, remembering the terror of nearly being murdered.

And panicking.

Panicking and shooting.

Panic.

Certain they were here, Certain they were coming for him. Too drunk to see, to aim. Him shooting his radio, him shooting his fridge, him shooting through his ugly living room sofa.

Continuing to fire—click, click, click—after the bullets ran out, because in his head, THEY were here again to take his life.

They weren’t.

And he did not stop until Yang and the others came, shaking him, shouting at him, trying to hold him back as he remembered his daughter and ran to her room.

Arthur sobs.

It was there, in his head. All of it was. He’d forgotten. Maybe he’d even forgotten on purpose.

He couldn’t live with this.

Hastur lets him sob, tentacles through the mirror, holding Arthur off the ground, stroking his sweat-damp hair.

Hastur had known.

So had Yang.

No wonder they hadn’t told him. They couldn’t use him if he’d known.

Arthur’s whole body shakes with weeping. “My girl… my little girl…”

“It was an accident, Arthur. Preventable… but an accident.”

He doesn’t care if it was. He’s done. This is done, more than he’s ever been. “Do it,” he manages.

“Hmm?” says Hastur, and one tentacle touches under his chin to lift his face.

“Do it!” Arthur screams, and spits at him.

It goes through the mirror, but misses Hastur’s masked face, falling to the void below. “Do what, Arthur Lester, murderer?”

Arthur feels like his heart is in his throat. He can barely talk. “Do it! Harvest me! Get it over with!”

“Is that what you wish?” says Hastur, and he sounds so gleeful, like this is exactly what he planned.

Why? Why? He already has the right, “Yes!”

“Then I so fulfill our Contract, Arthur: I will not give you what you want.”

“Wh… what…”

“‘Make them suffer,’” Hastur hisses, repeating Arthur’s words from his Contract so long ago. “‘I don’t care who they were. Find them. Make them pay. Make it slow. Make it long. That’s what I want.’”

Arthur stares at him.

“I will not give you the death you crave. In fact…I will prevent it,” says Hastur. “Thus, I fulfill our Contract.”

And Arthur can feel the whispers of power like unseen tentacles, sliding over and around and through them both, sliding out of his soul, and knows it is true. Their Contract is fulfilled. “No,” Arthur whimpers. “No! Do it! Don’t… you can’t leave me alive!”

“As if I would so willingly waste you. I like you, Arthur—for which you won’t be grateful for a very long time.” That laugh, so much more outside of him, shakes his bones, and Hastur draws him nearer. “Justice must be done, after all. There will be roses… but not on your grave.”

“Please,” Arthur whispers.

“No. You have been laid bare. I will take you unto myself and remake you as I will.”

He fills Arthur’s vision, fills Arthur’s mind, and Arthur can’t think, can’t recall why he demanded something that isn’t happening, but he knows this isn’t what he wants, and he tries to struggle, like a fish in a net.

“Shhh,” Hastur says, and adds more tentacles.

Arthur is worn out. He stops struggling, panting. He can’t think. He can’t see beyond the god. His anger and the god seem to be all that is left inside him, outside him, anywhere.

“Fear not, Arthur. In time, you will love me. You, Arthur Lester, are forever mine.”

Arthur is carried through the mirror, and trembles as he crosses worlds, as he travels further than he even knew it was possible to go. Hastur fills his vision and his mind. He calms.

“Good boy,” rumbles the King as the last of his limbs pull back through that mirror like cloth through a keyhole.

Like shutting off a light, it flickers back to dull gray, not quite silver. The mirror trembles. All on its own, it shakes, and falls forward. The Black Mirror lands face-down in Asenath’s empty shrine, and it shatters into a billion pieces, and for just one moment, each and every reflective piece echoes the sound of cruel laughter. Then, there is only silence.

(Artwork for this fic)

[tabletopwhumper]

Unplanned

Not every safety measure is a guarantee. Angsty fluffy drabble for my OC's

“I hate this,” Ali grouses, closing the bathroom door behind her. “That’ll teach my dumb ass to trust a strange soy dispenser.”

Johnny chuckles from behind the display of his commlink but doesn’t look up. “I would say I told you so… except that I ate that shit too. Kinda feels like a jinx at this point.” She glares across the couch but there’s no real malice behind it as her weight drops heavily on the far end. "C'mooooon," John smirks as he moves closer to her. "Don't be mad you got the parasite and I didn't-"

"No!" she half laughs half moans, feebly pushing him away. "Don't touch me, I'm gross."

"Yup, sure are." But he leans in despite his words and gifts her with a brief kiss to the cheek. "Pretty gross-" Any further flirtation is halted as Ali lets out a low groan and jumps to her feet, hustling back to the bathroom.

She emerges several minutes later, mouth freshly cleaned again, to find Johnny waiting for her outside the door. He smiles, but this time there’s no teasing in the expression. A sympathetic hand rubs up and down her back as she moans and leans against him. "You okay?" he murmurs, pressing a kiss into her hair. "Do you need anything?"

"You still got Ripper's number?"

But Johnny is merciless despite his sympathetic chuckle. "I’m pretty sure you'll survive the car ride to the clinic."

**************************************************

"Wait… what??"

"Pregnant, Ms Merrick. Congratulations."

Ali can’t feel her limbs. She can’t. This is too big. This new and utterly unexpected fact takes root in her reality as the room twists around her. Pregnant. Like, with a baby. One of those small squishy things she sees on trids. Because she’ll be damned if she can remember the last time she’s seen one in the flesh. Oh fucking- it’s inside me? Right now??

The elven nurse seems to be unaware of Ali’s dramatically spiraling thoughts as she continues prattling about weeks and trimesters and prenatal exams. “I understand human conception is relatively common,” she’s saying from behind an AR display. “But the children appear healthy.”

“Wait...children? Like… plural?”

“Twins Ms Merrick.”

Twins. Two. Two babies. Inside me. Right now. Ali has to fight through her newly discovered panic to find her voice. “W-what about our… precautions?”

The nurse shrugs. “No preventative measure is foolproof. It seems you have a couple of willful creatures brewing in there. Well done.”

“Thanks,” she mutters, not really meaning it as she slots her credstick and screencaps the test results.

**************************************************

“What do you remember about your mom?”

Johnny turns, brows raised in surprise at Ali's abrupt and unforeseen question. “Not much,” he confesses, flipping his garage rag across one shoulder. “I mean… ‘Mom’ and ‘mother’ were two entirely different things. She tried, but…” He scoffs, eyes rolling in unmasked annoyance. “My dad went through women faster than smokes.” Ali only nods, eyes distant as she considers his answer in silence. “Why do you ask?”

“Cuz I don’t remember mine. She died when I was a baby. But the way the twins talk about her…” Ali's lips are pressed in a firm line as whatever is troubling her continues to barrage her thoughts unchecked. "I wonder if she really was as awesome as they remember."

"Hard to say." Johnny studies his girl as she intently gnaws on her finger nails. Something is going on behind her eyes and despite her poor attempt to hide it, the distress is painfully obvious. "Ali, what's going on?"

“I... uum...” She looks at the ceiling as a heavy sigh rips from her chest. “I’m pregnant.”

The clang of his wrench hitting the floor echoes loudly in the garage but Aces doesn’t even register the sound, his ears full of Ali’s quiet confession.

Pregnant.

He looks at her, studies her face for any sign that she might be fucking with him or kidding around. But his girl is an open book of pensive anxiety.

Pregnant. Holy shit….

John realizes he needs to say something when Ali visibly cringes, but his shocked brain cannot assemble more than a few words at a time.

“Holy shit,” he manages around his scrambling thoughts.

“Yup.”

“Holy shit!”

“Yuuuup.”

“This is…” Johnny gets to his feet, mind racing as he tries to grasp the logistics of such a monumental life shift. They’ll need a bigger place for sure; preferably not in the heart of Seattle. He’ll need a new navigator for races; no way can Ali sit in while she’s pregnant, not after their horrific crash in Redmond. She can still do pit work. Not that she’s going to be happy about it-

“You don’t…” His eyes snap back to where Ali is studying the concrete beneath her feet as she anxiously gnaws on the inside of her cheek. “I mean… you don’t have to-”

“Do we get married?”

This time it’s Ali’s face that pales as her eyes go wide. “What?!”

“Married? Like, married SINs. We could do that. I mean, we’d for sure have to-”

“You’re not pissed?”

He nearly laughs at the ludicrousness of her question until he sees the curve of her shoulders, arms crossed across her chest protectively. “Why would I be pissed?”

She’s fidgeting, her anxiety an almost palpable thing in the air. “It’s not like we ever planned for this. I mean, I don’t even know if you want kids or-”

“I think at the rate we’re going, a kid was kind of inevitable.” He doesn’t mean to laugh. The last thing he wants is for her to feel badly. So instead he pulls her into his arms, tucking her securely in his embrace as she nestles her head beneath his chin. Ali breathes in deeply then exhales and he can feel her body relax against him.

“You’re sure about this?” she asks from where her head rests against his chest.

“Nope. Never held a baby in my life. Gonna have to do some research.”

“Shit,” she murmurs. “Me too. You know I’m gonna get fat, right?”

“I have heard that’s a thing, yes.”

“You’re not gonna run for the hills when I become an insane hormonal monster who nitpicks everything? Or threatens to castrate you or something?”

“Ali,” John scolds softly, pulling away enough that he can see her face. “How many times do I have to say it? I’m not going anywhere.”

[xxlost-cityxx]

ABSOLUTELY NO MINORS

Ship/Characters: Top!Kirishima Eijirou, Bottom!Bakugou Katsuki

TW/CW: camming(Bakugou's a camboy), rough anal sex, anal fingering, choking, spanking, begging, crying, overstimulation, praising, degrading, enthusiastic consent

Summary: Bakugou's famous for being in the top 3 best doms for a camboy porn site, but as he tries to out rank an up and rising couple, his fans get to see the moment he realises he's a submissive bottom

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Katsuk has been a camboy for a little over 2 years now, starting right off the bat once he graduated high school. As he was 18 and living on his own and with a low paying job, he quickly realized he needed another source of income to live even slightly comfortably in today's world. Then came a random ad that just so happened to catch his eye, a porn site catching a lot of popularity, a few cam stars seeming to live a life of luxury from simply filming themselves for anyone to see. 

Katsuki had to try it out. 

He's had his fair share of horny old men groping him out in public, so why not get paid for them to watch him instead? 

That plan was one of his best ideas yet. He rose to fame so quickly he choked on water after posting his 4th video ever, seeing that his rough, aggressive attitude turned a lot of people on. A lot meant 14,000 at the time. A month into camming and he was making over 54,000 yen a week! And now, with nearly 500,000 perverts at his mercy, it was much more. He started live streaming last year, and it went amazing. Until a new couple joined the camming business. Suddenly 'loving boyfriend rails his curvy brown haired slut' was all anyone wanted to see. This broccoli headed bitch stole half the damn site from almost every other cammer out there! 

So there was only one thing Katsuki could do now. 

He had to fuck someone on one of his streams. 

He blew up the first time he fucked a flesh light, degrading the inanimate object like no tomorrow, easily being labeled one of the best doms out there. So the only way to get back on top was to dom a real person. 

But he wasn't going to fuck one of his weird ass fans, god no. He needed to find someone close to him who would keep their mouth shut. 

After brainstorming and browsing the most popular porn categories, he got an idea. The best way to narrow down his options for what type of person he'd need is by his audience. He quickly went to his profile insights, his eyes narrowing as over 60% were females. He quickly smirked, easily going back to the most popular categories and filtering out what he didn't want to do and what his audience wouldn't be into. And the one that came out ontop, was gay shit. Katsuki was going to dom a guy. And if it meant coming out on top over all the useless cammers, he'd fuck the shit out of a twink. 

"Sorry man, I would've considered it back when we first graduated, but Hitoshi and Kyo would rather stab you than let me take your dick up my ass." Denki said, casually sighing and taking a sip of his coffee. The elders around the coffee shop gasped, giving nasty side eyes which Katsuki couldn't care less about. "What!?" He nearly shouted, Sero and Mina covering their mouths to prevent any laughter from coming out to the point their faces were turning red. 

"Why not ask Sero-" "-Oh hell no! I'm not letting Katsudon fuck me on camera!" Sero shouted, ignoring Bakugou's glare from calling him Katsudon. 

"You really need to fuck a guy for this? Why not stick to your usual content? No.2 is better than much else, right?" "Hell no! I'm the best and I'm going to prove I'm the fuckin' best! Denki's the only twink I know, so help me find another!" Katsuki yelled, a few families being rushed out of the shop. 

After going through everyone that fit Bakugou's qualifications. They had nothing. Bakugou was ready to tear someone's head off at this point. After doing so much research, he didn't have the final piece. 

"Hey Mina, you're a chick. What do you suggest 'suki do?" Denki sighed, folding in on himself. "I mean, we do love our gay shit man." He said in an inhale. "But why not get fucked instead? We know way more doms than we do twinks." She said, tilting her head. "Oh- Hell no!" Bakugou shouted, Sero wincing. "I'm the best fuckin' dom on this shitting porno site and I'm going to prove it!" "Sounds like a bratty bottom to me." Sero mumbled. 

After more shouting and arguing. Kirishima finally arrived. "Sorry, my last client had a lot of knots in their back and thighs! Took a lot longer than I expected." He said with his happy smile, still wearing his scrubs and smelling like coconut oil. "Eiji~! Gimme a deep tissue massage!" Denki whined, rushing over and jumping face first into the bed. "He just gave massages all day dude, give him a break.." Sero mumbled, shaking his head. 

And it was like a light bulb. His brain flashing to massage porn intro's being in the top 100 categories. "Kirishim!" Bakugou shouted firmly, standing up straight. Kiri froze, slowly turning to look at him with fearful eyes. "Y-Yes…?" "Let me fuck you for my cam stream." And it went dead silent. 

And that's how they're here. Setting up the ring lights, almond oil on the shelves and a small white towel for Bakugou to cover his ass with. The plan was that Eijirou would get handsy during the massage and Katsuki would turn around and start domming him. Kirishima is bigger than Bakugou in the height and muscle department, but that was only going to make the plot better. Eijrou definitely wasn't telling him something. After hesitating to agree in the first place, and only after Bakugou promised a share of the money, Kirishima was just so...unnatural at this situation, his movements starting off as more dominating until he took it down to a submissive level.   

Katsuki started the live, giving his quickly joining fans a cocky smirk before standing up, walking back and laying down on the black table. 

The comments were filled with surprise and questions as to who the red haired hulk was beside the table, but they went unanswered. 

Kirishima grabbed the bottle of almond oil, pouring some into his hands and quickly starting on Katsuki's thighs, gently rubbing into the muscles with experienced ease. 

Bakugou's eyes widened at the feeling, his core already getting hot with desire. And as Kirishima's fingers went under the towel to his inner thighs, he fought a gasp. Comments filled with perverted comments telling the redhead to get more handsy and to give the blond a hand job with all the oil. 

But as Eijirou put a knee on the table and nearly climbed over Katsuki to perfectly get his back, Katsuki started panting at the feeling. It wasn't the massage that was getting him. It was the feeling of Eijirou's crotch rubbing against the thin towel, his cock slightly hard underneath his black scrubs. 

As it was about time for the script to move onto Katsuki domming Kirishima, Bakugou was stifling whimpers of shock and embarrassment. His cock aching for him to fuck Kirishima…..actually. His body was aching to be fucked by Kirishima. 

As Katsuki was turned around, His eyes were teary, his fans taking quick, shocked notice and flooding the comments with surprise, degrading, perverted insults about how he looked like a twink instead. 

Kirishima's eyes slightly widened at the sight, and as Bakugou swallowed his embarrassment and shock, he focused on his arousal and his own perverse desires. "F-Fuck me….instead.." He whispered, his eyes slightly squinting and blurring with tears. 

Before he knew it, Eijirou was leaning over top of him with a slick hand around his neck. Bakugou couldn't help but moan at the pressure, his stream struggling to keep up with the influx of viewers and comments about the top 3 best doms getting put in his place by a rando. 

Bakugou's mind wasn't on the donations anymore, not on the follower count or his ranking at this point. He was gasping for air as Kirishima roughly kissed and bit at his body, keeping an iron grip on Katsuki's neck. "Oh fuck yes- Was hoping to god I would be able to fuck your tight ass one day-!" Kirishima breathed against his skin, licking up his nipple to his jaw and nipping at him. 

He suddenly ripped himself off the blonde, walking over to the camera and grabbing it, making a winky face at the viewers as he moved the camera to get a better view of Bakugou teary eyed, flushed and a line of red, darkening hickies and bites. 

He got back on the table, roughly gripping Katsuki's thighs and harshly pushing them apart, an action that would probably make some other guy pull a muscle. He wrapped his arms around his spread thighs, pulling his hips up to meet his crotch, the pale skin against his dark black scrubs finally letting Bakugou and the viewers know what the newbie was packing, and it was a lot. 

"H-Holy fuck-" Bakugou whispered out as his towel was ripped off of him, oil being grabbed off the table and the cap popped open. Kirishima paused, looking up to Bakugou, a silent plea for last minute permission. Katsuki's red eyes met crimson, and he swiftly nodded his head, accidentally earning more donations from the show of submission. 

Eijirou lathered his fingers in oil, tracing the blond's pink hole carefully, giving the camera another adjustment so the viewers could see his perfect view as well; a red faced, teary eyed dom with his tight ass being slicked up so nicely. 

The oil made Katsuki's muscle relax easily, becoming soft under the thick tanned finger, and as he swiftly plunged in the singular finger, Katsuki gasped with shock, his eyes going wide at the foregin feeling. 

Kirishima slowly pumped his finger, adding slightly more oil every time his muscle got a bit too tight, slipping in more fingers every time his rim was soft. It felt like such a short amount of time between preparing to dom his best friend to being finger fucked by him. Eijirou's forearm had veins slightly protruding as he slammed his fingers into his friend at a pace that made vibrators look pathetic. Katsuki's pretty little back was arched so nicely, his muscles flexing and his toes curling, tears falling from his eyes as moan after moan was ripped from him. 

"P-Please! I can't! I can't take it anymore!" He finally sobbed, shaking his head at the man's brutal pace, purposely avoiding his prostate after hitting it every couple times. 

Kirishima smirked, slowly sliding his fingers out only to slide his thumbs inside, stretching the soft muscle as he pleased, showing off the blond's perfectly hot pink insides, his swollen rim slick and twitching. "So nice and pretty for me, hm? You wanna take my fat cock for the first time? Expose how much of a slut you are for cock? For my cock?" Kirishima said seductively, moving the camera again. 

Katsuki nodded his head rapidly, his eyes glued to the hard to see bulge under his black scrubs. "Use your words, baby." Eijirou said firmly, palming himself. "Y-Yes- I want it-! I w-want your fat cock-!" He said, face flushing with embarrassment again. "Good boy~" He cooed, finally grabbing the hem of his pants and pulling them down. 

It was almost like he struggled to pull the front down far enough, his cock just kept following, and once it finally got over his tip, his penis sprung up to lightly slap against his stomach before it weighed itself down. The camera got Bakugou's surprise and shock perfectly, the comments finally going quiet, almost as if everyone had to take in what they were seeing as well. 

Kirishima grabbed the base of his cock, lifting it and letting it slap against Bakugou's hole, earning a slightly muffled whimper from the blond. He gently moved his hips, letting his cock slide smoothly against his hole, his tip teasing the smaller's balls. The comments were filled with encouragement and orders to get on with it. 

Kirishima chuckled darkly, letting his tip catch on the rim, slowly pushing in. Bakugou's eyebrows furrowed before his mouth dropped and eyes widened with the pressure. He let out a guttural moan, his legs starting to shake. 

As Eijirou bottomed out with a groan, Katsuki was shaking and whimpering, his own well endowed cock red and dripping precome. 

The redhead pulled out before slamming back in, the blond shooting up with shock only to be met with a hand on his neck again, pinning him down as the Kirishima harshly forced his way between Bakugou's legs even more, only giving the blond a couple seconds to adjust before he started snapping his hips into the smaller man's ass. Bakugou took in one breath of air before lewd moans poured from him, his voice cracking every time his skin was slapped with another brutal thrust. 

"Agh- P-Please-!" Katsuki nearly screamed out, Eijirou grabbing the back of his knees and pressing them back to meet his shoulders, effectively putting him in a mating press. "Please what, baby? Tell me what you fucking want!" Eijirou growled out, groaning as Katsuki's tight, slicked up boy cunt tried to milk him, pulsing and sucking him in with every movement. "I-I want it harder! Please- Please fuck me harder! Give me more!" Bakugou nearly sobbed, looking at where their bodies were connected with teary wide eyes. "Such a fuckin' slut-! Making all these people think you were a fucking dom, only to start begging for the first fat cock you see! Want it harder? Wanna feel my fat dick in you for days?" He growled, eagerly moving to grab Katsuki's ankles and awkwardly spreading them over Katsuki's head before turning him, ripping his cock out of his pillowy ass and nearly picking the blond up by his ass, grabbing the nape of his neck and forcing him on his knees with his head down. 

He slammed back in, the blond nearly screaming once again as he set another brutal pace. "Y-Yes! Please, god yes! Fuck me more! Don't stop!" Katsuki sobbed, drool and tears staining his lewd face. "Wouldn't fucking dream of it! You love having your little boy cunt fucked, huh? Love how I fucking ruin you on this dick?" Kirishima growled, slapping a hand down on his fat ass, groaning loudly at the sight of all the excess muscle and fat jiggle even more. 

Katsuki's ass slapped against Eijirou's abs every time he slammed into the boy, his back muscles looking so pretty at this angle. 

"Oh shit- I'm gonna cum! Please make me cum! Don't fucking stop~!" Bakugou moaned, arching his back and lifting his ass up higher so Eijirou could hit his prostate at the best angle. "Haven't even touched your cock and you're gonna cum? Fucking do it! Cum on this cock, make it yours and I'll fuck you every day!" Kirishima promised, sharpening his thrusts to where all Bakugou could do is claw at the padded table and scream, staring into the camera as his orgasm was building higher and higher. 

"I- Fuck! I'm fucking cummin'!" Bakugou screamed, his body shaking under Kirishima as his thrusts went unbroken, hurtling Katsuki into overstimulation. He started screaming for relief, but as Kirishima planted his hands into the curvature of Bakugou's spine, he started thrusting purely for his own relief. Groaning and growling above a sobbing Katsuki. "S-Stop! I can't! Slow down~ Please!" Katsuki begged, his cock trying to harden again. His body was on fire, every nerve fried with pleasure he'd never experienced, and Katsuki knew he was addicted. 

"Almost fuckin' there! Gonna cum in your ass- Claim you, make you mine!" Eijirou groaned out, his balls drawing up tight as his own climax ripped through him, filling up the man's stomach with his cum. 

He slowly pulled out, Katsuki in the same position even after Eijirou let go of him. He grabbed the camera, pointing it at Bakugou's gaping and cum filled hole, watching how he pulsed against nothing, forcing the cum to leak out of him despite his angle. 

Not only did Katsuki make absolute bank while taking monster cock like a slut, he took the No.1 spot by over a thousand followers and ratings. 

[undertale-writing-times]

Baddie Bois finding out their datemate had been dropping hints they had been pregnant and most of them had been jokes or little gift boxes of custom handsewn baby onesies meant for the possible twins they might have??

Aww I loved this ask :D I hope you enjoy it!

Error- all the hints went over his head, at first. He liked your puns and stuff, sure, but you need to change the subject! You just kept talking about baby stuff. If that was all you could think of for puns, you need to think Kore. How did he find out for real? Well... With the help of Ink. Ugh. Okay so they were fighting like normal, but Error wasn't feeling it and Ink groans "Errroooooorrrrr you're not even tryiiiiinnnnngggggg... Do you wanna break up?" He asks a pout even being heard in his voice. Error tenses and snaps "yOu s-sHuT YoUr mOuTh! We aR-A-ArEn't eVeN ReMoTeLy c-cLoSe tO DaTiNg! YoU DaMn iDiOt. I'M JuSt sTrEsSeD BeCaUsE Y/N H-HaS BeEn aCtInG OoOoOfF" he went on to explain everything that you've been doing which causes him to slowly realize that you've been doing a lot with babies now... Oh God... Were you pregnant?

Nightmare- he noticed a pattern right away, but instead of assuming you WERE pregnant, he assumed that you wanted to have children and, if he was to be honest, he didn't even know if they COULD have a babybones? When he told that to you though, you just giggled and shrugged. What? He made a tsh sound and went back to work. Yes, he noticed that your scent was different too... Axe seemed much more protective over you as well! Why? He felt annoyance each and every time until he decided to try something. After he pretty much pushed Axe against the wall, snapping at him to explain why he thinks he should protect Nightmare's datemate? Did he think he couldn't do it?! Axe quickly explains that, no, he knew Nightmare could but he couldn't help it, he's always protective of pregnant people... Monster or human. Slowly, more so than he wished to admit, Nightmare realized that you didn't want a kid, you already had one! He leaves, knowing that he needed to look some stuff up.

Dusty- Dusty, otherwise known as Duster by Nightmare, knew that something was happening. What? That he didn't know but he did want to know! His datemate had been acting weird, and when he asked what they were talking about, they just smiled looking amused and shakes their head. How have they been acting weird? Just making baby jokes for some reason, and making him food or buying him things in twos? The food isn't that weird, but still! Why buy things in two? It took him a while to really think about it pacing back and fourth in his room, scratching lightly at his cheeks. His sweater was up around his neck, his hood up and he could see a slight blue and red glow from his eyes, which he normally would just ignore. Papyrus was watching him looking bored and was poking fun at him, telling him things like how Y/n might be cheating, or didn't want to be with him anymore. Slowly his brother talked him into going into your room and searching around, and when he did that he found the test that you took to figure out you were pregnant and that's how he found out. He gets so excited! Now... should he say he found it, or just found out?!

Killer- It isn't that he doesn't get it! Your hints just... weren't very good. You just kept making jokes about babies? He didn't really understand, did you want to have kids, or something?! He wasn't ready for children so instead of responding to your jokes he just nodded to show that he heard you and went back to work. Then he noticed that you started to gain some weight, a little belly? He would often lay his skull against it while he's resting, which didn't happen that often nowadays. He kind of liked it... then you started to eat weird food and it slowly started to come closer to his mind and he wondered if you were hinting that you were pregnant, rather than wanting to be pregnant and he panicked having to leave on a mission for a few days and during those few days he realized that he wouldn't mind having a babybones, even more with the person that he loves! He'll come back and ask you if you were pregnant and once you tell him that you were, with twins, he was going to be happy, but also... really scared.

Axe- just as expected, he doesn't piece together that you're pregnant, even though he knew your scent, it was sweeter than normal. Just being near you helped him calm down, too! Sometimes he'd take you to the castle where he had to work or other times leave you at home with Noodle, but for some reason, he needed you to call him every few hours if he wasn't with you, and if you don't, he's going to come and check in you. He liked the gifts! Most was food, like a bun you left in the oven for some reason, blue and pink cupcakes, all sorts of stuff! He knows that something is happening just doesn't know what, you know? He notices that he enjoys nuzzling into your stomach more, and your scent made him so happy, and he worried about anyone hurting you... The more he thinks about it, the more stressed he becomes until one day, when they were asleep together, you mumbled you were happy he's taking the twins so well, then fell asleep. That's when it all made sense! He's... Going to be a dad?

[roetrolls]

Catharsis II (Finale)

Part 1 / Google Doc / Previous Drabbles

Veylin is adamant that something feels strange tonight. She can't explain what, but she's certain that something is different. It's not Harlan. Or, that's what she says, at least. You're not convinced.

It's not that you don't trust her-- You do. You've never trusted anyone more. But everything always comes back to Harlan, especially here.

For once, though, you're not channeling your anxiety into pacing the room or tugging at your hair. Instead, you're tangling your fingers in Zurven's, petting his head as he rests it in your lap. You're gentler with him than you are with yourself. Gentler with both of them.

You exhale shakily, and Zurven reaches up to lay a palm on your cheek. "Hey."

You look down at him, lip trembling, and he brushes a thumb along your jaw.

"Look, just like me." He takes a deep breath, exhales slowly. Demonstrates again. You work to time your breathing with his, closing your eyes and leaning into his touch, "I know it's scary right now..." He pushes your bangs out of your eyes. "But whatever it is, we can handle it."

You nod softly, still lacing your fingers through his curls.

There's movement by the door as Veylin, previously reaching out with her powers in an attempt to glean more information, finally gives up on her station in favor of sitting with you.

She lowers herself to the floor beside you, smoothing her skirt as she does and folding her legs to her side.

"I am hopeful." She leans into you, cheek resting against your left shoulder. "I want to believe that different can be good."

Zurven takes one of her hands into both of his. The three of you sit in silence, bodies melting together, breathing falling in time, and try to stay calm.

You have each other.

What matters is that you have each other.

Things are still for a while. You think it’s a while, at least. Zurven would know; his sense of time is impeccable. Not that you’d ask him how long it’s been. You’re fairly certain it’s related to his powers, and asking psychic favors of your loved ones is a pretty massive line you’re not willing to cross. For obvious reasons.

Ten minutes, maybe? That’s the guess you’ll go with, but you could be way off. You’ve never been good at gauging time.

You realize, for one thankful moment, that your mind has wandered away from your worry. That’s good. Well. It was. Then you noticed it. It’s kind of ruined now.

Damn.

Thankfully, you don’t have much time to dwell on your renewed anxiety before a muffled shout draws your attention to the door. There’s a thud. You’re already pulling away from Zurven and Veylin.

Another shout, another thud. Zurv releases her hand as you clamber to your feet.

More talking. A crash. All three of you are on high alert when the doorknob turns.

You can feel your muscles tensing, preparing for whatever-- whoever-- is coming in. It's stupid. What are you going to do, huh? Run? Fight? Neither are an option here.

Doesn't stop your instincts, though. With any luck, it's just one of the twins. But then what was that commotion outside?

You're not left to wonder for long.

The door swings open and your eyes widen, air immediately returning to your lungs. Holy shit. Holy shit. Is this real? Please god, let this be real.

You stand stock still for a moment, locking eyes with the large man in front of you. Then, a laugh bubbles its way out of your chest, in exactly the same instant a sob rips itself from your throat.

"Styx!"

You fling yourself at the older troll without thinking, throwing your weight into his arms and clutching him like he could vanish at any moment. Don’t cry. Don’t break down. Not now, there’s no time for that.

You need to let go, let Styx speak, give him room to tell you his plan.

You should really let go.

Benjin, let the man go.

You grip him tighter, arms trembling, and hiccup softly as a strong, gentle hand comes to rest upon your back. It’s gentle. He’s gentle. You could cry. You are crying. This is a lot.

“Ben,” Styx says, arms still wrapped around you as you clutch him impossibly tighter, terrified of waking up from this dream. “We are going to have a very serious talk once we get you home.”

Home. This isn’t home. You have a home, a real home, out in Ilioneus. A home you left to hurl yourself back into a cage. Whatever punishment they want to give you for this will be well deserved.

But you don’t care. You just want out.

When you finally draw back, you find that you’ve left a giant wet splotch on the front of his shirt. Oops. You open your mouth to apologize, but before you can get a word out, Styx lifts both his hands slightly, palms towards you, in the same kind of gesture one might use to calm a panicked horse. It works.

“It will dry.”

You sniff and laugh, wiping your nose with your forearm. Vision blurred by tears, you cast a glance over your shoulder to find Veylin and Zurven standing behind you in what you can only assume is a stunned silence. You swallow, trying to dry your eyes, but the tears are quickly replaced. They’re going to be okay.

“Zurv, Veylin, this… This is Styx, he--”

“The Ferryman.” Veylin mutters, taking a fistful of her left shirt sleeve and flashing you a soft smile. Styx nods, though his gaze drifts elsewhere. He’s surveying the room, trying to gather as much knowledge of his surroundings as he can.

Zurven presses the heels of his hands against his eyes before dragging them down his face, the reality of this moment apparently just settling in. “Holy fuck…”

Wait. Shit. You whip back towards your savior, panic swelling in your chest and thrumming through your skull.

“Styx--” You swallow hard, breathing becoming labored as your worry begins to overtake you. “Fuck, it’s-- Styx, it’s… It’s not just Veylin, he-- It’s-- Zurven, he has Zurven, and…”

You choke on your own breath, voice breaking with emotion. Your body really wants to cry. “H-He’s going to keep hurting them… I don’t-- I don’t know if… If you accounted for this, or if you can… Accommodate… But please, it’s-- It’s not. Just the two of us. Please, they-- Both of them, please…”

You can practically smell the smoke that’s swirling through your mind, obscuring any coherent thought behind your panic as you jump from one unfinished sentence to another in a desperate attempt to communicate.

A delicate hand closes around your upper arm, with Veylin’s equally delicate voice sounding beside you. “Breathe, Benjin.”

“It won’t be an issue. We came prepared.”

Right. They’re professionals. They have a plan. A plan that you really hope you’re not about to complicate further. “And… My lusus?”

Styx nods his head once. “Caenos is on it. Now, my question for you. Do you know of any back exits to the compound? Hidden paths, secret entrances?”

“No. It’s just the front entrance, the one in the church.”

Zurven scoffs under his breath. “No respect for fire safety.” That earns a giggle from Veylin.

The older troll sighs. “Thought so. We’ll make it work.”

He motions for you to follow him and returns to the hall, stepping over the unconscious bodies of Harlan’s followers on the way. That explains the commotion. Man took out three purplebloods on his own? That quickly? Sheesh.

Actually, now that you’re thinking about other purples…

“Wait, Styx.” He stops to look back at you, raising a questioning eyebrow and nodding for you to speak. You tug on the string of your hoodie, shifting your weight slightly. “He… He has something of Thanat’s. In his room.”

Styx pauses to consider it. You can see his mind at work, calculating the risks, determining if he can fit a detour into his plan. After a few seconds of deliberation, he nods once more. “Stay close and be quick. Lead the way.”

You whisper a breathless thanks and make for Harlan’s quarters, heart thrumming in your chest. Are the walls shaking, or is that just you? You guess that’s one advantage to his frankly unfair size. Man can’t stealth for shit.

Doesn’t seem like he’s in his room, thank god, or there’d be someone standing outside. Some kind of attendant, you guess, since Harlan clearly fancies himself royalty. You never noticed them before your escape. Probably because you spent most of your time hiding in your own room.

The door won’t be locked. You know that for a fact. Why would he need to lock anything when his word is already law? When his followers were either tripping over themselves for his approval or doing everything in their power to avoid his wrath? Fuck, that sounds familiar.

You stare at the entrance to his room, a grimace spreading across your face. Zurven’s expression matches your own. Neither of you are particularly keen on entering, not after everything he’s done behind that door. You take a deep breath, trying to put on a brave face, when Veylin gives your arm a squeeze. “Stay out here. Just tell me what I’m looking for.”

With a grateful smile, you describe the watch and its location to her, glancing down the hall to ensure that no one is approaching. You don’t need to. Styx has that covered just fine. But it makes you feel safer, knowing for yourself.

“I… I think it’s in his nightstand. In a box, maybe. He had me… Working on the puzzle. When he put it away. But he was near the bed, so…” You swallow, staring at your feet. You should be doing this yourself. You shouldn’t be making it her problem.

She squeezes your arm once more. Shit. Guilt. Just let her do this for you.

“Thank you.”

You try not to pace as she slips into the room. Nothing to worry about. It’s empty. What if it’s trapped? No, that’s ridiculous. Why the hell would he bother? What if he did? You wish you could punch your own brain. It’d be deserved you think.

The longer she takes the more anxious you get. Did you remember wrong? Maybe he put it somewhere else. Or god, maybe it’s with him. Fuck, was this even worth it? What if-

“Good grief, that table was as tall as I am… I practically had to climb for it. But you were right!” Veylin reappears beside you, golden watch in hand. You pull her into a quick hug and shove it into your pocket, throwing a glance at Styx.

“Ready.”

He blinks, looking back at you. Confusion flashes across his face for a brief moment, replaced a moment later with recognition, then realization. “Hide in that room, do not leave until I get you.”

You furrow your brow, shaking your head slightly. “What? What’s-”

“Caenos. You've become his priority. He's in trouble. Ben. Stay put. Do not do anything stupid.” He gives you a stern look, and then he’s gone, vanished around the corner before you can answer.

You glance at the door. Hiding in there seems like a terrible idea. He’d notice something out of place, right? But you can’t just stand here in the open hallway. Fuck, what if Harlan’s the trouble? Was Caenos found out? Fuck, can Harlan see through his psionics? You wouldn’t be surprised.

You raise a hand to your mouth, gnawing on your cheek as you think.

Zurven mimics your posture. “That’s his pondering face. Whadya ponderin' buddy? Think we should be ponderin’ too, Veylin?"

You turn towards the both of them, moving from your cheek to your lip. “We’re going to put them in danger. If… If Harlan finds them and they’re focused on us… And we can’t stay here. And… And if it is Harlan, like right now, it’s… This is our chance, isn’t it? We should just… We should go. Get out of their way, give them one-- three-- less things to worry about.”

Veylin looks between you and Zurven, tentative. “Perhaps… We should do as we were told, Benjin.”

You give her a pleading look. “Something will go wrong, V. I can feel it. We can’t just stand here.” You take her hand in yours and she flinches as your own panic washes over her. Immediately, you let go. “Sorry! Sorry, I-I didn’t mean to--”

“No, it’s… I understand. Okay. I’ll follow your lead.” Both of you look to Zurven, waiting for his input.

“Well fuck, if everyone else is doing it…”

With a nervous, grateful smile, you take both Zurven and Veylin by the hands to race with them to the throne room. As you draw closer, you begin to make out what’s happening in the church. Growling. Lots of it. Panting, shouting, and sharp, booming taunts that echo down the hall. It’s a fight.

Who the fuck is Harlan fighting?

How the fuck are they still alive?

By the time you reach the throne room, your stomach is in knots. Veylin tightens her grip on your hand, a soft whimper rising from her throat. She’s gotten used to Harlan’s temper, but the fight within that room is clearly too much for her.

What the hell is going on in there?

You let go of them both, leaving Zurven to take Veylin’s hands and coach her breathing as you peek into the room, heart in your throat. What you see is mind-blowing.

Harlan’s on the floor.

Holy fucking shit, Harlan is on the floor.

You’ve never seen him like this. You didn’t know it was possible to see him like this. His arm is gored, his face bloodied and bruised. He’s being dragged across the church by the hair, completely debased by a man at least three feet shorter than him.

How humiliating… You watch with rapt attention, struggling to peel your eyes away from the scene before you. You really hate to admit it, but this feels good.

Then, you catch a glimpse of the man’s face, and you have to bite back a shout.

Thanat?

Fucking hell, is that really him? Praise be the Embalmer.

You look back to Zurven and Veylin and throw your head towards the entry into the church. Now’s our chance.

Best that you don’t let either of them see you. Harlan for obvious reasons, and Thanat is probably better off focusing on the goddamn mountain he’s fighting. You can’t believe Thanat is here, facing off against the fucking Dominion for you. Is it for you? Do you even deserve that? No, shut up, not the time.

You choose the path, leading your friends-- Are they your friends? That doesn’t feel like a strong enough word. Fuck. Again, not the time. Conversations to be had outside the compound. Where were you? Right. Ducking behind the pews with Zurven and Veylin, shuffling forward on all fours and doing your absolute best to stay out of sight.

You don’t need to worry about Harlan. Thanat’s handling it. And boy, he is really handling it. You risk a peek at the action again, poking your head into the aisle just in time to see Harlan go crashing into the stairs. Holy fuck. Okay, back to crawling.

“Funny thing, that. When history repeats.”

You stall for a moment, a chill running up your spine. That wasn’t Harlan’s voice, but god did it sound like him. You’re reminded of the gentle facade Harlan adopted when you returned. They know each other well. Pity for Thanat.

You’re a third of the way there. There’s a gap in the pews here, a space large enough for him to pass between them.

Large enough to catch you crossing.

Veylin’s close behind you, with Zurven taking up the rear. Trying to determine the next move, you look back just in time to see a faint look of disgust pass over Vey’s face.

“Ah, that’s… Bad.” She whispers, swallowing hard.

You brave another look. Harlan’s back on his feet, holding Thanat and glaring at him with a ferocity you’ve never seen before. Fuck. You duck back behind the cover of the seats, covering your mouth with one hand. Fuck.

He lands a punch. You can hear it connect. Oh god. He’ll kill him.

A thud. Did he throw him? You’ve seen him throw people. Few survive that. This is bad. This is really, really bad.

Footsteps. Loud, thundering footsteps. Harlan’s footsteps. You shouldn’t look. Shouldn’t risk it. But you need to see. You raise your head again.

Harlan stands across the room with his back to you, eyes trained on the floor. They’re on the far right wall, furthest from you. You can cross. He won’t see you.

You throw your gaze towards the exit, biting your lip. Now is the time. You can get out. You can get them out.

Behind you, Veylin gasps (quietly, thank god), drawing your attention back to the fight. Harlan has a hand on Thanat’s head, fingers tangled in the smaller man’s hair. He yanks his head back, forcing their eyes to meet. You can only imagine the sickening grin he must be wearing.

Zurven puts a hand on Veylin’s shoulder, gently pulling her back out of sight. “We need to keep moving.”

“We need to help…” She frowns, lowering her ears and fixing both of you with a pleading look.

You screw up your face, gut twisting at the thought of leaving Thanat to such a grisly fate. But Zurven is right. “Help how, V? This… This is out of our league. If the Embalmer can’t do this…”

“We have to try. Please.”

You lean into the aisle again, just as Harlan cracks Thanat’s head against the wall, gripping his hair so tightly you’re convinced he’s about to rip it from his scalp. You stare at the fresh purple blot on the stone, accented by that nauseating pink glow.

Your stomach turns. Dread weighs heavy in your limbs, and you feel as though they’ve become frozen in place.

They… Are frozen in place.

He saw you.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. What do you do? What do you do!?

Your lip quivers. You turn your attention back to the others, eyes wide with horror, and try to speak around the lump growing in your throat.

“I can’t move.” Your voice comes out strangled, small.

Zurven acts fast, swinging his head around and searching the pews. “Fuck, okay, is there anything here we can give him?” He mutters under his breath.

Veylin tilts her head. She starts to join him, but it’s obvious she has no idea what he’s looking for.

“The Embalmer’s powers, they work the same. He needs something Harlan owns.” For a moment, you’re surprised. You can’t imagine Zurven doing research on his ancestor’s old contacts. Then you realize Thanat is one of your ancestor’s old contacts as well. Someone Zurven could have seen when he was forced into the past.

You wish Harlan was still losing.

But you’re suddenly very aware of the weight in your pocket. Would it work? Do his voodoos care if the object is stolen? Is there nothing else you can try?

Zurven’s hands fall still. His face drops. Veylin’s not moving either.

He has all of you.

This is your fault. If you hadn’t looked again… You should have trusted your gut. Should have kept going. Suddenly, you rise to your feet.

“Benjin.” Harlan smiles. He looks crazed, eyes wild, mouth slick with his own blood. He’s practically shaking with rage, gripping the base of Thanat’s skull with one massive hand and pressing his fingers into the tender nerves behind his ear.

Your heartbeat quickens. You want to look at Thanat. Want to meet his gaze, show him how sorry you are. But you can’t. Harlan wants eye contact.

If he weren’t puppeting your legs, you doubt they could support you. You’ve never been more terrified. There’s movement behind you as he brings Zurven and Veylin to stand as well. You wish you could spare them this sight. You can’t help feeling responsible for him somehow.

Harlan is your ancestor. He raised you. He should be your problem.

There’s a tremor in his chest, a jagged shuddering accompanied by a low, rumbling laugh as your legs carry you into his reach. Then, like flipping a switch, his humor vanishes, and he strikes a hand out to grab you by the horn, yanking you closer.

You inhale sharply, stumbling forward and staring up at Thanat’s battered face, struggling to keep your tears at bay. You were so close.

Harlan releases you roughly, and your hands move on their own, reaching for Thanat’s throat. Your breath hitches as your fingers close around his neck. He’s going to make you kill him.

There’s no stopping the tears now. They pour down your cheeks in a silent flood, obscuring your vision. Your emotions are a whirlwind. Guilt. Horror. Fear. Regret.

Anger. You’re so, so angry. This isn’t fair. Why does he just. Keep. Winning?

You feel your grip tighten. You want to scream.

And then you don’t.

You don’t want anything. You don’t feel anything. Your hands fall back to your sides, Harlan’s influence replaced with nothing but a dull, peaceful quiet.

You feel your strings snap. Harlan feels it too. His gaze whips past you, face twisting into a snarl. Veylin. You thrust a hand into your pocket, closing your fist around the watch. He sees the movement out of the corner of his eye, makes a grab for your arm…

And swipes through empty air.

He swings his head around, looking over the room with a mix of dread and rage. The others won’t see it. You’re only targeting him. But your voodoos will keep him plenty occupied, struggling to find you amongst a dozen projections of your own image as you, the real, corporeal Benjin, withdraw the watch and press it into Thanat’s hand.

Harlan must have puzzled out your intention, because the second you pass off the watch, he’s making another grab for your horn.

Your body once again moves of its own volition, ducking out of the way as if being directed by some unseen, gentle guide. In the same instant, Harlan freezes, releasing Thanat before his limbs fall still completely.

"So much easier this time, Harls."

His expression shifts, just barely, betraying the slightest hint of emotion. Dread? Panic? Fear? You stare up at him, your own face the perfect picture of stoicism, then turn away, running down the aisle to scoop both Zurven and Veylin into your arms and carry them outside to safety.

To freedom.

You burst into the open air and race as far from the church as you can before your legs fold beneath you, sending all three of you tumbling to the ground in a heap. For the first time in your life, you don’t just cry. You wail, hugging your partners to your chest like you’re trying to absorb them.

They clutch you right back, sobbing along with you until your eyes burn and your throats are raw.

It’s over.

[leagueofdccm]

SUCH INTIMACY WOULD HAVE ONCE SENT SOLDIER BOY RUNNING towards the hills, and he doesn't mean having sex with a pretty woman or laying next to one after some hot, rough sex. Sharing his emotions has always been a challenge for Ben. While he excels at specific tasks, opening up about his feelings makes him feel exposed. It's a side of himself that he rarely reveals to anyone. Not even with Crimson Countess, who he once said he wanted to marry and have children with-- while sex with her was pretty fucking easy, to say the least, he never did care about the notion of PILLOW TALK. Waved Crimson Countess off the second her mouth opened to speak her mind; it wasn't like he paid much attention. And with any other women before or during. It just seemed pointless... feelings, yuck. That shit was wimpy. 

REAL MEN don't talk about feelings; that's fucking pathetic; that's what women are for after all ! God made women have emotions, gossip, and sit pretty while waiting for their husbands to return from war. REAL MEN don't have feelings... that's for pussies. And Soldier Boy was no little bitch pussy. He was already a disappointment in his father's eyes; he couldn't be a pussy, either. Ben's upbringing was devoid of emotions, interpersonal connection, and affection. His father, who carried nothing but contempt for him, was the one who raised him. There was no sign of Ben's mother in the picture, nor was she ever spoken of. It's difficult even to visualize what she looked like, as his dad didn't keep any of her belongings around the house. Despite Ben's thorough search, there was no trace of her existence in that house. His old man never once DARED shed a tear, not for anything, or anyone for the matter. But that was just life in the past... his life. 

NOW ? WELL, SHIT IS DIFFERENT. THE WORLD WASN'T WHAT IT WAS ONCE... he's been gone for forty years. For many agonizing years, he endured excruciating torment and waited for someone to come to his rescue. His desperation grew with each passing day as he longed for anyone to release him from his suffering. Then suppose you can say his prayers were answered... forty fucking years later, but better later than never. Butcher and his little gang bang of heroes surrounded him with a waiting proposition. THEY WANTED HIS HELP to go against this cock sucker name ARES, some big-time new hero who wasn't the hero Vought thought he was made out to be. In New York, Ares held complete control and was free to do whatever he pleased; he was willing to oppose even those similar to him, regardless of the consequences. Those who fought him would face severe repercussions.

Amusing how he went from being trapped in that fucking box to being free and brought into yet another war... and while all that shit is going on, he has fallen for a woman who was... well, damn, something else. She matched his abilities on another level. Maggie knew how to swing a sword, and he meant swing that shit skilfully; it almost looked like she and the sword were one, dancing across the field with that sword, her slicing through the enemies, not once breaking a sweat-- she was graceful, and she was fucking beauty. She was his SWORD, and he was her SHIELD. They stuck close to one another when enemies approached them back to back, as they did many times when practicing combat together.

SOLDIER BOY IS LYING ON HIS BACK, HIS BODY PRESSED AGAINST THE OLD MATTRESS. Maggie is nestled against his sturdy chest, her head resting gently as his heart beats in rhythm with the closeness they are experiencing. The older superhero peeks over at Maggie with a smirk ghosting twin flesh, his heavy hand clutching her shoulder as to move her up against his chest just enough for him to kiss the crown of her head, letting out a low, heartwarming hum. " ... And I never thought I'd be free from that hell... " His thoughts started to stray into treacherous grounds, the emerald color of his eyes turning darker, and a sense of HOSTILITY clouding them as his nostrils flared briefly. But just as his ANGER began to surface, it was dispelled by the sound of Maggie's voice, which shattered the budding flames within his troubled soul. Their eyes met, his green eyes clashing with her blues, and he nodded in agreement with her. He didn't want to go back in that damn box, didn't want to be returned to the Russians, and didn't want to be apart from Maeve... to say he's in love... and he means real love, wouldn't be a lie. Ben runs a hand through her firey locks, then cups her cheeks lovingly. 

" I promise. It's you and me. I am a man of my word, Maggie. You aren't getting rid of me any time soon, sweetheart. You're stuck with me. Got it ? I- fuck. I don't even know if this is the right time to tell you this, shit....or if there ever is going to be a right time ? This world is falling apart already, so might as fucking well. YOU AND ME ? It's forever, right ? I'm not a romantic.... but fuck I can try for you. You're the only woman I met who puts me in my place. And the only woman I know who can knock me out. You match my crazy. And I fucking love it; I fucking love you. Whatever comes after all this shit, after we take down Ares... I want us to go through it TOGETHER.... " 

@leagueofdccm ; soldier boy / CONT.

     𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬  𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐧'𝐭  𝐞𝐱𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐥𝐲  𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠  𝐬𝐡𝐞  𝐡𝐚𝐝  𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭  𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝  𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧,     she  didn't  actually  expect  to  ever  feel  anything  for  someone  else  again  and  she  fully  intended  to  never  let  that  happen  again.     feeling  for  someone  was  a  sure  fire  way  to  get  hurt.     they  could  be  used  against  you,  make  you  act  in  a  way  that  didn't  always  serve  you  best  and  they  were  a  complication  that  you  didn't  need.     losing  elena  the  way  she  did,  she  told  herself  that  falling  in  love  was  dangerous  and  she  would  never  let  herself  get  attached  again.     then  along  came  fucking  soldier  boy.     the  two  of  them  seemed  to  have  a  similar  way  of  dealing  with  things,  constantly  prepared  to  throw  themselves  into  a  fight  and  liked  to  numb  themselves  in  whatever  way  was  easiest  at  the  time.     she  hadn't  expected  it,  but  the  sex  was  a  good  way  to     𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭     herself  from  all  the  shit  that  was  going  on  with  ares  and  his  so  called  seven.     but  watching  him  get  redressed,  she  was  struck  with  this  sudden  need  to  now  be  alone  again  and  she  spoke  up  before  she  could  stop  herself.     fuck,  when  did  he  make  her  weak  like  this?     she  didn't  look  away,  keeping  her  eyes  on  him  as  she  exhaled  smoke  from  the  last  of  her  cigarette,  heart  racing  in  her  chest  as  she  almost  expected  him  to  walk  away.

     𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲  𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞  𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞  𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞  𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧  𝐬𝐡𝐞  𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫  𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝  𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞  𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝,     but  what  she  hadn't  expected  was  the  way  they  understood  each  other.     it  had  been  something  she  had  always  wanted,  someone  who  saw  her,  understood  her  and  doesn't  look  away.     which  was  exactly  what  she  got  with  soldier  boy  ben.     they  trained  and  fought  together,  they  fucked  and  found  some  comfort  in  each  other.     she  was  helping  him  catch  up  on  the  past  forty  years  that  he  had  missed,  she  seemed  to  be  the  only  one  somewhat     𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭     enough  to  actually  deal  with.     maybe  it  was  the  years  of  dealing  with  homelander's  temper  and  mood  swings  that  made  her  capable  of  helping  ben  like  this.     except  ben  was  amusing,  making  her  smile  when  he  probably  shouldn't  and  the  two  of  them  were  never  far  from  one  another.     though  she  was  sure  hughie  probably  wished  the  two  of  them  would  have  a  falling  out  so  they  didn't  keep  picking  on  him  so  much,  but  it  was  a  lot  of  fun.

     𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲  𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞  𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭  𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠  𝐚𝐭  𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡  𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫,     her  heart  was  beating  so  loudly  it  felt  like  it  could  drown  out  anything  else  and  she  never  felt  more  exposed.     but  she  couldn't  deny  it  anymore,  not  to  herself  and  not  to  him.     she  didn't  want  to  be  apart  from  him,  she  preferred  it  when  he  was  around  and  as  much  as  she  told  herself  that  she  would  not  allow  herself  to  have  feelings,  she  clearly  had  lost  that  fight.     but  maybe  this  time,  they  would  look  out  for  each  other,  she  had  someone  to  fight     𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞     and  she  would  do  whatever  she  had  to  make  sure  she  didn't  lose  anyone  again.     maeve  smiles  softly  as  he  tells  her  he's  not  going  anywhere,  leaning  over  to  put  out  the  last  of  her  cigarette  on  the  ashtray  before  letting  herself  get  tangled  up  with  him.     she  sighed  softly,  eyes  closing  for  a  moment  at  the  feeling  of  him  drawing  shapes  into  her  skin,  foreheads  pressed  together  and  she  smiled  again,  blue  eyes  opening  to  look  at  him,     "     and  i've  got  you,     "

     𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠  𝐭𝐨  𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭  𝐡𝐞𝐫  𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝  𝐨𝐧  𝐡𝐢𝐬  𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐭,     she  didn't  exactly  know  what  else  to  say  because  she  had  never  really  been  the  good  one  with  words  or  dealing  with  emotions.     she  didn't  know  what  to  say,  she  didn't  know  if  she  had  to  say     𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠     because  whatever  was  happening  here,  it  was  real  and  clearly  they  were  both  done  acting  like  this  was  just  sex,     "     when  i  sent  butcher  and  his  little  gang  of  idiots  to  russia  looking  for  the  weapon  that  killed  you  so  that  we  could  try  to  kill  that  fucker  ares,  i  didn't  know  they  were  gonna  find  you,     "     maeve  admitted,  looking  up  at  him,  her  hand  on  his  chest.     fuck,  did  this  mean  she  had  to  be  somewhat  grateful  to  butcher  for  bringing  ben  into  her  life?     no  way  that  was  fucking  happening.     she  sent  them  there  and  she  was  the  one  who  looked  out  for  him  more  than  the  others.     she  was  getting  soft  as  she  was  getting  old,  all  the  shit  that  ares  was  doing  was  making  her  feel  more  like  a  human  than  ever  before,     "     whatever  happens  with  all  of  this     -     we  have  to  stick  together,  you  and  i,  promise  me  that?     "

[lazzledazzler]

Lazzle's Rune Factory 5 Review

Alright so here are my thoughts and experiences with RF5! This is a big boy so buckle in earthmates...

Obviously this review will contain spoilers, read at your own risk.

Initial thoughts upon playing...

Great opening! I enjoyed the jazz music~ I did feel like it leaned a bit more towards the male player though. It definitely feels like a rune factory game. It's familiar, and controls are easy to get accustomed to for the most part. The mold is there and rf5 doesn't stray too far from its predecessors which is comforting for veterans. That being said, I'm not going to pull any punches and will critique this game harshly. Keep in mind as updates for the game are released not all things discussed in this review will be as relevant overtime!

Let's hear some thoughts on...

The story/plot. The plot is enjoyable overall. I'm not crazy about the whole Seed organization thing but it was a neat idea. They address the Sechs Territory and it is confirmed that the game takes place some decades after RF4. But by the end of it, I didn't feel like I really accomplished anything because it felt like I barely did anything really. Also they left a lot of stuff unanswered. I'm not even sure I understood the message they were sending, if they were trying to send a message at all. The main story is too short, and it doesn't involve enough of the townsfolk. You're basically doing everything yourself in secret the whole time and the townsfolk barely know what's actually going on. Out of the love interests, Lucas plays the largest part in the story, followed by Priscilla and Scarlett. The story feels targeted at male audiences--at least that's how I felt. You, the player, have a larger role in the game, much like in RF3 and I was glad to see this. As of right now there are only two arcs. Praying for DLC 3rd arc...!

Protagonists. The latest protagonists to join the crew of Earthmates are...decent. Their designs are nothing special unfortunately, though I appreciate Alice's more than Ares's. Appearance-wise they lack personality and creativity. Personality wise I am pleasantly surprised with how sociable they are. They're not exactly quick witted and sassy like Lest/Frey were in rf4, or as endearing as Micah in rf3, but they have a certain realness to them that makes their reactions to things believable. I'm certain Xseed will see to making them a bit more sarcastic in their localizing efforts, so let's all look forward to that. Overall though, while I appreciate their mannerisms, they don't really measure up to all the previous amnesiacs we've grown to love over the decades.

Characters. Overall I enjoy all the characters introduced in Rune Factory 5! I feel like there is someone for everyone in this game on some level. The voice acting was pretty good for every character. The designs are very much Rune factory. Like OG runefa, compared to rf4 ( 4 kind of strayed from their usual style) which I like. Characters still have their own signature quirks that you find endearing. Although I would have liked to see more variety? Like we've had mermaids, univir, half monsters, vampires, etc in previous titles but rf5 only gives us the usual (half) elf, dwarf, and then a succubus (physically she doesn't have unique features aside from the ears and heart eyes), and some were-people. I was hoping for something more unique to really give that classic runefa vibe.

Dungeons/Battles. I'm pretty split on this one. On the one hand, the dungeons have more depth due to the 3D aspects. They've included more contraptions that are very fun to see even if they aren't executed that well. So I'm grateful for that. On the other hand, the dungeons are insanely short imo. It doesn't take long at all to get to the boss. The puzzles are also pretty subpar and few compared to RF4. Fighting monsters is similar to the other games. You can lock on now but I only use it when I'm trying to use my Seed Circle. The lock on feature is actually counter-intuitive and makes it harder to dodge. Weapon mechanics have shifted a bit. There’s a feature that makes you invincible to damage if you time the R button dash correctly. Axes and Hammers are significantly slower than in older games? Like. I thought I was in slow motion it was so slow. Lances are also harder to use as well? I'm questioning my sanity here. I don't know if it's a bug or intentional either.

Farming. Not much has changed from previous games mechanics wise. They added new types of special crops which is neat. The camera view changes to overhead when you go near your fields though, and it can make you dizzy/uncomfortable. It actually makes it a bit difficult to see at times so I wish there was a way to adjust the angle. If you are tilling corn or dried weeds to improve the soil, you need to place them separately if you don't want to use the entire stack. Otherwise, it will till the entire stack on the land if you place them all down at once. The flower shop is unlocked late in the story. Weird thing to do considering you need flowers to make medicine. Not to mention the fact that you wont have access to the fertilizer that increases defense against typhoons? During typhoon season? Thinking emoji...

The town. I have to say Rigbarth's design is poor compared to Sharance, Selphia, etc. It's too big and it takes too long to get around. Everything is too spaced out and there aren't enough warp points to make it easier on players. I don't want to walk an entire mile up a hill to talk to one person and then walk all the way down to the beach to speak to another. It doesn’t really feel like a ‘town’.

OST/BGM. Music was good, though nothing really stood out to me where I'd go "damn this slaps" or something. I think they might've had some old soundtracks from rf2 or something because it felt really nostalgic at times.

We need an exterminator. (Bugs Bugs Bugs)

Marvelous, I don't know how to tell you this buuut...your customers are NOT your testers. When you release a game, you need to make sure it's not littered with glitches because customers don't enjoy dealing with them and will drop the game!

Here are some of the types of glitches I encountered:

Crashing. Game would randomly crash or freeze and close at any moment. Sooooo frustrating! Sometimes you get lucky with the autosave feature, but the autosave only activates every morning at 6am in your room and then when you warp to a dungeon level/floor. So when you're in the middle of your daily tasks in town and it crashes, you have to start all over. Marveloussss no one enjoys losing their progress in a game I promise you that much.

Lag. The dialogue bar is seriously slow, especially after loading your file. Crafting/Cooking screen lags. When you press the Y button to skip through dialogue it lags like hell. Pretty much after every time you load the game will lag, the audio will lag if you're in a battle, everything is just. so. slow.

Repeating dialogue. So if you close your game entirely (or if it crashes) naturally you'll reload your file to continue where you left off. There's a bug that will cause all NPCs to repeat the last dialogue that occurred from whatever plot related thing you did last. So for example, if the last thing you did in the story was unlock Ludmilla, everyone in town will naturally have some dialogue about her. But even after seeing all this dialogue and even saving, if the game is closed and reloaded you'll have to read all that dialogue again from townsfolk. It got really annoying after a while.

Monster taming. One time I tamed a monster but once I named it and hit 'ok' the monster never showed up in my barns? Just. gone. Okaaaay then...? Additionally, I expanded one of my monster barns but all of the monsters I tamed wouldn't appear in the added room. You get 4 monsters for each room but the monsters I tamed would show up in the original room. Meaning I had like 7 monsters in one room! I tried to bring them into the newly added room but they would just warp back to the other room. Sad.

Pond Glitch. I fished in the pond located in Sasayaki Forest and left the fish I caught but didn't want laying around the water's edge. If you leave fish around the pond's edge and go to sleep, the next morning you will be teleported to the pond and trigger the fairy dialogue as if you had thrown all of the fish into the pond??? So the dialogue of her telling you she wants 'X item, not this!' will trigger over and over for all of the fish you left at the water's edge. RIP.

Party member Bug. I had Martin in my party and I made him leave. Then when I went into my monster barns to get a monster pal to join me instead it showed me Martin's portrait???? Also I've encountered a bug where I can no longer ask anyone to join my party for some unknown reason. The R &L button prompt was just gone when I reloaded.

Errors. When cooking or crafting, the dialogue box shows up sometimes...

Typos. Random average typo here and there. Not a real biggie but there is one instance where the heroine will use the japanese male pronoun "boku" instead of "watashi" which really convinced me that this game was completely intended for men lol.

Let's talk about Pros

The good stuff. The stuff that makes you all warm and fuzzy inside.

Plot Advancing. Now I'm gonna put this as a pro because I'm certain the average player will enjoy this even though I do not. There are now markers on the map to show you where to go to advance the plot. This is all well and dandy, but it also made the story less appealing for me because you don't need to go around town and speak to residents for clues or assistance to advance anything in the story.

3D Graphics The 3D models are all amazing. The interior designs of the houses/buildings are also incredibly detailed and realistic.

Collecting items. Now there's a feature that will allow you to collect items into your inventory just by walking over them. This is pretty neat and welcome for the most part. Once the item is sparkling, you can walk over it and it'll go into your rucksack automatically. This also makes lumbering and mining go much faster. Yay!

The miraculous L pocket. Now you can customize the categories that appear in your L pocket by going to the rucksack tab in the menu. This is a super neat feature that makes things easier on players who want to manage their items in a format that suits them.

Weapon/Tool Toggling. You can now toggle between your equipped weapon and tool by pressing the left or right buttons on the trackpad.

Collecting lumber/material stone. Oh lord this is probably the most welcome improvement moving forward from the previous game. You can now put all of the lumber and material stone from your inventory into its storage at once. This also applies to fodder for tamed monsters. Well done Hakama.

Autosave. This feature is a welcome addition to the series. The game will save your data every morning and every time you enter a dungeon. Autosave has really saved my ass a few times when I made a huge error in judgement so I'm incredibly grateful for this feature. And it doesn't save over your actual save file--there's a separate autosave file at the very top. So if you messed up something but already saved on your main file, you can still salvage your mistake by reloading the autosave! I just wish it activated a bit more often sometimes.

Warping. Now we can warp to each level in a dungeon as well as certain places on the map in town. It's pretty convenient for the most part.

Increased party members. Now you can have up to 3 members in your party! Hooray! Party members act more intelligently than in older games. Scarlett can use the Seed circle to assist you in fights. I think she also tosses healing potions at you occasionally. So far, no one has tossed a dish at me if I haven't eaten like Kiel and Clorica did in rf4. But I have been hit by a failed dish (from reinhardt?) and a healing potion (from scarlett). Scarlett, Priscilla, and Reinhardt are the most helpful when dungeon crawling in my experience. Some of them however, (looking at you Doug) don't shut the hell up with their one line of dialogue they have and repeat it constantly.

Seed Circle. This neat feature allows you to capture monsters. By charging it and releasing you can capture monsters for the bounty system or add them to your party temporarily. If you throw it without charging it, you can stun monsters in place momentarily or grab things from far away. When stunning monsters, it can also give you the monster's drop item occasionally. Unfortunately it uses a lot of RP so it can be difficult at times.

Combo attacks. This is a neat feature that I appreciate and use often for boss fights. They do some serious damage so it's good to save them for the bosses. The actual cutscenes aren't that impressive, and feel kind of subpar when you get down to it but I think it's a start in the right direction.

Farm Dragons. I'm listing this as a pro although I really just see it as a new feature. Farm dragons have fields on their backs that you can place monster barns on and farm on. Giving them certain crystals will give your fields boosts in certain criteria, like length of growth, soil quality, you get it. I personally don't use the crystals because I couldn't give a shit lmao I have men and women to woo here. But if you're into this kinda thing then it's a pro.

Storage. When opening your storage box, fridge, etc. you can actually hit the R & L buttons to switch between ALL of your other storages. Looooove thissss. Great addition. So much faster to put items away in their respective places.

Crafting/Forging. Now we can also use the R & L buttons to alternate between the different weapon types/accessory/gear types instead of having to exit the menu and going back in each time you want to make something different.

Cooking. More recipes have been added. Yay!

Days are longer now. More time to get shit doneeeee ayyyy

Fishing. They've added many more fish to the game! Now the player will shout something when you get a bite, making it easier for you to hit B at the right moment. Nice. Also if you fail or press B too early, the fish doesn't vanish most of the time. Also nice. There is now a feature to fish with another person's assistance. Once a day you can investigate the sign near the fishing station and someone might offer to lend you a hand. Press the B button at the right moments on the slider and you can get a rare fish that can't be caught normally.

Monsters. New types of monsters! Love the designs. Even the monsters that are the same but just have different skins are really neat. They look great in the 3D format too. You can even ride with up to two people on certain monsters! Some bosses had awesome designs while others...were bad.

New Types of Furniture. The carpenter store has a wide arrange of furniture you can buy for your home. It also has wallpapers and stuff which is really neat. Though unfortunately you can't even sit on some of the furniture so that's a shame.

Events. Now there is a system where events are triggered by approaching an icon on the map. This is probably an improvement to RF4's randomized system, though personally I found it annoying because it meant that I had to see the events before I could just enter a building normally. Sometimes I just wanted to get shit done and not have to read through walls of text for someone's love event when I just want to buy something.

Voiced Lines. The protagonist seems to have more voiced lines, as do other characters. Good!

Let's talk about Cons

Not including glitches. Oh boy. So many cons. Where do I start?

Dialogue. Probably the most notable con in the entire game. The dialogue is drastically minimal in comparison to previous games, especially rf4. There is probably a quarter of the amount of dialogue compared to rf4's insane amount of content if not less. Townsfolk repeat themselves. Often. Too often. Am I playing Harvest Moon? Originally I thought it was because the dialogue is randomized, but I think it's actually because more dialogue is unlocked as you raise townspeople's FP. Despite this, there's no linear build up where you start off as acquaintances and eventually become very close like in rf4 because of how sporadic the LP/FP is. Townsfolk don't even talk to each other. One of the greatest perks about runefa is the conversations townsfolk can have with one another. Residents randomly gathering in small groups to talk about anything. Previously you could add someone to your party and sometimes a dialogue will occur if you speak to the right person at the right time with that person in your party. This is nonexistent now. The only time they do this in rf5 is during the festivals. But, it will only trigger if you have unlocked all the characters in each marriageable lineup and they can't be in your party. The residents will talk about one another but that's pretty much it outside of town events. They got rid of all the minor dialogue that occurs too. Trying to sleep in someone's bed while they're right there? They wont comment. Inspecting objects in stores while the shopkeeper is present? Wont say anything. Take a character with you to a dungeon/boss fight? Their lips are sealed. Where's my sense of community? :(

FP/LP This ties into the dialogue issue. The rate at which LP/FP increases is sporadic as hell. You can go from 1FP/LP to 4FP/LP just by giving a gift sometimes. I wouldn't even speak to people and their affinity increased by like triple for no reason. Then it increases by like 2% for the longest time. Argh!!!

Graphics. I don't consider myself very picky when it comes to graphics. I don't really mind that the foliage and scenery are at the level of a ps2 game at best. I tried playing on my television initially, but the lag and camera operability was too much so I fully switched (haha puns) to handheld. One thing that sucked is that I literally cannot tell the difference between medicinal herbs, antidote grasses, and green grasses without the captions because the graphics are so indistinguishable. So when you're trying to pick up multiples of those items by holding the A button, you're just randomly walking over anything green in the hopes that you'll get the right ones...

Lack of Sound Effects. Something I noticed is they got rid of the sound effects that will play when you complete a puzzle or add someone to your party. When you try to brush a monster there's no sound for the '♪' they make when you successfully brush them. So it was hard for me to tell if I had actually brushed them or not. I was a bit saddened by the lack of cute sounds.

Too much free range. From the very beginning of the game, you're allowed to go pretty much wherever you want when leaving town. It was too easy to stumble into high enemy level territory without knowing, so when I was like level 5 so I got KO'd immediately.

Artwork. The portraits seem to be lower in quality somehow. Runefa has always had shitty portrait art imo but this time it's even worse. Many character's eyes looked fucked up. Though the 3D models are insanely good for mostly every character except Terry. Terry's 3D model looks Terryfying and I prefer his portrait.

Festivals. They've added some new festivals. Some I enjoy. Some not so much. They changed the format of the eating contest. It's horrible. Good luck with that one.

L pocket + R button? They got rid of the feature that lets you skip to the other end of your items when opening the L pocket by pressing R button. I really liked that feature because it made it faster to reach my items so I was bummed that they got rid of it.

Gotta go fast. Now when you speak to someone, it doesn't 'stop time' as you might say it did in previous games. So people are still moving about as you speak to someone, making it harder to catch up to people! Annoying!!!

Catch and release? Not in my farming simulator! Say goodbye to being able to toss a fish you caught back into the water. In fact, say goodbye to tossing anything you don't want anymore into the water. Now you just have an army of fish flopping on the ground around you. And with the auto pick up feature, they're probably going to end up in your inventory anyways once you try to move. There are still certain ponds with fairies that you can toss stuff into, but you'll have to deal with the fairy harping at you for giving her something she doesn't want.

Shop Hours. Oh god. The shop owners don't even open their stores at the correct hours? It says open at 9am. If you speak to them they won't open their store until like 9:07??? But Priscilla and Lucy will show up to work their part-time jobs at around 8:30am and you can buy stuff through them before 9am. So the actual shop owners (for the bread shop and general store) are pointless usually. Additionally, if the store is empty (but open) you can no longer add a shopkeeper into your party and then enter their store with them to buy things from them. Why. Just why. When you want to buy something that only a specific person sells (Only Hina sells fish, only Heinz sells misc items) you have to wait for them to finally decide to work in their own store. Wonderful.

Monster Item drops. Maybe I'm crazy but the monster drops are seriously a lot harder to get than in previous games. Especially boss drops. It's almost impossible to get the rare drops now. I don't even want to try anymore. And as far as I know, the only place to buy monster items is through Heinz, but his items are actually misc. items, not specifically monster drops. So you'll be lucky to check his store (whenever tf he decides to actually work) for any monster items you might want instead of farming for the drops. Sighs.

Difficulty. This game is too easy. There is little to no challenge whatsoever. I had to increase the difficulty setting to hard mode and it was still too easy. I beat it at level 139, never once did I need to grind or level. In fact, your character levels up way too quickly for the pace of the story. I had zero trouble with any of the bosses and even the final boss was a breeze. Quite sad. Though because I am not new to the franchise, it's likely that newcomers would have some trouble in the later parts of the story.

Fishing cons. Idk how you fck up fishing but they sure did. You have to stand further back now because the pole is so long that you'll miss the fish you're aiming for. In fact, it's seriously hard to aim period. You'll end up recasting more often than not. Fish come in the various sizes but they don't seem to have the darker or faded characteristics that can indicate whether it's a rare fish or not. The graphics make it hard to tell. The pros that i've already mentioned are welcomed but it doesn't negate the fact that I do not enjoy fishing like I did in previous games.

Mining/Lumbering Cons. You can no longer strike three times consecutively when mining/lumbering. This sucks lol. Even when you upgrade your axe or hammer, powering up the tool does nothing for getting wood and material stone--it only expands the area of your strike. So it takes longer to get wood/stone from stumps and rocks now since you have to strike the full 9 times but it's not too bad. It's also harder to aim now as well so that's also unfortunate.

Seasonal Fields? Kiss them goodbye! That's right, there are no seasonal fields in rf5 because devs are insane! You instead have the farm dragons that seem to look seasonal based on the fact that they are designed after elements like earth, water, and fire. But no, these dragons are simply extra fields for you to use. Here's a spoiler: you're not going to use those fields. You're just not. They're kinda useless unless you're obsessed with farming. Now you have to grow your crops out of season like the sad farmer that you are.

Farming cons. Seeds no longer tell you how long it takes to grow the crop. Why. As of June 29th, they fixed this with an update. But I still had to play the whole game without it so fuck you marvelous. The joystick is really sensitive? So when you're trying to use a fertilizer or something on your field you're likely to place it on the wrong 4x4 tile, wasting your fertilizer. So it’s best to hold down the R button when farming. Also the crops look uglie as hell.

Sleeping and warping cutscenes. Just like in rf4 there's a cutscene when you go to sleep that can be skipped easily by pressing A. In rf5, there's a cutscene to sleep and a cutscene when waking up. It takes a bit more than a second to skip these scenes so it gets annoying after a while. Warping is this new feature that replaces our beloved escape spell. Overall I appreciate the feature but I hate it for two reasons. One: there's an annoying ass cutscene for it each time you use it that could be much shorter. And Two: townsfolk now use warp even when inside the town. In previous games, someone exiting your party in town would just manually run to wherever they need to be. So you could easily chase after them if you need to talk to them or give them something. Now, party members use warp regardless of where you are at the time. So say you have someone at 7 hearts and you want to try confessing to them. You would have them join your party, save your game, and then have them leave your party and immediately speak to them and confess before they can run off. If it doesn't work you reload until it does. In RF5 this wouldn't work anymore because they will warp. Now you would have to save, run around town trying to find this person and hope they accept the confession. Otherwise you'll have to play hide and seek again because reloading your file will randomize the resident's locations (if they are not working in a shop)!!!! I often just waited until a festival day because then they will be at the plaza for most of the day and it has a warp point there.

Crafting/Forging/Cooking. They've removed the feature where you can press Y on the ingredients in the menu to add more of that particular item. I miss this feature :'(

Lacks incentive. There is no trophy room from my knowledge. The final dungeon that is meant to be like the sharance maze/rune prana isn't that hard to beat for skilled players and is only 20 floors. After you beat the main story and this dungeon there's not much else to do really.

Request Board. Unlike in rf4, you need to make sure you have accepted requests before you complete them or else it will not count. Previously, you could complete all sorts of tasks and Eliza would still recognize your work even if you accept their request after the fact. ie, shipping goods, harvesting crops, etc. So make sure you don't harvest your special crops before accepting the request it's for!

Return of the "Loli" Dragons... Yeah you read that right. We got more dragons in children's(???) bodies with skimpy clothes. I don't know anymore????¿¿¿

Can't marry the Milfs or Dilfs. Tragic.

Still no homo. Grow up Marvelous.

Reverse Proposal? Reverse Uno card-- Laid low by the patriarchy. You now have to buy the double bed and craft an engagement ring to propose to your man if you're playing as Alice. Marvelous this isn't what we meant when we said we wanted equal rightsssssss This can be seen as a pro if you're a softhearted babey who doesn't like rejecting bachelors' proposals because you feel bad :'( But this is a con for me because I don't want to spend money and materials on a double bed dammit!!!

Misc. Still can't stack dishes or fish. There's no green elemental fairy???All the other elemental ones are there except the green one? why??? Still can't tame the giant Wooly. Some bosses that have insanely awesome designs cannot be tamed and makes me wanna eat glass.

Let's talk about Love~

Relationships. We want them. And half of us only play these games for them. I've only played as the female heroine so far but I'll be updating this review as soon as I finish with the bachelorettes as the male hero.

Confessions

As usual, we must raise the love points of our beloved to 7 hearts before we can attempt to date them. However unlike in rf4, if you fail at a confession once, you will need to raise the LP up an entire level before you can try again with any chance of success. It's imperative you save before attempting a confession now.

Love Events

Each love interest has two love events that must be seen before you can date them. They're reminiscent of older game's style but I felt they could have been a biiiit more interactive or so? Or involved the town a bit more for some of them.

Dating

Once you get your honey to be your bf/gf, you get to choose the nicknames as usual. Then you can go on dates. The first three (non-festival) dates are actually events. You need to see all three events to get married.

Marriage Event

The final event you need to clear before you can marry your sweetie. In my honest opinion, so far for the boys, these events were rather disappointing. They lacked the drama and angst that sort of 'test' the love between the two when compared to rf4. Also this is a huge con for me personally and a minor spoiler but there are no special cutscenes at the end of the marriage event like in rf4. Instead, the cutscene takes place during your actual wedding. I was saddened by this because it took away the depth from the marriage events and the actual character? As it is just a cut and paste type of thing instead of an original cutscene for each person. They lack individualism this way. Also it kinda felt like a way for devs to avoid gay relationships and cut corners :^/....sus.

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes...

Children!!!!!! This is actually one of the coolest additions in the game. Just like in rf3, you can have up to 3 children again! Your first child will resemble you, and you will have the option to choose its gender as well as its personality. There are 6 different children, (3 boys and 3 girls), all with different hairstyles, mannerisms, and seiyuus. Your answers will determine which child you get. A year after your first child is born, you will get the option to have a second child. You'll end up with twins, both resembling your partner. You won't get to choose the genders (it will be a boy and girl) but you will get to choose the personalities once more. The children all have canon names too and each kid is incredibly cute. And of course, you're still able to take your kid with you in your party~ ...Though you can only take one kid with you at a time.

So is RF5 good?

Yeah it's a fun game! My theory is that Marvelous forced the devs to release the game earlier than they were ready for, and that's why it's so lacking. But that doesn't mean it's not worth playing! I'd rate it 3.5/5 stars hehe. Not nearly as good as RF4 (full stop 5/5), or RF3 (4/5) but enjoyable nonetheless. I wouldn't recommend it as a first game to play from the series for newcomers though, I feel it's best for vets who can overlook all the cons thanks to loyalty and nostalgia. By the time it’s released in the West, the bugs should all be dealt with too.

So! Definitely buy this game! We want the series to continue and we want RF6 to be better than this--and hopefully Marvelous will make sure of that next time. If you're not a picky person I think you'll enjoy rf5 a lot. If you're like me and have high standards then, well, still pick it up and let it run its course. Then dust off rf4sp and cleanse your gaming palette >;^)

[pcvensies]

Can I request a Leo Valdez imagine pls? Just something fluffy and cute, where he likes you and you like him but you're both too stubborn and clueless to admit to your feelings so you just kinda joke and flirt, nothing serious, meanwhile everyone is like 'omg just kiss already!!'

Thank you <3

Catch the flag.

in which you and Leo like each other, and during a catch the flag game, he gets hurt and you almost end Clarisse 😳

word count: 1420~

trigger warnings: none?? slight angst i guess, happy ending tho

for plot reasons, the reader is one of Persephone’s children (so cabin 40)

im in such a Leo mood lately send help my way ! ✌🏼😔 this is probably not what you wanted BUT i got carried away and i couldn’t stop myself from the angst with happy ending. i hope you like it babes 💙

Catch the flag was everyone’s favorite activity at Camp. You, Annie and Percy had been put on the same team, and your best friend, Leo, was on the other.

You looked at him, your arrow pointing to his chest as Annabeth jumped from the tree you both were hiding on.

“Is this all you’ve got, cielo?”.

Annabeth almost threw up when Leo called you by that petname, tired of this constant flirting you both had going on, but none of you seemed to notice.

It was not a secret for anyone, that you and the boy liked each other.

You, however, ignored his question. Your eyes searched for the flag around the brunette, who Percy had guessed would be around it, because of his fire abilities. If anyone could defend that flag, it had to be Leo. Also, he was way too noisy and giggly to try to make it to your team’s flag without being caught.

“Not here, if that’s what you’re here for”.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Valdez, I just wanted to see that pretty face of yours”, you replied, putting down your bow when Annabeth shook her head.

Leo chuckled, hands intertwined behind his head, and you rolled your eyes at him. But before you could turn around, you felt the pointy end of a sword against your lower back. Your eyes searched for Annabeth, and behind her, Clarisse held another sword.

“See? Told you little Y/n would come to Valdez. Jackson must be behind this, he knows we wouldn’t send Leo to get their flag”, she spoke, and Leo gasped, offended, “But I have an idea to find it”.

Clarisse kicked Annabeth’s leg, and when her knees hit the floor, you turned around, pointing your arrow at her.

“What are you doing, La Rue?”.

She ignored your question, her teammate, an Hermes daughter, looking as confused as you were.

Clarisse always took these activities too seriously, and you feared that she’d harm Annabeth to win, knowing Percy would come to find her.

“Valdez, the flag, is it safe?”, she ignored you, as her sword remained against the blonde’s back.

“Yeah— Yes, of course it is. And only I know where”.

The girl nodded, and she looked at the sky, like watching time pass. Her teammates were looking for the flag, and she had a new strategy to force your team to leave it unprotected.

Leo gave you a look, your bow still up, and you looked back at him, pouting slightly.

He shook his head, and you frowned, pouting again.

You didn’t need to speak to communicate with him, and something inside of his chest warmed at your soft face. He felt the urge to tell you were the flag was, but he knew better than to fuck up Clarisse’s plan.

“Annabeth, Y/n!”, Percy’s voice broke the silence, the dark haired boy followed by Ellis Wakefield, son of Ares.

You could swear Leo looked happy to see him near the flag and you two, even though it meant his team could lose.

“We have the whole team here, look at that!”, Clarisse said, her comment being a hidden attack to the rest of your teammates, “You’re so predictable, Jackson. You don’t see these two for more than two minutes and you forget about your mission… nothing new on you, though”.

Annabeth gave you a look, her eyebrows furrowed, and you turned to look at the son of Poseidon, his expression tense. Clarisse always knew how to piss him off.

“Ellis, find the flag, it’s near. Leo’s face says it all”.

You smiled at Percy, and he gave you a small grin, even though his eyes went back to his girlfriend a second later.

The daughter of Ares smirked, enjoying the fact that she knew how to find all of Percy’s buttons. She twisted a finger around a strand of Annabeth’s hair, yawning.

“It’s exhausting, Jackson, to see you fail at being a leader every single time”.

Leo frowned at her words, stepping closer to you, and you did the same, noticing how tense the situation was getting.

“Can’t even lead your girl to a damn fla—”.

Before Clarisse could finish her sentence, Percy had thrown himself against her, his very limited patience being finally over. Annabeth got up, and tried to pull him away from the girl, but they were throwing punches at each other like their lives depended on it.

“Perce, stop! That’s what she wants!”, you yelled, throwing your bow to a side and beginning to move towards them.

A hand grabbed your wrist, pulling you back, and Leo run to the fight, grabbing the blue eyed boy’s arm, pulling him from Clarisse, not without receiving the last punch and falling to the floor.

“Leo!”, your voice overlapped the girl’s and your friend’s arguing, as you dropped on the floor next to the curly haired boy.

His nose was dripping blood, and you looked at him with worry, before you felt your own start to boil under your skin.

You looked at Clarisse from the floor, the girl laughing at you two, and you got up, arms raising as you did.

You had an ability not all Persephone children had: geokinesis. Under the girl’s feet, the ground opened and closed again, trapping her from waist down.

Clarisse looked at you with anger, which soon turned into slight fear as the ground kept closing around her, squishing her a little at first, then starting to hurt.

But you didn’t care, she had hurt Leo. She had hurt him, right in front of your eyes.

“Y/n that’s enough!”, Annabeth’s voice filled your ears, but you ignored her, anger taking over you.

Clarisse let out a pained groan, as she tried to escape and free herself, but the more she moved, the tighter the ground trapped her.

“Hey, hey!”.

Something inside of you clicked at the sound of Leo’s voice, and the boy put his hand on your cheek, standing now between you and the Ares daughter.

“Y/n, let go of her. You’re hurting her, mi amor, come on”.

There was softness in his voice, and your arms dropped to your sides, a frown appearing in your face as you realised what you had done.

However, before you could apologise, Clarisse had already run away, followed by her brother and the Hermes child. Percy was a few meters away, checking on Annabeth, both of them looking at you with worry, but nodding at Leo and walking away to give you some space.

You groaned, shaking your head, and your eyes met Leo’s. He was still cupping your face, a worried expression on his face.

“Damn, mi amor… That was dark”, he gave you a small smile, whipping the blood from his upper lip with the back of his free hand.

“I— uh. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt her, just—“, you struggled to explain it, “She hurt you”.

Leo was nothing but shocked when you said that, and his eyes filled with softness, as he run his thumb over your cheekbone.

“Thank you for defending my honor, cielo… But I am alright, really”.

You nodded slowly, your eyes going from his to his lips in just a second, the proximity of his body to yours, and the situation just lived making your heart beat faster than anytime before.

The brunette looked at your lips too, meeting your eyes once again, but leaning closer this time, and you started to close your eyes, your hands moving to the back of his head.

His breathing caressed your lips, and you got on your tiptoes…

“Y/n, Annabeth! Percy! We have it, we found the fla—“, Kayla Knowles’ voice interrupted you, the flag in her hand.

You pulled away from Leo, both of you nervously clearing your throats, and the daughter of Apollo gasped, her eyes then fixing on the couple behind you and Leo.

Annabeth rolled her eyes, and Percy groaned, annoyed.

“Shit, Kayla, we’ve been waiting for this moment for months!”, he complained.

You laughed at his comment, and Leo scratched the back of his head nervously, turning around to leave.

“Where do you think you’re going, Valdez?”, this time it was Annabeth, and Leo grabbed your hand, starting to run away, “Come back here you two! I’ve waited enough already!”.

She seemed pissed off for real, Perce’s laughter muting her scolding. But with your hand in Leo’s, running through the forest, Annie’s anger was the last of your thoughts.

[radi0activesmile]

angel-dust-addict​:

The spider watched Alastor add the water to the coffee with only the slightest bit of alarm when the deer turned his head far further than he should have been able to. The proclamation that the Radio Demon would be the one to kill the Media Demon didn’t bother him in the slightest. It seemed pretty damn fitting, really.

But then Alastor went and asked that. And that was a whole can of worms he was still sorting through himself. Hesitantly, choosing to study the steam rising from the coffee the stag was preparing rather than the man himself, he replied, “I… Well… It’s complicated.”

That explained nothing. He took a deep breath to steady himself and calm his racing heart before he answered quietly, “Maybe it ain’t that complicated. Fa’ one, he’d kill me if I tried ta leave. I know that. I’ve known that fa’ years. It’s not even about losin’ his biggest sta’. Not really. He and I… Like I said before, I ain’t anythin’ more'n Val’s pet slut. An’ he’d have no problem puttin’ me down if I tried ta get away from 'im.

"But that whole losin’ his biggest sta’ bit would definitely be part of it. Mostly, he just can’t stand tha thought a seein’ me free. An’ I know bettah'n ta test 'im. Made that mistake once or twice. Besides, what the fuck else am I good for? I ain’t got yer smarts or Charlie’s powa’ or Vaggie’s… whatever tha hell Vaggie’s got. Like I said, I been a whore fer a long fuckin’ time because it’s tha only thing I know how ta do. I’m good wit’ a gun an’ I’m good in bed. An’ I know which one’s less likely ta get me killed, first off. But I’ve been… I was…” He stumbled to a halt as he found himself verging on talking about his life in the living world. Quickly, he backtracked. “I mean, not that bein’ a whore’s exactly *safe*. But I ain’t got a price on my head, so that’s somethin’. Only price I got on me’s whatever Val decides ta set.”

He opened his mouth to say something else, then closed it again, primary eyes closing and hands clutching into fists. It took a moment for him to relax a little and open his eyes, though he kept his gaze laser focused on a spot that was straight ahead and down a bit. He didn’t look at Alastor at all as he confessed, “An’-an’ like I said, I ain’t got yer smarts. He wasn’t… It wasn’t always like this. He wasn’t always like this. An’ I know that’s how his type works. Start off real sweet an’ then rip ya ta shreds. He ain’t tha first'a those I’ve been with.” He scoffed, and sounded angry as he continued speaking, “Like I said, I ain’t dat smart. I didn’t miss tha signs, he just seemed betta’ than tha last one. An’ part'a me keeps thinkin’ maybe he’ll, I dunno, maybe he’ll be that guy again. Fuckin’ moron’s what I am. I got myself inta this fuckin’ mess I’m stuck in. Which just goes ta show, I ain’t good fa’ anythin’ but dis.”

Finally he looked back up at Alastor and said with just a trace that anger and the same drawn expression he’d been wearing. He was shaking very faintly, just a fine tremor in his hands. “But more'n anythin’, I don’t really got a choice. I know he’ll kill me if I try ta leave an’ it ain’t like I’m good fa’ anythin’ else anyway. So what good would leavin’ do me?”

By the time he stopped speaking entirely, he was very nearly panting, his fangs were bared - the hollow set he almost never let show included - in a vicious snarl, and his hands were shaking a little more visibly.

Complicated. He figured that much. If his reason for staying with Valentino were a simple one, Alastor had a feeling that Charlie would have latched onto it and attempted to fix it already. That’s not to say he believes for even a second that Charlie is privy to a third of what their dear patron is going through, though, she is aware of his profession, and she must be aware of who runs that profession. 

Alastor’s ears tick forward once more when Angel draws in such a deep breath, and this time, that’s where they remain: Eagerly perked towards the arachnid as he tries to keep himself calm and explain himself. He’d kill me. Truly, he could have stopped there. That’s a good enough reason. Below the ground, your every decision must be catered toward your survival. If it isn’t, you will face your second death in a matter of hours. Of course, if Alastor were Charlie, he would begin insisting that the hotel could provide protection. Ah, that belle’s boundless optimism is wonderful for entertainment, yet it falls apart so quickly when presented with something remotely serious. 

Valentino didn’t rise to his position through power alone. He stepped on many people-- dragged many people through the mud. 

E̸̢͈͋̓̐̀̊̍̓̋̔̎̃n̷̡͕͖̝̆̒̉͌̑̓��̝͍͙̩̘s̶̩̭͋̌̾l̶̛͓̥̩̊́͛̌͘̚a̷̡̯͍͓̺͖͙̯͗̿̆́͆̈́̔̌͊̀̎̄͠͝͝v̸̝̲̞̹̣̻͔̌̎͊̾̑̑̇̒̀̕͝͝͝ẹ̶̮̱̩̠̘̥͈͎̫͑̀̓͋͐̓́́͆̓̐̊ď̵̮͙͇̹͕̦͚̙̲̬̤̀̈̎̒̈̚͠ numerous people to get where he is. For the most part, those people are still out there, lying in wait to do more of his bidding. It wouldn’t merely be a matter of protecting Angel from this singular man, but rather an entire network. This is not a case where honeyed words and soft promises will mean a thing. 

Despite that being a very valid reason, Angel has more. Alastor waves his hand to conjure the second coffee cup between his index finger and thumb rather than turn away from his conversational partner. It gives him something to squeeze ever-so-slightly when Angel, once more, refers to himself as Valentino’s pet. 

Ears still perked forward, Alastor’s head tilts just a hair to the side when Angel closes his eyes. He can’t tell if this is difficult or therapeutic for Angel to get all of this out of his system. Alastor did give him an out at the very beginning; Angel could have said Alastor was overstepping and it could have been left there. Be that as it may, from what Angel has said about his history with overlords, it may be that he didn’t think Alastor meant what he said. Perhaps he thought he would be made to spill his proverbial guts whether he wanted to or not. 

Three. Alastor thinks to himself. That’s the third time since Angel started explaining that he said he wasn’t smart, and yet, at every corner, he’s proved himself wrong: He’s no fool. He knows what Valentino’s done to him; he knows he’s been manipulated, he knows his wish for Valentino to be the man he pretended to be is a ridiculous one. Yet he continues, as if those phrases he keeps repeating have been carved into his very mind and soul: I’m nothing more than a pet. What else am I good for? I got myself into this mess. I’m not good for anything. I’m not good for anything. What good will getting away do? 

Angel looks at Alastor fully for the first time since he started explaining himself. His body looks haggard, his fangs bared as if he’s been backed into a corner, his hands shaking-- ah, they were shaking a bit before, but now it’s considerably more… violent. Alastor sets his cup on the counter and takes a small step forward, placing his palm delicately over one of Angel’s shaking hands. “Thank you for telling me.” He says softly. 

Perhaps this is the part where he should say more, but it’s obvious there’s nothing he could say that Angel hasn’t already told himself. Angel isn’t a fool, he knows exactly what’s being done to him. Alastor telling him he’s being manipulated would not be news and it would not be helpful. Angel doesn’t need another man talking down to him. A soft touch, a show of appreciation for putting himself through that stress to satisfy Alastor’s curiosities. He’ll wait to see how Angel reacts before choosing what to say next.

[rallamajoop]

How (not) to say ‘fuck’ in Etruscan (and other things I cannot believe I spent so much time tracking down for a throwaway joke in a Witcher slash-fic)

Buried in chapter 4 of my fic Something Nice is a joke which, as much as it amused me, no-one else is going to get unless I explain it. So here we go.

For the last few people in this fandom who haven't heard yet: The Witcher 3's vampire-language is Etruscan. To my knowledge, there's never been an official statement from CDPR to confirm this, but the evidence (ie. that basically all the vampire vocab can be found in online Etruscan sources) seems pretty solid. To explain why this made me go oooooh that's so NEAT, we need a little context.

Context!

The Etruscans (in my admittedly far-from-expert understanding) were a people who lived in Italy back before the Romans got around to conquering-slash-assimilating the rest of the peninsula, and the language they spoke is one of the most frustratingly mysterious of the ancient world. Most dead languages are at least related to something modern linguists have a decent handle on, but Etruscan seems to have been related to almost nothing else spoken – it may even have pre-Indo-European roots (a whoooole other tangent I am in no way qualified to cover).

Surprisingly, we do owe our modern Latin alphabet in part to the Etruscans, since the earliest Roman alphabets were adapted from the Etruscan (who got it from the Greeks, who got it from from the Phoneticians, and so on). The Etruscans may even be the reason we're stuck with so many weirdly redundant K-sounds (not only K and C, but X and Q, which are really just 'ks' and 'kw' with an overblown sense of superiority).

But being able to sound out every surplus K-word from an Etruscan inscription isn't much help nowadays when there are no surviving Etruscan dictionaries to tell us what it actually means – not even a decent Etruscan Rosetta stone to give us a push-start. So while modern linguists may rattle off Ancient Greek fluently or puzzle out Egyptian hieroglyphs from thousands of years before the Etruscans even had an alphabet, the Etruscan vocabulary available to us nowadays remains embarrassingly limited. Bits have been figured out from context or thanks to loanword exchanges with their neighbours (plenty of ancient Greeks and Romans certainly spoke Etruscan, even if they failed to write it down), but a lot is still as mysterious to the experts as it would be to you and me.

So why to I love the idea of using Etruscan as the Witcher’s vampire-language so much? Basically, if you want a language that will sound both old and reliably alien to anyone listening to it – be they the mainstream English-speaking market or the original Polish-language audience – Etruscan is a damn good call. You're not going to have much vocabulary to draw from, but it's not like there's a lot of vampire-chatter in the game anyway. It's a cool little easter egg for fans nerdy enough to try and figure out what they're saying.

Translations and Sources

You aren’t going to find a lot of great Etruscan language sources on the web – few of the easily-discovered online sources on Etruscan vocab appear to have been updated within the last ten years, and lord knows how consistent some of these are with current scholarship (let alone how sure linguists can be about anything with a task like this). All the same, have some links you may find useful:

Etruscology – Brief, but more readable than most

Lexicons.ru Etruscan Glossary – Probably one of the best collections of many terms in one place

Maravot.com Etruscan Language pages – Hard to navigate, but gosh there are a lot of vocab here I have not seen elsewhere

Old, Tripod-hosted Etruscan Glossary – I think these are mostly just the same terms from the Lexicons page, but in harder-to-use format

Etruscan word search – Decent, but not the most extensive vocab

Introduction to the Etruscan Language – Looks to be from Maravot.com, but in pdf format

Paleoglot.com’s Etruscan tag – Blog by an actual linguist who regularly discusses Etruscan material, and who even created their own translation applet! – which was, unfortunately, in flash, and is thus no longer usable. (There is a certain irony that even the tools available online to help you understand Etruscan are written in a language that is now no longer supported or understood by any modern browser.)

Not that translating what’s in the game is going to be easy, oh no. Take, for example, the oh-god-please-don't-kill-me ceremonial greeting Geralt has to offer to the Unseen Elder to survive that meeting – "Eclthi, lautni ama".

'Eclthi' is apparently a "demonstrative (locative)" (’here’, ‘there’, etc). "Lautni" is trickier – it means a freed slave, but may also imply a familial relationship or a client of sorts, while the root “lautn” apparently designates simply “possession.” House slaves in the ancient world were often considered part of the family, and freed slaves were an important class in many ancient cultures, who often maintained relationships with their former masters, so you can see the internal logic, but what sense was the Witcher using it in? It’s hard to know.

"Ama" is possibly worse – most translations seem to have taken it as "to be", but sometimes also “to love”, or even "now" or  "meanwhile." Then you hit the question of Etruscan grammar, and I have no idea where I’d even start. So, with a little creativity, you could probably translate that phrase as anything from "take this and consider me a friend" to "meanwhile, this is family" to "a demonstration of love from your slave." I mean, you've got the same general theme going there regardless, but there's a lot of ambiguity in the inflection.

For what it's worth, I feel garasham's translation efforts are easily the most convincing I've seen – they have the above line as “Here I am a slave / a friend / kindred” FWIW. (Mind you, given the wiki doesn't even try to do more than offer you one possible meaning for each word, there's not exactly much competition out there).

So, bringing this all back to that fic and how to say ‘fuck’ in Etruscan...

I've already gone to the web's Etruscan dictionaries once while I was writing Forget-Me-Not, seeking inspiration for a 'real' name for "the Queen of the Night" from the first Witcher game. Neither 'queen' or 'night' got me far, but the Etruscans did apparently have a goddess of the moon called 'Aritimi, Artume or Artames', which worked pretty well. If anything it's almost too close to the better-known Greek goddess Artimis, who was obviously a relative (ancient cultures bleed into each other even when they're not bleeding all over each other, nothing new there), but I'm not going to be picky.

However, being a) a giant nerd, who b) writes a lot of smut, and c) is no more mature deep down inside than the rest of us, I couldn't resist seeing if I could find some slightly more obscene vocabulary. Did the Etruscans have a word for, say, 'fuck'?

Alas, if they did (and I mean, they totally did, c'mon), the web wouldn't tell me about it. Nor could I find much else relating to sex or genitalia (male or female), or even a decent word for 'thrust'.

On the flipside, there were a couple of different terms meaning 'plough'. And anyone who's played – well, any of the games, but especially Witcher 2 – would probably realise exactly why that filled me with so much glee.

Speaking of which, here, have a picture which is in no way related:

The fact that the various Etruscan terms meaning ‘plough’ could also apparently be translated as things like “to worship“ or “to act through movement, including ritual acts,” or that an important mythological figure was “a prophetic child who sprang from a freshly plowed furrow” was in no way discouraging.

The word I ultimately picked was 'esari'. Admittedly, variations on the prefix ‘ar-’/‘ara-’/’aras’ were much more consistently attested to throughout the various online Etruscan dictionaries as ‘terms meaning plow’, but figuring out how to convert an Etruscan prefix into a satisfying word is officially where even my enthusiasm for all this nonsense gives out. Esari was, by comparison, already a much more solid-sounding term, so let’s go with that.

Why go to all this trouble anyway? Well, the honest answer is “entirely for my own amusement”, but the nominal excuse comes right back to “so I could give Regis and Geralt this little exchange during a sex scene.”

"Unless you have any particular objection," said Regis, moving to straddle Geralt's body, "I thought we might engage in some esari... hm, what was the equivalent term in your language again?" The vampire leaned in close to Geralt's ear as he made a show of remembering his answer, "Ah, yes—I thought I'd fuck you."

Never let anyone tell you you never learnt anything from porn!

[wormstacheangel]

December 14, 2021

Hello! If you know me then you know I like Claire and Jack the double trouble siblings. And I think that’s exactly what this story needed. Some Claire. Cause I miss her and I love her. I was gonna write her at the end but nope. Also, as you can tell I love having Cas curse a lot. Cause he totally would. He tries not to in front of the kids. Okay, enjoy!

If you want to keep up or read what I wrote before about what this domestic family is doing after the whole defeated God thing then check out my masterpost here!

“Yeah, Sammy, you’re coming over.” Dean was pacing the kitchen as Jack and Cas watched his every move. “No...No, I don’t care that you’re busy...Sam! We’re having a damn Christmas this year and you will be a part of it! Got it?”

Cas and Jack shared a look before they looked back at Dean.

“Don’t you dare...Sam! Don’t you dare hang up on me.” Cas winced when he heard the dial tone on the phone. “Oh, you motherfucker-”

“Dean.” Cas stood up to go over and comfort him but Dean just marched past them. Racing up the stairs already dialing Sam’s number again. 

“Does...does Sam not want to have Christmas with us?” Jack finally spoke as Cas stood still by the kitchen chair not knowing what to do. Should he give Dean some space? Should he call Sam himself and try to convince him? Should he call Eileen?

“I’m not...I’m not sure, Jack.” Cas honestly tells him as he feels his legs again and busies himself with the dishes. His hands needed to do something. “I’m sure everything will turn out fine.”

Then he heard the flutter of wings and Cas turned around to see his kid was gone. 

“Jack?” Cas dries his hands on his shirt as he walks to the living room to find it empty. “Jack?” He calls out to him again and this time Miracle barks along with him as they both race upstairs to his bedroom. He can hear Dean arguing still and ignores it as he goes over to Jack’s room to see the door is still wide open and empty.

“Dean!” Cas runs to his own bedroom and opens the door to catch Dean still pacing the floor. 

“Babe, give me a-” Dean turns around and he might have read something in Cas’s expression because he was quick to rush over to him. “Cas, what’s wrong?”

“Jack, he um...he flew away.” Cas tried to catch his breath but it was coming out shallow the more he thought of it because Jack’s grace wasn’t full yet and there was almost a damn blizzard outside their warm cozy home. “Dean.”

Cas reached over to grab Dean’s shoulders as if to steady himself and ground himself all at once. Usually, Dean will calm him. It has always worked because he was comfortable and home but his kid flew away from right under his nose. He feels dizzy.

“Jack. Dean, we gotta find Jack.” Cas desperately clings to him when Dean pulls him in for a hug. “He’s not at full power, Dean. He could be lost or...or hurt.”

“Hey, It’s okay. It’s okay.” The strain in Dean’s voice showed how not okay he was about any of this.

“What happened?” He could hear Sam on the other side of the phone cause Dean must have put it on speaker. 

“He must have heard us fighting.” Dean answers, his jaw set tight and probably feeling guilty. “Sam, make sure he didn’t fly to the bunker. The kid’s still weak. I’ll call Gabe or Adam to see if they can go pick him up.”

“On it but Dean...I’m sorry. I just have a lot on my plate right now and-”

“I get it, Sam.”

“No, Dean, you’re right. I should prioritize my family over my job. So as soon as we find Jack tell him me and Eileen will be showing up at your house for Christmas.” Sam said, trying to sound calm. “And we’re finding him, okay?”

After hanging up Cas was already going to start his prayer to Gabriel when they heard the flutter of wings behind them. They both turned towards the noise to hear Claire say, “A little help here.”

Jack was slumped against her as his head fell forward before he fell down on his knees, Claire coming down with him. 

Cas ran over to them, sliding into his knees pretty hard, as he brought both of them into a hug. Dean can see Cas’s shoulders fall as he relaxed just a little more, his head falling to rest against Jack’s own.

Then Cas pulled back to look at Jack, “What the hell was that?”

“Dad,”

Cas was not done as he grabbed Jack’s shoulder. “You scared the shit out of me!”

“I’m fine.”

“I didn’t know that! One second you’re there and the next...I didn’t even know you could fucking fly again!”

Jack flinched at the words as Claire put a hand on Cas’s own shoulder to calm him down. “Dad, it’s okay. He’s fine. We’re both-”

“It’s not fine! This is the second fucking time that he…” Cas trailed off as he took a deep breath. Looking between his kids’ faces before letting his head hang in embarrassment. “I’m sorry.”

“Dad, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...I didn’t mean to scare you.” Jack started but Cas was shaking his head. “Don’t cry. Please.”

Cas brought him into a tight hug, hiding his face into Jack’s shoulder. 

Dean walked over and sent the kids to Jack’s room while he brought Cas back to their room to cool off. Dean sat in the middle of the bed while he watched Cas pace around the room.

“I was too harsh.” He slid his hand down his face in frustration. “I was just-”

“You were scared. I know, babe, I was too.”

“I understand he doesn’t like conflict. I do. But he can’t just...he can’t just run away like that!”

“He’s a kid, Cas. If I could have flown away whenever my family fought I totally would have. No doubt about it.” Cas groaned as a response and Dean slid to the edge of the bed to grab Cas from the waist when he walked close enough. “And if memory serves me right, I remember one little angel who sucked at goodbye’s when he had his wings.”

Cas rolled his eyes but let Dean take a hold of him. Pull him close and between his legs until he could rest his head against Cas’s stomach. Feeling his boyfriend’s fingers run through his hair as he took calming breaths.

“I was scared too, Cas. Fucking terrified when you walked in here with that damn expression but you know he doesn’t respond well when we’re angry at him.”

Cas rolled his eyes, along with his whole head because he’s dramatic, as he let out a humorless chuckle. “Oh gosh, you’re lecturing me about responding with anger. I must have really fucked up.”

“Hey,” Dean slaps Cas’s ass to get a real smile out of him. “I’m growing, okay?”

“Yeah,” Cas sniffles with a smile as he leaned down to drop his forehead against Dean’s own. “Yeah, you are.”

They didn’t say anything after a while before Cas took a heavy breath.

“What are we going to do now, Dean?”

They went back to Jack’s room after a while only to find both of them fast asleep on Jack’s bed. 

Tomorrow they will talk. Right now, Dean calls Jody while Cas calls Kaia to let them know where Claire was. Before they call Sam to let him know what happened.

Tag List: (Ask to be removed or added)

@galaxycastiel @superduckbatrebel  @slipper007  @wikiangela  @s-r-clowns

@ar-bi-trary  @winchestcas @imlivingliferightnow  @thefaeriemagic3  

@bi-bi-marie @nguyenxtrang  @dancerdovegirl

@chocolatecakecas @trasherasswood  

@celestialcastiel  @castiel-is-a-cat  @theghostofchristmasfuture

@nguyenxtrang

[volleyball-dontknowher]

Hey had to be annoying and do another request but could you do headcannons for karasuno boys dancing with their s/o (doing the Macarena lmao) and accidentally (or not hehe) grinding against them when they sway n what they’d do about the situation? LOVE YOUR WRITING❤️❤️

YOU ARE LITERALLY MY FAVORITE!!! Every single time I see your likes or comments my hearttttt thank you so much!! DO NOT FEEL LIKE YOU’RE ANNOYING BECAUSE I LOVEEEE IT!!! like literally makes me so happy 

Words: 2.5 k 

Warnings: can be suggestive 

Also my blood donation got moved to today so I wrote some of them yesterday and some of them today so there is a difference between some of them in how they were written but I still like how they all came out 

Daichi 

You best be in a club or at your house because otherwise this man is going to shut you down from any sort of dancing because he wants no chance of anyone seeing the two of you but if you are alone then he is all down to dance

Typically likes the more of the holding each other swaying type dancing buttt get him a little tipsy and he opens up a lot more 

Typically if you grind up next to him he shuts it down then and there because you are not going to make a scene anywhere and likes to keep things with you more private (there is no ‘accidentally’ doing it this man knows you way too well and shuts it down right away)

But again get him a little tipsy and start to grind against him his hands are going to be straight on your hips and he pulls you close and kisses you and is super into it but once it starts to get heated will take you straight home so that he can enjoy your dancing in private and get to enjoy all of you 

Literally gets so turned on immediately though, like tipsy or not can’t help himself which is why he tells you no because he cannot stop everything right there for you in public 

 Sugawara

You two dance a whole lot like any time there is music playing the two of you dance, goofy or not it is some of your favorite things to do with him, he is going to be all about it 

Anytime you two dance together he is going to have so much love in his eyes 

You both laugh a lot but you also use it as little intimate moments between the two of you and share a lot of little touches and little kisses affectionately 

so you ‘accidentally’ grind on him he is going to laugh and play it off not thinking too much about it but when you do it again he is going to quirk his eyebrow at you and ask if you needed something 

WHen you tell him nope but then do it again he pulls you close and tells you that now he needs something so you needed to figure yourself out and you can’t help but turn to putty because he really just said that like you really were playing with him and now he’s going to be playing with you oop 

Asahi 

The baby gets so nervous even dancing with you anywhere cause you are just so freaking pretty and his and it just makes him so flustered

SOOOO when a fun song comes on and you just so happen to brush your butt up against him he literally turns so bright red and stutters over his words and doesn’t know what he is going to do with you and then bam you suddenly do that again and he cannot function at all and just stutters out “W-what are you doing?” and you can’t help but smile up at him and tell him that it was an accident you were just dancing and the sway of your hips just so happened to do that and he feels like a huge idiot for jumping to conclusions and tries to apologize before you turn around, run your hands up his chest and rest them on his shoulders and kiss him

This is going to literally break him as a human being like he almost dies and you just give him lots of little kisses and tell him that you love him and that he is so cute like that and he just can’t handle it like his heart is so happy and just you meant for it to be sexy but he finds you so gorgeous that like it doesn’t go there 

But do it again to him and you may end up with a little more…. Fun results

Would 10/10 recommend if you want him to be blushy and flustered

Tanaka 

If music is on and it is even half appropriate to be dancing the two of you will b3 dancing (usually he starts it though) 

He is going to have his hands all over you all the time so if you accidentally or not grind up against him his hands are going to b4 on you as he grinds back up against you,  hands on your hips enjoying the movements 

If it is while you’re doing the macarena he is going to have you pressed up against him and he is going to have his arms out doing the arm part then on your body touching you for the rest of the part and is going to sway his hips with yours and be damn sure to yell “Hey macarena” every single time as loud as he can 

If he is a little bit tips he is not going to be afraid to twerk on you and go absolutely ape shit because he is confident in himself and loves having a good time with you

 also definitely takes his shirt off whenever you two dance and you have to convince him to put it back on which usually still doesn't work

Is a very big party type dancer who loves having his hands all over you and getting a little bit wild and not as big of a slow dancer type but if you do that he is going to be so soft and sweet 

Nishinoya 

First time he gets a little blushy and thinks that it was a mistake and is going to try and play it cool and just adore your body as he acts like that didn’t just make him super horny 

Then you do it again and he kinda brushes you off like haha babe stop and you just play it all innocent just to test the waters and he believes you and laughs it off going back to dancing and having a good time but his eyes are still focused on you and he is watching your every move

SO when you try and do it again he smirks and moves just a little bit out of your way so that he can see your face go from smirking to confused as you try and plot a way to do it again to him figuring that he just was dancing and moving with the song too 

You find the perfect time and go in to grind on him and his hands catch your waist and he kisses your neck 

He then pulls back and starts laughing light heartedly at you, he thinks that the face you made is priceless and that you are just too cute and you can’t help but be shocked, he then continues to dance with you and ends up rubbing his butt into you and eventually it becomes an entire competition on who can do it most and  make the other the most flustered 

Hinata 

Dancing with him is always a treat, he is so goofy and light hearted that you can’t help but smile and laugh at him, most of his dancing is really childish though and you can’t find it in you to complain because he is so confident and so cute when he dances so here the two of you were, at a party and the macarena plays 

You both smile at each other before starting the near ritualistic dance smiling at each other and laughing at the macarena when you decide to be a little crazy and see if you can get away with rubbing your butt up against your boyfriend

You make your plans when you turn during the “Hey macarena you were going to be really close to him and have your hips bump into his and you got away with it three times in a row before he looked ar you and smiled asking what you were up to while laughing and is super goofy about it and does it to you back to you and bumps you with his butt and is super sweet about it and loves laughing about it with you 

Kags

If you would like Tobio to completely break you should accidentally grind on him while dancing his mind immediately starts to drift and he can’t function because you are so cute and also his and also dancing with him somehow and you’re just one amazing person and he is just a tall volleyball lover 

He loves to be with you and if you push him on the dance floor and give him a big smile he is going to have no choice but to dance with you, he smiles at you and gets dragged onto the floor as you dance around him

He tries to seem excited about it for you but it is pretty obvious that he’s not too excited but when your butt ‘accidentally’ ends up rubbing against his groin he turns bright red and can’t even speak then you do it again and he literally can’t think, can't speak, and can’t look away because you are his love and he can’t think about anything else 

After you notice you broke Tobio you have to grab his hand (and give it a lot of little kisses) as you pull him off the dance floor and just tell him how much you love him and that he is literally your love (which makes his heart so insanely happy) and he mumbled an I love you and asks you not to do that again

Yamaguchi

If you want to dance he is going to be all about dancing with you and will be happy to join you wherever you are 

So here the two of you are dancing in the living room and it is just the two of you dancing and listening to a spotify “Dance” playlist and the macarena comes on and you start dancing closer to him and the two of you are just smiling at each other and laughing as you do the two go through the movements and laugh during the dance and on one of the turns you turn so that you go back to back and as your hips sway they rub against his butt as you dance

He smiles and blushes just a little bit as you do it and you do it again without a real reaction from him because he just thinks you’re cute and is too shy to ask you what you are doing but he is not complaining 

He really does smile at you though and just tells you that you are really cute and that’s not what you wanted so you don’t turn the next time and rub your butt against him and he just smiles at you and you can’t help but turn and kiss him because he is just too cute 

Tsukki 

First off if you get him to dance with him anywhere you literally win because that boy is so whipped for you because no one else could ever ever ever ever ever see Tsukki dance because he is usually reserved and sweet

The two of you are out dancing (not anywhere where someone he knows could see because that’s against his entire being but he will dance with you in private) so y’all are at the club or wherever you like to dance and he is going to smile at you and you have to be into dancing for him to be into it too

You are out dancing and a more inappropriate song comes on and you wrap your arms around his waist, look into his eyes and rub up on him, he smirks at you but other than that doesn’t have a very big reaction but you can tell that he is definitely not safe from your shenanigans and he is put his hands on your waist, and grinds back onto you to see your reaction and when you turn bright red and look away from him and he can[t help but tease you and make you blush even more even though he really just wants you to do it again 

Yachi

She is so nervous when dancing with you because she wants everything to be perfect and she doesn’t want you to get upset with her for putting her hands in the wrong spot or not having enough fun or something like that, poor baby is full of worry 

If you grind up against her she is going to be bright red and blushing and just so sweet and freaking out a lot

She knows exactly what you did and she just has one of her little freak outs because omg that is just so sweet and so perfect and you just did that with her and she is overthinking it all so when you do it again she just smiles at you and laughs nervously 

She thinks it’s really hot but cannot function so you really can’t do anything to her often because she can’t fully process anything 

Kiyoko 

She is super shy and you are not going to get her to dance with you at all, she might watch you dance and smile but is not very involved in dancing with you 

She is happy to dress up with you to go out and dance and stuff but she is way too shy to dance with you

 and so when you actually start dancing around her and with her she is just quiet and blushing but she definitely is enjoying it because it makes you happy so it makes her happy 

If you do grind on her she just turns bright red and kinda shuts down like she doesn’t know what to do, she’s not a big person on gestures like that so she isn’t one for that 

You can get her to just hold each other and dance at your house alone peacefully 

Ukai 

You’re in the club and you both have had a couple of drinks and you both get a little crazy finding a spot by yourselves and dancing with each other, bodies close and lots of tension between the two of you 

You both are kissing at each other and his hands are on your butt so when you press yourself up against him and run your front up and down on him he just groans and tells you that if you don’t knock that off then he is going to have to take you home right then and end your night early 

He is unashamed to have you grind yourself on him or twerking on him in the club while he is sitting like people will walk by and see him with such a gorgeous woman and know that you are his and he is going to be all over you

[theravencawsatmidnight]

blue bird anon: For a funny and cute story idea, pro!hero Bakugou gets hit by a villain's quirk that turns him into a pomerian. Reader thinks it's a stray dog and takes him in, not realizing that the dog's really her favorite pro hero and her big crush. Later, the reader kisses Bakugou because he's a cute dog and then PROOF!! Bakugou is back to normal. Imagine reader's expression that her big crush appears out of nowhere. :))

GONNA HAVE MULTIPLE PARTS CUZ I LOVE THIS .

Part 1

Poofy.

It was just a regular fight, just like all the rest. Get the bad guy and arrest them. A typical day for Bakugo, except this villain was just standing around, not doing anything. And since Bakugo thought he was being mocked he charged at the villain not thinking clearly or looking where he was going.

Poof.

The hell? What happened? Where's the villain? Why am I so low to the ground? Bakugo looked around, hearing everything around him. He took a step and fell in some dirt falling all over himself. Oow!! Dammit!!! He staggered around growling and stepping into a puddle. He shook his head looking in at his reflection. Oh dammit, dammit DAMMIT IM A DAMN DOG!! The blond poofy pomeranian yowled running in circles barking at the sky till someone shoo’d him off the sidewalk into an alleyway.

What the hell. I'm a dog, what am I gonna do now? I can't go to the agency everyone will laugh at me. Dammit.

So Bakugo spent his day in that alleyway; Growling at everyone who passed by and having the angriest look on his face. His fur was dirty and rain clouds were rolling in . Thunder struck and dumped water down on him, flattening his fur like a proud lion's mane. OH COME ON. He ran in circles barking again.

You had just gotten out of work and put your umbrella up to dodge the rain. It was a long day and not the easiest and now you had to dodge the rain. You sprinted to the parking lot just about to jump into your car when you heard growling and barking. “Huh..? Is that a dog?” It was hard to hear over the hard rain drops on the umbrella but you were pretty sure it was a dog. “Poor thing is gonna get sick…” You couldn't just leave it , all wet and alone.

You followed the growling out of the parking lot down the street to the alleyway. And there he was, sitting at just the entrance looking very grumpy and very upset and very.. wet. “Oh my goodness.. you're a big dog.. how did you get here?” You crouched down holding your umbrella over his head.

Who the hell ar’ you? Im fine, I don't need any help. He growled at you and you gave him a sweet smile. “You must be a stray huh?” You asked him. EXCUSE ME?! He got up stomping his paw at you growling. A stray?!? I'm Katsuki Bakugo!!!!

You held your hand out to him and his scowl flatlined, he sniffed your hand , caramel.. candy. He sniffed again and you pet his wet head. “I can help you, if you'll let me.” You offered sweetly. Dammit.. I guess I have no choice , and I don't want to be wet anymore. Bakugo leaned into your hand signalling that he trusted you.

••

When you got Bakugo home he couldn't help but have a smug look on his face. Ground Zero merch huh? I see the blanket and my gauntlet pillows. Cute. Real fan huh? Got the couch all decorated.

“Cmon cmon” you pat his head. “Lets dry you off okay?” You pat your side walking to the restroom. Bakugos ear twitched at your little gesture but followed you anyway. You sat down on the floor criss cross with your hair dryer and Bakugo sat down with a thud staring at you. The hair dryer turned on and you set it to warm and started to dry Bakugo off.

Aaaughhh.. dammit this feels … soooo gooodddd. He leaned on you resting his muzzle on your shoulder making you giggle. “Feels nice i bet” you said, still drying and fluffing his fur . It took about a half hour to get the fur all dry and brushed out . “Okay. Let me see what I have for a snack, okay?” You pat his head waking him from his trance . He shook his snout looking at you , eyebrows touching.

You got up leading him out and to the living room where you clicked on the heat . “Hmm..” slowly you walked to the couch looking at it then Bakugo. “You can sit on the couch ,” you crouched down . “Just please dont ruin my Ground Zero merch, hes my favorite.”

Bakugo smirked, tail wagging. Well i am pretty great, cutie, he trotted over, chin high, fur poofy . Quickly he jumped onto the couch laying his head on a gauntlet. You pat his head going to the kitchen looking for something he could snack on.

I wonder what everyone at the Agency is doing. Probably freaking out cuz they cant find me. He rolled over to his side. Its very quiet here, this woman is nice too , He yawned looking over his body. I'm..so poofy…gawd.. i dont have my quirk either. His eyes got heavy. Whatever.. i'll enjoy my time here. No one to bother me, no one to give orders too… he closed his eyes . Whys this couch so comfortable …. He shifted around letting out a low groan , digging his head into the gauntlet.

You had made some dry bones after some help from Google and what little you had in the kitchen. You put the bones in a bowl and brought them to the living room. “Hey i made you..” you couldn't help but chuckle at him . “Must be tired.” You set the bowl down and sat down on the couch lifting the gauntlet and placing his head on your lap, scratching his neck.

Mmmmmm….. His leg kicked and you leaned back on the couch reclining it , you pulled the blanket off the couch putting it on yourself and fell asleep. One hand on Bakugo , the other hugging the gauntlet.

[isis-astarte-diana]

Handmaiden

Summary: “Let me touch you. Please, Missy.” Early on in your relationship, you share a quiet afternoon with Missy in the vault.

Warnings: NSFW. No weird kinks! Just sex! Little bit of insecurity from Missy but it’s just fluff. Also, talking about murder as foreplay (MIHOW).

Word Count: 1816

NB: I thought these two requests fit pretty nicely together! I consider this a follow-up to Vault Night, because I loved creating that soft Missy and I don’t want her to go to waste. This fic is dedicated to the subset of my 100+ followers that I believe to be tops (all five of you).

“You’re so beautiful.”

Missy scoffs, pressing a tender kiss to the inside of your thigh. The skin there is damp from your orgasm. You card your fingers through the curls of her hair, coming loose from its pins where you’ve tugged on it. “That’ll be the endorphins talking, poppet.”

“Is that so?” You brush your knuckles against her cheek and her lashes flutter closed as she nuzzles into the touch. “You do look very nice from this angle.”

She opens her eyes and gazes up at you with breathtaking blue, nipping at your thigh playfully, making you yelp. “And yet you can still string a sentence together,” she observes, “so I obviously haven’t finished the job.”

Leaning in, she drags the flat of her tongue between your slick folds. Your head falls back against the sofa with a shuddering gasp. You’re still oversensitive, humming with pleasure, and you gently push her away. She pouts, feigning offence.

“Oh, no,” you chuckle breathlessly. “I think I’m well and truly out for the count.” She reluctantly allows you to unhook your legs from over her shoulders, sinking back on her heels. You lean forwards to kiss her. Her lips are swollen from their tireless efforts and thick with the taste of you.

She’s kneeling on a brocade cushion in front of the sofa, backlit by honey-coloured sunlight from what she assures you are not real windows, don’t worry, stripped down to her corset and chemise. Every curve and swell of her body is cast in perfect silhouette. It makes you wish you could paint her like this.

“Let me touch you,” you murmur into her mouth, stroking her neck until she shivers. “Please, Missy.”

“Whatever you want.”

You trail your fingers beneath her chin as you stand up and she tilts her head to watch you, lips parted, adoration so plain on her face that it makes your heart leap. She accepts your proffered hand and rises gracefully to her feet.

“You promised to teach me to dance,” you recall idly, tugging her closer until her chest is flush with yours. The thin chemise feels delightfully obscene against your naked breasts. She tilts her head, resting her hand in the small of your back, and you bury your face in her neck.

“Yes, well, perhaps not just now, love.” Her sarcasm is belied by an unsteady quaver in her voice as you work wet kisses over her throat. “I did have other things in mind.”

“You dance so beautifully.” A graze of teeth; she gasps. “I wish I could keep up with you.”

“I’ve had centuries of practice.”

“Hmm.” You turn her around with firm hands on her waist. She lets you. Cradling her hips with your own, you slide your fingers higher, cupping her breast. “Centuries of practice at pleasing a woman, too.”

“That part just comes naturally.”

“I don’t doubt it.” You tease her nipple through the fabric, drawing it to a tight point. She arches into the touch as you trail your lips across her shoulder. “If I could make you feel as good-”

“You do,” she interjects, resting her hands over yours. “You always do.”

You smile against her skin. “You promise?”

“Oh, yes.” She guides your hand down to cup her mound through the linen, her breath hitching at the contact. You press your fingers gently against the warm, damp fabric. “I promise.”

“My beautiful Mistress.” Missy lets out a soft noise of pleasure. “How would you like me? My hands? My mouth?”

“I’m yours to do with as you please, dearest.��� The words make your spine prickle with delight. 

“First, I want you to take this damn corset off.”

She looks over her shoulder, batting her lashes. “Do it for me?”

Your arms loose from around her with a theatrical sigh and you step away to work at the laces. “You’re lucky that I love you.”

There’s no trace of teasing in her voice when she murmurs, “yes, I am.”

Her skilled knots come apart easily beneath your fingers and you loosen the laces one at a time, moving hastily, eager to have her naked in your arms. When you reach around her waist to undo the clasps she wriggles against you. “Do you always have to be such a tease?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She stretches, catlike, when the corset falls away, sighing languidly. “You would have made an excellent handmaiden the last time I was in Victorian London.”

“Did you have one?” You drop it to the floor.

“Would you be jealous if I did?”

Hands on her hips, you tug her closer, kissing the back of her neck. “Would you like me to be?”

She dodges the question. “I’ll bring you, next time.”

“You’d better.” You nip at her earlobe and she giggles sweetly. “I can’t have another woman undressing you. The poor thing wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“I don’t kill my lady’s maids. I’d have to do everything myself.”

“Who said you’d be the one to kill her?” Missy inhales sharply, arching her back and pressing her arse against you.

“Oh, poppet. I do love it when you talk dirty.” You gather the material of her chemise in your hands, lifting it clear of her thighs and hips. “How would you do it?”

“Messily, I expect.” You move just far enough away to pull it off and she assists you, lifting her arms and bowing her head, showing you the curve of her strong shoulders and the faint definition along her spine. The sight of her like this is a rare treat. While her libido is unmatched, Missy doesn’t often like to be completely naked in the vault. She has no such qualms about your nudity, of course, and encourages it at every opportunity.

You still can’t play Für Elise, though you wouldn’t exactly call that piano lesson a failure.

“Happy now?” She turns in place with a flourish, striking a pose that would shame any classical sculptor.

“Ecstatic,” you reassure, taking her in your arms. She melts into the embrace as your hands rove greedily across her back, your thigh sliding between hers. The slickness of her is scalding against your skin. “You’re beautiful, Missy.”

“So you keep saying,” she teases, but her eyes are soft. “Not that I mind.”

“I can’t help it.” You pull at her hips, angling your knee, rocking her against the pressure of your thigh so that she gasps. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

“You, my girl, are a sentimental fool.”

“And you, my Mistress, are a vision.” Her head falls back with a quiet moan when you squeeze her arse. “I’d sell my soul just to touch you.”

“Luckily for you, I’m all set for souls.” She rakes her nails down your back and makes you hiss. “But I will remember that.”

“Anything you asked me, I would do.” You tilt your head to catch her gaze; she studies you carefully, something unreadable stirring behind her eyes. “Whatever you wanted. Anything.”

Her arms slide around your neck and she lifts her head, bringing her lips to your ear and pressing a soft kiss there. “Fuck me,” she breathes.

You spin her around and she lets you, lets you guide her onto her back on the sofa and settle between her legs. Her fingers thread into your hair when you trail kisses down her breastbone, dragging your fingertips against the warm insides of her parted thighs. The first stroke of your index finger between her folds makes her groan and your eyes roll back at the feeling of her, velvet soft and hot as the stars, drenched for you and you alone. Two fingers slide inside of her with ease.

“You feel so good,” you murmur against her breast, crooking your fingers until she whines and grasps at your bicep. “You look incredible like this.” She tugs you higher with the hand wound in your hair, seeking your mouth with hers.

Blindly you swipe your thumb across her vulva, caressing the slippery flesh until you feel her clitoris. She jerks underneath your hand and you flex your wrist, rocking your fingers inside her as you stroke the firm bud with the pad of your thumb. Her lips part against yours.

Missy’s breath comes short and fast into your mouth, her hips rolling in time with your movements, fingernails digging into the naked skin of your shoulder. You try to move your head to give her room to breathe but she holds you in place, working slick and messy kisses over your bottom lip between her hoarse gasps. She still tastes of you.

The walls of her cunt flutter around your fingers and you know she won’t take long. You can feel her pulse, the hypnotising double heartbeat, every time her muscles clench. As your angle shifts just barely, she turns her face away.

“There,” she pants, closing her eyes tightly and leaning her head back. “There, like that, don’t stop.”

“I won’t.” You nuzzle into her neck, kissing the sweat-damp skin there, breathing in the scent of her. “I want to make you come on my fingers, Missy. My beautiful Mistress. All mine.”

She rocks back as if to escape the stimulation and you follow her, feeling her leg wrap around you and her heel dig into your arse, pulling you closer. The joint of your wrist is just beginning to protest but you push through. All thoughts of handmaidens, of vaults, of time travel and planets made of diamonds are gone from your mind, wilting in comparison to the sight of her beneath you, the sting of her fingernails in your back, the way her soft walls clutch at your fingers.

“You’re amazing,” you breathe against her throat, hardly conscious of the words streaming from you now. “I love you, gorgeous. I’m yours.”

She comes with a feral cry, holding onto you so tightly that you lose your breath. It’s all that you can do to stroke her through the spasms, easing the aftershocks from her body, feeling the evidence of her orgasm soak your hand down to the palm. Her thighs tighten around your wrist and you take your cue to withdraw, slow as you can, soothing her with soft kisses as she quakes and gasps.

You’re halfway to your knees, ready to find a cloth to clean her up with, when she pulls you forcefully back down to cover her body with your own. “Stay,” she commands, but it’s unsteady and it doesn’t sound very authoritative. In fact, it’s more sulky. “It’s cold when you move.”

“Cold?” You scoff but do as you’re told, snuggling into her. She pets your hair, soothing the discomfort where she’s clutched at your scalp. “I’m not a blanket, you know.”

“No,” she agrees, kissing the top of your head. “But you are the finest handmaiden I’ve ever had.”