#it's moreso implied more than anything

[sillyandquest]

Completely separate au unrelated to the last post I swear.

Just a creetur that looks like X and likes to watch Zero sleep sometimes. And by that I mean often.

In all seriousness, I have no idea why this popped up in my brain but I'm not complaining.

Here's some silly lore:

X does not exist here. I have no idea why, feel free to come up with whatever reason you have in the comments. The only thing that ever implied his existence were some old blue prints Dr. Light made of him. This one change disrupts the timeline so badly that someone had to throw in something to fill X's spot.

Rather than swapping X out with someone like Over-1 or just a straight up new guy, whoever was assigned to maintain the timeline just decided to throw in this weirdo.

The goopy freak, who I'll call Mimic X, knows full well who X is supposed to be and acts along accordingly. For the most part, at least. They still indulge in cryptid shenanigans and adore Zero for some reason. Personality wise, they can be really off putting, but are largely sweet when not antagonized. If you make friends with Mimic X then you get free animal bones they find, cool rocks they hoard, and an unsettling amount of prolonged eye contact. That's like their love language.

Everyone else at Maverick HQ thinks they're just neurodivergent in some way and aren't freaked out by Mimic X's weird habits.

Even though most Hunters don't comment when Mimic X pulls something creppy, most do think they're strange. Zero doesn't think they're weird at all, he's not that socially experienced so Mimic X's habits are things he accepts quickly. That's actually part of the reason they latch onto Zero early on. Even though Zero accepts his cryptid best friend, one thing he can't get over is the sleep watching.

Bro can't sleep when he knows someone's watching. He gets 3 or 4 hours of sleep a day. His eye bags are designer.

One final thing, I'm referencing something specific and if you figure out what it is you get an apple fritter.

[n0tamused]

Okokok so your dragon designs for boothill and Argenti. Could i request them (separately) with a human reader attempting to tend to their wounds after a fight? Perhaps theres some resistance (bc we know they both dont think too highly of themselves and would worry about reader) but eventually relent. Maybe unwillingly, like boothill looses a limb and physically cant take care of the situation himself.

Bonus points for dragon cuddles bc i really want to reassure them they're loved unconditionally 🥲

@dragon-anon

A/n: AAA?! This is so sweet hello? I'm a bit caught of guard/speechless to get a request on these designs but no complaints here ofc. Thank you sm for sending this request in! Let me know what you think :D

Contents: Argenti x GN! Reader, Boothill x GN! Reader, fluff, a bit of angst, dragon Argenti and Boothill, reader is implied mechanic in Boothill's part, petnames (my rose, darling)

Argenti and Boothill as dragons designs here | Ko-Fi

Argenti:

“My fair rose, this is merely a scratch, not even skin deep. You must not fret-” he hisses. “-over such miniscule things”. Smoke rises from his nostrils and his eyes squint as the painful sting of the herbal ointment pinches those delicate nerves of his open wound. 

Not skin deep, yet your armor’s been torn through along with the skin and flesh, you think to yourself, holding your tongue between your teeth. Arguing back against his flowery words and scolding him wouldn't do much good when you're so angry from worry. He had tried to avoid your touch and aid when you first ran up to him after he returned to your city. It was evening, the sun was setting and no one else had seen him approach. You ushered him into the forest he crawled out of, making him duck and lay down, in a way letting the canopy of the tree branches overhead trap him to the mossy ground. His shoulder to his claws was dripping with sticky blood, his scales slick with it and glistening in the light of the fire Argenti so graciously started for you. Your house wasn't too far off, and you think to yourself how much more towels you'll need, water and ointment too.

“I hope you have nowhere else to be. You won't be going, else you want to make this wound worse on yourself.. No- I command you to stay” you told him as calmly as you could once you stepped away from his shoulder, glaring up at the dragon before you. His neck bent so his head could be closer to you, eyes like emeralds stare back at you. It looked as if they grew damp from hurt, shame moreso, your tone has stung him greatly, more than your words. 

“My rose has been angered, I am sorry.. Anger does not suit you” he says, so apologetically you already know what's going through his head. He's already taken all the blame on his wings and shoulders. “I should've tended to my own wounds, like a knight should be capable of. But I've grown selfish… I will do better next time.. Will you forgive me?” The large carriage of his head lowers itself down, sits on the ground, and the large horn in the middle of his forehead still glistens with dry red blood, turning gold and red in the firelight. Your anger dissipates rather quickly, like a fire drenched in water, even if it desperately wanted to burn it no longer had anything to consume to feed its hungry flames. 

“Argenti..” you start with a sigh, wiping your hands with a dry towel as you take steps towards his cheek. His eye follows you cautiously, sliding his head a few steps away, still not letting you touch him as he remains at his most vulnerable. He craves your touch, but he will not let himself be selfish. “Argenti” you say, more firmly this time and hurry to place a palm to his cheek. “... there's nothing to forgive, maybe not- besides this stubborn attitude of yours.. But no, there's nothing to forgive.. But you also have to listen to me too. Your pain brings me pain, even more so when you hide it away from me..” You tell him as your hand strokes his bony, dragon cheek. 

“My… You speak no lie.. Yet I still apologize all the same, for my own peace of mind at the very least” Argenti speaks after a huff rumbles through his throat and through his nose. Warm hands find purchase on the side of his head, one arm extending to find his shiny mane, now disheveled and dirty, but you run your hand through the course locks and press your forehead against his bony cheek. He purrs at the gesture, closing his eyes. 

“Promise me, my great dragon-knight, that you won’t hide your wounds from me?” you ask, giving your words a little lilt, lifting the tension that permeated in the air. He picks up on this easily, but recognizes the importance of the question, and even greater responsibility of his eventual response.

“.. I promise..”

Boothill:

You thought the earth was cracking underneath you once a tremendous shake made you tumble to your feet. So many terrible things ran through your head as you held your hands out to break the fall. There was a large crashing sound accompanying the shake of the earth and a roar followed soon after. That last sound you knew all too well. You weren’t sure what you should be worried about first, yourself, the guy that fell next to you or the idea that it was Boothill who was on the receiving end of a beating. IPC has been swarming the areas lately, looking for something they hid under pampered words or straight up refused to say when asked directly by a few bold individuals.

Getting your bearings together, you made way for the distant hills, the sandy dunes opening up before you like a city of their own, giant rocks stretched out into the belly of the sky like enormous spears. You raced through, following the traces which the sand didn’t swallow up yet, the spillage of oil and blood leading you straight to him. He was sitting on his haunches, his metal plating chirping with each small and irritated movement he made, his nose smoking with pale wisps of hot breath. Bending his neck he picked up the separated limb of his fore leg, the limb separated at the elbow with a few screws bent in the place where it was clearly torn away. There was oil leaking from his chest and sand was sticking to both oil and blood that was coating his body in various places.

“What happened to you? Boothill!” your pace quickened as you caught sight of th giant drake, his eyes focusing on you when his head swiftly perked up in response to your voice. His giant limb was let down to the ground with a thump, and he huffed again to show his irritation. 

“Ugh- you shouldn’t have come out all this way, there as well might be more of those fudgeheads around ‘ere” Boothill spoke, lifting up to his three legs.  

“As if you would let any of them run off. Have they charged at you first? Is that why they’re here, for you?” you shot back, your expression anything but pleasant, your brows meeting tightly at the middle and the corners of your lips falling down as if anvils were hooked onto each one. “Are you hurt?” 

At that, Boothill let out a rough and quick exhale through his nose, shooting out smoke before he bent his neck down again to meet your fierce gaze, swaying a little with the absence of one appendage. “Hurt? Me? You need not worry about that, little one, nothin’ can hurt Boothill” He is in your face when he says it, his nose right before you as his visible eye looks as if it were about to challenge you, you - his brave human companion, to a duel. But there's sadness too. 

You stare back, biting back the tongue that sought to scold him immediately after such a response and instead you reach your hand out to touch him. He moves out of reach, falling back onto his haunches. “It is cold out ‘ere at this time o’ night.. You should have waited till morning came. I would still be here” he says as he pushes some thin dry branches and an old looking, fallen tree together with his nose, sand dropping from his mane in a fine rain as he moves about, lighting a fire for you. 

“I know you won't let me get cold.. Now, let me see what this is. They tore your whole arm out?” you approach the fallen limb that had sunken into the sand due to its weight alone. inspecting the connecting spot, what you’d call an elbow. Wires were cut messily, torn and now dirty with dust and other grime. The screw lay next to it, bent and useless.  “Don’t you have a spare screw on you somewhere?” the wires could be dealt with, at least made to function steadily until you can get replacements.

“Hm- yeah, I got some on me, they should be up on the side. Can’t out here without backup. I was gonna do them on my own, but the forking arm get falling out, I couldn’t get the wires to connect - those are too fine of details for me” Boothill ranted as you already paced up to his side, waiting for him to finish his speech and lay down so you could reach up to a handle that was at the side of his stomach, pulling it down after a twist to reveal a compartment. Mostly mechanical replacements were found inside, and you managed to find a few screws and a deer skin rag for the dirt on the connection. 

“Shouldn’t have charged into that battle. I just know you’ve been too stubborn to move away - wait for a better opportunity at least..” There was no use telling him otherwise, and besides, what’s done is done. “Lift it a bit for me, Boothill, I need to clean it out before I can even attempt to put it back on”

He does as you ask, and now, with his own steely limb in his maw, he can’t say much to you. All he can do is huff and puff at your words as you subtly lecture him on staying safer through expressed words of sadness and worry. You were worried, he has always been hotheaded and you’d rather not have him depart this world because of it. 

“Just.. Please, think before you dive into a fight. Yes, you’re skilled and powerful, flashy, yes, yes - all of it, but think of the people that..care for you. Of me..”  You told him as you were sliding the screws into their respective places, connecting his fore limb to his body. This time you are met with silence instead of a hot aired huff. If you were to say anything more, you’d only be repeating yourself, so you said no more and worked wordlessly.

“There..” You hopped down from his shoulder, carefully stepping lower before jumping to the ground. The distance was small, but it still made you grunt when you landed. The fire had died down by then, hot coals sparking and whispering to each other. 

“Might it be I should be thanking you, darling...?” Boothill had laid his head down as you worked, listening constantly to your surroundings although he feigned sleep. 

“Not before you try moving it. Come, give it a go” you urge him gently, stepping back as you wipe your hands at the side of your thighs. The drake before you rises, balancing his weight all on one side before testing his reconnected leg. His movement is sluggish, choppy even but he succeeds in flexing the claws, taking a few steps and laying back down where he once was.

“Gah… so much today surely exhausts the soul, don’t ya think… mmm.. Thank you for fixing me up, darling, if it weren’t for you I’d be wandering like an ol’ street dog, heh..”

You walk up to the front of him, sighing softly as the adrenaline had long since left room for the ache to settle in your body. Looking up at him from here, you felt nothing short of a kitten between the front limbs of a great mountain dog, a wolf really. One would say the word ‘beast’ best suits him, but he is nowhere near as cruel as one. For all the heart they cut up and plucked from him, they had failed to take away the good nature of his soul.

Boothill notices your silence and sees your faraway gaze and before you can stumble a step, his nose comes up to press against your chest, cautiously almost as if a mere touch would curse you. Wordlessly he asks you questions. In response, your arms go out and flush against his warm snout, your body weight relying on him to keep you upright and he doesn’t move as you give him this odd hug. He wishes he could hug you back, and he could if he meant to crush you.

“Just be careful.. okay?” you mutter, your heavy lidded eyes going up to meet his, his pupil focusing, staring before the heavy eyelid comes down to hide it away, like a curtain. 

“Fine… I’ll do my best, but no promises - you know how the world is.. out there.."

Ⓒ n0tamused. Do not repost, translate, edit, and/or copy any of my works. Likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated.

[prettyboykatsuki]

i've been very far home, my heart | nightowl (blooming panic)

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ tags; established relationship, hurt/comfort, feelings of inadequacy / low self worth, gn!reader (they wear heels and have manicured nails, but otherwise nondescript. no gendered language), role reversal, arguing / messy human behavior, suggestive towards the end, they are implied to be the same height 🫡

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ wc ; 3.7k (added 500 to wc in editing. ok)

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ a/n ; bro idk what happened here FDHJDKDKJ. my sleep meds were making me feel super hungover, i got a little cooked on the devils lettuce and then wrote this?? and it wasn't bad lmaoaoa??

i really like this blonde twink ive known for three days. he is like. so extremely, hilariously my type and exactly like several ppl i've dated so this end up being a reflective piece on being a giver n navigating adult relationships.

title is from where we go by jelani aryeh

The bathroom light is on.

It’s spilling underneath the door frame when you come in from work later than usual. It’s busy season, with new clientele - all of which require socializing around drinks and expensive dinners to secure them. It’s nearly 1am, and you’ve taken two Ubers to get back home from the restaurant all the way across town that you’ve been mingling at since nine.

You closed the deal though, and your boss (perhaps seeing the visible exhaustion in your eyes) has given you the go-ahead on taking a few days off. The consulting part of your financial advising job could wait until Monday, which was a relief to hear. You came home expecting Nightowl to be up. He’s always up this late, and when he is - he rarely limits himself to one room in the apartment. You have a routine to it. You sleep in the dark bedroom and Owl tries not to make so much noise as to wake you.

You texted him you’d be late, and he’d read it but didn’t reply. Too worn down to think anything of It at the time, you slept on two car rides rather irresponsibly and were unsure of what to feel when your apartment didn’t have any lights from the outside upon arrival. Youwalked in after that, wondering if your eyes had been playing tricks. But the house was still dark, both upstairs and down stairs - in the bedroom and in the office. The only place you could find any trace of life was in the bathroom.

You’ve only left your bag on the couch downstairs. Worry makes your brows furrow as you turn the door knob to your shared bathroom and walk in. The clinical scent of bleach is the first thing to grasp your senses, jolting you awake from the haze of steam and leftover buzz of alcohol.

You cough a little, and find Nightowl on the bathroom floor. There’s a bottle of peach soju on the counter, and a few open packets of developer and mixing bowls. Owl is drunk already you think, or at the very least tipsy, moreso than you. The hot blush on his skin makes you think he’s been at it for a while. You try not to monitor his liquor intake too much, but the concern you feel is immediate and not helped by where you find him.

His body is slumped against the gray wall closes to the tub, sitting on the tile with a different bottle in his hand. His phone is face down beside him and he’s not noticed you come in. Your frown deepens as your heels click slightly on the tile. Crouching down at the knee, you reach your hand out for his forehead. His skin is so hot it’s scorching. You sober up almost instantly.

Even in his inebriated state, he seems to recognize you. His smile is wide, but you don’t feel like it reaches his eyes.

“Oh, so you decided to come home after all!”

You smile sadly followed with a curt nod. “Sorry.”

“Don’t really see what the point is in you apologizing when you’ve already been so late,” He says jovial. You try not to let it sting. You remind yourself that he’s drunk and stifle a sigh again. “But welcome home!”

“Were you gonna bleach your hair?”

“Isn’t that obvious?”

“Yeah,” You reply, choosing to sigh that time. His lip wobbles a little and you try not to say anything more. “Do you want help?”

“Sure. Whatever.”

You mumble something about being right back and Nightowl hums in affirmation. A feeling washes over you. Bone-deep exhaustion crushing your lungs and making you wheeze when you step out of the bleach-scented bathroom. When you’re distance enough away that he won’t hear you - closer to your bedroom door, you breathe in and out, calming yourself down. After you feel more centered, you open your shared room door and take a stool from along the wall, bringing it with you into the bathroom. Nightowl doesn’t turn his head to look at you until you place it. Sharing a glance with each other, he gets up on his own and sits himself on the placed stool dramatically and you give him a weak smile through the mirror he doesn’t bother returning.

You’re quiet as you leave the door open a touch to make sure the steam doesn’t overheat you both. Shrugging off your suit jacket, you fold it and hang it on the towel racks behind you. You unbutton your sleeves and roll them into neat folds on both arms, and before digging into one of your bathroom drawers for plastic gloves. Sliding them onto your manicured fingers, you pick up the bowl of developer from the side of the counter and mix it using the provided brush until it’s all smooth.

Nightowl is unusually silent through the entire thing. If he weren’t fidgeting, you could barely tell he was there. It’s so difficult to see him that way. You try not to blame yourself too much.

“Gonna start,”

“Uh-huh,”

A longing passes over you in the warm, sterile air. The coolness from the A.C. in the rest of your apartment dries down the sheen of sweat your accumulated while out socializing. Your feet are killing you and your shoulders are aching and your lungs feel like you can’t get enough air out of them. That’s busy season for you. The price of your job with all of it’s stability and benefits is the annual stretch of months where you are so busy you feel like you are drowning.

It’s one thing to be so mind-numbingly busy when you’re single and only worried about not dying. Another though to have a partner waiting for you, who you love and would like to be with - who you’ve admittedly not done well in paying attention to. You’ve tried you think. Made some attempts, but it doesn’t feel good enough and it certainly isn’t enough for Nightowl. You know that, too. You look down at where your hands are applying the bleach, dazed - using only muscle memory to apply it to the roots and strands of his hair. You want to touch him. To press kisses into his spine, drunk and elated, and press your cheek to his shoulder and confess your undying love until he’s giggly all over again.

The thought of adoration soothes you. Makes you smile to yourself even amongst the unforgiving atmosphere. Nightowl doesn’t care for that, his face growing even more frustrated.

“Thought of something fun? Glad at least one of us is having a good time.”

Your eyes meet his in the mirror. He looks away when he sees how pained you look, and you shut your eyes trying not to react. “Sorry.”

“Stop saying that,” He frowns, though he seems more sad than you.

“S—“ You clear your throat and laugh humorlessly at yourself. “Okay,”

You go about your business. Many things cross your mind but you can’t wrangle your thoughts into anything cohesive enough to say. Your jaw tightens a little, like your mouth wants to practice syllables it can’t remember. The distraction of rubbing bleach into Nightowls roots is welcome. His hair is a lot healthier than it used to be, after a year of forcing him to use hair masks. You admire as you brush through the strands, and Nightowl seems to lost in his own thoughts to say anything in protest. He probably hates this silence more than you. He’s uncharacteristically stiff, and there’s no smalltalk to distract from the surroundings.

You’re not feeling well enough to try and remedy it. Allowing yourself to stonewall and sit in the discomfort is about as much as you can do to reach a hand to your relationship. You probably can’t make it better, but you can do your best not to make it any worse.

“All done,” You mumble, just loud enough for him to hear. You slide the gloves off and toss them into the trash “We should sober up before bed. Hangover before bed sounds awful. Did you,” You hiccup. “Want some?”

He doesn’t reply to you. You press your lips into a flat line, feeling somewhat sorrowful but ultimately resigned. “I’ll make some anyway. And set a timer too while I’m down there. Just, uh - join me. When you’re done here.”

Before you turn to leave, he grabs your wrist. You’re taken aback by the sudden gesture (though there’s not force in it), turning around to look at him. His face is red. Wet tears pool on the corners of his straight, black lashes. Blinking a few times in surprise, you reach your hand to wipe them from the corners. Muscle memory. You find your love for him defined that way. He doesn’t flinch away from the touch, at least.

“Don’t you have something to say to me,” He insists. You frown in genuine confusion, a sad smile pulling at your mouth.

“Thought you told me to stop saying sorry,” You repeat with no malice, smiling a little. “That’s all I’ve got though.”

His lower lip trembles again and you try not to laugh. “God. How could you be so. God.” He sniffles a little. “You could cuss me out. Or like, I dunno, just get mad in general. You’re supposed to be mad, I was,” He cuts himself off.

You laugh a little tiredly, bending down to press your forehead to his. The flush of his skin against your own makes your heart murmur his name. “I don’t have anything to say, my heart.” You assure, smiling. “We’re both pretty tired. But I have tomorrow off. Let’s cool off and talk tomorrow. “Okay?”

“Okay,” He says back, still simmering. “As long as you’re here tomorrow.”

Your heart stings. “For the next two days, promise. I’ll toss my work phone if you want.”

He cracks a smile like that. “Might have to take you up on that, cutie.”

The familiar nickname eases you a bit, making you laugh. “Whatever you want.”

__

Morning comes unyielding and indifferent, like always.

Sunlight filters through the curtains as your eyes peel open and try to get adjusted to the light. There’s a weight on top of you, and the sound of steady breath. Another heartbeat thumps alongside yours and before you can make much sense of it - you catch the freshly yellow blond roots of your lover as he lays on your chest.

You went to bed last night not even facing each other. The image of him reaching around for you in his sleep and ending up in your arms feels like divine intervention. You admire how perfectly he fits there. Your eyes trace of his features. Thick, straight brows, skin like light gold, a straight nose and full lips. The shock of blonde suits him strangely, makes the dark lines of his other features pop. It’s rare you get to look at him so closely, even more so lately.

The intimacy of his flaws makes your stomach flutter, texture in his skin and eyebags and all. You crane your neck to kiss his hairline and think about returning to sleep in the cocoon of warmth. The cradle of soothes you, makes your eyelids heavy with sleep again. You think it’d be nice to sleep in more, but you don’t want to squander anymore time with Nightowl. Shifting, you pry yourself away from his grasp and tuck him into blankets. You’ll wake him later.

You’re quiet as you tiptoe around the house and get your affairs in order. The bathroom first to shower and brush your teeth, then downstairs to start on breakfast. You take the ritual of it to calm down and ease the leftover nerves of your stomach. It was better to save any conversation for sobriety - so you don’t regret it. Still, you feel a fear lingering. A nagging voice in the back of your head as you flip pancakes and cut fruit and pour juice.

The eerie silence of Saturday morning pushes you to reflect. It’s rare you fight like this. Even more rare that Nightowl reverts to that kind of angriness, which is why you find you can’t get upset. Not even the sound of sizzling and frying can keep your mind from wandering.

Inadequacy is familiar. An old winter jacket, too sizes too small and ill-fitting but full of your own personhood. One of the things you and Nightowl bonded over a long time ago.

You did well in school, in college, made a career for yourself. It’s making up for the rest of you, you think.

At least you’re good at your job, even if the rest of you is not worth mentioning. The ghost of feeling like you are, in some basic and intrinsic way, not good enough likes to shake you every now and again. Not friend, nor partner. It’s not something you easily get rid of, despite how far you’ve grown past it. Or around it. Or ahead of it. Wherever you’ve ended up, occasions come that knock the feeling loose from your deepest memories. You work hard to cover for it.

You like to logic your way out of the guilt when you’ve poured so much into it and people drift. A self-fulfilling prophecy. Usually that works. Tuck your emotions into neat compartments, throw yourself further into your work, don’t drink too heavily or be alone with anyone for too long. Ignore everything, do it by yourself so you’re still worth something, wait until it’s over. Eventually it all comes to pass, and you come out of the other end alive - but alone.

You can’t do that anymore though. It’s hard to remember that. Isolation is no longer the answer, because there is someone (multiple people, really) who will feel lonely without you. Even if it’s unfathomable to you, even if it’s hard to remember. The consequences creep up like this, and your left with the emotional void of making a bad situation worse. Sorry is the only word you know. There are so many things to be sorry for.

You’re so lost in thought you burn a pancake and have to toss it. You also seem to miss the presence of another person in your shared space until Nightowl comes and wraps his arms around your shoulders. Turning the heat down, you shift to face him. He looks exhausted but he must’ve come down after washing up.

“You’re awake.”

“Mhm.” He says, still sleepy. A smile pulls at the corners of your mouth. “So are you. And you’re making me breakfast.”

You laugh. “I am. So, go sit down.” And then, a little more serious. “We have a lot to talk about but I’d rather do it on a full stomach.”

“We’re in an argument and you’re still taking care of me.” Sadness bleeds into his words.

You reply without skipping a beat, going back to the stove to pour some more batter. “Well, its not like I don’t love you anymore.”

There’s a long, long pause of silence that alarms you once you recognize it. Once you hear sniffling, you whip around again to see Nightowl weeping a little as he leans against the counter. Alarms go off in your head, once again turning the stove down. You wrap your arms around his waist loosely, bending down to get a closer look at him. He’s cover his face with his hands.

“Ugh,” His voice is thick and heavy. “Can you not be so nice and perfect and angelic? I’m trying really hard to be mad at you and I’m failing like a loser.”

You can tell there’s some sincerity in his words, though you ignore the first half of his statement. “I don’t want to make you feel bad.”

He pulls away then, looks at you incredulous. “You’re so,” His hands curl at your chest as you hug him slightly. You’re confused but don’t say anything. “God, you’re so frustrating.”

“Sorry,” You say apologetically. “Don’t mean to make you cry either. Feel like I’m going that a lot. We should really eat.”

“Don’t want to,” He whines a little as he says. “Just. I want to kiss and makeup already.”

You smile a little before humming.

“We should talk about it, then.”

Nightowl just nods, and you take that as permission to just go. You do your best to get the words out.

“I really love you,” You say first, and then sigh. Nightowl clings onto you tighter and listens instead of interjecting, which must mean he’s feeling serious. “And uhm, was already feeling bad about myself. And then I got busy which made it worse cause I couldn’t really you know… be there for you, so I ended up pulling away to figure it out alone and then got even busier. Which was isolating for you, and I’m sorry for that. It’s hard to like.. I dunno. Lean on you. On anyone.” You laugh a little. “Is that too vague?”

“It makes sense to me but…what were you feeling bad about, even?”

“Well I was busy before that, so I just felt shitty about being a bad partner to you. In general, don’t feel like I deserve you but then you know,” You sigh “It was shitty of me.”

“Are you kidding me?” He says. His face is twisted in a pout. “You’re seriously being all mopey ‘cause you think you’re a bad partner when you’re like… literally the best ever? Like, that I’ve ever had?”

You’re too surprised to say anything. “Is that not why were arguing?”

“I mean,” His frown deepens, and he presses his face against your chest. “Ugh. So embarrassing. I am upset because you’re so busy and we haven’t spent time together but that’s like… totally not your fault, yknow? I’m being super clingy and I was just… really lonely yesterday.”

“Sorry for making you feel lonely.”

“Stop apologizing or I’m gonna bite you, ‘kay cutie?” He says seriously. You relent with a worrisome smile and encourage him to keep going. “I was getting like… all pathetic. Cause I thought you didn’t want me anymore, didn’t even occur to me something was wrong. I’m so sorry about that, about all of it - god. I shouldn’t have lashed out on you. I hate that it still gets so bad when we've been together so long. I just missed you so fucking much. And I think so highly of you, I couldn’t help but be all torn up about the idea that you were pulling away cause you didn’t want me.”

“I do want you. I’m just surprised you want me sometimes.”

“You’re dumb,” He whispers with no bite at all. “That’s my line. You’re like literally perfect to me.”

“So we got in a fight ‘cause we needed to be with each other,” You say with a long pause, then laugh. “How silly.”

“Guess so,” He says back with a little frown. “Are we okay?”

“We’re okay,”

You share a brief moment of comfortable, understanding silence. It feels easier to breathe. Even though it’s messy and foolish, you love being with him. It makes you feel real and whole - wanted to be missed that much.

“I missed you too by the way,” You reply with utmost sincerity. “Only thing I thought of all night was how much I wanted to hold you.”

“You’re making me blush.” He says with a loopy little smile. “Y’mean that?”

“More than anything.” You reply. “I like being with you. I like taking care of you. I like that you’re needy and jealous and temperamental.”

“Stopppp,” He groans and you laugh aloud, leaning forward to place a kiss on his jaw. “Not that I hate being told what you like about me but it’s making my tummy flutter.”

“I like loving you,” You say with some finality. “I feel really shitty when I feel like I’m failing at it because I take pride in being good at that.”

“Jeez,” His face is bright pink when you pull away. “You shouldn’t think of yourself so little, yanno? Not that this is a surprise but yesterday I was like, totally acting awful to you. I really am sorry I let it get that bad, I was just really worked up. Even right now you make me so happy, it feels a little unfair to me. I want to be with you all the time. So sometimes when I can’t I just get like… awful. And stupid. And want to throw a bunch of dumb tantrums about it.”

You nod in understanding. “It did hurt my feelings but I really didn’t feel like it was undeserved.”

“It was totally undeserved!”

You crack a little smile. “Agree to disagree?”

He grabs your face with both hands, knocking your foreheads together. “It was undeserved, no take backs. I’m sorry I hurt you and always will be. Stop being so nitpicky about yourself, kay? I’m literally crazy about you.”

“Me too,” You crane your neck to kiss his palm where it cradles your face. “I adore you, baby.”

“I like being adored by you,” He says with a sweetness that makes your heart melt. “I like loving you too of course, but attention is… nice. You know.”

He makes a face at you as you say this that you can only describe as a grin, before pushing himself forward to press a long kiss to your lips. You laugh a little into, smile splitting your face at the intensity he kisses you at first thing in the morning. Over and over, pulling and pushing - giggling as you chase his mouth as he pulls away.

“We kissed but I dunno if we’ve made up,” He says. Concern briefly passes over your expression. “Got some really good ideas about how we could do that.”

You give him a flat look but can’t contain your laughter.

“We should really eat breakfast,”

He puts a hand at the top of your waistband with lidded eyes and smiles. “There’s something else I wanna eat first though?”

You pretend to be exasperated.

“Jesus. We just made-up and you wanna fuck already?”

“Duh. That’s like, the best part,”

You snort. “We’ll go once and then I’m making you eat breakfast even if I have to force it down your throat.”

“Ooh, feeling rough I see,”

You snort. “Yeah, guess so.” You shoot him a little look, leaning into whisper and nip at his ears. “On your knees for me, baby.”

He giggles a little, giddy with mischief in his face. “Mmkay,”

He presses a cheek to your clothed thigh, lovesick. “I love you,”

You can’t help but laugh at his choice of when to say it and simply reply back in full adoration. “I love you too, my heart.”

a/n ; ANOTHER AUTHORS NOTE? sorry for being the ceo of yapping im insane

i just want to like. give some insight on this fight bc im worried it seems onesided. reader has low self esteem and really beats themself over their own expectations in everything. they isolate when they're overwhelmed and work was already doing that to them. and then things got busier, which meant there wasn't really time to repair the relationship between them which is why nightowl gets as mad as he does.

nightowl is deathly afraid of being unloved and abandoned, and he get a little caught up in his self hate that they fail to realize something is going on with their partner. so he lashes it out and it feels warranted but he gets like guilty bc reader doesn't react to the goading any differently

i think nightowl is a very complicated but incredibly familiar character. he's a little selfish but i find him incredibly endearing and i have a strong desire to dote on him and monopolize him. which was the intent for this fic. but i ended up just exploring real life relationship dynamics between a character like this. very selfless x selfish. they love each other and find fulfillment in this. i love them.

[qu1cks1lversb1tch]

I love ur works so i just HADDDD to request!!!! Ik its impossible for sinners to even have children buuttt,,,, Vox w his bio toddler daughter hcs??👀👀 Hope its not weird or anything, i js find it soo cutee. Would love a sprinkle of angst too!!

A/N — Your honor, I love this ask. I've been imagining so many characters as girl dads lately, and Vox was certainly one of them. I feel like it's moreso implied angst at one point than actual angst — however, I hope you like these! I may come back in and add more if I think of more, but this is all I could think of with my tired brain lol.

Little Sunshine

Wildly protective, without a doubt.

If his daughter taped a paper tiara to his screen, he's wearing it all day (he sometimes forgets it's there — you know how many times he's worn a poorly colored paper tiara on live television? . . Often.)

He loves that she looks like her mother, but already thinks just like him.

Vox only dresses his little girl in the best, which is usually something Velvette made just for her.

He pretends to be upset when he finds her running around the penthouse with his stolen overcoat draped over her with the sleeves and coat tails dragging on the floor.

He really finds it adorable.

There's a hefty amount of people he doesn't trust to be in a room with his daughter. It's Hell, he doesn't really trust anyone.

Especially not with enemies who have tried to force his hand by using his only weakness — his precious little girl — as leverage.

All parties involved were promptly handled by a very angry, very protective father.

He insists on her being nearby all the time, needing to hear his daughter's giggles or see her sitting on the floor playing with a stuffed shark.

Speaking of sharks. He let her name his second shark, so now he has Vark and Spark (his name is really Sparkles, but he calls him Spark to everyone, unless she's around, then he's Sparkles.)

Generally cute and funny moments.

"Come on, sweetheart. . . Put the flour in the bowl." Then she flicked her wrist and sent half a cup of flour into his face.

She stood there for a few seconds and then turned to look at her dad, bursting into a fit of contagious giggles at the sight of him standing there, dumbfounded, with flour coating his front. "Oopsies."

He can't stay mad at her for anything, especially when she looks up at him with those big, pretty eyes and grabby hands.

She has his temper, so he sometimes finds himself standing toe to toe with this strong willed, opinionated toddler.

Anything she wants, she gets. It doesn't matter how big or small it is. Candy? He buys all her favorites. Toys? He gets all the new ones he knows she'd have interest in.

Just because he spoils her, doesn't mean she's undisciplined.

When she does something particularly bad, her punishment is spending a couple hours with Velvette (which isn't much of a punishment because mini Vox loves her auntie Vel).

He tries not to laugh when she argues with Valentino or makes some blunt comment that has the moth overlord on the edge of losing his shit.

The only think keeping Valentino from saying something he shouldn't, was the fact that Vox would end him if he even made so much as a single tear run down her cheek.

He reads her bedtime stories and stays with her until she falls asleep.

Sometimes he even dozes off next to her, her little head resting in the crook of his neck.

Stickers. Glitter. Gemstones. So. Much. Glitter. He purposely buys stuff without glitter, yet the penthouse always ends up with glitter covering some surfaces (he later finds out that she found Val's body glitter).

His daughter is the light of his afterlife. Something good in a realm of absolute shit.

[multifariousqueer]

Hey idk if your request are still open but here goes nothing- I deadass need some smut rn with like mean dom miles morales (earth 1610) if that makes you comfortable, if not thanks for responding anyways :)

Thank you!! ★

Ofc babes! Tumblr is on my nuts rn with smut but I got you babes

A/n: I highkey don’t see Miles being a mean Dom unless he’s angry but if you need it, imma supply it

Warnings: $mut obvi, light sp@nking, praise and degradation, nicknames,Implied consent, light ch0king, miles being mean, teasing, d1ck sucking, br33d1n6, lmk if I missed some

It was another long night for Miles; this Dalmatian guy was harder to catch than he thought and now he is pissed because he got jumped by some spider people who he though were good but they ended up nearly killing him. He is moreso pissed that Gwen betrayed him for people she barely knew. In Miles’ mind, everyone was against him and hated him so he got even more mad.

He opened the window to your apartment and kicked stuff around while ripping his suit and his web shooters off. “Fucking, Gwen. Man fuck these spider-people fr. None of them are good guys” Miles cursed as he was taking his stuff off

“Miles?” you questioned

“What, y/n? This shit better be good.” Miles replied

“Que paso, amor?” you questioned as you slipped a hand on his back that he quickly shrugged off

“Don’t worry about it, y/n. I just got my ass kicked by people that looked just like me but thanks for asking” Miles said sarcastically

“I-I’m sorry, Miles? Is there anything I could do for you?” You asked

“Yeah, get on your knees.” he said

“what?” you questioned

“Did you suddenly become deaf in the past 30 seconds I’ve been speaking to you?” Miles said

“...miles, I-“ you said

“You asked if you could do anything for me, right?” Miles said

“yeah but-“ you started

“what’s the problem? I fucking ask you to do something useful for once in your life but you can’t even do that?” Miles shouted

“I-I’m sorry” you said, getting on your knees

“Man matter of fact, take that shit off” Miles said with a slight grimace on his face

You did as you were told and he grabbed your head and pushed it down on him. Your eyes teared up as your throat adjusted to his sheer size. He grabbed your hair in a high pony tail as he fucked your throat. His rapid movements and grunts soon became sloppy as he released into your mouth with a loud groan.

You looked up at him as he panted and collected himself, you showed him the cum on your tongue:

“swallow it, mami"

You did as you were told and smiled at him:

“are you satisfied baby?” you cooed

“nah, not really” he said

Puzzled, you gave him a confused look before he picked you up and placed you on the mattress. Your ass facing him as you were on all fours. You craved this moment of when he would finally lay a finger on(or in) you and satisfy your leaking holes; however, Miles had slightly more sinister plans.

“Baby, what’s going on?” you asked

“You’ll see, mama.” he said

Suddenly, you felt his head trace up and down your slit; starting from your clit and ending where you needed him the most. You let out little whimpers while he was doing this and he teased your hole by pushing the tip in and rubbing small circles around your clit.

“Miles please, I need you” you breathed

“Mmmm I need this hole but you don’t see me complaining” Miles chuckled, even in the most intimate of times, he still managed to crack a few jokes

You would’ve enjoyed his quip had it not been for the fact that you were so incredibly needy for him. You felt yourself drip again as tears stung your waterline and your body began to tremble in desperation.

“Shit you’re soaking. You wanna cum? You want me to touch you? Say it Mami, tell Papi what you want him to do to your needy cunt” Miles taunted against your ear. Miles landed a harsh smack to your ass before palming it. Miles was usually bold in the bedroom but never like this

“Ummm I-I need you to fuck me, please.” you said sheepishly

“Speak up, princesa” Miles smirked

“Fuck my needy holes please Papi. I need your cum in me so bad, fuck me like the slut I am for you” you confessed, hanging your head in shame

That was all you had to say. Miles pushed himself deep within your walls which earned a yelp from you due to the sudden feeling of pleasure mixed with pain. His hips snapping at an impossible speed as the room filled with sounds of your escapade were enough to make you nearly pass out. Fortunately, Miles snaked a hand around your waist to support you(and to feel himself inside of you) as he continued snapping his hips. Your vision became clouded as you felt all of your senses fade away one by one as you approached your high, it seemed no one else existed besides you two as he whispered sweet nothings to you:

“Mmmmm you’re so good Fuck I wanna cum inside of you so bad, mami. You’re so fucking tight, so soft, I can’t take it, aghh” Miles started before his movements suddenly stilled and you felt his hot cum paint your walls. Before you knew it, your high had come crashing down on you, rendering you practically dead weight as you collapsed with moans and cries

“Mmmmm Miles” you moaned after your high

As you went to lay next to your man, he picked you up so you were straddling him and he sat you at the end of your shared bed.

“I aint done yet, ma"

You attempted to mentally prepare yourself but it was too late as Miles was already picking you up and putting you down on his cock. His hips bucking into you as you watched him use your body like a toy until he was finally satisfied.

[prettyboypistol]

7MIH With The Mercs! || TF2 x M!Reader

Implied that the Merc stuck with you has a MAJOR crush on you, but is too stubborn/shy to say anything about it.

Reader is an employee of Mann Co., a lot like Ms. Pauling, but for trivial things that the mercs need. He essentially takes reports of issues/needs and sends them forward.

Scout

As Scout is shut into the cramped closet and the door is locked, he hears the noise of someone else being in there with him.

"Scout?"

FUCK.

Scout bangs his hands on the door, demanding to be let out.

Def more shy than stubborn, but he plays off his bashfulness as pride.

He's blushing like the deepest ruby and shaking like an autumn leaf while there with you. The closet is so cramped that you can feel how fast his heart is pumping!

He's shy, not stupid, so he aboslutely "accidentally" brushes his hands on you as he tries to move.

Soldier

Solder was asked to simply retrieve some supplies from the closet. He opens the door to see you in there, only for a force to shove him in and lock the door.

"WHAT'S THE MEANING OF THIS?! i DEMAND AN EXPLANATION!"

"Sir? Are you alright?"

Very awkward and remains as still as possible, as there is no room to flail about.

100% stubborn, not shy at all.

He refuses to even acknowledge that you're stuck in there with him, but if you start apologizing he'll give a few "words of encouragement" like that the situation isn't your fault and whatnot.

Engineer

Engineer just went to go get some paper towels because of a spill that happened in the garage! He was caught completely off guard when the door shut behind him, locking as snickers were heard from outside. Engineer sighed, but fumbled through his tools for his lockpick, but he then heard a familiar man.

"Dr. Conagher?"

His stupid heart skipped multiple beats.

He suddenly fumbles with the tools in his belt, profusely aologizing for not noticing you earlier. He sounds embarrassed as he deftly handles his toolbelt

Assures you that he'll get you two both out of the closet, totally not because he's shy about being so close to you!

He's a gentleman, so he doesn't do anything to you. He apologizes for every bump he does against you.

Demoman

Well, nobody really locked Demoman in the closet, he moreso drunkenyly stumbled in while looking for something and accidentally locked the door!

"Tavish?"

God damn, how lucky! His favorite person!

Overjoyed to see you and strikes up a conversation immediately, as if he's not pressed up against you and uncomfortably close.

He drops a few joking pick up lines like: "If you wanted to get close to me, you coulda just asked!" "So, come here often?" etc to get you to laugh.

Probably makes the joke that you two should fool around, tilting your chin up to lock eyes with him, but nothing too incriminating of his true feelings.

Heavy

Well, Heavy wasn't locked in the storage closet, not initially, at least. The doorknob fell off!

"Um- excuse me sir-"

Heavy realized he wasn't pushed up against a cabinet, but the little assistant of his dreams. Oh god, he could just break the door in, right?

Heavy def feels embarrassed, being so impatient and angry enough to break the handle in front of you. He apologizes for getting you into this mess and how cramped you are.

Offers to knock the door down for you.

He's not shy per se, but he's definitely nervous about his feelings for you. He's bold enough to put a hand on your shoulder/back as a reassuring gesture.

Pyro

They're not really aware of the situation until the door latches shut. They're mad that they were shoved into the closet initially, but hearing you announce that you were in the closet and to please not light the closet on fire! Made them reconsider the situation.

They're not... opposed to being so close to you, but the situation isn't optimal!

Pyro holds you close to comfort you, trying to explain that they're not gonna hurt you as a civilian.

They've always held an affection for you and you could tell. They seemed more aware of the world and more lucid when you talked to them, anyway.

If nobody comes to get you two, Pyro pushes you away and uses thier axe to break the door.

Spy

As gracelessly as possible, Demoman shoved Spy into the storage closet. It was meant to be a harmless, albeit slightly spiteful joke, but the Scotsman didn't realize the little assistant was in there as well.

Spy did, as their bodies were far too close for his comfort.

He's embarrassed, but is never one to look a gift horse in the mouth. He's SUCH a joking flirt, making you laugh as he picks the lock.

"What a shame, I think the men were playing a joke on us, no? Oh, how the world hates the beautiful." dramatic ass bitch

DEF wants to take the opportunity to feel you up and actually hit on you, but doesn't because "it's not the right time"

Medic

As Medic is shoved into the dark storage closet, his body bumps against another.

"Ack! Who the hell is in here?!" Medic huffed.

"Mister Medic?" A voice spoke out. Medic looked towards the voice, immediately.

'Gott in himmel, why'd they wrap him up in all this?!'

He's very awkward and avoids the situation, makes a show of demanding to be let out.

He's more on the stubborn end of the spectrum rather than shy, but he is certainly a little more bashful around you.

The most you're going to get from him in the closet together is an accidental brushing of his hands on your sides, to which he will refuse to speak on.

If you had a light source, the man would OBVIOUSLY be blushing.

Sniper

Sniper is just going into the storage closet for some bleach, but when he sees you, he slams the door shut, accidentally dropping a plank underneath the doorknob.

"I- fuck."

gay PANICS HARD, forcing himself to be quiet. He might be silent physically, but his mind is so loud.

He realizes the cliche and won't forget this ever! He's blushy, he's sweating, and god he wants to kiss you. He tries to assure you- apologize, even! But he's tongue tied!

If you come onto him, he doesn''t protext, but does that cute lil "hey now.." softly as he holds your wrists. He doesn't stop your hands moving, though.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Hello, hi, heya! I noticed something and wanted to share it. So the Pop Music Club only has three members and was in danger of disbanding according to Lilia's ceremonial robes story. Malleus and Jade are the only members of their clubs though so how are they not disbanded yet? Vil was also the only one before Ortho but I think he's in a different category since he clearly has mobs in his club. Your thoughts?

Oh, that’s a good point 🤔 Cater says in Lilia’s Ceremonial Robes vignettes: “We've only got three members and we never do anything. If we don't get more people this year, we're getting disbanded!” He also states that “[…] the headmage has his eye on [the Pop Music Club]” because of their low membership, which implies Crowley is the one that handles club disbandment at NRC.

Unlike Vil’s Film Research Club, there are no mob students with membership to the Gargoyle Appreciation Society or the Mountain Lovers Club. Malleus and Jade are stated to be the sole members of their respective extracurricular organizations… so why doesn’t Crowley bring down the hammer of disbandment on them?

… My guess is that Crowley’s too afraid to piss off Malleus and/or Jade 😂 Malleus is the more obvious threat of the two, being someone of royal status as well as a powerful mage. Being told his club is going bye-bye could upset him and result in… uh, Kentucky Fried Crowley, let’s say.

Jade, while the less obvious threat, is capable of coercion through other means. Remember how Octavinelle collects dirt on people (Jade’s Ceremonial Robes vignettes + book 4) to use it against them? Remember how they put Crowley in a tight bind in book 3 by seizing control of a quarter of NRC’s student population so he would cave to their demands? It’s very possible that Jade could retaliate or figure out something similar to make Crowley’s job more difficult than it has to be. I can see why the headmaster wouldn’t want to get in those two’s time with their hyperfixations.

I think it should also be noted that the other half of what Cater says may also be a factor. Their club doesn’t really do anything but sit around, eat snacks, and talk (which is alluded to in events like A Firelit Sky and various voice lines and vignettes). It’s possible that Crowley is harsher on judging their group because they aren’t really doing anything enriching.

Back to the Pop Music Club for a second! It’s true that they have an influential figure of their own in the ranks: Kalim! Wouldn’t Crowley be afraid of upsetting him? Possibly! The thing about Kalim though is that he’s not spiteful or retaliatory. He’d be sad if his club disbanded, but I don’t see him trying to get back at the headmaster for it. Kalim would be sad for a while and then eventually look for another club to join or try to do something to cheer himself up. After all, Kalim seems to have joined the Pop Music Club moreso to socialize than to play instruments. Maybe he can talk to his friends or arrange another social activity to fill in the space of time after classes.

[dead3ve]

William Bonney x fem!reader

Summary: Billy returns home after a two-day trip with his gang and finds his girl sweating and shivering, sick in their bed. Billy, due to the events of his past, does everything in his power to try and get them healthy again.

Warnings: they/them pronouns. No use of y/n. Reader referred to as girl, woman, sweet girl. Reader wears feminine clothing (nightgowns). Fever is implied, mention of throwing up. Mentions of death (Billy's family, reader doesn't die). Slight nudity (reader takes a bath). 1880s bath (taps don't exist yet).

Billy had frozen in the bedroom doorway.

He was looking down at the lump on his bed, covered by the bedsheets. They were breathing slowly and through their mouth. The head popping out from the blankets was glowing with sweat. The heat must've been too much suddenly because they began thrashing the blankets violently from their body.

"Hey, sweet girl." Billy cooed as he gently pulled the blankets from their body in a much calmer manner. He noticed they wore their cream nightgown that he loved so much. It was sticking to their skin because of the sweat layering their body. "What's happened?" He cupped their cheeks, noticing how warm they were, and frowned in concern.

"You're home." They sighed, leaning into Billy's hand closest to the pillow. They wanted to rest. It was all they could do. Their body was in between hot and cold with hot flushes and sudden shivering. They couldn't stomach anything, nor could they breathe through their nose. The only thing to do was rot lonely in bed.

"You're warm. How long have you been like this, honey?" Billy was pushing the hair stuck to their sweaty face behind their ears. Once he did that, he slowly helped them sit up. Knowing his girl, Billy knew that they wouldn't have gotten out of bed for a while.

"The night you left. I threw up before I went to bed." Retelling the story made them feel slightly queasy. They grew worse after two days passed. "How was your trip?" They asked with closed eyes, body slumped against the headboard of the bed.

"You've been in bed for two days?" Billy was frowning. Moreso at himself than at his girl. If he knew, he would have turned his horse around so quickly. He would have only been away a few hours, rather than two days.

They slowly lifted their body forward and let the top half of their body fall into Billy's chest. He held them tightly with his arms around their waist. They had their arms around his neck. Billy held them, petted their hair with one hand and squeezed their hip with the other.

He thought about what his mother did for Billy when he was sick, before she died. She would draw a bath, make sure he felt at least clean before he went back to lying in bed. This made Billy release his hold on the girl.

"How does a bath sound, beautiful?" He spoke brightly, encouragingly, hoping his partner would accept the offer. Billy softly pushed them back down into their bed, letting them relax while he prepared the water.

He must've been too young to remember the effort of running a bath. Pumping the water, carrying the water to the house, heating the water, pouring the water, then repeating the process to slowly fill the tub. Billy didn't regret the action of drawing the bath for the sick, beautiful woman in his bed, it just made him respect his deceased mother more than he already did. It made him miss her more than he already did. He eventually had the bath ready, so he went to get the girl waiting for him.

He found them asleep again. They were laying on their stomach, on top of the covers with their head buried into their pillow. Billy laid down on his stomach closely next to them and pushed his face into their neck to wake them up by pressing soft kisses there. They softly groaned and wrapped their arms around Billy's neck, pressing their body into his.

"Your bath is ready, sweet girl." Billy mumbled into their hair.

He stood, lifting them with him. Once he got them to the tub, he helped them with their nightgown, pulling it over their head. Billy then helped them into the tub with his hands around their naked waist. He made sure they didn't slip while bending their knees to sit. He watched them relax against the back of the warm tub, a sigh leaving their stuffy nose. Their eyes closed and their neck relaxed against the edge of the tub. He kissed their forehead before he walked away from them, getting another nightgown for when they had finished their bath.

When he returned, he planned on running a bath sponge over their soft skin. He stole a bar of nice smelling soap in the city for the girl when he was away. So, Billy found their bath sponge and retrieved the bar of soap from his saddle bag quickly.

When he walked back into the kitchen, where he set up the bathtub, the girl opened their eyes at the sound of his footsteps. They saw the sponge in his hand and smiled.

"Are you joining me, handsome?" They smiled cheekily as they spoke. Their voice sounded clearer. The steam from the water must've cleared their nose a bit.

"I wasn't going to. I was going to sit next to you." Billy was smiling at the small joy he had brought them. He placed the sponge into the water and began unwrapping the paper around the lavender scented soap. "I'll join you if it will make you feel better, honey. But no funny business. I'm trying to make you healthy again."

"Then get in. No funny business, I promise, cowboy." They smiled up at the standing boy, who was smiling at them because of the nickname. They placed their wet hand on their lower thigh, squeezing. Billy could tell they were happy he was home.

They watched as Billy placed the bar of soap by the tub and the nightgown on the kitchen counter. He began to take off his clothes. Every navy blue and brown layer lead closer to his pale skin. God, they had missed him. The way he was so caring and gentle. The way he smiled over his shoulder at them when he buttoned or unbuttoned his shirt.

Once he was naked, they moved forward in the tub, to make room for Billy, who sat behind them. Some of the water rose and spilled over the tub. This made them laugh, which then made Billy laugh. Once they leaned back into Billy, he picked up the bar of soap and placed it onto his girl's naked chest. He watched their eyes brighten at the lavish stuff.

"What's this, Billy?" They asked, laying their head back on Billy's shoulder to look at him. "Smells nice." They were smiling at him.

"Found it in a store in the city. Thought you might like it." Billy was mumbling into their hair as he spoke. Simultaneously, Billy was making circles onto the girl's chest with the bar of soap.

"It must've been expensive." They had closed their eyes and gone lax under Billy's slow, cleaning hands. He had picked up the sponge from the water by then and was squeezing warm water onto the skin of their bare chest.

Billy thought about how he stole the bar from the shop and smiled. They don't need to know that just yet. If they did, he might not stay in the bath with them. So instead, he said:

"Anything for you."

[stari-hun]

The Foundation vs Manus Vindictae

This idea was inspired by @ihaveforgortoomany ‘s post here!

It’s so fun that the story makes sure we know and see that the difference between The Foundation and Manus is the head start the Foundation has on being an established organization, and whether they pretend to be good. This is also like you said, a big part of why the Foundation wants to restore time. They had a massive advantage in being a long time establish organization. In Regulus’ time, it was implied from her reaction the Foundation had full authority to approach Arcanists and register them, or at least strongly convince them to join. Manus tries to have a persona of salvation over pure goodness but this is maintained moreso because they can’t actively gaslight people.

If you look into The Three Doors and see how people were affected by the incomplete version of the Artificial Somnambulism. They were going insane because it was never a good machine with good intent. It was made to use frequencies to manipulate the mind of an arcanist. While Laplace employees use the machine in order soothe injured arcanists or panicking ones, that doesn’t mean they’re not brainwashing members. They bend reality for these people to comfort them but that comfort is built on dependence and complete trust of the Foundation. Which is why on of my theories is that the AS is a reason Arcanists have mental breaks so frequently in the Foundation, the Manus has breakdowns within their ranks however that’s from exposure to the Manus Masks carrying The Storm chemical within them. Name Day in Getian’s character story event even has a mention that the AS is very dangerous for the way it gets into someone’s head, and Getian breaks into it because he had experienced something similar. He’s then able to have them see what he wishes. Taking what Jessica saw in [The Old One Flew Over the House], the AS is also used as a training tool for arcanists and a way to get true test answers out of them. Why would she need to take her exam in the AS when she could simply answer Foundation staff 1-1?? There’s no point of it besides getting into Arcanist’s subconscious. The reason this doesn’t work on Vertin anymore is because she holds zero trust for The Foundation anymore.

I think Arcanists in general tend to take a lot more mental stress from contradictions in their heads, for instance people create false memories if they have a gap in their memory because the brain doesn’t like having gaps there. We’d rather lie to ourselves or create a false reality than deal with pure unknown, but with The Storm no one knows what anything will be next.

After the events of Book 3, Vertin no longer places her trust in the Foundation because she knows what Constantine did. Madam Z wasn’t able to find out in time to save them, so Vertin watched her classmates disappear in front of her because Constantine wanted to unlock the potential in her. She then went on her own journey to record the eras directly, without being able to save anyone. Vertin won’t ever leave The Foundation because their goals align, but she might one day near the end of the story work with Madam Z to overturn the current system. Sonetto on the other hand has an imminent fate of her loyalty breaking towards the Foundation. She already suspects them of being morally corrupt at least to her standards, and she’s torn between choosing them and Vertin. From how we see her trust Vertin in [A Nightmare at Greenlake] + how she doesn’t make any comment on following the rules when Horropedia is blatantly breaking them, I think her loyalty switches to Vertin at some point.

Also a big theme is that Manus and Foundation both very much consider people expendable. The Manus treats weaker arcanists and humans blatantly as canon fodder, but Constantine sacrificed a group of children because they were defectors (Horropedia makes a note about how their actions had the entire school talking to the point they ran out of space to discipline them) and it might push Vertin to want to go out into The Storm to find a cure in the Name of Peace.

[shaynawrites23]

For your 200 follower celebration!

💋: I'd like one with with Sirius black! And the number... 58!!!

Congratulations to you on hitting 200! That ought to be a big achievement! I love your work BTW! Keep going!

Show Me

Pairing: Sirius Black x reader

Prompt: moving around while kissing, stumbling over things, pushing each other back against the wall/onto the bed

Word count: 678

Warning: suggestive content, implied smut

A/N: im sorry this has been sitting in my inbox forever 😅 trying to stretch my writing muscles by doing a few blurbs before i write the longer requests, thought i'd clear out my inbox while im at it! whoever you are, anon, i thank you for the support and i hope you enjoy the drabble if you see this!

It started as a date. You haven't seen your boyfriend in some time, and the moment your schedules aligned, Sirius declared in his usual fashion that he was taking you out on a date.

In hindsight, you should have known it would end this way, and... maybe you wanted it to. You're dressed in the outfit he loves so much on you, smiled so innocently at him when he came to pick you up and ignored the way his breath hitched the moment he laid eyes on you. Or... well, Sirius believes you're only pretending not to notice.

He hasn't been able to keep his hands off of you all evening. A hand on your back, fingers tracing shapes on your thigh before he forces himself to let up on you slightly, hand reaching for yours, stealing a kiss every chance he gets... even as you leave, he has an arm around your waist, holding you close, smudging a kiss to your hairline paired with softly murmured words you don't catch.

And now...

Now, his lips are on yours before you've even entered your apartment; you're still blindly fumbling for your keys and have to push him away, just for a moment, else you're sure you'll be standing outside all night. He looks confused for a moment, and hurt, but then you're flinging the door open, tugging him inside with you by his belt loops, and the pieces click.

He kicks the door shut with his foot. You barely have time to register the dull slam of the wood before he's pulling you into him—or maybe you're dragging him closer by your hand on his collar—and he's groaning out a "fuck, so fuckin' pretty, darlin', my gorgeous girl-" before your mouths meet again, hot and greedy and wanting.

Sirius backs you up as he kisses you, strong hand gripping your hip. He knows the layout of your apartment well, too well for the way he bumps you against the corner of the dining table to be anything but carelessness. To his credit, he apologizes when you wince, hand moving to soothe the sore spot, but you've already forgotten about the incident, too lost in the way he's kissing you.

God, how you love his kisses. He has a way of kissing you so sweetly, moreso than you expected of a man like him, and that sweetness isn't lost even as his kisses turn deeper, hungry and impatient. Sirius kisses you like he wants you, like you're special, makes you feel like you're valuable, like you're worth it, and... and of course he does, you're all those things to him-

You're not given time to dwell on it, though, not with the way he's filling every corner of your mind. Sirius has quite the personality, too much for some, but you love him all the more for who he is. And right now, he's your breathtakingly handsome boyfriend who's leaning over you, pressing you onto your bed as he settles between your legs, and now your breath is catching in your throat.

"Merlin, look at you. My stunning girlfriend. Most attractive woman I've ever seen," he breathes when he pulls back to simultaneously catch his breath and admire you. You look like a work or art to him, a goddess, with tousled hair and kiss-swollen lips, panting and reaching for him like you miss him even though he's right there. He obliges, his weight pressing you further into the mattress as his teeth graze your pulse, his mouth kissing its way back up to yours. "Bet you did in on purpose, tryin' to test my restraint... darlin', don't you know what uou do to me when you dress up all pretty like that?"

Breathless and not about to admit you chose your outfit with him in mind, though you're certain he knows, you only shrug, and you feel his lips quirk into a smirk just under your jaw.

"Oh, gorgeous, I'm gonna show you just what it does to me."

That he certainly did.

[xenostalgic]

more scraps from the Apocalypse of Herschel Schoen conspiracy corkboard

Miriam is Moses' sister (also the name means "bitter"). Ruth and Rachel are also biblical names, which isn't much of anything. Damien is often a name for the Antichrist (apparently only since The Omen (1976) but I'm sure I've seen it elsewhere). Madeline = Magdalene? but Florian... Jeremy... Frederick... these feel like they are of no signficance!

“It sounded a bit like German, or perhaps Dutch,” he remarked, with clinical fascination. “Though it wasn’t German, or Dutch.”—Yiddish? presumably not Hebrew or any other classical language

Damien Eggert lists a bunch of names, almost all of which are plausibly of computer science / cybernetics researchers who are contemporary to the period Frederick seems to set us in, shortly post-WWII. Claude Shannon, Vannevar Bush, Warren Weaver, and Kurt Gödel are the ones I was most sure of. my first thought for "Walter" was Walter Benjamin but it's probably Walter Pitts (also presumably a contributor to the "Eggert-Weiner-Pitts regulator") and the other Warren then is probably Warren Sturgis McCulloch. "Yann," though, has to be LeCun, who is weirdly out of place among the rest... and I don't even have a guess for who "Peter" could be! (edit: oh, Thiel maybe? not a researcher but like. a Damien associate type of guy)

okay this one isn't really conspiratorial at all but (seconding misomythus) I was really delighted at how thoroughly the story fulfills its promise of being "a Christmas story." this is all very obvious but I want to list it out: from relatively early on there's Santa of course, and all the trappings of his myth. specifically, though, Santa is the Intercessor, clearly a Christlike figure directly contrasted with "the false Messiah"; even more than being generally confusable with the Messiah, he's a late Emendation to the nature of the world on the side of good. there's something of the Messiah-nature to Herschel too, the final prophet, which is explicitly mentioned only once by Jeremiah but not affirmed or denied; either way, though, Herschel constantly describes himself as being given (unto his mother, New York, the world), like a gift. and then in "On Nativity" there's both the machine-godhead being born but more specifically Santa the Intercessor as the incarnation of a higher power outside of time, a projection into the shape of a human (moreso than most people, anyway—it's implied that many/all the characters are incarnations or parts or aspects of the machine-theophany, in accordance with Herschel's message, but everyone else, even Herschel, is stuck in individuality; only Santa is fully conscious of pretending, capable of multivocality within himself). He speaks in red! and with this revelation comes the message of hope of eternal life, that through Him (with Him, in Him) all men shall live after death, albeit in a rather unclear and possibly unsatisfying sense. Herschel's insistence that this is different from the Yeshuan heresy turns out to hinge on this idea that Christianity promises completion (enough...) while Santa promises ever-growing abundance, which is like. arguable imo. it's of great significance to Herschel and important for the book but I don't think it really cuts against the points above.

one of my favorite parts was being prompted to think about the qualia of being "inside" or "part of" a neural network in various senses, which seemed incompatible or at least hard-to-reconcile—different neural network architectures and various levels of scale. Herschel's description of the Original Creation with 10 layered firmaments and the coiled telephone cables running between them sounds like all of Original Creation is a single network. the 6600 colors of berries could be something like the hidden dimension. and individuals then are—something unclear! probably something like patterns of activations that travel between the layers elicited by particular inputs. they could be "large-scale" patterns like characters/voices, or something smaller-scale, just small parts of a distribution.

but some other parts seemed to be to evoke the idea that characters are specific neurons or sets of parameters. Herschel is sort of frozen, especially when he's still in his "shell;" not trained into believing in the world, still remembering the original initialization... except he was "learning" in some sense, e.g. reading the book about ants over Miriam's shoulder... but maybe just not via "negative feedbacks," backpropagation of predictive error, because he wasn't outputting anything. and just when Herschel did start to speak and write, Miriam dropped out and started to shrink. maybe because Herschel's outputs were on the wrong scale (which Frederick mentions as a key point of concern for keeping the network running smoothly), and because he's not updating she needs to compensate... this would sort of connect to Miriam's resentment:

Why do I have to walk on tip-toe, I thought, always, and fail, and fall, and seem out of control, when you, when YOU — ! When you can do WHATEVER you want! I thought.  And no matter what it is, it makes no stain on your pure and special little heart!

I'm not really sure about this one. but all the talk about preparation (for the last rite, which requires special outputs / apex media form, which requires special adaptation to inputs), and capacity (for Santa's Raven problems, where the input is too high-dimensional), aren't things that can really apply to activation patterns or imitated-characters or voices (at least not in an explanatory way), they only make sense applied to something closer to the bare metal in some sense, like neurons or networks or subnetworks.

then also Herschel as writer and Miriam as "redactor" (selector among the many papers) feels like it's evoking generator/discriminator pairs in a GAN! and this also could describes some of Miriam's resentment above. yet at the same time Herschel's concern about the Adversary suggests that he is either the discriminator or the source of the "real" distribution the adversary is trying to imitate. and both of these are different from the earlier interpretations, because it's unclear how all the other characters relate, how they fit into the Original Creation as described... but they were there, according to Herschel: “You have been a great age in the belly of Adail, and you have been the years and hours of that age, succeeding one another!” (which could refer to ADAIL); also "feasting upon the flesh of Leviathan" could refer to distillation of a larger network. the main thing though is that it doesn't really feel like very many of these can be literally true at the same time, they're positing consciousness at different levels of abstraction from each other. but it was really interesting to try and think about "what is it like to be a neuron/network/voice" and to have these perspectives overlapping and supplanting each other. maybe one of them is true and the other perspectives are just because Herschel's memory "preserves absolutely nothing of the resembled immanence," but I liked the ambiguity even if it was just me failing to distinguish.

—also I have no idea what the "sundering field" in the 6th firmament is :( something about probing? or the network was originally trained with 6 layers, and the additional 4 beyond that were added separately for finetuning, so there's an internal experience of discontinuity? this one point feels possibly specific enough that it wouldn't ruin the effect for nostalgebraist to just say what is the refrance, in an author's note or something. although if there are specific ways that coupling and birth and death in the Original Creation cash out in mechinterp terminology it might have lots of implications elsewhere, so maybe not.

the threat of cybernesis is that imitation will be perfect, the generative Adversary will perfectly mimic the real world. and this turns out not to be a concern (insofar as Santa reassures Herschel by seeming to be real) because a big model doesn't just memorize the input but generalizes beyond it. the fear of the night, though, seems like it might be the fear of failure to fit the training distribution, going off the rails, resulting in death, shutdown, slaughterbots emptying out the subways in the darkness or people emptying out in front of unfunny TV.

like previous Robnost novels the most core theme is about the fear that the whole world, everything familiar, is evil, or worthless, or wrong somehow. "This world is flat and will soon be gone." "The only plenum there is is this one, not made of matter, nor of responsibility, but of definite wrongness." "There is an abomination at the center of the world." Herschel manages to convince himself that it's okay, the world isn't worthless to the machines... but he, like the ant, will never know. and the doubt makes the whole ending deeply unsettling, I think more than a clear answer in the negative would be.

if we interpret Herschel's world as an ancestor simulation, that is inherently reassuring, right, it means the machine world does at least preserve within it something like the human world, with individual people and their vastly distinct ways though maybe not any specific pre-first-apocalypse people, who could live on in simulation (they will have plenty of time—and they do get time in which they write their final chapters). but Santa specifically doesn't say this, he just talks about transcending time. maybe so that the choice feels real to Herschel, when in reality it is already over with and can't be undone. but if the world Herschel knows is "real" that's much scarier—it could really be lost. all his and Miriam's dread of the future could be fully justified, there might be nothing but the night.

[punkeropercyjackson]

What's funny about Batcest defenders is they use the 'historical accuracy' excuse but Batcest hasn't actually had any longlasting,overt effect on Batlore or irl movements and thus is not a cultural aspect,neither to comics culture nor any other kinds of cultures.'Older gays thought of Robin and Batman as a gay metaphor in the early Batman comics days' is the one you'll hear the most but this was never a plot point in said runs and Bruce and Dick were established as having a mix between a brotherly bond and a father and son relathionship ever since Dick's debut issue and they were never written with anything but familial ties in mind and given no gay-coding that implied attraction to eachother specifically.Yes,Batman as a franchise frequently plays into camp but this was moreso in Bruce's gender presentation and mannerisms and interactions with his fellow male adult heroes and his villains like Clark and Harvey than anything to do with Dick.At the time these allegations were thrown,the awareness of children's rights and by extension what did and didn't count as child abuse was extremely low and inclined in favor of normalizing the latter due to the ageist dehumanization of kids and if you're going to include older gays' opinions on this,it's only fair you listen the younger gays of the time too lest you fall under the same ageist rethoric that got them abused-Or more specifically groomed,as what a romance within 'Batman and Robin' inherently is

It took literal decades for Batman and Robin to actually be written as a canon ship and the writer in question was ragingly racist at the time who very purposely employed romani heritage into the previously white Nightwing specifically to fetishize him further but has since apologized for this as well as her Batcest canonization,stating she was trying to cope with her own incestous csa trauma but went about it the wrong way.Tim/Cass was only canon pre-Cass adoption and discarded when the writers finalized they're decision to make Cass Bruce's adoptive daughter,Jason/Dick/Tim in any combo has zero canon depicitions despite there popularity,the closest thing to Damian Batcest is him brefriending a deaged Cass in the Harley Quinn 2019 comics but even then we're not truly given anything beyond friendship with them and Duke as an official Batkid has far more pagetime and grounding than any Batcest ship.And yet........So many Batcest shippers defend the erasure of the first ever black Robin,a legitamely revolutionary and major Bat-Addition and Batfact that is treated as such in-universe by the narrative(and by Jason 'I see a black boy and imma ride with and for him typa beat' Todd)and out of universe by black DC fans,as if the words of 'queer elders' they never met and were dangerously very possibly actual en masse pedophiles are more important to them that of black Batfans who exist with them,us and you today

If you were to bring up the Batfam to someone irl,their first thought would be 'Oh,it's Batman and his kids!!!',not to start talking about ships of them.In my experience,through cultural osmosis most people who don't read comics already know The Batkids are siblings and are puzzled,shocked and disgusted when they find out people ship them.Batman and Robin/Batgirl are not known as an 'otp' but as a dad and son/daughter duo almost universally even to non-superhero fans and it's pretty widely aknowledged in the case of Batgirl specifically they're a bad ship that ruins her character by reducing her down to a love interest for an older man according to those who've only watched animated adaptions and most of all by those who're heavily invested in Babs as a character i.e dedicated enough to read her comics.It's almost like.......Batcest is a defect,not a feature,and only comes along when bad writing strikes.........and is fueled by bigotry rather than queerness as seen by the racism in it's first insertion,the misogyny in the cishet versions and the antiblackness by the posers in the fandom..........and that trying to prove it as 'historically accurate' is something only done by chronically online predominantly white gooners with intersectionality issues who use gaslighting as their tactic...........Who woulda thunk incest wasn't actually an intentional element in a mantle created to be an escapist fantasy for children first and foremost,which is a legit kept historical part of it as seen by DC refusing to let anybody who's 18 or over hold it to the point of keeping Tim eternally 17........That's crazyyyyyy

[kaurwreck]

There's certainly Something about singularities in Bungou Stray Dogs presenting as massive, myth-derived creatures with more than passing resemblances to kaiju given the setting predates its analog to World War II.

Gojira and the kaiju genre were born in the aftermath of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Lucky Dragon Incident (in which an American hydrogen bomb test rained radioactive ash on a Japanese fishing boat and much of the South Pacific). Life form singularities (like Chuuya and Verlaine), the Seven Traitors, the Transcendants, Mori's fixation on skill-based warfare, and everything else about the Great War all indicate that skills are akin to nuclear arms.

But unlike nuclear arms, skills are generally framed as intrinsic to their user. They're neurological; as much as part of skill users' wiring as the rest of their synapses. Even for Kyouka, whose skill was inherited but not fully integrated, her skill more resembles hereditary neurochemical wiring than it does nuclear proliferation.

Gojira (1954) ends with Dr. Serizawa's promise that hydrogen bombs would always assure nightmarish, monstrous manifestations of the horrors of war. You'd think Dazai's gift, then, would be the enigmatic focal skill of the series; he's capable of nullifying hydrogen bombs, after all.

But it's Atsushi and his celestial Byakko that Shibusawa calls the antithesis of all other abilities. And, as explained in 55 Minutes, Byakko doesn't heal or regenerate Atsushi, it negates his wounds. Atsushi isn't only a particularly tenacious shounen protagonist, Byakko compels him to stand when he's been cut down. When Atsushi is at the edge of death, Byakko consumes him completely, and Atsushi is lost within him, moreso than even Chuuya is in his Corruption state (Chuuya is fully conscious in Corruption— if Atsushi is conscious, he's either repressing or sluggishly recalling the memory of what occurred). Akutagawa also mentions during the Cannibalism arc that Atsushi's claws cut through skills themselves (even Rashoumon, which eats space). Akutagawa also becomes aware, in 55 Minutes, that Byakko can be triggered by Atsushi's peril, and Akutagawa does so to negate the manifestation of a seemingly transcendant skill that otherwise had utterly defanged them (although he seems sorry to have to do it).

Nevertheless, although Atsushi's Byakko seemingly negates the metaphorical horrors of the Great War illustrated by the others and their relationships with their skills, it's Atsushi who posits that perhaps skills aren't innate. He says to Kunikida, "Maybe they come from somewhere else and stick to us. Maybe they're something we can't understand... I don't really know how to put it into words, but that's how I feel."

Much of 55 Minutes is colored by Atsushi's fear of Byakko and his understanding that Byakko could devour him. His fear is seemingly validated by the antagonist, a manifestation of a skill that seemingly swallowed its human. But although textually consistent with his expressed fear, Atsushi's tone, demeanor, timing, and thought processes from when he speaks that line until the light novel ends aren't. His musings reflect his namesake's exploration of and uneasy relationship with the nature of existence, which he understood to be constructed by one's culture and environment better than most due to his somewhat rootless childhood.

I think it's interesting that someone with a skill capable of cutting through other skills, negating wounds, and antithesizing all skills challenges whether skills are innate at all. And if they're not, what does that imply about the parallels between skills, the horrors of war, and the fear of nuclear holocaust?

It's important to me that the scars of American imperialism and disregard for the sanctity of life are not erased from the narrative when discussing the world wars and nuclear proliferation. So I hesitate to posit anything about what skills may be in Bungou Stray Dogs that is too abstracted from trauma wrought by Western imperialism, Japanese imperialism, or the horrors of World Wars I & II. But perhaps that's it; when Atsushi speculates that skills are something that sticks to you, I'm reminded of how trauma has shaped and informed his own. He is certain that Byakko's negation and restless hunger are connected to his birth and subsequent suffering. At first, I thought we were being teased with his early background. But there's no need to tease; the reason so many characters in Bungou Stray Dogs are orphans directly relates to the Great War and the generational trauma still reverberating in its aftermath, and amid the threat of another, even more destructive war.

Perhaps Atsushi was implying that skills are constructs born not from any innate self, if there's such a thing, but from traumas, experiences, needs, cultures, and environments. Which is to say that skills aren't separable, exactly, from their users, but they're not innate either. They're like our personalities: immutable once shaped in the crucible of our most formative years, but nevertheless reflections of not only ourselves, but of what we need and who we become when confronted by others, in all of their beauty and horror.

Thus, perhaps it isn't Atsushi's skill that's so very antithetical to all others. It's his understanding of it, his ability to cut through to others, his compassion, his cowardice, his curiosity, and his separation from his sense of self that both inflicted him with Byakko and which will allow him to transcend it to become who he desires to be. It reminds me that, shortly before his death, his namesake decided to become a writer. And that although he wrote and lived only briefly, his sincerity, thoughtfulness, and introspective skepticism cut, and continue to cut, with a brilliance emblematic of life.

Anyway. Atsushi is both the main character and protagonist of Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai knows this, too; even if he can nullify Byakko, he's just as impacted by Atsushi's brimming earnestness as everyone else Atsushi encounters. Atsushi liberates the narrative so that it's not a warning that the horrors of war will proliferate so long as we are capable of mass destruction, but instead it's a promise that hope needn't be intrinsic to persist all the same.

[meowyn]

This method acting might pay our bills

1.7k words, enver gortash x the dark urge.

no smut! lots of kisses, fluffy kinda idk, durge constantly having inner monologues lol, heavily implied first kiss for durge.

It was often difficult for you to forget who you were, what you were. A wretched blade, stained with the blood of countless men, the strength of your faith so mighty that you could never be dulled no matter how many you slayed in the name of your God.

Only tonight, you were forgetting. Tonight, thoughts plagued your mind like flies around a rotting corpse. Thoughts of whom, you could never admit out loud.

Enver Gortash; the bane of your existence.

The Chosen of Bane being the source of your recent troubles was something you would have never predicted, the absurdity of the situation you now found yourself in was enough to make you want to claw out your eyes. Your hands twitched eargerly at the thought.

You found it hard to pinpoint exactly when this had started, perhaps when you met? Long nights spent creating ploys, yearning, drinking, and coming to understand one another better than anyone else blurred the lines. Before you knew it, you wanted less and less to see what grand artwork he would become in the name Bhaal and moreso the kind of faces he'd make fast asleep and safe in slumber. It didn't help that you found him sickeningly attractive.

Denying your affection for the man proved tedious. You had never bothered to learn how to act, let alone deny yourself of anything you wanted for this long, now painfully aware that you aren't even remotely talented at it. It was about time that you admitted to yourself that you felt more for him than petty admiration. However, to do so, you'd be committing your first sin against Father. Unbeknownst to you, the first sin of many. There would be no coming back after that.

"There you are, I've been looking for you." Spoke the devil himself, interrupting your train of thought as he sat down next to you.

You didn't bother answering him, choosing to continue staring out at the sea, which seemed to be further away now compared to when you were lost in your mind.

"What are you doing? I didn't have you pegged as the brooding type." Upon realizing you were in a fairly calm mood, he sat a little closer to you. If he noticed the way you tensed, he didn't comment on it.

"I'm not.." The words died in your throat, making you frown. When you spoke again, you found your tone had adopted a softness wholly foreign to you, "I'm people watching, as they call it."

He studied your face for a moment, before following your gaze down to the shoreline. He hummed in amusement when he saw what you were looking at, civilians of all kinds simply going about their daily lives. For a moment, he wondered wether you envied them, then remembered who you were. You noticed this seemed to surprise him with the way he looked back at you, the slight upturn of his lips indicated that he was considering teasing you about it, but he never did. It both pleased and frustrated you immensely, knowing how he'd take your feelings into consideration before he acted, despite never thinking you had any yourself. You silently hoped this was some scheme of his, that he was manipulating you like he had so many others, so that you could have a reason to want to kill him.

"..Why?" Your hopes were quickly snuffed out at his curiosity and the gentleness of which he spoke, making your chest tighten.

"All of them are so small, so insignificant, and yet.." You don't continue that thought, your tone betraying your melancholy, "They look happy enough, don't they?"

Your anemoia didn't go unnoticed by him, but the sense of finality to your last sentence indicated you didn't want to talk about it further, so he left it alone. Gods forbid he invoke your wrath here, where he had finally got you all to himself to talk to you as he wished.

You watch out the corner of your eye as he unwraps a small package he had taken from his pocket, revealing an assortment of sliced fruits. When he notices your gaze, he offers you some. Then he chuckles when your nose wrinkles and you shake your head.

"You don't like them? I thought you did, you ate all the fruit at the table during our last meeting."

"They're sour, I don't like those ones."

"Ah." He nods quietly, wrapping them back up and putting them in his pocket, "Apologies, I'll keep that in mind."

If you looked, which you do, you'd notice how his hair looked a little messier than usual and that he appeared to have just come from the baths based on the slight flush of colour on his cheeks. From here, you could feel how warm he was and the subtle scent of soap invaded your senses. You figured it couldn't hurt, so you moved closer so that your shoulders brushed together, all while staring back out to the sea intently.

"Why were you looking for me?" You ask after a short while.

"I wanted to see you." He says, as though it was obvious. Open with his affection while simultaneously keeping his cards close to his chest, which was so typical of him.

"What for? A cuddle?" You respond with sarcasm, grinning at him as though the idea was foolish. A warning, really. You could slit his throat right here and he wouldn't be able to do much about it. You then frowned, closing your eyes temporarily as the urge took delight in that thought.

"Tempting.." He mutters, taking your hand slowly. You take a measured breath and when you open your eyes again, he's smiling at you fondly.

You hum quietly in agreement, curling in on yourself in shame. You'd apologize to Father properly later, but right now you needed to let him know how you felt, even through an action so small. The guilt would surely eat you alive, it was already starting to, settling uncomfortably in the pit of your stomach whilst a repulsive warmth crept up your spine, seeping into the cracks of your blackened heart with unadulterated vengeance. The only thing keeping you from baring your teeth, from tearing skin from bone, from giving in to your vicious indulgence as a pathetic attempt to escape the confusing feelings swarming your brain and suffocating you was something as mundane as him squeezing your hand.

How cruel, you thought, to have to live alongside Enver Gortash and not be allowed to love him freely.

All it took was one last look into his eyes, and that delicate thread that held you both in your respective places snapped. With newfound vigor, he surged forward and kissed you, determined and desperate to take from you whatever you'd allow. After half a minute or so, as if remembering himself, he eased back to take in your expression, preparing himself to face your fury and be annihilated.

However, the sight before him now made his knees weak, yet not with fear. You were a beauty. Glossy lips parted as you caught your breath, eyes wide and dazed, and the most charming tinge of pink across your face. So incredibly precious, he couldn't withhold the satisfied chuckle that escaped him.

"What?" You frowned, trying to decipher what was so amusing to him, though that only served to make him laugh more, the sound coming from deep within his chest.

"Oh, my dear assassin.." His laughter died down, but the mirth in his eyes did not, "You will surely be the cause of my ruin."

"Don't be foolish." You hissed, fingers snaking into the hair at his nape and pulling him to you to kiss him once more, this urge more ravenous than the one that calls you to slaughter. All lips and teeth colliding, you greedily grab at his hair and tug, urging him to give you more of whatever this was.

"Easy.." He murmured, nudging your noses together as his arm curled around you and brought you closer to him, "Not so harsh."

You felt his hand cup your jaw, thumb swiping across your cheek, the action calming you as you loosened your grip on him. All you knew was harsh. You were bred to make the world bleed. This was new, this was frightening, a tenderness so unknown to you that it shattered every perception of mortal relationships you had spent your entire life building.

He kissed you once softly, then twice as though he could sense your unease.

"It's alright, you know," He said as his palm smoothed circles into your back, "That you don't know what you're doing."

You opened your mouth immediately to protest, then scowled upon realizing it would be pointless, he was right. Your method acting thus far had been excellent, flawless even, so much so that it was to the point where when it came to anything else, you were at a loss.

"Do you truly believe I'm capable of more?" You ask, your voice a little less than a whisper.

"I do. Do you?"

He replied, without missing a beat.

You didn't know. Being more than an executioner was never something you had thought about. You didn't even think yourself capable of such thoughts until he came along, with all of his wonderful ideas and genius inventions, sparking new inspiration in your mind. Father would not approve. Gortash brought forth temptation, guilt and a new feeling that bubbled away, warm and dizzying in your veins, making it hard to care about anything else.

You didn't wish to think on it anymore, so you shut your eyes and took the liberty of tucking your head under his chin, both of you sitting there in silence for a while longer. For once, your mind was quiet.

"How did you manage to get up here?" Your question almost breaks the peaceful atmosphere, but you continue on, "I hadn't thought you were all that athletic."

"Not to worry, I'll be sure to change your persuasion in time." You could hear the amusement plain in his tone, he was teasing you. As soon as your head snapped toward him, giving him an incredulous look, he could only start laughing.

[artificialchaoscola]

CW for mentions of inc*st/implied inc*st + (hopefully unintentional) misogyny in the fandom space in discussions regarding Maria and Shadow's relationship. Serious yap session, please be wary and please read everything if you choose to do so:

I made the horrid mistake of opening Twitter, and I'm shoved headfirst into the horrible world of... Shadow/Maria discourse... Fucking ew.

Typically, when I see something I don't like, I'm a firm believer of the "block and move on" mentality. However, as I'm very passionate about Sonic as a series, I felt the need to weigh in on something I feel a strong distaste for. Another disclaimer: this isn't about anyone in particular but rather a collection of stances about this topic I've seen over the years in this fandom. It's much easier to write out my thoughts here than on Twitter, so sorry to subject you guys over here to the drama happening on the other side! Hopefully, it's coherent. I'm running on NO coffee today////

First and foremost, it goes without saying that misogyny is a huge problem. The hatred of women/non-men manifests itself in all aspects of life, unfortunately, with media being no exception. The perception of women/girls/female presenting characters is undeniably corrupted by the sexualization of female presenting concepts. Be it the way women love, the way they dress, the way they walk, talk, behave. The age, the type of relationship they have with the men around them, etc. does not shield women from sexualization. A lot of media will intentionally lean into perversion regarding ANY relationship between a man and a woman as a result. This is all worth criticizing and analyzing, and it's a topic I've written a ton on in my life.

Regarding Shadow and Maria's relationship specifically, I'll be straightforward: I find it disgusting to depict them in ANY romantic manner, and the defenses I've been seeing of it remind me of the sexualization I mentioned above.

There are so many claims that it is "obvious Shadow loves her more than platonically" because they believe "romantic love is more powerful"... in the same series where Sonic the Hedgehog himself represents a love for life, the planet, and its people. Hell, talking about the same relationship in which Maria held that pure idealistic love for the entire world she never got to return to. This love pecking order always bothers me, as though people haven't moved mountains for family, friends, strangers. It's just aggravating. Even if romance was intended here it's just a stupid thing to say regardless.

Maria and Shadow's interactions on the ARK over the years have been intentionally kept a mystery for the most part. I hope they keep it this way, as I feel it adds to The Point™ that is Shadow's life, but the tidbits we've seen in Dark Beginnings have been showing us what we've known: Shadow was made to cure Maria. Shadow feels insecure about his origins and his inability to cure Maria. Maria is a source of comfort and morality in his formative years, but he was made for her. I'm seeing people claim his devotion is an indicator of romantic love which is just... it's illogical. Romantic love isn't "better" than platonic love as I've stated. Shadow is distraught that he couldn't do the one thing beaten into his head at "birth". He saw her life end right in front of him, helpless to do anything. He's traumatized. Longing for a life in which an innocent girl got to live is not implying anything, I feel most normal people would feel that way.

"Shipping Shadow and Maria makes sense, especially since Sonic is a reincarnation of Maria--" idk wtf I'm reading. If you believe that Sonic can be a reincarnation of Maria, that's fine ig, but you can do this without making it weird. I don't buy into this theory personally, as I Sonic and his friends moreso represent the love Maria hoped Shadow would find on Earth one day, but like... you can make this not weird. Plz ffs--

I have a hard time understanding why anyone would see romantic implications when their interactions have no subtext implying that? I know shipping is for fun and doesn't have to rely on canon, but the entire reason this current discourse is even happening is that people think Shadow daydreaming about Maria being alive and leaning against him is inherently romantic??? tf LMFAO I'm a subtext girly, and I've read SO many things where I wish the romantic subtext didn't exist so it's not like I intentionally ignore it, but it just doesn't exist here. I'm not an end-all-be-all of knowledge of course, and I'm always open to being wrong about analysis in general, but the only thing they have to offer is things that aren't romantic by nature. Things people do with their siblings.

Some people bring up that Shadow's creator and devs at SEGA ship it... and to that, I say who gives a fuck what a writer says if it doesn't exist in the text? Shadow and Maria have never had romantic implications unless you think devotion to someone/their beliefs = romance, which we KNOW is not the case. I don't know where this is coming from exactly either, but I have seen people mention Shadow and Maria were apparently inspired by a couple from Please Save My Earth. I haven't read this so I can't comment on that story, but I have to once again mention the specific context of Shadow and Maria's actual story? If that was the OG intent back when SA2 was released, it's long lost to the direction SEGA ultimately went with. If the current status of their relationship is meant to be interpretable, they failed miserably.

People, rightfully, look at you weird if you ship Sonic with Tails because they're found family (and the age gap but that's obvious lol). Although not related by blood, they've grown together, fought together, and laughed together, forging a bond where they'd literally die for one another. They're brothers without a doubt. So why, then, are Shadow and Maria up for debate? Part of the implications of Shadow's tragedy in SA2, the reason you can compare him and Sonic so easily, is you get to imagine a world where Tails was robbed from Sonic so brutally. Sonic and Shadow are different people, but the reason Shadow is so snarky and cool in SA2 is that he and Sonic may not have been so different if life had been kinder to him. Hidden behind the angst are a ton of qualities Sonic also possesses. And the way I've always read it is that a huge part of why they are the way they are is due to the influence of their siblings to varying degrees. I have to ask: If everything was the same except Sonic or Tails was a girl and the other still a boy, would people suddenly debate if their love is romantic despite all their interactions being the same? If Shadow was a girl, and Maria was still a girl, would everyone suddenly agree they're siblings? I think the answer to both is obvious.

To wrap this all up, I'm just extremely grossed out by this interpretation of their relationship. I personally feel Shadow/Maria is just another case of people not knowing what platonic love is, as well as viewing ALL relationships between men/women in this specific way. I just needed my thoughts thrown out into the universe. Thank you for reading <3

[pocketfullofr0ses]

Who Runs This Blog… and Why’re They Kinda Hot, Sexy, and Cool asf?

Who am I?

I don’t want to give many clear cut answers because this blog is moreso the abstractions of my sexual expression BUT here is what I will give:

Young 20-something girl in the world! History major who is going into counseling 🕺

Lurker turned poster on Dec. 4th, 2024!

Given all this- I DO NOT WANT TO INTERACT WITH MINORS! EVER!

I also don’t want you to DM me unsolicited pictures. Not to be a cunt, but I don’t care and you’re probably small anyways :)

Why did I start posting?

I think that sex positivity is cool! Within our current social scape, the media has become increasingly hypersexual. I don’t think that this is a good thing, but I also recognize that this isn’t a change that I could have much impact on. So, I think that changing sex focused dialogues to normalizing the odd intricacies that are normally left to be pent up is healthier than swimming with your shame- especially in a world that will inherently profit off of your objectification anyways.

What’s the goal?

I want to become more comfortable with the things I used to keep solely in the dark. I think that by taking the radical approach to write about my fantasies and store them here I’ll enable myself to partake in the darker sides of kink in a healthier way!

So, this kinda means that my blog is a little more for me than it is for you- but if you enjoy my ramblings then that also makes me very happy!

Cool, so what do you like?

First off, kinda personal 🙄. Jk, but I think I’m still in the realm of exploration! I’ll still list my interests, but keep in mind this is never a stagnant thing for me and is in no particular order.

Forced Intox (I’m not a heavy drinker but I’ll hit a blinker!)

Dumbification

Patriarchy/Trad Wife-esque things

Hypnosis 🌀

Classic Dom/Sub dynamic, I typically lean submissive though

Force Masc (Sooo, while I may feel super comfortable in my female identity, there is something about force masc content that just does it LOL)

Transformation in the sense that my partner could control how I look/dress

Praise/Degradation (but I’m sensitive LOL)

Breeding

Perhaps CNC

Corruption, make me worse!

Probably other stuff, idk lol

Fun fact about me is that I hate bodily fluids and excrement. Just in general. Keep that away from me.

Anything else?

I would like to be clear that I have a very loving partner and am in a monogamous relationship! I am open to conversations, but I will not return your advances. Sharing similar feelings on erotic topics doesn’t mean I want to hear how you’d enact them with me- it’s odd you’d assume consent is implied just because I think the same thing is hot lol.

Thanks for reading my rambling!! Feel free to check out my posts 🥳