#just in case the readmore doesn't work for someone

[mochinomnoms]

In regard to interspecies romance

Humans have a fairly easy time pursuing the other species in Twisted Wonderland, though there are exceptions to that rule.

multi (separate) x reader [wc] - 2,252 [note] - one of the first things i ever wrote, though i never posted cause i didnt edit it. thought i would anyways cause its kinda cute. Edited 12/14/23 to add a readmore

Despite their animal like tendencies and courting methods, it's incredibly common to see human-beastmen couples and families. Perhaps it's due to how similar their behaviors are to their animal counterparts, but humans are fond of how beastmen flirt and display affection. Beastmen are offended by the comparison, but it's hard to deny how similar, and cute, they are to the common wolf, hyena, or lion.

Wolf and other canine beastmen enjoy being close to their mates. They like to be physically affectionate, almost playful with their partners. They'll nuzzle into the crook of their neck—no matter how much bigger they are compared to their human—lean against them when they walk, and will happily be by their beloved's sided at all times. Furthermore, they primarily show their effectiveness as partners by being great providers, regardless of gender, and showing off how tight-knit their packs are. After all, family is very important to them, and they'll expect to have one, no matter how big or small, with their partner in the future.

If you catch Ruggie trying to slyly and smoothly place a hand on the small of you back when moving through crowds, no you don't. If a person notices Jack momentarily grabbing (gingerly, mind you) your sides as he slips behind you to reach the potion ingredient on the shelf above you, don't mention how his touch lingers ever so slightly. Maybe take it with a grain of salt when Jack tries to invite you to visit his family over break, as friends, of course. And when Ruggie brags to you about how well he watched over the neighborhood kids growing up, how he'd make for a great family man, it's all hypothetical.

Feline beastmen are more reserved in their affections in public, especially compared to canines, and even more so for lion beastmen. It's more common for them to show affection in more subtle manners, such as buying their partner's food and drinks without being asked, going out of their way to help them when they're struggling at school or work, and are able to spend hours just in their general vicinity. As long as their beloved is around, they're happy. In private, though, expect to have their entire body draped over them, weight and all, shoved into their personal space to the point that it becomes a foreign concept. Leona embodies this to his entire core, too prideful to perform PDA, but just prideful enough that he knows he can take up all your time and space with no consequence. Unless that consequence is your love and affection, which he supposes he could suffer through if you hear him purring, don't point it out.

All lion beastmen hold their pride close to their heart (no matter how much a certain prince would deny it) and their partner is no exception. Their pride is an intrinsically developed social network made of an extended, but closed family network. It requires all new partners to be carefully and slowly introduced to the rest of the pride, more so in Leona's case due to the royal family being traditionally made up of Sunset Savana nobility. You won't be the first non-beastmen, but are the first foreigner in a very long time to be introduced. Don't worry, though, Leona is nothing if not patient, and his family are just happy to know that he's found someone.

On the other end of the spectrum, however, are human-fae relations. Uncommon, though not for a lack of trying on humans' parts, due to most of the fairfolk residing in the isolated Briar Valley. The complicated history between the two species, ancient to humans but still relatively fresh for fae, doesn't help either. There's also the unfortunate consequence of humankind's rather short lifespans compared to the average 1,000-year lifespan of the fae. Unless the fae is in their final hundred or so years, they'll almost always outlive their partner without magical interference.

It's not impossible though, and as younger fairfolk leave the valley to explore the world, more marriages have resulted in half-fae children, both human and beastmen. As partners, fae are devoted to the health and safety of their loved ones. Increasing tenfold into nearly coddling territory with non-fae. Compared to them, their humans and beastmen are awfully fragile and naive, and require their protection. This can cause animosity between them, however, and only fae that are willing to learn and change their old ways result in happy, long-lived marriages.

They're also generally known to have lengthy courting methods: not dating, that implies something casual, no they court. Once they've established interest in you, their end goal is marriage, no ifs, ands, or buts. Fairfolk are generous with gifting during courtship: all gifts are about an equal-exchange and your acceptance of their gifts is a reciprocation of their feelings. At the end of the courtship, you can expect a small feast to be displayed at a ceremony held between their and your family. This is an especially important ceremony when courting humans and beastmen: fairy food can often cause lasting damages to those that consume it without permission. By offering their food to you and your kin, they are welcoming you into their world and telling you that they will never intentionally bestow harm to you or your kin. If you choose to accept the food, then you agree to do the same til the end of your days.

Lilia is a strange case, having already lived a long life and being well traveled, a gleeful participant in the strange customs and traditions of humans and beastmen. He'd much rather participate in other's dating and courtship rituals than his own people's. It's fascinating how fleeting the process can be, yet it can result in everlasting devotion. Don't mistake his flexible nature for disinterest, however. He's still a fae, and if you start finding silly little knickknacks of his on their desk, you can expect to never be rid of him.

The Draconia family-line is steadfast in their traditions, even if Lilia raised the latest prince. So don't expect anything other than the previously explained rituals from Malleus, even if you're not aware of them. Taking gems, jewelry, and clothing made of the finest material you'll ever lay hands from his hoard means little to him if it means you'll accept the gift (and him). Even if you aren't aware of how courtship works, the moment you pick up the black ring with the big oval emerald and Briar Valley crest, you're practically engaged in his eyes.

The courtship is long, even for Malleus who was one step away at every turn to skip over the entire thing in favor of just eloping. All for the person who decided that the great and terrifying Malleus Draconia was actually just a simple Mr. Hornton, a friend, companion who just wanted someone to stay by his side. If it means calling you his spouse, his fellow ruler, and the only love of his life even a moment sooner, then he'd be willing to throw tradition and ritual out of the very tall tower window just to do so.

Many years later, when you reminiscing how the two of you first met, and how long it took you to notice his feelings, you'll offhandedly mention the random gifts you found at your doorstep. How you wish you knew who was leaving those precious stones and golden amulets with no indication on who the admirer was. Upon further questioning, you'll tell him that you didn't even know you were being courted until two months into the ritual. It'll then click in Malleus's mind how utterly lucky he was that the two of you even got together in the first place.

It may be surprising, but human-mer relations have been extraordinarily rare. Only a handful of them have popped up since the times of the Sea Princess, who left her home for a human prince. In fact, you could probably count them on one hand! Perhaps this is due to the difficulties of having a romance between land dwellers and undersea folk; after all, it's much easier for humans, fae, and beastmen to interact when they all live on land. Merfolk can come up to the surface, and have been doing moreso in the last century, but having a relationship with someone who quite literally could not breathe in the same air/water as you is near impossible. At least, not without significant effort on one or the other's part.

Nearly all the human-mer romances that have occurred in history resulted in either one or the other abandoning their home to turn into a human/mer and live the rest of their days with their love in their new world. Certainly a romantic notion to be sure, but it most definitely require their love to be truly eternal. Or else you might run the risk of resentment brewing between the two. With a slowly growing need to easy access transformation potions and spells for business and diplomatic reasons, such romance is not far from reach, at least for those with money to spare. The next issue though would be the significant difference between land dweller and undersea folk's courting methods.

Perhaps it can be contributed to the more...feral nature of merfolk. Most of them still retain more animalistic features and behaviors than the average beastman. The twins are no exception to this. Even if you were to remove their claws, mucus covered skin, and 6-ft tail, you're still left with eyes suited for a deep-sea predator, nose that can smell the tiniest drop of blood in a pool, and rows of razor sharp teeth begging to bite down on your neck. The deep-sea is not only cold, but quite ruthless. So, it'll probably come as no surprise that moray eels will prove themselves as suitable partners by fighting either their competitors or you. If they can prove that they can hold their own, protect you from the horrors of the deep, then they have the right to go for your heart. That's not to say softer sentiments don't exist, and while similar the twins are still two separate people with different tastes. These tastes show during courting, though mers have a more casual date-like ritual.

Like fae, merfolk court via gifts, particularly handmade or ones they found themselves, and Floyd is awfully fond if gifting you the strangest things. A tooth that was knocked out from the student who shoved you a little too hard, a rock you tripped over in P.E., or a sand dollar he found on a trip to the beach were a few of the many items he gave you. Jade is similar, though he's more fond of making his own gifts. A necklace made of seashells found at the beach you had your first date in, a terrarium he made from plants that remind him of you, but your favorite was the small garden he started tending to on your kitchen windowsill. Breakfast was particularly delicious when made with his fresh mushrooms. Expect soon after the gifts lots of physical affection, public and private.

Don't be mistaken, they'll still bully you. But each of Floyd's bone-crushing hugs will be accompanied by a soft headbump from his forehead to yours. Jade's teasing, mean remarks will follow with a swift, sweet peck to your knuckles. They'll grab your notebook and hold it above their head until you agree to give them a kiss or punch them in the stomach, both are acceptable responses. Be a little mean back, they like the idea of a sweet and cute little human that can throw a punch. Your their sweet little human, and you make life in the deep exciting. Just don't ask about their flushed face every time they see you yawn, they aren't quite ready to explain that one yet.

Azul intensely studied a variety of topics before coming to land, even briefly glossing over dating, romance, and marriage before deciding he wouldn't need it anytime soon. He regretted that soon after meeting you, though he made do with what he knew. And what he knew as food. A combination of octo-mer courtship and being the son of a cook, Azul will discreetly court you by personally cooking and feeding you your favorite meals. It's the result of the dangers of ancient octo-mers eating their spouses after mating. Afterall you can't eat more if your already full. While not something they have to worry about now, it's an old ritual still used today, Azul has hear the way to a person's heart is their stomach and can wholeheartedly agree.

What's surprised you the most was what followed after, especially for someone as physically reserved as Azul: octo-mers are extremely clingy and affectionate. He doesn't have the heart to do anything more than handholding and chaste kisses to your cheeks in public, but he yearns to wrap all 8 tentacles and two arms around you so tightly that your gasping for a breath that he steals with his lips. He won't mention it, but he can taste the salt from your skin and the pulse from your wrists with his suckers. Take it from someone who grew up with a refined palate, he thinks your taste is equivalent to ambrosia from the gods, though that might be the lovesickness speaking.

i have a hard time writing savanaclaw for some reason, but imma working on it now! also tagging for all the guys is stressful idk what i should enter, like fullname or just first name idk man!! pls reblog and comment! lmk what you time, xoxo

[philomenie]

KILLING ME SOFTLY

Hitman!Jolly - Part 1

CN murder, violence, sex, organized crime, blood, 18+

@jilliemiw86 @nojoyontheburn @reyadawn 😘

ONE

Jolly breathes in and out calmly, his pulse has slowed down, he is highly concentrated.

His left eye is closed and he is looking through the scope of his Barrett M82 with his right.

He has no idea how long he has been lying on this cursed roof, he has completely lost track of time.

Patience and calm are two immensely important things in his job, if you can call what he does a job.

But he doesn't have time to think about that right now, it would only distract him unnecessarily and distraction would be poison, if not his own death, because the person he is supposed to take out is extremely careful and surrounded by dozens of bodyguards.

But not so careful after all, otherwise he wouldn't have angered Kolja, the son of Russian mafia boss Semjon.

Jolly doesn't know what exactly happened, but Kolja was fuming with rage and Semjon has tasked him with getting rid of Kolja's problem.

Once again.

Jolly doesn't think much of Kolja, Semjon's puppy, but he does of Semjon. He'd be crazy if he didn't. Jolly has been around far too long for that.

In the organization, he is only known as the Swede. The man for special tasks.

Semjon has enough men for the rough stuff, Jolly is more responsible for the inconspicuous elimination of unpleasant people and he's good at it. Very good, in fact.

Jolly tenses as the dark limousine he has been waiting for all this time turns the corner.

He closes his eyes briefly and concentrates.

The limousine stops in front of the hotel with the posh restaurant where his assignment is going today.

The doors of the limousine open and a man of about 30 gets out. Broad, handsome, perfectly dressed. He holds out his hand, waiting.... There must have been someone else in the car.

:readmore:

A slender hand appears from inside, then a slender leg tucked into tight black leather pants and black high heels.

A woman gets out who Jolly recognizes immediately. Tatjana. One of Kolja's favorites.

Fuck, that's why you have to lose your life, Jolly thinks to himself, because you're fucking Kolja's playmate. Better you had left your cock in your pants, sighs Jolly mentally.

Tatjana hooks herself up to the man and the four bodyguards shield her and look around.

The moment they climb the steps to the hotel, it happens. Two dull shots, perfectly muffled by the silencer, echo through the air and hit the man's head, who immediately collapses.

Tatjana screams shrilly and is beside herself....

Jolly pays no further attention to the scene below him, routinely and quickly packs up his rifle, stands up and hides the rifle in the transport case under his black coat.

He is dressed completely in black. Coat, trousers, turtleneck sweater, shoes. He calmly puts on his leather gloves and collects the two cartridge cases, puts the boxes back where he was lying and makes his way to the stairwell. He enters late and when he sees no one, he continues on his way. He walks down the stairs without hurrying, putting a black baseball cap on his head and sunglasses on his nose.

His long dark hair is combed back tightly and tied into a knot at the back of his neck so that it doesn't get in the way of his work.

As he steps out onto the street, there is a great deal of hustle and bustle on the opposite side of the road. People are gawping and the first police car is just arriving.

You're quick this time, boys, Jolly thinks to himself and has to smile.

He continues on his way to the parking garage where his car is parked. As he sits in it, he dials Semjon's number, which he has saved under 1.

When the phone is answered, he says just one sentence, "All done!"

"Hmm," hums the other end and Semyon hangs up.

At a red light, he briefly considers where he should go. Back to the organization or back to his apartment here.

The decision is taken from him without further ado when his cell phone rings. He grimaces in disgust. Kolja.

He considers ignoring the call. Kolya has nothing to say to him, as he is not yet a full member of the mafia. But he is Semjon's puppy, his crown prince, his successor, since his two older brothers were killed.

It always happens to the wrong people, Jolly thinks. Kolya's brothers Demyan and Artyom would both have made worthy successors to Semyon. Kolya, on the other hand, is a weakling and that is precisely what makes him unpredictable and dangerous, Jolly knows.

He also knows that if he doesn't answer the phone, Kolya will be annoyed, so Jolly answers with a sigh.

"Well done!" Kolja praises him.

"Hmm" grumbles Jolly in response.

"Come to the club, I've got a reward for you!" grins Kolja.

Jolly sighs, "I actually wanted to go home, I don't feel like partying right now!"

"Don't be a spoilsport, come here!" Kolja urges him.

Jolly rolls his eyes, he knows Kolja's parties and today he just doesn't feel like it.

"You won't regret it!" Kolja tempts him.

"Okay, but let me change first. I'll come later!" Jolly squeezes out.

"Great! I'll wait for you later!" Kolja nods and hangs up.

FUCK!!! Jolly angrily hits the steering wheel, so he can forget the evening.

Jolly parks his car in his parking space in the underground garage and walks to the elevator. The apartment he lives in here belongs to the Russian mafia, just like him.

No one would have guessed that this is the case, because the apartment is in an average high-rise building in an average neighborhood in New York and is therefore inconspicuous, which is exactly what Jolly and his boss want.

The fact that both belongs to Semjon is another story.....

When the elevator stops on his floor, he gets out and walks to his apartment, unlocks the door and is about to go in when the door next to him opens and Olivia, his neighbor, steps out.

Their eyes meet.

Olivia's mouth curls into a small smile, revealing her dimples and making her full red lips appear even fuller. Her dark green eyes shimmer like emeralds.

She has pinned her brown curls up in a casual bun and is wearing blue loose jeans and a short white shirt, with a black leather jacket, boots and her large leather bag over it, as Jolly notes with a quick glance.

This woman is a problem.

"Closing time?" she wants to know from him.

"Hmm," Jolly nods and actually wants to go back to his apartment, but the rest of the words come to his lips as if automatically.

"And you? Start of shift?" he asks.

"Yes, night duty!" sighs Olivia, "Emergency room... I hope it will be quiet!"

"Wish you luck that it is!" he mutters harshly.

"Thank you!" she smiles, gives him a quick wave and heads for the elevator.

Jolly looks after her with a burning stare.

FUCK!!! This woman is definitely a problem for him!

He normally has no contact with his neighbors. The fact that it came to this with Olivia, of all people, was his own stupid mistake.

He should have brushed her off when she knocked on his door to inform him that there had been water damage and the water had been turned off for a few hours.

He should have opened the front door just a crack, not so wide that she could see the blood on his hand, which came from a stab wound he'd just sustained on a job.

But when Olivia saw his bleeding hand and then the stab, the cursed knife went through the back of his hand, it was too late.

Resolutely, she had simply ignored him and given him a choice. Either she takes him to an emergency room or she takes care of the whole thing.

Jolly has to grin at the memory, Olivia hadn't even asked where the stab wound had come from, but had simply grabbed him by the arm and dragged him back to her apartment.

He still has to shake his head at this reckless action. Simply taking a stranger into her apartment just because he was bleeding. He could have been anyone with bad intentions. They didn't even know each other at the time.

But Jolly now knows that's typical of Olivia. She has too big a heart and helps wherever she can.

That's why she became a doctor, to help people.

They couldn't be more different.

Olivia tries to save lives and he takes lives.... A real irony, Jolly snorts and looks again at Olivia, who is just getting into the elevator, then looks at his hand with the scar, which is slowly fading.

He's told her something about a fight, about rioting idiots who wanted to break up the club he happened to be in.

Olivia didn't question it any further. Never asked him what he did for a living.... No, that's not true. She once asked him if he only plays the guitar for his own pleasure or if he does it professionally. But since he answered evasively, she didn't ask any more questions.

Jolly slams the front door behind him and puts his rifle against the wall to get rid of his coat and baseball cap. As he walks, he loosens his hair, massages his scalp lightly and takes off his turtleneck sweater.

Sighing, he stands in his bedroom. God knows what he would do just to be able to have some peace and quiet now, cook himself something, read something, play the guitar. NO, he has to go to fucking Kolja in his fucking club.

Annoyed, he gets rid of the rest of his clothes and goes into the bathroom, gets into the shower and lets the hot water rush over his body. Moaning pleasantly, he slowly relaxes.

His muscular body is covered in tattoos and scars. Jolly can still remember the cause of each one. Especially the one on his back.....

Shaking his head, he dispels the thought, turns off the water and dries himself off.

Naked, he walks back to his bedroom and grabs some fresh clothes from his wardrobe.

He chooses a black tank top, black suit trousers and a black shirt.

Once he is dressed, he puts on his silver chain with the dagger, a memento of his father, and fastens the earring with the hanging cross to his ear.

Jolly looks discontentedly in the mirror, that should work, he thinks to himself and finally puts his top hair in a bun so that it doesn't fall into his face.

He doesn't want to be irritated by anything when he's with Kolja. Kolja is not only a weakling, but also a sneaky snake.

Before he leaves, he stows his rifle in the secret compartment in his cupboard. He looks around. Nothing in his apartment indicates that he works as a contract killer for the Russian mafia, and he wants to keep it that way.

Arriving at the club, Jolly parks in the private parking lot for special guests and mafia members... Next to Kolja's car, a souped-up Mercedes AMG GT, is the car of Artur, Kolja's right-hand man and man for the rough stuff and just as much of an idiot as Kolja himself, in Jolly's opinion. The other cars belong to Kolja's personal entourage.

Wonderful, he thinks sarcastically, the evening can only be a success!

As he walks towards the entrance, he is greeted by the two bouncers and waved in.

There's not much going on inside the club yet, which is no wonder as it's only 9 pm and it doesn't officially open until 11 pm.

One of the bartenders nods to Jolly and points upstairs. Kolja and his entourage are on the second floor, in the VIP area. As usual.

Jolly takes two steps at once and can hear the increasingly loud voices of men and women, their laughter and shrieks.

Fantastic, most of them are drunk or high on drugs.

When Jolly comes into Kolja's field of vision, he falls silent. Then he raises his hands, stands up and walks towards him.

"JOLLY!" he shouts and takes Jolly in his arms, "The Swede has proved once again that you can rely on him!"

Jolly has to suppress the inner urge not to push Kolja away, instead he nods, "Wasn't really a problem for me!"

"Ohhh, he's modest too!" roars Kolja and puts an arm around Jolly's shoulder, which looks a bit strange as Kolja is about half a head shorter than Jolly. Kolja resembles his mother, is just as straw-blond as she is and has water-blue eyes

The others join in his laughter.

"Why exactly am I here?" Jolly wants to know, hoping that this will pass quickly and he can disappear again.

"You've earned a reward. That asshole was a wanker! Made eyes at Tatjana...." explains Kolja with a grin, "Celebrate with us, Swede, you won't regret it!"

FUCK, that's exactly what Jolly was afraid of. But what else can he do?

So he sits down out of necessity.

"What do you want to drink?" Kolja wants to know.

"Beer's fine!" Jolly nods, which makes the others laugh again.

"Beer for the man then!" explains Kolja and waves one of the girls in charge of the drinks over.

Jolly leans back, takes a sip from his bottle and watches everything out of the corner of his eye.

Kolja's bodyguards are standing by in the background, as always. Semjon doesn't let his puppy leave his fortress for a second without adequate protection. He has made this mistake twice and paid for it with the death of his older sons. There is probably no better guarded person in all of New York than Kolja, the crown prince of the Russian mafia, successor to Semjon Dimitrovich Volkov.

Sighing, he takes another sip as a hand rests on his thigh and squeezes.

"Nadja!" he grumbles.

"Swede... or should I say Joakim? Jolly?" smiles a dark female voice.

Jolly looks at her, "You know it!" he growls, tired of the games.

"Hmmm, Jolly....." she lets his name slip across her lips, "You never told me why you have that nickname...."

Jolly shrugs his shoulder, "Why too...." he blocks.

The dark blonde woman scoots closer to him, rests her elbow on the back of the couch and puts one leg over his thigh.

"Nadja...." sighs Jolly, "I'm too tired for your games today!"

"What games?" she whispers, stroking his cheek.

Jolly holds her wrist tightly, "This one!" he growls dangerously.

"This isn't a game!" she breathes, kissing his lips, "I'm part of your reward!"

Joakim raises an eyebrow. Looks at Kolja, who grins at him.

FUCK, that too.... Not that he doesn't like Nadja, he and she have already gotten to know each other's bodies more than extensively, but right now at the behest of Kolja, so to speak, BEFORE his entourage, no thanks!!!

Before Jolly can get up, Nadja puts her hand on his crotch and holds him down.

"FUCK, Nadja, cut the crap!" he gasps, startled, and is about to pull her hand away when Hanna, a new girl that Kolja has taken a liking to, joins them and straddles Jolly's thighs.

She opens her eyes lasciviously, "Let's have some fun together!"

Jolly presses his jaws together. The offer is tempting, he has to admit, but he's certainly not going to be paraded in front of all these people.

So he takes another deep swig from his beer bottle before replying, "You two, then?"

Nadja strokes his cheek, "Are you unhappy?" she teases him.

Jolly shakes his head, "No.... But I don't like being put on show!" he growls softly, "I'm certainly not putting on a show for Kolja and his mob!" and looks Nadja sharply in her dark blue eyes.

Nadja's lips curl up, a pearly laugh comes out of her mouth, "I knew it!" she giggles, then turns to Kolja triumphantly, "I was right, you lost!"

Kolja shrugs his shoulders, "Even I can be wrong!" then looks at Hanna, "Come here, Milyy (darling), our Swede is a man of principle!" which makes the others laugh again.

"You'd better have some too!" he growls quietly, so that only Nadja can hear, who then punches him in the side.

"Quiet!" she hisses, "Or do you want to upset him? Lose your life?"

Jolly's eyes flash as he looks at her, but then he just shakes his head, "Not today, anyway!" he mutters.

"You're really weird sometimes... you know that?" Nadja shakes her head.

"Could be...." Jolly replies, stretching and finishes his beer, putting the bottle down on the floor.

When he looks up again, Artur is standing in front of him holding out a small suitcase, "For you!" he growls. Artur can't stand Jolly any more than Jolly can stand Artur, which is because Jolly has clearly shown the braggart WHO is the better shot by shooting half his ear off in a duel forced on him by Kolja.

Jolly looks at him, then looks at his ear, raises an eyebrow and takes the case from his hand.

"SUKIN SYN (son of a bitch)!!!" spits Artur in front of him, but is immediately whistled back by Kolja, "Artur.... Shut up!"

Artur turns away angrily and sits back down in his seat. The beefy, black-haired man looks at Jolly with narrowed eyes.

"Open up!" Kolja demands of Jolly.

Jolly opens the small suitcase and is astonished. In front of him is a brand new Heckler & Koch handgun in black. Jolly reverently takes it out of the padding, examines it and picks it up.

It is heavy, has a good weight to it and immediately feels familiar.

"A custom-made gun, just for you! It's supposed to be the best pistol at the moment," Kolja smiles patronizingly, "You've earned it, my friend!"

Jolly looks at the gun again and sees that it has a J engraved on it. Not big, just barely recognizable.

"So, what do you think?" Kolja wants to know.

Jolly nods his head, "Thank you!" he then presses out, "A really nice weapon!"

Kolja bursts out laughing, "You're really amusing, Swede!" he gasps, "Put it away, drink with us!"

Jolly puts the gun away and is handed another beer by one of the girls.

Nadja leans over to him, "Don't mess with him!" she warns him.

Jolly looks at her, then nods, "I'm not completely tired of life!"

"Hmmm, maybe we should do something about that?!" she whispers in his ear and bites his earlobe.

The sharp pain makes Jolly flinch and grab Nadja by her upper arms, "Careful!" he growls.

He knows that he is playing a dangerous game with Nadja, as she is the daughter of Semjon's right-hand man Oleg and also Semjon's goddaughter.

But Nadja sets her own rules and Jolly is still highly favored by Semjon and is sometimes regarded and referred to as his foster son. So what goes on between the two is tolerated. However, neither of them can allow it to go any further, which is more than all right with Jolly.

A woman simply has no place in his life, even if he sometimes secretly wishes she did.... To get out and live a peaceful life with his wife and possibly children after all the violence and killing.

Jolly is aware that this will remain a pipe dream. NOBODY gets out of the Russian mafia and returns to a normal life, and he certainly doesn't.

"Hmm, maybe we should find a quiet corner here!" Nadja breathes into his ear and runs her hands over his chest, running her thumbnail over his nipples, which makes him gasp.

"Everyone's watching us!" Jolly grumbles.

Nadja turns to the others, then looks back at Jolly, "So what?" she giggles, "They ALL know we're fucking anyway! Don't you like an audience?"

"Nadja....." sighs Jolly, "Not today...... We should stop this!"

Nadja rolls her eyes and sits down next to Jolly, reaching for her champagne glass and downing the contents down her throat, watching him through narrowed eyes.

"You're a spoilsport!" she grumbles and gets up and sits down with the other girls.

Jolly would like to leave now, but he can't without offending Kolja, so he stays and waves to the girl to bring him another beer.

The evening progresses and the club fills up. Loud beats blast through the speakers and the air is thick with cigarette smoke, perfume and sweat.

Nadja and her friends dance to the music in front of him and the other men. Meanwhile, Kolja and Hanna have disappeared into Kolja's private rooms.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jolly sees Artur still looking at him grimly.

Asshole, Jolly thinks to himself and finishes his beer, gets up because he wants to go to the toilet.

Just as he is washing his hands, the door opens and Nadja stands behind him, locking the door.

Jolly turns to her with his eyebrows furrowed, but before he can say anything, Nadja is with him, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him greedily, forcing her tongue between his lips. Jolly's mouth opens willingly and he runs his large, tattooed hands over her body, then pushes the silky material of the hint of nothing she's wearing tonight up over her hips.

Nadja arches hungrily towards him.

His hands grip her bottom, pushing her even closer to him.

Nadja pulls his shirt off his shoulders and lets it fall to the floor.

Her hands roam over his muscular arms, his strong hands. Jolly's fingers close around hers, pushing her arms back and he greedily kisses her neck, the sensitive crook of her neck.

Nadja moans excitedly, presses herself harder against Jolly and can clearly feel his excitement in his pants.

Jolly easily grips Nadja's wrists with one hand, the other plays with the leg opening of her panties. His fingers slowly move on to her mons veneris, caressing the delicate skin there, moving on to her folds, stroking them gently.

Nadja moans and wants to free her hands, but Jolly holds them firmly in his grip.

"So impatient and so needy!" he shakes his head and his eyes darken.

He pushes her panties aside, runs his fingers between her folds, finds her bud and begins to stimulate it with circular movements.

Nadja trembles, pushes against his touch, gasps "More!"

Jolly pushes his fingers inside her, widening her for him, not surprised that Nadja is now completely wet.

He laughs softly and skillfully twists his fingers inside her, making her moan loudly. He knows that if he continues at this pace, it won't take him long to make Nadja come through his fingers.

And he's right, not long before she starts to tremble, pressing herself against him and only able to make inarticulate sounds, ending in a long moan as her inner walls clench around his fingers and her orgasm comes over her.

Jolly doesn't give her time to recover, even as she leans against him, trembling and whimpering, he opens his pants with one hand, pulls out his hard cock, strokes up and down a few times and then grabs Nadja, turns her towards the sink and bends her down so that she has to hold on tight to keep from falling forward.

Almost hastily, he pushes her pantie aside and thrusts into her without further warning, causing her to cry out in surprise.

Jolly claws his hands into her hips and starts to thrust into her at a merciless pace. Nadja has no problem withstanding it, lifts her head and looks at Jolly triumphantly in the mirror. Their eyes meet and Jolly knows that this is exactly what Nadja wanted all along and that he is once again just her willing plaything.

Angry with himself for getting carried away again, he thrusts into her even more relentlessly until his own orgasm rushes through him and he bends down on her back, panting, resting his forehead on her back.

After a few seconds, Nadja wriggles out from under him, casually takes a couple of paper towels, hands two of them to Jolly and uses the rest to wipe his semen off her thighs and vagina.

Jolly watches her silently, cleans himself up and then zips up his pants.

Nadja stands in front of him smiling, leans over and wants to kiss him, but Jolly turns away, "I was serious earlier... we should really stop this!" he growls.

"Why? Because of Sergei?" Nadja wants to know.

"Like what?!" hisses Jolly, "You'll be officially engaged in two weeks!"

"It's arranged and you know it!" explains Nadja, annoyed, "It doesn't have to change anything between us! We can still have our fun!"

"No.... I don't want that anymore!" Jolly shakes his head.

Nadja raises her eyebrow mockingly, "Oh, I just realized THAT!"

"Leave it!" growls Jolly and goes to the door, unlocks it and storms out.

Clenching his teeth, he picks up his present, then steps up to Kolja, "Thank you for everything... I'd like to go home now. Your father wants to see me tomorrow. Probably a new job!" he explains.

Kolja nods, "OK, don't let yourself be stopped!".

Relieved, Jolly goes to the stairs and runs down, pushing his way through the crowds of people in the club to the exit.

When he finally stands outside the club in the fresh air, he breathes in and out deeply. Damn, his life is fucked up and complicated, he thinks.

[zarvasace]

Ugh tumblr is not cooperating with my readmores and art. Oh well we can do it this way. AU masterpost

Say hello to Shackle and Nothing, dark Wind and dark Time :D more art and long descriptions beneath the cut!

Shackle

Shackle is dark Wind. 

To me, one of Wind’s core themes is freedom. He goes wherever he wants on his boat (and has fun), he frees a couple girls from the Helmaroc King, and when I think of him, I think of wild blue skies and an endless horizon. He loves life and is one of the most determined heroes. 

Shackle, on the other hand, is a bit of a control freak. He doesn't mind not being in charge all the time (he does mind, but he doesn't like to be challenged, and knows that he'd lose any fight for the top place, so he pretends to not care) but he does mind when things don't go his way. If someone or something is annoying him or not listening to him, he will readily use one of the many chains he carries to threaten or restrain. He likes being in control of others, and he likes when people are afraid of him. He keeps fairies nearby, not so much in case of healing, but because he can shake their bottles and listen to them chime in fear. 

Shackle is a rather skilled manipulator, and one of the few Darks that look pretty much human, so he's often the one to head excursions into town (Prince is more of a charismatic diplomat, but his powers don't work on whole crowds at a time.) Because of his strength and chains, he's often the one to be on Dire duty, something he doesn’t mind much. Shackle is also very fond of money and luxury. He’ll pinch rupees on anything that doesn't have to do with him, like someone else’s supplies, but he's happy to splurge on himself. 

He doesn't have any mystical powers, but he does have enchanted chains that grow and shrink according to his needs. He eats food like any mortal. He's as young as Wind is but is more often successful at bluffing his way into bars and the like. He “jokes” often about earning a couple rupees from selling one of the others—usually Lost or Madness, or Nothing if he's being annoying (a normal occurrence.) Shackle’s ambition is to break free of the others and start a true pirate empire, and the way he wants to do that is by starting a slave trade. That way he can indulge his loves of intimidation and money at the same time. 

In terms of design: Shackle is pale to Wind’s tan, a bit beefy to Wind’s young lankiness. He wears red instead of blue, leaning into the pirate aesthetic with sashes and belts and leather and eyeliner. He got a chain tattoo because he thought it was cool. He fears losing everything he has, and some of what he doesn't have. 

The only thing that Shackle and Wind would agree on is that Aryll must be protected and lavished with gifts at every opportunity (even though Shackle hasn’t technically met her, yet.) He'd treat her like a princess—as long as she agreed with him about what a princess should be. He isn't a very good listener. 

Nothing

Nothing is dark Time. He appears as a petulant child: sharp and angular and half-dead. He takes all of Time’s gremlin tendencies and turns them into cruel pranks and mean-spirited insults. Time is a leader, and Nothing intentionally holds the group back if he can get away with it. Nothing is resentful: he remembers fighting Time, though he, like Agony, is different now—he can think more clearly and has a  purpose beyond just being something's  guardian. 

Nothing gets along best with Madness. He hates being given orders and actively goes the other way unless it was his idea. The group at large only barely puts up with him, but they keep him around for a good reason: he's kind of a genius. He knows dungeons, traps, and gimmicks like nobody’s business. He won't ever give advice on one of Depth’s plans if asked, but they've figured out that if they give Nothing an opening to dunk on someone and hurt one of the Heroes, he'll jump into it and put that genius to work. He's excellent at predicting what the heroes might do, which makes everything just that much more sinister. 

On occasion, Nothing will fall into fugues. During these periods, he appears as an older teenager instead of a child, and he's virtually unresponsive. He'll move if prodded. He’ll fight—and fight very well—if told to, but he won't speak, the embodiment of his name. Pretty much everyone finds the contrast rather creepy. These periods don't last long, and soon enough, Nothing is back to his bratty younger self. 

Most of all, Nothing wants everything Time has, but if given the option, he wouldn't take Time’s place. He innocently wishes he could be a hero, but he knows he can't be, so he's going to go as far the other direction as possible. He wants to build his own life. But the people around him wouldn't ever let that happen, so Nothing is bitter and lashes out, without any reason not to. 

Nothing is designed very much after the Dark Link in Ocarina of Time’s Water Temple, with a few significant tweaks. He is based on young Link instead of the older one, and he is also covered in signs of decay. There are faint red and purple lines like veins on his skin, like corpses that began to decompose underwater, and his tunic and hat show signs of the same. When he appears as a teenager, the decay is even worse. His sword is patterned after the Master Sword, but is just a normal, nonmagical thing. 

Nothing is the Hero of Nothing, a sad admittance of his own emptiness and a jab at Time’s forgotten timelines. He wouldn't even know how to seize the opportunity to be a hero of something if it showed up in front of him.

[broodparasitism]

Everything I've Learned About Querying from Talking to Agents (And Traditionally Published Authors)

Disclaimer: I'm UK based, as was everyone I spoke to. I didn't include any country specific advice, just what I think is applicable regardless of where you live, put it might be useful to know this is from a UK lens.

As part of my course I was able to go to a lot of talks with literary agents (a mixture of literary, genre and nonfiction) and I picked up a lot of useful information - a lot of it not quite so bleak as I feared! - and thought it might be helpful to compile it for anyone looking to query agents in the future, so, here goes, under the readmore:

Querying

Remember that agents want to find and publish new authors. They're not at odds with/out to get aspiring authors. They want to work with us. This is someone you're working with, so don't pick an agent you won't get along with.

Manuscripts should be queried when they are as close to finished you are able to manage. There are a few agents that are open to incomplete manuscripts, yes, but many more that flat-out refuse unfinished work. Manuscripts generally go through about ~15 rounds of edits before landing an agent.

Send query letters in batches - around five or six at a time. There is no limit to how many agents you can contact, but you can't contact more than one agent from the same agency, so make sure you've selected the most suitable one from each.

In most cases you can't submit the same manuscript to the same agent twice - so having it be as finished as possible is all the more vital.

Some of them will take a long time to respond. Some never respond at all. If it's been three months of nothing, it's safe to assume that's a rejection.

One agent said she took on about two new authors a year, which likely isn't true for them all but is probably a reasonable average. For all of them, the amount of queries they get can be in the three digits a week. I can't emphasis enough just how many they get. I take a lot of authors to mean that means it's a 0.001% chance and despair, but that assumes each manuscript has an equal chance, and they don't. Correct spelling and grammar, writing in a genre that appeals to the agent, quality sample chapters and respecting the submission guidelines (more on this later) improve the odds by a significiant amount.

One agent said he rejected about half of his submissions from the first page due to spelling and grammar mistakes and cliches, for perspective.

You'll need to pitch your book. If your book cannot be pitched in three sentences, that's a sign it has too much going on and you'll need to do some pruning.

Please don't panic if you cannot come up with an accurate pitch for your book on the fly - you're not supposed to be able to do that. A pitch takes many edits and drafts just like a manuscript.

Send your first three chapters and a synopsis (this should be a page, or two pages double spaced. It should not include every single plot point though, again, if major things end up not there at all, question if they're necessary for the manuscript).

Three chapters is the standard - as in, if the agent web page doesn't specify how many, that's what to opt for. If they say anything else, for the love of God listen. If there was a single piece of advice that the agents emphasised above all else, it was to just follow each submission requirement to a T.

There needs to be a strong hook in these chapters. If your manuscript is a bit of a slow burn, that's fine, but you can cheat a bit with a 'prologue' that's actually a very hook-y scene from later on.

Read the agent's bio page throughly and make a note of what they like, who they represent, and what they're looking for, and highlight this in the query letter.

Your query letter has to say a little about you. It doesn't have to be really personal information (but say if you're under 40, because that's rare for authors and they like that), and keep it professional but not stiff, they say. If you have any writing credentials, such as awards won or creative writing degrees, include them, as with any real life experiences that pertains to the content of your book. But no one will be rejected on the basis of not having had an interesting enough life.

Apparently one of the biggest mistakes for debut authors tend to be too many filler scenes.

In terms of looking for comparative titles, think about where you want your book to 'sit'. Often literally - go into bookstores and visualise where on the displays you could see it. It's really helpful if you can identify a specific marketing niche. Though you want to choose comparisons that sell well, but going for really obvious choices looks lazy. A TV or film comparison is fine - as long as it genuinely can be compared.

Do not call yourself the next Donna Tartt. Or JK Rowling. They are sick of this.

Don't trust agents who request exclusive submission.

Or any with a fee. Agents take a percentage of your advance/royalties - you never pay them directly.

In terms of trends (crowd booing), there's been a boom in uplifting, optimistic fiction, but more recently dark fiction has been rising in popularity and looks to have its moment. Fantasy and Gothic are both huge right now. Publishers also love what's called upmarket/book club fiction - books that toe the line between genre and literary.

But publishers aren't clairvoyant and writing to trends is a futile effort, so don't let them shape what you want to write. Some writing advice I got that I loved was to not even THINK about marketability until draft three or four.

If any agent requests your full manuscript - this is crucial - email every other agent you're waiting to hear back from and let them know. This will take your manuscript from the slush pile to the top, and you are more likely to get more offers of representation.

The agent that flatters you the most isn't necessarily the best. Be sure to ask them what their plan for the book is, and what publishers they're planning to send it to - you want them to have a precise vision. It might be that their vision misses the mark on what kind of book you wanted to write, and if so, they aren't the right agent for you.

Research like hell! A good place to start is finding out who represents authors you love (the acknowledgements pages are really helpful here). if you can, getting access to The Writer's and Artist's Yearbook is very helpful, as is The Bookseller, the lattr for checking up on specific agents. (I was warned the website search engine is awful, so google "[name] the Bookseller" to see what they've sold. That said, only the huge deals get reported, so it's not indicative of everyone they take on.

I also want to add Juliet Mushen's article on what makes a good query. I owe a lot to it, and I feel like it's a useful template!

Once Agented

Agents send a manuscript to about 18-25 publishers, typically. Most books will end up having more than one publisher interested.

It can be hard to move genres after publishing a debut novel, especially for book two, not only because it means it takes longer for you to establish yourself, but the agent that may be perfect for dealing with manuscripts for book one might not have the skills for book two.

Ask the agency/publisher about their translation rights, their rights to the US market, and film and TV rights. Ask also what time of year the book is going to come out, if being published.

It's less the book agents are interested in than it is you as an author. You will be asked what you're going to write next, so have an answer. Just an answer - you don't need another manuscript ready to go. One author said she flat-out made up a book idea on the spot, and she got away with it - just have an answer. (This is also useful to put on the query letter.)

Caveat that this is, of course, not a foolproof guide to getting a book deal, nor is it in any way unconditional endorsement of how the industry works - I just thought it would be useful to know.

[autisticgirliesbracket]

What makes Steris Harms from Mistborn Era 2 the autistic girlie ever of all time? Here's what the people have to say:

Steris-related asks/reblogs: x This post will be updated after each round!

Image ID in alt text and under the readmore.

[Image ID. White slide with a greyscale illustration of Steris on the left, taken from the 'The Bands of Mourning' novel. On the right there are text boxes which read,

"She has lists for everything. Every possibility, every outcome, she has a list for it. Evacuating the city? She has 15 different ways it could be done. City under a tsunami threat? She's got procedures. Needs to take her husband's place in a senate meeting? Don't worry, she's got a list of every senator and good talking points to impress them specifically. She loves taxes, treats them like a puzzle. She doesn't understand how to talk to people. No one ever gave her the sex talk and she doesn't understand what's expected of her in that department. She threatened to throw up on the table of a war meeting to get people to stop yelling and listen to what she had to say. (She keeps medicine in her purse to do just that if she needs to) She DID use that medicine to get her and her fiance out of a party so he could go chase bad guys. Her 'tism captivates her fiance so much he is so fascinated with her. I love her and my god she's got the 'tism something massive"

"It's canonical!"

"She was intentionally written as autistic. I love her"

"She's canonically autistic as confirmed by the author. As far as some of the textual evidence, she loves, and I mean really loves, lists; she makes so many lists and plans in order to navigate her world, and it means a lot if she's willing to change those plans for someone. She's prepared for everything; for one example, while staying at a hotel/inn, she gave the innkeeper a pamphlet full of all the different disasters that could happen while she and her companions were there and what to do in each case (including 'framed for murder,' which was like a dozen pages in and actually happened); for another example, when getting ready for her first wedding attempt, she tried to determine which of her fiance's enemies would show up, and she got several backups of their equivalent of wedding rings in case anything bad went down. And when she was first arranging her engagement to him, she wrote a many-pages-long contract for it, which included a provision for how they should go about it if either of them took a lover (her father cheated on her mother, so from her experience this was just a logical thing to factor into the plans, but also she'd been rejected by a few suitors in the past so she didn't expect much affection from this one--fortunately, time proved her wrong in this instance. By the end of the series they're quite in love, and enjoy dates like 'working on their house finances' or 'doing amateur metallurgy'). She can easily come off stiff and cold to someone who doesn't understand her well; part of it is the pressure she has, as a noblewoman expected to be competent in high society, to mask a lot, and she generally treats the details of social interaction as something to memorize, eventually explaining to her fiance (once they've known each other a while, and they're thawing out) that she has to prepare her witty quips way ahead of time, lest it all come out wrong." End ID.]

[27thfirefly]

hi. i just read the last chapter of your fic went blind last year and HOLY FUCK it is so good. i get it if you don’t want to like spoil things about your fic but i have many many questions and thoughts so im just gonna write a bunch of them.

the whole thing with like. dirk tapping into ultimate dirk and part of canon and then being shoved out? and then kind of realizing that he is a small part of something very big and wanting to be a bigger part of it, and then getting orange eyes representing a stronger connection to dirk-ness? fascinating. and is daves eyes turning red then symbolic of him becoming closer to dave-ness? and speaking of that- dante??? great character, very interesting. is he like somehow a version of dave? and what was he talking about on the swings? is he also in some sort of a loop? and what was it that dirk did at the end of chapter four? he did something with the sword, right, did he make dante decapitate him and then somehow come back to life?

and hal. and cal! holy shit, i can’t believe it but you kind of made me LIKE cal somehow? in the sense that he can be violent and outrageous and insane and vengeful when dirk can’t and its kind of cathartic.

its interesting to see where things stay the same as in canon and where they dont. like dave has chat logs with rose in 2014 and 2015? but hes only fourteen. so he’s technically both older and younger than he is at the beginning of homestuck. and dirk was like 13 in 1997, which is about when daves meteor should have dropped? but did they come with the meteors at all, in this world? dirk came with lil cal on his meteor in canon, but here he got him when he was 12. but dave still seems to be somewhat in touch with his time powers, and dirk with his heart powers, so some things carried over from the game?

god. this is all so fascinating and good. i will be probably rereading the fic and eating drywall until a new chapter comes out. you are an amazing writer.

wahhh thank you very much! for what it's worth i too have been thinking a lot about went blind last year. glances at the +50k word txt document of story notes and wip chapters. so i do love getting to talk about it even if working on it is very slow at the moment! i will put this under a readmore cos i got carried away but

there's a lot of things i don't want to spoil yet yes... but i think i've laid enough of the groundwork that these things won't feel terribly out of place within the story.

one thing i do feel comfortable in divulging is that any connections to canon are deliberately tenuous... how far can a character diverge from canon while still being understood as fitting the mold for that character? when a character is deliberately obscured, how much does fanon interpretation impact what feels in-character?

when you read fanfiction or fancomics or whatever kind of work about a specific character, your mind creates a superposition of the character as they exist in the original work and the character as they exist in the fanwork. as long as the "shape" of the character in the fanwork doesn't stick out too much from your perception of the canon "shape", you can accept that character--as written by someone else--as the same as in canon. some of the choices i have made are deliberately contradictory to the text of homestuck the webcomic. i have made these choices in order to tell the story i want to tell. even so, the basis for the characters in wbly are understood to be the same as in homestuck, creating an expectation for what these characters will act like, what their baseline is, and how you as a reader approach them. your feelings about cal changing within the context of wbly is an interesting case of this in my mind--the cal within wbly is presumably still close enough to canon that you can call it the same character, but the role of cal is changed enough that your impression of him is changed. that kind of thing is FASCINATING to me.

the reason wbly would not work as an independent work is the same as why the homestuck epilogues do not work without the pre-existing fandom of homestuck: there need to be expectations for these characters and relationships in order for me to challenge those expectations.

another thing i will divulge is that went blind last year is not the full title of the story in my mind--i won't tell the full one, but it does tie into just about every conflict in the story.

thank you again for reading my overly complicated fanfic! hopefully you'll stick around even if it'll take me a lot longer than expected to complete. if not, that's fine too.

also every time i send updates to my friend i get lamentations so you know stuffs going great

[shadowfoxsilver]

Pet donation scam explaination

Hi! I have many posts on my other blog that explain what a pet donation scam is but I'll go ahead and write another one over here that also explains it in case anyone wants a reminder about what it is and how it works. I'd suggest sharing this with your friends/followers even if they already know it so they can share it with their friends/followers and so on. I'll put it under a readmore.

tl;dr: A pet donation scam is when someone steals content off another site and spams asks to share their pinned pet post even though their account is only a few days old and has only a few posts. The blog usually disappears within a week but then you have another blog sending asks that has the same exact post but then has different images but their name is the same.

A pet donation scam is a scam that involves someone taking images/stories off a private vet bill aid group and then reposting it to tumblr as their own pet. The account does not explain that the images shown are not theirs; They will pass them off as their own and act as if the pet shown is one that's under their care. However, these accounts do not own anything their posting. Because they have stolen their content off another site.

Pet donation scammers like to reblog a few posts to look legit. Generally, as of recently, they'll share 100+ posts and use the Top Posts badge to look like an active user. However, a quick scroll through all those posts will usually show none of them are tagged and they all came from a trending tag or are trending posts. These accounts also are now sharing posts from accounts they follow in order to look more legitimate but don't let that deceive you. This is just another attempt to appear like their just your average tumblr blogger.

These scammers also will sent out asks that request private answers because they don't want anyone to see they sent the asks out to multiple other accounts. They'll tell you they don't want to be mistook as a bot/spammer even though they just spammed the askbox of people who share mutual aid posts and mutual aid links. If you search their ask in tumblr search, you'd likely see how many got the same thing. This tactic is why it's suggested not to send multiple asks to users to share your own aid post. Because sadly scammers have ruined it for others.

Another thing to keep in mind is that reverse image searching doesn't always work for trying to check the sources of a posts images for these scams. Since these images are stolen off a private facebook group, they won't show up in the public besides reblogs from users who mistook the scammer as a real account. This often may deceive others into assuming the scam account is legit if the images don't come up as being from somewhere else. They don't show up because their stolen off a private group so they are not easily accessible outside of it when searched.

Pet donation scammers also will lie to you to get your money. They will claim they'll pay you back yet if you find out their a scammer and ask for your money back the account will simply block you and move on to someone else. These scammers will never pay you back and they have no intentions of ever returning their money to anyone they stole from. You'll see it's a common phrase in their posts that they'll send you money back for helping them but that day never comes when they remake their blog and once more start their scam back up.

In closing, pet donation scams are unfortunately a common scam on tumblr and it's necessary to try and look up information if you got an ask that seems suspicious and is coming from a blog that's only a few days old and somehow found you if you are not a blog that a brand new account would find unless they saw you in a trending post notes or from a popular fandom tag.

[dogmatik]

Under a readmore, word count 897. Rick got too drunk and freaked poor Morty out.

There's something cold and wet pressed to Ricks forehead. He's only been conscious about a minute, hasn't quite figured out where he is yet, so his eyes remain closed. He takes in his surroundings with his other senses, not sure if he wants anyone who might be in the room with him to know he's awake yet. After some time he determines he's in his own room, can tell by the canvas texture of the cot below him, the smell of booze and alien B.O. He's bundled up in the shitty military surplus blanket he got ages ago, and its dark.

There's breathing to his right, someone sat next to the cot on the floor. he cracks an eye open, the augmentations he keeps tweaking adjusting his sight to the dark immediately (it hurts, human pupils aren't meant to dilate that quickly, he's got a mean case of chronic dry-eye that he hasn't quite figured out how to handle yet.). Morty sits with his arms folded over his knees, head bowed like he's sleeping sitting up. He's breathing to hard to be sleeping though, and there's a string of little sniffles on every other inhale.

"Morty, you seen that morphine? Grandpa's got a killer headache." Rick says. Morty startles, head whipping up immediately at the sound of the old mans voice. Rick regrets talking when he sees the poor kids face, it's red, a little string of snot connects his nose to where it was pressed into his sleeve. "Rick!" he yells, sending a flash of pain bouncing behind Ricks eyes. He throws himself over the old man, the cot creaks like its about to snap. "Jesus M-Morty chill out, I just said I had a fucking, headache." Morty squeezes him, he can feel hot tears soaking into his shirt.

"Ri-ck, I was so scared, and you s-s-said not to tell M-mom but you stopped, you stopped breathing and I couldn't get the-the oxygen to work and I swear I didn't tell but y-yuh-you can't do this to m-me again man I can't-" His voice keeps cracking, chest heaving and words broken up by half-aborted little whines and hiccups. "Morty, Morty calm down, hold on just fucking, t-take a breath alright. Morty just breathe" Rick rubs his back, the kids practically crawled into the cot with him, his little hands clenched so tight in Ricks shirt he's sure the seems are gonna snap. "A-asshole..."

Morty sobs. Rick realizes he doesn't remember a fucking thing from the last 36 hours, which is not ideal when you're a manic super-genius. From the sounds of it he gave himself alcohol poisoning again, considering the barely contained nausea and the way his head pulses with pain along to his heartbeat. It's been a while since he drank enough to make himself sick, it takes a lot. Last time must have been since before he came back. That explains why Morty's so fuckin broken up about it, it's not a pretty sight and the little guys never seen him that bad before.

"Mort, buddy it's okay, just a little alcohol poisoning. Little bit of zerock powder and I'll be good as new." "W-why'd you drink so much?" Morty asks, finally pulling his face away from Rick's chest. He's still breathing hard, but his eyes have dried. He looks genuinely confused, a little crease forming between his eyebrows. Rick gets the inexplicable urge to rub it away, kids too young for wrinkles. God, he's gonna go grey by 30, just like Rick. The thought brings a new wave of nausea crashing over Rick's head, he has to lean off the side of the cot so he doesn't fuckin drown in it. There's a big plastic bowl there, he almost gets all of it in. All that comes out is clear liquid and bright yellow bile, his stomach cramps sharp and he almost knocks Morty clean over with how violently he flinches.

"Rick, why did you drink so much. Did, did something bad h-happen?" Morty asks again, incessant. "'Something bad' what are you talking about?" Morty looks at his hands, he's sitting on his folded up legs right on the edge of the shitty cot, Rick just realized the boys still in the same clothes he last remembers him in. There's blood down the front, it doesn't look like it came from Morty. "Dr. Wong says, uhm. She said that people, they do a lot of like drugs and stuff when they feel bad. Or like, to escape or whatever. Is that what you were doing? R-running away from something?" What the fuck is that lady talking to this thirteen year old about? He should find out where she lives. Encourage some fucking boundaries.

"Jesus wept Morty, Can't a man get blow-out black-out drunk w-without his grandson fucking, psychoanalyzing him. No, I do it cause it's fun Morty. And I don't need to, ugh, to run from anything, I deal with my pr-problems just fine." Morty looks skeptical, little bastard. "Get, get offa my bed, fucking. Change your shirt, look like a vampire victim." Rick shoves at the boy, knocking him off the cot onto the floor. "Ow! Asshole! I-I'm trying to, trying to help you dick!" Morty yells. "Morty I swear to god if you keep being a loud piece of shit I'm gonna down your sisters hamster and blame you for it."

[voiceofsword]

How do ya think Hiiro would have turned out if he had run away *with* Rinne rather than chase after him after? I feel like Rinne definitely would have passed out sooner since he seems like the type to want to make sure his baby brother eats first

I THINK SO TOO, ANON.. putting this under a readmore bc i dont wanna stretch out anyone's dash 🙇

i feel like. overall hiiro would result in being the same person i.e the amagis development isn't... all that different? but they probably would've reached their conflicts somewhat sooner and "resolved" them before actual main story. it's complicated because i don't think rinne would've really been able to confront his brother about a lot of the complexes their hometown drilled into his head because he's so young, like partly i think the reason they were able to be addressed in main story is because of rinne's development as a person (in the city), and hiiro being older and having had alkaloid to back him up in terms of having people around him that love him and give him a modicum of self worth – so, in this case it's more something that bubbles under the surface all the time and is addressed in bursts rather than all at once. if that makes sense?

i completely agree with rinne giving everything up to be sure that hiiro would be happy, safe, and fed. but at the same time, i cant see hiiro sitting there idly while his brother busts his ass doing god knows what – he probably wouldn't be very happy about it. i think he would feel guilty seeing his brother all haggard when he's used to him being regal, and composed. i genuinely think it'd be interesting to think about how this is the beginning of hiiro seeing that he's more than just his brother's advisor. it'd take a Lot of getting used to, and hiiro's really not the type to internalize it and realize that the reason his brother does this is because he loves him – rather, i think he'd be very confused about the whole ordeal. 

when rinne inevitably drops due to exhaustion, hiiro would likely fret and try to find the nearest person to help them, which in any case and because i think rinniki dynamic is integral to rinne's development, would be niki. i also think it's more plausible for 12 year old hiiro to reach out to someone close to his age rather than an adult stranger both bc he's intimidated, and bc it's likely rinne's told him time and time again that he shouldn't interact with adults he doesn't know.

in contrast with rinne's initial calm standoffish demeanor he has when he meets niki in canon i think with hiiro there he'd be a lot more abrasive? because the rinne we know in canon's kind of given up, at that point, so niki's help is welcome although met with a bit of ego. but since he has his brother to care for this time, i think he'd be a lot more wary of niki, and protective of hiiro, even though it's clear all niki wants to do is help. hiiro on the other hand would absolutely be open to niki because he sees him as someone who saved his brother, and doesn't understand why rinne puts up walls. niki is like 3 feet tall and could be swept away by a strong wind so there's literally nothing offensive about him. also hiiro and niki are both similar in terms of how they undermine their self-worth so i think that after that initial threat wears off rinne's pulling his hair out because the two of them can easily point out that they should be kinder to themselves but when it comes to each other they're incredibly dense

the addition of niki really would help with their development in this scenario imo because i feel like with him they'd be forced to talk things out to avoid awkwardness. over time rinne continues to take on odd-jobs but hiiro doesnt like that his brother's taking on all the work and making himself exhausted trying to support all 3 of them. it's likely rinne would explode over little things, like hiiro also trying to take on part-time jobs or taking on a lot of chores to make up for what rinne himself is doing without much regard for himself. obviously rinne wouldnt be angry per se but would be frustrated that his brother's too immersed in the idea that he's STILL less than rinne and thus deserves to shoulder all the work. i can see him walking out of niki's apartment leaving the other two confused, and hiiro very hurt – luckily niki might not be very academically smart but can be emotionally intelligent when he wants to be, so he'd sit down with hiiro and explain what it could be that makes his brother feel that way (probably not with a lot of tact because hes 14 but enough that hiiro is like hm ok that makes sense, and i also think hiiro would blindly follow niki's advice too if he comes to regard him as an older brother figure).

hiiro wouldnt understand initially but he so desperately seeks his brother's reassurance that everything is ok that the second he comes back he immediately asks if what niki says is true. above all else i think hiiro needs for people to point out that the way he's treating himself is wrong for him to realize it, which rinne often avoided doing when he was a young child because it simply didn't click in hiiro’s head. but if other people say it's true, then he's forced to acknowledge that maybe rinne isn't angry at him, but rather, at his impotence in making hiiro see that he's worth more than what he thinks, and when he knows what his brother is upset over, it's 'relatively easy' for him to fix it. maybe. basically niki is their therapist. i feel like their life together would be peppered with instances like this

i dont rly know how to keep this train of thought going but i Did appreciate the ask bc i love any excuse to yap on abt hcs. so thank u

[scummy-writes]

I don't find this fandom welcoming. I posted a few fics and there was barely any interaction. I joined a few discords and was shocked to see the amount of vague-talking about other bloggers. Not a nice place imho

Your main experience with it not being welcoming is barely interaction and bad discord servers?

Hm. This is a very limited amount of information and since this is anon, my opinion is heavily based on trying to guess the most likely reasons why this is your experience. With that said, my opinion is this:

What do you count as barely interaction?

Is it that your post 'only' got five notes? Ten? Twenty? Are your expectations built off of other fandom's notes, or fanfics that are a year old and have gotten the luck of being reblogged and circulated a lot more? The comparison game is a bitch and a half if you're trying to gauge that as how welcoming a fandom is. Because the truth of the matter is, even if you're writing the fanfic equivalent of Shakespeare, if it is not tagged properly, a super long fanfic with no readmore, posted on a holiday, posted on a weekday, etc etc, it can yaknow. Not be Seen a lot. And if you're just posting something you've made with the intentions of just being seen, rather than having fun creating, in a smallerscale fandom like this, unfortunately it will not meet your expectations at times.

I don't know why there is this undercurrent of belief that you have to be actively creating some kind of fancreation to be able to talk to people as well. In complete honesty, I have seen screenshots of the game with some event dialogue or something, five words written on the post, and it have like 100+ notes. Sometimes sharing just your thoughts on dialogue is enough to get conversations going if you got it tagged and etc. These are blogs made for sharing thoughts and interacting with others thoughts, whether those thoughts are fanfics, fanart, fanedits, commentary on the games, theories, ideas, incoherent yelling about your faves, etc etc.

Are you reaching out and talking to people on your own accord? Because I think that also plays a Huge part in being talked back to, and having what you create seen. If you're posting into the tags and it doesn't get seen for whatever reason, and you're not actively talking to others and making friends via communication... how are people supposed to see what you make?

I think people see what they deem 'popular' blogs, who are usually creators who just got very lucky, and expect to be treated like that very fast, and when they don't, they think there is something wrong with them and the fandom, when it's almost always neither imo. I think it can be a build up of frustration that is getting unfairly targeted at yourself at times (in this case, a general 'you' is what I am using here), or outwardly towards strangers because your post isn't being seen in a sea of posts. And then sometimes there is very unfair resentment towards 'popular' bloggers due to this, where it's sometimes seen as their fault for not 'engaging' with everyone when, again...sea of posts. People working 40 hr workweeks. People with a family they're raising. People going to school. Etc etc.

So... is it the fandom being unwelcoming, or is it a weird pressure you're putting on yourself and others for no reason?

In regards to the discord stuff, since I feel that is a bit separate:

Discord servers... hm. The vague talking you reference is also very vague, and I think that depends. Because what is the vague talking? Is it something like "man someone posted a really awful and harmful opinion regarding this mental illness a suitor had" with no name dropping, no link sharing, and someone just a bit bummed someone said something hurtful? Or is it like... "[blogger name] is a piece of shit because they did [unproven thing]".

Those are two extremes, and there could be many more examples that I would see as more '''''acceptable''''' referencing of someone (the poor mental health take example where no one is identified and no one is specifically going apeshit on the blogger, just sad to see something harmful), and then the bullshit of namedropping and being a cunt for no reason. There are layers to this! Context matters a lot and I am left with not a clear thing to comment on.

My advice for discord servers, regardless of the fandom, is this:

Look at the blogs of the people who moderate/own it. Do they meet your personal levels of safety? Or are they actively arguing with other people in the fandom with the intention of just being a dick?

Is the server for all ages or for adults? That usually weeds out some childish behavior. Does the server have rules? Are there rules set in place to essentially be like "hey lets not namedrop people and shittalk them for no good reason"? Are there rules against being a dick? And if there are rules... are there mods to enforce them? Do they listen when notified of the behavior? That matters A Lot.

I think I tried....four? Five? Different discord servers where I kept running into people I did not like, or I thought I got along okay with until they did smth out of the blue that made me go "yikes!".

Sooo... i blocked their tumblr accounts. And talked to other people. Those few folks I blocked did not spell out that they themselves were the entirety of the fandom... because there are hundreds of other folks to talk to, and I found a handful I enjoy and settled in with that. Trial and error of course, but I still found people.

Your experiences are different than mine, but unfortunately I cannot agree that those experiences alone mean that this entire fandom is unwelcoming. I think you had some bad experiences and I'm sorry for that, but I can't nod along and go "yeah this whole fandom is shit." essentially.

[neathbound-fiends]

(for the ask thing you posted some time ago) 1, 15, 43 for Florence, 1, 10, 35 for Elliott, 19, 37 for the Surgeon

Remember when you asked this a million years ago? I'm gonna tuck it under a readmore since it got way longer than I anticipated lol

Elliott: 1. What’s the lie your character says most often? "I'm alright" or "I don't mind", probably 10. What fact do they excitedly tell everyone about at every opportunity? That if you grow rhubarb in the dark (which he is a strong proponent of in the Neath!) you can hear it growing 35. What is the smallest, morally questionable choice they’ve made? He would like to argue that lying to children is occasionally a necessary evil, as much as he hates lying and values honesty so highly. Sometimes you simply must pretend that the man selling rubbery lumps nearby is dead, and will not be feeling better in time for dinner, so they must eat your terrible cooking instead, because convincing a seven year old to eat your signature "random ingredients in the skillet, unseasoned" when instead she could have Neathy McDonald's is not an easy feat

Florence: 1. What’s the lie your character says most often? See, this is hard for me to decide on, because for a career liar, she is usually pretty honest in most of the writing I've done for her, and that's part of the game. The fun of telling someone point blank that she doesn't love them, and them still fighting to change her mind. I think, if I had to choose, it would be that she belongs wherever she is. Never stated in so many words, but the need to blend in and not immediately get thrown out of somewhere necessitates that she lie, because "street rat turned whore" is not usually the type of person who gets invited to any nice events where she would be rubbing elbows with the well-heeled 15. What’s the most obvious difference between their behavior at home, at work, at school, with friends, and when they’re alone? Honestly she's kind of a loser when she's alone. She mostly is just asleep or eating her roommie's food so she doesn't starve like a dog. She saves most of her charm for work, so when she's not needing to convince somebody to open their wallet or their bed to her, or distracting them enough to avail herself of these things anyway, she's just bored and bitchy and tired but not in a way that might be cute 43. What do they commonly misinterpret because of their own upbringing / environment / biases? How do they respond when realizing the misunderstanding? That EVERYTHING is strictly transactional and a power play that she has to win. It's weird and unnerving to realize sometimes that people just...do things for other people out of the kindness of their hearts and not to score points on some invisible scoreboard or to accrue favors or to "win" an interaction

Surgeon: 19. What would they do if stuck in a room with the person they’ve been avoiding? It depends on why he's been avoiding them. In most cases, I would say he would just be whatever the highest degree of nasty he could be is, relative to the required degree of politeness so that he doesn't slip down the Respectable rungs for it 37. What’s a secret they haven’t told serious romantic partners and don’t plan to tell? Who the parent of his child is

[twilightknight17]

@loopingpyre

Putting under a readmore for Tactica spoilers.

Persona 2's characters were, like Maki, all functionally Wild Cards. So you can fudge that a little. But this whole thing around Toshiro is something new, with very little explanation on why his thing works differently from anything in previous games. I know Atlus plays fast and loose with their lore at times (because I've spent years trying to untangle it), but there's usually some connecting thread to how things have worked previously.

Toshiro's persona being basically its own person just seems weird to me, when it would have been more consistent with prior stuff in P5 to have the shadow, and then a separate cognitive entity. Erina didn't need to be his persona for the story to make sense, and the fact that she is seems like a strange choice when I think it just makes things more confusing.

Plus, Erina coming with them was basically a fluke. If she'd stayed in her Kingdom, we'd have some major problems.

Rules that are at least partially consistent doesn't seem like too much to ask. But I'm really into worldbuilding and how things work, so that's just me.

Nanjo's ultimate taking the form of his butler who passed away can make sense. That was someone important to him, who genuinely cared about him and had a huge effect on his life. Cendrillon taking on aspects of Sumire's memory of Kasumi when she fully awakens follows the same thread. So if Toshiro's persona took on aspects of Eri, that's cool! There's a thread there!

But my point is more that versions of Yamaoka and Kasumi weren't walking around the metaverse with them after their awakenings. The personas were not their own people with their own character and desires and goals.

The only time that's really been the case was like... Pharos/Ryoji/Thanatos. But Ryoji's not an aspect of Minato. He was an outside entity.

And mechanically, a Wild Card is just someone who can use multiple personas. So with that in mind, technically the casts of 1 and 2 count, even if the term itself hadn't been invented yet from a Doylist perspective. So I think it's fair to look at things from that angle when considering how all of this cognitive stuff works. But again, I'm a worldbuilding person. I want to draw all those connections.

I noticed that his glove was missing but I don't think they ever talked about his hand being injured??? Unless it was early on and I've forgotten. Like, I see it in the screenshot but I don't think they talked about it. And if the glove is replacing the mask, cool. They haven't actually mentioned that (yet?) either.

And "different world different rules" would be fine if they'd bothered to explain any of the rules! But the kids literally have no idea how any of this has happened.

What is Erina? How does she work? We don't really know.

How do the Kingdoms work? We don't really know.

Why is Toshiro's mental world so much bigger and weirder than anything since Ideal Mikage-cho? We don't know.

How did the kids even end up here? We don't know.

I feel like at the point in the story where I've met the final boss, I should know a little more than that. Or at least be able to extrapolate.

And... I hope I don't come across as upset. I'm not; I like discussing lore stuff! But I gotta admit it was a little off-putting to see a comment starting with, essentially, "Hi, it doesn't work like that," considering how much thought I've put into figuring out how it all works. ^_^;;;

[mountainashfae]

mountain, i am Staring at you with my Malkavian Eyes, please tell me about the Sabbat Malk

Boy howdy do I love my Sabbat Malk. My littlest guy with plot armor. Not allowed to die for reasons that I figured out but the other players didn't put the pieces together for.

So this is Apollo, it is the name he chose for himself after realizing he could see the future and getting a big ego because of it. He's got a ton of Auspex, the Eyes of Chaos discipline power (recently introduced in V5 btw! it's so fun, give it a try) the Oracular Visions merit, and another merit that lets him get dreams about the future. His official derangement/bane is that he suffers from hallucinations, many of which he believes are also visions of the future, but unofficially I like to joke that his insane self-confidence is also a derangement. He's also picked up another one where he mistakes random people for his sire.

He was born back in in the 1940s and was embraced impulsively in the 1960s after accidentally catching his sire on camera. He was a professional photographer and still keeps up the photography even in his unlife.

Going to do similarly as you with Leo by putting the rest under a readmore.

He has a terrible relationship with his sire. Thomas treats him like a cameraman and gave him the nickname "cameraboy". He's expected to always be around to catch Thomas on film. Part of Thomas's derangement of believing that he's in a TV show and everyone else is a paid actor, with the exception of his childe of course. The initial blood bond from his embrace pretty quickly curdled into a deep hatred of his sire.

A few months before the beginning of our Sabbat game, Apollo's visions led him to meet a Lasombra by the name of Garcia Ortiz, whom he is lightly obsessed with getting a photo of and also just wants to bang. Apollo already hates how he is treated for being a Malkavian and hates that people don't take his oracular visions serious. Garcia just has to try a tiny bit to convince him to defect from the Camarilla and join the Sabbat.

He wasn't allowed into his mentor's pack in case of nepotism but he's got a very fun pack regardless. As early as session 1 he was already losing Humanity. They're currently working to get him on a Path of Enlightment so he doesn't become a wight. His biggest complaint with the training is how much he's had to interact with fire. The Sabbat aren't as averse to fire as the average kindred, but Apollo is more averse to fire than the average Camarilla.

His most recent antics in the game is that he was separated from the rest of the pack for a bit for Path Training with his mentor (a very cute Ventrue antitribu), and ended up going on an infiltration mission into a city that had recently been taken over by the Camarilla. It turns out the mostly-empty city is bait to distract the Sabbat's attention from the Camarilla's actual target, and the guy they put in charge of that bait city is Thomas. Apollo is satisfied with letting the guy sit and rot in his false Princehood. Eventually I will diablerize him and also recruit his newest childe because HOW DARE YOU EMBRACE SOMEONE ELSE. HOW DARE YOU BRING SOMEONE ELSE INTO THIS MESS.

For fun here is the rest of his pack in comparison to him <3

[shapa-likes-art]

i got more questions for the supervillain au regarding prinxiety's relationship!

1. What would their love languages be?

2. What was their first kiss like?

3. I read somewhere in the masterlist I think that Roman was at one point a "playboy" due to many partners and trying to find someone? Can you maybe elaborate on that?

4. If this ^ isn't the case anymore, do either of them have past relationship experience?/Any exes?

Yippeee

Standard procedure; Readmore :3.

1. Skye and I actually took a quiz as Roman and Virgil to know long, long time ago!

You can infer which is which and what is what.

This is Roman's

And this is Virgil's

Yippeee

2. I think I've answered this before!

They were just cuddling when Virgil brought up the fact they haven't actually kissed before and roam went "Well then, Do you want to?" and so they kiss and that's their first one :D.

3. Roman wasn't actually a playboy. The media just called him that.

He was just trying to find and keep a partner but due to his intense form of loving (which seemed overbearing) and also the fact that he can't fully trust his partner with his little Phantom secret and he felt like he needs to be "Cardenia's Sweetheart Roman Prince" in front of them.

This is why he and Virgil are the most compatible and perfect for each other:

He doesn't have to act, Virgil knows his identity, and he can be as intense and overbearing as he wants because Virgil is the exact same.

4. I can tell you about Roman's!

(I'm not really sure with Virgil, You'll have to ask skye! They're asleep right now so I can't really ask xem haha.)

For Roman, he has had a lot of partners and a lot of experience! They were supposed to be committed relationships but as you can tell they all never fully worked out.

He has had many different types of partners and he's dated a huge range of types of people.

He identifies as Omnisexual so he has a preference for more masc-leaning people but in general he doesn't care of their gender identity.

With most of his Exes, they broke up amicably so he has no ill intent of feelings with any of them and vice versa.

All of his exes would describe him as: "A great guy and attentive partner but he's sort of overbearing and he seems to keep a lot of secrets. It feels like he's trying too hard to please you."

I'd say he's had around 5-8 exes!

** Bonus tidbit: Both Roman and Virgil are Monogamous.

A few of Roman's relationships fell apart because his partner wanted another and he respectfully had to tell them he was uncomfortable with it and they end up breaking up.

[aranarumei]

hi kiri I intend to make you type so many words. for our ask game I’m starting with xicheng because I have my share of opinions

ask me about a ship and I'll give my opinions + classify them as does / doesn't make sense, does / doesn't compel me oh boy. my askbox has never been this full you guys…! really fun all of you tho. some I’ve got thoughts on some I haven’t really considered etc. and very impressively: no dupes!

also. words have been written. to the point that I’m putting this under a readmore lmao. up top apology for the incoherence i do just ramble

sooo xicheng. until recently I did not know the ao3 stats for this ship were. that big? don't feel like dangling the classification like bait so I'll start by saying: doesn’t make sense, doesn't compel me. now I will take way too many words to explain exactly why I feel that way!

as a person I am first and foremost a jiang cheng x happiness shipper. kind of. I never want it to be easy for him. because I’m kind of a bastard. so I've actually read a bit of fic with jc in a few different ships, some of which have been xicheng. and there's like, a few of those fics that have portrayed as aspect of jiang cheng like... so sensitively and in a way that made me Feel Things. so I'll always love them for that. my issue is that I just feel like... in the case of these, lan xichen could often be anyone for me. i read mdzs like... pre-untamed, and lan xichen's like... idk. I liked his role in the story but he didn't super compel me? so some of my issues with xicheng stem from the fact that I've simply never thought about lan xichen that much, and I'm not really invested in exploring his character. I think they could have some compelling things because they have a variety of things on their ends that don't get fully resolved, by pure virtue of 1) existing in mdzs 2) being side characters. also if jiang cheng's visiting gusu lan it puts him in proximity of wei wuxian which does promise for interesting interactions. what sours me on xicheng is... like I've said, I think some fics can make it work enough for me. but I feel like a large motivator of the fic is just... "oh look, wei wuxian's got a brother, and so does lan wangji! let's ship them!" even though they're totally different people? and as a consequence these two tend to get sanded down into often reductive portrayals. lot of pair the spares energy.

also kind of on the subject... I think I just don't really like.... ships with jiang cheng? in general? well my tolerance actually varies but I think especially when they take place post-canon (which the xicheng I've read often does) it doesn't sit right with me. I think it’s because jiang cheng’s not in… dire straits post-canon, but he’s not really happy. like he got told about the golden core thing but he’s unable to say the thing back about why he ran off like that in the first place. and I don’t like post-canon ships where it’s like. oh… jiang cheng, you poor thing. you shall be fixed by love. so I think I’m softer on ships that deal with things that happen before everything goes to shit for this reason. like I’ve not watched a lot of the show, but him and wen qing could be fun especially since that makes the golden core thing way more fucked up. with sangcheng they were like. friends in canon and stuff and then it seems they’ve gotten more distant. with zhancheng I mean like. there’s that tension and those years where wei wuxian wasn’t around and they were carrying their separate griefs. but with xicheng I feel like they don’t have anything super interesting in canon, which makes their outsized popularity a bit startling to me.

this is like. deeply personal and is kind of petty but. as someone who has wandered into the jiang cheng tags a couple times. man. people really hate that guy. and also hate people who like him. at least the couple times I looked there was just a lot of stuff arguing about like. oh jiang cheng sucks actually he’s the worst and all his fans are delusional for liking him and they’re ignoring his Crimes. he’s a uniquely selfish character who is unable to express or feel love. I’m not saying this is everyone, it’s just… the vibe I got from quite a few posts. this was also years ago. maybe things are calmer. I’m definitely biased because jiang cheng has always been my favorite character, so of course I love him. but this isn’t a defense post of him. either you like him or you don’t. just don’t bother me. anyways, the thing about “love” has always stuck with me, because I think that jiang cheng so obviously expresses love. like… the entire way he feels about wei wuxian! that’s his brother! idk. if you can’t see that you’ve lost me. now do I think jiang cheng communicates any of his feelings well ever No.

but about the love thing. when I read romantic fics involving jiang cheng post-canon, intentionally or not, a lot of what I read had this angle of almost like… look how capable of love jiang cheng is. and I’m like. well jiang cheng already loves people. it may not have gone perfectly or been so beautiful but that doesn’t make it non-existent. if he loves selfishly or awkwardly or without communicating it, it doesn’t mean that the love doesn’t exist. I think I’m stumbling into incoherence here… but my favorite headcanon for jiang cheng is probably one where he’s aromantic and asexual, because to me it affirms this feeling of like. romantic love is not some kind of absolution. and the “love” that he feels isn’t any lesser than whatever romance is going around. many different ways to be aroace ofc but this is how I see it for him. a lot of this is probably also influenced by the fact that I’m writing a fic with aroace jiang cheng at this present moment haha. as you might imagine, having this headcanon means that I tend to be neutral on most jiang cheng ships! I think to really grab me you’d have to make it interesting on the other end, so the character’s not just a sounding board for jiang cheng’s issues and vice versa, which sort of sums up my problems with xicheng. even the xicheng fics I read and liked were like… great, I’m glad you’re treating these two like real characters and not wangxian to the left. however a lot of this fic is just like. wow jiang cheng / lan xichen you’ve had it hard. Here’s a character who will comfort you and support you. and that’s nice in a way, but not compelling as a ship, yknow? so that’s the sum up of my thoughts. I’m on the scale of neutral-dislike, but if there’s a particularly good portrayal of jiang cheng I’d probably read it.

[rossithepixie]

rossi!!! 💗 can i get uhhh 1, 7, 10, 11, 17, 18 for whoever you want and even multiple!!! i wanna hear all about ‘em ✨

selfship asks

!!! Hi Kayleigh I want you to know i felt liek i wasin one of those bits where someone opens a locker and suddenly gets hit by a bunch of letters when i got this ask. -cracks knuckles- this will probably end up up partially under a readmore because it's gonna get long. So I don't utterly fry my brain doing this since i'm a little migrainey today I'm probably gonna stick with a polyship with Aven and Ratio. edit: I feel like a liar, i decided to add in tighnari because i love my fox. But again for my sanity i promise that's it this time!

1 nose kisses or forehead kisses?

Aventurine: With Aven we're actually very close in height (take away the heels on his shoes and that's especially true) so cute pecks on the nose aren't uncommon between us. Unless we're in bed, in which case whoever is the sleepiest and resting their head on the other often gets subjected to forehead kisses.

Ratio: being taller he's a giver of forehead kisses when he decides to be

--- Tighnari: forehead kisses despite us being about the same height. He'll often place a hand on the back of my neck and tilt me foreward so he can kiss my forehead.

7. romantic dinners at fancy restaurants or take out dinners on the couch

Aventurine: Fancy dinners, he absolutely insists on them. Will flutter his lashes and sweet talk me until he can convince me to leave the safety of my solitude and practically drag me out somewhere fancy.

Ratio: he's an even split on being convinced to go out for fancy dinners or staying in, though he has a habit of continuing to work when we eat in.

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Tighnari: We eat in! He's really not much for going to fancy restaurant dinners all that much. Especially since people tend to interupt us to ask about his tail and ears or to ask for pictures with him. And while he can begrudgingly tolerate it i will lose my temper at people being rude.

10. Constantly saying "I love you" or only saying it during serious moments?

Aventurine: Hmmm i know this is an either or but i think we're more middle of the road on this one, leaning toward more serious or at least private moments. Or love tends to be conveyed in actions.

Ratio: Definitely leans toward the serious moments. Feels that his love is obvious by him spending quality time with the two of us.

___ Tighnari: we actually say it rather often!

11. calling eachother by your names plain and simple, or calling eachother really flowery pet names?

Aventurine: Already answered!

Ratio: Has been known to slip in a darling here and there. I picked up on calling him just doc or doctor on occasion because of aven calling him that but i often do just call him Veritas. Unlike aven he tends to call me 'roswell' if he does use my name instead of the shortened rossi. And if I call him "love" on occasion well he doesn't mind.

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tighnari: Mostly just or names or variations of out names. Most commonly we call eachother Rossi and Nari.

17. Love at first sight or slow burn?

Aventurine: I don't know if it was love at first sight but certainly immediate interest followed by us testing the waters. Okay more he decided to test the waters because i kind of just assumed he wouldn't have an interest in me which is admittedly my knee jerk reaction.

Ratio: I actually met ratio before meeting Aven and given our personalities we were distinctly more slow burn. In fact nothing may have happened between the two of us if not for aventurine.

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Tighnari: Love at first sight, at least on my end. I was instantly enamored with him and quickly found him to be very comforting. We were students at the same time at the akademiya and he helped me adjust to living in sumeru. We didn't act on our feelings immediately but they were certainly there.

18. Cuddle in bed or need space to sleep? Aventurine: Cuddle! As long as it's not too hot we end up a tangled pile of limbs.

Ratio: Completely depends on his mood but he is the most likely to avoid the cuddle pile.

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Tighnari: Cuddles all the way humidity and heat be damned much to my dismay. He will curl himself around me partway through the night.