#like we need more manipulative art content

[sceletaflores]

isn't it messed up how i'm just dying to be him?

pairing: art donaldson x fem!reader

summary: and there it is. there’s that glimmer of attention, that hint of acknowledgement of him. the heavy look of rage taking over your features, the bite in your tone, it’s what art’s wanted for months. your undivided attention.

—or: art tries to get through to you about patrick, it doesn't go how he thought it would.

word count: 6.2k (i'm so sorry lmao pls still read it's good i promise)

warnings: 18+ SMUT MDNI, p in v, rough sex, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it y’all!), switch!art a little bit, creampie, kinda hate sex but not really, more like angry sex, swearing, fighting as foreplay, art is lowkey a little gay for patrick (it's literally canon), tiny bit of manipulative!art, art is just kinda an asshole in disguise honestly, hints of mean!reader cause i live for that shit, tashi and reader are cute besties, art being a bad bro, porn with too much plot, no use of y/n.

authors note: so this is basically a re-worked version of art and tashi’s dining hall scene when he’s trying to convince her that patrick isn’t in love with her. it’s really similar just way more messy and angry and with sex. this is literally just a tiny thought i had that somehow spiraled just a little bit, but i needed some lowkey asshole!art in my life. i had so much fun writing this, like way too much fun lmao. title is a lyric from fall out boy’s "sugar, we're going down swinging" cause that song fucks so hard and it's soooo art coded. okay bye! mwah xoxo

psst! tftw series masterlist!

Art Donaldson is a patient guy. He's nice, understanding, empathetic. It's something he prides himself on, lots of guys on campus are pricks, but not him. He's "the sweet blonde guy that plays tennis, like, really well!" according to most people who've met him.

That being said, he's not blind to the fact that you frustrate him to the point of wanting to shout himself hoarse and rip his hair out.

It's been a while since he and Patrick met you for the first time at the Open, and Art has been through hell and back about a million times over by now.

He still so vividly remembers watching you step onto the court, the almost visceral reaction he had. The crowd was cheering and clapping nearly as loud as they were for Tashi. There were even a few signs made in support of you scattered throughout the stands. Big poster boards plastered with your name and your winning streak and pictures of you playing, tennis balls and rackets drawn from markers decorating them.

It was obvious you were a favorite, and it was more than obvious how much you lived for it.

Smiling and waving to the crowd, fully basking in their respect and adoration. You were nearly glowing, Art couldn't take his eyes off you. He could tell that Patrick was thinking the same thing, if the way his thigh tensed up where it was plastered against Arts was any hint, his breath slightly catching as you started stretching.

"Goddamn..." Patrick had muttered under his breath. Art could distantly see his hand clench on top of his thigh when you bent over to tighten your laces. He always tries to be less shameless than Patrick but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t just as affected by you, fighting the urge to shift in his seat.

After you and Tashi walked up to the net with matching smiles and shook hands for a little longer than usual, it was time to start. Art watched as both of you got in position on the opposite ends of the court. Both of your faces lost the easy-going, excited expressions you’d shared when you first walked out, hardening in concentration as Tashi got ready to serve.

Patrick and Art openly gawking at the two of you would have been embarrassing if it wasn’t so fucking justified.

You and Tashi made magic happen on that court. 

It was powerful hit after powerful hit. Tashi’s backhand was out of this world, your overhand was a monster. Every rally, every volley, every serve was pure perfection. Art had never seen tennis played like that before in his life, he couldn't help but get sucked into your world the longer he watched.

The match was close, completely neck-and-neck throughout each set, neither of you willing to give an inch to the other. Tashi won by a single point, hardly wasting any time before she vaulted over the net to come barreling into your open arms, crashing into you so hard it knocked the two of you to the ground.

You both grasped at each other like lifelines on the hard concrete of the court as the announcer crowned Tashi the 2006 girl’s U.S Open champion.

Art let out a long breath and deflated a little deeper in his seat. His mind racing, he didn’t need to look at Patrick to know he felt the same. They sat in silence like that until the stands were practically empty. 

“What time did you say the party was again?”

Art pointedly ignored Patrick staring at him with a shit-eating grin on his face, stretching his arms out in feigned nonchalance. Patrick just snorted, shaking his head and squeezing Art’s thigh.

That was then, now Art sits across from you in the Stanford dining hall at the same table you two eat lunch at everyday, trying to stay cool as you complain about the latest biology lab you’re doing. 

He’s hardly listening to you, too busy trying his best to not glare too obviously at the hoodie you're wearing. One that he knows for a fact belongs to Patrick. You must have kept it the last time he was in town. The Nike swoosh embroidered to the front almost mocks him. Art puts his water down with a little more force than necessary.

Patrick and you being…whatever the two of you are now was something he tried his best to be okay with in the beginning.

Patrick’s his best guy, Art should have been so stoked that you were into him as much as he was into you when the two of them walked up to congratulate you and Tashi at the Adidas party. Only being able to steal you away from the house after you said your goodbyes to Tashi and her parents, inviting you to join them down at the beach.

It was obvious you were playing into Patrick’s attempts to get in your pants. Not blushing or averting your eyes shyly when he blatantly checked you out, throwing out smart comebacks to his sleazy lines, looking up at him through your lashes and biting your lip.

It would have been soul-crushing if Art wasn’t such a good friend. So, he stifled the rising feelings of jealousy and plastered a smile on his face as he watched Patrick shamelessly flirt with you.

It wasn’t like it was your fault. Art didn’t come on as strong as Patrick, he never did. Plus it wasn’t like he and Patrick had talked about who could try and score with you prior to the party, anything was fair game.

Besides, you were nice enough to Art that night. Chatting about college admissions and smiling at him over your coke bottle. Sure, it stung seeing you laugh at Patrick’s stupid jokes while the two of you smoked off the same cigarette, but there was nothing he could do about it.

You choosing Patrick had nothing to do with him. Everyone always chose Patrick, he was used to it by now.

At least he thought he was, but the longer it was just you and him, the more angry he felt each time Patrick would visit and steal all your attention. It wasn’t just jealousy or frustration anymore; it was a gnawing, consuming rage that twisted his insides every time he saw you light up around Patrick.

Patrick didn't fucking deserve you. You were too good for him. Nothing like all the easy, ditsy girls he fucked his way through at the academy. You were special, unlike any girl Art’s ever met. Patrick would just take you for granted. He'd grow tired of you, completely dismissing you when he got bored enough. Any day now he'd call Art to spill on his latest hookup with some chick he met on tour. 

But Art didn’t want to sit around and wait for that day to come. He couldn’t stand the thought of you being hurt by Patrick’s inevitable indifference. The idea of you, heartbroken and discarded, made his blood boil. You deserve more than that. You deserve someone who sees you for who you truly are, not just a trophy. 

Art knows he could be that person for you if you’d give him a chance, if for once you’d look at him instead of Patrick. He just has to find a way to get you to understand that.

“Pat texted me this morning,” you say from across the table, boredly poking at your pasta. “He’s gonna be here later this week, says he wants to go see 30 Days of Night. You and Tashi should come with us.”

Art hums noncommittally, not looking at you as he takes another bite of his salad. You do this a lot– extend invites to Art and Tashi when you and Patrick go out.

Art knows you think you’re being nice by trying to make them feel included, but getting invited usually means having to watch Patrick touch you and kiss you and walk around with his hand in your back pocket.

Art’s fork stabs into his salad roughly. He takes a slow breath, trying to calm the emotions starting to swirl inside him. “Yeah, sure,” he says eventually, forcing a smile. “Sounds fun.”

He sneaks a look at you from under his lashes. You’re already looking at him, brow raised at his clipped tone. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

Art shakes his head, waving a hand dismissively. “No, no, it’s fine. I’ll be there.”

“Okay,” you say slowly, still watching him with a hint of skepticism. “Are you alright? You’ve been weird all day.”

Art lets out a small laugh, but it sounds more sour than sweet, and finally looks up at you. You look back expectantly, concern lingering in your eyes. “Nothing, it’s just…” he pauses, drumming the fingers of his left hand on the table, “the fact that you two are still going out surprises me. That’s all.”

He regrets it as soon as he says it, words sounding way more patronizing than he wanted. His chest immediately tightens with guilt, but he doesn’t wince or shrink back like he normally would, just keeps his eyes on you.

Your brows furrow, a tiny frown pulling at the corners of your lips. “What?” you ask, fork stilling in your hand. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Art just sighs, putting his fork down and leaning towards you. “I know Patrick better than you do,” he says with a tiny shrug, “he’s always had a hard time with…commitment.” He says slowly, searching for the right word.

You don’t say anything for a couple seconds, eyes scanning over his face slowly like you're examining him. Art forces himself to not start squirming under your intense, studying gaze.

You don’t seem to like what you find, eyes narrowing as you push your tray away from you and lean back in your seat. “Are you seriously shit talking your own best friend right now?”

Art’s brow raises, that wasn’t the reaction he was expecting, at all. His jaw ticks in annoyance, his hand balling into a fist on the tabletop.

“I’m not trying to shit talk him,” he says calmly, voice tinged with frustration. “I’ve just seen how things go with him. I’m looking out for you.”

Your eyes harden, disbelief mingling with irritation. “So, what? You think you know what’s best for me or something? Are you my keeper now?”

That pisses Art off, now you’re just being an asshole. His brows furrow, arms crossing in front of his chest defensively. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.” He says, tone harder than before.

You scoff, anger spilling over your face. “Well what the fuck do you mean then, Art? Because you dancing around whatever it is you obviously want to say is really starting to piss me off.”

Irritation flares in Art’s chest, piercing and sudden. He swallows it down, breathing out his nose slowly to try and calm himself. The air between the two of you is tense now.

You’re loud enough that a few people sitting at tables nearby start to quiet down, discreetly trying to listen in.

“Patrick doesn’t love you.” Art says spitefully, his fingers grip the muscle of his arms tighter. It’s childish, but he doesn't care.

Your eyes widen, clearly caught off guard. You recover quickly, letting out a disbelieving laugh as you push away from the table with a harsh scrape of your chair. "Excuse me?" Your voice cuts through the air, sharp and incredulous.  

He stays silent, letting the weight of his words hang heavy in the air. Your eyes narrow, searching his face for any sign of retreat, but Art meets your gaze head-on, jaw set stubbornly.

You stand with your arms crossed over your chest as you stare down at him. “Why are you telling me this? Why do you care if Patrick loves me or not?”

Why do you care? The question makes his heart drop down to his stomach. Dread mixes with the anger in his chest. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go, he doesn’t want to make a scene in the middle of the dining hall. You’re just being so difficult.

You’re jumping to defend Patrick, not even trying to hear him out, just like you always do. Still refusing to give Art the attention he deserves. It’s fucking infuriating.

“I’m just saying,” he says, voice distant and cold, “he hasn’t been in love with you for a while. He’s told me.” 

It’s a lie, he’s hardly spoken to Patrick recently, but he’s in this now. He may as well go for broke, he always plays to win after all. 

Your face contorts grimly, another disbelieving laugh punches it’s way out your chest. You don’t seem to notice the amount of heads turned in your direction, or maybe you just don’t care. “Oh, he’s told you that has he?” you parrot back mockingly, head cocked to the side as you stare daggers at him, “That’s fucking bullshit Art!”

Art clenches his fists, jaw flexing in anger. He’s never seen you this mad before, never expected to be the cause of it. But at the same time he’s fucking angry too. Angry at you. Angry at Patrick. Angry at himself.

His eyes narrow, holding your own heated gaze without backing down because if there's one thing he hates most, it's losing. “You don’t get it do you?” He mutters quietly, shaking his head in dismay. 

Your jaw tightens, eyes blazing as you lean forward, bracing your hands on the table to get up in his face. He can smell the familiar fruity sweetness of your perfume.

“What’s there to get? The only thing I’m getting right now, is a front row seat to you being a vindictive little prick.” You bite out, breath fanning over Art’s face. “Who even said I wanted Patrick to be in love with me? Who said I gave a fuck about any of that?” You question sternly, brows furrowed as you scowl at him.

Art scoffs loudly, his face twisting in disgust as he rolls his eyes. His blood boils at having to sit here while you bitch him out. He wants to strangle you, to take you by your shoulders and shake you so that you’ll listen.

To make you see what he sees. To make you love him. “Please,” he hisses through gritted teeth, shifting so he’s leaning across the table just as you are, his eyes dark. “Everyone wants Patrick to love them. Everyone wants his attention. You want it.”

You just blink at him, taken aback by his outburst. You stare at him, not budging as your eyes scan over his face for a second time. And there it is. There’s that glimmer of attention, that hint of acknowledgement of him.

The heavy look of rage taking over your features, the bite in your tone, it’s what Art’s wanted for months. Your undivided attention.

After a few tense seconds you just laugh, shaking your head in disbelief. “You might be the worst fucking friend in the world.” You say simply, like you're reading off this week's forecast.

Maybe he is.

Art can feel the heat rising to his cheeks in anger, in embarrassment, in hatred, in lust. The way you’re looking at him makes something stir deep in his gut. His heartbeat echoes in his ears.

You’re so mad, but in that you’re giving him a hint of your attention, giving him the time of day, and you’re still fucking defending Patrick. Rage seethes in him, hot like fire. Yet even in this moment, you’re the only person that really matters. The intensity of your gaze pulls at something raw inside him.

“He doesn’t deserve you.” His voice is lower, pinched with thinly veiled frustration threatening to boil over.

"And you think you're the expert on what I deserve, Art? Last time I checked, your own love life’s track record isn't exactly stellar."

It’s a low blow, bringing up how Tashi rejected him a while back. He hadn’t told you about that, so Tashi must have. He laughs, but his lips are pulled up in a sneer.

"Don’t start deflecting,” Your name falls from his lips sharply, stabbing through the thick tension in the air. “This isn't about me, it's about you. You're setting yourself up to get hurt, and I'm just trying to warn you–"

"Yeah, well, I didn't ask for your fucking opinion," you snap, "maybe you should focus on your own damn problems.”

Art’s jaw tightens further, his frustration finally getting the best of him. "Fine, do whatever the hell you want. But don't come crying to me when Patrick does what he always does— leaves you for someone new."

You stare at him incredulously, shock and anger warring in your expression. "I can't believe you just said that."

"Yeah, well," Art mutters bitterly, looking away. "Believe whatever you want. Just know that he’s playing with your feelings.”

You huff, throwing your arms out at your sides in frustration. “What fucking feelings Art!” you say loudly, not quite shouting but you’re getting there. “Sure, Patrick and I fuck but that doesn’t mean we’re playing husband and wife with each other!” 

You’re definitely way too loud, voice steadily rising in volume the more you talk. Seemingly not caring about who’s around to hear you yell about fucking Patrick. “In fact,” you continue, shaking an accusatory finger at Art, “you’re the one trying to get in my head and play with my feelings, you fucking hypocrite.”

His mind whites out, filled with blinding jealousy all over again. He wants you so fucking badly, he could be everything you needed. Why can’t you see that? How could you be so blind? How could you not see that Patrick was using you, just like he used everyone else?

Art leans further across the table as you speak, his hands coming up to grip the edges of it tightly. “You’re so fucking naive, you know that?” He snaps in a biting tone. It’s harsher than he’s spoken to you during this whole fight.

Your voice drips with sarcasm as you lean forward, eyes locked on his. "Oh, well forgive me for not seeing the truth according to Saint Art."

“So fucking naive.” He repeats, spitting the words across the table meanly.

“And you’re a fucking pussy.” You bite back, leaning in even closer so Art can see your lips form around the words maliciously. You sway close enough that the tip of your nose bumps against his. His breath catches, going ragged in his throat. You’re so close to him. He can smell you, can practically taste you on his tongue.

He wants to take you in his arms, to hold you and kiss the anger off your face. The only thing keeping him from lunging out is the way you look. Your whole body is rigid with anger, eyes dark and cheeks flushed. You’re so beautiful. He has to remind himself that he’s supposed to be pissed at you and fight the urge to pull you in and really taste you.

But then you're backing away completely, “I won’t waste my time on stupid shit like this,” you mutter, turning to pick your bag up off the floor. “Thanks for lunch, Art.” You say sarcastically, not even looking at him as you turn on your heel and walk towards the dining hall’s exit before he can respond.

Art’s heart lurches forward at your words, not with pain, but with want. He watches you leave, the regret quickly setting in once you’re not here to play into his resentment. It hits him like a cold shiver, he wants to feel good for speaking his mind, for telling you how it is. Maybe on some level he does, but it’s overshadowed by how awful he feels.

Art stares down at his unfinished salad, appetite gone. He sighs loudly, standing up to toss his own tray plus the one you left behind. He tries his best to ignore the stares he can feel following him as he walks out.

ᯤ

Art wallows in misery for the rest of the day, skipping the practice he had planned after lunch. He just locks himself in his dorm, laying on his mattress and staring at the ceiling as he replays the fight in his mind. Replaying every word you said to him, every word he said back to you, every angry look you gave him. 

He thinks about texting you a thousand times. Typing and deleting different messages until he eventually gave up. He knows you’re beyond pissed, that him reaching out will only piss you off more and he wants to try and salvage this before you completely shut him out. The thought of losing you is why he never wanted to bring it up in the first place, regret settles in his gut like a ball of lead.

And yet, there was a small part of him that hoped, despite the shit show in the dining hall, that you’d see the quiet care he showed, the way he was there for you, and choose him for once. But hope was a dangerous thing, and Art wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold out.

Hours go by with nothing from you, it’s the longest you’ve gone with talking since the semester started. He forced himself to study for his biology final in a lazy attempt at taking his mind off you. You’d usually be in his dorm room right now, all spread out on his bed like it’s your own as you talk his ear off about something like your asshole psychology professor. 

The longer he sits at his desk the longer the ache in his chest consumes him. Art would do anything to know what you were thinking right now. He’d grovel for your attention, he’d fall to his knees and beg and plead if that’s what it took for you to forgive him. 

He’s getting ready for bed when his Blackberry pings on his night stand, it’s almost embarrassing how fast he rushes over to it. His heart stutters in his chest when he sees it's a text from you. It’s only two words, a simple ‘come over’. 

Art’s never moved faster in his life, rushing out of his room with only his phone, wallet, and keys. 

He makes it to your dorm in record time, nearly sprinting across campus to hurry up and get there before you change your mind. All that needy rushing completely vanishes once he’s actually outside your door. 

Art hesitates, staring at the little door decals taped on with your name written on them in black sharpie. He rests his ear against the door, but he can’t hear anything. He worries his bottom lip between his teeth, brows pinched as he wrestles with himself.

“C’mon Donaldson, don’t be such a little bitch.” Patrick’s voice rings out in the back of his mind. He takes a breath and knocks on the door.

Barely a second passes before it’s swinging open and you're there, gripping the front of his shirt and dragging him inside your room. Art's back hits the closing door with a thud, his breath catching in surprise. His hands shoot out to brace on either side of the door, knocking over a racket resting on the wall. Everything he brought with him falling to clatter onto the wood floor loudly.

You look rough, eyes slightly red and puffy like you may have been crying. Your breath comes out in short, quick bursts as you stare up at him. All the anger he swore would come rushing back when he saw you drains out of him in a second.

His face softens, a tiny frown on his lips. "Hey, what’s going on?" he asks, voice a mix of confusion and worry. His hands come up to hover near your hips, hesitating at the last second, not sure if he should touch you.

Without a word, you’re flying forward while yanking him down by his shirt. Closing the distance between the two of you with your lips crashing against Art’s. It’s so sudden, so completely out of left field, that Art stumbles forward a few steps, hands gripping your hips tightly to steady himself.

It’s almost pathetic how easily he kisses back, not even hesitating. Flashes of Patrick’s face go through his mind as he eagerly reciprocates, not stopping him from pulling your hips flush against his. He definitely might be the worst friend in the world, all the loyalty he felt to Patrick tossed out of his mind the second your tongue slides past his lips.

It’s intense, there’s no romance or gentleness about it. Your lips move against his almost violently, all the aggression and anger from earlier still very much there. He’s never kissed a girl like this before, it’s not how he imagined his first kiss with you would go. He’s still getting hard in his sweats anyway.

Your tongue fucks into his mouth roughly, it reminds him of the time he and Patrick kissed when they were still at the academy for “practice”. He moans loudly into your mouth, letting you dominate the kiss and just trying his best to keep up. Your teeth clack against his roughly, biting down on his bottom lip hard enough to have him whining embarrassingly high and needy.  

“It’s over with Patrick,” you breathe hotly, slick lips brushing his with every word. “I want you to fuck me.”

Jesus fucking Christ.

Art’s dick feels hard enough to burst out of his sweats by sheer force, but he pauses, pulling away from you with a hesitant look. "I-" he tries, voice cracking slightly. He can feel his cheeks starting to burn as he clears his throat. "I don't think that's a good idea. It's so soon, and I mean you're obviously going through something and I don't want to take advantage of yo-"

An incredulous laugh bursting from your lips effectively cuts Art off, your eyes roll to the ceiling in dry amusement. “God, Art.” you scoff, both hands pushing off his chest to create space between the two of you. He keeps his hands on your hips, the thin material of your bottoms bunching in his grip. “You’re such a fucking little bitch, you can kiss me but you won’t fuck me? What is it? You scared of Patrick or something?”

The taunt hits Art like a slap across the face, he freezes for a second before disbelief gives way to white hot rage. You just stare up at him smugly, lips red and wet. Art bares his teeth, using his strong hold on your hips to force you backwards until your knees hit the edge of your bed.

“You’ve pushed me and pushed me and pushed me,” he spits, glaring down at you as he speaks. “Acting like such a fucking brat. You want me to fuck you?” He pushes you back onto the bed roughly, covering your body with his, letting his weight sink you deeper into the mattress. “Fine, I’ll fuck you.”

Art sits up, ripping his shirt over his head and tossing it somewhere behind his shoulder. Your greedy eyes rake down the toned muscle of his torso, hands coming up to lightly scratch your nails over his abs. His breath hitches, goosebumps breaking out all over his skin. He grabs your wrists, forcing them down and pinning them to the bed. “No touching.” he chastises, leaning down to bite the skin of your neck roughly. Sucking hard enough that he’ll definitely leave a mark. 

His dick twitches against the inside of his sweats at the thought of you walking around campus with his claim staked on you, at the thought of Patrick, if he was still coming down, seeing it and immediately knowing who left it there. He slides his knee between your legs, he can feel the warmth radiating from your pussy, can feel how you’re so wet it’s soaking through your bottoms and onto his thigh. 

You hiss at the sting of his teeth, trying to squeeze your wrists out of his strong grip. Your thighs tighten around his knee, hips bucking up against him. “Are you gonna fuck me anytime soon, Art? Or do I need to find someone else that’s not all talk?”

Art chuckles darkly, nipping at the sensitive skin of your collarbones. “You can bitch and moan all you want, but I haven’t even touched you yet–” he leans forward to whisper directly into your ear, “–And you’re still fucking soaked for me anyway.” He drags his tongue along the shell of your ear in a dirty stripe. 

You let out a keen, pretty and high, grinding your hungry pussy against his knee faster. He lets go of your hands, grabbing your hips and flipping you onto your stomach. Tossing you around like it’s nothing, just manhandling you.

“God,” he groans, big hands coming up to knead the meat of your ass, spreading it lewdly making you moan softly. “You’re so fucking hot.” He whispers, words falling from his lips like he couldn’t hold them in any longer.

Art keeps one hand tight on your hip, the other fumbling with the drawstring of his sweats so he can push them down to finally free his aching dick. Letting it spring out to slap up onto his bare stomach, trailing a thin line of pre-come across his abs. 

You squirm under him, feet kicking out as you struggle in his hold. Your head craning over your shoulder and zeroing in on his dick, hard and red and leaking. “You came over here with no panties on, Donaldson?” you taunt, pushing your ass back onto the sensitive length of his erection. “How slutty–” 

“Shut up,” he snaps harshly, but his dick twitches where it’s dragging over the seam of your ass. He’s leaking like a faucet, leaking like a girl, all over your light green plaid bottoms. It strikes him suddenly, how familiar they look. He stares at the worn down fabric covering your ass, at the way his pre-come stains the material darker, at the way they hang too low on your hips, too big for you. 

“Are these…are these Patrick's,” he asks slowly, voice low as his fingers skim over the soft material. You chuckle wickedly, wiggling your hips back teasingly. 

“Yeah, they are,” you say, sliding your ass back and forth over Art’s dick. “You’re leaking jizz all over your best friend's pants, Art.”

Art groans loudly, chin dropping to his chest as hips jerk against your ass involuntarily. A full body shiver wracks through him like lightning, eyes screwing shut as he tries not to come all over your ass. “Shit–” he bites out sharply, voice rough and scratchy. He can distantly hear you laughing at him through all the white noise buzzing in his ears.

He breathes out through his nose, willing himself to calm down. He needs to be in control for once, needs to teach you a lesson for ignoring him for so long.

Art’s hands come up to the waistband of your– Patrick's– pants, fingers digging underneath the loose material and forcefully yanking it down along with your panties, only pulling them down to your mid-thigh. You yelp in surprise, hands gripping the sheets of your bed tightly. 

“I need to get inside you, right fucking now.” he rumbles thickly, flipping you onto your back again. He needs to see your face when he fucks you for the first time, needs to burn it into his mind forever.

“Fuck yes,” you reply eagerly, arms coming up to circle around his shoulders. “Finally.”

Art doesn't reply, eyes fixed on your bare pussy, so fucking wet and shining underneath the shitty ceiling light of your dorm. His mouth waters, he wants to drop to his stomach and eat you out until you're shaking and squirting all over his face. His dick drools at the thought, but he’ll have to wait. He needs to fuck you.

He takes his dick in his hand, dragging it through the silky skin of your soaked folds. He spreads your wetness around your clit, rubbing the leaking tip over you back and forth teasingly. You whine, thighs starting to shake on either side of him. He drags his dick back down to your clenching hole, lining up and slowly sinking inside the tight, wet heat.

Art doesn’t give you any time to adjust to the thick head of his dick breaching your tight hole, burying himself to the hilt inside of you with a sharp thrust. 

“Fuck!” you cry out, legs coming up to wrap tightly around his hips, digging your heels into his lower back. “Shit, fuck you’re– God, you're so fucking deep.”

“I’m going to use your fucking pussy however I want,” Your name falls from his lips, dirty and blistering. “because it’s the least I deserve for putting up with your bullshit for so fucking long, and you’re going to be good and lay there and take it.” He drives his point home with a mean thrust of his hips.

“Fuck you, Art.” you mutter back, trying to keep up the bratty act even though your voice is going breathless and needy.

Art doesn’t ease into it, pulling back only to start pounding into your pussy ruthlessly. Sharp slaps of his hips stinging your ass each time he drives back in, your eyes roll back in your head, slack lips parted in pleasure as he fucks you. 

Art can’t help but lean down to claim your mouth, kissing you a little too sweetly for the moment. He can’t help it, not when you’re under him making the sweetest noises, letting him fuck your perfect fucking pussy like he owns it. God.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Art growls, breaking the kiss to rest his sweaty forehead against yours. “You’re so fucking, tight. Feels so fucking– shit, so fucking good.” His hips speed up, desperately rutting into you.

“Art,” you whine, nails scratching down his back hard. “I’m so close, fuck I’m so close– keep going, don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop–”

He cuts off your rambling with a kiss, groaning at the way his name sounds getting fucked out of your mouth. The loud squelch your pussy makes each time he buries himself back inside has his ears burning, he can feel you soaking the skin of his thighs with every thrust.

“Wanna feel your tight pussy milk me dry,” he grinds out through gritted teeth, picking up his pace. “Fuck, I‘m gonna come, I’m gonna fucking come.” He ruts into you harder, splitting you open with every thrust. The skin of your ass turning red and raw from how hard he’s giving it to you. 

Your hands come up to bury themselves in his hair, tugging sharply to make him look at you. “Inside,” you pant, eyes glazed over and wild, “come inside me Art, please. I’m on the pill you can, you can come inside me.” Your legs tighten their hold on his hips, ankles locking snugly over his lower back so he couldn’t even pull out if he wanted.

“Fuck!” Art shouts your name hoarsely, hips stuttering as he unloads in you. Hot come spraying the walls of your pussy. You let out a broken moan, your whole body shaking as you come with him. Your pussy chokes his dick so tightly, gripping him like a vice, milking him.

Art tilts his head up, catching your lips with his to greedily swallow down all your moans. He keeps going, shallow thrusts of his hips working you through the aftershocks of your orgasm until you’re kicking at his back, whining at him to stop. He collapses on top of you, his sweaty skin sticking to the fabric of your shirt. 

It’s quiet for a while, the two of you silently trying to catch your breath. Your hands come up to his head, sliding into the messy strands of his hair. “It’s pretty late now,” you say slowly, nails scratching against his scalp softly. “You could…you could stay here if you want.”

Art hides the wide grin breaking out on his face in your chest, arms coming up to circle around your waist. “Yeah, that sounds good.” He whispers back, squeezing the soft skin of your hips once.

It’s only later, when you’ve fallen asleep on his chest, that he stares up at the ceiling lost in thought. He’s too worked up to sleep, so fucking thrilled that it worked. His plan actually worked. You’re his now. He looks down at you, glowing softly in the moonlight filtering through your window, deep hickeys scattered across your neck. He drags his fingers along your cheekbone, tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear.

This is what he’s wanted for so long, you.

You asleep in bed with him, you curled up in his arms, you with his come steadily dripping out of your swollen pussy.

Art can hear his Blackberry start buzzing on your nightstand, lighting up with an incoming call. Even from far away he can read the name displayed on the screen. Patrick. He lets it ring.

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[dreamerimpossible]

Slasher Jealousy Scale

Warnings: Unhealthy relationships, in certain cases yandere tendencies, +18 content.

Michael Myers 3/10

Not too jealous. He usually doesn't understand the reason for those feelings. Furthermore, no one would be able to touch what he marked for him, his superhuman strength and imposing figure would be on top of anyone who dared to look in your direction. So, he would never get jealous. There's just no need.

Chucky 8/10

Completely canonical that he's a jealous bastard. Just tell him he's not man enough for you and he'll get on top of you without thinking twice forcing you to back off. The person who set his sights on you doesn't have a good destiny, obviously. In reality, it's not good to play with him, his pride as a man is too strong.

Billy Loomis 9/10

Abandonment issues become too present. He doesn't like you getting close to too many guys. If his partner knows his true nature, he will be overly controlling and possessive, he would not like his partner to get too close to friends who could be a threat to their relationship. He is quite manipulative and will use such tactics to get you to stay away from those he doesn't like.

Stu Macher 6/10

Medium level of jealousy. He doesn't like being replaced by someone else, but he won't show much of a reaction if you talk to friends who like you. Anyway, he is also popular and will interact with all types of people. However, if he sees something very noticeable, he will pull the strings underneath and that person who made him jealous will magically disappear. For the sake of the relationship, don't talk about it.

Patrick Bateman 10/10

All your attention should be directed at him. The more genuine your interest and compliments, the more he will seek your attention, so making him jealous and paying attention to someone else would be the end of it. He needs complete devotion. He won't tolerate distractions and could take care of them. Making him feel insecure indirectly is not the best option you could take. It is better to dedicate everything to him.

Jason Vorhees 10/10

He literally keeps you locked up, that is the most representative indication of the matter. He does not like those people standing over you looking at you with lust. He is the only one you need. Yes, he will take care of you and protect you. You should be calm.

Leatherface 10/10

Too insecure with himself, so he expects you to have impeccable behavior. Although luckily for you, you will not have too many moments in which he will get jealous because your only environment is his family. So you must treat them with respect and with certain limits and distance. If not, he will get frustrated. And we know his way of dealing with that.

Art The Clown 2/10

He is not jealous, everything for him is a violent game. If someone flirts with you, he will laugh and do his thing with the same energy as always. Although he won't tolerate you ridiculing him, if you flirt with someone, you will pay, but not because he gets jealous, but because he is the one who makes the rules, not you.

Jason Dean 10/10

Dependent, possessive and obsessive. He's literally a warning in and of himself. Seriously, don't flirt or let yourself be flirted with. Don't break up with him, don't walk away from him, don't stop paying attention to him. Just don't leave him, he's very jealous and won't let you go for any reason. Oh, he's also manipulative, so he'll definitely get you to walk away from that harmless guy in your class.

Alex DeLarge 2/10

He doesn't formally qualify as a slasher, but I'm including him anyway. I don't really see him as jealous, he's more of a controlling guy. He doesn't like having his first choice role in other people's lives taken away from him, he is the leader and the one who commands, but he won't get jealous of anyone, because he thinks highly of himself and is charming when he wants to be. He probably has you wrapped around his finger, so…why get jealous?

Brahms 15/10

He won't let you leave the house for that reason. He doesn't want you to leave him, any outsider is a threat. You are only his, you must accept that. However, even if you accept it, he will still be jealous, because he can't help it. If you want to go out somewhere, he will wonder if it is because you want to see someone.

[philcon-programming]

Philcon 2024!

Do you love Science Fiction, Fantasy, or Horror? Are you a Writer, a Gamer, a Costumer, or a Filker? Are you looking for a weekend of distraction in your life? If you’re in the vicinity of Philadelphia- or more specifically, Cherry Hill, New Jersey- there’s an event coming up on November 22 – 24, 2024 that we’d love for you to come check out. If you aren’t already familiar with PHILCON, here’s what you should know: * We started out as a literary-centric SF convention in 1936, but have grown to embrace all mediums of storytelling (movies, television, comics, podcasts, etc) as well as expanding to cover the Fantasy and Horror genres. Most of our participants are authors, and there will be Readings by them and Autograph sessions all throughout the weekend, in addition to their participation on discussion panels. * While many of our Literary panels are about SF, Fantasy, or Horror topics in general, we also have an emphasis on panels discussing the craft side and business sides of writing, for those looking to develop as authors. * One of our content tracks for the weekend is dedicated to Science & Technology itself, not just how it is used in fiction. * We will be screening several movies over the weekend, and Anime will also be shown in our Anime & Animation room at certain times. * There will be Workshops and Demos for Costuming (including "Fabric Manipulation", "How to Make Foam Armor", "Make-up for The Stage", and "A Pox on Patterns!") and Art (including "Using Alcohol Inks", "Block Printing With Your Own Designs", "How to Make A Controlled Color Palette", and "Making Wire-Wrapped Jewelry"), and if you’ve got an outfit you made that you’d like to show off on stage, we’ve got a yearly Costume Contest. * If you are a Filker- or just enjoy listening to other people sing and play music- Philcon has a room dedicated Filk room, and this year’s Musical Guest of Honor is Cecilia Eng. As Cecilia is not often on the east coast, if you’d like to see her play in person, now is an excellent change to do so without flying to the other side of the country. Lynn Gold, another west-coast Filker, will also be joining us this year. There are also Concerts scheduled for Sirens & Liars, Half a Slime Devil, Brenda and Chuck Shaffer-Shiring, and Sara Henya. * Since the Gaming track moved from an upstairs suite to the “Gallery” room on the first floor, it’s had the literal room to expand the number of games it can run, and we’ve got a bevy of them on the schedule for 2024, as well as a bank of games for you to choose from during Open Gaming hours. There's also a LARP Workshop Series being run by Spectacle INK. * Our Artist Guests of Honor for 2024 are Gina Matarazzo and Matthew Stewart. Each will be giving a presentation on our Main Stage on Saturday afternoon, as well as having their art displayed in our Art Show. * Our Principal Speaker for 2024 is MAX GLADSTONE, and we also have Nghi Vo as our Special Guest. Both will be doing Readings, Autograph Sessions, panels, and a main stage Q&A session. An interactive version of our schedule can be found HERE. While a simplified, static overview, organized by track, can be found HERE. Our LinkTree can be found HERE. We would especially value your support this year, as Philcon’s Covid-19 policy in previous years (which required both mandatory masking and proof of vaccination in an attempt to avoid becoming a super-spreader event as several other conventions had) has led to a slow but noticeable decline in attendance. While masking in public spaces is still heavily encouraged, neither proof of vaccination nor masking are required to attend the convention in 2024. We’d love your help in making this year a success, so that we’re in a good position to bring you all something really fantastic for our upcoming 90th anniversary. We’d also love to give you a great weekend right now, for reasons I doubt we need to explain. Here’s to surviving the next few years! ~ Lynati Head of Programming, Philcon 2024

[uyai1101-lads]

Dark Xavier Emerges.

MDNI, 🔞 18+ explicit nsfw content ahead. MDNI 🔞

Tags:

Light Fear play

Instant regret

Breeding kink (with no consequences)

General Yandere behavior

Light sadism

Aftercare

Hand necklace

You’re a ragdoll.

Xavier x fem reader

Play this to hear what music I listened to while writing this. Really put me in the writing mood.⤵️

Writer note: I haven’t written any fanfic in forever so please bear with me if the story feels weird. I tried y’all😭. I’ll probably do some art soon for this and put it up on a Patreon I’ll create soon where I can comfortably post more explicit art. Please feel free to share your thoughts IF you’re 18+ on this.

“How much did you buy?” Xavier demands in shock and annoyance, his sapphire eyes slowly narrowing to slits.

Amused and intrigued by this side of Xavier you’ve only managed to see once in a while, you smile inside secretly. Your plan to see how much of his dark side you could provoke to come out was slowly working. Yes you knew it was toxic and manipulative on your end to stoke his ire but Gods did it get you hot and bothered when the light in his eyes dimmed and his voice grew firm, husky, Dangerous. You wanted to know what that was like when he focused that dark side of his, in bed, on YOU.

You playfully shove at his unyielding hard chest caging you in on the single sofa he had moments ago cornered you to.

“Move! We can’t keep the delivery guy waiting” you whine with a soft laugh, your eyes soaking in his annoyed but still so handsome face.

“Nope” came the firm reply and an even firmer hand sliding up yours on his chest to grip and slowly bring it back down between the two of you.

“ I won’t let you go, until I hear the answer I want” the cold firm tone was said in a deep husky voice. The usually soft innocent expression of his was now gone and replaced with a cool almost predatory one. His already dark sapphire eyes almost black and now hooded, soft locks of his greyish hair falling into them.

Fuck… you thought eagerly. Here he was, Dark Xavier, this side of him you affectionately nicknamed.

You could feel your lower belly clench in pleasure, your pussy was damn near throbbing already.

A loud pounding at the door causes both of you to jump, Xavier startles and glances over at the door with a fierce scowl. He was distracted enough that you managed to wrench your hand out of his now loose grip and push him softly but quickly out of the way as you made a hasty escape from his cage and towards the door.

“Cominggg! Hold on I’m coming sir!”

If you had glanced behind you, you would have noticed Xavier’s lips raise in an unnatural smile as he watched your enthusiastic figure race to the door. coming? calling another man sir and yelling about coming? he thought, his mind warping your words, you wouldn’t be doing that this evening unless you BEGGED and gave him the exact answer he needed to hear.

After getting your package of more Lumiere merchandise and food ordered, your next plan was getting Xavier’s reluctant help in setting up the Lumiere toys and cardboard cutout in your room, you positioned the cutout directly by your bed earning yourself and the innnocent cutout a heavy dark stare.

Uh ohhhhh, you thought with an inner snicker. He was slowly losing it, you could feel the heavy aura in the bedroom. Now was the time to coax him to bed and show your “appreciation” for his help these past few days. Truthfully your injuries had healed well and you would’ve gone back to work but Xavier definitely wouldn’t have approved. Plus he seemed to really enjoy personally taking care of you.

You slowly strip out of the pajama bottoms and flannel top you had on, revealing the cute red lacy underwear set you had bought just for tonight.

Unfortunately the lacy panty was half drenched with your arousal but the sharp intake of breath you heard from Xavier seated on your bed made it worth keeping it on. You could feel that possessive almost hungry stare slowly sliding up your body and back down leaving you jittery and achy with anticipation.

To add more fuel to the fire you had cultivated all these few days, you pick up the handsome Lumiere ball joint doll you had managed to snag online before it sold out from your vanity and give it a quick sweet kiss on its resin cheek. “Goodnight my handsome Lumiere” you coo at it.

A sudden low snarl from the bed almost makes you drop the doll to the hardwood floor in shock, you whip your head so fast to catch Xavier’s angered face you almost give yourself a crick in the neck. You slowly place the ball joint doll back on your vanity.

Now your heart is pounding because Xavier’s off the bed now, slowly walking towards you. His expression twisted into a faint calm smile but the energy he’s giving off is anything but calm.

“X-Xavier?” You half ask half whisper. Taking an involuntary step away from his slowly advancing figure. All of a sudden the room feels too small and not enough room to escape.

Xavier lets out a soft flat chuckle, he watches you with those deep unwavering sapphire eyes of his but…his smile feels wrong, almost mocking and…cruel.

“Ahh so you do remember my name after all, Star” the deep flat voice sends alarming goosebumps down your skin. You’re caught off guard by the sudden temperature drop in the room and the sudden feeling of intimidation. You shuffle back another step almost reaching your bathroom door, your heart is racing, you feel that confusing mixture of sudden fear but titillation dampening your lacy panty. Your legs are shaking as you stare at that predatory animal gait still approaching you.

This was what you wanted but maybe just maybe, you had pushed him too far? You’re all of a sudden not sure how far Xavier might go with you tonight.

“Star? Why are you backing away from me?” Xavier asks softly with faint audible amusement, his expression still the flat calm.

Heart thudding out of your chest, you immediately turn to the bathroom door intending to dart inside and slam it shut to at least get a few seconds to shake off the chill you’re feeling and calm down.

A large palm shoots out right past your ear and slams the door you just managed to open, violently shut.

Legs almost giving out beneath you, you shakily turn and find yourself staring up at the dark blown out pupils staring blankly down at you.

“X-Xavier plea-“

All of a sudden you’re picked up and thrown over his shoulder, your world is upside down, head facing down at his bottom and legs while your ass is up in the air. Did he just? Manhandle you?!

As if he heard your stunned inner dialogue, A hard sting on your almost bare ass sends a shocking burn that wrings a startled squeal out of you.

XAVIER?!

Just

SPANKED ME?!

you’re too speechless to even try and protest before you find yourself sailing through to the bed and damn near bouncing off of it. But he’s there, palm pushing you back down hard.

You stare up at him, mouth dropped open in a breathless wheeze of near terror. Somehow your confused horny pussy thinks it’s go time and throbs with a need to be filled by this unhinged man giving you the same amused twisted smile.

Without hesitation a large hand sensually wraps around your throat and drags you up firmly to demanding lips.

Xavier’s kiss is domineering, possessive and utterly overwhelming. His soft lips draw out moans from you quickly enough but before you can actually start reciprocating, he sinks his teeth to your bottom lips causing you to draw back with a sudden wince. You’re wide eyed, disbelief written plainly on your face. Gentle soft Xavier has definitely left the building. In front of you is exactly the man you were hoping for.

“Since my little Star thinks I’m harsh and cruel” Xavier’s other free hand strokes down from your heaving chest, stopping briefly to squeeze dark hard nipples, this illicits a slightly pained but aroused whimper out of your lips. He answers that with a groan of pleasure, hooded sapphire eyes soaking up your half scared half aroused expression.

“I do love that look on your face Star, but I want you needy and whimpering on my dick, mind blank while I breed you in front of HIM” Xavier directs his cruel gaze at the cutout Lumiere board by the bed, beautiful face twisting again.

“let’s see if Lumiere can save you then? Hmm?” He looks back down at you, beneath long pale lashes the cruel gaze softens to something eager but perverse.

“Wait, Xavier, surely you know Lumiere-“ you can barely finish your sentence before he pulls you like a ragdoll and positions you on your stomach. While you don’t hate this, your heart is still thudding in your chest at how quickly “Dark Xavier” showed up and how intense this actually was. Much more intense than you imagined in fact. You didn’t know Xavier actually had it in him to be rough like this and actually have a breeding kink to boot or even say dirty stuff in bed so effortlessly?!

" My sweet little star, you shouldn't have said that name again" he slides both hands up your back and down, hands squeezing your plump ass and massaging deeply, causing you to moan helplessly.

"I was going to show some mercy tonight and let you come after all but now-" a hard smack lands on your left butt cheek causing you to jump and attempt to wriggle away but his firm hands holds you down and steady. He rubs over the stinging ass cheek soothingly, a whisper of Soft Xavier appearing again. 

You could swear there's a sweet smile on his lips as he says "but now I have to keep being harsh and cruel"

Xavier positioned you directly in front of the Lumiere cutout board, it seems very intentionally.

So this would be a ravaging, claiming in front of his alter ego Lumiere. Still moving you around like a ragdoll, both hands on your hips pull your ass up so you're in a collapsed doggy position. You tense as his hands slide down from your ass to your soaked lacy panty.

Another sharp intake of breath from him as his fingers slip past the fabric and press right against your swollen clit. "Ohhhh you're sopping wet princess" his voice is back to a low breathy moan. 

"So you do like me being harsh and cruel after all? Hmm?" Firm fingers rub your clit slowly, causing you to whimper and moan into the pillow. A finger slides lower, slipping into your pussy easily, another finger joins in, then another, all knuckles deep as he massages the spot he recently discovered drove you wild since you two started sleeping together two weeks ago.

You try to hide your moans as your mouth falls open and you rock back against the thick digits fucking you.

Gods Xavier knew just how to finger you and have your mind grow fuzzy. You feel that rush of an orgasm approaching and fuck you're almost there. You rock back against his scissoring fingers harder, panting, limbs trembling, eyes squeezing shut as you cream all over his hand. "Almost there", you choke out through gritted teeth.

"Oh? did I say you could cum Star?" Xavier's cold harsh voice by your ear and his swift withdrawal of his perfect fingers splashes cold water over the impending bliss.

"N-no p-please I was almost there!"  you cry out in dazed confusion. Your pussy clenches on air, you're left trembling and suddenly anger rushes through you, fogging your brain, causing your mouth to say the worst thing ever. You sit up on your knees and glare frostily at the still gently smiling Xavier next to you on the bed.

" Lumiere would've let me come" you snark,  victoriously waiting to see the anger on his face.

The room suddenly grows heavy in pressure and drops in temperature again. The still gentle smile is there on Xavier's soft lips, but it feels...condescending now.

"Lumiere... would make you cum? Is that so Princess?" Xavier asks gently in that low sensual voice of his, one eyebrow arched in mock surprise, a little chuckle follows the question.

You stare up at his sharp sapphire eyes and you feel that you made a deep mistake. Xavier's PISSED. Damn it! You curse your sharp reckless mouth and shuffle away from him in bed, attempting yet again to escape the consequences of your action.

You barely make it across the bed before Xavier has you pinned down beneath him swiftly, his firm hands clamping yours down over your head, you struggle beneath him, heart racing, attempting to buck him off of you, but he's immovable, straddling you. He'd always been very strong for someone that didn't have bulging muscles and didn't seem fond of working out. 

You feel that difference in physical strength now and while its overwhelming, you find that this...is actually turning you on.

Then you feel it, the heavy bulge through his thin grey sweatpants pressing against your groin, Xavier is raging hard and excited, there's a feverish look in his dark eyes now. His smile is smug, satisfied. "You're not going anywhere Star" he leans down over you to whisper, warm lips brushing over the shell of your ear, the soft warm tip of his tongue trails up your ear and you whimper because that's one of your weak spots, your ears are particularly sensitive.

"W-wait Xavier, I'm sorry I shouldn't have said that!, I’m so sorry!" You moan out, attempting to move your overstimulated ear away from his sensual touch. But he's relentless, applying the right amount of lips and tongue and now teeth as he bites your ear lobe.

You cry out, racked by a tingly orgasm that takes you suddenly. It's almost embarrassing that you're coming just from this alone.

Xavier pulls away with a smirk to admire his handiwork, eyes drinking in your shivering panting form beneath him.

"Yeah, you shouldn't have, but you did" he let's go of one of your wrists to slide his hand down to your breasts that have fallen out of the flimsy lace bra that covered it moments ago.

He tugs on your tits, twisting one nipple gently and another harshly, wringing out pleading whimpers from your lips.

He lets go and reaches down to pull out his hard throbbing dick free from its confines. The head is a ruddy broad mushroom tip slick and drooling with precum, surprisingly thick and long for someone that doesn't look like he should have such a thing attached to him. 

You stare up at his lovely face tinged with red, greyish hair hanging over eyes hooded with deep arousal and his pink lips parted as he strokes his fat dick over you. The sound of his hand stroking that beautiful cock has you squirming underneath him, Gods you want it stretching your wet little pussy so bad right now.

"Xavier please, please fuck me" you beg shamelessly, eyes glued to his hand wrapped around that fat weeping dick. He let's go of your other wrist to slide the sopping wet lace panty to the side, adjusting his position so the head of his dick slides up through your folds to your throbbing clit, he teases you like this while you whine and attempt to move your hips so he can slip inside. He glares at you narrowing his eyes in disapproval.

A hard hand wraps around your throat again, not hard enough to stop you breathing but enough to warn you he needs you to behave.

"You'll take whatever I give you right Star?" He asks with that twisted cruel smile back on his innocent face. 

You nod desperately, at this point you'd agree to anything so long as you got his dick in you.

"There's a good girl, remember you said yes, Star" 

Without hesitation he spears through your little wet hole with his dick and you both groan at the sensation. You almost arch off the bed as you gasp for air at the sudden fullness. His dick is almost too much, too full and too deep already.

Xavier lets out a deep shuddering breath, his eyes are feverish and there's an unstable look to it now.

"Since you want to cum so badly, I'll fulfill your wishes" he murmurs almost to himself, he draws out his dick through your tight grip and snaps his hip forward harshly, jolting you up the bed, you shriek as he finds that pleasurable spot inside you and presses in on it relentlessly.

The sound of flesh against flesh and hard panting fills the room. Your eyes glaze over as Xavier fucks you damn near through the bed. You feel an orgasm fast approaching and you start begging "please let me come Xavierrr please please!" 

He lets out a hard short laugh, his hooded eyes glued to his cock plunging in and out of your tight wet pussy that won't let him go, his hand not wrapped around your throat whips out a vibrating bullet from Gods only knew where, pressing it against your slick swollen clit. There’s almost a sadistic light in his eyes now as he turns up the power. 

a hard shudder runs through you as you try to squirm away not expecting that kind of stimulation, but he's already on you, holding you down with his body, the bright light in his eyes feverish as he watches you break down into a screaming overstimulated mess on his thick ravaging dick.

"Can Lumiere fuck you into this brainless mess Princess?" He whispers over you, gaze now hard and heavy on your slack face.

You're shaking as another orgasm accompanies the first one.

A soft slap on your clit sends you over the edge to something so intense you actually...Squirt. The orgasm is white and blinding, you don't realize you're screaming until a hand is clamped over your mouth hard. 

" I don't want to hear you scream 'Gods' unless it's my name instead" Xavier sneers down at your face. He is relentless, still fucking you through this orgasm, setting an almost punishing pace, hitting your sweet spot repeatedly as you weakly attempt to buck him off of you. You didn’t know having an orgasm could be so unbearable. You crave it and fear it at the same time. Was this really Xavier dominating you so thoroughly?

"Fuck, your pussy is so greedy, Star, it doesn't want to let go, do you love my dick that much princess?" A ragged gasp greets your ears.

You can barely form a thought in your head, you feel like you’re floating out of your body, your mind is full of static and fuzzy. Xavier let's out another amused scoff down over you before shifting you closer to the Lumiere cutout board again.

This time he pulls up your legs, pressing it to your chest arranging you in an instense position that has his dick impossibly deeper. You faintly realize it's a mating press and a deep shiver runs through you. He was really planning on taking you like this, in front of his alter ego?! Dominating you completely like this?

"My little Star just tightened up? You really want me breeding you in front of your precious Lumiere?" Another condescending chuckle greets your ears.

His face is now closer to yours, his hand moves from your neck to your jaw. 

"Open up your mouth and stick out your tongue princess, let's french kiss" he whispers, a command he expects you to follow while gazing down at you as his dick starts slowly pounding through your slick achy little pussy.

This position has you breathless and mind still fuzzy. You can only mindlessly obey him, sticking out your tongue as he leans over to suck it into his hot mouth, kissing you hungrily almost sucking up all the air in your lungs.

Xavier’s dick picks up speed, fucking into you animalistically, without mercy.

He pants, pulling away to bite the side of your neck, it’s sends a pleasurable shiver through you.

" Fuck I want to fill you up with my cum Star, gonna give you a creampie" he grunts, breathing harsher as he nears his own orgasm. Sapphire eyes screwed shut.

Your pussy grips him hard, a tight wet muscle massaging his dick mindlessly ravaging you almost instinctually. 

"Your greedy pussy loves me doesn't it? You're trying to milk me already princess, such a sweet girl,"

You're creaming on his cock and start trying to squirm away, you feel another orgasm coming, this one threatens to cause a black out and you're instinctively terrified. 

"Please I can't take it, it's too much" you blubber out shaking underneath him.

" You can take it Star and you will, relax I'll get you through it, just be good and take all I give you, there’s a good girl. Just like that" Xavier grunts out, hips still pistoning faster. Dick pounding into your cunt.

" Now tell me who do you prefer? Me or Lumiere? Who's breeding this perfect -grunt- pussy right now?" 

You're shaking underneath him, weak, barely able to hang on as Xavier takes you hard, deep and rough in the mating press, his determination to own you almost terrifying.

"Answer me or you won't come for a long time Star" the steel is back in his voice again, hand back on your throat, not too hard but a domineering pressure and presence.

"Y-you Xavierrr, YOUU!!" you scream out and the orgasm hits the both of you at the same time.

You black out momentarily like you knew you would, head blank.

An animal like growl comes through Xavier as his dick shoots out ropes and ropes of his thick creamy cum deep into your womb. Your slut pussy mindlessly milks his still hard cock for more.

"Hahhh fucckkk good girl, your pussy is still gulping down my cum, my sweet Star is so perfect, you want more cum don't you princess?”, Xavier whispers into your ear, tongue licking away the salty tears slipping down your cheeks.

Your dazed fucked out face is still so arousing to Xavier and his dick refuses to go down. So he moves your limp body, belly down and mounts you, dick back in you, plugging up the cum that still seeps out anyway. It's another mating press. He really doesn't plan on showing you any mercy tonight.

You slowly come to with Xavier moaning and murmuring sweet words into your ears, dick still buried in your cunt. He's moving slowly now, deep slow fucking that has your breath quickening as Xavier uses your pussy without any signs of stopping, fucking you senseless.

" My sweet little Star feels too good, your pussy is so honest, it wants more doesn't it? You want my cum don't you princess? I'll fill you up soon enough,the only man allowed in here is me. That grip, such a greedy little hole, Star, just for me isn't it?" He pants, eyes glazed over as he ruts into you.

He picks up speed, hand now gripping your hair, pulling your head up off the pillow.

"Answer me, Just. For. Me. Isn't it?" Each word followed by a deep pounding that has you trying to run from his dick. You feel too good, too overstimulated, you don't think you can take another orgasm, it might just kill you.

"Yes Xavier, YES!!" You sob out, clawing at the rumpled bedsheets desperately. "Please I can't take another orgasm! Please no more, I can't do it!" You plead for mercy, tears in your eyes as you look back at Xavier pitifully, whimpering. 

Something in him snaps some more, that brainless/fucked out look on your face, the whimpering, the tears and the begging as if he's your whole world tips him to a sudden orgasm that has him rutting his dick in you harder like an animal, he cums so hard it's almost painful for him. 

The thick ropes of cum is milked out of him as you tighten your inner muscles causing him to double over and roar his release.

He collapses over you, a panting satisfied mess. Trying his best not to suffocate you, he rolls over to his side pulling you into his chest and cuddles you, soothing you, stroking a soft comforting hand down your soft silky skin. He showers you with soft placating kisses. It seems he accomplished his goal of teaching you a lesson.

You feel Xavier get up to go to the bathroom but you don't move your head to check, you're so exhausted you start sinking into deep sleep.

Xavier comes back with a warm damp washcloth and cleans you up, cuddles you again and rubs your back, whispering sweet praises into your neck. His hard glare at the Lumiere cutout board almost burns a hole through it in the dark bedroom.

You wake up mid afternoon to find Xavier staring at you with a loving look in his now actually calm soft sapphire eyes, he's sitting by the love seat sofa by your bed, flipping through a book he had been reading this past week.

You almost feel like everything that happened last night was a dream, but your achy body tells you it definitely wasn't, you might not be able to walk straight anytime soon it seems.

"You're up Star, umm I got some takeout I can warm up for you" Xavier gets up and approaches you, sitting on the bed and pulling off your head scarf he seemed to have put on you when you fell asleep, he caresses your soft cheek lovingly . Soft sweet Xavier is back, his voice is back to being lighter and carefree, eyes drinking you in possessively and sweetly.

“Ummm, did I scare you last night? Was I too rough on you?” Xavier worriedly asks, scratching at the back of his neck, smile sheepish.

“N-no. I actually enjoyed that Xavier, truly. I just didn’t think you’d be so…kinky” you mutter, feeling your face grow hot at his knowing smile. You look away, glad he can’t see your blush so easily. But your cute physical reactions are telling. He leans over to capture your face and kiss your cheeks and throat sweetly. “you’re so cute my star” he murmurs into your skin.

You sigh and collapse back against the pillow, you’re hungry as hell and still tired, you're gonna be in bed for a bit longer. You remind yourself that maybe trying to bring out Dark Xavier often isn't a good idea, maybe once in a while, last night was hot as hell, you've never cum so hard in your life and been scared to orgasm again. It’s just…you have a feeling you’d probably be orgasmed to near death if you kept provoking that side of him again too soon.

"I love you Xavier" you say smiling sweetly at him. You mean it and you want to reassure him he’s the only man for you.

His already sweet puppy like eyes soften impossibly, "I love you too Star" 

"You really are the most jealous man I know Xavier," you muse with a faint giggle.

Almost immediately something dark passes through Xavier's sweet eyes.

Uh Ohhhh…

"You...know other men?" He inquires, voice tense and now low but he still maintains his smile.

You roll your eyes up at the ceiling and sigh. Gods help you.

End.

Writer note: Welp here was the brainrot in my head for Dark Xavier. I’m still figuring out how to write this ml X You content. I don’t know if I’ll do these kind of writing again or stick to using my specific MC.

[lorelune]

of carnage

|| blade x reader || E/18+ || shared toxicity, band au || wc: 8.8k  || ao3 ||

You and Blade are mutually assured destruction. You know this, and yet it does not stop you from chasing after him.

minors, antis and ageless blogs dni

notes: well hello :3c this fic is part of a trade i did for some LOVELY selfship art with MOST BELOVED @rabbbitseason!! they asked for toxic bladie and reader and i come to DELIVER 🙏 setting and au are heavily inspired by my time in my local music scene and all of the 💀that came with it. i'm glad it can be all get repurposed into blade smut 🫶 THANK YOU!! to bitti for giving me so many fun wants to craft around!! THANK YOU!!! as well to @ofmermaidstories and @2kmps for beta reading!! now, please mind the tags on this one and enjoy <3

CW: dark content, band au, dubcon, pain during sex, bleeding during sex, toxic relationship between blade and reader, angst, hurt/a little comfort, manipulation, gaslighting by blade and the reader @ themselves, face slapping, spanking, spitting, reader smokes cigarettes, reader drinks, self destructive reader, past blade/dan heng, implied unrequited jing yuan/dan heng, kernels of jing yuan/reader

“Are you going to the gig tonight? Fu Xuan asks as if the answer isn’t obvious already.

You crane your neck back to look at her from your roost in front of your full-length mirror. Your knees dig into the carpet and the tips of your fingers are tinged with black. You’ve spent the better part of the last thirty minutes attempting to perfectly smudge the smoky line of eyeliner on your lower lash line. A tube of dark, red lipstick (his color) and sticky gloss rests on the fluffy carpet beside your folded knees.

“Of course.” You can’t make yourself smile, not when your stomach is in knots. “Are you?”

“I should if you are going,” she huffs, leaning against your doorframe. “You need a chaperone.”

(She’s probably right.)

“Please tell me you’re joking.” You grimace and turn away, unable to meet her gaze. She’s too good at reading you. “I’ll be just fine on my own, thank you very much.”

“... He’s playing, isn’t he?”

“I mean, yeah.” You rub more aggressively at the widening smears around your eyes. “But that’s not the only reason.”

“Sure.”

“It’s not, really.” You meet her gaze with a glance in the mirror. It’s hard to keep, her stare intense and full of judgment— (And worry.) “There’s a bunch of good bands tonight. There’s a touring group— all the way from Pier Point.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You have no faith in me, do you?” You pout, keeping your voice light, and hoping it comes off as a bit of a jest.

When you finally turn to face Fu Xuan fully, she dips to sit beside you, on her own folded knees. She plucks your soon-to-be-worn lipstick off the ground and uncaps it, just long enough to see the color, before sighing and closing it once more with a pop. 

“Not really, no.” Fu Xuan leans against your side, cheeks puffing out. “Not when it comes to him—”

“You can say his name, you know.” You smear chalky highlighter on your cheeks with your fingertips. “It’s not a slur. He’s just some guy.”

“‘Some guy’,” She groans. “If he’s really just some guy, why don’t we skip the gig tonight and stay home? We can order in some nice food, and I could invite Qingque.”

“... I—”

“You know that going is a bad idea, right?” Fu Xuan sighs. “We’ve gone over this before.”

“I’m aware of that.” You can’t suppress your scowl any longer, turning to face her. “Blade is fine—”

“He treats you like shit.”

“He treats everyone like that.”

“That doesn’t make it better. If anything, that makes it worse. You deserve better.” Fu Xuan sounds genuinely upset. “And you can do better. Easily. With literally anyone else, even if you find them at one of your nasty house shows. Try entertaining the thought?”

“You don’t have to be so—” You turn to her, fist balling up on your knees— “So mean about it.”

“It’s messy.”

“And it’s not your business.”

“It’s not!” Fu Xuan says, exasperated as she rolls her eyes. “I really shouldn’t even be bothering, but you are my friend. And it is painful to watch you chase the tail of a man who will hardly give you the time of day or bare minimum respect. Excuse me for showing concern.”

“Your concern is noted.” As it has been before. “But I’m fine. I wasn’t lying earlier— there’s other groups I want to see tonight. You... don’t have to come along just to babysit. I’ll be alright. I know you hate them.”

“I do.”

Fu Xuan crosses her arms and exhales, something angry and burning. “At least let me drive you. I can pick you up later too. Rather I do than some stranger or him—”

“Blade. His name, Fu Xuan.”

“Blade.”

“God, you do say it like a slur.” You roll your eyes, the pit in your stomach having become larger and darker. You swipe below your eyes and thank an Aeon or two that your eyeliner is waterproof. 

...

The house venue is a bit out of town, in the rural suburbs on a lot that’s big enough to host a crowd and not bother the nearest neighbors. Fields streak by during your journey, humming with junebugs and chirping with late- summer crickets. Low hills roll by as a harvest moon rises, waxing and half-full.

Fu Xuan drops you at the curb and idles as you collect yourself. A crossbody bag carries your essentials (your phone, your sticky lip products, a lighter to go with the pack of cigarettes that you actually don’t smoke, and two condoms shoved against the bottom). You fiddle with the strap against your shoulder.

“Call me when you need me to pick you up, okay?” Fu Xuan taps the steering wheel. “I’ll be awake.”

“Okay, mom.”

“I mean it—”

“I know.”

“Don’t go home with Blade. Or let him drive you home. He handles a car like he’s trying to kill himself.”

It’s a fair assessment but you still shake your head, trying to seem good-natured despite the rot you feel curling in the back of your throat. Bile, rising, before you have a drop of liquor in you. It’s a little pathetic; you’ll really think so in retrospect. For now, you walk toward the venue itching for a drink in your hand or familiar company. Thundering bass and ripping guitar vibrate from the basement windows, shaking the ground beneath your feet.

A crowd clusters at the back of the house. Folks swap cigarettes and clutch cans of cheap beer and flasks decorated with stickers. You quickly survey, looking for, searching for him—

(He’s usually out here before his set, hiding away somewhere with Kafka sharing cigarettes and glaring at anyone dumb enough to make a pass at her.)

A hand grabs you by the shoulder, and you nearly jump out of your skin. “Oh my gosh, you’re here! I didn’t know you’d be coming to the gig!”

It’s March, you know. She is easy to identify with the sweet, candy-like perfume she wears and the slight press of her almond-shaped gel manicure into your shoulder.  March turns you abruptly, throwing her arms around your shoulders and squeezing. Too tightly, knocking the air out of you in an instant. You give her a tentative hug back and pull away quickly. The contact scalds you.

“Have you seen—?”

“Blade?” March pouts and tilts her head. “You know, I feel like you only come to these things to see that guy. He’s nothing special. And I have seen him. He was off sulking a while ago, by the sheds in the back of the lot.”

“... I’ll have to check. Thanks, March.”

She sighs as you walk away from her, before calling out to Stelle (who is always a step or two behind her anyways.) 

You feel— bad about how you treat them. They’re both good people. So is the third in their trio, Dan Heng, a man with a beautiful face and an eerily calm demeanor, especially when compared to his companions. The group of them was introduced to you back when you first started attending these shows, hanging around the scene, and sweating in the basement of mildew-filled houses. They were some of your first friends, and easy to mesh with when you gave yourself the time and space to. Stelle always had a flask with lukewarm vodka or tequila, and March kept a case of seltzers in her trunk. Dan Heng was the ever-reliable sober cab. 

(It was nice back then. Before you had become so entangled with Blade and the subsequent social politics that came with chasing and occasionally fucking the hot, albeit emotionally-unavailable bassist of HUNTERS. It was far easier to hold those friendships than to orbit around a man who you can never tell if he hates you or wants to fuck you in his back seat.)

You find Blade tucked away around the side of the house, cloaked in shadow while taking long drags of a cigarette. The cherry glows in the dim light. From the basement window peeking out from the ground, a red glow pours out, illuminating the well-worn combat boots he wears. They’re crusted in filth, falling apart at the toe. 

(You’d still lick them if he asked you to. Hump them if he asked you twice.)

Another figure stands across from him. Serene, arms crossed, with storm eyes visible even in the poor lighting. Dan Heng keeps a perfectly neutral expression as he speaks, hushed, to Blade who wears a scowl so perfectly that it looks like he’s carved of immovable stone rather than not flesh. 

You’re not quite within earshot. You can’t make out their words, only their tone. It’s an angry exchange, one that’s charged with heat lighting and ire. Blade spits something at Dan Heng, venomous in his tone like he so easily is. Dan Heng replies back something so cooly that it’s like a low-tide wave lapping at your feet.

If you were better, you would turn around and leave. Neither of them know that you’re here, so close. It’s invasive to listen, but you know that there’s... history between Blade and Dan Heng. You’ve always wondered what it is, and considering that Blade has the emotional availability of a rotting vegetable, you won’t be getting those details out of him.

Maybe witnessing their dynamic (yet again) could provide you some clarity—?

(And maybe, if you know why Blade was so, so hurt by Dan Heng, you can do better. You can be the exact thing that Blade wants, and then he will want you, just as much as you want him.)

You listen more keenly:

“I’ve asked you to stop booking shows where the Express is already playing.”

“And I’ve asked you to get off my dick and stop being such a priss, but it doesn’t look like you’ll ever do that.”

“I’m asking you to be reasonable.”

“Sure, because clearly asking me to not play prime gigs is ‘reasonable’. Not to mention you should be taking this up with Kafka or Elio, not me. Did you just want an excuse to talk, Imbibitor Lunae—”

“Don’t call me that.”

“What, have something else you’d prefer to be called? I remember plenty of things you liked hearing. Want me to name a few?”

“Hold your tongue—”

A stick cracks behind you and you nearly jump out of your skin.

“Bladie~” Kafka purrs behind you, hands sliding up over your shoulders, hot breath over the back of your neck. “We’re on soon. Soundcheck in five, Firefly has a vodka shot for you if you want.”

You’re frozen.

Blade grunts from around the house, and as he does, Dan Heng emerges from the shadows quickly, on hastened feet, and nearly stumbles when you see him. Your expression must be— fucking stupid. Wide-eyed and slack-jawed as Kafka runs her nails up and down your neck. 

As Dan Heng practically sprints off, Kafka croons quietly into your ear, “And what are you doing all the way back here? Looking for Bladie again?”

You don’t need to speak for her to know your answer. Blade’s steps thud against the ground over the short, dry grass. 

Part of you knows you should scramble away and pretend you weren’t just lurking like a stray dog begging for kitchen scraps. It’s humiliating to be caught by Kafka (yet again), doing the same shit on a different day. Another part of you, one which is much louder, more persuasive, and saccharine sweet, urges you to face Blade. If you get caught in his maw, good. 

Your hands shake as Blade emerges from the dark.

He looks like death. Ghostly pale skin with deep purple eyebags, like bruises. His eyes are cut carnelian, ethereal and volcanic against his parlor. A cigarette hangs between his plump lips, threatening to burn and melt the pieces of his fringe that hang around his cheeks. Long, wild black hair, tipped in faded crimson, falls down his back in frizzy waves. His arms bulge obscenely in the tight, black shirt he wears. A carved jade pendant hangs off of his belt.

Blade stares you down and his scowl deepens, turning even more sour. He mutters something under his breath, something unintelligible but cruel. It’s not the first time he’s spoken to you that way. He’s done so more loudly and more brutally. 

You—

(Hate it. You love it. Well, maybe not love, but you crave the way that Blade is awful to you. You’re horrible.)

“Better get inside now,” Kafka hands drift to your waist, tugging on the belt loop of your pants. You let out a little yip. “I’m sure the front row is filling up fast. No need to spy on Bladie if you get a prime spot during the actual set, hm?”

She’s right; she usually is.

Kafka leaves you with an elegant twirl, humming one of HUNTERS songs from their new EP under her breath. You know the tune. You’ve been playing it on repeat for the last two months. 

It’s easy to follow the jarring trills of soundcheck as you float inside the home, following the trail of people headed toward the basement. Descending down the rickety, railingless stairs into thick, humid air that reeks of sweat, beer, and fledging mold. Down, down, down you go— maybe to hell, where you perhaps belong.

...

Moon Drinker by HUNTERS

You taught me that the high moon 

Was our lovers’ sigil

How quickly did you throw away our runes

How empty is your cup

Moon Drinker

That you would break mine too

...

The gig is decent. That’s how these shows tend to be and you enjoy them just enough to tolerate the stench and humidity of grungy basements like this one. 

Three bands play, IP3, the Express, and HUNTERS. The interest you expressed to Fu Xuan about Pier Point’s IP3 was a lie, but they’re not bad. The frontman, a blond with eyes like inverted crystals, has a sultry edge to his voice that verges on sexual. It’s a cleaner sound that rips into something dirtier, filthier, as their set goes on. 

The Express follows IP3. You’ve seen them more times than you can count, but the trio is still nice to listen to, even now. March always plays with the crowd in between her harmonies in a way that riles folks up just enough without causing abject chaos. The band plays a new song you don’t know, one that is angry and loud and so unlike their normal sound. Dan Heng is on vocals, rather than solely on guitar, and you’re reminded of how mournful and melodic his voice can be. The exact words of the piece get eaten by the cement foundation of the basement, but you imagine that it’s an elegy.

HUNTERS is last on.

They usually are, as their music is the loudest and gnarliest, and they’re typically the most well-known (even if they have a shit reputation and their crowds leave trashed venues in their wake). You feel— insane when they start playing. You know all of their songs, even if you don’t really like their music. Kafka’s voice is hypnotic in a way that’s disarming, even on a recording. Silver Wolf is too good of a drummer for the caliber of band that they are, and Firefly shreds easily on guitar, trained on strings since childhood, but using her talents in a grunge band rather than on a world stage.

Blade’s bass playing is messy. Though his tempo is sure and unwavering, the actual rhythm drags and punches in intervals that verge on unnerving. You have never been able to place if this is due to whatever rage and poison he carries into music making, or if his fingers are as arthritic as Kafka jokes that they are. 

It doesn’t really matter, in the end. The sound blends together in a cacophony that sounds like the way bursted flesh looks. If you could taste the way their newest EP sounded, it would be the iron tang of blood and the acrid burn of bile. 

You’re fucked for it— for Blade. You’ve been since you first became tangled in this web.

A pit opens in the middle of the crowd, small at first, but rapidly widening, with more and more people throwing themselves into it. They bounce around and bash against the individuals at the sides of the pit, only to be shoved back in a moment later. 

You try to stay away from it. Instead, you watch Blade like a fucking pervert.

The basement has gotten hot. Steamy, if you look hard enough at the air that barely circulates against the low, pipe-ridden ceiling. Blade has thrown his hair up in a high ponytail, wisps of hair still cling to his neck and temples, sweat visibly rolling down his neck. His shirt sticks to his toned chest as the overclocked speakers try to keep up with the HUNTERS most recently released song— ‘MOON DRINKER’.

Blade doesn’t look at you. Not once.

His eyes are fixed elsewhere, deeper in the crowd, beyond the bodies in the pit and those who hang at the outskirts by the house’s ancient boiler. Blade’s attention is fixed on— something (someone. You can assume who.) Not once does his gaze drift down his instrument, and never does he acknowledge the way you stand in the front row, so close, with your attention squarely on him.

(This is normal. So normal, it’s painful.)

The pit expands even further, widening as more gig-goers jump into mosh as one song bleeds into the next. You almost get swirled in yourself as a stranger slams into your side with enough force to nearly knock you to the ground. 

A broad, warm hand catches you by your bicep, hoisting you up before you even have a chance to fall. 

“Be careful now,” It’s Jing Yuan (who is much too powerful and rich to be at a basement show, but yearning pushes you both to do stupid, nonsensical things) who speaks directly into your ear, so you can hear him even as your ears ring muffled. “Are you alright?”

You turn to nod at him, flashing him a thumbs up and nervous smile. The cologne he wears permeates the space around you, overpowering the sweat and mildew with ease. He gives you an easy smile and a squeeze, before letting you. He sidesteps your frame to be closer to the pit, crossing his arms over his chest and shielding you from the worst of the throng. 

You’re grateful for the cover; it would be embarrassing to topple over right in front of Blade.

It takes you a moment to recenter yourself, lost in Jing Yuan’s scent and the roar of Firefly’s final, aching guitar riffs. You look back to HUNTERS once more as they finish out their set in a loud, carnal flourish. The expensive speakers they’ve dragged with them are going to fucking blow out—

Blade is staring at you.

Not into the crowd, toward the placid face and cold heart that so clearly plague him, not to his bandmates or instrument, but looking at you.

In the red-lit basement, his eyes nearly glow, unnatural in their anger as they always are. It seemed more concentrated, feral and crystallized in its intensity. Rage. You want to cower under it while your insides feel hot and frigid all at once. He pierces so easily, so thoughtlessly. As the crowd erupts into cheers and shouts as the set ends, you cannot move. Staked in place. 

Not once does Blade look away from you, and his mouth does not deviate from the twisted frown he wears.

... 

Swordmaker by HUNTERS

If I were forged alongside you, 

Do you think I would forgive you then?

If iron was your skin,

Steel your lungs

and lead your heart,

You would be easier to hold.

Empty are memories

Full is the garden

And bloody is the blade.

…

You should be better than this.

Blade slams you up against the back of the shed, the motion jarring and far too fast to be pleasant. Your head knocks painfully against the wood and peeling paint, and despite how you whimper with the impact, Blade doesn’t react. He doesn’t seem to care. 

(You know he doesn’t.)

He hikes your leg up over his hip and grinds against your core through your pants. The motion is rough, clumsy and far too harsh to be pleasurable. The dry friction through your panties makes you squirm and dig your nails into his shoulders. Blade grunts in your ear. You think he likes the pain.

The gig was only let out half an hour ago, and plenty of people are still milling around. Whispers are circulating about if and where there will be an afterparty. You weren’t paying much attention to them— they’re easy to ignore— especially when Blade had been dragging you by the wrist just far enough away from the main house to fuck without being overtly noticeable. 

(Barely, though. Blade can be loud and you can be loud when you’re with him. You’re tempting fate to be caught, seen with him in this way. It’s an open secret that you’re the scraps that Blade entertains himself with, but you would rather not be caught with your literal pants down.)

Blade smells like cigarettes and sweat. The scent of unclean smoke tangles in his unruly hair as you get a grip on it and tug. The juncture of his neck has the faintest hint of some cologne you’re sure he doesn’t know the name of and stale sweat. You press your lips there and dare to drag your tongue across his skin and taste him. It’s not a good taste, not necessarily, but you love it. Salty and filthy. (It’s disgusting, but familiar and morosely comforting.) You are drunk on it and it makes you feel pathetic at the same time.

A growl sounds in your ear as Blade pins you with his weight to the shed. Dragging you back from his neck, he grabs your jaw, forcing you to look at him fully. 

“Don’t leave marks.” He paralyzes you with his stare and sneer. 

“I’d never.” You try to sound earnest, even if it’s a lie. Because you would— you’d bite and tear at his neck (like he does at yours) until the skin there is black and blue. Happily, you would leave hickies above his collar. Split his lip and bite his jaw hard enough to bleed. You could wear his blood on your teeth and smile for once at these fucking gigs.

Instead, you do not bite him. You just let Blade maul you as he desires.

He grinds against your core. The pressure is unpleasant at this point, too much and too little all at the same time. When you whimper now, he just ignores you and slips his hands under your shirt. He grabs your waist in both hands and squeezes.

“Turn around,” says Blade, already twisting you himself, so your front is pressed against the shed.

“H-Here?” You laugh nervously. Despite your... reputation, something cold, unwelcome and uncomfortable settles in you. “C-Can’t we go to your car? Or inside?”

“Maybe later.”

(It’s awful. It’s sick, the way your heart flutters at the implications of ‘later’. ‘Later’ means more of him. More of Blade’s time, his touch, his hardly-there care. More scraps for you to gorge yourself on, more time to beg for more. It’s sick. It’s sick how fucked you are for him.)

Blade reaches around your front to undo the button at the top of your trousers. In a swift motion, he has them around your thighs. Just enough that he can bend you over and access your cunt with some amount of ease. He keeps your panties on at first (he usually does this. You’re never sure why. You can delude yourself into thinking it’s him taking his time with you, but you know that that is a lie). 

Blade places one of his hands on the back of your neck to flatten you against the shed, while the other must be unbuttoning his own pants to get his cock out, based on the jingling of metal and shred of a zipper. You swallow, your mouth dry. You’re dry, but you know that if you try to touch yourself to prep at this point, Blade will only be meaner.

The most he does is run two fingers over your slit, over your panties. It’s barely enough contact on your clit to be felt, but you gasp and shudder anyway. Canting your hips back, you try to encourage more contact. Anything he’ll give you.

He sighs behind you. Disappointed. Aggravated. It makes you want to cry.

Blade peels down your panties. The cold air shocks you, your core tightening up, but you hardly have time to adjust to the temperature before Blade’s equally cold hands fully part your folds. He sighs again, pulling away only to spit on his fingers, and smear his saliva around your hole. It feels dirty. You feel dirty.

When Blade pulls away, you whine at the loss of contact (at how cold it is, at how the crowd milling around smoking cigarettes and cheap weed is just on the other side of this dilapidated shed crows and laughs into the night). You swear you can recognize March’s giggle above the din of conversation.

You’re brought back to your entanglement with a harsh slap to your ass. Harsh and audible. The sound that escapes your lips is choked and high. 

“Don’t get distracted,” Blade huffs. He spits again, presumably on his dick. 

You nod, latching onto the pain radiating from slap to your ass. As if sensing it, Blade lays down another strike. This one is hotter, harder. He isn’t holding back. It is sure to bruise the tender flesh there. A mark. Something that will tangibly ache, something leftover from your tryst.

You could cry.

The velvety head of Blade’s cock nudges your folds. He brackets you into the wall, arms on either side of you. Heat radiates off his chest and sinks into your spine.

“‘Feels good?” He asks, voice hoarse as he coats himself in your meager slick.

“Y-yeah,” you lie. It’s not enough to feel good. You don’t care.

Blade seems content enough with your answer as he bears down on you. Flattening you to the dirt-covered shed, he hitches his hip down, then up, trying to fit the tip of his cock into your hole. He maneuvers your hips as he pleases, grunting when the tip of him catches on your cunt. When you dare to whine, even the smallest sound, he cracks his hand down on your ass again. Your vision speckles into darkness with the shot of pain and—

(The roar of anxiety and subsequent shame when you realize how much quieter the milling crowd nearby has become.)

“Hold still.” Blade's voice has sunk low, gravely with the cigarettes he’s been smoking all evening. 

The next time his cock touches your opening, he presses in without hesitation.

It’s—

It’s too fucking much.

It is, it always is, every single fucking time he fucks you. Any prep he gives you is perfunctory. Blade will never lavish you with attention, not in the way that you probably need. That you—

(Might even deserve.)

No, the most that Blade will do is fuck you filthy behind a shed, near some of his more well-adjusted peers and probably come inside of you. On past occasions, he has let you suck him off in the backseat of his car. He’s only accidentally (‘accidentally’) came on your face a few times. Less than ten, more than five. Once, he ate you out for a few minutes, but you swear to god he was groaning someone else’s name as he did.

(You’re fucking pathetic.)

This is always too much. Blade is too big. Too big, even if you were stretched and primed with a few fingers like would be right and proper. As tight and dry as you are, it’s painful. He has to grind into your cunt with rolling little thrust so he can fit himself in at all. Each one shocks a breath out of you, a shattering, fragile sound. 

When Blade bottoms out, he lays flat over your back. The weight of him is suffocating. His corded muscle is all dead weight above you as his cock twitches inside you. You can’t tell if he’s idling to allow you some time to adjust, or purely for his own leisure. You can’t be sure. You don’t want to ask him either.

“You’re tight.” Blade’s voice threatens to break.

(Of course you are. He’s the only person you will let fuck you, and these trysts only occur every few weeks, when there’s a show that you can be cornered at.)

He bucks into you, deeper still. The head of his cock is touching parts of you that shouldn’t be touched.

You whimper, “Blade—”

He growls in response. It’s a raspy and low tone that makes arousal burn in your gut and leak down your thighs. (You hope so anyway— it’s more wet and you don’t think it hurts enough that you’re bleeding.) Blade fucks you in earnest, then. There’s no delay, no waiting, no potential for momentary, perceived niceties. He pulls out of you almost completely, then thrusts back into you in one single motion. The friction burns and your vision wavers. 

(You still moan like a whore.)

You feel— dirty. Disgusting. Pathetic as he fucks you like. You don’t feel like a person as he fucks you; you never do. How could you? The grip he uses on your hips is too bruising and the force and strength he’s using to brutalize your cunt is just too much. He fucks you like he’s taking anger out on a piece of drywall. Blade shares physically with you in the way a dog shreds a chew toy to bits, then leaves it on the ground to fester.

Blade grunts next to your ear, nipping there.

He doesn’t kiss you— well, not often. He can’t with your current position. You wouldn’t expect him to anyway. Sometimes he leaves a ring of dark hickies across your neck, like a collar. You like those, but he always waits an extra long time to see you after he marks you like that.

(You presume to make sure that the bruises have fully yellowed, then faded. A clean canvas.)

Blade’s pace increases, just before he pulls out. His cock rests on the cleft of your ass and he tips his forehead to rest on the shed, just beside yours.

“You’re still dry.”

“Sorry—”

He cuts you off. “It’s fine.”

...

It apparently isn’t fine. 

Blade drags you toward the house. He barks at someone, then Kafka, to find a room. You feel dazed as he does. Out of your body, as you receive a number of knowing and unknowing stares from the lingering show-goers who cluster around a firepit. 

(How many of them heard you just now? How many know the exact sounds you make when in barely-there pleasure? In certainly-there pain? How many of them know the sound of Blade’s too-big cock slapping into your too-dry cunt?)

It makes you feel sick to think about.

A room must be found for the two of you, as Blade drags you up the stairs of the back porch. 

As he does, he hesitates.

(He has so rarely done this.)

His gaze is not on you; it pierces elsewhere in the dark. A floodlight off the back of the house illuminates a section of the yard, and just beyond its reach, nestled somewhere between the dark and light, he fixates. His jaw sets and locks. 

There are figures, you realize.

They’re easy to identify once you actually focus. One is lithe and short-haired, the other broad-shouldered and long-haired.  Dan Heng and Jing Yuan. Speaking on the outskirts. It feels private. Their attention turns from their hushed conversation to the two of you as Blade stares daggers and swords into them. As if he could pierce them with nothing more than his silent rage and angry eyes. 

You freeze.

Their expressions are obscured in the lowlight, but you can almost feel the looks they give you. Like a sickly mucus that gets stuck to you and rolls down your flesh in slow, cold globs. 

Dan Heng (once so dear to you, still probably dear to you—) looks guarded, thought darkened. Contempt twists his expression, anger following just after. You’d ever wager that he’s disgusted, maybe. Probably with you, because he knows you’re better than this. Beside him, Jing Yuan wears an expression of careful passivity, of geniality, as he always does, but it’s tinged with something sad and old. For all parties involved in this silent, momentary exchange.

Jing Yuan regards you directly, slowly blinking at you, as though he was a large house cat intent on making you feel safe, and not a presence that only drives the bubbling anxiety in you higher. 

It’s a seconds-long encounter that stretches for an eternity. You cannot make yourself move. You cannot feel anything other than rotten and small.

Blade lets out a harsh exhale and yanks you away. The scene breaks and you’re dragged inside. He whispers under his breath, vitriol-tinging his tone. Your panties feel sticky and wet as you walk.

Kafka had found a room for you, on the second floor of the house. God knows whose it actually is. You don’t get a good look at the room as Blade pushes you inside.. It’s dim, the only light is licking in from the dirty window, an afterburn from the raging bonfire outside. You hear muffled voices still, leaking in like a draft. 

Blade locks the door and pushes you onto the unmade bed.

It’s a cheap mattress with flannel sheets. It smells like old weed smoke and cheap incense. Fu Xuan would tell you that you deserve better than this. You think you might.

Blade climbs on top of you, jaw still locked, and eyes far away.

(You do wonder what happened between him and Dan Heng. Something did. Something gutting and heartbreaking— you hear it when Blade sings. A betrayal, an intangible knife cut but still so painful. Dan Heng has always spoken about Blade with a type of protective neutrality. He warned you to never get involved with Blade. To stay away, to not get on Blade’s bad side, and if something did entangle you with him, Dan Heng could sort it out. He has always cared so fiercely for those he loves; it’s a shame that you have squandered it.)

(Blade is a sentimentalist. Blade is so held in the past that it chokes him. It always has, during every moment you’ve shared with him. He lingers in the bloody past, he holds it in his hands with a grip that’s meant to snap bird wings and flay flesh. He hates Dan Heng. He still loves him, though. You see it on his face sometimes. You hear it in Blade’s music. The ache, the death, the unending grief and mourning and rage that the man simply won’t let go of.)

(It is obsession.)

It shouldn’t make you bitter to think about. Yet, it does. It’s not your place to hold those types of feelings, let alone express them. For so many reasons, Blade will never see you as anything more than a cheap fuck. You think Dan Heng is the primary one. Over time, you’ve grown bitter. Resentful. 

Blade pulls off your shirt in one swift move. He’s slower than he usually is. More deliberate. His hands are shaking, like how they do just after he finishes a set. It’s… off—

You hate it. You hate that the lingering pain of someone else will effect Blade more than you ever, ever could in the present.

You grab a fistful of his hair and tug. His breath catches as you do.

”What the fuck is your deal?” You sneer at him. There’s a cruel edge in your voice that does not sound like you. Blade brings out the worst in you, and you fall prey to it, so easily. 

Blade glances up at you, eyes sharp like cut gems. He says nothing.

”You and Dan Heng,” you laugh. You don’t mean to— you don’t, you don’t— and you yank Blade’s hair so he has to look at you better. “It’s pathetic, you know. How you look at him like a kicked fucking dog. What happened between the two of you, anyways?”

Blade freezes. So do you.

You’ve misstepped so brutally. So stupidly and tragically and idiotically. You’ve pushed too hard for what—?

Blade is on his haunches in an instance and he slaps you across the face.

Your head follows the force of the impact, forcing your face to the side. Your cheek smarts. It wasn’t— that hard. Blade is strong. He could do worse. Still, it shocks you. The pain is enough to make you gasp and reel.

”What the fuck—“

”Don’t,” Blade grabs your jaw, “open your mouth about things you know nothing about. You should know better.”

You should. You do.

”I could know more, if you ever told me, I don’t know— anything?” You laugh in his face, manic behind your eyes. You’re crushing the delicate nature of your cheap arrangement like how a child would crush a flighty butterfly’s papery wings. 

Blade shakes his head, smothering a laugh. He wrangles you forward, half-off risen from the bed, and parts your lips with his thumb. Before you can react, bite, claw— he is raising himself higher than you, dwarfing you in height, and spitting down into your mouth, onto your tongue.

”You don’t know when to shut up, do you?” He pats the side of your face, over the cheek that he struck. It burns. In another world, this touch would be tender. Here, you can only wince. 

Before you can reply, continue to run your mouth and rile him up further, Blade kisses you.

It shocks you, stuns you. 

He— he hasn’t ever kissed you before. It’s never been an explicit boundary, but never once during these trysts has Blade ever initiated this type of contact. It has felt dangerous to do so yourself. Something that’s too intimate, too personal to share. The core of your entanglement is the way he uses you. It’s impersonal. 

A kiss, you think, implies something more tender.

You gasp into his lips, and he takes the opportunity to all but violate the inside of your mouth. His tongue plunders inside, licking at his own spit that you have yet to swallow. A noise chokes off in the back of your throat. Something desperate and shocked that you hardly recognize. It’s filthy. He nips at your lips and pushes you back down.

Blade devours you. 

It’s too much, really. It’s a gesture of tenderness that has been so thoroughly mutilated, calling it a kiss feels paltry. The way his lips are on your own is much more like an argument and a subsequent conquest. One in which you lose ground. He nips at your lower lip, snags it between his teeth, and tugs it as he pulls away.

You pant, the sound of your own breath roars in your own ears. Your hands are still buried in his hair, grip unyielding, anchoring you.

Blade smiles, something poisonous and satisfied. You are too drunk on the singular kiss he gives you to care that much.

“That’s all it takes, is it?” He laughs, the sound dark and rolling, like the sound of an earthquake cracking the earth. 

He already knows you’ll beg for scraps. God forbid he gives you even a morsel more. 

The bed squeaks as he flips you by your hips so you’re laid flat, belly-down on the dirty sheets. Blade spanks your still-clothed ass for good measure before rustling around behind you. Assumedly to disrobe, just enough to fuck you. Assumedly, to ignore the condoms you brought (knowing he would disregard them—). Assumedly, to fuck you with every inch of your life. 

You want it. You want him so badly it physically hurts.

(Or, maybe you tore while he had you behind the shed. Who is to say?)

Blade clamors behind you, shaking, arthritic hands tugging your pants by the waistband. He doesn’t even bother to unzip them this time. Your panties get pulled down along with them, and they get tossed elsewhere in the barely-lit room. Blade spits behind you, and a sound of too-dry stroking follows. 

“D-do you want me to suck you off?” you ask with a hum. You’d let him fuck your face, if he asked. Or, if he wanted. Blade wouldn’t ask.

“No.”

“Just let me know.”

Blade sighs behind you, but you think little of it.

You brace yourself up on your elbows, lowering your upper half to be flat against the bed, and arching your hips as high as they’ll go. It’s as if to make yourself look appetizing. You hope it entices Blade, even a little.

(Please, you need him to want you. You need him to want you so badly. Please, please, please—)

The head of Blade’s cock rubs as your hole, down to your clit, then back up again a few times. He’s so hot, it’s like he is burning you. Contact that scalds. The contact against your clit is... nice. It’s the most warm up he has graced you with in a while. You could crave more, but settle for this. 

“C’mon Blade,” you whine. Your voice sounds airy. “Fuck me.”

He doesn’t reply, not with his voice. The rocking of his hips becomes more pronounced, and the slide of him against you becomes slicker. Still too big, too hot, but wet at least. Which is a bonus. Pre and blood are probably leaking onto the shaft at least a little bit too.

It makes it easier once he slides home in a single blow. 

It’s too fucking deep— especially with this angle. The head of his cock presses against your deepest parts, bruises them in a place where no one can see or feel but you. Blade is huge, the girth of him stretches you as his hips rest against your ass.

A wretched noise bubbles up past your lips. Something between a cry and a plea, for more, for less— to go home, to be in a warm, clean bed with someone who actually cares— you aren’t sure. Your desires have been twisted up and wrong for so long, you can’t tell what you really want. 

It makes you feel rotten, and then there’s only one thing you want.

(To hurt.)

Blade fucks you, then. Fully in, fully out of. Long and deep thrusts that carve out your insides in a brutal way. It’s violent. He leans over your back, and braces himself over you. You feel small, stupid, and hurt. A horrible swirl of things that make tears spring up at the corners of your eyes. You bury your face in the crusty pillow you’d manage to snag nearby—

And Blade tugs it away immediately. His big, calloused hand curls to hold your jaw up, so every pitiful whine and whimper you let out can’t be muffled. The bed squeaks as his thrusts slow.

“Don’t hide.”

“I-I won’t.”

“You were.”

“I won’t a-again—”

“You want this, don’t you?” Blade growls in your ears, then moves to the most fragile skin of your neck and bites. 

(You do, you do— god you do. You need this.)

You nod, and Blade keeps biting. His jaw nearly locks. You’re sure that you’ll be bruised for a week.

Blade scoffs and rears back, grabs your hips in both hands for leverage. And he fucks you.

That’s all it can be, really. You can’t get a solid hold on anything. The pillow has been thrown off the bed, and you struggle to find purchase on the sheets. All you do is take it. Pleasure, or something like it, builds in your core and goes nowhere. It simmers but never crests anywhere near orgasm. 

You don’t mind. This is enough.

Blade’s pace increases, never frantic. Never with him. Manic maybe, insane, tortured and damaged, but never frantic. Not with you. His rhythm falters as his cock slides in and out of you, slick beginning to stick to the inside of your thighs. 

His hand comes down on his ass. The other cheek, this time. It’s enough force to bruise again. You’ll have trouble sitting for a week.

As Blade nears his peak, his rhythm stutters. His breath grows harsher and more strained. His grip goes from bruising to breaking. You gasp with the pain, but don’t tell him to stop. His cock brushes against your cervix, and never your sweet spot. 

Blade flattens you to bed, prone, and puts his entire weight on top of you as his orgasm hits him. A strangled cry shatters from his lips into your ear as he fucks you too fast and too hard. A gush of warmth fills your insides, spilling to your outsides when there isn’t enough of you to hold all of him.

The bed frame slams into the wall with his final few thrusts. 

You lay there, in the filth, in the pain and the dissatisfaction of the tryst, and rot.

...

Blade leaves you there, at some point.

Not right away, but eventually. He rolls off you at some point, catches his breath for a while, checks his phone, then rises to right himself.

You cannot make yourself move. The only thing you can make yourself do is take slow, measured breaths. Each ache in your body is punctuated, loud and unignorable now that the fizzling pleasure of sex has dissipated. What’s left of it is this: carnage. 

“You have a ride home?” Blade asks. He must be near the door, based on the sound of his voice.

Fu Xuan’s warning words come to mind, and shame fills your belly. 

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

And he leaves.

You rot for a while longer.

This is not the first encounter that has gone this way. Blade fucks you like this and leaves. There’s no reverie or sweetness. There is using and being used, and the conclusion that always follows is this. Cooling, soon-to-be dry cum leaking out of you in thick droplets and a bite mark on your neck you’ll need to conceal for the next two weeks. Blade will ignore you like he doesn’t know you, next time he sees. But still fucks you like a toy.

It’s awful. It’s all you want.

You force yourself up at some point.

You’re surprised to find that your pants and panties are in a heap on the end of the bed. You are sure that they were tossed farther, but perhaps you misremember. Painstakingly, you rerobe yourself. Moving your legs in such ways hurts so bad, you could cry. You probably did cry while Blade fucked you. 

The quick stop in the squalid bathroom confirms this. Mascara smudges around your eyes and down your cheeks. The sticky gloss you were wearing has been smeared away. Not even a stain of the crimson remains. 

You feel hollow as you walk down the stairs, outside, toward the bonfire and its rapidly dwindling flames. A few folks still millaround, people you recognize, just barely, though no one you could call a friend remains around the pit. Stelle, March, and Dan Heng are long gone, probably. You’d feel too ashamed to look them in the eye anyway.

Someone offers you a warm beer and you take it. Your hands shake.

Hollow and wordless, you move around the backyard like a specter. Part of you wishes you were one, just something mostly formless and shapeless. Transparent. No one could see you make a fool of yourself that way. There would be no witnesses to your desperation and perversion.

You swallow back bile when it rises in your throat, and wash it down with a chug from the can.

You’re surprised to find Jing Yuan idling around the corner of the house. He looks up when you near him, and he greets you with the same genial smile he always wears. He nods to the space next him, already plucking a pack of cigarettes from the breast pocket on his shirt. You take one, and he lights it for you in the next instant.

“It looks like you needed that,” he hums. He doesn't take one for himself, only tucking the carton away and out of sight.

“Maybe.” You want to vomit. Or slide down the wall of the house and rot there. 

He laughs then. It’s too... warm of a sound for how you feel. For how dirty these venues are, and for the company that you have come to hold, it feels dissonant. Jing Yuan is too kind, too patient. 

(He cannot be your friend because your ruin would spread to him, maybe.)

“Take as many as you like,” he urges with a hum, and settles next to you.

Silently, you ruminate. Descend into yourself. You suppose, given the events you’ve seen tonight, that you’re both stewing in something akin to yearning. 

(Jing Yuan is better than you for it. He, at least, doesn’t sleep with his unrequited adored in someone else’s bed after a messy house show.)

“Do you have a way home?” asks Jing Yuan, breaking you from your slow-rolling spiral.

You shake your head. It would be rude to call Fu Xuan so late. You— you hadn’t really thought about a ride. Not yet. 

Jing Yuan looks you up and down and his smile looks sadder, “How about a ride home?”

“Sure.” You nod. 

The ride back home in Jing Yuan’s (too nice, too expensive, too decadent) car is quiet. An album from a band you don’t recognize plays at a low volume. Soothing, soft voices, so juxtaposed from the venue you leave behind. Maybe you just can’t recognize the words because you’re decaying. Your phone lays in your lap, over your aching thighs. 

[no new messages]

(Because Blade never messages you after a fuck. You’re not worth that much to him.)

...

Gingerly, you unlock your front door and enter your little apartment. Fu Xuan lays on the couch, on her back, with her phone against her collarbone. Her mouth is parted in peaceful sleep, though her hair is still done up, all of her pins are still in.

(She waited for you, again. And you failed her, again.)

You don’t know how she puts up with you. Or why either.

Some part of you wants to vomit. Wretch, like it’ll purge the awful, disgusting thoughts warming you. They do not serve you. You should just—

(Know better. You gain nothing from entangling yourself from Blade. The sex is... enough. Because Blade doesn’t know his own strength sometimes and makes it hurt, unintentionally toeing the line between too little and too much. It’s still not worth it. It shouldn’t be worth it. You’d be better off never going to any gigs, ever again. You wouldn’t have to disappoint and embarrass yourself to your old friends then. You wouldn’t have to linger in the yearning of others while never having that affection given to you.)

You collapse atop your bed. Your makeup has been roughly scrubbed off with an old towel, and you can feel the crunchy remnants of mascara clinging around your eyes. You can’t make yourself care. Burying your face in your pillow, you burrow into your blankets. You’ll probably be sore and hungover tomorrow... today? The songbirds are just beginning to chirp their morning arias. It makes you sick to your stomach.

As you begin to doze, your phone vibrates. 

[one new message]

blade: did you get home 

Your mouth feels dry and your chest feels so tight you could die. 

you: yeah. jing yuan drove me. 

[seen: 5:11 AM]

You hold your breath as Blade begins to type. Then stops typing. Then begins again. It goes on for several volleys and you really do think you might puke.

blade: get some sleep

You drop your phone somewhere in your sheets. Giddiness fills your chest, despite the exhaustion and ache and bone-rotting fatigue. Elation causes you to smile, something wide and girlish that you have to hide in your pillow, lest it be beared to the world.

(It’s a scrap. It’s nothing. It’s worse than the bare minimum and the bar is already in hell.)

But, it’s something.

A morsel. Something to clutch onto and hold and cherish.

You want to put his words between your teeth and swallow. 

[pastorfutureletthembe]

Saving Lu Guang!!

For obvious reasons, we're all assuming Cheng Xiaoshi is the one who needs to be saved. The final plot twist of season 2 is the main reason:

I'm sorry Cheng Xiaoshi I’ve always been telling you to not change the past but I couldn’t follow my own words. Even if I know death is an unchangeable point, I still want to use the last chance to go back to the beginning, and save you.

But. Lu Guang is the most unreliable character you'd find out there. His version of the story is sometimes inconsistent.

Many details don't add up, might it be the fact he doesn't have his phone with him at a moment as important as closing a trap on Liu Min, or that the scene in the hospital bathroom is different when Cheng Xiaoshi dives as Lu Guang, or the simple obvious impression that it's future Cheng Xiaoshi who's giving him the partner talk on the basketball court--

Well, there might be someone in Lu Guang's corner diving and changing things without him being aware of it. This person being Cheng Xiaoshi himself is most likely.

Now, why would Cheng Xiaoshi dive into the past after all this time when he decided against it after Lu Guang's death? Saving Lu Guang or Qiao Ling is the most realistic and in character reason but there is more to this particular theory today.

Remember, whatever we think, there is more to the story. As omniscient as Lu Guang seems to us at the moment, he, himself, doesn't have all the information.

Past or Future, it has been clear until now that official content is hiding many secrets yet to be uncovered. Dive with me into this madness once more~

This meta is largely inspired by this thread

>> Lu Guang's secret

Let's start with something as basic as characters concept arts. Those always strikes me as out of charater, because Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi's personality seems somehow switched: on the character sheets, Cheng Xiaoshi looks pissed and Lu Guang smiles (like a creep).

Two things are worth noticing in this first pack of pictures:

Lu Guang's character sheet looks like a frame if the film roll has been exposed to light while loading in the camera. It is damaged. His smile in the background is also absolutely not his. In the light of Yingdu Chapter's teaser, it could mean Lu Guang is possessed by either Li Tianchen or Vein. Not only that but the surexposition makes it impossible to know the exact color of his eyes. Could be yellow, red, blue, gray.

They are both trapped in the bottom of a hourglass. Cheng Xiashi looks at Lu Guang in a frustrated/angry manner, and this face is a lot like the one in the background of his character sheet. It could implied that Lu Guang got them into some kind of bad situation.

Promotional posters presenting season 2's characters have Li Tianchen is Qiao Ling's shadow while Liu Xiao is Qian Jing's. Lu Guang is Cheng Xiaoshi's. Lu Guang lies/manipulates Cheng Xiaoshi for his own good since the start, he hides secrets after all. He is as much a puppeteer as Liu Xiao. He is very knowlegdable but we have no idea to what extent. We can only assume that whatever he is doing, he's doing it for Cheng Xiaoshi's sake.

These details and the implications don't put Lu guang under a good light. Lu Guang always was a morally gray character, however his logic paired with Cheng Xiaoshi's compassion make them the duo we are rooting for.

A popular theory is that Lu Guang betrayed a Time-Something Organization to save Cheng Xiaoshi and is now being punished. Another one is that he made a deal with Vein to grant his wish. In any case, he might have ties with Vein and Liu Xiao, as a whole or separatly, we can only speculate so far.

In my meta on the Promotional Poster for the AR GAME, and the Light and Color theory, I mentioned that "Burning Palace" hints on a Fourth character being part of this new group, and argued that the missing character is already part of the cast: Lu Guang.

Futhermore, whatever happened, he can only be at fault: Lu Guang is supposely the one who introduced Cheng Xiaoshi to his powers. We still don't know the origins behind those, and I won't start the disucussion in this meta, but we know that at some point, in this timeline or another, Cheng Xiaoshi tried to convince Lu Guang to use their power to earn money and pay their debts. Link Click Live Action is not canon to the donghua, but in this adaptation, Lu Guang is the one coming to Cheng Xiaoshi and teaching him the useful way to use his strange energy.

To resume, Lu Guang isn't only keeping secrets from Cheng Xiaoshi. As an audience, we know close to nothing about him, even less than his roommate! Except for the fact he's probably been diving back in time to change the past. Therefore, he cannot be trusted regarding his abilities, his past, or even his motivations. Lu Guang knowing everything or more than others because he lived through several repeats is a false fact. When something unexpected happen, he totally freaks out and he is a control freak. It's okay, we love him as he is. But! He is the definition of unreliable as far as narrators go.

In the past or in the future, Cheng Xiaoshi has to find out the truth at some point. His reaction shouldn't be important for this meta though. Actually, I think the official artworks of him being pissed shouldn't be taken quite literally. The hints I talked about above don't mean anything about HIM or his feelings but it says everything about Lu Guang's actions and the implications of those: he is doing something he knows is wrong and his ultimate goal is exactly the same as some antagonist. Being kept in the dark, lied to or manipulated, Cheng Xiaoshi wouldn't focus on any of it.

Why? If Lu Guang actually rewrote reality and put himself in a doomed situation for him, Cheng Xiaoshi would absolutely try to cancel this accomplishment. That's the only important information we need for this meta.

Cheng Xiaoshi went back in time as someone they knew before so we can assume he would do it again if needed. Imagine our guy coming back as Qiao Ling, as his own wingman to force Lu Guang back into his life? If the talk on the basketball court didn't work, I'm pretty sure getting Lu Guang to do physical work in the studio and bully him to admit he likes Cheng Xiaoshi would do the trick. That's a start anyway.

With these few starting points, we can go deeper now:

>> Through the Looking Glass

There's a myriad of instances where Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi are kept apart from each other by glass or shown as each other's shadow or reflection. And I've been mentioning it for a while now but finally, after almost a year, I think I've finally cracked this case!

Starting with Surprising Click Posters, there are 5 visible TV screens with a message of ERROR on Lu Guang's. No matter the meaning, I think it is important to note that Lu Guang is just as much a spectator as we are. The plot happens as it's supposed to happen: no matter what, they'll end up at the same point. For some reasons, I always believed that Cheng Xiaoshi was trapped behind the glass, in the TV, as a playable character, if you may. That's part of how their abilities work together, isn't it? Their deal is Cheng Xiaoshi dives but Lu Guang drives. Well, I'm not so sure anymore. The Picture of the carwash is random but interesting. Cheng Xiaoshi is outside and is knocking at the window.

Who's the one trapped behind glass after all? What if Lu Guang himself is trapped in a TV and Cheng Xiaoshi is trying to get him out?

The first one seen with a camera in INPLICK's art isn't Cheng Xiaoshi but Lu Guang. The story is told from his perspective. But this is Link Click we're talking about so this means basically nothing. Cheng Xiaoshi dives into pictures, he is the one with real control. Lu Guang, all-knowing that he is, is introduced as a passenger, an observer. Even after the big reveal regarding his diving abilities, his strict rules and his attempts to protect the main timeline bring him to failure. This cycle is only set to start again over and over, making it an actual time loop.

In "OVERTHINK", Cheng Xiaoshi is the one using the camera. He looks away from Lu Guang (in deception or sadness I'd say). Once he takes the picture, there is no one there: it could mean Cheng Xiaoshi is using one of Lu Guang's pictures to dive. Yes, Lu Guang's picture: after all, it is Lu Guang's camera that he is using.

Take a look at this meta: Rolleiflex

This aside, Lu Guang is the reflection/shadow, not Cheng Xiaoshi, and thus on several instances. A shadow or a reflection can't do shit. Lu Guang has no control, even if he's being sneaky and acts in the dark. Lu Guang isn't the one calling the shots.

Cheng Xiaoshi is knocking through the glass to reach Lu Guang who's always watching us, the audience. His motivation, objectives, values, worth depends on Cheng Xiaoshi's survival but he doesn't see him. Perhaps his obsession is blinding him to the point he sort of dehumanized his friend. Indeed, the distance between them is as wide as the one between you and them. Coincidally, when he does look at us, Cheng Xiaoshi is looking at him.

I'll probably write a structured and complete meta about it at some point but for now I'll just put this idea in your head: who else looks at Lu Guang's reflection and portrait, always?

Liu Xiao.

lover_astrid on X often follows Liu Xiaos's trail, they point out interesting things those, specifically: x x

Let's start with his monolgue at the end of season 2:

"It seems that one has only one destined path. But in reality, it is made up of countless parallel lines. It can be driven by one's personality. And can also change with the influence of others. Sometimes we wanna change it. But we can't. I wanna bring more parallel lines together to turn all uncertainties into certainties."

If we cannot change one's path (aka death is an unchangeable node), what is the point in turning incertainties into certainties? For one thing, I think he means to flatten a curve: make it one unique path for one specific node, like a True Timeline of sorts. Then, what does it imply? My guess is to remove either Cheng Xiaoshi or Lu Guang entirely. A theory to take with a grain of salt.

At this point, if we talk about his identity as today, before Yingdu Chapter, he could very much be an alteration of either Lu Guang or Cheng Xiaoshi trying to right a wrong. In the teaser of Surprising Click, he is standing with a picture in front of the familiar couch, many TV screens surrounding him. He's oviously a watcher. He has more knowledge than Lu Guang, and he's obsessed with him apparently, which implies that he knows about his abilities, maybe personally.

Secondly, the text Liu Xiao is reading is part of Shakespeare’s sonnets (39). I won't go too deep into the meaning of it but feel free to read this analysis. It does speaks of lovers separation, but as something that need or should happen.

Lastly, the black feather is Lu Guang's. Liu Xiao can reach Lu Guang but Cheng Xiaoshi cannot. Liu Xiao is always staring at Lu Guang's image and he has his feather as a memory, but Cheng Xiaoshi is separated from his friend by glass.

In BREAK! Cheng Xiaoshi is the one looking at us. It's like a nudge: hey, actually, I am the one telling you the story, pay attention please. When he raps in songs, he always starts by interrupting loudly to get your attention as well. "Now I'm talking. And Lu Guang will take over."

Cheng Xiaoshi's hand is on a bubble. I always thought it was a mere planet but it's actually a see-through marble. I think it is possible that Lu Guang is inside. The title itself, "BREAK!" is a giveaway of what it will take to free Lu Guang from this. But hold that thought for now.

The hourglass is a recurring motif in Link Click. It is Lu Guang's symbol. It might means that Lu Guang is in a timeloop. Perhaps he isn't only going through repeats but he is trapped in ONE endless loop. Perhaps he's already saved Cheng Xiaoshi but forgot; cut from the reality he belongs to.

The hourglass is not only an object we come across in PVs. The Birthday artwork for Lu Guang showed him in one, with forget-me-not flowers replacing sand. The Bday arts are actually very interesting because both Cheng Xiaoshi's and Lu Guang's heavily hint on Tarot Cards: the Hanged Man and the Fool. I'm working on an ass-long meta regarding the Tarot Imagery in Link Click so I won't go into too many details here.

We have the Hanged Man: he might be intuitive but he is lost, feeling trapped, is self-limited, in need for release only possible by letting go. There is a part of this arcane that tells us we know the prefered outcome but it might blind us, bring us to a prophecy we're actively trying to keep from realization. He sacrifices himself but for what?

In myths, might it be Judas hanging from the tree because of guilt, or Odin when he sacrificed himself to gain the knowledge of the runes, we're talking about an obsessive person who acts according to their own beliefs, with strong moral values. The Hanged Man speaks of selflessness... giving and not expecting in return, making sacrifices for what must be done. The truth is the Hanged Man picked his hill and will die on it. This card comes before Death, representing the peace that comes from accepting what is out of our control or no longer resisting our fate. This is all about letting our own hubris prevent us from taking a different approach.

The cat here is covering one of his eyes, which could be a parallel to Odin once more. I mentioned at the end of this meta that Lu Guang's sight has been stolen. So, it might be a choice that he is in the situation he is in but perhaps he shouldn't have made decisions on wrong beliefs.

I'll let you know that the reversed Hanged Man suggests that the seemingly noble deed of offering yourself as the sacrificial lamb is, at least for the time being, a useless gesture.

Now, the Fool. As a tarot card, I find this one very interesting and mysterious. Arthur Edward Waite gives the Fool the number 0, but in his book he discusses the Fool between Judgment (XX), and The World (XXI). He is suspended between realities. The Fool is usually considered part of the Major Arcana in tarot reasing but this is not true in tarot card games; the Fool's role in most games is independent of both the plain suit cards and the trump cards, it does not belong to either category. The Fool proceeds without calculation, spontaneously, without hesitation or resistance. Without a blueprint, he is freed up from rules, restrictions and systems.

Portrayed as an empty headed simpleton unaware of the forces that move him. In the Waite-Rider deck, you'll see him immortalized right before his fall of a cliff, walking with his loyal dog. He's impulse and careless. But tradition tells us that he has a secret that protects him: the magic of synchronicity. Now that seems counter-productive in my meta but basically synchronicity is what happens when seemingly unrelated events coincide in improbable ways that have some sort of significance for you. Carl Jung believed synchronicities were evidence of a unifying consciousness at play in the universe, creating physical manifestations of what's happening in our psyche.

Together, the Fool and the Hanged Man encourage to take a step into the unknown and to trust that everything will work out in the end. This combinaison warns of a time when sacrifice and surrender is necessary for growth and transformation.

The Hanged Man understands that his position is a sacrifice that he needs to make in order to progress forward. But only by letting go of old patterns or beliefs that are holding him back can he embrace a new path leading to a good resolution.

The gears and hourglass present in these artworks are kind of self-explanatory. A cog only works as part of a machine, and the machine can only work if everything in there is where it should be and fullfills its role. One action or series of actions repeated in loop. The hourglass measures time but it comes to a stop at some point: has to be turned around so the sand it contains keep flowing. It has a start and a stop.

Finally, the character's flowers aren't only pretty, they're also meaningful. Both are related to Love and Death. Forget-Me-Not are popular enough: related to the wish to be remembered even after our passing, translated into devotion and enduring love. Bellies speaks of everlasting love even beyond death, symbol of cheerfulness and loyalty.

>> Time is like Music

"VORTEX" is a palindrome, meaning it is the same when played forward or backward. The sequence itself show this: it starts with a reverse and then, once Cheng Xiaoshi touches Lu Guang's hand, he falls down. It is a hourglass in shape and sounds. Also, it would be very clever if the story of Link Click as we've seen it had the same construction in its narrative: starting with a reverse and slowly unfolding the accurate chain of events.

This hourglass, we can find it in the "BREAK!" PV, but also in "XETROverthink". Cheng Xiaoshi literally dives into it to try and reach an unconscious Lu Guang, enlightening the idea that our favorite unreliable narrator has blind spots. We don't see Cheng Xiaoshi catching his friend because the scene cuts to the hourglass.

So, what if Link Click lied to us since the beginning? What if one other version of Cheng Xiaoshi is actually the main character and knows more than Lu Guang himself?

In "The Tides", when walking in front of the painting of a man with fabricated wings (and we know this story is one of a widower), Cheng Xiaoshi looks at it while Lu Guang looks the opposite way. There are different ways to interpret this (because this is animation so we can't be 100% sure). Once again, he could be looking at the audience or merely glancing at his lost friend in longing. Still, it offers two possible points of view:

It could be because he empathizes with the widower's story: he is living it. He knows all of it already so he doesn't need to look at the doomed romance on the wall or actually investigate the mansion.

Or perhaps it is the opposite: Cheng Xiaoshi is looking at himself. This is merely a reflection to him. And Lu Guang thinks he knows the role he is playing in the story but, really, he's clueless.

Surprisingly, you might have missed an obvious hint that dropped this summer, or simply overlooked: H A N D S.

The wings on the painting might look like Lu Guang's demonic ones but I do not believe it is a coincidence that Lu Guang usually sits by Cheng Xiaoshi's right when they clap. The first time we see them do it, and this exact frame has been used in PV and Overthink, Lu Guang claps down. Also, the "BREAK!" poster shows Cheng Xiaoshi as an angel and they are standing in the exact same position as the figures in the mansion. Once again, the hourglass floats, ominous, between their palms.

Note that even when Lu Guang receives Cheng Xiaoshi's hand, he is on the right side.

Next: None of us skipped "Dive Back in Time" so we know it by heart. Still, I find hints in this intro on a daily basis. If you pay attention, you'll not only notice that Cheng Xiaoshi probably dives in the first three seconds, but he's looking down through glass, at Lu Guang. Lu Guang, who stands at the top of a building here, is still not above Cheng Xiaoshi. Two things:

In the chronological order, the story told is this: First, Cheng Xiaoshi dives into the picture and then we see Lu Guang changing the timeline to save Cheng Xiaoshi. This is basically Inception.

The glass could be from the frame but it could be very much so from the usually hourglass, symbol of Lu Guang's obsession.

Another interesting detail is this shot:

Thanks to the watch, we know those are Lu Guang's hands but it is a pose we only see Cheng Xiaoshi takes. Because this is the "sponsors screen", this became Cheng Xiaoshi's signature move to me. We see the story through Lu Guang's perspective, but it's really Cheng Xiaoshi that we should focus on, here.

This particular sequence also offers a reverse: a fall, the "frame" sign with hands, one of the hand making a sign to "look up"/"go back up", then we are pulled up. It is the same narrative as "VORTEX" but this time we find ourselves on the other end, the correct order.

"Break!" lyrics once again seem to fit to Lu Guang more (and I think that's the point, "You're not just a tool" can only be addressed to CXS because that's how Lu Guang and Qiao Ling usually call him). Although the word break is used only once in the song ("make or break a leg"), the action of BREAKing is Cheng Xiaoshi's. Plus, the broken glass is the hourglass.

Speaking of broken glass and reflection, this shot of Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi in reverse in "VORTEX"- I reversed it according to the background (falling down). Once more, Cheng Xiaoshi is the main body, Lu Guang is not actually there.

In a way, this theory only gives more sense to "XETROVerthink": Lu Guang appears in the hourglass but it's Cheng Xiaoshi who swims to him in order to save him, not the other way around. The rest of this PV is Cheng Xiaoshi's POV too.

Aside from the visual theme that shows basically everything we need to know about Link Click's plot, you have obviously the lyrics. As much as "VORTEX" and both ENDs, they could be read as Lu Guang or Cheng Xiaoshi's pov. But like I said at the beginning of this meta, some lines aren't working for Lu Guang at all.

There has been a hint of Lu Guang trying to stay away, in Lu Guang's flash back, but failing. We don't know if these memories belong to the timeline we're currently watching or not, but they egg us on the very real possibility that Lu Guang might chose to stay away from Cheng Xiaoshi in order to save his life. After all, their powers are complimentary and work together. Their side hustle depends on this. Arguably, and this is an realistic conclusion to draw: this job is what kills Cheng Xiaoshi. It's only natural to suppose he wouldn't die if Lu Guang wasn't in his life.

Your eyes, there ain't nowhere left to hide behind Something secretive hidden inside your mind If it ain't for your misguided taste I'd turn out so ordinary Fabulously un-addictively bore out my own brain Well, don't you feel sorry I'll love where I'm going now

Blue: Diving into Lu Guang's past/picture, could uncovered all secrets, Cheng Xiaoshi could understand him and, from this perspective, there is no possibility to hide anything.

Pink: Cheng Xiaoshi wants to correct Lu Guang's correction, he doesn't want to live an ordinary and boring life Lu Guang isn't a part of. He likes their side hustle as well, I think, because, as I said in the past regarding LCLA, he wants to help people, it's part of his core.

Possibly, our favorite unreliable narrator actually went through it with this in the end. This hopefully won't stick, not if Cheng Xiaoshi has something to say about that.

Cheng Xiaoshi wouldn't really want things any other way, and that's why this theory of him trying to get Lu Guang back into his storyline seems so plausible to me. Good or bad memories, he just want his partner back.

Because, after all, doesn't it sound like a line someone who remembers a friend who doesn't exist would say?

Chase you to the end of the world just to say your name once more.

I always thought it was a strange way to put it. Most of the time, songs and movies say the opposite "I want to hear you call my name one last time." You know the kind. But here, he wants to say it.

Food for thought. 👀

[ivys-garden]

Alright, I'm going to write my own thoughts down on the situation, sorry if this gets rambly

First of all, Shubble is so brave for speaking up, it's really hard for victims to speak up against there abusers in a public setting and she deserves all the respect in the world for it

That being said we do need to be mindful to give her space, this was a really traumatic thing for her and we all need to be mindful of that, give her room to breath.

On the same lines, don't go after other ccs for not ""releasing statements"", content creators aren't companies, there people. Don't get on at them for not publicly supporting Shubble, especially since there undoubtedly doing it in private, which is probably better than shoving it out there for millions of people to see. Let people support there friend in a way they and shubble are confortable with, if shubble wants them to say something or they think they need to say something themselves, they will say it.

It's like Pearl said, just because you don't see something happening publicly doesn't mean it isn't happening

Also, don't jump to call Tommy or Phil or Grian or anyone else enablers because they haven't said anything, they'll need time to process this too, it's hard to find out that your friend is a domestic abuser, let them process this in piece and don't try to cancel them over nothing like a fool. (People like Tommy will need time especially since Wilbur befriended them when they were young and by all accounts manipulated them too)

If anyone of these people have anything they feel they need to say they'll say it when there good and ready, good life tip folks:Don't Harass People. Especially if they have almost nothing to do with this (honestly Saw someone say they were going to go on to fucking RT about this despite him not knowing either person very well, the fuck)

I know why people do it, they want to make sure there favourite content creators aren't also bad, but they are people and they deserve respect, I can garentee you that almost no Qsmp or Hermitcraft or Other MCYT member who knew him stands with Wilbur

(Also if anyone brings Techno into this fuck right off let the man rest.)

Also, some brain dead morons are saying that people calling out wilbur are doing it for clout and that they should have done it sooner, but most of the abuse happened in private, and wilbur manipulated others, many wouldn't have realised anything was wrong and if they did its still better and more respectful to come forward after shubble since its HER story to tell.

(This attack also doesn't work anymore because we have things like tubbos stream, where he actively discourages his chat from treating him like a hero for speaking out, but yeah sure they all don't give a shit about shubble and just want to make themselves look better, fuck outta here)

Now, if your a former wilbur fan, let me make this super clear

DONT WATCH HIM AND DONT LISTEN TO HIS MUSIC

"BuT SePuRaTe ThE ArT FrOm ThE Arti-

Nah. That doesn't work here. You can separate a book or game or movie, you can't with a cc. Its there face, there voice, there personality. Find a different band, find a different CC to watch. There are other options, I know it sucks to find out someone you like did an awful thing,but that doesn't mean we should support those people for our sakes, especially when people were actively hurt by there actions. Trust me everyone, this will get better, things will go back to how they were before

Finally, this should go without saying, Fuck William Gold to the core of teh fucking earth. And any who still support him.

He is a raging egotistical manipulator and abuser. don't blame people for not seeing it sooner, no one can do that. What we can do though is blame people who still wholeheartedly support him and his actions.

He has not "changed" nor will he ever at the rate at which he's going. He's still a egomaniac who's more concerned with saving his image than actually apologising for his actions, even then an apology wouldn't fix all he's done,it would just be closer and a jumping off point to be better, but he can't even fucking do that.

If wilbur does reflect and grow, good on him, but if he doesn't then I can say with absolute certainty we wouldn't fucking miss him.

Fuck Wilbur. Support Shelbym

[maskedemerald]

Weaving Webs CH1

It is time for @invisobang ! I wrote a fic and the wonderful @pricklenettle did some fantastic art that you'll see embedded through out the fic!

You can check out the fic here or on AO3!

If you like this consider dropping us both a follow!

Warnings: Body horror, manipulation, Spectra is her own content warning, Burns, Spider - for like 2 chapters then it goes away.

The Fenton parents were there when the accident happened, they saw Danny die in an act of sabotage. Now they’re just trying to go on with the strange ghost that is all that's left of Danny. While their old college friend is wondering where the subjects of his revenge are.

[Next]

Chapter One - The Accident

The metal panel came free with a few plinks of screws onto the floor making Danny cringe. He knew he’d be the one scrounging around on the floor looking for them later. His Dad grinned not at all phased by the extra work he was creating. Danny leaned over to look and was fairly certain on catching sight of the tangled mess of cables that this was his Dad’s work.

“Alright Danno, I need you to get your small hands in there. Diagnostics say some of the wires didn’t get plugged in right,” he explained with a little chuckle at his own mistake, “I’d fix it but now the paneling’s on I don’t fit.”

“Got it, know which ones?” Danny asked, eyeing the mess.

“Nope, some of the red ones? Some of the greens too. Just give them all a little extra push!” His Dad said before bounding off out of the portal frame to work on some other part of it.

Danny sighed and rolled his eyes, typical Dad. He used a finger to pull aside a bunch of wires to see the circuit board behind but the wires pulled others and obscured it. He huffed a little, the visor of his white hazmat suit fogging up a little before it faded. He was going to have to fix the cable management if he was going to make any progress.

As Danny picked his way through the tangled chaos of unlabeled cables he couldn’t help but be reminded of a spider web. Every few moves of his hand he had to untangle himself Just to get another wire out of the tangle and neatly with the others of its colour. He had to hope that the colours had some kind of system. Even if they didn’t at least they’d be able to see the board.

“Jack? Did you change this setting?” he heard from out in the lab.

“Um nope, well maybe,” he could almost hear his Dad’s awkward shrug.

There was the clacking of keys, “that’s a bit odd.”

“Huummm, maybe if we change that bit. That should get it, right?”

A spark darted from the connected wire as he disconnected it from the board and he swiftly pulled back his hands. Even with the hazmat he wasn't going to risk it. It might not be the vibrant colours of his parents’ ones but that didn’t mean it was more professionally made. His Dad made each of them by hand. Said they needed a bit more oomph to deal with ectoplasm. He wasn’t sure how effective it would really be.

“Mom? The powers on!” He called out to them.

It wasn't meant to be. His dad had said it was off. Either he forgot, not impossible. Or something was wrong with the power system. If that was the case they'd have to shut it all down. It would be months more work before they'd be ready. Danny couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed at that thought. He didn’t believe it would really work but he wanted it to. Wanted it for his parents. Wanted it for the hours he'd poured in as a way to learn engineering.

“What? No it’s not,” his Mom replied confused, “none of the systems are reporting that.”

“I unplugged it, I definitely unplugged it. Where’s that cable?” His Dad insisted.

“What the… Danny! Move now!” His Mom yelled.

Danny startled and backed away from the panel. There was a high pitched whine building behind him. He scrambled forward, his heavy bulky hazmat boots catching on themselves and every cable. There was a loud hiss and the safety shield started to descend. The power wasn’t just on, the portal was activating.

“Shit, no, not yet,” his Mom cursed, her hands practically slamming across the keys, “Jack pull the emergency breaker!”

“On it!”

He stumbled trying to crouch enough to pass under the descending shield. His head bounced in the helmet as he hit the floor. He winced and his head spun. It took a moment too long for him to get his bearings and start moving. He crawled as fast as he could, racing against the descending shield. He pulled back his hand just as the shield descended, the tips of his glove caught between reinforced glass and the metal tiled floor. He pulled it free with some effort, the fingers tearing.

“Breaker’s not stopping it Mads!”

Danny pulled himself up leaning against the glass. He flinched back as his Dad slammed the Fenton Anti Creep Stick into the reinforced glass with an echoing bang. His Mom was at the console frantically trying to get control of the machine.

He could feel a tingle as the charge in the air increased, his hair standing on end. An ominous warning that the Hazmat was no longer sealed. Electric sparks darted from metal surface to metal surface. The growing green glow that was building behind him reflected in the safety glass that trapped him there. The air grew a strange hot cold. There was a crackle like lightning and then he was engulfed in burning cold green.

[Next]

[welivetodream]

✨ My BSD hot takes/unpopular opinions ✨:

1. Identifying BSD characters as Queer, is not problematic. STOP being so Heteronormative. Gay characters are not gonna kill you.

If I see another "BuT tHe ChArAcTeRs nEvEr SaId tHeY aRe GaY" I would bomb you 💣/j

2. Skk/SSKK/Fyolai/other popular ships, exist because people like it. If you don't ship them, don't engage with their content. Not all shippers act crazy and toxic. Stop blaming everything on shippers.

3. Atsushi/Kyouka is problematic, stop justifying it with "only 4 year age gap". Kyouka is a CHILD, ship her with Kenji if you want. Atsushi, like a normal 18 year old would never look at a highschool freshman and date her. Even if they date in the future, he knew her when she was younger and they had a sibling like dynamic. Lucy is a way better love interest to Atsushi (Don't know if this is an unpopular opinion tho, but I saw some people justifying it 😐😐😐)

4. DAZAI IS NOT EVIL. HE IS FAR FROM EVIL. He is, despite being super popular and the face of BSD, the most mischaracterized and villified character. Morally grey characters exist??!!!

5. Mori is a way worse person than Dazai ever was.

6. PM members get a free pass for any heinous crime they commit by being hot or babygirl-ified (still love them tho, we do not often discuss how bad their actions have been, you can like criminals and acknowledge they are criminals in fiction. I would add DoA to this too, but it's worse with the PM)

7. Akutagawa's abuse of Kyouka shouldn't be forgotten just because Dazai abused Akutagawa.

8. Mori emotionally manipulated and abused Dazai when he was a teen. Just because it wasn't physical, doesn't mean it was nothing.

9. Atsushi is NOT a soft boy, he is way bitter, salty and sarcastic than we give him credit

10. Poe is important to Ranpo and their friendship/relationship is wholesome as hell

11. Ranpo and Yosano's friendship is way better than them being in a relationship in the future

12. FukuFuku is better than Fukumori (imo!!!!)

13. Buying real authors work after watching BSD is actually a really good thing, since more Gen z kids (or other people) will read classics

14. There are layers to Atsushi and Akutagawa relationship/rivalry, and they have the MOST important relationship (not meaning romantic, just in general) in the entire canon.

15. Kunikida and Yosano could be a power couple

16. Fyodor is not a great villain (yet)

17. Nikolai CARRIES the DoA

18. Sigma shouldn't be in the ADA, he needs a happy home, family and some time to adjust to normal life

19. Q and Elise are both underused characters and could become a great dynamic

20. Ango deserves more love, the amount of pressure and stress he deals with is INSANE

21. It's OKAY if everyone joins the fandom for Dazai or skk (I did at first too!!)

22. Higuchi is annoying as hell. I do not get her hype, I like her but not as much as most people (just personal opinion, do not flame me 😭)

23. Everyone in The Guild is forgettable or boring (except Fitzgerald, Poe and Lucy. I like Louisa, but I forget her all the time)

24. Hetero ships are just not that great/interesting in BSD to me 🤷🏻‍♀️ (except maybe AtsuLucy or rare pairs) and female characters are not best utilised, I wish they play more major roles (can't wait for Agatha to arrive!!)

25. Some fan theories/arts get the story better than "canon" stuff at times. Fanon is NOT always the worst (sometimes enjoyable when the canon gets too dark or sad)

26. Toxic ships are okay in fiction as long as they are legal. Humans like toxic things, we consume it like junk food 💅🏻

(These are all personal opinions of mine and do not matter. Feel free to disagree. But, do not hate or be toxic!!!! 😇😇😇😇)

(PS: I compiled all these because of posts I have seen in, Reddit, Pinterest, Twitter and sometimes Tiktok. These aren't really abt you Tumblr folks. I meant to post this on reddit but did not have the courage or mental strength lol)

[mihachansstuff]

So I finished reading a danmei novel for the very first time (it's SVSSS)

Spoiler Alert

(And incoming rant...)

So I just finished reeading the volume 4 of SVSSS, and even before i finished it i knew i have to talk about it and let my thoughts out somehow and here we are. My danmei journey started not too long ago with MDZS donghua before i found myself buying physical copies of SVSSS. Although my first novel was 2ha but I read till volume 6 to keep it on hold and finished this one instead.

Now that i am done, before i make it too long i will just leave some snippets of audacious thoughts here which may or may not be agreed upon -

I really wanted to like LBH, but in the end I just couldn't, some parts and traits of his character just don't sit well with me. I mainly hate his manipulative part, and I just don't understand why someone like Shen Yuan/SQQ falls for it again and again.

Zhuzhi lang is indeed a lovable character, but I just can't forgive him for killing Gongyi Xiao. The only time I shed tears while reading this novel was when we hear about his death and how SQQ was then remembering how GYX told him he would visit his peak after everything is over. (I was still holding on to that hope that he will be miraculously alive *sob*)

I found Tianlang-Jun to be a decent character, even more decent than his own son. I mean, yeah LBH went through traumatic periods but TLJ also went through miserable times while sealed. But in the end he just let all of it go while his son kept getting jealous and vicious towards every human being close to SQQ.

SQH and MBJ is a good ship. I would love to know more about them I need more Moshang content (this everyone will agree i know)

In that one interview chapter at volume 4 SQH's comment about Bingqiu being the kindergartner and his teacher, I can't agree more. Also his comment about how dating LBH must be exhausting and annoying was so true that I just don't understand why SQQ accepts all this 😭😭

I wish I could learn more about Liu Mingyan's thought process while writing Regrets of Chunshan.

I saw a Youtube comment that said - "In SVSSS, almost every character can be shipped with SQQ" and I couldn't agree more! SQQxYQY, SQQxLQG and etc. all are good ship material.

I felt like there were more background plots that could be explored (like what happened to Huan Hua Palace after, or how TLJ was doing, or some more info and background about certain characters etc). In this way I feel like Shen Yuan, heh

The novel art is pretty, but the way LBH was described about his looks and beauty, I somehow didn't feel it through the art. My fav character ranking according to art would be Tianlang Jun→Mobei Jun→SQQ, even though I really like curly hair.

At this point people might think I am a LBH hater, but really I am not, or at least I don't want to be. But I just really think SQQ deserved a better peaceful life at CQ Mountain, around his disciples and sect brothers that really adore him like a family. I really hated the ending in Vol 3 where SQQ left the mountain with LBH in this respect. Well at least in vol 4 it said that the two come to the mountain from time to time so I guess I can calm down a bit.

I really, really like Shen Qingqiu. He's a diva. But I just don't understand...some of his choices. But I guess I will just leave it at that.

This is my first time finishing a danmei novel as I mentioned already, so please go easy on me, even though I may have said things that might spark an argument. Overall I think it was a good experience and I'm looking forward to reading more novels. Feel free to give me some recommendations!

[starleska]

HI ABSOLUTELY OBSESSED W YOUR RECENT WALLY HCS😢😭😭😭 need more If you're still taking writing requests, could you do some jealous Wally headcanons?🤭🤭🤭 he just seems like the type to be a yandere that’s obsessed w you

eeee thank you very much lovely anon!!! 🙈💖💖💖 writing these Wally headcanons is so fun!!! and ohohoho, i most certainly can. buckle up 😉 content warnings for jealous, manipulative, borderline abusive behaviour including stalking, as well as Eldritch powers and hypnosis. this is for the yandere!Wally fans! :3c

Jealous!Wally Darling x Reader headcanons

🍎 Wally's jealousy isn't overt, but he can't fool you. at first you thought it must all be in your head; that warm smile of Wally's becoming static, frozen, when aimed at your new friend who is taking up a little more of your time today than usual. yet the more time you spend with this friend, the more you find Wally's pleasant façade slipping. there's an unnerving edge to his voice when he asks, "Did you have a good time?", and his usual stimming - taps and touches with a charming, unrhythmic musicality - now sound like harsh, stinging slaps. you try to reassure Wally that you aren't replacing him, but Wally laughs a little too loud, and pretends like nothing is wrong. "I don't mind!" says Wally. "After all: I know that you're my best friend."

🍎 when Wally's jealousy increases, he takes more extreme measures - by defacing your image. you come home one day after a lovely outing with your new pal, happy but exhausted. you make your way to your bedroom, but are horrified to find the place in shambles. your drawers have been yanked out and overturned, and sheaves of paper scatter the floor like a tornado just cleaved through your window. shaking, you pick up a piece of paper...only to find it's a photograph of you and your friend, taken from a distance and without your knowledge. the photograph is scribbled over with a violent scrawl of red crayon. panicked, you pick through the other photographs, and find that every single one is ruined: angry art-marks slashing through your smiling faces. you're frightened and angry, and you go straight to Wally's Home to confront him, clutching fistfuls of photographs and trembling with the adrenaline. yet Wally looks lazily over the photos, his eyes betraying nothing. "I don't know why someone would do this," says Wally. "But whoever did sure seems to care about you."

🍎 although you try to distance yourself from Wally after that, he doesn't take well to being abandoned. one morning you're just stepping over the threshold of your home, ready to meet your friend - when you lock eyes with Wally. he's standing a short distance away, with his arms tucked politely behind his back. "Going somewhere?" Wally asks. as he does, his pupils balloon, and his eyelids peel back to reveal the full extent of his scleras. a sick wave of vertigo crashes into you, and you have to grab the doorframe to keep your balance. "No...I don't think so," you say, your voice coming out weak. "That's good," says Wally. he moves towards you, and as he gets closer, a crackling, ringing static builds on the inside of your skull, getting louder with every soft step of Wally's shoes on the grass. your brain swims through a new, impossibly dense fog, and your knees nearly give out. Wally - when did he appear at your side? - slips a hand around your waist, and guides you gently away from the sunlight and back into your living room. "I think we should spend more time together," says Wally, in a way which is not a suggestion. you find yourself nodding. of course you should. Wally's your best friend...isn't he? always fun to write a darker side to Wally - i hope you like this one 🥰

[tavyliasin]

Villain-Fucker Angst Hours

Good timezone, darlings~ Are you ready to get all up in your feelings? No? Me neither, loves, but here we are regardless so the words are going to flow as they usually do... This is focused on Raphael from Baldur's Gate 3 and his fandom, but the latter section can easily apply to any villain fandom.

Self-Analysis of Devil-Fuckery, Or Why Do I Adore Raphael When He Is Very Obviously Evil: A Short Essay by TavyliaSin (Who Still Cannot Name Anything With Less Than A Full Paragraph) ((NSFW)) (((Game Spoilers)))

The following may discuss heavier topics, but without specifics, so whilst it should be safe for most to read without triggering any difficult memories please be aware of Raphael's entire vibes, the content and context of his story, and I'd also like to mention that this isn't a "woe be us for we are terrible people" piece, it's actually more about:

"There is an inherent kindness and warmth to much of the Raphael fandom, and I think there could be some common threads behind that, pulling us all in closer in a comforting blanket that we wrap around each other to keep out the cold of the world."

So, what in the nine hells am I on about? Well. Raphael-fandom is a wild and wonderful place to be. The rest is in sections, so feel free to skip through to what you feel is relevant to your interests. I am so prone to waffle I should open a restaurant~

Who Are Fans Of Raphael? What Do They Want?

We are feral, unhinged, all sheets to the wind "I want that devil man, carnally, and there is no force in all the planes that could stop me". There's the vanilla to the extreme and every level in between, tops, bottoms, versatiles, Doms, subs, and switches - there are a whole lot of people who would love to get their hands on either (or both) of Raphael's forms, for a simple smooch or something far more spicy~ [edited in] To add on to this, not all of us even desire him in a sexual way, for many it is romantic, soft, or even just the rather pleasant thought of spending an evening with drinks by the hellfire because he would be fascinating company. Aces, Aros, and AroAces may all find themselves well within the devilish corners of fandom too~ which is a whole other essay~ [end edit] So, I see you. I'm one of you. Extremely loud and utterly hingeless in my fan appreciation for Raphael. He's one of my favourites to write about, I seek art of him, and the same goes for his mirrored other half, Haarlep, who I arguably love more despite there being far less content of them in the game.

And the Fandom? The Vibe?

From my experience in the Raphael Fandom areas, we have a very deep and abiding understanding of consent, respect, and treating each other with an absolute and uncompromising kindness. We've had talks about keeping each other safe in fandom, exchanged details of people we have encountered who need to be avoided, even shared details between moderators of different fandom servers to pre-ban people proven to be creeps and/or art thieves. We've also discussed consent, including the issues with it in the game, and how areas of the story can only really be considered dubious at best and could easily be triggering for people. And these discussions have been open, honest, fair, and with the acknowledgement that most of us love these scenes anyway. So there's a sense of care that runs through everything, behind the horny-posting and fan content, behind the endless thirsting after our favourite fictional characters. We have a depth of kindness that warms my sinners soul every time I see it.

What Does This Have To Do With Self-Reflection, Raphael, or Villainy In General?

Well let's look at Raphael. He's a villain, obviously. He's manipulative, devious, and inherently evil by his very nature. He keeps Hope chained in his basement, constantly subjected to endless torture. There's also mention of how Gortash was sold into his service at a young age, clearly not an enjoyable experience given the other details and how things turn out (particularly as Raphael would need Gortash's own plans to fail entirely in order for him to succeed in his own and get that crown). And as fans, we accept that. We don't sit making excuses, or trying to say "well actually Gortash is a little shit and Hope probably deserve it", and we don't shy away from or conveniently ignore those darker sides of him with malicious intent to enable more evil to flourish. What I noticed, when I allowed the thoughts to continue, is that there is a theme here.

If Evil Can Be Loved Then So Can I

That's the core. Of course, darlings, I am not claiming to be a heinous monster. I certainly do not have a laundry list of crimes that would make the devil himself say "Uh, that's a bit much." But I sure as fuck treat myself like I do sometimes. You see, I think a lot of us have that tendency, to judge ourselves far more harshly than anyone else. Our patience, understanding, and forgiveness for others runs deeper than the Mariana Trench, but when it comes to our own flaws? One minor mistake and we think ourselves to be the worst beings ever to disgrace the earth. Thus, the villainy we see reflects how we are treating ourselves. So by loving and accepting all of those things that should be terrible, hated, we are actually learning that no matter how poorly we think of ourselves that we can be worthy of that same love and acceptance. We are extending the affection we are unable to show ourselves to someone we see the worst parts of ourselves amplified within. And that's why villains attract the people with the most kindness. The most forgiveness. Because it takes someone with a truly huge amount of empathy to find love for the embodiment of evil.

Or, IDK, maybe villains are just hot and we're too far down to care.

But wait, before you go!

THERE'S SOMETHING WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT.

All of this is about FICTION. We should never be accepting of the kinds of evil we see in the game irl. We do not owe anyone kindness if they do not show it to us.

What is hot in fiction is not always OK IRL.

Look after yourselves out there, remember that consent is key in all things, and please do try to learn to love yourselves, darlings, you are worthy of it and you should judge yourself by the same standard you judge others. If you are in doubt, if you are worried, if you feel afraid - reach out, talk to someone. There are many who will listen.

Treat yourself as you would treat a friend. You deserve that much.

Oh, and all Raphael fans who understand kindness are welcome around me, any hour of the day, I adore our little fandom circles and would gladly collect all of us together. I'm following a lot of you as soon as I find you, like hunting shiny pokemon~

See you in Avernus, my darling Little Mice, may we all find joy in the Cambion's Embrace~

[jbk405]

I think I've found one of the key reasons why I prefer the old Expanded Universe to the current Star Wars content: Unique types of villains.

More specifically, people who weren't just Evil Force Users With Long Robes And Red Lightsabers. While there were always a few Darth Vader-clones that popped up to fill up space, so many of the Arc Villains were distinct not just in personality, but also how they were dangerous.

Grand Admiral Thrawn was a military tactician, which wasn't the point of any of the main villains in the Original Trilogy. Grand Moff Tarkin was a "Build a bigger superweapon and bludgeon the galaxy into submission" kind of villain, and Vader and the Emperor were mystical dark wizards. This isn't a complaint or criticism, but just pointing out that military tactics were never on display in the films since that wasn't the type of story they were telling. But Thrawn didn't have prophetic powers or Destiny, he had to analyze and plan around what he could learn about his adversaries. It's a different type of fight than Literal Magic. In the original Thrawn Trilogy, Captain Pellaeon frequently internally narrates how different Thrawn's style of leadership was to either Vader or the Emperor (Even if his art-analysis did verge on magic by itself).

Ysanne Isard was a political and/or espionage manipulator, which was even less a point of the Original Trilogy than military tactics were. She took advantage of the realities of actually needing to build a nation out of an underground military movement. With all of the dirty gutter politics, self-serving agendas, and logistics that doom so many revolutionary movements. I'm not as big a fan of her arc as I was when I was younger (I re-read the Rogue Squadron novels a few years ago and the writing quality is not as good as I remember, and Isard's plans frankly don't hold a lot of water), but the concept is still fantastic.

Warlord Zsinj on the surface seems like a merger of Thrawn and Isard -- he's a military commander who specializes in espionage -- but he also has a big focus that neither of them demonstrated: Business. While he still blows stuff up with his giant space ships and is sowing dissent through brainwashing and spycraft, he's simultaneously establishing a galaxy-wide network of completely-legitimate commercial businesses that he owns through untraceable pseudonyms. They fund his campaigns, give him influence on planets outside of his direct control, and allow him to control resources without any of his adversaries even being aware of it.

Even one-shot enemies like the Ssi-ruuk were so unique: They're invading the galaxy because their technology is powered by living souls and they want to harvest all life in the galaxy. That's messed up, and so distinct from the general "Take over the world" motivation of the Empire.

But as time went on, more and more of the enemies were just "Darth Vader Again". Another Jedi who fell to the Dark Side, or another long-lost schism of the Sith who rediscovered mainstream galactic society, or some other thing that is eventually resolved by a one-on-one lightsaber duel and a personal grudge against the Skywalker or Solo families. It definitely felt like they were out of ideas and kept running through the same villains over and over again.

This kicked into high gear after the Prequels came out, and continued in the new continuity after the EU was rebranded as "Legends".

I wish we could go back to the idea that there could be an enemy who wasn't super powerful in the force and consumed by Hatred Of The Jedi. With their own skills, their own methods, and something that makes them more than just another wannabe-Sauron. Pirates who are just pirates, marauding ex-Imperial Warlords who are just marauding ex-Imperial Warlords, and corrupt politicians who are just corrupt politicians, instead of revealing that Palpatine returned (somehow) all over again.

[romanticgremlin]

Through the Iron Bars.

Chapter 1.

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

I'm bad at summaries. Seb's in Azkaban, he's gonna break out, excitement ensues.

First chapter!

There will be NSFW content, but not yet!

TRIGGER WARNING FOR DARK THEMES. MURDER.

Please keep in mind, I have a darker raunchier version of Sebastian post Azkaban coming out as well.

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

You're really a brilliant dueler!

Lacewing Flies?

Of course I can dance! I'm a Gaunt!

Sebastian, please!

Cast it on me.

Perhaps we should part ways

I can tell you like her Sebastian.

I can be sneaky.

Go on…cast it. Before I change my mind.

How dare you treat Ominis this way! This isn't you!

Why don't you just go talk to her if you're so curious…

Somethings wrong.

You've made your choice.

Thank you for the shrivel Fig.

You couldn't best me if you tried.

We all know that I'm the attractive twin and you're the brainy twin!

The dark arts are not to be trifled with!

Absolutly not!

Sebastian…

Quite perceptive, that one.

You're my best friend.

-------

The voices of Anne, Ominis and her.

They bounce around in his head every minute, every second. Every hour in here.

When he first arrived, his thoughts were mainly of how horrible his surroundings were. How unfair things were for him. How he’d been betrayed by his friends. He was only trying to help Anne, couldn’t they see that? They were the selfish ones.

Time passed. He didn't know how much.

His hair grew longer and he broiled in his anger and dispair. The days were long and cold.

Musty water would drip down the slate gray walls of stony bricks one by one. He'd sit there counting them, his head leaned at a strange angle, barely able to lift his neck enough to watch. Wind blasted occaisionally through the wrought iron bars of his window, making the drips change direction slightly, causing them to collide or drift from each other.

Those were his favorite days.

He’d assign names to each droplet and watch as they lived a dance of life influenced by the sea air. It was only until he’d started having nightmares of Solomon that he couldn't stand his favorite hobby of raindrop watching anymore. No one like to sit around and be passive more than Solomon. Never did he want to be compared to his fathers brother, so he started moving. Pushups, situps, whatever he could do. The only thing he had was his body. Just like magic, he'd add another skill to his repoitoire. It made him smile to have such a victory. A skill no one could stop him from practicing. It kept him sane for a bit longer.

After Solomon appeared in his nightmares it was Anne’s turn, then Ominis. Each time he would awake, sore and damp with sweat, unable to do anything other than debate himself and wretchedly sob once he lost the arguments he himself picked. He tried desperatly at first, to argue that it hadn't been murder, trying to make his actions make sense to them in his head.

His legs grew longer and he no longer disagreed with them, he took their anger and hung his head heavy, asking for forgiveness. If only he could do it in real life.

------

His chest and lower abdomen grew a trail of soft hair and he dreamt of her.

Not a nightmare. No. He only ever dreamt of her.

The guards had given him a new set of clothes that fit him better and he felt like a new man for a time.

She came to him in the night again, like she always had. Her sturdy voice carried so much strength and vulnerability for him now. Caring and considerate but fierce and just when needed. She had been a good friend to him. One who held him accountable for his actions.

He’d been horrible to her. Manipulative. Accusing. Angry. In the dark of the room he grit his teeth.

He’d asked for her forgiveness, begged even. His fist clenched tightly, knuckles white. Why was he so angry. And at her alone. He shook his head, squeezing his eyes so hard thst he saw stars for a moment and rolled over on the thin slab of what the guards called a bed.

----

He tries to speak. To say something to a guard. It’s jarring. His own voice. Deeper.

Enough to tell him years had passed.

He vomits on the cold hard slate ground.

_____

His hand is wider than the space between the cell bars now and they’ve put someone into the empty cell next to him. Nothing comes of it for several days until a voice calls out to him.

“Oi.”

----

Ben was a bit younger and bit dumb, but he had to admit that he could have had a worse neighbor and after a while It wasn't uncommon for them to spend hours talking to each other about anything they could think of.

“If a Ghost fought a dementor, what'd ya reckon would happen?” Ben would say, causing a snort to escape Sebastian which then tumbled into a full on laugh. It took a while for him to get use to speaking again, much less laughing.

He thanked everything good in this world for Ben some days.

“A dementor can’t suck out a ghost’s soul because it doesn’t have a soul to suck out anymore and a ghost can’t interact with anything on the physical plane. I don’t think anything would happen.” he reply to the boy between laughs.

“No, I think it’d be cooler than that.” Ben would mumble in an huffy indignant voice after a small amount of time.

-----

He could hear Ben’s voice getting deeper.

There were nights where all he could do was think. Curled up in a fetal position on the floor, shaking, a right bloody mess, consumed by all his worst thoughts. Anne was probably dead. Ominis had been probably married off and forced to love someone he didn’t know. Or worse, someone he did know, someone cruel from his family.

He wouldn't dare to think about her. Last thing he knew, she was in the hospital wing. Dread settled in his belly at the thought of her. Dusty gold hair that smelled like something he could never describe imprinted itself in his brain like a brand on one of the highland cows. The long hours of quiet made the radical thoughts easier to rationalize and all he could do was lay there in terror, wondering if he’d ever have any answers about the outside world.

Ben and him didn’t speak about these things. It was left unsaid. One would reach out to the other in the dark of night with their voice and the other would respond, a quiet understanding.

------

He was taller than the guard now, who had to look slightly up when passing him food and he thinks of her again.

What would he do if he saw her?

Kill her?

Maybe.

Everthing is confusing about her.

Yell?

More likely.

He rolls over diggin his fingernail into his hand, not wanting to think about the real answer.

He hears a sniffle and glances at the unfeeling wall between him and the toher boy, glaring at it as if he could see Ben right through it if he tired hard enough. He clenches his teeth, a new bad habit he’s developed.

“Ben.” He says, bones creaking as he stands up, feeling twice his age. Whatever that might be at this point.

“Lets get out of here.”

[reaper2187]

Asami sato x firebender reader

I still remember the first time I saw her.

It was during one of my training sessions, when I was still a young firebender trying to master my abilities. As I practiced, I couldn't help but notice her, standing at the back of the room, her long dark hair tied up in a ponytail and a confident aura surrounding her. I was instantly captivated by her beauty and strength.

Asami Sato, the heiress of Future Industries, was well known among the benders community. Her business empire was built on groundbreaking technology and innovation, and she was also an accomplished non-bender martial artist. Her reputation preceded her, and many firebenders admired her from afar.

But I was not content with merely admiring her from a distance. I wanted to get to know her, to be a part of her world. And so, I mustered up all my courage and approached her after the training session.

To my surprise, not only did she reciprocate my interest, but she also offered to help me improve my firebending skills. Asami could see the potential in me, and she was more than willing to mentor me.

With her guidance, my skills as a firebender improved tremendously. I was able to control and manipulate flames with ease, creating intricate shapes and patterns with my fire. Asami was patient and understanding, never once losing her cool even when I struggled with a particular technique.

As we spent more time together, we grew closer. We shared stories and experiences, and I learned that Asami was more than just a powerful businesswoman. She had a kind heart and a fierce determination to make the world a better place.

I found myself falling deeper in love with her with each passing day. Her strength and grace were irresistible, and I felt grateful to have her by my side.

But we both knew that our love was forbidden. As a firebender, I was expected to marry within my own kind. And Asami, being the heiress of Future Industries, was constantly watched and scrutinized by her father and the public.

However, our love was stronger than any societal expectations. We decided to keep our relationship a secret, knowing that the consequences could be dire if anyone found out.

Despite the risks, we were happy. We sneaked away to spend time together whenever we could, whether it was on a rooftop under the stars or in a secluded area of the city. Asami even started to join me during my training sessions, bringing along her latest invention to assist me in my training.

Our love blossomed, and I felt like I was living in a dream. But as they say, all good things must come to an end.

One day, while we were enjoying a peaceful moment in a garden, we were ambushed by a group of firebenders who were against any kind of relationship between a firebender and a non-bender. Asami and I fought against them, our bending skills meshing together perfectly as we defended ourselves.

But it was no use. They outnumbered us, and just when I thought the end was near, Asami stepped in front of me, using her martial arts skills to fend off our attackers. However, in the chaos of the battle, she sustained a severe injury, and I was too preoccupied with protecting her to notice.

When the attackers were finally defeated, I rushed to Asami's side, my heart sinking as I saw the blood seeping through her clothes. With tears in my eyes, I tried to heal her injuries with my firebending, but it was no use. Her injuries were too severe, and she needed medical attention immediately.

Without hesitation, I scooped her up in my arms and rushed her to the nearest hospital. As her life hung in the balance, I prayed to the spirits, begging them to spare her life. I couldn't imagine a world without Asami by my side.

After what seemed like an eternity, she finally regained consciousness. She looked at me with a weak smile, and I knew at that moment that she was going to be okay.

Asami's father, Hiroshi Sato, arrived at the hospital soon after. He was shocked and angry to find out about our forbidden love, but as he saw the love and care I had for his daughter, his heart softened. He gave us his blessing and even offered to help us keep our relationship a secret.

From that day on, Asami and I were no longer just two people in love. We were a team, facing any challenges that came our way, together.

Asami and I eventually got married, and we continued to train and support each other in our respective abilities. Together, we used our skills and resources to make a difference in the world, just like we always dreamed of.

Looking back now, I realize that our love was the catalyst for great change. Our love had the power to overcome any boundaries and obstacles, setting an example for others to follow.

And as I stand here, beside my wife Asami, I couldn't be more grateful for our love that started in a training room. It was a love that transformed not only our lives, but the world around us.

[maskedemerald]

Weaving Webs CH4

Here is chapter four for Invisobang ! The wonderful @pricklenettle did some fantastic art that you'll see embedded through out the fic! We get some more creepy Danny art this chapter! And I love the little details on the fridge!

You can check out the fic here or on AO3!

If you like this consider dropping us both a follow!

Warnings: Body horror, manipulation, Spectra is her own content warning, Burns, Spider - for like 2 chapters then it goes away.

The Fenton parents were there when the accident happened, they saw Danny die in an act of sabotage. Now they’re just trying to go on with the strange ghost that is all that's left of Danny. While their old college friend is wondering where the subjects of his revenge are.

[First] [Previous] [Next]

Chapter Four

The lab was dim, an electric twilight. The lights blared overhead as they usually would but her eyes were too over compensated. Something bright, like looking at the sun burned in her vision. Her ears rang with screams. She couldn’t move. Shadowy, skeletal hands gripped her feet. Her face. His hand. Scraping her skin with rough burnt skin. Forcing her to watch. Unable to stop it. Those cold hands held her arms as she tried to fight free.

You don’t get to look away.

It’s your fault, you let him go in.

This is all because of you.

A sharp chill deeper than the cold hands drew a violent shiver. Like an ice bath. Colder.

Maddie jerked awake, that chilling feeling still in her spine despite being awake. She stared up at the ceiling trying not to think. The waking world wasn’t much better than that nightmare after all. She frowned, noticing that it was much lighter than she had thought. Later in the morning than she had thought. She sighed knowing that she wouldn’t get back to sleep now and started to push herself up.

There was a soft white glow at the foot of the bed. Its legs were gone, blended into a tail that twisted round itself to curl up. The tattered sleeve and skeletal arm exposed. The bony fingers stretched out towards her. She shifted just a bit too much of the blanket as she tried to escape the bed unnoticed. Danny’s ghost lifted a tilted head. She froze for a moment but it didn’t lunge.

It followed her throughout the house, keeping to shadows or perching on high locations. Like the top of the fridge where it had settled during breakfast. Jazz kept glancing in its direction and left quickly the moment she could. Her breakfast, only half finished.

It appeared to once again fall asleep there. She watched it. It didn’t make sense, ghosts didn’t need sleep. Or at least none of the research said they did. Maybe it was wrong. Maybe this was a feature of newer ghosts. Would it sleep less the longer it was… dead? Would anything else change over time? Was it only a matter of time before it became malevolent like the research said?

Research… research said that this shouldn’t have happened. The portal shouldn’t have turned on. They had worked hard to make sure there wouldn’t be another accident. Not after Vlad. She had to know why? Why did this happen? Why was Danny…? Was it their fault? Had they made this mistake?

She glanced to the lab door in the corner. She didn’t want to face it but she had to. Had to know why. Her hand hovered shakily over the handle. The ghost shuffled in its place on the fridge. A high pitched whine. A constant reminder of what happened. A reminder she couldn’t escape. A question that would quite literally haunt her forever if she didn’t find an answer. She took a deep breath and turned the handle.

The descent into the lab was a slow one. Each step felt massive and the bottom still shadowed in the darkness they had left it in on the day of the incident. The lights flickered on weakly, revealing the scattered chaos that had been them trying to save Danny.

She crossed to the console, that was where part of the problem was. The only part she could access. The only place she could get answers from. The portal frame itself was inaccessible behind the swirling green of their window into the ghost zone. The death trap that had killed Danny. The swirls played tricks on her tired mind, the silhouette of a mass of something beyond the portal. A shape close to the floor. Even if it was really there she didn’t want to see. The horror of a mangled, incinerated body that her mind supplied was bad enough. She couldn’t handle the real thing.

The console reported back that the portal was active. It understood that. It wasn’t a bool issue in the code. Something reporting false when it should have said true stopping her from turning off the machine it didn’t think was on. It knew it was on. That meant the emergency controls were the problem. She poured over the code trying to find the control error. A mistyped variable or something. Anything that would explain what happened.

What she found was worse. Or maybe better, if only because it meant it wasn’t them. They hadn’t caused this. There was an override coded into the emergency shutdown. An override that linked back to a start-up sequence they had never coded. It was set to initiate start-up while someone was inside. Specifically while the wiring was being worked on. Some of the wires had been bypassed to allow the machine to work even if they had been unplugged. Wires that had once been important to function were now just a trigger. Sabotage.

Jack was meant to be dealing with the wiring, it had only been passed to Danny since the paneling went on. Had someone been trying to kill Jack? No, that didn’t make sense. Why would… but then why would anyone target anyone else in the family. She couldn’t think of anyone who hated them like that. Even the Mansons didn’t disapprove of them that much. Even if she could think of someone this required a certain level of understanding of their work. Few had that privilege. Vlad from college but that would have been long outdated with how long it had been and their direct overseers from the GIW. Neither really had opportunity and reason. Had it not been about them at all? Was someone trying to halt their work and unintentionally caught Danny in the crossfire? Still she couldn’t think of who. The GIW were literally paying them, sabotage would just make it worthless. Vlad had nothing to gain, he wasn’t even in the field any more.

She frustratedly shook her head, there was no use speculating when she really had no clues. Maybe Jack would know something. If not at least he wouldn’t be blaming himself like she had been. She took a few moments to document the evidence and hide it away. Whoever it was had somehow gained access to their computers if not the lab itself, she couldn’t risk it being covered up. Maddie was not going to let this go unpunished. She was going to find who did this and she was going to make them pay.

Satisfied that the files were preserved she headed for the stairs. Jack was probably still sleeping. She’d wake him. He’d want to be told as soon as possible.

It was like a cold hand crawled up her spine. She froze, one foot on the next step, halfway up the stairs. Her heart beat faster and she couldn’t help but feel on edge. Each next step was tentative and cautious. Her eyes scanned the kitchen and fell on the sleeping ghost on the fridge top. She let out an uncomfortable awkward laugh. Of course it was the ghost. She should have realized that was what they were feeling. That natural human fear response to a ghost's aura. Of course they would be feeling that, made only worse by the very real grief.

She found Jack exactly where she expected him to be. He was sleeping but it hadn’t been peaceful. The covers around him were rumpled and his eyes bagged. He had probably been lying there awake for a good portion of the night. She knew she had been before the exhaustion took her into that nightmare.

“Jack?” she asked softly as she gently shook him. Thankfully he didn’t startle, his eyes opened awkwardly with a tired and confused groan.

“Mads? What is it?” he paused, wiping sleep out of his eyes, “did something happen?” concern drifted onto his face and was alleviated as she shook her head.

“I found something. The accident,” she stumbled over the memory of it, “it wasn’t. I was looking through the control panel files. They’d been changed.”

“Sabotage?”

She nodded, “someone bypassed the safety controls and the power. They rigged it to go off while you were working.”

“But I hadn’t… I passed it off to…” his face dropped, “if I hadn’t then… Mads this…”

“Jack, that doesn’t make it your fault. Danny wanted to help and we didn’t know. We couldn’t have,” if anyone was to know it would be her she’d noticed something had been changed, even if it wasn’t obviously malicious at the time.

“Who is then, who even had access?”

“I don’t know but now we know we can find out,” Maddie said firmly, a promise. Another promise unsaid but clear, that whoever was responsible was going to regret this.

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