#like. maybe this is just me. but wouldn't it have made more sense to make lucifer the youngest instead of gabriel.

[rita-repulsa-ke]

The Four Stages of Grief

She’s holding a body, a familiar body, still warm but not breathing, which is fine, because Rio often forgets to breathe. The problem is in every other detail, the way it doesn't move, the slackness of the skin, the way she—it—is dead weight in Agatha's arm

She's holding something impossible, something that cannot exist.

She's holding Rio's corpse.

This one is @dandelions4us' fault

Barring infancy, Agatha Harkness can remember almost every time she’s cried.

Not when they chained her to the stake.

Not when she killed them.

Not when Wanda made her forget who she was.

When her boy died. A few times after sex, which doesn’t count. Maybe once or twice when she was younger and more naive about how the world worked. Multiple times as a way to garner sympathy prior to committing murder, which also doesn't count.

In the time between Nicky's death and this present moment, she can’t remember the last time her eyes have so much as grown damp.

Even knowing it must be a dream, she’s crying now.

She’s holding a body, a familiar body, still warm but not breathing, which is fine, because Rio often forgets to breathe. The problem is in every other detail, the way it doesn't move, the slackness of the skin, the way she—it—is dead weight in Agatha's arm

She's holding something impossible, something that cannot exist.

She's holding Rio's corpse.

"You can't do this to me," she snarls into that blank face, her voice scratching the air like fingernails on dead skin. "You can't die!" She gives the body a few rough shakes, which is a terrible idea, the way the body ragdolls uselessly in her arms will stay with her forever. "It's one of your best features!"

This is a dream, she reminds herself. A stupid, ridiculous dream where Rio dies in her arms like some kind of tragic cliche, the kind of trope that makes her feel nauseous—or maybe that, too, is the crying, she hasn't done it in so long she's forgotten how physically unpleasant it is, how her head pounds and her cheeks ache and her stomach feels like someone's taken it for a boat ride on choppy water.

She just has to find out how to wake up.

She tries pinching herself, or rather, she tries pinching herself again, because her arm is a mess of inflamed red marks. This latest one she gets vicious, digs her nails in like she's got a grudge against her own body and maybe she can write these tears off to pain.

"Come on, come on," she says, but nothing's happening, she's still sitting on the floor of her living room in Westview holding the corpse of a woman she's sure can't die, except that Agatha saw her do it, a knock on her door and she'd opened it only to have Rio stumble into her arms, collapse like a scene from a movie she wouldn't have watched and mumble, "I love you, Ags," right before she did the one thing she absolutely, 100% could not do.

"Doesn't make any sense," Agatha murmurs to herself, and if she had any magic, any magic at all, she would be trying every spell in the book, but it's all gone, stolen by the Scarlet Witch. Still, there's always things she could try, manual spells that rely on ritual and components instead of innate magic, except that to do any of those, she'd have to let go of Rio's body and she can't actually seem to make herself do that. She's got it in her lap, the arm she's been pinching held under it, posed almost the same way Rio had fallen, keeping her propped up and hoping any minute she might jump up and yell 'Surprise!'.

Any minute now.

Minutes tick by and nothing happens, except Agatha's arm grows tired and her cheeks cold. She expects the crying to stop, but it doesn't, only turns pitiful and sniffly, the kind of sound she would have done a very funny mockery of, if it had come from anyone else.

"This is ridiculous," she scolds the corpse, trying not to look directly at it, not to see how empty it is, how its mouth won't curve to smile at her and its eyes won't light in her presence, how there's no semblance of her lover in the dead thing in her arms. "You're Death! You're immortal, you're a fundamental part of the balance, how can you possibly die?"

Agatha is intimately familiar with the stages of grief, she's cycled through them on repeat for centuries. This one's anger. The next—

"…Hey, Rio, look, I know we've…I know we've had our differences. You hunted me for centuries and I…I probably wasn't always that nice to you. Also hid from you with the Darkhold, which I do know you hated." Her free hand moves at an awkward angle, tries to pat down her former lover's hair in a way that only makes it worse. "I'm not sorry about most of that, honestly. But you know, you were right. I...ugh, I really did always still love you, all right?! I tried to stop, but I could never figure out how." And here it is, her desperate attempt at bargaining, at making a kind of peace between them she'd scorned when Rio was alive. "That's what you wanted to hear, isn't it? Isn't it?! So stop this! Wake up already. ...Just come back to me."

The corpse stares, sightless, up at her ceiling and she knows this next stage too, she's wallowed in it for years and years. She clutches Rio's corpse tighter to her body, rocks with it, back and forth and depression is too weak of a word for the swamp of emotion she's sinking into, muck rising above her head and taking the last of the light with it.

These are the stages of grief Agatha Harkness knows.

There's another one she's heard about, but never reached.

Other people might simply accept things. Their fate, the deaths of others, the universe acting on them instead of them acting upon the universe.

Those people were weak.

"No," she starts the cycle from the top, right back to denial. "This can't be real. It can't, it's impossible, she can't die." She finally lowers the corpse to the ground, onto an ugly throw rug Agnes must have chose, then reaches down to pluck a hair from Rio's head, oddly stiff in her fingers. She has bleach and cinnamon, there's a half-remembered bit of ritual she can try—

"Stop," someone says and Agatha's heart almost obeys, because that's a familiar voice, the familiar voice, the voice of a woman she knew couldn't be dead.

"I thought this is what you wanted," And there's a second speaker, unfortunate in its familiarity. Wanda, she thinks, Wanda and Rio together, and her thoughts are going in frantic circles that might be confusion or might be a literal loop, placed there by the most powerful witch in the world.

"It was. I don't want it anymore. Make it stop. Now," Rio says from somewhere, somewhere where she is alive and not the dead, empty thing on Agatha's floor.

"So long as you remember what you promised me," Wanda says, and then the world snaps in half like a—

Like a broom, like the one that's lying on her floor, a proper wooden kind with twisted bristles, the one she'd thrown in the back of a closet ages ago in case she needed a quick escape, the one made from a branch Rio had grown specifically for her—

The agonized, furious sound that escapes Agatha's torn up throat is enough to make even Death and the Scarlet Witch take a step away from her.

Death.

Despite a fury that will burn the world down to avenge the last hour of her life, she can't help but stare at Rio, at how her eyes have moved to avoid Agatha's, how her jaw is held tight and her forehead wrinkled with discomfort, how alive she is regardless of whether or not she's remembered to breathe.

Agatha steps up to her, almost chest to chest.

"Agatha, I'm…" Rio starts, and then the rest of a sentence that would only make her angrier is lost, because Agatha Harkness is kissing Death.

It's a good kiss, too, even if there's salt from her tears in it, a proper kiss like they haven't managed in centuries, a brand of ownership, a claim, a reminder of who Rio belongs to, but most importantly, a way to make absolutely certain that she is not dead weight in Agatha's arms, not slack skin and unblinking eyes, but as alive as Agatha has ever needed her to be.

When she steps back, Rio is reeling, shaking, clutching at her with hands Agatha shoves away.

"Don't," she snarls. "Get. Go. I can't stand to look at you."

"Beloved…" Rio says, caught between her eternal fury at rejection and something that might have been guilt.

"Rio," Agatha says, and the tone in her voice freezes the protests in Death's mouth. "I know what you're thinking. I said something you've always wanted to hear, didn't I, while I was being unknowingly manipulated." Rio's eyes gleam brighter, and Agatha is never going to hear the end of this, so many more centuries of 'I always knew you loved me' to look forward to.

And maybe she won't even hate that, if it means she gets to see Rio smiling and blinking and pursuing her across continents instead of limp and lifeless in her arms. But she isn't going to put up with it today, not after what's been done to her. She means it when she says, "If you want even a chance that what I said will remain true, get out of my sight right now."

Like a candle blown out or a life ended, Rio Vidal is gone.

Slightly reluctantly, Agatha makes herself turn to look at the other participant, the person responsible for making her put on a one-woman show.

"…So," she asks the Scarlet Witch. "Any other ways you'd like to torture me?"

Wanda looks back at her, something unnervingly hollow behind her eyes. "She made me a deal," she says, almost emotionless. "About my boys. This isn't personal, Agatha." That might even be true, but the way the other woman is looking at her now—maybe she should have kept Rio around for defense, except she really couldn't have stood it for a moment longer, her former lover looking at her with an ugly mix of pity, guilt and adoration.

Still, Agatha recognizes the way Wanda is looking at her, like Agatha were something unpleasant on the bottom of her shoe. Like she might do something nasty just because she can. Agatha has looked at lots of other people like that before.

"I'll go away," she promises. "Somewhere you never have to see me again."

"I doubt that," Wanda says, and Agatha has the passing suspicion that the Scarlet Witch has been sticking her nose into a book, the book, her beloved Darkhold. Wanda's sanity was questionable when she was running a prison disguised as a sitcom, but the dark circles under her eyes and the way she doesn't seem to have expressions anymore is concerning. "…Letting you go was part of her bargain, though. I wonder if she'll regret that. I could have made you anything she wanted you to be."

Concerning, but so not her problem. Let the so-called superheroes deal with whatever Wanda was turning into. "Right," Agatha says, edging toward the door, her hand on the knob. "Well. Always lovely to see you, Wanda. Let's never, ever do this again."

Now she has to open the door.

All she has to do is open the door and walk out to freedom. Or at least anywhere but this suffocating house she wants to see burnt to the ground, the one with a nightmare currently standing inside it, watching her with all the expression of a corpse.

Her hand is wrapped firmly around the knob and she can't turn it, because if she does, Rio will stumble through the door, Agatha will catch her and then Death will die in her arms all over aga—

The door blasts itself to pieces around her, the larger chunks of wood somehow flying harmlessly by, though she's covered in a thin layer of wood dust.

Both she and Wanda blink, then Agatha Harkness turns, swishes her coat around herself and strides out as though this is exactly what she intended all along. She keeps her head held high and her shoulders back, ignores how raw her throat is or the redness on her cheeks, a lingering trace of scrubbed away tears. She can't even remember the last time she cried. She certainly hadn't sobbed hysterically while clutching a broom pretending to be the body of the woman she loved as her ex and her greatest enemy looked on

But if that had happened, someone would have to pay.

[coldbycrossfade]

MAN THAT REALLY COLORS THIS RESPONSE IN THIS CONVERSATION SO DIFFERENTLY FOR ME

[adammilligan]

just from the way michael talks about lucifer and not the other archangels i do think there was something going on in the whole department of "i raised lucifer [but not raphael and gabriel]" because. it just. i mean. they framed lucifer as a Youngest Child and gave him Youngest Child Syndrome to parallel sam when lucifer. is a middle child? so it kind of implies that michael & lucifer were separate in some way from raphael & gabriel. but given that gabriel and lucifer have scenes where they're clearly familiar which each other in a brotherly way (lucifer literally starts trying to lecture him in 5x19 despite. everything) and raphael has a throwaway line about lucifer (albeit in a negative way) in kind of the same way that gabriel has a throwaway line about michael (again. in a negative way) so clearly there was SOME overlap. but michael just never talks about any of them except for lucifer except for HIS throwaway line of “my brothers are dead” in 15x08 which. wasn’t even the main point of his sentence lmao. so like. what happened. was it a thing of michael raising lucifer who in turn raised raphael who in turned raised gabriel? did lucifer raise gabriel AND raphael while michael followed god around like the good son he was and stopped by periodically to check on lucifer and by EXTENSION the other two? was michael’s favoritism just that blatant and part of the reason he and raphael grew so distant from each other even though they both remained in heaven. who the fuck knows!!!!!

[xxplastic-cubexx]

just read the new mutants issue where Charles chose to stay behind in space and my god the juxtaposition between Charles trusting Erik and Erik joining the hellfire club and wondering at his own trust worthiness. I wonder how much of Charles decision was him ultimately trying to avoid the fact that his first class had seemingly betrayed mutant kind and not be willing to face them and how much of it was Dani and Illyana's reaction to him having Karma mind control Illyana. the fact that Illyana was depending on him to ease her mind through limbo and in choosing to stay he forced karma to do it instead, probably fucking up their relationship in the process.

I love him, this is crazy, how much of this is him trying to runaway and how much is this him not trusting himself to fix things and how much is it just him trusting Erik?

i keep trying to put into words my exact thoughts about the sitch but there really is a lot for one issue aintit... oh charles you and your brain...

[protect-namine]

.

[reinedeslys-central]

when it's been so long since you've read a fic that you forget about it and you find it in the search tags and start reading it again

and it's great, if a little familiar, but you've read a lot of these sorts of fics bc you like this tag a lot, so you assume it's nothing

but then the deja vu starts adding up and you start to wonder

and then moments before the great big Plot Twist Reveal happens you're suddenly like ah hell this is the bloody sundial fic again isn't it

smh this has to be the fourth time yet

[milkwaydreams]

I see this, so I'm gonna do the opposite

I don't buy at all that Jun likes Po.

It just makes no sense to me Jun SUDDENLY falling in love with Po but everything he do adds up if he likes THAME instead.

"He is not gonna like you. He likes tiny and cute girls. Won't like a big guy like you"

This can come from his own experience from liking Thame but never getting a chance with him because Jun himself is a big guy.

"He is always like that. He used to do the same thing with me when I was getting closer to Thame" - Dylan

This explains itself. Jun just tried to make Dylan not fall for Thame so Thame wouldn't be with Dylan.

"It doesn't matter what I feel"

Why they didn't ACTUALLY confirms that he likes/liked Po?!

"You were using him to write a movie review for you"

"Have you ever noticed his potential?"

I mean, anything that I get from that scene can come from his own experience (and this series likes to play with it, like Po throwing all his hold back emotions from Earn to Thame in the 1st episode without actually saying it was all about Earn and not Thame at that moment). Thame always treated Jun well, he wanted Jun back first cause he is important to Thame. Thame is just a innocent lil ball, kinda stupid to be honest that doesn't realize the consequences of his actions.

If you think about it, what he did to Po, the phone number thing, "You're important to me", on the phone for 9 hours, made Po fall in love with Thame easily and Thame DIDN'T EVEN REALIZED WHAT HE WAS DOING until Pepper point out.

Everything Jun says and do could be because of the same reason. Thame did all of that to Jun, talking on the phone all night (and he ACTUALLY says he did), taking to the movie, treating he nice like that, so Jun fall for Thame but in the end, Thame just saw him as a friend.

So, FOR ME, he was stirring things up with Po maybe to prevent Po from falling for Thame too, or to keep Thame all for himself even if just as a friend. Maybe he did caught feelings for Po in the meantime cause Po is the sweetest, how not to fall? But, in the end, when Thame confronts him, he realizes that Thame really fell for Po and he knows Po really likes Thame so he backs up and let Thame go. So he advices Thame to not lose or treat Po badly because he cares and saw how Po is sweet and hurt already, he don't want Thame to hurt someone else (like, maybe, he hurt Jun)

"I just don't want to see you being a lousy partner to anyone."

It is indeed amazing how everyone watches the same thing and feel different, I love that, seeing other POVs. So I wanted to share mine🥰🥰 OFC I can be wrong, but still wanted to say how I feel now before more questions are answered so it's the real me now yk?!

And I also COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND the JunPo shipping and that Jun likes Po thing. I just feel different about it 🥰🥰🥰

Jun (Not) Liking Po

It's interesting how people can watch the same thing and take different things from it.

Personally, I read Jun in episode 8 like this: he likes Po, he knows Po likes Thame but he assumed it was one sided, once he realized it's not, that he doesn't have a shot with Po and that he doesn't want to damage his friendship with Thame he backed off.

I know the dialogue says one thing but the visual framing of Jun not even attempting to stop Thame's final point in the game makes me think he "let Thame win".

Like Dylan said, Jun avoids conflict. Also we've seen Jun be outspoken about messing with people. That's why I personally don't think he was trying to "trick" Thame into finally confessing to Po or anything like that.

I did see a lot of people being all "See! Jun doesn't like Po!" and that's not what I got from this episode at all.

Maybe I missing something. Maybe people already know some twist from the book that I don't but yeah... that's where I am at right now.

[alwaysoc]

[houseofwolvess]

sexuality is so dumb. relationships are dumb. romance is dumb and sex is dumb and it's all too fucking complicated and weird

[torgawl]

no because if joshua is alive even if clive died he did it fullfiling his job as his shield do you guys understand 😩😩😩😩

[inbabylontheywept]

The Motherfucking Lizard King

No one at work trusts my boss. 

He's smart. He works hard. He's not trustworthy. He hasn't actually fucked anyone at work over, but he's ruined his last two marriages with affairs, and got dumped by his third fiance when he wouldn't sign a prenup. The fact that we all know this is just a hazard of working in a small town. 

Anyway: The thought process of the people in the lab is that if he screwed over his first wife, and his second wife, and was probably planning on screwing over his third wife, it would be insane for him not to screw us over. After all, what kind of idiot treats their employees better than their spouse? 

I dunno. His kind, I guess? He's had a few chances to fuck us over, and he hasn't taken them. Opposite really. When our parent company was doing furloughs, he stayed in the office almost a hundred hours, talking and talking and talking his way up the corporate ladder. And in the end, no one at our site got furloughed. 

He's pulled strings like that before. And it baffles me, right? Because it really does make zero sense. He'll move the heavens and the earth for us, but his wife and kids are afterthoughts. It feels like any moment, he's going to look into the mirror and realize how stupid that is. It feels like I'm betting on him making the same stupid mistake again, and again, and again - like it would be less cynical to believe he was, eventually, going to stab me in the back. But he hasn't yet, and as far as I can tell he's been making that mistake for close to fifteen years, and it's already cost him everything it can. If he was going to learn, he would have by now. 

So my position on him is that if he wanted to date someone I cared about, I'd warn them off. I don't trust him there. But I tentatively trust him to be my boss. Maybe one day he'll stick the knife in and twist, and everyone will say Ah, Babs, we warned you, but for now, I accept that he's doing a very predictable, very irrational thing, and I've made my peace with it. 

---

My job has glue traps. 

No one likes the glue traps, but we don't have a lot of options. Poison's banned by state law, spring traps are banned by company safety, and several non-lethal options tried in the past failed to work. The mouse problem can get pretty bad if it's ignored, and there's some real health hazards in that. Our site has never had a positive hantavirus test, thank God, but the big base about a half hour away has. That guy's gonna be on oxygen the rest of his life. 

If a mouse gets caught, we just euthanize it. But more than mice get stuck. Lizards can wander into those traps too, and the people working there have different feelings about the lizards. They don't pose nearly the same kind of risk mice do. They're chill little guys, and they keep the moths away, and they're just 

You know. They're friendly. There's something to be said about walking into a room, and hitting the light switch, and seeing two little guys on the wall start to do pushups as soon as they see you. 

People used to just euthanize the lizards too, but I had pet leopard geckos as a kid and I couldn't take that so I wound up googling how to free animals from glue traps. Now, when a lizard gets stuck in a trap - which happens once or twice a week - I get some vegetable oil from the breakroom, and a little plastic fork, and I'll spend fifteen to twenty minutes just kind of gently prying the little guys out. 

I have a team of technicians that help me operate one of the larger machines. They're real blue collar guys, ex-airforce, and they make me look like a little kid. Being an engineer means they'll look to me as a leader sometimes, which is a wild experience. And I started helping the lizards for my own conscience, but one of the crazier consequences of it has been that it seriously boosted my leadership cred. Because those guys see me, and they go: Hey. If he's willing to fight for a lizard, he's gotta be willing to fight for me. 

I cannot overstate how nice that is. Most engineers that want to make a change to a maintenance practice, or try an upgrade, they have to work their asses off to get the techs to buy in. But I can just ask. They already trust me to do good. They know I'm new, and they know I'm not the smartest engineer in the building, but they also know I'm the one who gets lizards out of the glue traps. 

And just because of that, they're willing to follow me. 

---

My boss has a meeting every month or two. It's typically basic house cleaning stuff - reminders about routines we've gotten lazy on, and updates on future projects. Maybe some warnings about problems coming from higher up in the company.

People are, in my opinion, a bit too cynical about the meetings. It stems from people not trusting our boss, which again, I understand, because it would make so much more sense if he wasn't trustworthy. It's a testament to the man's incredibly unhealthy priorities that he is. But as we made it to the end of the meeting, one of bullet points was: 

Do NOT mess with animals in the building. 

So I looked at my techs, and they looked at me, and when he got to the point, he was so scathing I actually just wanted to crawl under a rock and die. He said basically that he'd heard some reports about someone in the building handling animals that found their way in and got stuck, and that he just wanted to emphasize how insanely inappropriate that was, not to mention dangerous, and that if he needed to speak to anyone about it again, there would be severe consequences. 

I was willing to just take the shame and move on. I was. But one of my techs is old. Old enough he could've retired two years ago. And his actual literal goal is to one day get angry, yell at someone, and storm out. That's how he wants to retire. So instead of biting his tongue like everyone else, he stood up and said: I hate the glue traps. You hate the glue traps. We all hate glue traps. But we've all sat here for years, ignoring the little things that get stuck in them, watching them die, and then Bab's comes in, and he is the first person in decades to give enough of a shit to start pulling the lizards out. And I don't want him to stop. 

Get humane traps or shut up but we are not going back to the old way of just letting things starve. 

And my boss actually froze up. He got all wide eyed and stared at Marc, and then the other techs jumped in, and there was a very small but intense rebellion in the meeting and my boss kept trying to interrupt while getting absolutely bowled over by this gang of angry middle aged air force vets, and eventually he just went 

I will speak with Babylon about this afterwards! After! And then he will speak with everyone else, but I have more points to cover. 

So they went silent, and my boss rushed through the last five minutes, and we all adjounred. The techs really didn't like that I was going in alone - they thought our boss was going to try and shout me into compliance. Marc in particular was like, Look, if he tries bullying you, stand your ground, and if he threatens anything, just come get us, and we'll give him hell. 

So armed with that, I went to my boss's office. I sat in the chair across from him, and he kept his composure for maybe five seconds before just flopping back into his chair. 

I had no idea you were saving lizards, he said, but I'm glad you are. I always hated seeing them die in the glue.  

I wasn't expecting that. I was about to ask him what the comment from the meeting was about then, but he answered that before I even got the chance.

A snake got into the building last week, and - someone picked it up and chased a coworker around. Turns out that coworker was severely afraid of snakes, and now it's a shitshow. We're a small site, and now I can't ask those two to work together anymore, to say nothing about how the snake fared after all that. Being upset about that is a reasonable thing, right? 

And he gave me a look like he actually wanted an answer, so I said Yeah, totally, chasing a coworker around with a snake is a dick move. Especially if that coworker is already afraid of snakes. 

And he said Exactly! and then we sat there a few moments longer. He looked so incredibly tired that I did, actually, feel kind of bad for him. And then he somehow managed to sink even further into his chair, and said

Look, I know I'm not a good guy. But I'm not evil. I'm not some sort of crazy asshole that's going to demand that everyone watch lizards starve to death. When you go back downstairs, could you try to pass that on? That I'm not evil? 

I said Sure because it wasn't a hard request, and he looked relieved. I actually made it halfway out before I realized I had a question. 

Who grabbed the snake? I asked. 

Not supposed to talk about it, he said. But whoever comes to mind first is probably right. 

ThatGuy? I asked. And he looked me in the face, nodded his head yes, and said No. 

---

The techs seemed a little disappointed that they didn't get to storm the boss's office, but were otherwise in good spirits. They were actually a little bit embarrassed to hear about the snake story - apparently, it wasn't much of a secret. It'd just slipped their minds because it happened three weeks ago. 

We did maintenance after that, the same basic repairs we did every week. The meeting had been stressful and it was a relief to work with my hands. When the parts were reinstalled, everything cleaned and smooth and ready to go, Marc found me again. 

You know what the lesson of today is? he asked. And there were quite a few answers to that that I could have taken - from don't assume the worst of people to be careful with how you spend your trust - we all need it more than we think. 

But instead I said what? because I wanted to hear what his answer was going to be. 

That I got your back, he said. Then he clapped one very, very large hand on my shoulder, gave it a good squeeze, and walked back to dosimetry lab.

---

The next day, Marc gave me a package and told me to open it in my office. I was suspicious, but I followed the request.

Cardboard gave way to a small baggie, obviously full of fabric, which opened to reveal a t-shirt that read

"I Am the Motherfucking Lizard King."

I looked at it, I loved it, and then I got an idea. I went to my boss's office and knocked on the door. When he opened it, I asked him if he would be willing to allow something very unprofessional to happen for morale building purposes.

How unprofessional? he asked. I held the shirt up in answer. He gave the shirt a short look over and snorted.

You can wear it on weeks without customers, he said. Which just so happened to include that week.

I'll pass on that it came with your blessing, I replied, and he looked oddly relieved.

Thanks, he said. And then I went downstairs.

---

The techs were very, very happy to see the shirt. And while my boss's reputation remains in tatters, and probably will be until he moves (or dies), the next time there was a meeting, there was quite a bit less complaining about how mere presence. Which is, I guess, a start.

We'll see if he squanders it.

[kindacreepy-kindaugly]

.

[medicinemane]

It's just a fact that nothing I do matters or has any impact

I can prove it, and I do mean that

I wouldn't want to because I think it would bother people, but I have... endless proof

[the-aviary-system]

Mood. We've had to stop playing games like this because we'd get unhealthily addicted to "number go up"

Like we'd get a withdrawal like effect, we'd get anxious about missing out on potential number going up if we didn't have whatever idle game we were obsessing over running in the background of our computer 24/7. Doing schoolwork? Keep it in the background and tab in like every 5 minutes to check in on it and buy upgrades. Planning D&D? Same thing.

Other games that use the "number go up" formula often got greedy with their players and kept trying to exploit their addiction to make them spend money, they made it more and more grindy until it was impossible for free-to-play people like us to keep up. (We didn't have a job, so no consistent money, so that's a reason why we were FTP. I dunno if we would've fallen into the trap of spending tons of money on games like these if we had a consistent income)

After getting disillusioned with our latest "number go up" simulator, I decided to try cookie clicker because I heard it wasn't pay to win. Yeah, I used an autoclicker too. And CC was pretty neat and all, it wasn't exploitative, which I appreciate- it was a grindy game in its purest state, grinding for the sake of grinding, gaining numbers for the hell of it, instead of trying to make money off of players- but since it wasn't actively trying to exploit us with FOMO it let us stop and think, and we realized we don't even enjoy these kinds of games that have taken up hours and hours of our lives.

So we made a rule for ourselves. No more of these games. From now on, we only play games if we're actually enjoying them, not just playing it out of obligation to make the number go higher. And it was really hard to stop playing since we got that same kind of withdrawal effect, the little itch in the back of the head that "I could be more productive right now, if I just had one of those games open in the background while I write I would be more productive" but we had to just fight that.

Anyway, that's not to say nobody should play these games. I'm not writing this to shame anyone for playing them, I'm not trying to sound preachy and hope that it doesn't come off that way- this comic just reminded me of our experience with these types of games and I felt like talking about it since we were addicted to these kinds of games for a good while. Some people will definitely be able to handle the addicting nature of these games better than we can. Some people genuinely enjoy the grind because it lets them just turn off their brain for a little while or not have to focus too much on something. Just be mindful to not let it become an addiction, is all.

So yeah that's the story of how we had an addiction to really grindy idle games

-Emyr (he/it)

[dollfacefantasy]

can't get started ♡

older bf!logan howlett x fem!reader

logan can't get it up one night and is humiliated. but that just means he'll have to prove he can still satisfy you.

cw: nsfw (18+), smut, p in v, daddy kink, age gap (reader in 20s)

a/n: the part in dpw where he said he's got whiskey dick with the claws turned me on too much tbh

This had never happened to Logan before.

That wasn't a lie he was telling you to make himself look less pathetic. It wasn't an affirmation he repeated in his own head to feel like he was still hot shit. It was the truth. One he would swear to on anything.

He'd never had a problem getting it up before.

Not with you, not with anyone. He thought the healing factor made him immune to whiskey dick or any kind of down-there dysfunction. But apparently not. Because the two of you finally had some time alone after being amidst the chaos of the mansion all day and his body was stalling.

The second he had the bedroom door shut, you were dragging him over to the bed and climbing into his lap. You were doing everything like usual. Your lips pressed against his, and then moved to his jawline and down his neck. Your hands glided across the firm muscles of his chest. Your hips rolled down against his lap, beckoning the appendage between his legs to reciprocate your desire.

But it just wouldn't. He tried to make it because it wasn't a matter of not wanting you. He wanted you bad. 

He grabs your chin and brings your lips back up to his mouth so he can communicate his passion wordlessly. He digs his fingers into your hips, feeling the beginnings of where your flesh swells into your ass. He envisions how you'd been prancing around the whole day, cute tits pushing against the fabric of your t-shirt and calling out for him to grab.

You're so soft and warm. The little mewls that leave your lips sound like calls of angels up above. It doesn't matter though. His cock had clocked out for the night.

"God damnit," he grumbles before brushing you off his lap and bringing his fist down against the mattress. He sighs and his head hangs.

He can already sense the look on your face. Worry, hesitation, and affection swirling into one humiliating look. He feels your hand find his shoulder, the touch tender and accepting.

"It's ok, Logan. We don't have to," you say. Your tone is so soft and gentle, and it just drives him fucking nuts.

"But you want to," he says and looks over at you. The look in your eyes kills him. He knows you don't mean it, but it looks so patronizing. As if he's an old dog about to be taken out back and old yeller'd.

"Yeah but I don't want you to force yourself. We can just cuddle," you offer, sweet as can be.

"It's not forcing, I want to do this. I want you so bad," he says and cups your cheek. He pulls you back onto his lap and nuzzles your neck. "Been thinking about this all day."

You let out a little sigh as he lays some kisses on the column of your throat, and that gives him a spark of hope. Maybe he can do this. Maybe he doesn't have to be put out to pasture just yet. The two of you make out and grind and feel each other up some more. But eventually your tits are all but in his face and his dick still doesn't have a pulse.

He huffs and pulls back. 'Fuck, I'm sorry, sweetheart," he says.

You watch him, the gleam in your eyes as adoring as ever. It was the same look you gave him when you'd have to explain a basic function of a cell phone to him.

"It's ok. You don't have to be embarrassed," you reassure and lean in to peck his cheek.

He groans and gently brushes you off. "Don't. I don't need you coddling me."

"I'm just saying. I understand," you say with conviction, hands splaying on your chest to physically convey your empathy, "It happens to lots of guys when they get older. You don't have to be ashamed of it with me."

And in that moment, he wishes he didn't have his mutation so he could just die on the spot from being utterly mortified. He'd actually have preferred if you laughed in his face and called him an old man. A sad, old, perverted fuck who decided to date some half his age even though he couldn't keep up with her appetite. If you'd told him you were gonna find someone who could satisfy you, it probably would've stung less than being talked to like a patient who doesn't know their cancer is terminal.

There was no chance in hell, you'd ever do any of that though. As much as he hated that fact right now, it was part of why he loved you.

All he does is mumble a thank you and kiss the corner of your mouth. He doesn't just cuddle you after though. He gets you off on his thigh. You were still going to cum even if he couldn't. When you're done, he holds you close and rubs your back till you're sleeping curled up to his side.

His night isn't very restful though. It's haunted with the prospect of future incidents like this, of your perception of him changing. The look in your eyes changing from admiration to pity.

He can't live with that. The next day for the two of you is super busy, but he makes sure there's a spot at the end of it for him to secure his redemption.

This time around it's him carting you away from the others once the sun is down, mouth on the curve of your neck before you even reach the bedroom. His hands grope your waist and paw at your tits. You stumble into the door, bumping it loud enough that you'd be worried about someone hearing you if they weren't all downstairs.

"Logan..." you giggle. You push your ass back against him and glance at him out of your peripheral.

"Not what you're gonna be calling me before the night is done, sweet thing," he grunts and boosts you up.

Your legs press into his sides to support yourself as he opens the door. He takes the two of you inside and kicks it shut behind him before heading to the bed and tossing you on the mattress.

You look up at him with a coy smile, arms propping you up and one of your legs extended to entice him.

"You know... you don't have to prove anything to me, right?" you say.

"Oh, I don't?" he asks and grabs your ankle, pulling you to the edge of the bed so your hips meet, "You're too easy to please, babydoll."

Another laugh bubbles through your lips. Your legs drop to lock around his waist. "I'm just saying. It's like totally normal, and I don't want you to get all grumpy about it."

"Oh, I get grumpy, do I?" he asks as he leans over you. His large body envelopes yours on the mattress. He ducks down further to swallow your words up with kisses.

You hum into the exchange but pull back a little to finish your thought.

"Mhm, you do. And I just don't want you to feel that way cause I knew when we got together what I was getting into," you say.

Your confidence is so cute. You talk with absolute certainty, like you understand all there is to be understood about him. Like you'd known him forever and he hadn't been doing things like this for decades longer than you walked this earth.

His mouth crashes against yours again, his body weighing down on you and crushing you into the mattress. 

"You did, hm? You knew what you were getting into? You got with me thinking I wouldn't be able to give it to you how you need all the time?" he mutters against your skin.

"I didn't mean it like-"

"Didn't mean it like that? How'd you mean it then, sweetheart?"

"I dunno..."

"Doesn't sound like you knew what you were getting into to me," he breathes.

That little sentence that you'd said in an attempt to comfort him unlocked something between the two of you. He felt his cock waking up and pressing against his zipper, eager to get out and slide home. It's hard to register your clothes being pulled off when he's got his tongue in your mouth and his fingers playing with your clit. In no time at all, he's got the both of you bare and his cock nestled between your thighs.

Like he already knew, the issue last night had never been about lack of desire. And he intended to prove that to you, fuck you so good it wiped your memory of any placating word that fell from your lips.

He ruts into you hard. The mattress rocks on the bed frame and threatens to slide off. His dick is big and even though it's not a new sensation for you, each time you take it is a stretch. It's even more so when he pushes you up by the back of your knees. You whine as you're folded in half. His thrusts hit your sweet spot every time at this angle.

"Thought you knew what you were getting into?" he teases as he pistons himself in and out.

You mewl and bob your head, though you aren't sure if you're shaking your head or nodding.

"Fuckkkk, Logan. 'm sorry," you pant. Your walls squeeze tight around his shaft as your eyes close up. He made every part of your body contract and feel like it was moments from exploding.

He simply laughs at your apology. "Don't gotta be sorry. You didn't do anything wrong. I'm just showing you what happens when I get older."

His balls hang heavy and swing with each motion, clapping against your ass. The heat between your legs is enough to make you squirm. Constant whimpers pour from your lips as he fucks into you without mercy.

"I know," you moan, "You fuck me better than anyone else."

"That's right," he grunts, "Nobody else could fuck you like this. Just me."

"Mhm, just daddy," you slur and cling onto him tighter. Your arms hook around his neck and keep his sweaty skin flush against yours.

"Just daddy," he repeats, his tone smooth like silk despite his raspy voice, "You don't need anyone else. Not when I can take care of you like this."

His tip prods at your cervix, making you yelp and buck. He doesn't stop though, just keeps battering into you, hammering into your warm, wet hole.

"You don't need any little boys thinking they know how to handle you," he breathes and nuzzles your neck, "Your old man can handle you just fine, make you cum whenever you need."

A strangled cry leaves your lips. Your nails dig into his back so hard that it seems like you wanted to draw blood. His words just make you melt for him. Reduce you down to a compliant jumble of flesh for him to mold and play with how he wants.

"Needa cum right now, daddy," you whine.

"I know you do, spoiled girl. You act so understanding, but I know that little pussy is aching to cum around my cock. To get filled up with my cum," he murmurs.

You nod wildly.

He chuckles at your eagerness and snaps against you even harder.

"Hold on tight, baby," he whispers.

His hips ricochet off your ass, clapping against you with intensity that borders on violent. You squeal and hang on as directed. Your whole body rocks with his momentum. Your head bobbles around like it's empty, which it is. Empty of everything but him.

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck," you whimper.

"Let it out for me. Let me feel you burst, pretty girl," he grunts as he continues plowing into you.

Your body rolls. Your hips vibrate with the ecstasy release brings you. It crashes over you in one intense wave, like a gallon of liquid euphoria being poured over you. Your eyes flutter, and you bury your face in his neck like he has his in yours.

He fucks you through it. Coos in your ear too. "That's my baby. My sweet girl. Always sound so pretty when you're cumming."

One of your hands flies up to clutch at his thick, dark hair. Keeping him close keeps the words flowing.

"Getting so tight for me, fuck. No one can make me cum like you, honey. Drains me dry every fucking time."

Moments later he spurts into you, unloading thick ropes of his spend inside you. You let out another moan from that sensation alone. He growls and pants against your skin, his hands locking you in place as his hips pummel into your cunt and make sure every last drop has been released.

He lingers on you for a few moments before pulling out. His body feels loose in the afterglow. He stands at the edge of the bed and looks down at himself and then you. He knows he's gonna have to clean you up. Your inner thighs are shimmery with a mix of fluids, and the bush of dark hair at the base of his cock is in the same condition.

"Time to shower, baby?" he asks and pats your leg. You don't respond at first and he smirks. "Or did I tire you out too much?"

You whine something incoherent and shift to turn your face against the blankets. His smug look grows. He crawls over you again and nips at your jaw, rubbing his nose against your cheekbone.

"You know, it's ok, sweetheart. It's nothing to be embarrassed about. It's totally normal for pretty little things like you. I knew that going in."

His tone mimics your soft and understanding one from earlier. You make a little growl and swat at his bicep.

“Shut up, old man.”

[silknspice]

hockey!vi and basketball!caitlyn decide it's time to stop fighting over you. they'll just have to share!

headcanons, arguing, smut/slutty material (18+ mdni), dom!cait & vi, gp!vi, cheerleader!reader (hardly mentioned), vi & cait r horny and reader's hard-to-get-but-also-horny. wc. 2k

vi's a big, bulky, 'gentleman' of a player. girls come and go from her poster-covered dorm room, and it's fine, because she has bigger things to worry about, until she meets you. the post-game crowd is a chaotic swarm of students, and still, she spots you with ease. you're with a friend that she somewhat recognizes, but the athlete swears on her life she's never seen you. she would've remembered a pretty ass face like that. the two of you are making conversation with one of her teammates, and almost immediately the pinkette's jogging up to the cluster of you and slinging an arm over the other player.

she's decorated with a big fat grin like always, cooing a sexy "hey there," that has her teammate rolling her eyes into the back of her head, but not the way vi intended. you're introduced, a sweet smile gracing your lips that vi wants buried between the flesh of her thighs, lips that she wants gasping for life as she ravishes you, lips that she swears just made her cock twitch.

"you gonna be looking for me at the after party?" she cocks her head in fake innocence. what an asshole. "maybe if you score some more next time," you dismiss her with a tucked away grin, politely biding her teammate and spinning off out of the dumbfounded butch's sight. her teammate sharply inhales, patting the girl who looks like she's just seen a ghost. "tough luck, vi," the athlete starts, "wouldn't have worked anyway, i heard she's messing with kiramman."

caitlyn won the race to your attention. it's one of the many things she adores holding over vi's head when they have their daily bicker-fests over anything and everything related to you. she’d always believed in finders keepers.

the bustling, alcohol scented, dim atmosphere encasing her is completely forgotten as her gaze lands on you, a red solo cup in hand as you make conversation with who she assumes to be your teammates. she squares her shoulders, standing a little taller as her fellow athletes notice the look she's giving you. a predator ready to pounce. little whistles of encouragement fall from their lips as she strides on her mission to you.

the navy haired beauty knows she's hot, knows damn well anyone would slide their way under her as soon as the words of approval coat her tongue, and knows that you'll be one of her most– no, the most rewarding catch she's had. except, her trap seemed to falter.

"you were great today," she flashes a soft smile, attempting to make sure the way she checks you out is subtle, less cocky and more in awe. "watched when i could, i see why they put you in front." "oh yeah?" you hum out, sipping from your cup. it's basic, not giving much for caitlyn to work with, but the glint in your eyes is giving the athlete all too much hope. "yeah," she sounds a little breathless. her eyelids drop and soften to mimick the arousal she's feeling from just eyeing your fuckable face. "must be real flexible to do all that. think you could show me some more?" her prim and enchanting accent is completely contradicting the nasty insinuations falling from her mouth. that has you gently shaking your head and scoffing– albeit, with a smile, caitlyn notes. "you're funny, cait." and that's all you leave her with. that, and the image of you gently swaying your hips while walking off. the image that she'll be replaying in her head as she tends to her needs later that night. it makes sense to her a few days later during practice. when she and her teammates are lazily walking off of the court, one of them explains your oh so suspicious behavior. "heard she's interested in vi. sorry hotshot, looks like you've met your match."

from then on, the two are completely at each other's throats. it starts off small when they bump into each other at the campus coffee shop. they're patiently waiting for their drinks. caitlyn's arms are crossed as always with her hair in a messy pony, and vi's hands keep refuge in her pockets while her shoulders slightly slouch in a relaxed manner. they're completely ignoring the other's presence, until vi physically has to speak up.

"so... ___" she says your name like a child praying to their goddess. caitlyn hums in response. "i hate to be the one to tell you, but she's completely out of your league." "well i don't know what she'd see in a narcissistic mongoose like you," vi quips. cait scoffs. "and i'm not sure why she'd ever give someone as run through as you the time of day... wait, mongoose?"

soon, it's not one that's pursuing you at a time, it's both. at parties, after games, walking to class, even in the library, the two girls are drawn to you like moths to light. and sure, they're still very interested in fucking you senseless if you let them. and sure, they don't know you all too well yet, but something about you is so captivating. whether you'll give them the time of day or not, they crave being in your presence. (the rivalry is making things a little more fun than expected, too.)

you're interested, extremely interested. but these girls are used to getting everything they want in the blink of an eye. you know your worth, so if they want to take you, and not just your ability to walk, they're going to have to work for it. in record time, the university of piltover's finest were wrapped around your dainty finger. so, slowly, you let them into your life.

at first, it's smaller things. in the morning, caitlyn worms her way into the plush seat next to you at your library table. she sets down your coffee order to a T, saying she "had some extra time" (which isn't a lie, she woke up an hour earlier than she already does to make sure her timing was perfect), and she "didn't know what you'd like", so she 'guessed' (that part was a lie, because she fell asleep thirty minutes later than usual stalking your instagram highlights and zooming into the label of your most recent drink). in conclusion, the star player was losing sleep over you, and she didn't know how to feel about that.

then, like switching shifts, vi swoops into the library and whisks you away, but not before making a remark that has the navy-haired girl's brows furrowing.

"i'll take it from here, cupcake. angel and i have a date." the pinkette lifts your backpack from the ground and slings it over her shoulder before you can utter a word. "you're walking me to class, violet. 'ts not a date..." you dismiss the claim, looking caitlyn in the eyes as you bring the coffee to your lips and take a swig. "..yet," you induce some hope and fear into the respective girls. as you coo your mind-twirling sing-song "bye cait," and walk away, vi can't help but snake a hand around your waist before throwing a terribly taunting wink to the bluenette over her shoulder.

eventually, after more interrupted touches and argument after argument, the girls attempt to seduce you on their own turf. after a particularly hard but victorious game, cait jogs up to you. the flyaways of her ponytail are the sexiest amount of messy and the sweat dripping down the side of her neck and rounding towards her adams apple has you gulping. but of course, you hide it. you admit, she's impressed you, and the seemingly suave girl fights the beaming smile she feels sneaking its way onto her face. instead, she thanks you for cheering for her and gently grazes her hand over the hem of your blue and white skirt.

"is this my reward for playing so well?" she grins. "this is my uniform, hotshot."

after vi's hockey game that she insisted you come to, she sneaks up on you after exiting the locker room, capturing your frame from behind with sculpted arms. the two of you stiffle a few laughs before she turns you around, pulling your torso closer to hers.

"how'd I do?" she asks, the neediness of approval hidden somewhere in her tone.

"i guess you were good," you joke, making vi gently pinch at your side. "yeah?" she teases, "how good?" "not good enough, at least I score." caitlyn buts in from 'out of nowhere!' (vi claims), momentarily stunning whatever tension you and the pinkette were building. "i scored three times," the powder-blue eyed girl slightly pouts, sending you into a fit of laughter.

it's vi who steals a kiss from you first. you finally give in after realizing maybe she wants something a little more than sex. it's hungry, slight teeth, lots of tongue, and sloppy hums of pleasure. wandering hands travel to the back of your head, through your hair, down to the curve of your waist, everywhere she can claim you.

caitlyn, when she finds out a day later, is pissed. so when she finally gets her hands on you, she's rougher than she planned on being when she ran this scenario through her head hundreds of times before. she's pushing you against a wall, knee slotted between your legs, and a lanky hand trails up to grip your chin. it's rough, hypnotizing, and you have to stop her before she makes an absolute mess of you.

it's no surprise when the girls text you to meet up a few days later. what is a surprise is the fact that they're together. they send you a selfie from vi's phone in your shared group chat. vi looks delicious in her stupid backwards baseball cap and caitlyn's glasses only enhance that scarily sexy cold look she owns. the picture's lazy, a lower angle of the two looking at the camera with soft grins, but it has your heartbeat racing, and something else pulsing their names.

ice queen: angel come 2 cait's ice queen: we miss you <3 angel: and if I don't? hotshot: you'll regret it. angel: is that a threat? hotshot: jesus, get over here.

caitlyn and vi take turns using you for the rest of the night. they wait for you to make the first move, of course, they have manners. once you're all hot and bothered you hear the clank of their belts coming undone and flashes of clothes being stripped off fill your vision.

cait only spends so long teasing your swollen clit before she's two fingers and three knuckles deep inside of you, teasing your clouded brain about adding a third. the wet sounds your body's making are getting vi the hardest she's been in her life, and she swears she could cum just from the way your glossy eyes look up at her while cait ravishes you. "look at that- i'll be the one to make her cum first." cait taunts, and as soon as you've reached your high the pinkette's stripping you away from her and flipping you onto your stomach.

vi's gentler than caitlyn at first, but her passion and desires enchant her mind and soon she's stuffing your needy hole with her length, face down ass up, while pushing your head into the pillow that captures your lovely noises.

it's not long before caitlyn's sitting in front of you with her legs spread wide, guiding your tongue right where it belongs.

you all sleep in the same bed that night. you in the middle, of course, and your girls clinging to you lovingly. the three of you talk about everything and nothing at the same time, and the silly conversations lull you into a deep sleep.

some day soon, you'll have to talk about whatever this is. for right now, vi and caitlyn relish in the fact that they have you. brain, heart, body and all.

sharing isn't all that bad.

silknspice