#my personal horror story

[yujateaandpi]

Gobbled up the Dandadan anime and manga recently and absolutely adored it all. Not only does it feature the most likable and strongly written female characters I’ve ever seen in a shonen, it discusses extremely pertinent themes about consent and bodily autonomy from a lens of female solidarity while also elevating healthy relationships with kind communicative male characters who respect boundaries. It’s wacky, fun, gorgeous, and super refreshing. 

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

At your side [End of Season 2]

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[trans-axolotl]

PA DOC Sued for Discriminating Against Person with Disabilities: The Right to AAC in Prison

there was a recent press release from Disability Rights PA about current litigation happening in PA that is trying to ensure that John Topper, a man with Huntington's disease, can access an Augmentative/Alternative Communication device while incarcerated.

Currently, the DOC is denying him all access to any communication aids, forcing him to "communicate by typing notes on a tablet and passing it back and forth with the person he is attempting to communicate with. This tablet breaks frequently, and prison staff regularly prevent him from bringing the tablet with him everywhere in the prison...After returning from the hospital, the DOC denied him a working communication aid for ten days. As a result, he was only able to communicate with psychiatry staff via thumbs up and down gestures."

this has dramatically impacted Topper's wellbeing: " 'This has been such an emotional and mental struggle for me daily. Day-to-day routines are very hard without a means of effective communication and I have to struggle to have my daily needs met,' said John Topper, the plaintiff in the case. "

Topper cannot access healthcare, daily programming, or stay in contact with his family members. Prison staff refuse to provide any forms of communication aids for daily interactions, making it difficult and sometimes impossible for Topper to request things like toothpaste, toilet paper, or other daily needs. This is cruel, harmful punishment that highlights the types of carceral violence that disabled people face while incarcerated.

This lawsuit is suing to get Topper daily and continuous access to an AAC text to speech device. His counsel already bought him this device and the prison has it available, and yet they refuse to give it to him for pointless and arbitrary reasons. They've told Topper he has to choose between a wheelchair accessible cell and a cell with an outlet, they've told him that they were making his current tablet accessible but then said the only accessible adaptation they could add was a screen-reader, which his does not need, and have threatened and taken away his current tablet many times. The cruelty is the point.

It's vital as disabled people that we have solidarity with those most targeted by the state, and that we fight for our comrades currently incarcerated. Prisons are disabling and prisons target disabled people: we need to fight to make sure our comrades can get their needs met, and we need to fight to free them all!

keep an eye on Disability Rights PA and Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project for updates about Topper's case and for any steps the public can take to support him. I've reached out to ask about how to send letters to him/info for his commissary fund; I will update this post when I get more information.

disability justice means free them all!!

[egophiliac]

swipes everything else off of the table to yell about diasomnia flower bookmarks

(I gave Silver one too :D)

[write-it-motherfuckers]

Person A: "That dog followed me all the way to the edge of the forest again today, I wish I could get it to follow me inside so that I could at least treat its wounds... seems like the poor thing's always injured in some way."

Person B: "Have you tried feeding it?"

Person A: "Sooo many times, it never accepts anything I give to it though unfortunately... It does let me pet it occasionally when I'm upset, but it's always covered in so much filth that the stench takes forever to wash off afterwards."

Person B: "...What kind of dog did you say it was?"

Person A: "Uh... I'm not sure actually, whatever it is, it's a pretty big breed. Oh! Hold on, I'll flip the camera and show you! It should still be lingering at the edge of the forest at this time."

Person B: "...I don't see anything."

Person A: "What are you talking about? It's right there, by that big old oak tree! See?"

Person B: "....(Person A)... There's nothing there."

[marclef]

how the heck have i not drawn this little bastard yet. oh well. i fixed that.

cotton candy lookin' MF

kinda surprises me i haven't drawn him legit yet, especially since.... i might have changed how he dies in my own AU.

would you like to know how?

it isn't pretty.

[blaithnne]

Local big sister experiences emotions, more at 6

Been wanting to do one of these with Lauren for AGES, but I never got round to it. Then I saw the Lydia and Phinium expression sheets on @littledigits’ website and I felt inspiration like never before.

The funniest struggle I have with Lauren’s design right now is that she nose too big for she got damn face. Literally, Hilda characters noses take up a fairly small portion of their faces, and her’s took up WAY too much, leaving little room for her to make facial expressions. But I struggled to find a fix because when I made the nose smaller it just didn’t look like Lauren anymore, so I took this as an opportunity to work on that!

She still has a larger nose than most characters, starting higher up (like her grandad!) and ending lower down (but not quite as low as before). I also made her eyes a little smaller and with a shape similar to Lydia’s (though you can see in some of these I hadn’t quite landed on that yet and her eyes are a bit too big), which works both as a nod to her parentage and because I think it makes the nose look bigger. This still doesn’t leave as much room for the mouth as most other characters, but that’s okay — Lauren is a very private person who keeps her feelings close to her chest, I think it works for her to have subtler expressions, adds to how guarded she is! Oh and I also updated the shape of her hair slightly, just to make it a bit more style accurate.

These changes are pretty small on their own, but I think combined they work well to make Lauren feel a lot more…alive? Far less stiff, anyway. I think she also has a more unique facial structure now, instead of just “what if Johanna was 90% nose”. She’s still got a big old nose and I love it but now she can emote, yay!

This is really all just concept stuff, I’m hoping to get a new fullbody style-ref for Lauren out soon! Now that I’ve improved the main issues I had with her face in the last ref, now it’s onto the silhouette! I want her to read as more of a strong character (though it comes across decently in her current ref, I wanna push it more without being as exaggerated as Ahlberg, which is. A challenge for me lol), streamline her silhouette, and finally make her taller than Johanna like she’s always meant to have been <3 I made her shorter for so long because I thought it would help her read better as her daughter but you know what? That’s dumb actually, she’s tall.

ANYWAYS, thank you for listening in on the annual Lauren redesign, and to the artists behind the show for posting so much amazing inspiring show stopping concept work for free because it makes my autism worse /pos

[tiffysdeath]

underrated king fr

[insummerigrieve]

I'd like to think that I'm different.

[beachyserasims]

The Lonely House┃Part one

~ Transcript ~

The first time I heard this story was after the harvest meal that is referred to in this series. I always knew that the house was haunted, and had heard experiences from friends, partners, and even my sisters, but never from my father, until now.

Start / Previous / Next

[the---hermit]

oral exam tips

I have at least one other post on exam tips, but they were mainly focused on giving tips on history exams. To me oral exams in academia have been the norm since high school, but I know that in other countries that might no be the case, so I decided to write down a list of advices coming from someone who is quite used to this kind of tests.

If you aren't used to having oral exams, you might need to change your study method, or at least add a few steps. I recently made a post entirely dedicated to my study method, which might be useful for this, but what I suggest is to add a step in which you review things out loud. What I would do is to just sit down with your notes or your materials and pretend to give a lecture on everything. Even better if you have a friend or family member to listen to you, because by having an active listener you will be forced to not skip stuff and have clear explainations, and they might ask you questions or clarifications. Those are always good because that might happen during the exam as well, but also it will help you memorizing those things. I recommend reviewing out loud multiple times. This way you will get more comfortable with the exposition of the topics you will be tested on, and you'll have a chance to find your own "voice".

by finding your own voice I mean finding a good compromise between using your own words to explain things, while still using the correct specific vocabulary of whatever topic you'll be tested on. This is fundamental. You are not there to recite a poem by heart, you are there to show you have understood the topic, that you sat with it and made it yours. You have to show you know how to clearly explain things but also reflect on it, making links with other things, and so on. At the same time there's some academic and specific vocabulary you want to include, because you are not in fact discussing the topic with a friend. So practicing out loud before the exam is good to find a good compromise between these two things.

I kind of mentioned it already, but it is absolutely fundamental to show that you understood the topic and not just memorized it. Whatever you do do not learn things by heart. It's better to be slightly insicure about a specific date, than to repeat your book word by word. And if you practice enough, and are comfortable enough with the informations in general believe me you can work around those things you can't remember perfectly well as you are being tested. Moreover your mark on the exam will be much higher than if you just learn things by heart.

on the very delicate topic of not remembering something specific you have been asked. Don't panic, you can still kind of save it. Whatever happens do not stay silent. There are several things you can do depending on whatever the question is, and I will later tell you a very specific example of something that happened to me. As I said do not panic, surely you will remember about some context on the topic so start by talking about that. As you are giving the context you might start to remember additionals informations, or you might build up enough informations to be able to logically guess whatever you are not remembering correctly. If you are half sure about something go for it, even if it's the wrong info if you contextualise it well enough you'll show you knew about that and it might just be read as a slip of you confusing two things. Now there might be situations in which the question is so direct that you can't do much, it happened to me once during my Greek history exam. I was asked the specific date of an event, and I could not for the love of the gods remember it. You know what I did? I told the professor, I cann't rememebr the exact date, but giving certain informations (that I then explained) I can tell you it was more or less in this half of this century. What I did was admit a fault, but while doing that I showed her that I knew what we were talking about it, I had enough informations on the matter to logically place it on the chronological line and contextualize it, and showed her that I can in fact work with the informations I studied. And at the end of my exam the professor complimented me on those exact things, saying she appreciated seeing me use my brain instead of midlessly memorizing informations I didn't understand.

So whatever happens do not stay silent. Anything is better than that.

Another potentially bad thing that might happen, and believe me it happened to me multiple times, is panicking so bad that you cannot get the words out, or confuse things. You know what happened everytime I found myself in that situation? The professor clearly saw me panicking, and told me to calm down, wait a couple of minutes, get my ideas in order and try again. And I got good grrades despite that in the end. You are under a lot of pressure, because you are giving an exam, and you have to be quick and ready instead of being able to reflect like with a written exam. Professors know that, and they keep it in mind, and they can tell when you are mixing things up because you are nervous, and not because you don't know things. I once had a professor look at me in the eye after i mixed up numbers on two dates twice in a row, and told me I know you know them take two deep breaths and try again. And I did. I have so many personal stories from my previous degree in which professors saw I was nervous and told me that it was okay I just needed to take a minute and breathe, and honestly that was exactly it. It was okay and I really needed to breathe, and then the exam when well.

The best tip I can give on answering questions is to balance the actual answer of the question with additional informations. You want to give context and add more infos to whatever has been asked to you, but you should also try not to lose focus on what was being asked. My personal way of doing this is to structure the answer in three parts: 1. general context that works as an introduction to the actual direct answer 2. the actual answer 3. further additions like more context, comparaisons and links with other topics or informations you had to study. This way you show off you know things, you make sure to show the professor you are not just rambling because you don't know the answer, and finally show you are comfortable enough with the informations to reflect on them and link them to other things. Ideally the professor will stop you while you are speaking, that in my experience is the best possible sign, because they are satisfied with your exposition and want to move onto other things.

So always build up on the answer to the question you have been asked. Never stop at just the information that serves as an aswer. You studied, it's your time to shine and make yourself proud.

Contextualizing your informations is absolutely fundamental no matter what, again because it shows you have a clear idea about what you are talking about. This can mean making a small introduction on the time and place, if you are an historian like me, or maybe give an introduction on the person you are talking about (whether they are an historical figure or a scholar you are talking about). Adding the little informations you weren't asked about is great. You are briefly mentioning an even and know the date? Add it in. Everything is a good addition.

Again I have definitely already mentioned in previous points but showing you are capable of reflect on the topics you are talking about is always a bonus. Make sure that when you are giving personal options or personal reflections you are stating this is your thought, but that is usually appreciated. After a good exposition of a topic you might even get the professor asking you your opinion on certain things. It happened to me multiple times, often I was asked to give an opinion of books I had to study for the exam, and that always prooved as an oportunity to add more informations and as I said show that I could make reflections of my own.

Last thing, that again kind of came out from other points, is that you want to show you are comfortable enough with the topic to be able to jump from one point to the other while reflecting on things or making comparaisons.

I am pretty sure I have forgotten something, but once again if you have specific questions I am happy to help, my inbox is always open. I know people who aren't used to oral exams are very scared of them, but as long as you try to approach it like a normal conversation on the topics you had to study, and you have practiced, things will be fine. To be quite honest with you after years of experience I'd say I very much prefer oral exams to written ones, because you can in a way shape the conversation and bring it to the topics you liked the most, know best. I hope this post was somewhat helpful to someone out there, and good luck if you are about to take an exam!

[orange-artblog]

O.M.G. THEY‘RE ON THE SAME COVER ART???? AND THEY‘RE MATCHING??? This MUST mean the next album will feature both bands guys TRUST—

close up/no colouring versions :p

sneak peak:

The very obviously disguised as Interviewer-Paparazzi comes closer and closer towards him, „Please, just one question!“ Dream rolls his eye „I‘m not supposed to speak with strangers… But alright! I‘ll bite! What‘s your question?“ the ‚interviewer‘ gets out a notepad and pen, the moment dragging on into annoyingly endless territory, then comes the question; „Do you have a father?“ The room goes quiet is an understatement.

Rock band + Rock Band!Killer by @zu-is-here

Rock band Dream (idea? + partially design) by @help-im-a-gay-fish

art and other details/changes on designs by me!

[saintsylstein]

STORY TIME

Author side note - wanting to practice writing the predator-prey dynamic. Nothing actually happens here but I hope I can get your heart pounding (´ｰ｀).｡*･ﾟﾟ[pls lmk if i do actually get your heart going] feedback is helpful. I wanna get good at writing tension.

Cw: potential blue balls, stalking/being cornered/chased, a feral astartes enjoying the hunt, first person POV

The Chosen

There was something behind me.

I hadn’t heard it. Not exactly. Not at first.

But I knew.

I’d been working long enough on this ship—crawlspaces, collapsed decks, half-buried servitor pits—to trust my instincts. And every fiber in me was now screaming that I was being followed.

Not chased.

Followed.

Stalked.

Was there anything I could do about it? Not really, no.

So I didn’t run. Not yet.

Because the moment I ran, I knew I’d lose.

The passage I’d taken wasn’t meant for human movement. It was part of the old cooling matrix—sealed off decades ago, except for rats and ghosts. The air smelled of machine-oil and long-dead wires. Dust fell from above every time the hull groaned.

My boots were soundless. I’d learned how to walk that way. Heavier crew didn’t.

Astartes didn’t either.

But I heard nothing behind me. No footsteps. No breathing. No sound at all.

There was however, a presence. A large, looming presence.

Every time I checked over my shoulder, it was clear.

But this notion of something massive. Something crushing, breathing down my back persisted.

And somehow… that was worse than being chased.

Because I couldn't stop the feeling from growing.

*Tick*

A vox? I spin on my heel to face the darkness that was behind me.

And I see them.

Two eye lenses. Red. Piercing through the almost pitch black darkness. Centering right on me.

Every muscle in my body stiffens. My eyes widen. I don't blink. My hand instictively falls to the pistol on my hip.

Too slow. The lenses turn off.

It's dark again.

I still haven't blinked. Am I hallucinating?

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

I'm trapped.

I stood there, unintentionally. Stupidly. Jaw hanging open and a body jerking shudder starting to run up my right hip. I shook, visibly. My brain stopped functioning. The fear had permeated my subconscious, rendering me useless. I was just prey.

He knew that already.

Something creaks in the distance, or moves in my periphery. I hardly notice, but it's enough for some primal hindbrain instincts to kick in.

It urges me to move.

So I continued forward, as quietly as I could. As gracefully as I could, taking care to not disturb even a spec of dust from the ground. But it was too late.

Something had changed.

The air felt warmer now. Thicker. Each breath I took dragged heat into my lungs, and I didn’t know if it was from panic or the thing that was shadowing my every step.

I turned a corner. Another. Counted doors. Vents. Dead ends. My palm was slick where it rested on the sidearm at my hip, but I didn’t draw it. Not yet. Not unless I wanted to announce that I was ready to die.

I kept my pace steady. Kept my head down. Eyes up.

I passed a warped mirror panel bolted to the wall, half-covered in old warning glyphs. I paused for just a breath, enough to glance—

There.

A shape, just at the edge. A shadow with definite mass. High. Taller than any crewman. Wrong in the shoulders. Too broad. Too still.

The mirror blinked. Or maybe I did. The shape was gone.

I didn’t breathe again until I reached the sealed junction at the end of the hall. The bulkhead was partially powered—enough to slide open when I pressed the pad.

Inside: pitch black.

I stepped in.

Didn’t turn on my light.

Didn’t dare.

Because I felt him now. Near. Even nearer than before.

Like a storm waiting to break.

I didn’t move. I listened.

And in the dark, I hear it:

A breath.

Long.

Slow.

Pulled through flared nostrils.

He wanted me to hear this.

He was scenting me.

The realization made my chest seize. I bit my lip to keep quiet. Not out of fear he’d hear me—he already knew where I was. No. I bit down because some terrible, shaking part of me felt like my body had betrayed me.

I was responding.

Terror spiked through me—but it was tangled in something else. I didn’t understand it. Couldn’t. Not yet.

But he did.

He was waiting for it.

And then—behind me. Not even a sound. Just space being filled.

I feel a wall of heat against the back of my neck... then a breath from above.

I freeze.

Then nothing. I hear nothing.

A voice didn’t speak. A hand didn’t grab. Nothing.

But the silence is the worst part.

Because I know he's smiling.

And I can’t move.

I barely blink and the breathing above my neck is gone—but the heat stays. That awful pressure. Like a second skin pulling tight around my own.

I reached for my light. Slowly. Silently.

It clicked. Nothing happened.

Dead.

Of course.

I don’t turn around. Something told me not to. Everything told me not to. If I looked, I’d see him. And if I saw him—what?

I’d scream? Run?

Be torn in half before I reached the door?

I closed my eyes and listened. Not to the sounds. There weren’t any. But to the feeling crawling under my skin.

I didn’t know where he was. He wasn’t moving. He didn’t need to. He wanted me to break first.

A hiss of recycled air whispered through the vents above, stirring the edge of my hair. My heart was thundering, pounding so hard I could hear it in my teeth.

Then—scrape.

Above.

Metal shifted—deliberate, slow, dragging. Not mechanical. Not wind.

Claws.

Or gauntlets.

I backed away from the center of the room, hand still on my weapon. My knees trembled, heat radiating off my chest like I’d just been running for miles.

And then I heard it.

*Tap*

Not boots. Not heavy. Just the idea of a sound.

In front of me.

*Tap*

Then behind.

I turned—lightless, blind. Nothing.

The room was empty. I was sure of it.

But I was wrong.

My left hand brushed the bulkhead—and my fingers touched flesh.

Hot. Smooth.

Not fabric. Not armor. Skin.

And then it was gone.

I stumbled back, hit a wall I didn’t remember being there. But it wasn’t a wall.

It was him.

Solid. Immovable. Taller than any man I’d ever met. I could feel the size of him without seeing it. Heat radiating from his bare chest—he’d removed his armor.

Why?

Why would he take it off—

I turned, too slow.

Nothing there.

Nothing but breath that wasn’t mine, heartbeat that wasn’t mine, and the smell of something ancient, burnt copper and sacred oils.

And then something touched my ankle.

Just one fingertip.

Slow. Deliberate.

Tracing up the inside of my calf.

I screamed—shoved myself backward, fell over a crate in the dark. My flashlight clattered to the floor, blinking once, just once, before dying again.

In that blink I saw a shadow. Too big.

Wrong-shaped.

The faintest outline of a figure crouched low, eyes glowing faint gold—like a beast.

I scrambled to my feet, lungs seizing.

Run.

I ran.

Into the dark, into corridors I didn’t recognize anymore.

Every footfall behind me silent. Every breath I took louder than a gunshot.

And still—somehow—I could feel him getting closer.

Not with speed. But certainty.

He was letting me go again.

He was playing with me.

Like a cat with something not quite dead yet.

...

I didn’t know how long I’d been running.

Every breath I took burned.

There was no sense of time down here—just metal and steam and my own ragged breathing. The corridors twisted wrong. I kept looping back. I swore I passed the same half-melted control panel three times.

It didn’t matter. I couldn’t stop. If I stopped—

I turned a corner and froze.

There was a handprint on the wall.

Pressed deep into the dust. Five fingers. Broad. The size of my entire face.

Fresh.

No, bigger.

Facing down.

..

He’d stood here. Waited. Let me run in circles while he watched.

My stomach twisted.

Something was wrong with the lights here. Not just broken—sick. The lumen-strips flickered in unnatural rhythms, like they were syncing to a heart that wasn’t mine.

I backed away. Turned. Started walking slower, more careful.

Then I heard it again.

Not footsteps.

Breath.

Not labored. Not tired.

Enjoying.

Drawn in through teeth. Slow. Like he was tasting me from a distance.

He was closer than I thought.

I ducked into a service duct. Crawled—fast. The heat in the shaft was suffocating. My skin stuck to the metal. I wanted to scream. I wanted to pray.

A voice in my head kept whispering:

He’s not behind you.

He’s already ahead.

I stopped. Pressed my back against the inside of the shaft. Tried to steady my breathing.

And then I heard it.

Not outside. Inside.

Behind the thin wall of the duct. Inches from my head.

*tap*.

Drag.

*tap*.

My throat closes.

Drag.

The noise gets closer and closer to my head.

I pressed my hand over my mouth. My eyes blurred from tears I hadn’t realized were there.

And then—

A shadow passed by the slit in the duct wall.

No armor.

Bare flesh.

Pale.

Covered in scars.

I stopped breathing.

Why wasn’t he armored?

Why the fuck—

His hand brushed the outside of the duct. Fingertips trailing, searching.

He knew.

Then—a whisper. Not from his mouth. Not from lips. It was inside the duct with me.

A voice carried through the metal like it had been sunk there hours before.

“I've tasted your fear in the air for weeks. It's sweeter now.”

I screamed.

Fled the duct, scraped raw, sobbing. I didn’t care about quiet anymore. I just wanted light. A voice. Anything.

But I knew now—he didn’t want to kill me.

He wanted me to know what was coming.

To feel it every time I ran.

To want to stop running—because stopping meant the end of the waiting.

I slammed through a half-opened maintenance door. Emergency lighting flickered. A narrow room—empty except for racks of tools and an old vox-station.

I locked the door behind me.

Turned.

And saw it.

Something folded neatly on the floor, right in the center of the room.

His armor.

Laid down like ritual. Like offering. The massive warplate still fresh with battle scars, blood-smears across the chest.

And on top of it—

A single black glove.

Still warm.

Still shaped like a hand.

And a note.

“The armor waits. Just like you.”

I stood in the middle of that narrow room, staring at the armor laid out on the floor like a corpse prepared for a funeral.

Or a wedding.

The plating was still stained. Scratches scored deep through the pauldrons. Blood—some old, some fresh—spattered in thin lines across the chest. And the black glove? It looked like it had been peeled off and left there warm. Still curled.

Still reaching.

The note… I didn’t want to touch it. But I did.

The paper was rough. Old. It had that greasy feel of parchment that had sat in someone's pocket too long—worn soft by heat and sweat.

“The armor waits. Just like you.”

My stomach clenched.

That wasn’t a taunt. That was satisfaction.

This wasn’t about chasing. Or scaring. Or hunting for fun.

This was ritual.

I backed away. Slowly. Not out of caution now, but because I felt watched. Like someone was just on the other side of the wall, mouth inches from a vent, eyes never blinking.

My gaze crawled around the room. Looking for something, anything, that would tell me I could still wake up from this. That this was just adrenaline. A dream.

But I saw it.

On the wall—scratched into the metal. Barely visible unless the light caught it just right.

A name.

My name.

Dozens of times. Carved over and over. The metal dented in from the pressure of the blade that must’ve done it. Each one more uneven than the last.

That was the first moment I forgot how to breathe.

I stared at it like a prayer etched in a tomb. Like if I just understood what it meant, I’d survive.

But I already knew.

This wasn’t a mistake.

He didn’t find me because I wandered into his path. I wasn’t a lucky target. Not some human curiosity he picked up along the way.

I was chosen.

Long before this.

How long had he been watching? Weeks? Months? Did he memorize my schedule? Know which maintenance routes I liked to take when I was trying to be alone?

Had he walked past me before, armored and silent, pretending not to see the way I looked up and held my breath whenever they passed?

Had he picked me then?

Waited until he could shed the armor.

And waited.

Waited until I was somewhere so deep, so far beneath the systems of this ship, that no one would hear me scream.

I looked back at the armor.

It was too neat. Too intentional.

Like he laid it there knowing I’d find it. Like a man preparing a bed.

I covered my mouth with both hands and sank to my knees.

Not sobbing.

Just shaking.

Not yet.

I didn’t know what terrified me more—

That I was trapped.

Or that he wanted me alive.

I sat there on the floor, knees drawn to my chest, fingers pressed white-knuckled to my mouth. The room stank of oil and dust and him. That strange, chemical scent like sacred oils mixed with copper and something sharp underneath.

Every breath I took felt heavy. Wrong. Like the air was being used by something else before I even inhaled it.

I hadn’t moved. Couldn’t.

The armor hadn’t shifted. The note still lay beside it. That glove—still curled just slightly. Like it was waiting to finish closing around something.

The silence was back.

But it felt different now. Not empty. Not dead.

It felt full.

Like the air had been replaced with him.

I didn’t look up right away.

Something deep in my gut screamed that the moment I lifted my head, something would change forever.

But my body moved anyway.

Slowly. Like sleepwalking.

I lifted my face from my knees and looked forward, toward the armor.

And there he was.

Standing.

No door had opened. I hadn’t heard a sound.

He was just there.

Like he was calibrating his breathing to mine.

Tall. Massive. Built like a cathedral wrapped in skin. Bare from the waist up, pale and scarred like marble left out in storms. His chest rose and fell in that slow, animal way—not tired, not winded. Just measured.

His face…

But I had to.

I didn’t want to look.

He was beautiful in the way predators were beautiful. Strong jaw. Hollow cheeks. A mouth made for violence. His eyes were wrong. Too pale. Too bright. Focused on me like he was reading thoughts I hadn’t had yet.

And his mouth—

He was smiling.

Gods.

Just slightly. Barely enough to notice.

A small curve of satisfaction. Hunger. Victory.

But it was there.

He stepped forward. Silent. Bare feet against cold metal. His hands were relaxed at his sides, long fingers twitching slightly, like he was holding himself back.

I couldn’t make my body move.

The room shrank.

My body shrank.

I felt small in a way I never had before. Not just in size. In presence.

Like I was meant to kneel here. Meant to be seen like this. Afraid. Quiet. Waiting.

He stopped in front of me.

Close. So close I could see the thin sheen of sweat on his collarbones. Scars—dozens of them—mapped his chest like battle had tried and failed to erase him.

I opened my mouth.

No sound came out.

He crouched. Slow. Smooth.

Predatory.

His head tilted, the way I’d seen wolves tilt before the lunge. He was eye-level with me now, and I realized that even crouched, he was still taller. Broader. Unstoppable.

I could smell myself in the air. Not arousal—just terror. My sweat. My breath. My fear curling like steam between us.

He inhaled.

Deep.

Then again.

Slow.

His eyelids fluttered. Just slightly. Like he was savoring it.

Not just my scent. Not just my fear.

Me.

And then he finally spoke.

A whisper. Gentle. Measured. Meant to touch me without his hands.

“Now you’re ready.”

I shook. Visibly. Shamefully.

He didn’t laugh. Didn’t mock.

He just watched. Patient. Starving.

And I knew—I was never alone on this ship.

Not ever.

Not really.

I’d belonged to him the whole time.

___________________________________________

Ah we've made it to the end! Thank you for getting this far! Any thoughts/feedback is very appreciated! Be honest with me - Is the spacing weird?? It doesn't feel right to write in long winded paragraphs but spacing each line out also feels... wrong?

One day when I am more confident writing I will write about the beloveds (Sanguinius, Emperor, etc.)

Also - I'm so sorry about the changing tenses ...(*/∀＼*) I will keep it in mind for the next story.

[evanpetersbf]

doggy, missionary, spooning, cowgirl, reverse cowgirl, lotus, upside down, inside out, one leg up, two legs up, in public, on a spaceship, in the garden, on the grass, in a car, in the theater, in the jungle, in the hunger games, on a kitchen counter. no lube, no protection, all day, all night, from the back, from the front, upside down, sideways, in a chair, standing up, from the bed to the carpeted floor, from the kitchen floor to toilet seat, from the dining table to the laundry room.

[cxndiedvi0lets]

[tyriongirl]

Genesis 4:1-5, translated by S. R. Driver, from The Book of Genesis, 1905

A Clash of Kings, Prologue - Maester Cressen

Emanuel Krescenc Liška – Cain (1885)

Claus Westermann, Genesis : a commentary, 1984

Arthur Segal - Kain und Abel (1918)

A Clash of Kings, Prologue - Maester Cressen

Natalie Diaz, A Brother Named Gethsemane, from When My Brother Was an Aztec

Lovis Corinth - Kain (1917)

Genesis 4:6-9, translated by S. R. Driver, from The Book of Genesis, 1905

A Clash of Kings, Chapter 33 - Catelyn IV

Odilion Redon - Cain and Abel (1886)

A Clash of Kings, Chapter 33 - Catelyn IV

Genesis 4:9-14, translated by S. R. Driver, from The Book of Genesis, 1905

A Clash of Kings, Chapter 31 - Catelyn III

St. Omer, Benedictine Abbey of St. Bertin; c. 1190-1200

A Storm of Swords, Chapter 36 - Davos V

S.R. Driver, The Book of Genesis, 1905

A Clash of Kings, Chapter 42 - Davos II

Lazzaro Pisani - Death of Abel (1885)

S.R. Driver, The Book of Genesis, 1905

A Clash of Kings, Chapter 42 - Davos II

A Clash of Kings, Chapter 42 - Davos II

Cain and Abel - City of Zeven - 2015 (source)

Genesis 4:14-16, translated by S. R. Driver, from The Book of Genesis, 1905