#no guarantee that it will ever fully get fleshed out‚ i just need to make something to get that good dopamine

[franpun]

I want to make a PT visual novel/dating sim game...

I have no idea what I'm doing or writing, I just know that I want to kiss the chef and hold his hand.

But I do want to make an interactive Cooking Mama-style minigame where you make a certain amount of pizzas in time for Peppino, where you click to chop toppings, shake mouse up and down to grate cheese, move the mouse in circular motion to stir sauce, and make dough, and the game ranks your performance and awards points based on time, quality of pizza, and mistakes made.

Whether if that's actually possible to do in Ren-Py I have no idea, but it might be fun to try.

[usedtobecooler]

hands on you | steve harrington x fem!reader

Pairing | Steve Harrington x Fem!Reader

Warnings | sexual content 18+ minors dni, unprotected piv sex, vaginal fingering, mutual masturbation, size kink, dirty talk. big dick harrington making his return.

Word Count | 2.3k

A/N | nobody say a damn word. not a damn word. dedicated to @loveshotzz <3

“That… Jesus, Steve,” You’re looking at him — or moreso, it — with a morbid curiosity and wide eyes.

His cock hangs heavy over his tummy, weighed down by its own sheer size, flushed a needy dark pink at the tip and curved ever so slightly to the right, “Babe, how has any girl ever taken that?” 

And it’s really a genuine, valid question to ask. He’s so big it makes your mouth water and your pussy clench, though it niggles in the back of your head that he’s guaranteed to be such a stretch. Your hand lays on his thigh, caressing the tan, toned flesh under your biting nails, and you choose to ignore the way he’s hissing from such a simple touch.

“Nobody has, honey,” Steve answers honestly, looking down with blown out eyes as your hand inches closer, backs of your knuckles brushing over his heavy sack, “I mean, I've — I've obviously had sex before, that’s a given. Just that I've had to stop halfway, ‘cause it hurts them.”

“Fuck,” You mutter to yourself, ghosting your fingertips up the length of his shaft until it’s kicking up under your touch, a blurt of precum spilling from his slit, pooling into the dip of his bellybutton, “You’re real sensitive.” 

Your voice is breathy, strangled in your throat and Steve whimpers, hips canting up when you wrap your hand loosely around the tip, thumb smearing through the mess he’s making. Your touch is gone as fast as it’s there, pressing your thumb into your mouth like it’s nothing — he tastes nice, almost. Like he clearly drinks water, which is more than you could say for most men.

“Please, honey,” Steve begs, watching you with lust blown eyes as you smack your lips together, savouring him in your mouth, “Y’gonna let me fuck you? I'll be so gentle, promise.” 

You think it over — you don’t want him to be gentle. You want him to pin you down and make you take it, fill you up until he’s nestled in your fucking guts and spilling his load so deep you can almost taste it in the back of your throat. But you’re not stupid, you’re clearly not ready for that. Not yet.

He’s disheveled looking as he leans back on his mountain of pillows, lazily sat with you between his spread thighs. He lost all of his clothes long ago, and you’re only sitting in your underwear, the state you’re both in is a clear expectation that you were anticipating sitting on his cock and riding him til the cows came home. 

“Gentle or not, Harrington,” You start, maneuvering yourself so you can tuck your legs under his thighs, spreading yourself wide and showing off the obvious wet patch on your silky underwear, “M’gonna need to prepare for taking that monster.”

Steve's not even looking at you, fully focused on the way you’re sliding your panties to the side and exposing your needy cunt to the warm air in his room — you’re soaked, folds glistening under the light as you spread them with your fingers.

He makes a noise, large hand coming out to grip at the base of his cock and squeeze, relieving an ache — he’s barely covering half of his length, your gut churns at that knowledge —, “‘M I not gonna get to touch you at least?” He asks, jerking himself slowly as he watches you in an almost trance-like state, the tips of your middle and ring fingers dipping into your slick entrance and breaching.

It’s not that you don’t want him to touch you, of course you fucking do. but watching him touch himself over you touching yourself is making your tummy quiver, “Patience, baby.”

“Fuck, okay,” Steve’s lazy with it, jerking his cock at a slow pace as you finally sink your fingers into yourself, a quiet moan pulling from your chest as you do it. You can’t stop watching him touching himself, clearly going slow with it so that he doesn’t blow his load before he gets to fuck you.

You’re so close together that the back of your wrist is brushing Steve's heavy balls with every slick glide of your fingers in and out of your gushing pussy, and it’s eliciting the prettiest noises from him. a flush of heat washes over you, tummy muscles clenching when the pad of your middle finger just barely catches on that sweet sensitive spot inside. 

“Feel good?” Steve's voice is breathy, almost desperate as his eyes finally flitter up to yours, ripped away from the sight of your cunt pulsing and gushing around your fingers. He's squeezing the base of his cock again, in a desperate attempt to stop working himself up too quickly.

“It —,” You start, gasping when Steve adjusts his leg on top of yours and you’re suddenly hyper aware of his skin on yours, “My fingers are just a little short.” 

You don’t even need to ask, Steve's up on his knees and pushing into your space before you can even comprehend it. His cock merely brushes the inside of your thigh and you both moan, the head catching on your flushed skin and smearing wet in its wake. 

“Let me?” Steve's voice is barely above a whisper, hand coming up to brush his unruly hair out of his face. It’s hotter than you’d care to admit to, with his pretty pink lips hung open, watching you intently as you slip your fingers out of yourself fully, the sickening squelch making you both shudder.

You lean back on both hands, Steve's hovering so close over the top of you that his breath is hitting your face, fingers grazing up the inside of your thigh until he’s hitting your hot, wet folds. Two fingers swirl just barely over your clit, enough to punch a moan out of you, fingertips grappling on his comforter, before he’s sinking the same two fingers into your cunt, all the way to the hilt.

“Oh fuck,” You gasp, steve’s expert fingers crooking up into that spot you couldn’t quite catch and past it, rubbing at the spongyness until your hips are canting up. The leaky tip of his cock presses into the meat of your leg, a reminder it’s there, and it only makes you moan louder, hips rocking into Steve's hand.

“You’re so tight around my fingers, fuck,” Steve comments, watching between both of your bodies as your pussy swallows his fingers, clenching and fluttering on them — the slick slide is deafening in your ears, winding you up further.

His thumb swipes at your clit and it makes your eyes roll, the assault on your g-spot becoming almost too much, the heat in your tummy blooming quickly. 

“You gonna cum for me?” Steve's grinning, leaning his forehead on yours, fingers speeding up ever so slightly, pads running in circles until you’re panting and crying out, “Can feel you gripping me, honey. C’mon, let me feel you cum.” 

Your eyes squeeze tight as the blooming heat bursts into flames, a cry of his name leaving your lips as euphoria spreads through your entire body. You feel your cunt pulsing sporadically around Steve’s fingers, gushing wet and soaking the sheets as he fucks you through it, fingers slowing down until they’re almost at a stop. 

Suddenly, the overwhelming desire to have Steve fill you up with his cock is clouding your brain, blurring your eyes at the edges. You can feel him, hot and heavy, brushing so close to your cunt it’s dizzying, “Need you to fuck me, steve. please?”

Steve's brows pull together, he’d clearly forgotten about his own needs and desires in favor of yours and that only makes you want him all the more, “You sure, honey? You’re gonna be so sensitive, can you handle me?” 

His words shouldn’t affect you the way they do, but you moan, all high pitched and needy, “C’mon, Steve. Fuck me like you mean it.”

And who would Steve be to refuse you that? He gently nudges you down onto your back until you’re laid flat, pulling your shaking legs up until your knees are bent up.

You can feel the head of his cock snagging ever so slightly on your puffy cunt, still sopping wet and no doubt drenching him in your release. Your tummy quivers in anticipation.

He sighs, shaky, as he grips at the base of his cock blindly, unable to take his eyes off of yours, like he’s searching for a definite answer. You nod, another go ahead, and his cock properly presses at your entrance, knocking the breath from your lungs. 

He’s. Well, he’s fucking big. The first few inches slip into you and punch a ragged moan from you, eyes squeezing shut as you beg your body to relax for him.

“Hey, hey,” Steve’s voice catches you off guard, his other hand grabbing for yours and lacing your fingers together at the side of your head, “If it doesn’t feel good, tell me to stop.”

“Don’t fucking stop,” You gasp, squeezing his hand. It’s not a bad burn, it feels fucking good. Teeters on the edge of too much, but the right edge. 

“Oh thank god,” Steve chuckles a little, pushing in another inch and your pussy clenches instinctively, choking his cock, “Honey, I don’t think I could stop even if I wanted to.” 

You giggle, the movement causing your cunt to flutter around him and he moans properly this time, rutting into you another inch or two, filling you out. 

Steve’s hand that was on his cock suddenly grips at your hip, as he bottoms out with a low growl, you feel it rumble up his chest, “You’re so — so fucking tight, warm,” Steve grits his teeth, pushing his hips forward to make it obvious that he’s fully sheathed in you, his heavy balls pressing tight to your ass.

You feel. Full. Ridiculously full. He’s hitting everywhere inside of you, the curve of his cock pressing into all the right spots, thatch of dark pubes brushing against your sensitive clit. 

His hand laced with yours grounds you, helps you relax and settle into it quickly, his chest flush to yours and pressing you down helps, too. 

Your eyelids flutter when he ruts into you again, reminding you of the size of him, “Move, Steve, need you to fuck me, yeah?” 

Steve grunts, pulling out just a few inches and pushing back in, eyes rolling as the wet heat of your cunt invites him back in, “Think your pussy likes me being here, honey.” 

You cry out at that, pussy spasming. You’re at a loss for words, the only thing on your mind is how Steve invades all of your senses. He leans down, kisses at the expanse of your neck as he sets a good rhythm. You feel every ridge of him, pushing so deep you swear you feel him in your guts.

“Hear that?” He mutters against your flushed, damp skin as he fucks you properly now, knocking the breath from you with every harsh thrust, “She loves me, baby. Loves my big cock, fuck.” 

Of course you can fucking hear it, the way your cunt is gushing, sloppy and soaking for him, more and more leaking around his shaft as he assaults your frontal wall. You whine, loud and beggy, fingernails digging into Steve’s hand where they’re still interlaced at the side of your head.

“Taking me so good, honey. Can’t believe you’re taking all of me,” Steve groans, pace quickening as he chases his high — you’re not far behind, the constant press to your spongey spot and the occasional catch of your clit against his pubic bone is getting you there fast.

It’s so fucking hot, the way he speaks to you. Your body is alight with need and want, “Keep talking, Steve. G’nna cum,” You breathe, leg tightening around the base of his back, heel of your foot pushing into his ass.

“Yeah?” Steve grins into your collarbone, you feel it against your flushed skin, “Cumming when you’re full on my big cock? Fuck, c’mon, show me how much she loves me. She’s so greedy, honey.”

Your cunt grips him like a vice, that same blooming feeling from earlier back with a vengeance as you reach the end — it’s so hard to think, with him pressing so deep and rough. You nod, whining and crying out, “Fuckfuckfuck, ohmygod —!” 

Your vision blurs at the edges, knocked dizzy and sick with it when your orgasm washes over you like tidal waves, fingertips digging into the back of Steve’s hand until he’s hissing and groaning, fucking you through it with a harsh snap of his hips.

“That’s it, so fucking tight,” Steve grunts, picking up speed and rutting into you until you’re practically screaming, “Gonna cum in you, fill you up with it, oh fuck —”

His hips still suddenly as he pushes his face into your neck and cums with a low grunt of your name. You feel every bit of his release shooting deep inside you, every pulse of his cock. Your walls flutter around him and he hisses in retaliation, smacking your hip gently. 

He collapses on top of you after that, entire body spent. You can’t find it in you to care, as his cock softens slowly — you feel his cum spilling out of you, though you’re half asleep and struggling to comprehend it.

Your attention only piques when you feel fingertips at your puffy, used entrance, pushing the liquid back into your weeping hole.

It’s disturbing how ready you are for Steve, when he fucks himself back into you not long after.

[bearpillowmonster]

Incredibles 3 Sorta Kinda Wishlist

I have a lot of thoughts about Inc 2 but I decided to leave them in the past, is Inc 3 going to be what I wanted Inc 2 to be? Well...

A lot wanted/expected the second to be a time skip from the first when the kids are older, I get it, I'd like that but I think I understand why it wasn't treated that way. Incredibles is very specific, we see the period where superheroes are a thing and when there was an absence, that's sort of the gimmick. I feel like if Inc 2 didn't time skip then Inc 3 isn't going to either unless it's an end sequence, it just seems weird to cap off a trilogy that way.

Oh...well, maybe, I didn't entirely rule it out but should we skip forward, we're sort of denying that opportunity that heroes will rise again and just skip right into it and deny Inc 2 of building that up. Besides, let's be honest, how many cared for those hero rejects in Inc 2? I remember Voyd...uhhhh, brick man! But we ALLLL remember Gazerbeam, right? Anyways, I think that should be more held for the end anyways because for me, Inc 2 was an 'of the moment' type of thing.

I tried to analyze how it exactly I feel about it versus a Marvel movie and you could argue that the first came out in a time where we had a few superhero movies, Spider-Man and X-Men for starters but it wasn't as common to see that as it is now, you can go to the theaters pretty much any given time now and nearly guarantee that a superhero movie will be playing but I'm going to argue against that because if you were to take a Marvel fan and show them the Incredibles today for the first time, I have a hard time believing that they won't think it special. Skipping into the era of superheroes WILL just make it a Marvel movie.

Another thing I kind of expect/hope to see is a fleshing out of the style or the "Andytization"

I mean, you know, they changed his character and everything and his build is more shaped like the rest of the cast but I just feel different when I see the two side by side

And I like vibrant lighting, heck, I just made a post about it not too long ago but the way it is in Inc 2 is...it's just too much

I like that you can see the fibers on the shirts, whatever but it just didn't look fully there yet, like-like...wth, I'll say it.

It looks filtered. So I hope that gets ironed out somewhat, maybe round out some edges.

but I for one want to see where this Violet relationship goes, how does she navigate school and secret superheroing and a boyfriend...she's like Kim Possible to me. And Dash with sports and all that but to be honest, I care to see new superhero themed activities, like in the first movie, we see Bob and Dash playing long distance catch and Bob lifting a train to weightlift, it's fun.

The babyfication of the merchandising with Jack-Jack and the raccoon went WAYYYY overboard before, I even see it today, like Jack-Jack had his own short in the first film but he wasn't the star of the show. I think I saw more of him than I did of the literal star Elastigirl, like-

Make it well ROUNDED, no more "I need to succeed so that she can succeed so that we can succeed." I want our cast to have learned that they're a family and need to act as such through the movie, no coming together of the third act, we're already well acquainted, it's no surprise.

Another worry I have is Michael Giacchino. Sure, I've liked his tracks as of late, every now and then he drops a banger but nothing will ever stack up to the soundtrack of the first Incredibles movie that literally went to define part of my life so far. What did I walk out to when I got dressed for Prom?!

I don't remember Inc 2 whipping out anything like that. And Michael's been at it, really deep into Marvel, in fact, he's doing Fantastic Four which is uh, eerily similar to the atmosphere of the Incredibles (I didn't listen to the theme from D23 yet, I'm holding off) but it scares me to think that he's putting out so much that Inc 3 won't get that banger soundtrack, I just don't want him to think where he's came from...oh, he started in video games? Well, after that.

Now the villain, I want to see the place in ruin. We've somewhat seen how to superhero when the world doesn't want saved but what about the ridicule, people hating superheroes because they draw too much attraction and so forth. That sort of goes against what was established by the last two endings which I'd really hate to retcon anything but I like that plot.

We haven't gotten a superpowered villain yet (I don't think the Underminer is) and I'm fine with not getting one here, I will feel a bit cheated if we get the Underminer but that IS a thread left unresolved.

[gwydionmisha]

Advice to the Able-Bodied Poet Entering the Disability Poetics Workshop -  Liv Mammone

For Jennifer Bartlett and Shira Erlichman

1. Let's just save time—Yes I have seen Rain Man, The Miracle Worker, My Left Foot, or, more recently, The Theory of Everything. I wanna fuck Daniel Day Lewis too but can we not? 2. If all the the Special Needs Kids everybody's mom/cousin/friend/friend's mom/cousin's friend's mom has ever worked with got together, they could overthrow the government and we'd see some real change. Those people aren't reference points for me. There are no reference points for me. 3. This isn't the Whose Life Sucks More game. You have seen moments I can never imagine. 4. When asking about my disability, please remember you have Siri. What you really need to know will come up in the poems. 5. Similarly, if you decide you need to ask my diagnosis, I can guarantee those ugly sounding words are all I have in common with whoever you know. If you don't know anyone, asking me what does that mean isn't ingratiating. I'm not a painting by Warhol. Asterisk: if you're just meeting me and that's your opening? That, or so what happened to you—you're suspect. I have a favorite band, a gaggle of furry children. Let's start there. 6. The words disability, disorder, and disease aren't synonymous. 7. And while we're at it, let's talk about language. You're here for that above all right? Me too. But I get to decide how it's done, not you. If I say cripple, it's because I like how the consonants break like bones. I'm not handing you a membership card. If I say call me "special needs" and I'll roll over your foot, it doesn't mean that softness won't comfort others. Political correctness is kind of like using correct pronouns. So many words have been made up and thrown onto my flesh. None were my name. 8. If you didn't get the above reference to pronouns, I'll write a separate piece for you. 9. Your ear will need to curve around the rhythm of speech. Your pace will hunger to leave me limping. You will want to catch me as I lurch forward; lead me by elbow or hand; not to repeat yourself; to talk as fast as you do out there. Slow down. Slow everything down. 10. The phrase but you don't look sick can go fuck itself with a moving train covered in chainsaws. 11. Don't use the word inspiration unless you're talking about Whitman, Langston Hughes, John Keats or Jesus. 12. Matter of fact, leave Jesus out of it altogether; he's busy enough. 13. It isn't a wheelchair; it's a fully automated battle station. It isn't a cane; it's a dowsing rod. It isn't a limp; it's a swagger. It isn't a stim—it's how my fabulous self is pulling magic out of the air. 14. I'm not your metaphor. Phantom limbs, deafness, or blindness as figurative language in your poems will result in my unhinging my fucking jaw. 15. If you find yourself saying something that begins with no offense, but I want you to stop. Take a breath. And say to yourself these three sentences: Does this need to be said? Does this need to be said right now? Does this need to be said right now by me? If the answer to any of those is no, return to start do not collect $200. 16. Laugh. 17. Be honest. 18. Your head had best be a microscope. Ask yourself why you're here. But question my motives, too. Slam your hand hard on my buttons. 19. Some kind of dragon needed slaying to get to this room, whether it be the nasty bus driver or the thoughts of suicide. So somebody's probably gonna show up in pajamas, crocks, mismatched socks, un showered, hair falling loose from ponytail—whatever. Either they're embarrassed or don't give a fuck. Either way, they don't need you mentioning it. 20. Speak for me, not over me. 21. Yes, I can have sex. I hope everybody in here writes a jam so graphic it makes your goosebumps mambo just so you never ask a disabled person that ever again, unless you're offering. 22. I don't think shy people become poets, but in case you are, you best chill if you fear the body. If I'm gonna write a colostomy bag free verse or a pantoum about how hard it is to negotiate my period on crutches, I wanna do it in peace. 23. You need Advil? Guaranteed, somebody got you. 24. If I have to leave the room while you're reading, sorry in advance. 25. Let me point out, Tiny Tim has been fucking me over since 1843. If I'm happy, it's taken for a miracle; if I'm not, I remind them of all they have and all the work they have to do. I could be a big smile, a raised fist, an eye glittered with tears. 26. This is the place I come to sharpen my teeth; to weep until I am the Danube. I don't care if you're frightened. 27. Trigger warnings. That is all. 28. Halle Berry, Harriet Tubman, Orlando Bloom, Clinton, Christie, Darwin. A lot of your faves are disabled. Just like a lot of your faves are actually bisexual. (More breaking news at 11.) 29. And while we're on that, being disabled doesn't mean you've checked off your minority box on the form. Just saying. 30. I don't want to talk about me; how's my stanza structure? 31. Intersectionality isn't a buzzword. 32. I will ask if I need your help. Repeat this a billion times. 33. Related note: you wouldn't grab someone on the subway. You'd let your face smash into the pole before steadying yourself on the person next to you. So why in the name of God's teeth would you touch me or whatever apparatus I may have without asking?! 34. Remember, you're one slip in the shower, doctor's visit, missed turn away from being me. 35. If I fall, the way you gasp hurts worse than impact. 36. I'm not blaming you. I'm saying pay attention. 37. Inevitably, someone will be forced to stop coming. Email them; that'd be cool. 38. Even if you pity me, don't mess around when it comes to editing. 39. Your body is so damn fucking beautiful. It's like nothing else. 40. Please remember that compliance with any or all of the aforementioned will not result in praise of any kind, cookies, medals, or otherwise. Thank you. 41. People are like poems. They don't get finished, they just stop.

[dracoandthehounds]

Fanfic Writer Ask Meme: K, Q, S, T

thank you for sending this in!!!! :)

K: Guilty fanfic pleasure--

hehe okay this was kinda a hard one bc i don't rlly have a lot of tropes that i feel like "guilty" about liking or anything, but I do think I have one!!!

Sometimes in some media that's super sad... i really like searching out the most like self-indulgent fix-it incredible/magic fics that undo all the bad lmaoo. Like the sort of stuff that would not make it a good story hypothetically bc it just magically fixes every problem just so I can like imagine a little world where everything had a happy ever after lmao. I guess it's sort of a guilty pleasure too bc it's not even something I want in a story lmao I want those characters to suffer lol for The Plot but sometimes I like to just read one story where just this once, everyone lives. lmao.

Q: Do you like getting prompts from your readers?

YES! I love it so much. I wish i had more time to respond to some of the ones I have sitting in my ask box or half written lmao. But I love it bc it can be so helpful for me thinking abut the characters in a different way. Like, really, go crazy with it. Send me ten different ones. (100% guarantee i will not get to all of them lmao but it would be fun to pick one out where I get an idea with it that just rolls lmao)

S: How do you feel about fanart inspired by your writing?

Ummmm like crying??? lmaooooo. it's absollutely incredible and i have no words for it at all. It's like..... unbelievable. One of my favorite things is the idea of like what it means to communicate (bear w me lmao). but like the idea that communication is like (idea in your head) > (how you speak it aloud) > (how the other person hears what you say) > (idea in their head) and how like each time the idea has to go through one of the ">" -- it changes. So like when someone draws fanart of something I've written, I get to see how the idea that began in my head ended up in theirs and is now being portrayed again. It's just like............ so unreal lmao. so. so so sos so sos sosooooo cool.

T: Any fanfic tropes you can't stand?

Oooh okay interesting... okay I feel like i can answer this better in the context of like general fiction tropes I can't stand. I cannotttt vibe with relationships being portrayed as like the... this character needs a love interest so let me put this cardboard cutout of a love interest into the show/movie/book whatever and slam them together until it works. Like... what I enjoy about romance is the concept of two characters with fully fleshed out personalities/identities slowly over time melding together until them being together feels inevitable.

I feel like that's why I enjoy fanfic of non-canon relationships bc it is more of a way to bring together two characters who *weren't* made just so they could be in a relationship together. Like they are very much their own people before the romance, so it feels more natural and more exciting. I want to feel like their relationship will last because they've developed and grown into each other if that makes sense.

so like even in canon media, I feel like a good example of this is angel/buffy vs. spike/buffy (.... no hate to angel/buffy shippers pls omg....) but this is why I'm so much more of a fan of spike/buffy bc those characters were NOT written to be together. Their relationship came about bc James Marsters did such a good job portraying Spike as this lovesick puppy (Joss Whedon did not ask him to do that lol and planned on killing him off after a seven epsiode arc), that everyone demanded the character stick around. And then the chemistry between him and Buffy just like leapt off the screen and it just made sense through their journeys that they would inevitably collide together. (unlike buffy/angel where angel was written to be her love interest and like she was into him after three episodes bc he was hot and mysterious lmao).

So that extends to fanfic sometimes I feel like bc sometimes I don't see a reason behind a pairing in the story and it can take me out of it. Like I want to understand why these characters would end up together... I want to see what they see in each other and I just can't do it when it feels like two dolls that are just being slammed together for the sake of making sure they don't end up w/o a partner. I'd rather have them single than that tbh.

[lizzie-bennetdarcy]

5, 4, 3, 2, 1

Rules: post the top 5 works you’re most proud of that you released in 2022 (not necessarily your most popular), your top 4 current WIPs that you’re excited to release in the new year, your top 3 biggest improvements in your writing over the past year, your top 2 resolutions (ways you wish to improve your writing/blog) for the new year, and your number 1 favorite line you’ve written this year!

Tagged by the lovely @chelle-68 🥰🥰

5 works (in no particular order)

How long till we reach the door?

My first E fic and longest published fic to date. For whatever reason, it was one of the easiest fics for me to write, and is still one of my favorites. I also experimented with a dual POV, and I liked how it turned out.

Lock it up

The idea for this fic came about from a random tumblr post about David being Patrick's lock screen photo. For whatever reason, I really enjoy (HEA, obviously) fics where the Brewers learn that Patrick is gay/about his relationship in an alternate way. I think it's because it's a miracle he did keep the secret as long as he did.

A taste of you

From a prompt for Frozen Over. I'm sure the prompter did not intend for there to be as many ball jokes in a cake pop decorating meet-cute, but unfortunately I have the humor of a 12 year old boy. I still love this fic, and I like that I was able to include the phone call from canon, as well as Stevie because I love her.

Kiss & tell

The idea that Patrick would befriend the neighborhood ladies absolutely delights me, and power walking seemed to be the best way to do it. I also love that no matter how much gossip two local business-owning queer men may have, the busybody old ladies always know more.

(He) was a fast machine

Poor, newly single Patrick has to listen to his upstairs neighbors have sex. Loudly. Constantly. At least he can make friends, right? I'm glad others enjoyed this fic, because I love it and was delighted the whole time while writing it!

4 wips

I have a handful of wips I could share, but these are the most likely to actually come to fruition. I get distracted easily, therefore I write slow. I'm also more focused on drawing right now, so.

Post-canon vacation fic!

This will be my longest fic to date, and I am very excited about it. Mostly just lots of sex and soft husband's.

David's mirror

A slightly angsty fic I started recently. Basically, David's struggle with self-image.

How long till we reach the door? Continuation

1, possibly 2 more chapter about what happens after their first meeting!

Romeo and Juliet au.

What it says, except way less death. HEA guaranteed, of course.

3 biggest improvements

The first is just that I started writing, I suppose. I had a teacher in high school who absolutely hated my writing, for whatever reason, and had me convinced I was Bad at writing. Then I posted a silly little fic and all my friends were so lovely about it that I kept trying.

I would say I got better at recognizing how I write. I tend to need to get the general actions written out in a scene before I go back in and flesh out more depth and emotion.

I learned a lot more about dialogue punctuation. I haven't written much dialogue... ever, so I spent time trying to make sure I do it right.

2 resolutions

Write more! I really do enjoy writing, and I would like to carve out more time to do it.

Take more time to plot. I work a lot better when I have a structure to follow, so if I take the time in the beginning, I think it will be easier to stick with ideas.

Number 1 Favorite Line

"She never thought to wonder what he might not have wanted captured." From Lock it up.

I don't know that I really have a favorite line I've written, but part of my Marcy series centers around her desire to be involved and fully supportive of her new life. I headcanon that the older he got, the less Patrick liked having pictures of himself taken because it was too close to showing how he felt inside. It's hard to live a lie when it's staring you in the face, right? So now that he's accepted this huge part of himself, he starts taking pictures again and Marcy is delighted.

Tagging @smblmn @hippolotamus @stereopticons @smallumbrella369 @obsessedwithdavrick @mammameesh

[bells-of-black-sunday]

Tell us some interesting ideas you have in regards to Aatrox!!

With Aatrox in particular I find it really interesting how he interacts with other champions vs by himself or even with other darkin, the way that taunting nature he was known for on the battlefield melts away into this dull melancholy I think really highlights the horror of not only his situation, but all of the darkins. You have beings that were once worshipped as gods that protected and expanded their empires land dutifully only to be forced to fight a horror unknown and all consuming like the void only to essentially be abandoned with Azir's death.

Aatrox himself in every voiceline and bit of lore we have for him was something beautiful, a sight to behold all those years ago and while I don't think he really cares about that now, I do think there's part of him that aches to just go back to times like that. When things were simpler. When the aspects didn't make them prisoners in their own bodies. To quote his story "The Cage":

"Darkness.

The breath I cannot take plagues me.

It is an emptiness in my lungs and throat. As if I had stopped mid-breath, and then held my lungs cruelly waiting. My mouth open, throat hollow, unable to pull in air. My chest, the horrible tension on my thorax.

My limbs and muscles refuse to move. I cannot breathe. I am choking. The pressure builds. The stillness spreads to my chest and limbs. I want to scream, to tear at my face, to wail—but I am trapped. I cannot move. I cannot move.

Darkness.

I must remember. I must remem—"

How desperate it must be to try and just hold onto some sort of semblance of yourself when you cannot do anything, but think. Be forced to live a brand new horror, reading Aatrox's lore it's very understandable why he's chosen the position he has. Violently burning out every host he gets in a desperate plea to just die and even though he thinks ending the world will end his constant cycle of suffering, there is no guarantee.

It's only natural to be angry with that and he is. He is violently angry, but in his voice lines in-between him reclaiming his status as a god, there's a sadness there. A hatred for not only himself, but everyone around him and what they've turned him into. A mockery of what he once was now forced to grovel and feed off of the mortals that once kissed the ground he walked on. Turned into a tool for their petty conflicts abandoned again and again.

"Where I was excellence, I am deformed... Recast poorly with these crude materials. But this abomination of flesh well serves my murderous intent." "I am but an unholy copy of life... A mockery of its freedom... And born in the cruel betrayal of the noble ideals I would've served." "We march to battle... Let me carve flesh, let me cloak myself in the slaughter! Hide me in their carnage... Hide me from this suffering..." "Do I resemble you, abomination? Your form isn't my destiny... is it? You don't know how to talk, do you?"

I don't think his situation is as simple as needing to heal, I don't think he'll ever fully achieve that, but he is at least calm around other darkin as seen in LoR even if that lore even was literally just him trying to kill Xolaani and destroy the world, I don't think he holds any truly malice towards his kin. He knows their situation. He thinks all of them are in as much pain as he is and he truly does want to end it for all of them even if it means again destroying the entire fabric of reality.

[chaoskirin]

Shadow Sun ARC Review

I was able to get an ARC of the book Shadow Sun, which is the second book in the Dragon Star Saga. My review follows...

I am a critical reviewer. I believe I look at books fairly, rate them fairly, and review them fairly. It's NOT rare for me to give a five-star review on something, but it IS rare to wish I could give a book more than five stars.

Shadow Sun is a book about friendship and loss. Of love and complexity. And it's one of the best books I've ever read about those things. Honestly, that would be all I'd need to say about this book besides an encouragement for everyone to read this immediately and without delay. Seriously, don't just buy this book and add it to your TBR. Buy it and read it now, because I guarantee it's everything you're looking for in a story.

I don't want to discuss the story itself with this review, but tell you why, exactly, you should read this book. And I'm going to start with the dragons.

Yes, this book is about gryfons, which are written beautifully, and have so many deep layers and cultures that I love getting the chance to explore. They are fully fleshed out and wonderful in their own right, which makes the other species added alongside them--whether to support or as main characters--all the more appealing. The dragons in this world are so delightfully tragic and joyful at the same time. I love reading about them while also being unable to help mourning for them. How cool is it to have a whole species whose lifespan is only a year? Ren, the main character in Shadow Sun and the book before it, will live through fifty generations of dragons in her lifetime, which is just incredible to me. And while dragons do inherit pieces of those who came before them, each individual has such a small window of life on the planet.

Every moment of their life is filled with so much meaning.

I am absolutely obsessed with the implications of this, and my interest of the dragon, Suijen, had a huge payoff in this very story. And Suijen's love of Ren, and her love of him, was so beautiful and touching that it made me miss the days of friendship and camaraderie in fantasy books. There is a huge vacuum where tales of friendship should fit within the genre, and this book filled it to overflowing.

This is also true in the relationship between Ren and the king's son, Tyrilar. Tyrilar really looks up to Ren, and she's ecstatic that he appreciates her work and wants to help. Tyrilar's guardian, Eyvindr, still sees him as a youngster who needs protecting, but with Tyrilar being in his teens (relatively speaking) he's really big on striking out on his own and discovering himself. He feels capable and wants to be trusted, which comes into play in a huge way. It's nice to see characters proving their worth and actually having others recognize them for it!

Shadow Sun is also not afraid of COMPLEX relationships, such as the one between Ren and Tove. Not going to say too much about that, but I am interested to see how that develops, if it does at all.

Along the line of complex relationships, though, there's one trope in this book that I LOVE. It's always been one of my favorites, because it speaks to the challenges of friendship and the very idea that no one person can be right all the time. It's summed up in this quote:

"It was a difficult time," Catori murmured. "But that is the riddle of the Summer King, of the Silver Wind. he had to go against his own friends, his family, his pride, to follow what he believed was right. That is far more difficult than going against someone you view as an enemy."

I just love that sort of theming in stories, because it really his difficult. And then, of course, it gets into the question of what's right, and what you might damage by doing what you feel is right--even if it means going against your friends. There's always a huge tempation to support whatever your friends say or do, because arguing with them may very well cost you friendships. I have seen so many people agree with their friends just because it's expected of them, when true friendships sometimes mean telling your friends they're wrong.

Another thing I love about this book (and all books in this series and the one before it) is that there are no good guys and bad guys. As with life, most people have a reason for doing what they do. We as people can look at those things and agree or disagree with them. We can find them personally good or evil. But Shadow Sun leaves that up to the reader to decide, while presenting nuance that leaves room for thought. Ren and Embra are mostly "good" as far as readers might be concerned, but they do bad things. Embra especially is guilty of lying (for what she believes is a good reason) and Ren is complicit in that lie because she is afraid of losing the respect and friendship she has with Embra.

This is a difference from moral greyness, in which characters are neither good nor bad but somewhere between. Ren is undoubtedly the hero in this book. It's just that she doesn't have the straight paragonship that a lot of fantasy authors will assign to their characters. She is allowed to make mistakes, and is more interesting for it.

There are also a couple antagonist characters that are not conventionally evil, nor do they do particularly evil things. Kajsa is absolutely an antagonist to Embra's leadership, but she is also terribly rebuffed by Embra to the point where she feels outcast, which leads her to doing things she might not have done otherwise. It's amazing to have POV chapters with Kajsa, to experience her thoughts and what she's personally going through, and how she really does care for those around her and wants to do her best by them. She's sort of a heartbreaking antagonist, with very complex reasons for doing what she does.

There is also the character, Oslar, who isn't evil at all, and may still eventually prove himself. But he is annoying, and does do dangerous and somewhat reprehensible things, and is clearly attempting to live off his name and relationships alone. He is the cousin of a king and expects to coast on that title. This is directly opposite to Embra, the daughter and heir of a king, who probably does more than she should, and doesn't do enough to keep herself safe.

Without going into the details of the story--because you should all experience that for yourself--it looks like the Dragon Star saga is going into even more of the world's lore, where it comes to mystical forces that govern nature. The first series (the Summer King Chronicles) did go into a lot of this, but as expected, there's even more to explore. I am looking forward to learning more about these forces, and I'm earnestly hoping for many more novels in this world to explore it all!

There was one point around 30% in where I had a "holy crap!!!" moment, where I realized what might have been going on before it was explicitly stated in the book, and the payoff of that was really enjoyable. I really love when books set something up for readers to discover, and then DON'T do a weird twist where none of the foreshadowing mattered. Foreshadowing needs to matter, and it really does in Shadow Sun.

I also want to point out that I sat down with the intent to read this in pieces so I could more adequately formulate a review, especially since this is for an ARC. In fact, I planned to spend exactly an hour at midnight reading it so I could go to sleep and wake up at a reasonable time for work the next morning.

However, 1:00 am passed, and I said "just a little more." Then it was 2am. Then 3, 4, and 5. Finally, at 6:30, with 91% of the book completed, I had to give up on the notion that I could put it down. So I finished it, then got up and got ready for work without having slept at all.

It's very rare that a book does that to me. Usually I can tell myself that it's time to put it down and get some sleep, but the pacing is so perfect that there's ALWAYS a part where I "just have to know what happens next." 

Anyway, there are so many wonderful moments in this book, and so many wonderful characters that I know anyone who picks it up will love it as much as I did.

[lokiskitten]

Tom Hiddleston | nice acting skills

Pt2 : the changing room

Tom Hiddleston x fem!reader

Author’s note : I never originally planned to write a second part but I was being held at gun point so here’s pt2 of the “nice acting skills” imagine KSKSK

plot : after going through this rather peculiar moment, you unexpectedly bump into Tom in one of the changing rooms. From there, things take an unexpected turn.

warnings : smut ( with /legal/ age gap ), unprotected sex, extremely light and discreet spanking.

You were pulled out of your daydream session again by the exhaustingly familiar sound of the director throwing around new orders, setting you and Tom free from set as this scene didn’t necessarily needed to be filmed twice. You were now sent off to the makeup and costumes room which was located nowhere far from the place you currently sat. Tom wasn’t meant to be changing nor getting ready in the same room as you did, which was totally understandable due to the fact that you didn’t share the same gender nor age. He therefore took a different turn than you did, feet leading him to the left as you were accompanied on your right.

You were allowed in your personal changing room, the makeup lady arranging her stencils which laid on the table before the mirror. However, she suddenly seemed to remember about an important detail which she seemingly needed to be getting on the instant. You were therefore left alone with nothing but the costumes and cold cup of tea to keep you company. Sighing tiredly, you sat down on the chair which faced the mirror, eyes falling on your own tired reflexion. However, you were now able to hear the sound of the door opening again, a forced smile appearing on your lips as you expected this person who just walked in to be the makeup artist.

“Did you find what you’ve been looking fo-“ you began, eyes diverting upwards only to land onto Tom’s familiar yet unexpected silhouette. He closed the door behind himself, leaning against the wall as his strong arms crossed against his bare chest. You were now trapped with him. However, it was far from being a bother. But your naturally strong mindset forced you to put up a mask and pretend as if his naked upper body wasn’t something which disturbed your mind and senses. “Oh, it’s you.” You spoke bluntly, trying you best to hide any emotion which could’ve been a threaten to your reputation as a young and serious lady.

Tom smirked. “Yes, it’s me.” He answered, his deep voice which carried a beautiful British accent rolling off his tongue perfectly. It never failed to make your heart and crotch melt. Finally getting up from the door, the older man slowly moved towards your seat before his veiny hands decided to take ahold of the leather material. His ocean blue eyes stared at your reflection in the mirror, yet he wasn’t making eye contact but simply admiring how beautiful your body was. Gently, his hand moved up to your hair which he dragged back behind your ear, fully revealing your beautiful face to him.

“You’re beautiful.” He affirmed, making sure to regulate both his voice and tone in order to guarantee that he would look as attractive as he possibly could- even tho he wouldn’t have needed any of these forced artifacts to seduce you or anyone else. You had caught him red handed through his game, though- again- it was far from being a bother. In contrary, you enjoyed it. However, the little voice in your head couldn’t help but beg you to deny his offer whilst the other part of yourself desperately wanted you to give in his flirts. Your body easily became a battlefield for those two separate opinions to fight and argue endlessly.

Face to your lack of answer- and that mostly because you were lost in your thoughts- Tom tilted his head before moving his hands down to the opening of your robe, gently starting to pull on it in order to reveal your bare chest. However, your own hand was soon to move up to his wrist and take a firm hold of it, asserting dominance and stopping the older man through his track. Face to this hostile move, the actor couldn’t help but grow confused. He frowned and accepted to respectfully pull his hand away. “Do you not want this? I beg your pardon, I thought you shared those same feelings which previously took possession of my body.” Tom explained, referring to how he felt whilst shooting the infamous scene barely a couple of minutes ago.

“No no, I do.” Your responded, your main priority being to make sure that he wouldn’t feel like he was in the wrong nor inappropriate. You finally agreed to get up from the chair you have been sitting on, still unfortunately remaining shorter than your screen partner who towered above you. “But isn’t this... not such a good thing? I mean, I always hear people brag about not mixing your love life with coworkers.” You explained, remaining aware that Tom surely didn’t work that way, which was easily noticeable if you bothered to take a look at the female casts from the movies he’s played in and link it all up with his never ending list of ex romantic partners.

Upon noticing that he didn’t seem to truly pay attention to your words, but more to your face, you stopped yourself through your speech. He was adorning those flirty eyes of his, which no woman could potentially resist to. No matter how hard you fought, in the end, you’d always fall for him. “Can you- stop looking at me like that, with your eyes and.. eyebrows.. and all of it.” You ordered, hands gesturing towards his face. Hearing those satisfying words, Tom accentuated his facial features game. “Looking at you like what?” He responded, slowly moving closer to your body until his hands could finally wrap around your waist. It felt like a huge victory to him.

Before you could know it, Tom’s lips pressed against yours, the man offering you a genuine and intense kiss which honestly resembled the ones he’d give you on set. But for now, this didn’t matter. All that mattered was that you were sharing a wanted and needed moment with your screen partner. His hands moved down from your cheeks to your shoulders, pushing off your robe which fell off your body with ease. Unlike him, you didn’t adorn any form of underwear and was therefore left naked for the older man to cherish and enjoy. The kiss progressively intensified, both of your lips parting in order to allow each other’s tongue to come in.

As he embraced your figure, Tom slowly started to push you towards the nearest wall, the two of you stumbling upon a couple of objects before your back could finally collide with the hard material. You moaned against his mouth, knee moving up to his hip which allowed you to feel his hardening bulge against your sensitive core. Your clit was throbbing, begging for sexual satisfaction coming from the man. Feeling your leg suddenly raise against his hip, Tom’s hand moved underneath your thigh and made sure to hold it up there, offering you some free support so you wouldn’t have to carry the heavy member on your own.

Tom cared a lot about the feminine pleasure- probably more than he did care for his own- which would surely guarantee you a good time spent with him during this early afternoon.

Upon feeling that you were now wrapping your arms around his neck, Tom decided to take the initiative to pull his boxers down- setting free his hardening member which had yet to grow to its full size. He was now able to fully pick you up, hands wrapped underneath your thighs in a cautious manner. His tip wouldn’t stop colliding with your soaking hole, visibly begging for entrance without ever truly daring to cross the step. Thankfully, you knew that Tom had always been a very determined man who usually reached out for the stuff he wanted instead of waiting for people to give it to him.

Therefore, it didn’t take long for him to carefully sit you down on his cock, being able to feel that you were now wet enough to painlessly welcome in his prominent member. You guys moaned together, his forehead pressing against yours as his girth was progressively coated with your love juices. Once he reached balls deep, the actor decided to take a couple of seconds in order to allow you to adjust to his size, ocean blue eyes looking up at your face which he admired and praised more than anything in the world at the moment.

Kissing your lips, Tom began to move again, hips gently and cautiously thrusting forward and retracting backwards repetitively until he felt like he could now fasten his pace. Meanwhile, you found yourself lost through pleasure and bliss, forehead firmly pressed against his as you decided that it would probably be wiser for you to keep your mouth shut and avoid to attract anyone else’s attention. Besides, you only wanted and needed his. Moaning out loud would’ve been a great risk to take as the two of you remained aware that you were in a studio filled with thousands of working people. Therefore, Tom regulated his pleasure by wincing and hissing silently whilst you decided to carry on humming sensitively.

Your arms remained wrapped around his neck as he carried on pleasuring your cunt as well as his own member, lips praising your neck which in some way also helped him through the restricted moans process. His girth rubbed past every single sensitive spot of yours, g-spot going wild and swelling out of pleasure due to the man’s perfectly appropriate actions and mannerisms. However, and without giving you a warning, Tom suddenly pulled out in order to flip you around- you chest now facing the wall as you were soon to understand that your job was now to bend over for him. His arms had probably grown tired of carrying you, which you acknowledged and understood.

Before he decided to bend you over, his large hands moved up to your breasts from behind your back, caressing and squeezing them with a lot of lustful care before he retracted his hand back to your spine, pressing his palm against your flesh and forcing you to slightly bend over. There wasn’t much space between you and the wall, which therefore only allowed you to fold a little bit. Your own palms collided with the wall as Tom’s hand caressed all the way down to your bum, giving the flesh a gentle slap before allowing his digits to take ahold of his own girth. He guided his tip to your entrance again, taking time through his actions to make sure that he would execute them properly and painlessly. Even through lust, Tom remained a gentleman.

Feeling his hardness slide inside of you again made your legs tremble, yet Tom made sure to hold you up by giving your hips a gentle and reassuring squeeze. The muscles he had developed through the intense hours spent at the gym contracted as he began to move in and out of you as you tried your best to once again remain silent and discreet. Though, a couple of moans eventually had to escape your lips. Tom shushed you respectfully, giving your bum a light spank which stood as a punishment face to your risky behavior. Yet you refused to complain, smile appearing on your parted lips as the older man continued to pound your core.

Eventually, his hips began to stutter, thrusts gaining in sloppiness which was due to his nearing orgasm. This once Tom didn’t manage to hold back his own moans, hums and groans escaping his lips as he respectfully pulled out right before white strings of sperm could be projected against your cervix. Instead, the thick liquid landed on your back, staining your flesh. “Fuck..” he praised, taking a deep breath in before exhaling loudly. His hips continued to gently rock against yours, shaft rubbing against your upper bum as Tom wished to fully get over his orgasm.

You were left emotionally shattered, body still recovering from the intense amount of emotions and sensations which had previously taken possession of your body- brain still attempting to figure out wether this was right or negative for both of your careers.

Y’all asked : I deliver. I hope you managed to enjoy it! Requested tags : @lokis-leah @marianastudiesart @fa-me @lokistoriesblog @sunshineyrosie @delightfulheartdream ❤️

[ Every single share/comment/like means a lot to me as a writer! Please never doubt that! I acknowledge and praise each one of those interactions as they also help to motivate me. Love you guys💜 thanks for the support. ]

[iamwhelmed]

Let me rant for a second, okay? I read webcomics... sometimes. Let’s Play! and True Beauty and Cursed Princess Club-- none of it is on the level of this fucking meme-filled, horror, seinen pieces I have read in my entire goddamn life. I haven’t squealed and felt my jaw drop this way since Hunter x Hunter, to give ya’ll an idea. I’m not even an action person, usually. I roll my eyes at BNHA and Naruto is fun but meh, I’d rather read Inuyasha.

But holy fucking shit guys.

I cannot stress the level of writing ability, the artistic evolution, and sheer unadulterated entertainment that is Scoob and Shag. Each character is so fleshed out, with their own abilities, their own backstories, their hurts, their ambitions, and it all just flows so well. This stupid fucking webcomic that started out with Scooby pointing a gun at all of his problems makes you fucking think. It makes you (at least me) flail around like a little kid watching a new episode of their favorite cartoon, like a fangirl watching her ship sail, like I’m not a fully grown woman who should certainly not be squealing like a schoolgirl.

The pacing is the best I’ve ever seen in a webcomic, literally ever. I always felt like I desperately needed to click the “next” button, and I audibly gasped “oh no!” when I inevitably met the greyed-out arrow that signified I had swallowed all current 115 updates down my wide open hatch with unprecedented hubris. I read for literal hours to reach the end. I went and took a bath and all I could think about was my eager pursuit of the next arrow click.

It’s deliciously creepy, it gets gorey, it gets scary, because it’s not just a comedy or an adventure-- it’s a horror. It is the best webcomic I have ever read, and I don’t even like horror. Usually. This webcomic has truly made an exceptional hypocrite of me. You’re always waiting to see which nostalgic favorite will make an appearance next, who they’ve lost, who is still by their side... It carries such heavy themes of friendship and of a love of art, of toons, and it just places so much emphasis on those bonds that when this comedy stops being funny for a second, when the uneasiness lets up, you genuinely feel attached to this story and the characters it has created of the toons we loved as children.

NOTHING about it ever makes you feel like it’s too heavy, because it always gives you some comedy. It doesn’t take itself seriously until it does, and when it does, it can actually make you cry I’m sitting here crying over Dexter’s relationship with DeeDee how can I make this shit up

This webcomic is everything Zack Morrison wishes Paranatural was and more because the characters (like fucking Kermit the frog) are allowed to say things like “eat shit” and “go to hell”.... well, that’s one of the many reasons this webcomic is exceptionally better.

So if you haven’t had a chance to go read Scoob and Shag, go read it right fucking now. Then come yell at me about it. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed. IF you like Hunter x Hunter? You’ll love this. Trust me.

[the-iceni-bitch]

Haven

Paralian: 2/9(or maybe more?)

Pairing: Winter Soldier x fem!reader

Words: ~2.5k

Summary: You and the Winter Soldier find comfort in each other at your seaside home. But the Soviet threat still looms.

Warnings: explicit language, explicit sexual content (unprotected vaginal sex), minor medical procedure, fluff, angst with the threat of even more angst to come (I’m so sorry), SMUT!!!! 18+ ONLY!!!!

A/N: Well, here is fucking is, part two of Paralian. This series is going to break my damn heart, so I hope y’all are happy. I’ve got a whole, depressing arc planned so strap in.

Check out my masterlist and join my taglist if you want!

Divider by @firefly-graphics

It had been surprisingly easy for the two of you to fall into a comfortable rhythm.

You couldn’t exactly keep things a secret from him, not when one of the first things you had to do was search him for a tracking device. His gaze on you was exceptionally soft as you ran your hands over his body, starting at his flesh forearm as you searched for any abnormalities.

“They typically embed them pretty shallow, I’m hoping I won’t have to dig into the fascia at all if I find anything.” You explained, pressing your fingers into his bicep with a look of concentration. “Nothings coming back to you?”

“No, I’m sorry.” He swallowed thickly while he watched you, mesmerized by the movements of your hands over his skin. “I still can’t remember.”

“Honey, you don’t need to apologize.” Your hands moved to his shoulder. “I’m gonna need to call you something, though. You got any names floating around in there?”

He just smiled sadly and shook his head at you, taking a deep breath when you leaned closer to him. There was nothing weird in his shoulder so you moved to his neck, freezing suddenly when you felt a small divot in his scalenes.

“Fuck.” You hissed, pinching the abnormality between your fingers and considering your options. “Good news is it’s not in the muscle, but there’s some pretty important blood vessels here I really don’t want to nick.”

“I can hold still.” He said, gazing at you through his lashes while you chewed on your lip.

“I’d be slicing into your neck, I don’t think you can hold that still.” You stood up and leaned back on your heel, your breath catching when he grabbed your hand to keep you close.

“I trust you.” He said in a low voice, winding his fingers through yours before bringing your palm to his face and pressing it to his lips.

You took a deep breath and nodded at him, moving to grab some supplies and ordering him to remove his shirt. He did as you asked, releasing you reluctantly and never taking his eyes off you. It didn’t make any sense that he felt so safe with you in such a short time, but every time you were near him he could feel himself relax.

“Bite down on this.” You handed him a belt and draped a towel over his shoulder before running a flame over the knife you had brought with you. “Hopefully I won’t have to stitch you up. Ready?”

He gave you a brief nod when you soaked the area with betadine, finding the small divot again and gripping it tightly. You pressed the tip of your knife to his skin and made a quick cut, ignoring his pained breath and grabbing the forceps. Fortunately, you didn’t have to search long, finding the small metal chip almost immediately and pulling it out of him with a satisfied grunt.

“Keep biting.” You told him, dropping the chip on the table and pressing the towel to the cut. “I’m gonna stitch it for my own peace of mind.”

You picked out the sutures from your kit and held them out for him to open for you before you grabbed the needle drivers and set to work. Since the cut was so short you only needed to place three stitches, giving a small smile when you were finished.

“All done.” You told him, plucking the belt out of his mouth. “You are a great patient, sweetie.”

He gave you another one of those heartbreaking smiles, wrapping his arm around your waist and pulling you towards him. You pressed your lips to his hair gently, letting him nuzzle into your stomach as you eyed the chip. 

“What’re you gonna do with it?” He asked, breathing in your scent until he felt the tension seep from his body.

“Wedge it in some debris and push it into the ocean.” You murmured, running your fingers through his hair in a soothing manner. “Come give me a hand?”

He stood up to follow you, pulling his shirt back over his head. The two of you moved out of your small house to the beach, picking your way through the debris as you moved closer to the water. You frowned as you looked at the wreckage, wondering how you were supposed to get the tracker to stay attached to one of these pieces of metal. He must have read your mind, grabbing the chip from you and folding a corner of debris around it with his metal fist.

“Huh, that thing is handy.” You huffed, reaching out to stop him when he started to heft the piece of debris. “No, don’t throw it! Just push it into the water so the tide can take it.”

“Why?” He asked, dragging the giant piece of debris after him as he edged towards the water. 

“So it looks like your body got washed back out to sea after the wreck.” You said, wrapping your arms around yourself when a sudden biting breeze blew in from the gulf.

“I’m dead in this scenario, then?” He shoved the metal into the water and started to walk back towards you.

“Yeah, that’s safest.” You said, kicking a loose pebble with your toe as you looked over the beach. “We should clean the rest of this shit up. I feel like it’ll go a lot faster with you here.”

It definitely did, that titanium arm of his making cleanup take just a few hours, rather than the several days it would have taken if you were by yourself. He wouldn’t let you touch any of the bigger pieces, not even breaking a sweat as he developed a very impressive pile of wreckage.

You moved back to the cabin when you were finished, heading to your radio to reach out to your contact in Helsinki to arrange for them to pick up the wreckage and bring you some more supplies. Your new housemate was going to need something aside from your leggings to wear with how cold some of the nights could get.

“You’re sure it’s safe?” He asked, following after you like a lost puppy while you moved to the kitchen. 

“They’re smugglers, as long as you stay out of sight it should be fine.” You set the kettle on the stove and sighed when he wrapped himself around you from behind. “Shit.”

“Please.” He buried his face in your hair and whined, the scent of you filling his lungs until he was panting with need. “God, I need you.”

You dropped your head against his shoulder as his hands moved to your breasts under your sweater, his mouth tracing over the curve of your neck as he murmured soft pleas in your ear. This could not keep happening, you were a professional, not a horny teenager. Yeah you were touch starved but that didn’t mean you were going to just let this man fuck you indiscriminately. 

But then you turned around and saw those damn puppy eyes and all your reservations flew right out of your head. What had they done to him to make him look so broken and lost?

He cupped your jaw with his titanium hand and tilted your head back to press his lips to yours and that was it. You could feel him relax when your breath mingled, his low groan vibrating against your chest as his flesh hand curled over your hip and drove you into him.

“Fuck, honey.” You purred, sighing when he started trailing his lips down your throat and pressed himself even further into you. “Take what you need. It’s going to be ok.”

His breath left him in a deep sigh as he took a beat to gaze at you, his eyes soft when he moved his face back to yours and breathed deeply. Your own hands skimmed up his sides until you could frame his face, skimming your fingertips through his hair and smiling softly as you curled your legs around him. 

Air cooled the wetness between your thighs when he tore your leggings open, his flesh hand dipping between your legs and cupping your throbbing core as he covered your lips with his own. The tip of his cock teased against your clit and he swallowed your sharp gasp, smiling softly and letting out a low whine when he slowly shoved his hips forward until he was fully sheathed in your warmth.

You could tell he was holding back when he started grinding against you at an agonizing pace, relishing the feel of your soft walls clenching around him as he nipped gently at your lips. He screwed his eyes closed when you gripped his hair by the roots and started moving your hips against his, trying to keep himself from going completely feral.

“Baby, hey, look at me.” You cooed, peppering soft kisses all over his face until he dragged his eyelids open and met your gaze. “It’s ok. I want this. You can move.”

“Promise me.” He pleaded, and you could’ve sworn you could see tears brimming in his eyes. 

“Oh, honey.” You probably shouldn’t make any guarantees, but the way he was looking at you made you ache. “I promise.”

He covered your lips with his and let out a low growl, dragging out of you almost fully before slamming forward and making you cry into his mouth when his swollen tip kissed your cervix. The pace he was setting was making it hard for you to stay focused, his pelvis grinding against your clit with each violent shove until your eyes were rolling back in your skull. 

Pleasure started gathering in the pit of your stomach when you collapsed back against your counter, mugs and dishes sliding to the floor and breaking as he fucked into you like it was the last thing he was ever going to do. A low moan left your lips when he ripped your sweater open and curled his body over yours, his mouth immediately finding your nipple and latching on while your back arched you further into him.

He completely lost himself in you. The way your body was responding to him was everything he didn’t know he needed. Every soft whimper and desperate mewl that fell from your lips flooded his veins with warmth until you were the only thing that existed, the soft curves of your body welcoming him like home.

The coil in your stomach finally snapped and you wailed, your body trying to curl back on itself as your vision completely whited out with pleasure. You felt him groan against your chest as you fluttered wildly around him, your body trying to draw him even deeper while you came violently. Then you were flooded with warmth when he filled you with his seed, spilling it deep within your soft walls and collapsing on top of you with a contented sigh as your hands ran through his hair.

He tilted his head up and rested his chin between your breasts, gazing at you lovingly through his lashes as the two of you came down. That look was going to be the death of you, you just knew it. 

“You’re beautiful, you know that?” He sighed, straightening up and pulling your face up to meet his in a soft kiss.

“And you’re dangerous.” You took the edge off your words with a warm smile, opening yourself up to him and letting him stroke your tongue with his until you were whining for him. 

God, you were a stupid woman, but how could you care when he was looking at you like that?

It had been three months of pure bliss. The two of you lost yourselves in each other completely, barely leaving your tiny cabin except for when you would let him hold you as you watched the sun set over the sea. 

You had managed to settle on the name Jamie for him after trying to delve into the recesses of his mind and coming up with nothing. But he liked when you mentioned the name James, and for some reason hearing you call him Jamie always made him smile.

The radio had been extremely quiet ever since the storm. You still had to do your regular check-ins with the SHIELD base in Helsinki, but it was surprisingly easy to keep them off your backs. You’d been doing it for the past three years after all.

And there was nothing from the Soviets. Maybe you should have been a little more concerned, you were playing house with their most valuable asset. But how could you think about that when Jamie was spending most of his time buried between your thighs and taking you apart like it was his job?

Right now he was laying with his head in your lap after you two had spent the whole stormy afternoon tangled together, smiling up at you and letting his eyes drift closed as you read The Hobbit to him. It was his favorite, and you were pretty sure this was that tenth time the two of you had read through it.

You were narrating Bilbo and the dwarves’ adventures in the Mirkwood when you heard your radio crackle to life. You ignored it, that happened sometimes and it was usually just a shipping freighter that had bled into one of your channels.

“Тоска.”

That was a little weird, but you still ignored it, running your fingers through his hair as you continued reading.

“Ржавый.”

Jamie went still for a beat and you barely registered it, continuing your narration as you tucked your legs under you.

“Семнадцать.”

Pain radiated through your arm when he grabbed your wrist suddenly, the bones grinding together and making you hiss when you looked down to see blind panic taking over his face.

“Turn it off.” He gasped, his eyes pleading with you desperately.

“What?”

“Рассвет.”

“The radio, turn it off!” His body jolted off the couch like he had been shot, and you dove towards the radio with a muttered curse as he cried out like he was in pain.

“Печь.”

You scrambled across the cabin, tripping over your feet but managing to reach it and shut it off before any more words could come through. He was panting on the floor when you turned back to him, and you rushed back to curl your body around his. It was everything you could do to keep from crying when he buried his face in your neck and started sobbing, his arms pulling you to him desperately as he tried to calm down.

“Jamie, honey, talk to me.” You ran your hands over his spine in an attempt to soothe him. “What was that?”

“I don’t know.” He was panicking, the only anchor he had right now was you and he was holding onto you like he would never let you go. “I felt like I was losing myself.”

“Shit.” That sounded like a fucking trigger phrase. 

“They know I’m alive.” He tilted his face up to yours and gazed desperately into your eyes. “They’ll come for me.”

A/N: It’s gonna get so bad you guys, but you all asked for this so don’t come for me!

Tags!! (If your name is scored it won’t let me tag you, check your privacy settings!)

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[elianamarie-blog]

Hiii! Can you do one Hyde and y/n are secretly together bc she’s Forman’s sister but Kelso is always flirting with y/n and it upsets Hyde so maybe Kelso and Hyde get into it and they admit they are together?

Yes, baby doll! Thank you for being patient with me <3

Told You So

Steven Hyde x reader

"Hey, good lookin'," Kelso said smoothly to Y/n as he slid in the booth seat of the Hub.

Y/n rolled her eyes at him as she scooted away from him. "Kelso, do you mind? I'm trying to eat here."

"What's a pretty girl like you doing here by yourself?" he asked, completely ignoring her.

"Because I want to be," she said and slammed the book she was reading. "And why are you acting like that? We see each other everyday."

"Yeah, but we're not alone everyday," he replied and scooted closer. "Now we are."

"There's a reason for that, Kelso." She shifted further away from him, closer to the edge, but all that did was make him shift with her. "If Eric found out what you've been trying to do, he'd kick your ass."

"Oh, come on, he doesn't have to know!"

"Kelso, even if we did, you wouldn't be able to keep your fat mouth shut. When you were with Laurie, you announced it to the whole world that you slept with her. I don't need that." She gathered up her stuff and started to head out, but Kelso stood up with her.

"So, you're saying there's a chance?" he grinned stupidly at her.

"No, you dink," she spat and pushed passed him. "I don't like you and I don't want to get with you. Why don't you get that?"

She walked outside while Kelso watched her leave, staring at her ass.

"She totally wants me."

Later in the basement...

"I don't know why he even keeps hitting on me," Y/n said to Donna, Jackie, and Hyde while in the basement. Donna and Y/n sat on the couch, Jackie in the lawn chair, and Hyde in his usual seat. "We've been friends forever and he never looked at me like that until, like, a year ago."

"Well, have you looked in a mirror lately?" Hyde asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"Do you notice your new shirt fillers?"

Y/n looked down at herself, then realized what he meant. "You're saying he's trying to get me in the sack because of my knockers?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying," Hyde grinned. "Even a blind man can see how much you've grown into your shirts."

"Ugh, what a pig," Jackie sneered. "I'm glad I broke up with him."

"Jackie, to be fair, you broke up with him because he cheated on you," Donna pointed out.

"Eh, whatever," Jackie said, flapping her hand to the side.

"Okay, seriously, guys, how do I get him to stop?" Y/n asked, turning the conversation back around. "Eric gets pissed and tells him to shut up, but he finds new ways to still hit on me."

"Tell him to get bent and that you've found someone else," Hyde suggested.

Y/n eyed him suspiciously. "Kelso may be a bonehead, but when it comes to women and sex, he's freaking Sherlock Holmes."

"Well, then lie."

"Lie?" Y/n asked and fully turned to him. "And say what? That I'm seeing someone so back off before he kicks your ass?"

"Exactly."

Y/n thought about it for a minute and then turned to the girls. "What do you girls think?"

Donna and Jackie shrugged.

"It could work," Jackie said.

"I don't think it's a bad idea," Donna responded. "Kelso doesn't like competition. He'll bitch a lot, but at least he'll back off."

Y/n shrugged. "It's worth a try."

"Good," Jackie said and stood up. "I should get going. My mom is going to attempt to make dinner tonight. If you see the fire department at my house, you'll know what happened." She walked over to the door and tugged it open. "But on the bright side, there'll be lots of fireman. Bye!"

"Maybe I can get a piece of that action," Y/n joked, making Donna laugh.

"I better get going too," she said. "I have to meet your brother at the hub for our date."

"Ohhh, where's he taking you? Mt. Hump?" Hyde asked.

"Ew, gross! Hyde!" Y/n shrieked, making Hyde laugh. "That's my little brother."

"Little?" Hyde asked. "You guys are only ten months apart."

"I'm still older by a couple months."

"Whatever you say," Hyde said, unconcerned and crossed his arms.

"Actually, no, he's taking me somewhere else for once," Donna said, grabbing her coat. "He says it's a surprise."

"I can guarantee his surprise is what's in his pants," Hyde said.

Donna rolled her eyes and looked at Y/n. "Good luck with him."

Y/n nodded as she watched Donna leave the basement. She turned back to him who was staring at her through his aviators. "Now I know what's on your mind."

"How could it not be when you're here looking like that," he responded and stood up only to crawl his way onto her, making her lie on her back.

A smirk played at her lips as she reached up and removed his glasses, finally seeing those blown pupils in his baby blue eyes. "Looking like what, Mr. Hyde?"

He growled at the nickname as he dipped his head into her neck, peppering her flesh with light kisses. She closed her eyes and leaned her head to the side to give him more access.

"All hot and don't even know it," he muttered, trailing his hands up her blouse. He brought his face up to meet hers and pressed his mouth against hers.

"You are mine," he growled when he pulled apart from her. "Not Kelso's. Mine."

She nodded. "Now show me just why I'm yours."

The next day...

The gang hung out in the basement as usual as the tv played quietly in the background. Y/n sat on the couch wearing a mini skirt wearing Hyde's Led Zepplin shirt, reading a magazine. Kelso couldn't help but stare at her bare sun kissed legs, his eyes roaming and try to see under her skirt.

"Stop staring at me," Y/n demanded.

"Well, I'm sorry, Y/n, but you're freakin' hot!" he responded.

"Hey, Kelso, have you tried not hitting on my sister?" Eric asked calmly, yet sarcastically.

"I gotta, Eric," Kelso asked. "It's like asking me not to breathe!" He snapped his fingers and pointed at Y/n. "I know! We should do it."

Y/n shook her head, keeping her eyes glued to the magazine. "You are as dumb as you are pretty."

Kelso smirked and leaned on the arm rest next to her, face inches from hers. "So, you're saying I'm pretty?"

She tore her eyes from the magazine and made eye contact with him, noses barley brushing, and glared at him. "Bite me, Kelso," she spit before pushing his face away from hers.

"Is that a promise?," Kelso asked, smirking.

Hyde walked out of his room in that moment, seeing Kelso on the floor and Y/n sitting on the couch. When he moved from behind the couch to his seat, he noticed Y/n wearing his shirt. "Is that my shirt?"

Y/n looked up at him with a hint of innocence in her eyes. "Yeah, I saw it in the dryer and thought it looked comfy. Plus, I thought it'd look good with this skirt. Is that okay?"

"Um," he replied, swallowing thickly as he scanned her body, especially at her smooth and shapely legs. "Yeah. It's whatever."

She grinned at him. "Thank you."

"Whoa," Eric said as he stood from the couch. "Since when do you let chicks wear your shirts?"

Hyde shrugged. "I never had a problem with it to begin with."

"Yes, you did," Donna said with a smile on her face. "You said that no girl will ever your shirts unless you're banging her." Her eyes grew wide as she shot up from her seat. "Are you two sleeping together?!"

"What?" Y/n asked calmly. "Don't be crazy; of course we're not."

"Good, because you know if you were, I'd have to kick your ass, Hyde," Eric said, relief flooding over him as he went over to the fridge to grab a popsicle.

"What's the big deal? It's just a shirt," Hyde replied and set his feet up on the table, crossing his arms. "Besides, I live here. Why would it be weird?"

"I don't know," Fez replied. "I mean it's pretty obvious you have the hots for her."

"Shut up, Fez," Hyde said threateningly. "I do not."

"Oh, sure," he replied quietly.

"So, on this whole doing it," Kelso said and knelt down next to Y/n. "Are we doing it or not?"

Hyde didn't hesitate to reach over and connect his fist as hard he could to Kelso's shoulder.

"Ow, Hyde! What the hell was that for?"

Hyde grinned at his dopey best friend. He tried his hardest not to just beat the ever living hell out of him, but luckily for him, he had a good poker face. "Just love messing with you, man."

Kelso went from offended to laughing in seconds. "That's a good one." He turned back to Y/n. "So, what do you say?"

"You know, you begging me like this is kinda hot," Y/n commented with hooded eyes.

"Oh, yeah?" Kelso asked, shifting to be eye level with her.

"Yeah," she smiled and inhaled deeply.

"Y/n, what the hell are you doing?" Hyde asked.

"Yeah, what he said," Eric said. "Look, I don't need Kelso sleeping with both my sisters AND worry about knocking her up to. It's like a weird porno soap opera."

"You know what also is really hot?" Y/n asked, ignoring her brother and secret boyfriend.

"What?" he giggled, loving how close they were.

"Leaving me alone!" she responded and hit him with the magazine she was holding.

The group chuckled as Kelso stood up. "Damn, Y/n, I just wanted to get a little action!"

"Leave her alone, man. It's like you're deaf," Hyde said, annoyed.

"Hey, I've never given up on a girl before and I'm not going to start now!" Kelso defended.

"Well, you better!" Hyde said, growing frustrated. "I'm tired of hearing this everyday, man. So, shut up and leave her alone before I make you."

"Damn, Hyde, what's got your panties in a twist?" Kelso asked glumly and stood up.

"Nothing. I'm just tired of hearing you everyday trying to get into her pants! So, knock it off!"

"Well, it's not like she's your girlfriend, so you knock it off!" Kelso argued.

"Really? That's the best you can do?" Hyde asked, smirking.

The entire time the two men were arguing, Y/n found herself, staring incredulously at them as if she was a prize.

"Well, I can tell you to get bent and I'll do whatever I like, but I know you'll hit me," Kelso said.

"You just basically said it to me, you moron!" Hyde said, yelling. "And now I'm going to hit you."

Kelso took a couple steps back, backing away from Hyde. "You do that and it will not end well for you."

"Okay, guys stop it!" Y/n shouted, jumping up from her seat. "This isn't cool. Kelso sit down over there," she said pointing to the lawn chair. "And Hyde, sit down over there." She pointed to his usual seat.

Hyde and Kelso glared at each other for a minute.

"Fine," Hyde said and turned around.

"Fine," Kelso repeated and sat down in the lawn chair. "But I think something else that would've been interested to know on what exactly I was going to do."

As everyone looked at him in confusion, Kelso reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of pink panties.

"What the hell, Kelso?!" Y/n shrieked. "Are those my panties?!"

Kelso smirked in victory as he held the panties close to his ear. "What's that panties? You want me to do what to you? Oh, I can't do that. Naughty panties!" He clapped the cotton fabric between his hands and glanced over at Hyde who was practically steaming from the ears.

"You're dead," Hyde spat through gritted teeth and practically lunged at Kelso.

Before Kelso could react, Hyde was on top of him, his fists hitting wherever they would land.

"Hyde! What the--Ow! My eye!" Kelso shouted.

Before Hyde could connect his fist once more, he felt two arms wrap under his arms and around his chest and was pulled off the man.

"Hyde, get off of him before you really hurt him!" Eric shouted, trying to be heard over Kelso's wailing.

"What is it with you?!" Kelso asked. "We're just messing around!"

"No, you're not!" Hyde yelled, ripping himself from Eric's grip. "You're being a complete tool to Y/n."

"Why do you care this much?" Kelso asked with Y/n's panties still in hand. Y/n walked over and snatched her panties back from his grip.

"Because she's my chick, man!" Hyde blurted, but quickly realized what he just said as he saw everyone's wide eyes on him. Except for Y/n who was eyeing her brother.

"She's...she's your...what now?" Eric sputtered.

"Uhm...I meant...she's a--a chick," Hyde said, trying to save himself.

"No, no. No, no. You just she's your chick," Jackie corrected, pointing a finger at him. "Don't try to wiggle yourself out of this one."

"She's...uh--uh...Y/n, a little help here?" he asked his girlfriend who was standing there awkwardly.

"What he meant to say was that as a woman he respects me and he didn't appreciate Kelso's boneheaded advances towards me," she said, rather smoothly even though her voice wavered.

Eric stared at his sister wide eyed with his mouth open. "You guys are dating?"

The couple sighed in defeat as Hyde rubbed his hot neck. "Yeah."

Y/n nodded, trying not to look Eric in the eye.

"Have you two...had s-sex?" Eric stuttered, forcing that image out of his mind.

"Eric!" Donna said. "You don't ask that."

"Do you really want to know that answer?" Hyde asked.

Eric screwed his eyes shut, now the image really colorful behind his eyelids. He shoved the heel of his hand deep into his eyes until he saw different shapes, desperate to erase the unholy sin that was between his sister and best friend.

"How long?" Kelso asked after he was able to get over the initial shock enough to speak.

"About a month," Y/n responded with a strong voice.

"A month?!" Eric cried out. "You've been screwing my sister for a month?! Oh, God." He forced himself to swallow the bile that had risen up his throat.

"You sure it hasn't been longer than that?" Jackie asked. "Because, you know, sometimes, time can feel a lot shorter when you're...having fun."

"Don't call it that!" Eric yelled and eyed the couple who were now standing near each other. "This can't be happening. This can't be happening! My best friend and my sister bumping uglies? Why would you two do this?"

"Because I like him?" Y/n challenged. "And he likes me."

"Yeah, man. We're not just fooling around."

"I don't care what you're doing or not doing!" Eric shouted, face turning red. "You went behind my back and starting dating my sister when you knew it would bother me!"

"Forman--"

"No! Don't even--! You know what? I--I can't stay here. I need some air," Eric said before he stormed out the basement.

The couple looked after him, sighing and turned back to the group.

"By the way, yes, it's been a month," Y/n said, answering Jackie's question.

"Ah, damn!" she replied and pulled out ten dollar bill from her wallet and handed it to Fez.

Fez whooped and gleefully took the money. "Told you!"

I hope you enjoyed this one! Let me know if there is anything I could've added! Thanks for reading my lovely.

[whentheynameyoujoy]

Yup, Sure Was a Finale

I had an epiphany. The reason why I never re-watched the final two parts of Sozin’s Comet even though I’ve popped in episodes at random many times over the years isn’t that I can’t bear the sadness of seeing one of the best, most engaging narratives out there come to an end.

It’s simply that the finale isn’t all that good.

Some honorable mentions of what was enjoyable.

(+) This

Just this.

(+) The Church of Zutara has another convert

“Are you sure they don’t get together?” Hubster, 2020

(+) The tragedy of Azula

And the fact that it’s acknowledged as such. I hope Zuko will do his best to get her help and have a relationship with her…

(+) Sokka being a big bro

And the whole airship sequence in general. It’s wonderfully paced and plotted, with moments of humor, real stakes, Toph being both badass and a scared crying kid, Sokka strategizing and protecting, Suki saving the day, and non-benders being instrumental in thwarting the bad guy firebender’s plans. Would be shame if Bryke never portrayed them this capable ever again…

And now for the main course.

(-) Blink and its over

The wrap-up feels too quick (hashtag Needs More ROtK-style False Endings). A part of this is due to how fast the story goes from the thick of the action to hastily tying up a bunch of loose ends, but the larger issue is how Book 3’s uneven pacing comes home to roost. After spending half a season on filler episodes that at best subtly flesh out established characters while dancing around a huge lionturtle-shaped hole, and at worst contradict the theme of “no one is born bad” with “you’re a hot mess because your great-grandfathers didn’t get along too well”, the frantic “go go go” rush of the second half screeches to a halt with “they won and everyone was happy because now the right people have power and it will be all good from now on yup nothing more to deal with baiiiii”.

Yes, I know, it’s a kids’ show. But goddamn, this particular kids’ show has proven so many times it can do better than the expected tropiness. Showing the characters in their roles as builders of a new world was the least that could have been done.

Oh well!

(-) Ursa

We’ll never know. There will never be a story that delves into this. Yup. Shall forever remain but an intriguing mystery. Is good, though. Mystery is better than a story where Ursa shares her son’s penchant for forgetfulness. Imagine how embarrassing that would be. Speaking of which…

(-) What does Mai see in this jerkbender?

Look, I like to harp a lot on the mess of inconsistent writing that’s Mai but let’s unpack this scene from her perspective, shall we?

Zuko forgot about her! It totally slipped his mind that the one person who prioritized the safety of his dumb ass was rotting in the worst prison in the Fire Nation—because of him! And she was rotting there long enough after the final Agni Kai for the news of Zuko’s upcoming coronation to spread and her uncle to feel sufficiently secure to release her. But then the coronation scene is attended by every single member of Gaang & Friends that was imprisoned?

So what this tells me is that either a) the invasion force had the ability to break themselves out the whole time and for some reason decided not to exercise it until after the war was over, b) Zuko forgot about them as well and no one thought to remind him there were prisons full of POWs until Mai arrived, or, and that’s even better, c) Zuko took care to free every single resistance fighter while making sure Mai would be the one to stay behind bars.

Never thought I’d say this but Mai? Honey? You deserve so much better.

(-) “What does Katara want?”

Asked no one in the writers’ room ever, apparently.

This is not so much anti Cataang as anti romance stories that pay attention to the needs, opinions, and wants of only one partner in general. Over the previous 60 episodes, Katara actively expressed romantic interest in Aang exactly, wait for it,

Once.

And it got retconned out of relevance by the following two interactions where the possibility of a romantic relationship came up, making the Headband dance pretty easy to reclassify as just one of those examples where Aang “teaches” Katara to have fun (as if one of the main obstacles to her having fun wasn’t him constantly fooling around and offloading his duties). And because the writers not only didn’t succeed in portraying Katara’s internal state of mind, but also failed to root her reluctance to pursue a relationship in outside circumstances that could change, her sudden state of unconfused once Aang steps into the spotlight has a single canonical explanation that as much as approaches coherency.

The fact is, though, that trying to interpret canon Cataang from a Watsonian perspective is an exercise in foolishness. Because there is no Watsonian justification for the ship and never has been. Bryke simply conceived of Katara as nothing but a tropey prize for Aang, never saw her as anything beyond that, and were perfectly happy to go on and immortalize her as a passive broodmare for the rest of her life.

And I fully intend to die mad about it.

(-) Iroh dips

OK, it’s been long apparent that the show doesn’t intend to do anything about Iroh’s complicity in AzulOzai’s regime in any meaningful way, and that his sole motivation for doing anything whatsoever is Zuko whom he views as a replacement son which is supposed to be good for some reason. But the finale has him abandon even that, and instead turns him full-on YOLO, idgaf anymore. It really throws Iroh’s supposed love for Zuko into doubt when his last act in the entire show is to take a half-educated 16-year old with no political savvy or an heir to secure a dynastic continuity and plomp him on the throne of a war-mongering imperialist regime where the entirety of the militarist and ruling class is guaranteed to fight him tooth and nail for power.

(I sure hope Mai’s ready to start popping out babies by tea-time otherwise the whole country is fukd in about a week)

Christ, how hard would it be to have Iroh keep the throne warm for a few years while Zuko is getting ready to succeed him? Not only would it make the whole FN reformation bit quite likelier to occur, it would require Iroh’s hedonistic ass to actually sacrifice something for once. And not having Zuko ascend to power, instead spending some time bettering and educating himself first, would be a wonderful message that no matter what you endured and overcame, you never stop growing. A kids’ show, remember?

(-) The conquering of Ba Sing Se

Gee, I feel so blessed to have my attention diverted from battlefields which actually matter to an old dude vanity project I would have been perfectly happy to assume resolved itself off-screen.

The White Lotus in general just bugs me. I was fine with the individual characters and their overall passivity when they were portrayed as lone dissenters living under circumstances where it wasn’t really possible for any single person to mount a meaningful resistance. But as members of a far-reaching shadowy organization that’s left the real fight to a bunch of kids for 59 episodes straight and didn’t turn up until a perfect opportunity presented itself to take control of the largest city in the world and bask in the spotlight?

Yeah, no.

Similarly to the lionturtle-ex-machina, the White Lotus represents a huge missed opportunity for a season-long storytelling. Here’s just a brief list of what they could have been doing throughout Book 3:

orchestrating a Fire Nation uprising;

gathering those directly persecuted by AzulOzai’s regime to help Zuko keep his hold on power once he’s crowned;

establishing themselves as a viable alternative to Ozai;

sabotaging Fire Nation’s war efforts from the inside;

countering Fire Nation propaganda (Asha Greyjoy’s pinecones, anyone?);

running a supply network to alleviate the suffering of Earth Kingdom citizens.

Instead, they sit on their asses until the time comes to claim personal glory.

You know what, good on Bryke for making me conclude that in comparison, the Freedom Fighters were perfectly unproblematic, actually.

(-) Fire Lord Dead-by-Dawn

Yes, a kids’ show, I know! But ffs, this is the same kids’ show that came up with Long Feng and portrayed courtly intrigue, kingly puppets, secret police, spy networks, and information wars. Was it really too much of me to expect something other than “enlightened despot solves everything”? Especially if said enlightened despot has persisting anger issues, no personal support system, no base of followers, and no political experience whatsoever?

If Zuko’s actually serious about regaining the Fire Nation’s honor (i.e. by dismantling the country’s military machine, decolonizing the Earth Kingdom, paying reparations to everyone and their lemur, and funding any and all cultural restoration projects Aang and the SWT come up with), then there is no way, no way in the universe that he doesn’t face a civil war, deposing, and execution within a month.

One reason why his future as a Fire Lord seems rather bleak is that little’s been shown about the actual subjects of AzulOzai’s regime. While we get a vague reassurance that “no Toph, they’re not born bad” (le shockings), they largely remain a voiceless uniform mass of brainwashed clapping seals. What is their view on the Fire Nation’s crimes? Do they associate their condition with their country’s war-mongering? How will they react when Zuko starts dismantling the country piece by piece to rebuild it, bringing it to economic ruin? What will they do when noble Ozai loyalists come out of the woodwork and begin rounding them up under the banner of “Make the Fire Nation Great Again?”

I have no idea, and Zuko doesn’t either because he’s unironically more qualified to rule the Earth Kingdom than his own people.

You know what would have been better? Fire Lord Iroh, White Lotus pulling the strings to maintain the regime, and Crown Prince/People’s Champion Zuko travelling the Fire Nation with Aang and an army of tutors to promote the new boss, only to realize that absolute monarchy is kinda crap for the people he’s one day supposed to rule and gaining their support by ceding some power to them.

I’d laser holes into my TV due to how much I’d enjoy watching that.

(-) All hail Avatar Rock

Literally and metaphorically. Aang doesn’t sacrifice anything, gets everything, and the clever solution of going about getting said everything is handed to him on a silver platter, requiring no active participation on his part whatsoever.

He doesn’t work to unblock his chakras, spiritually or physically.

He only speaks to his past lives to get a pat on the back and a bow-tied solution he could mindlessly follow.

Energy-bending doesn’t require any sacrifice from him, leaves no lasting marks, and only serves for the narrative to praise him as the rare individual that’s unbendable and thus so very very special.

The most infuriating thing is, however, that Aang is clearly shown as being able to beat Ozai without either the Avatar state, or energy-bending.

And he chooses not to. From this moment on, Aang no longer fights to save the world. He fights to preserve his beliefs, going directly against the instructions of his past lives and effectively reneging on his duties as the Avatar.

Again.

It’s not like you can’t portray Aang’s faithfulness to his spiritual beliefs as the key to beating Ozai and saving the world. But that’s not what the show did. There is no link between Aang sparing Ozai and securing a better future, quite to the contrary—Ozai’s survival ends up being a massive problem for the continuation of Zuko’s rule, and consequently a threat to the world at large. His survival benefits Aang and no one else.

Aang’s spiritual purity and his status as a savior of the world are allowed to coexist only due to a deliberate stroke of a writer’s pen.

And I hate it.

Welp, nothing to do about it now except to bury myself up to my tits in fix-it fics I guess.

[imaginethebeautifulworld]

Please please please, may i please request a prussia/reader drabble (oneshot?? what ever is easier for you honestly) for the prompt: “Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear.”?? thank you so much and i love your writings <3

Hello, Lovely~ Wanted to thank you for your patience. Couldn't quite get the perfect scene in mind till about 1:14 am this morning. Hope you enjoy, and thank you for the request!

In a world that never seemed to rest, tranquility had become an elusive mistress, an antiquated ideal that was valuable for its rarity alone. There were many who would never find such a thing, or would be cursed with just a brief glimpse before it slipped away once more, never to return.

Tranquility was a gift, and you had been blessed in multitudes.

A light breeze was rustling the pines towering above you, scents of the nearby stream, forget-me-nots, and the wisps of smoke from the campfire dancing with it.

So tucked away from everything, you couldn't hear any engines, noisy neighbors, or- most fortunately- the impatient pings from your cell demanding your attention. 

It was quiet, as quiet as Nature could be when one is sitting near a babbling brook, their swing squeaking on hinges decades older than themselves, birds of all ages serenading the small patches of sunlight reaching the forest floor.

Your foot trailed along the ground beneath you, a path carving in the soil from the steady back-and-forth of the old wooden swing, your head resting comfortably against Gil's chest.

He had one arm loosely draped on the back of the swing, the other extended as he read his paperback, folded over itself to spare himself a little freedom.

You shifted slightly, just a little, and he instinctively followed, adjusting the blanket across your legs and shifting his own to accommodate your new position, all without once removing his attention from the page.

It was approaching midday, and while you had both agreed on a short hike to visit some waterfall or other, you were finding you had no desire to leave just yet, perfectly content and cozy as you were.

You let yourself relax further, eyes closing as you rested your cheek against his chest, listening to the steady refrain of his heartbeat. 

The familiar, unconscious dance of fingers against your upper arm made you smile, his decision to shift his free arm almost as reflexive as your decision to open your palm and rest it directly over his heart.

In a time not so long ago, the very thought of being alone in the same room as him would have been laughable, and now you were alone together in some ancient hunting cabin, leagues away from civilization, and completely at peace.

It struck you in that moment just how ingrained he was into your life, your sphere, your thoughts. You never could have anticipated this level of intimacy, and the unexpected epiphany of just how vulnerable that made you left you reeling.

"It kind of scares me sometimes," the words slipped out in a sigh, a wisp of a murmur that faded as easily as woodsmoke. They hadn't even been loud enough to disturb a trio of hares near the truck, and when several moments passed, you were beginning to hope Gil hadn't heard them at all.

It was more a rumbling than a fully coherent query that finally answered you, his eyes still firmly affixed to the Greek text before him. "What's that?"

Without fully lifting your head, you shifted your angle, giving you the chance to study his features- the small indents on his nose from wearing his glasses so much the past week, the single, nearly invisible freckle just by his left eye, the patch of chapped skin on his lower lip, the intoxicating and inexplicable gradients of indigoes and crimsons in his irises.

He hid nothing from you, every perceived flaw and weakness completely at your mercy. And to know that he could see through all of your own barriers, knew you in-and-out more than you perhaps knew yourself-

But there was trust there, and something so strong that- even years after first naming it, after first defining it, exploring it, embracing it- still left you breathless, still rendered you speechless.

For a moment, it did exactly that, overwhelming you in a wave of emotion so strong that you could scarcely think in the face of it. 

But it was a familiar feeling, one so commonplace that you simply sighed again, letting it settle over you like an additional blanket, warmth settling in your veins as you relaxed once more.

"It scares me sometimes how in love I am with you." You traced a pattern with your finger against his shirt, eyes focused on the lupine family enjoying vegetable scraps from the night before. "It scares me how vulnerable you make me feel."

But no. Scared wouldn't be quite the right word for how this vulnerability made you feel. Intimidated, perhaps? 

Irregardless, it was such a good feeling, so freeing to be so fully exposed to someone, to know they saw the worst of you and still-

He was resting his head against your own, silence patiently resting between you, the quiet of the forest yet again remaining undisturbed. He had even ceased powering the swing, apart from a small movement with his toes that was likely from his muscle spasms than anything else. You let yourself relax fully, because no matter how suddenly and aggressively this wave of realization had swept you away in its riptide, he would always keep you safe, always anchor you in the face of whatever storms may come.

"You know it's a two-way street, right?"

As if further testament to his knowing you, the words went straight to the core of it all, exposing his own vulnerability to you, proving just how much he had placed his faith in you.

What a perilous place to be, putting so much faith and trust and hope and care and control in someone else's hands, wholeheartedly believing that they will never bring you any harm, that-

"You're not going to leave me, right?"

The question was so sudden, so unexpected, that you took yourself by surprise, not accounting for the deep, tired exhale of the man so gently holding you. "How could you even ask that?"

You started to try taking it back, wishing for all the world you could keep your thoughts more thoroughly reined in, but he was plowing ahead, the arm that had been resting on the swing coming around you, fingers slipping in between your own. "Do you really think I could leave you?"

By all accounts, yes. Yes he could. 

His claim to immortality was shaky at best, and there was no guarantee that he wouldn't get bored of you, that someone pushing near 1,000 would wake up one morning and realise that-

"Where the Hell is all of this coming from anyway?"

You gave it a half a moment of thought, and soon found yourself melting in defeat. "I wish I had an answer, but I honestly have no idea."

He resumed his earlier motion, putting the swing back into a steady glide. When he spoke again, it was as if he were reaching across centuries, finding just the right words out of billions to try to comfort you. "To quote some book I read in some teahouse somewhere quite a long ass time ago: 'Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own.'" Here he paused, a good six seconds of silence as he rooted himself once more to the present, voice lowering to a whisper. "Leaving you? Losing you? It would be like losing a part of myself, like losing the best parts of myself."

He paused again, a seriousness that was only just familiar to you making an appearance, a depth to his words that made your toes curl. "I was lost for centuries, Schatz, never realizing or accepting just how alone I was, how fucked up I was. I waited for you for ages, and didn't even know how badly I needed you until I finally met you. It was like everything I had done, everything I had gone through, suddenly made sense. You were- are- the very thing I was fighting so hard for."

For claiming to have not a hint of romance in him, he still always seemed to have the perfect strategy for disarming you, for charming you, for leaving you even more infatuated with him than you were mere minutes before.

But this pedestal that he had carved for you, these expectations- 

"I'm only human, Gil."

"I know," he murmured.

"I could still get sick-"

"I know," he sighed.

"Or hurt-"

"I know," he growled.

"Or di-"

"I know!"

His exasperation was so unexpected that you swore the whole world had frozen around you, as if the tranquility of the forest had finally been disturbed. 

But no- 

Everything was still exactly as should be; it was only your surprise that had affected your perception. 

In actuality, his interjection had been scarcely more than a rasp, so damaging to you alone as it cut straight through to your soul, piercing through what little armor you still had against him.

He squeezed your hand, an apology conveyed simply through touch, an armistice accepted and strengthened through reciprocation. "'Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own,'" came the quiet refrain, each syllable accented through the dance of his thumb against your palm, each syllable a soft breath that tickled your scalp. You expected him to stop there, his point well made, but soon enough he was murmuring again, words nearly a hum. "'In pain and sickness they would still be dear.'"

You couldn't place the words- who knew if a copy of that book even existed anymore- but it didn't matter. They were exactly what you had needed, the balm for a restiveness that you hadn't even known was plaguing you till a few moments ago. And what's more, you never knew Gilbert to exaggerate, not when it came to matters of the heart. He knew no other option than complete sincerity, maddening some days, endearing most others.

Thoughts shifting, comfort once more reestablished, you shifted slightly, turning your attention to the few clouds you could see through the canopy. "Every atom, huh?"

There was a huff of a laugh, an accentuated exhale that highlighted his exasperation, but the amusement in his reply was tempered by fondness, highlighted with a small kiss above your ear. "Every proton, neutron, electron... Every single quark, if you need me to get technical," he finished in a whisper, slowly, gently, reassuringly, practically an embrace on its own.

You melted against him, giving his hand a small squeeze of gratitude, thoroughly reminded now of exactly why it was okay to share your vulnerabilities, how lucky you were to have found him, to be found, to trust and fall and grow together.

Tranquility eventually, quietly, made her reappearance, bringing with her the blessing of the midday sun.

Thanks for reading!

[phandompenny]

Rauch, Jones, Munday Final Lair

I liveblogged the final lair as seen from here, Geronimo Rauch has a more  violent take on the phantom and I found it was really interesting how it affected the show.

I like how he tries to stroke her cheek in "joys of the flesh" and she flinches away.

she looks so terrified. like she legitimately fears being killed here. and his voice is tender and pleading up until "pity comes too late", and then he’s just firm

it feels like he's not even listening to her in "this haunted face..." he's just looking at her and arranging her with the bouquet and admiring her dressed as his bride

His way of speaking is so musical and where he puts his inflections is so interesting. you can see him becoming the showman when raoul comes. and his little laugh at "your lover makes a passionate plea" and he keeps laughing after!

points at face in "the world showed no compassion to me" but he still sounds so amused. he has the upper hand and he knows it.

he laughs after he puts the noose on raoul!!!!

oooh you can see the lightbulb go off in his mind at "except perhaps christine" like oh! bonus blackmail! this is great!

he's so proud of this he has to take a little breather after "point of no return" and goes to look at his music again

he's not even LISTENING to her he looks a little surprised when she sings "HATE" his mind's so caught up in his grand plan

he moves towards raoul and christine yells NO and gets between them oh very good

he grabs her into an almost hug at "do you end your days with me" and it would be a cheek caress if he wasn't physically keeping her from breaking away

we get a "no" after "why make her lie to you to save me" like "that's not what will happen! she won't be lying" but he's beginning to doubt

it's a rather quick realization as he realizes oh shoot it wOULD be a lie and he's not happy with that. his last "past the point of no return" ends in a sob

her “angel of music” is so ANGRY it’s fantastic. it’s like she sees that she’s finally getting through to him now. it's like she's using what she knew he'd listened to before: "angel of music" as an "oh? so you'll only listen to me if i'm singing what you want me to? playing the role you wanted me to be in?"

"you deceived me" also gets another "no" from him

oh gosh he does a gentle chin lift and THEN he chokes her. wraps his hand fully around her throat at “you try my patience”

and he staggers back and stares at his hand in horror

you can see him mouthing "no" at himself before "pitiful creature" like he's trying to deny what he just did. at the "what kind of life have you known" you can see he's shaken and questioning what kind of future they'll know. he's breathing heavily and trying to not panic. he keeps flexing the hand that he'd wrapped around her throat. like he can still feel it there

he was NOT expecting that kiss he flinches downwards from the first kiss. and just stares at her before the second like he's seeing her for the first time

he's taller for the second one. and his hands reach up to cover hers before he pulls away

he examines her hand after the kiss, just staring at her in disbelief. i do feel like it's 50% can't believe she touched him so gently and 50% looking for bruises. checking to make certain that he didn't hurt her more

and then he stares at her face and walks away. and then looks down at his hand (the strangling hand)

she runs for raoul and he stops her with a "NO! no" making her stay back before burning the rope

the "take her" is so firm. said in the same way he'd say "protect her"

hearing the mob gets us a covering ears along with the "leave me alone" and he's starting to break

OH he loosens his collar and undoes it! he's finding it hard to breathe

he’s no longer collected no longer in control because he’s realized the only way he can maintain control is through violence and he’s horrified at himself for that

at "angel in hell" this might just be a coincidence but he moves his hand (the strangling hand) up to his own throat for a moment. mimicking what he'd done to her earlier

christine screams when he runs at them!!! and they are RUNNING they KNOW their lives are in danger

oh this man is Not Okay. he crawls on all fours to that monkey music box

his "hide your face" is whispered to the monkey as his hand barely manages to come up and touch the monkey's face before dropping away. of note is how gently he's touching the monkey. like he's afraid to let his hands touch it

he hears christine and scrambles up to see her. and he nods to her as she walks up to him but he does NOT think she's staying. that nod is more like an "it's okay you can say what you need to" nod. which, as this is a phantom with little to no listening skills, is pretty significant. he's listening now, even though it's already too late.

she holds out the ring and he just stares at it like "i don't care about that" and he doesn't reach out for it! he actually steps back a little before the "christine i love you"!!! i also feel like he emphasizes that "you" like it's HER that he loves. not the ring not the marriage but HER.

he gives her such a sad nod but she doesn't leave. you can see him go "since you insist" before reaching out to her, with both hands, tenderly covering her own

okay. so the angle of this boot made this tricky to see. but for a moment there it looked like he was examining her ring finger and i thought he took the ring and put it back on her. i don't think they actually did that because he's holding the ring when she runs off but for a moment there i got so excited can you IMAGINE

but since he didn't put the ring back on and clearly did move her hand my theory now is that he's looking at her hand again just like he did after the kiss. he's taking this as an invitation to feel her touch one last time. she puts the ring in his hand because he wasn't going to take it. (and if you want additional angst he might be imagining what it would take to keep her, how that hand would look covered in bruises)

he still holds his hand out to her when she leaves, but more like he's trying to ask if she really meant to leave this ring with him. not like he's trying to reach for her to come back. and we get another "no" as he bends over in physical pain realizing she's not ever coming back again before putting the ring on

AAA he reaches out for her when she's singing on the boat, but then shakes his head and pulls back! and then stares at his hands again before going for the veil!!!

you can see him reminding himself that these hands have hurt her, that he doesn't deserve her, that letting her go is the best way to love her. I'm very in pain

In conclusion this is a fantastic final lair, I absolutely love how Jones plays a Christine who’s very aware of the danger and yet trying to just make him listen to her and Rauch plays an Erik who is dangerous and a very real threat. Even when he’s not near or touching Christine or Raoul you can tell this is a man who has killed before and will kill again, and the realization he has that any affection he gets from Christine will stem from hurt and fear is what breaks him. This Erik does not want her to stay because he knows she deserves better and wants her to be safe, and he knows he can’t guarantee that she’ll be safe around him. If you haven’t already I recommend you give it a watch!

[ianthe-is-a-bitch-and-i-love-her]

On Education

An excerpt from Memoirs of a Flesh Eater, never published.

Previous Excerpt

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I think every parent struggles with the question of when they should teach their children hard truths. At some point, every child needs to learn about death. They need to learn about hatred. They need to learn about the horrors people will inflict on them for being different. This is something that is as true for ghouls as it is for humans. For most people, it is a fact of life that someone will hate you for existing.

Human-on-human prejudice is still something I don’t fully understand. At least humans have a reason to hate us. I don’t know why they go looking for reasons to hate each other too.

Educating ghouls is a challenge. We need to know about ourselves, of course. We need to know about our kind - our needs, our history, our ways of moving through human society - but we need to learn everything that humans learn too. The more we can fit seamlessly into the human world, the safer we are. You probably don’t know this, what with how much the news loves a story about a ghoul living in secret among humans, their murders exposed to the shock of their friends and acquaintances, but those of us who are brought up among humans don’t get found out very often. It’s the feral children, the big city packs that still hunt most of their food, the all-ghoul communes, that are easier targets for the exterminators. Those of us that are fully integrated are much harder to sniff out, unless we seriously fuck up.

{Editing Note: Don’t say fuck. Even though it’s a really good word}

The best way to make sure a ghoul can pass as human is to start us young. Get us into kindergarten, then elementary school, and keep going all the way through college. There’s nothing better than hands-on training. That’s what my mom did for me, mostly. I was raised in human society, in the human public school system, and I’ve never had a true close call. I’ve never caught the eye of an exterminator, and no human has ever asked me pointed questions about my habits or diet.

For the sake of completeness, I should say that I was in the human public school system for everything except for middle school. It’s not like that’s a great loss, though - everything I’ve heard about middle school sounds like hell. I don’t know how any of you survived going through puberty in front of all your peers.

{Editing Note: I am not talking about ghoul puberty unless I can find a reliable human to tell me what their puberty was like. If I wrote about something that I thought was ghoul-specific but is actually normal I’d die on the spot. I’d call a fucking exterminator on myself.}

Conventional schooling might be the best setup for success, but it’s also the most dangerous route. Kids talk, and that’s as true for us as it is for you. It takes a lot of work to make a child understand that there are some things you can never tell anyone, not even your closest friends, not ever. It’s not a fun burden to grow up carrying either. I’ve known the fear of death for literally longer than I can remember. I’ve known that letting myself be truly honest and vulnerable with any of my classmates would bring it to me and my parents before the day was over {Editing Note: True vulnerability is what I need now, though. I should find a place to talk about my dad}. It’s more loneliness than any child should ever grow up with. I was lucky; I found Scarlet in 4th grade. There are plenty of ghoul children that don’t find each other until high school, if there are even any other ghoul children to be found.

Some parents decide that the risk is too great. They’d rather have alive children than well-adjusted children, so they homeschool them {Editing Note: Okay, that’s way too harsh. Don’t be biased}. I did get to experience this approach for those couple of years when I wasn’t in middle school, and it does have some advantages other than safety. When I was in public school, my mom had to find time after school to teach me about our people. In a homeschool setting, ghoul studies could actually be integrated into our curriculum. It wasn’t completely asocial, either - ghoul parents often use their Society connections to find other ghoul children that are homeschooling so we can learn together. I met my second best friend, Scorpio, because we were homeschooled together.

{Editing Note: My friends are going to read this. I need to make it super clear that Scorpio is the second best friend I made chronologically. I’m not ranking my friends in front of the entire world.}

Scorpio’s a good friend, but he’s also a good case study for the drawbacks of homeschooling. He was homeschooled K through 12 and he is definitely the worst of my friends at passing. He has no idea what’s normal for ghouls vs normal for humans, so he compensates by either saying nothing or saying the most obvious, outlandish lies you could imagine when childhood comes up in conversation. In his defense, those lies are usually pretty funny, and he does connect pretty well with the right kind of people. Scorpio’s got a bunch of very specific subjects that he knows a ton about and loves to talk about. He and Scarlet can go on for hours about literary theory.

{Editing Note: That’s too meandering. I’m just trying to explain why some ghouls homeschool and some don’t - I don’t need to put my weird friends on blast.}

There’s another kind of formal schooling for ghouls that’s much, much rarer - the ghoul private school. The only one I even knew of, St. Raymond’s, was shut down last year by exterminators. Normally I’d tell you to take the lurid details you hear on the news with a healthy pinch of salt, and I still would, but that many rich young ghouls, completely cut off from the rest of humanity… it’s hard to predict what becomes normalized in that kind of echo chamber.

Fortunately, my patron knows more people than I do, so I have more to offer you than grim speculation. According to her, these kinds of places always have a very small student body, rarely breaking a hundred. The lesson content is pretty similar to homeschool - fully integrated ghoul curriculum, plus a few specialized lessons on blending into human society. Out of necessity, they’re almost always boarding schools. It’s easier to keep a low profile if you don’t have a bunch of ghoul kids not used to hiding going to and from the campus every day.

Apparently, it’s that kind of logistical challenge that makes these schools so rare. Aside from all the money you need to run a school in the first place, and how careful you need to be to pass scrutiny from the Board of Education, providing discretely for the needs of that many ghouls is an organizational nightmare. I mean, there’s a reason that ghoul families are so small, a reason why even our extended households rarely do more than scrape the double digits. There’s only so much flesh that can be safely obtained in one area at a time. There aren’t a lot of ghouls that have the resources and the inclination to put one of these schools together.

There is, of course, one more ways that ghouls are educated - the school of hard knocks {Editing Note: That’s such a trivializing way to put it. Have some sensitivity, me}. Given how short our average life expectancy is, it’s inevitable that some ghoul children have to fend for themselves from a very young age. I doubt it comes as a surprise that most of them don’t manage to integrate into human society very well. The lucky ones figure out early on how to kill discreetly, how to hide their nature from observers, and how to vary their hunting patterns enough to avoid the attention of the exterminators. The rest either starve quietly or die violently.

Most of these feral ghouls who survive to be teenagers eventually find each other and form packs. From a pure survival standpoint, this is a bad move. A group of feral teenage ghouls have a much harder time covering their tracks than they would as individuals, but for most, the chance at companionship is too tempting. It’s miserable, being alone in the world. Packs offer most of them the best chance to escape loneliness that they’ll ever get. And for most of them, it ends in a shallow grave within a year. Putting down a pack of feral ghouls is a good headline for an exterminator, and it’s a lot less work than trying to ferret out those of us who’ve figured out how to pass. That isn’t how the majority of ghouls die, but it’s how a plurality of us do.

For those few feral ghouls that survive to adulthood, their lives take one of three paths. Sometimes they find a patron and fall in with a household, and they do their best to heal from the trauma of their childhood. They do their best to find a happy life in human society, just like those of us who were luckier. Sometimes they become true Hunters, living their lives on the outskirts of our Society; still embraced by us, if only at an arm’s length. I’ll talk more about them later.

And sometimes, they become the Lost. Not that ghouls from any walk of life are immune to that fate, but… I’ll get to them later too. You may not have heard of them by that name, but I guarantee you’ve heard of the Lost.

{Editing Note: That’s a really grim note to end the chapter on. I should play with the structure a bit and find a more uplifting note to leave this subject on.}

{Editing Note: Or I could ask Kestrel. I’m sure she’d have ideas on how to better write the section on feral ghouls, and she could help me strike a more authentic tone. But… I don’t want to upset her. She doesn’t like to think about it, and I don’t want to hurt her. Is this important enough? Would she think it’s important enough?}