#no what do you mean 'Zero this is just you'

[egophiliac]

So.... what are your thoughts on Ace's UM, if you haven't been asked this already?

sneaky magic for the sneakiest boy

no but really, I think it fits him really well! I had thought his UM would probably involve something kinda sleight-of-handy or pickpockety! and I looooved that it made such a nice loop-around back to episode 1. ❤️ I was. kind of half-expecting him to just run out and punch Riddle in the nose again. but instead this time 'twas he who offed the queen's head! it was great! and he did it while stone-cold terrified out of his mind! because Ace is the only remotely normal or well-adjusted person at NRC and therefore the only one who is like "we're going to literally die, this is super effed up". but he did it anyway!!!! I AM SO PROUD

[markrosewater]

I want to speak out against the whole push towards DEI. I feel that ever since you made the push to make identity the forefront of a character it has hurt the stories you tell. Captain Sisay's race was never the focus of her character and she was a complete badass! And I fear if you did it over again Gerrard would be trans, black and disabled just because. It also cheapens the stories of world devastation when characters worry more about their gender than Bolas destroying everything.

The reason I started this blog is so we can have frank conversations about things, so please let’s talk about this.

Imagine if every time you turned on the TV or watched a movie, no one looked like you. For some of us, that’s never happened. We see ourselves constantly, so it’s hard to truly understand what not seeing yourself represented in media is like.

I do have a personal window to this experience. While I am white and male, there’s an area where I am the minority - my religion. Jews are just under two and a half percent of the US population. I have had many experiences where I’ve been in situations where everything is geared towards a group I do not belong to, and zero consideration is given that not everyone at that event is part of the majority.

You just feel invisible and like an outsider. It’s not a great feeling. And I just experience it a tiny portion of time, only things that are geared specifically towards something religious. Most minorities have this feeling all the time, whenever they’re outside their personal community.

Now imagine, after years of not seeing yourself ever, you finally see someone that looks like you, but nothing about the character rings remotely true. They don’t sound like you, they don’t act like you, the facts about their day-to-day life are just wrong. It’s clear whoever wrote the character didn’t truly understand the lived experience of the character, so the character feels fake.

You bring up Sisay. Michael Ryan and I didn’t technically create Sisay (she played a small role in the Mirage story), but we did do a lot to flesh out her character as the creators of the Weatherlight Saga. We turned her from a minor character into a major one.

And while I’m proud, in general, of our work on the Weatherlight Saga, I don’t think we did justice to Sisay as a character. Neither Michael nor I have any knowledge of what it’s like to be a black woman. Nor did we ever talk to someone who did.

And if you’re someone like us that has no knowledge of that experience, you probably didn’t notice. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.

Imagine if we made a movie about your life, and we just made everything up. We invented people you never knew, we gave you a job you never had, and we had you say things you’d never say. The movie might even be a good movie, but your response would be, but that’s not my life - that’s not me.

Now imagine we put the movie out, and people that never met you assumed that was what you were like. When people met you for the first time, they assumed things, because, you know, they’d seen the movie.

That’s what misrepresenting people does. It not only makes them feel not seen, it falsely represents them, spreading lies, often stereotypes, making people believe things about them that aren’t true.

Our move towards diversity is just us trying to better reflect the world and the people in it. We’re trying to do to everyone else what a certain portion of people get every day without ever having to think about it.

But why are we “making it the forefront of their character”? We’re not. We’re making it a part of their character. But in a world where you’re not used to ever seeing it, it feels louder than it is. Things that are a natural part of the world that you’re used to feel like the background of the story because you understand the context to it.

If a man kisses his wife before going off to a battle, that’s not a big deal. It’s just a thing a husband might do to his wife when he leaves. It’s not the forefront of his character. It’s just part of his life. But you’ve seen it hundreds of times, so it feels normal.

When someone does something that isn’t your lived experience it pulls focus. It seems like a big deal, but only because it’s new to you. It’s just as mundane a thing to that character as the man kissing his wife is to him.

Even the turn “pushing” implies that it’s unnaturally here, that we’re forcing something that naturally shouldn’t be. But why? That thing exists naturally in the real world, and it doesn’t make the real world any less. Maybe you’re less aware of it, but is making you aware of how others live their life “pushing” something on you?

How you live your life is represented constantly, everywhere. Why isn’t over-representing your experience at the expense of everyone else’s “pushing” it? Why is media only being the experience of those in power the “proper way”?

Having more depth and variety doesn’t lessen stories. It makes them deeper, more rich, more nuanced. In short, it makes them better stories. In my former life, I was a professional writer. I took a lot of writing classes. One of the truism of writing is “speaking truth leads to better stories”.

There’s another famous quote: “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” You’re used to being over-represented, so being a little less over-represented feels like something has been taken from you. But really it hasn’t. Having a better sense of the rest of the world comes with a lot of benefits.

I’ll use food as an example. Let’s say all you were ever exposed to was the food of your heritage. Yeah, that food is really good, but sometimes isn’t it nice to eat foods of other nationalities? Isn’t your life better that you have a choice? Isn’t your exposure and access to the food of other nationalities a positive in your life?

Exposure to variety is a positive. It allows you to learn about things you didn’t know, experience things things you’ve never experienced, and get a better sense of understanding of your friends and neighbors.

Our actions are not to harm anyone, and if you think that’s what we’re doing, please take a minute to actually absorb what I’m saying. You’ve spent your whole life metaphorically eating one type of food, and we’re just trying to show you how much you’ve missed out on.

And while this might not impact you directly, we’re making a whole bunch of people felt seen. We’re bringing joy. Think of it this way. We make a lot of cards. Not every card is for you. But if it makes someone else happy, if they get to include it in a deck, and it makes Magic better for them, how is it harming you that we include it? You have so many cards that you can play.

To this poster or people that share their viewpoint, the narrative that a gain for someone else is an attack on you is just not true. As I just pointed out above, you play a game all about personal choice, about players getting to choose how they play and enjoy the game. Why should life be any different than Magic?

Thanks for reading.

[incorrectbatfam]

What would the Bat-Kids do if they found out Joe Chill, the guy who shot Bruce’s parents, had escaped from Arkham Asylum?

- Do they tell Bruce?

- Or do they go after Joe without telling him?

Joe Chill: *leaving his cell*

Riddler: Riddle me this: who has two thumbs and is making a rather feeble escape attempt?

Joe Chill: Be quiet.

Two-Face: You killed Thomas and Martha Wayne. They gave you two life sentences.

Joe Chill: If you shut up, you can come with me.

Joker: No thanks. What you did wasn't funny, just wrong.

Scarecrow: The murder clown has a point, I fear.

Mr. Freeze: We may be enemies to the public, but that doesn't mean our standards have to be absolute zero.

Joe Chill, scoffing: Your loss.

Clayface: *thumbs down*

Killer Moth: *starts booing*

Condiment King: Get back in your cell. I saved the sauce packets from lunch and I'll use them.

Joe Chill, returning to his cell: Man, even the ketchup guy?

[mortalityplays]

thanks for the bad faith reading. you're wrong, btw.

I aready said this isn't a semantic thing, but you if you really want to go there: 'zine' is a shortening of fanzine or magazine and the concept of a 'fanzine' itself is directly derived from a style of independently published magazine that has roots at least as far back as the Harlem Renaissance and arguably the political pamphleteering of the french and american revolutions. but the actual point I was making is that the entire ethos of zine making originates in an effort to broaden access to publication, and we are losing that.

am I saying nobody ever slapped a $20 cover price on a zine before the 2020s? no! am I saying no influential underground publication has ever made the crossing into fully fledged magazine? no! am I saying I will come to your house and punch your teeth in personally if you use the word zine in a way I find objectionable? no! I'm saying the trajectory of commercialisation, professionalisation and lost knowledge is not only stripping foundational meaning from the form but directly harms the viability of low-overhead zine production. just look through the notes of this post for dozens of people saying they'd never heard of the homemade zine before this post, that they'd been burned by high production 'zine' projects and soured on the whole concept as a result. no equivocation: this shit is killing the medium.

but hey, maybe the $15 zine is the norm and I'm just pearl clutching because I don't like genshin impact or whatever. let's look at the cover prices of some historically important zines at launch:

oh sorry, my bad, these aren't 'fanzines' let's try again

mm but of course the very first fanzines ever published would be cheap and amateur, the form was still being figured out. what about the one everyone on tumblr loves to call the birth of fandom:

well fine, but what about zines that deal with serious social issues? that involve research, outreach, even risk on the part of the creators?

believe it or not (or refuse to believe it) but the history of zines is not the history of bag-getters. accessibility has always been the lifeblood of the form, and that includes financial accessibility.

I have zero fucking power to wave a wand and magically exclude everyone whose projects I think are tacky from using the term 'zine', but what I can do is appeal to people to remember that being asked to submit a portfolio for consideration is the exception, not the norm. gloss covers and kickstarter tiers with vinyl keychains and custom wall art is a new and alien graft on a very old medium. being treated like a subcontractor on a 50-person art collaboration that will only be affordable to middle class kids with middle class disposable income runs entirely counter to what used to be the definitional feature of zine making. sure I'm being intractable. I think we should all be a lot more intractable about this. we saw what happened to webcomics.

the whole point of a zine is that it's cheap to produce, amateur and homemade. if you're being asked to apply to participate in a print project, it is not a zine. if the final product is being printed and bound professionally, it is not a zine. if you are being asked to enter into any kind of licensing agreement more complex than "my work can be reproduced as part of this publication" it is not a zine. nine times put of ten if the final product costs more than $5 you have left zine country. im so serious about this.

[p0orbaby]

Like can we pls pls pls pls pls get a smut where Reader sees alexias new photos for nike (though she had shown to reader some they did had the edit the impact you know) reader getting all hot and bothered and jumps on alexia qhen she gets home like do it everything with me

it’s not smut because i’ve got to save some material for bitter sweet

shameless plug

-

The day is, for the most part, unremarkable.

You wake up at 07:26, which is two minutes before your alarm, which is irritating because you could have had those two minutes. You stare at the ceiling for a moment, assessing your bodily functions—slight stiffness in your neck from the way you slept, residual warmth from the duvet, a faint need to pee but not urgent enough to act on. Alexia is still asleep next to you, her breathing slow and deep. There’s a dent in the pillow from where she’s been lying, a strand of hair curling across her cheek. You could stay here, watch her, but then your alarm does go off, and reality intrudes.

You shower, make coffee, scroll absentmindedly through your phone, thumb moving in automatic, practised motions. You see the photos at exactly 08:02.

And that’s when everything changes.

At first, your brain doesn’t fully register what you’re looking at. There’s a moment of lag, like a buffering screen, a stutter in your synapses. Then the full weight of it hits, and it’s like being smacked in the face with a sledgehammer. A very attractive, well-lit sledgehammer.

It’s Alexia. Obviously, it’s Alexia. But it’s Nike Alexia.

Sweaty. Flexing. Half-naked.

Her abs look like they’ve been sculpted by the gods. Her arms—veins subtly pronounced, muscles taut, defined—are a work of art. There’s a slight sheen of sweat on her skin, catching the light in a way that feels almost… obscene. Her gaze is focused, intense, fixed down the lense, like she’s contemplating the meaning of life but also potentially about to fight someone.

You stare. Then you blink. Then you stare again.

Something warm pools low in your stomach, and your grip on your phone tightens. You have seen Alexia naked. Repeatedly. You live together. You have firsthand knowledge���intimate, detailed knowledge—of every inch of her body. And yet, somehow, these photos manage to feel like a personal attack.

Your first thought is: How dare she?

Your second thought is: I need to sit down.

Which you do, heavily, onto one of the kitchen stools. Your coffee is abandoned, cooling rapidly. The world outside continues as normal—birds chirping, distant traffic noise, the faint hum of the fridge—but your internal landscape has been irrevocably altered.

You should say something. React. But words fail you, so instead, you just keep staring, swiping through the photos in what can only be described as a state of near-religious awe. You don’t even realise you’re making a noise—somewhere between a sigh and a groan—until you hear movement behind you.

Then, her voice, still thick with sleep.

“What are you looking at?”

Your soul leaves your body.

You exit out of the app too quickly, fumbling with your phone like a guilty teenager caught watching something they shouldn’t be. Which is ridiculous. You are an adult. You are in a committed relationship with this woman. There is no reason for you to be acting like this.

And yet.

“Nothing,” you say, entirely unconvincing.

Alexia pads barefoot into the kitchen, wearing one of your T-shirts, her hair slightly messy. She yawns, stretching, and your eyes immediately zero in on the movement, the flex of muscle beneath skin. It is unfair that she looks this good first thing in the morning. Unethical, even.

She squints at you, then at your phone. “Why do you look like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’ve seen God.”

You take a slow, steadying breath.

“Not God,” you say. “Just Nike’s new campaign.”

She blinks. Then, the smirk starts, slow and knowing. “Ah.”

“Don’t ah me,” you say, pointing accusingly. “This is your fault.”

“My fault?” She moves to the fridge, retrieving the orange juice. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You posed.”

She laughs, pouring herself a glass. “I did.”

“You flexed.”

“I did.”

“You—” You gesture vaguely, helplessly. “You glistened.”

She tilts her head, amused. “That’s usually what happens when you’re sweating.”

“I don’t sweat like that,” you say, almost mournful. “I sweat like a normal person. You sweat like—like—” You pause, struggling to find the words. “Like a Nike advert.”

Alexia sips her juice, looking infuriatingly pleased with herself. “That’s convenient.”

You exhale sharply, dropping your head onto the counter. “I need help.”

“Probably.”

Silence stretches. You can feel her eyes on you, can hear the faint clink of her glass as she sets it down. Then, her voice, softer now, but with an unmistakable thread of amusement.

“Do you want me to sign one for you?”

Your head snaps up. “What?”

She gestures toward your phone. “A print. I can sign it for you. Make it personal.”

You gape at her, scandalised. “Do I look like the kind of person who would have a signed picture of their girlfriend?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“You have my old Barça jersey framed.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“It’s—” You flounder. “It’s memorabilia. Historic.”

She raises an eyebrow. “So these pictures aren’t historic?”

“Not unless I drop dead from looking at them,” you mutter.

Alexia grins. “Want me to flex for you right now?”

You make a noise that is neither dignified nor human.

Alexia laughs. It’s light, teasing, but there’s something else behind it, something knowing. She closes the small distance between you, leans in, voice low.

“You’re blushing.”

“I’m not,” you lie.

Her hand brushes your arm, slow, deliberate. “You are.”

You swallow. Your mouth is dry. Your heart rate is—scientifically speaking—fucked.

This is fine. This is manageable.

Then, she actually flexes.

And you black out.

Metaphorically.

Mostly.

[jiminomenon]

how would jimin react if one day yn came into work with lipstick stains/hickeys on her? would she be jealous or upset

from my series: the devil wears prada

y/n didn’t think much of it when she stepped into jimin’s penthouse that morning. she was running on four hours of sleep, an empty stomach, and a mildly burned neck from rushing through her morning routine. she barely even looked in the mirror before heading out—too focused on not being late.

jimin, however, noticed immediately.

the second y/n stepped inside, jimin’s eyes zeroed in on the faint reddish mark near her collarbone. she was lounging on her expensive white couch, one manicured hand holding a coffee cup, the other lazily scrolling through her phone.

“what the hell is that?”

y/n blinked, still half-asleep. “what?”

jimin set her coffee down, sitting up straight. “on your neck.”

y/n frowned and instinctively reached up, fingers brushing against the small burn. “oh. it’s nothing—”

“nothing?” jimin scoffed. “it doesn’t look like nothing.”

y/n, still groggy, didn’t process the way jimin’s voice shifted—the slight edge, the way her usual bratty tone was just a bit sharper.

“it’s just a burn,” y/n yawned, setting her bag down on the counter. “from my straightener.”

jimin didn’t look convinced. “really.”

“yes, really.”

silence.

jimin’s gaze flickered to the mark again, her fingers twitching slightly—like she wanted to reach out and inspect it herself but refused to make it that obvious. her mind, however, was already running wild. because what if y/n was lying? what if—no.

jimin leaned back against the couch, crossing her arms. “well, it looks like something else.”

y/n, still completely oblivious, simply grabbed a tablet from the counter and started scrolling through the day’s schedule. “yeah? like what?”

jimin’s jaw tightened. “like a hickey.”

y/n froze.

slowly, she turned to look at jimin, eyebrows raising. “a what?”

“you heard me.” jimin huffed, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “i don’t know what you were doing last night, but you should at least try to cover it up. it’s unprofessional.”

y/n blinked, then—oh.

the realization hit her all at once.

she looked at jimin, really looked at her—the crossed arms, the slightly pursed lips, the way her usual smug expression was forced rather than natural. and then there was the way her gaze kept flickering back to y/n’s neck, like she couldn’t help herself.

oh, this was good.

y/n bit back a grin. “huh. didn’t know you cared so much about my personal life.”

jimin scoffed. “i don’t.”

“mmhmm.”

“i just don’t want people thinking my assistant is running around with—” she waved a hand vaguely, ”—whoever, when she should be focused on me.”

“focused on you?” y/n teased, tilting her head.

jimin glared. “you know what i mean.”

“i really don’t.”

jimin let out an exasperated sigh, standing up abruptly. “whatever. if you want to flaunt your little love bites around like an idiot, be my guest.”

y/n snickered. “you’re jealous.”

“am not!”

y/n hummed in amusement, setting her tablet down before walking right up to jimin, closing the distance between them. jimin didn’t step back, but her jaw did tighten just a little.

“relax,” y/n smirked. “it’s really just a burn. unless you want it to be something else?”

jimin narrowed her eyes. “you’re annoying.”

y/n grinned. “and yet, you’re the one who noticed it first.”

jimin opened her mouth to argue but ultimately just huffed and turned on her heel, walking away dramatically. “i don’t care anymore.”

y/n laughed, shaking her head.

because she knew jimin cared.

[cumaeansibyl]

once again we are being given zero information about how this stuff interacts with medications or what side effects it might have, possibly because we don't know, since that's a lot of testing that just hasn't happened yet. any guess we have at the possible interactions is based solely on unverified claims. cordyceps supposedly boosts the immune system which means it might be a bad idea if you're on immunosuppressants. or it might be fine because we have absolutely no proof that it does do that. who the fuck knows?!

I don't really think I need to ask you what you think about "adaptogens" being advertised for recreational purposes but the same issue applies there. a lot of mocktails out there promise to do some sort of unspecified mood alteration due to mushrooms and herbs. is that bad if you're on psych meds? maybe!! maybe it does nothing. maybe the chemicals involved have a completely unsuspected effect like long-term fucking up your liver or raising your blood pressure, we don't know.

(also, frustratingly, the advertising says this will make you "mellow" or "chilled out" or whatever but it doesn't say anything about "maybe don't drive until you know how this affects you." so which is it, fellas, does it get you high or not? because you coyly promise an effect but you haven't said what happens if you have five of them and then try to operate heavy machinery. which makes me think you know it's a placebo and you're just liars.)

I just got served an ad on a mobile game that linked to a 45-minute video for a "breathing remedy" and the video is *such* a comprehensive collection of CAM manipulation and lies that I'm considering transcribing it to break down how CAM sales tactics work.

[mangiomochi]

LM’s Social Media

I made this long post to list all the social media accounts and profiles of Luigi Mangione. As many of you already know, a lot of his profiles have been taken down. The platforms where we could see the more personal side of Luigi and his experiences, like Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit, have been deleted. However, fortunately, some of his profiles on other platforms remain active to this day.

I’ll try to list each of these sites. If you see anything that needs to be corrected or know of another LM profile that isn’t listed here, I’d appreciate it if you shared it. My goal is to keep this post as updated as possible.

Disclaimer: English is not my first language, so if you notice anything odd in the writing, I apologize.

Facebook: luigi.mangione.2

Status: Taken Down First post: Jan 17, 2010 Last post: Aug 24, 2019

LM has had a Facebook account for quite some time—likely his first social media platform. His earliest posts date back to 2010. His last post was in 2019, which was also the year he was most active on the platform. That year, he posted several photos from a trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico with his fraternity and the three months he spent as a head counselor at Stanford in Palo Alto, CA.

Instagram: @luigi.from.fiji

Status: Taken Down First post: Aug 13, 2018 Last post: Aug 27, 2021

LM’s first Instagram post was in the summer of 2018. In that post, he explicitly mentioned that he created the account just to give one more follower to his sister’s blog. (LM has two sisters.) He also tagged his sister @lifewithlu__—or whatever handle she had at the time. If you've come across accounts currently using that handle on Instagram or Twitter, they are fake. LM’s sister apparently changed her username a while ago and later deactivated her account after LM’s arrest.

As for LM’s Instagram activity, his last posts were from the summer of 2021. He shared photos from a trip to Puerto Rico, where he was working remotely for some time, and from a trip to Hawaii with his other sister. LM also posted pictures with a friend he met at Stanford in 2019.

Additionally, LM had a highlight section featuring his predictions for 2027, which he uploaded in Jan 2021.

LM became inactive in 2022, despite appearing in a few posts made by his roommates in Hawaii. However, many of these posts were later deleted, or the accounts were set to private—likely to completely disassociate from LM and the allegations against him, or to avoid harassment from either his supporters or detractors.

In 2022, despite not posting anything himself, he was tagged in various posts and stories by his roommates and friends in Hawaii.

Instagram 2: @luiginmangione (probably fake)

Status: Taken Down

This account is probably fake, but we can’t be entirely sure. Unlike the confirmed account, this one was private and also has been deactivated. It had zero posts and 404 followers—an interesting detail, as "404" in some areas of computing means "not found," which is notable given that LM was reported missing in 2024.

As for the profile picture and bio, there was nothing we hadn’t seen before, making it highly unlikely that this account actually belonged to him.

Instagram 3 or Another Social Media Account

In messages between LM and one of his friends, his friend mentioned that he was wondering who the person trying to follow him was. It seems that in February 2024, LM created an account where it was impossible to recognize that it was him.

YouTube

First active: Unknown Last active: May 2024

You've probably already seen his supposed channel—the one with a single uploaded video and another that was never released. What was in that second video? Most likely some form of self-promotion from whoever was behind that account. Fortunately, the channel was taken down before that could happen.

However, we do know that LM had not just one but three YouTube channels, all of which were unfortunately removed due to YouTube’s absurd policies. According to the CNN article where this was mentioned, LM hadn't uploaded anything in seven months, meaning his last content would have been from May 2024. It's a complete mystery what he had posted—most likely something related to his trip to Asia. Sadly, we may never know. YouTube acted so quickly against LM’s channels that the internet didn’t have time to archive the deleted content.

Another possible type of content LM might have uploaded to these channels includes drone footage from Hawaii and Asia, projects from his time at Penn (2016–2020), or even school projects.

GitHub: lnmangione

Status: Still Up First active: Feb 27, 2015 Last active: May 8, 2021

In case you’re not familiar, GitHub is a platform where users can store and update code—directly related to LM’s career and essential for anyone studying or working in a field that involves coding.

LM was active on GitHub from 2015 to 2021, contributing to personal projects, FTC (Robotics), and university assignments. In 2020, after graduating, he used it to prepare for coding interviews. By 2021, he was mainly working on private projects, likely related to his remote job. Apparently, Luigi stopped being active on GitHub in 2021.

Twitter: @PepMangione

Status: Still Up First tweet: Apr 14, 2016 Last active: Jun 10, 2024

This was probably the social media platform where LM was most active before his arrest. His most active year was 2024, and he had been using this account since 2016, although he didn’t post anything after 2016 and only became active again in 2021

His earliest tweets appear to be automated posts with random numbers, possibly tests for some kind of Twitter-connected application.

Aside from that, his Twitter provides insight into his ideology, which seems somewhat ambiguous. Politically, he didn’t appear to have strong affiliations.

After his arrest, LM’s account was taken down but later reinstated. He followed only 71 people—later 70, after a Japanese poker player he met in Tokyo in February removed him as a follower. Currently, LM’s account has over half a million followers. Before his arrest, several accounts followed LM during the time he was missing—most of them were likely bot accounts, though not all, as some belonged to friends trying to contact him through public tweets you’ve probably already seen.

LM didn’t follow any of his friends on Twitter. Some of his friends did follow him, which means either he never followed them back or he unfollowed them at some point.

Regarding his banner, it consists of three images:

Breloom from Pokémon – This is directly linked to Theory 286, which you may have heard about. It connects Breloom’s Pokédex number (286) with LM’s total number of Twitter posts, which was also 286 (now 285), as well as with certain health insurance denial codes. Personally, I think this is just a coincidence. Breloom was likely there because LM liked the Pokémon—it’s a Fighting type, which can be linked to physical activity, and is a Mushroom, which could relate to his interest in psychedelics.

X-ray from his surgery – This was from a procedure that took place on July 21, 2023 (though I’m not sure if that’s the exact date). This means his header was updated at least after that date.

A shirtless photo of him on a mountain in Hawaii – We know that one of LM’s favorite activities was hiking.

The last known activity of LM on Twitter was on June 10, 2024. That day, he retweeted a post and sent a DM to Gurwinder in response to a tweet, asking him to show him how to curate his feed to display more valuable and educational content.

After LM disappeared, during July, October and November, his friends tried to reach out through tweets and probably also through private messages.

Twitter alt: (Fake)

I don’t remember the name of the account, but it was something related to mushrooms, it was initially linked to LM due to its similarities with his interests. However, it was later clarified that this profile does not belong to LM, and the shared interests were purely coincidental.

Linktree: lnmangione

State: Still up

Linktree is a platform that allows users to compile multiple links into a single page, making it easier to share various profiles, websites, or projects. Many content creators and professionals use it to organize their online presence.

LM did have a Linktree, but instead of links, it only contained a series of emojis. No actual links to his profiles or projects were listed, making it unclear what the purpose of his account was.

Here’s a possible interpretation of LM’s emojis based on what we know about his interests:

💻🤓 – Likely represents his tech side.

🥷🏃‍♂️🧘‍♂️🏋️ – Suggests his active lifestyle, including exercise, meditation, and discipline. The ninja could represent martial arts.

📚🤓 – Reflects his love for books and self-education.

🦍🧠 – Likely represents LM’s interest in gorillas, as seen on his Goodreads, Reddit and Twitter.

🍄🧠 – Likely a nod to his interest in psychedelics.

🐄👨‍⚖️ – Might reference ethical concerns about the meat industry or food regulations. It could also be a nod to Moo’s Law, a book exploring the rise of lab-grown meat, its potential to revolutionize food production, and the ethical, environmental, and economic implications of this technology.

☯️ – Represents balance, Eastern philosophy, or mindfulness practices.

Snapchat: luigimangione

State: Taken down

LM’s Snapchat was listed in his yearbook alongside his Facebook, suggesting he was quite active on the platform. After his arrest, his account remained up for a few days. Someone posted screenshots of his profile on TikTok before it was taken down, but I haven’t been able to find them. Perhaps that profile was also taken down due to TikTok’s constant censorship. His avatar was surprisingly well-made. If anyone has those screenshots and can share them, I would be grateful and will, of course, give credit.

Substack: @anotherdayanotherplay

Status: Still Up

Substack was where LM followed many of the writers he engaged with on Twitter. One of them was Gurwinder, a British blogger whose work LM seemed to appreciate deeply. He liked it enough to purchase a premium subscription to Gurwinder’s Substack blog, The Prism, which costs $200. This subscription granted LM perks like a video call with the writer.

Gurwinder’s articles cover topics such as gamification, short-form video platforms and their negative effects, and NPC behavior.

You can read more about this meeting in the article Gurwinder wrote about LM.

TikTok: @lnmangione (Fake)

Not Owned by LM

If you’ve seen some of LM’s tweets, you’ll know he was against short-form video platforms, making it unlikely that he ever had a TikTok account. The account mentioned here does not appear to belong to LM. Most of its reposted content is in German and English, Additionally, the type of content shared on this account doesn’t align with LM’s known interests.

TikTok started gaining popularity between 2018 and 2020, so we can’t completely rule out the possibility that LM once had an account.

LinkedIn: Luigi Mangione

Status: Still Up Joined: Feb, 2015 Last active: 2023

LinkedIn is the go-to social media platform for job searching, and LM’s profile provides detailed insight into his education and work history. His last known job was at TrueCar, where he had been working remotely for some time. He left this job at some point in 2023, but he never updated his LinkedIn to reflect this change.

The exact reason LM left TrueCar remains unknown. One theory suggests he resigned to take time off for traveling and recovering from his surgery. Another theory points to company-wide layoffs at TrueCar. However, we can’t confirm anything for sure, as TrueCar declined to provide detailed statements, citing employee privacy—specifically in LM’s case.

Reddit: u/mister_cactus

Status: Taken Down Joined: Feb 23, 2016 Last active: May 25, 2024

Reddit was one of the platforms where LM was quite active, and he remained so until May 2024, sharing details about his travel through Asia. LM created his Reddit account in 2016, the same year as his Twitter.

In the beginning, his activity was mostly related to university projects, garage sales, and Pokémon Go. Over the years, he also engaged with posts discussing brain fog, spondylolisthesis (spondy), and other topics. From his comments, we know that at some point, his health insurance provider was Blue Cross Blue Shield. He also shared details about his struggles with spondylolisthesis and how a surfing accident in 2022 worsened his condition.

In 2023, LM posted about his decision to undergo spinal fusion surgery, sharing research on successful cases. His most recent Reddit activity in 2024 included reposting videos of the mass street livestreams that have become common. LM seemed highly aware of how technology was creating these dystopian scenes.

His final Reddit post detailed what he packed for his trip to Asia—notable items included:

Backpacks

An iPhone 13 Mini

A drone - DJI Mini 2 Drone

A physical book (LM preferred them over digital ones)

Other personal essentials

Unfortunately, his account was taken down shortly after being discovered. It's unclear whether this was due to Reddit’s questionable policies or possibly mass reports against the account.

Goodreads: luigimangione

Status: Set to Private

LM’s Goodreads account gained attention after his arrest, offering a detailed look into his reading preferences. His library included a mix of genres, with notable categories such as:

Self-help books

Back pain management

Psychedelics

Agronomics

Moo’s Law

Exercise books

Books about Hawaiian islands

Fantasy and science fiction, including A Brave New World and Harry Potter

LM was quite active on the platform, frequently writing detailed reviews and sometimes even adding handwritten notes to his books.

Steam: Pep

Status: Still Up Joined: Oct 20, 2013 Last active: Jul 7, 2024

Steam is the most popular platform for purchasing games, and LM had been active on it for a long time. His last recorded activity was on July 7, 2024—exactly six months and 2 days before his arrest. The last game he played was PUBG.

Looking at his library, you can see the wide variety of games he played over 11 years since Oct 2013. One touching detail is that many of his friends still have him added, and one of them even changed their username to "FreeLuigi"—a clear sign of loyalty and support. That’s definitely a good friend.

LM also had an alt account added, but nothing noteworthy has been mentioned about this account.

The last games LM played are:

PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS – last played on July 7, 2024 Orwell – last played on June 28, 2024 Spelunky 2 – last played on June 2, 2024

Tinder

Joined: Nov 27, 2021 Last active: Dec 18, 2022

Apparently, Luigi was only active on Tinder for a short time in December 2022, though his profile dates back to November 27, 2021. His love life is also a complete mystery, so it’s interesting that he even had a Tinder account. Shoutout to the person who spent 15 bucks to unlock the unique photos Luigi had here 🫶

Trello: @luigimangione

Status: Still Up Joined: Unknown Last active: Unknown

Trello is a platform designed to help teams organize their work. There isn’t much to see on LM’s account, but his profile picture is the protagonist of Spelunky—one of the games he has logged the most hours on in Steam.

Pinterest: luigimangione

Status: Still Up Joined: Unknown Last active: Unknown

There isn’t much to see here. LM only saved a hoodie, likely as a show of support for Tim Urban and his blog Wait But Why—one of the writers he was most enthusiastic about.

Spotify (Fake)

These Spotify profiles began circulating just hours after Luigi Mangione’s name became widely known. However, these profiles are fake and seem to be an attempt to link Luigi to various musical tastes—such as artists like Clairo, Charlie XCX, or Blackpink. If you’ve tried to research Luigi’s musical preferences, you’ll know that there’s very little information available. The only two songs we know Luigi listened to are from his SoundCloud account.

SoundCloud

Status: Still Up Joined: Unknown Last active: Unknown

This is where Luigi liked two EDM tracks that are not very well known. These are currently the only reference we have to LM’s musical tastes.

Chess: sexytwerker69

Status: Still Up Joined: Sep 19, 2017 Last active: Dec 22, 2023

This is one of my favorites. The nickname is quite original and gives us a glimpse into Luigi’s sense of humor. This profile was created in 2017, and the profile picture is a unique selfie of Luigi biting an apple—one of the few selfies he had taken. This confirms that the account is indeed his.

Other noteworthy details include that his last activity on the account was in 2023. Additionally, he had the Italian flag on his profile instead of the American flag, showcasing his pride in his Italian heritage—just in case that wasn’t clear enough.

Venmo

Status: Still Up

Venmo is a personal payment platform commonly used in the United States.

Activity on LM’s account is mostly from 2017, the year when Luigi was selling Christmas lights at his university. While we’re not entirely sure what he was raising money for, many of the payments made to and from him included some of the silly comments that showcased Luigi’s sense of humor.

DISQUS: @luigimangione

State: Still up Joined: Jun 20, 2017 Last active: Jun 20, 2017

LM's only activity here was commenting on a post from Wait But Why. The blog post was Neuralink and the Brain’s Magical Future. This was the only community he followed and his only interaction on the platform.

Sporcle: lnmangione

State: Still up Joined: Jan 23, 2024 Last active: Feb 4, 2024

Sporcle is a trivia and quiz platform where users can test their knowledge on various topics. LM had an account here, among the quizzes he completed were Most Visited Websites, Countries in Europe, SpongeBob Characters, Most Populous Countries, US States, Computer Hardware Parts, Programming Language Popularity, Genetics Vocabulary, Super Secure Bunker and Erase the Periodic Table.

Devpost: luigimangione

State: Still up

This is a platform where developers showcase and submit projects for hackathons. LM was active here during his university years, submitting a project for PennApps competition. Not much to see, but it gives a glimpse into his early coding days.

Other sites that seem to belong to Luigi are:

Apple Profile State: Still up A default profile linked to Apple services, not much to see here.

DockerHub State: Still up A platform for sharing and managing Docker containers, LM had no repositories here.

HackerRank State: Still up A coding challenge site; LM had no public activity or submissions here.

Medium State: Still up A blogging platform; no known posts from LM, but the account exists.

And that would be all the profiles I know of so far. As a small reward for making it to the end of this post, here’s a low-quality picture of Luigi showing off his perfect side profile 🙌

[4mrplumi]

ZERO (iii) : SCAVENGERY . (ms/prev/next)

-> plot synopsis - you don't think you're as odd and horrifying as the news makes you out to be. but you have never much cared for the validation of others, and certainly not theirs.

-> batfamily x serial killer reader. playlist (wip) ask 2b added to taglist

-> tw; gn reader, guns, violence, child neglect, messed up legal system, mention of death, poor living conditions, bug taxidermy, everyone's a b, paranoia, ocd, full list on master list.

> a/n; the prologues are text heavy... i'll try more dialogue for the first chapter (next upload) and onwards. in the mean time, feel free to send asks and ideas, i'd love to discuss and tie up my own lose ends too. hope this suffices for the reader's relationship with the bat family!

“family business”, you squint at the sign, “12th sector conveniences, run by a family business!” the print on the plastic sign is misspelled, and fading away completely. red into pink, orange into pale yellow, and green into cyan. a lovely place to be at for what you’re doing.

family has always been an iffy subject for you, in your mind and verbal exchanges. you never humoured your friends’ prods at you to talk, and were especially vigilant about shutting down conversations about family.

you’d already brushed over the meaning of the word in your head, on terms with the fact that you would most likely never understand it in this lifetime, but the experience with it still stung. sometimes.

at ten years old, the landlord of your apartment, who’d let you stay for free since it was so horribly kept, passed away. it meant you had effectively no place to live, since it wasn’t legally in your hands anymore. nothing much about your situation was legal, but he’d argued your case for you for years, and the neighbours were supportive of it too.

gotham is a gritty place, and even with the varied dictionary of swears they used to poke away security, it was a little show of squishy softness from the people. 

after he died, your friends’ parents and your neighbours shuffled you around in their homes, month to month to keep you around. no one thought of calling fosters, or the police, since you were their kid as much as their children were. “love” was an odd word to use, people in your alley married for benefits and children were kept about for that reason too. there were exceptions, but the reason for your staying was obligation.

at eleven, you got caught directly in between a scuffle on the streets. the guys must’ve been waiting to put off steam, since it got bloody way faster than you’d ever seen. but honestly? you could’ve gone past it, it was nothing unnatural for the city, and having grown up in it on your own, you would’ve been fine.

but gotham was a city full of interruptions. buses, classes, going to the store for chips or even walking back home, you would be interrupted. by a gun, a fist, or if you were especially unlucky, the big old bat and his big old car. you wonder if you could’ve saved yourself all the trouble, the tax on your mental state and the worry you keep everyday of your life now, if you had just been a bit faster, fast enough to avoid the batman’s interruption. maybe, you would’ve been in the stairwell with your friends now, eating chips or running from old mister ford on the sixth floor.

you’d been put in the police station down the road, the same one your friend had thrown a brick through last week, while the caped weirdo, batman, told you it’d be alright. alright? you were fine. what did he mean, alright?

you’d nagged the officers to let you go, lying that people at home would be worried (maybe they were, you never got to know), but they’d sat you down and expected forced, timid compliance from you. these guys are always expecting better. one lady even had the gall to put on a show for you on the tiny tv in one of the “comfort-rooms” and you’d gone biting, screaming and struggling.

‘radicalised’ was what your landlord-uncle had called it. gotham’s people, even those not submerged in the high of crime, couldn’t help but grow up to be hard and rough at the edges, hating the people who put them here. the divide between the common people and the socialites was so jarring, so far. you didn’t want to comply with what these guys were telling you to do. all the adults hated them! why wouldn’t you?

it had taken two hours of watching a few pink-haired girls run around behind the screen, in cold, cold anger before you were let out. “a new home,” the lady officer had said, “safer.” it wasn’t until later that you got to know the reason they didn’t let you leave or shoved you in a care-home you could've run from, and instead pushed you into the manor; was because of your lack of legal documents. most noticeably, your birth certificate and the absence of your parents. 

you think now, that maybe batman had expected you to be broken, ruined and lonely like his other odd children. fact of the matter is, that you were fine. you were none of those things, until he intruded in your life. why he never let you go… perhaps he feared any resentment you held. you held none, until him.

the fight never left, you’d hissed all the way home at the old guy and the other man who’d come to pick you up, swiping at a hand offered to you. a new home? a new home? you had a home! they were waiting for you, you think, what do these people mean about a new home? why would you trust a badge and cap or a suit and tie, on their judgement of safety?

you want to go home.

the house they put you in was gargantuanly huge, your room the size of your old shared apartments. it made you sick. the ceiling was too high, and the corridors too long. admitting to fear was a sure way to get snuffed on the streets, and you didn’t admit to it, spending hours hiding in a bathroom alone, still too big for your liking. you hid and hid and you still hide. all the time.

when you got used to the place, pangs of loneliness and homesickness hit you. having never talked much, it was an unusual habit to reach out to someone. the flats you lived in used to be small enough for three people to have to sleep in the same bedroom. and the other four to crash on top of each other on the couch.

it’s different here, you’re alone. there’s no situation where everybody has to be together. you could tail along with the old guy while he cleaned, or stalk the boy who came to visit every month, but you avoided the man who got you here at all costs. you hate him, it would be betrayal to yourself to want to be around him. but seeking out company was too taxing, too new a thing for you. no one else came to you on their own, never needed anything from you. you were isolated. lonely. scared.

you weren’t forbidden from going outside, but always tailed by a security guard your “father” would set on you. the place where you grew up was blocked off your mental map too, a firm hand on your soldier from the boy, richard grayson, and his voice telling you it was off limits.

when you demanded a snarled “why?” with a dark, dark scowl, he’d just shook his head. an answer never came to you on its own, but it was quite clear you’d never be able to disobey.  so you scuffled around, lonely, the shadow of the manor on you making street-kids you’d get along with otherwise frown at you, everywhere.

a few months after your glorified kidnapping, another boy came into the polished picture of your family photo; jason todd. he was about the same age as you, with a noticeable and heavy gothamite-accent that you recognised immediately. though you still didn’t much enjoy seeking out the company of anyone in the house, jason’s was by far, the easiest to go to.

he was a surprisingly tender little kid, you’d expected a meaner, more similar to you type of guy, but it didn’t matter much. you’d sit in the same room as him when he studied, listen to him whisper under his breath about some composition of something, watch him run around in the garden after alfred to help him, gain the favour of the man, and wonder where he’d gone at night when you tried to stay awake with him in either of your rooms. the two of you were unalike, but the comfort of knowing rags better than rugs brought you together, just a bit.

towards the… end, he’d become more biting. more snappy, on edge. the change had come suddenly, and made you conflicted. on one end, you were delighted at his hostility, seeing a familiarity of behaviour with him. he was finally growing into the hardened shell. the other end just made you sad. what happened to the kid? to your brother? what happened to him?

it’s safe to say his death destroyed any neutrality you had for this place. when you’d seen bruce one night, he’d looked absolutely horrible, and you hadn’t understood why. you couldn’t much bother to ask, assuming it must’ve been bitchy-bad billionaire-blues, and the shock, the blunt punch that came to your gut at attending jason’s funeral the next day made you sick. 

dick had stood crying, his face in his hands, alfred had put an umbrella down to his face in what you assumed was sorrow, and bruce’s expression was unintelligible under the shadows that fell on it. you only stared, and stared, and stared at the stone of his grave, as though wanting to erode it, dig him out. jason. jason. a good soldier. 

soldier?

you were livid, entirely unable to express your emotions in any way possible, no outlet among your family, no friends, no social circle or activities to let out even the smallest sliver of your anger out. you hadn’t cried, mourning was never one of your customs, but you were so horribly angry. he was gone. gone.

what probably made it worse was that you never knew how he died. he disappeared one day, and came back dead the other. your only half-friend in your whole life, was gone, the sweet, helpful little boy, gone. your brother. gone. you shut off entirely, unwilling to accept dick’s offers to spend time together, snarling that his attempts at being a better brother to you would never undo anything that he’d ever done. with no knowledge on the cause of his death, you blamed everyone for jason todd’s story. 

dick had pulled away his hand, expression darkening, and did very pointedly avoid you from there on. thinking back, you wonder why he couldn’t excuse your grief. you were a child too. how did he manage to excuse everyone else?

tim drake’s arrival had been a thing of great disgust to you. he’d become an outlet for your fury, shoving past him in the corridors, muttering curses at him at the smallest issues, and flashing a scowl and a glare at his direction whenever he spoke. from the very beginning, tim knew about your distrust, your hatred of him, and avoided you in return to avoid trouble.

maybe you shouldn't have, and you don’t anymore to anybody, but you’d often go at him when you were at home. snarky comments on what he did, brushing off efforts he didn’t even present to you. you could see the slight effect it had on him, reclusivity, him thinking twice over his words. that on it’s own, and grayson’s narrowed glare and muttered “lay off, (name)” had almost made you guilty. 

almost.

he’d come to eventually just spit back at you, or ignore you, and you’d leave him be too. it’s just that the impact that period of time had on the both of you was irrefutable, and harsher exchanges would come out much easier from your mouth now. again, you wonder, why he couldn’t excuse you. you would take any hatred back from him, face the consequences of your actions and accept what you did was terrible. even if he never forgave you for being so unwelcoming to the little boy he was, if it meant that one day, tim drake would look your way without a scowl. but why did he never excuse you?

around this time, you took up many things. jason’s death had soured you against the crime in gotham way more than your arrival at the manor did, so you took to listening to the news and skimming through pamphlets. the common figures of the batman and robin had created a semi-permanent furrow in your brow, and you pitied the robin-boy who’d have to work along the incompetent, interrupting, annoying bat-hag. batman. 

the repetition of’ saves the day’, ‘exposes the scene’ and ‘back at arkham’ formed a slight obsession in you, and you had to know who these… geeks in costume interrupting everything were. if they could so skilfully weave through the riddler’s intricate puzzles, handle the joker’s lunatic schemes and avoid the bristling thorns of poison ivy’s attacks, how could they not put their minds to the little guy? the smaller problems?

 from stalking tim and watching his work methods, without his awareness, you picked up a pin and a photo, and got to work. school was never challenging, maybe initially with your lack of an uneducated pre-teens, but easy to catch up to with your abundance of time. with all the hours freed up from not having to do homework you’d already finished, you made it a personal goal to find out who batman and robin were. the man and the boy who failed you, jason, and all the kids down the road.

and you found out. in february, wearing a short sleeved shirt ‘cause the heating was always up, with a final thread of glittering blue thread, you found out. the anger that had built up over the years had started to die out, and snapped with a fizzle when you understood.

you hate them. bruce wayne, dick grayson, tim drake and even, even jason todd. you hate them all. incompetent fools. idiots.

a sense of emptiness lingered in you for days, a morose sense of nothing to do. you came across a video of a girl stuffing a hollowed spider with cotton, and gently placing it’s dangly limbs on top of pins like they were footrests. the spider’s paws were limp on her sides, but she looked alive. she looked alive, even after dying.

maybe it would’ve passed on a fleeting interest, if you had not come to the terms with the fact that rich people could do just whatever. without asking anyone, you’d gone out to buy a board and some bob-pins, signed your name off as someone else on the shop record book and left. two habits, hobbies, created on the same day. taxidermy and paranoia. 

you were not paranoid.

when you were now sixteen, bruce- no, batman, had gotten home troubled, more so that usual. it had peaked your curiosity, and you couldn’t help but eavesdrop through a micro communicator tim had so considerably left out in his room when you snooped through it.

the silhouette of a red hood trailed their conversations, troubling them with drugs and guns and knives. you’d found it all very amusing, minus the fact of his crimes. anyone who troubled the batman was amusing, but crime? you never excuse.

the relevance two months down that jason todd was alive, when you left the communicator on on a sleepless night, jolted you fully awake. a similar resurgence of not knowing, and fear, and worry engulfed you, much alike the same feelings you felt coming to the manor five years ago. 

you wanted to demand for answers, weasel out how, why, where he was. why he wasn’t coming home and why bruce was so incompetent at getting him back to the manor. but you couldn’t. no one could know you knew, no one could know you had that information, of their identities on them, and have that leverage over you. you bit your tongue. 

you never spoke to him, or saw jason face to face after his “rebirth”, catching glimpses of his voice on the mic’s that inputted into the oracle’s connected networks at night. you caught a glimpse of a large figure, draped in a leather jacket jumping out the window from the kitchen, but too late and too awkward to call out.

he’d gotten so tall. grown up. it hurts so bad, and you’ve never hurt before. never admitted it.

how had he managed to regain just the littlest bit of ties with the rest of the family, but not with you? you knew he snuck in on some nights, and he rarely ever came to the manor to talk to anyone, but how was it so easy for him to just, forget you? did he ever wonder where you were? did he ever want to see you again? you know he couldn’t, wouldn’t, but would he want to?

the pain that comes from seeing damian enter the manor is ten folds that. another little boy, falling to the bat’s trap of glory and growing up like jason and dick and tim, trapped. you want to warn him, but his kohl-lined eyes and scowling face makes it too difficult.

he reminds you too much of yourself, and that’s just about the scariest thing you know. self-importance and snarkiness. 

the worst thing? their tolerance. their excuses. dick’s grin at damian a day after the loudest scuffle, the meanest words you’d heard come from a ten year old’s mouth, him being excused. tolerated. tim excusing him, and bothered to still talk to damian even after all the insults and demeaning of his work, the tolerance he received.

bruce wayne’s hand on his shoulder, showing him around to help him adapt to the new, unfamiliar place. why had no one done that for you? why did no one excuse you, see if you were okay? why were you like this? what had damian done that you hadn’t, and what had you done that he didn’t?

“the blood son”, he had declared at you the first time the two of you spoke, “has come to show his worth to the family. remain on the sidelines from your unimportant and tarnishing stain on father’s name, or struggle against my defense.” you didn’t respond to his edwardian monologue, and left despite his appalled scoff at your indifference. the blood son. he had a family. you could never compare to the concern or the trouble they put in to be with him, because he was family.

family. 

you could’ve ignored damian if he didn’t come into your business so often. poking at the posters you’d put up to cope with the large, empty walls in your room, scoffing at the music you’d put on to drown out the ring in your ears from the silence and snapping your last nerve upon stealing a cricket from your board to bury in the garden.

you’d said nothing, quietly taking it back when he was faraway, straightening the legs of the insect with a motherly tenderness. he had soiled a lifeform put in your hands over his own sense of honour and humanity, effectively disgracing the ideals you had been raised on and live on now.

you knew of his upbringing, and you knew better his horror at your practice. but nevertheless, it was yours. he didn’t excuse you, he demeaned you, he didn’t consider you family.

he was not your family.

none of them were, and none of them will be. they’re self-prestiged vigilantes with overblown egos and no semblance of shame or understanding. they know nothing, and you can’t abandon a city so unfortunate to be in their care like this. they don’t know anything, because the ceiling they live under is too high to need to crouch and hide, and the corridor is too large for them to have to squeeze through when running.

a tap on your shoulder brings you out of thought, and your reply is a gruff “you’re late” at the girl in front of you. the salty green-white lights of 12th sector conveniences buzz on as you make your way inside, and garcia’s grin is too wide for someone so inconsiderate of your carefully mapped plans.

you hate your family, and their poor work. so you’ll have to scheme in different run-down hell holes to undo their messes. but order and control is important. if you’re in hell, why should you stop here? “one day”, your ‘girlfriend’ had said, “all these places you take me-” “you all,” you had interrupted, “i take you all” “-will be as clean as your nails, (name)”

you hope that she’s not mocking. and you hope she’s right.

> a/n; nothing much left 2 say! i notice my writing habits have switched up a bit, way less unnecessary words and stuffs. this is queued for tmrw so hopefully im not spamming anything. re-added the tags i left out for zero:ii too. idk when my next upload will be since my first exam is day after tmrw, but i wanna really write for the plot soon.

thanks for reading!!

taglist: @boredselkie @shirp-collector-of-fixations @randomlyappearingartist @bat1212 @maicenitas @xjesterxjacksx @heartjwonie @lucienneb1ue @vikkus-main @adornedlace @cuntiesweet @minorlyatfall @staarflowerr @ithoughtthinks @crazycaoticsimp

[onebadassunicorn]

Love Lies

pairing: Azriel x Reader

content warnings: angst, talk of poisoning and potential death, smut (18+), some fluff

word count: 5.9k

Permanent taglist: @motheroffae @tele86 @demon-master-zero

Azriel permanent taglist: @kathren1sky-blog

Taglist @sinfully-yoursss @sillyfreakfanparty @phoenix666stuff @ quiet-because-it-is-a-secret @hellohauntedturnstudent @love-over-fears @kk191327 @i-am-infinite @historygeekqueen @yourdarkrose @fr0stfall @dnfhascorruptedme

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

********

Chapter 13

Elain sat rigid in her chair, her usually serene expression twisted into something raw—something close to fear.

Her delicate hands were clasped tightly in her lap, her breath uneven, eyes wide as they darted between you and Azriel.

But neither of you moved.

Neither of you spoke just yet.

You simply stared at her, at the woman who had once been kind, once been a friend, once been someone you trusted—and now, was nothing more than a poisonous snake, a traitor who had carved a knife into your back and twisted it until you could barely breathe.

Azriel stood beside you, his golden eyes burning with fury, with disgust, with a level of loathing you had never seen in him before. His shadows curled and snapped violently around his boots, barely restrained.

Elain shifted, swallowed hard, but still, she didn’t speak first.

So you did.

Your voice was ice, sharp enough to cut through the thick silence of the room.

“You were my friend.”

Elain flinched, as if she hadn’t been expecting that.

You took a step forward, your hands clenched into tight fists at your sides.

“You sat in my home, in my kitchen, and you spoke to me about the future—about my future with him.” Your voice trembled with barely contained rage, betrayal, agony. “And all the while, you were slipping poison into his tea.”

Elain’s face crumpled, her eyes filling with tears. “I—I didn’t mean for it to go that far,” she choked out, shaking her head. “I just—I just loved him so much. I wanted him to love me back.”

Azriel let out a low, sharp laugh, but there was no humor in it.

Your body shook as you tried to hold yourself together, as you tried to stop yourself from doing what you really wanted to do—rip her apart with your bare hands.

“You loved him?” you hissed, incredulous. “This is how you treat someone you love?”

Elain let out a choked sob, shaking her head frantically. “I never wanted to hurt either of you! I just—I just wanted to be with him.” She turned pleading eyes to Azriel, but he didn’t move, didn’t speak. His expression remained cold, detached—like he was looking at a stranger.

Azriel’s thoughts were a storm—dark, violent, raging.

He had spent months under her influence, feeling his mind turn to fog, feeling something wrong yet unable to grasp what it was.

He had woken up in a world where he had already destroyed everything he loved, only to learn that it was not his doing at all.

And yet, the pain was his to bear.

The nights you spent alone, crying in the bed that was meant to be shared—the nights you ached for him while he unknowingly drifted further and further away—that was still his fault.

Because he had let it happen.

Because he had been blind.

He had been so careful all his life, always one step ahead, always knowing when someone was deceiving him. And yet, the one time it mattered the most, the one time it was his own happiness on the line, he had failed.

And he had lost you because of it.

Until now.

Until this moment—where he stood before the woman who had stolen his choices, his mind, his love for you—and he felt nothing but hatred.

Elain turned back to you, her shoulders hunched, small, as if she could curl into herself and disappear.

You weren’t done.

“You wanted him to love you,” you whispered, shaking your head. “But love isn’t something you steal, Elain. Love is given freely.”

Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears, her chest heaving. “I just wanted him to see me.”

“You didn’t want to be invisible?” you asked, tilting your head. “So, you decided to erase me instead?”

Azriel had never felt such disgust in his entire life.

He had faced monsters, murderers, traitors, had seen the worst kinds of evil—and yet, none of them had made his stomach turn quite like Elain Archeron.

Because she had nearly destroyed him.

Not with a blade or shadows or war—but with something far more insidious.

Poison. Manipulation. Lies.

And now, standing before her, watching as she crumbled beneath the weight of her own treachery, all he felt was revulsion.

Because this girl, this delicate, soft-spoken creature who had pretended to be nothing more than sweet and kind, had nearly cost him everything.

Had nearly cost him you.

And he would never forgive her for that.

Azriel’s hand never left your waist, his grip firm, grounding, possessive, unshakable—because he needed you to feel it.

Needed you to know that he was here, that he was yours, that no one—not Elain, not fate, not the Cauldron itself—would ever take him from you again.

“You made him believe he didn’t love me,” you breathed, voice shaking with fury. “You made him think I wasn’t enough.” Your chest heaved, rage burning your lungs, your throat, every part of you. “And for what?”

Elain’s lip trembled. “I—I didn’t mean for it to—”

“But it was not only me you hurt,” you cut her off, your voice trembling with uncontained fury. “You could have killed Azriel.”

Elain’s entire body stilled, her face draining of all color. “What—what do you mean?”

You let out a cold, humorless laugh, your nails biting into your palms. “Did you even bother to look up what you were giving him? Did you think beyond your own selfish desires?”

Azriel exhaled sharply beside you, as if he couldn’t stand another second of being in her presence.

“You were so desperate for him when he was never meant to be yours, and you nearly destroyed him. The tonic you gave him,” you hissed, watching as her expression twisted into fear, “Nettlewisp, in high doses, causes paranoia, hallucinations, and irreversible brain damage. And if he had kept taking it for much longer in large doses, he could have died.”

Elain paled, her lips parting slightly, eyes going wide with horror. “I—I didn’t know -”

"Didn’t know?" Azriel’s voice was like a blade cutting through the air, filled with nothing but pure, unfiltered disgust.

"You knew exactly what you were doing," he spat, his wings tensing, shadows curling angrily around his feet.

"You wanted me to leave my mate, to turn my back on the only person who has ever truly mattered to me. And you poisoned me to do it."

Elain sobbed harder, but Azriel didn’t care.

There was no more pity left inside him.

“I—I thought it would just… make you love me,” she whispered, voice shaking.

Azriel spoke, his voice a low, lethal growl.

“I never loved you.”

Elain stilled, her face crumbling.

And the way he looked at Elain now was something you had never seen before.

It wasn’t just anger.

It wasn’t just disgust, disappointment, or even loathing.

It was hatred.

A deep, seething, unshakable hatred that poured from him in waves, curling in his shadows like a living, breathing force of darkness.

His golden eyes, once warm and filled with devotion whenever they met yours, were now hard, cold, unyielding as they burned into the female who had stolen his choices, his mind, his love for you.

And you—

You didn’t know what to feel as you watched him stare at her like she was nothing.

Because this was the same Azriel who had once spent hours with her in the gardens, helping her adjust to Velaris, answering her quiet questions, listening to her speak of the world she had lost. The same Azriel who had once believed he was helping her heal—who had once believed she was I n need of kindness.

Now, he saw the truth.

Now, he saw her for what she really was.

And the complete absence of warmth, of pity, of even the smallest ounce of care in his face sent a shudder through you.

Because Elain had truly lost him.

Forever.

And some part of you reveled in that.

Some part of you relished the way his voice turned sharp, the way his words sliced into her like cold, merciless steel.

Azriel took a single step forward, his entire body radiating fury, his wings flaring slightly, his shadows curling ravenously at his feet.

Elain flinched, looking at him as if begging for mercy.

But there was none left to give.

“You were an acquaintance to me, nothing more,” he said, his voice devoid of any warmth, any kindness, any mercy.

His golden eyes burned like molten fire.

“I was helping you because Feyre asked me to, because you refused to be around Lucien, and I thought I was doing my High Lady a favor.” He said, his expression unforgiving and unyielding. “You were a duty I fulfilled. Nothing more. I would have never fallen in love with you.”

Elain shook her head violently, her hands trembling as she clutched at her skirts. “No—no, that’s not true,” she whispered, desperate, broken. “You—you cared about me. You were falling in love with me.”

“No. I wasn’t.” His voice turned sharp, final. “And I never would have.”

He stared at Elain with that unwavering, icy hatred, there was no restraint.

There was only truth.

And it struck you then, with the full force of realization—

He truly hated her.

He hated her in a way that only someone who had been deeply betrayed could hate.

And you understood it.

Because you felt that same hatred.

You wanted to rip her apart with your bare hands, to make her feel even a fraction of the pain she had inflicted upon you.

You had dreamt of watching her fall to pieces, of watching her realize that all of her manipulation, all of her efforts, all of her scheming—had been for nothing.

You thought you would feel triumphant, knowing that Azriel had no love left for her—that he saw her now with the same revulsion you did.

And yet—

There was something about it that made you ache.

Not for her. Never for her.

But for him.

Because the Azriel who had once helped her adjust to this world, who had once thought he was doing a good thing, who had once trusted her enough to even let her near him—

That Azriel had been betrayed beyond measure.

And it had broken something in him.

His hatred was not hot, not wild or reckless—it was cold, calculating, merciless.

A hatred born not just from anger, but from deep, unshakable contempt.

And seeing it—truly seeing it in him now, so openly displayed for the first time—

It hurt.

Because it meant he was still hurting.

Because it meant Elain had taken something from him, too.

Not just from you.

Not just from the relationship you had spent years building together.

She had taken his choices.

She had taken his trust.

And as you watched him stand there, the rage simmering just beneath the surface, you knew—

This was his reckoning, too.

Azriel's golden eyes bore into hers, and when he spoke next, his voice was clear, unwavering, and final.

"There has only ever been one person I have loved," he murmured, tilting his head toward you. "And there will never be another." His voice turned sharp as steel. "You could have poisoned me for eternity, and I still would have never loved you."

The words hung in the air, curling around you like something sacred, something devastatingly precious.

Your breath hitched, your heart clenching violently, your entire body locking up as if the world had just shifted beneath you.

You felt everything at once.

A rush of vindication, a flood of anger, sorrow, longing, love—all of it, all at the same time, tearing through your chest like a storm too wild to control.

Because this—this was what you had been waiting to hear.

Not just that Elain had stolen his choices. Not just that he had been poisoned and manipulated.

But that his love for you had never wavered.

Not once.

Even when he thought he had left you, even when he had walked away from you in that alley, when he had believed he wanted something else—it had never been true.

It had never been real.

And hearing it—hearing him say it, in front of her, knowing that he was fully himself again, knowing that he had come back to you with love still in his heart—

It made your knees weak.

It made your lungs feel tight, your throat burn, your pulse race.

Because after everything, after all the months of agony, after thinking you had lost him, after believing you were no longer enough for him—

He was still yours.

He had been yours all along.

Azriel’s head snapped toward you, his golden eyes filled with a depth of emotion so overwhelming it nearly stole your breath away. “I have only ever loved you. I will only ever love you. Nothing—not her, not anything—could ever change that.”

He was standing before you now, himself again, the male who had always loved you fiercely, wholly, irrevocably.

The male who would do anything to fix what had been broken.

And you still loved him.

Elain’s lips quivered, tears slipping down her cheeks, but neither of you cared anymore.

You stared down at her, at the pitiful, broken creature before you, and for the first time, you felt nothing.

No pity.

No sadness.

No remorse.

And now, as she sat there, falling apart in the wake of her own ruin, you felt only justice.

“You are a pathetic excuse for a fae,” you murmured, voice low and deadly calm. “And exile is too kind for what you’ve done.” You inhaled sharply. “But I will support my High Lord’s decision, even though you deserve so much worse.”

Elain looked up at you, her face a mess of tears, her expression twisted in guilt and shame.

You let out a slow breath, shaking your head. “I used to feel bad for Lucien,” you admitted, staring at her as if she were a stranger. “I thought it was cruel, the way you pushed him away, the way you acted like he was some burden to bear.” You smiled then, but it was cold, empty. “But now? Now I realize Lucien is the lucky one.”

Elain let out a quiet sob, her entire body hunched in on itself.

“Because you will NEVER be good enough for him,” you sneered. “Because you are selfish, weak, and cruel. You will never deserve him.”

She let out a broken gasp, her eyes filled with pain, with regret, with loss.

But you didn’t care.

“I came here wanting to physically hurt you…slap you, punch you, anything to make you feel the pain and hurt you caused me,” you said, your voice light, almost thoughtful. “But now I realize—you aren’t even worth it.”

Elain’s face crumpled.

You stepped over to her, but speaking loud enough for Azriel to hear your last words.

“This is the last time I will think of you,” you murmured, “but I know you will think of me every single day.” Your voice was a soft whisper of victory. “When I am with Azriel, the love of my life and the mate you could never have. He is mine.”

"And he was never yours," you whispered, your voice like a whispered promise, like a blade gliding across silk.

Azriel’s entire body shuddered, something dark and fierce and possessive curling in his chest, something that sent a violent wave of emotion surging through the bond.

Yours.

You were claiming him.

Gods—you still wanted him.

After everything, after all the pain, all the betrayal, all the nights you had spent crying yourself to sleep, after he had failed you so utterly, after he had let Elain’s poison seep into him and turn him into a version of himself that you had not recognized—

You still wanted him.

You still chose him.

Not just as your mate, but as your love, your partner, your forever.

And gods, he had never wanted anything more than to belong to you.

Because you were right.

He had never been Elain’s.

Not for a single second.

Not even when the poison had clouded his mind, not even when she had stolen his emotions, twisted his thoughts, made him believe he wanted something else.

Even then, even when his mind had been warped beyond recognition, his soul had still belonged to you.

And now, hearing you say it—hearing you say it with such certainty, with such quiet, unshakable conviction—

Something inside him cracked wide open.

It undid him.

Completely.

His breathing turned ragged, his hands clenching at his sides, his shadows curling in slow, reverent waves around his boots, no longer frantic, no longer restless.

Because this was all he had ever wanted.

To be yours.

To be claimed by you, chosen by you, loved by you.

To stand at your side, where he had always belonged.

Elain let out a choked, shattered noise, as if those words had been the final blow, the final nail in the coffin of her ruined, twisted fantasy.

But Azriel didn’t look at her.

Not anymore.

Because there was only one person in this world who mattered to him.

Only one person he would spend the rest of his life making it up to.

Only one person he would worship for as long as he lived.

Elain let out a shaky, broken sob, her body trembling as she folded into herself, her arms wrapping around her chest as if trying to hold together the shattered pieces of her own ruin.

And he—

He felt nothing.

Nothing but satisfaction.

Because she deserved this.

She deserved to sit in the wreckage of her own destruction, to watch the world she had so desperately tried to steal crumble into nothing before her.

Because she had never been his choice.

Not then.

Not now.

Not ever.

Azriel’s grip on you tightened, and when you turned toward the door, ready to leave this wreckage of a confrontation behind—

He pulled you to him.

Right there, in front of her.

And before you could even register the movement, his lips were on yours.

It wasn’t gentle.

It wasn’t soft or careful.

It was fierce, unyielding, consuming...a declaration, a vow, a promise carved in stone.

A kiss that said you are mine, and I am yours, and nothing will ever change that again.

A kiss that said I will spend the rest of my life proving to you that I will never, never lose you again.

A kiss that said this is real.

This is forever.

Elain gasped, her breath hitching at the display in front of her, but Azriel didn’t give a damn.

Because he had spent too long pulled into a fate that was never his to claim.

Spent too long letting others dictate where his heart should belong.

He groaned as he tangled his hands into your hair, his tongue sliding across your lips, silently asking for entry, which you immediately gave him. He stroked his tongue across yours again and again, as if memorizing the taste of your lips that he had gone without for months. He drank from you like a man starved and when he finally broke the kiss, his breathing ragged, his forehead pressed against yours, his hands firm on your waist as if he would never let go again—

He turned to Elain as he wrapped his arms tightly around your waist and spoke the words that would haunt her for the rest of her life.

"Nothing and no one will EVER pull me away from her again."

His voice was low, with lethal undertones challenging anyone that would dare try to take him away again, each syllable carved into the air like an unbreakable vow.

"I am forever hers, and I will destroy anyone who tries to separate us again."

And when he looked back at you—the love, the devotion, the certainty in his golden eyes nearly stole your breath away.

Because he meant it.

Every word.

Every touch.

Every piece of his soul, his heart, his love—

It was all yours.

And then, in a voice so low and filled with love, with certainty, with the quiet promise of a future that was now truly yours again, he murmured,

"Come, my love. Let’s go home."

Home.

The word hit something deep inside you, something raw and aching and fragile from all the months of pain, of loneliness, of grief.

But you let out a slow breath, your body relaxing into his touch, into the warmth and safety of the only male who had ever made you feel truly seen, truly cherished, truly loved.

Azriel didn’t glance back.

You didn’t look back.

You didn’t need to.

So you let him lead you out of the apartment, his arm firmly around your waist, his body a steady, unshakable force beside you.

And as the door shut behind you, sealing Elain in her own self-inflicted misery, you realized—

You were no longer drowning.

You were finally…free.

*****

The apartment door clicked shut behind you, sealing Elain away in her own self-inflicted ruin, leaving behind the wreckage of her destruction, her desperation, her betrayal.

Azriel’s arm remained firm around your waist, his body warm and solid against yours, his shadows curling softly around the two of you, not frantic like before, but calm, reverent.

He was watching you—really watching you, his golden eyes filled with something raw, something aching, something so unbearably tender that it nearly stole your breath away.

With a sharp inhale, you grabbed his face in your hands, pulling him down, your fingers threading into his dark hair, gripping him like he was the only thing tethering you to this world.

You kissed him.

Fiercely.

Desperately.

With every ounce of longing, of grief, of love that had been buried beneath months of pain.

Azriel let out a low, guttural groan, his hands gripping your waist, pulling you flush against him, as if he needed you just as badly, as if he was terrified of letting go.

His lips moved against yours, urgent, devouring, worshipping, and you felt it in your soul, in the bond that had been stretched thin but never severed.

He deepened the kiss, his tongue sweeping over yours, his body pressing into you, a silent plea, a silent vow, a silent apology.

And gods—you could have stayed like this forever.

Because this—this was yours.

This was real.

Not the twisted illusion Elain had tried to create, not the falsehoods laced in poison, but this—Azriel, his hands on you, his lips on yours, his love still burning for you despite everything.

When you finally broke apart, both of you panting, chests heaving, you rested your forehead against his, your eyes fluttering open to meet his molten gaze.

His expression was wrecked, his lips red and swollen from your kiss, his breathing still ragged, his hands still holding onto you as if letting go wasn’t an option.

“Gods, I have missed you, baby. I love you so much,” he whispered, his eyes gazing at you as if you were the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

And then, softly, you whispered,

"I love you, Az. Take me home."

A sound escaped him, something close to a shuddering breath, a quiet prayer, before he nodded, pressing one more lingering kiss to your lips, softer this time, filled with something quieter, something reverent.

Then—he pulled you into his arms and flew to the cabin.

*****

The cabin loomed in the distance, its silhouette cutting through the dense, moonlit forest. The air was thick with the scent of pine and the faintest hint of rain, but all you could focus on was the warmth of Azriel’s body, his grip firm yet trembling as he landed gently with you in his arms. Months apart had stretched between you like a chasm, but now, as he led you up the creaking steps to the front door, the tension between you was electric—unspoken, undeniable.

He paused, his broad shoulders tense beneath the black fabric of his shirt, and turned to face you. His eyes, those piercing, stormy hazel eyes that had haunted your dreams, searched yours with an intensity that made your breath catch.

You could see it there—the regret, the longing, the desperate need to fix what had been broken.

His voice, low and rough, broke the silence. “I’ve missed you so much,” he said, the words slipping out like a confession. “More than I can say.”

Your heart clenched at the rawness in his tone, and you reached up to cup his cheek, your thumb brushing over the stubble that dusted his jaw. His skin was warm, familiar, and it sent a shiver through you.

“I’ve missed you too,” you whispered, your voice trembling. “Every single second, Azriel.”

His hand covered yours, pressing it harder against his face as if he feared you’d pull away. “I’m so sorry,” he murmured, his voice breaking. “For everything. For not seeing what was happening. For making you feel I didn’t love you anymore. For making you feel like you were nothing. For not fighting harder as she was trying to pull me away.”

His other hand came up to grip your waist, pulling you closer until your bodies were inches apart. You could feel the heat radiating from him, could smell the faint, night-chilled mist and cedar scent that was so uniquely his.

It made your head swim.

“We are both victims of Elain’s lies and manipulation. But we’re here now and we’re still standing,” you said softly, your other hand resting on his chest. His heart thudded beneath your palm, steady and strong. “That’s all that matters.”

He let out a shaky breath, his forehead coming to rest against yours. For a moment, you just stood there, breathing each other in, the world around you fading away. Then, with a sudden, almost desperate urgency, his lips crashed into yours.

He didn’t give you time to think, to second-guess, to wonder if you were dreaming.

Because this—you and him, tangled in each other, wrapped up in love and fire and desperate need—

This was real.

And he was going to make sure you knew it.

It wasn’t gentle—it was hungry, demanding, as if he was trying to make up for all the time you’d lost in one kiss. His hands slid down to your hips, pulling you flush against him, and you moaned into his mouth, your fingers tangling in his hair. The feel of him, the taste of him, was overwhelming, and you felt yourself melting into him, your body responding instinctively to his touch.

His tongue slid against yours, teasing, claiming, and you arched into him, your hands sliding down to grip the back of his shirt. He was everywhere—his scent, his warmth, his touch—and it was too much and not enough all at once. When he finally pulled back, both of you were panting, your foreheads resting together as you tried to catch your breath.

“I need you,” he growled, his voice low and rough with desire. “I need to feel you, to know you’re really here. That you’re still mine.”

The intensity in his eyes made your knees weak, and you nodded, your hands sliding down to grip his. “I have always been yours, Azriel” you whispered, your voice trembling with emotion.

He growled as he swept you up into his arms, carrying you through the front door and into the cabin.

The second the cabin door shut behind you, his lips were on yours—hot, demanding, unyielding, his hands gripping your waist, pulling you flush against him as if he could somehow fuse you into his very being. His mouth stayed on yours as his body pressed you backward, his hard cock grinding against you.

"Do you feel what you still do to me, baby? he growled against your lips.

You whimpered in response as his lips continued to claims yours.

The fire was already lit, casting a warm, golden glow over the room, and he set you down gently on the rug in front of the hearth. His eyes never left yours as he knelt before you, his hands sliding up your thighs to the hem of your dress.

“Let me take care of you,” he murmured, his voice thick with need. “Let me show you just how much I’ve missed you.”

You nodded, your breath hitching as he slowly peeled the fabric away, revealing your bare skin to the warm glow of the fire. His eyes darkened as they roamed over you, and you could see the hunger in his gaze, the way his hands trembled ever so slightly as they skimmed over your body.

“Gods, you still take my breath away,” he breathed, his voice reverent. His hands slid up your sides, his thumbs brushing over your ribs, and you shivered, your eyes fluttering shut. His touch was electric, sending ripples of pleasure through you with every caress.

When his lips found yours again, it was softer this time—slow, lingering kisses that made your heart ache with how much you’d missed him.

"I almost lost you." His voice broke, his hazel eyes gazing into yours as his hands slid down your sides, tracing every inch of you like he was relearning, reclaiming, reminding you that you had always been his. "Never again, my love. Never again."

You arched into him, your hands sliding over his shoulders to grip the back of his neck, pulling him closer.

“Azriel,” you whimpered, your voice breaking as his lips trailed down your neck, nipping and sucking at the sensitive skin there. His hands slid down to grip your thighs, spreading them apart as he settled between them, his breath hot against your inner thigh.

“I’ve missed this,” he murmured, his voice rough with need as he pressed a kiss to the soft skin there. “Being between your thighs, tasting what is mine, hearing you moan my name as you fall apart for me.”

You gasped as his lips brushed against your core, your hands tangling in his hair as he teased you with slow, deliberate strokes of his tongue. His name spilled from your lips, a desperate, broken sound that only seemed to spur him on. He devoured you like a man starved, his hands gripping your hips to keep you still as he brought you to the edge and then pulled you back, again and again, until you were trembling beneath him.

“Please,” you begged, your voice barely more than a whisper. “I need you.”

He pulled back, his eyes dark with desire as he looked up at you. “Not yet, baby” he said, his voice rough. “I’m not done with you.”

You moaned, your back arching as his hands slid up your body, his lips following the path of his fingers. He was everywhere—his touch, his kisses, his words—and you felt like you were drowning in him. Your hands slid down to grip his shoulders, pulling him up to meet you in a desperate, hungry kiss.

“I need you inside me,” you whispered against his lips, your voice trembling with need. “Please, Azriel.”

He groaned, his hands sliding down to grip your hips as he positioned himself at your entrance. “Say it again,” he demanded, his voice rough.

“I need you inside me,” you repeated, your voice breaking as you arched into him. “Make me yours again.”

With a low growl, he thrust into you, filling you completely in one swift, powerful stroke. You cried out, your nails digging into his back as he began to move, his pace slow and deliberate, each thrust driving you closer to the edge. He was everywhere—his body, his scent, his touch—and you felt like you were falling apart in his arms.

"I could stay buried inside you for a week," he groaned against your throat, his hands gripping your hips, his breath uneven, his body moving against yours with slow, deliberate control. "So you never forget. So you always know who you belong to."

And gods, you did.

Because every touch, every whispered “I love you”, every press of his lips against your skin was a vow.

A vow that nothing, no one, would ever come between you again.

Hours passed, the world outside fading, lost in the rhythm of your bodies, lost in the quiet moans and breathless gasps that filled the cabin.

Until finally, you both collapsed into each other, sweat-drenched, breathless, bodies tangled together as if untangling would mean losing each other again.

Azriel’s arms wrapped tightly around you, his breath warm against your bare shoulder, his body still pressed against yours as his shadows lazily curled over your skin.

"I told Rhys we’d be here as long as we wanted," he murmured against your hair, his voice laced with exhaustion, with absolute contentment.

You blinked, still floating in the haze of pleasure, of love, of belonging.

"Your duties—"

"Can wait."

His grip tightened, his lips pressing to your temple.

"You are my number one priority now. Forever. And nothing will change that."

Tears pricked at your eyes, your heart swelling so fiercely you thought it might burst.

Because for so long, you had felt second.

Forgotten.

Neglected.

But now—now, he was here.

Completely.

Entirely.

"Rhys understands," he murmured, his fingers brushing soothing circles along your back. "He told me to take as much time as we need."

You exhaled, something deep inside you settling, healing, finally at peace.

"I love you," you whispered into the quiet, into the safety of his embrace.

He tilted your chin up, his golden eyes burning with something fierce, something unshakable.

"And I love you."

You smiled, the first true, unburdened smile you had felt in months.

"I’m glad to be here."

Azriel’s expression softened, his arms tightening around you as he pressed a lingering, soul-stealing kiss to your lips.

"You are home, my love."

And as the first rays of morning light spilled through the windows, illuminating your tangled bodies, your breath still mingling as you held each other—

You knew.

This was exactly where you were meant to be.

But before you could say anything else, before you could even fully process how at peace you felt in his arms,

Azriel rolled you beneath him again, a wicked gleam in his golden eyes.

"What are you doing?" you breathed, gasping slightly as he trailed his lips down your throat.

He smirked against your skin, his voice dark with promise.

"Loving you the way you deserve. Again."

And gods help you, you let him.

Because this was home.

He was your home.

And you would never leave again.

Chapter 14

[alagaisia]

This is true, and it’s especially true for the people that I think most is us probably encounter in our own social circles and daily lives. But I don’t think it’s true for everybody. Remember how there was that stat showing a spike in google searches for “did Joe Biden drop out” on Election Day?

I think it’s sort of like how you can’t know what you can’t know. If you don’t know that you’re missing information, you can’t go looking to educate yourself on it. And while most of the time when people talk about “living in a bubble” they tend to mean it in a bad faith, paradox of tolerance type of way, I’ve realized lately that it’s a concept that’s absolutely applicable in a lot of ways. Of course we make our assumptions about the world based on the very limited and biased sample size of people we interact with in our daily lives. You can’t talk about the benefits of being able to curate our dashes on tumblr and then say you think the people who interact with the same political posts as you make a representative sample of the American public.

I am someone who tries to be pretty aware of environmental issues in my personal habits. My family isn’t zero-waste, granola, organic everything, but we haven’t used a plastic shopping bag or water bottle since I was in first grade. As I start forming my own adult habits and thinking about having more control over my consumption, I’m identifying ways I could move towards more environmental consciousness. I know that I’m not doing the absolute most I could be doing, and that I think about this more than the people around me, but not by that much, right?

Except I work now for an organization that sends plays on things like proper sorting of recycling to teach elementary students two counties from where I live. The county pays us to bring these programs, because the residents are simply not recycling. I’ve gone along on one or two of the programs and seen kids ten and eleven years old participating in the interactive “help us sort the recycling” activity in the show who were terrible at it. Because it’s just not something their community thinks about. These aren’t rural areas, these aren’t devoid of civilization or waste management infrastructure, this is a suburb 45 minutes from the largest city in our state.

It’s hard for me to wrap my head around it, too, but trump did not win because more people voted for him. He won because record numbers of people did not vote at all. And we can blame that on individual leftists becoming cynical and disillusioned, but something like a third of the country has never voted in any election. There are people who are and always have been disconnected from and disinterested in the government and electoral politics and anything happening in this country.

And it’s wrong! I’m not saying it isn’t. Each of us has a responsibility to our communities, and the civic responsibility of voting and being at least minimally informed on what’s happening in the country is a part of living in a fucking society. It’s disgraceful. But many of those non-voters didn’t consider all of the available information and then choose not to educate themselves and not to vote. It simply didn’t occur to them. Just like the kids I encountered who don’t know how to recycle, a lot of people have grown up in families and communities where electoral politics were somebody else’s business, or for any number of other reasons I can’t begin to guess at, something that just wasn’t a priority. I come from a very politically motivated family, and I’m sure most of you do too. I don’t know anybody who doesn’t vote. I don’t know why each of them didn’t. But there are millions of people who don’t.

These problems have been building since long before 2016, but at the very least that election should have been a wake up call for the democratic party on a national level. What we needed and still need is community and individual level action on a national scale to reach non-voters and educate them on political issues and why this shit does actually affect them and does actually matter. Democrats need to stop folding to random criticism on things like fracking and instead have some fucking backbone, stick to their morals, and work to get votes through education and changing people’s minds and convincing them that these values are worth voting for, rather than changing their policies every other week based on what they think might appease people who are not going to vote for them anyway without a concentrated effort for a societal change of mindset.

Yes, there’s lots of information available, and people do have a responsibility to use that. Obviously there are plenty of people like the ones OP alludes to who are shirking that responsibility due to apathy. But those of us who know all of that know it because we are part of communities that care about accessing and acting based on that information. There are people who don’t know and don’t care and to whom it would never occur to seek that information out, because in their community, it doesn’t matter. And those are the people who I think the democratic party does have a real responsibility to try harder to reach. Politicians also obviously live in a social bubble where everybody cares about politics. But somebody needs to look at the numbers and realize that that’s just not true for the country as a whole. And then they need to do something about it.

I STILL sometimes see people argue that Trump's victory is the fault of Democrats for not being good enough at messaging, and not making it clear enough to Americans all the good Biden was doing.

I knew. Lots of people I know knew. I don't have a secret line to the white house. I'm around average intelligence. I'm not excessively seeking out news, constantly getting news updates. And yet I knew. And so did many others. The information was there for you to get at any time. It found its way to me without my actively seeking it out. Kamala Harris cannot personally come to your house and slap the tiktok out of your hands. You have to take a crumb of responsibility here.

[irissfoot]

arthur morgan x fem reader

him drawing you nude… fluffy and smutty please

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Soft Lines

╰┈➤ After a few weeks away from each other, Arthur takes his beloved wife to the saloon for a night of drawing and soft love making. ♥

Word count: 890

Warnings: unprotected p in v, kissing, nudity (obvi lol), author has zero sexual experience, not proofread

A/N: This is my first ever fic ive written so please be kind lol, also sorry for the delay ive been rlly busy and everytime I sat down to write it i got scared lol.

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Soft giggles met the gentle crackle of the fire, the warm glow casting a soft shadow over her curves as she posed on the rich red chaise couch.

Dutch had sent him and Lenny on yet another wild goose chase, a habit growing annoyingly common. Because of these pointless missions, he hadn't had time to catch up with the love of his life. To correct this, Arthur took her out to dinner at the saloon in Saint Denis - promptly followed by booking a room for the night. 

And that's how you ended up laying on your side on the couch, as bare as the day you were born. You were reluctant at first, I mean, who wouldn't be? Laying naked as your husband who looks like he was sculpted by the gods, sitting there, drawing you. But with a few kisses and a promise that it wouldn't take too long, you obliged. 

“Are you almost done? I feel silly”

“Don’t worry sweetheart, you look gorgeous.” He mumbled as he continued scribbling away, a small smile crept its way onto your face.

“Do you really mean that?” you already knew what his answer would be, but you were growing tired and figured teasing him would help aid that.

He looked up, surprised almost. As if he didn’t say it enough. “Well ‘course I do!” Suddenly an idea popped into your head as he put his head back down.

“Well then show me.” You got up and started walking across the room towards him. Hips intentionally popping out, accentuating your curves.

A smirk made its way onto Arthur's face as he put his pencil and journal down, reaching out to grab onto your soft waist. Pulling you down to have your ass sit flush against his lap. Smiling at you gently as you play with the tuft of hair at his neck, looking lovely into his eyes.

“Don't know what I did to deserve you.” He continued staring into your eyes for a moment, muttering a faint beautiful before leaning in to kiss you. Soft and gentle, those are the words you’d use to describe how Arthur treats you. Holding you like you’re the most important thing in the world to him. 

The kiss became more passionate and deep, kissing down your neck before standing up with you in his arms. Walking back towards the couch, delicately laying you down. You wrap your legs around his hips, pulling him closer as you start to unbutton his black blouse - his favourite but only because you always tell him how handsome he looks in it. 

His hands start to move from your hips and up towards your soft breasts. Massaging them tenderly, making you let out a small sound of protest before breaking from the kiss.

“Arthur, take your clothes off.” Your tone was kind but he knew better than to test you. 

“Yes ma’am.” He sat back on his feet, pulling his arm out of his suspenders as you untuck his shirt pulling it down his shoulders. 

Caressing his shoulders and buff chest as he unbuckles his belt, “God I love you.” Just as he takes his pants off you pull him into a deep kiss. His hands find their way back to your breasts, teasing your nipples as you massage his growing erection.

Mumbles and groans grow louder and you just couldn't take it anymore, pulling away slightly whispering a soft, “Please Arthur.”

You don’t even need to ask a second time before Arthur takes his length in his hand, trailing the tip of his penis between your wet folds moaning at the sensation. 

“Good god women.” He rests his forehead on yours, staring oh so lovely into your eyes before entering you. You couldn't help but moan. It had been a long time since he stretched you out, his ridges rubbing perfectly against your warm velvety walls. Letting out a low groan as he bottomed out. He pulls his hands to your sides, caressing you with a desperation you absolutely adored. 

He started moving, slow, deliberate, and deep. Relishing the noises you were making, the desperate grabs at his back. You needed this just as much as he did. Speeding up a little, hitting your g-spot everytime. Reaching down to bring Arthur's hand into yours, placing a gentle kiss on the back of it. 

“Oh God Arthur.” You weren’t gonna last much longer, walls clenching around his  length. Heels digging into his back, pushing him deeper.

“I know sweetheart, I know.” His pace speeding up a little, he wasn’t gonna last much longer either. 

With a few more strokes and messy kisses, you came undone. Walls spasming on his cock with such a vigor he had never felt before. Moaning loudly, you pulled his sweaty forehead down to meet yours once again. He looked into your eyes as he came, watching the way your face contorted when you felt his warm cum filling you up. 

Panting heavily as his thrusts slowed, collapsing down onto you as you panted. Wrapping your arms around him, kissing his head tenderly. 

As you both layed there, the world around you seemed to dissipate. He looked up at you, the orange glow of the dying fire highlighting the sweat on your face and the frizziness of your tousled hair. And he swore, you never looked better.

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[narcjsistx]

— 𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐀 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐊𝐈𝐒𝐒 ; words: 0.4k

"What do you mean you've never given a kiss?"

Sitting so close to him, you're surprised to see him so serious about such a topic. In your head you had often imagined who knows what things about RINDOU HAITANI, but in none of these you imagined him as someone who had yet to have his first kiss. He's a delinquent, who knows how many girls have fallen at his feet all these years... and he still has to kiss?

He looks down, a light pink blush coloring his pale skin "I'm not as desperate as my brother. I wanted to wait, that's all" he says taking your hands in his, squeezing them gently as he begins to massage your knuckles. You observe how your hands seem intended for his, how together they almost look like a painting, one of those you often saw in the art galleries you visited together. Maybe all the thoughts you've had about him so far are wrong, perhaps more than you care to admit

"But you told me you wanted to kiss me" you say unsure, still with the words from earlier echoing in your mind. Rindou looks up not letting go of your hands, but his sudden boldness is betrayed by his tense shoulders and the way he breathes, almost as if he's out of air "So what? I'm tired of waiting"

"It's strange, I thought..." you say stuttering, but he interrupts you "I know, the usual story of the delinquent with all the women at his feet, who kisses them and even spends the night together. No, I'm not exactly that kind of person... plus, I spent half my life in prison, let's say there weren't many women there" he says, and you can't help but chuckle a little at the last part of his sentence "Maybe I just thought wrong"

"I can prove the opposite to you, that there is a part of delinquents who if they love a girl, only her exists" he says, his hand leaving yours as he shyly cups your chin. Two purple amethysts study your soul, as you slowly relax under his touch, the distance between your lips slowly reducing to zero

You have always been used to toxic loves, decent guys who however had no intention of treating you as you deserved. Yet, since you met him, he who has always been the opposite of them at least in appearance, has given you everything you deserved even before actually being in a relationship. He, a delinquent, who would get the whole Roppongi beaten up if you asked him, just to see you smile for a few seconds

"Can I, then?" he asks softly, his breath beating against your cold lips, divided by only one millimetre "You can"

✶ 𝐌𝐘 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ; take a look, trust me!

[wingsdippedingold]

My rapid fire ACOTAR hot takes that y’all will hate:

I pray the pros don’t find this

I don’t ship Elriel or Elucien because I ship Elain with singleness and just traveling Prythian to learn about different plants and then settling down somewhere to become an apothecary. Is she aromantic and suffering from comphet in my head? You’ll never know

Nesta would not have eaten Lucien alive, I think she’d be tentative at first but then realize he’s not a threat to her then grow to enjoy his presence. They could have had a great romance that actually helped her grow as a person, unlike Nessian.

Nessian is a mutually destructive relationship. Cassian is too insecure to date someone who he thinks looks down at him. Nesta needs an emotionally supportive partner.

There was ZERO need to actively SA Feyre publicly to make her look subservient or as if she had a “claim” laid on her. The reasoning is weak, and SJM an Rhysand fans need to admit that they only defend it because they thought it was sexy, or because they self-insert and can’t make Rhysand actually look bad.

Tamlin isn’t a bad leader, but it doesn’t suit him. He’s much more of a people person than someone who would like to be removed from them and working on laws and politics.

Tamlin should be walking around the SC as they rebuild and see a woman directing townspeople on how to do so. Tamlin would admire her for being able to connect with people but also being able to govern well. They would have a romance and that woman would eventually become a lady and help Tamlin govern because she wants to make a difference and is good at that stuff. They eventually get married 💥

Canon Elain is my least favorite Archeron. I think she’s manipulative and worse than Nesta in her cabin behavior because she wasn’t upfront about it. She let Feyre think she was useless and kind, to later only throw her under the bus. Nesta is the one who went to the wall for Feyre, and Elain didn’t gaf about Nesta caring for her the second is stopped benefitting her. Elain even acknowledges all that Feyre did for them, and yet she still didn’t do anything

BUT to append to that, I totally get why she’s that way. It’s her only means of survival because since childhood she was treated as a doll with noice of her own. She can’t be upfront like Nesta because she won’t get taken seriously, so her only way to get what she wants is to manipulate people and use her niceness as a mask.

Nesta and Feyre have a closer relationship than Nesta and Elain solely because they were constantly arguing. Nesta “favored” Elain, but it was still distant, but she actively watched Feyre and treated her like a whole person even if it was poorly. I think this is also exemplified in their appearance. Feyre and Nesta look very similar, while Elain doesn’t look like them as much.

You can’t argue that Feyre’s childhood was traumatizing (it was) but then say that it had no negative effects on her development and ability to socialize.

Feyre is NOT good at reading people despite what y’all like to argue. She can barely read Nesta, a woman she’s known for 20 years.

She suffers from hubris and has a savior complex. For example, when the debtors came to cripple her father she notes that they only left after SHE cried and soiled herself. In her perspective she will always be the hero because that’s how she makes herself fell good.

Arguable my hottest take: I don’t think Nesta and Feyre had a power imbalance in the cottage to make their relationship abusive. In fact, I think Feyre held more power over Nesta, Nesta just didn’t acknowledge it/was mean so it didn’t seem like it. Feyre was their father’s favorite, was the breadwinner, and technically dictated whether they would get to eat. Feyre held control over her family’s survival, even if she didn’t want it, and they all knew this. It is specifically why Elain sucked up to her (a character know to jump to whoever has the most power at the moment and would protect her the most)

Feyre doesn’t act how she wants to, but rather as she thinks a good person would. She doesn’t want to hunt, but she does so because she thinks she has to. Many of her acts are “selfless” but are often shallow. She also thinks everyone wants to the helped the same way she would want to be.

To add to this, she doesn’t love her sisters. She doesn’t love them for who they are, but because of proximity. She even says to Nesta when trying to get her to come to solstice “but you’re my sister”

Feyre did not know love and it did not know her, and thus made her latch on to whoever gave her affection and she deemed as her own savior (Tamlin and Rhysand). Should she finally ever feel suffocated by Rhysand (though he has ensured she won’t), I wouldn’t doubt that she would run to another.

Feyre has 0 healthy relationships. ZILCH

By adulthood, Feyre’s illiteracy is no one’s fault but her own. As a child she didn’t want to ask Nesta, but she didn’t ask Elain or her father either. Even then they fell into poverty at like 9 and she still didn’t learn much so that doesn’t make sense. She refused Tamlin’s help and Rhysand literally had to force her to learn.

Rhysand’s character makes 0 sense when you consider her upbringing, family, friends, personality, and powers, and is just a product of SJM trying to write the morally grey ultimate love interest.

I’m on the fence about him being a master manipulator towards Feyre and the IC. I doubt Sarah meant for him to come off like that, but if he actually was it would be a masterful story and make his character feel more cohesive.

HOWEVER, if he was a manipulator I don’t think it would be that impressive for him to manipulate Feyre. She is naive and new to the world of fae, and she switches her opinions like night and day. She would be the perfect target. Again, this comes about from her upbringing and her own hubris.

The series should stuck to being a trilogy. Insert it drags on and makes new problems that aren’t even properly addressed

This was not rapid I fear

[bogleech]

I'm actually not going to let this go until Gerry is at least as widely ridiculed as Human Pet Guy. That guy still didn't do anything half as disturbed as this fucking loser, let me pull up my favorites again:

Gerry messaging me from an alt pretending not to be an alt

Gerry claiming again that it's antisemitic of me to say the IDF are bad guys who do not represent the entire Jewish population. This is not, in fact, the same as saying they're "not jews anymore." Also bragging about supposedly baiting and sealioning me into saying whatever they believe I said wrong. I guess the stupid ass hell thing????

Calling me a "blorbo" like I'm a fictional character rather than a human. Also, I went and got the original hell comment to double check it:

.....This doesn't even say the IDF should go to hell. It says I hope people "excusing" the IDF's actions should go to hell, I just typoe'd it as "excising." I guess Gerry successfully gaslit me, since I fully believed I had said specifically "the IDF go to hell." Thanks!

Gerry accusing me of "lumping them in as pro genocide" in response to a comment in which I specifically state I do not see them that way. How else am I supposed to read them NOW, though? Because I defined that as "someone who thinks kids deserve bombs dropped on them," and Gerry's response is "how dare you say that about me......???????" What?? Not once do they ever simply say "no one deserves their town to be bombed" or anything like that. They absolutely refuse, because they do in fact believe that it's okay to bomb a whole community if some of that community might hypothetically be "hamas." They do in fact think it's acceptable that people who never hurt anyone else should die that way for some sort of greater good, or that only hamas can be blamed for those deaths by "forcing the hand" of the ones with those bombs.

Gerry admitting the IDF bombs, loots and tortures, even though most comments they call antisemitic are calling out just that very behavior. Gerry to my knowledge has never willingly blamed anything negative on the IDF since this comment and continues to attack people who do.

Gerry admitting the honest core of their beliefs and behavior. This isn't really about me, though. I mean, part of it is, I can definitely be vindictive. But I mostly ignored this asshole for the past year until the doxx comment, and now I'm getting more messages than ever from people who feel actually hurt and terrorized by this motherfucker. I've suffered ZERO fallout from their attacks, I am evidently too big I guess, but there are people who change their username to hide from this piece of shit, even fucking minors who dared to say "free palestine" once. Then there's @stoptheantisemitism, who is NOT gerry, but is impersonated by gerry's alt account @spottheantisemitism and other alt accounts, @stop-the-antisemitism and of course @stop--the--antisemitism in this very thread. Creating so many variants is a deliberate attempt to make it as hard as possible for casual rebloggers to remember which one is the real person. I mean, two alts only add dashes to the same username, and the other only moves one letter "p." I have no idea how tumblr staff can rationalize that as okay. But, again, if there's a guy who can't show his face without human pet jokes because he was just generally creepy, or everyone remembers sixpenceee's family having slaves, why can a user devote this much of their miserable life to "baiting and sealioning" people from multiple accounts and still have a usable blog left? ONE LAST THING!!!!!!!

In the notes on this very post, gerry is so bent on finding people to call out and slander they tried to find "misogyny" in a comment saying that women like studying bugs????????

Gerrysherry, the user who tells people I'm antisemitic because I think IDF soldiers are killing innocent civilians (rather than framed by some kind of Hamas conspiracy), believes my real name was a secret that I only just now accidentally revealed rather than the default way I've signed all my web content since the 1990's. Also believes that I have an employer, that "telling my parents" would affect a grown man, that my hippie mom would disagree with me anyway, and that the hatemail they got last year was all me rather than the natural and inevitable fallout of the supremely fucked up shit they say about the victims of a mass murder. Apparently would gleefully leap at any hypothetical chance at "doxxing" me though. Good to know. Literally wishes they could ruin my real actual life because I don't think Netanyahu is a hero.

[cosyvelvetorchid]

@bucktommyfluffebruary Day 8: Surprise

Another of my prompts from last year that fit.

*****

Rated T | 2,430 | tw: homophobic slur

Buck knew that Tommy loved a romcom. He liked lots of genres of movies, and all for different reasons. But romcoms he loved because of the fantasy of them. He’d told Buck once that growing up with a father like his, and then spending the majority of his adult years firmly tucked away in the closet, that he’d wholeheartedly believed that a true love or romance was not in his own future. That living vicariously through two people on screen, even if they were straight, was the closest thing he’d get to a happy ending.

He’d very much changed his mind since he’d met his Evan, but still Buck had been determined to give him all the romantic moments he’d missed out on over his life.

It started with surprising Tommy with a candle lit dinner ready when he came home from work.. Which ended with Buck being bent over the table as dessert. Not quite the emotional response he was going for, but hey who was he to say no to that!

Tommy mentioned once a book he loved as kid and Buck spent three weeks hunting down a first edition. He was certainly blown away by Bucks thoughtfulness and showed him immediately by getting on his knees. Again Buck was happy to oblige—he always was—but it still wasn’t the response he was truly hoping for.

He wanted to sweep Tommy entirely off his feet. Woo him to the point of breathlessness. Make him feel so unbelievably cherished and loved that he forgets out to speak.

And then the idea hit him.

Oddly, while watching Carrie.

“Man, the worst thing that happened at our senior prom was Mikey Jacobs spiking the punch. I still can’t drink Jack Daniels” Buck reminisced.

“Better than pigs blood, babe. Or, you know, the revenge by telekinesis.”

“True. What about you? What was yours like?”

Tommy sighed. “I, uh, didn’t go to mine.”

“Really?” Buck looked at him in surprise. “I mean granted you were secretly gay, but I know the girls would have been killing each other to get the Tommy Kinard to take them to prom.” The idea seemed to bring such joy to his Evans face that Tommy almost didn’t want to admit the reality.

“I appreciate the support, babe, but I wasn’t exactly drowning in dates with girls.” He laughed “I was 6’2” by the time I was 15 but I didn’t know how to build muscle or even eat right for my body’s needs. I went from 5’8” and over weight to 6’2” and skinny, which my dad just loved to point out constantly. I was super insecure and had zero confidence to ask a a girl out.” A look of sadness flickered across his face.

“Did people not go stag at your school?”

Tommy huffed a cold laugh. “Only fags and virgins go stag to a prom, Thomas.” He mimicked his father’s voice. Buck gently rubbed Tommys arm.

“I’m sorry you had to hear shit like that from your dad. You deserved so much better than that.”

“I know that now and mostly because of you.” He pressed a chaste kiss to Bucks lips and smiled.

“Good.” He smiled back, already formulating his next plan to woo the shit out of his boyfriend.

This one took a few weeks of planning but Buck was certain it would knock Tommys socks off.

****

Tommy was surprised that Lucy had suddenly turned up at Harbour on what was supposed to be her day off. Even more surprised when she offered, nay insisted that she take Tommys remaining 24 hours of his 48 hours shift.

In the end their Captain had to practically shove him out of the harbour doors to get him out. He eventually relented and left for home.

Approaching their front door he noticed a note in handwriting so bad it had to be Bucks. God did he love him but the man’s penmanship looked like a doctor’s. A drunk doctor’s. Wearing a plaster cast. Thankfully after almost a year together he’d learned how to decipher Evans scribbles.

“Go straight upstairs.

Shower and get dressed..”

“Huh?”

“Don’t “huh” me, Kinard. Just do it. Then meet me in the dining room.

P.s: love you, Your Evan.”

Tommy chuckled to himself but did as he was asked and walked straight up the stairs to their bedroom. He was surprised, and confused, to see his tux freshly pressed and laid out on their bed.

After showering and dressing he made his way back down found himself knocking on his own dining room door for permission to enter.

“Come in.” Evans voice called from inside.

Tommy opened the door his mouth and eyes opened wide at what he saw.

The table had been pushed to the side wall, with a black cloth draped over the top, atop of which was a punch bowl filled with an orangey pink liquid. Surrounding it was lots of bowls filled with candy and chips and other kids favourite snacks.

A shiny disco ball hung from the ceiling with paper decorations swinging from the Center of the room and up to the corners. Twinkling lights hung all around giving the room a gorgeous warm glow.

And standing in the centre of the dining room, under the disco ball, in a tux that fit him so incredibly perfectly was the most beautiful man Tommy had ever seen.

“What’s.. what’s going on?” Tommy asked not being able to hide his smile.

Evan took a few steps toward him and held out his hand. “Thomas Kinard. Will you go to prom with me?” Every time Tommy thinks he can’t fall in love with Evan any more, he’s proven wrong.

For the next two hours they do nothing but dance like idiots, drink spiked punch (tequila instead of Jack Daniel’s this time - buck would actually like to remember this prom), and snack on junk food.

Tommy couldn’t remember the last time he had let loose like this. Or even smiled this hard. Evan was by far the greatest joy to ever come into his life. He reminded Tommy of what fun was, what joy was and what it felt like to be truly unashamedly himself - something that nobody had ever made him felt safe enough to truly be.

Buck knew he’d achieved his task of sweeping Tommy off his feet tonight already, but there was one more thing he decided, last minute, that he was going to do.

Buck picked up his phone and searched for the perfect song, settling on Songbird by Eva Cassidy because it was on the soundtrack to Tommy’s favourite movie Love, Actually. He didn’t even need to do anything because as soon as the opening bars played through the speaker Tommy instantly knew what it was and pulled Buck into a slow dance.

They swayed slowly and silently for a few moments just breathing in the perfect moment with each other with Tommys arms wrapped around Bucks waist and Bucks arms around his neck.

“So, not that I’m complaining, babe, what with all the romancing lately?” Tommy asked.

“You deserve it.” Was Bucks simply reply. Tommy looked at him with a mixture of adoration with a hint of confusion. “You go out of your way to show me how much you love me and to do all these sweet and romantic things for me, but you deserve them too. You deserve to be shown how much you mean to me also.” Tommy was looking at him with those eyes again - the big bright ones Buck first saw right before he kissed him for the first time - and he had to use every bit of strength to hold back from jumping him, because he needed to say this before his courage disappeared.

“I see how you look at these little moments in the romcoms you love and I hate that you never got to experience them, so I wanted you to have some of them of your own. Our own. Plus, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to tell you just how much I love you. To tell you how unbelievably happy I am that you walked, well, flew into my life. To tell you that I have never in all of my life thought that I deserved to have someone so beautiful and kind and wonderful and just fucking incredible as you. And.. and to ask you to marry me.”

Tommy blinked. Did he hear that correctly?

“Wh-what?”

“I know, it’s- we’ve not even been together a full year yet, and full disclosure I didn’t even know I was going to ask until, like, 10 minutes ago, so I don’t even have a ring, and-“ Tommy grabbed Buck either side of his neck and pressed his lips firmly against his. When Tommy pulled back his cheeks were wet with tears cascading over his beautiful lower lashes. Finally, Buck thought, though he kept that to himself.

“Hold that thought.” He said simply before quickly leaving the room. He took 2 steps at a time as he hurtled upstairs, before running back down seconds later back to Buck still stood in the center of the dining room.

He lifted up his palm on top of which was a dark blue velvet box, opened, with 2 tarnished silver bands of differing sizes, each with a shiny silver strip running around the centre of each of them.

“You bought.. how long have you..” Buck could barely get the words out. His eyes kept flicking between Tommys beautiful face and the rings in his hand.

“About a month. Well, I ordered them custom made about 2 months ago but I’ve had them for a month.”

“Custom?” Was all Buck could get out.

Tommy pointed to the shiny part of the rings. “A couple of years ago I had this rescue and the husband of the woman we were life flighting was telling us about how they met. Anyway, he said that his family had this tradition of putting something sentimental in the band to give to your partner as.. sort of as a piece of you. You know that piece of metal that sits on my desk in the study?”

“Y-yeah. It’s part of the blade from the first chopper you flew when you transferred to harbour.”

“Right. Well, it now has a little chunk missing.” He laughed. “Transferring to the 217 was the first piece of me finally becoming who I always wanted to be. You’re the last piece, Evan.”

Buck had this whole night planned—minus is own spontaneous proposal—and had wanted Tommy to be the feeling pleasantly surprised and loved.. yet here he was himself being loved so fucking beautifully it was taking everything within him to not break apart right there.

“What’s-what’s in your ring?” He asked.

“Well, that was.. a little trickier. And full disclosure on my part— Maddie knows because I had to enlist her help.”

“Okay..”

“It’s difficult to pick something when your boyfriend loves so many things,” he teased “and then Maddie.. she gave me a little silver bracelet that she was given as a kid and-“

Buck inhaled a breath when he realised what bracelet Tommy was referring to. Immediately his whole chin began to quiver and tears filled his eyes.

“The one that Daniel gave to her.”

“Yeah.” Tommy said softly. “She told me how he’d seen it one day when he was with your grandparents when he was 6 or something and insisted he give to her for her birthday.” Buck nodded, not being able to find words. “She said that this would be something that would be special to you because you never got to know him. Is-is that okay?”

Buck looked from the ring back to up Tommy; eyes completely blurred from tears pouring out of him.

“I.. this..” He could always find peace in Tommy eyes but this was all so- it was overwhelming and.. he took a deep breath to try and calm himself.

“Tommy, this whole night was-was supposed to be about you.. a-and showing you just how much to mean to me and then..” he blew out another breath trying to center himself “and then here you are with the most beautiful fucking gesture, I.. I can’t..” The tears flowed once again and this time he threw his arms around Tommys neck and held on tight. Tommy, as he always did, reciprocated and held him tightly back.

“I love you so fucking much.” He cried into Tommys neck. Tommys own tears were flowing too, now.

“God I love you, too, Evan. More than I could ever even show you.”

“I don’t know-“ Buck pulled back with a laugh “I think you hit it out of the ball park with this one.” He gently thumbed Tommys tears from his cheeks. He looked closer at the rings.

“Are there inscriptions?”

“Only on yours.” Tommy replied, sniffing.

“For my Evan. Always.” Buck read out loud. Tommy wiped away Bucks next tears that came. They were the only type of tears he ever wanted to illicit from his Evan.

“I thought you would what to decide what to inscribe on my ring.”

“Can I put it on you now?” Tommy asked.

“Uh, technically I should be putting yours on you because I asked first. Actually, you haven’t actually said yes by the way..”

Tommy reached up an gently fixed a curlon Bucks head and looked at him with those big earnest eyes again.

“Yes.”

Buck took his ring out of the box and slid it onto Tommy finger, then Tommy did the same with Bucks ring.

Buck gripped the lapels of Tommys tux and pulled him into a kiss. They both sighed into it. It wasn’t a kiss that they’d shared before; this one was full of promise, of hope, a future - the rest of their lives as husbands.

Tommy pulled back for a second “By the way, I did promise Maddie that the second we became engaged that we would face time her. Where’s your phone?”

“She can wait a little bit.” Buck replied aiming his lips at Tommys neck.

“You sure? She might be mad.” Buck lifted up and looked Tommy in the eyes.

“Tommy, there’s only one thing I want to do right now and it absolutely does not involve my sister.”

“She can wait a little bit.” Tommy repeated wrapping his arms around his Evans neck and pulling him in for another deep kiss.