#or support the people making that content

[valtsv]

mister loveless, how do i tell the difference between "this work has deeper themes than the deceptively simple surface level story may let on" and "pinning images to a corkboard and connecting them with red string"? i feel like i'm doing the second one with this book i just got done reading, but i can't tell.

honestly there's nothing wrong with reading deeper meaning into apparently surface-level "what it says on the tin" narratives, as long as you can support them and be open to contention/criticism when you present your ideas. even if the creator didn't intend for those themes to be present, or most people don't acknowledge it, that doesn't make your interpretation automatically invalid and objectively wrong. if you're on, like, "the dark and twisted secrets of [cartoon for literal babies]" levels of theorycrafting, yeah, okay, maybe it's time to take a step back and ask yourself if this is really worth your time. but also literally all art is political and has the potential for infinite interpretation beyond the surface level - all art is shaped by the society we live in and the lives that interact with it, directly and indirectly. so pinning images to a corkboard and connecting them with red string is literally fine. even if it only means something to you personally. that's the great thing about art - it's both a rewardingly communal and highly individual experience!

[ghostlyferrettarot]

🏷️Lets go Shopping! Pick a Picture:🧥👜🥾 What makes you irresistibe🧥👜🥾

•Pile 1 •Pile 2 •Pile 3

❗️This is a collective reading, take what resonates and leave the rest❗️

✨️Paid Services ✨️ (Natal charts and tarot readings) Open!

🫧Join my Patreon for exclusive content!🫧

👾If you like my work you can support me through Ko-fi. Thank you!👾

👽Masterlist👽

Pile 1:

You have an intense and captivating aura, i feel a lot of mistery around you (as weirds as it sound pile 1!). I feel like you are someone who doesn't reveal itself completely; there is a quality in your energy that makes others' feel like they have to make an effort in order to get to know you, which creates this sense of constant facination towards you. I almost feel a siren type of energy coming from you. Instead of seeking attention, you just do you, and mind your own business, and that really intrigues others. You could also read others with ease and connect on deep emotional levels with others, people always want to find out more about you. You could also have a really unique aesthetic, many may really like the way you style yourself and how you hold yourself. People can be captivated by small details about your image, such as your gaze or the way you move, you seem like a very graceful person in general. . You also have the ability to create a unique environment through your words, making people feel drawn to your way of thinking, to your unique perspective on the world. There is something captivating about the way you make others laugh, and that definitely adds to your charm. Extended reading on Patreon: 👀Who has their eyes on you?👀

Pile 2:

Your irresistible charm comes from your radiant energy and self-confidence. You have a light that is not only seen, but felt, people can feel your presence, it's like the energy in the room changes when you arrive. Your energy is like a magnet, and people feel like they want to be around you, the charm that you radiate so naturally. There's something about your smile as well, I feel like you have a really beautiful one; I also feel like your makeup may really suit you and others love it. People are drawn to the way you make them feel, you manage to make everyone feel good just because you carry yourself and the way you speak with confidence. You are very skilled at reading people and knowing what kind of joke or comment will make the situation lighter and more fun. Good humor is one of your strongest skills, and your carefree energy is one of the things that makes you irresistible ;). Extended reading on Patreon: 👀Who has their eyes on you?👀

Pile 3:

What makes you irresistible is your authenticity. There's this serenity that you radiate attracts people because it makes them feel comfortable and accepted just as they are. You don't question your worth or try to impress others; you are simply yourself. I feel like you are someone really down to earth, who sees the beauty in the simple things in life, and others really admire this quality of yourself. I also feel like you are someone who sees the small details that others wouldn't notice, you truly listen and care. What makes you irresistible is the sense of calm and security that you offer others. You are a safe space for those who need peace and someone to trust. Your ability to be authentic and the way you connect with others from a place of acceptance and understanding is what attracts people the most. The peace you project and your ability to inspire confidence make everyone around you feel at ease, and that's one of the reasons why you're so irresistible. Your ideas and creative project could also resonate with so many people, I feel you are someone who makes a big impact on other people's lives; wow this is a really powerful energy pile 3! Extended reading on Patreon: 👀Who has their eyes on you?👀

✈️ 🛍️ 📸 🎧 🎫Thanks for reading and tell me if it resonated ✈️ 🛍️ 📸 🎧 🎫

[grinnames]

HOW THE HECK DID THIS HAPPEN AND WHY ARE YOU ALL HERE

200+ followers.

We are over 200 followers strong already folks.

What do I even say?! Well I gotta say something, because it's been over a month since I hit this milestone, and I finally got all other ideas finished.

SO! Let's start with saying that I am incredibly and forever grateful and lucky that this has happened to me and that I get to do this online and that so many people enjoy my work. I've always been an outsider looking in, always the spectator, and never the performer. For so long, I have dreamed of finally being the person on the other side of the screen, making countless people smile and maybe even brighten up their day just a little bit. It feels like I've only just started making content on Tumblr SINCE LAST AUGUST, and I'm already having to write grandiose thank-you letters!

On a more serious note, I had been going through a rough time for the past few months, just a little after I started Tumblr. I had just transferred to a new school, and have had to leave all my friends behind for a second time. The transition period was hard, and I had never felt so lonely in a long while, but coming back online to see you interacting with my blog always brightened up my day. I've come to learn and accept that sometimes, online communities can be just as good as in-person communities, though it did take some getting used to!

Speaking of grandiose thank-you letters, let's get on to acknowledging some VIPs!

First, thank you everyone that has decided to hit the follow button, and for giving me a chance! It really feels validating, and motivated to continue working on and posting my story!

Also, I would like to thank God for gifting me with artistic talent and the drive to hone it at the tender age of five. He's given me so many opportunities to practice my craft, and He continues to give me more chances to use my gift for the happiness of others, and for myself. Without Him, I wouldn't be the person I am today.

@novajuniper! You know who you are to me. So I'm just here to remind everyone what you did. YOU ARE MY BEST FRIEND IRL AND YOU ENCOURAGED ME TO START TUMBLR IN THE FIRST PLACE! You were also one of my first and only fans of my art for a very very long time. Everyone, let's give it up for the OG!!

@oppsiedoo! YOU. You were one of my first fans that gave me FANART! The first Godbox AU fanart came from you, and the first Grinnames fanart came from you! And then you kept giving me more! I'm honestly sometimes a little concerned with the amount of fanart you do for me and my work. Surely you have other creators you look up to?! But thanks for giving me that much support since the beginning when I was small! I felt so validated and seen!

@bow-and-aro-child and @smgx-pez! I always remember you because you were some of the first people to notice Godbox AU! Though we don't interact much, I very much appreciate that you stuck around! You two often appear as my top-fans on my Activities page!

Also @smgx-pez you were also one of my first reblogs. It was the one where you compared Rewrite Sonic to Godbox SMG4, and my stomach kinda dropped in a nervous but excited way! That thread where you found out I actually was inspired by Rewrite is something I will never forget because that's how I discovered that Tumblr was chill like that! Thanks for representing Tumblr!

@hexsie! You were also one of my first reblogs! I was so young and inexperienced on this platform and some stranger (you) sends me some OOC drawing of your OC hugging my boys... I have to admit I was very flattered but so stunned that I didn't know how to respond. Well, now here's the response! I now think that this interaction was hilarious! Thank you for being my introduction into the SMG4 community! Looking forward to that Hexsie lore!

(It's always been the Hug Saga, hasn't it...? From the very beginning...)

@smg6-the-memer! My first asker! You probably submitted the most asks to my ask box as well! That's how I remember you! I had actually not intended to start asks at the time, but the askbox was open by default, so I just went along with it because I HAD ALWAYS WANTED AN ASKBLOG. So thank you for being the push!

@supern0vashii! The infamous Starter of the Hug Saga! Also currently the Ender of the Hug Saga! (for now) We've come full circle! Honestly, Hug Saga was fun, and it's all thanks to you reaching out to me! You also started the Godboxified OC trend with SMG6... you really be out there trailblazing! I've always enjoyed redesigning my OCs to fit AUs... so to have people doing the same for MY AU?! IT FEELS SO AMAZING! Thank you!

@bear-boi-5! My first mutual that isn't @novajuniper! (she doesn't count because I met her IRL before tumblr) When you followed me back you have no idea how shocked and excited I was. I'm not really interested in the fandoms you draw for now, I mostly followed you for your amazing SMG4 au art (Monster Containment AU is my favorite! It's what got me to follow you!) but I'm sticking around because of the sentiment and I also like your vibes!

@michaelscorneroftheinternet! Holy hell. You are one of the creators that I really look up to! Your art-style is just so yummy! So I kind of, may have, freaked out when you joined the Godboxified OC trend AND followed me back! ON TOP OF THAT, YOU SAID I'M ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE CREATORS TOO?! I nearly died from all the happiness rushing up to my head! Not to mention, I really love your energy whenever you reblog stuff! It's rather infectious! Keep up the good work!

@libbytwq! I also look up to you! We may not have interacted much, but I am honored that you follow me back! I really enjoy watching SMGL:e's silly little adventures and interactions with other OCs! So much so that I was inspired by you to later publish some lore about my own OC Grinnames herself! I'm looking forward to some more delicious lore-drops in the future!

@purpdrawsthings! You are probably one of the the NICEST most BUBBLY people I have met on this platform! I just like watching you be nice to people and the fanart you make of other creators' AUs! Not to mention your own AUs are mighty interesting... I want to be as nice as you when I interact with other blogs! Also MY SONA BECAME AN ANIMATION IN YOUR CHRISTMAS VIDEO, SHE'S GOING PLACES THANKS TO YOU!

@bstroobery! specifically @bluestrawberrybunny, Apprenticeship AU is actually one of the first SMG4 fanfics I decided to sit down, lock in, and read through. And over time, your OCs SMG5 and SMG6 really grew on me! I also liked that you were open to AU interactions in your askbox, and crossovers have always been my sort of thing, so I decided that your askbox would be the first I would interact with! Thank you for being so chill with me!

@clowntrickery08! My latest mutual! Dude I really like your artstyle, and its super easy to tell that its you! The way you draw characters is really charming! So I can say for certain that I WAS SO EXCITED WHEN YOU DREW MY BOYS IN YOUR STYLE. Also I really like your sona's design! Also, your concept for SMGPuzzles and SMGWren is SO COOL that I am gonna play around with it sometimes!

@itz-miss-kamilyvision! My god, your OC has a whole-ahh saga in Godbox AU. You having your OC have so many interactions with my boys was so much fun to watch! Thank you doing all that, I always love making characters interact and you gave me just that over and over again! I also like seeing your OCs lore, and the other interactions you have with other creators!

@alan-william! The one who turned ME into a gacha character AND animated me! But what I appreciated the most is how you made my sona interact with yours and also Micheal's. That is the closest thing to real human interaction to me on this platform, and something that I've enjoyed the most here is finding community, and I really feel connected with you!

@birdy-four! We haven't interacted that much, but to this day, that giant reblog of Godbox AU Chapter 0 with you word-vomiting everywhere about my fanfic is my favorite reblog of all time! I sometimes go back and read it again because while most people see my art, they don't really get to see my writing, and I've never gotten feedback like this before!

@smg33exe! And last but not least, the one that put my boy Godbox!SMG4 in a gacha video! BECAUSE OF YOU I MADE IT ONTO YOUTUBE! Thank you for throwing my creation out there on the web, and for creating a video that I sometimes come back to just to marvel at what I've become!

As for the rest of you... I have planned something that everyone can partake in! Stay tuned, I just need to finish preparing it...

[boomsophie]

okay, so, wow. got a huge bombshell dropped on me this morning (tbh i can’t even say that because i sorta found it myself as i was stalking @muwapsturniolo i’m so sorry if that’s creepy i just love ur page it’s so comfy and i stumbled on it).

i’m extremely new to the sturniolo community. i only recently (about two weeks ago) discovered their youtube channel and of course i just fell in love with how authentic and funny they are. and then i started lurking around the community and it seemed so kind and amazing and welcoming — and for the most part, i believe that 99.9% of it is.

but then i found the exposure on a pedo within the community, who has victims who have come forward, and y’all, my heart stopped.

i won’t be adding any detail to it as, again, i just discovered it this morning and my knowledge on it is very surface level, and i feel that trying to expand on it would just be insulting to the victims as i don’t personally know their stories. and, it’s also not the main point of this post.

i mean, of course i’m shocked so it is a big factor, and i’m mortified as i was a victim of grooming myself when i was 15. so hearing that there was someone so depraved within a community that, in all honesty, was the warmest and most enthusiastically kind i have ever seen, was just jaw dropping.

as i was essentially scrolling and eating up this info, i came across a post by @bernardsbendystraws regarding her stance on minors — and it really opened my eyes too. (you can see the post here.)

i have had blogs in the past in which i’ve put strict mdni regulations on. that’s because, for the most part, i write smut or other explicit material. the thought of me, being an adult who was in their early twenties (i’m 24 now) having minors interacting with my very explicit page felt wrong.

it felt as though i was being icky even though that was never my intention; i didn’t want to inadvertently harm minors with my fics (and somehow i felt i would) so i put the regulations on my blog for what i felt was their own protection.

(never mind the fact that when i was 14-17 i was heavily ingesting nsfw content and completely ignoring mdni warnings and never felt victimized in the slightest.)

this post has already turned into a monster so to digress, i will no longer be restricting minors from my blog. please feel free to interact with me in an appropriate manner and ensure that i am explicitly aware of your age. consuming my content (when i do post some) is also perfectly okay, as is interacting with it.

seeing all of this information made me realize that there are people in communities who will welcome minors to their pages only to prey on them like depraved wolves; and that is so, so sickening. i’ve always known that the internet is not a safe place for minors even though it should be.

so, much like rose, i want to create a safe space for the sturniolo fans that are under 18. you’re welcome here and you’ll be safe here, and you’ll have a friend in me <3 you can confide in me about anything, and i will listen. please just stay safe everyone. always keep your eyes peeled for anything that seems off or suspicious, and don’t hesitate to block/report someone who makes you uncomfy.

so, yeah, that’s all i really wanted to say. i also want to say thank you to everyone who has brought the information to light and exposed the pedo, you’ve done an amazing service and to all the victims, i pray that you heal and that you’re okay. you’re so strong and beautiful, and you’ll always have my support and respect! <333

[ghosty-writes-23]

Kneeling Before Her. - Leon S Kennedy Pt. 2

Ghosty's Notes: Sorry this one is a little rushed and might not be my best work but, I am currently working on the threesome one and the valentines day one, so I hope you do enjoy it, also if you want to be put on my tag list for any of my new and up and coming stories please comment below so I can add you to the list.

Summary: Sometimes even the strongest people need some reassurance and love.

NSFW Tags: Smutty Content, Handjob, Reassurance, Shower Sex, No Protection (Don't be like them.) Sub!Leon, Slight Angst, Riding, Creampie, Sweet Ending.

Used Pet Names: Darling, Sweetheart, My Wife.

!Unedited!

Word Count: 1.3k

| Part One Here. |

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Thank you for all the support, it means alot❤️

-Ghosty :] ❤️🦝

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As Leon left to go into the bathroom, Y/n laid back in their bed, even though she had just came she still felt a little needy and a little guilty, so before she second guested herself Y/n got up from the bed and headed into the bathroom where she could hear to soft pitter patter of the shower water hitting the floor and the walls, and Leon groan and grunts as he 'takes care' of himself.

Y/n closed the door behind her softly and made her way over to the shower. "Need some help." she asked and she heard Leon curse under his breath before he stopped. "darling its ok, just go back to bed, I'll be there in a minute." Leon says as he was breathing heavily.

Shaking her head Y/n stripped off her clothing and stepped into the shower behind Leon, going up on her tippy toes she placed a gentle kiss on scarred shoulder. "Let me help you." Y/n says softly as she looked up at him through her lashes. Her hand trailed down his sides feeling every ridge, curve and scar, she could feel him shivering under his touch.

"Y/n." Leon groaned softly but Y/n just smiled and placed another kiss on his shoulder before she gently took his cock into her hand, before she started to gently stroke it was warm but firm in her hand, she could tell Leon was pent up but also holding back.

"I don't deserve this." Leon grunted out as if he was trying to resist her touch, this left Y/n a little confused as she kept going, peppering soft kisses around his neck and shoulder as she worked him with her hand. "Why don't you deserve this." Y/n asked softy as she placed a soft kiss just under Leon's ear, she was grateful for Leon being taller then her so he shielded her mostly from the water.

"I've been a terrible husband, I have treated you horribly." Leon whimpered out as he leaned against bathroom wall on his arm, his breathing was shaking as his body trembled ever so slightly. His dark hair was sticking to his face and forehead, his face decorated with a light stubble.

"I won't disagree with you have treated me badly, but that doesn't mean you can't make it up to me." Y/n says as she pressed her chest against his back, she could tell he was close as she saw one of his fists balling. "I can't forgive myself for how I treated you." Leon tried to argue but Y/n smiled at him and used her free hand to gently tilt his chin then softly pressed her lips against his.

He instantly melted and relaxed as she spilled into her hand with a couple jolts of his hips, with a soft grunt like whine as he kissed her back. Y/n smiled against his lips before she pulled away ever so slightly and looked at him with a look of warmth and affection. "I love you Leon, yes you made some mistakes and your actions have hurt people, but you have the chance to make things right." Y/n told him as he pressed her forehead against hers.

"I love you so much." Leon spoke causing Y/n heart to flutter at the affection words, it had been so long since she had heard those three special words. "I love you too." Y/n told him and she saw Leon's body relax and the tense muscles in his body relax.

As the warm water cascaded over them Y/n pulled away slightly only for Leon to gently grab her chin and pull her face to his and captured her lips in a soft kiss, she can taste the toothpaste he used to brush his teeth on his tongue, she melted into the kiss and wrapped her arms around his neck.

Soft noises left her lips as she felt Leon move backwards to sit on the shower bench but he didn't break the kiss once, He lifted her onto his lap with ease, Y/n could feel Leon's cock against her stomach, he was hard again. She pulled back slightly breaking the kiss. "Please Y/n." Leon softly whined, she had never seen him also submissive before.

"Beg." Y/n says with a teasing tone not thinking Leon actually would. "Please Y/n I know I don't deserve it, I've been a terrible husband, let me make it up to you, let me make you feel good." Leon begged and as much as she felt herself clench she couldn't help the aching feeling in her chest.

"Leon." Y/n started by Leon shook his head, as he rested his head on her shoulder. "I want to feel good enough to be your husband again, I want to show you I can make you feel good, that I deserve your love and attention." Leon says his voice cracking slightly, Y/n reached down and cupped his face bringing it to hers.

in that moment she didn't see Leon, the harden DSO agent or government weapon, but her Leon the same Leon she used to have food fights with every time she baked something, or when she used to rest against him as he cleaned his weapons after a mission, the same Leon that reminder her of a tried puppy coming home and curling up by her side soaking up her affection like a sponge, in that moment she knew what he needed.

"You are good enough Leon, yes you messed up but that doesn't make you a bad person, it doesn't make you undeserving of love, I love you and only you will always be my husband." Y/n says looking down at Leon, to which he gave her a small smile, but inside his heart had jumped at her words.

"I need you Y/n." Leon spoke and Y/n nodded her head biting her lip, she raised her hips slightly and Leon angled his cock tip at the entrance after he applied some spit for lube on it, slowly and carefully Y/n began to sink down, his cock stretching her slick walls causing a soft moan to leave her lips as she buried her face in his neck.

She could feel every bump, ridge and vein reminding her truly how long it had been since they where truly this intimate. Once she sank down fully she felt Leon's arms wrap around her waist holding her closely to his body, no space left between them, she could feel him trailing kisses down her neck as if to distract her from the slightly uncomfortable adjusting.

"Don't push yourself to much sweetheart." Leon groaned softly as Y/ started to move her hips in a slow space, soft mew where leaving her lips as a warm and fuzzy feeling ran through her body, she did slowly start to sped up ever so slightly when she finally fully adjusted. "Fuck Leon." she cursed under her breath causing Leon to chuckle but it was choked back by a groan of pleasure.

"That its doll, use my cock however you like, its yours." Leon grunted softly as her silk walls clamped around him, Y/n clenched at his words as she started to pick up the pace, Leon moved with her and she placed her hand on the wall just above Leon's head to stabilize herself, she was close and she knew it.

Y/n melted in the feeling of being so filled by Leon's cock that stretched her open so deliciously, her sharp nails clawing down his back leave little red lines she knows will be there in the morning, when Leon began to meet her thrusts she was a gonna as she came with a cry of his name as her body trembled, Leon soon followed as he was close himself, he knew he should have pulled out but it felt too good.

The water soon went cold and that was their cue to leave, after catching their breaths, Leon cleaned Y/n up and wrapped a towel around her, even stealing a few cheeky kisses before taking her to bed, Y/n rested her head against Leon's bare wet chest as he walked down the hallway holding her bridal style.

"I love you Leon." Y/n said almost sleepy, Leon looked at her and smiled softly. "I love you too, my wife".....

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(Bathroom inspiration for this scene.)

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©Ghosty-writes-23, 2025. all rights reserved. !I DO NOT! consent to translations or replications or reproduction of my work on any other social media platforms and or make AI Bots without my explict consent and permission.

[loviestar58]

🐶~New Pet~🐶

Little blurb I had sitting for a bit I thought people would like!💖

"Ekks-"

"No"

"Ekks..we have to keep him"

"Firefly, we just went over this. What about the kids? And then we have to find the supplies for it and-"

"We can get all those. I'll get them! And the kids can help, oh come oonnnnnnn"

"Firefly, please-"

"But Eeekkkkssss look at hiiiimmm!"

You two were standing in a dark alleyway of Zaun near the Lanes, not too far from the entrance to the hideout, having just got done with a patrol. Upon coming back, you had noticed something moving some trash near the alley, becoming alert and notifying Ekko before stepping towards the movement cautiously. Barely a few steps were taken towards the sound before the thing causing the movement jumped out at you, knocking you down, a big white fluffy dog, a Husky that looked no older than a year old. And that led them to this situation, you desperately trying to convince Ekko to keep it.

"If we leave him out here, he could starve or be killed! You know damn well animals don't live long here!" You argued, gesturing to the world around you. Ekko had to admit you had a point, you didn't see many animals here, they'd either be dead or very unhealthy. But his thinking didn't last long, groaning in a bit of frustration, gesturing a hand towards the animal.

"Yeah, that's true. I know that, but-"

"And think of the possibilities! Like, he could grow to be a sort of guard dog! And the kids would have an animal to play with all the time, maybe it could even be an emotional support animal! And-and he could carry supplies, or be a messenger dog to warn people of dangers or the groups on patrols-!"

You rambled on and on with each and every possibility you could think of, any reason that popped in that head of yours to convince Ekko to being the dog into the Hideout. Ekko cut you off with a stern yet soft tone, trying not to let his growing annoyance and frustration show too much, even if you mean well

"What if it's a Pilties dog? What if they try to come find him and then find us? They'll accuse us of theft and then try to arrest us, or just shoot on sight, I wouldn't put it past them"

You looked downcast for a moment, that was another good point. It would be risky if the dog did belong to someone in Piltover. But you didn't care, you couldn't just leave the poor, adorable thing here, the thing in question panting and wagging it's tail up at you two. You swore you felt your heart ache at the adorable sight, cuteness aggression threatening to take over you

"There's no collar, and he looks like he's been here a while. Maybe he ran away or the owner didn't want him anymore? I think we'll be fine. Please, Ekks?" You beg, clasping your hands together, and pouting out your lip in a comically dramatic fashion, like a cartoon character

Oh no. Not the puppy dog eyes. It's ok, he can resist those. He's dealt with many of the firelight kids hitting him with that, and it rarely works and-

Oh dammit

Is the dog doing it too?!

Ekko froze, glancing between the two and groaning with a mix of frustration and reluctance, unable to deny you, knowing how stubborn you were. Recalling many instances of you refusing to back down when wanting something or in an argument with him about patrol grouping and routes.

He knew he was losing this battle, lest he faces your wrath. And so, he rolls his eyes and shakes his head, another groan, and then a soft defeated chuckle leaving his lips as he pinches the bridge of his nose. He looks up at you and he can't help now but to smile

"Ugh, fine! But we are making sure he doesn't have any diseases before going near the kids!"

You lit up, fist pumping in a quiet "Yes!". Both of you walked the rest of the way back, dog in tow.

A very happy you

And a slightly annoyed, yet content, Ekko

Bonus:

Ekko was found hours later asleep on the spare cot in his lab, the puppy laying on top of him as he snored softly

Hope y'all enjoyed this cute little blurb. Might do more of these than longer one shots and headcanons if y'all like them😊💖

[bullet-prooflove]

Welcome Back: Eddie Diaz x Reader

Taggin: @kmc1989 @gatefleet @mckinleysbones @totalstitchlover19 @angelofthetrenchcoats

Companion piece to:

Box Breathing - Eddie's been struggling since Christopher left.

Always - You make a promise to Eddie.

Real - Eddie tells you he wants something real.

A Future With You - Eddie makes a realisation during a one on one game of basketball.

Cash - Eddie discovers your secret Instagram profile.

Snake - You receieve a surprise gift from your ex at Halloween.

Midnight - Eddie makes you a promise.

Cherry Lipstick - Eddie gets better insight into you during a social event.

The one person that isn’t at Eddie and Christopher’s ‘Welcome Back’ party is the one he wants to see the most.

“She’s on shift.” He’s told by Buck when he questions your whereabouts but there’s something else under the surface, something he knows the other man isn’t telling him.

The two of you haven’t had much contact since the night he broke things off, you’d reached out a couple of times to check in but Eddie’s responses had been monosyllabic. He didn’t want you waiting on him so he’d done what he thought was best at the time, withdraw so you could live your own life. Now he’s back in L.A and his attempts to reconnect have gone unanswered, he doesn’t blame you for that. He wouldn’t speak to him either.

“Did something happen that I don’t know about?” He asks Bobby when he runs into him in the kitchen. “Did something happen to her?”

“Eddie.” Bobby states calmly as he leans back against the counter. “Nothing happened to Selina, she’s fine.”

“Then why does it feel like everyone is walking on eggshells.” Eddie persists, pointing at the gathering of people in the other room. “Everytime I even mention her name, it’s like they want to talk about something else.”

Bobby sighs, gesturing to the chairs at the kitchen table. It’s a bad sign. He’s been on the receiving end of enough bad news to know when it’s coming.

“When you called me to tell me that you and Christopher were coming home, there wasn’t a space for you in the 118. We’d taken on Ravi a few months before because we were understaffed and that meant you would have had to come back to the LAFD on a floating position.” Bobby explains.

And that would have been a problem, they both know it. Floating staff can get dispatched to any firehouse at any time to cover a shift for any reason. They usually stay a couple of days before they move onto the next assignment. There’s no time to settle or get to know the people you’re working with, the shifts can be erratic due to sudden bouts of sickness. Most times you don’t even get a locker so you have to store your shit in your trunk. It’s a hard, thankless job, one he would have struggled with especially with Chris’s childcare.

“When Selina heard you were coming back she knew that you would struggle with the unpredictability of the role, that Chris would need both stability and routine so she offered to take the position instead, which then freed up a spot for you at the 118.”  

Eddie doesn’t know what to say. It’s just another sacrifice you’ve had to make because of him, another choice to smooth over the mess that is his life. You wanted him and Chris to be happy, to thrive back here in LA and the only way to do that was for them to become part of the 118 again, to have their family surrounding them, supporting them.

“Do you know where she’s on shift tonight?” He asks Bobby as he raises to his feet.

“I don’t.” Bobby says before he withdraws his phone from his back pocket and sets it on the kitchen table. “But I can find out.”

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[abearinthewoods]

MRAs: "The world is against me because I can't get laid, and women won't date me because I support Trump"

It always annoys me how somebody can see and even speak out against the way trans men routinely get their issues dismissed and casted as the most attack-able version of them, yet be so quick to do the same to cis men who advocate for themselves.

Throwing cis men under the bus won't stop it from barreling towards trans men (or all trans people really).

The attacks on cis-men advocating for themselves and speaking out about the issues they face are just as much bullshit as the attacks on trans men advocating for themselves and speaking out about the issues they face.

What you have effectively done here is sexually harassed all cis-MRAs by sexualizing their innocent actions as some sex motivated action, and you did so in a way that was dismissive and invalidating to those cis-men's advocates, like myself.

You post a lot of content I like and you even recently got shat on because I liked some of your content, so I don't want to come out and attack you but I do want you to think about how seeing statements like that could make me feel.

MRAs: "The world is against me because I can't get laid, and women won't date me because I support Trump"

So called "TMRAs": "Yeah, so I've been threatened with rape, been assaulted, kicked out of my house because I told my parents I was a man, and coerced into not transitioning because it would ruin my 'womanly body'"

Yeah, totally equivalent, calling transmascs who talk about their oppression MRAs is very accurate /s

[bananarama321]

IT IS OVER

I have been a Bridgerton fan since 2004, when I was starting university. Most of you understand how excited I was when my imagination was brought to my television. It was even better than what I imagined. I have loved the show and even more season 3 because Penelope was always that girl.

After the world tour, like several of you, I got entranced by Nic and Luke's chemistry. I started shipping them as a couple and had an immense amount of fun with several of you looking for clues and secret messages about them being together.

It was all fun and giggles ... until it wasn't It became a fight over who stayed on the ship or the restaurant. If you didn't believe a theory, you were part of the problem. If you gave a different opinion people would throw you away from group chats and block you if you didn't apologize.

Since the beginning, I was part of the ship because Nic herself said they thought it was "cute". Little by little I started feeling uncomfortable but my "friends" were clear that if you jumped ship you couldn't come back.

Well. I am done. I am jumping ship. This isn't fun anymore and it's becoming toxic and mean-spirited. At this point it is evident that Nic has a steady partner. We don't know much about Luke but I don't want to be the cause of their pain or a reason for them to resent the fandom. The more we insist on saying lukola is real, the less they will share with us because they are afraid we might hurt those that they love.

Let's be transparent for a second. Jake Dunn has never expressed anything related to his sexuality, newsflash: bisexual and pansexual people exist. Jake and Nicola are always together, often alone. She shares him, and he shares her, but you have to be naive to not see the difference online between them and the rest of their friends. Even if after all of this, you believe they are just friends, there is no way you can deny that he is clearly a loved one and that she would be upset about the amount of horrible adjectives people throw his way. Hurting Jake is hurting Nic. No matter how much you like to pretend it isn't.

We know very little about Luke, like I said, but let's stop insulting Antonia too. The girl is young and doesn't owe anything to our fandom.

Also STOP COMMENTING ON NICOLA'S BODY. I have no words for this part. I am baffled, sad, disappointed, and mad at so many of you for not defending her like you defend the ship. She is worth more than that, and I know deeply inside you, you know it to be true.

At the end of the day, Nic is having an amazing beginning to 2025. She is healthy, and happy and is now a SAG-nominated actress. She also has the Neutrogena campaign coming out, The Magic Faraway Tree and hopefully more. We have been blessed by getting a lot of content from her. Let's make her feel happy and relaxed about sharing personal and professional updates with us. We are supposed to be her safe space, not her nightmare.

Luke has been quiet but hopefully has something cooking too. We are waiting on news on when his next two projects are coming out and we should be ready to support him.

Last but not least, they are most likely to be at the SAG Awards in February. Let's not make this about Lukola. It is Nicola's night with her first big acting nomination. I implore you not to ruin it for her.

Sending love to you all. Please if the shipping is too much and you get emotionally affected by them not being together, seek help for your mental health. I don't say that to mock you, I say this as another human who sometimes struggles.

XOXO g.

[lame-cameoliob]

The Narritive Potential of lower level! Kallus

Alright literally nobody asked and this is totally just me thinking way too much, but I NEEEEEEDDD to talk about the Kallus from the lower levels headcanon and just how much narrative potential it has

(also If you see anything spelled wrong or phrased weirdly NO YOU DIDN’T)

To be completely frank I think that Kallus’ character is almost out of place in a children's TV show– DO NOT GET ME WRONG, he is a fantastic character that is integral to the Rebels plot, but many implications made by his character are much more fitting in shows with higher ratings– that’s why he comes of so fucking ridiculous half of the time, he is a character with massive implications, but he has to be readable to a younger audience. PLUSSS Rebels was made on a tiny budget compared to other Star Wars animated projects, so the producers could not put time or money into further delving into his arc because they needed to focus on the main cast. They couldn’t afford to go into smaller character-centric arcs like in the clone wars. Now, taking that into account, it is no doubt that Kallus has an incredible character arc (tbh I’d say the best in Star Wars, but i might be glazing idk) but there are aspects of that arc that could not be explored more due to the aforementioned restrictions on the production side.

Thing is, Star Wars is all about making connections to the real world (ex. Return of the Jedi was an allegory for the vietnam war– or also THE ENTIRETY OF ANDOR) And although Kallus’ arc already does that on a baseline level, its potential for drawing these connections was for sure not explored to its fullest. 

Now, I know you didn’t sign up for a lesson in world history and politics when you started reading this but you’re gonna have to stick with me to see where I’m coming from; 

It is no secret that the greatest defense against propaganda is education. That’s why maps that show which states have less extensive education and maps that show which states are conservative look nearly identical. That’s why conservative states are far more likely to pass legislation that bans books with political content; they need people to continue to be uneducated in order to keep the state conservative. Even if we omit nefarious political intent, in order for educational institutions to truly thrive they need funding (which tends to be severely lacking in conservative communities) State legislation aside, some school systems literally cannot afford to give their students an all encompassing education. And next to that, in many impoverished rural communities, you end up having kids that need to start working early on in order to make money to support themselves and their families OR they start working early just cause they want to (bootstraps mentally and all that); these kids do not have a reason to set aside their time to sit down and think about the politics of the world around them, which is why a lot of people end up just falling in line with the conservative mindset that surrounds them. 

“What about the people who aren’t conservative / patriotic? How do they play into this?” You may ask– AND LET ME TELL YOU– it’s not really a huge secret that the United States Military does this quirky little thing where they pay for your college and give you financial benefits while you’re an active service member. That’s actually a MASSIVE recruitment tactic that they use in schools! IN FACT, (as someone who grew up in a blue state) wherever military recruiters would come to my school to yk…recruit people, they would almost ALWAYS stress the financial benefits more than promoting the whole “SERVE YOUR COUNTRY RAHHH AMERICA” thing . 

So basically it’s a system that sets children up for failure by leaving them broke and struggling, and some of those children grow up in areas where they are funneled into having certain political beliefs without the resources needed to form their own opinion, OR you have kids that just want to reap financial benefits because living is too damn expensive. (And of course there are people who fit into BOTH or neither of the categories; I’m generalizing a little bit for the sake of keeping this post shorter than it could be) (This is a very nuanced subject and I know that, I just don't want to make you all read an entire essay)

The issue comes when these misinformed children grow into adults, and those adults become dangerous. 

BACK TO STAR WARS

So there’s not really a whole lot of extensive canon lore (at least that I’ve seen) about how the Coruscant economic system works, but I think it's fairly obvious that it is operating on a capitalistic system not unlike the united states, where the richest of the rich own most of the wealth, and the rest of the population are left living paycheck to paycheck; it’s just that some paychecks are bigger than others. 

It is this system that allows for the lower levels to fall into complete poverty. None of the wealth from the top is trickling down (literally) and the people in the lower levels are left fighting for scraps. 

Most areas in the lower levels are controlled by money hungry gangs, and corrupt law enforcement does what these gangs want just because they’re paid to. The further down you go the less control The Republic has; at some point you reach a depth where the Republic has zero influence. And even if they did, at this point in history, most of the senate no longer represents the people.

THIS IS WHERE KALLUS COMES IN 

I want you to imagine being a kid in the lower levels. You’re fighting for your next paycheck so that you can help pay rent, you’re shoplifting and picking pockets just so that you can eat. You cannot afford to live. And not only that; you’re suffering from intense vitamin deficiencies, the air is undoubtedly toxic, the water probably isn’t good to drink. You are exhausted. Physically, mentally, even subconsciously, you are a kind of bone-deep tired that nobody– ESPECIALLY A KID– should ever have to feel. If you can even afford to go to school you’re not leaving with a better understanding of the galaxy, because all you’re worried about is finding something to eat and going the fuck to sleep. But that's your normal, you’ve never known anything different. 

You’re not thinking of ways to question the system, you’re too tired to. 

And you don’t care about The Republic because The Republic doesn’t care about you. 

But then The Empire rolls around. And the Republic didn’t give a fuck about you, but maybe the Empire will– besides you don’t really care about the politics of it all, because you see that they offer free room and board to those who enlist, and that is your one way ticket out of the fucking hell hole that you’ve had to endure for your entire life. 

And so you enlist. And even if you didn’t care about politics before, the people around you do, and they are telling you exactly what to think without giving you the resources to form an opinion of your own. 

If Kallus grew up in the lower levels, that would have been his reality. He would have been the perfect person to indoctrinate because he came from a system that wouldn’t have allowed him to know any better.

This is especially palpable when we think about why he became Fulcrum in the first place;

He educated himself in ways that the empire did not allow him to be educated before. He asked questions and he did not like the answers that he got. 

He realizes that he’s been fed lies and propaganda that have made him complacent in a system that had done immeasurable evil, and he HATES that. He realizes that he does NOT believe what the empire believes and that he has to align his actions with HIS opinions, not the empires.

He realizes that harm that his ignorance has done and he takes it upon himself to lock THE FUCK IN in an attempt to help and rebalance the scales. 

(And this bit is kind of a side note, but idk where else to put this:if Kallus comes from a background like the one listed above where he is constantly fighting for survival, he becomes a narrative foil of EZRA!!! They become two sides of the same coin; a kid whos impoverished because of the Empires cruelty, only looking out for himself until his worldview is changed for the better by the kindness of the people around him VERSUS a kid whos impoverished because of the Republics failures, only looking out for himself and CONTINUing TO DO SO as his worldview is changed for the worse by the greed of the people around him.) (DO YALL GET WHAT IM SAYING??? I FEEL LIKE IM ONTO SOMETHING THERE??)(I MIGHT BE CRAZY BUT LIKE I FEEL LIKE THATS ⁉️⁉️)

All of this is really just to say that Kallus is the perfect example of the dangers of complacency. He is the bystander effect at its worst. He admits that he “never asked questions,” simply because the empire told him not to, and he becomes dangerous because of it. He does evil shit just ‘cause he’s told to. The empire says that a certain number of civilian deaths fall within an “acceptable margin” and he just shrugs his shoulders and goes “yeah, okay, if you say so.” 

Already in canon, he is an example of what people can become if they refuse to question the systems in power, but when you take into account the possibility that he’s from the lower levels, he also becomes an example of how people end up in a system where they are set up for failure so that they don’t end up questioning those systems in the first place. He’s an example of how the Empire benefits from systematic suffering because the people who suffer without even realizing it are the people most easily shaped into pawns. 

End of rant

[lovedeluxelove]

because i can never just leave an idea alone. here is camboy! jayvik au inspired by my post

-

‘Thank you sooo much for a million guys! Never thought we would hit it so fast :) As a special thank you, I’ve decided I’m gonna do any request (within reason) for my next video. Comment below what you guys wanna see me do, and most popular request gets done! If there’s a collab you guys want, a toy you wanna see, or just anything, I’ll do my best to make it happen. Thank you guys so much again!’ 

Jayce took a deep breath and opened the comment section of his post. It had been a week since he sent it out, long enough for a popular response to emerge, but he was sure he already knew what would be at the top. 

He had half expected, when sending this out—half dreaded and half hoped, maybe—that most people were gonna ask that he collab with Mel again. It had been a long while, and though they said they’d remain friends and keep things professional, working together since their breakup was… awkward, to say the least. It didn’t help matter that whenever chat brought her up during any live events, he squirmed in his seat and changed the topic. His chat always did like to see him flustered. But he could never let down the people who had changed his life so much, so he would muster up all the courage he had to reach out to Mel if a collab was what his chat wanted.

What actually ended up happening was something Jayce couldn’t have expected at all. Someone had posted a comment earlier on in the week, probably as a joke saying ‘haha i’d like to see golden boy try to handle somebody like @ machineherald’ and suddenly, the comment caught like wildfire. It was everywhere and everything people were commenting all of a sudden, to the point where people were already making memes about how Jayce was gonna lose his mind working with him. Jayce hardly had to look far to tell that this had indeed become the most popular request by far, and in resignation, decided to pull up this ‘machine herald’s page to see just what he was in for.

Jayce considered himself relatively professional. After two years working as a camboy now, he felt pretty secure in his ability to handle most things he encountered now, compared to the squirmy, shy boy he was when he started. To be fair, Mel deserved most of the credit for that. Mel was another, incredibly popular online personality who had taken him under his wing when he first started, most of his original supporters being her fans who took an interest in him. She added a softness to his online character that drew in a lot more feminine fans for him and he added a masculine edge that drew a lot of his male fans to her as well. It was mutually beneficial, and when they started dating, a lot of people saw it as perfect, looking forward to their couple collabs and cute interactions on each other’s posts. 

A lot of people would make the argument that their content was ‘tame’, but Jayce found no fault in being a perfect standard. It worked for him, and he never felt like he needed to stray outside of that. He had a loyal fanbase of people who liked his usual content, and it made him enough money to support his living. Trying to get your master’s degree was expensive and the research he was conducting even more so.

That being said, Jayce didn’t get flustered by much anymore, and his fanbase had clearly enjoyed teasing him with whatever could still get him to blush. 

That has to be the reason why they’d recommend a page like this.  

Jayce scrolled through the page of the Machine Herald, a man who, like his title boasted, seemed to specialize in all kinds of devices. His pinned video was him using a sybian and Jayce had slammed his laptop shut in shock before he’d even fully processed it. He closed his eyes, trying to relax. He was an adult man, he made content like this himself, for crying out loud. Well, he amended, he didn’t make any content like this. He tried to relax, steeling himself as he opened his laptop back up and continued to scroll down the man’s page. Jayce briefly remembers the time Mel brought up butt plugs and Jayce blanched, firmly denying the request. As Jayce scrolled past a video of the man using a device he called a ‘fuck machine’, he couldn’t help but feel as his response to butt plugs was an overreaction. 

His fans wanted him to collab with this guy?

He continued scrolling, starting to feel a bit dizzy. Jayce gulped and looked down at his lap, realizing, oh, he was more interested in this than he thought he’d be. He looked back up at the screen at a suggestive photo of the Machine Herald’s stomach that he had posted between videos, something visible under his skin, distending his belly slightly, with a caption reading ‘guess what toy this is’. Jayce shuddered out a breath and very impressively ignored how hard his dick was getting. It didn’t help that this man was so… attractive. 

He kept his face mostly out of frame, though he didn’t hide it either, sometimes ducking into frame to comment on all his favorite qualities of whatever toy he was using. But more often than not, just the bottom half of his face would be in frame, his plush looking lips opening around a moan, or squishing around the bite of this teeth, or warping around the girth of a toy and—Jayce closed his laptop again, trying to collect his thoughts. He needed to focus. He couldn’t just scroll this man’s page forever, he was—he was doing research! Yes. Research. He should be looking at this man’s collabs, not his solo content. He opened his laptop again, redirecting around his page. He just needed to see if the way this man worked with others was able to mesh with his style. 

The Machine Herald was on the same platform Jayce was, more niche content with less followers at around 500k, but a no less dedicated fanbase. In fact, it seemed like most of the equipment the Herald worked with was fan bought or sponsored. Jayce scrolled onto a video of the Herald standing over a large man strapped down into a chair with leather binds and a gag, dragging a vibrating toy in his hand over the man’s nipples, making him arch in the chair. 

Yep, Jayce could work with that.  

Jayce opened his page back up, navigating to the messaging tab and opening up a conversation with the Machine Herald. 

‘Hi! Some of my followers have brought my attention to your work,’ Jayce typed casually like he hadn’t acquainted himself with the Herald’s work very well within the last hour. ‘I promised them i’d do any of their special requests and they seem to like the idea of us collabing together. Would you be open to that?’   

He waited for a response. While idly browsing his page, of course. Jayce had lost track of time by the time the Herald responded, startled back into reality by the ‘ding!’ of a notification received.

‘You’re cute. Sure’ the Herald had replied.

Jayce had a feeling he was in over his head. He found he didn’t really care.

[mesetacadre]

Another set of consequences of that lack of a real actionable program is that, when confronted with a big problem to fight against;

First, the actions themselves (protests, demonstrations, strikes, occupations, etc) are fetishized into the goals themselves. It's no longer about getting something from the institution or applying pressure, it's about getting to say you organized a strike and 7 marches. These acts are tools, nothing more. The strike by itself is useful only because it attacks the productive base of society (in education, strikes don't directly halt a productive activity because education is non-productive, but the role of education as a manufactury for specialized workers is affected, which is why strikes are still meaningful), which can force the powers that be to listen to the demands posed forward. When the actions are evacuated of all strategic content, they become impotent because they're commanding that people listen to a set of demands that simply does not exist.

Second, the agitation aimed at getting those directionless actions known and supported by the masses is stillborn. When you don't have a goal, the act of growing is usually defaulted to. Because of the lack of actual political content, this agitation for the most part has an informative character with some vague exhorts to "organize" and participate in the actions, which means it can never really grow beyond the most basic function of information and a vague call to action. But the people making that agitation need to convince themselves they're doing something worthwhile, so in their heads, every agitation has the potential to strike a nerve and finally create a millions-strong spontaneous movement of people who all individually become fed up or angry enough to show up at those empty actions.

And third, those issues prevent an actual learning process because to identify the real mistakes you'd need to completely overhaul your conception of "organizing". If your actions are the goals themselves with the most defined expected outcome being growth of the organization, what can you self-criticize on? That you didn't agitate enough? that you didn't goad enough people into giving away 2 months of their lives for the next fetishized action? That you didn't spend enough money on A3 color posters and stickers?

It's not just eclectic groupuscules that are vulnerable to this. You can find even the biggest and most prestigious worker's unions engaging in this, when the limitations of the economic struggle bound to the concept of a union limits their purview enough that this happens.

I think a lot of the people you'd associate with the "start a community garden! support local businesses! make zines!" posturing and who are at least nominally sympathetic to communism conceptualize of organizing as a series, or more specifically, a collection of broadly "good" actions that are possible in the short, short-medium term. And it is worth pointing out that this does not come from nowhere, it's a more extreme version of the mental shortcut essentially all organizers end up taking. Oftentimes, when you're working within a party or organization, there are a set of actions and activities that become routine, justified implicitly by their own frequency. This isn't necessarily a problem, but it can be one if left unacknowledged and unchallenged. Along the lines of this post, effective organizing is practical, yes, but based on a careful collective analysis of the external, political context and the internal, organizational realities, if you allow me the semi-correct dualism. We don't do things because we can and they're good, we do them because it's the best course of action to further the medium and long term political agenda of raising consciousness towards challenging the bourgeois' power.

So what I believe happens to those people I mentioned at the beginning of the post is that this fetishizing of the usual activities is so extreme there isn't even an actual concrete analysis of concrete reality at some point in the past to point to, and things are done because they appear to be good in some intuitive sense. For example, you might look at the Black Panthers' free school meals program and attempt to imitate it as closely as possible, instead of actually learning that the school meals program was correctly judged to be something that could really demonstrate the possibility and power of classist worker's organizations, to further their goal of eventually contesting the US' bourgeoisie, in the context of the situation of the US's schooling of poorer children. Much like reading theory, the point is not to learn about anecdotal events, but seeing how conclusions where reached that lead to actual victories, large and small.

Especially for those with the ailment of horizontalism, you'll encounter plenty of orgs mostly making post-hoc and hasty justifications for doing things for which there simply wasn't very much thought put into. Once again continuing on the ideas of that post I linked earlier, this happens because those same people do not have actual programs that can guide their own independent activity, instead substituting it with a long list of things they're against and concepts they abstractly support.

[ceilidho]

just curious - how do c.ai bots work? does someone feed your fic into the AI and it "creates" a character?

I don't support it (if a fic author says no it means no!) I'm just confused abt what it does/ how it plagiarizes

I’m not 100% sure how it works since I don’t use it but this is one of the bots using my work

And my fic:

So I’m not sure what else the bot creator has to fill out or add other than the initial prompt (which is what the above is) but I’m ASSUMING they took more than just that initial blurb since you presumably can interact more with the bot.

And c.ai is making it unbelievably difficult for me to get it taken down without providing my home address and phone number for a DMCA takedown report, which I would never do. And they’re likely doing it because they know their platform is 90% stolen content so they make it extremely difficult in order to ensure people can’t just request that stolen content be removed.

[xmads-omensx]

PART 2 TO CALL ME LOVER

Word Count: 1,710

Pairing: Noah Sebastian X Reader (kinda)

Content Warnings: angst, swearing

Tags: @shayeanna-ashlie @alwaysfightforwhoyouare @supersquirrel1996 @dontwantthemoney @tosoundlessdarkistare @collisionofyourkissmakesitsohard @klutzy-kay24 @heyyoplayer @lacy1986 @collidewiththesav @kenjipepsi1 @follow-me-down-to-wonderland @chey-h @thisbicc @fadingangelwisp @heyyoplayer @dsireland86 @missduffsblog @overmydeadbodysblog @dominuslunae @littlebear423 @blade-dressed-in-red @rumoured-whispers @kait16xo @eclipseeetop @xxkittenkissesxx @theanarchymuse95 @blackveilomens @lilgarbitch @lil-garbitch

Inspired by lovely ramblings with @concretejunglefm <3

I was sat on a zoom meeting, bored out of my mind.

Work had been making me stressed, as evidence with my reddening ring finger due to my incessant twisting of my engagement and wedding rings.

I winced at the twinge of pain when I squeezed just that little bit too much.

As I looked up from my finger, three photo frames ensnared my attention.

One frame was white, one beige and one light grey.

The white one depicted us when we were much younger. His hair was choppier and sat around his shoulders. He had only recently gotten his throat tattooed, so his neck looked very rigid in the photo as he was still trying not to bend it.

I laughed at the memory, albeit it was more of a vague recollection after all these years.

The photo had been taken around 2016.

It was the biggest show that Bad Omens had ever done at the time.

A dive bar filled with 200 people who had all come to see the band that they were opening for. But I didn’t care about them. I only cared about watching my best friend perform.

The crowd was loud and lively. Exactly how the guys wanted it to be.

Noah had made me stand to the side of the stage so that I didn’t get caught up in the mosh pit. Of course, I completely ignored him and stood in the crowd anyway.

Song after song, I sang my heart out to every lyric.

By that point, I probably knew the lyrics better than Noah did since he had agonized over every detail with me sat right beside him.

It was always me who heard his lyrics first.

Who heard his ideas first.

Always.

I danced with the crowd, and sang with them as the chaotic melody from the stage filled the room.

Noah’s eyes caught mine and for a moment, time seemed to stop.

The music faded as my heartbeat grew louder and louder in my ears.

Around us, the crowd roared to life as the intro to The Worst In Me began. Their final song of their set.

Noah pulled his eyes away from mine, but he seemed to fight against it. As if he never wanted to look away from me.

He went back to singing, as did I.

The final notes of the song offered a sense of closure, but at the time I didn’t realise what that sense of closure was.

Now looking back, I knew what that feeling was.

It was blatantly obvious, the way our smiles faded as the photographs got more recent.

The older the photo, the wider our smiles became.

The more in love we were.

The more oblivious we were.

Looking back on that memory was bittersweet.

I think that was the moment that Noah knew he was in love with me, and he had managed to keep it a secret for all these years.

Bad Omens were starting to really get into their own with performing live, and Noah was growing both in confidence and talent rapidly.

Watching him grow like this was a privilege.

I still checked in on them from time to time.

Their spotify streams were up in the millions now and they were supporting huge bands like Bring me The Horizon and Linkin Park.

The downside was that I wasn’t side stage watching them like I used to be.

Nowadays, there was no little green deckchair with my name written on in sharpie that had been drawn over again hundreds of times over the years backstage anymore.

I stood up from my office chair once the meeting ended and walked towards the garage, in search of something specific.

I moved boxes, old workout equipment that never got used, some old baby toys that the neighbours had gifted us a few years ago.

There it sat.

Behind all of those boxes.

The familiar green deck chair.

The sharpie was faded and in need of redoing, but that always was and always would be Noah’s job.

I brushed my hand lightly over the material, when I felt a warm sensation on my cheek.

My fingers were wet to the touch when I brushed my fingertips over my delicate skin.

I was crying.

Deciding that looking at the chair was too much, I retreated back to my office, carrying the deck chair under my arm instead.

It was quiet there.

It reminded me of the small, crampt room that Noah wrote all of his original songs for that first Bad Omens album in, with me by his side.

My office was familiar.

It reminded me of home.

Moving my office chair to one side, I set the deck chair in its place.

Sitting on it brought back a sense of comfort that I had been missing over the last few years.

I could almost hear his laughter replaying in my ears, as clear as day. But that could have just been Sarah or Bradley playing in their bedrooms.

Ir was almost like I could hear the roar of the crowd, feel the rhythm of the bass guitar in the floor and feel the metronome of the drums in my chest.

It felt like… home.

The second photo caught my eye. The one that showed us a few years later, his hair well past his chest, after one of his shows. He had his arm slung around my shoulder as we grinned like idiots. That one was my favourite.

His hair was long. Much longer than mine.

So long, in fact, that I often found myself taking strands between my fingers, braiding them gently as we sat impossibly close on the sofa.

His face would always be angled towards my own,

Every time.

Without fail.

I wish Richard would take a moment to look at me like Noah used to, but he never would. He wasn’t a fan of eye contact or soft glances when the other person wasn’t looking.

Noah was.

Looking at the photo, it took me back to 2020, just before the pandemic, when Bad Omens were just starting to head towards the stardom that they hold now.

I could almost feel the wind in my hair, the cool breeze caressing my face as I sat in my green deck chair watching their set.

It was Matt who had bought me the chair and also his idea to put my name on the back.

Folio had dubbed it the Director’s Chair.

Watching the boys side-stage was a much different experience from watching them from the crowd.

For one, I could see how large the crowd was.

And boy, was it a large crowd.

This was their first festival set since Warped Tour came to an end and they were all rightfully nervous.

Noah especially.

You could tell he was nervous by how he held himself on stage.

His lisp was more prominent when he spoke.

His hands shook ever so slightly as he held the mic up to his lips.

But he did it.

My heart leapt in my chest as he sang those beautiful songs that he had written in his garage with me by his side.

Before I knew it, the set was over and he was rushing over to greet me.

His long arms enveloped me in warmth and comfort as he panted heavily in my ear.

“I’m so proud of you.” I shouted over the noise of the crowd.

He looked down at me. Deep brown eyes wide and glittering as his smile deepened.

“I really am.” I continued.

He said nothing. Instead, he pulled me closer to his chest, as if he was keeping me away from the rest of the world.

I often found myself wondering what it would be like if it was only me and him in the world.

I bet it would have been beautiful.

My heart lurched as I looked at our smiling faces staring back at  me, a soft smile appearing on my face in stark contrast to the final photograph on my desk.

The third and final photograph was much more recent. His hair now much shorter, cut around his ears, and he looked a lot buffer than in previous years. We weren’t stood close together anymore. It had become too hard. That was the photo that the white envelope rested on.

That was the day that Noah had brought Monica over to meet everyone.

Coincidently, that was also the day that I had planned on telling Noah how I truly felt about him.

I was going to pour my heart out to him in that traditionally cheesy and embarrassing way that you see in early 2000s rom coms.

The kind I would force Noah to watch with me whenever we hung out and it was my turn to pick what we watched.

Except I didn’t.

I couldn’t.

Not now.

Not ever.

Those feelings would have to stay caged inside of me for the rest of my life.

Noah was happy.

I could live with that.

If Noah was happy with somebody else, then I could learn to be okay.

The moment I realised that I was in love with Noah, it had already been too late.

He had moved on.

Part of me would always be tethered to those near misses.

Those moments when we almost could’ve been something.

I still often reminisced of my wedding day, and the words that Noah spoke to me.

Sure, it wasn’t too late then, but now it definitely was.

Years had passed.

I was married with two beautiful children. But I only wish that Noah could’ve been their father.

I loved Richard.

He was wonderful.

But he wasn’t Noah.

He never would be.

He never could be.

I had been living a wild long lie for my entire life knowing Noah, and maybe if I had gotten over myself, we could’ve been something.

Something special.

Something amazing.

Something… perfect.

But instead I was stuck in a cycle of pretending that I was living the life I had always wanted, the life I had always dreamed of.

Which was categorically false.

because if I was living that life, it would be Noah’s arms that I would wake up in.

[staticbluue]

Hey everyone, as a lifelong resident of the US I want to reach out to all the US residents who follow this blog to say that my DMs are always open if you need a friendly trans presence in your life. There's a lot of that on this site, and I hope I can be part of your support system. I can't promise that I'll reply quickly, but I WILL reply. Due to the content of my blog, I'm not all that keen on minors following me, but I know that when I was a kid I was looking at far worse lol. If you're a transgender minor here right now, I want you to know that I love you and I support you and you HAVE to live through this.

I'm referring to trans people specifically right now because of the recent executive order but the same goes for anyone else having trouble right now because of the political state of the US. I'm here for you and I will continue to make art forever and ever. I'll be weirder and more trans and more queer. You are not alone <3

Remember that now more than ever, it's not the time for infighting. Some trans people will use labels that make you uncomfortable, some people will describe their experience in ways you don't understand. We all need to stick together to make it through the next four years. Even if I don't agree with you, I will fight for you.

[papasbaseball]

The Wizard x Reader (Wonderful Wonderful Girl) | Chapter 16

Pairing: Wizard x F!Reader

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Power Imbalance, Boss/Employee Relationship, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Sexual Content

Summary: Being a maid in the Royal Palace of Oz is not half so bad. Despite the meager wages, everything else is provided for you for an honest day's work. It can be unnerving working for the most powerful man in Oz, but you are able to avoid him most of the time. This changes during Lurlinemas, your paths soon becoming inextricably intertwined.

Word Count: 2,900 of 42,623

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AO3 Link

He must really hate my guts for suggesting that he would be able to kill me because he doesn't tell me where we're going, not even when we disembark at the station. Together, we walk the way I tried to escape, except we go straight to the bakery that I had passed up. It’s just as cramped as the bakery that Bruno had taken me to back in the Emerald City, even if it is better kept. This bakery also has those sweet saffron buns that suffocate every inch of the building, and I can feel my mouth water at the thought of biting into one, considering all I’d had today was hardtack, tea, and hot chocolate. Instead of throwing down cash on the counter for some treats, he slaps down a golden pin that he had kept in the pocket of his waistcoat. The emerald eye tie tack.

"You been to the desert?" the baker asks, shifting his eyes between him and the gleaming tie tack. He's a wide set man of fifty, a five o'clock shadow darkening his already exhausted face and his arms are coated in flour up to the elbow.

"And I've seen wondrous things," the Wizard replies, “and met wondrous men.” The conversation doesn’t make any sense, but I don't think it's supposed to.

"What can I do you for, my brother?" the baker asks.

"I need a ride to the Upland estate," the Wizard says. "I'm supposed to meet some fellow travelers there."

The baker presses his lips together, nodding as if mulling over the request. "Do you plan to be going in the front door, or the back?"

"The back," the Wizard says. "I wouldn't want to draw any attention to myself. It's a confidential meeting, you understand."

"I've got a shipment going up there just now; you're lucky about that. If you go out the back, just put yourself in between the bags of rolls and donuts, okay? And don't eat none. The Uplands butler likes to count them and I get dinged if there's some missing."

The Wizard gives a short nod and swipes his emerald tie tack off the counter. "Thank you. We won't be any trouble." He grabs me by the arm and we step behind the counter and weave our way back through the narrow kitchen.

"The Upland Estate?" I ask. "What's that, some sort of country club?" I don't actually know what a country club is, but I'd heard it in passing. A place where rich and fancy people mingled and laughed, and were rich and fancy together, surrounded by all the comforts of luxury... like rolls and donuts that could be counted.

"The Uplands, doll. You've never heard of them?" he asks.

"Should I have?"

We push out the battered wooden back door – the knob to it was completely missing, a crude wooden handle nailed in its place – and find a wooden cart and horse out back, piled high with burlap sacks filled with presumably donuts and rolls. The horse wickers as the Wizard pulls himself up into the cart and then me. We wedge ourselves out of sight as instructed, our drab and dirtied clothes blending into the wooden wagon and bags.

_________________________

It's a breeze getting past the guard and gates. When the wagon comes to a stop we wait and lie until there's a smack on the wagon. The Wizard peeks his head up first and I watch as the smile spreads on his face.

"Tomathy, good to see you again. What's it been? A century?"

I poke my head up to get a good look at this Tomathy. He seems to be the same age as the Wizard, a bit shorter, but well built to support the flashing eyes and aged wrinkles. Despite looking to be in his late sixties, he still has a full head of gold hair – truly golden, not blonde like one might try to romantically sway you into believing was gold. Tomathy's wrinkles press together like an accordion up his face as he smiles like a maniac. "Oscar, looking terrible as ever."

"Yeah, and you don't look so hot yourself. Mind giving me a hand here? I'm swimming in bagels," the Wizard says.

"It's donuts actually," I correct.

"Who's this?" Tomathy asks the Wizard, looking between the two of us. "You're still a big player aren't you? Where'd you find her? At the train station?" Tomathy has hopped up onto the cart and is pulling the Wizard from the sacks of baked goods.

"She's my assistant," he says, righting himself with a dust-off before clapping Tomathy on the back into a hug.

Oh, so that's how he plans to play it. In truth, I expected him to introduce me as his daughter, but this Tomathy must be enough in the know that it would be a laughable excuse. At least he had enough shame to not introduce me as some sort of sex pet. That would be wholly untrue considering I've only let him fuck me once back in the cabin. I try to keep my face unreadable as I push myself up out of the burlap sacks with the help of the side of the cart.

"Well, I can see why you picked her," Tomathy says, breaking from the embrace to ogle my full form now. "Sweet Oz, you're robbing the cradle before it's even been built."

"You know I can hear you, right?" I say crossing my arms. His eyes drop straight to my chest. I immediately uncross them.

At least to the Wizard's credit, his lip is curled in disgust. Whether it is about the remarks or the fact that his age-old friend was sizing me up, I don't know, but I'm grateful when he says, "Come on. Let's get inside. I haven't had anything to eat today."

"The Uplands keep us well fed," Tomathy says, hopping down from the wagon. "Pears and aged meat and the finest cheese and wine you've ever tasted."

"Well," the Wizard says with a laugh, "it almost sounds like you've appointed yourself as their personal food-taster." Tomathy offers a hand as the Wizard hops out of the wagon after him.

"Lady Upland has stuffed us until we can’t fit anything else down our gullets," Tomathy says. "Morrible looks like she's ready to snap if they try to offer her one more cream puff.

The Wizard waits for me as I walk to the edge of the cart, and then effortlessly seizes my waist and lowers me to the ground right in front of him. "Good?" he asks.

It's a double entendre of a question. We haven't talked about the fight we had before we left the wreck site, but he hasn't even made the effort to apologize or offer any sympathy for my plight so I'm not going to forgive him just yet. "Good," I mumble, breaking out of the embrace to walk in step with Tomathy. His first impression of being a raging womanizer hadn't worn off, but at least it was better than someone who hadn't denied that they would have you killed.

"It's a bit frosty for that kind of behavior, don't ya think?" Tomathy says as he walks towards the servants' door. "Cheer up! You're alive and well. Sweet Oz, that train wreck though... I hope we get some intel on it soon. We just received a report from the front lines and were waiting for you to arrive. I heard about it when I came in. They weren't going to let any trains through. Mail stopped going that way too."

We walk through the massive kitchen, a stark comparison to the bakery we snuck through. I feel a smirk tugging at my lips. Where the baker only had one aisle shotgunning from front to back, the Upland kitchen was only a tad shy of that of the Emerald Palace. You could throw one of the donuts from a burlap sack from one wall and – unless you were exceptionally strong – miss the wall opposite in width alone. Staff in clean white coats busied about the sanitary metal of their beehive, whisking creams and traying sandwiches and coffee for the lunch hour, none of them paying us any attention.

Continuing the tour up through the white and black chic of the foyer and staircases, I begin to wonder if the Uplands weren't perhaps behind Frottica looking as colorless as it did. It was more white than black, and even in a time of war, there was a grand vase of all white flowers that bloomed and cascaded from a glass vase big enough that a small child could fit into it if it were empty.

"Morrible is here, you said?" the Wizard asks.

"Here and agitated. Nobody's told her that they found you yet. I'm surprised she hasn't sicced a hurricane on that little base camp Fiyero's got outside the city. It would’ve be a nice surprise," Tomathy says.

"You didn't tell her?" the Wizard asks.

"Hell, I didn't even know you were alive until I saw that white mop of yours waving in the wind. I was looking out the window wishing I could get out of this nuthouse when I saw you coming up the road towards it.” Tomathy barks a laugh. “I said, 'He never did know how to not make an entrance.'" Tomathy is still laughing and the Wizard exchanges an uneasy smile. "What? Stuff still weird between the two of you? I thought you fixed it. Tell you what: you patch it up with her, and your assistant and I can get to know each other better." He wraps an arm around my shoulder pulling me into his side with a click of tongue and teeth. "Promise you won't have to do any work around me."

"Tom," the Wizard snaps.

Tomathy removes his arm from around me and I turn to see the same expression from when we had fought back on the train: angry and reckless. Tomathy is nothing more than a dog to him and it is time to come to heel at the command of his master, man's best friend to an extent. Tomathy holds his hands up in surrender, saying, "I didn't know it was like that."

"Well, now you know," the Wizard says, brushing past Tomathy and me, taking the steps two at a time.

"Has he always been like this?" I whisper to Tomathy.

"Like what?" Tomathy asks. "Possessive? Sweetheart, that is a you and him problem to work out. I'm already on thin ice. Come on." He heads up the white marble stairs after the Wizard and I follow behind him.

We don't have to go very far on the second floor. The doors to a massive personal library are propped open and I can hear the chatter that is coming through them. It comes to a hush and I know that he must've caught their attention. I'm sure he looks ghastly to them. They hadn't spent the past few days with him, watching as he metamorphized into dull browns, snow-covered, and, at last, completely unkempt through our trek through the wilderness and disaster. The shadows under his eyes had deepened and his hair was now fully back to just its regular waves rather than its carefully coiffed swoops.

I follow into the library after Tomathy just in time to see Madame Morrible throw her arms around him in a manner so stoic it seemed rehearsed. The expansive windows that overlook the backyard gardens and hedge maze have flooded the room with light and I swear I can see tears in her eyes, and the way her nails are clawing into the back of his woolen coat.

"Madame Morrible," Tomathy says, "I was just coming up here to let you know that he-"

"You're alive," she says, voice choked.

"I am," the Wizard replies.

That niggling feeling I'd felt at the tea shop is back and I want to slink into the corner of the room, and maybe down into the kitchens where I might be more at home. I didn't need to know names and titles to know how to serve at a table. I didn’t need to have a history.

"As much as I'd love to savor this reunion," a broad man with a green Oz uniform and dark complexion says, "we are at war, and we've just received a briefing. Time is of the essence."

The crowd crumbles at his words, immediately shedding their attention from the Wizard and Madame Morrible and heading back to their seats at a makeshift open rectangle that had been built from four long tables. As much as the feeling is still gnawing at me to steal away to the servants' quarters here, I want to hear this briefing. We hadn't heard anything from Bruno in days and that news was even days old by then, taking much longer to be smuggled out rather than through the efficiency of military and spies. I wanted to know if Fileah was okay, but that would have to wait. Now would be if I found out if Bruno was okay, and if Bruno was okay then Fileah would be okay. Tomathy is following the Wizard and Madame Morrible to sit down, and I decide to stick by him. He seems to have changed his womanizing tune after the Wizard snapped at him, so I probably wouldn't have to endure any under-the-table fondling.

The kitchen staff come in with carts full of food and drink, but the man in the Oz uniform starts before the table has been set. "I want to start by thanking the Lord-Mayor of Shiz for committing another five thousand troops to the cause. They are sorely needed at this time, and with them, we have more than enough of a shot at winning."

A frail looking man next to Madame Morrible stands and offers a weak nod to an applause before taking his seat again. I think that I can see the crest of Shiz on his lavender jacket. He says, "It is an honor to serve our great land of Oz."

The Wizard whispers something to Madame Morrible, but I can't hear it with Tomathy sitting between us.

The military man continues, "As for the briefing that we have just received: it does not look good."

My hand finds Tomathy's under the table and I wish so badly that it wasn't his.

"Something wrong?" Tomathy whispers to me.

"A friend back home. He's one of the Royal Palace guards," I reply.

The military man is continuing to go on about the death toll and how the citizens of the Emerald City are reaching critically low food stores, but Tomathy pulls my attention back to him. "Does the Wizard know about the two of you? It's not wise to piss him off. You see what happened to me – and he likes me on a good day."

I try not to scoff at the idea. "No, no, it's not like that," I whisper. "Bruno is like a brother to me. He's been looking out for my sister back home and he's the one that got the Wizard and I out of the city."

"My condolences to you then," Tomathy says. "I hope the Unnamed God is merciful on your friend. He's doing a service to this country. I can't think of a more dangerous place to be, but someone's got to do it." He squeezes my hand to seal the blessing. It's meaningless if what the rest he said is true. The five thousand troops will be our lifeline, an emergency blood transfusion as we hemorrhage on the front line.

"Overall, the casualties have not been excessive," the military man continues, "but the breach of the city walls puts us in a terrible position. The Gale Force suspects that they targeted highborn hostages: innocent women and children. Probably to get us to cooperate better. A higher price tag is a better bargaining chip."

I feel a weight lifted off my chest and squeeze Tomathy's hand back. The Unnamed God was merciful, and unless Bruno was exceptionally unlucky, he was probably still alive.

"You say that they suspect a target of highborn hostages," a man says from the table across from our side of the rectangle. He's dressed from head to toe in green with thick spectacles that make it very obvious every time he blinks. "I have family in the Emerald City still. I need to know if they're okay."

The man next to him puts a hand on his shoulder. "George, you wouldn't be able to do anything about it anyway, the entire city is blockaded. There's no getting in or out."

"Gentleman, please," the military man interrupts. "I can answer questions as long as we keep order. The report said that there were obvious break-ins in the Garden District. If that's were your family lives, then feel free to worry, but like our friend said, the entire city has been blockaded. We'll need to do an extraction mission or wait for their demands." He goes back to reading the report. "They say they suspect it was a target of highborn hostages, innocent women and children. Of note were the obvious break-ins in the Garden District-” He nods to the quivering green man. “A break-in at a womens-only boarding house, and a break-in at an orphanage."