#or to make themselves look a little more presentable

[lurkingshan]

Spare Me Your Mercy, Love in the Big City, and the Trap of Pursuing Mainstream Popularity for Queer Art

I read this excellent post by @waitmyturtles yesterday tackling the frustrating failures of Spare Me Your Mercy, a show that was one of my most anticipated of the year, but that ended up so lost in its own confusing blend of sauces that I didn't even finish it. I appreciated her clarity that despite the show receiving strong ratings and finding popularity with the mainstream domestic audience, that doesn't actually make it a success as a piece of narrative storytelling. And if anything, its popularity underlines why it was a failure as a queer narrative, in particular.

Because here's the thing about great queer art—it's almost never popular with mainstream audiences, especially in socially conservative countries. High quality, well-executed, honest and authentic queer art is more likely to be protested than celebrated in places where real queer people are not safe to live free lives. For an illustration of this, look no further than another highly anticipated queer drama of this year in Love in the Big City. Easily the queerest show to ever get made and aired on Korean television, it drew major protests before it even started, forcing the production to release it quickly in one go to ensure it would reach audiences. And why were those conservative groups so afraid of this little old drama? Because even just in its trailer and promotional materials, it was clear this was no sanitized, G-rated drama created to make gay people seem more palatable to the masses (unlike the film version with the same name, which not coincidentally has been much more warmly received by the Korean media establishment). This show was real, and raw, and QUEER in a way that terrified those bigots, because they know one of the most important ways the oppressed can advocate for themselves is by demonstrating their humanity through art. 

Which brings me back to turtles’ post, and the importance of separating the concerns of art and commerce when discussing the different ways media can succeed. This is something I had some good dialogue about with @biochemjess @pharawee @clairedaring @flowerbeasblog and turtles (and even more of you in the tags) when I was still watching and posting about Spare Me Your Mercy. I originally posted to unpack why the show was flopping narratively, which turned into a discussion of the fact that it was getting good ratings from the domestic audience despite this. And while I appreciated understanding how the show is landing with its priority audience, for me, it’s very important to keep a distinction between these two different kinds of success. Especially in discussions of queer art, and especially for a show whose creators explicitly said they were intentionally downplaying the queer romance part of the queer romance ( @benkaben) to avoid “distracting” from their other messaging goals. 

The important thing to keep in mind is that for queer stories, when they are popular with a mainstream audience it’s often because they are stripping any authenticity from the representation of queer people. Turtles addressed this well in her review of 2gether when she posited that part of the reason it was such a phenomenon in conservative Asian countries (aside from the timing of its release in the early days of the global pandemic), was because its presentation of queerness was mostly unrecognizable to real queer people, stripped of any true notion of queer sexuality or the realities of homophobia. Compare the reception of The Miracle of Teddy Bear—a show that absolutely refused to make its central queer character palatable for a mainstream audience, because the fact that he wasn’t palatable was the point—to that of Spare Me Your Mercy, a show whose creators chose to censor their own story. The ugly truth is that when we’re talking about queer dramas, the best and most vital shows are pretty much anathema to mainstream ratings success.

The impulse to pursue mainstream popularity and commercial success for queer art inevitably leads to watering down queer stories ( @twig-tea) to make them more light, comfortable and familiar to a majority heterosexual and socially conservative audience. And yes, of course, some degree of commercial success is necessary for queer art to get made in the first place. This is how the Thai BL market took off, by recognizing that there was an audience beyond queer people who were open to watching stories about boys falling in love, as long as it didn’t get too real. But there is a careful line to walk here, and it’s so important not to confuse popularity with artistic merit. Queer people won’t win liberation by self-censoring queer media to make it more palatable for mainstream audiences. We win when we make queer art so good and so honest that the mainstream is forced to acknowledge it. We win by challenging the mainstream perspective on queer people and how they should behave, not by catering to it. As @bengiyo said in a completely different discourse, the question is not whether the audience can love queer characters whose actual queerness is suppressed for their comfort. That kind of respectability politics is old hat and it never fucking gets us anywhere. The real question he posed is this: “Do you love us when we’re ugly, when we’re sick, when we’re old, when we’re being mean or catty?”

Which is why a show like Love in the Big City ultimately won by being so excellent, and so true, and so undeniable, that it broke through with audiences around the world and achieved some measure of recognition in spite of how very unpalatable it was to its domestic audience. Unlike Spare Me Your Mercy, this show did not get amazing domestic ratings, but its message was heard far beyond those who watched it on Korean television. And that is the point. Making authentic art that advances the struggle of queer people and making nominally queer art that can achieve mainstream popularity are completely different pursuits, and we must keep that in mind when we discuss whether and how these shows succeeded or failed. And while both must exist in a healthy media ecosystem, one will always be more vital for the survival of queer people than the other. 

[cognitiveoverload]

Nobody got you the way I do (Aaron Hotchner x reader)

summary: One of your employees turns out to be a serial killer, and the BAU suspects that he might want to hurt you too, so they want to make sure you're safe. Hotch takes it a little too seriously, and there's a reason for that.

note: I'm not so sure about this one, I don't know why. But this is the robotics expert!CEO!reader story I mentioned in the poll.

tags: afab!reader, overprotective!Hotch, brat tamer!Hotch?

wc: 5.4k

“I told you not to bother me today.”

Your assistant, Lizzie, is the only one at this company who spends the entire day in high heels, which is why the familiar clicking sound lets you know it’s her who entered your private lab. Since you know who it is, you don’t even look up from the prosthetic arm you have lying on the table in front of you, connected to your laptop to spend the day fixing the damn thing. A deadline is coming up, and you took charge of this pet project of yours, this is why you are dead serious when you ask your employees to respect your request to leave you alone for now. 

She lets out a hesitant hum as she steps closer to you, leaning down so you can hear her clearly even when she speaks quietly. “Two FBI agents are here to see you. They said it was important,” she tells you. 

Letting out an annoyed sigh, you look up to find two men standing there in the room. One of them is young, maybe a few years younger than you, and his eyes are focused on the prototype you’re working on. The other? Now, that’s an interesting situation. The other agent in question is someone you have met before, at a party over half a year ago, when he helped you talk to a suicidal acquaintance who decided to pick that night to jump off the roof of the building. Unlike his colleague’s, his eyes are fixed on you, making you feel like you’re currently being studied under a microscope. 

“Gentlemen, what can I do for you?” you ask casually, folding your hands on the table. 

“I’m Supervisory Special Agent Hotchner, this is Dr. Reid,” the older man begins, pretending not to know you. Well, if that’s how he wants to play, you’re happy to join the game. “Your company showed up as a link between the victims in a series of murders.” He puts a folder in front of you, waiting until you open it to take a look at the paper inside. “Is there anything they have in common besides being your ex-employees?”

You go through the list of names, and it’s instantly obvious what that thing is. “They were all fired,” you reply as you close the folder and push it back towards them.

Sadly, Hotch knows there’s more to the story, and he’s not afraid to pry for more information. “And? I know there’s something you’re not telling us. Why were they fired?”

“Corporate espionage.” While you don’t want to go into the details and think about these cases again, they both seem interested in hearing what it’s all about, so you let out a sigh and continue. “They were all caught selling confidential information to our competitors or anyone who was willing to pay enough. Classic case, nothing unusual.”

Reid bites his lips as he quickly thinks about something. “What’s the process if you have a case like this? What do you do?” he wonders.

“I usually let my Chief Security Officer take care of it. His name is Jonathan Hayes, he’s been with us since the beginning, so he knows everything about the company. He sits down with the employee in question with HR present, hands over the paperwork, and beside that, he consults the legal department to take care of the rest,” you explain.

“We didn’t find court documents,” Hotch points out. 

With a small smirk, you shrug. “I don’t need scandals. We keep things quiet.” 

The two men look at each other, then, as if there was a silent agreement between them, they excuse themselves and ask for a moment while they discuss something outside. With a shrug, you roll the swivel chair to the side to check something on the laptop, but moments after you begin to tweak the set of codes on the screen, your fingers freeze above the keyboard and your gaze shifts to the glass wall to take a look at them. Whatever they’re talking about, it surely involves you, because every now and then they turn your way. Perfect. They hopefully don’t think you used Hayes as your personal assassin or something.

A few minutes later they finally return, and it’s Reid who speaks up. “Can we talk to Hayes? We have some questions, hopefully he can help us out.”

“He’s on unpaid leave due to some family issue,” you tell them. 

“Since when?” he asks with a frown.

You blow out the air you didn’t even notice you’ve been holding, and lean back in your chair as you think. “He left about a month ago. Why?”

Before Reid can speak up, Hotch takes a deep breath and steps closer to the desk. “Has he tried to contact you since then?” he asks, his voice laced with worry that you’re not sure his colleague can detect. But you notice, you’re painfully aware of it.

“He called a few times, but usually when I was busy doing something else.”

“So you didn’t talk to him?”

“Not really.”

“When was the last time he called you?” 

That one you don’t have to think about. “Three days ago. He called me more and more frequently in the week before that, and since he didn’t stop even after I sent him a text to find my assistant, I decided to block his number until he returns,” you explain. 

Reid turns to his boss when he hears this. “The timeline checks out, and his number being blocked might be what triggered the changes in his method and the messages,” he says quickly. 

There’s a nod of agreement before Hotch turns back to you. “You need to come with us now.” 

“What did I do?”

“Nothing wrong, don’t worry. But Hayes will soon be looking for you, and we’d rather have you somewhere safe until we find him,” he tells you, earning a doubtful look from you. 

Because you have a feeling Hayes stepped up to be their prime suspect, although it simply doesn’t make sense to you. If you don’t count this little phone call issue, your relationship is quite good, and he’s always so nice, so friendly. “He would never hurt anyone,” you tell them, deciding that ignoring them might be the best approach. “If there’s nothing else, I’d like to ask you to leave now. I have a lot to do.”

“Listen to me,” you hear Hotch’s hushed voice once he leans over the table, “you’re not safe until we catch him, so put the attitude aside and come with us.”

With a huff, you look back at the screen and begin to type like they weren’t even there. But despite your best effort, his brown eyes are burning a hole into your skull, and you can feel the annoyance that fills him. “I’m not going anywhere,” you say without looking at him.

He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. “Stop being a brat,” he tells you angrily. 

“Did you just call me a brat?”

“Hotch?” Reid asks in the background, but he raises a hand to stop him. That doesn’t work, though, because the younger agent realized that he needs to intervene before things get out of hand. “We found messages at the crime scenes, and now that we know the real reason why those employees had been let go, it’s clear Hayes did this to protect you,” he explains.

This gets your attention and you finally look up from the screen to meet his eyes. “To protect me? How does killing them protect me?”

“He’s loyal to you, and he would go to great lengths to make sure you and your company are safe. To him, you’re like a family member he needs to protect,” he says.

Gulping, you pinch the bridge of your nose. “But he’s such a normal guy. Tough, sure, but murdering people?” you note with a desperate laugh. It’s insane, why can’t this madness happen to someone else?

“They often seem harmless,” he offers with a sympathetic smile. “Look, we need a list of the employees who were fired for corporate espionage or other major issues Hayes dealt with in the past.”

“Sure, I’ll ask my assistant to send you the list,” you assure them without hesitation.

But Hotch doesn’t seem satisfied with the answer, because he moves around the desk to close your laptop, then helps you up from the chair. “You can make that call from the car. Let’s go,” he says as he lets his hand move to your elbow to lead you toward the door. 

“Wait, I can’t go, I have a deadline, and an interview, and—”

“Now,” he says sternly, leaving no room for an argument. 

For a moment there’s a staring contest between you two, but then out of the corner of your eye you notice Reid’s surprised expression. Maybe this isn’t the time for such an argument, so you put up your hands in defeat. “Okay, okay, just let me get my bag and laptop from my office,” you say as you yank your arm away and take the lead toward the elevator.

On the way out of the building, Reid starts a conversation with you about your work, but it’s hard to focus with Hotch’s hand on the small of your back as he leads you. He doesn’t look at you, and deep down you’re grateful for that. When you get into the car, you sit in the middle of the back seat so it’s easier to keep the chat with the younger agent going, because you’re happy to talk about your little projects with someone who truly appreciates the science behind your innovations. 

He’s intelligent, that one’s clear, and the more you learn about him, the more you feel like in another life you could be friends, and you would probably ask him to work for you too. While the conversation flows freely, you don’t miss the way Hotch looks at you through the rearview mirror every once in a while, so when there’s a little break in the discussion, you take the chance to change the topic a little. 

“Is he always this grumpy?” you ask Reid with a playful smile.

Before he can respond, Hotch rolls his eyes. “I’m not grumpy,” he states. 

“Then serious.”

He exhales slowly, making it clear he has to force himself to stay calm. “I’m chasing serial killers, more people would die if I took my job too lightly,” he explains. 

“So would a smile kill you?” you wonder, deliberately pushing his buttons.

“I think you should—” Reid begins his warning, but the other man is quick to interrupt him.

“No.”

You grab the back of his seat and lean forward to be closer. “Then why don’t you smile?” Hotch groans as he shakes his head, and you take the hint. So, once again, you change the topic as you lean back against the seat. “You know what? I’ll make a few calls and hire a security company to keep an eye on me in my own house, so I don’t need your protection. Also, you said Hayes—if he really is the killer, that is—was looking for employees we let go for certain reasons. As far as I know, I’m still the head of this company.”

Reid turns in his seat as he begins to talk. “Yes, but Hayes is getting impatient, angry, and based on the timeline you told us, it’s related to you ignoring his calls. He will get mad at you and try to punish you for that.”

“I highly doubt it.”

“Why?” Hotch asks. 

“Does it really matter?”

“I’m going to ask this one last time—why?”

Your silence gives Reid an idea. “Were you in a romantic relationship with him?”

“God, no, no, it’s just,” you begin, stopping for a moment to think. “He has a family, he’s always so nice to everyone, why would he do that? It can’t be to protect me.”

“His way of thinking isn’t exactly rational anymore,” the younger man begins, flashing an understanding smile at you. “As for the security company, it would be best if you stayed close to us.”

With a sigh, you decide to drop it for now. In fact, you want to let go of the conversation altogether. So, instead of putting up another fight, you unlock your phone and dive into your emails, ignoring the men’s existence for the rest of the ride.

••••••••••

Once on their floor, Reid leads you to an empty office, saying you can use that for the time being. It’s way darker than the office or the lab that you’re used to, but you don’t have the luxury to be picky, there is a lot to do before you can call it a day. The interview was transformed into an online one, the journalist promised to call you a little later, the board meeting that was scheduled for the afternoon was postponed to the day after tomorrow, and you gave yourself a new deadline as the prototype wasn’t here with you.

Yet, despite the long to-do list, you don’t interrupt Reid when he continues your previous conversation about your work, and soon you’re joined by Garcia, who charms you in a matter of seconds. Prentiss and Morgan arrive as well, shortly introducing themselves before leaving to get back to work.

But then the little gathering is coming to a halt, because Hotch shows up just to tell you that you can’t stay here. Instead, he wants you to use his office, saying he’d rather have you somewhere he can keep an eye on you. Garcia and Reid both watch you with visible confusion, which tells you it must be quite unusual, even for them. But you don’t feel like arguing, so you follow the unit chief down the hallway.

As you’re sitting on the couch, you can’t help but glance over at him every now and then, watching as he tries to catch up with the paperwork while they wait. For what, though, is a mystery, no one tells you anything regarding the case. Being left in the dark is definitely not what you’re used to.

Two hours later he returns to the office, but instead of coming in, he simply leans against the doorframe, brown eyes watching you with surprising softness. “How about getting some coffee?” he asks.

Now that’s something you can’t say no to. “You have coffee?”

A short, dry laugh follows your question. “We do, it’s terrible, which is why I was thinking about going to a coffee shop nearby. Want to come with me?”

“I thought I had to stay here to be safe,” you point out. 

“It’s close and I have a gun,” he says with a barely visible smile. “So?”

“That would be great.”

He signals you to follow him, and, as if you were a trained puppy, you do exactly as he wants. While you pass the bullpen, you can’t help but notice the eyes of the members of his team, and you even hear the whispers behind your back. Do they suspect something? Did they notice that maybe you have met before this morning? Or what if Hotch told them himself? But no, if he did, he wouldn’t have acted like he didn’t know you. 

In the car, there’s a comfortable silence settling between you, and it’s hard not to think about the night you met him. The party was boring, the usual shallow event where people could network and show off, but when a woman you knew came over to you to say a mutual acquaintance was on the roof, planning to jump down after receiving a phone call, things took an interesting turn. 

Hotch was in the group you were both a part of in a conversation, and when he heard what happened, he offered to join you. It took a good half hour, but eventually he managed to convince the man to change his mind, and that’s when he told you about who he was. The rest of the night passed with a pleasant chat, learning a lot more about each other, and at the end he asked for your number, promising to call you soon.

Well, he never did.

But today, you’re willing to put that aside if he wants to act like you didn’t know each other. Instead of stirring drama, you inhale deeply and look out the window. “You know, it’s nice,” you note, breaking the silence.

“What’s nice?”

“Not being treated like I was some weirdo.”

For a moment, he turns his head to look at you. “That’s how people see you?” You let out a hum of confirmation. “Well, having Reid on the team helped us gain some experience in dealing with geniuses, I guess.”

“Look at that! A smile! You should smile more often,” you note teasingly, even biting on your lip before commenting on how much more handsome it makes him. 

He shakes his head without glancing over at you. “You’re not letting that smile thing go, are you?” he asks.

“Hmm… No, I don’t think so.” Silence falls between you, because there’s something you want to ask, something you’re not sure you should bring up. But then you take a deep breath and speak up again. “Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“You’re nice to me,” you say, then turn to look at him. “Why?”

Hotch takes a deep breath before looking at you, and you can see a slightly confused expression on his face. “As far as I know, it’s not a crime to be nice.”

“That’s true, still.” His eyes turn back to the road ahead, and you can tell that this was all, he doesn’t want to talk more about this. “So, I guess he wasn’t at home,” you then say, changing the topic. You know Morgan and Prentiss went to Hayes’ home, but neither of them told you about the result.

“No, he wasn’t. But we will find him,” he assures you.

“Are you sure I’m in danger?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” 

He remains silent for a little too long, probably wondering how much he can tell you. “His wife left him about eight months ago and took their daughter with her. That could be a stressor. He focused on his job, where he once again found traitors, then he lost control.”

“That doesn’t explain why he would turn on me.”

“You’ve been ignoring him. You blocked his number. He’s getting angry, he kills more frequently. We found another body today, but this time it wasn’t a past or current employee. He will reach the point when he starts to blame you for his own actions.”

You look out the window on the side, watching the people on the street. “I don’t believe it,” you note, although this sentence is meant more to you than him.

“I thought you were smarter than this.” Your attention snaps back to him when he reaches out to touch your hand. “Take it seriously. Please.”

“Okay.” You look down at his hand, having a hard time deciding how the way his thumb massages your skin makes you feel. It certainly makes you think, and you don’t shy away from bringing it up. “We should probably talk about the elephant in the room,” you tell him.

But Hotch suddenly pulls his hand away and parks the car in front of a coffee shop. Even though he gets out, you stay behind, staring ahead as you think about this. Maybe you should tell them you’ll take care of your own protection, you won’t need their help any longer. It would be easier for everyone.

Eventually, you catch up, but after you both place your orders, there’s an argument about who’s gonna pay, although he shuts you down with a single look. So, you give up the fight and decide to remain silent until you arrange your trip to your holiday house in Aspen.

Then you take a seat in a booth, and he starts talking unexpectedly. “I thought we were having a fresh start, like we didn’t know each other at all,” he says, continuing the conversation that ended so abruptly in the car.

“You started that this morning when you introduced yourself like I was a complete stranger, I just played along,” you respond, although you’re having a hard time figuring him out. 

He lets out a sigh, his fingers drumming on the side of the cup as he watches you. “I didn’t know where we stood after that night.”

“You disappeared, Hotch. You asked for my number and never called. I thought I misunderstood what happened, so I decided to move on, but don’t think it didn’t hurt.”

“I wanted to call you, but then I had one case after another and realized I don’t have the time to maintain a relationship you would deserve.”

You can’t help but snort. “You could have told me that instead of ignoring me completely.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, and you can tell he’s being honest now.

It doesn’t make sense to you. He’s been sending you mixed signals since you met again in the morning, and deep down you want to clarify the situation before leaving. “Tell me this,” you begin as you lean closer over the table. “If you wanted to act like we didn’t know each other, why did you become so overprotective? Because that’s what you’ve been all day long; forcing me to come with you, keeping me in your office, and taking me out to get coffee.”

Hotch stops to think. “I can’t stand the thought of you getting hurt. I know it’s probably hard to believe, but that’s the truth. I like you, and every time I read an article about you, or watch one of your interviews, I think about what things could be like.”

“I wish you hadn’t disappeared on me back then.”

“We can fix that now,” he says softly as he reaches out to take your hand.

But you don’t like the idea of him touching you, so you pull your hand away as you look elsewhere. “I’m not sure if I want it now. Maybe it’s already too late.” You can hear him let out a long sigh, which makes you turn back to him. “Look, when we get back, I’ll call a friend of mine to send someone who will escort me to my holiday house in Colorado. I’ll take my jet, it will be safe.”

“No.”

“I wasn’t asking for your permission, Hotch,” you point out. 

“I know, but you can’t leave. We don’t know when we’ll need you to help us with something. So, no, you’re not leaving. In fact, you’ll stay in my apartment, because I can’t leave you in the office.”

“Do I get a say in this?”

He raises his eyebrows as he looks at you, as if you’ve just made a stupid joke. “No.”

••••••••••

You decided to be a good girl and didn’t put up a fight when he told you it was time to leave the office at the end of the day. You didn’t argue when he ordered food for dinner. You weren’t hostile when he started a conversation. You played his game, just like he expected you to, as if you understood why he was so keen on keeping you close. 

You even offered him a chance to lure Hayes to the party your company was holding for the employees the next day. When he agreed to do it on the condition of him and his team attending too, you said good night, and went to sleep. But that didn’t last long, the moment you heard his bedroom door close, you sneaked out and returned to your office. 

But the next day he found you. You were sitting behind your desk, signing a couple of documents your assistant left behind for you, when you heard footsteps getting closer.

“What the hell were you thinking?!” he yelled, walking around your desk to stand right in front of you.

Morgan raised his hands to calm him down. “Hotch,” he warned his boss, but it felt like he didn’t say a word.

Because he completely ignored the other man, instead he focused on you, his eyes burning a hole into you. “You disappear in the middle of the night without a word? No one knew where you went, he could have found you!”

“Hotch, calm down, she’s safe.”

“Morgan, stay out of this, please.”

“Am I arrested?” you ask, keeping your voice calm and quiet.

He looks back at you. “No, but—”

“Then I can go wherever I want,” you tell him. “I don’t need your permission. Hell, you don’t even have proof that he’s after me.”

“But he could be, which is more than enough.”

“Unless you want to arrest me, please, leave the building. If you don’t, I’ll ask security to escort you out,” you inform him, already reaching for your phone to make the call if needed.

Hotch’s eyes soften, and you can see his desperation. “Don’t do this,” he asks you.

Silence follows his words, but you don’t want to give him the satisfaction of winning this one. So, rolling your eyes, you close your laptop and stand up, already moving past him to reach the hallway. If they want to stay, then fine, let them stay, but you’ll sure as hell not stick around. He doesn’t try to stop you, neither does Morgan, although you can feel both men watching as you disappear on the hallway. 

You barely reach the first corner, though, when you find yourself face to face with Hayes, the very man they’ve been trying to protect you from. Fuck. But maybe you’re lucky, maybe he’s only here to pick something up from his office, maybe it’s a meeting, maybe it’s anything other than the need to hurt you. Flashing a friendly smile at him, you say, “John, I thought you were on leave.”

“There’s something I have to take care of,” he says, and you feel a wave of relief wash over you. 

“Okay. I’ll spend most of the day in my lab, so if you need anything, you kn—” You don’t finish the sentence, because he suddenly pulls out a gun and points it at you. “John, put that away,” you try weakly.

Hayes closes the distance between you to grab your arm and yank you towards the stairs. “Come with me.”

“There are innocent people here, don’t do something you would regret later.”

“This has to be done,” he says, and you can hear the determination in his voice, mixed with a hint of insanity. 

Before you could get far, though, you’re both stopped by a familiar voice when Hotch's angry voice cuts through the air. “Hayes, let her go,” he instructs. 

The man steps behind you and pushes the barrel of the gun at your head. “No! Take one step closer and I’ll shoot her.”

“You only wanted to protect her and the company, didn’t you? Killing her would ruin your plan,” Morgan tries to reason, although you’re not quite sure he’s in the right state of mind to process that properly.

“She doesn’t appreciate what I do for her.”

“I’m sure she does.”

“No! She didn’t say thank you after I punished those people, she didn’t even answer my calls and messages.”

You gulp, feeling like this whole mess is your fault, that maybe if you talked to him, you would’ve found out what he did sooner. “John, please,” you beg him. 

“Shut up!”

Before anyone else could speak up, you catch movement out of the corner of your eye when the assistant of one of the deputy CEO’s steps out of the main meeting room, and she cries loudly when she notices the weapons. “What’s—Oh my god!” she says, her voice laced with panic. 

This averts Hayes’s attention, and he lets go of you just enough to give Morgan the chance to shoot him. You look down at the body on the floor, blood pooling around him as the agent comes closer to check his pulse. “He’s dead,” he announces, turning to his boss before looking back at you. 

You’re crying, you can’t stop yourself, and you’re only pulled out of your spiraling thoughts by Hotch’s worried voice as he moves closer and extends his arms. “Come here.” You don’t even think about it, you only follow your instincts and let him pull you into a tight hug. “He can’t hurt you anymore, you’re safe,” he whispers to you, then turns to his colleague. “Morgan, take care of this, I’ll take her back to her office.”

“Okay, you got it,” comes the answer. 

“I’m fine, you don’t need to come with me,” you note as you step away from him and wipe the tears away. “Would you like me to evacuate the building?”

“No, only close this floor.”

“Sure.”

Hotch grabs your shoulders and turns you back to face him. “Look at me.” When you do, he goes on, his voice soft and worried. “Don’t do this.”

“I’m not doing anything,” you mumble.

“You’re pushing me away, but you shouldn’t be alone now.”

You shrug. “Then Morgan could stay by my side until you are ready to let me go.”

“Hey, I think it would be better if you stayed with Hotch,” the agent says. 

“What did I do to you? Did I hurt you?” you ask him, sounding as serious as you manage in this situation. 

Morgan groans as he rolls his eyes at you. “Come on.”

“You’re childish, and stubborn, and getting on my nerves now,” Hotch states impatiently. “Let’s go, I need to ask you a few questions.”

“About what?”

“About Hayes holding you at gunpoint.”

“But you saw what happened.”

“Not the whole thing.”

Since there is nothing you can do considering you’re expected to work together with them, you follow him to your office, where you lean against the desk with your arms defensively folded over your chest. “You’re overreacting,” you inform him. 

Hotch scoffs, giving you a disapproving look. “You left my house and he almost murdered you. Since when does being worried about you count as overreacting?”

“And why are you worried? Who am I to you exactly?” you ask in an attempt to challenge him. 

He watches you for a short while, and you have absolutely no idea what’s going on inside his head. But then, out of nowhere, he places a hand on your neck and pulls you into a kiss. A soft one that’s full of emotions, something he’s been planning to do for a while now. “It’s up to you,” he says quietly, staying close to you. 

“That’s emotional blackmail,” you respond, your voice barely above a whisper, as if you were telling this to yourself. 

He lets out a short laugh, the big smile remaining in place. “Not quite.”

“Hotch, please, this isn’t funny.”

“I’m not laughing at you, I promise,” he says as he shakes his head. “Have dinner with me. Tonight, before I’m dragged away for work.”

“I can’t.”

You don’t miss the disappointed look on his face as he steps back. “Of course you can’t,” he notes bitterly.

Tilting your head to the side, you reach out for his hand. “Hey, the gala, remember? That’s tonight.” Finally, he remembers. “How about a deal? You join me as my plus one, and we can talk.”

“You’ll ignore me.”

“I won’t.”

“And if you do?”

A playful smile appears on your lips. “You don’t trust me?”

“I just want to make sure you keep your word,” he points out while he laces your fingers. 

“Ouch. I’ll behave.”

He leans down to place a kiss on your forehead, then flashes a smile at you. “That’s all I ask of you.”

Before he could kiss you again, Morgan knocks on the door and watches the pair of you with a teasing grin on his face, but seeing the look his boss sends his way, he decides to leave this for now. Instead, he gives him an update. Despite the conversation happening in your presence, you can’t focus on their words. You’re busy studying Hotch’s face, getting lost in those eyes that caught your attention months ago. Maybe this time he’ll stick around and stop ignoring you.

Maybe this time it can work out. 

[heich0e]

Itachi 🚬🚬🚬🚬

Can we get some crumbs on the jounin itachi au you were working on??? 👉🏼👈🏼

i don't think i'll ever finish the fic, so (if ur interested) here's the WIP in its entirety <3 sorry it doesn't really have much of an ending!! i'll leave what happens after the fact up to u <3 tw: pregnancy and uchiha brother nonsense

“Sasuke.”

At the gentle call of his older brother’s voice, the youngest Uchiha’s head pops up from where he’d been craning over a book at his desk and swivels towards his bedroom doorway. Through the crack between the frame and the door itself, left ever so slightly ajar, he can see Itachi peering in—he hadn’t heard him come home, and he’s surprised to see him there.

“Nii-san,” the youngest greets him, placing his palms on his desk in preparation to push himself up from his seat. Before he can, Itachi wordlessly lets himself into the room, shouldering the door open and slipping inside. He glances around his little brother’s space—tidy, as it always it—and even though nothing is different from usual, he still takes in everything with a look of curiosity. Sasuke watches his brother cross the room, coming to stand beside where he’s seated at his desk.

“What are you reading?” 

Sasuke peers up at his brother in confusion. The jounin shouldn’t even be home, as far as he was aware—Itachi was supposed to leave on a mission that morning that would have taken him out of the village for at least a few days. At least that’s what he’d said to him over breakfast only that morning.

“Why are you here?” Sasuke counters his brother’s question with one of his own—a more pressing one at that.

Itachi’s eyes shift from the pages of the book laying open on the desk, to the face of his younger brother. He eyes him for a moment, and then sighs a bit, his lips curling up ever so slightly at the corner.

“Wanna take a walk?”

The autumn evening is brisk as the wind dances through Konoha. The sun is setting, and as the two brothers walk through the familiar streets, children race past them towards the sound of their mothers’ calls. Up ahead, Sasuke spots a couple with a young child between them, one little hand clasped in each of theirs, laughing amongst themselves as they make their way home. Sasuke shoves his hands into his pockets, peering at his brother from the corner of his eye. Itachi seems to be watching the family up ahead too, a peculiar expression on his face.

“Why didn’t you leave on your mission today?” 

It’s the first time either of the two brothers have said anything at all since leaving their home some time prior, though the question has been hanging between them since Sasuke first posed it in his bedroom, waiting to be answered. Itachi sighs again, that same mirthful sound as the first time his little bother presented him with the quandary.

“Hey, Sasuke,” Itachi begins, looking up at the pink evening sky overhead, “you know where babies come from, right?”

Sasuke nearly trips over his own two feet.

“What’s this about?” he spits, stammering over the words as ungracefully as he’d taken his last steps, his head whipping around to face his brother as a furious heat races into his cheeks. 

Itachi peers back at him, his expression neutral—but Sasuke knows his brother better than anyone, and he knows when Itachi is holding back a laugh.

“You didn’t answer my question,” the eldest points out.

“Well you never answered mine!” the youngest bites back.

Itachi finally breathes out a laugh at that, placing a hand on his little brother’s shoulder. The familiar gesture takes Sasuke by surprise, but he doesn’t pull away. “Let’s go get something to eat and we can both get answers.”

At a small food stall down the road, the Uchiha brothers sit with plates of sweet rice dumplings and steaming cups of green tea in front of them. Sasuke watches his brother lift one of his two skewers to his mouth and slide one spherical sweet from the wooden stick using the edge of his teeth, chewing on the confection slowly with a contented smile on his face.

“I don’t like these,” Sasuke reminds his brother, staring down at the sweet food in front of him with a crinkle on his nose. 

Itachi laughs, taking a sip of his tea.

“I know that,” the older of the two says. “Forgive me, Sasuke. This was more for my sake than yours.”

“You’re being weird today,” the teen grumbles, slumping back in his seat with his arms crossed over his chest. He eyes his brother warily.

“I suppose you’re right,” Itachi agrees, much to Sasuke’s surprise. He sets his cup of tea down beside his plate of dango, meeting his brothers gaze. “I got some news today.”

Sasuke’s mouth suddenly feels dry for reasons he can’t quite place.

“Sasuke, I’m having a baby.”

The youngest Uchiha’s eyes go wide, his entire body stiffening in his seat. Nothing about Itachi changes—not his gaze, nor his posture, nor his gentle, conversational tone.

“W-What?”

“Well, I’m not having the baby—you never answered my question earlier, but I trust you understand at least that much.” Itachi reaches for his cup of tea again, but pauses as Sasuke’s hands hit the table with a loud thump!—nearly knocking both of their drinks over in the process.

“What do you mean a baby?”

Itachi pauses, considering his brother for a moment. His lips thin into a line.

“When a man and a woman love each other, the Hokage gives them—“

“I know babies don’t come from the Hokage, I’m not a child!” Sasuke snaps, and Itachi gets that look on his face again, the one where nothing looks all that different but somehow his little brother recognizes he’s only thinly holding back his laughter.

“But when? Where? How?” Sasuke rattles off one incredulous, vaguely angry, question after the other. Itachi watches placidly as his brother works through them one by one.

“I don’t think you need to concern yourself so much with the whens and wheres,” Itachi clears his throat a little, the closest to sheepish Sasuke thinks he’s ever seen him. “As for the how: I’m happy to invite Iruka-san over for a house call and have him go through that academy unit again if you didn’t quite grasp—“

Sasuke shoots his brother a look that would make a lesser man cower.

“Sorry,” Itachi says, cutting himself off and wiping at his mouth and failing to hide the smile underneath his napkin. He watches his brother carefully, as though he can see the gears spinning inside his head while he tries to process this new, wholly startling information. 

Sasuke’s frowning, which isn’t unusual, but there’s something else in his expression that the elder doesn’t like—something insecure. 

Something frightened. 

“This is good news, Sasuke,” Itachi insists gently, but his little brother’s frown only deepens.

“It’s that girl, isn’t it?” 

Itachi draws up a brow in the wake of his brother’s pointed question. Sasuke’s never had an issue mentioning you by name before, but suddenly he can’t bring himself to say it—and there’s bitter resentment in his tone that Itachi’s never heard the teen direct towards you.

“She’s the one having the baby, yes,” Itachi says with a nod. 

Sasuke’s nose twitches a little, his eyes still refusing to meet his brother’s.

“Sasuke,” Itachi says soberly, calling for his attention—his own tone a little cooler now than it had been. 

After a moment, his little brother finally meets his eyes.

“Are you upset?” Itachi asks, his hands clasped together on the table in front of him. Both of their plates are forgotten now in the midst of their conversation.

Sasuke blinks. Once and then again.

“No,” he mutters, but even he knows it’s not a particularly convincing refutal. 

“It’s okay to be upset,” Itachi insists, and it’s irritating to Sasuke that his brother can be so calm at a time like this. That he can remain so even-tempered when he feels like there’s a sea sloshing in his empty stomach, battering against his ribs like waves against a rocky coast.

“I’m not upset,” Sasuke snaps again, and it’s even more damning than his earlier reply. He crosses his arms over his chest and leans back in his seat once more, fixing his eyes on the curtain that hangs around the food stall to distract himself from his brother’s concerned gaze.

A few more moments of silence pass between the two brothers, and Itachi takes this opportunity to pluck another rice dumpling off this skewer and into his mouth, and then swallows another sip of tea to wash it down. Sasuke keeps his eyes focused anywhere but the man in front of him.

“Mom always said you can’t have babies until you’re thirty,” Sasuke finally mutters quietly, and Itachi perks up at the sound of his brother’s voice.

The eldest clears his throat a little, wiping at his mouth with his napkin again. “Well, it’s not so much that you can’t have children until you’re thirty but more so—“

“You aren’t even married,” Sasuke goes on to add, before his brother has even finished his own thought, his eyes meeting Itachi’s across the table that stretches between them.

Itachi pauses, his lips closing as he considers his response.

“I hope to marry her before the baby comes.”

Sasuke’s eyes widen again, that same nauseated feeling rolling through him with renewed vigour.

Marriage?

“Sasuke, you’re only sixteen, I don’t expect you to fully understand this yet,” Itachi says softly. “But this really is good news. Happy news. You’re going to be an uncle.”

“What if I don’t want to be an uncle?” the youngest snaps before he can really think the words through.

For just a moment, there’s a flash of hurt on Itachi’s face—so brief and fleeting that anyone else would have missed the subtle shift in his eyes. But Sasuke doesn’t. He knows his brother too well. He feels a swell of regret immediately rise in the pit of his stomach as soon as he realizes it.

“I’m sorry, Sasuke,” Itachi says, his hands resting on the table in front of him. “I should have waited to tell you until I was better prepared. I know this must be a shock.” He watches his little brother carefully, his expression unreadable. “But you don’t get to decide whether you want to be an uncle or not, any more than you got to choose whether you wanted to be my brother. You just are.”

Sasuke peeks up at Itachi, a faintest ghost of a pout on his lips. The elder can’t help but find it funny that for all the ways his little brother has changed over the past sixteen years, he’s the same in all the ways that matter. 

The younger of the two seems to mull these words over for a moment, weighing their undeniable truth. Eventually he sighs, his shoulders slumping a little, and he reaches idly for one of the skewers of dumplings in front of him.

“So… when is the baby gonna be here?” 

Itachi laughs lightly, and Sasuke glances at him when he hears it. The elder reaches for his tea again, taking a sip.

“They'll be born in the spring.”

It feels too soon, Sasuke can’t help but think. Too near and too far away all at once, like both only a day and an eternity to wait.

Sasuke chews on the sweet, sticky dango for want of anything else to do—he doesn’t like the taste, or the way it clings to his teeth each time he presses them down into it. He gives up on trying to find the confection palatable, taking a long drink of his own cup of tea—now closer to room temperature than he likes it—to wash it down.

“Where will it sleep?” Sasuke asks next, and Itachi can tell that he’s trying to keep his voice light and nonchalant—but it still comes across as brittle.

“I thought I’d give them your room.”

Sasuke’s eyes flash angrily to his older brother, but the look of quiet amusement that meets him tells him the remark was made only in jest. It makes him pout again.

“Though, our apartment is quite small to accommodate two more,” Itachi notes aloud, almost more to himself than anything.

“Two more?” Sasuke asks, perplexed. “It’s twins?”

Itachi poorly conceals a laugh behind his closed fist, wincing when he sees the way this seems to irritate his brother more. 

“No, no,” the elder replies, “but you see…”

“There you two are!”

The curtain of the food stall lifts, and Sasuke’s head turns instinctively towards the sound of your voice as you slip beneath the slip of fabric you’ve gently ushered back. There’s a wide, warm smile on your face, and a glow in your cheeks that neither young man is certain has always been there—but which undeniably suits you. You approach their table, gently ruffling Sasuke’s hair in that way you always do and that no one else could possibly get away with—the teen is so shocked that even if he wanted to bat your hand away he doesn’t have the chance before you’ve already slipped away to stand behind his brother.

Your smile dips a little as you survey the scene before you.

“Itachi,” you say softly, the corners of your mouth well and truly turning down. The eldest Uchiha tilts his head back to peer up towards where you stand above him, the crown of his head resting resting against you. Your eyes are fixed to the table and the plates in front of the brothers, but they quickly flicker to meet the ones staring up at you curiously. “Did you two even eat dinner?”

Itachi glances quickly at Sasuke, who returns the look with an equally panicked one of his own.

You groan, your hands coming to rest on Itachi’s shoulders and shaking him gently. “You two are impossible.”

“It was my idea,” Itachi says, apologetic but resolute. “I’m sure Sasuke would have preferred a proper meal.”

You shoot a pointed look at the man below you, and then turn your gaze to the teen across the table once more. 

“Are you hungry?” you ask him, your head tilting to the side as any trace of condemnation evaporates from your tone. Itachi likes the way you talk to Sasuke—neither like a child, nor necessarily with the frankness of a peer. You speak to him with care, but due respect, in a balance that Itachi seems to struggle to accomplish himself, most days.  

“I’m fine,” Sasuke replies coolly, but his stomach has a knack for honesty where he does not, as the remark is immediately punctuated with a very noticeable grumble. His cheeks stain pink as he averts his gaze dourly in the wake of the betrayal.

You chuckle a little to yourself, squeezing Itachi’s shoulders. “How about I go on ahead and see what I can scrape together in your kitchen?"

"Have you already eaten?" Itachi asks. "Why don't you join us here?"

"I’m starving, but the thought of dango…” Both brothers watch a flash of discomfort race behind your eyes.

Itachi reaches up and places one of his hands over yours upon his shoulder, a gentle, knowing touch, and Sasuke watches the unconscious gesture curiously. You and Itachi share a look that seems to speak without words, to communicate something even in its silence. You nod, smiling a bit, and then step away.

“We’ll be home soon,” Itachi assures you as you head towards the curtain and the street that waits for you on the other side.

“Hurry, or I can’t promise what food will be left,” you call back over your shoulder with a grin, lifting one hand in a lazy wave. Sasuke notices only as you turn to leave the way the other is tucked gently against your stomach, cradling and protective.

He looks down at the plate of dumplings in front of him—at the way the kinako powder clings to the sticky surface of each round treat, darkening in the places where it’s melted into the moisture of the rice dough but still a pale brown in the places it’s dusted on thickest. He finds it all wholly unappetizing—and not just because he doesn’t have a sweet tooth.

"Sasuke."

The youngest Uchiha—though not for much longer now, he realizes—refuses to lift his gaze, even though his brother's tone is insistent.

Itachi sighs.

"Let's head home."

The walk back to Itachi and Sasuke's home lacks the tranquility of their earlier journey. There's something heavy now in the autumn air—something more stifling than summer heat, more bitter than winter's biting cold. Sasuke's feet drag with every step, a weight building in his stomach that threatens to cement him into place.

"She cares for you very much, you know."

Itachi's words only weigh him down further. Sasuke keeps his eyes on the street as he walks, and doesn't offer any response to the statement his brother has made. Itachi's lips purse a little as he considers what to say next.

"You were the first thing she brought up, after she told me. She said that you needed to know right away. That it couldn't wait. That you needed to know, no matter what."

Sasuke stops walking.

His hands are balled into fists at his side.

"Needed as much notice as possible to kick me out, huh?"

Itachi stops walking too.

"What are you talking about?"

"That's what this is, right? You're telling me that I need to get out to make room for that girl and that... thing."

"Sasuke—"

"I get it," Sasuke brushes off his brother's attempt to interject. "I get it. I'll be out before the spring when it gets here. You and your new fam—"

A sharp pain blooms in the centre of Sasuke's forehead, so unexpected it makes his head snap up in shock. Itachi stands before him, the hand he'd just used to flick him still outstretched. There's an expression Sasuke's not used to seeing on his brother's face. Hurt, maybe. Anger, even.

"First of all," Itachi says, his voice stern. "There's no thing. That's my baby. Your niece or nephew. Stop calling them 'it'."

Sasuke's jaw clenches.

"And secondly: you're not going anywhere."

There's a tense beat of silence that passes between the brothers. Suddenly, Sasuke notices that it's like all the wind in Konoha has vanished. The dusky streets around them are so still. So silent. It's like they're the only two people left in all the village.

"But you said—"

"Sasuke," Itachi steps forward slightly. "You're my brother. My blood. My home will always be your home. Always."

Sasuke's fists tremble as they hang at his sides. The tide in his stomach swells, overtaking his chest.

"And my wife and my child are your family, too. They'll care for you the same way I do. Any home we share will be equally yours, without question."

"You don't know that," Sasuke says, and he hates the way his voice sounds. Hates how childish and small he feels.

"I do," Itachi insists. "Of course I do."

"How?"

There's a soft breeze that brushes past the Uchiha brothers, then. A gentle wind that threatens to carry Sasuke's meekly rasped question away with it. It's quiet for a moment as the word hangs in between them, and then Itachi places a hand on Sasuke's shoulder—warm, reassuring, familiar.

"Because I wouldn't want it any other way."

[rhowena]

The thing that gets to me here is that if they're so afraid of screwing up and doing the wrong thing and trashing the setting they've gotten so attached to, then why oh why did they talk themselves into doing the single most reckless thing they could possibly have done under the circumstances?

Releasing Predathos has been pretty clearly labeled "PUSH THIS BUTTON TO CAUSE TERRIBLE (but potentially interesting) THINGS TO HAPPEN". I am myself a relatively weak RPer who needs to work on (among other things) getting more comfortable with not making the "good"/"right"/"nice" decision all of the time, and part of that is being extremely reluctant to push that kind of button. (There was a particular Big Red Button that our DM -- themself a button-pusher -- plonked in front of me where I had to be like "Look, I won't say we can't bring this into the story, but my character is NOT going to touch it just because the option is there, so if we want to work with it, we need to figure out why she would feel tempted by it.") And as frustrating as the Bells Hells' dithering has been, this was a rare occasion where there would have been tangible benefits to procrastinating on Making A Choice just a little bit longer: they could hole up in the tunnel for another day or so, ask their new myceit friends for help, call the Volition and the Nein over to help guard the area, get a long rest in so they aren't facing an eldritch horror while running on fumes, etc. "People are going to keep trying to release this eldritch horror and we won't be able to hold them off forever" is a compelling reason to look for a way to permanently destroy said eldritch horror (a possibility that they'd floated a couple times before), not open the gate themselves.

To me, it feels like nothing so much as caving under peer pressure. Matt has been fairly aggressive about presenting unleashing Predathos as An Option because he as a DM likes the idea of shaking up the setting that way, and the Hells didn't have the analytical skills to turn their endless debating into a solid sense of what the other potential routes through the story are. The end result is that when the Bells Hells, who have been told over and over and over again that it will be Up To Them to make Big Decisions about the fate of Exandria, finally got to that point, they shrugged and went "well, this seems to be the thing that Matt/everyone else in-universe wants us to do, so I guess we're going with that."

I haven’t watched critical role consistently in a long time because I’ve been very busy, but I’ve heard the discourse about the last episode. So to be clear my analysis could be totally off base cause I haven’t actually watched the thing (yet). But from what I’ve heard, I wonder if a factor that’s contributing to how the episode played out is the fear of messing up the game world. Now I’ve played a game in the same consistent game world for over a decade irl, so I fully understand the fear of putting not just characters, but a world you put so much work into at risk and fucking everything up with your decisions. I’ve seen it from people I play with, and definitely felt it myself at times, and I’m sure that’s even worse when you have such a massive audience.

But the thing is ttrpgs in general, but ESPECIALLY actual plays, are at their core a storytelling medium. Stories are not fun because the main characters made all the optimal decisions and didn’t mess up, they’re fun because of tension and conflict and dramatic storybeats, and resolution of those things.

Sometimes players won’t make a decision because they think the DM has a specific right answer they’re looking for, and if they don’t choose the exact right answer they fail, and the DM punishes them. That’s why sometime indecisive players ask NPCs what to do all the time, that’s why they’re indecisive in the first place, it’s by proxy asking the DM, by letting the world tell the story for them. But often the DM doesn’t actually have a “right answer” for you, they don’t have an answer at all, they’ve just created interesting scenarios for the players to explore. The DM controls what happens, yeah, but they don’t control the outcome of the story as much as people sometime think. They set up things for the players to interact with, and then respond to player actions and tie them into a greater narrative. Inaction is just not fulfilling your end of the story as a player, even when it sometimes feels like it is. When you’re producing your game as content, that’s all even more so. I think this might be a case of putting fear of “ruining it” over the drama of a story, which is, sadly, what actually ruins it a little bit.

[echo-of-damnation]

Blind Devotion

Tags: Konrad CurzexJago Sevatarion, blowjob, light nsfw, light smut

Summary: There was only one thing Konrad craved more than anything in the galaxy and Jago is more than happy to give it to him.

Echo’s echo: Sorry for any weird formatting, I wrote this on my iPad. I really like this short piece but I might make it longer in the future when I have my laptop back. I just had to get this little worm out of my head for now before I went insane.

The Pile: @thisuserislilsilly

Word Count: 544

Konrad didn’t know “love”. It was a useless chemical imbalance that was bred out of him, something only baselines were unfortunate to experience. Honor, loyalty, obedience-those were the things that mattered to him, those were the emotions he bled out of those around him. What was the point of being made into a god among mortal men if those simple things could not be achieved?

A bead of sweat languidly made its way down his temple, the air cooling the thin strip caused a shiver to run up his spine.

He took his position at the top of the food chain with pride, much more than his brothers. He was their father’s weapon of fear after all. A surgical blade of violence forged in brimstone and blood. Those emotions were just as much a part of his arsenal as his claws.

A sweet tightness coiled in his belly as he continued to lose himself in his thoughts as he was lovingly tended to.

There was only one other emotion, no he corrected himself, state of mind, he sought after. Something only few ever showed over the centuries. Something that Konrad craved deep down inside of him, a primal need that clawed at his insides.

A sinfully warm and wet pressure pulled a low moan from deep within him. The arms he had draped over the back of the sectional he kept in his quarters strained to keep themselves still. His head lulled back; his dark eyes closed.

Konrad was pulled out of his thoughts and forced to be present in the moment. It felt like his body would explode and implode at the same time. Every fiber of muscle felt electrified with each ministration to his member. He was in a losing battle with the base need to reach out, to touch, feel, taste.

Konrad lifted his head to look down at the beautiful creature between his legs. He wanted to savor this moment just like all the times before this one and just like all the times that will come. He lazily opened his eyes and made sure to focus first on the rough patch of hair at the base of his cock. He could see the slick shine of spit contrasting against his deep black hair. A little higher and Konrad could see the large rough hand gentle caressing his length. It was scarred from year of brutal wars; each silvery line was a sign of victory. Pride swelled in Konrad’s guts at the thought of all the death and chaos those hands created caused his cock to twitch in the beautiful mouth that held him.

Ah, the mouth. One of his favorite parts. Dragging his eyes further up he could see the swollen lips that encircled him, a thick scar splitting one side of the mouth and up the pale cheeks of his perfect soldier. He loved to lick and kiss the length of that particular scar in the quieter more tender moments in his dark room.

Finally meeting the cock drunk eyes of his first captain, the word of the final emotion he craved shot through his mind at the same time as his climax flooded the mouth and filled the belly of his beautiful Jago Sevatarion, his Prince of Crows.

Blind devotion.

[hilsonamore]

i just had an epiphany about a head-canon so hear me out (i don’t if anyone’s said this before, but i haven’t seen anything similar);

Imagine like late season 8, house knows wilson has cancer and 5 months left to live and is completely miserable, more than anyone could ever imagine. He gets really high on Vicodin and other drugs, and hires a hooker to come over and take his mind off of everything (she’s a regular and really good at doing just that). The woman comes over and is greeted by this middle-aged man with blood-shot blue eyes, riffled hair and unkempt shirt, but he doesn’t really look all that different than usual, so it’s probably nothing.

They go into his bedroom and get at it, but abruptly, in the midst of everything, house just jolts and gets up from the bed, running towards his chest drawer. The woman is splayed upon the bed, surprised but also a little bit curious, since the older man never seemed to do anything else in particular in her time there. It showed a bit of character.

House opens his bottom drawer and starts frantically looking for something, breath caught in his throat, heartbeat faster than what is medically sound. He finally finds what he’d been looking for, a little misshapen, old tin box with stamps on top of it.

He makes his way towards the bed, sitting on the edge of it, tin box in his trembling hands and the eyes of the woman behind him focused on his back. He opens it, and there they are; photographs of wilson, kid wilson, teen wilson, young and older and present wilson. Wilson from his time before New Orleans, before house, and pictures of him from that point onward. He’d gathered every bit of material he could over the years and kept the photographs hidden in a safe place, so that he and only he could look at them whenever he pleased.

He takes the photographs, one by one, in his hands and starts stroking wilson’s hair, his cheeks, a strange pain stabbing at his chest whenever he sees that smile of the man he has loved for so long. The tears are welling up in his eyes and a soft sob escapes his mouth. He can’t take it anymore. He just can’t. If he doesn’t have wilson in his life, he’s just as well as dead himself. The sobs multiple, the pain too unbearable, and he’s got his head in his hands and cries and wails and sobs and he can’t stop, he can’t stop the pain, his or wilson’s, he can’t do anything to help him. He’s the one person he cares about saving, and he can’t.

The woman doesn’t really know what to do, but the sight of the man beside her is too overwhelming, so she makes an attempt to touch him and get him in touch with the world again, and instead of pushing her away, house leans into the gesture and cries silently in her shoulder. They stay like that for a while. They don’t really talk, but the photographs speak volumes for themselves.

Note: this might seem a little out of character for house but i’m a sucker for pain-stricken house who acts very differently from his usual self. And also remember, he just found out the love of his life and life-long best friend is dying in a few months time. Of course he’s gonna act unusually.

[skywarpie]

little devils - Dad Aether fic

Pairing: Papa Emeritus IV/Aether Ghoul

Rating: gen

tags: domestic fluff, house husband Aether/dad Aether finally getting attention from me bc I'm always ignoring him, half ghoul child OCs

Summary: The Impera tour has recently kicked off, only Aether isn't on this tour cycle. Instead, he's at the ministry working on their taxes and babysitting his kids.

Translations:

I mieli bambini! - My babies!

Babbo - Daddy

Poco sole - little sunshine.

words: 1,631

AO3 link

Aether lays stretched out on the floor with one arm folded under his chin. The other holding his phone. Originally there for the purpose of the game the girls had wanted to play but quickly lost interest in. Something that seemed to he happening recently these days.

“Are you calling babbo ?” Poppy asks as she wiggles herself under his arm holding the phone. Several red curls fall into her face and she pushes them away with the back of her tiny hand. Her tail wags lazily behind her as she looks up at him expectedly with eyes matching Copia's. 

“Hmm. What makes you ask that?” Aether takes the opportunity to tuck the curls she's still fighting with behind her small horns. 

“Because you aren't paying attention to us anymore.” Salem flops herself down on his back. Her tiny form is comical compared to Aether’s. Unlike her sister, her light blonde hair is tied loosely at the nap of her neck. A tiny paw reaching out for his phone, which he quickly moves from her grasp. “Hey!” She pouts and butts the back of his dead with her own horns. 

He chuckles, glad the both of them are now more comfortable presenting themselves without their glamors. Being part human had its perks, apparently. At barely a year old, the both of them had been able to glamorize themselves, something that sometimes even took a full blooded ghoul decades to perfect. While Aether was proud, Copia had been filled with panic, one moment holding a normal baby and the next holding a ghoul kit that wasn't aware they possessed very sharp horns. 

“Is this normal!? Should this be happening?!” 

Even four years later, Aether can still hear the panic in his mate and it’s just as amusing as day one. And although he'd never admit it, Aether knows he was much the same when they were in their human forms.

“And if I am?” He hums nonchalantly. 

“We want to talk to him!” They spout in unison, something that was very common for twins. At least according to Copia. Aether was still unsure about that though. 

He mocks offense. “What about me!?”

Poppy's brow furrows. “We're talking to you right now!”

“And because of that you can't keep doing it?”

Salem let's own a tiny growl over his shoulder that has him laughing. 

“Fine. Fine. You've twisted my arm. We'll call him.”

Both kits perk up, their ears jumping to attention as their tails wags furiously. It's incredibly enduring and Aether vaguely wonders when he became so domestic.

The three of them watch the tiny screen as it mirrors them while ringing. Copia's currently on the other side of the world, performing at various festivals and venues. But Aether has the timing down to a T. He should be done or just about done. If they're lucky, he's already back in his hotel room.

On the fifth ring, he picks up and his thick nasally mixture of Italian and American accents fills the room.

“I mieli bambini !“

“ Babbo !” 

The girls crowd around the screen, tails wagging even faster as they try to squeeze in as close as possible. 

Copia responds with exaggerated mwah's as he pretends to kiss the screen the same way he would their foreheads if he were there. “How have you been? Good girls for your daddy, I hope.” He arches a sculpted brow before looking playfully at his mate.

“They've been absolutely terrible. ” 

Aether watches as a look of alarm replaces Copia's excited one. 

“One minute they want to play one thing, the next minute I'm nothing but a jungle gym!” 

His expression softens and he laughs, glad it's nothing too serious. “Si. They seem to be good at that. Eh?” He flashes the twins a smile. It earns him a fit of giggles.

“How is touring?” 

Copia's demeanor changes once more. Only now it's one of exhaustion. “Tiring. I don't remember the last tour cycles being this..intense.”

“To be fair, the last tour cycle was nearly seven years and one pandemic ago. I think that checks out.” 

“I was also probably about thirty pounds lighter then too.” Copia's laugh is dry, a poor attempt at making it sound like a joke.

Aether remembers the last tour vividly. It's when he was christened as Papa Emeritus IV and was no longer Cardinal Copia. It'd been shortly after the end of that tour that they'd learned they were going to be parents. He remembers Copia frantically flitting about his office, trying to occupy himself with anything to create a distraction. Because the thought of two newborns and having to write a new album were definitely taking a toll on him mentally. Shortly after that the world had shut down and it almost seemed to work in his favor. The album was no longer a priority. 

It had taken several years for things to smooth back into place and it wasn't until this tour cycle, the Impera Tour, that they'd both realized it was either leaving the kits at the ministry or bringing them on tour with them. Copia had liked the second idea better. He'd barely been away from them longer than a day before, let alone months. There’d been a numerous amount of discussion until finally it was settled. Aether would remain at the ministry, keeping up with the paperwork Copia was undoubtedly still receiving while also taking care of Poppy and Salem. In return, Copia and the rest of the band (plus two new members) would go on tour.

“Babbo,” Poppy chimes in, “how many more tours till you come home?” 

“Ah,” now Copia sighs, “about a dozen more.” He frowns as their faces fall. “But it will be over in no time! They are scheduled back to back, remember?” He wags his finger in the air.

“How many days is that?” Salem is apparently having none of it.

“Eh, I'm  – I'm not sure, poco sole. ” 

It's not what she wants to hear. Her tail stops swaying. “That's not fair.” Her lip pouts out as her eyebrows scrunch together.

“Hey, hey, what did we say about pouting?” Aether takes the opportunity to roll her off his back.

“I don't care!”

“Crying isn't going to bring babbo home any sooner.”

She looks on the verge of tears and Copia takes the opportunity to interject. “Poco sole, babbo will be home in three weeks. Does that sound better?”

“We want you to come home now.” Poppy's sad features obscure the camera from her sister and father. 

“Ah, I know. I know. Babbo wishes he could be there now too. But I have to finish the tour. It's what helps our ministry grow!” 

Still unsatisfied with the answer, the twins seem to grow more agitated. Aether glances at the clock. “Hey, didn't Sunshine say she had a new flavor of ice cream for y'all to try?”

They gasp in unison, giggling and grabbing each other's hands as they race toward the door. Small shouts of bye echoing. 

“Aether!”

The ghoul turns back to the screen.

“They can't have ice cream without having eaten dinner first. See, this is why I didn't want to leave. It's chaos!”

Aether knows where this is going. Another spiraling incident. His mate seems to be having those a lot more recently. 

“I doubt one time will hurt. Besides, how I parent when you aren't here isn't a concern.” Copia gapes, mouth sputtering. “Now tell me, for real. How is the tour?”

That tired look crosses his face again. A hand runs through his hair while the Papa sighs. “I don't know, Aether. One minute I think it's going well and then the next I don't. Maybe I'm getting too old for this stuff.”

“Hip injury acting up?” The old ballet wound had forced him to walk with a cane for several years. Occasionally rearing its head.

“A bit. I think I just really miss home. Well, not home home but you guys. Eh, if that makes sense.”

“It does and we miss you too.” 

They settle into comfortable silence for a small time before Aether asks the burning question. “The new kids doing good?”

“Oh, fantastic! Aurora is a gem and Phantom plays beautifully only…”

“He's not me.”

“Si. He's not you.”

“You'll get used to it. Don't worry. Besides, in no time you'll be home and then you'll have me all to yourself.” A mischievous glint shines in his eyes. One that has a red dusting coating Copia's painted cheeks. 

An announcers voice cuts through the background as they mention the next band playing. Copia looks defeated as he sighs. 

“That's us. I'll talk to you tomorrow?”

“Or later tonight. You know those two little devils don't let anyone sleep longer than an hour or two.”

Copia laughs a genuine laugh, the first one of the call. 

They spend another minute or two telling the other bye until finally a crew member essentially yanks Copia from the phone and onto the stage. Aether chuckles as he tosses his phone to the side and stretches. A part of him is glad he isn't on tour. It's always nice but he truly has become a domesticated creature, now preferring the ministry over the stage.

He drags himself off the floor and stands, stretching again.

“ Daddy! ” The twins run in, shouting in unison. Each one latches onto a hand as they jump up and down. It's then that Aether sees the sticky ice cream drying all over their tiny mouths. Thank Lucifer Copia isn't here. He'd kill me.

“You have to try the ice cream!”

“It's the best!”

“Hm, is that right?”

“Uh-huh!”

He lets them lead him out and into the ghoul den’s small kitchenette. 

There's definitely no way any of them will be sleeping tonight.

[fuckzachariah]

If there was one thing Zach had never been discomfited doing, it was making others uncomfortable. He sat assuredly in his roiling silence, the tingeing cheeks and squirming bodies of those around him waiting impatiently for his response ineffective in swaying his strange composure. He and Luke locked eyes for more than a few bloated, lumbering moments of wordlessness. What is it he wanted? Likely what he’d always wanted; a shot at being even half of Zach. And leeching from Zach was the only way he’d ever tasted an ounce of that success. Zach’s jaw feathered; a lifetime’s worth of history curled from the disturbed seabed of the muddy water between them. Last they had seen one another, it had been brutal; perhaps the most visceral display of Zach’s own torment he’d ever elicited unto himself. Because that’s what it had been – they’d both known it. It could have been about Alex, his guilt, (and a lot of it was), or it could have been about Sarah. It could have been about their near decade-long toxicity, their constant competition, their hatred for themselves projected onto one another. Their mirror-image, their dichotomy. How it had all eventually imploded exactly as prophecy would have it written. 

But Zach had changed a lot since then. Violence no longer twitched urgently at his fingertips, ever-present and awaiting trigger. His anger had not lessened in weight but had grown patient and cool, buried under a layer of apathy. Something wriggled beneath it all, seeing Luke again. Seeing him only a body away from Alex, who he yearned for so pathetically. Zach wasn’t sure what it was. Yet. Luke endeavoured to break the silence, his facade brilliant. Charming, even. But as he spoke, his painted fingertips ran slowly, intentionally, along his mangled knuckles. It was fucking bold, Zach would give him that. Unfamiliar ink curdled above the scarring, giving his fingers the eerie look of a rotten tree. Unwittingly, Zach’s tongue snaked out, nudging carefully at the scar on his top lip. A perfect ghost of flesh split open between fist and tooth. Then he smiled; broad, brilliant, a superstar. He could almost feel the terse nature of their onlookers unravelling. “You too, man,” he greeted easily, getting to his feet with his hands upon the tablecloth. He leaned slightly, extending his hand. Luke eyed it, likely having anticipated a response worthy of the old Zach, but the hesitation was only brief enough for those in the know to clock it; they shook, firmly.

Up close, the damage was crystal clear; his nose now displayed a sharp crook, and a thick, tangled rope of a scar drove right down from his forehead through his eyebrow. Blonde, gelled hair hung around them like a show curtain. Zach’s eyes sparkled, a foreign, forgotten feeling soaring through him of gross pride. He used his free hand to thump Luke jovially on the shoulder and watched as his body ricocheted with the movement. “Third time’s the charm,” he muttered happily, referring to Luke’s repeated attempts at sky-rocketing his career. Luke grunted, his smile waning as they dropped one another’s hands. “Hi,” Kylie chirped from her seat. Zach almost laughed. How little she knew of his life, really. She'd never asked who delivered the assault unto Zach that day – had never possessed the gall, couldn't face the inevitable rejection. Luke’s eyes slid beyond Zach to the bubbling froth of a pop star. His eyebrows raised. Zach showed no sign of rising to it. Instead, he took the opportunity to gaze down at Alex, her rigid spine and lithe fingers white-knuckling into a small fist. She was beautiful, in her silent, almost invisible mess. He felt electric-charged, a little crazy, recognizing the signs of anxiety. Of fear. For some reason, it all only made him want her more. His lip twitched in a tiny, frenzied smile, just for her. “Right, then,” Andrew interrupted, capturing the attention of the room at large. His wide palm gestured to the adjoining room; lights danced from the corridor, music thudding. “Shall we move onto the fun part of the evening?”

Bad choices.

Alex’s slender fingers curled around the stem of her champagne glass, delicately swirling the golden liquid inside. Her eyes remained fixed on the strawberry slice bobbing gently in the effervescent bubbles. She could almost predict the table’s reaction without looking. To the world, Alexandra Burton was a perfectionist. Every movement she made seemed deliberate, measured, and impossibly graceful. Not a single strand of hair fell out of place, her makeup flawlessly blended, her attire always pristine. Draped on Andrew’s arm, she was the epitome of poise and warmth, offering cheek kisses to friends and acquaintances alike, filling the air with polite, superficial chatter. She never ventured into deeper waters, careful to keep the veil of mystery intact. It was easier this way — safer. But when she was alone, the cracks began to show. Tucked into a quiet corner of the venue, her delicate hands busying themselves with folding and refolding linen napkins, her soft, inviting features would harden. Her smile would fade as she retreated into the labyrinth of her thoughts. People noticed, of course. And when they did, their imaginations ran wild. Surely, the golden girl, had a flaw, a skeleton or two tucked away in the shadows. To hear her utter “bad choices” aloud must have been a revelation, a rare glimpse behind the curtain. In truth, Alex had always feared mistakes. The judgment of her peers, the disapproving glare of her father. It all loomed over her like a storm cloud. She spent her life meticulously avoiding missteps, never allowing herself the luxury of failure. At least not outwardly. That was, until Zach.

One bad choice after another had followed in the wake of their meeting, and now, history threatened to repeat itself. Bad choices. They called to her like a siren’s song, tempting and inescapable. Alex lifted her gaze, meeting his eyes across the table. They hadn’t wavered, locked on her with a focus that felt both thrilling and dangerous. If she had even a shred of common sense left, she would have ignored the unspoken invitation he was so clearly extending. Yet with every sip of champagne, her resolve slipped further away, as though common sense had never existed at all. He reclined in his chair, his ring-adorned fingers toying with the corners of his napkin, folding them over lazily. The casualness of his movements only made the intensity of his gaze more apparent. He wasn’t even trying to disguise it now, openly drinking her in as if he had been starved of the sight of her for years. Alex’s eyes shifted to his right, where Kylie sat, as bubbly and sweet as the champagne she sipped. Her cheeks glowed with a rosy flush, a telltale sign that the alcohol was fizzing through her bloodstream.

She turned her attention to Andrew, who carried himself as if he were untouchable, a man of power who had everything securely in his grasp. The idea that Zach Winthrop could pose any kind of threat to him likely never crossed his mind. After all, Zach was just an unpredictable musician with a tarnished reputation. Brilliant, yes, but unstable. Even Andrew had acknowledged the risks in signing him, though the reward was deemed worthwhile. What could Zach possibly offer Alex? And why would he even try when he had Kylie French, dazzling and devoted, within arm’s reach? “You’re right about that, Zach,” Andrew said, his tone light but edged with something faintly patronizing. “Gotta shake things up now and then. Just as long as those bad choices don’t land you in jail or rehab, by all means.” He chuckled, twisting slightly in his chair to make room for the waitstaff as they arrived to serve the final course of the evening. Alex allowed herself to relax, if only for a moment, her focus shifting to the plate before her. While she had barely touched her dinner, dessert was another matter entirely.

The rich, three-layer chocolate cake was a decadent distraction, each bite a temporary reprieve from the undercurrent of tension that threatened to pull her under. With her mouth full, she had an excuse not to speak, not to react to Zach’s lingering presence or his provocations. Thankfully, the conversation flowed without her. Kylie, Jennifer, and Andrew carried it seamlessly, discussing upcoming projects and future plans. She let their voices wash over her, a pleasant hum against the rising chaos in her chest. But then the conversation faltered as Andrew rose from his chair, his attention drawn toward a familiar voice. Alex stiffened, the fork pausing mid-air as the sound sent an almost primal alert through her body. Her skin prickled, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as the realization settled. Luke wasn’t going away. A cold wave of dread washed over her, draining the color from her face and pressing her lips into a thin, tense line. She didn’t dare glance across the table. The thought that he might know about her situation with Luke made her stomach churn. If Zach’s expression revealed even a hint of recognition, it would confirm her worst fear and she wasn’t ready for that. She kept her back turned toward Luke, focusing on the napkin in her lap, but even without looking, she could feel the atmosphere shift. Luke’s presence behind her was suffocating, his arrogance so palpable it was as though the air had thickened.

He stood tall and self-assured, and Andrew spoke warmly about his intentions to sign Luke to the label and hopefully rekindle their professional relationship. The once-sweet taste of chocolate in her mouth soured, rising in her throat like bile. She placed her fork down with careful precision, her stomach twisting in knots. Anger. Regret. Guilt. Sadness. Every emotion she thought she’d buried surged to the surface, clawing at her composure. Not even the champagne could quell them. “Z, good to see you, man. It’s been a while. You look good,” Luke said, his voice dripping with false charm as he touched his scarred knuckles. The taunt wasn’t subtle, and Alex’s nails bit into her palm as she struggled to maintain her poise. She risked a glance at Zach, her breath catching. His expression was calm, too calm, but there was something simmering in his golden eyes. A restrained intensity that left her unsure whether he was seconds away from unleashing hell or letting it pass with quiet disdain. Either way, her pulse quickened, and she was all too aware of the precarious line they were walking.

[kidrunaway]

the headcanon that North makes herself pretty for Markus throughout the game has bothered me so bad. You can headcanon this if you want to, but to me it seems rather odd.

North doesn't always need to revolve around a man. She can make herself pretty for herself.

To me, she just wants to change her outfit and other things to embrace herself. To embrace her past. Yes, Markus did give her hope I'm not denying that, but my interpretation of her constantly changing herself (hair, nails, make up, clothes) is just to embrace herself and her last outfit really shows that. Markus just gave her the push she needed by saying that she has to know where she comes from to know who she is.

Overall a woman doesn't need to "make herself pretty" for a man. She can do it for herself! It's okay! Let north be a character on her own abeg 😭

[whatudottu]

Presently going insane rn:

Anyway let me talk about the one question that I have been contemplating ever since I began rotating petrosapiens in my mind. How the fuck do babies?

If you caught the reblog before this post, you might have noticed that a post about fat in aliens brought me to think about petrosapien fat, which contradicts a lot of what I've already established for them being an exoskeletal species, let alone being a hard sell in the sci-fantasy of rock crystal people of canon. Turning to one of my two animal inspirations of petrosapiens - bugs and more specifically in this case insects - I found out that insects can't build up fat, not in the way mammals or reptiles can, BUT they store the most of it in a very significant stage;

Larvae!

Then it fucking hit me, I already made some early headcanons about child development in petrosapiens (though I can't remember if I posted them or had a post ready to send) where they were already in a metamorphosing stage, though the responsibility fell solely to the layer who would use crystallokinesis to feed an 'egg'. I didn't fully like the idea though mostly in retrospect, because it felt strange in the 'pulled out of my ass' kinda way, a method of child rearing that felt more obligated to use crystallokinesis as a primary source for feeding to sorta justify at the time the inherent power petrosapiens have towards crystallokinesis.

Instead, between then and now I fully connected the idea that crystallokinesis is less of a power and more of an extension of a petrosapien's nervous system, compression of quartz through the use of a more electrical based nerve network that happens to not distinguish between person crystals and the similar crystalline structures of Petropia. With this in mind and the new idea that petrosapiens have larvae, wouldn't it be so cool if the larvae had the typical Earth-like electrochemical nervous system of humans (or I suppose bugs here) that adapts to an electrical focused nervous system through the process of metamorphosis? Where the larvae creates it's petrosapien crystal skin by building a chrysalis and melting within it to create their new body?

Unlike my old headcanon where the layer had to remain with the egg and constantly feeding them with crystallokinesis, this larvae version can feed itself when provided and so long as the chrysalis is well protected, the moment metamorphosis stage takes place the parent(s) can have momentary reprieve from child rearing and better prepare themselves for the toddler/adolescent stage for their child. The little grub probably doesn't even eat crystals in the early stages of their larvaehood since eating crystals initially marks as the materials for chrysalis building before it becomes a nutritional food source. Instead the little grub might be feed plants and potentially animal products in order for it to inherit and develop the chemicals required to build a crystallovorous stomach and the acids used to break silica down into digestible nutrition.

That does mean that early child rearing is a little bit more functionally deadly towards the very crystalline parents, who have to legitimately watch so that their fingers aren't bitten off, but holding the little grub is easy when it's covered in silicone membrane. The larvae at this stage is a little bit more resistant to any crystallovorous plant secretions due to the polymers of it's membrane, as well as the higher diversity of oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon in it's body it has in comparison to adults or adolescents who've undergone metamorphosis, their innards becoming a more uniform silicone and their skin being the crystalline silicon many crystallovorous stomachs have adapted to eat.

It also means that the shape of a grub is also considered to be cute to a petrosapien. Things from caterpillars to maggots look so much more charming to a petrosapien's eyes that back on Petropia there would be a large proportion of pet owners having what would considered on Earth to have bugs for pets. In fact, a rather common form of pet Petrosapiens might have would be a large millipede/centipede like animal that would be the size approximate of a feather boa and often held that way too, because while they do not undergo metamorphosis, they look like a larval grub well into adulthood and are considered to be very cute for it. Pet owners with these pets who are also parents love to see their little larvae and their 'dog' getting along and would love telling their adolescent all the cute stories of the little grubs curled up against each other. Petrosapiens in the age of the Surface Craze might have had the opportunity to get a few baby pictures like that, and it would be considered very cute unless you were a human afraid of bugs or not personally a fan.

Petrosapiens on Earth might see the miniature bugs and explode with cuteness overload, others might fuck around and find out that they can make human-petrosapien hybrids Makarat you chupacabra you're lucky petrosapien kids aren't born with crystals pay child support to your human wife who birthed a grub-!

And that's the post send tweet-

[lucalicatteart]

Poll adventure (paventure? lol) Day 5: read the small story tidbit below the poll for more details, OR just vote based on initial impression

(✦ see past poll results + further information HERE (link) ✦)

The winning option of yesterday's poll was that the adventurer should choose a suspicious egg as his gift ….

"He carefully plucks the egg from the gift pile, wrapping it in spare fabric and tucking it away inside a small wooden box within his backpack for safety. Not really wanting to stick around and get accidentally pulled into scary underground tunnels or something, he shakily bids the Well Creature farewell, and continues on through the forest, just following whatever he can find that looks vaguely like a path.. He makes an occasional stop to pick up a cool rock, harvest berries, or let the cat play in the grass, but mostly just wanders aimlessly, lost in daydreams and contemplations of how his New Fun Life Of Spontaneous Adventure is going so far......

Eventually, the forest tapers off into a more open area of land, hosting what seems like a humble little village. By this point, it's nearly nightfall, which reminds him that he's actually quite afraid of the dark, so he scrambles about town for a moment until finally finding the local Inn. After nervously stumbling inside, he rents the cheapest room available, then sits alone, snacking on some free leftover food scraps and plain water. It's been a tiring day, but in the spirit of becoming an adventurer and pushing himself to have as many experiences as possible, he figures he could hang around downstairs a little longer, perhaps get one more thing done before bed -- What should he do?"

[thoughtportal]

Opinion Here’s how to get free Paxlovid as many times as you need it

When the public health emergency around covid-19 ended, vaccines and treatments became commercial products, meaning companies could charge for them as they do other pharmaceuticals. Paxlovid, the highly effective antiviral pill that can prevent covid from becoming severe, now has a list price of nearly $1,400 for a five-day treatment course.

Thanks to an innovative agreement between the Biden administration and the drug’s manufacturer, Pfizer, Americans can still access the medication free or at very low cost through a program called Paxcess. The problem is that too few people — including pharmacists — are aware of it.

I learned of Paxcess only after readers wrote that pharmacies were charging them hundreds of dollars — or even the full list price — to fill their Paxlovid prescription. This shouldn’t be happening. A representative from Pfizer, which runs the program, explained to me that patients on Medicare and Medicaid or who are uninsured should get free Paxlovid. They need to sign up by going to paxlovid.iassist.com or by calling 877-219-7225. “We wanted to make enrollment as easy and as quick as possible,” the representative said.

Indeed, the process is straightforward. I clicked through the web form myself, and there are only three sets of information required. Patients first enter their name, date of birth and address. They then input their prescriber’s name and address and select their insurance type.

All this should take less than five minutes and can be done at home or at the pharmacy. A physician or pharmacist can fill it out on behalf of the patient, too. Importantly, this form does not ask for medical history, proof of a positive coronavirus test, income verification, citizenship status or other potentially sensitive and time-consuming information.

But there is one key requirement people need to be aware of: Patients must have a prescription for Paxlovid to start the enrollment process. It is not possible to pre-enroll. (Though, in a sense, people on Medicare or Medicaid are already pre-enrolled.)

Once the questionnaire is complete, the website generates a voucher within seconds. People can print it or email it themselves, and then they can exchange it for a free course of Paxlovid at most pharmacies.

Pfizer’s representative tells me that more than 57,000 pharmacies are contracted to participate in this program, including major chain drugstores such as CVS and Walgreens and large retail chains such as Walmart, Kroger and Costco. For those unable to go in person, a mail-order option is available, too.

The program works a little differently for patients with commercial insurance. Some insurance plans already cover Paxlovid without a co-pay. Anyone who is told there will be a charge should sign up for Paxcess, which would further bring down their co-pay and might even cover the entire cost.

Several readers have attested that Paxcess’s process was fast and seamless. I was also glad to learn that there is basically no limit to the number of times someone could use it. A person who contracts the coronavirus three times in a year could access Paxlovid free or at low cost each time.

Unfortunately, readers informed me of one major glitch: Though the Paxcess voucher is honored when presented, some pharmacies are not offering the program proactively. As a result, many patients are still being charged high co-pays even if they could have gotten the medication at no cost.

This is incredibly frustrating. However, after interviewing multiple people involved in the process, including representatives of major pharmacy chains and Biden administration officials, I believe everyone is sincere in trying to make things right. As we saw in the early days of the coronavirus vaccine rollout, it’s hard to get a new program off the ground. Policies that look good on paper run into multiple barriers during implementation.

Those involved are actively identifying and addressing these problems. For instance, a Walgreens representative explained to me that in addition to educating pharmacists and pharmacy techs about the program, the company learned it also had to make system changes to account for a different workflow. Normally, when pharmacists process a prescription, they inform patients of the co-pay and dispense the medication. But with Paxlovid, the system needs to stop them if there is a co-pay, so they can prompt patients to sign up for Paxcess.

Here is where patients and consumers must take a proactive role. That might not feel fair; after all, if someone is ill, people expect that the system will work to help them. But that’s not our reality. While pharmacies work to fix their system glitches, patients need to be their own best advocates. That means signing up for Paxcess as soon as they receive a Paxlovid prescription and helping spread the word so that others can get the antiviral at little or no cost, too.

{source}

[hayatheauthor]

10 Flaws to Give Your Perfect Characters to Make Them Human

If you're tired of the usual vices like arrogance or impatience, here are some unique (or at least less basic) character flaws to give your perfect characters: 

Pathological Altruism

A character so obsessed with helping others that they end up doing more harm than good. Their inability to let others grow or face consequences creates tension.

2. Moral Narcissism

A character who sees themselves as morally superior to others, constantly justifying selfish or harmful actions because they believe they have the moral high ground.

3. Chronic Self-Sabotage

A character who intentionally undermines their own success, perhaps due to deep-seated feelings of unworthiness, pushing them into frustrating, cyclical failures.

4. Emotional Numbness

Rather than feeling too much, this character feels too little. Their lack of emotional response to critical moments creates isolation and makes it difficult for them to connect with others.

5. Fixation on Legacy

This character is obsessed with how they’ll be remembered after death, often sacrificing present relationships and happiness for a future that’s uncertain.

6. Fear of Irrelevance

A character-driven by the fear that they no longer matter, constantly seeking validation or pursuing extreme measures to stay important in their social or professional circles.

7. Addiction to Novelty

Someone who needs constant newness in their life, whether it’s experiences, relationships, or goals. They may abandon projects, people, or causes once the excitement fades, leaving destruction in their wake.

8. Compulsive Truth-Telling

A character who refuses to lie, even in situations where a lie or omission would be the kinder or more pragmatic choice. This flaw causes unnecessary conflict and social alienation.

9. Over-Identification with Others' Pain

Instead of empathy, this character feels others' pain too intensely, to the point that they can’t function properly in their own life. They’re paralyzed by the suffering of others and fail to act effectively.

10. Reluctant Power

A character who fears their own strength, talent, or influence and is constantly trying to shrink themselves to avoid the responsibility or consequences of wielding it.

Looking For More Writing Tips And Tricks? 

Looking for writing tips and tricks to better your manuscript? Check out the rest of Quillology with Haya; a blog dedicated to writing and publishing tips for authors! Instagram Tiktok

PS: This is my first short-form blog post! Lmk if you liked it and want to see more (I already have them scheduled you don't have a choice)

[nezuscribe]

you’re glad to have a friend like arranged!gojo, it feels good to have somebody to talk to and listen to. you feel nice being able to laugh with somebody and not apologize for the awful jokes or strange things you say. but sometimes you have to stop yourself from getting attached, reminding yourself that he won’t care for you like that.

and though that’s the farthest from the truth, it’s what you’ve convinced yourself. so when your birthday comes around, you decide to celebrate the way you always have, alone.

he’s your friend, not a husband, so you don’t see any need in dragging him into this ordeal.

you bake a little cake for yourself a couple day in advance, just like you used to at your old home. you stash it away for when night rolls around and it’s just yourself, you can enjoy it the way you have for years.

when you were little you would gawk and stare at the lavish parties your father and his wife threw for your sisters, the balls and the presents growing bigger and bigger the more they grew up. you’d mimic their behaviors on your own, dressing up in the best dress you had (a hand me downs from your older sister that never fit quite right) and pretended you too were surrounded by a room of people as they watched you eat cake.

and sure, when you were younger you’d feel embarrassed eating by yourself surrounded by drawings of people you’d prop up on chairs, but it’s become tradition now (not the drawings, you realize now how depressing that must’ve looked).

so the night of your birthday you take the cake you had hidden in the back of the ice den out, bringing it to the corner of the kitchens where the cooks kept the little table for themselves and began cutting into it, cursing yourself for freezing it too long.

you serve yourself a piece, hunching over your plate as you dug in with your fork, eating in silence.

you write a little note for the cooks to enjoy the rest of it as you place it back in the den once you were done, going back to your room for the night.

the following day when you were walking around the library looking for something new you spot gojo talking to one of his advisors, his eyes focused and his tilted slightly as he gave him all of his attention.

you pause, holding back until you were sure they were done with their conversation to reveal yourself from behind one of the looming bookshelves, watching as the advisor bowed his head to you before he left.

the crease between his eyebrows relaxes, his eyes softening when you waved at him, your smile gleaming.

“i didn’t see you for breakfast,” he tells you as he walks over to where you were standing, pushing some of his hair back as you grin apologetically.

“i slept in,” you admit sheepishly, tired from last night as you play with your fingers, “i also might’ve been a little snippy with alina when she tried to wake me up.”

gojo snorts, absentmindedly pulling some books out and putting them back in as he rests his side on the wall of binded pages.

“baking?” he asks simply, knowing you well enough to know that the only reason you’d miss breakfast would be because you spent the majority of the night in the kitchens.

“how’d you know?” you tease, crossing your arms over your chest as he tsks, his fingers picking some stray leaves from your head from earlier when you were walking through the gardens.

“i help whisk the butter and sugar when you don’t feel like it. i don’t know why you keep me out of the kitchens,” he murmurs petulantly and you chuckle a little bit, rolling your eyes at his antics.

“it’s for your own sake,” you tell him, a glimmer in your eyes that he’d chase around the world the see, “and besides, i wasn’t baking. i was enjoying the fruits of my previous labor.”

gojo squints a little bit, confused. usually you eat what you make the night of, sometimes bringing a plate by his room if it’s not too late.

“when else did you bake this week without me?” he asks, trying to mask his hurt with a playful grin, trying to recall the times he heard back from one of his guards that you were down in the kitchens.

“only a few days ago, when i trying to assemble the cake.” you say with a shrug. his mouth opens in shock, a pout on his lips as he averts your gaze.

“you had cake? without me?” he almost whines it out and you shove his boot with the point of your shoe, trying to calm him down.

who would’ve thought the most fearsome warrior of the north, hell, the entire kingdom, would have such a sweet-tooth?

“it was small,” you try to reason, “and you wouldn’t have liked the flavors. it’s a recipe from the west.”

gojo groans, stepping closer to you as he gently flick your nose, watching the way you’d scrunch it up in annoyance.

“but you know i love cake,” he murmurs, “and you said you’d only bake it for birthdays…you lied to me,” his pink lips pull into a pout, one that you want to kiss off his gorgeous face, and control yourself from letting the heat get too much in your cheeks.

“well,” you quirk a brow, “if it helps, it was for a birthday.”

gojo looks up from the ground, brows furrowed once again in confusion.

“mine?” he says a little hopefully, as if it was anywhere near his birthday.

you snort, shaking your head as your finger pokes itself in your chest.

“mine…you idiot,” you mutter under your breath, wondering how somebody how his caliber could be so daft.

but he doesn’t seem to find it funny, in fact, his brows seem to meet in the middle, the pout gone form his lips as he frowns.

“what do you mean yours? your birthday isn’t for…? isn’t it in…?” he tries to think, think back to when your birthday was, only to realize he didn’t know, to realize he’d never asked you about it, always assuming it’d be something told to him.

“it’s nothing big,” you try to say quickly to cover up the awkwardness, “i usually just make myself a cake and get it over with.” you say with a chuckle but he’s not finding anything about this humorous.

great, you think bitterly to yourself, said something else and fucked it up. you wince, wishing you’d just stayed quite.

“your birthday was yesterday?” gojo asks, his voice hushed and heavy. he looks like he cares, he looks sad. you find it unnerving.

“i,” you laugh uncomfortably, fidgeting with your ring as you swallow thickly, “i think so...? i eyeball the day every year.”

truth be told you done really know what day you were born. your father never remembered the exact date seeing how the nature of his relationship with your mother was so secretive, and nobody ever found the true date out. so usually you find a date each year that you think matches with what time season you were born with and go with that.

gojo feels like his heart has slowed, watching the way you shrink into yourself the way he notices you’d i when you feel like you’ve done something wrong.

“eyeball?” he bites out and you wince at his tone, and he wishes he could take it back and start over again without the bite of a general in his words.

“look gojo it’s nothing, really,” you insist, waving him off as you try to escape, shifting around so you were closer to the doorway, “it’s just a day, it’s nothing important,” you tell him reassuringly.

but he doesn’t believe you, running a hand down his face as he pinches at the bridge of your nose.

“why do you write these things off as if they’re not important?” his voice is deep, echoing around the walls of the vast library as your hold your breath, “why don’t you-”

“because it’s not important,” you say again, your voice a little bit harsher, “it’s just a day.”

his eyes drown in blue, dark and wavering like the shoreline.

“then why bake a cake?” he snaps, not in anger but in genuine questioning, and your face falls a little.

maybe because years ago you thought it was something important. maybe because you want that little girl to feel like she matters.

he gapes, knowing he said something wrong, but can’t speak.

“i…” you open your mouth then close it again, looking away from him as you shrug, “i have to go, i - um, shoko asked for me.” you lie lamely, not caring as you bow your head down slightly to him before you briskly leave.

and maybe if you turned back you could see the way his face fell too.

but with all the maybes you’ve told yourself no to, you’ve grown accustomed to the belief that every maybe wouldn’t have a chance of becoming something.

because maybe if you had actually told him the truth when you wanted to a couple days ago, that you’d like to celebrate with him, he wouldn’t shut you down the way you’d imagined he would and maybe he would’ve said yes.

but for now you convince yourself that this man is a friend who pretends like he cares. because never once have you heard of a man caring so deeply for somebody that he’d shed a tear over the fact that you’d celebrate your birthday alone. but then again, you’ve never met a man like gojo before.

[dmitriene]

cw: omegaverse, knotting, marking and possessiveness.

you were invading simon's riley head, not only often flashing before his perilous black eyes, but also tormenting him in his dreams, your unfiltered, sweet ambrosial scent were hunting his senses, carving into his nostrils and making them flare, saliva pooling behind his closed mouth with popping fangs.

sweet little soldier, you didn't knew in what exact danger you were getting yourself into with your scent gland demonstrated in his face constantly, every breath he took is a perfect lungful of your addicting scent, rubbed against his gear when you were sticking to him purposefully, your pretty eyes always dazed and gawking at him.

ain't afraid to cling to him with your dainty fingers wrapping themselves tightly around his bicep, the rising wave of his tart, pungent smell doing nothing to shoo you away, not with your scent gland swelling with a need to be marked, belong to someone who won't let you walk around like that, irritating other's alpha's ruts.

you came to him yourself, foozling into his arms willingly with mind frazzled by your own heat, smelling of ripe want to be taken, crawling yourself out your poor nest on a wobbly legs to find his quarters, where anyone could've picked you by their way through the hallway, making simon's arms encircle your form with a too searing grasp, hiding you in the safety of his quarters.

lips behind his mask teased by sharp tips of his fangs, scraped to the bleeding wounds that flooded his mouth with metal tang, but the encasing scent of you, lustfully alluring in your bared vulnerability and craning neck, flashing him the view of the swollen, burning skin made his pupils dilate, eyes taking an shade of black, sinking tar, imagining how you'll taste on his tongue.

simon has a mind to not send you back, he dreamt of you, of this moment, wanting to be the one to mar your pure skin with blooming marks of belonging and leave a bleeding, thrumming mark at your neck, only him and no one else, no other alpha is good enough, and no one had a chance with you from the start.

you picked simon, smart thing, laying your eyes on the more menacing men of all around, with his chocking scent that is too much even when he's out of rut, swirling pools of inking nothingness that replaced his eyes never could've let you know that he's intirested in your persistent attention, but you're here, anyway, and it makes his blood roar.

you're sweetly docile on his cold sheets, even with your body exposed to it's full vulnerability, pulsing pussy oozing pools of slick beneath your sticky thighs, and with simon still being half clothed, the only thing you do is preen at him with rumbling purrs, nuzzling the duvet beneath you that reeks of him and sticks to your itching skin.

loosely wet, legs obediently limp when he spreads them briefly, stilling himself to gaze at the glossines of your puffy folds, the shiny glare of your pungent juices that fill his nostrils, even the thick cloth on his face unable to conceal him from anything that relates to you, the gleam of glossy eyes, the all consuming scent, making simon drawl a husky growl.

you writhe to present yourself for him, would've rolled adorably on your soft tummy if he hadn't pin you down, looming over you almost menacingly, tattooed arm braced above your head, if not for his thick, gloveless fingers that were plunging in your gushing dewy pussy, scissoring between thin walls and feeling the tight clench around his soaked digits, sucking him in.

too sweet, both in the way you look and taste, your saccharine slick blooming on his taste buds when he licks a hot, filthy swathe from his knuckles and up to the pruney tips of fingers, thin lips shining with accumulated spit and your juices, licked clean to sate his curiosity about the way you taste, but now simon needs to sate his cock and your heat.

your body melted against the mattress, chest rising rapidly with greedy lungfuls of air, making your ribcage burn as you watched simon carefully with gleaming eyes, tracing the opening plane of the fat and muscles adorning him, as he rolled his shirt up, inch by inch that revealed the scarred canvas of his pale, wide chest, getting rid of the cloth swiftly, shoulders rolling with small cracks of stiffed bones.

happy trail of dark, thin hair that trailed beneath the waistband of his pants that he was getting rid of, unzipping them with slightly shaky fingers, veins popping with blue webs on the thick skin as he rolled them down, letting his heavy cock bob out through the boxer briefs, tenting the darkened fabric with wet spot, thick musk that filled the air licking at your senses.

simon does it as fast as possible without snapping, trying not to rip his clothes off his body and pounce on you, throwing his pants off the bed, before rolling the soaked fabric of his boxers down, his onyx gaze locked eerily with yours as he gripped the fat girth of his cock, rudy flesh adorned with popped veins and dribbling, pearly precum from his slit, squelching obscenely at each jerk of his wrist.

you claw your needy hands towards him, wanting to caress his rippling abs, make his cock sink inside of you and knot you as his, not registering when garbled string of words spilled from your lips, begging him to finally give it to you, voice small and tipping on the string of crying out the tears that bead in your glazy eyes, and simon isn't the one to neglect his omega.

he's the one to take care of your needs, the one who can give you what you crave so deeply, sate the hunger that bubbles like molten lava in your belly, scorching hot, making every inch of your skin beneath his calloused palms slick with sweat that rolls off of you, shining under the dim light and begging to be licked off.

you obey his grip on your supple hips, blunt nails sinking into the fat of flesh and you're too far away to feel the tiny pinpricks of pain, letting him tug you closer to him as he lifts your legs up, and you obediently lope them around his waist, ankles crossing together against the small of his bowed back, as he slaps his throbbing cock between your fluttering folds, rubbing each inch of his girth along the tacky mess, before sinking against your gaping hole.

fattened, bulbous tip passing through the ring of your tightening muscles, each inch gradually managing to still stretch you around his cock, letting you feel how big he is despite your pussy being as loose as possible, slick dripping out of your gooey hole like molasses to ease the glide and spur simon on a tentative thrusts, one shallow roll of his hips enough for you to tighten with stars in your eyes and rapturous cry spilling from your throat.

your whole body seizing, picking on rippling feeling of your silken walls around his meaty cock that make simon's eyes turn pupil less, blackening completely as he moves his body to blanket you, trapping you in a crushing embrace as he lowered himself down and picked up the pace of his thrusts, freely stuffing you full and stretching your thin walls to the brim, forcing you to accommodate the fat shaft that now was rearranging your insides with frantic motions.

fat cock mercilessly sawing in and out of you, your body unable to jolt beneath the wall of heavy muscles and swallowing palms of his hands that mapped along every inch of you, groping at the round globs of your ass to prop you securely, raking to play with your puffy nipples, capped to the pair of pretty tits that were jiggling right in his face, your spit shined lips open wide just a bit higher, making him howl in answer to your punched, tiny gasps.

your hands clinging and clawing with rosy crescent for stability on any place of his body, the beefy biceps, the wide shoulders, but you want to have him closer, and when you sink with stinging nails somewhere beneath his covered neck, amber of his eyes peering at your lidded gaze and needy sobs that spill from your mouth, simon frees one hand to rip his balaclava off.

no point of holding anything back, not with your pussy tightening with rapid pulsing as your glassy gaze rakes along his tousled, askew hair, looking pressed against his skull slightly, until you skid your fingers in the locks, tugging lightly to bump his forehead against yours, and your smell grows even thicker so close, his pale eyelashes fluttering when he takes a lungful, and then slots your mouthes together.

skimming his teeth along the plump flesh, biting with little sting and lapping off the pearling blood, so fragile, sucking your lip into his mouth before releasing with a wet pop to suckle on your tongue, catching as you tried to curl it's around his, wet mouth swallowing your low, whimpering moans, as his balls slapped against your ass with the squelch of your ceaseless slick.

it wasn't long before you felt your orgasm lick at your tummy, making your toes curl and twitch against the dip of simon's spine, his mouth leaving yours to focus on the rapid clench of your gummy walls, latching tightly around his cock with every frantic bounce of his hips forward, and simon could feel the way the root of his cock grew thicker than the rest of his shaft, knot swelling smoothly, and your cunt was more than ready to accept him.

he knotted you when your little sounds developed in ragged, confused little moans, holding onto his hair with tight, whitening grip of your knuckles, feeling the unyielding, swelling pressure of simon's cock at your tightening hole, pummeling into you at brutal, sudden pace that knocked air out of your lungs, his breath morphing into growling pants, skimming along the burning skin of your neck, tongue lolling to lick along the salty sweat, sucking a drop that rolled down your gland, before sinking his teeth in.

crying scream guggled out of your mouth as hot tears streamed down your eyes, rolling harshly into the back of your skull as you clamped down tightly on simon's spilling cock, knot catched securely between your spasming walls, splitted to your limit around the rippling girth that pumped you with soft rocks back and forth, your body frissoning, until simon wasn't been able to move.

stuck in your pulsing cunt, milking him with rapid, rhythmic clenches to the last drop of the creamy cum that was oozing out from your stuffed hole, seeping down simon's still cock with frothy white streaks, dripping down the sodden sheets and duvet, as he lapped his tongue against your gland, scarlet blood coating his swollen, bitten lips, smeared in a sweet layer as he cleaned the fresh, palpitating mark.

this spoke about your belonging to him, his sweet omega, the one he can and would call as his own, keep you stuck on his cock every night with swelled, imprinted mark of his sharp teeth on your neck for anyone to gawk on, as your consciousness slipped with whiny call of his name, sending pleasant shudders down his spine, as he peered at you again, his mate, safe and sound in his arms, knotted full of him and reeking of his pheromones.

main masterlist. quidelines.

[maiaska]

“i can’t stop looking at her t-t-t..face”

NASTY DOG!ELLIE x MEAN!POPULAR!READER

Synopsis: you were a popular girl in school, pretty and mean, the whole package of course and ellie? yeah she was head over heels for you.

Authors note: hey guyssss lol, this is my first fic ever but i hope it was okay, feel free to give me critic, (my first language isn’t english so there might be mistakes)

OCTOBER

yeah okay, ellie was nasty…there was no denying it and she knew that very well.

she wasn’t nasty in the form of hygiene and basic human decency but it was more in the desire department. she wanted nothing more than to get her face shoved into a pussy and do everything and anything to please you.

Even her friends took notice, it wasn’t unusual for her best friend dina to call her out numerous times a day, “jesus ellie, quit ogling over her” to which ellie would throw her hands in the air and look at her best friend with an annoyed and pouty look, “im not ogling, she’s just in my eyesight…s’not my fault”. Ellie knew she was totally drooling at the sight of you, her eyes never leaving your beautiful face, and your tempting body…you were just so perfect, so blissfully perfect it even annoyed her a little because the chance of you ever looking in her way, it was laughable, no way in hell could you like her.

Ellie wasn’t unpopular, in fact she had many friends and a great social life, that didn’t exclude the fact that she was hardcore loser but people didn’t really notice that…except you and your friends of course.

It was like you were cut out from a 2000s lame repeating teenage movie, so pretty, so poetic yet so fucking mean.

you were considered one of the prettiest girl in the school, nobody admitted it out loud but everyone knew the power you held along with that. you had many admires, many “suitors”…literally. you were a part of the ever lasting “popular clique”. you and your friends were a higher power in the school, you were of status, of value, of position, or at least that’s what your friendgroup had convinced themselves of.. it didn’t matter though, you and your friends made sure people knew you were better than them.

oh and your favorite thing? making people feel useless, making them squirm under the gaze of your piercing and almost stinging eyes.

ellie hated that.

just like any other kid who hadn’t been brainwashed yet, of course she hated it, getting made fun of or treated like a dog is never pleasant, but the weird thing? she never really did despise you for that. there was something about you that made you so intriguing no matter how much of a bitch you were to others.

in your eyes, you weren’t mean. at least not like your friends who buillied kids for merely looking in their way, and shit talked people while they were present, to make them feel weak. no, you weren’t like that, in fact you could be really sweet and kind, but sometimes the sass and attitude just over-shined that unfortunately..but to ellie’s sake? it made you even more fucking hot, even though you constantly stepped on her. Like a snake with venom, you and your friends would walk past ellie and her friends in the hallway, you would look at her with this nasty look on your face, a complete grimace of utter disbelief and disgust and then you’d scoff, in ellies eyes? you had looked at her, acknowledged her, given her a bit of your attention…and it only made her want to be your lap dog, but unfortunately that’s all the attention ellie had ever gotten from you…mean stares.

dina and her boyfriend jesse would notice the way ellie’s eyes lighted up slightly when you grimaced at her, they both scoffed to them selves, knowing what a complete fool their friend was.

at night after a boring school day, ellie would lie in her bed with her phone dangling from her cold and calloused hand, her eyes focused on the sight of you- from a picture she found on your instagram, your graciously perfect curves and thighs, your eyes that looked like the universe, your glistening skin…oh, ellie was in a dangerous trance. Her other hand working on her puffy pink pussy that so desperately needed to get touched. pumping in and out with her slender fingers, ellie let out soft whimpers and noises, imagining that you were the one who made her feel like this, your rough but gentle fingers making her squirm and moan while you had that powerful smirk on your face, the one you always have when talking to someone below you, a stark contrast to the innocenct smiles you’d offer the teachers and those stupid boys who shamelessly flirted with you, their eyes only focusing on your round curvy tits…that made her furious, she knew she wasn’t exceptionally better than them but she was far more discreet and the difference between her and those men? she wanted to do everything you told her to…meanwhile they just wanted to use her body- in ellie’s eyes you were a goddess, in theirs? another fuckable girl to boost their ego.

She’d imagine you riding her dick and screaming out her name, bouncing up and down on the silicone as you bit your lip, making you feel so fucking good and carefree, while still knowing she’d never be in the position to fuck you, to dominate you, no no no…she’d be too pathetic for that, instead she’d be grinding on your ass, humping her skin on yours as you degrade her with your venomous words, pathetic dog, you wanna fuck me? then earn it..

you would make a fool out of her, make her feel useless just like you did to poor students on a normal school day.…but with ellie? your cruel taunting words wouldnt work on her, she’d only want more of you.

this was all in her imagination anyway but it wouldn’t stop her from cumming into her black boxers for the third time this night, now filled with her juices, only because of you and the irritating grip you had on her mind.

she’d lay back on her bed after her high, tired and touch deprived as her own fingers were never enough, she should feel ashamed, and she sometimes did but truth be told…ellie did not regret it at all, she knew she was nasty, nasty for imagining you, nasty for making you her sex fantasy, nasty for not giving a fuck. but she couldn’t stop herself.

₊˚ *ੈ✩‧₊🍁 *ੈ✩‧₊˚

OCTOBER 28TH

i’m the highlights of october, everyone’s favorite month, a party had been planned like usual from one of the notorious party hosts, everyone was invited, which could only mean one thing...chaos.

After having brainstormed with dina and jesse for about a week, ellie had finally managed to figure out what her costume would be, it would be as simple as a wolf...a quick memory of her and old best friend trying on halloween masks, giggles and shitty puns running through her mind with a smile on her face, yeah- this was perfect.

ironically enough you had choosen to dress up as a cat, with ears, a painted nose and long nails that could snatch any guy or girl you had your eye on whether they wanted you or not, you’d have the power to get them anyways. a fierce kitty cat fitted you perfectly, it was a costume made for you.

Inside the enormous house, music was blasting and pounding, lights flickering all the colors, the smell of alcohol and sweat evidently stuck out. A glance around at all the people in costumes, it was almost the same atmosphere like there would be in a masquerade ball, it was the thrilling idea of putting on a mask for the night, and letting yourself let lose,

this wasn’t a normal party no, this was a chance to be/do/act any way you’d like, and many people had realized that, including ellie. The auburn haired girl had been wanting to talk with you for such a long time but she never had the guts to actually do it, in classes she would always imagine you dropping your pen, then she’d reach out and pick it up for you to take, hands brushing, fate happening, but of course something like that never actually did make it out of her mind.

Her mind had been running wild the day before the party, hell even the week before, the possibility of her longing desires becoming real?…she couldn’t contain herself, the thought of having a chance to talk to you, without the social structures and thick line between popular and not, it was exciting.

Ellie and her friends were sipping beers and passing around a fat joint, Ellie was sitting on the couch, her fair skin filled with freckles like stars, that nobody had ever seen, as she rarely shows her body. her fur glove paws wrapped around the joint and brought it to her lips, she took a long and well deserved hit, weed filling her lungs and system. the familiar feeling was ever so soothing, ellie made a content sigh and leaned back on the couch, her eyes traveling up to the crowd of people standing around and her eyes land on you, she immediately takes notice to your outfit, heat creeping up on her cheeks, a red tint covering her face and one single thought

holy fuck.

the way your dress hugged your body was enough to send ellie into a complete spiral, or the way your face was slightly painted, with your eyes covered in black eyeshadow, making you look like you could manipulate someones mind just by a quick glance.

ellie couldnt tear her eyes away from you, it was impossible when you looked so damn good, she wanted nothing more than for you to look at her, give her attention, give her validation. she wanted nothing else but to be at your feet. Ellie was ready to bite you, like a dog running after a cat, she’d be on your tail…leaping next to you at every step you took. Her gaze secretly lands on your chest, plump tits looking like a snack for her to devour, she wanted her tongue all over you, to lick you up, to feel your honey colored, shiny ski-

“hello?? earth to ellie?” the girl was pulled out of her trance, which might have been good because ellie was suddenly feeling way too hot and lustful, yeah it was the definitely the weed's fault, or so she convinced herself as if she pinning over you yesterday. “fuck- sorry yeah, what were you saying dee?” dina punched her arm and rolled her eyes. “oh my god ellie, were you staring at her again?! you know you can’t get her- just back off already”, dina was a good friend, she and ellie had been best friends since forever, which meant dina had no shame in being blunt and direct, telling ellie the truth that she didnt want to realize. Ellie grumbles and runs a hand over her face, feeling caught, but nevertheless her gaze once again falling back on you and more so- your chest that sat so beautiful in your black dress. “ow?! wha- i know that, you don’t have to point it out..”

dina scoffed at this, as she immediately noticed her dumb friend returning her gaze to you, “jeez ellie, stop looking at her ti-“

“face!” she interrupted quickly and looked at her friend with a slight smirk, the alcohol mixed with the weed running through her veins made her feel slightly more confident. “eugh you're like a nasty dog, and not in a good way” dina rolls her eyes and takes the joint from ellies hand, ellie lets out a cackle at her choice of words, but not denying them..she was definitely a nasty dog when it came to you.

ellie's pinning hadn't flown past your head, nothing did, of course you had noticed, you notice everything..if only ellie knew that, when she was shamelessly staring at you. but enough about that, were you going to do anything about it? absolutely not, many people’s eyes landed in you, if you gave one of them attention, others would just want your attention even more.

you had the upper hand in this and you werent going to do anything…but then why did it annoy you so much that her eyes were on you? usually you didn’t care…but something about ellie made you intrigued, and you fucking hated it.

ellie didn’t know how it happened, her feet had leaped up and were suddenly moving towards you, she couldn’t stop her feet they had a mind of their own right now and it was freaking ellie out

don’t act stupid ellie, fuck you’re dressed as a wolf?! and you except her to wanna talk to you

she stopped behind you, god you were even prettier up close, no ellie stop- act normal- before she could continue her nervous rambling inside her head, you had turned around and looked at her, your eyebrows scrunched with an annoyed look on your face, shit, ellie couldn’t tell if she regretted everything in that moment or if this was worth it as she got the chance to see you up close for once.

“um hi..?, what was your name again?” you glare at her like she was just an annoying bug in your face that you desperately wanted to get rid of. but ellie didn’t care she was too focused on your face. your kitty ears fitted you so well in your smooth messy hair and your painted nose made her want to crumble on the spot. ellie couldn’t tell if she was drooling or not, she might as well have been because of your outstanding beauty, you were like nothing she had seen before. “oh-..uh..i-im ellie”

you laugh in her face, the sound sending a lightning bolt through her body. “well.. ellie, you should’ve dressed up as a stalker to make up for your behavior” you cross your arms and look at her, taking in every inch of her skin, the poor girl felt so nervous and intimidated yet turned on under your hard gaze, “my behavior? what um what do you mean?-i- wasn’t-“

ellies words get caught off as you interrupted her, not having time or energy for her boring lies “i-i-i”..don’t play dumb with me,” you mock her stuttering with a cold tone of voice, clearly trying to use one of your classic mean girl techniques, ellie convinced herself she wasn’t bothered but truth be told she felt a little irritated, she felt herself become a little hurt by your bluntness and mean words, maybe her fondness of you was exactly what it was, just a facade she could see from the distance, ellie’s thoughts stopped as you spoke your next words with a smirk on your face and an innocent voice, “shouldn’t a good puppy like you learn some manners…”

she sucked in her breath, a blush creeping up her pale cheeks. your words were evil, and so not meant in any way but evil, you were trying to make her feel intimidated and it was working…but she couldn’t help but notice the touch of lust in your eyes, or maybe she was just drunk. her body was hot, her gaze finding your face, your evil grin paired with the most innocent, precious eyes she had ever seen, her previous irritation hadn’t faded completely but her temptations were definitely ruling over it. nasty thoughts springing in her mind, too unholy to be present right now, and you knew that.

“i’m a wolf…” she mumbled quietly under her breath, in reality she wanted to respond with a drop to her knees, but that wasn’t realistic yet. “is that barking, i hear coming from you??” you mockingly put up a hand to your ear pretending to listen for barks, looking at her as if she was nothing but a unpropper dog. Your gaze stays steady, challenging her to talk back, but a glint in her eyes shows she's up for the game, and you’re ready, not backing down an inch. ellie couldn’t help her spark of confidence in her next words. “funny, coming from someone dressed like a kitten” ellie licks her lips and speaks with a small smirk, tilting her head slightly, the alcohol for sure made ellie do it, in the real world she’d never have the guts to be playful with you.

You narrowed your eyes at her, not expecting her to say that, a cackle leaves your lips and you cross your arms and study her face. “oh now look who’s getting bold, did the little dog finally learn to bite back? hm?” your expression taunting, your irritation still present but an intriguing look in your eyes had appeared, waiting to see if ellie had the guts to really challenge you or if it was just a quick moment. she couldn’t figure you out, the tension was thick between the two girls

ellie didn’t want to respond, she didnt know what to say that could satisfy your question, she’d do anything for this moment to never end.

“m...maybe i did” the auburn haired girl reponds a little unsure of herself but she hides it with a steady face, she wanted to prove herself to you, prove that she wasnt just nervous rack. “maybe? oh ellen...i’d love to see that happening from someone like you” you smile innocently, knowing full well her name wasn’t ellen but she didn’t have to know that.

“its ellie...and, i can bark” she said, raising her chin higher to prove her point, her green eyes holding your gaze. She’s on edge, unsure if she’s just woken up something she can’t handle.

“..and i can scratch” you lean closer, the distance suddenly becoming much smaller, ellie could see the tiny spots on your nose and the way your lips were neatly formed and pressed towards, your piercing eyes finding ellie’s green orbits, staring daggers into her skull, ellie could’ve sworn she saw you looking at her lips for a split second, but she wasn’t sure…

does she want me the same way i want her?- no ellie, remember what dina said.

“but you already know that, don’t you?…ellie” oh the brown haired girl knew it very well, everyone did…you scratched like a kitten, you had your claws on everyone. She was speechless for a moment before nodding compliantly and before she could let out a real response you beat her to it, with the same smirk you had on your face the entire time. “that’s what i figured, enjoy the party ellen.” you reach your hand out and pat her head, your long nails making contact with her chestnut colored hair, in the most taunting annoying way ever and then you just disappear into the crowd of people, leaving ellie standing like a flustered mess, a hopeless, pathetic, blushing mess. she had never expected her first conversation with you to be like this.

god she was down bad~

part two??