#reading comprehension is well and truly dead

[siobhanbooks]

Another people don't have basic reading comprehension rant:

Why have I just seen a tiktok saying that brennan being gay is something that everyone's missed??? Is it not very clear that Brennan and Naolin were a thing??

Their evidence was Violet wondering if naolin and brennan meant more to each other (obviously, they were in love). And in response to Vi asking if he was married, Brennan said 'no partner'. Which is not conclusive because straight people use partner all the time (eg Remi and Xaden in Basigaith Remi's version by @skyfallscotland) .

But, like, did other people question whether naolin and brennan were in love, or am I going crazy?

[deadsetobsessions]

Cassandra Cain knows how to read people. Every twitch, every micro-expression, every sway of their pupils.

She knows people better than they know themselves. She could pick out a person’s life without having to speak or hear a single word from them.

Language, without a sound.

Honesty, complete and unwilling, at her fingertips.

David Cain had beaten it into her; to observe, to read, to kill without protest. She was never a daughter to him- even if Cassandra hadn’t understood what love or being a daughter meant before she met Bruce- and she understood that.

There are scars lining her body, truths carved into her flesh that she knows she could never truly hide. But that’s alright. She’s learned by now that no one can read her quite as well as she reads them. Not even the metas. They notice it, of course, the tells and the twitches. But none of them could flawlessly put everything together like Cassandra could. They focus on the big things, like heart beat or sweat or flickering eyes. Cassandra takes note of the twitching fingers, the stances, the breaths, how lax their legs are, or which muscle groups are bunched up. She figures things out about them far before they even have a hint of her outer workings.

Cassandra Cain knows there is subtle faintness to her frame, a wildness lurking beneath her skin that she’s never going to be able to tame completely, the ways in which she leans that betrays her time as a starved and feral street kid. She also knows that no one will ever know the extent of it unless she allows them to. It’s nice, having that security.

It’s also lonely, that no one will understand her the way she understands everyone else. Well, until Danny Phantom.

Just like how she can see the scars left on him by people he trusted, the marks of crackling electricity behind a boy who should be dead, he also sees her. The training, yes. But Danny Phantom also sees the pavement like side to her where it should have been downy feathers. He sees the wildness prickling at her fingertips, the violence set in her bones.

And he still smiles at her anyways. His acceptance is screamed to Cass, though simply relaxed to anyone else.

Cassandra glides over to place a hand on Danny’s shoulders and squeezes twice.

Yes, she tells him without a word, spoken, you’re my little brother. I am not alone anymore.

Yes, she tells him without a sound passing through their eyes, we will protect you.

Danny beams up at her as the rest of the family relaxes. She still feels a thrill when she realizes (not belatedly, only slow comprehension) that they were waiting for her verdict.

She sighs in relief. Message received. Danny, eyes glowing green, leans back to rest on the couch.

He shrugs at her with a sincere grin.

And he even says thank you.

And he meant it.

[cthulhusstepmom]

Evidence that Sergeant John "Soap" MacTavish is not what he seems-Lt. SR:

Soap smells like rain, it took a while to put it together because it's not Soap himself that emits the odor, it just follows him. It's less potent inside and when it's sunny outdoors but if you concentrate it's always there.

He has never been observed touching a gun or grenades without gloves. Almost every other explosive he handles with no regard for his own safety gloves.

HE EATS WEIRD SHIT. While he doesn't eat much of the food on offer from the cafe, he does eat consistently when outdoors, usually plants or flowers. Things he has eaten: dandelions(edible), garlic(edible), thistle(edible but he ate it with the thorns), foxglove(toxic, showed no adverse reaction), Several unidentified flowers and berries, grass(technically edible?) Etc.

Will sometimes refuse to enter a place before abruptly going in. The data is not consistent between different buildings or locations. Further research is required.

Sharp teeth.

Groups things in nonsensical ways. He will only fill a magazine with bullets that total a multiple of 7 or 3. The same for what weights he uses in the gym. When drawing or eating he sorts by 4s. He traded his room to get #13 (right next door, coincidence?).

Cameras will not focus on him, whether photo or video he is never in focus regardless of distance or conditions.

He has never once been in medical for more than half an hour, usually much less. Even though his hands have light burns on them almost constantly.

Dogs hate him. He seems ambivalent towards them and he's never been bit that Ive seen. Cats adore him as do birds.

John MacTavish does not blush. Not for lack of trying even when genuinely flustered or hot, his skin does not flush.

Ghost sets down the small notebook with a minute sound of frustration. The evidence is all there but looking at it, what does it really say? Other than that he's an obsessive creep. A series of quirks and coincidences compiled by a paranoid son of a bitch into a fucking stalker journal. But still, Simon can't help but feel like he's right and he'd be dead a million times over if he simply disregarded his intuition. Even if it is something batshit insane.

At this point however it seems that it'll drive him mad far before it yields any answers. After scouring what little resources were comprehensible on the internet he'd started growing out his hair, intent on tying it in knots to prevent charms. Leaving him with a problem he'd not encountered since he'd first donned the mask: unruly curls and balaclavas don't mix well at all. He'd also kept a piece of stale bread in his pocket for days as he'd read it was a repellent to- and he can't even believe he's considering it-fairies. It backfired, if anything Johnny had been more attached to him and even more touchy than usual. He'd left a small deli cup full of coffee creamer outside his door overnight and found it neatly placed upside down where he'd left it with not a drop left. Ghost chalked that up to some wise guy playing a joke or an exceptionally dextrous cat and firmly shut the door on any other possibilities in his mind. His next test had been a gift of clothing mixed with complements, he'd read that both were likely to drive away any Other. It hadn't been a very extravagant gift, a new pair of gloves and a gruff "well done Johnny" but at the time it had seemed to be the final nail in the coffin as Soap had gone white as a sheet(he can do that but he can't blush???) and scurried off. A quiet dread had filled his stomach the whole day until Soap turned up at dinner, a little quieter than usual but wearing his new gloves and eating more than usual(a scoop and a half of mashed potatoes with 4 packets of butter and 2 packets of sour cream as well as a cookie. The main course of spaghetti and meatballs went untouched though Gaz snapped it up before it could truly go to waste). Though when Ghost returned to his room late that night after trudging through hours of paperwork he found a pile of tiny, aromatic, pink flowers on the floor in front of his door and on top of them a shiny metal comb. Simon's tired brain hardly stopped to think of any of the dire warnings he'd found on forum posts and folklore sites alike, crouching and tenderly retrieving the piece from its bed of flora, careful not to crush any of the tiny blooms. Well... With all the knots in his hair-purposeful and otherwise-he's going to need a sturdy comb anyway.

[ladymirdan]

I always find the “warhammer/40k is fascist propaganda”-discussion fascinating.

On one side there are acctual fascists seeing this horrible and depraved world and going: “Goals!”

On the other there are people saying its indeed fascist propaganda and glorifying its abuses. “Just look at the former group and how they act”

And im just sitting here in the corner going “its a cautionary tale, sometimes handled not very well since they have like 400 different authors and a lack of cohesion.

I'm being screamed at from both sides, and im starting to actually doubt my own reading and comprehension abilities, is satire truly dead? And am I beating its dead horse?

So I went and checked out the biggest BL authors twitter pages, its editors, game developers and lore experts too.

Pretty much every single one of them reblog or post about social issues, are anti-royalist and pro free healthcare and feminist issues. They genuinely seem like good guys, very unlike the “fans” in the first group.

I find is so bizarre that this discussion even exists when social media makes it so easy to reach out and just go “Hey, what are the allegory and moral behind this story?” and its author actually answers.

And still, people misconstrue things, claims it isn't satire, and just make things up that aren't there. When the truth is so easy to find with just a few minutes of research.

[my-beloved-ghosts-and-me]

YOU'RE THE QUEEN OF THE KINGDOM THAT HAS MY WHOLE HEART

꒰ synopsis: fate has a weird way of working and you still can fully understand the way everything it's delicately interconnected

꒰ content warnings: nsfw (18+), fem!reader, smut, masturbation, male pov, fem pov, breeding kink if you squint, rough sex, making love, virgin reader (at one scenario), Tangerine is a bit of an asshole, emotionally constipated idiots

author's note: this is probably bad, english it's not my first language, no beta we die like men, im still simping about a motherfucker called Tangerine, lalalas

Tangerine knew that there was no such thing as an easy job, but Jesus Christ nobody ever told him that things could be this fucking difficult.

Lemon warned him. His brother, god bless his good soul, tried to talk his way out of this ridiculous job, but Tangerine didn't listen to him. Maybe he truly was a Gordon after all.

At first, the decision seemed easy. Rescue the White Death's son and bring back the ransom money for a great payment or rescue Tora's sister and keep a job as a nanny in a luxurious house without having to worry about anything but your safety until your brother himself kill the motherfucker who decided to mess with his remaining family for a marvelous payment.

Lemon thought the second option was too easy, too good to be true. Turns out fate really was on their side because the White Death's mission was some kind of trap and everything went to shit. From what they heard, they were going to be dead if they accepted that job.

And now here he was.

Sitting in a ginormous comfortable chair with a fantastic book that he got from your bookcase trying to read while you and Lemon were on the couch talking excitedly about an anime that you convinced him to watch saying that in exchange you would watch all the twenty-four seasons of Thomas the Tank Engine.

He didn't know how much longer he could handle this situation with sanity in his mind, but with how much your brother was paying just for them to keep you safe inside your house he knew he would rather eat his right hand out of his body than mess this up. Even because Lemon, that traitor, was having the time of his life. Every day since the second half of the first week in your house, Lemon says he's grateful for Tangerine accepting the job. The easiest job of their life. And the higher-paying too.

Maybe, just maybe, if Tangerine was a little bit less of a professional this actually would be the easiest job in his life. A beautiful house in the middle of a forest that looks like a scenario out of the fucking Twilight movie that you made Lemon watch in exchange for that one cartoon with the human and the dog, his brother is happy that he finally got a friend to share his interests, a good payment at the end of every month, not even one day of violence since the beginning of this job and you.

The level of frustration and violence running wild in his body is not comprehensible, right?

Everything was just perfect.

.

.

.

Except Tangerine wanted to bend you on every surface in sight and fuck you dumb on his cock at every opportunity. It was the first time he tried to resist the impetus to take something that he wanted and maybe Lemon was right and he should have seen a therapist. But you were just so sweet, always concerned about his well-being, always smiling in the morning and making coffee for you and Lemon and tea for him, always offering yourself to moisturize his hair and asking his opinion on everything like the food you cooked or the books he's reading. It would be hard to resist nevertheless.

But again, Tangerine was a professional. The fact that your brother was one of the most dangerous mafia leaders in Eurasia and you used to date his best mate before he got murdered trying to protect you a few years ago sending your brother into a spiral of madness and cruelty was just a detail.

He didn't know your brother very well, and it was hard to gather pieces of information about him, or you for that matter, but you seemed very fond of him and even if he continued to ignore you every time you tried to reach him you didn't allow him and Lemon speak a bad word about him.

Your soft voice was distracting him from the words displayed in front of him. He didn't even recognize exactly what was being said because he was trying really hard to ignore Lemon and pay attention just to the sound of your voice. Your sweet voice. He didn't know if he was able to live without listening to you every day from now on.

Given the amount of erotic and vivid dreams he's having about you, he doesn't think he will, but physically was way better than his imagination. Although he didn't have the chance to listen to your moans and sighs in reality yet. He did listen to you beg to him once. "Please, Tangerine. Please. I promise you will enjoy it. Let's watch this movie with us." you had said. The first phrase got printed in his brain like a burn and it's almost present in every dream he has about you. You beg so prettily, pouting unconsciously just a little bit. A truly divine sight.

He could feel his cock getting hard at the memory and the annoyance building up inside him together with the hot white desire he feels for you. Why did you have to be so perfect and so good for him? Tangerine knew he would ruin you if he got the chance.

He wanted to fuck you so hard that you wouldn't be able to walk in the ridiculous aristocratic way you always do like the world knows better than demand hurry from you. He would fill you with his dick until you couldn't feel anything else, but him. No sadness, no worries, nothing. Only him and his burning love and desire for you. He would put your mouth to use and with the way you're always so careful with everything you do to him, he bet you would be a natural. He just know you would worship his cock with kisses battling your long lashes at him until he couldn't take any more teasing and started to fuck your mouth with wild abandon like the madman he is. And you would let it because you would be so good to him.

Given the chance, he would kiss you for hours. Slow kisses, steamy makeouts, soft pecks after fucking your brains outs. He wouldn't waste a chance to claim your lips in rough passionate kisses.

But he doesn't get a chance with pretty little things like you. He's not like your ex.

Did Tangerine know anything about your ex or the depths of your relationship? No, just the thought of you loving and touching someone that wasn't him makes him sick in the stomach. But he could tell by the way you spoke about him with Lemon sometimes that he had been different from him.

Although there's one thing that you said that stuck with him and made him think that maybe he and Draken are not that different after all. "He used to say that I was the queen of the kingdom that has his whole heart. I guess I'm in exile now huh?" You spoke softly and laughed when Lemon said he didn't understand what you meant.

Tangerine understood. He understood very well. And given the chance he would give you another kingdom to rule.

"Oh, for fuck sake, you both don't know how to shut up?" Tangerine shouts angrily out of nowhere and both you and Lemon are staring at him like he's some sort of alien.

It's not out of nowhere. He got an aching boner and if he didn't know himself any better he could say a broken heart. He denied himself too much, but you two didn't know that so it looks like out of nowhere.

Your face does show something, a brief emotion he can't read it very well, but after you press the heels of your hands against your eyes and he listens to your small quivering voice, he knows he fucked up again.

"I'm going to my room. I'll sleep early tonight. You guys feel free to stay here in the living room as long as you want okay"

His eyes followed your figure and maybe lingered a little bit on your round arse until you were leaving his sight. Tangerine wants to hug and apologize promising he'll never scream at you again, that he'll never let you sad again. But he can't so maybe it's for the better if you think he's a crazy unpredictable angry man. Like that, you'll stop treating him affectionately and will give him what he deserves from you. Nothing. He wasn't worth of you and he knows it.

Turning his head forward he comes across his brother facing him. They both keep staring at each other and Tangerine suspects Lemon knows what's up with him.

"Gordon wouldn't act like that." Lemon said with a straight face and turned around to face the TV.

If the room was a little bit more silent would be possible to listen to Tangerine's heart breaking a little more.

--x--

The cold of the night was soothing against your warm body and restless mind. You easily could see how you got yourself in this situation, but at the same time, you had no idea how you ended up like this: baking a lemon cake at two in the morning, trying to keep yourself from making a very reckless mistake that could get you in a lot of trouble.

Five years ago your first love and long-term boyfriend Draken got murdered trying to protect you. He was your brother's best friend since childhood and early in your teenage years they started a gang but things escalated quickly. An amazing duo, an unstoppable force, and delicious naive if you stop to think about it now. Nothing could ever last forever.

After your lover's death, your brother started spiraling into a darker path mentally and morally. He became a ruthless murderer, a tireless man, and crawled his way to the top distancing himself from every single person he used to hold dear, including you.

At least that was what everybody thought, but you know that's not true. Even if he refused to talk to you or answer your texts, he never blocked you. He bought you this house, a house that he knew was your dream house since you both were teenagers.

A soft laugh escapes your mouth at the memory while you finish putting the dough into the cake pan. You always said how much you would love to live like the Cullens and even if he claimed he always slept when you forced him, Draken, and the rest of your group of friends to watch Twilight in those rainy autumn evenings, you knew he was paying attention. You just knew. Just like you know he's not the monster people think he is. He's your brother and you have known him all your life.

He still keeping you safe even from afar just like he promised he would after your older brother died in your childhood. He's still your Leo. You know if you could just talk to him, face to face, you could knock some sense into him, but he never let you get close to him. Maybe he knew that too and that's why he refuses to see you but he wouldn't give up on you so you will not give up on him.

Putting the cake pan in the oven you ask yourself how you still handling life without losing your mind. Again, baking a cake in the middle of the night was not the best sign that your mind was 100%, but it's not like you are in the worst-case scenario given your history and current situation. Being a baby witch helps because gives you a sense of fate and fate brings you hope that you are not insane when you feel that everything is going to be alright sooner rather than later. Or maybe you're just delusional, but it works too.

But you didn't feel delusional. You feel like there are missing pieces to this puzzle and that's partially the reason why you awake to see dawn once again. Only partially. You don't like to admit it, but the man sleeping in the room next to yours is also a factor that contributes to your insomnia.

Sitting in the cold soft chair next to the kitchen bench, you let yourself relax a little while looking at the soft light radiating from the oven. Cake for breakfast, just like when you were a child and you had both of your brothers and nothing to worry about, but before you could drown deep in your thoughts a man appears right in front of you, and before you could scream, Lemon's hand cover your mouth and finally you're back to reality.

"What are you doing?" He asks without removing his hand from your mouth so you grab his wrist and push it down yourself.

"What does it look like I’m doing?” you ask.

Rubbing the back of his neck Lemon says a little wary. “Well, to be quite honest it looks like you're going a bit mental."

That gets your attention and your eyes finally snap up to his.

“I’m not going mental, Lemon! I’m making a lemon cake." you say trying to sound calm and composed "Clearly.”

He blinks once, twice. “A lemon cake?”

“Yes.”

“At two in the morning?” Lemon it's trying to read you right now, but he doesn't know which Thomas character he can use to understand you better nor he has watched an episode that could prepare him for this.

You pause, and then answer with a straight face: “Yes. Clearly.”

The younger fruit keeps looking at you expecting you to elaborate a little bit more, but no explanation comes out of your mouth. In the deep silence of the kitchen you both keep staring at each other. You shift your weight between your feet and keep your eyes on his waiting for something, anything, to happen and save you from this situation because you know if you don't make an excuse plausible enough, Lemon will figure you out.

Suddenly you hear a step at the stairs and you know it. He listened to you both talking and he is coming to see what this is about. That's not what you meant when you said you wanted anything to save you from this situation.

A deep voice with a thick british accent comes from behind you. "What the fuck?" Tangerine asks and you know, even without turning around, he's pissed that he got his precious sleep disturbed.

At the first month in your house, he was cranky enough, but Lemon said it was his normal self. A little bit aggressive, a little bit sarcastic, and a huge asshole, but it was his normal self after all so you didn't mind him. He's keeping you safe, he's a good brother and that's such a personal subject for you, he's intelligent and has such good taste in books. He's so unbelievably handsome too. But as time went by he got irrationally angry at little things and apparently he couldn't get a decent night of sleep in a while.

"I'm baking a lemon cake." You answer still without turning around and you're surprised that you can keep your voice calm.

"Why the fuck you would bake a lemon cake at TWO IN THE MORNING? A lemon one nonetheless. It's this some kind of fucking twisted joke? "Let's bake a lemon cake and wake Tangerine up just as he was closing his eyes after hours trying to sleep?". This fucking ridiculous, assholes. If you want to be insane at least keep it quiet." At the end of his little speech he was screaming and although you didn't know exactly what your face was showing, Lemon seemed to take pity on you and decided to speak for you.

"Tangerine, mate, you need to get help."

Oh, at least he tried.

"I need to get help? I'm the one who needs to get help? You both inconsiderate twats decided to be insane and bake a lemon cake late at night and chit-chat until you wake a poor lad trying to rest and I need to get help?" You could bet that Tangerine eye was doing that little twitch thing that always happens when he was about to get into a discussion with Lemon.

"Look, first of all: we weren't even talking that loud, but most importantly: this is her house. It may be a little weird, but there's nothing wrong about it."

You gathered courage enough to turn around and face Tangerine. You weren't scared of him, that was not the problem here. That would be too easy. You could just send a text to Leo and your brother would find someone else to protect you. The real problem was you were uncontrollably attracted to him and how could you not? The man was a god among men, handsome enough to make pornstaches sexy again. When he was angry you could see the veins in his neck popping, his face slowly reddening, his blue eyes darkening and his accent getting thicker while spitting all kinds of curses and insults. But now, in addition to these classical traits, his soft curly hair was falling around his head and he was shirtless, his waistband hanging dangerously slow.

Oh god, you hope he didn't catch your wondering eyes following the line of the hair just below his belly button into his pants.

You already touched yourself thinking of him today. Twice. Nothing new, you've been doing this for almost two months now. But three times was a new personal record.

You had just finished coming down your high when you decided that you wanted to distract your mind from wandering to him again and the best way to do this was baking a cake. But fate had other plans and now you had no choice but to touch yourself again. You honestly don't know how much you could resist the urge to get into your knees and beg to suck him for all he's worth, but if you could delay this humiliation a little bit longer, you would.

You got lost in your thoughts again and didn't realize when the shouting match between the twins started.

Your voice was small, but both of them stopped talking the moment you made yourself present in the situation. "I'm sorry, Tangerine. It was my fault. It will not happen again. Sorry for waking you too, Lemon. I just wanted to clear my mind and baking helps. Let's go back to bed, shall we?" Not a complete lie, just not the whole truth, you think to yourself hoping they would buy it.

You get up without saying anything else and walk towards the stairs hoping you can keep your walk as normal as it ever is and pray that they don't notice how much you wanna run from the kitchen. You still hear their voices from upstairs. "She was kidnapped and we have no idea what happened to her, man." Lemon said trying to defend you, but you already closed the door of your room so you couldn't know how Tangerine replied.

Your cat, Luna, was spread around your bed like she worked all day to pay the rent that was due. Your chance of trying to relieve the aching between your legs was ruined by this fur ball because you may be going a little bit mental, but you draw a line at masturbating around your pet.

Climbing to the soft surface you finally let yourself relax. Luna didn't enjoy it being disturbed, but quickly forgave you when you wrapped your arms around her and started caressing her ears. Feeling the soft fabric of your nightgown and the warmth of your cat around your chest, you started to succumb to the tiredness and the dark even if the desire running through your veins didn't vanish as you would liked to.

Maybe if he wasn't hired by your brother to look out for you or maybe if he actually could develop a relationship with you, but most importantly maybe if he didn't hate your guts for no reason... Maybe if wasn't for that you could try despite the odds. But all you can do right now it's wish for good dreams.

And this was your last thought before falling asleep.

--x--

In the silence of his room, laying in his bed, Tangerine knew he couldn't deny himself any longer. Your flimsy nightgown and perky nipples because of the cold night were his last straw.

He could feel his member in his hand, hot, pulsing, and begging for relief inside his pants.

God knows how much he tried to avoid this from happening because he knows once he lets his mind succumb just a little to the thought of you he will need more and more and soon just thinking about you will not be enough. But now it's over. His cock was throbbing so much and was desperately needing release.

Every goddamn time you made him hard he tried touching himself picturing another woman, but every time it was you that he was imagining you without him even noticing what he was doing. When Tangerine switched back to another woman he became almost instantly soft. It was driving him to the brink of madness and he couldn't deny himself any longer.

He was so eager to finally give in that he didn't even know where to begin with. Should he let you take the lead and be the sweet little thing he knows you are and be all soft and small kisses before giving in to desire shyly and slowly or should he take the lead and ravish you without mercy making you succumb to him faster and messier?

He wants to go down on you, that's for sure, but he can't decide between exploring your body slowly, anticipating you when he finally starts to eat you out, or going straight to the place he dreamed of for almost three months now and devour you until he was satisfied.

"Fucking hell, I need to slow down or I'll come and I didn't even decide exactly how I'm going to take her." Tangerine was getting close to spilling himself all over your stolen panties just with the flashes that he was conjuring of you but he wasn't able to decide how to make you his yet. He decided to test himself to see how much control he had over his body in case he needed to be soft and tender with you in case you're still a virgin and just cum after he was able to conjure both scenarios in his head without touching himself during this process of torture. He needed to prove himself worthy of you and be prepared for all possibilities concerning your well-being.

Tangerine moves his hands to his hair, closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath imagining you asking for him to be careful with you "Please, go easy with me okay? I've never done this, not even with Draken? So please be gentle" you would say and he couldn't explain the feeling that bloomed in his chest and made his dick twitch uncontrollable.

"Of course, love. Do you feel prepared enough?" he asked while rubbing his cock along your slick pussy making obvious with the lewd sounds that you were more than ready.

"Yes."

"Can I put in?" he answered pressing the tip of his member in your tight opening.

"Yeah. And don't need to have pity okay? Just worry if I say stop unless keep going" Oh, but how could he not be pitiful of you if you're such a crybaby and he crumbles when he sees you with a tear in your eyes?

"Okay, darling. I'll try my best." Tangerine whispers against your neck, his hot breath making you shiver, before pressing his tip further into you making you suck a little breath.

You put your arms in his shoulders looking down mesmerized by the scene of finally having Tangerine filling you.

At that thought his cock throbbed so violently he instantly knew that he needed to be a little more alert otherwise he would cum before imagining you getting fucked dumb on his cock.

Tangerine is trying to calm himself after being carried away for too long taking deep breaths and holding firm the base of his dick so he wouldn't finish before accomplishing his goal. You will be the death of him, he's sure. Your pussy will be his reason to come back after every job in one piece. He just knew that.

His cock was running hot but stopped twitching a few seconds ago. He was stiff as a board and couldn't even phantom the idea of letting go of the tight grip on his hair because he needed to keep his hands firmly placed somewhere away from his painful and sensitive member.

After a few ragged breaths, he started to move his hand again, slowly and avoiding his sensitive tip.

He knows that once he's fully settled inside your warm tight cunt, he'll be careful and take it slow with you. There's nothing worse than the pace he's imagining for you. Nothing so torturous as feeling you heat swallowing him every time, her walls so tight and unused, begging him to just start going feral, but he knows he need to make you get used to his size.

So, just like that, he's fantasizing about taking you. Slowly, kissing you with eyes closed and tongue insistent, swallowing your mixed moans of pain and pleasure.

The pain was almost too much to bear, but so good at the same time. And the pleasure, oh God, the pleasure he's giving you. Your brain could only think of Tangerine, all you could only, feel, taste, and see was Tangerine. He was everywhere and you felt so full you swear you could feel your belly bulge a little.

Tangerine feels another violent throb run through his dick and his balls are twitching, itching for release. He let go of his dick again and press a pillow into his face screaming in frustration. A sudden urge to just give in and fuck his fist almost make him faint, but he can't give up now. His body was burning and his soft pink lips were bruised with how intense he was biting them, the skin on the verge of breaking with the force of his teeth.

He would never admit it, but the despair he was feeling was so intense that small tears were spilling from the side of his eyes.

"I can do this, I can do this" he thought to himself while taking deep breaths without the pillow on his face. His muscular chest was rising and falling quickly, the red in his face spread into his neck and started to fall into his pectorals, and his body was covered in a thin layer of sweat. A vision to behold.

Your shy tongue started to explore his neck, his skin hot against your wet tongue, and you could feel salty drops of sweat. Your teeth graze against the sensitive flesh and he let a breathy moan close to your right ear. Boldly you suck his pulsing point strong enough to leave a mark and he moans your name loud and clear.

These intrusive thoughts are the death of him. Even without taking his hands from his mischievous hair, his cock was pulsing against his abdomen, leaking from the tip. All his veins are startled like never before and his pretty sure his balls are getting really close to having cramps. Tangerine thought that maybe it was better to get shot in the neck than feel like this, delirious and fighting so hard to control himself for the first time in his life.

"Tangerine, I'm close, please" You didn't know exactly what you were begging for, but Tangerine knew. He picks up his pace? put his large, calloused hand around your neck applying a slight pressure, and keep his lips hovering over yours, like he's trying to decide if he wants to kiss you or keep listening to you moaning his name.

"Come on my cock, love. Be a good girl for me and let yourself go." His raspy voice so filled with desire and something that you still can't figure out what it is yet is enough to send you over the edge. Your orgasm is a hot white force that sends you over the edge and keeps your body spamming for what it seems forever.

The way you keep squeezing the life of his dick is enough to give Tangerine the best orgasm in his life. He's cumming so much inside of you that he's sure you're already full of his seed and he's not even finished yet.

"I can not do this." Tangerine says out loud. Did someone ever die of orgasm denial? Because he was sure he was about to. He was actually in tears at this point and was suspicious that blowing his load would not be that pleasing anymore. There was so much pre-cum pooling in his heated skin even with him stopping himself from touching his throbbing member a few minutes ago.

But now Tangerine could imagine how rough he would take you if this wasn't your first time and without his permission, his imagination started to run wild, and without him realizing it his hands started to crawl their way into his aching cock trying to relieve his pain.

He wasn't going to take it easy on you after everything you made him go through. Tangerine would take you hard, rough, borderline violent, and make you beg for more. More of him, unhinged, a beast out of the cage. More of what only he can give you. By the end, you would be completely addicted to him and his cock in the same way he was already addicted to you.

He would leave marks all over your small body. His fingertips would bruise the soft flesh of your thighs and of your round ass, bites, and hickeys around any smooth skin his hungry mouth could find. Your cunt would be tight and sensitive from the abuse his thick cock, a little too big for you, was making you endure it. But you would love every single second of it, Tangerine was sure.

His big hand was tightening his grip around your delicate neck cutting short your blood circulation and making you feel dizzy. The lewd sound you two were making, moans and skin slapping against skin, was out of a porn movie. To match his pornstache, you think.

You squeeze your tight walls around him and he groans so deep from his chest that you unconsciously squeeze him again.

"Fuck, my dirty little whore. You want me to come inside you so much huh? Is that what you want, love? My cum filling you up to the brim, leaking of you for days?" Tangerine's mouth is right against your ear so you can hear all the sweet sounds he makes, but listening to his voice calling you "his", degrading you, and calling you "love" sends you to another level of delirious"

Tangerine was sure he was losing his mind with how vivid his fantasies were, but now that he was getting close and actually was going to be able to cum he didn't want to question himself about it. His cock was throbbing in his hand, the sounds getting out of his mouth were pure filthy, and his fist slapping against his skin were the only thing he could focus on.

"Tangerine, please, please, please. I'm so close. Keep going just like that, but I'm begging you. Cum inside me. Let's cum together. Please?"

His heart missed a beat. He was staring at your pleading big doe eyes, left hand holding your hips in a bruising grip, right hand still holding your neck itching to give you a soft slap in the face.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck." Tangerine hisses through his perfect white teeth and when he's just about to spill all his seed, he fantasizes about you saying you love him, right after you finish. He's imagining you pulling him into your tight embrace after he pumped you full of his seed, his head resting on your soft tits, both of you trembling and heavy breathing.

Deep down he wants to think that you were holding all of his ugly and twisted sides of him. Deep down he's dreaming that you hugging him despite his dark desire for the result of this night to be your belly swollen with his child.

And with that wild picture, you round with his baby inside you, he cums. And he doesn't stop cuming, his balls heavy with much more of his thick seed to spill. Such a mess everywhere. His hand, abs, cock. He was sure you wouldn't mind licking him clean.

The sudden image of you on your knees with his cock in your mouth sends a new wave of fresh desire through his guts. Looking left while sighing he sees your stolen panties. In the middle of his self-imposed torture he forgot about it, but now he's going to start over he could put it to good use. He doesn't mind his burning, sweaty body nor his lack of oxygen because of his uneven breathing, the only thing he cares about it now it's his still hard cock.

This is gonna be a long night, isn't it?

--x--

You wake up the next morning feeling thoroughly fucked feeling your body running hot. You have a few flashes of your dream with Tangerine and you are actually on the verge of tears realizing that it was just a dream just like Bella in Breaking Dawn. In the only day you don't touch yourself to the thought of him it's the day that your brain reminds you of what you shouldn't try to ignore.

Maybe if you didn't manifested your life in your early teens wishing a life like Twilight and other book series your life wouldn't be such a mess right now and even with all the disasters in the history, the romance plot was the one consuming you the most.

Speaking of manifestation, you did asked for a sign that the spell you used of that old book with hand-written spells worked. And since you don't believe in coincidences there must be a connection between these things no? Maybe you should ask for a clearer sign.

[lyrisnightblood]

Dear "lovely" "canon Jiang Cheng Stans",

I see what you're doing here. I can see y'all talk about "book meta" and "writing Jiang Cheng as canonically accurate" and you know what?

Y'all are doing a fantastic job, keep it up 😍🎉

Yeah really! I mean it!

Y'all are doing a fantastic job showcasing just how utterly pathetic y'all are, how chronically online y'all are, and most importantly, y'all are doing a marvellous job showcasing your hate boner for a fictional character you claim to hate and is an "antagonist".

Keep up the lovely work y'all, show the world how you lack an ounce of reading comprehension, you booktok obsessed peeps!

And while you're at it, let me go spittin' facts, straight from the book.

Jiang Yanli is dead. End of the story. You can fantasize to your heart's content about how "she'll react to JC raising her son" and get your pants in a twist about all the bad things she'll supposedly say, but that's just it. You can only imagine it.

You know why?

Hmm idk cos she's fucking dead and no one knows what the dead wants?

This is exactly like "Don't do this your mother wouldn't have wanted this of you" "don't talk like you know my mother she's dead and i don't know what she wanted cos she's dead"

Well

I should've expected such callous behaviour from antis 🤷

Admit it, y'all wanted Wei Wuxian to raise Jin Ling huh? C'mon, don't be shy🥰 you can say that

Except your fave never could've raised Jin Ling cos 1) as if the Jin Sect would let their Sect heir be raised by the jianghu's most wanted person (Gasp, "wEi wUxIaN sLaNdEr" love check your books even wwx acknowledges that fact lolll) and 2) how tf could a dead man, no less a man who's soul got ripped into shards, take care of a baby?

"but Jin Guangyao was a better parental figure, and an actual parent"

Yeah, a parent who killed his own child cos he was worried about his reputation (I can already smell y'all coming at me to defend him like chill, I only said the truth, and yes, man was more worried about people knowing he married his sister and losing position than the life of his own son, just because he loved Rusong didn't change the fact that he was ready to go to the extreme). Not to mention how Jin Guangyao held a string to his own nephew's neck and threatened to kill him to save his skin while it was Jiang Cheng who begged him to let Jin Ling go

Betcha Jiang Yanli's ghost is watching the scene while sipping tea and praising Jin Guangyao huh

"but one of Jin Zixuan's cousin-"

Jin Zixun is dead. And is a truly despicable person. Or did you forget how he insulted Wei Wuxian left and right?

Oh wait. Of course you forgot, "criticizing" Jiang Cheng takes precedence! My bad, i should've known!

Let me stop y'all before you say "Jin Guangshan". You must be the utterly worst person in the planet to want a known womanizer and child abuser and rapist to raise a child. IDC Jin Guangshan is related to Jin Ling. Y'all just want a known abuser and sexual predator to raise Jin Ling just say you don't give two cents about the poor boy except when you want to hate on Jiang Cheng 🙄

"what about Jin Furen"

Yeah what about her? Or did you forget how she canonically had a role to play in Jin Ling's upbringing?

Who do you think is responsible for Jin Ling spending half a year in Lotus Pier? Certainly not Jin Guangyao!

If there was one person in the Jin Sect who could have enough sway to ensure that her own grandson is spending a significant amount of time in another sect, it's Jin Furen.

Three guesses why she did that?

Lol you actually thought I'd wait for your guess? LMFAOOOOO you're so cute 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

She did that because Jin Furen cared for A-Li and - wait for it - A-Cheng!!!

Reread the books if you missed it, mmkay?

She was fond of Yu Ziyuan, and by extension her children, and post-SSC, she offered to support both of them on multiple occasions (which they declined because any political support from Jin Sect would've come with strings attached cos JGS😑)

Establishing the fact that Jin Furen cared for Jiang Cheng, she had agreed to Jin Ling spending half his time in Lotus Pier because she sensed that he was all Jiang Cheng had left, and vice versa.

Y'all also have utterly forgotten about the cruel way Jin Ling's paternal cousins have bullied him for being an orphan. Like, Koi Tower is supposed to be his home, and he was bullied to the point where Lotus Pier became his sanctuary.

"AHA! GOTCHA! QIN SU SHOULD'VE RAISED HIM!"

Laughing My Fricking Ass Off TM

My man Qin Su was RIGHT THERE! No one was stopping her from raising Jin Ling! She could've been the maternal figure Jin Ling needed! And no one would have questioned it, it was actually expected for that timeline.

Except.... Did she? Did she do anything to make Jin Ling feel loved? Has Jin Ling ever talked about his aunt the same way he talks about his uncles? Apart from the respect that he gives to her as his paternal uncle's wife, does Jin Ling refer to her fondly? Even once?

"Alright, your point?"

Why thank you for asking 💗😌

My point is that Jiang Cheng is canonically the best guardian for Jin Ling, and this conclusion comes AFTER analysing every other candidate.

And you know what?

I am absolutely right🎉💗🌸😻

Evidence?

Exhibit A: Jiang Cheng accompanying Jin Ling's nighthunt to look out for him but also keeps himself at a distance so that Jin Ling actually participates in the nighthunt

Exhibit B: Letting Fairy enter Lotus Pier despite the strict dog ban (which he had adhered to even after wwx died)

Exhibit C: Jin Ling never once flinches or looks scared when Jiang Cheng shows his temper and says "I'll break your legs", he knows his jiujiu is all bark but would never hurt him

Exhibit D: "how dare you hit me? Even my jiujiu had never hit me!" - Jin Ling to Wei Wuxian (who btw oh so casually hits Jin Ling as if it's a normal thing to hit a child💀)

Exhibit E: "A-Ling! Who made you cry?" - Jiang Cheng when he saw a crying Jin Ling. No admonishment. No Judgement. And certainly no anger directed at Jin Ling.

Exhibit F: Jin Ling being unafraid to cry in front of his jiujiu, he knows he won't be judged.

Exhibit G: Jiang Cheng saving Jin Ling on multiple occasions.

Exhibit H: Jiang Cheng begging Jin Guangyao to take him hostage and release Jin Ling, without hesitation, despite his spiritual energy being locked and being stabbed in the chest.

I could go on and on and on but unlike you lovely people who have no hobby other than slandering Jiang Cheng, I have TONS.

And also a life.

So, go fantasize about your Jiang Cheng hate boner elsewhere. I see your pathetic attempt at taking over the Canon Jiang Cheng tag and it ain't working.

Ciao 🤟

[leupagus]

Gonna be honest, I'm at the "noodling around instead of buckling down to actually write it" so here have another scene of whatever this ends up being

(From my doc which is labeled "sexnanigans lol")

"Why don't we just get it over with?" Crowley asked, a few days later. He was lying in bed, sprawled on his stomach along the top bit of the mattress with Aziraphale using him as a sort of very angular pillow. Every once in a while Aziraphale would rearrange Crowley's limbs into a new configuration to suit himself; at the moment he was contorted into something that most closely resembled a half-melted curly wurly.

"Mm?" said Aziraphale, his familiar I'm not really paying attention to you but I am recording what you're saying for playback in about thirty seconds, at which point I'll decide if anything you've said was worth listening to sort of "mm". He was reading yet another sexual manual; judging by the age of the cover and the deadness of the language contained therein, it was unlikely to be useful. The etchings were fun, though.

"You've been doing all this," he waved vaguely at the book, along with the half-dozen others piled on Aziraphale's nightstand, "For almost a month. Why don't we try something—"

"Get it over with?" Twenty-seven seconds, Crowley thought smugly, but attempted to school his expression into something serious when Aziraphale turned to frown at him. "I don't think this is something we ought to do at all, if you think of it like that. There's a rather good book, in fact, about enthusiastic consent and—" He reached for the nightstand.

Crowley tugged his arm back. "I didn't mean it like that," he said. "I'm all for it. I even invented some of those positions.* I'm just asking," he added, before Aziraphale could start demanding which positions, and with whom, which he was sure to say instead of who because jealousy in Aziraphale always manifested in creakingly correct grammar, "Why all this… research?"

Aziraphale shut his book, which could either go very well or very poorly; either way it meant Crowley was about to get his full attention. But he just sighed and said, "Do you recall the first time I tried food?"

That memory was too precious to deny. "You decimated an entire ox," Crowley said, not even bothering to keep the gloat out of his voice. "Most beautiful thing I'd ever seen."

"I think you really ought to be embarrassed about how much you mean that," Aziraphale said musingly, and right, this is why Crowley should have been wary about the closing of the book. "And then three hundred and eighty-seven years after that I tried wine, and got comprehensibly — what's the word?"

"Shitfaced."

"Blotto, thank you, is the word I was actually looking for. I had a hangover for two months."

"Wasn't that at my urging, too?" Crowley asked, reaching out to curl his fingers in Aziraphale's hair. "You really were rubbish at thwarting my wiles."

"Well, I was a rather rubbish angel, as it turned out," Aziraphale said, shutting his eyes and leaning into Crowley's touch. "Thank God for that. But that's my point, dearest. Whenever I've experienced the delights of Earth, it's often been — well, to use the old-fashioned term, gluttonous affair at first. Or if I'm using modern parlance, more gourmand than gourmet. And for this I want—"

"You think the terms 'gourmand' and 'gourmet' are modern parlance? D'you think the term 'modern parlance' is modern parlance?"

"I want," Aziraphale continued, relentless, "To savour it, this time. Savour you."

Crowley said, "Oh," and couldn't think of anything else to say. 

Aziraphale watched him for a few moments, those clever eyes seeing far too much, then made an absentminded tutting noise and maneuvered Crowley's elbow into a truly preposterous position before he resumed reading. 

Crowley let him.

[cherry4ecstasy]

The real meaning of vampirism.

(A reading from the point of view of a mortal nestled in the arms of a vampire lord)

🦇¶Whether or not a vampire retains any memory from its former life, its emotional attachments wither as once pure feelings become twisted by undeath.¶🦇

Angst.

Losing myself in his stiff, marble-like embrace, I wish only to quiet the ceaseless torrent of paranoid thoughts that swarm his mind.

His arms, cold as stone, might offer a brief reprieve from the agony of knowing what he truly is, what he has become. My heart aches with a grief I can never express, a sorrow born not just from what I feel for him but for the cruel fate that shaped him into this hollow, haunted figure.

Cazador Szarr was not born a monster. He was cursed to become one.

The weight of that curse is evident in every calculated movement, every smile that never quite touches his eyes. His emotions, once perhaps rich and complex, have withered under the relentless strain of immortality. I know that somewhere, deep beneath that cold exterior, there was once a spark of humanity; now twisted into something unrecognizable.

Being undead doesn’t just strip away life, it distorts your very soul. What once was friendship becomes jealousy, love becomes obsession, desire turns to possession and beauty shifts into lust.

I have to remind myself that his cruelty is not the result of some sadistic game he enjoys playing.

No, it’s simply who he is now.

His emotions, like everything else, have decayed, leaving behind nothing but twisted shadows of what once was. To expect warmth or tenderness from him would be to ask the sun to shine in the dead of night. He is a product of centuries of loss, of a life that can never be reclaimed, and in that realization lies the tragedy of my feelings for him.

Despite knowing all this, I still long for him. I long for that cold embrace, for a fleeting moment of stillness where I could pretend that beneath the monster, there is something, anything, of the man he once was.

And right now, in his crushing embrace, there is no heartbeat to match my own, no warmth to cling to; only the cold void that fills the space where life once thrived.

The silence between us is deafening, an emptiness in perfect, chilling harmony with the fragility of my weak, mortal body. His nails brush through my hair, each movement precise and deliberate, but the tenderness is overshadowed by the sharp, lingering sting beneath my scalp. Pain flows through me, but I stay still, letting it root deeper, because this is the closest I will ever be to him.

As I look into his eyes, gleaming red like embers that never truly die out, my tears fall without restraint. They are warm, alive, in stark contrast to the frozen depths of his gaze.

If only those salty drops, filled with the essence of my vitality, could somehow wash away his eternal damnation. My sorrow wells up not only for what he has lost, but for the terrible truth that nothing in this world, not even my love, can lift the curse that binds him.

I will never be his sun, for my light would reduce him to ashes. But still, I ache to be something, anything, in his world of perpetual night; a small place of warmth, where my fleeting mortality might offer him a taste of what it is to live again. Perhaps in the brief brush of my fragile life against his immortality, there could be some small solace for him, even if it is fleeting, even if it is hopeless.

His beauty is unlike anything else, so unnatural yet deadly charming. He is my favourite painting come to life, a work of dark art perfected beyond mortal comprehension. His black hair, sleek and lustrous, falls like liquid night over his broad shoulders, a cascade of shadows that only heightens his mystery. It frames his face perfectly, parting just enough to reveal the tips of his elven ears and the gleam of silver piercings that catch the dim light, adding a touch of cold elegance.

His pale skin is flawless, like marble brought to life, each feature chiselled with such precision it feels unreal, as if sculpted by the hand of a master artist who knew no limits. The sharp angles of his jawline, the high, aristocratic cheekbones, the curve of his lips; they all speak of an otherworldly perfection that haunts my every thought. He is a living statue, a vision of untouchable grace, and I can’t help but yearn to be as perfect as him.

Yet, I know that beneath that perfection lies the curse, the darkness that twists beauty into something cold and unreachable. But still, I am drawn to him, captivated by his deadly allure, willing to lose myself in that darkness if it means being near him.

Entangled in the heavy silence of the night, the occasional howl of the wind and the distant hoot of an owl are the only witnesses to this moment. His cold, undead lips brush against my forehead in a gesture that feels both reassuring and possessive. It's a quiet reminder, unspoken but understood, that I belong to him and him alone. No words pass between us, because none are needed. In this stillness, we share something deeper than speech; a connection forged through the burden of survival that weighs on both of us.

For him, it's the endless existence that strips away the warmth of life, leaving only the icy necessity of control. For me, it’s the fragile, fleeting mortality I cling to, even as I feel myself drawn deeper into his world. Together, we are bound by the quiet, eternal struggle against the loneliness that haunts us both. In this moment, we are neither predator nor prey, just two souls navigating the shadows of an existence that no one else can understand.

Under the nocturnal sun, I search for a word to describe this complex relationship. A bond that defies the simplicity of love, or even obsession. It is more like a rare flower, one that only blooms in the dark hours, hidden from the world and nourished by shadows. It thrives in the quiet, unseen spaces between us, delicate yet resilient, beautiful yet dangerous. A love tainted by survival, where tenderness and terror intertwine, feeding off each other in a way that is as intoxicating as it is destructive.

Perhaps there is no word for something so paradoxical.

It is simply us.

((Paintings, Schiele - The embrace; Munch - Love and angst))

[saltieststar]

Reading far too much into things pt. 5: The Current Status of Bhaal

Alright, I've wrapped up my research—well, almost. I haven't completely finished Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, but I read the novels. It turns out that the missing piece I was searching for was in the first few pages of Murder in Baldur's Gate, and I just rolled a Nat 1 on reading comprehension.

For those wanting to do their own research, here's a breadcrumb trail on Bhaal's current status:

The Avatar Series: Shadowdale, Tantras, and Waterdeep—These books cover the Time of Troubles and the consequences for the gods. There are two more books focused on Cyric, which I haven't finished yet, but I doubt they'll have much on Bhaal. If they do, I'll update you with anything relevant.

Faiths and Pantheons: Details deity ranks.

Faiths and Avatars: Discusses dead powers and revival, including Bhaal and his worshippers before the Time of Troubles.

The BG Games: Specifically BG1, BG2: ToB, and BG3. 

The BG Novels: There are three, but they're not great. Abdel is insufferable—0/10; just play the games instead. That said, there's some interesting lore about how divine blood affects vampires, which might intrigue those looking for a cure for Astarion.

Murder in Baldur's Gate (Campaign).

Chains of Asmodeus (Campaign).

Here are my thoughts on Bhaal’s revival and his current status in the Forgotten Realms:

First, some background on Bhaal's death: In 1358 DR, two fools stole the Tablets of Fate from Ao, and as a result, all the gods were cast down to Toril, unable to return to their divine realms. Stripped of their powers, many gods, including Bhaal, Bane, and Myrkul, perished. However, gods don't truly die; their essence disperses throughout the realms. As shown in Tantras, this essence can be gathered and placed into a new avatar, which is how Bane was temporarily revived at the beginning of the book (Shadowdale; Tantras).

Aware of this, the gods made plans for their potential deaths. Bhaal, in particular, fathered a multitude of Bhaalspawn, each carrying a fragment of his essence. Abdel held the most crucial piece—Bhaal's soul. Bhaal couldn't be fully revived until his soul was freed from Abdel's vessel (Alaundo's prophecy; Tantras).

This brings us to the Bhaalspawn Crisis around 1368 DR. The most relevant source is BG II: Throne of Bhaal, as BG I mainly focuses on Bhaalspawn being Bhaalspawn. In Throne of Bhaal, Melissan, a member of Bhaal's clergy, was given a ritual to resurrect Bhaal. However, as Tantras and Murder in Baldur's Gate reveal, the ritual wasn't necessary for the resurrection—Bhaal simply needed his essence freed from his spawn. I believe the ritual was largely a tool to manipulate Melissan into orchestrating the deaths of his spawn. This plan was only partially successful, with Abdel Adrian and possibly one other surviving the crisis. Melissan then attempted to use Bhaal's accumulated essence to ascend to godhood herself but was ultimately stopped by Abdel Adrian. Abdel was then offered the chance to become the new Lord of Murder but declined, resulting in most of Bhaal's essence being stripped away, leaving him largely mortal (and easier to kill—Bhaal certainly wants his soul back now, Abdel).

Ed Greenwood, the creator of the Forgotten Realms, provides insight on what happened with Abdel in Throne of Bhaal and the events that followed: Bhaal continues to influence Abdel, much like he manipulates The Dark Urge. Despite Abdel's belief that he's in control, Bhaal subtly guides him. It is Bhaal's influence that drives Abdel to reject divinity and return to Baldur's Gate, where he rises to power (Ed Greenwood’s Twitter/X).

How Does This Benefit Bhaal?

With most of Bhaal's essence stripped from Abdel, Bhaal can now manipulate his cultists to recover it and create a new vessel: The Dark Urge. This also leaves Abdel weakened and mortal; while he has an extended lifespan, he will eventually die.

The next part is still a bit murky.

The books state that all Bhaalspawn, except Abdel, were killed. I'm unsure if this holds true in the games or how Viekang fits into the story. I expect these questions will be answered as I finish playing Throne of Bhaal. In the meantime, I'll consider both possibilities: that all Bhaalspawns are dead or that one other survived the crisis.

Regardless, the outcome is the same: Bhaal is manipulating someone—whether it's Viekang or The Dark Urge—to kill Abdel Adrian. As we know from the games, destroying the Slayer doesn't kill the person within. Also, the form referred to as the Slayer is actually the Ravager. According to Minsc and Boo's Journal of Villainy, if the Ravager is destroyed, the avatar reappears within 24 hours in Slayer form somewhere near where it fell (similar to what happens with Sceleritas). This effectively resolves the issue of them being killed in Murder in Baldur's Gate. If you follow the Viekang/Abdel route, whoever transforms into the Ravager is no longer Viekang/Abdel but has become Bhaal. The Avatar series also touches on this when Bane takes Fzoul as his new avatar. Bane is asked if he needs permission to use a body, and he replies that he doesn't—it's simply easier that way, as forcibly taking an avatar destroys the person's memories and identity.

Bhaal is revived but only as a weakened demipower. Murder in Baldur's Gate states that Bhaal can do little more than subtly influence people, so it's unlikely he can grant spells to his clergy in his current state. It's probable that Bhaal returns to his realm, where he is strongest. Meanwhile, Sarevok is focused on rebuilding the Church of Bhaal in Baldur's Gate. The church is actively working to restore Bhaal's power, which remains Bhaal's primary goal, even in Baldur's Gate III. To achieve this, the Temple of Bhaal strikes a deal with Asmodeus: Asmodeus helps restore Bhaal's power, and in return, the Church of Bhaal eliminates those with whom Asmodeus makes deals, so Asmodeus doesn't have to fulfill his end of the bargain, and the souls remain damned (Chains of Asmodeus). However, this scheme fails, with Asmodeus finding a way to weasel out of the deal. If only Alaundo were still around to have foreseen such a surprising turn of events/s.

If you follow Larian's timeline, The Dark Urge has been part of Bhaal's cult since at least 1478 DR (Blood in Baldur's Gate). This could work if you want to write The Dark Urge as the one who assassinated Abdel. However, in my headcanon, The Dark Urge is claimed by Bhaal and brought into the church after Bhaal's revival. Bhaal's influence isn't omnipresent; he can only affect those in his immediate vicinity, near one of his worshippers, a holy item, or someone who has invoked his name (Faiths and Avatars). After Bhaal's revival, he uses his hold on The Dark Urge to influence him to murder his adoptive family and then lures him to Baldur's Gate.

The Dark Urge is the ideal candidate to lead Bhaal's church. Who better to amass followers and serve as living proof of Bhaal's revival than his own Scion? And even better, this comes at no personal risk to Bhaal, who can be killed again by another deity. The Dead Three didn't make many friends during their last vacation to Toril.

And it certainly helps that Bhaal's Scion is both bloodthirsty and intelligent. Bhaal might not approve of his son's choice of allies, but The Chosen of Bane is quite the schemer, and with a few tweaks, the plan could suit Bhaal's purposes. I believe this plot began to take shape around 1485 DR. We know that The Dark Urge and Gortash were declared chosen shortly after their scheme was conceived, with Torlin serving as Bhaal's chosen until his death in Thay that same year. Following their appointment as Chosen, they are directed to join forces with Ketheric and use the Crown of Karsus on the Elder Brain instead of whichever politician Gortash originally intended. This plan allows them to amass a ton of followers and raise The Dead Three to the status of greater powers. After Time of Troubles, Ao decreed that a god's power would be determined by the number of worshippers rather than inherent. And let's be honest, recruiting people into a murder cult is hard, especially when you have little to offer them beyond roasted dwarf. 

Until the tadpole incident, most of Bhaal's plans are carried out through The Dark Urge. I don't think Bhaal ever physically manifests during this time; instead, he communicates his wishes through dreams, Sceleritas, and Bhaal's invokers, as seen in BG III. Descent into Avernus mentions rumors of Bhaal physically being in Baldur's Gate. However, I think these rumors actually refer to The Dark Urge, as the cult frequently calls him Bhaal's divine will and believes that Bhaal once again lives through him.

At the end of BG III, The Dead Three are not destroyed, just their avatars. It would take some time for them to create new avatars (about a year). However, that doesn't mean Ao hasn't punished them, especially since they once again upset the balance of the realms. Much like Cyric, I think Ao will strip their portfolios, perhaps returning them to Jergal (Retirement's over, Gramps, until you find less problematic replacements) and allowing them to become dead powers.

[sillygoofyqueer]

I wrote this when I read the latest chapter of losing hope but I didn’t have time to send, so here:

Four, I love you so much.

The comfort to the hurt of the previous (and probably future) chapters?? Unparalleled. It is so late it’s early as of reading it so reading comprehension is a bit weird but frankly? I’m probably going to do a reread. Maybe of the entire fic. Who knows! Everything in this latest chapter has me squealing of joy and also crying over how bittersweet it all is! The lan juniors doing everything they can to make Wwx comfortable? And Wwx realizing who lan yuan is??? Adorable. I’m going to cry over this until the end of time. LWJ and Wwx misreading each other hurts tho. Like,

LWJ: he’s been suffering for so long while I have done nothing to stop it. Helping him and showing we care for him would be the bare minimum and I should be ashamed of myself for letting this wonderful man suffer so.

Meanwhile, Wwx: sooooo… is he going to turn me in…? Not that I want to go back but just wondering. No…??? But he hated me back then?? Guess this is the best I’ll get since everyone else wants to kill me..?

They’re idiots. I love your portrayal of them. I also can’t wait to see when LWJ realizes how much of this was done by Jin Guangyao. That man is dead twice over considering if Nie Huaisang joins LWJ in making Jin Guangyao regret living? Oh jgy is going to be begging for death.

Can’t wait for the next chapter but remember to take breaks and take care of yourself :3

Looking up at you with big ole eyes. BIG ole eyes. I am quite literally dead. Gone. On the floor and wiped out. Cough cough cough, bleh. ...... ANYWAY!!!!!!! I was really concerned when portraying Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji this chapter because...well, it's their first interaction together after thirteen years! There are complete different circumstances to canon!! So, hearing that you like how I am portraying them is nothing but literal music to my ears. Lan Wangji being the repenting worshipper and Wei Wuxian as the traumatised prisoner??? Mmmmmm. It is something that I've been wanting to write well, but I've been PETRIFIED. Also, Wei Wuxian hasn't figured out who Lan Yuan is just yet because boy oh BOY if I'm not going to make this reveal dramatic. I did Drama for GCSE, it's in my blood. And AND, I shouldn't be telling you this but because I'm so madly in love with you, you get little hints towards the plot. I literally cannot wait to introduce Nie Huaisang. I've been wrestling myself the the floor every time I want to prematurely introduce him, but trust me when I say it's going to be brilliant when he's finally dragged into the plot. And he will be. By his ear, kicking and screaming, but oh..he will be. And it will not be helpful for Jin Guangyao when he is. Don't worry! After all of this hurt I would be truly criminal to deny a little comfort. Not much though - what do you take me for? FUN FACT!!! There may be certain guest appearances in the next chapter. Who knows? Maybe you'll never know. I can't believe I haven't mentioned it yet, but I am truly violently sobbing. I'm thrashing around in my grave (where I'm writing this from) every time I reread this ask. I LOVE YOU TO BITS. YOU BRING SUCH JOY IN MY LIFE. AAAAAAGGGGGHHHH. On another note...am I writing chapter ten?.....DON'T LOOK AT MY DOC. DON'T LOOK AT IT. THERE'S NO PROOF. I'm not procrastinating my summer work to write it.. (listen, I've only just realised that this is exactly what I'm doing. Will I sort that out? No. BACK TO THE DOC-) (context here)

[slothquisitor]

What Moves in the Dark: Chapter Sixteen

A post-campaign Baldur’s Gate 3 eldritch horror AU.

Chapter summary: Liv and the gang look for Astarion. TW: Body horror, mentions of past abuse.

Read from the beginning.

Read on AO3.

_____________________________________________________

When the door opens and light pours into the room that is his cell, Astarion doesn’t move. He has done this before, after all. He’s not exactly sure how to play this, so he opts for nonchalance. He sits, unbothered and without reaction as the figure enters the room. 

He learned a long time ago that the only control he truly has in these situations is within his own mind. His body would obey an order, bleed, he might even scream despite how hard he tried to bite them back. But in his mind, he could be anywhere…untouchable. So he retreats there, pulling his consciousness back, retreating from his own limbs, embracing the numbness. 

The figure is closer now, and he can see who it is now. It is Lucian. Or whatever is puppeting Lucian. He’s not sure that there’s a person still in there. He is moving like a normal person at least. Which is a small mercy, he’s not sure he’d be able to keep it together if whatever this person is sauntered in on all fours again. 

“You are dead.” The voice rasps as if the words have clawed themselves out of Lucian’s throat. There is no expression on the face at all as if it either doesn’t understand how to move the muscles of the face or simply doesn’t care to try. 

“Is that a threat? Forgive me if I don’t take it very seriously. If you wanted me dead, I already would be.” He keeps his tone even, careful. Watching for the way each word lands. He’s getting startlingly little. 

“Observation, merely. You do not live. You have no heartbeat…no pulse of life.” There is no intonation, no flicker of emotion in the voice. It is more than simply off-putting. 

“Oh, I don’t know. Not a lot of corpses have this vigor.” Keep it talking, whatever this is. Figure it out, what it wants, what it wants from him.

“Are there others like you?”

“Well, there’s no one quite like me.” 

Not a smile, not even a hint of anything living behind those dead eyes. “How many?”

“Oh, at least seven thousand and six, give or take. I’m sure not all of them survived their trip to the Underdark. But I did find letters from Cazador to another vampire lord…”

Lucian lunges at him, his face mere inches from his own. He has dropped into a crouch, and it takes every bit of two centuries of pretending to not be afraid in the face of Godey and Cazador and his siblings to not flinch away. This close, he can smell Lucian’s blood, it is so foul it makes him want to retch. He stops breathing to avoid gagging. 

“How many?” He expected the words to come out angry, annoyed, but there again is no intonation, no emotion behind it. 

“I don’t know. Vampires aren’t exactly popular in this realm. Something you might be familiar with since you’re wearing this body. What are you?”

“I am beyond comprehension.”

“Try me.”

Lucian’s righthand paws at the dirty floor, but Astarion keeps his attention on his face, on the expressionless, emotionless void. “I did. You are the first thing I could not control. I could not use you to find the others. But I will learn. That is why you are here.”

He doesn’t know what any of that means, but a cold spear of fear spreads through his limbs. Suddenly he’s very glad he had blacked out for whatever happened before, whatever this thing did to him. Or tried to do. There’s an anger there, too. A rage he doesn’t know how to name. He cannot deal with it now.

“I should try again,” Lucian says without judgment or anger, jaw dropping open and drawing closer. The room is dark, so it takes a moment for Astarion to be able to see the way the tendrils spread and reach from the back of Lucian’s throat toward Astarion’s face. He doesn’t bother tamping down the fear now. He’s not sure that this thing cares anyway. He leans as far back as he can, but there’s nowhere to go, he’s already up against the stone wall. 

He doesn’t dare touch Lucian, not sure what will happen, what might emerge from him. But the tendrils are coming closer and closer, branching and grasping like tiny vines. He’s not sure how Lucian plans to use him, or if those tendrils need to go down his own throat, but he keeps his lips pressed firmly shut, twisting as far away as he can.  

But he is trapped. He can feel the tendrils brush against his skin, a vicious caress. He closes his eyes, he’d rather not see whatever fresh horror is in store. 

Suddenly the sensation disappears. He forces his eyes open. Lucian’s head has snapped to the side…it is twisted unnaturally far to look back at the open door. And then without another word or a glance back at him, it scrambles out of the room. Astarion’s breath comes back to him in gasping pulls. He doesn’t need to breathe, but his body doesn’t always remember that. He leans his head back against the stone wall and closes his eyes, grateful for the moment that he has managed to survive this. That whatever was about to happen didn’t happen…but it might later, and he needs a plan. 

It is then that he looks down at the ground, and sees where Lucian had been pawing at it with his hand, but that’s not what he was doing at all. 

Written in the dirt, messy but legible, are the words, “Help me.”

Is Lucian still inside whatever that thing is?

***

“You’re mad at me,” Percy says as Liv follows him up through the wide Upper City streets. The moon shines coldly above them, drenching the empty streets in silver light. 

No, she isn’t merely mad or merely scared. Somehow, it feels as though every emotion, every new piece of information, and every decision made, is too fucking overwhelming. It is all too much, and so it all just runs together until she feels more numb than anything else.

“I’ve been mad at you most of my life, Percy. I don’t see why it needs to matter now.”

He’s leading them through the Manorborn District. Before they’d left Ramazith’s tower, Percy had handed over every one of his weapons. Shadowheart, Veska, and Minsc have been tasked with keeping an eye on him, in case whatever he’d infected himself with had less to do with voices and more to do with action. 

That is yet another thing that feels too overwhelming to deal with. So she tries not to think about it at all. 

Rolan, Cal, and Lia had opted to stay behind at Ramazith’s Tower believing that if Astarion managed to escape on his own, he was likely to go there first. It has been well over the promised hour, but Kharis hasn’t gotten back to her. She’d like to check in, but doesn’t want to waste a spell she might need later, so they’re going into this blind. Which seems to be bothering her much more than anyone else. Is this how they saved the whole damn world? Just by jumping in without all the information first? 

“I guess that’s…understandable,” he replies. “I should have reached out after you left. Told you everything.”

She is not really interested in exhuming the past right now. Not when there are much bigger problems, but then, he’s infected and she doesn’t have a way to fix it that’s not draining him of his blood and hoping for the best. 

“How long?”

“Since Brelia died.”

She doesn’t look at him, keeps her eyes trained instead on the street. They’ve never talked about this. She’s not sure that she wants to do it now. “I see.”

And he’s been living a double life ever since. Working with the Guild…helping Veska. But not her. It is just another sort of betrayal amongst betrayals. But knowing that Percy has the capacity to help, to be so different than what she has always known. She wants to ask him why. Why he never helped her, why he set the Guild to keep an eye on her, but wouldn’t talk to her himself. Why he helped Astarion without telling him who he was. But she’s not sure she wants the answer. Percy is a lot easier to hate at a distance. A lot easier to find untrustworthy when he’s not infecting himself in order to find Astarion. 

She’s having a very hard time reconciling her ideas of who her brother is, the person he’s always been to her to the person she’s seen over the last hour. And maybe all of those things will get to matter, but they don’t right now. He’s here and he’s helping, and everything else will have to wait. 

“This way,” Percy says, leading them down a narrow side street. The walls of the two manors that flank it rise up in the moonlight, dark and imposing. It looks like a dead end. 

“I do not believe that this will lead us anywhere,” Jaheira says, glancing at Gale with one eyebrow raised. 

There’s a stone retaining wall at the end of this side street, and Percy pauses at it and then begins to run his hands over the stone while he looks for something. 

“What are you looking for?” she whispers to his back, glancing back at their companions who are looking doubtfully on. 

He doesn’t stop tracing the stones with his fingers. “This.” There’s a slight click as one of the stones pushes into the wall, and then part of the stone pushes back and away, revealing a passageway. Percy turns to the group looking more than a little proud of himself. 

“Well, this looks promising. Nothing bad ever happened when we went into strange dark passageways,” Shadowheart says. 

“Well, let us hope this works.” Jaheira opens her palm and whispers Astarion’s name as she casts the spell to locate him. A tiny golden arrow appears in her palm, it wobbles a bit, but as she holds her palm near the doorway, it settles on a direction. Jaheira grins. “And now we have a heading.”

It takes all of Liv’s self-restraint not to rush into the darkened passageway in search of Astarion, instead, she waits for further instructions from Jaheira or Gale who everyone else seems to defer to. 

“Stick close to me,” Jaheira says to her and then ducks inside. 

Liv glances at her brother, who has moved aside to let her through. There are so many things she wants to say, should probably say. She thinks that maybe she should be grateful, but no words come. 

He merely leans against the stone threshold, all relative ease.  “Go on, find Astarion.”

Later. They will talk about this later. And then she follows Jaheira into the dark. 

***

Astarion is grateful for once, for the darkness. There is movement beyond this room that is his cell, heavy footfalls, voices murmuring. He retreats as deep as he can into the darkness, unsure if it is better to go undiscovered by whoever might be beyond the door or risk a rescue by someone who is just as bad as his captor. 

Because Lucian, or whatever the thing is that’s puppeting his body…Not-Lucian needs to control him…for what? What can he do…because he could find other infected people? Is it gathering them all here? Moira had said she’d been hearing voices telling her to come to the Upper City…to come here? Is every other infected person here too? Why would it need all the pieces of itself back together? 

He has to get out of here. 

He examines his shackles again, desperately searching for some way to open them. There’s no keyhole, but maybe he’s wrong, maybe they’re not magical. Maybe they can be broken. He begins banging the shackle on his wrist against the sharpest stone outcropping on the wall. 

All he gets for his trouble is a sore wrist. 

He might be able to get his hands out if he’s willing to break his thumbs. His thumbs have been broken before, not by himself, but he’s fairly certain he could do it, but that won’t solve the problem of his ankle shackles. He leans his head back; he hates how quickly the depressing calculations of pain versus freedom have reared their ugly head. The futility of his ability to change his situation is sinking in, and with it comes a certain degree of panic. What if he is trapped here forever? What if Not-Lucian comes back? What if it learns - whatever the hells that means?

There’s movement at his door, but not simple footfalls going past, someone is opening it. He presses further against the wall as if he can disappear into it. He will not be taken by surprise. Not here. He’ll fight back this time; he’s ready. 

Except that he isn’t. Because the door opens and wreathed in golden lights that bob around her head, it is Liv. Liv is here .

He whispers her name, half convinced that she will disappear like smoke. But she doesn’t.  

“Astarion!” She rushes forward into the room, toward him. She drops to her knees in front of him, eyes filled with so much genuine concern as they roam over him. “Are you alright? Are you hurt?” 

“Never better, my dear,” he says, chin raised as if he hasn’t been scared shitless since he woke up. He forces a smile as if he isn’t a mess, covered in dried blood, clothes ruined and stiff. As if he was never worried at all, as if being captured was a mere inconvenience and not a reminder of his darkest and bleakest memories.

She’s here and the rest doesn’t matter. He can see her look at the shackles, realize there’s no keyhole, and then rest her hand against them, murmuring something he doesn’t quite catch. He feels more than sees the magic fall away, and then the shackles follow. It is a profound relief. 

“You came for me.” The words are out before he can stop them, before he can smother the way emotion fills them out, pressing up against every syllable, giving his fear away.  

She freezes, her emerald eyes have caught an edge as she looks at him. “Always.” She says it like it was never a question like she was always on her way to him. He loves her for that. 

And quite without thinking about it, his now free arms are around her, pulling her into a tight hug. She is here, and he is safe. He’s sure that the way his hands clench at her robes dispels the illusion of nonchalance, one that she had perhaps seen through already, she is so good at seeing him. He’s not sure he cares anymore. He breathes her in, feels her warmth and her familiarity. 

Her hands move in comforting arcs against his back. “You’re alright,” she whispers, and he’s not sure if it’s more for his benefit or hers. But it is hard not to melt into the comfort she offers, the quiet, fervent hope. 

“How did you find me?” he asks, pulling away, but only just, he can’t quite keep from touching her, as if she might disappear if he doesn’t keep a hand on her. It’s ridiculous, but he can’t stop himself. 

She smiles and inclines her head toward the doorway. “I had an awful lot of help.” 

He glances back at the door, at the familiar figures quietly watching their exchange. “You know, if you wanted to get the old crew back together you could have just invited us to a nice dinner rather than getting yourself captured,” Jaheira says with a hint of annoyance that is entirely undone by the smile that follows.

Gale stands just behind her offering a wave. “Shadowheart and Minsc are here too, but they’re scouting ahead with Veska and Percy.”

They’re here. His friends are here. For him. The realization rocks through him, knocking loose the last of the bitterness that had taken up residence inside him when he’d missed a goodbye on a dock. When he’d stood looking at a river until sunrise, missing his friends. But Liv and Gale and Jaheira and Shadowheart and Minsc…even Percy, and whoever the hells Veska is are here. They’re here for him. 

He glances around doubtfully. “Jaheira, is this venue not up to your expectations? I’m hurt.”

And then this room that has been filled with nothing but terror and panic and worry is suddenly filled with laughter as well as light, and it manages to banish some of the awfulness of the last few hours. They’re here, and together, they’ll solve this. 

“I brought your armor and weapons,” Liv says, opening her bag. 

He could kiss her for that. “Thank you, I’m afraid these clothes are rather ruined.”

Liv looks him over. “The blood isn’t yours, is it?” 

He shakes his head. 

She nods. “I could try to prestidigitate some of the blood away.”

He extends his arms, ignoring the impulse to scratch the dried blood off of him. “Please.”

It takes a few moments, but most of the blood does disappear from his skin, and his clothing feels less stiff. Perhaps he might still be able to salvage the coat. At any rate, it’s not the most pressing issue. Liv pulls out the pieces of his armor and then his weapons from her bag, setting them out in a neat line before him. He immediately begins undressing, eager to be in the safety of his armor, back in control. Back to himself. 

He isn’t particularly concerned about undressing in front of her or Jaheira and Gale, but he still notices the way Liv flushes just the tiniest bit pink and turns away. It’s rather endearing. 

So is the way she clears her throat before asking a question. “Have you seen anything that might help us know what we’re about to be up against?”

He sighs. “That man the Bhaalists met with? Goes by the name of Lucian….I met with him…with…whatever is using his body. I think Lucian is still in there. While I conversed with it, he scratched ‘help me’ in the dirt.”

“So this is all against his will?” 

“So it would seem. Whatever this is seems to be trying to get all its pieces back together. Was rather miffed it couldn’t infect or control me in order to help it get it all back. So we have the upper hand since it’s still looking for Moira’s blood, and perhaps others too who didn’t follow the voices.”

Liv stiffens before turning to look at him, her face pale. “Oh shit.”

He’s just finishing strapping his last dagger on his body. “What?”

“Moira’s blood isn’t Moira’s blood anymore. Percy infected himself so we could find you.”

Shit, indeed. “And he’s scouting ahead…deeper in?” Which means closer to whatever Not-Lucian is doing…playing exactly into its hands.

His alarm is mirrored on Jaheira and Gale’s faces. Liv is already running for the door. “We need to go!”

[fantastic-mr-corvid]

why is cecio problematic?? 👁👁

buckle up your in for a long ride!!! this might be the most comprehensive post on Cecio yet...

[background info: Cecio is an oc of mine that atm mainly resides deep in the background of part 5 of jjba alongside his older sister Celia and their fucked up found family. that are also in a criminal organization. Cecio is... well read on. warnings for mentions of gross misuse of police power, read more as this got longg]

Hes a self centered man who was manipulated into not only throwing away his only shot at escaping the poverty and violence he was born into, but metaphorically sold his soul to the devil twice, by becoming a mafia plant in the local police force.

He has no shame and while he spins a tale of a dead sister- [Who is very much alive but took the opportunity to shed her old legal life] wrapped up in gang violence to earn money for him, with him not knowing until it was to late, then after learning the horrifying truth because of her death, joining police training to avenger her- its nothing but lies wrapped around a tiny kernel of truth. what truth? who knows. certainly not anyone around him

Reality is subjective to Cecio, his mind bending facts and obscuring the aftermath of his actions so he can stomach himself, playing a constant game of deluding himself that he has no other choice and is just trying his best- on some days he even believes it

He uses his power often and to devastating effect, setting up rivals and traitors and even just people who got in the way for jail or death, using faked evidence and emotional manipulation. a snake of a man he plays the moral man in a den of greed and yet leads all people who join with even the faintest shred of good in their hearts into the jaws of greed and despair.

Cecios greatest trick is those grains of truth and genuine emotion at the heart of his greatest lies- his false flames of passion for justice are instead fueled from a desire for him and his loved ones to survive, his kindness stolen and reused from others, little lies he tells himself as so to create 'genuine' emotional reactions. Every victim is his dead mother and supposedly dead sister, every corrupt cop not on his side is the man who manipulated him, every little thing a lie and misdirection.

He has killed, lied, maimed and set people up to do and have done to them worse. his elder sister Celia may justify everything she does as for their family, but Cecios justifications pile up so high all they are is truly hollow- no semi-noble sacrifice for the good of their family, but a selfish desire for power and survival with only his tenuous connection to that family as what stops him from being entirely heartless- or if you look at it another way if it wasn't for his family he could have a heart without risking others if it is weak and fails.

Life handed him suffering over and over and because of that he sees himself as the ultimate underdog- no matter how much power he grows to hoard. He is always sixteen and being told he has to do this to help his sister, after all she has done for him.

[himbeereule]

hey there- as an autistic person myself, I do appreciate that it is an option, but I am concerned how it is implented; while I also feel people often don't say what they mean, my personal 'awkwardness' stems less from "I can't read their face" and moreso "I do not know what to talk about that will not make them upset with me or otherwise embarrass any of us" and so I tend to mold myself into what I think the other person wants.

(sidebar: I was trained to read faces/body language from a young age, by my dad who was definitely undiagnosed)

I also have some friends who are not autistic, but have social anxiety, and thus are awkward in conversation. I also have some friends and family who appear and identify neurotypically, who just don't grasp smalltalk or serious conversation very well.

including the autistic experience of "can't read expressions" is genuinely commendable, but in this current demo, it is equated both as 1) the Only reason someone could be uncomfortable with social situations and 2) the only option (as I have yet seen) that allows you to claim being autistic, when there are many other facets to it as well

I am not suggesting you remove it, but maybe it would be reasonable for the "awkward at social situations" option to lead to further options reading (for example) "Yes- autistic (not confident reading faces)"/ "Yes- autistic (not confident speaking)"/ "Yes- autistic (both)"/ "Yes- social anxiety"/ "Yes- other"/ "No, go back"

you do not have to publish this, nor is it intended to be read as "you should not be writing"- I am just trying to acknowledge that I kind of felt alienated by the assumption that autistic people like me wouldn't be considered autistic by the game, without sacrificing what is (to me) a very favored part of reading interactive fiction.

in reality, we can all get things wrong. but in fiction, it is nice to be able to believe we are getting it right 9/10 times- or even leaving it a little vague instead of claiming to be all-knowing.

I really like this demo overall, and simply ask that you consider more freedom for folks to see themselves in it- not even all at once, but over time.

Things I like (to try to convey my sincere enjoyment on the rest):

-Sasha telling me his dream (mothra v godzilla right?)

-Yakov/ Yasha is a delight- and very relatable at first meeting!

-incredibly cool selection of weaponry!!

-the little moment with the guard who hands us water when we are choking on bread (very sweet)

-horse customization (I never truly got into the equestrian lifestyle, but some of my earliest memories involve a family friend and her horse. I love being able to recreate him when I can<3)

-the option to be as defensive/peaceful as possible, and the way some people showed sympathy for the army (quite realistic imho)

Hey there-

first off, the autistic route is woefully underdeveloped right now. You basically only get a special set of reactions to Lavrentiy's rudeness and a meltdown after rising from the dead.

However - I won't change the direction it's in right now. The autistic experience(TM) differs for pretty much everyone, and in order to write it comprehensively, I will first continue to model it after my own.

Which means it'll roughly develop from "too clueless to be anxious" over "learning social conventions and thinking you can do it", then "realizing you're messing up all the time actually", and ends in "pretty much capable of 'normal' social interaction but too insecure/anxious due to prior experiences".

Nonverbal is already an option, autistic MC not being able to read faces is forced at the beginning (but MC will get better at it over time), and awkward is implied in the clueless phase and explicit in the last phase.

I may consider making the route more 'modular', with choosing which general symptoms you display at which phase of the game, but a) I don't know if this is really realistically doable and b) right now I definitely don't feel confident writing about autistic experiences that differ from my own.

(I'm very happy someone got the Godzilla/Mothra reference btw ^^)

[theaistired]

WIP Intro - Little Remains

Key Words

Crime | Thriller | Trauma

About the WIP

Another entry into my brainchildren that come from watching video essays about stuff I’ve never watched myself and going “wonder how I would do that”. In this case: teen mystery TV shows. That coupled with just “normal” crime shows (I started watching this stuff at probably a way too young age. Oh well, now you get to deal with the consequences).

Trigger Warnings

Since this WIP deals with crimes, please pay attention to the trigger warnings

Violence (physical and sexual) | Murder | Assault | Organized crime

Summary

Detective Morgan has worked on many gruesome cases in the past, most of which took place in bigger cities with an anonymous population. So, when a teenage girl is found dead in the fields of a small town nearby, Morgan first assumes an outsider to be the murderer of the unidentified victim.

However, with the murder of a local student a few days later, even the tight-knit community quickly realises that one of their own is far more familiar with the case than the rest of them. Unwilling to sit back, the student’s friends start their own investigation, while Morgan begins to struggle with old ghosts.

Characters

Alroy Morgan: Detective, originally from Scotland. A dedicated, but tired mind, he has a great capacity for empathy. Originally planned on becoming a therapist. 34 y.o. | he/him

Autumn Corbyn: Loner student in foster care. An outsider, mostly by choice, either too shy or too aggressive to make meaningful connections with other students. Doesn’t know where she’s supposed to go in her future. 15 y.o. | she/her

Corsen Green: The local queen of clumsy. Her father is a teacher at the school, the entire family has lived for generations in Holcester. Calm and collected, generally well-meaning despite her fondness of sarcasm. 15 y.o. | she/her

Nalin Gaur: Boy of Indian decent. Family only recently moved to Holcester for the benefit of Nalin’s younger brother. A very sweet person who sometimes takes things too literally. 15 y.o. | he/him

Robin Hughes: Overly curious journalist to be. Lives with her aunt, who while not understanding Robin’s love of the criminal and dramatic, indulges her nonetheless. Notetaker beyond mortal comprehension, prone to tunnel vision. 15 y.o. | she/her

Snippet: Little Remains | Prologue: Arabella Hughes’ painted lilies

Arabella Hughes had taken her Haflinger Chips on a longer ride while Robin had been at school. She had actually passed by the school on her way to the forest and had a pleasant little chat with Mr Green, Robin’s history teacher. They talked about how well Robin was doing, the plans she had for later in life, what the two of them were up to that day. Arabella Hughes would continue her way into the forest, a long nice break, a moment to herself. Mr Green would be stuck in school, teaching students, and later be stuck in his office, grading students. Arabella felt bad for him. Her day would surely be more lovely than his.

Truly, it seemed that Arabella Hughes never learned. She later wondered, if the bullies in school had been right, if perhaps she was stupid. A lovely day, her sweet niece lounging on the couch reading. Arabella Hughes should have known.

(Continued under the cut)

But stupid Arabella Hughes just put on her Wellies after her ride and went out into the flower fields to look after her white lilies that were in full bloom. One of the barn cats, Tugger, was following her, loudly complaining. Although it was strange for the big and furry tabby to strut around in the early summer heat, Arabella Hughes thought nothing of it.

Tugger was loud and dramatic, more than any other cat, but maybe he followed and complained to warn her, maybe he knew what would happen in the next minutes, the coming weeks.

To Arabella Hughes, all was still normal. When she had come back with Chips, she saw foot prints in the soil of her flower field. Nothing unusual, some teenagers would always cross to the fields to get to the abandoned farms further down the brook, to hang out, smoke, drink, and do… other activities, that Arabella Hughes had never participated in. But just to make sure, she would check the fields for any major disturbances.

And – this was unusual – she found something. The white lilies were spotted red around a white something. At first she thought it a picnic blanket, then a duffel bag, then a wild animal that had died in her field.

Her third guess was right in one thing: Death was in Arabella Hughes’ field. But it wasn’t a wild animal, nor a tamed pet. It was the naked body of a dead teenage girl.

Tagging

@colombette (Thank you for your feedback on the intro!)

[cecillias-garden]

Tonight's Tarotscope

Aries - You are in the midst of a transition in life, and that alone is reason to celebrate. There are connotations of gender and sexuality here, and perhaps you may be coming into who you are, but any transition in life is one that can be very positive for you. Enjoy this moment. It's well earned.

Taurus - That nagging feeling you've been having that's telling you to walk away has a very good point taurus. Sometimes staying really is more trouble than it's worth. If it sucks, hit the bricks, and don't bother looking back. Gemini - Embrace your inner darkness Gemini. The shadow self is still a part of the self, and darkness is not always evil. Sometimes cruelty really is kindness.

Cancer - Keep your feet on the ground, and your head out of the clouds Cancer. There is a strong pull towards magical thinking, but what you need now is to step into the real world, and focus on what's right in front of you.

Leo - If you have a beloved object in your life, or something that brings you great joy, this is a good reminder to care for it. Not all that once brought us happiness must be thrown away, even if we think we've outgrown them. It could very well be that it's granting you happiness even still.

Virgo - Sometimes we need to make our own happiness, Virgo, and we can't expect to rely on others for it. Life may be full of hardships, but you're not dead yet! Do something for yourself and allow yourself to find happiness on your own terms.

Libra - Not all is lost right now Libra, but much is. You will have to make difficult choices soon, and there will not be a "right" choice to make. Choose your victory, and the pain that comes with it, and know that you must live with the consequences either way.

Scorpio - Put on your favorite clothes, do up your hair in your favorite style, and show the world your favorite parts of you. You're encouraged to be unapologetically yourself today, Scorpio, so go on and be the person you're dying to be.

Ophiuchus - Things may seem grim right now, but not all is lost. Be on the lookout for a last minute rescue, or perhaps a light in the darkness to cling to. It may well be your escape.

Sagittarius - You'll need to rely on quick thinking, and your own skills to surpass what's before you for now. This is not the time for careful planning, but for knowing yourself, and what you are capable of. Do not hesitate.

Capricorn - You may be confused as to whether the good things you've had lately are truly good, but take a step back and consider your ambitions. What is it you truly want? Do you want anything at all?

Aquarius - The reason you aren't figuring out the solution to your problems isn't because you're dumb, it's because you've been at it for hours and haven't slept well in days. Take a break, aquarius. Self care is an important part of the process

Pisces - Remember to take care of your own problems before you buckle down and take care of everyone else. You may want to help others, but you can't help anyone if you cannot help yourself. Take care of what's important, and you'll be ready to do what you must.

The weekly TarotScope is a horoscope made by drawing cards from my custom-built tarot deck for each sign. Readers should consider all of their placements to build a more comprehensive reading for each week

[aphroditesacolyte]

Meryl and Diosia P27

Ch 27. // Know Me Now // Read on AO3

Masterpost

Summary: Meryl and Diosia meet once more, and Meryl has questions at hand.

Content warnings: Dubious morals/uncertainty regarding if life has value, magic bs/immortality bs/fake god bs, profanity, please read at your own discretion, thank you!

~Approx word count: 1,900 words

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Surrealism had wrapped its teeth about Meryl’s life ever since the day Diosia had returned, the day he had whisked him away and loved him in the most grotesque of ways, and by means that he could still not comprehend—means he knew he would not be forgiven for indulging. It shattered his sense of safety, making him feel as if although he swam alive and well, he might truly be dead. That was the bizarre feeling that berated him, like the feeling of walking through a ghost town in broad daylight, passing by odd grey spirits on the way. The days did not feel quite real nor right anymore.

But Meryl had no clue how to fix it, so he floated along, quietly, aimlessly. At night his mind feigned Diosia’s call, his dreams falling in line with his hedonistic self, his yearning for pleasure, for love. Diosia’s sensuality seduced him completely, and his gentle, glimmering smile won over his heart. If it were a siren’s enchantment, it must have been eternal now, for he was sure he’d forever be drawn to him and his tricks. And in feigning these tricks, where he was so certain Diosia’s breath caressed his neck, and his sweet purr filled his ears, he began to abandon all else.

He ached for Diosia. His body was sore and bruised without the healing of his touch, the yearning of his soul becoming a yearning of his person, the lemures of a siren’s embrace tracing his form and if not phantoms against the skin, it was other curses. His pining was misplaced; it transfixed itself on what was forbidden, and not only forbidden, but dangerous. Yet there Meryl was, longing for the embrace of a predator, a creature that consumed his kind.

And he hated to admit it, but he knew that this embrace he longed for would likely come with teeth.

And maybe he was okay with that.

At peace with it, one might say. He was so very comfortable with it that he swam at night along the shoreline’s edge, almost begging to be caught, but too scared to throw himself directly into the lion’s den. For days, he figured he’d be taken—after all, what else would Diosia do? All he knew of Diosia was what he had done, and these quiet nights were hardly like him at all from what he had seen. From the mere glimpse he had seen. Perhaps, Meryl then reasoned, he didn’t know enough about Diosia to truly predict how he felt.

It made his closeness all the more of an invited threat to his life; thinking he could tame a monster, a creature, a person beyond his comprehension, or that he could amend everything sick and twisted about a pretty stranger. It was a grave mistake. It was gutting to think of knowing what Diosia had originally planned. It was gutting to think of knowing how much he poured out about himself, and how little he had received in return. He had received superficial gestures, ways Diosia made his prey quaint and compliant, and still felt so deeply attached. But then came the tears, the regret, the confusion and confliction Diosia so clearly felt. Diosia was lost. Meryl felt just the same.

What was he supposed to make of his feelings and situation? He loved Diosia. There were times it felt like he’d never be alive without him, and times where the realization dawned that he might only still breathe because Diosia had not come to him again since that night. Did Diosia love him? If he didn’t, why was he still alive?

…if he did, Meryl knew it was no perfect love. It couldn’t be. There would always be a disbalance between them, their dynamic skewed in Diosia’s favour—A person who had proved himself to not exactly be fully sane. But if there was something there aside from his own dreams, wasn’t it worth pursuing?  What it wasn’t worth was mulling it over in his mind anymore. He was done swimming in frozen waters, trapped in time. So, he darted out of the safety of his home, and into the lion’s den at last.

It wasn’t the sight he expected at all; there should’ve been bones strewn about, carcasses and ugly gore decorating the ground that sat along the shore, just out of reach of the beratement of waves. But it was just as pretty as it always had been. The moon and stars made for a fine lantern, their white teardrops luminescent in nature, trailing and spilling along the smooth stone that Diosia rested upon, where all of his collection glistened and shone in a charmingly out-of-place extravagance. Diosia too, seemed out of place: His eyes were closed, his wings folded, but still arcing over his head as if they were a fine gate to heaven—he looked like an angel.

“Who is it?” Diosia asked, softly.

The voice sent chills up his spine.

“It’s me, Meryl.”

Diosia perked up with a soft, subtle tilt of his head, his eyes fluttering open to reveal pupils wide and curious, taken aback, in their own way. His gaze was always half-lidded as it flicked down in Meryl’s direction, but the regard that such a gaze held him with was lacking its usual malice; that could very well be his own misinterpretation of the siren, though.

“I am surprised to see you here.” Diosia beckoned him closer, a sharp smile on his face. “Come, sit with me, then. I’d imagine you want to talk.”

Meryl pulled himself out of the water, his scales brushing against the stone as he came to Diosia’s side, his tail then curling in with hesitance. He watched the siren carefully, warily, but with a beating admiration in his heart all the same.

“How... how are you, Diosia?”

“I’ve asked myself the same since a few nights ago, you know. It is odd, Meryl, to believe you have obtained everything you wanted, and then realize it is not what you wanted at all.”

“So, you don’t want me dead?”

“I do.” Diosia whipped his head over, looking Meryl in the eyes. “A part of me does. I do know that. My body screams at me to kill you every hour.”—Meryl could not recoil, as much as the thought wracked his body, he was tied to Diosia—“But I find myself dreaming of silence, a time without the constant crackle of instincts and depraved desires, that sound I’ve so often indulged.

I’d rather not hear out what my bloodlust seeks. Not this time.”

Meryl gave a cautious whisper, “So, what you mean is that you won’t kill me, even if you want to?”

“I will... provide my best efforts, yes.”

His head swam with confusion—with disbelief in what Diosia said. What sort of sick game was he playing now, of contradiction and blatant malevolence?

“Provide your best efforts,” Meryl echoed, offendedly. “Why the hell is there a part of you that wants me dead at all?”

“I am a siren, Meryl.” The words were spoken through gritted teeth, his agitation punctuated in his tone.

“And I’m aware of that, but when I look at species that I would eat, I am not filled with an insatiable bloodlust. It doesn’t even make me hungry, unless I was hungry already, Diosia.”

“Well,” Diosia haughtily replied, “You are very lucky to experience such normalcy, little mer. It is almost as if your species was not divined by a malefic god intent upon the ruin of man and the destruction of all that he loathed.”

“You can be better than your god, Diosia.”

“It is not my fault that a god incorporated such bloodlust into my very being. It’s a physical sensation, Meryl. It is not just a feeling, it is unforgivably tangible, like hunger or arousal. It is very compelling.”

He stared agape, shocked both in part by the threat, and by the truth. Especially the truth. It was uncanny to the Diosia he knew, to snap at him with such honesty.

Diosia thrummed on, his voice deepening to match a threatening melody, “I suppose that even if your kind know very well how to drive spears through our most tender parts, they may have not taken much care to research anything else about us.”

Meryl’s nerves were fraught. His mind rushed with images of waters turned crimson, of the limp and lifeless body of Naigale sinking helplessly, hopelessly, to the bottom of their grave, and in time, lesson after lesson, and disappearance after disappearance, reminded him of everything that sirens had ever done to his kind. There once was research, there once was knowledge, cities beneath the waves, libraries and tomes brimming with tales and truths, and all these societies were desecrated beyond retrieval and repair by sirens. It was the way sirens had treated merfolk as food that led them to treat sirens as monsters.

“I have taken plenty of care to learn about you. I’ve tried so damn hard, and every time you’ve avoided me. I try to understand you. It can’t work unless you help me.” Meryl pleaded, cracks striking through his voice. “I’m sorry that a fucking murderer doesn’t make sense to me.”

This time, it was Diosia that relented in surprise; his expression softened, his wings opening and closing as if he were trying to find what to say. A moment of silence passed.

Diosia agreed, gently, “You are right. I cannot fault you. You care about me. It is just... there is no solid bridge between us yet. There is understanding, but it is yet to be full and fleshed. Let me then explain my kind, and you in turn may explain yours.”

Suddenly, as the sun rose, Meryl knew Diosia was a stranger no more. He had learned about him and taught Diosia about himself in return. He understood the world better than he had before, it was clearer to him, kinder and yet grimmer. Diosia was as he said he was, the result of baleful sentiments personified as a creature of revenge, an ever-lasting cry of a fallen god whose name now bore no grace nor meaning, for he was dead. But Diosia had breathed since the moment that god had fallen, and even sometime before it. Diosia was not immortal, but he would live as he was for as long as he wasn’t killed.

Ageless.

Eternal.

This, while it did not justify Diosia’s perspective and actions, helped some things click that hadn’t before. It should have been obvious to him, too—he felt stupid for needing Diosia’s explicit-spelling-out of reality. Diosia did not understand the value of life as he did, for everyone else about him was always fleeting. Even the sirens he knew were likely long gone and murdered. Meryl had been a mere notch in his belt at best, perhaps an especially notable night-out, a pleasant, refreshing experience, but so easily gone, too.

He had been a temporary means of entertainment, and now he had nestled his way into a more permanent position, tucked right between Diosia’s ribs and his heart. It was terrifying, and fortunate, and a little grim to think what could’ve happened had he not won Diosia’s affection.

But here he was, able to curl up into warm, soothing arms once more. And, despite the fear, felt safe as he did.

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