#reading the Exact Wording of the rules and Plotting

[extreme-technicality]

No high quite like demolishing the very competitive opposition when you’re all trying to figure out a new game

[gladiatorcunt]

FIND YOUR LOVE | CORIOLANUS SNOW

summary: modern!coriolanus snow thoughts

cw: crack treated seriously vibes, typical coryo warnings, possessiveness/obsessive behavior, piss kink mention, period blood mention, spit kink mention, slight impact play mention, coryo and reader both have double majors because they’re overachievers, plus sized reader implications, drake mention, reader has bunny teeth & hip dips & glasses, talks of carving letters into skin, spying mention, overstimulation mention, images used in social media elements are not an exact represtation of the reader’s gender or image & are more about the vibes, “wife” usage but he’d feminize you no matter what, implications of sejanus playing the long game, 18+ minors dni

word count: 2.4k

requests are open (read the rules first <3)

block & move on if uncomfortable.

do not repost or translate!!

Unaware rich kid because while a tragedy did happen in the family (his mother dying in childbirth according to his politician father who was later assassinated) nothing happened to really set them back to square one like in canon. He never really has had to claw himself back to the top, he’s just always been on a steady elevator ride to it.

Clumsy in the beginning in the way that he tries to be intimidating. He’s never had to starve so how can he understand its usefulness as a weapon?

Meets scholarship student double major classics and archaeology (minor in philosophy) reader who has only ever struggled.

The type to violently beat someone to near death on a whim and smirk as he’s escorted out of the police station with apologies because his family’s amazing team of lawyers were called.

Definitely part of some Saltburn ass family where you visit and you’re just like “what the fuck?” the things the 1% normalize (there are rumors of his family being cannibals back in the day, they might be a crime family, his high school principal fucked his mom AND his dad) never cease to disturb and confuse you but the gardens are very nice!

Strolls with you through them to seem romantic but also to brag about his family on your second date that he insisted be at his house (he was kind enough to let your first be at his family’s vacation house in the south of France)

Piss kink (creaks the bathroom door open to hold your hand or he leans against the door and stares you down if you take too long), period sex (more the type to eat you out on your period though) spit sharing and smearing, etc. Because of his carefully manufactured image, when he’s in love he just wants to completely let go and be gross and have that he accepted by the person be loves (plus it scratches the possessive itch in his brain by marking you and knowing you’d be too embarrassed to do it with anybody else)

Really only hand spanks you when you’re actively fucking and he’s so caught up in it all, he just grips the flesh of your ass and furiously jiggles it in his hands in between brisk strikes of his open palms and gets caught on your hole accidentally, it gets to the point where you’d want him to hit harder even if you thought you wouldn’t be into it because it’s just so unintentionally teasing.

Unlike the stereotypes, wouldn’t really be into drinking (other than wine because he thinks he’s above the beer drinking peasants) or drugs (other than the occasional line of cocaine 🤭) thinks keeping a clear head while you’re doing evil plotting is important. Typical white college rich boy hypocrisy (keeps you away from it though, even weed because it can kill your brain cells and he likes his bunny smart.)

He WILL carve his full government name onto you like a womb tattoo if you answer his texts 5 seconds after he expects you too. You CANNOT play with him.

Asked you out by leaving a bouquet of roses on your desk every morning with a note like “these are my grandma’am’s roses, and their beauty could only remind me of you 🥺🥹” (he threatened your roommate to deliver them and made sure they did thanks to the hidden camera he also had them put in)

Double major Political Science and Latin, minor in Philosophy but he likes ancient/older philosophy more. #1 “um actually 🤓👆” offender (hell is hot but his body runs ice cold, so he does not care <3) someone says they like philosophy and he goes “name three philosophers other than Nietzsche and Camus. I bet you’re the type to read Kafka too huh? whore.” (/j)

So hot though like modern Coryo has the curls but a touch shaggier. Everyone on campus turns their phones to the side and takes “discreet” pictures and makes those whisper posts like “need me an unhinged crazy jealous psycho possessive bf” but they’re not you so that wish will never come true :)

Say you’re going to McDonald’s, and he will kill you (if you’re from the south and you try to feed him anything traditional you’re used to, his charcuterie board and caviar eating ass will implode)

Another student in class asks you to borrow a pencil & his brain genuinely goes haywire so without looking he sends them the “let’s play a little game I made” TikTok (by the time you look back at him, he’s warmly smiling as he makes sure you see his hand sliding up his thigh)

If you think you’re working after getting your degree (he could’ve made you drop out, be grateful you get to spend more time together this way) then you’ve got a big storm coming (hope you can accept being baby trapped mwah)

He’s your little chihuahua named sparkles that bites people.

Emotional drake listener

The type where if you 99.7% (he will allow some wiggle room) give into his delusion and insanity, it’s nothing but smooth sailing (for you) and sex would still be passionate but never rough. Sometimes he slips a bit, but you just get more family heirloom jewelry and 5 billion sessions of oral as apologies.

On the swim team and runs track (somehow still looks hot no matter what doing those sports, wants you lick all the sweat off his body after he’s done. (he’d do that for you.) has a private yacht and does polo with Sejanus.

You once sat down, opened a package of cabbage leaves and went to town & Coryo knew in that moment that love is not a choice, it’s a curse.

Buys you mountains of clothes (the softest sweaters or the tightest evening wear because he loves how nothing about your body is hidden from him and one of his favorite ways to wind down is to soothe the marks left by the tight clothes digging into the chub of your tummy with his tongue) also loves how much bigger your thighs get when they spread out as you straddle him in one of his buttons up that reaches just under your ass.

Has a garage full of classic cars that he fucks you in and takes you on drives in.

(Insp. by that one video) fucks you on your stomach while cradling your jaw and when he’s done, he’s kissing down your back and all over your ass while hold a hand on the back of your neck. Eats you out upside-down kneeling straight up on the bed, the skin of your thighs spilling between his fingers as he grips them and nearly bends you in half. You don’t really ride him because he uses you like a fleshlight.

Tits guy no matter the size, prefers jerking off over them and covering them in cum over a boob job.

He won’t let you out in it, but you can be his bunny for Halloween since your front teeth remind him of a bunny, he already has the ears and tail waiting for you. That tweet where it’s like “okay everybody my bf’s about to walk in you all have to clap or I’m blowing this whole fucking building up” but that’s him when it comes to you.

Canon era snow is a girl dad, but modern snow is a boy dad, I fear.

Met you when you had just finished checking into your dorm, you were scrambling all over the place and without looking you bumped into the it boy of the school. His hands suddenly curved like shackles around your hips, his fingers subconsciously stroking your hip dips being the only reason you both didn’t careen to the floor from the collision.

“You should be more careful, wouldn’t want you to get a nasty bruise now, would we?” said with an unreadable yet playful tone and a snake’s smile, lips slightly curled up in the corners and a little too many teeth showing to feel truly comforted. His tongue flicks over his canines for a split second.

Smells like Maison Francis Kurkdijan’s baccarat rouge 540 (buzzcut Coryo gives Dior Sauvage vibes)

Matching airpod max sets and lets you put little bows on his.

Impeccable cable management, phone wirelessly charging on the nightstand or kitchen counter until it’s at 100% and doesn’t charge it again until it’s at 1%

Teaches you how to swim if you don’t know how, with a hand curled under your neck and another under your thigh to help you float. But has no problem just lounging with your back on his chest on the deck of his yacht or laying his head on your chest while you read together on the private beach he booked during your trip.

Slowly fingers you while making out with you and massaging your throat with his other hand. His chunky rings make clanging sounds against your pussy, and he smiles into your lips when you whine. He rests his forehead against yours & slowly spits in your mouth when it falls open as he makes you cum over and over until you’re too tired to leave the apartment he bought for the two of you.

Jiggles your tummy rolls when you’re fucking but sometimes, he’ll just casually bite them, loves laying his head on your stomach and when you sleep. He likes to have a firm grip on the chub of your tummy. He also just plays with it, pulls it, and kneads it but occasionally he’ll gently smack it.

NUTS ON YOUR STRETCH MARKS LIKE HE’S ICING A CINNAMON ROLL

Anyway, his grandma’am owns a fleet of flower shops across the country as well as managing the snow family’s gardens, and luckily enough the one closest to campus was hiring when you enrolled!

Pisces sun Capricorn rising Aries mars, stay strong.

Has to look you in the eyes or he can’t cum.

Always keeps glasses cleaner and a microfiber cloth on him so the second he sees you rub your eyes in frustration because you can’t see through them anymore (because in your mind that would somehow fix it) and reach to grab them off your face, he’s snaking his hand out and snatching them up. He doesn’t even give then back to you; he tenderly tucks your hair behind your ears and slowly slides them back on your face. literally booping the center of them with a grin. Also has your custom designed glasses case (with his initials) in one of his bag’s front pockets.

You asked him to buy you the Gojo skin in Fortnite and he grumbled “you already have my information.” But in his mind, he’s like “what does he have that i don’t?” 💀 (he’ll lose his mind when he finds out you like Geto more). Will play with you on a team consisting of the two of you and Sejanus. (so, he can keep an eye on you two)

Has very pretty cum, pearly and so thick you get jump scared when it leaks out because your pussy tries to weakly clench to keep it inside and it just pushes through. Cums less often but when he does its huge continuous loads, humps against whatever part of you he can like a dog and lays his head on your chest.

You could almost argue he likes anal more than anything else. When he eats you out, you run an extremely high risk of him “getting lost” and starting to eat out your other hole. When his dick slips out, he makes you watch while he slaps it against your clit and drags it through your slick to teasingly act like he’s going to push it into your ass.

Kisses his camera when you fall asleep on facetime if you’re apart from each other. wipes his lips afterwards though for sanitary reasons.

For sure the type to go overboard when someone says they want honest advice. Then when they’re on the verge of tears and he’s made everything worse, he goes “that’s just me though, who am I to judge yk? take it with a grain of salt.”

Museum dates but he’s pointing at depictions of goddesses and saying, “that’s you.”

Will drop kick those annoying Sephora kids if you need a certain product that they’re going after.

Y’all are battling for who has more products, your bathroom so is huge but every time you move something’s always falling off the double vanity sink.

If you need an inhaler or an EpiPen or anything like that, he’ll always have one on him. when you need it, his reaction is so fast you almost can’t see it and he tries to hide how his hands shake slightly even if the attack you're dealing with is more minor.

You could tell him you hate coconut and when you go on your fancy little dates to 5 stars restaurants, if your plate has even the tiniest hint of coconut, he’s sending that back with the harshest glare on his face imaginable (“They asked for no pickles!” *Gunshots* vibes)

Gets jealous of fictional characters, you show the slightest interest in a man who’s literally not real and his eye nearly falls out from how much it twitches.

The possessive bf coded TikTok trends you’d make him do would go crazy though like the nails on his dick through his pants one, any princess treatment one, any one where you’re dancing and he has to cover you, “hey daddy” & other text ones.

Alarms every five minutes, not only for him but he wants to be awake at the same time as you for a bit before you have to go your separate ways during the day. (kisses your temple when you slump against him while you try to wake up)

“What’s up, Petal?”

“What’s up, Coryo?”

While he acts like he’s been doing you a favor all this time, he would get you that engagement ring that has a spike going through the finger bone in it, and he would get a matching one <3.

Double penetration with a dildo that’s a replica of his cock 😻😽

Closet bi (childhood crush on Sejanus, who btw has been eyeing you too much for his liking lately.)

Scars on his back from An Incident. shaved his head and dropped out of school for a bit but it wasn’t hard for his family to get him back in

Gives you the worst side eye when you ask him to play Roblox total drama island with you but when Sejanus offers, he’s galloping to his pc (he absolutely kills it, like he’s undefeated and he’s not afraid to bully whatever kids are in the game)

Vibes:

a/n: this is lowkey so cringe but i am free. i hate him (i'd tell him i love him on the first date.) will definitely do more with this verse but have this brainrot for now. hope you enjoyed anyway! btw i'll actually be opening comissions next month. so i'd really appreciate it if y'all would keep that in mind! talk to me about modern coryo or any version of coryo lol.

[ckret2]

I had just finished the first chapter of the Axolotl arc in WAIGLZ and reading the second.

Is he technically being a ghost ever going to come up past this arc to the other chapters in WAIGLZ later on?

Like,

"It was not like y o u were the one who viciously murdered me! I am mean technically your gruncles did not even kill a "living" being in the first place, according to s o m e people,

Bill shook his head, fanning away trillion year old resentment

-"you really think it was my first roadio? P l e a s e . So, try not beat yourself up about it kid, ok?"

Mabel looked up and stared at Bill.

"Wha- Huh??" Mabel said dumbfounded.

It would be crazy coolio to see it mentioned in the main fic.

Until I read your fic I never even thought about Bill being a spirit once, and now I feel rather silly wondering how he lived so long outside of his dimension :,)

Please have a truly wonderful day + happy holidays! ^ ^

Toodaloo!

I'm sure eventually it'll be mentioned again (I mean, for one thing, eventually we're gonna see the massacre) but probably not like that.

Like, Bill technically-being-a-ghost isn't some big secret or a major plot twist, and it doesn't fundamentally rewrite the rules around him and what he does. It's just what we see him do throughout canon.

He's a non-physical entity ("a being of pure energy!") that's apparently self-sustaining without needing sleep or food and impervious to injury and illness ("with no weakness!")

He's usually invisible to normal (living) people. He can possess people. He can move inanimate objects even though he can't physically interact with them. He can haunt dreams.

When he has the opportunity to make himself a body, he doesn't turn into something physical; his physical form is separate from him, and he can freely separate from it any time he wants.

This is mind-body dualism. Generally, mind-body dualism is a framework people use to express the idea that the spirit/soul is a separate entity from the body. The thing that's killed in Stan's mind is the spirit; the statue left behind is the body.

Meaning, before he had that body, he was spirit.

When he separates Dipper's spirit from his body in the exact same way Bill separates from his own body, he says, "Without a vessel to possess, you're basically a ghost!"

Bill usually doesn't have a vessel to possess.

Ergo: Bill's basically a ghost and he said so himself.

I haven't listed anything we didn't learn from Sock Opera and Weirdmageddon.

The ONLY question is "well BEFORE he was an energy being, did he have a physical body?" Whether he was born an energy being or became one later is in the realm of headcanon; and I suppose it's a matter of opinion if an energy being counts as a ghost if it's 100% identical to ghosts in every way except that it didn't previously have a physical body. You could argue that his eagerness to get a physical body the second he could implies he used to have one or was meant to have one, but that's speculation.

In every other way, he meets the criteria for a ghost the same way that tomatoes meet the criteria for berries. But when someone tells you "tomatoes are berries," it doesn't teach you anything new about tomatoes. You already knew tomatoes have berry-like traits, you just assumed they were disqualified because they're too big or too unsweet or too vegetably, and now you know they aren't disqualified.

So like—putting that word on him doesn't change anything about Bill. You've learned nothing new. The characters around him would learn nothing new. It's not a plot twist or massive character revelation; it's just a background fact that gets mentioned when it's relevant.

[carminecherry]

RULES? THIS IS A STREET FIGHT | hanma shuji

KINKTOBER 2024

this is PART ONE of the series NO TAPPING OUT

⇝ PAIRING: timeskip!hanma x fem!MMA fighter!reader

⇝ SERIES SYNOPSIS: after winding up in a street fight, you catch the eye of a sick bastard whose mental wires are so horrifically crossed that pain and pleasure have become one. he lives for the fight and once he has his eye on something or someone there is no getting away unscathed. he wants to sink his teeth into you and see how good of a fighter you really are. you will never go down without a fight. and you will never tap out. (Basically, Hanma is a fucked up, horny weirdo who has an unhealthy obsession with you)

⇝ PART ONE LENGTH: 3k words

⇝ PART ONE WARNINGS: graphic descriptions of violence, animal death (18+ minors do not interact):

all characters are 20+; Alternate Universe! Canon Divergent. you're nearly recovered from a life-threatening injury and got the go ahead from your physical therapist to do some light exercises. however, your walk to the gym is cut short when you find yourself caught in a street fight.

⇝ AUTHOR'S NOTE: Welcome to Kinktober 2024! After not thinking hard about it, I figured Hanna is the perfect scary, fucked up guy to write about. For plot reasons, Y/N is a seasoned MMA fighter. Hanma is a fucked up, horny weirdo who develops an unhealthy obsession with you.

keep an eye on the tags and stay safe this kinktober! <3

Spotify Playlist to listen to while reading:

DO NOT INTERACT WITH THIS WORK IF YOU ARE A MINOR. BY CLICKING THE READMORE, YOU CONSENT TO VIEWING ADULT CONTENT.

Your footsteps on the pavement echo as you cut through a dark alley between the city buildings. The air nips at the skin of your face, forcing you to nuzzle into your jacket. Winter has set in, draining the city of life and color, the brittle corpse of a vibrant fall. The sun sets quickly these days, light retreating earlier and earlier. 

The air feels more hollow now, carrying sound further. The scuff of your shoes and the rustle of your jacket as you adjust your arms to cross; the tips of your ears growing rosy with cold. 

The worst thing is how it cuts right to your bone. Like ghostly fingertips trailing up and down your skeleton. Prodding in their icy nails, finding points of weakness and wrapping their fingers there. Gripping ferociously tighter and tighter.  Locking your joints, making your movements stiff. 

You shake off the spectral grip, but the tightness in your body clings to the ghost of past injuries. You’ve racked up quite a few over the years, on and off the ring. But you’re no stranger to discomfort. 

You roll your shoulder as it starts to cramp, laughing curtly to yourself. You can feel the hourglass of time trickling away, especially on days like today. It was catching up to you, your scrappy younger years of street fighting. Your short-lived wrestling career. 

You were still on hiatus, living on the money you saved from your brief stint in the spotlight. Your body kept score. You rub absently at your locked elbow. 

Physically, you’re more or less healed. The physical therapy has been hell but you’re through the worst of it. You had only a few more weeks until you could start training properly again. All of those hours of practice, all of the years of building up your body to be taken away in an instant by a stupid  accident. 

You stretch your arm in front of you, staring at the hinge of your elbow. You test the range of motion, flexing as far as you can, remembering how when you opened your eyes it had been bent the wrong way. This time, it’s the memory that makes you shiver. 

It had come back to you in flashes, large chunks still missing. You laid there, phasing slowly in and out of consciousness. The last thing you remember is riding on the back of your motorcycle, cruising down the city streets, the world blurring between oranges and reds as the seasons changed. 

You can’t remember the exact moment, but the police report stated you had been sideswiped by a drunk driver. You lost count of how many times you read those crinkled pieces of paper. A thin file to encapsulate the biggest moment of your life.

Your precious bike had been totaled. Seeing all of the pictures, you don’t know how you survived. The drunk driver hadn’t been so lucky. You don’t forgive him and you don’t mourn him, the feelings sit complicated and unprocessed in your chest even now. 

You remember the sounds first. The drone of his car horn through the crunched metal of his vehicle. The screaming, your screaming, ripped from your throat. It sounded foreign. The sirens in the distance, growing louder. The rush of traffic as vehicles swerved around you. 

You couldn’t move the first time you awoke, body shocked. Whether it was a gentle breeze rocking the tree branches above you or if your vision was wavering you’ll never know But the leaves swaying side to side had been hypnotic, a moment of calm in your calamity. Your eyes followed as one deep-ruby leaf detached and floated to the earth. 

Turning your head to see where it landed, you saw your mangled arm. It looked fake, bent in all the wrong ways. You couldn’t feel it, move it. This couldn’t be real, that’s all you could think. The safety gear on your body was torn to shreds. 

There was red. So much red. Another crimson leaf fluttered to the ground. The peace was in such contrast to everything else. Your blood pooled, the edge trickling its way over the leaves adding a sick, glossy red to the autumn colors.

There were more memories. The ambulance arriving, the swarm of bodies blurring your vision. Asking you questions, the words sounded strange; just noise. The electric shock of pain when they put you on the gurney. The blackness that ate at the edge of your vision. 

They said it was a miracle that you survived, bones set well, you could walk, could use your arms… Everything was a miracle. The word lost meaning over the months as you recovered. Now, here you are. A miraculous, spiteful force of nature, freezing her ass off walking to the gym. You’d finally gotten the go-ahead from your doctors to do some light exercises. You were happy to be able to do something, anything. Body growing restless after months of unuse.

This walk had never felt this long though. Your legs are heavy and tight, slowing you down. You round another corner, the sun dropping below the buildings, shadows creeping farther and farther. A new sound slices through the hollow night air. You pause, looking around. It was far away, but it’s piercing. Like the feeling of falling through ice and being plunged into the freezing waters beneath.

It was an inhuman cry, hissing and wailing out. You hear the hushed laughter of boys beneath the sound. The tightness in your joints are forgotten as they’re drenched in the adrenaline that rushes through your veins. 

You surge with power as you hurriedly approach the sound, quickly finding the small posse at the alley’s dead end. You don’t stop, you don’t hesitate, you don't assess the situation before you’re running,  swinging, knocking one of the three boys to the ground; his hair is a crispy box-dyed bleach mess. He let out a startled cry, his voice cracking; he couldn’t be older than 16, the youngest looking of the group.

The two other boys turn, startled. The shorter with tightly permed black hair and the other with a buzz cut close to the scalp. Little gangster wannabes. They back away from the crumpled, trembling lump of fur at their feet. The cat lets out a weak cry. You feel strange, like you're out of your body. There is a feeling. Is it anger that flares? Your body moves on its own. 

You kick the boy on the ground, a yelp followed by a wet heave wracks his body. The other two break from their stupor, springing to action. You still feel heavy, tight. Like trying to run in a dream. But the motion is familiar, the strength is still your own as you connect a solid right hook with the shortest boy. A sick pop clicks in his jaw as he goes stumbling back. The final boy looks terrified, but lunges at you nonetheless. 

You sidestep his attack easily, tripping him as he approaches. You pause there, with all three on the ground. Logical brain finally clicks on as you snap back into your body. Your eyes sweep the narrow space. 

The dirty ground littered with trash, the blackened brick of the walls that feel like they’re closing in on you, the quivering mass of fur, matted in blood, crawling its way to the safety of the corner. You stand as the barrier between the three young men and their feline victim as they get back on their feet. Shit. 

3-on-1 would’ve been a challenge in any condition, but after months of strict bedrest you’re utterly unprepared. You had the advantage of surprise, but now… With your back to the wall, you had very few options.

You take a deep breath, cracking your neck in anticipation. “Come on, bring it you little fucks. Fight with someone who can fight back” They hesitate. “COME ON!“ You agitate. They share a look, the shortest boy seems worse for wear as his jaw hangs limp in his hands that cup it. Dislocated. That has to suck. The buzz cut boy leans to whisper to the permed boy who nods gingerly before taking off. “COWARD!” You shout after him. 

This leaves you with two. You’re liking these odds more. They were slightly taller than you, but still children. Gangly and uncoordinated. Any natural athleticism they have is unfocused, untrained next to you; hardened over years of practice. “Come on man, let’s just go” says the box-blonde on the left. The other boy, with his buzz cut barks back, “Nah, let’s teach this bitch a lesson” with fake bravado. The blonde looks nervous but nods, squaring his shoulders.

You stretch, bouncing on your feet, prepared for them to make a move. The buzz cut boy charges with a battle cry. You bite back a laugh at the childish attack as your foot connects with the side of his head in a signature roundhouse kick. It’s like punting a bowling ball. You hop it off, rolling your ankle through the tingling sensation of impact.

He tumbles to the ground with a grunt. Blood mixing with saliva that drips from his mouth. The box-blonde is shaking. Arms up in fists but makes no move. “Come on! Get her! Don’t be a pussy!” The buzz cut shouts to him from the ground, lobbing a big ball of spit and blood to the icy concrete with a splat. 

“You’re pathetic.” You goad. Your wrestler persona peeking through after all of these months on the sidelines. “Sniveling children. Get out of my sight.” You seeth, eyes, boring into the lanky blonde. You hold him there, under your gaze. His decision is clear. He links arms with his fallen colleague and pulls him down the alley as they make their escape. 

You exhale, letting your body relax. The only sounds now are your breaths and the shuffling of your shoes as you back into the space further, eyes still on the empty space where the boys had run away, the darkness setting in as the veil of night raced across the sky. 

Your back meets the dirty brick of the alley wall as you slide down, the stupidity of what you’d just done really sinking in. If things had gone south… You risked more than your safety, you risked thousands of dollars of P.T., all of those months of recovery, even the future of your career. 

The jagged breathing from the lump in the corner pulls you back. That's why you did it; risked it. You extend a brittle finger to the creature. It tries to curl away from you but it’s… Fading. Your chest clenches. You reach further, giving a gentle scratch to the cat as it tries to bite. It can’t move enough. 

You continue, giving soft strokes over the cat’s forehead, avoiding the open wounds. One eye is… Gone. The other blinks at you, teary. The sound is unreal. Like a weak gurgle, mewl of agony. Your throat constricts, swallowing hard. Tears blur the edge of your vision.

The cat, with what little strength it has left, doesn't fight you. Instead nudging up into your finger, still shaking. You scoot closer, slowly, letting its body rest against yours. You feel its coldness pressing into your leg, siphoning your heat. It vibrates there. Twitching occasionally. It’s whimpers soften. A small noise replacing it. A staccato purr. 

The breaths come slower, body stilling. You look down, each beat of your heart clenches in your chest painfully. You feel warmth on your cheeks, wetness, tears finally falling. You share one final look with the cat before its eye closes, slowing in its spot next to you. 

You lean your head back into the bricks, feeling like you're sinking. A fiery gnawing at your chest like your drowning. And then you’re alone in the alley. The light glittering of snow crystals float from the inky sky, not enough to make proper snowflakes. They twinkle, catching in the low light. 

The cold wraps her arms around you, sinking into your bones once more. Locking you there as the little heat left beneath your fingers seeped from the soft fur, unreplaced. You breathe, a cloud forming before you as the temperature plummets. 

You could've sat there forever, but you’re stirred by the sound of footsteps approaching. Three… Maybe four people. You harden your face, pulling yourself up from the pavement, bracing for whatever or whoever turns the corner.

You feel yourself detaching from the moment as it sears into your mind. The long shadows of four men are cast along the frigid brick. Three familiar silhouettes, one taller, larger, meaner looking man between them. His head was shaved close to the scalp like the smaller boy next to him; the family resemblance is unmistakable. An older brother, perhaps, your age or slightly older. 

He turned a scathing look to his miniature, “You’re wasting my time with one, little bitch?” “She’s strong, bro. She’s gotta be running with someone.” The older brother brings a fist down on the younger’s buzzed head, “You fucking pussy, wasting my time. This better be worth my while…” The little brother massages his head, “She’ll make it worth your while…” The elder turns his eyes to you, looking you up and down. The look in his eyes makes you feel sick, alarm bells going off. 

You’re in deep shit. No escape. Feeling the effects of your healed injuries. You can’t stand this. Feeling weak. It made the sick feeling intensify. You put your fists up. Once again, bouncing lightly on your feet as though second nature. The large man’s face changes, intrigued. “N-nothing to say now, huh bitch.” The box-blonde sputters out.

A look of annoyance flashes across the big man’s face. “Can you actually fight? Show me what you’ve got, kitten.” His arrogance, his tone. It makes your skin crawl. You were gonna make him hurt. 

Muscle memory takes over, testing the new, healed tissue. You’re a bolt, closing the distance between the two of you in a blink. Feigning a hook and landing an admittedly low blow. Burying your foot deep between his legs. Your shoe presses into the denim of his jeans and the soft, sensitive flesh beneath, finally ending against the hard bone of his pelvis. The noise he lets out in guttural, sick.  

But this is a street fight. He holds his crotch, huffing, a dry heave. The three smaller men back away. Veins pop along his brow and shaved head. Face red with anger. “I’m gonna fucking kill y-.” Your knee connects with his lowered face, your elbow ready to rebound the soft spot where his skull meets his spine. A dirty move you haven’t used since you were a teen. He stumbles, dropping to a knee.

You don’t stop, kicking once hard into his chest. You feel the crack of a rib. His meaty arms shoot up as the wind is knocked out of him, trapping your leg. “Fuck!” You twist, but his grip tightens. You punch hard, but can’t get enough force with your leg like this. 

His eyes are murderous as he crashes his body to the ground, pulling you with him. He still hadn’t regained his breath, and  this new position allowed you to snake your free leg behind his head, squeezing hard. Wriggling to get purchase on his arm, securing him in a headlock. The tide is shifting back in your favor before a dirty sneaker crashes into your face. 

You see stars, grip loosening. Another kick to your shoulder, then your head. The other three boys were stomping you. You squint your eyes, tuck your chin, hanging on until the big man loses consciousness. If you can just hold on. You see red smattering the soles of the boy’s shoes. 

This is what they’d done before. Trampling the poor creature that lay lifeless in the corner of the alley. Stomping on those who were vulnerable. You hate them. You hate them. Acidic, venomous, the electric feeling of adrenaline in your veins, pushing you.

The body in your grasp finally goes limp and you bounce up, feeling the world spin, skull knocking into the chin of one of the boys. There's something hot, sticky in your eyelashes, making it hard to see. You wipe, seeing red. You can’t help it, this is so fucked. You laugh. The sound ricocheting harshly off the walls. 

“You could’ve just left.” You laugh, head spinning. They shift on their feet, uneasy, fists raised. Eyes darting between the man on the ground and you. You hang your head, another humorless laugh escapes you.  

You cast your eyes to the man on the ground too, freezing when you see the tattoo peeking up above the collar of his shirt on the back of his neck. A gang tattoo that you’ve seen here and there around the ring. Bad news. These guys gamble on matches, big money, and deal in the darker, shadier parts of the underbelly of the city. 

Very bad news, when he groans from his place on the ground. It’s now or never. You rush the boy with a dark perm, his jaw still slack and hanging unnaturally from his face. He flinches, jumping out of your way. You see an opening and you take it. 

Sprinting down the alley. The heavy slapping of your shoes on the concrete and your heartbeat in your ears. You hear the hesitant steps of someone trying to follow you and a shout after you, but yours are the only steps that twist around the maze of alleyways. You could run them with your eyes closed. The alleys where you grew up. 

You zip around, losing your pursuers. You feel the rush, the high as muscles reawaken, cold air filling your lungs. You didn’t know if you’d ever be able to move like this again after the accident. It’s melancholic; feeling so good to move but so shameful to run away. Your heart could burst with all of the emotion from tonight. You had no plan, no destination, Just to put as much distance as possible between you and the foursome you escaped. Coward your heart whispered. Weak… You would get back, get strong again. You would win. You never want to run away like this again. To lose.

[superblysubpar]

modern!steve harrington x fem!reader

We'll Call It Love Masterlist | song inspiration

4.8k words | 18+ NSFW

Warnings: *This is a prequel to my series "We'll Call It Love" linked above | reader drinks wine and loves olives on her pizza | swearing | SMUT (PIV intercourse -wrapped before tapped /oral - both receiving and performing/dirty talk/ass slapping)

A/N: While this is a prequel to the series, I think it's actually kind of fun to read this after the first two parts and before the third, little easter eggs and what not. I hope you enjoy this and thanks for your patience in waiting for this story! 💛

“You’re laate,” you sing into your phone, smiling at Argyle across the bar as he motions to your almost empty glass of wine. Spinning on your barstool as you nod and Robin huffs into the phone. 

“I’m so sorry, but Joe was on a terror today and like yes sir god forbid you have raisins in your trail mix and no I did not watch the barista take the temp of your half caf soy bullshit latte because believe it or not I do actually do real work for this company other than wait on your hand and foot and-”

“Robin!” Laughing into the phone and shaking your head. Your own chest hurts from her lack of ending a sentence. “Take a deep breath. I’m just joking, I already ordered the pizza and…” trailing off as she becomes far too quiet on the other end, “You’re not coming at all, are you?”

Your new friend groans, “I’m so, so, so, sorry. I promise I’m not normally this flakey, but like I cannot afford to lose this job and I have that date tomorrow so if I leave now I may as well go and buy a plot at the cemetery because-”

“Oh my god,” laughing at her dramatic flare, you smile at Argyle as he sets your refilled glass back in front of you. “Stop, you’re fine. I’m more than content to just hang here at the bar. There’s a game tonight, besides, Argyle can keep me company.”

Batting your eyelashes at him, he winks and Robin laughs on the other side of the phone but it quickly turns to another groan. “Please get extra olives on the pizza for me? Dingus hates them and he’s a baby who always gets his way and oh shit,” she whispers into the phone, “Gotta go. Joe is back and asking where his steak is and I forgot to order it. And by forgot I mean he told me he didn’t want steak an hour ago. Please pray for my quick and painless demise. I love you.”

Robin hangs up before you can reply and you slip your phone back into your purse. Leaning onto the counter, you sigh as your chin rests in your palm. “Looks like it’s just you and me tonight, Argyle.”

He tosses a rag over his shoulder and leans against the wall behind him. “Hot date cancel on you?”

Shrugging, he was no stranger to the guys you’d picked up at that very bar in just the few short weeks you’d been coming there. You take a sip of your wine before admitting, “Nah, just Robin. Although, she is very hot.”

He squints, rubbing at his jaw before snapping, “Super talkative lady right? She’s nice, I like her.”

You laugh into your glass as you nod. “That’s the one.” Looking around the fairly quiet bar, you turn back to him with a fake pout on your lips, fluttering your eyelashes dramatically. “Could I persuade you to put the baseball game on?”

He groans, wiping down a glass, “You know Eden’s rule…”

Leaning forward on your elbows, exaggerating your pout as he trails off. He squints before throwing his head back, blowing out a long exhale, “Man, you’re going down with me if she gets mad.”

Snickering into your wine glass because the other owner is quite…particular about the restaurant. Argyle is the exact laid back balance she needs to run the business or she’d never get anyone in the place - there’s a reason it’s named after him. If it were up to Eden, every guest would need to answer a questionnaire about what music taste they have, toppings on pizza, and if they played sports in high school. Any sort of sports paraphernalia on your person would get you on the sidewalk immediately if she had her way. 

Which is why you’ve learned from Argyle that Eden runs the behind the scenes business side of things, and Argyle gets creative freedom on pizzas and drinks, tending to the customers, and earning the tips he rightfully deserves. He was not let loose on decor however. The pizza bar is decked out in nostalgia from the decades, various band’s vinyls covering the walls, black and white photographs of Eden and Argyle in front of their VW Van across the country. Candlesticks with dripping wax and soft lamps lighting the tables, gold and black accented decor, and a strict aesthetic to be met when it came to the music played and what was shown on TV. 

Making a crossing motion over your chest, “I promise your secret is safe with me, nobody in here will be paying attention, anyways.”

He hums, unconvinced, but pops it on. Rolling his eyes at your grin while making a show of muting the TV and putting subtitles on. 

The bar, aside from your seat, is empty, other patrons snuggled into booths behind you. Argyle brings you out your pizza and keeps your cab at a decent level throughout the first several innings, chatting with you as he gets orders done for others. Despite being bummed to not see Robin, you’re a tad excited to have a quiet night to yourself. You enjoy being able to sit at the bar, drink too much wine, eat the kind of pizza you like and-

“Shit.”

A whisper just over your shoulder has you turning, wine glass half suspended to your lips. 

Your eyes greedily take in the man in front of you. From his worn brown leather boots, up dark black jeans that fit him perfectly, to a striped shirt revealing thick chest hair just above the top button. Swallowing harshly when you spot the gold chain nestled there as your gaze climbs higher over the tanned skin of his neck, dotted with freckles and moles. Several pairings of two that lead you to a jaw lined with slight scruff. Your thighs squeeze together on the bar stool when your eyes finally meet his, a hypnotizing and enticing swirl of honey and moss. 

He runs a hand through his disheveled chestnut locks, causal and airy with his tone after he blows his breath out with a nod to your pizza, “I was about to come over here and throw out an incredibly smooth pick up line that I worked on for the last ten minutes,” his thumb hooking over his shoulder to where he must have been before he continues, “But I see you have olives on your pizza. So. Enjoy your horrible dinner choice.”

Your mouth drops open as he slides down two open chairs from you. He smirks into his bottle of beer as he leans back on the stool, eyes on the screen playing the game. 

Hating that you can’t come up with any sort of comeback, you snap your jaw closed and roll your shoulders back, facing the mounted TV screen as well. 

Watching out of the corner of your eye as he leans forward on the bar, eyes dancing across the screen and his fingers twitching on the bottle. His thumbs wear down the paper label as the home team lets two more runs happen. 

Argyle returns with the cardboard pizza box you asked for and he glances at the screen and you lunge forward, finger pointing in his face, “Aha! So you do like baseball!”

He rolls his eyes, shrugging his shoulders, “Yeah, sure, when the Cubs are winning.”

You scoff into your wine glass, “Mm, so never.”

The olive hating man next to you groans, his forehead landing on his arms as his voice is muffled against the bar, “You hate the Cubs too? What is wrong with you?”

Your wine glass hits the bar top a little too harshly and Argyle winces, moving it safely from the edge as you turn to the adorable yet infuriating man next to you, “What is wrong with you?! I was having a perfectly normal night and then you came over here and complained about my dinner and my team preference and-”

“I’m sorry, I saw a pretty girl, alone at a bar, watching baseball and I thought I’d shoot my shot. Excuse me for finding the one girl who not only likes my least favorite food but also hates my team?!”

Rolling your eyes, you narrow them at the TV muttering to Argyle, “Why are the cutest ones always obnoxious?”

Olive man grins, catching his glance out of the corner of your eyes. His tone changes, amusement in it as his perfect teeth gleam in the low light. “You think I’m cute?”

Groaning, you rub at your temple and he keeps going, “Cause, you know, I think you’re still pretty, for what it’s worth. Even if you’re an olive loving Cubs hater.”

He sighs when you turn to face the TV again fully, arms crossing over your chest. Hearing his chair scuff against the dark hardwood beneath it, you’re a little disappointed he gave up so easily. But then, you watch Argyle smile down at the ground as a tapping happens on your shoulder. Rolling your eyes, you practically growl as you turn around to see olive man standing there. “What?”

He extends his hand, leaning on the bar next to you, “Hi, I’m Steve. While I think your choice in pizza toppings is horrendous, I’m willing to look past this fact and your denial of rooting for an excellent baseball team because you’re super cute and I’d love to buy you a drink, maybe walk you home, could even kiss you goodnight.” He smirks as you look down at his hand, and he raises his eyebrows, waiting.

You laugh, because you can’t help it, there’s just something about him. Call it a cosmic connection, who knows. He’s cute, smooth, and able to make you laugh which is saying a lot considering what you’ve been dealt lately. Slipping your hand into his, you try not to focus on how it engulfs yours or how long his fingers are as you introduce yourself. 

“Very nice to meet you. And, great choice, by the way,” hand still holding yours, he leans forward, his mouth hovering just over your lips. Mint and beer hitting you and making you dizzy as he whispers, “The cutest ones are always the best kissers too.”

That’s how you ended up kissing him in your lobby, up the entire flight of stairs, taking a break to push you against the wall, back arching over the railing as his palms pressed flat to the brick on the side of your head. Breaking apart only when the door at the bottom creaks loudly and rudely interrupts you. Steve’s lips stay on you as you bump and fumble your way to your door, hot and quick gasps for breath against your lips as his fingers dig into your hips. Moaning into your mouth as you yank on the back of his hair a little harshly. 

“Keys,” breathing into him, nipping at his top lip as he pushed you into your door. 

Steve nods and you laugh, pushing on his chest so you can focus. Only spurring him on, his lips find purchase on your neck instead. He smirks into your skin at the little yelp you make at the feeling of his teeth grazing under your ear. Thighs growing sticky from his raspy tone as his nose skims over the shell of your ear, following the curve. “Keys?”

Your back arches, neck extending as his fingers fiddle with the hem of your dress. Eyelashes fluttering and mouth parting as his nose and lips drag down your neck. Your fingers dig into his shoulders, as you laugh breathlessly, “Yeah, you know. Those things that…fuck,” Steve’s mouth is back on your ear, nibbling on your earlobe as his knee slots itself between your legs and you sigh. Fingers dragging down his collar and into his chest hair as you continue, “Unlock doors?”

He hums into your jaw, smiling at the way your hips roll, searching for friction on his thigh and he pulls away, hands on either side of your head again. His eyes sparkle in the low light of your hallway, his lips twitching up on one side before he speaks, “So unlock the door. What’re you waiting on?”

You laugh, rolling your eyes as your fingers pull the keys out of your purse slowly. Batting your eyelashes as you try to gain the upperhand again, “What’s the matter, Steve? Growing a little impatient?”

Steve’s eyes narrow playfully, he brushes a finger across your cheek, tracing it down your jaw. Soft and sweet in contrast to the way you were just making out. He leans in, lips hovering over yours as your eyes slowly fall closed, waiting for another kiss. 

That’s when his hands are on your hips again, rocking you over his thigh and you know you’re leaving a damp spot, whining into the air between your lips at his teasing. You aren’t winning this one, and you don’t really care. 

“God, fuck, I-” your brain is actually short circuiting from the way his nose brushes up yours, at the scruff of his jaw on your skin, his eyes darting down to watch the way you use his thigh shamelessly. 

Steve suddenly removes his leg, eyes growing dark at the pout your lips form, at the needy sigh that comes from your chest and huffs out of your nose. He smiles, voice a whisper and a warm breath across your cheek. Throwing your teasing right back at you, “What’s the matter? Growing impatient?”

Rolling your eyes, you spin, quickly unlocking the door and pushing inside. Steve can’t help himself it seems, hands on you immediately again. Keys and purse thrown somewhere to be dealt with later, he pushes you up against the door, his chest to your back as his nose brushes behind your ear. 

Your fingers search for purchase on the wood, back arching into him as he leaves a trail of kisses on your neck to your shoulder, his hand slowly pulling the zipper of your dress down. 

“Be-bedroom?” you gasp out as he spins you to face him, his eyes roaming over your body. His fingers gliding over the band of your underwear and snapping it, making your thighs push together. 

Steve only nods, lips dragging down your chest and stomach as he drops to his knees, “We’ll get there. Just need to taste you right now.”

“Oh, I…oh,” Your head hits back against the door behind you as his nose drags over your clothed slit. 

His fingers pull your underwear down and yours fall into his hair as his tongue licks a long stripe through you. Steve gently pushes your legs apart further, hooking them over his shoulders as his tongue swirls around your clit. Hands holding your ass, he pulls you closer to his mouth forcefully. Moaning into you as his nose glides through you, parting your lips before his mouth returns to them. Your fingers tug in his hair as you glance down at the way he’s devouring you like a man starved. Pleasantly surprised since most guys don’t even offer to go down on you during a hookup, and they definitely don’t find your clit the way Steve found it. 

His tongue prods at your entrance, teasing it before licking back up to your swollen nerves, sucking the sensitive bead between his lips. Your thighs are already shaking around his head, whines falling from you between curses and his name. 

Steve’s fingers slip through you while his tongue works at your clit under the vacuum of his lips. He pushes one finger into your entrance, squeezing at your hip when you whine. Quick to slip a second digit into you, they swirl easily, curling forward in a motion that makes you moan loudly, hand slapping over your mouth. 

He breaks away, only for a second and shakes his head no. Kissing your thigh quickly and tapping his fingers on your waist, “Come on, don’t be shy now. Wanna hear you.”

Mouth back on your clit, fingers pumping into you at a pace that matches the swirl and flick of his tongue, your hand falls back to his hair, pulling yourself closer to his face desperately. Steve nods into you, pace picking up until you’re whining loudly again. Heat radiates through your body until your thighs are squeezing on the side of his head, releasing over his tongue and fingers as your mouth falls open in a gasp, eyes pinching shut. 

Steve takes everything you’re giving him, slowly pulling his mouth and fingers away from you as yours relax in his hair. The sight between your thighs makes your arousal flutter again already. Stomach filling with warmth at the sight of his pink and glossy lips, rosy cheeks and rumpled hair. 

He smirks at you, shaking his head before sighing dramatically. “God, how can someone who tastes so sweet,” he pulls you closer to him again, kissing your thighs before continuing, “Like olives on her pizza?”

Your laugh bursts out of you, head hitting the door again, “Oh my god, shut up.”

Steve’s fingers flex on your hips, lips dragging across the plush skin of your thigh. Eyes glinting with a dare. “Make me.”

Moving to let your legs fall and do just that, he quickly grips you harder, standing. You yelp, grabbing onto his hair, your head almost hitting the ceiling. He lets your body drag down his, torturously slow like a scene straight out of Dirty Dancing, until his hands are under your butt, legs wrapping around him and your faces are close together. He’s grinning widely, tongue licking over the top row of white gleaming at you, breathless as he asks, “Bedroom?” 

You point wordlessly, swallowing at the way his muscles flex around you and the warmth of his fingertips on your spine. Your lips attack his again as he lays you on the bed. Your arms fall around his neck, pulling him to fall across you. The muscles in his forearms dance on either side of your head as he grinds against you. The denim of his jeans a welcomed friction on your sensitive cunt and you gasp into his mouth. 

It’s a flurry of wet lips over hot skin, clothes thrown to places neither of you care to pay attention to. Bodies sliding together, his swollen tip catching on your clit and you bite down on his lip at the feeling, fingers pressing crescent moons into the tight muscles of his shoulder blades. You roll, landing on top of him and working your way down his body. Lips kissing at every freckle and mole you find along his chest and abs. Nose dragging across his hips, you smile when he shivers underneath you. 

Your tongue licks up his length, tracing the curve of the vein, swirling around the tip. Pulling the mushroom head between your lips, Steve’s hips jerk as your tongue flicks at the pre-cum spilling out of him already. His fingers twist in your comforter, a strangled noise from his throat as your head sinks lower, cheeks hollowing as you take him deeper. You glance up under your fluttering lashes to find him looking down at you, wrecked, eyes wild as his tip hits the back of your throat, spit spilling from your lips around him.

“Fuck, fuck. Condom? Do you have a condom?” He gasps, pulling his hips down, his cock falling from your mouth as you nod to your dresser. 

Steve’s quick to slip it on as you straddle him, fingers dragging through his chest hair. He sits up, arms circling your waist and yanking you down closer, pulling a laugh from you. His teeth nip at your neck, voice raspy as he asks, “What do you want? Tell me what you like.”

Taken aback by his question, your hook ups are rarely able to make you laugh, orgasm, and be attentive. He slides between your folds, letting you hover over him and you pull your lip between your teeth as he sucks a bruise under your ear. 

“This is…is good,” you gasp out as he pushes at your entrance. 

Steve nods, guiding you to sink down onto his length, fingers squeezing at your waist as your mouth parts in a gasp, yours gripping at his shoulders. 

You press your face into his neck, whining as you slip further down, taking him fully and you both groan as you circle your hips. 

“Shit, take me so well, honey, that’s it,” Steve’s babbling, hands roaming up your back as his lips kiss over your chest and neck. 

Your hips circle again, slowly lifting yourself up and sinking back down on him. His nose presses into your cheek, breath huffing along your jaw as he whines your name and you flutter around him. The slow drag of his cock along your walls not enough and too much all at once. 

“Steve, I-” your chest is tight, familiar heat growing rapidly in your stomach and he holds you, pushing you down into the mattress, his weight falling on top of you. 

Steve curses softly, pulling out of you and thrusting back in with a force that makes you both gasp around each other’s lips. It’s a dirty glide, sweat slicked bodies grinding together, moans lost in each other’s mouths. The sound of your hips meeting and your arousal filling your room  drown out the way you practically plead his name. Each thrust into you feels like he’s knocking the air from your lungs and filling them at the same time. Coarse hair hitting your clit with each roll of his hips, his lips hover over yours as you throw your head back into the mattress. Your hands cling to his back, nails scratching down it as each powerful thrust shoots you higher and higher. Your eyelids flutter, you’re pretty sure you’re actually losing oxygen, leaving the atmosphere. 

Steve’s name leaves your lips in a strangled gasp and he pants into your parting mouth, “Yeah? Gonna cum for me baby?”

Nodding, babbling nonsense to him, he nips at your bottom lip as your eyes squeeze shut. Your vision fills with stars, heat filling your belly as your walls clench around him as his thrusts only pick up their pace. 

“Yeah?” His tone is mocking now into your lips, you can feel his smile against them. Your eyelids flutter, you’re whimpering, feeling like you’re on another planet, floating aimlessly through space. His thrusts stop suddenly and he sucks on your bottom lip before asking, “How about another one?”

Before you can comprehend the question, he’s pulling out and flipping you. Your stomach somersaults at the way he handles you so easily, almost lazy in how he can manhandle you. His palm rests against your lower back, your cheek pressed into the pillows. Steve groans as your legs spread for him. His hand comes down on the curve of your ass in a slap, not painfully. He cups it as you jolt forward and he curses under his breath. 

He’s not quick about it, letting his tip drag through you and you shiver. Not pushing in until you’re begging him, “Steve, please…”

Who the hell is this guy? How does he have you begging for a third orgasm?

He slips into you, your strangled cry of relief mixing with his moan. 

“Only cause you asked so nicely, pretty girl.”

Your comforter twists in your fists as his thrusts quickly turn to a brutal pace. Steve’s grip on you is bruising as you arch lower for him, spreading as wide as you can, chest heaving into the mattress. Steve’s lips trail down your spine, the cold metal of his chain dragging with them. 

He falls forward, his chest against your back, hips stuttering as his hand reaches around and rubs fast and messy circles into your clit. Your name leaves his lips against your ear as his thrusts try to match the pace of his fingers. 

You’re weightless, body buzzing, vibrating like you’re waiting for take off. Steve’s gasping as shooting stars dance across your closed eyelids. Your walls clench around him, sucking him in and he swears, asking you to cum please. You’re certain the entire galaxy just exploded inside of you as his hips thrust quickly, falter, and slow while your name leaves him in a breathless gasp and your mouth falls open in a silent scream. 

Steve rolls off of you, your chests heaving in tandem as you both stare at your ceiling. 

“That was…” Steve’s hand drags down his cheek, laughing a little. 

“Yeah?” Your lip pulls between your teeth as you try to fight your smile. 

It’s quiet for a second before he clears his throat, voice a whisper, “Yeah.”

Normally, a guy would be out your door by now. They got what they came for, and regardless of if you had a great time, you’re happy to see them go. This feels different, you’re a little hopeful for the first time in awhile. Wondering if you could do all of that again in the very near future. 

“Um…” Steve coughs, voice trailing off as you turn your head. His hand runs through his hair as he squints at your ceiling, lips pursed in thought. Your eyes track the veins and lines of muscle in his arm up to his armpit and shoulder. To the sharp line of his jaw and nose. You feel ridiculous that your thighs already push together from want after all of that. Body heating up with embarrassment, you quickly snap your head back, eyes on your ceiling once more. 

He finally sits up and questions, “Bathroom?”

“Oh. Right. Sorry. Right through there.” You point as you sit up as well. Your fingers cover your lips as you take in the angry red lines from your fingernails that contrast against the tan skin of his back. Head tilting as you watch him stand, smile hiding behind your hand as you watch his butt walk away. 

Steve looks over his shoulder, squinting as his own smile tugs at his lips. He tries to cover himself up and whispers dramatically, “Wow. Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

“Would if I could,” your laugh escapes you, your grin finally winning as your hand drops and he closes the door. 

Steve finds you dressed in sleep shorts and a band tee, chugging a glass of water in your kitchen a few minutes later. You extend it to him, noticing he’s fully dressed with his shoes in his hand. He takes a sip before setting it down, knuckles tapping on your countertop before blowing out a long breath. 

Your lips twitch as you try to fight the smile that seems to be a permanent feature around him as he looks around frantically, hand rubbing at the back of his neck. 

“Um…I guess…I should…” he trails off, watching you. 

Your arms cross over your chest, barefeet overlapping each other as you nod, “Right, yeah. That was…”

He smirks, nodding as you trail off. “Yeah, it was.”

Steve goes to leave, but spins, licking his lips before rushing out, “Listen. Could we do that again sometime? Maybe I could get your number?”

The cocky and smooth man who you met at the bar, the one who just took you to outer space seems to have disappeared. The blush in his cheeks darkens, lips parted as he seems to hold his breath waiting for your response. 

Nodding, you tuck a piece of hair behind your ear as you try not to grin while acting indifferent. “Sure, yeah.”

An awkward shuffle of him pulling his phone out and you typing your number in before handing it back to him. 

You’re startled when there’s a soft press of his smooth lips against the apple of your cheek. Warm breath hitting your jaw as he whispers, “Have a good night.”

“You…you too.”

Your hand touches where he kissed as he leaves, unsure if you’ve ever been kissed on your cheek like that before. 

Only two minutes later, tucked back in your bed when your phone buzzes. 

You bite your lip as you pull the comforter up over your chin, typing back for it only to buzz with a response immediately.

Laughing as you roll onto your stomach, it flips when you inhale the scent of his cologne that clings to your sheets. It takes a minute for him to respond again, your eyelids growing heavy when the phone buzzes finally.

Huffing into your pillow, the smile that sits there is a welcomed friend as you message him goodnight and save his number in your contacts.  Rocketman seems fitting for an idiot who takes you to outer space three times in one night. 

Even if he does hate olives. 

WCIL taglist: (I just used the series taglist for this, hope that's okay!)

@boomhauer @loveshotzz @myobmaya @sweetsweetjellybean @pastel-pillows @littlesubbyflower @johnricharddeacy @freezaz123 @selfdeprecatingnerd @big-ope-vibes @manda-panda-monium @hellkaisersangel @yogizzz @soulmatecashton @happytimeunicorns @mandyjo8719 @lunarxeclipse @buckleylips @beckkthewreck @differentdeputyfishpaper @supardupar @micheledawn1975 @imjuststeddietrashatthispoint @sagelittleplace @totally-bogus-timelady @steves-babysitter @fallinginlovewithqueue @aftermidnightwriting @omgshesinsane @pootcullen @definitionwanderlust @nostalgiafool @palmtreesx3x3

[bookie-bookdust]

How to Defuse a Ravenclaw

Excited to finally share this monstrosity I've been working on: a smutty deranged porn with plot about Seb and MC. Part One is up.

Sebastian had been forced to devise a “defuse the Ravenclaw” protocol for when that damn witch lost her shit. Which was a lot, quite frankly. It’d been going as well as one could hope. Destruction was down, and she was able to talk in coherent sentences in under an hour that didn’t involve threatening to Avada him. So when against his better judgement he throws protocol out the window, he’s forced to face one of his own very private rules: Do not think about fucking the Ravenclaw. And fail. Miserably.

Rating: Explicit/ MDNI/ If you’re under 18 then you need to go ask your mom if you can read this. I don’t make the rules. Word Count: ~8k Full fic available at ao3 and Wattpad Preview below:

“Natty Onsai has caught the Golden Snitch! Gryffindor wins!” Everett Clopton’s voice roared through the downpour.

The crowd erupted, the stands shaking in shouts and stomping as if they’d collapse with another brutal gust of wind.

“Fuck,” Sebastian said.

“Fuck, indeed.” Ominis sighed. “On a scale of Mandrake to Chinese Fireball, how livid does she look?” He adjusted his stalwart grip on their umbrella. Sebastian didn’t have the heart to tell him it’d only covered a quarter of his side for most of the match.

“Neither. Hungarian Horntail,” Seb grumbled.

“Oh, we’re doomed, aren’t we?”

“Yep. I’ve got her.”  

Seb pushed his soaking hair from his eyes, squinting out at the pitch. While the other players circled, offering handshakes, he spotted a flash of Ravenclaw-blue already off her broom, storming for the tent.

He could kiss his evening in the Restricted Section goodbye. On Quidditch match nights, students were so rowdy, no one noticed when he slipped away. But on Ravenclaw match nights…

She’s going to break my arm again, isn’t she?

“You’ll be good to get back to the castle, yeah?”

“I’m not a lost puppy.” Ominis snapped.

“Of course you’re not.” Seb snorted. “I’ll see you in the dorms.” He patted his friend’s stiff shoulder and rushed out of the stands before the crowd really started to swarm.

The last time she’d lost a match, it’d gone as swimmingly as one could expect. She’d nearly burned down the Undercroft, though he couldn’t judge her for it as he’d lost count of how many times he’d done the same. He almost regretted teaching her so many fire spells fifth year. Ominis had been so livid, Seb was forced to devise a “defuse the Ravenclaw” protocol for when she lost her shit.

Which was a lot, quite frankly.

Failed exams. Snide comments from her many “sworn” foes. Losing Quidditch matches. The list went on.

The massive well of rage she harbored was almost endearing if she wasn’t so destructive, but even saying that would send her into a secondary spiral. Which there was a protocol for that too.

He and Ominis traded off each time one of these events occurred, and it’d been going as well as one could hope. Destruction was down, and she was able to talk in coherent sentences in under an hour that didn’t involve threatening to Avada him. Most of the time, anyway.

He slipped into the empty player tent, and the chill hit him instantly as he was finally free of the rain. His clothes clung to his goosebumps, and he rubbed his arms before remembering there was a wonderful thing called magic for this exact circumstance. He casted a drying charm, and his shoulders loosened.

“I’m looking for a very disgruntled Ravenclaw,” he called out. He was hoping to pluck her from the other players’ grip before she got herself banned.

“STUPID!”

A massive crash made him jump. He followed it, spotting a trail of muddied clothes and Quidditch equipment, stopping short at the showers.

“You good in there?”

The shower silenced. He shifted from foot-to-foot waiting for a sign.

Merlin, please don’t be naked.

He didn’t think he’d be strong enough to deal with her pissed off and naked. His fifth-year self would have fainted at that fantasy, but he’d smothered that idea the moment he’d sent his uncle to an early grave. Girls didn’t like boys who had a mental breakdown, raised the dead, and murdered their family—and still make jokes about it.

She came bursting through the steam, fully clothed, hair dripping wet and fanning around her like a harpy. He barely had time to react before she shoved him, sending him almost careening over a bench.

“Fucking Leander,” she screamed, grabbing her dirty clothes and tossing them in an enchanted hamper. “How many illegal plays before someone kicks him off the pitch? Did you see what he did?”

She tugged up her sweater, and Sebastian nearly popped a blood vessel before he spotted the already purpling bruise against her ribs.

“He rammed the edge of his broom straight into me.” She growled, literally, chucking her helmet into a cubby.

Rule One: Never agree with the Ravenclaw. Keep a neutral stance. Agreeing only encourages violence.

“Well, he is an insufferable dunce.” Sebastian agreed.

Woops.

“Where is that sniveling prick?” She stormed back toward the field.

“Noooo you’re not going back out there.” He caught her by the waist, spinning her around against him. It earned him a smack of wet hair against his cheek. “Come on. Time to go.”

“I just want to talk.” She shimmied in a very distracting way, her ass a bit too close to his cock. He had no choice but to tighten his grip. Truly what an inconvenience it was.

“Sure, you do.” He dragged her back the other way, toward the castle.

“Let go of me.” She bucked before all her weight dropped as she ragdolled.

They tumbled, and he caught them both, hauling her against his side.

“Honestly—” He lugged her with her feet dragging behind them. “My days of carting bodies is over, yet you keep reminding me with this stupid little deadweight trick you do.”

“Shut it.” She hissed.

She was just like hauling a haystack. A pissed off, living haystack currently trying to bite his arm. All that manual labor Solomon had forced him to do in Feldcroft had finally paid off. Who knew it’d be for livid little Ravenclaws?

“We’re going to go cool down,” he huffed.

“I already took a shower.” She kicked her legs, hooking one around his.

He tripped. “Not that.” He pinched her arm, and she yelped.

She wrenched harder, and he flung them outside into the rain.

It hit like slicing knives, and she shrieked, flailing her arms and legs. “Put me down.”

He halted, and the merciless wind shook a tree, a wave of icy water dumping over them.

Fucking hell. He grimaced.

“‘Put me down,’ what?”

She silenced for a moment before thrashing. “I’m not saying please.”

Seb rolled his eyes. In a swift movement, he flipped her, her head hanging inches from a bubbling puddle of mud.

She shrieked. “Fine. Please, please, please!”

“That’s better.” He righted her on her feet and gripped her shoulders. Merlin, she was looking more like a drenched cat by the second. Her blouse was…he tore his gaze away. She’d kill him if he caught her staring.

“We can either fight out here in the downpour and contract some plague, or we can cool down in the nice dry Undercroft. Your choice.”

She glared, bottom lip stuck out in a furious pout. “Fine.”

“Good girl.” He tapped her head, and he drudged ahead.

“Fucker.”

“I heard that.”

Read the entire part one monstrosity at ao3 and wattpad byeeeeeeee

[maislovebot]

I LOVE YOUR VAMP SIGMA X READER ONESHOT This is like the third time I've read it. Do you mind if I request vamp!sigma x human!fem!reader hcs?? 🤍

Vampire

Ofc I can do this, anon❤️ I decided to do sfw and nsfw hcs so everyone can have what they’re looking for!

Contains: afab + fem reader, vampire sigma, human reader, headcanons format, this is under the assumption that his vampirism comes from his special ability, the ability is completely different from Bram’s in terms of rules btw, teasing, oral (reader receiving), biting, turning you into a vampire, gentle sex, switch sigma

Sfw hcs:

• Vampire!Sigma who struggles with human emotions. He’s only been around for three years, and he hasn’t had much emotional connection with anyone. He truly tries his hardest to understand you on a deeper level, but he finds it difficult! Not only that, but he isn’t even human. He hasn’t had much social interaction besides with customers at all, and the interaction he has had has been with people like Bram, as Fyodor introduced the two of them to plot (Fyodor’s exact words). Bram has had much more experience with humans, as he has been around for hundreds of years, so he is able to tell Sigma how to interact with you sufficiently better!

• Off topic, but I am obsessed with the idea of Sigma and Bram being best friends, as they’re both vampires. They bond over it, and their grave difference in age honestly makes their interactions a little entertaining. You find it adorable!

• vampire!Sigma who when the both of you had first gotten together, he wasn’t sure how to tell you that he was a vampire, because how do you break that news to someone? Even if it’s known that there are special abilities by practically everyone, vampirism is still a little out there..

• vampire!Sigma who had to break all the little rules to you that had been created by the media. No, he isn’t allergic to sunlight, he doesn’t mind garlic, and no, if he were to bite you, he would not turn you unless he bit you with the intent of turning you. There are so many outlandish theories that humans have come up with that he was honestly a little surprised. Where had you even gotten any of these ideas from?

• “Is getting a stake to the heart the only way to kill you?”

• “No, I’m sure there are plenty of things that could..”

• If anything, a stake to the heart would probably cause very little damage outside of bleeding because he doesn’t have a heart like you

• vampire!Sigma who may not have a heartbeat, but he loves listening to yours. He’ll lay his head atop your chest and just listen to your heart beating. It brings him so much comfort, he can’t help it! Just being aware of the fact that you’re alive and well brings him so much comfort.

• vampire!Sigma, who is aware of the fact that he’s going to outlive you by many, many years, and while he knows that he could theoretically just turn you into a vampire as well, he’s very hesitant. Bram doesn’t understand why he won’t just turn you, as his ability doesn’t have effects like his. You won’t become mindless after he turns you, unlike Bram’s ability, so why not? Sigma claims it’s because he doesn’t want you to have to deal with the hassle. You’re gonna have to drink blood for the next couple-hundred years, you’ll get withdrawal symptoms if you go too long without it, and so on.. He’s hesitant.

• He knows he’ll have to turn you eventually if he wants you to live with him forever, but he’s trying to draw is out for just a little longer

Nsfw hcs:

With that last headcanon we’re entering pretty nsfw territory, so better switch it into nsfw hcs now…

• vampire!Sigma, who as stated before, is hesitant to bite you, but sometimes he just gets too desperate. He tries to space it out, instead eating steak and other bloody foods, but nothing can quite compare to you.

• vampire!Sigma who once licked your finger after a papercut, because according to you, “why waste it when you’re right there?” And he's never been the same. He quite literally almost came right then and there from just a few drops. You taste amazing, and every now and then he does bite you, although it’s typically when he’s so hungry he can’t even think because he’s gone too long without high quality blood. He still hasn’t turned you yet though, that’s too far for him

• vampire!Sigma who loves to grind against your thigh when he bites you. He gets so turned on from your taste that he can’t even control his body and he ends up grinding against your thigh desperately while he bites into your neck

• vampire!Sigma who always feels a little guilty after he bites you, seeing the teeth marks, and the small drops of blood running down your skin. He always wipes you clean, apologizing profusely, even though most of the time, you’re the one who brought it up in the first place, as you’d noticed how he had been eyeing your neck all evening.

• vampire!Sigma who after he bites you, cleans you up, and if you’re too tired from the blood loss, takes you right to bed and lets you cuddle as he wraps bandages around wherever he bit you. If you’re not too tired..you better expect to be pampered. He’s gonna be between your thighs, eating you out for as long as you can stand, trying to desperately make up for hurting you, even if it’s obvious you aren’t upset with him. He’ll eat you out for as long as you can handle, and if you’re still up for more, expect to be treated as if he’s been deprived of release for days.

• vampire!Sigma who after he eats you out, has come in his own boxers at least twice. He’s so sensitive, especially after drinking your blood, it isn’t difficult for him to come untouched.

• vampire!Sigma who loves biting your neck, but his favorite place to bite you will always be your thighs. They’re so perfect, and there’s so much free skin there. After he bites you, he’ll lick the skin there to help soothe it, and watching you squirm from the heat of his tongue on the bite marks never fails to drive him crazy. He’ll purposely ignore your drenched cunt and the way you keep bucking your hips into his face, finding your whines adorable.

• vampire!Sigma, who more often than not, doesn’t even bite you during sex at all. He doesn’t love to bite you, as he knows it tends to make you drowsy, and it definitely causes you pain. More often than not he likes to have completely vampirism free sex.

• vampire!Sigma who talks you through it whenever he bites you. He wants to comfort you, so he’s going to try his hardest to give you reassuring words throughout.

• “You’re doing so good–”

• “Does this hurt too much?”

• “Y-you’re doing great for me, pretty girl.”

• vampire!Sigma who goes crazy when you take care of him. Whenever he’s feeling less dominant and you just sit there and take care of him, it makes him feel weak in the knees and all he wants to do is hold you close.

• vampire!Sigma, who realizes that all that you want is for him to turn you, all you want is to live with him for as long as he does. And even if he’s hesitant, he’s willing to do it. He’s had plenty of dreams about turning you (causing him to wake up with a very uncomfortable boner), but he’s been too scared to. He doesn’t want you to live with the annoying consequences, but he knows that this is what you truly want.

• vampire!Sigma who walks up to you, telling you that he’s ready to turn you whenever you are, and is pleasantly surprised when you jump onto him and tell him you want to right now. He wanted to have painkillers and drinks that help make your blood healthier on standby for when he did this, as he does need to drink sufficiently more blood to turn you, but he saw how excited you were, so he decided to rush to the store as soon as possible so he could fulfill your wish.

• Vampire!Sigma, who once he starts the process, guides you through every step of the way. Taking breaks whenever you get lightheaded, giving you sips of water to help you regain your energy, and so on.

Wc - 1.3k

Ugh you’re making me wanna write a fic abt the last headcanon, anon😭

[physalian]

On Tragic Backstories (or, giving your character “one bad night”)

There’s a video essay out there by music nerd, Sideways, about how superhero theme music works, and most of the video is about how and why the original Superman theme song sounds the way it does. He then compares it to Batman’s theme song (the Danny Eflman one) and says that Batman’s theme breaks all the established rules of American superheroes.

Where the likes of Superman are heavy on the horns and brass, the “sound of America”, Batman’s theme is warped, jaded, and dangerous, almost as if it was Superman’s theme, if Supe’s theme had “one bad night”.

I mentioned in another post about giving characters agency in their backstories helps a lot in showing the audience who they really are when they’re put in a corner.

Baby Bats didn’t have much of a choice the night his parents got murdered, though he blames himself plenty.

What I mean, though, is situations where your character is unambiguously the person at fault for where they are today, as either the hero or the villain.

So I’m gonna spoil myself here and talk about my deuteragonist in Eternal Night: Dorian.

I’ve already said that he’s based on another OC of mine (about to make his debut in Little Red Dot on AO3!) but in many ways they are very different. They come from different social classes, different family makeups, different motives for why they do what they do, and different relationships with the protagonist and their love interests.

If you ever read both, you’ll see what traits they share.

Dorian’s backstory takes a while to deliver in ENNS, more than half the book. He drops hints here and there, like his actual age, that he’s not of noble birth, and a little bit about his family from when he was mortal.

Other characters also spill a little through their own biases sprinkled through the chapters so by the time Dorian has the chance to monologue his backstory to Elias, the protagonist, it’s an exposition dump you should be hungry for as the reader.

Personally, I think expository monologues are something I’m amazing at, so I won’t spoil the full experience.

What’s important for this post is that Dorian’s backstory is defined by three choices he had to make:

Why he left home

Why he became a vampire

Why he joined the ‘good guy’ coven

Dorian didn’t have much of a choice for leaving home—vampires were not going to take no for an answer—but he had control over who those vampires were abducting. He made sure they only took him. Who he is as a person and what he stands for is concentrated in that one choice: He is a self-sacrificial character who will do anything to save those he loves.

Why he turned defines another aspect of his character: He has unwavering conviction in his beliefs and will do anything to see them through, even if that means he doesn’t survive the process.

And why did he join the good guys? He represents that ‘vampire’ isn’t synonymous with ‘monster’. Or, in other words, “It’s not what you are, it’s what you do that defines you” and at his core, he is kindness.

Dorian’s backstory would have been a lot different if I’d written him as somebody kidnapped in the dead of night, turned by force, and run from his old coven for being too noble.

Still tragic, absolutely, and I’m not hating on characters who are tragic in their passivity and inability to take action in their lives. Not every character can save themselves, or damn themselves.

I love writing characters who did not expect to have to live with the consequences of their actions and Dorian, and his foundational character, pretty much say those exact words in both their books.

Good consequences or bad, one single choice either from necessity, selfishness, desire, impatience, or the best of intentions, can have a cascading effect on a story that tends to read as more realistic than everything going according to plan.

If I’d written Dorian’s backstory as “I surrendered to this evil coven already plotting how I’d take my revenge and become the vampire I am today, and it all worked flawlessly” I don’t think it would make him as sympathetic.

Not to say I hate plotters, either, he’s just not a plotter. Another character in that same book, Gregori, did pretty much exactly that for his own backstory.

But “I surrendered to this coven and had no idea what I signed up for, then saw an opportunity and jumped on it and could not take that choice back” is fitting of who he is as a person. He was someone too soft and simple for this political world he found himself in, who had to adapt or die.

You can cover a lot of ground, particularly in dreaded “exposition monologues” without throwing it into your audience’s faces that you’re “telling” a bunch of information. I didn’t need Dorian to say “these are the three tentpole traits of my character”.

But I do think that if you give characters that kind of agency, you’re giving them the chance to prove who they are when no one’s looking. For Dorian, who had no guarantee his plan would work or that he’d survive its execution, who he was when no one was looking is a man who’d give his all to keep a promise.

—

If you’d like to check out Dorian’s story, check out Eternal Night of the Northern Sky below.

And if you’d like to see the foundational characters that were the basis of my entire writing journey, check out Little Red Dot.

[heartshapedbubble]

Could I perhaps have something like those 2 long and well written Joseph and Luchino fic but with Soul Catcher? Thank you🙏

anon i am SO SORRY this took so long you might as well have my first born

also english isn't my first language so please have mercy on me i know i reuse the same words over and over 😔 reqs like these sadly clog my inbox even tho i like writing them so i'm gonna do something about them after i empty it!!

my very own prince charming, a soul catcher fanfic🧲☠️

cw for vomit mention in case you have emetophobia, reader's gender not specified although soul catcher uses a few spanish pet names (nouns) that are gendered because haha language rules, not proofread, warning for intense corniness, this is very bad i apologize, ALSO VERY LONG

-------------------------------------------------------

~

There are amazing forces of Attraction and Repulsion between souls; just like when fate guides some people together and causes others to part.

~

After a period of indecisive skimming through the bookshelf, you picked out a thick, hardcover book.

You'd consider yourself quite picky regarding books - just a flashy cover and a taunting description wouldn't do it for you. A beautiful, elegant maiden and a handsome, charming prince were just one-dimensional props in the story, and you found all of those "new " and "wonderful " fantasy worlds described and mapped out on the front page generic and bland. You always seeked out something new, something that would leave you thirsting and longing for each damned word pressed onto the yellowing paper, make your fingers trail over dozens of pages in mere minutes. Yet, considering your little town in the south was limited to just one small, dusty library, finding such books would be considered an extreme sport.

So for now, you had to be satisfied with the usual, popular literature that the townsfolk read.

But today was special - you weren't in the mood for something new, or something outstanding, in fact you'd even say you wanted to read something normal. Something you could nonchalantly mention to your friends during afternoon coffee, with a plot so malleable and simple it would be woven around your conversation like it was nothing. The misadventures of a rookie knight, or the sorrows of a young, noble lady, all interpreted differently and abstractly and able to be swiftly analyzed and twisted over a cup of overly sweet coffee. Although the pile of smooth, newly released paperbacks at the entrance intrigued you, a minute later you found yourself squished between two dusty, polished wooden shelves, inspecting the book you just picked out.

Well, you didn't know you'd stoop that low, but what caught your eye right now was a book of fairy tales and fables. It was an old release, presumably donated to the library considering the oil stains on the brown paper that wrapped itself around the thick leather cover. Although worn out by time and basically crumbling from the outside, on the inside the lettering was flawless and written in an old, thick cursive, and simply bringing your face closer to the text would bless you with the scent of old, yet well kept books - the fresh smell of walnuts and baldachin beds and white cotton dresses, and even lilac bushes in the spring. Although all of these associations were of a life unknown to you, for some reason they made you feel at home.

There was another reason for you picking out this particular book - a reason you'd rather carry with you to your grave out of pride, unable to bend your head down and admit it. When life got unbearable and overbearing and the only way you felt safe and well was under heavy linen bedsheets or in the shade of the old pear tree, you'd curl up and indulge in the exact same books you usually despise. A humbling experience, indeed, but at times where safety and love were most neccessary fantasies were the quickest, most low-key way of getting what you needed the most at the moment. Projecting your being onto the flat sheet of a protagonist, you'd visualise yourself instead of them, you being the one kissing the hero's fading scars or having your hair braided by the thin, nimble fingers of the king's son. The amount of scenarios was neverending, and, well, if you couldn't get your fix with all these readily available options, you felt like you're doomed.

The book was now set inside your trusty linen bag while you were walking home. Oddly, the usually loud and populated city market was silent and not a soul could be seen out on the street, not even a head popping out of the window or a hand reaching for the hanged clothes that hung on the ropes high above the rocky path. While you were crossing the town bridge, you decided to stop to take a deep breath and enjoy for a bit, now that you weren't being pushed onward by the citizens and the merchants that usually piled behind you.

It does take a while to learn savor things, doesn't it? It takes until adolescence until the dark chocolate on your tongue unveils its rich, deep and bitter flavor, until you learn how special that first sip of morning coffee is and how good of a feeling it is to simply have another hand wrapped around yours. Same goes for nature, you thought to yourself as you looked over the bridge, watching the river speed under the arch and the plants inside of it wave around like silk scarfs. Without the noise pollution, you were finally able to hear the satisfying noises of the water sloshing over the rocks, droplets hitting each other every second. Without a second thought, you laid beside the edge of the bridge, your bag lazily hanging off of your wrist, and let yourself get lulled to sleep by the melody of the current.

That is, until the straps of the bag slipped off of your wrist.

Fuck.

You immediately jumped to your feet in panic, looking around for your bag. Yet, it was too late. It was nowhere to be found - it was probably already driven away by the river, taken to god-knows-where.

Well, it's not like you weren't aware of the risk. But your heart still ached - that was not your book, after all. And what a beautiful, old edition it was as well! There was no way you'd be able to properly apologize to the librarian, unless....

"Oye, muñeca, ta libre."

You jumped at the sudden voice whispering at your ear. You were sure no one was around here except you... or maybe..?

Slowly turning around, your face was met with another, yet wider, lathered with paint and shaded by the hat above's enormous brim. As the face moved away from yours and the person straightened their back, you found yourself gazing up and down at - what seemed to be, at least - a tall, youngish man, couldn't be above 28. Dressed in gaudy purple, green and black, adorned with flowers and gilded accessories, he looked like a living puppet, his chest and shoulders wide and his waist slim, proportions of a wooden harlequin they sold during the holiday season in the toy shop. Hanging off of his wrist was your beloved linen bag, the forsaken book inside still in tact, not a single droplet of water blemishing the paper.

"Who...? How did you...?" You muttered nonsense, as your arms needily reached for the bag that he gently waved around. Props to the visuals, but you had your priorities.

"It's all reflexes, sugar. Was taking a nap underneath the bridge, you know, all that wandering around numbs out your legs, and your little sack here just happened to fall close enough to my hand for me to grab it in time. Be a little more careful next time, will you, doll?" The man-puppet replied nonchalantly as he tossed the bag into your arms.

"Thank you, I- wait, what?" You quickly snapped out of your daze. "Napping? Under the bridge? "

"Don't judge it before you try it", he whistled, crossing his arms behind his head, "The cobblestone ain't the comfiest, but it does wonders for your back."

You sneered at his carefree expression, as if lying under a bridge was the most normal thing to do. Who exactly was this fellow, and who did he think he was?

"And you expect to believe me all that?"

"Hm?" He jolted a bit, not expecting a question, maybe a compliment, but definetly not a skeptical remark.

"Napping under a bridge? Seriously? You catching my bag is impressive, yes, but there's no way it was that much of a skillful feat. You probably dozed by the river's shore and suddenly found a bag by your side like any other guy at this hour. Who are you even, some wannabe-show-off-superhero?"

To your suprise, he just smirked back at you, lowering his torso until his face was just inches away from yours. So close, you could feel his warm breath on your cheeks, and his raspy voice rumbled inside your ears.

"How about you take a wild guess."

Stumped by his question, you took a few steps back. Your eyes now digesting his form in his entirety, you rubbed your chin as you gazed up and down at the man, posing, obviously very into the careful stare you were dissecting him with.

"Enjoying the view, hm, azúcar? "

"Give me a break! I'm trying to focus." You mumbled, panicking a bit, sensing that your cheeks started to flame up. To be honest - even under all that fabric and thick paint, he was quite a looker. The black paint defined his jawline in all the right places, and man, that silly outfit of his was tailored pretty damn well, gripping his legs and his biceps enough to define them nicely.

Although visually he was as fancy as a rich man's birthday cake, nothing seemed to pop out from his outfit, as if every embroidered piece of textile and every golden stud was carefully planned out. However, upon better inspection, one of them seemed to take the cake - it was the small shiny skull on top of his hat, shaped like a squished pear, a few nails stabbed into it like birthday candles. The cherry on top of it all - metaphorically and literally.

"The skull on your hat... looks like a well-made prop to me. You're some kind of entertainer, huh?"

A playful smile appeared on the lad's lips, yet it wasn't a confirming one. "You're getting closer, but no, not exactly."

"Street musician?"

"I can be one if you desire, but it's not exactly my main job."

"Actor?"

"Only behind the scenes, dear. But I can see by the look in your eye that you're going to head in the right direction." This little guessing game seemed to amuse him to no end.

"With all that flashy wear, it seems fair to assume you might even be some kind of high-end magician, performing for nobles or aristocrats. Or some wannabe wizard."

He bit his lip, the smile widening with each guess. He seemed more excited about this than you were.

A flower painted around his left eye. A belt fastened around his waist, with a big golden buckle. Sheer black gloves covering his hands in their entirety, bones painted in gold on his knuckles and fingers.

A glowing ring - no, a disk - hanging from the side of his belt, rocking with the movement of his hips.

Wait. It couldn't be. The disk looked too...

"Hold on a second. You couldn't be..."

"Sí, muñeca? "

"Are you..."

Before you could even finish your sentence he grinned from ear to ear and inched even closer to you, his nose now touching yours, as if he just managed to read your mind.

"Bingo."

~

The legend of the Soul Catcher was told times and times again, twisted and folded like fresh taffy to suit every possible scenario in one's life. To children, it was told to scare them into going to bed in time. To teenagers, it was told to ward them off from the forest at the edge of the town. To young adults, it was told to motivate them into becoming independent and to work hard. To newlyweds, it became a prayer, to protect the newly formed family and to bring safety to their home. He was not the Reaper, but if a soul was left astray, detached from the body it resided in, everyone knew well that once the Soul Catcher gets his hands on it, that it won't be back ever again. He was both a devil and a saint, a villain and a vigilante - but one thing was sure, he was well respected. No one knew if it was out of fear or out of genuine admiration. And what was even weirder - not a single person was sure if he ever actually existed.

Not a single adult, at least.

The legend was not a new one, in fact, it has been told for a little less than a century. If you were to have a little extra patience and attention, you could hear the town's elders occassionally mumble about seeing him as a child in the forest, or him visiting them in a dream. But their interpretations varied from tale to tale - he went from a spirit, to a ghoul, to simply an omen, either good or bad. Since the townspeople couldn't agree on a single, concrete definition, the Soul Catcher remained a concept, embodied by what seemed to be multiple entities.

However, if you were to ask a child about the Soul Catcher, you'd get a much more vivid and universal description than anything an adult could tell you. All of them were along the lines of "magical jester", and what was weirder, almost all of the children confessed that the Soul Catcher played with them. And no, it wasn't just a single sighting, he played with multiple kids at once, even going as far to balancing three of them on his shoulders and telling them stories. During the hot, damp afternoon hours of the summer, huge groups of children snuck out of their homes just to play with him. When their mothers soaked their cramped hands and their fathers took their first break after the morning shift, their beloved kids were out on the dusty streets, carefully following every word seeping off of the Soul Catcher's silver tongue.

The only thing that bound the varying opinions and theories of both the young and the old was the trusty disk that always hung by his hip, rumored to be the tool he used to attract and harvest souls. And this same legendary disk was now hanging off of the belt of the man in front of you, green and purple mist enveloping it.

The myth himself, in the flesh, in front of you.

"You were quicker than I thought you'd be. Bravo, dollface." He smiled and patted your head. "If we ignore your initial hostility, you seem quite confident in the fact that i'm the real deal. Mind telling me why?"

"Well, you don't see someone parading around with THE exact disk that the Soul Catcher uses. Everyone agrees on the main description of its appearance, but to be completely fair, no one around here is skilled enough to make a replica that's convincing enough."

"I see. It's nice to see somebody with both the wits and the pretty face." He chuckled. Who would have known that he's such a flirt? Nontheless, to your shame your face lit up at his silly compliment. There was just something about him that made you weak in the knees.

"Alright. I believe I should prove you I'm the real thing now." He unhooked the disk from his belt, spun it around in his hand, and hopped a few steps away from you. He pointed the disk at your chest, positioning himself as if he's getting ready to react to a suprise attack. You didn't know what he was trying to do, but you felt as if you shouldn't make a sound or even object to it.

A tension-filled silence wrapped around you two for 20 seconds. After 10 more which seemed more like 10 minutes, you felt your body move. Move, although your legs were planted at the same spot they were before. Your head ached and pulsed, you felt dizzy as if your intestines were tying themselves into knots. To be sick without actual pain, to move without any movement, what was he doing to you? If this keeps up, you might just end up vomiting out your stomach along with its contents. It was like being carsick, except the sickness rumbled not only through your abdomen, but through each one of your limbs as well.

"Here, I stopped. It's all over. Sorry for this."

The headache seemed to halt, and your body was back to normal, yet your hands and legs still felt a bit sore. He was now above you, his hand stretched out to your sides in case you lost your balance.

"...What did you just do to me?" You yawned, trying to stand up straight again.

"What you just experienced was your soul being harvested from your, already inhabited, body. I usually refrain from doing this, but I felt like I should let anyone that witnesses me up close go through this. Y'know, I want to be honest with people. That although they've seen me in the flesh and talked to me, they're fully aware of what I can do so they can prevent themselves from getting harmed."

"Does this imply you sucked someone's soul out from their living body?"

"Maybe", he shamefully turned his head away, "but it was never on purpose. Usually it was them reaching for the disk, or trying to see it up close. It pains me, since in most cases it's nearly impossible to return the original soul to its old body."

An awkward silence ensued.

"Sorry for ruining the mood, I felt like I needed to warn you first."

"Oh no, seriously, it's alri-"

"May I walk you to your house, jewel?"

"Huh?"

"You heard me the first time." He extended his hand, waiting for your next move.

~

What a peculiar man, indeed. First he tries to suck out the life out of you to give you a heads-up, and then he offers to walk you home like a gentleman.

And you'd be lying if that offer didn't sound thrilling. So now, your hand was intertwined with his, you trying to slow down as much as possible to make the moment last.

"I realized I had forgot to ask for your name. My apologies. Not very gentlemanly of me, isn't it?"

"Oh, I don't mind it. It's ____."

"___..." He looked up at the sky, rubbing his chin, as if he was trying to remember something, your name echoing on his lips multiple times.

"Pretty name, but it doesn't ring a bell. You're not among the horde of youth that I visit, are you?"

"Nope. I'd say i'm more of a loner most of the time. I like socializing and all, but nothing's like a good book that you can read in one sitting."

"I figured. No way in hell I'd forget such a cute face like yours, even if I saw it for a split second." He smiled and pinched your nose. If his plan was to drive you insane, he was incredibly effective.

"How come people have such different reports about you? Can you shapeshift?" Trying to lead a conversation with him felt like navigating through a mine field - there were no known limits, no known good or bad questions, or any shared topics you two could talk about. But you'd lie if you said it didn't excite you - waiting for his response, never being able to predict the next word that will come out of his mouth.

He sighed. "If you wore the same pair of pants every day, wouldn't you get tired of it?"

"I suppose..?"

"Well, yeah. It's that. Mix it with hallucinations the brain dials up once it's met with something outside the world it knows, and here's your answer. I'm no sprite or shapeshifter, just a regular guy who made a regrettable deal years ago. I might have the powers of the dead on my side, but at what cost?"

You shrugged. As much as you wanted to quiz him and get him to talk about himself, right now biting your tongue and playing it cool seemed like the best idea. Getting deeply invested in his life might not lead to good places.

"So... you're one of those so-called bookworms, hm? You've been carrying a book inside that bag of yours the entire time, too." You could feel his hand slip from yours, trailing across your arm to your shoulder, then to the other, gripping it softly. His touch felt warm on your skin, very human and real despite what he did for a living.

"...Yeah. In fact, I was just on my way from the library back at the bridge where I met you. I just borrowed it." You smiled shyly, holding the bag tightly in your arms. Knowing his curiosity and boldness, a feeling of panic unfolded in your chest, dreading what he might say next.

"Mind me taking a peek at what you're reading?"

Aaand this was it. The moment you prayed will not happen, but his chin was already resting on your shoulder, trying to get a peek at the contents of the bag.

"H-hey, hey! Back off! That book's my business, after all!" You giggled, holding it tighter and tighter, trying to laugh off your growing anxiety. If there's one person that you wouldn't like knowing about your little self-indulgent hobby, then it was Soul Catcher. But your tightest grip was easily undone by his loosest, and now your book was in his left hand, clumsily open, and the digits of his right were buried in the strands of your hair, holding your head away with careful but great strength. Even with your annoyed and panicked groans and your hands clawing at him, he simply couldn't miss the opportunity to steal a look at a few titles.

"Calm down there, you're acting as if it was a pipe bomb that you were carrying!" He chuckled, trying to stay composed as his body lost balance under your pushes and pulls. Yet your delight was short-lived, as only a second was needed for him to spread the pages open with his thumb and smugly read some of the titles out loud.

"Cinderella, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty... seems like someone's a sucker for Prince Charming, hm?" He snickered, but gave in to your pleas and dropped the book right into your sack.

"Would it hurt your pride to not dig through others' stuff?" You hissed, patting the bag in relief. "A-and is there something so wrong with indulging in childhood comfort anyway?"

"Oh, not only would it hurt it, it would kill it. Besides, something tells me that this little guilty pleasure of yours goes beyond just childhood comfort", he whistled in his usual self-satisfied tone, yanking at his suspenders, "But hey, who am I to say?"

"Oh, does it?" You gave him a taste of his own medicine, grimacing right at his face, making sure each word rumbled through his skull. "Well, what if I told you that such absurd assumptions are indeed incredibly untasteful, especially when left unelaborated? Just imagine how much of a hit that could be to your fragile ego..."

"¡Dios mío! You couldn't possibly...!" He dramatically threw his head back. At least something was true - he really was an actor behind the scenes. "Oh lord, it truly seems like the only way to make it up for you, your majesty, is to explain myself beneath your ice-cold gaze, like an accused pauper chained and laid before the king!"

Both of you laughed away at your ridiculous actions.

He cleared his throat, after a good minute of dying from laughter. "O-okay, where were we? Ah, yes, your dirty little secret." With his hands crossed behind his back and his gaze innocently directed at the sky, it seemed like this was a touchy subject for him, too. "Well, from all my previous experiences with people, I noticed that a lot of them like to fantasize about, well, a world where everything is just better - usually some kind of unrealistic fairytale utopia. It helps them feel better about their problems, especially during adolescence." His eyes briefly shifted to yours, watching them as if he's waiting for you to point out a fuck-up nested in his wording.

"Alright, continue...?"

"And, uhm, although fairy tales are meant for kids and all and are read by them, these same adolescents use them as a vessel for said utopias, or simply, a medium."

His lips were pressed into a firm line, waiting for your feedback.

"Bravo, jester", you treated him with a teasing smile, ruffling the stray locks of hair peeking out from his hat, "You got yourself out this time."

"Well then, call me Houdini." He smiled back, scratching the back of his neck. "Jeez, even though that fantasy thing should have gotten into my skull for the most part, I still can't fathom what's so special about the Prince Charming trope.. It's so annoying! Are y'all really drooling over the same guy in different fonts?"

"To be fair, it leaves a lot to the imagination. You can interpret him however you like, twist his personality to your liking."

"But that's exactly why it's horribly overused! Dressing every fictional man in a suit of already desired personalities is... boring! No variety, no depth - nothing! Do they really not find real people with actual lives, emotions, thoughts and opinions more appealing?"

It was a bit funny, him getting worked up over this, as if he was deeply insecure about it. You decided to fuel the fire a bit.

"Well, what does your average Prince Charming have that, let's say, I lack?"

"A great personality?"

"Oh, come on. Now you're just being mean." He sighed, traces of laughter in his sigh. "Damn you, muñeca." You chuckled.

"Big muscles?"

"These babies don't look defined to you?" He pouted jokingly, flexing his arm. Shit. Your face warmed up for a bit. For a second, a satisfied grin appeared on his face, liking the reaction he coaxed out of you through your composed armour.

"Strength and brave- AH!" You didn't even get to finish your sentence, and a moment barely passed, but his left arm was already wrapped around your calves, his right under your arm and around your back, his body leaned into yours and suddenly - you were hanging off his shoulder stomach-down, like a potato sack. "Oh my god yo- put me down!"

He whistled, holding you down to supress your squirming. "Strong enough for you, doll?"

"Not fair..." You groaned, lifelessly plopping onto him.

"You didn't answer my question~"

"Yes. Strong enough." It was quite enjoyable up on his shoulder, actually. After the initial panic passed it became nice, the rhythmic bouncing of his walk lulling you to sleep. You could get used to this.

"Now that's music to my ears." He showed no sign of letting go any time soon, perhaps he liked the smell of your perfume on your neck, and your weight resting on top of him, like a thick winter blanket.

"Since you've already decided to pick me up, would you be kind enough to carry me to my house?" You mumbled, your eyelids already feeling heavy. "That house, over there." Pointing at the tall, cobblestone house, you yawned.

"Entiendo, sirenita."

~

"How did you- actually, you know what? Nothing can suprise me anymore. You climbed up my balcony, didn't you?"

The sun was setting, and Soul Catcher was leaning against the railing of your balcony, your bag thrown around his frame.

"Actually I slid off the roof, but you're not that far off, beautiful." Every time your name was replaced - or you were simply called by - a soft pet name coming from his mouth, you felt as if your stomach would explode. Something about the way he spoke sent shivers down your spine, whispering endearments to you like you're the only person remaining in the world along with him. And whenever he read and peered through your façade as your face turned red and your breathing got deeper, he took a step further, engaging in the sensual, mental tango forming around you two. "I forgot to return your bag. Sorry."

"It's alright. I appreciate that you went out of your way for me." Gosh, the way you tortured him! Whenever he was smooth and flirtly and you punched him in the face with your kind, unfiltered smile instead of flirting back, it was like his heart was momentarily shattered into pieces and then bound again. The irresistable two-step of games and suave words was driving him insane and momentarily, in his mind it was your face, and your body, and your voice that called for him and your coldness clashing with his warmth, and it was making him dizzy. Behind his eyes, his brain was melting, and his heart was no different. To fall so quickly for a stranger - well, it's no secret that he's been depraved of actual love and affection beyond one night stands and empty promises to dozens of lovers from different times - was nothing new to him, but this attachment was not the same, it was permanent, stable, and wasn't going away any time soon.

"So, ___..." You turned quickly. When it was just your name and not something snarky on his lips, it seemed more important. "...You got any plans for the evening?"

"Oh- not really. Do you, though?"

"Not a plan, but rather an idea, a proposition, even." His voice was breathier as if he was nervous, coughing up the words from his chest. "If you want to, we could, y'know, watch the sunset together. I'm quite fond of sunsets myself, so I was wondering..."

"So you're proposing a date?" A date. As if he flinched when he heard the word.

"Well, yeah, a date, if you want to call it that." He said as he bit his lip. "Are you up?"

"Why not?" You whispered, creeping slowly towards him. "That sounds like a nice way to spend the evening."

"I'm glad." he smiled. In that little moment all of his confidence returned, and now his voice was clear again and he was back on his feet, jumping on top of the railing like the most skilled of acrobats and making his way to the roof. "You're coming, no?"

"And how exactly do you want me to come?"

"Grab my hand. Come on." His hand hanged from above, pushed as far as possible to reach you. "I'll pull you up."

You gulped. Heights remained a minor fear of yours ever since childhood, and having to face said fear head-first out of nowhere wasn't very appealing. "But what if I fall?"

"Believe me, muñeca, you won't."

"How can you be so sure!?"

He took a deep breath, trying to speak as gently as possible to calm you down.

"Trust me, ___. It's my hand around yours, no one elses, and my strength that's going to pull you up. I'm here for you. Please."

You didn't know when, you didn't know how, but the height suddenly stopped being a problem and, in a flashing moment, you were in his arms, being pulled to the middle of the roof.

~

"The clouds are such a beautiful color today. Light pink, as if they're crowning the sun before the moon rises."

Your back facing him, his chin on your shoulder, his breath on the nape of your neck.

"It's even more beautiful right before it goes down. They turn blood red, melting with the sky."

His arms wrapped around you, your hand around his wrist, your legs thrown over his.

"Do you have to go soon?" You whispered with a heavy heart.

"I should go." He suddenly stopped. "But I don't want to."

"Please. Stay for another moment."

He pulled you closer and closer to him, now his mouth right by your ear.

"Of course. A moment."

And it was more than a moment.

And more than an hour.

And only the crescent moon was the witness, and what it saw was sealed for eternity once the sun rose on the horizon again.

[secretarysong]

word wall's worth of ramblings about the Grand Qwasa below...

anyone else ever wonder what the Grand Qwasa considers to be music (and therefore able to be turned into power)? this may or may not be a bold statement, but... the premise of transformation of music -> energy implies that, qwasascientifically at least, what can be considered music is NOT subjective; and there is a certain threshold within the world's never-ending valley of genres ... from spoken word/Ambience all the way to Harsh Noise ... that starts and stops being considered "viable music" . hmm.

well, this is assuming that the Grand Qwasa *only* reacts to music -- its own definition of music. and since music is such an unbelievably broad spectrum ... what if the GQ is more lenient, and it reacts to sound likeeeeee, in general? ... and the level of energy output depends on the "level of musicality" (whatever that might mean) and the variety of said noise... who knows!? what if 'sound' doesn't create *power*, but warrants something else...? what if there's a such thing as "harmful noise" that can potentially damage the Grand Qwasa? doubtful (even though it could make for an interesting plot point,) but it would be kind of hilarious if there were some sort of music-related rules and regulations put in place for Whatever Reason. or a list of blacklisted songs. i wonder what would be on there...

anyways... i will talk about qwasa scientists now! it is 11:39 PM for me right now and i can feel myself getting more scatterbrained by the second so Excuuuusee me i don't think it'd be too farfetched to imagine that scientists have Prrroobably ran experiments to see if different genres have different effects -- not just in terms of energy input, but also... like... environmentally. such as: does yinu's (neo)classical music have any effect on the growth of natural plants? (e.g flowers not willed into existence via prior plant manipulation magic) and if so, is it an effect of Yinu's (and/or her mother's) magic, or is it just a given quality of the genre she plays? and maybe they'd test it by having an unrelated pianist play an arrangement to one set of plants, and then they'd bring Yinu in and have her play the exact same thing . the music doesn't necessarily Have to be filtered through the Grand Qwasa in order for it to have special properties since music already seems to be deeply ingrained in most aspects of life. in Vinyl City, at least .

also, still in the realm of experiments, i could see something also having been done about the Grand Qwasa's relationship between live concerts/performances and prerecorded music. this half-related but I think recorded music does indeed count as a passive source of energy, albeit not as much... which is part of the reason why all of the radio towers around the city play that NSR promo tune that Mayday hates so much AAAALLLLL THE FREAKING TIME ...!!!! there's more in my head Which i will post tomorrow because 1. i'm tired and 2. this is already obscenely long but i Hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts Byyeeeee!!

[canmom]

The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, 000-012

Or, what if that mural was the heart of a web serial.

I'm reading The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, thanks largely to the enthusiasm of @azdoine and @lukore on my dash over the last few months.

This is absolutely not gonna be a liveblog in the level of detail of the great Umineko liveblog project. Rather I'm gonna be aiming at something like the comics comints series or those occasional posts on anime. Or indeed what I wrote about Worth The Candle last year. I must create a robot whose purpose is to watch to see if I start writing detailed plot summaries and hit me with a stick labelled 'remember you have a job now'.

That outta the way, let's talk flower!

No, not that flower!

I will start with an anecdote. When I was at university, I ended up attending a talk by court alchemist senescence researcher Aubrey de Grey, who at that time did not yet have a 'sexual harassment allegations' section on his Wikipedia page. The main thing that struck me at the time was his rather spectacularly long beard. But I did listen to his talk about ending aging.

de Grey's schtick is that he, like many people in the transhumanist milieu, believes that medical technology is on the cusp of being able to prevent aging sufficiently well to prolong human lifespans more or less indefinitely. He believes that the different processes of aging can be understood in terms of various forms of accumulating cellular 'damage', and that these will begin to be addressed within present human lifespans, buying time for further advancements - so that (paraphrasing from memory) 'the first immortals have already been born'. He has some pretty graphs to demonstrate this point.

At that talk, one of the audience members asked de Grey the (in my view) very obvious question about whether access to this technology would be distributed unevenly, creating in effect an immortal ruling class. de Grey scoffed at this, saying he always gets this question, and basically he didn't think it would be a big deal. I forget his exact words, but he seemed to assume the tech would trickle down sooner or later, and this was no reason not to pursue it.

I'm sure de Grey is just as tired of being reminded of how unbalanced access to medical technology is in our current world, or the differences in average life expectancy between countries.

So, I was very strongly reminded of de Grey as The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere laid out its major thematic concerns and characters. I was also put in mind of many online arguments in the transhumanist milieu about whether it would be a good thing, in principle, to end death.

In particular, of course, comes to mind transhumanist Nick Bostrom's short story The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant, in which death is likened to a huge dragon that demands to be fed trains full of humans every day. In the story, humanity's scientists secretly build a giant gun to kill the dragon. Naturally, despite all the doubters and naysayers who foolishly feel obliged to justify the existence of the dragon, the gun works. Bostrom's imagery is incredibly heavy-handed (particularly the trains à la Auschwitz), but just in case you didn't get it, he also spells out the moral explicit at the end: basically, every day not spent putting resources to abolishing death is adding up more and more bodies to the pile of people who don't get to be immortal.

So far, Flower seems to be shaping up to be a critical intervention into that milieu, with a much more grounded view of death and a much stronger model of society - admittedly not a high bar but it's going good so far!

At the time of writing this commentary, I have read the prologue and first two six-chapter arcs, namely Mankind's Shining Future (1-6) and Pilgrimage to the Deep (7-12).

the general shape of things

We are introduced - from the perspective of sardonic, introverted Su, who is going to be the protagonist of our time loop - to a group of brilliant young medical wizards, who have just been invited to visit the headquarters of a secret society whose mission is precisely to abolish death. Su's grandfather was some kind of controversial luminary who was expelled this organisation, and he also did something to her, which is giving her some kind of ulterior motive to find her way into this society.

We know pretty much from the outset that this is a time loop scenario: Su has been explicitly given the opportunity to replay the scenario in the hopes of find an alternative outcome, by some kind of presently mysterious parties. This first part is the 'control' loop, i.e. probably more or less how things went down 'originally'.

I believe Umineko is an explicit inspiration for this story, and the influence is pretty evident. But parallels with the Locked Tomb series, especially Gideon the Ninth, are also quite noticeable. @lukore spoke of it as the STEM to Locked Tomb's humanities, and I can already kinda see it, although we haven't got into the real meat of the scenario yet. This story began serialisation four years ago, making the two works roughly contemporary. The latest chapter was published in the last couple of weeks - no idea if I've arrived just in time for the ending!

Stylistically, it's generally pretty heavy on dialogue and long asides. The characters are a bunch of mega nerds who love to have big philosophical and political discussions, but their dynamics are well enough realised and their dynamics clear enough that it can double up as naturalistic characterisation. So far, the discussions have been interesting to read.

Below I'm going to make some notes and comments on various elements of the setting and story. In a followup post (because it got too long) I'm going to talk a lot about entropy. Perhaps you will find this interesting!

the world

The first few chapters are dedicated pretty hard to exposition. We find ourselves in a distant-future setting - one in which it seems reality has totally collapsed and then been rebuilt using magic, creating a somewhat oddball universe which lacks things like the element iron, and also electromagnetism. This seems like it would have pretty severe implications for just about everything!

However, the 'ironworkers' have, after producing a series of trial and error 'lower planes' that didn't quite get it right, landed on a fairly close approximation of how things used to be on the old world. Though by 'fairly close approximation' I mean like... it's a bowl-shaped world and the sun and stars are artificial lanterns. But still, there are humans, and they seem to work more or less like we're used to humans working, apart from the whole 'magic' thing.

So, an alt-physics setting. Praise Aealacreatrananda, I love that shit.

While electromagnetism might be out, the more abstract physical principles like thermodynamics still apply, and the humans of this universe have managed to find analogues to a number of things in our world. Instead of computers, they have 'logic engines' which run on magic. Horses seem to have made it in, so we get delightful blends of historical and futuristic concepts like a self-driving computer-controlled horse-drawn carriage taxi.

The biggest difference is of course that in this setting, magic - more on that in a bit - has solved most medical problems and humans routinely live to around 500. The setting is ostensibly a semi-post-scarcity one, although a form of money exists in 'luxury debt', which can be exchanged for things like taxi rides, café food and trips on the space elevator.

Politically, we are told that the world has enjoyed a few hundred years of general peace, broken in living memory by a revolution which put an end to a regime of magical secrecy. There are lots of countries, and an alliance overseeing them.

There's a few other oddities in this world. Something called a 'prosognostic event' can happen if you see someone who has the same face as you, and whatever this is, it's bad enough news that everyone is constantly reminded to veil their faces in public and there's some kind of infant 'distinction treatment' to mitigate the risk. Given that, in the regular world, nothing particularly bad would happen if you ran into a long-lost identical twin, it suggest there is probably something a little fucky about how humans work in this world!

There's evidently a fair bit of effort put into the worldbuilding of fictional countries and historical periods. The important elements seem to be roughly along the lines of:

our world is currently in what they call the 'old kingdoms' period, which is poorly remembered;

next up comes an 'imperial' period of high transhumanist shenanigans in which society was ruled by 'gerontocrats' who got exclusive access to the longevity treatment, but this all somehow led to a huge disaster which destroyed og earth;

the survivors built the Mimikos where humanity currently lives using magic and created some kind of huge iron spike that holds the universe together; there was subsequently a 'fundamentalist' period in which a strict cutoff point was put on human lifespans and a lot of the wackier magic was banned;

now we're onto a new era of openness following a small revolution, while the major political structures remain largely intact.

Writing a far-future setting is hard, because trying to deal with the weight of history without the story getting bogged down with worldbuilding details is a fiddly line to walk. The Dying Earth series of Jack Vance might be a relevant point of comparison. Vance leaves the historical details vague - there are endless old kingdoms and strange artefacts and micro-societies for Cugel and co. to stumble on. Far more important than the specifics of history is establishing the vibe of a world that's seen an unimaginable amount of events layered on top of each other and is honestly a bit tired.

Flower makes things a bit more concrete and generally manages to make this work decently well. I do appreciate the asides where Su talks about, for example, the different architectural styles that layer up to make a place, or the way a technique has been refined. It establishes both that Su is the kind of person to notice this sort of thing, and also helps the world feel lived-in.

the names

The story doesn't do a lot with language. The story is written in English, and the narration will occasionally make reference to how things are phrased (e.g. how divination predates the suffix -mancy). We can probably make the standard assumption that this is all translated from $future_language, with the notional translator making a suitable substitution of whatever linguistic forms exist in that language.

The characters are named in a variety of languages. Our main character's full name is Utsushikome of Fusai. We're told that this is "an old name from Kutuy, and means something like 'mysterious child'" - so Kutuyan is one of the languages spoken in this world. It's blatantly got the same phonotactics as Japanese, and indeed if I search up 'Utsushikome', I find an obscure historical figure called Utsushikome-no-Mikoto, wife of the Emperor Kōgen; she has no article on English Wikipedia, but she does have a brief one on Japanese wiki. Just as Su says about Kutuyan, 'Utsushikome' is written 欝色謎 in Japanese, but it relies on archaic readings of those characters and wouldn't read that way in modern Japanese. We could perhaps assume a good old translation convention is in effect where Kutuyan is replaced with Japanese.

A lot of characters have Greek names, as do various setting elements. One exception is Kamrusepa, or Kam, who is named for an ancient goddess of medicine worshipped by the Hittites and Luwians. I know basically fuck all about Hittites and Luwians but it's a cool little nod to mythology, and it won't be the only one!

I'll run down a list of characters and my comments about them in a bit. But many are named after gods or other mythological figures.

the magic

Most of the divergences come from magic existing. Certain humans are 'arcanists', who are able to use the 'Power', which is a magic system with a highly computational flavour. Thanks to Su's expositional asides, we know that an incantation is something like a short program written in cuneiform with the ability to gather information, perform maths, and manipulate particles. An example we are given is a spell called "entropy-denying", which is the following string of cuneiform:

"…(𒌍𒌷𒀭)(𒌍𒁁𒀭)𒅥𒌈𒆜𒈣𒂠, 𒋢𒀀𒅆𒌫𒃶,𒈬𒊹."

We're told that spells always start with phrases ending in 𒀭, and end in 𒊹. Beyond that, I'm not sure how far the author has actually worked out the syntax of this magic system - probably not in too much detail! Seems like the kind of thing it's better to leave vague, but also she seems like kind of nerd who would (positive). It's conceptually a reasonable magic system for a world where more or less realistic physics applies.

The use of unusual scripts for a magic system isn't that unusual - the old European occultists who wrote the [Lesser] Key of Solomon loved to write on their magic circles in Hebrew, and in modern times we could mention Yoko Taro's signature use of the Celestial Alphabet for example - but the specific use of cuneiform here seems like it might be a little more significant, because a little later in the story the characters encounter a mural depicting The Epic of Gilgamesh, which of course was recorded on cuneiform tablets. Remains to be seen exactly what these allusions will mean!

The magic system is divided into various disciplines defined by the different ways they approach doing magic, with the disciplines breaking down broadly along the same lines as the modern scientific disciplines. For example, our protagonist is a thanatomancer ("necromancer" having become unfashionable), which is the discipline dealing with death; she's specifically an entropic thanatomancer, distinguished by their framework viewing death as the cessation of processes.

Magic relies on an energy that they refer to as 'eris' (unknown relation to the Greek goddess of strife and discord). We are told that eris must be carefully apportioned across the elements of a spell or shit blows up, that it can be stored, and it accumulates gradually enough that you don't want to be wasteful with it, but so far given little information about where it comes from.

Magic in this story generally seems to act as a kind of 'sufficiently advanced technology'. It's very rules-based, and used for a lot of mundane ends like operating computers or transport. Advancement in magic is something like a combination of basic research and software development. But the thing that makes it a magic system and not merely alt-physics is that it's at least a little bit personal: it must be invoked by an individual, and only certain people can operate the magic. We're told a little about how wizards are privileged in some societies, indoctrinated in social utility in others, and expected to be inconspicuous in the present setting. It's not clear yet if you need some kind of special innate capacity to do the magic, or if it's just a matter of skill issue.

With one exception, our main characters are a gaggle of wizards, and exceptionally skilled students at that. They're at an elite institution, carrying high expectations, even if they are themselves fairly dismissive of the pomp and ceremony. They have grandiose plans: Kamrusepa in particular is the main voice of the 'death should be abolished' current.

the cast

We're entering a cloistered environment with high political stakes hanging off of it. Even if I hadn't already heard it described as a murder mystery, it would feel like someone will probably be murdered at some point, so lets round up our future suspects.

Su (Utsushikome) is our protagonist and first-person POV. She's telling this story in the first past tense, with a style calling to mind verbal narration; she'll occasionally allude to future events so we know for sure narrator!Su knows more than present!Su. She's got a sardonic streak and she likes long depressing antijokes, especially if the punchline is suicide. She will happily tell us she's a liar - so maybe her narration isn't entirely reliable, huh.

Su is more than a little judgemental; she doesn't particularly like a lot of her classmates, or people in general, and generally the first thing she'll tell you about a character is how well she gets on with them. She introduces the theme of 'wow death sucks' in the first paragraph, but she is, at least at this point, pessimistic that anyone will manage to do anything about it for good.

Her magical specialisation is entropic thanatomancy, roughly making processes go again after they working coherently.

Her name is a reference to an obscure Japanese empress, as discussed above.

Ran is Su's bestie from the same home country. She is generally pretty on the level. She likes romance novels and she is pretty sharp at analysing them. She will cheerfully team up with Su to do a bit or bait someone else when an argument gets going.

Her magical specialisation is Divination, which is sort of a more fundamental layer of magic, about gathering information by any means. In medicine it's super advanced diagnostics.

Her name is too short to pin down to a specific allusion. Could be one of a couple of disciple of Confucius such as Ran Geng, or a Norse goddess of the sea.

Kam (Kamrusepa) is the de facto class prez and spotlight lover. She's hardcore ideological, the story's main voice of the de Grey/Bostrom death-abolishing concept so far - I think she straight up calls someone a 'deathist' at some point. She loves to tell everyone what she thinks about everything, and getting the last word.

Her magical specialisation is Chronomancy, so time magic. It's described as secretive and byzantine, but also it can do stuff like (locally?) rewind time for about five minutes. No doubt it has something to do with the time loop.

As mentioned above, she's named after a fairly obscure ancient deity of healing and magic.

Theo (Theodoros) is a fairly minor character. He's scatterbrained and easily flustered, he has a similar background to our protagonist, and he's not great with people. His name is shared with a number of ancient Greek figures, so it's hard to narrow it down to one allusion. I don't think his magic school has been mentioned.

Ptolema is a cheery outgoing one, someone who Su dismisses as an airhead. And she is at least easy to bait into saying something ill-considered. Her specialisation is applying magic to surgery. As a character, she tends to act as a bit of a foil to the others. Bit of a valley girl thing going on.

'Ptolema' is presumably a feminised version of the renowned Greek philosopher Ptolemy.

Seth is the jock to Ptolema's prep, and our goth protag Su doesn't particularly like him either. ...lol maybe that's too flippant, I may be misapplying these US high school stereotypes. To be a little more precise then, he's pretty casual in demeanour, flirty, likes to play the clown. He specialises in Assistive Biomancy, which revolves around accelerating natural healing processes.

Seth is named for either the Egyptian god (domain: deserts, violence and foreigners) or an Abrahamic figure, the third son of Adam and Eve granted by God after the whole Caim killing Abel thing.

Ophelia is someone Su describes as 'traditionally feminine' - soft-spoken, demure etc. (Gender in this world appears to be constructed along broadly similar lines to ours). Indeed we get a fairly extended description of her appearance. Her specialisation is Alienist Biomancy, which means introducing foreign elements to healing (not entirely sure how that differs from the Golemancy mentioned later).

Ophelia is of course a major character in Shakespeare's Hamlet, best known for going mad and dying in a river.

Fang is the only nonbinary member of the class, noted as the most academically successful. They're not on the expedition, but the characters discuss them a little in their absence, so maybe they'll show up later. It seems like they have a bit of a rebellious streak. Their magical specialisation is not mentioned.

Fang is a regular ol' English word, but I gave it a search all the same and found there's an ancient Chinese alchemist of that name. She is the oldest recorded woman to do an alchemy in China, said to know how to turn mercury into silver.

Lilith is the teenaged prodigy in computers logic engines, and Mehit is her mother who accompanies her on the trip. They've got a big Maria and Rosa (of Umineko) dynamic going on, with Mehit constantly scolding Lilith and trying to get her to obey social norms, though in contrast to Maria, Lilith is a lot more standoffish and condescending to the rest of the gang. Lilith specialises in 'Golemancy', which means basically medical robotics - prosthetic limbs and such. She spends most of her time fiddling with her phone logic engine, and will generally tell anyone who talks to her that they're an idiot. Sort of a zoomer stereotype.

Lilith is named for the Abrahamic figure, the disobedient first wife of Adam who was banished and, according to some Jewish traditions, subsequently became a demon who attacks women at night. There may be some connection between Lilith and the lioness-headed Mesopotamian chimeric monster Lamashtu, which I mention because Mehit is an Egyptian and Nubian lion goddess.

'Golemancy' is probably playing on the popular fantasy idea of a 'golem' as a kind of magic robot, but given the Jewish allusion in Lilith's name here, I do wonder a little bit if it's going to touch on the Jewish stories of the Golem which inspired it - a protective figure with a specific religious dimension.

There are some other characters but they're not part of the main party on their way to the function, so I won't say much about them just yet. Also it's entirely possible I went and forgot an entire classmate or something, big whoops if so.

the events

In true Umineko tradition, the beginning of the story narrates in great detail how the protagonists make their way to the place where the plot is going to happen.

To be fair, there's a lot of groundwork to be laid here, and the characters' discussions do a lot to lay out the concerns of the story and sketch out the setting, not to mention establish the major character relations. A murder mystery takes a certain amount of setup after all! There's plenty of sci-fi colour to be had in the 'aetherbridge', which is a kind of space elevator that lifts you up to a high altitude teleporter network. (It's technically not teleportation but 'transposition', since teleportation magic also exists in the story, with different restrictions! But close enough for government work.)

They go to a huge space citadel, which is kind of a transport hub; some cloak and dagger shit happens to hide the route they must take to the mysterious secret organisation. They find a strange room with a missing floor and a mural of the Epic of Gilgamesh, albeit modified to render it cyclic. What does it meeaaaan?

The idea of a secret society of rationalists is one that dates back to the dawn of ratfic, in HPMOR. It was kinda dumb then, but it works a lot better here, where we're approaching the wizard circle from outside. The phrase 'Great Work' has already been dropped. I love that kind of alchemical shit so I'm well into finding out what these wizards are plotting.

the dying

A lot of the discussions revolve around the mechanics of death. Essentially the big problem for living forever is information decay. Simple cancers can be thwarted fairly easily with the magic techniques available, but more subtle genetic slippages start to emerge after the first few hundred years; later, after roughly the 500 year mark, a form of dementia becomes inevitable. It's this dementia in particular that the characters set their sights on curing.

One thing that is interesting to me is that, contra a lot of fantasy that deals with necromancy (notably the Locked Tomb series), there appears to be no notion of a soul in this world whatsoever. The body is all that there is. Indeed, despite all the occult allusions in the character names, there is very little in the way of religion for that matter. Even the 'fundamentalism' is about an idea of human biological continuity that shouldn't be messed with too much.

Su distinguishes three schools of thought on death, namely 'traditional', 'transformative' and 'entropic'. The 'traditional' form attempts to restore limited function - classic skeleton shit. 'Transformative' sees death as a process and uses dead tissues together with living in healing. Su's 'entropic' school broadens this 'process' view to consider death as any kind of loss of order - a flame going out as much as an organism dying. At the outset of the story, Su has discovered a 'negentropic' means to restore life to an organism, which she considers promising, even if for now it only works for fifteen minutes.

This is an interesting perspective, but the devil is in the details. Because processes such as life or flames, necessarily, result in a continuous increase in the thermodynamic entropy of the universe. And yet this idea of death-as-loss-of-order does make a kind of sense, at a certain level of abstraction.

Elaborating on this got rather too long for this post, and I think it can stand alone, so I'm going to extract it to a followup post.

the comments

As is probably evident by the length of this post, I am very intrigued by The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere. The setting is compelling, and it seems like it's got the willingness to bite at the chewy questions it raises instead of acting like it has all the answers, which is I think one of the most crucial elements for this kind of scifi. I like how unabashed it is at having its characters straight-up debate shit.

Of course, this all depends where they go with it. There's so many ways it could be headed at this point. I hear where it's going is 'dark yuri' and 'Umineko-inspired murder mystery', so that should be really juicy fun, but I do end up wondering what space that will leave to address the core theme it's laid out in these first few chapters.

Overall, if this and Worth the Candle are what modern ratfic is like, the genre is honestly in pretty good shape! Of course, I am reading very selectively. But this is scratching the itch of 'the thing I want out of science fiction', so I'm excited to see where the next 133 chapters will take me.

Though all that said, I ended up writing this post all day instead of reading any other chapters or working, so I may need to rein it in a bit.

[thehylianidiot]

Sooo... bout that idea of "Maruki's palace but it's the setting of Princess Tutu" concept. I may have been obsessing over it and did a few concept sketches.

Explanations under the read more

The concept is simple: the ability to become a god changes Maruki's palace theme after the Christmas Actualization; instead of a laboratory, where experiments and uncertainty are used to find the answers, it's now a "Fairy Tale" where rule are certain and can be whatever the author wants them to be. In other words, I have an excuse to make the setting Gold Crown from Princess Tutu with P5 characters. Yes, this would place Maruki firmly in the role of Drosselmeyer...except with like the exact opposite intent. Upon entering the palace on 01/02, the royal trio end up trapped within a never-ending story, with a part of themselves scattered to avoid them from progressing. They have 32 days to realize something's up, seek out their missing "heart shards", and complete the palace. Along the way, they will encounter cognitions of other P5 characters (I haven't gotten that for into the details of that though). Personas I think shall be restricted because A) it's a god's palace he can do whatever he wants with his cognition's rules, and B) because I wanna :3

As said, in order to progress in the palace, the trio needs to find the missing pieces of themselves scattered throughout the palace. There are 3 shards total, ergo replacing the "Will Seeds" of the palace. This concept is meant to lend itself to a lot of character development. Remember that the story start on 01/02, meaning any third-semester plot points have not been revealed to the characters yet (hehehe, much potential angst, much wow). Order of shard discovery initially set for: Sumi -> Akechi -> Joker

Each of the three's ballet clothes are based on a simplified version of their metaverse outfits, meant to promote mobility and helps the artist maintain her sanity. Sumi is a shoo-in for the advanced classes. Her skill as a gymnast (regardless of the comparisons to her sister) are seriously good, and that's not even accounting for her metaverse outfit resembling a ballerina. Whether or not she stays in the advanced class due to her whole identity crisis in parallel or October 3rd is another matter. Ren isn't top of the class, but he's fairy decent himself thanks to tutelage from a certain gymnast confidant. Kid picks up on lots of things pretty quickly. But on the bright side, in Gold Crown he always gets to wear his Joker mask...and probably good on his metaverse identity's namesake along the way. You'd think Akechi wouldn't be the least experienced dancer of the three...but his battle style isn't exactly the most...graceful (especially in the edge-suit) and he definitely wouldn't have reached out to anyone for lessons and stuff. Also, having to deal with others being considerably better than him at something? He would hate it and it would be hilarious. Thus, somehow the rageball somehow has a parallel to a literal duck. Note that each of the trio is not a 1:1 ratio with any of Princess Tutu's main cast. For example, while Sumi is a sweetheart like Duck, the need to adjust her technique as she learns to be her own person parallel's Mythos, and her desire to initially keep Maruki's reality when she realizes what she would have to give up parallel's Rue's motivations. And that's just for one of them!

Also yes, since I'm a hopeless romantic when it comes to Princess Tutu, I swear I shall find a way to put in the underwater lake dance!!!

ANYWAY

That's all I have so far. What do folks think?

[windriverdelta]

On Stannis Baratheon's eventual fate in the ASOIAF books

So, we know that Stannis Baratheon is going to burn his daughter alive in the books like in Game of Thrones, since Martin has confirmed that this is one of his "moments" for GoT. That naturally raises the question of what will happen to Stannis afterwards.

TL;DR, I find Stannis becoming a Night's Watch member - and probably Lord Commander - by the end of ASOIAF the most likely outcome.

In the show, Stannis lost the subsequent battle with the Boltons and was then killed by Brienne. While the same battle ("Battle of Ice") is also happening in the books shortly after the Theon TWOW chapter, we can actually rule out this scenario rather easily for the books. One, Shireen is hundreds of miles away in Castle Black, and there is no way that she could get to Stannis in time to get burned. Two, Stannis is likely going to win the battle and seize Winterfell afterwards, for both plot and theme reasons. Three, in the Davos ASOS chapters we see that Stannis is prepared to burn an innocent child alive ... to save a million from the dark. A.K.A from the Others, not for a battle. And Melisandre wanted to wake a dragon from stone with said sacrifice, but there is no stone dragon available anywhere except maybe in Winterfell. Fourth, Brienne is nowhere near close enough to Stannis and the only appearance of Stannis in her POV is this:

They are not his sons. Stannis told it true, that day he met with Renly. Joffrey and Tommen were never Robert's sons. 

This isn't the comment she'd make if she still cared deeply about avenging Renly - especially when contrasted to this:

Timeon was still trying to fight as she pulled her blade from him, its fullers running red with blood. He clawed at his belt and came up with a dagger, so Brienne cut his hand off. That one was for Jaime. 

Fifth, Stannis being Azor Ahai is one of the lies Daenerys has to slay. Him falling against the Boltons would break that prophecy.

In fact, I am going to go out on a limb and say that any scenario that has Stannis dying before the invasion of the Others is ruled out for the above reasons. That probably guarantees his survival into ADoS, since it's likely that the climax of the Other invasion and Daenerys' arrival happen there.

That leaves a few scenarios. The one where he is killed by Daenerys is seemingly unpopular, probably for good reason: There isn't much of a concrete reason for her to do so - especially since in the books, the conflict and eventual destruction of King's Landing likely precedes Daenerys' arrival in the North - and when you look closely you notice that the "blue-eyed king" (=Stannis) isn't actually the subject of the slayer of lies prophecy, while the "cloth dragon" (=Aegon) and "stone beast" (=Euron?) are. A hint that this encounter will be less lethal.

A very popular theory is that Stannis becomes the new Night's King. Probably unjustifiably so, though:

The similitude between the two isn't that great. Melisandre as we see in her POV chapter isn't actually an Evil Seducer, while the woman with the Night's King seems to fit the description of the Others more. Human sacrifice wasn't the Night's King's foremost sin, either. Finally, lots of people other than the Night's King resided or set foot in the Nightfort, there is no evidence that it has a cursing effect akin to the Harrenhal curse, and Stannis hasn't actually visited it yet.

Going by Old Nan's tale of the Night's King, it seems like he was seduced by the power to betray humanity to the Others. While Stannis contemplates sacrificing one person for humanity. In other words, the exact opposite motivations. In this context, @turtle-paced's analysis of the Night's King here as book!Euron should be read.

Oh yeah, and the Euron Greyjoy we see in TWOW The Forsaken preview chapter is a far better candidate for "new Night's King" than Stannis (or Jon Snow, or Bran)

The second-to-last theory is that Stannis simply dies, presumably in battle against the Others, after the attempt to awake a dragon with thr Shireen sacrifice fails. Given that the "slayer of lies" prophecy and the discussions between Melisandre, Maester Aemon and Jon Snow imply that Stannis isn't Azor Ahai, I think it's safe to assume that the sacrifice will indeed fail. That said, while once again @turtle-paced wrote an argument I once again can't find about how this outcome would be in character, I don't recall any specific foreshadowing.

The last theory also presumes that the sacrifice will fail, but that Stannis will join the Night's Watch in atonement at the end. And that, well, has some foreshadowing: In Jon XI ASOS:

They found Stannis Baratheon standing aloneat the edge of the Wall, brooding over the field where he had won his battle, and the great green forest beyond. He was dressed in the same black breeches, tunic, and boots that a brother of theNight's Watch might wear. Only his cloak set him apart; a heavy golden cloak trimmed in black fur, and pinned with a brooch in the shape of a flaming heart

Jon VIII ADWD, in particular considering the fact that the Shireen sacrifice will consist of burning her alive as per the other sacrifices Melisandre and Stannis have carried out:

Jon's temper flashed. "They have followed worse. The Old Bear left a few cautionary notes about certain of the men, for his successor. We have a cook at the Shadow Tower who was fond of raping septas. He burned a seven-pointed star into his flesh for every one he claimed. His left arm is stars from wrist to elbow, and stars mark his calves as well. At Eastwatch we have a man who set his father's house afire and barred the door. His entire family burned to death, allnine. Whatever Satin may have done in Oldtown, he is our brother now, and he will be my squire."

And given that Stannis takes advice from a King's Landing smuggler and will win the battle of Winterfell with pirate tactics ("wrecking" with false lighthouses; Davos I ADWD), Davos II ACoK:

"Salladhor Saan thinks only of gold!" Stannis exploded. "His head is full of dreams of the treasure he fancies lies under the Red Keep, so let us hear no more of Salladhor Saan. The day I need military counsel from a Lysene brigand is the day I put off my crown and take the black." The king made a fist. "Are you here to serve me, smuggler? Or to vex me with arguments?"

Moreover, it's noted in-story that Jon Snow is the 998th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, and after his assassination we'll probably see the election of a 999th afterwards - probably one of the mutineers. That leaves slot 1000 for after the series, since the Wall will almost certainly fall, and it calls for a big name. And the dutiful, skilled-in-military-matters, not very sociable Stannis Baratheon would probably fit right in the Night's Watch.

[kirua9]

Thoughts on the Arcana prologue

Well I absolutely love the art style, but it need more cut scenes...Also, when we're at the dining room in the Palace.....Why the Habanera is playing ? Why this exact theme? For me it sounds nothing like royal, maybe a but anxious, but I still have 0 ideas Why they chose this music for the palace. It sounds frivolous and bohemian, plus in Carmen it's sung by..fabric workers, no royal themes lol. So when I hear this at Nadia's place I'm like...Eh.?? Maybe for the creators this music sounds kinda arrogant? That's why you chose it?.. or simply liked if, bit for me I have no clue. Weird choice tbh (why not the variations on the dance of the Knights by Prokofiev then?.. at least it's more "royal")

Characters. Asra. Man is always going somewhere we don't know about, we're ruling the shop, we're still his student but he doesn't really care about us and um ahahahah I'd never chose his route for romance, only for the plot. He seems very shady, I still don't know what is he and how the MC and Asra met, and he has some weird relationships with Julian ig?.. He's pretty mysterious but as sneaky as the snake. No bad words abt Faust btw, Faust is fine.

Then we meet Nadia. Oh she looks just like the dream the prettiest girl I've ever seen but I also was so concerned that the countess herself visited our shop like that... Tbh I also have 0 trust to her, just like to Asra, but if Asra is sneaky, this woman is a politician. Lololol. Sorry. And when the story started saying that Lucio was dead...I was like "hm could it be you?.. A smart woman who made a perfect usurpation? No? Okay." But from what I've heard she's considered to be "understanding" and "empathic". Fine

Ensuite, we have Portia. I...liked that she is simple to approach and simple to escape. Idk I'm not interested in her, tbh. Guess I'll do her route after other characters' stories. She's like... she seems a very sidekick function to the MC. Nothing but a companion for Nadia and sometimes (?) Julian. She looks like she's from Greece with that hair. She like fine but boring...Idk

Who was next?.. Muriel?.. I don't know. So gives off massive Beowolf vibes by his appearance. But he's also looks like the hottest from all the gang. I'm intrigued of his chains and ghostly (idk why but he looks like a vision, like a ghost, like also something very mysterious thing) vibe, and judging by his appearance and behavior he's someone's slave maybe?.. Or he's like a gladiator, like a slave fighter. Idk, but I liked his image

Julian. Well, guess I found the reason why people play this game ahagsh. The silly-horny-dramatic-bittersweet guy who's a doctor so he's empathic and kind, buy he had some troubles with Count's case, like... a good criminal? I'm still not sure since now I'm saving up coins to buy the book and to read his route like that. I just like him. Yes for him it's normal to be at our shop at night bc he screams that he's weird yk, it's low-key normal for his status (not Nadia's). Guess I'll read his route first of all.

Lucio. He...looks like Dio. Lol I can't take him seriously, but he looks like he'd be funny to play though his route. Lol what the hell is in his mind, seems like he summoned the devil(aka the goat) or so, he's a total red flag and fcking insane but... I'm interested....

So the order lď play the routes

Julian

Muriel

Lucio

Asra

Nadia

Portia

Maybe change Nadia with Asra idk honestly. But the girls don't look interesting

[four-loose-screws]

FE2 Novelization Translation - Cover and Book Intro Pages

If you would like to start from the beginning, read a missed part, etc., click here!

FE Game Script Translations - FE Novel Translations - Original FE Support Conversations

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———————————

New year, time for another new FE novelization translation!

2024's novel of focus is that of FE2, the original game Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia was a remake of. Enjoy reading this take on the same exact plot, ~25 years prior!

Cover

Fire Emblem Gaiden

The Zofian Liberation War

Book 1

STORY

The continent of Valentia is divided between the north and the south, as well as their beliefs in War Father Duma and Earth Mother Mila. While the Kingdom of Zofia is ruled with kindness and compassion, the Rigelian Empire believes in raising its citizens to be prepared for war. Their hostility towards each other has finally pulled them into a vicious war. Units from both sides spill each other’s blood, fighting for their god and loyalty to their homeland each and every day, with no end in sight…

The protagonists of this tale are Alm, Celica, and countless other young units. They all wish for Valentia to be unified, but differ in how they want that outcome to be reached. And so, a grand tale of love and hate is about to unfold!

-

Written by Katsuyuki Ozaki

Cover Illustration by Ichiro ?*

Cover Design by Kazuo Hiroi (WIDE)**

*T/N: I cannot find the Kanji character in this person’s last name anywhere to confirm its reading.

**T/N: First name could also be ‘Ichio’ or ‘Itsuo.’ I cannot find any record of this person online, so I cannot confirm the correct reading of their name. Their nickname is ‘WIDE’ because their last name, ‘hiroi,’ is the Japanese word for wide.

Published by Futabasha

Author’s Profile

Katsuyuki Ozaki

An up-and-coming author also working as a copywriter. His major works include “Valkyrie no Densetsu,” “F-Zero,” “Zelda II: The Adventure of Link,” and many more, all published by Futabasha. He has also written for other strategy guide series. His hobbies include golf, cars, and computer games. He is of course also passionate about Fire Emblem, and has completed all of the games so far. He poured all of his love for the series into writing these two books without rest!

Front:

Alm and Celica each set out on their own journey to forge!

This is the epic adventure of this young man and woman!!

The stage unfolds on a Valentia in chaos in this epic tale of love, blood, and war!

-

Back:

Ad for Book 2.

Ad for a Shin Megami Tensei novelization.

Color Art

A necrodragon was here. In Zofia. When she realized exactly what that meant, Celica was petrified in horror. Earth Mother Mila had lost all power over Zofia.

Title Page

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1: The Deliverance

The Six Resurrection Pills

Alm’s Awakening

The Mysterious Girl Silque

Chapter 2: Mila’s Restoration Army

Celica Embarks on Her Journey

The Ruffian Saber

The Necrodragon’s Trial

Chapter 3: To Zofia Castle

Rescuing Clair

The Night Before Storming Zofia Castle

Cliff’s Gambit

Chapter 4: The Red Haired Woman

The Port Town Tavern

Differing Paths

Chapter 5: To Mila’s Shrine

The Sisters from Archanea

Blake, Wielder of the Shadow Sword

Royal Bloodline

Desert Army

Princess Anthiese

Chapter 6: The Newly Reborn Kingdom of Zofia

His name is Zeke

Cross-Shaped Birthmark

Collapse and Liberation

The Throne Bathed in Light

Epilogue

-

Illustrations: Ichiro ?* & Kazuo Hiroi (WIDE)**

*T/N: I cannot find the Kanji character in this person’s last name anywhere to confirm its reading.

**T/N: First name could also be ‘Ichio’ or ‘Itsuo.’ I cannot find any record of this person online, so I cannot confirm the correct reading of their name. Their nickname is ‘WIDE’ because their last name, ‘hiroi,’ is the Japanese word for wide.

Book design: Yusuke Matsuoka (NEXT)

Editing & printing: Rekkasha

Character Introductions

Alm’s Army

Robin: A Villager who grew up with Alm in Ram Village. He later transcends to become an Archer.

Silque / Shilk: A Cleric in service to the goddess Mila. She specializes in healing magic.

Cliff / Klihs: A Villager from Ram Village. He later transcends to become a Mage, specializing in long range combat magic.

Delthea: A female Mage who has fallen into Rigel’s hands by Tatarrah’s magic. She wields the Aura tome.

Luthier: He decides to join forces with Alm to lead his younger sister Delthea’s fate down a righteous path. A mage with a tragic past.

Mycen: A former unit of the Knights of Zofia, transcended to one of the highest level classes, Gold Knight.

Python: An Archer prodigy whose short-temper is as great as his skills with a bow.

Clair: A Pegasus Knight who was granted the ability to fly a pegasus by the two gods. Clive’s younger sister.

Forsyth: A soldier who’s greatest skill is his ability to calmly make decisions in the heat of battle.

Mathilda: An exceptionally talented female Cavalier. She possesses both a brave soul and bewitching beauty.

Tatiana: A Saint captured by Nuibaba. Zeke’s beloved.

Clive: A Cavalier and the leader of the young surviving units of the Knights of Zofia.

Zeke: A mysterious Gold Knight who has lost his memory. He serves Alm under Emperor Rudolf’s orders.

Lukas: A hot-blooded soldier who wields his lance like lightning.

Alm: A fighter raised by Zofia’s hero Mycen, and the protagonist of this story. He is a boy with a grand fate!

Gray: A Villager from Ram Village. He later transcends into a Cavalier.

[transmutationisms]

Your last posts about Shiv/the siblings put into words something I've thought about how (some) fans usually position their fav character as the 'least bad' or more sympathetic based on either who was 'abused more' or in this case, the 'least fascist' in a row of rich capitalist characters. I do think that certain plot elements this season (ie. baby plot and Ken and Roman sidelining Shiv) could make some viewers see her as 'more of a victim' and thus 'a better person', but that goes back to what you said in another post about how the show can play with gender and its relations to oppressive systems, but has a much harder time doing the same with race (and related to what you also said about how liberal viewers may ignore how the show treats liberalism as another aspect of the capitalist system, white viewers may have an easier time seeing the way shiv is affected by misogyny but not seeing her as a passive perpetrator of white supremacy).

yeah i think you're right that's part of what's going on with bad shiv takes. in general it's obviously very pointless to argue over who's the 'worst', and of course the assumption many people make that determining who 'has it the worst' is equivalent to a moral ranking is also very telling. it's also simply impossible to compare the characters' alienation or abuse in that type of quantitative fashion. but yeah, on those types of reads i think you're right that people have a tendency to try to tally up each character's political damage or participation in oppressive systems, and they often ignore that shiv's relationship to white supremacy is the same as the rest of her family's, in terms of the benefits she gains from it and her perpetration of it. and this is in some ways made easy by the writing's tendency to gloss over this aspect of the roys' power. we'll get references to "the white nationalist elephant in the room" or whatever else, but race is simply not explored with nearly the depth of gender.

of course it matters to the story that shiv is a woman, and we can see over and over how her brothers weaponise this against her (eg, calling her hysterical in this episode). what's irritating about many bad shiv takes is acting like her gender is equivalent to or inherently leads to a progressivism that in any way challenges capitalism or waystar's rule; also, i think many of these takes are incredibly reductive in their understanding of kendall's and roman's relationships to misogyny, though that's a different post.

really at the end of the day, i don't even think it's possible to say that any of the siblings has done 'more harm' or whatever within the roy family unit, let alone on a broader political scale. they all run the racism factory, it would be racist even if it were dem instead of republican, and it's just goofy to act like shiv isn't part of that by virtue of being liberal (these takes also understand the word "liberal" very ahistorically, which is a large part of why they don't get the relationship between liberalism and capitalism). there's a frequent failure to actually examine the content of any of the siblings' politics or their broader worldviews; instead, many viewers have a tendency to just use labels like "liberal" as signifiers in the exact way the show is often satirising lmao. with shiv it's actually pretty fucking explicit at this point where she does and doesn't diverge from her brothers' and father's politics, and how she operates within the same capitalist episteme.