#so now it's an ILL because I have been DENIED my RIGHT to ANNOY MY COWORKERS INTO BUYING ME COMICS

[faeriekit]

Me making posts about libraries buying books for you less than a week after my coworker had to call me and be like "hey...no, we're not buying that $135 dollar omnibus of Gwenpool comics. Good try though." 💀

But what if I wanna read it???

[fettuccinealfred0]

Til Death Do Us Part | Epilogue

Series Masterlist

Astarion x f!reader, Arranged Marriage AU

Word Count: 13k

(CW: SMUT 18+, face sitting, cunnilingus, overstimulation, blow jobs, fingering, unprotected p in v, some cute role playing, Astarion really likes the sound of his own voice)

Summary:

You feel Astarion’s hand move, his thumb running along the length of your palm up to brush against the ring on his finger. 

“We met at my ball. A year ago, tonight.”

Though the beat of your heart is missing and it no longer flutters away inside your chest, a familiar warmth spreads through your veins all the same. 

“Happy anniversary,” you say and you feel a goofy smile spreading across your face.

“Not yet, my love,” Astarion says, but he smiles just as wide. “Not for another two days.”

Read on ao3 here

You could watch Astarion sleep forever. His mouth hangs open slightly and his gentle breathing mixes with the sound of waves. His face is so soft when he’s asleep and with the sun shining off his hair, he can only be described as angelic. 

The two of you are still on the beach, laying on the blanket spread out over the rock. Your feet are tangled with Astarion’s as you curl on your side to watch him doze. Touching. Always touching. The thought makes you smile.

When he wakes up, his long, pale lashes blink open slowly and his arms reach out to pull you tighter against him. You shower his face with kisses and he basks in your affection. 

By the late afternoon, the two of you decide to finally head back to the cottage. There had been a tentative plan for your first day in the sun which most certainly did involve you and Astarion making love on the beach, but which did not account for how long that would take. You probably should have woken Astarion up if you wanted to stick to the schedule, but he was sleeping so peacefully beside you and it seemed like a crime to disturb him. 

And besides, it’s not like the two of you were in a rush- being immortal meant there would be endless time for you both to explore the abilities that Mephistopheles had returned to you.

As you watch Astarion lazily pull on his trousers and shrug back on his shirt, you can’t help but think that he can be a little right sometimes- it is rather devastating to lose sight of his perfect body.

After watching him dress, you push yourself up from sitting on the rock, sliding your chemise and your loosened corset over your head. 

“Help, please,” you say, turning your back to Astarion so he can help lace up your corset. 

“Now, why would I do that? Helping you back in your clothes doesn’t benefit me in the slightest.”

“Astarion,” you whip around to face him with narrowed eyes. “If you aren’t going to help me, then you’re the one that’s going up to the house to fetch Shadowheart because there is no way I am walking back up there with my corset in hand like some kind of cheap harlot. And you know Shadowheart is going to be exceptionally ill-tempered if you bother her since I gave her the day off.”

You watch as he weighs out which option he finds more annoying in his head. 

“Turn around,” he grumbles. He drops a kiss to your shoulder and sighs. “You know, I have a love-hate relationship with this thing. I can’t deny that it makes your breasts look wonderful, but if you’re wearing it, that means I can’t actually see them, which is a travesty.”

“Poor Astarion,” you tease. “For he cannot always be touching his wife’s perfect breasts.”

“No,” he teases back, resting his chin on your shoulder. “Sometimes, I have to touch her cunt instead.”

“You’re too clever for your own good.” You playfully shove his head off your shoulder and he laughs, hands finally moving to help with your corset.

You know he does a purposefully bad job lacing it up. It doesn’t bother you too much because you also know that Astarion would likely be encouraging you to shed the offending garment from your body almost immediately upon your return to the house.

You reward him for his troubles with a peck on the cheek. Astarion seemingly deems it not enough payment for his efforts because he grabs your hips and dips you back into a bruising kiss that leaves you a bit weak in the knees. After a few more kisses, the two of you take your time walking back up to the cottage, your entwined fingers swinging loosely between you. 

When you enter, there’s a lavish spread of food in the kitchen- meats and cheeses and fancy chocolate desserts. The two of you had told the kitchen staff to make everything but evidently you had underestimated how much everything there was. 

When you sneak a peek at Astarion’s face, he looks a bit too overwhelmed by all the choices so you take over, instructing the kitchen staff to bring wine and to load a tray full of berries and sweet little tarts and the fancy chocolate desserts and deliver it all to your and Astarion’s bedroom. You aren’t sure why, but you have the sneaking suspicion that Astarion has a bit of a sweet tooth. 

When the staff ask what to do with the rest of the food, you tell them to throw a feast of their own tonight. 

And as you expected, the moment the door is shut to the bedroom, Astarion is pulling his shirt back off and helping you strip back out of your clothes to pull you onto the bed with him. 

As the two of you lounge on the bed together, you press different fruits to Astarion’s lips for him to taste. It hadn’t been that long since you’d eaten, but watching Astarion was something special. The way his eyes closed in pleasure. The way he would let out a little moan when he tasted something he really liked. The way he would lean over to lick the up the juices that ran down your arm when you fed him a particularly juicy strawberry. 

Eventually, you both grow bored of the food and the tray lays discarded on the other side of the room. The two of you curl into one another, sated and content.

Astarion’s hand rests on your stomach and you absentmindedly roll his wedding ring around his finger as you watch the curtains swaying in the breeze. The sun dips back down over the horizon. 

Astarion knocks his head lightly against yours to guide your attention back to him. 

“It’s been a year now, you know.”

You turn your head to look at him quizzically. “A year?”

You aren’t even sure you know the date, let alone why it holds any special significance outside the fact that it was your first day in the sunlight. You had unfortunately lost track of time in your haze of being a newborn vampire.

You feel Astarion’s hand move, his thumb running along the length of your palm up to brush against the ring on his finger. 

“We met at my ball. A year ago, tonight.”

Though the beat of your heart is missing and it no longer flutters away inside your chest, a familiar warmth spreads through your veins all the same. 

“Happy anniversary,” you say and you feel a goofy smile spreading across your face.

“Not yet, my love,” Astarion says, but he smiles just as wide. “Not for another two days.”

You roll your eyes affectionately but the two of you continue smiling at one another until Astarion leans over to kiss you. The sweet press of his lips against yours deepens as his tongue slides into your mouth. You whine when he pulls away.

“Always so needy, always so desperate for me,” Astarion murmurs.

You huff out a laugh and stretch lazily, playfully elbowing him. “Keep talking like that and I’ll rescind the comment I was going to make that I like you better now than I did at this time last year.”

Astarion simply smiles at your insincere taunt and props his head up on his hand, looking down on you with the hungry eyes of a predator playing with its food. 

“I don’t know, I found it rather amusing when you held that butter knife up to my throat.”

“That’s just because you thought I didn’t know how to use it. You know better now.”

He gives you a condescending, arrogant smile. “It’s cute that you still think you can get the upper hand on me.”

And because you like nothing more in this world than proving people wrong, you reach out, quickly wrapping a leg around Astarion’s hip and pressing on his shoulders to push him backward so you are sitting on top of him, straddling him. You catch his hands with yours, lovingly threading your fingers together before you wrench his hands over his head. 

He doesn’t even try to fight back, which is boring.

“Still don’t think I have the upper hand?” you ask.

“No, I know you don’t.” Astarion’s arms flex underneath yours, pushing back against your hold. There’s a hidden strength there.

“And yet, I’m the one who came out on top.” 

You squeeze his hands to accentuate your point, a silent reminder that he is the one at your mercy right now. 

“Cute,” Astarion says and you shoot him a glare. 

And then, with the graceful elegance of a cat, Astarion manages to flip the two of you so that he is the one pinning you down on the bed. 

“But just know, darling, the only reason you were there is because I adore having you on top of me.” 

You test his hold on your arms but he’s stronger than he looks and your hands are locked in an iron vice.

“Fine, you win,” you admit reluctantly.

“And what do I get as my prize?” Astarion’s got a mischievous little gleam in his eye that spells trouble.

“What do you want?”

He drags his nose down your throat, inhaling your scent. For a moment, it seems like he’s going to ask for a bite. A silly request considering you had never refused him in the past. But Astarion simply retraces his path up your neck, gliding his tongue along your skin.

“Touch yourself,” he rasps, tongue skimming the shell of your ear. “Let me watch.”

Astarion rolls off you, sprawling among the pillows on the bed. His gaze trails along your body like a caress. Down the curve of your shoulder, over the valley of your breasts. Perfect, he had called them earlier. His eyes continue lower, staring expectantly at the juncture of your thighs.

“Well,” Astarion says impatiently. “I’m waiting.”

Beneath his cocky veneer, you recognize that this is Astarion asking your permission, presenting you with the opportunity to deny him. But what idiotic person would ever do that? Who wouldn’t allow the moon and stars to worship them? 

You sit yourself up to lean back against the wall of pillows on the bed and you spread your legs open before him. Astarion inches closer ever so slightly, staring at you with the same awed fascination of a man looking upon the divine.

You really put on a show for him, too- taking the time to let your hands wander your skin. His tongue darts out, wetting his perfect red lips, almost as if he is already fantasizing about the taste of you on his tongue.

When your hand finally makes contact with your cunt, you move your fingers in the way that you have taught yourself over the years, chasing after climax in moments of pent up frustration. Straightforward. To the point.

“No, slow down,” Astarion instructs. “I want to watch you struggle. Only when you have reached the heights of your desperation, only when you have gone delirious with need, only when you beg for it, will I grant you the release you so desire.”

You slow your movements. It’s a poor imitation of what you know Astarion is capable of- all clumsy where his hands are deft, all amateur where he is pure grace. 

“Tell me how it feels,” he orders, propping himself up to move closer to you. 

“Good,” you tell him, honestly. Because it does feel good. Just not as good as you know it could.

Astarion’s eyes narrow when he senses your hesitance. “What else?”

“Not the same as yours…” you confess in a whisper and you feel your skin flushing with heat. “Gods, the things you can do with your hands could bring the world to ruin.”

“Would you like that?” Astarion’s fingers stroke along your ankle, sending streaks of pleasure curling up around your legs, straight to your aching clit, which you roll slippery circles against with your fingers. “Would you like for me to bring you the world, bloody and bruised in my hands, and present it to you as a token of my love?”

You aren’t entirely sure whether Astarion genuinely means this or if this is a role he is adopting for this moment. All you know is that the desperate whine that forces its way from your chest is agonizingly real. 

“You liked that, did you, pet?” Astarion chuckles, all dark and deep and sending a chill down your spine. “You want to hear how I’d burn the world for you? How I’d take the charred remains and mold it in your shape?” His thumb traces little circles around your ankle bone. “I would have blotted out the sun for you. I would have made it rain death and darkness and chaos if we had not found our cure. I would have drowned the world in corruption and laid the soaking remains at your feet.”

And you know he’s not lying- that in another life, all these words are true. It shouldn’t turn you on. It does anyway. 

Astarion’s hands burn where they brush your calf. He touches you possessively, as if your body was simply an extension of his own.

And if he will not touch you where you need him the most, you will let yourself drown in his voice. You will let his words caress your skin where his hands will not. You will hear more of how this man you love would destroy the world, if only you asked.

“More,” you plead with him and he grins arrogantly.

He speaks with a newfound confidence, fingers running up and down your calf, but never any higher. 

“Just think of what we’re going to do to them, my beloved. All those fools… They think they know what true power looks like, but we’ll show them. We’ll rule from the shadows. And you, my queen, only need to point. I shall be your weapon. I shall be the one to enact your ruthless judgment upon the world.”

Astarion is relishing in the sound of his own voice, as well. His other hand falls down to languidly stroke his cock. There’s a lovely bead of moisture at the tip and your mouth waters, you want nothing more than to lean over and take him in your mouth, to let his hands thread in your hair as he guides your mouth along his hard length…

Astarion gently nips at your thigh, drawing your attention back to him. 

“And do you know how I plan to begin my crusade?” he asks, but doesn’t give you any time to answer. “I’ll start with all those men. Anyone who ever looked at you as less than the goddess you are. Any of them who spoke- No, dared to even think of you in a degrading, vulgar manner. Any of them who merely wasted your time by boring you with their presence.” 

Astarion’s hand curls around your knee, slender fingers brushing the sensitive skin along the back and making you shiver. He wrenches your leg open wider, giving himself a better view of the way your fingers slide along your cunt. 

His gaze stays transfixed on your cunt as he speaks. “I’ll kill them all.”

You shouldn’t want that but oh, you do. That bloodthirsty, hungry part of you wants nothing more than to watch Astarion rip those men limb from limb, to watch him bathe himself in their blood and allow you to lick it clean from his skin afterward. 

You reward Astarion by sinking one of your fingers into yourself and his mouth hangs open in awe. Slowly, his head has moved closer to you and your obscene wetness makes you acutely aware of each panting breath he releases. His grip tightens desperately around your knee, as if he is having to clutch onto you to hold himself back from reaching out to touch you. 

You move your finger slowly, letting the palm of your heel continue to graze against your aching clit. It’s not enough. It’s not Astarion- you aren’t full enough, your fingers don’t curl and hit that spot Astarion always manages to find.

“Gods, you’re perfect,” Astarion whispers in breathless praise and you feel the way your cunt tightens around your finger. You know that if he was buried deep inside you, that would have made him moan and his hips would stutter before he rutted into you even faster, even harder.

“What did I ever do before you?” He turns his head, kissing the inside of your thigh. “Do you have any idea how it feels to gaze upon perfection?”

Yes, you think. You know that feeling intimately as perfection is gazing up at you right now, his head resting in your lap as his blood-red eyes devour you. 

His voice is low and dark. “For months, I kept myself away from you, spent my time longing and pining and waiting for you to return to my arms. For months, all I had to sustain myself on was the memories of your silken skin. Of the pool of nectar hidden between your thighs. Of the noises you make. Oh,” Astarion cries out and his hand picks up speed where it strokes his cock. “Those pretty noises. I missed those the most.”

You make one such noise now- a desperate, gasping moan.

Astarion’s eyes are ruthless when they dart up to your face. “If you ever left me-”

“Never,” you cut him off.

You’ll speak with him about that insecurity later- assuage him and assure him until every doubt has been killed from his mind. But not now. Now is the time to feed into this wonderful power fantasy the two of you are discovering together. 

You let out another sound, a pitiful whine, annoyed that your hands have brought you teetering so close to the precipice of bliss with no hope of falling over it.

“Do you need me that badly, pet?” Astarion chides, his hand mercifully moving higher up your leg, closer, so close, almost right there, nearly at the spot you need him to touch you. He stops. You nearly sob.  

“I wouldn’t have let you leave me anyway,” he hisses, fingers digging into the flesh of your hip so hard that you worry it would leave bruises if you were still human. And thank the gods you aren’t if it means Astarion can clutch at you with such desperate abandon with little to no consequences to you. “Besides, if you had, I would have followed you. Anywhere you went, to the ends of the earth. Understand?”

You nod.

You know there is a metaphorical truth to his words. If you wanted, Astarion would have let you leave. But his heart would have followed after you. Just as surely as yours would have stayed with him. 

“You have to say it if you want me to touch you.” You feel Astarion smirking where his mouth rests against your thigh. He has enjoyed this- has enjoyed watching you back yourself into a corner. Now, it was time for him to pounce. 

“I understand.”

Astarion descends with the ferocity of a man whose very last shred of control was hanging on by a thread. He sucks your fingers into his mouth, messy and ravenous, as if he doesn’t want to waste a single drop of your arousal. His own hand quickly takes over, slipping a finger inside you and curling it so good. Your hands claw desperately at the sheets. 

You come almost immediately. After so much build up, it was little wonder it would happen so quickly. What is a wonder is that Astarion immediately pulls his hand and mouth away from you rather than driving you repeatedly to the brink of madness like you had expected. 

For lack of a better term, the whole thing is anticlimactic.

Astarion, seemingly sensing your disappointment, reclines back on the pillows behind him.

“Well, come on, then.” He gives your ass an affectionate pat, silently instructing you to move on top of him. “I’ve given you one. You’ll have to work for the rest of them.”

You crawl over to him, moving to sling your leg around his hips, wanting nothing more than to grind yourself against his cock and guide him into you.

“Not there, pet,” he catches your leg, reflexes still somehow lightning quick even when you know he has to be distracted by how hard he is. 

“Sit on my face,” Astarion says, using his grip on your leg to pull your knee up by his shoulder. 

And out of everything that has happened today- from making a deal with an archdevil to watching a breathtaking sunrise to discovering Astarion has a penchant for blackberries- this request is what has shocked you the most.

 “But what about you?”

Astarion laughs, his soft fingers stroking along the back of your leg. “My motivations are not selfless, if that’s what concerns you, little flower. Your cunt is my favorite meal. I need to spend time appreciating it with these new taste buds. And besides, this bed is just so comfortable. You’ll forgive me if I want to lay back and relax while I feast for once.”

“But I want you to feel good, too,” you pout.

“I assure you, I do.” Astarion tugs more insistently on your hip and you move, knees framing either side of his head. 

“You can stop whenever you want.”

“I know, my love,” Astarion’s face softens and he catches your left hand, bringing it to his lips so he can press a kiss to your knuckles, right under your wedding ring. “Now, as much as I appreciate you checking in with me, you’re keeping me from my plans of drowning between your thighs.”

His arms, soft and surprisingly strong, wrap around your hips and pull you down. His nose brushes along the thatch of hair on your pubic bone before he continues to move it lower. And for a moment, the two of you sit like that, with you shivering in anticipation and Astarion simply breathing against your cunt. 

And then, his mouth is on you and there’s lightning running through your veins. He presses an open mouthed kiss to your cunt before his tongue flattens and he licks.

You feel his strangled groan reverberating in your own bones as he continues lapping. His nose brushes against your clit and you have to reach out one of your hands to steady yourself on the headboard. Your other hand winds its way into Astarion’s hair, tugging at the white curls whenever he does something especially wonderful. Which is… pretty much always. 

When the gods made Astarion, they surely started with his tongue. 

The whole time, his hands stroke and knead along the flesh of your thighs and ass, guiding you to start rolling your hips. It has his nose moving against your clit in a way that has you seeing stars and gasping for air.

Astarion leads to climax again. And again. And again.

Astarion plays your body like it is a violin and he is your virtuoso. He plucks and pulls at the strings, creating a symphony of music that threatens to overwhelm you. Your thighs ache and burn and still you continue rolling your hips against his face. Still, he continues to lap at your cunt with the fervor of a dying man.

At some point, you have transcended your corporeal form. Nothing else exists but these waves of pleasure- constant, unending.

Surely, the ringing you hear in your ears is some form of holy communion. Surely, the gods in the heavens have finally noticed Astarion missing from their ranks and have come to summon him home.

Your grip in his hair slackens. Your head bows in reverence.

It takes you far too long to register that Astarion’s mouth is no longer upon you.

“There you are,” He says, voice a low rasp. “You were missing from me for a moment.”

His beauty is stunning. His chin is glistening, his lips are red and swollen, his white curls are messy and wild. And best of all, he’s got that pretty, pink blush on his cheeks.

Astarion’s hands continue rubbing soothingly along your thighs, anchoring you back to your body.

“Too much, too good,” you slur out. 

Your whole body feels all delightfully fuzzy and light as air. 

Astarion slides out from underneath your legs and gathers you in his arms. You’re sure that you are very moldable and easy to move around right now since you think you might have turned into liquid.

You feel Astarion lips brush against your forehead as he wraps his arms tighter around you. Faintly, you register him praising how good you did, how you listened so well, how you gifted him with yet another lovely moment to cherish forever. The whole time, his fingers knead gently into your muscles, easing away the dull aching in your hips. You simply sigh and curl further into him.  

“We should have a ball,” you say, tracing your fingers in little heart shapes over his chest. “To celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?”

“Our anniversary.”

Astarion’s lips press against your forehead. “We’ll have as many balls as you want. Gods, you can have whatever you want, you only need to say the word and I’ll get it for you. Or, well- I’ll have someone else get it for you, more likely.”

You giggle. “What about a kiss?”

“Hm, I think I can handle that by myself.”

—-----------------

FOUR YEARS LATER

The dress you're wearing tonight truly is breathtaking. In the past, the price of the red silk alone would have nearly made your jaw drop, but you had gotten used to prices like that after years of Astarion waving them away like they were nothing. 

‘What’s the point of money if you aren’t going to spend it,’ Astarion had said. 

After the dressmaker had finished construction, Astarion had spent weeks embroidering the material. The front of the gown only hinted at the masterful craftsmanship- just a delicate chain of flowers along your waist, but the long train which followed you was decadent to the extreme. The lovely red had been nearly covered in the shimmery gold thread, a garden following behind you. 

Astarion had said it was some of his best work to date and had praised you as his muse. 

And the past few months, you had gotten to enjoy a lot of time watching him as the two of you sat out in the gardens in the sunlight, entranced by how his fingers were able to move the tiny silver needle so easily, spinning gold seemingly out of thin air. He never pricked himself, like you and the roses. 

And of course, Astarion had insisted that the two of you matched. His waistcoat was the same blood red fabric covered in flowers that he had embroidered.

Astarion had even humored you by letting you sew some little stars onto the inner lining of his waistcoat, right over his unbeating heart. He had feigned that he had been doing you some big favor, allowing you to put your mark on his body, but you caught how his eyes went a little misty when he saw your work.

“You look wonderful, darling,” Astarion slides up behind you as stand before the mirror, attempting to clasp the ruby necklace behind your neck. His hands meet your own and he deftly clasps the chain into place before wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you back against his chest.

Your reflection grins back at him.

“We can see our reflections and still, the mirror doesn’t do you justice,” Astarion says, nose trailing over your collarbone to the juncture of your neck where he always likes to bite down. He surprises you by redirecting instead, coming up to whisper huskily in your ear, “The way this fabric hugs your body, the way the silk brings out the red in your eyes, the way the diamonds in your hair shine like stars in the night sky, those are all things too lovely to be captured by a simple pane of glass.”

You turn your head toward him and Astarion lips move closer and closer to yours with each word until they are just a hair’s breadth away. The anticipation is killing you, but you hold steady, daring him to meet you. 

He brings his hand up to gently cradle the back of your head-

“Don’t mess up her hair!” Shadowheart yells from across the room, where she’s fiddling with all the leftover hairpins. She huffs quietly to herself, “I spent forever on that.”

You and Astarion are shocked out of your trance, his hand immediately dropping away from your hair. Astarion is so startled by her presence that his cool facade even slips for a moment as he mutters out a quiet ‘sorry.’

“What’s she still doing here?” He whispers to you just loud enough that you know Shadowheart can hear and roll her eyes. 

You use the opportunity to slip out of his arms and continue getting ready.

“I asked her to stay,” you tell him, pulling the gloves up your arms. You watch the twin marks on your wrist disappear as you slide on the silken white fabric. “I don’t trust myself around you and I’m determined to get down to the ball on time this year.”

You hold out your wrist so Astarion can clasp the slippery little buttons along the side. He just stares at you for a moment, giving you a look like ‘you know this kind of task is beneath me’ and you jut your wrist at him a bit more insistently and he rolls his eyes as he grabs your arm. 

“I assure you, little flower,” Astarion says as he buttons your glove, placing a delicate kiss to your wrist before he moves on to the other. “You would have made it to the ball on time.”

“That’s what you said last year. And then we ended up being an hour late.”

No, if you were allowed to be alone with Astarion, he would surely have already bent you over your vanity by now and your throat would be decorated by a necklace of his bite marks. And as beautiful as blood and jewels go together, it would have certainly distracted from the ornate ruby necklace Astarion had given you as a fifth anniversary present.

Five years. Has it really been that long already? Or have you simply been too happy to notice the time passing?

“I don’t recall hearing any complaints from you last year, my love. In fact, I do believe you said ‘more’ quite a few times,” Astarion’s hand drops and rests heavily on your hip. “And besides, who cares what those idiots think?”

“We have to at least pretend to care about propriety, darling,” you remind Astarion and he rolls his eyes. You know he’s going to say something like ‘fuck propriety, let the world know how a true man satisfies his wife,’ so you gently rearrange the folds of his cravat as you speak, “There’s going to be a lot of important people here tonight. We need to uphold their high opinion of us if we hope to continue to use them.”

“I love the way you think,” he says with a wicked gleam in his eye, pulling you back into his arms. 

Shadowheart loudly clears her throat and Astarion glares at her but steps away from you.

“Don’t be upset, husband, there’s still plenty of time to let you plant your seed in my garden tonight,” you say, giving Astarion a big wink at your double entendre.

He looks mortified for a moment before he’s practically falling over in laughter. “Be honest, little flower, how long have you been waiting to use that line?”

“It just came to me.”

Astarion tilts your chin up, a devilish smirk on his beautiful face. “That won’t be the only thing coming in you tonight.”

“You two are strange and… off-putting.” Shadowheart has a look of disgust on her face that has you burying your head in Astarion’s chest to laugh.

“Speaking of strange, Lae’zel is going to be here tonight. I’m sure she’d love it if you made an appearance downstairs long enough for her to ask you for a dance,” Astarion says and Shadowheart’s face turns bright red as she tries to excuse herself from the room as quickly as possible. 

“Look at what you did!” You cry out. “You chased off a perfectly good Shadowheart!” 

“Yes, but now I can finally do this.”

Astarion leans down to kiss you, careful to keep his hands resting on your hips and far away from your ornate hairstyle. You sigh happily against his lips and he presses a soft kiss on the corner of your mouth before he pulls away.

“You ready?” he asks, holding his arm out to you. 

You tuck yourself into his side and the two of you make your way down to the party.

Of course, because this is a ball hosted by Astarion, there’s a big fanfare at your entrance as your names are announced. The two of you descend down the stairs with the grace and elegance that only two vampires can possess. When you reach the ballroom, people are swarming the two of you immediately, begging to speak with you and offer their congratulations on your anniversary. 

The gentry were practically throwing themselves at your feet and what were you supposed to do? Stop them? No, not when it was so much more fun to encourage them. 

You and Astarion make your initial rounds, but your eyes continue scanning the crowds. You hope your father comes again this year. It always fills you with glee, the fact that he shows up every year and is forced to celebrate your anniversary with Astarion. Forced to watch you be happy and in love and thriving. That he continues to grow old and wither away while you and Astarion retain your youthful glows. 

You spot him over by the wine and you’re filled with the wicked thought that maybe one year, you would kill him, make it look like a drunken old fool had stumbled out into the woods and been attacked by an animal. 

Astarion’s hand comes to the small of your back. Touching. Always touching. His breath whispers against your ear, “Oh, I’d hate to be on the receiving end of that glare. Tell me, wife, who do you want me to kill for you tonight?”

“No one,” you think for a moment. “Yet.”

A sly grin spreads across your husband’s face. “Only speak the words and it shall be done. I am yours to command.”

“Oh, I know you are, pet,” you tease him, trying to sound like him. You even give him a little pat on the cheek for added effect. Astarions bares his fangs playfully at you.

“Come dance with me, I’m bored,” you tug on his hand.

You let Astarion wrap you in his arms and spin you around the dancefloor.

“Should I be hurt that you aren’t tripping over your feet at the sight of me anymore, little flower?”

“No, I just have expensive tastes now,” you giggle. “I fear I’m growing too used to awe-inspiring beauties such as yours.”

Astarion’s hand moves down your back, just a bit too low to be acceptable. “Sounds like you’re getting too spoiled.”

“I’m not the one to blame for that problem, star. Not when you insist on buying me far too many lavish gifts.”

“You might be right,” Astarion agrees with a chuckle. “I just can’t help myself. My gifts always look so beautiful on you and your face always lights up so bright. It’s addictive, your smile.”

You smile brightly up at him and Astarion looks upon you with adoration. 

“Pardon the intrusion,” Wyll interrupts with a friendly hand on Astarion’s shoulder. “But I believe I was promised a dance?”

He bows elegantly and extends his hand out.

“Wyll!” You cry out happily. “You know that I always save a dance for you!”

“Who said I was asking you?” Wyll playfully holds his hand out to Astarion, who feigns a delighted shock. “Lord Ancunin, if I may.”

“Cute,” you say, looking between the two of them and pouting. “But you can dance with Astarion later. Right now, it’s my turn.”

They both laugh. 

“Have fun.” Astarion drops a kiss on your cheek and passes you off to Wyll. “I’ll go speak with Lord Idril about our stance on the upcoming council vote. He’s the last person we need to sway.”

The upcoming vote was about providing relief to farmers after a particularly long and harsh winter. You and Astarion really did try to use your influence for good from time to time honestly.

The two of you simply had your own methods for doing good that others might qualify as ‘morally questionable’ and ‘deeply manipulative.’ 

Astarion glides away with a charming smile on his face, waving at adoring nobles as he passes by like he’s the king himself.

“I can’t even imagine the size of his ego by the end of the night,” Wyll says.

You don’t mind too much, Astarion with an ego in public turned into a mouthy Astarion in the bedroom later. The ego boost of the ball was most certainly worth it if you were the one to reap the rewards at the end of the night. 

But you’re fairly certain that Wyll doesn’t want to hear about your methods for taming a wild Astarion so you turn the conversation back to him with a friendly smile.

“How have you been?” you ask as the two of you begin to step in time to the music. 

“Can’t complain. Karlach and I have been traveling along the Sword Coast, as of late.”

“Ah, yes, the formidable Blade of Frontiers,” you tease but you catch the way Wyll’s chest puffs out proudly at the nickname. “That’s what they’re calling you now, right? I’ve been keeping up with your adventures through Volo’s books.”

Wyll rolls his eyes. “Volo… If I fought half as many battles half as valiantly as he writes, I’d wholly be dead.” 

You laugh. Volo was always known for his exaggerations, but you had been so proud when he decided to start following Karlach and Wyll since it kept you up to date on their valiant adventures.

“It’s good storytelling. His books are always best-sellers for a reason,” you say with a shrug. “And besides, I quite like to imagine you and Karlach out there slaying dragons and hunting down devils.”

Wyll laughs, “Yes, devils have become a bit of a speciality of ours.”

“Where’s she at by the way? I haven’t seen her yet this evening.” 

“She’s here, but she’s doing her own dancing,” Wyll grins when he speaks of Karlach and you wonder if his smile is a bit too affectionate to be considered friendly. “She doesn’t like all the stuffy rich-people small talk.”

“Gods, and who could blame her?” You groan when you and Wyll hear the couple next to you discussing how they think you and Astarion sourced the shrimp. “They seem to be exceptionally dull this evening.”

The two of you giggle together and Wyll spins you in a delightful twirl.

“So,” he asks when he brings you back from the twirl, “How are the renovations on the Szarr palace going?”

“Ancunin palace,” you correct him. 

In the interests of venturing into the political landscape of Baldur’s Gate, you and Astarion had decided to renovate the old Szarr palace to use as a secondary base. It had been sitting vacant in the years since Astarion had left and a couple bands of rogues and thieves managed to find their way inside, tearing the place apart. 

A part of you was almost glad when you and Astarion had discovered the disrepair- it felt like poetic symbolism of how his life as a spawn was dead and behind him and that now, he could build something beautiful in its place. 

You and Astarion had spent a long time hiring new staff to work at the palace and even longer working on plans for the renovations. Astarion leaned toward opulence and grandeur in all areas of life, so his ideas were rather… ambitious. It had taken a while to find guild artisans who met his high standards of craftsmanship (and that’s not even mentioning the headache of how few people specialize in gold metalwork, which Astarion would still complain about at length when the mood struck him). 

But aside from your husband’s expensive tastes, the whole process had been mostly fun. The two of you had spent many afternoons laying out in the gardens, swapping fantasies of how you pictured each room in the palace looking. It felt like the two of you were building a home together.

A very expensive, very gold home, but a home, nonetheless. 

Your visits to the palace were still infrequent, however. Astarion still had nightmares and episodes that always seemed to get worse after a visit. You hated to see him in pain and you knew he was frustrated at the fact that he couldn’t simply will himself out of those moments. 

You both knew it would still take time. Luckily, time was the one thing the two of you had in abundance. 

“It’s been slow progress,” you answer Wyll. “There’s lots of memories there, so I think it will take us a while. Though, we are planning another trip to the city soon. How’s your father doing?”

“He’s well,” Wyll smiles and you know he is grateful you asked. Both he and his father adored talking about one another. It was wonderful to see a family with that much love, even as the two of them attempted to navigate past their previous differences.

Astarion had told you about Wyll’s complicated relationship with his father soon after you had met him. Since you and Astarion were beginning to make a name for yourselves in Baldur’s Gate and Wyll’s father was the Duke of the city, it only made sense to introduce yourselves. It didn’t hurt that Duke Ravengard was surprisingly refreshing company in a city full of pompous nobles. 

“He’s sorry he couldn’t make it tonight but he wanted me to extend an invitation for you and Astarion to dine with him again next time you visit Baldur’s Gate,” Wyll says. “Father said that he’d be sure to buy more wine this time so Astarion doesn’t bleed him dry again.”

“I do apologize, bleeding people dry is a particularly nasty habit of mine,” Astarion interrupts.

You know your face lights up when you see him, even if you have only been parted for a few short dances.

“If you’ll excuse me, Wyll.” Astarion’s hand rests on your lower back and you lean into his side instinctually. “I think I’d like another dance with my wife.”

“Of course,” Wyll smiles at the two of you. “And congratulations on your anniversary.” He leans in to whisper conspiratorially to you, but loud enough that Astarion can overhear. “Somehow, you’ve made Astarion considerably less insufferable to be around. We all owe you our thanks for that.”

“I’m not insufferable,” Astarion pouts, pulling your body against his far tighter than most of the other married couples dancing together. 

“No, darling,” you reassure him. “Not unless your feet are cold.”

He was a particular sort of monster when he was cold. It was lucky that you knew a few good ways to warm him back up. 

“Little minx.” He pinches your hip affectionately. “You’re far too much trouble. I’m not sure why I bother to keep you around.”

“Cause you love me.” You move your hand up from his shoulder to cradle the back of his head, stroking your thumb along the sharp line of his jaw.

Astarion’s eyes soften. “I do, don’t I?”

He looks so handsome, you think to yourself. The red in his waistcoat really does bring out the shade of his eyes and when he’s staring at you like this, his heart nearly bleeds out of them. You let your hand drop from Astarion’s face when it is time for Astarion to twirl you in the dance. He pulls you back into him, your back against his chest.

“Got the vote by the way,” his voice is a whisper in your ear. 

He means to disguise his true intentions of political scheming as a loving husband whispering words of affection in his wife’s ear. And he really did whisper in your ear often enough that his actions hardly turned any eyes. 

“Turns out Idril really doesn’t want his wife to find out about the bastards he’s left around the Lower City. Thanks for that bit of gossip by the way.” Astarion twirls you out again and you miss the cool line of his body pressed against your back. 

You give him one of your ‘I told you so’ smiles. “I knew that damned sewing circle would feed me something good eventually. It’s all about playing the long game for you and I.”

“Be honest, darling,” Astarion smirks, “you really just like taking credit for my embroidery, don’t you?”

He’s only partially right. You mostly like showing off his work because you’re proud to have such a talented husband. It’s a very small part of you that does enjoy passing it off as your own since your own attempts at needlework were typically abysmal. 

You laugh. “Oh, don’t pretend you aren’t listening through the walls as they praise your work.”

“Do you really think so little of me as to believe I need the approval of a group of old married hags?” Astarion gasps in faux offense. You giggle and he drops the act to laugh along with you. “Did you enjoy your dance with Wyll?”

“I did. Wyll’s an excellent dancer,” you answer. And then, because you can’t resist teasing Astarion, you add, “Some might say he’s better than you.”

“Oh, really?” Astarion raises his eyebrows. 

“Some might. But not me.”

Astarion looks so pleased with himself, like he could exist off your praise alone. 

“It’s all about the right partner,” he says, repeating one of your favorite phrases back to you.

“And I’m lucky that I found mine.” 

The smile he gives you is radiant. 

Over his shoulder, you catch sight of Gale, trying to get Astarion’s attention. “Looks like Gale is here with your little snack.”

You give both Gale and the woman standing next to him a friendly wave. Now that you are a more experienced vampire, you have better control over your bloodlust and so, about a year ago you had started feeding from the townspeople that you and Astarion payed. It has allowed you to develop tenuous friendships with a few of them. 

But tonight, the two of you had a plan. This snack was for Astarion alone.

Astarion kisses you in a way that is far too scandalous for public eyes. Over the years, that kind of behavior has come to be expected from the two of you, so people simply avert their gazes. And anyone that is staring at you in shock, you simply ignore, choosing instead to enjoy the way Astarion’s fingers curl underneath your chin to tilt your face up to his and the way his lips slide sweetly against yours.

“See you in a few minutes,” he murmurs before he’s walking over to Gale. 

You mingle a while longer before you leisurely make your way out to the gardens, following Astarion. The warm summer night doesn’t feel quite as hot against your skin as it did when you were human. It’s easy to find Astarion now. You know the path in the garden and, more than that, you can smell him. You can practically taste the sharp metallic sting in the air from the woman he’s drinking. 

But it’s not your job to find him easily tonight so you wander, slipping your gloves down your arms and discarding them on a bench to be picked up later as you let your hands brush along the delicate rose petals. You need to make Astarion a new bouquet soon, you think absentmindedly, the one currently in his study was starting to droop.

Eventually, you round the corner to the spot where you know Astarion will be.

He has the woman in his arms, his mouth on her throat. You think back to that first night you saw him, when your heart had shuddered with fear and dread and beneath that, some carnal desire that you couldn’t yet name. You make sure to step loudly so Astarion will hear you but deep down, you know he is just as aware of you as you are of him, even if he is a bit distracted by feeding right now. 

His eyes tear up to look at you, all crimson red and blood dripping down his chin. The shiver that runs down your spine is caused by elation rather than terror, like all those years ago. Looking at him, you cannot help but be filled with love and warmth.

Astarion practically drops the other woman to the ground as he moves to chase after you.

You laugh, a twinkling, sparkly thing that belongs like a star in the night sky, and you have to stop yourself from practically skipping with delight back up to the manor. You remind yourself that you’re supposed to be acting scared as you sneak a peek at Astarion over your shoulder. 

He catches your wrist in his grasp just when you’re about to slip inside and he drags you to that familiar closet. It’s cozy and it’s dark and there’s not much room inside unless Astarion’s body is pressed tightly against your own. His arm presses deliciously against your throat to pin you in place.

His eyes are ravenous as they flit across your face. “Tell me, sweet flower, what’s an innocent thing like you doing out in the gardens all by herself at this time of night?”

“My husband left me all alone,” you say demurely, looking up at Astarion from underneath your lashes.

“He must be a stupid man, indeed, if he ever dared to leave a treasure as precious as you unaccompanied.”

“Yes, he’s very stupid,” you say, poking at his ribs. It’s just so hard to resist teasing him when he presents you with so many wonderful opportunities. 

Astarion rolls his eyes, moving his arm from your neck to rest his hand on the wall, next to your head. “Well, that’s not fun, pet. That’s just being mean.”

“I’m playing along! Like you told me. It just gets too self-referential and confusing if I think about it for too long, star. Somehow you’re both my husband and the seductive vampire that lures me into dark corners.” You whine, your hand moving to squeeze his ass and pull him closer to you. “Just tell me pretty things and fuck me, please.”

Astarion’s hand cups your cheek. “I do that all the time, my love. I was trying to make tonight memorable.”

“Every day with you is memorable in its own way, even without the role playing,” you promise him. You nuzzle into Astarion’s hand and his thumb strokes softly along your cheekbone. 

“You’re sweet,” Astarion says and his face melts into a soft smile. 

“I think I just need more rules about what I’m supposed to say. I’m not you- I can’t just whip up seductive lines full of dirty innuendos at the drop of a hat.”

Astarion laughs. “I am rather gifted at that, aren’t I? We don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. I can take you upstairs and make love to you like I normally do if you’d prefer.”

It’s a tempting offer. Astarion making love to you was likely one of your favorite activities. You liked it almost as much as when Astarion went on a bit of a power trip and whispered lovely, depraved things to you while he fucked you like you were his entire reason for existing, which was exactly what he was offering you tonight.

Besides, when Astarion had brought up this idea, he had been so excited to try it out, so excited to recreate the night you first met in a space where the two of you could act on all the perverse desires you had been holding back. 

And you truly loved seeing Astarion enjoying and having fun with intimacy, watching his comfort zone expand with time and listening to the new desires he whispered that he wanted to try. 

Sometimes, he didn’t end up liking the outcome nearly as much as the idea. There had been that… unfortunate time where Astarion’s hands had only been bound to the bedposts for a few minutes before he was already pulling himself free from the loose restraints, pleading with you that he was sorry. You had simply wrapped your arms around him and held him against your chest, reminding him that he never needed to apologize for setting boundaries. 

No, from then on, restraints were saved solely for you. 

“No, let me try again.” You drop your hand from his ass and smile sweetly up at him. “Can we go back to the beginning, please?”

Astarion presses a quick peck on your lips. “Just follow my lead. I’ll make it easy for you.”

He takes a moment to compose himself before he’s pressing his arm against your throat again, looking down at you with dark, hungry eyes. It sends an immediate spark of arousal straight to your cunt.

“Tell me, sweet flower, what’s an innocent thing like you doing out in the gardens all by herself at this time of night?”

You look at him with your best impression of wide, scared eyes, like you are a rabbit caught in the jaws of a wolf. You speak, voice barely a whisper, “Chasing after monsters, it seems.”

“A monster?” Astarion laughs, all dark and condescending. “Is that what you think you saw?”

He presses his leg between yours, pinning you to the wall with the full weight of his body and your cunt is aching and it would be easy, so, so easy, to just grind yourself down against his thigh. 

“I don’t know what I saw,” you say and your voice comes out surprisingly breathy and naive. You tilt your head up a bit to look at Astarion, exposing more of your neck and your hand clings desperately to the hem of his coat, pulling him tighter against you. “All I know is that you’re simply too beautiful to be human.”

And in another life, perhaps these are the exact words that you would have said to Astarion in that closet when you first met. Perhaps if you had put up less of a fight or been brave enough to say what you were truly thinking, you would have confessed how you thought he was a beam of moonlight come to life, how you thought that there was no way that the perfect man in front of you could exist because he had to be the embodiment of all your childhood fantasies.

“And yet, I was not the most beautiful person in that garden tonight.” His voice is smooth and silky and feels like a caress on your skin. 

His arm flexes where it sits across your neck and his fingers brush along your collarbone, just the hint of a touch. You roll your hips down upon Astarion’s leg and apparently he’s feeling benevolent tonight because he pushes his thigh into you a little bit harder and it provides just the amount of friction you need. 

“Yes, the woman you were with was very pretty.”

It’s a bit too boring if you just feed Astarion compliments. He deserves to do some work here, too.  

“Don’t go chasing after compliments. It’s unbecoming of you.” Astarion’s arm presses harder into your throat and he narrows his eyes at you. You don’t even need to breathe but the slight impact on your airflow has you feeling dizzy. Or maybe that’s just Astarion’s scent, all bergamot and rosemary and the hint of blood on his lips. 

“I’m sorry,” you murmur and you both know that you don’t mean it because your hips don’t even stutter where they grind against Astarion’s leg. 

“You already know that I meant you,” he continues, ignoring your insincere apology. “All those roses, all those flowers, and they looked pale and lifeless compared to you.”

His voice is low and hungry in your ear. He licks along the shell of it before he whispers, “Don’t all the great poets compare cunts to flowers? I fear they’d run out of words if they ever saw yours. I’d have to kill them all, obviously, but at least they would gaze upon perfection before they died.”

Yeah, that line was a little too ‘your husband’ Astarion and less ‘vampire cornering you in a dark room’ Astarion. It sends a victorious trill singing in your veins because you know he’s fighting just as hard as you to keep himself composed. 

Astarion takes a shuddering breath and corrects himself. “It’s truly a shame that I’m going to have to kill you.” 

“No, please. Perhaps I can find some way to convince you that I’m worth keeping alive.” 

You really play it up, too- pouting your lips, looking up at him from underneath your eyelashes, tilting your chin up to expose your neck just so. Astarion loved to spoil you normally, but he was always so especially susceptible to your begging.

Astarion releases his arm from where it had been pressed against your neck, tracing one of his fingers down his favorite artery. You can feel Astarion’s cock where it presses into your stomach, hard and heavy. 

And although his body betrays his desires, Astarion manages to keep his voice flat and unimpressed when he speaks, like this negotiation is beneath him. “I already have more than enough blood, my sweet treat. I’m afraid you’ll have to be more creative about what you can offer me.”

“I’ve been told that I have a very talented mouth. Let me show you. Maybe that will change your mind.”

And thank the gods Astarion released his arm from your neck because now you have more freedom to move. He moans when you catch one of his earlobes between your teeth and his hand comes back up, wrapping gently around your throat and pushing you away from him. 

Gods, you can only imagine how wonderful his hand looks wrapped around your throat, accentuated by the lovely ruby necklace he had given you. Maybe you would have to ask him to do it again later in front of a mirror, so you could actually see it. 

“Hm, you’re a clever one, aren’t you?” Astarion asks. He shifts his hand so his thumb presses heavily against your bottom lip. His eyes feel like they’re burning into you. “Go on, then, show me.”

You part your lips, letting his thumb slide into your mouth. You suck on it greedily, letting your tongue swirl around it teasingly in that same way you know he always likes around the head of his cock in a silent promise of what is to come. You can feel Astarion’s hips grinding subtly against you as he watches your lewd display and it makes your cunt move so wonderfully against his leg.

“Very well, pet, you’ve proven your point.” His breathing is ragged as he slips his thumb out of your mouth. He leaves a wet trail as he slides it along your chin, all the way down your throat. “Now it’s time for you to really convince me.”

Astarion’s hands fall down to your hips and he pulls you with him, moving until his back is against the wall and your body is leaning into him. His mouth grazes yours as he purrs, “Your lips are going to look so pretty wrapped around my cock.”

He continues to trail teasing almost-kisses along the length of your neck before he bites down. You gasp at the shock of cold, but his mouth retracts from your skin almost immediately. You whine in protest- the bite was too quick, you didn’t even get to really enjoy it.

“On your knees, darling,” he commands, voice all deep and heavy with desire. 

You obediently sink down to your knees in front of Astarion and look up at him as one of your hands reaches out to run along the outline of his hard cock straining against his trousers. Your touches are light and fleeting and his hips jolt involuntarily as he tries to press himself harder into your hand.

You’re the one on your knees for him and yet you are the one who will control his pleasure. What a lovely dynamic.

“Promise you won’t kill me?” you ask, acting timid as you fiddle with the fastenings on his pants. 

“I don’t know,” Astarion’s eyes glint dangerously in the darkness. “Perhaps a little death is in order tonight.”

It’s a cheesy double entendre but he sells it with the way he’s looking down on you like he can’t wait to devour you. You feel electric, like all your veins in your body are sending molten fire straight to your cunt. 

You make quick work of the fastenings on Astarion’s pants and he helps you push them down enough to free his cock. He hisses when your hand wraps around his length. 

It’s up to you now, whether you want this to be quick and messy or whether you want to drag this out so long that Astarion is crying and begging to come. Or maybe a mix of both? You’ll see where the mood takes you, you decide, as you lean forward to kiss the base of Astarion’s cock. 

You trace a line of teasing kisses along the whole length and when you reach the head of his cock, you let your tongue slip out to run along the slit. Astarion groans, his fingers threading into your hair as a silent request to finally take him in your mouth. You ignore him, content to trace another line of kisses back down his cock. 

“Right now, I’m leaning toward killing you,” Astarion says and you can’t help but laugh. You apologize by licking a stripe along the underside of his cock before sucking the tip into the soft, wet heat of mouth.

“Gods, your mouth,” Astarion groans. 

You hum in response and Astarion’s hips give a little buck. You take the cue and begin bobbing your head slowly, swirling your tongue around his tip a few times in between each drag of your mouth up and down his cock. You’re trying to take your time, you want Astarion to enjoy this as long as possible, want to make this moment good and special for him.  

You take more and more of his cock into your mouth as you move, hollowing your cheeks and bringing your hand up to assist where you’re unable to fit him in your mouth. Quickly, too quickly for what you have planned tonight, you’re able to get a good rhythm going and Astarion’s cock pulses in your mouth in response as he lets out a long string of curses.

Because you are a bit selfish and you don’t want this to end just yet, you pull your mouth off Astarion with a gentle pop. You keep pumping your hand up and down at a slow pace- enough to feel good, but not enough for him to come. Not yet. 

With Astarion’s fingers still loosely threaded in your hair, you sneak a peek up at him. He’s breathtakingly gorgeous, of course. His head tilts back against the wall, eyes closed in rapture, and his beautiful pink lips are slightly parted as soft gasps and breaths escape his mouth. 

Gods, you want nothing more than to bite him, to taste his little snack from earlier for yourself. 

You grab his wrist with your other hand, bringing it toward your mouth. Pushing up his sleeve, you run your nose along the veins in his wrist. 

“Let me taste you,” you plead. And then because you know Astarion is weak for you, especially when you’re on your knees for him, you add a breathy, “please.”

He looks down at you with half-lidded eyes and his voice is so deliciously condescending when he says, “Only since you asked so nicely. Drink up, pet.”

With his permission given, you sink your teeth into the soft flesh of his wrist. It tastes divine. You let your tongue lick away the blood until his wounds have closed and then you set back to work on his cock with a renewed vigor. 

When you take him back in your mouth, you lift your hand up to pat on Astarion’s thigh three times, the signal between the two of you that it was okay for him to start moving however he wanted.

His fingers curl in your hair a bit more insistently as he starts guiding your motions and you relax your jaw, letting him fuck into your mouth as he chases after his orgasm. You wish you could get to your cunt more easily around the skirts of this heavy ball gown because you’re practically aching with need. 

“That’s- fuck, so good, my love,” Astarion pants out. 

His hips quicken and you know he’s close so you move one of your hands to cup his balls and you feel them tightening beneath your fingers. 

“Fuck, I’m going to-” Astarion gasps. “That okay?”

And it would make you smile, if your mouth wasn’t currently otherwise occupied. It was sweet, how even in the heat of the moment, Astarion still found the time to check in with you. Even now, after years of assuring him that was unnecessary. 

You pat on his leg thigh again, another okay, and it only takes a few more thrusts before his cock is twitching and he’s coming in your mouth. 

When you finish swallowing, Astarion is guiding you to stand again, pressing his mouth to yours in a messy kiss. Gods, are you ever grateful that Astarion is not shy. It certainly helped you over the initial awkwardness you felt at moments like this very quickly. 

Astarion groans into your mouth as he tastes himself. The metallic tang of the woman’s blood still remains faintly on his own lips. You find yourself fighting against Astarion as you both try desperately to chase after the taste in the other’s mouth. 

Between your messy kisses, Astarion ungracefully works to bunch the gorgeous fabric of your dress up to your hips, shifting again to push you against the wall. 

“Hold,” Astarion instructs you, passing your bunched up skirts off to you. You collect them in your arms and hold them up around your waist. His lips slide slowly and deliciously against yours before he murmurs, “I can smell you. I can practically taste in the air how wet you are. And we don’t want you making a mess out of your pretty dress, now do we? I imagine someone worked very hard on that.”

Astarion’s leg presses against you and for a moment, you wonder if that was his hidden plan for the night all along- if he was going to make you rut against his leg in the dark closet, guiding you to ecstasy with just the sound of his voice. You start rolling your hips again and the relief you feel at finally giving your cunt some attention nearly makes you sob.

“Now, now, pet,” Astarion tuts. “I know your cunt is just aching for me, but now is the time for patience. If you can wait just a little longer, I promise to reward you handsomely.”

And oh, how you adored being rewarded by Astarion. It usually involved at least a few orgasms that left your legs shaking and your mind spinning. Astarion accentuates his words by kicking your legs a bit wider apart with one of his own feet. His hand moves down between your body, fingers brushing against your cunt.

“Just like I expected, you’re practically dripping. You like sucking my cock that much, don’t you?”

Your eyes fall closed as you let yourself drown in the soft strokes of Astarion’s fingers along your folds. It feels like you might very well burn alive.

Astarion’s other hand gently weaves through your hair. You’re sure the rubies that Shadowheart spent hours weaving into your hair have long since been scattered across the floor. You can’t bring yourself to even begin to care. 

“Answer me when I speak to you, pet,” he commands in that wonderful low voice. 

It’s accompanied by a sharp tug on the roots of your hair that have you offering up your neck to Astarion. His mouth dips down to suck at your throat and you mewl in delight when he finds a particularly sensitive spot. 

“You know I love your cock,” you tell him. 

You’d add how much you love the rest of him, too, but that doesn’t seem to fit the mood right now. No, you’d save that for later tonight while you rode him, forbidding his hands from roaming your body. With his hands tightly gripping the sheets, you would shower him in praise and be those lovely, pathetic whimpers he made as he fought to keep his hands off you. 

Astarion hums, tilting your chin up to press another deep, slow kiss to your lips. “And you know I adore your mouth.”

His hand keeps moving in maddening, feather-light patterns along your cunt, occasionally moving up to brush against your clit before his fingers are darting away again. It seems Astarion has not finished having his fun with you tonight. 

He speaks against your lips, “You look so pretty on your knees for me. I’d keep you there forever, pet, but I think I’d grow tired of not being able to properly kiss you.”

And if anyone else said that line, you’d be rolling your eyes and grimacing about how corny it was. But this is Astarion and he commits and says it in the low, hungry voice that has your toes curling and heat pooling in your cunt.

His mouth is hovering just centimeters away from yours. You can feel each panting breath on your lips. You move forward to kiss him, but Astarion tugs on your hair again, keeping you just a hair's breadth away from what you want. 

Trying to outsmart Astarion, you use your free arm that is not holding your skirts to pull him down by his cravat and seal his lips against yours. He actually seems rather glad that you managed to work around his grip in your hair as he hums happily into the kiss. 

And either Astarion is extra observant tonight or you’re just being extra obvious about the way you chase after the taste of blood in his mouth.  

“She tasted divine,” Astarion says, his thumb making a slow circle around your clit before it’s gone again. “But I doubt you want to hear about that, do you, pet? No, I think you’d much rather hear about how she paled in comparison to you.”

He dips just the tip of one of his fingers inside you before pulling it out again almost immediately.

“She was nothing. They’re all nothing,” Astarion hisses. Gods, how did that even manage to sound attractive coming from him? “No one else has ever made me feel as good as you.”

For a moment, his pure, unadulterated love breaks through on his face and your chest burns with love- you know how devoted he is to you, you know how much he adores you. 

For a moment, it is just the two of you in a little bubble of love. And then Astarion finally, mercifully pushes a finger into you, working it in and out so agonizingly slow. You whimper and Astarion smiles wickedly down at you. 

“They all bow to us, you know?” Astarion asks, knowing you are in no state to answer. “They bow to me. To you.”

You pull his lips down to yours again and slip your tongue in his mouth. He knows exactly what he’s doing- he knows this line of speaking always works you into a state of frenzy. And you know that arrogant side of him enjoys the sound of his voice just as much as you do. 

It had been so easy, too, to work the nobles onto your side, to start poisoning their minds with your and Astarion’s ideas. A few carefully placed smiles, a few favors promised and repaid, a few veiled threats. The two of you worked together so easily- Astarion charmed and you schemed. 

Astarion chuckles, slipping another finger into you and curling them in a way that makes you unsteady on your feet. He seems perfectly content to keep his other hand threaded in your hair, delivering your mouth to his whenever he wants a kiss. 

“Oh, you liked that, didn’t you, pet? You like thinking about them on their knees for you, just like you were for me a few moments ago.” The heel of his palm brushes against your clit. “Do you want to hear more? Do you want to hear about how even the sun herself bows her head in deference to your light and beauty? About how even I bow down to you, surrendering myself to you in worship?”

“Show me, then,” you pant out, pulling on the back of his neck to press his forehead against yours. “Show me how you intend to worship me.”

That has Astarion cursing under his breath and reaching down to give his cock a few pumps before he’s pushing into you, already hard again. 

The fullness and the stretch of him finally inside you soothes the ache that had been plaguing you all night. And when he moves, you can’t help the barrage of moans and gasps that fall from your lips.

“Quiet, little flower. We don’t want everyone to hear, do we?” Astarion asks, bringing his fingers up to your mouth. They’re still wet with your arousal and you follow his silent cue, sucking them into your mouth.

“Good girl,” he purrs and it sends a spark straight to your cunt. You feel yourself tighten around his cock and Astarion groans in response, his hips thrusting into you with even more desperation. 

The thought of who’s the one being loud now? passes through your mind as Astarion groans and tells you how good you feel. And then, because deep down, you’re a little bit vindictive, you let one of your fangs scratch along the skin of Astarion’s fingers in your mouth. You greedily lick up the blood, enjoying the way it mixes with the taste of your wetness on your tongue. 

What was it that Astarion always called the combination of your blood and your cunt? The nectar of the gods? He might be onto something there. 

Astarion’s eyes lock in on you with a single-minded focus before he’s wrenching his fingers from your mouth, capturing your lips with his own. He sucks your bottom lip into his mouth and bites down, lapping up the blood until your wound closes.

“I love you,” you whisper when he pulls away.

His cock pulses inside you and his hips stutter a bit before he can recover his rhythm. You would never get tired of that- of reminding Astarion of how deeply you loved him and watching how he never failed to viscerally react to those words. 

“Love you, too,” Astarion says, pressing a peck to your cheek. You can feel him smiling against your skin. It’s a total contradiction to the obscene way his cock drives into you.

You grab Astarion’s hand from where it had been gently cupping your face and drag it down between your bodies. 

“Need your hands.”

“I know just what you need,” he assures as his magical fingers begin circling your clit. 

There’s that lovely heat building low in your stomach, rising into a great inferno that surrounds you. And with Astarion’s whispered promises of how he loves you, how good you feel, how you shine brighter than the sun, you come. 

Astarion fucks you through your orgasm before his fingers fall away from your sensitive clit and his hips continue to drive into you as he chases after his own high.

“Come for me,” you tell him, half a command and half a begged request. “Want to feel you inside me.”

Astarion’s forehead rests against yours as he comes.

He keeps you pressed to the wall with the full weight of his body for a few moments longer as the two of you fight to steady your breathing. 

Frankly, it’s a miracle that you managed to hold up your dress the whole time. You had been so worried about damaging the lovely needlework that Astarion had spent so long embroidering that you had kept the fabric clenched to your stomach in an iron-vice the whole time. 

Astarion ensures you are steady on your feet before he shuffles around the closet in search of a rag to wipe between your legs. He finds one and helps you to clean up before throwing it in a bucket with the other dirty rags. You finally release your skirts and flex the muscles in your aching arm as you lean back against the wall, grabbing Astarion’s wrist to pull him back toward you. 

“I love you.”

“I’ll never get tired of hearing you say that,” he murmurs, wrapping his arms tightly around you as he pulls you into a hug. “I love you, too, now and forever.”

“‘Til death do us part,” you tease, because the idea of death to a vampire seems nothing more than a joke. 

Astarion laughs, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. “And even after then.”

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

Notes:

Me? Ending a fic on the title? It's almost like I planned that from the beginning... This chapter could alternatively be called 'I let Astarion have a delusions of grandeur as a treat for working on himself.' He's still the Astarion we know and love and of course he's still a little bit evil, but now he's got a wife to help him channel all that energy in healthier ways!

Wow, I can't believe this story is over and this is my final note. I'm getting a bit teary eyed as I write this. Know that I will never be able to fully express my appreciation to everyone who has read/liked/commented on this story. This whole experience has been so much more fun that I ever could have imagined and I have all of you to thank for that!!!

As always, hugest thank you to my beta-writer (and real life friend) AliensNSuch on ao3. She has put up with my insane text rants about obscure details and she has logged many, many hours editing this thing and hyping me up over the parts I hate. I owe her a lifetime of boba for her service!

I've also got some plans for a new fic that I'm gonna start. I'll have a follow up post on my blog talking about my plans if anyone is interested in that. I'm not quite done with Astarion yet!

Thanks again. I love you all!

Taglist: @ayselluna@idkbrodontaskme@maruichio@fanfic-share@the-littlest-bruja@asterordinary@divineknightmare@fandomarchiveilyd

[lovedrruunk]

'Mango Letters ♡⸝⸝💌⊹˖➴

Venture (Overwatch) x GN Reader

[Established Relationship!]

Authors note!!!; DID U MISS MEEE??? also...IM SO SORRYYY!!!! BUT I THINK IM JUST GONNA START WRITING WHAT I WANT :((( i realized im sososo bad with requests like genuinely ughhhh!! Ill def do some every now and then tho! Anyways im just clearing out my drafts cuz I’ve come to the realization that this is literally tumblr and my posts don’t have to be perfect lmao, enjoy!!

75 days 18 hours 46 minutes and 3 seconds. That's how long it had been since you've seen your partner Sloan. Being with them you knew how devoted they were to their work and how much it required them to travel but on pretty days like this one when the weathers just right and the flowers are in full bloom and the sunset is the perfect hue of orange, you couldn't help but wish they were by your side.

And although they were thousands of miles away they always made sure to send you physical manifestations of their love.

Through love letters of course!!!

It had been a tradition ever since they had started going on longer expeditions for them to send you things in the mail. So there in your shared closet in a cute little shoebox on the top shelf, laid all their feelings on coffee stained papers. Little crystals the same color as your eyes, maps with all the places they wanted to take you, polaroids of them doing silly faces, and your favorite part, the sweet scent of mango that came with it all.

And so although they weren't by your side, their feelings were. Their longing, their excitement, their thoughts, all in the palm of your hands covered in all types stickers and doodles.

Sitting outside on the porch of your shared home enjoying the calm breeze you smile holding the most recent letter delivered. Inhaling deeply catching the hints of mango as you carefully open it.

Dear Beloved,

It's been so looong!!! I can feel myself aging without you! Hope this letter finds you well! Notice how I used "beloved"? Fancy huh? Arn't I just the most romantic partner ever? (don't answer that.) This is my fifth time trying to write this and it's annoying the crew so this is my last chance before they jump me... It's just so hard y'know!? It has to be perfect. Perfect for you. Is that cringe? That was cringe sorry! I miss you lots and I think about you all the time... You'd love Petra! A camel ate my shemagh... but It's whatever. I'll buy a new one tomorrow, I'll get one for you too so don't worry! Now that I'm thinking about it the days seem to be going by pretty slow and I'm not sure if I like it much. Like I said I miss you a lot and it stinks being away from you for this long. Can't you just book a flight over here? Can't you do that for me pretty pleaseee? That's ridiculous? Okay just say you hate me and never want me to come back, just say you don't love me at all and want me to get stuck in a cave foreva. Just kidding! or am I?... (I am! >ᴗ<)

I like to imagine you’re missing me really bad counting down the seconds till I get back, which by the way I am too so don’t feel the need to deny it! I can see it now… You all shriveled up like a raisin crawling on the floor going “sloannn… sloannnn…” because of how bad you miss me hehe. Just kidding again! It’s probably the opposite let’s be real… I’m going insane without you seriously, I started talking to the hieroglyphics yesterday and the crew even caught me tasting some rocks earlier (sos!!!!)

But speaking of, they’re rushing me to “turn the lights off already” what a bunch of buzzkills ammarite? Promise to show up in my dreams okay? Who am I kidding, you’re always there regardless. Sweet dreams ᥫ᭡ᥫ᭡

p.s they really wanna meet you!

p.p.s take care okay? I’ll be home before you know it!!!

Yours truly,

(so romantic!!!)

“(๑´>᎑<)~*”

[teddypickerry]

Hi, i really love your posts, i was wondering if you could perhaps do dating jess mariano hc’s. No problem if you dont want to but anything for jess would be amazing🤍

𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐈 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐑.

d a t i n g j e s s m a r i a n o h c!

pairings! jess mariano x fem! reader

a/n! oh my goddd i love him so fucking much guys. it’s practically an illness at this point. anyways i hope i did you justice ;)

+ being with stars hollow's own troublemaker was a front page story itself

+ everyone told you your heart would get broken and to not fall for such a rebellious kid

+ but he’s so much more than a gnome stealer with good music taste

+ he always brought you food when you were alone

+ and honestly got a little flushed when you walked into the diner one day in a mini skirt

+ he'd never admit it though

+ but he pulled you into the supply closet and placed kisses all over like he'd lose you in ten seconds if he didn't

+ "is it my birthday today?”

+ getting caught by luke right before the good stuff was gonna happen

+ "really you two? you're that rabid that you couldn't have gone upstairs? you're on food kids, this is a business. you can't multiply next to my cheese!”

+ jess pulling you out of the room before you could apologize (taking luke's advice and taking you upstairs)

+ making you a tape of some random songs that made him think of you

+ lots of the strokes, the smiths, inhaler, nirvana, pixies, and a bunch of random rock songs

+ obviously and i love her by kurt cobain

+ can't forget a few halestorm songs

+ a random knock at your window while you brushed through your hair made your head turn, already knowing who it was

+ he was sat there and raised his eyebrows at you as you opened the windows and he pressed a kiss to your lips

+ he handed you the tape, laying on your bed in the process

+ he denied whenever you teased him for the sweet gesture

+ even though it was all true

+ random visits through your window on a daily basis

+ your mom heard them nearly everytime but did nothing to stop the interaction as long as you were using protection

+ walks through stars hollow with his arm around you are by far his favorite activity

+ besides maybe reading together by a tree

+ ooh and gifting you books he annotated for you while he should have been working

+ taking little pins that say weird shit from record shops and putting them on your bag and on his jacket

+ so you're like always together

+ falling asleep on the phone and luke finding jess after he closed up, cuddling the phone to his ear

+ and don’t worry, he didn’t let his little lovebot forget

+ when you guys were just friends, he stole a photo booth slide from your mirror and kept it in his nightstand every since

+ and not for any weird reason but simply to see that pretty smile whenever he pleased

+ getting pissed off whenever you interact with a guy your age

+ even if you're just being polite or doing your job, he's all "hi" and giving you a wet kiss to make sure that guy knows

+ getting a stick and poke of your initial on his hand because he can. he's jess.

+ and since you're not quite there yet, you wrote his initals on your favorite pair of sneakers

+ "why did you yell at that guy at work he won't talk to me now?" "i told him if he did talk to you... i'd cut his tongue out and make him swallow it." "very mature jess, your psycho is showing." "good, thought i lost my touch."

+ calling into radio stations or camping out by himself just to get you concert tickets

+ luke trying to take a picture of the both of you

+ you smiling awkwardly while jess is simply annoyed but looks over at you, his eyes softening and a small smile falling on his face

+ that picture being framed above the fireplace the two of you share in new york <333

[barbs4shua]

Sweet Dreams; Sad Reality |Yoon Jeonghan

Synopsis: Joshua, your childhood best friend introduced you to his group members when you moved to Korea two years ago and you get along with the boys so well, all except one person- Jeonghan. He's your worst reality and what happens when he catches you having sweet dirty dreams of him?

Pairing: Jeonghan × Fem Reader

••••••

"Fuck Jeonghan!" You scream, gripping the sheets tightly as he slender fingers, scissored, drove in and out of your wet heat.

"more pl. . .ease. Don't stop" you moan urging him to wreck you further.

"Y/n? What the fuck?!"

Why did the voice sound so familiar? And why was it so loud? slowly, your eyes opened.

Jeonghan!

He was staring down at your sleeping figure, well, now you're awake and he doesn't look very pleased. That's strange, moments ago, he was giving your body so much pleasure with a proud smirk on his face . . . Or he wasn't.

Shit!

You were having a wet dream about Jeonghan, in Jeonghan's room, on his bed! And he'd caught you while at it.

"You!. . . were you touching yourself? Or no, if I clearly remember what I saw, you were dreaming. And. . . Was I fucking you in your dream mmm?" He asks brows raised at you and his body still towering yours. He needs to move so you can breath

"No! I uhh__"

"Don't you fuckin deny it Y/n! I walked in on you moaning my name. I wanted to let you know Mingyu and Shua had cooked dinner in case you wanted some but apparently you were getting stuffed in the dream" he snaps and you look away, cheeks crimson colored.

One glance around and you recognize this room, it's Jeonghan's. But how exactly did you end up sleeping here?

"You don't remember do you?" He ask as though he read your thoughts. He move away and sat on the bed, still too close for your liking.

Then it hits you, You'd come over to the dorm to check on Dino who'd fallen ill and Hoshi, Seungkwan and DK had made you join them in a drinking game. Two shots down and you were already tipsy, you'd told them you couldn't carry on because you were already tired from the day's work.

Joshua had asked you to go take a nap in his room and you did just that. Only it wasn't Joshua's room but Jeonghan's.

Joshua had gone to check on you and didn't find you, he suspected you might have wandered off and slept somewhere else, and he was right because Vernon found you sprawled on Jeonghan's bed.

Jeonghan's bed. . . . the earth really meant to punish you this time. Out of 13 beds in their dorm, it just had to be his. The fact that you two couldn't stand each other for some weird reason even made it more annoying, there's no way you could walk out with your shoulders high now, especially with what he'd just witnessed.

A moment of silence passes and he reaches out to pull the covers away. You shift your legs and . . . . Fuck, You're so damp down there

"Answer me truthfully Y/n, were you dreaming of me?" he turns to face you as he asks

Should you answer truthfully like he requested? He'd sure caught you this time. Well fuck it!

"Yes" you replied raising your head to meet his gaze "and I'm sorry, I didn't mean for you to see that"

"Do you have such dreams often?" He pries on. Is he really going to ignore your apology?

"Jeonghan, please can we not talk about this?"

"Oh we shouldn't? Y/n the fact that you don't want to talk about it makes me feel this isn't the first or second or even tenth time you're dreaming of me fucking you"

"I. . . don't__"

"Don't what?" He interrupts you as his eyes scan your face. "I mean you hate me, we can't stand each other. But you have such dirty dreams of me? Are you that sex deprived? Joshua said you've been single for 2 years now. . . . Scoups and Mingyu are always up for a good fuck"

Wow!

"Don't slut shame me Yoon Jeonghan!" You snap and attempt to get out of bed only to be pulled by him and seconds later you're laying flat on your back, his body hovering over yours.

"I'm not slut shaming you. It doesn't make sense that you have wild dreams of the one you hate, fucking you so good you're moaning so loudly" his face is so close you're forced to close your eyes.

"I don't hate you. . . I just find you annoying" you say in the meekest of voice

"Why? . . . And open your eyes Y/n. Look me in the eyes and tell me why you find me annoying"

You open your eyes and he's staring at you, but you can't seem to read his expression. It's not the typical nasty or bitchy expression he wears almost all the time around you.

"I don't know" truthfully you don't know why you find him annoying. But he always annoys you. It's either something he says or his unwillingness to do anything that gets on your nerve. It's so shameful that you go to bed and he does things to you in your dreams. He's fucked you so many times in your dreams, you were almost praying to God to make it a reality.

You'd never looked at him the same way again after the first time you'd dreamt of him. You were always stealing glances and thankfully no one ever caught you doing that. You often wondered what it'd feel like to have his fingers buried deep in your cunt as you watched him play with chopsticks.

You'd met him two years ago when you moved to south Korea and Joshua, who was your childhood friend back in LA had introduced all his members to you. Jeonghan had made you nervous the first day you met and you began avoiding him. Soon after, you find him absolutely annoying and irritating. You two barely spoke, so the silent feud between you two wasn't exactly you two bickering but not speaking and being unable to stand each other. And now that you think of it, it's so stupid.

Jeonghan has always been nice, he'd treated you so well and it felt like you had another Joshua in your life. Only that you found his kindness overbearing. But was it? He'd always wanted to make sure you ate well, called to find out if you'd gotten home if you told him or Joshua you were hanging out with friends and all that.

"Well I'm glad you don't hate me" he says snapping you out of your thoughts. He looks at you again and his gaze settles on your lips "but tell me, this isn't the first time right?" he asks and you know exactly what he meant as he reaches to stroke your cheeks and you hitch a breath at the contact. But you don't try to stop him.

"Yes" you reply and it came out moaned.

"I think we can't stand each other because we're frustrated at each other . . . . . I don't know about you, but I like you Y/n. I always have. At first I thought you and Joshua had something going on but after a while I figured you were just friends. I wanted to approach you but you already hated me, or so I thought. So we're both getting punished for being stupid. I get to watch you every time and I can't have you while you go to bed and dream of me fucking you but it's not real"

He prattles on and his hand moves to your arm, drawing circles as he leans closer, so close your nose is touching his and hot breath fans your face. You're dying to have his lips on yours. Those lips you're always staring at, whether in person or on your phone, Jeonghan's lips are enticing. The way he often licked his lips on and off stage made you think sinful thoughts.

"I want to fuck you y/n, I want to pin you to the wall, on my bed, against the bathroom tiles, in the backseat of my car, on the kitchen island. . . " he pauses and buries his face in the crook of your neck as he continues speaking and you're watering. You feel your panties sticking to your skin. Yep, he's making you so wet with his words. Your body is heated and his hands do not stop the mild assault on your neck, cheeks, ears and arms.

". . . . .anywhere I can touch you and have you. I fuckin want you Y/n. I want to kiss you, touch you, I want you wiggling beneath me as I worship your body, I want my tongue in your most intimate places, i want to fuck you, make love to you, have you stuffed with my cock and have you moaning my name with your sinful lips till you're breaking and leaking with my cum. I want to mark you. . . . but I won't because you're not mine" he concludes and you feel like an arrow was shot straight into your heart. He's done speaking but his eyes aren't leaving yours and he brushes his hard member over your clothed heat. He's punishing you, teasing you, pushing you, making you go crazy with need. You feel the sting in your eyes. . . . You're tearing up, you want him so bad it hurts that you might end up begging for him to fuck you.

"Jeonghan . . . ."you say in between shallow breaths

"What do you want princess? Tell me what you want"

What do you want?

Do you want Jeonghan? Oh yes, you've wanted him for the longest time and you really wanted, no, you needed him to fuck you but you can't ask him to do that right? He says he's not yours and He's not lying.

•••••••

A/n:

SHOULD I DO A PART TWO? My fingers are itchy 😂

lol, I had no idea what I was doing when I typed this. I know it doesn't make any sense, I'm only writing again after 10 years and that sneaky man Jeonghan has been doing some shit to me lately so I decided to put it to use 😩

Let me know your thoughts please 🥺

[rayshippouuchiha]

Great! You watched it so that means I don’t have to hold back! Mwahahaha you activated my hidden trapcard 😈

Jk jk but anyway LUCIFER MORNINGSTAR RIGHT??

Like, first they HAD to reinvent the whole Bible Genesis story to make him as freaking sympathetic as possible. I mean, a little dreamer whose ideas were dismissed? Who falls in love with a woman because he admired her “fierce independence”, then freaking gifts humanity in general and Eve in particular with FREE WILL? (I have so many headcanons about them btw; Adam being the way he is I think he and Lilith wanted Eve to have the chance to make decisions regarding her own body, relationship, and future that a life under Adam’s thumb as heaven had inteded would’ve denied her. I think they were very good friends once upon a time., and it kills me that we never see Eve again. Did she blame them for being kicked out of Eden? Or was she grateful to them? I’d love to know, I hope we see her next time). That’s all so freaking good already as a backstory, but then they add this:

At this moment my mind just, imploded with the implications. He gifted humanity with free will presumably because, as a joyous dreamer, he had firmly believed that they would create wonderful things and bring about a better world if they were allowed to think for themselves, but gradually over hundreds and thousands of years seeing only the absolute worst that humanity had to offer he seems to think that it was a mistake, and that’s so sad 🥺 He never got to see the good that came from his actions and became depressed as a consequence, probably blaming himself a bit for every ill-action and sin committed.

I was already primed to love him after that backstory right? But then they imply that he’s a neglectful, distant father to Charlie and she is such a good, pure girl that I started thinking maybe I was wrong to start liking him, maybe there was something off about him that the intro had left out since it was Charlie telling her parent’s story. But then we meet him and he’s just:

A cute, awkward little man? One who clearly loves his family to death if the ring still on his finger (after SEVEN FREAKING YEARS OF ABSCENCE, dear god) and the multiple, gigantic family portraits strewn about his room say anything?

Also, he seems like 2 steps away from an anxiety attack at any given time, especially when asked to speak over the phone. He just like me fr fr

And that, along with the fact that he says “this is the first time she’s called you in YEARS”, and that he seems so freaking happy and excited at even the insinuation that she wants to spend time with him,

Leads me to believe that his absence from Charlie’s life was caused by a mutual misunderstanding born of a similar thought process (namely “what if I’m bothering them? What if they think I’m annoying by calling when I don’t need anything? I should wait until I have a good reason to call, or until they call me”) or willfully by someone (Lilith does seem to take Charlie away from her father awfully quick during that one flashback, right? It’s not just me?). I mean, ^that’s not the face of a father who wants to stay away from his daughter because she reminds him of her mom, or even the face of a father who stayed away on purpose for some time and is now willing to reconnect. That looks more to me like the face of someone who has been eagerly awaiting even a single hint that he’s wanted before daring to appear before his daughter, and has now finally been given that chance after a long time and is ECSTATIC. And even then, it seems that even through his self-deprecation and depression he does do his best to reach out, at least more frequently than Charlie does (he called her 5 months ago, she hadn’t called in years, etc etc).

And then he gets to the hotel and he’s so small and cute and awkward and good with animals and I thought I couldn’t love him any more than I already did but I COULD. HOW DID THEY MAKE A CHARACTER SO APPEALING TO ME SPECIFICALLY THIS IS UNFAIR

Which leads me to my other big headcanon: I firmly believe Lucifer tried to get to know sinners in the beginning, and that he tried some kind of “redeem sinners” effort at some point, just like Charlie’s doing - Perhaps for hundreds of years. But he failed, time and time again, until his dreams were absolutely crushed and he ended up giving up on them for good. I mean, those lines:

“You invite people in and offer them everything and they just bring violence and chaos to your doorstep. It doesn’t matter how well-intentioned you are. They’re always gonna disappoint you!”

“Sinners are violent psychopaths hellbent on causing as much pain and destruction as they can. There’s really no point in trying”

^They all sound not like something he’s saying to rub it in Charlie’s face that he was right (which would be cruel and out of character for someone who seems to love his daughter so much), but more like a cautionary tale coming from a deeply ingrained experience, or like things he’s repeatedly told himself before.

And then during More Than Anything he says this:

“You didn’t know that when I tried this all before *gestures around him with his arms as if gesturing towards the hotel as a whole* my dreams were too hard to defend”

That just cemented that belief for me.

On another note, MORE THAN ANYTHING IS SO FREAKING GOOD?? I CRY EVERY TIME GODDAMMIT AFTER THAT SONG I WENT FROM “AW I LOVE THIS LITTLE MAN” TO “I’D DIE FOR HIM, IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO HIM I’LL KILL EVERYONE IN THE ROOM AND THEN MYSELF”. HE’S JUST So- asfgctrdhfdg

AND I HAVEN!T EVEN TALKED ABOUT HOW BADASS HE IS FIGHTING ADAM OR HOW CUTE AND SWEET HE WAS COMFORTING CHARLIE DURING THE FINALE LOOK AT HIMMM

Or about Radioapple (aka DuckieDeer lol), the ship that has had me in a fucking chokehold since I watched episode 5. There are so many things I love about it that I’d need like 3 whole pages to explain but for now have all this absolutely fantastic fanart instead ❤️

Once again thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. Btw any thoughts on Radioapple?

Oh oh Lucifer is such an interesting character and he absolutely makes me eager to see and learn more about the verse and the finer points of what is/has happened in it.

Personally, RadioDust grabbed me by the heart more than anything, since Alastor is my favorite with Angel Dust as a close second, but I do hands down see the appeal of Radioapple.

[emblazons]

this is likely so personal and just. way to much info but there is no where else in my life I could possibly put it and...weirdly, I trust y'all lmfao

There's something so painfully unnerving about having someone be genuinely interested in you after being single for so long, and I don't think—for all of my internal belief that I was ready for "the right relationship" when it came for me—I was prepared for how much there is a very real part of me that desperately wants to run and hide from it solely because it challenges my internal status quo.

The thing is....when I last had a meaningful breakup with a semi-serious partner (2019), I treated being single as a temporary state; something to "get through" until I found a new partner, and I went through the classic dating app gambit and saw men and women and tried to "put myself out there" the way they tell you to do. Then, after realizing how little I wanted to deal with casual dating and hookups—and after being told on my birthday a man I'd been talking to for four months already had a GF of two years—I lost a taste for trying to make something out of nothing and just put sex and dating entirely on the back burner, instead taking the "you can only control you" advice I'd always seen so I could focus figuring out who I was without a partner to constantly distract me from that.

From probably the beginning of COVID, that meant focusing on ...just every single aspect of myself. From healing the mental anguish of burning out of my (then) previous job, finding the bravery to do things I would always do with partners by myself (going to the movies, going out to eat, even shit like solo international travel) and even just letting my "inner nerd" come to the fore because I didn't have anyone looking at me funny for doing things like spending hours writing Stranger Things analysis or learning to make gifs (lol), I've spent nearly the last four years just...learning to like all the random corners of myself as myself, finding out what it felt like to go to sleep alone and content with the woman staring at me in the mirror.

In doing that though...so much fell into place for me in so many areas it never managed to when romance was a priority. I got a job that I absolutely love, and make more money than I even thought possible ever, nevermind before 30. I went from having roommates and shit credit to having my own apartment and fixing a lot of the financial mistakes I made in my early 20s. I learned to take better care of my body—going to all the doctors i had avoided for years, taking accountability the aspects of my health I could control, and losing the nearly 60 lbs I gained from illness and medicine (and poor habits) in that previous 4 year period. I traveled to New Zealand for the first time, went to all the concerts and music festivals and events that growing up poor had denied me, and learned how to be comfortable doing everything from buying cars to making serious appointments all alone. All of that happened because I was single, not in spite of it—and as I realized how much mental space "the pursuit of love" had taken from everything else, being single slowly started to feel like a boon from the universe in a way my formerly partnered or "crushing" or "dating" self could not have even dreamed.

Granted—that was not an easy process. Even right now I'm not sure it would be honest to say I always enjoyed it, especially at first. Some days being "single and not looking" felt like the world was crushing me under the weight of being alone, from how much easier it seemed emotionally, mentally and even financially for my partnered friends (because "a burden shared is a burden halved" as they say) to the way when the walls closed in and life got really hard, the only other being in the room was my cat and....maybe God.

Learning not to be annoyed when one of my friends found someone they loved and wanted to be with seriously—often moving toward marriage, because that's the era of life I'm in—was still a challenge, and not wanting to bite people's heads off when they said "but aren't you lonely" still happened a fair amount. Slowly becoming desensitized to my body as a sexual entity felt strange at first, but then it slowly changed into something comforting as I realized that a lot of the sex I was having before wasn't rooted in an expression of affection or desire for my partner, but expectation, habit, and a refusal to accept that I was actually pretty fucking demisexual. I started looking at my own relationship history and other people's as something to be studied and considered not emotionally, but logically—and slowly slipped into a version of myself the me of my early 20s could not have ever fathomed.

It wasn't even until I was in New York in May that I realized, probably for the first time in all that time, that I had accomplished all of what my "intentionally single era" was designed to do. I was a featured speaker on a panel with one of the largest design magazines in the entire world—but more than that, I was someone I liked, respected, and wanted to be, because when I looked in the mirror, who stared back made me happy as fuck to know.

So, I said I would be more open to meeting new people again. And within—I shit you not—three weeks, this man shows up on my birthday of all days and within five meetings wheedles his way not just into "oh he's kind of cute" territory, but all the way to me kissing his cheek, saying his mispronunciation of a word he's only read is cute and holding his hand at a concert on a random Wednesday.

I literally cannot tell you how unnerving that feels. I cannot tell you how much I can feel the walls of my four years of singleness wanting to shut him out despite all the green flags he's managed to present at record fucking speed, especially compared to all the partners I had before him. I cannot tell you how much even the usually nice feeling of liking someone feels sullied by my own sincere doubt this is going to work out in the long run, or how even the smallest things he does that aren't like me feel like giant red flags because I've spent so much time focusing solely on myself even a smidgen of someone else in that space feels enormous.

I cannot tell you how weird it feels to have someone look at me with desire, both for my body and to know me more; how weird it feels to sense the starting of attraction in myself because someone has laid so much of themselves at my feet and still stayed present despite my overwhelming desire to isolate and intellectualize. To me, its been four seconds of my life since I met this man—someone who I honestly didn't even think I would like that much, and who made me defensive solely because he was reaching for something I wasn't even sure I was ready to give—and him being intentional about seeing me, remembering things about me and complementing me feels like an overstep...even though it's probably one of the healthiest things that could be happening to me.

Even the fact that I told him about my family, my struggle with anxiety and my distancing myself from sex for so long feels fucking insane to ME, and I'm the one who did it. It feels like this little lonely, touch-starved gremlin inside of me has been let out of her cage on a leash and still managed to run to the front of the deck and start barking directions. Two inches forward feels like a mile when you've spent just under half a decade not moving at all—and while I don't feel overwhelmed by it yet, this whole thing gives me anxiety even as I'm nearly desperate at this point to let myself explore it.

I don't know. I might regret even say this, though I don't think so; even if it doesn't work out, it was going to happen sometime and with someone. I just. Its new. Its different. It is just about as far out of my comfort zone as I could get, and that feels weird to say considering how the me of "before" would have laughed at how little has actually been done. There really isn't anything to do at this point but see it through as far as it makes sense to—and to accept the want that it returns to me, no matter how horrifying that seems in the moment...and as he texts me, as I write this even now.

I'm nervous, I'm anxious, and I'm excited. Right now, I think that's all i've got.

[spiderdramaqueen]

i’ve been thinking about this for some time now, but after watching mumbo’s new episode i just can’t hold this thought in anymore. so. hear me out.

what if ren doesn’t feel any guilt about what he did as a king of the hermitcraft?

[DISCLAIMER: 1) in this essay i talk about rendog’s character/minecraft persona, NOT ABOUT CONTENT CREATOR;

2) i’m not trying to make ren look evil or to make anyone think he has any ill intentions towards other hermits. i just found the thought about ren not feeling guilty interesting and decided to dwell on it for a little bit just for fun.]

back to the topic.

yeah, we can all agree, that it seems kinda out of character, at the first sight. after all, ren is a kind soul, always ready to help his friends out and all that jazz. but i think there’s much more to it.

firstly, let’s go back to rentheking dethronement. episode 20 of ren’s season 9. when hermits find out their diamonds are nowhere to be found, ren just... changes the subject. he doesn’t try to explain everything or fix it, no. he just goes on about how he will banish himself to the cage of shame, and then quickly leaves the scene.

later on, he indeed spends some time in said cage and seems to regret his actions.

hermits forgive him pretty quickly tho. and there probably wouldn’t be a need to doubt ren’s sincerity, unless...

let’s move forward to hermitcraft/empires crossover. episode 21. after going through the rift, ren is awake in the grave, where’s “the kings of old” are supposed to lie. upon hearing about that from pixl, ren says: “i’m not a king anymore, they took it away from me”.

even tho ren didn’t confront pixl directly, it seems pretty obvious that ren is upset and salty about the fact that he was dug out of the grave by pixl. he expresses his annoyance about it many times to viewers and other emperors. he even sells his giblets to emperors just to piss pixl off, because ren knows he would want to collect them all.

“thou he is a gentleman and a scholar, i think doctor pixlriffs needs to pay an annoying price for exhuming us a few weeks back. don’t you guys agree? i mean, seriously, it was so peaceful and quiet in that tomb before he rudely awakened us from the dead”, - rendog in ep 23

“he [pixlriffs] awakaned me from a deathly slumber; i was fast-asleep in a tomb, having a lovely time in the afterlife, he ripped me asunder from my slumber” - ren to shubble in ep 24

why are you upset about being dug out of the king’s grave, ren? is it because when you lie in the grave that is supposed to be the last resting place for the kings of old, at least you’re still considered to be a monarch? do you miss your kingship that much that you would prefer to be a dead king rather than alive peasant?

well, you can say, this proves nothing. yeah, he might be missing his time as a king, what’s about that?

let’s talk about ren’s reaction to other hermits bringing up his past deeds.

when keralis brings up missing diamonds in ep 26 and blames king, ren immediatly denies his responsibility. when keralis presses, he is quick to accept his guilt and turn the whole conversation into a joke. what could cause such reaction? one could say, that maybe he feels so much shame, that it’s hard for him to even listen about what he’s done, but what if he just can’t accept his defeat? what if he thinks he’s in the right?

let’s hear out what ren has to say about his kingship.

“i was just telling sausage, pixl, that a great and wonderous king used to live here, before he was dishonorably removed”, - ren to sausage and pixl in mythicalsausage’s empires s2ep33

and, finally, the dialogue between mumbo and ren in mumbo’s ep 7:

mumbo: i mean, are you happy with what you did as king? it sounds like... you weren’t the best king

ren: i was a great king to start with, i sorted out hermitcraft economy, and then, mumbo, they partied in my private area and that just changed everything.

all things considered, i don’t believe ren feels any kind of remorse about his time as a king. he calls his king self a great king. he blames hermits for his downfall and spiral of madness. he thinks his dethronement was unfair.

he misses his kingship.

...or maybe he’s just being dramatic and i hyperfixate and think too much

[mokadevs]

Recently finished fgo’s olympus so here are some bleary unorganized thoughts on it and my frustrations before i drift off to sleep

i think my biggest problem with olympus is that it over promises.

I think that the set up is amazing. Not referring to atlantis, though atlantis was great as everyone and their mother has said, but the whole sequence of a) entering olympus and b) exploring olympus is incredible. I think its one of the peak examples of fgo constantly being able to make you feel like their are Actual stakes in the narrative despite you as a player knowing that the tree will inevitably be cut and you’ll see the cosmos denied screen flash by again. Running through the city

Hell, Demeter’s entire entrance was bone chilling. I think she has the best mech design of the olympus gods in my biased opinion, and seeing her drop down before the animated screech she lets out that destroys the city was incredible. Truly the first time i saw it i went Holy Shit.

Then… i wont say the lostbelt flops after that but there were a few key areas that it left me wanting.

Personal preference out of the way, ill say the constant deus ex machinas - whether it be for the good guys or the bad guys (if the bad guy has a deus ex machina, is it called that?? Anyway) - started to get a little irritating after a while. The stakes were so, so high at the start, and demeters victory felt so barely clawed for with so many bits and pieces coming together that certain other fights felt like. “Well, okay then.” The twins revealing caligula and then saying “we didnt wanna say we had him for dramatic effect!” was really eye roll worthy, for example, and to be honest i dont really understand how we were able to shmoove our way out of aphrodites mind control hellscape, which was annoying after again i loved demeters fight So much

ill note there that these are things that didnt work for ME, in MY OPINION im sure other people feel other ways about it and i am happy for them for it :]

I think that parts of the lostbelt felt… rushed, and i didnt feel like the power scaling of chaldea matched narratively. With how much trouble we had for a single fighter at the start, i felt like in universe things got too easy with too little justification.

I was really disappointed with dioscuris writing, and also weirded out by the fact that there were twin humans and twin gods but very little was drawn about their connection…?? I was so certain that they would have some sort of relationship, or at least a cool narrative foil, but all we got was the twin humans hating the dioscuri because they killed their friends, and a cheap line about adele criticizing the girl twin for always following what her brother said.

I feel mixed about chaos, because in the moment i was emotionally moved but in retrospect it feels like a bit of a cheap non-foreshadowed reason for musashi to die epicly. Though maybe it was foreshadowed and i missed it; ill have to reread, but for now it just feels Too out of the blue to feel good.

But i think the thing that i think i disliked the most was “actually zeus was going to fuck off in the end and abandon the humans here letting them die so this lostbelt was evil from the start and gudako is objevtively right for this”

And like. Thats so AGGRAVATING for the lostbelt that was drummed up to be the one that would give us the most trouble, the lostbelt that was supposed to be the model one.

What i really wanted out of this lostbelt was a lostbelt that was objectively better than earth. That really? The only reason we could justify destroying it was for our own survival. Not because the lostbelt was in some way flawed, but because we have no other choice. With how sickly killing the first lostbelt felt, i really wanted lostbelt 5 to blow me out of the park with the emotional weight of killing a world and it just. didnt even try. It threw in some half assed line about why this lostbelt was well and truly evil

Which like! Honestly if it had been done well enough i couldve been fine with, couldve been happy with. But the twist that zeus actually was going to fuck off? That chaos was going to destroy all the humans anyway?? That zeus brainwashed the other gods to his side anyway????? I felt zero sympathy in destroying this lostbelt and i wanted to, SO badly

And i am All Here for a more in depth take on how humans have twisted robots into gods. How these ronots thought they could love humans but didnt hold the capacity for it!!! Honestly that concept is super cool!! I liked it!!! But like. The way it was delivered left a bad taste in my mouth. I wanted to care more about the tragedy it had wrought.

I wish that zeus’ defeat was something like… in attempting to defeat zeus, chaldea accidentally/maybe on purpose? Endangers the people of olympus. And through the motions of protecting them, zeus burns and falls to ruin. And as he lays there, he realizes that as much as he wants to care for these people hes protecting, he doesnt. And hes dying for what he feels is nothing.

If i put more thought to it i could come up with more ways the god plotline couldve been bettered on. But like. A third act twist where the reader is reassured that this lostbelt is undeniably evil is really one of the worst options they couldve taken at that point. Basically everything else i can forgive but that felt really sour in my mouth

And finally . I loved kirschtania and caenis i did cry. I could say more on them but itd be fairly incoherent especially when im this tired. Just know that i really really like them

[sylvaridreams]

late night posting, I am thinking a lot about disability and chronic illness and pain in my own characters now. lately with Auruim and Alba. and it's not always "I want him to suffer with it!" and it's not always "I want him to overcome it!" Sometimes it's just there. Fact of life. And these three options form a three sided shape called a triangle.

so on one side of this beautiful triangle staggering along between "suffering with it" and "fact of life" is Alba, who. y'know it's funny, I said the same thing about someone "calling him soundless," which he in the technical aspect of things IS. he would flinch and recoil from it. he would say no no no, I'm normal, don't worry about that. The guy who eats rotting, toxic hog bacon out of a hole deep in the jungle is worried you might think he's a bit too strange.

If someone openly addressed Alba as "disabled" he would do the same. he would deny it, yank himself away from it fully. and partially out of a desire to be seen as "functioning normally." Optimally, even. There is nothing out of place. There is no issue with my body or mind. and partially out of some bizarre fear that if he said "well, maybe," everyone would turn their heads and say STOP THAT MAN FROM COMMANDING RIGHT THIS INSTANT. (and then the other "partially" is just denial. i don't want to have an issue to deal with.)

as if he hasn't proven himself capable enough in the 10+ years since his initial injury in the Silverwastes. which he never allowed, never was able to allow to heal because he had to go after the Pact, into the jungle, right away. It was a couple of weeks tops of resting a leg that the medics were in quiet debate over whether or not he would keep, the way it was mangled and broken, and then he had to go. He never had any time to rest it and heal it properly, and his bum leg has always been a point of shame and annoyance. He's not good at growing and shaping new things-- he did a full set of armor, one time. and that took a lot of work and time and mistakes. He still occasionally does shoulder armor pieces-- or else he might have healed better, or maybe just said go ahead and chop it off and I'll regrow.

so he limped his way into the Heart of Maguuma and no one really knows what to say when the guy in charge shows up already broken and in agony and on a crutch, but you certainly can't tell the Commander he has to turn around, go back. With the Pact in the state it is? No, if he's willing to clock in, let him. we need him. and by the time part of the group headed into Rata Novus he'd ditched the crutch and was just brute forcing it and rationing pain pills, chewing on them as often as he could between point A and point B.

He's had over a decade to figure out how to hide it but it hurts. still. it still hurts him when he walks too long or runs too much or sits or moves wrong. which frankly is kind of devastating to him. He's learned to hide it. to walk at a pace that's normal enough. a pace that kind of annoys faster people, but that can't be helped. at least it appears normal. at least he has practice the motion of taking a step enough times to know what looks normal.

and for the most part it's a well kept secret. Dragon's Watch is mostly aware that he broke his leg and had it torn into shreds and nearly lost it. But you can see how normally he moves now. and he's always running around saving the world, so you have to assume he's doing fine. and he's doing fine, he tells people if they walk in on him changing, see his scar. what happened to your leg. old injury, it's fine.

but people who know his mannerisms and know him on a deeper level know he's lying and grinning and bearing it over something that, frankly, treatment wouldn't be PLEASANT for, or fast or easy or without a huge amount of risk. or you could use a cane, someone suggests sometime and he gets defensive. I don't need that! do I look like i need that? needing that would be showing a weakness, admitting a defeat to this wound that ruined how you walk until you die or until the leg comes off. that's that. that's it! it's just a fact, a part of you that you live with and lie through your teeth about. and it sucks.

Rytlock and Canach both know before the end of HoT that this is going to be a bigger, long term issue, and both of them know how hard it is for him to keep under wraps. and BOTH of them have told him to do something about it, whether it IS amputating and spending a year or more, maybe more, regrowing the limb, and then maybe it grows wrong and you do it again, or whether it's a cane (you don't have to use it on a good day, they always try to tell him but he's not listening, he stopped listening as soon as the topic came up and he got argumentative) or whether it's quit your job. Just stop doing this kind of work and let's go somewhere where there aren't always problems for you to fix. We can go there together.

Meisi and Bourbon both joined (or for Meisi rejoined) the guild between the end of HoT and the end of LWS3 -- so before Alba is dead on the plateau, by the time the group is moving into Elon, they've realized, or are Starting to realize that the way he moves isn't how he means to move. that he's struggling to hide his struggle and keep up with a normal pace when walking. getting him on a raptor is some kind of gods-send, per Kasmeer, because he's not struggling to walk. Meisi knew about his injury, but I think Bourbon is just flabbergasted the first time he sees Alba's leg bare and is like IS THAT WHY? WHY DID NOBODY TREAT THAT? OR LET YOU REST? and then it's a defensive maneuver again, getting out of this line of questioning. there was no resting. people were dying. don't be selfish.

Taimi's offered help. a mobility aid. No, because there's no issue. It becomes a matter of his pride. I don't have a problem because I haven't ever looked down. and I won't start now. and frankly he gets upset if you press it too much. and frankly Taimi doesn't like Alba when he gets cold, or when he snaps. no one likes him much then.

and by the time we hit the start of EoD, a lot of people have withdrawn in terms of how much they can worry and care about someone who won't let them too close, or who has several times now disappeared for months at a time, no contact. and at some point people also forget. you get used to not thinking about it, so you forget that it was an issue. they don't offer help anymore, help that was always refused anyway, because they forget. and that's when it becomes an issue, because everyone can move better, faster than he can. even Taimi, in Cantha. and he finds himself jealous of this sick girl, the jade tech that allows her to move normally, walk at a steady pace. faster than he manages a lot of the time. and he thinks of how he'd broken his back in Dragonstorm, how he'd had to be rushed back to Rata Sum in agony after Aurene wrenched him out of the battlefield, unable to feel either leg, wondering if he'd walk again at all, later. everyone panicked. Taimi by his side, don't worry, Poobah, they'll get you back on your feet.

but I guess there was nothing to be done about the leg. or maybe they forgot it.

and at this point it feels too late. you didn't rest it when you were supposed to but what choice did you have? did you have a say in the matter at all? does it matter at all, now? your body is ruined. you don't look at yourself naked, all the scars and ruined pieces of yourself. you try to avoid letting lovers see them, let alone try to touch them.

what I'm saying is that Alba doesn't cope well. and he doesn't get treatment. and maybe he never will. or maybe once he retires from the titles, he can be bullied into it. time will tell, or it won't. time can keep a secret.

[botherbug]

Stimboard/gif REQUESTS

I have the right to deny/ignore any requests. Obviously. Because this whole thing is for fun for me.

Also i take forever to do requests :3 youve been warned. BUT requests are always offically OPEN. So thats the cost.

WHITELIST:

BUGS, INSECTS, FISH, OTHER CREEPY CRAWLIES, FNAF(all games/books/movie), Better Call Saul, PVZ(mostly game 1 but any other games too), Spongebob Squarepants, Portal (1+2), Minecraft, Disco Elysium, Pokemon, TF2, ShowBiz/RockAFire/CEC, Slime Rancher(1+2), MLP G4(mostly familiar with early seasons tho), MLP G3, Flight Rising, Half Life(all games), HLVRAI, ihnmaims, Winnie the Pooh, Sesame Street(and adjacent), Sprout kid shows (goodnight star and chica and pajanimals and such), Metal Gear Rising Revengence, Dan Vs., Most Don Bluth films, DHMIS(web series+TV) Death Note, Hermitcraft, Life Series, GTA5(though maybe that games too explicit for this blog. Idk. This one might change), Beastarrrs????(same considering warning as before..)

i guess, ok now we are getting in territory where im listing stuff based on mostly just familarity and not invested enjoyment

Greylist???: ace attorney, roblox in general(idk most games now adays but i will do boards), SCP, Magnus Archives, Deltarune, Undertale, Animal Crossing, The Walten Files, All Tomorrows(?? Be the first person to request that. Thatll be shocking. In a good way), DSAF, Sonic(and friends), Mario(and friends), mmmost fnaf-related youtube series, Owl House (my sibling infodumps about it to me, so im qualified), Cult of Lamb(same as before), Steven Universe (same as before... to a lesser extent), stardew valley. General themes such as colors, animals, vibes. Music.

I'll also be happy to make gifs of just a specifc topic/type or from a specific video if u send it over.

OH, and ill do joke stimboards but I'll take it too seriously and try to make it decent. Challenge me.

...

BLACKLIST:

Fandoms that are heavily focused on sexual things, Fandoms that are based around yandere tropes, Probably more to be added here.

...

I made my list very long and annoying on purpose but feel free to send a request for anything not listed on the white/greylist!!

[lightholme]

I have experienced mental illness since the age of 13, and have been in the psychiatric system for a decade. In year 8, I spent so much time absent from school that a social worker was called. At 16, I dropped out of A-levels with incapacitating depression and barely left the house for nine months – the empty days stretching out while friends clubbed and kissed. I was put on antidepressants and at 18 decided to move to Russia, alone, in a manic whirlwind, and had the time of my life. At 20, I moved to Oxford and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I was told I would have it for life. I moved again at 23, and there is now no hospital in north London I have not been treated in.

In the last few years I have observed a transformation in the way we talk about mental health, watched as depression and anxiety went from unspoken things to ubiquitous hashtags. It seems as though every week is now some kind of Mental Health Awareness Week, in which we should wear a specific colour (although this year no one could agree on which: half wore green, half yellow).

In the last few years I have lost count of the times mental illness has been compared to a broken leg. Mental illness is nothing like a broken leg.

In fairness, I have never broken my leg. Maybe having a broken leg does cause you to lash out at friends, undergo a sudden, terrifying shift in politics and personality, or lead to time slipping away like a Dali clock. Maybe a broken leg makes you doubt what you see in the mirror, or makes you high enough to mistake car bonnets for stepping stones (difficult, with a broken leg) and a thousand other things.

Oh, I know how it’s meant. The lack of stigma should be the same as telling people why your limb is in a cast. But you can’t just put someone with a broken leg and an insane person side by side and expect people not to be able to tell the difference, like the Winklevoss twins or, can we be truly honest, Joanna Newsom songs.

In recent years the discussion around mental health has hit the mainstream. I call it the Conversation. The Conversation is dominated by positivity and the memeification of a battle won. It isn’t a bad thing that we are all talking more about mental health; it would be silly to argue otherwise. But this does not mean it is not infuriating to come home from a secure hospital, suicidal, to a bunch of celebrity awareness-raising selfies and thousands of people saying that all you need to do is ask for help – when you’ve been asking for help and not getting it. There is a poster in my local pharmacy that exclaims, “Mental health can be complex – getting help doesn’t have to be!” Each time I see it, I want to scream.

The Conversation tends to focus on depression and anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder. It is less comfortable with the mental illnesses deemed more unpalatable – people who act erratically, hallucinate, have violent episodes or interpersonal instability. I don’t want to pretend that this stigma is merely a hurdle to be overcome. Stigma exists from a place of real fear, and a lack of understanding of the behavioural changes that can accompany mental illness. Episodes of illness can be frightening, frustrating, tiring and annoying for both the unwell individual and those around them.

The key isn’t to deny this, but to educate. Instagram slogans do not make it clear what depersonalisation is, for instance, and that it won’t be solved by a picture of someone walking on a beach. It’s good that Lynx deodorant teamed up with the male mental health Campaign Against Living Miserably, but is “Find Your Magic” not the most patronising slogan of all time? I will admit that I am not well. That writing this, right now, I am not well. This will colour the writing. But it is part of why I want to write, because another part of the problem is that we write about it when we are out the other side, better. And I understand: it’s ugly up close; you can see right into the burst vessels of the thing. (Also, on a practical level, it is difficult to write when one is unwell.) But then what we end up with has the substance of secondary sources. When we do see it in its rawness – Sinéad O’Connor releasing a Facebook video in utter despair – who among us does not wince?Amy Winehouse, voice of a goddamn goddess. We’ll allow. Kathy, 54, works at Morrisons. Not so muchThe primary danger used to be glamorising. It was cool to be a bit mad. It meant you were a genius or a creative. It wasn’t just that certain mental illnesses were acceptable, but certain mental illnesses were acceptable in certain types of people: if you had a special skill or talent or architect-set cheekbones. All of this remains true. Sure, Robert Lowell, great poet. Madness excused. Amy Winehouse, voice of a goddamn goddess. We’ll allow. Kathy, 54, works at Morrisons. Not so much. White woman who has recourse to a national newspaper (called Hannah). Perhaps. Black man who comes from a cultural background where mental illness isn’t recognised and whose symptoms might be put down to the racist trope of aggression in people of colour. Nah, mate. | But now there is also a new danger. It is “normalising”. This is meant to be a positive – as in, “What is normal, anyway?!” Which is a fair question, but I don’t think it’s the woman who crept into my inpatient room, stole the newspapers I had, found me in the lounge and ripped them up slowly in front of my eyes. I don’t think it’s me, sitting in a tiny, airless hospital room, carving my name into the wall with a ballpoint pen, with three guards for company, one of whom later tries to add me on Facebook.We should normalise the importance of good mental health and wellbeing, of course. Normalise how important it is to look after oneself – eat well, socialise, exercise – and how beneficial it can and should be to talk and ask for help. But don’t conflate poor mental health with mental illness, even if one can lead to the other. One can have a mental illness and good mental health, and vice versa. Enough awareness has been raised. We – the public, health professionals, politicians – need to make our actions count. Don’t pathologise normal processes such as grief, or the profound sadness of a relationship breakdown, or the stress of moving house. Conversely, don’t tell me it is normal when I go from being the type of person who will offer children piggyback rides up the steepness of north London to glaring at a crying baby on a bus. Or that it is normal to blow thousands of pounds on sporadically moving house without terminating a current lease, or to send friends bizarre, pugilistic texts in the night. The truth is: enough awareness has been raised. We – the public, the health professionals, the politicians – need to make our words and actions count for more. First, the Conversation needs to be more inclusive when it comes to rarer conditions, and to people whose voices are less loud. Second, we need to recognise that posting “stars can’t shine without darkness” on social media might piss someone off in the midst of desperation and that, actually, anxiety can be a normal reaction and is different from general anxiety disorder, a serious condition. That feeling down is not the same as depression. When I am well, I am happy and popular. It is tough to type these words when I feel none of it. And sometimes when I am most well I am… boring. Boring is how I want to be all of the time. This is what I have been working towards, for 12 years now.When friends decades older tell me off for saying that I am old, at 28, what I mean is: I haven’t achieved all the things I could have done without this illness. I should have written a book by now. I should have done so many things! All the time, I feel I am playing catch-up. Always. I worry, and most of the literature tells me, that I will have this problem for life. That it will go on, after the hashtags and the documentaries and the book deals and Princes Harry and William – while the NHS circles closer to the drain. Maybe it’s cute now, in my 20s. But it won’t be cute later, when I am older and wearing tracksuits from 20 years ago and not in an ironic hipster way but because I no longer wash or engage with the world, and it’s like: my God, did you not get yourself together already? When I left appointments and saw the long-term patients, walking around in hospital-issue pyjamas, dead-eyed (the kind of image of the mentally ill that has become anathema to refer to as part of the conversation, but which in some cases is accurate), four emotions rushed in: empathy, sympathy, recognition, terror. It’s one of those things you can’t really talk about with authenticity unless you’ve seen it, not really: the aurora borealis, Prince playing live and the inpatient wards. Maybe my prognosis will look up, maybe I’ll leave it all behind. I’ve noticed a recent thing is for people to declare themselves “proud” of their mental illness. I guess I don’t understand this. It does not define me. It’s not something that, when stable, I feel ashamed of, or that I hide. But I am not proud of it. I’d rather I didn’t have it – so I wasn’t exhausted, so I wasn’t bitter about it – despite the fact that I know some people, in all parts of the world, are infinitely worse off. I want it gone, so that I am not dealing with it all the time, or worrying about others having to deal with it all the time. So I don’t have to read another article, or poster, about how I just need to ask for help. So that when a campaigner on Twitter says, “To anyone feeling ashamed of being depressed: there is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s illness. Like asthma or measles”, I don’t have to grit my teeth and say, actually, I am not OK, and mental illness couldn’t be less like measles. So that when someone else moans about being bored with everyone talking about mental health, and a different campaigner replies, “People with mental illness aren’t bored with it!” I don’t have to say, no, I am: I am bored with this Conversation. Because more than talking about it, I want to get better. I want to live.

[ode-12-20-23]

Infatuation is another form of basically saying you’re delusional enough to believe you’re in love with somebody to find out infatuations usually last around few months longest can go up to two years when you realize you truly weren’t delusional, but you actually were in love and you just spent two months or three of your life questioning yourself if you really love this person And they’ve been gone. They have been out your life for a very long time and realization that you love you are in love to this day. You don’t know whether to continue denying that maybe you’re just being crazy and it’s not love or accept it make peace with the fact that the person never loved you ,Never.... and as long as you’ve been holding that feeling ,love clearly is a beautiful thing at times specially when it’s reciprocated is also the most painful emotion that the human can experience so when you love and you tell someone you love them, even if they don’t love you they think you’re crazy or they do love you and admire you every existence .Own that shit be proud of how you love and who you choose to love even if you didn’t choose to love them because love is beautiful, beautiful chaotic, blessing and curse that we will ever experience in this lifetime and do it with no regrets. love how you love and love to the fullest Unapologetically.

As for you my ode, there’s nothing wrong with me. I didn’t change my love was not created for you and it was never meant to be for you as much as I’d love to give it to you the way that I do you just think I’m being emotional, irrational, clingy, annoying, but my love is none of those.. just you just weren’t chosen or created to understand it because it was never for you as badly as I wanted it to be . And ill be OK with that. But right now I still cry ..and I still wonder why why did I want you to deserve this love and accept it And you didn’t even feel the same way for me if you did, I’d never know because you never gave a response outside of that you like having me around but you don’t ,you’re not in love with me yet you love me. I don’t know some say manipulation narcissist but I know Vulnerability is not the easiest for you so you’ll probably die with whatever you actually feel stubborn…

[amee-stara]

Annoying You

 Maybe I'll be happy,

Maybe I'll open up,

Because they're all showing me parts of them, maybe I'll have some luck.

Here is me I'll let you see and now we will grow bright together but fuck,

I've annoyed you just like I did them,

I guess it's because I showed too much.

Now I'm annoying, the exact opposite of what I wanted but I tried.

Still yet again it wasn't hard enough.

I tried not to cry, but yet you still sigh

At my attempt of self control and effort to self reflect.

I still don't see what is wrong but you see so much.

You seem to see every flaw but you know more so I'll just hide it all.

So yes I'll open up to you but I won't let you threw the door

I'm trying to keep myself out too, or I'll spiral when you pull me back through.

I annoyed you again.

Over dramatic, over the top.

That is not enough.

Your hypocrisy tells me not to let my emotion slip through, and I definitely can't let it slip to you.

That would be the day,

Ill raise my voice in a different way.

A stronger way, that will say that I'm so through.

The same voice in my head who has been telling since the August I was almost rid of you.

You and your hypocrisy.

You and your hypocrisy.

Ill get my point through, but fuck

I annoyed you.

Please tell me that means we are through.

I'm too weak to break away from you.

Because I'm over and done, but you're not.

And I was only ever yours from the start,

And how could I bare to see your broken heart,

Because my heart is too broken already to care, so I'll do it for you.

You who broke mine first, I'll hold it together,

And handle the pain of persistent correction of something that you deem broken.

You try to fix by breaking, but lose the pieces to start over and rebuild.

And you think you get through but you don't, but I let you see you do.

But fuck, I've annoyed you.

I didn't mean to let you through.

You break through, and tear me down, and manage to build me up right.

But I see it behind your eyes,

Hear it behind you voice,

And it is waiting to break through you, that feeling that always gets pulled from me to you.

That look tells me I'm screwed.

Because I'll still listen to you.

I don't want you to leave, until you do.

You want to leave, and this time I don't know why.

This time I tried, my mouth shut and thoughts stuck,

Because I knew you wouldn't care.

So why'd you leave, and why do I care now?

Because fuck, I've annoyed you.

But for you why do I care.

You hurt me with no reason, and want me only for you.

Don't deny it because you know it is fucking true.

But I was hesitant to build myself for you, and so you grew away, and stayed away,

Until I was useful then you were mine, but that was not true because even if I didn't know you, I knew you.

Now that you've pushed me aside, you just knew.

And now you say it to hurt me by using the truth.

Their truth, that hurts and I don't want it to be true.

"Your annoying"

"No one asked you"

"You need to be less dramatic"

"Your way to over the top"

"Calm down"

I'll listen to your words, but I'll try not to hear them, but I will.

Thank you, hypocrite.

See how much longer I stay, when you have so much to say.

I'll hear you through pain but you only see the surface.

"Are you seriously crying over that?"

"Why are you getting so emotional?"

"Stop raising your voice and talk to me respectfully!"

I'm sorry my whispers were too loud for the deaf ears.

Because fuck, I bet I've annoyed you.

I'll keep it to myself.

And when you want me to open up, I'll smile and be happy because emotions don't matter.

So why feel them?

I see they make you sad.

I see they make you mad.

I see they make me annoying.

Is it your emotions making you so controlling?

"Why did you do that now, couldn't you wait?"

"It was selfish what you did, Why would you not think about her?"

"Why won't you talk to me?"

"I can't believe you are saying that!"

Thank you, Hypocrite.

I know I've annoyed you, I do that to everyone I come across.

So why am I here if I'll never get through,

Why on Earth, am I here for you?

I've annoyed, you've made it clear you don't care,

And that is okay because I could not either.

I couldn't because I don't want to be overbearing and annoy you.

[sals-soup]

i'm thinking. so i'm gonna make this everyone else's problem

radqueers. fun topic, right? haven't mentioned them in a while. i also haven't been posting much here in general because. well. i dunno. i sorta lose my spirit when looking through the proship tag too often. i think, oddly enough, it was my fixation for a while. but obviously it isn't now, because i can hardly tolerate the community enough to glance through the tag.

anyway. a rare moment nowadays, i'm look through the tag. and i always make sure to look in the tags of posts i read because, well. radqueers advertise. most of them are not covert. that's kinda their whole thing. radically open and accepting. to quite literally anyone. even people who claim to be "trans nazi" ! fun.

anyway. saw someone celebrating the fact that they made themselves a binder. cool ! honestly a rare moment of joy amongst the discourse and news stories about war. but i expand the tags, there's lots, not inherently a problem, annoys some people, but whatever. and there's this tiny tag. just a little one. about "trans id". and it really made me stop and think about all that shit again.

my feelings were and still are complex. not that i tolerate radqueers by any stretch of the imagination. even if it is just some poor schmuck that got pulled into the cult because of their radical acceptance. but.

i'll start by saying this. i really do think the "trans-autistic, cis-depressed" shit is actually deranged. i literally cannot think of anything that justifies that. obviously i'm not going to like. make fun of it ? because i mean. if you're using labels like that, there's... probably something going on. and i've read stories from recovering radqueers about how the community fuelled their delusions. so i'm not gonna say anything other than i do not understand it at all and i really don't think there's anything justifying it.

the obsession with "chrono" (chronological) age is also concerning and also rarely justifiable. although i know that some plurals adopt the trans-age label because, well. they aren't just one age, mentally. and they do have a "real" (chronological) age. but again what i see in the radqueer community is shit like minors claiming to be older and adults claiming to be younger and many of them are paraphiles and they're interacting unrestricted and it's just. not. good. i used to go through radqueer confession blogs, and like... i think i have something in my drafts that proves my point about just how deranged and unsafe the community is.

what else is there to say to this than What The Fuck?

Right ?

even if the whole community isn't like this. the fact that this is at all tolerated ...?

i'm just going to leave that. food for thought. if you needed anymore convincing.

as for trans-abled stuff. people really try to push that it's exactly like being transgender. and i used to be quite sympathetic actually, because. well. trans myself. and i could see how the "but you're mutilating yourself ?!" argument goes both ways. but i stop being sympathetic because. well. i have disabled friends. some born some not. you can become disabled at any time. all it takes is an accident, or an eating disorder, or an illness. or the natural degradation of your body. personally i find my sight is slowly degrading and i'm in no position to do anything to correct it at the moment. which obviously is not the worst situation i could be in. but still. i can't help but think these trans-abled people are inherently privileged. and that they probably don't have many disabled friends. but i'm not going to deny their inherent existence. dysphoria is complex. and if someone thinks they shouldn't have a right arm or that they should have a limp or something ? probably not the weirdest thing. just. i don't know. i would rather these people didn't try to speak over others. especially IF they are in the position to "choose" to be disabled. i don't know. i would like to hear other opinions on this as well.

[chunky-noodle-soop]

change (and selling out at 24)

I'm going through a season of change right now. Maybe it's the weather, maybe it's my age, maybe it's the change of the seasons... I'm not sure, as they are all changing. Except my age I suppose, that changed quite a bit ago and there's still quite a bit before it changes again. I suppose that can be said for most.

As I write this, some things have not changed at all. I still write seated on my couch, two dogs nearby, and surely a cat or two hiding somewhere in the room. I write on my laptop, the only change being an external keyboard, as my normal one has decided 'e' is not a letter worth using anymore.

Much has changed, though. Just a few hours ago I had 6 inches of hair cut off. I needed that change. I look like how I did in middle school, my hair was this length then, and I thought that would have changed over the years. It doesn't really seem to have done so, though. Is my writing more... English sounding? I have watched a lot of British television this weekend, so my writing may have changed a bit. I think it's still fairly unchanged. Even my hair is fairly unchanged, just shorter.

The season is changing. The daffodils are nearly at bloom, I suspect they will do so this week. The weather is getting warmer, the sun is staying longer. Today it was still bright at 6:30PM... how lovely. I have been able to bake more, something about the warmer weather just makes me want to make a cake. I made a lemon pound cake, and it was lovely as well.

All of this change weighs heavily on my mind. I'm young, 24 is young, though to some I am old, and others barely an adult at all. I recently received an offer that feels too good to refuse. To take the offer would be to give up something I greatly covet about my current situation, but in return I would have many dreams come to fruition earlier than expected. I could buy a cottage in a field and grow wildflowers like I dream about. I could shed the annoying screech of my neighbor's leaf blower for the chirps of birds and the sound of the breeze rustling the blades of grass much sooner than planned.

It seems like a no-brainer. Make the sacrifice for a year or so, then get the life I so desire. It is so hard to do, though. For that year, I'd be doing something I have more-or-less sworn off. I'd lose the peace and sanctuary of my remote job for the trials of an in-person job. I know I am lucky to even have the option to consider it, as many would not have the choice. But it's because I do have the choice that I find it so difficult. I should be able to go to an office 40 hours a week to make enough money to move away much sooner than planned. I should be able to do it. My mental illnesses make it so difficult, though, and I wish I could have both. I can't, and it's frustrating.

So this is where I am. Am I selling out at 24 if I take this opportunity afforded to me? It's an offer that I would think someone crazy to decline. I honestly think of myself as crazy for considering denying it - which makes the choice that much harder. It's so difficult, confusing, my head is spinning and I can only find comfort in ignoring it.

It's complicated. These changes, they are complicated. And I simply want to go to bed.