#sorry for not posting in a while. its been really painful to draw for long hours

[rayysart]

i watched your breezeblocks utena animatic and it was so good, really capturing everything utena and a perfect song choice and and perfect directing choices, its just really the perfect video fidbciwnxbxj

I'm really happy to get messages like this... Thank you 💜 I've been struggling with creating art because I've been experiencing debilitating back pain from a herniated disc and getting stuff like this always helps me get back into drawing even if I don't upload it here

[seraphicsentences]

all mine (pt.2)

closeted/in denial abby anderson x reader

pt.1: you told me your new man don’t make you nut, that’s a damn shame.

please click here!

tags: sub!abby, dom!reader, experienced!reader, mentions of owen, tbh trauma from owen, strap-on sex, cunnilingus, 69ing, dry humping, grinding, nonexplicit masturbation, lowkey voyeurism+exhibitionism ish? there’s plot i swear.

A/N: im well aware that i apologize in every post i make and that its redundant, but im still sorry that i took forever to write.

so. some of this may sound a little familiar from the first part, but it’s simply just drawing parallels between abby’s and your stances on one another.

this gets gradually worse and worse. i think the quality started landsliding once i reached the smut. enjoy!

it’s been near ‘round a week later, and abby’s avoiding you like the fucking devil. in fact— by the way she’s been acting, you think she might even believe so. she’s never felt so inexplicably thrown off. clickers, bloaters… couple of well-aimed shots and they’re no deal. but you? the ghost of your touches haunt her day and night. she’s like a woman possessed. and she’s insatiable.

her once weekly visits to the chapel have become daily: hour-long stays spent on her knees, prayers whispered hastily under her breath, eyes darting to paranoically try to catch potential eavesdroppers.

even owen, the air-headed asshole, has been left victim, or perhaps victor, to the effects of your actions. in a desperate attempt to ease her whirling mind, or rather, to ease the painful throbbing between her thighs, abby’s seemed to have turned to her boyfriend as a last ditch effort.

abby’s newfound flood of arousal, pooling and pleading, only to be met by owen’s two incher every night have had his ego blowing up fucking obnoxiously.

“god, abby, you’re fuckin’ desperate for my dick lately,” he’d gloat, hilariously blind to his girlfriend’s infidelity.

unfortunately for abby, her pathetic resorts have done nothing to quiet the moaning mess of guilt-filled memories. if anything, they’ve done quite the opposite.

she’s been left to the mercy of her palm, heel of it digging into her clit while she’s beside the sleeping figure of owen, straining every massive muscle in her body to give her that orgasm she so badly needs.

it’s to no avail, though. stuck gasping and tearing up against a pillow, her poor pussy crying for some semblance of relief. and what’s left is a week-long edged abby anderson, ms. “top soldier”, who’s back to shooting no better than a freshly new recruit.

what’s up with that, hm?

~

2am now, in the isolated west dormitory’s showers, and abby’s at it again. her body starving for your touch; your sinful, corrupting, addictive touch, and she’s failing to appease her needs once more.

“mmph- fuck, ah-please,” abby begs into her forearm, groaning as two thick fingers plunge deep into her sopping hole, thrusting in and out messily.

it’s exhausting to fuck the way you do. even with her arms the impressive size they are, it’s impossibly demanding to reach every nerve you had reached, filthy sounds echoing along the tile walls, taunting her.

abby knows what’s coming, or really, the lack of it.

skin pink from the heat of the water, she abandons her effort, shutting the stream off with a squeak and ventures the locker room to get dressed for the night.

her mind wanders to you— that’s all it ever seems to do as of recently, and she thinks about how she almost misses your antics. she can’t place her finger on what it is exactly about you that makes her chase every teasing interaction so masochistically.

maybe it’s your lopsided smile that lures her in, or that glint in your eye she gets caught up in. or maybe it’s just that she knows she shouldn’t want you, and it’s so deliciously wrong, and that’s why she’s got to have you.

towel flung over her shoulder, abby makes her way out, only to stop in her tracks when she hears the loud slam of a locker door.

what the fuck? wasn’t the bathroom empty when she last checked??

cheeks burning at the mistaking of her privacy, she swivels the corner, furious to see who the fuck else is using the west dorm showers at this hour. of all the hours.

and, well, abby’s frozen in place when she’s met with the sight of a mystery someone’s bare back. but oh, how she recognizes you, you and your wet hair, slinging droplets down your smooth skin, trailing lower and lower and-

you cough, breaking her trance. baby blue eyes dart up, caught, as you slide your tank on, smirking.

“hey, anderson.”

that just about does it for her. abby slams an open locker door shut, almost sprinting out of the room.

and really, there’s no choice but for you to follow her, practically hunting her down as she sharply turns down random hallways, clearly attempting to outrun you. abby makes a wrong turn soon enough, and you honestly think you might burst out into laughter because of the funny way fate seems to string the two of you together.

the blonde’s backed herself into a corner, and it just so happens to be your residential corner. you can’t help but wonder if she already knew where your room was located.

“scared, anderson?” slips out of your mouth, and it feels significant, reminiscent of the week before. you stare her down, wet strands clinging to her skin to match yours, and it’s like the two of you know what’s to come with your words. the inevitable.

you’re not sure which one of you moves first, rubber band of tension snapping as your lips collide in a catastrophic sort of way. you’re scrambling to blindly dial your dorm code in and tugging abby by her shirt in a tangle of limbs and saliva.

“i’ll play nice,” you pant, “even after that disappearing stunt you pulled last week.”

abby laughs, whispering, “whoops,” under her breath before pulling you in for another dizzying kiss, tongue eagerly curling into your mouth like she’s been waiting years for a taste.

you wrap your fingers around her hair with a tug, and the low groan that escapes from the back of abby’s throat has you repeating the motion again and again as you veer her backwards to fall atop your bed. you follow, straddling her, not wanting to spend a second apart from the fucking drug that her mouth is.

your hips grind down on their own, burning and desperate for stimulation. abby, in return, wraps a strong hand around your throat, pulling you even deeper into a sloppy kiss to swallow your moans as she pushes her hips up to meet yours.

“fuck,” you gasp, clit catching against the seam of your shorts with every roll.

abby’s mind has gone blurry with arousal, drunk off the satisfaction of finally getting what her body’s begged for. every pretty noise that slips out of your mouth sends pulses of pleasure straight through her bundle of nerves, and every touch of skin has her feeling set ablaze.

but as always, she needs more.

she maneuvers you easily under her big frame, your head tipping back in a soft whine as she latches herself onto your throat, biting and soothing your skin over.

she’s lodged a leg in between your own, mimicking your position as she wildly bucks her hips down onto you. “please,” she breathes out, tears welling in her eyes with how foreign this feeling is. she can’t bring herself to care about how needy she’s acting, because to starve, is to take anything.

“just like that, baby, you’re soaking my thigh,” you coo, continuing to dry hump her leg like she’s nothing but a toy to you. the whimper she lets out at the name you call her is downright criminal, and the way her movements pick up have you groaning it out again. “c’mon baby, make a mess of yourself for me,” you grab her meaty hips, grinding her harder down against you.

“gonna-“ she gasps into your neck, before shuddering against you as she cums with a cry, muscular thighs holding you so desperately tight in place. you almost scream, caught in the iron grip she has your body in, stopped so close to your own finish. you dig your nails into the flesh of abby’s hips, hearing her moan as the pain mixes with pleasure, and echo the sound yourself as the burning in your core starts up again.

“just let me, for a minute- i need you- just stay here, shit,” you ramble, gripping her hair for leverage while you fuck yourself faster against her thigh.

every twitch of a muscle beneath your soaked pussy has you reeling, unable to wrap your mind around what a massive fucking crime it is, for another woman not to have experienced the absolute blessing it is to have abby anderson’s defined-ass thigh to grind on.

you glance down at abby, and the fucked-out expression she has on, all watery doe-eyed as she peers up at you, mesmerized, has you throbbing enough to match your heart rate.

curse after curse flies out of your mouth as she attaches her mouth to your neck again, biting down as you let go of that coil tugging on your navel.

abby’s no sooner clambering atop you, diving in to taste your sounds as she scoops you onto her lap, practically growling, “fuckin’ get over here,” under her breath.

as your vision returns, she attacks your mouth with a sloppy kiss, colliding teeth, and you’re unbearably hungry for more.

“let me- i’m gonna taste you,” you breath out, shoving abby’s back down with a push.

she falls back with a soft thud, eyes not leaving you once. “please, fuck- taste me, have me,” abby affirms, scrambling to tug her shorts off.

the massive soaked patch at the center her boxers have your eyes rolling into your skull. “shit, anderson,” you run a finger over her clothed slit, giggling as she jerks her hips up.

“shut up,” she rasps, her words harsh, but the small smile on her face says otherwise.

you grin up at her, “didn’t say anything,” before licking a fat stripe up her covered pussy.

her response is immediate, hands fisting into your hair to pull your mouth closer, actions the epitome of more, more, more.

you flatten your tongue, licking, and meshing her arousal with your saliva to entirely soak her boxers wet. you wrap your lips around where you guess to be her clit, based off the place her legs tremble when your tongue reaches it, and suck hard.

“there,” abby whines out, back flying off the mattress, and you’re so very desperate to see what other fun reactions she has in store for you, you grab at her waistband to unveil her pretty dripping pussy.

up close, face to face, you get to really admire the work of art she is. the divets of muscle adorning her thighs frame her pussy almost in a greek-goddess sort of way. light brownish-blonde curls of hair that reach out to your mouth, trying to pull you in closer. she’s beautiful. you’re in complete control of her right now, and holding the reins of such an unreal being has you groaning into her slick eagerly, hands holding her spread wide open while you feast.

you’re dipping your tongue into her sopping mess, teasing and thrusting, feeling her gummy walls flutter around every brush of the muscle. you dart a thumb up to circle her puffy clit, red, from her earlier actions, and the way abby’s legs kick up— almost hitting you in the face, has you giggling again into her pussy. the vibrations of your laugh make abby squeal, thighs clamping around your head, and then she’s tugging at your hair, chanting, “stopstopstopstop,” and you, of course, oblige immediately.

your face comes up covered in her wetness, arousal dripping from your chin as you lick your lips in an halfhearted attempt to clean yourself up. “sorry, sorry, i- did you want me to stop?” you ramble, concerned that you might’ve gone a little too far this time, getting yourself involved with a taken straight girl.

abby’s face flushes a deep red, even darker than it had been from your actions, as she catches her breath and looks away. “no, i- can you, uhm.”

you catch on to her hesitation, newer to sex thats more than just, well, dick. you rub her calves soothingly, “use your words, baby, you got it.”

she visibly gulps, thighs pressing tight around your body, “can i?” she asks, almost sulkily as her hands move to tug at your shorts.

“oh-!” slips out of your mouth, surprised, “yeah, yeah you can.”

she lets out a soft okay, tugging harder now, slipping her calloused fingers under your waistband as well so as to drag both down together. abby’s groans, low and heady, at the sight of your glistening pussy, practically dripping down your thighs from just getting her off. “this too,” she murmurs, sliding your tank off before you can blink.

she’s pulling you in closer, as if she’s in a trance, as she wraps her lips hesitantly around one of your perked nipples. the high-pitched sigh you let out is more than enough encouragement for her to continue, warm tongue flicking at it as she sucks around your breast. “is this okay?” she pulls away to whisper, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear as she looks up at you, eyes wide.

“fuck- yes, just,” you push her head back in, her lips abiding immediately as they gently pull at your nipple, teeth grazing the most sensitive parts of your chest as you arch your back into it, quiet moans ringing in her air.

all of a sudden you’re being turned around, confused, until your hips are being lifted up towards abby’s stuck-out tongue and you’re shaking with your face pressed to her thigh while she experimentally kitten-licks around your hole, unknowingly teasing you.

her nose brushes ever-so-slightly over your pulsing clit as her tongue passes just over your dripping mess, and it has you crying out, “there, please- right there, please,” breath hot over her own throbbing pussy.

her hips jerk up at the sensation, and you take the hint— latching your lips around her own clit and stuffing two fingers easily into her hole, moaning at the feeling of her squeezing tight around you.

it’s no wonder abby’s the top soldier of wlf. for a girl who’s only ever been with the most lacking, vanilla man ever, she picks up fast. each action of yours is borderline self-serving, with the way abby’s mimicking every move not even a moment after, so adorably eager to please.

abby had this insistent need to pull every pretty sound from you, whether she got it through grazing her teeth against your clit, or curling a thick finger against your g-spot, she was determined to hear it— to the point where you thought she might’ve even needed it. and it’s what made sex with her so intoxicating.

she wasn’t like any of the other girls you typically hooked up with, and that’s not to say the girls you usually got with were bad to fuck… they just weren’t as invested in your pleasure as you were with theirs. and as the type to get off on giving rather than receiving, this was especially new. you’ve never been with someone like you. and god, does it take the cake.

abby’s really coming to terms with all the ways she can use her especially large everythings to make you feel good, murmuring into your pussy, “‘m fuckin’ splitting you open with my fingers, pretty,” as she pushes in a third finger to your sopping hole, relishing in the squelch that comes with the thrust.

your thighs shake around her head, stimulated beyond compare as you continue your ministrations on abby’s pussy, humming mhms into it to encourage more of her bolder ventures.

“mm-fuck, can feel you choking my fingers. you gonna cum, hm?” she mumbles cockily, the high from your reactions sending her mind into a frenzy.

“shit, please, need it so bad,” you croak out, taking only mere seconds apart from tonguing down her puffy clit.

“ah- god, me too, pretty. cum on my tongue,” she says, and the fucking vulgarity of it, so downright shocking to hear from ms. straight christian prude over here, has you riding your orgasm out, trembling heat overtaking your body like a california wildfire. matched moans come from beneath you, as abby’s hips fuck up against your mouth, legs flexing deliciously as the two of you reach your peaks together, the world slowing.

you slide your body off of hers, turning around to be met with a sight to behold. your cum, all over abby’s mouth, shining on the tip of her nose, remnants leaked onto her chin— and you have not a doubt you look the same mess. you yank her into a sloppy kiss, fluids mixing in your mouths in the most animalistic nature.

“i’m not done with you,” you say, eyebrows scrunched as you take in her fucked-out expression.

“i know,” she whispers, “give me more,” she breathes out.

abby slips out of her tank, finally, using the cloth to gently wipe your face and hers, action a bit too intimate for what you guys have, but neither of you decide to call out on it.

“you gonna let me fuck you?” you ask quietly, running a hand over her chest softly, enamored, as abby shivers from your words.

“please fuck me,” she whimpers, tone all pouty and petulant as she watches your hand trace ambiguous shapes over her skin.

“so polite,” you tease lightly, pulling her in for a brief kiss before reaching over to your bedside drawer and pulling out your favorite strap, just the one for the special girl in front of you.

8 inches, hot pink, with a slight curve to it, but most importantly, never been used on anyone other than yourself, by yourself.

“it’s so-“ she stutters nervously, thighs rubbing together in anticipation as you secure the toy onto your hips.

“pretty?” you finish, unable to help your laugh as she looks at you, so clearly not thinking of your response.

“yeah,” she shrugs, “suppose it is.”

it’s quiet in the room as you finish latching the silicone dick onto yourself, the two of you settling into the weight of your impulse-fueled actions.

you gently pull open her closed legs, settling yourself between them as you tease her entrance with the tip of the toy, covering it with her cum. you then spit down onto it, twisting your hand around to coat, and hear abby ask, “what’re you doing?”

you continue to prep the toy with easy motions, committed by memory, “i know you’re soaked, anderson, but it’s still a dick you’re taking, baby.”

“i just mean- i, you know,”

you hum, “owen doesn’t put in the effort, huh? and i bet you’re not even a quarter as wet for him as you are for me,” scoffing.

“don’t-“

“it’s the truth though, isn’t it?”

“…yeah.”

“that’s what i thought.”

you thumb her clit in circles, using her slick as lube to rub over it smoothly, relishing in the way abby’s head falls back and her hips jolt up. “that’s it, ease up for me,” you murmur.

you prod again at her entrance with the toy, sliding the tip in slightly as she hisses, “‘m sti-still sensitive.”

“and you’re gonna take it like the fuckin’ slut you are, anderson, aren’t you?” you tsk, pushing a couple inches more into her.

“shit- yes, yes ma’am,” she whimpers out, legs threatening to close from the new stretch.

“because even after all that time in the shower, nothing can fill you like i do,” you finish, thrusting the full length of you into her tight pussy, abby nodding repeatedly as her back arches up.

her moans pick up alongside your hips, voice breaking with every thrust as you push into that one sensitive spot deep inside with obvious expertise.

“so, s-so go-od,” she cries, hands gripping into the bedsheets as she searches for some tie back to reality.

you smirk satisfactorily, fast pace fueled by the sight of abby’s open mouth, drool spilling out the sides as her voice grows hoarse from constant use. you fuck her hard, strength channeled from the anger you bore against her homophobic attitudes, and jealousy you garnered towards owen and his idiotic male self.

you lock your eyes with abby, sweat dripping down your face as you zero down on her, slamming into her pussy with no reprieve. “no more owen,” you say, each word punctuated by another deep thrust.

“this is so wrong, this is so fucked,” abby rambles, nervous eyes darting around the room so as to avoid your gaze. her eyebrows are tugged together, head shaking no: but no to argue your words, or no to agree with them?

“has something so wrong ever felt so good?” you pant out, “tell me baby.”

“i can’t, i can’t, i can’t,” she repeats, torn between what felt right in her head, and what felt so right in her heart. “turn me over,” she babbled, not wanting to head-on face the fucking sin-filled act she was committing.

“you tried running, baby. and how’d that work for you?” you ask, fed up. “you’re still back here, a fucking mess, and all for me.”

“what’s it gonna take for you to face the fact that you’re getting fucked by a girl, and it’s so much better than anything you’ve ever experienced?”

abby’s eyes scrunch tight, trying to tune you out, but her moans still wrench out from the back of her throat, guttural and unstoppable.

you slide out finally, earning you a soft whine of disagreement, toy dripping with her slick with the tip pressed against her folds. “look at me, abby.”

and fuck. she’s never taken notice to the fact that you’ve never said her name before—but god does it sound so pretty coming out of your mouth. and god is it enough to make her wrestle her eyelids open and stare you dead in the eyes, blue clashing with the darkness you reeked in.

“say that again,” she whispers, look full of pleading. 4 letters, 2 syllables, but it has her core tensing and her heart racing a mile.

“tell me you’re mine, abby,” you breath, and she almost finishes right there and then.

“i’m yours,” she says, a single tear breaking free from her right eye, baptizing her skin, absolving her of guilt.

“good,” you choke out, bottoming entirely into her as she releases a cry. your movements quicken, ravenous, chasing the sweet whines that fill the room.

abby’s tits bounce with each thrust, and you reach down to give her sensitive nipples a pinch, making her reach an all time new height of pleasure. her chest heaves, curses slur, as she squirms under your touch, nearing an unbearably overstimulated state.

“feels- gonna cum,” she moans, barely holding on.

“cum for me,” you demand, needing to see her fall apart now more than ever as you pound into her harder, fingers rubbing harsh circles into her clit.

“s-shit,” she gasps, throwing her head back as her walls tighten around the toy, “‘m- fuck, god- fuck! ‘m cumming!”

loud squelching noises overtake the room, complete with the sight of abby writhing beneath you as spurts of her juices drench your moving cock.

her chest heaves, mouth open in a silent scream as she comes down from her high, squirming with overstimulation.

you can see the moment her brain clicks, panic in her eyes clear as her skin turns pasty white.

“i’m so sorry i didn’t mean to do that i don’t know how-“

“abby.”

“-that happened ive never done that before, like who-“

“abby.”

“-fucking pisses on someone like that i’m so sorry ill clean it-“

“ABBY.”

her eyes shoot up to meet yours, frame cowering as she mumbles a quiet apology again, so obviously uneducated in the realm of half-decent orgasms.

“you squirted, abby, you didn’t piss on me for christ’s sake. it was hot. now don’t worry about it, i’m very honored,” you chide lightly, cradling abby’s heated face in your hand.

you stand up, grabbing a clean towel and wetting it with warm water from your kettle. striding over, you spread abby’s legs lightly, running the towel gently over her worked-out center, breath hitching, hips jerking with your touch.

“why are you- you don’t have to-“ abby stutters, grabbing your wrist.

you pause, confused. “abby, i’m not a fucking dick, contrary to belief,” you scoff.

she doesn’t let go. “no that’s not what i- i didn’t mean it like that, it’s just, you know.” she waits for you to look up at her, before looking away. “you don’t have to fuss over me.”

a laugh bubbles out of you before you can stop it. “you mean owen doesn’t-? yeah, who am i kidding, of fucking course he doesn’t ‘do aftercare,’ god, what a dick!” you groan, facepalming.

“abby, baby, this is fucking normal. owen just sucks,” you smirk, her cheeks flushing at your words. “let me take care of you,” you continue more softly, nudging her grip off as you drag the towel over her sternum next, cleaning off any remnants left from the two of you.

abby’s quiet now, eyes following your every movement, curious almost, a bit hesitant— as if she’s not sure what to do with herself in the meanwhile. she’s stiff to the touch, frame shrunken now due to the sheer vulnerability of it all. bare as the day she was born, and touched like she’s never done wrong a minute in her life.

she doesn’t know how to feel about it. wisps of hair tickle her nose, and so she scratches it, pushing her hair away, tugging it behind her ears. and you’re right there on it, wordlessly turning her around as you begin to comb through her hair loosely, pulling it into a simple braid. the same hairstyle she displays everyday, always done by her own hand: tight, knot-free, and burning into her scalp. a reminder to remain true to her virtues, live by strict rules, and not stray from the lord’s path.

but the way you braid is so different. you’re careful to tie in the tickling wisps, but not harsh. effective, but not pushing. with owen she feels like an accessory, but you make her feel like someone worth worshipping. and so, the only burning she feels is not on her scalp, but behind her eyes.

you do notice the subtle tremble in abby’s shoulders, droplets trickling down her cheeks as you weave her hair through, but you make no comment on it. certainly not with the way your own hands fumble her golden strands, fingers shaking into the knots. you tie the end of it up.

“i should go,” abby whispers, standing to grab her scattered clothes.

you remain seated, mouth opening and closing like a fish, as your lips struggle to wrap around the words your heart is singing out for.

you settle on one.

“stay,” you blurt, louder than you intended, the word ringing in the tense air.

abby freezes, hand outstretched towards her tossed shirt. her head edged just the slightest bit towards you, like subconsciously, she was waiting for you to say something.

“just- stay,” you whisper this time, more unsure. waiting for the rejection you know is to come. and while your brain is screaming for you to let her go, your eyes are hooked onto abby’s figure— searching intently for the smallest signal of her response.

you see her breath catch in her throat.

“okay,” she whispers back, and her head turns just enough for your gazes to lock, matched desperation surging.

she’s drawn back to the bed like a magnet pulled to its twin, the mattress dipping as she settles in the space beside you.

and abby feels the heat of your drilling stare, one she refuses to return. she has no more fire left in her, not for you, just contemplation. a longing for more, an urge to savor, an ache to feel.

so abby faces the door, and you face her back, waiting for the day she’ll turn around.

so what did we think guys?!?? this was 4.7k words. crazy.

ok. so notice the tear coming from her right eye during that whole end part of the sex. note that it came from her RIGHT eye. scientifically speaking, that’s a tear of joy. BOOOOOOM MIC DROP.

i, unfortunately, shot for the stars and tried to make this deeper. hard to do that when you’re not in touch with your emotions. so now you guys are stuck being confused. good luck!

anyways. the final scene is supposed to represent where they metaphorically stand in their relationship. reader is trying to bond with abby, or at least making an effort to, hence her facing abby. abby can’t come to terms with all this, but she’s trying! she’s not fully accepted the homosexual part of herself though, the side that comes out with reader, so she’s facing the door. FACING IT, not leaving through it. ;)

also, yes, owen goes in dry. it’s canon. do not come at me.

taglist:

@pricefieldsuperiority @heartlexs @graviewaviee @liaphrodite @k1ngpin42 @deadbolted @be3flow3r @mrsabbyanderson

@rob1nbuckl3ys @vivispace @bookpagecandlescent

@thelosstvalkyrie for photo creds ty baby <3

[turbo-tsundere]

Content warning for gore, blood, burns & body horror.

A king with no crown and a holy fool.

(The element of venom/poison, stabbing/puncture wounds and destruction of a whole body is present in both of their deaths. Kokichi's pristine white clothes also end up being shoved down the toilet, and the poison made it difficult for him to breathe, so there's plausible callback to Miu also. Karma at its finest?)

If I could be the devil, you could be the sinner.

(Don't mind them, they're just spilling their guts)

(...)

(Concepts for scenes from a Gonta-centric survival horror game I'll never make. But it was fun to daydream about - maybe one day I'll finish other sketches and doodles relating to it into a more presentable state. The Cat Lady OST was playing on constant repeat while I drew this - Lily of the Valley, Don't Follow the Light, String, Plainwalker, Early Winter, Storytelling, Susan's Blue Sheep (alone again) - those in particular are now stuck in my brain when I look at those drawings, and what I imagine the "game's" mood to be like, at least the opening segment.)

(I felt both heartbroken and like a monster when drawing this one... But I wanted to draw something that doesn't conveniently erase nor tuck his mangled, swollen face away from view. Sure... in game it looks goofy. But I think mockingly disfiguring him was the point in all of this, too. And given the venom, the Schmidt pain index, how it rates some wasp species, the fact that those robot wasps could be packed with anything necessary really... it had to be awful. Really, every stage of Gonta's execution was excruciating and enough to kill a person on its own, but due to his strength he likely suffered through them all. I remember begging in my head he was at least spared the flame, that he was already gone by this point... But it's foolish to pretend it definitely was the case.)

I wanted to post something new, but I was either busy, ill, or focused on something else, so another sketchdump with oldies and wips it is. This time strictly 2020-21 stuff, drawn during the first few months after finishing the game; mostly to process the post-game/Ch4 sorrows. All very emotionally raw, very edgy stuff that I felt, to be honest, too shy to show before.

Like with any wip I posted before, I do hope to finish some of them properly one day, even though I don't know when. But that's fine, I've signed up for a very long ride with the bug man. Taking it easy is the priority.

Speaking of long-term projects, maybe there's no need to, but I do want to talk about my Gonta fancomic, so here goes.

It's a bit long, so I will continue under the cut.

(Some panel teasers first! ...Gonta sanity fine.)

I took a few months long break from personal drawings - an *actual* break, not just sitting in front of a screen, tired, stewing in guilt that I'm tired, and that I can't magically muscle through burnout, or headache, or exhaustion.

My brain was stuck in a loop of berating myself for underperforming, not doing well enough, for taking so long on "mere" 27 pages, when in the past I could finish a 90-page webcomic chapter much faster. I wouldn't let myself rest, because I didn't do enough; but I couldn't do enough, because I didn't allow myself to rest. And it's been going on for months and months.

What a stupid, unconstructive thing to do to myself. I was only spiralling down, intimidating and overwhelming myself with work on the one thing I specifically wanted to keep doing out of joy, not ambition and pedantism. So I decided to just say "fuck it" and stop for a while. Like, actually stop, do something else and try to feel unapologetic about it.

So I briefly took up sewing, a creative activity I had no personal stake in, and then I started PVP-ing in DS3 (sorry if I happened to kick your butt in there. Rest assured my butt gets kicked just as much), which did wonders, too, as non-artistic pastime.

And, in the end, it seems it worked.

I finally feel this internal drive to draw again. Sadly, I can't spend all of my free time on the doujin (I might need to open commissions soon), so my pacing will still be glacial... But there was an internal change from "I have to, I have to, I must..." back to "I want to". And this is all that matters.

Still, that makes me think... while technically I don't have deadlines, the comic has taken so much longer than I thought it would - and it will take a while still. Thus, I wonder if I shouldn't change my approach re publishing it.

The initial idea was to post it all at once when it's fully finished, but I debate releasing it one page at a time instead, while it's still work in progress.

Thing is, I don't think it would be good for overall pacing. I don't want to sacrifice it, plus I can't guarantee regular uploads, esp since I don't exactly work on the pages in chronological order (While the first page is done, it was drawn after I finished a few in the middle & at the end; and there are still a few important pages/panels in first half I'm a bit too afraid of touching just yet, wanting to do them justice. This is how I work in general, jumping around rather than sticking to overly strict linear order.)

The compromise would be to post like 3-5 pages per post, making it so each upload covers a specific scene, however, same issue arises - I can't promise regular uploads. In the end it feels like a half-measure. But maybe it's a good idea, despite that impression?

There's a secret option, too - if this takes absurdly long, my plan was to just post the storyboard, after replacing some panels/pages with already finished drawings. The thing is readable as is, and long finished on that front anyway. My personal deadline for that was "right before my current lease ends", but, well… I plan on extending it anyway, and again... it's just a back-up option for when everything else fails. In the end, I just want to finish the comic, and present it how it's meant to be presented, however long it will take.

All those things considered, I'll stick to the original plan for now... and then we shall see. I simply wanted to share where things stand currently, and where they might go.

And that's it! If you've read this far, thank you. See you in the undetermined future.

[littlegreenteacup]

I'm Gonna Marry You One Day

Summary: At the end of a very long week (Y/N) is tasked with caring for a less than sober Eric. As the night wares on Eric's usual tough guy exterior melts away leaving the Eric she remembers from childhood.

Word Count: 3,881

Warnings: Drunk Eric, Someone slipped him something and its making him act a bit different than usual, passing references to working as an ER doctor - of sorts, dubious consent - i don't know how much consent can be given in this situation, It's not marked NSFW for anything smutty just other things.

A/N: I'm so bad at summaries. The book the reader is listening to is from Essex Dogs by Dan Jones - I've never read it but I was listening to a history podcast from the same author during work and it made more sense to have her listening to a book instead of a podcast. I also had a really specific idea of the things in the reader's apartment, or at last the things that were described, and I have no idea how to include descriptions of those items without over explaining, so if I have time I might come up with some kind of drawing or something and post it somewhere. I don't know yet.

A/N 2: Yeah, no. I've already forgot what kind of bullshit i was talking about, but this is what I get for posting something to tumblr months after i posted it to Ao3, which is where that first note is from.

It had started right after dinner had ended in the Pit. The customary Friday evening crowd of Dauntless, young and old, seeking alcohol and company for the evening streaming into the cavernous room, loud conversations and cheers and greetings called from across the room echoing off the ceiling. (Y/N), never one for the noise and chaos of Dauntless parties, had opted to stay in her apartment, heat up a cup of leftover soup and read a book.

It had been a long week compounded by an even longer day, Eric and Four were never easy on the initiates but this year’s bunch were particularly whiny, and she had paid the price for it. Every few hours Eric or Four or one of the few initiates still standing after the latest round of fights had showed up at the door to her office, the arm of whatever poor bastard had been the latest to receive a beating slung over their shoulder. She would direct them to lay their victim on an open cot and go about the unfortunately familiar process of patching up her newest patient.

All week it had been bad - whoever thought allowing the untrained and idiotic young adults free reign in the evenings to drink, party and be absolute idiots and then turn around and expect them to be able shoot straight during target practice the next morning was not her favorite person at the moment - and Friday morning had been the cherry on top. She’d woken up three hours earlier than usual to an urgent message from one of the night nurses about an infirmary full of patients thanks to a drinking game gone very wrong and an accident involving a train car that disconnected from the rest of the train leaving anyone onboard to jump – weather it was an ideal situation or not. Normally the latter group would have been sent straight to the more well equipped city hospital, but Dauntless had been the closest medical facility, and so doctors from the hospital had instead been dispatched to help with the sudden influx of patients making the infirmary even more crowded than it would have otherwise been, and giving (Y/N) a migraine from dealing with some of her former faction-mates who had also gone into medicine – Leaonard was still and asshole and he probably always would be, but it was as sorry state of affairs if his snide remarks and cruel jeers offered some form of comfort in that they were predictable – all while trying, and occasionally failing, to keep her patients from being in too much pain from their injuries. And all of this wasn’t including the stomach bug that had been going around and had laid out several senior medical staff, leaving (Y/N) overworked, and the infirmary understaffed, all week.

Later on in the morning, once the initiates had started their day, Eric had been in a particularly pissy mood and had had them all running six miles around the compound. When one of the smaller girls had tripped over some loose gravel and scraped her knees up badly enough to need stitches, and in the process caused some of the other initiates to trip over her, he dragged them all in to see (Y/N), and berated the poor girl who had started the pile up for her clumsiness until (Y/N) had had enough and told Eric to either grab a pair of tweezers and help take the gravel out of the girl’s knees or to get out. Eric had shot her a dark look but left anyway, muttering under his breath the entire way back to wherever he had come from.

The rest of the day had followed similarly, one disaster after another, one accident leaving her infirmary more packed than before until early evening when the ambulances had arrived to take the patients in need of more intensive care or who needed to be watched for the night to the city hospital, and anyone else was sent home bandaged and bruised with prescriptions to fill at the pharmacy down the hall.

(Y/N) had spent another hour or so catching up on the paperwork she had neglected in favor of her patients, and then left for the evening, leaving her infirmary in the care of the night staff until the next shift change in the morning, when the weekend staff would take over. Having missed dinner in the Pit, she had elected to go straight home, where she could take a hot shower, enjoy a glass or two of wine some leftover soup and read her book. As an Erudite transfer (Y/N) had never quite managed to rid herself of her love of books and reading, nor did she particularly care to, and so to her spending a Friday evening at home making some headway on the novel she had started the week before was a far better proposition than jockeying for space at the bar among drunk faction-mates who were already too far gone to understand what a healthy distance might be, regardless of how early in the evening it might have been.

That was how it had started. And with the week she’d had (Y/N) wasn’t entirely sure why she was surprised when Four showed up at her door with an incredibly drunk, and possibly high, Eric with him.

“What the hell happened to him?” (Y/N) asked, as Four half stepped half stumbled through the door, the other man weighing him down, and made his way to the living room where he deposited Eric on the sofa and stood up straight before turning to the woman in front of him, with an almost amused smirk on his face.

“He got drunk in the Pit, and I think someone slipped him something too” Four said scratching his head.

With a sigh, (Y/N) grabbed a green cream and pink striped afghan blanket off the back of her sofa and draped over Eric’s shoulders as he sat, grinning like an idiot, staring at the overcrowded bookshelf against her living room wall.

“I don’t know what though.” Four turned back to the front door, “you gonna be okay with him?”

(Y/N) raised a brow at his question, “Why wouldn’t I be?” She asked the older man in front of her.

“I don’t know,” Four responded, “it’s Eric,” he continued, “Tris said you be the best bet for someone who could take care of him while he was like this, but I thought I’d ask anyway.”

“Uh huh,” (Y/N) rolled her eyes “and if I said ‘no’ what would you have done?”

Four didn’t say anything. It was a rhetorical question and they both already know the answer.

“Tell Tris I said ‘hi’, will you?” (Y/N) snickered at the blush that flushed Four’s cheeks at the mere mention of his girlfriend. Tris’s reaction would have been the same, their good old fashioned Abnegation upbringing rearing its head, and (Y/N) had never missed a chance to tease Tris about her crush on Four during Initiation, and that teasing extended to Four as well once both girls had passed and been welcomed into Dauntless, their social circles overlapping fairly extensively once (Y/N) had taken over management of the infirmary, and Tris had started dating their former instructor. But that overlap had also extended to Eric. He and Four weren’t exactly what anyone could call friends, but they did end up in the same place at the same time more often than not, and that resulted in (Y/N) and Eric spending a fair bit of time together, and before she knew it, (Y/N) found herself falling love with him.

Her obvious feelings for the man had led to more than a few teasing comments from Four, Tris, and especially from Christina whose Candor tendencies only seemed to become more apparent once she was accepted.

Four nodded his goodbye to (Y/N), and headed out the door, closing it softly in his wake, as (Y/N) went back to the kitchen. If she was taking care of an inebriated Eric she couldn’t have that glass of wine she been looking forward to all day, instead she filled the kettle she kept on her stove with water from the sink, lit the largest burner on her stove and placed the kettle over it. Taking down two oversized mugs from the cabinet, and a box of teabags from its place by her fridge, (Y/N) set the items next to the stove, ready and waiting for the water to boil.

Turning, she glanced into the living room to check and see what Eric was doing, and she almost let out a giggle at the sight in front of her. Big mean Eric, whose bark was just as bad as his bite most of the time, was laying on her sofa, his long legs sticking out over the arm on one side, his head resting on the other. For a second, she thought he was sleeping, and then she heard him murmuring to himself and watched in mild amusement as the man she’d harbored a crush on for the last few years reached an arm up and traced the shapes of the constellations she’d painted on her ceiling through the air. As (Y/N) stepped further into the room, she could see that his eyes were large and he had a soft goofy smile on his face.

The whistle of the kettle called her back to the kitchen, and as she turned off the stove and pored the water into the waiting mugs, she was reminded that it was the rare appearance of a soft vulnerable Eric - the one she had known in her childhood when he’d been the one to find her crying in a windowsill and get her book of fairytales back from some older kids for her - that was the reason she’d always liked the man, even when he had been harder on her during initiation than anyone else. This was the version of Eric that made her laugh when she was upset, who made her hear beat faster in her chest when he shot her a sly smirk, the version who would show up unannounced at the door to the infirmary just as her shift ended and insist on walking her home again. The Eric that would leave her at her door, and wish her a good night, and each time there was a slight hesitation before he turned and left, as if he had something else, he couldn’t quite bring himself to say. This was the Eric she had fallen in love with.

Shaking her head, (Y/N) dismissed the memories, fixed the two mugs of tea with milk and sugar and placed a pot on the stove to reheat the soup she’d made the night before. Turning the burner at the back of the stove down to simmer, she took a sip of her tea, savoring the moment, and cradling the warm cup in her hands. Gingerly setting the mug down on the counter, (Y/N) turned to the speaker she kept on her counter and turned it before pressing resume on the audiobook she had begun earlier in the day.

…'Christ's bones, wake up!' 'Loveday' FitzTalbot jerked his head up. Father had dug him in the ribs with a sharp elbow. Despite the cold saltwater spray that whipped his face, the rocking of the landing craft had lulled him into a moment of sleep. He had dreamed he was at home. But now his eyes were open again, he saw that he was not. They were still here. Out at sea. As far from home as they had ever been. Getting further from it every second…

The warm timber of the narrator’s accented voice echoed throughout the tiny apartment, as she placed Eric’s mug of tea on the table in front of the sofa. Returning to the kitchen, and leaning against the counter, he own mug once again in hand, it wasn’t long before (Y/N) was lost in the story.

…waved airily at him and told him there would be plenty enough to make good sport. He said he had this directly from the Marshal of the Army, Lord Warwick, who had it from King Edward himself. Noble men. Knightly men. Men who knew best. If I had wanted good sport, thought Loveday, I would have stayed home in Essex, playing dice in the inn near Colchester and paying a penny to lay my head of a night between the thighs of Gilda, the alewife's girl. But he had held his peace with Sir Robert. The man was a fool, but he was the fool who had recruited them for this campaign. Who would pay their wages for the next forty days. The Dogs hired their sword- and bow-arms…

Eric, still half dazed and laying on the sofa, turned his head so he could see (Y/N) in the Kitchen, the sight if her, so engrossed in the story playing through the speaker, had warmth blossoming in his chest. Stumbling to his feet, Eric was dimly aware of the dull thud sound his shin made as it hit the edge of the coffee table, the mug of tea (Y/N) had placed there for him almost tipping over in the process.

Stumbling over his socked-feet – when had his boots been taken off? – and across the soft blue and red rug in the living room and into the kitchen, Eric couldn’t help but grin at the sight in front of him.

(Y/N), once again cradling her mug of tea, had a soft amused smile spreading across her face, as she watched Eric clumsily make his way into the kitchen. The fairy-lights under the cabinets casting a warm glow across the pair of them.

As the chapter of the audiobook (Y/N) had been listening to came to a close, she switched the speaker to music, the lyrics and instruments blending into one as Eric’s attention focused on the woman standing in front of him, his heart thumping wildly in his chest. Her hair was tied up in a messy braid, strands of hair falling out of place and casting shadows across her cheeks, the t-shirt she wore was several sizes too large with the logo of some band he knew she liked emblazoned across the front – he wondered if she would be the type to steal his shirts if given the chance – (Y/N) wore a large maroon knit cardigan over the top of her shirt. It was obvious, even in his less than sober state of mind, that (Y/N) had been ready for a peaceful night in.

Hearing the music, almost as if for the first time, Eric reached forward with both hands outstretched as if in invitation, and as soon as (Y/N) had set her, now empty, mug down, he grasped her hands and pulled her into his chest, spinning them both around the tiny kitchen with surprising grace for how out of it he had been when he’d arrived only an hour or two before.

(Y/N) couldn’t help but let out a breathless dizzy laugh as Eric spun her around and around in time with the music that poured from the speaker. As the song ended, Eric pulled her into his chest, burying his nose in her hair, his arms wrapped securely around her. She’d never felt so safe. The scent of his cologne – smokey and woodsy with a hint of some kind of citrusy note – mixed with the warm familiar smell of him and the acrid tinge of gun powder, metal, and boot polish.

Eric wrapped his arms tighter around (Y/N), inhaling deep breaths of her shampoo and perfume. He was so calm. Everything felt right in the world with her in his arms – there was no awful, bloody, violent past dragging him down, no worries about what might have happened had things not gone the way they had, no concerns about what the idiots he was training were doing or how they might behave the next morning, none of that. Everything was perfect and calm. Peaceful. Still. Everything was exactly as it should be in that moment.

Without thinking about it, Eric pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and murmured six little words that he never would have had the courage to say at any other time: “‘m gonna marry you one day.”

(Y/N) froze. Never in her wildest dreams had she thought Eric Coulter of all people would say that to her. She had never thought he would, in any situation, return her affections. And she had most defiantly never thought that Eric would be the one to say something first.

But he was drunk, possibly still high on whatever drug he had been given earlier in the evening, and not in any state to be having this conversation. (Y/N) pulled herself out of his grasp as best she could, a sad tired smile having replaced the bright happy one she’d had on only moments before, and firmly guided Eric back the sofa in the living room. She guided him to lay down and covered him with the same warm wool afghan she had wrapped over his shoulders earlier that evening.

Before she could pull away entirely, Eric wrapped his arms around her waist again, and tugged, gently, pulling (Y/N) onto the couch and against his chest before falling into a deep sleep, thoroughly exhausted from the long week and feeling very warm and sleepy in this cozy apartment with too many fairly lights and books stacked everywhere, with stars painted on the ceiling and dragons napping on tea mugs; the warm milky smell of cinnamon and tea permeating the entire space, and the woman he’d been in love with for years curled up against him.

Knowing there was no point in trying to get up and go to bed once she heard Eric’s first snore, (Y/N), for her part, curled further into the comfort of Eric’s warm embrace and the comforting rhythm of his breathing, tugged part of the large blanket over herself, and surrendered to the siren call of sleep. Eric’s tea and the soup they’d never bothered to eat both forgotten where they lay.

As the sun shone through the large arched window of her living room, it’s light diffused by the sheer curtains she long ago embroidered with golden stars, (Y/N) woke to the feeling of gentle circles being traced across her back. Remembering that she was still curled up with Eric on the sofa, she hazarded a glance up, he eyes meeting the steely blue-gray gaze of the man whose arms were wrapped around her. Eric looked as exhausted as he always did, but something in his eyes was more relaxed and at peace then she had ever seen him.

Slowly, and rather reluctantly, extricating herself from his arms, (Y/N) stood up from her spot on the sofa, already missing the warmth from being pressed against Eric’s chest. Pacing softly into the kitchen, she opened the cabinet in the corner, pulled down the basket of medication and grasped the bottle of ibuprofen and taking out two of the flat white pills. Gently placing them on the counter, she turned to get a glass out of the other cabinet. Reaching up, the only clean water glass was only slightly out of reach.

Before she could get the stepstool out of the pantry, Eric’s warm chest pressed against her back, his arm reaching up to grasp the glass and take it down for her. Taking it from his grasp, (Y/N) placed it on the counter and filled it with water from the pitcher in the fridge. Pressing both the glass of water and the pills into Eric’s hand, (Y/N) hoisted herself onto the counter as he took the offered medication and placed the glass in the sink.

“I meant what I said,” Eric’s voice still rough from sleep, (Y/N)’s eyes went wide as she looked up at him, “I’m going to marry you one day,” Eric tried again, “I promised I would the day we met.”

(Y/N) couldn’t keep the grin off her lips at his words. The day they met, it seemed like lifetimes ago and at the same time like it could have happened only yesterday.

“The day we met?” she questions, Eric flushes slightly. They were only kids then “Do you mean the day you got my book back for me?”

Eric simply wraps his arms around (Y/N)’s waist, buries his nose in her hair and inhales, “Yeah,” he responds, “the last time I ever did anything good in my life,” he pauses, inhales deeply, and continues, “and don’t say it isn’t true – I’ve done more than my fair share of things that should never have been allowed to happen,”

“Eric,” (Y/N) says softly, resting a gentle hand against his cheek, “what you did…” she trails off.

“What I did,” Eric continues, this time keeping eye contact, “I could have known was wrong so much sooner if I had wanted to,” his chest hitches with a barely there sob, “I should have known, and I chose not to.”

(Y/N), still sitting atop the kitchen counter, pulls the taller man standing in front of her into a hug, “I’m not asking you right now,” Eric continues, “but one day, when I’m not a complete mess, and I have a ring for you, I’m going to ask you to marry me,” here he cuts off, a look of hope and fear in his eyes, that takes (Y/N)’s breath away, “and then it’s up to you.”

“What are you saying?” she asks, confusion coloring her clear voice, “are you…what” she can’t quite form the thoughts in her head into a complete sentence. There isn’t a way to form those thoughts into any sentence at all – this situation is too strange, too bizarre, too something and too nothing to be able to fully comprehend what it is Eric is saying.

Eric takes a breath, something between a sigh and a laugh and a desperate pleading bid for enough strength to get through this moment.

 “I haven’t really asked you anything,” tears are beginning to well at his lower lash line, and (Y/N) is struck nearly dumb by the simple fact that Eric fucking Coulter is here, in her kitchen, confessing that he’s apparently been in love with her for years and that he wants to marry her.

“First things first,” (Y/N) interjects, a brief look of relief flashing in Eric’s eyes, there and gone in a second, “why don’t we go out, and see how this goes, and decide from there.”

There’s a finality in those words neither care to analyze. They have been together without being together for a long time. In another life, they probably would have already been married, or maybe not. Eric might have decided a long time ago that the only woman he would marry was (Y/N), but it’s only the events of the last few years that have brought back the Eric that (Y/N) would entertain the idea of marrying. The one she knew years ago. The one who was her quite protector in school. The one who pushed her to do, to be, her best in initiation. The one she’d been in love with for years.

[criberrie]

BENNY X READER X DOPPELGÄNGER

hey heyy how y’all doing. soo it’s been so long since i’ve posted and i’m so sorry for that so i give you THIS until i make a part two for one of my rory x readers <3

SMUTT WARNING ‼️ btw

today has been weird for you. one minute people were nice to mean to nice again. you wonder if everyone was bipolar or it was magically involved. either way benny could be the fix. you see him down the hallway wearing this letter jacket, shades, and a toothpick? You want up to him and give him a big hug having a sigh of relief to finally see someone normal. “benny my day had been shit and i need to feel better”, you say still hugging him. you feel him chuckle and wrap his arms around you. “i can most definitely make you feel better”, his voice sounds like benny but you knew it wasn’t him. you let go of him and size him up. “benny not you too” you can tell he’s just like everyone else, just a little different, just a little off.

now that you see benny you know it has something to do with magic. just as you had your epiphany you see benny sprinting down the hallway to you. “that’s not me” he says as he finally stops. “that’s *huff* not me” he’s out of breath but you pat his back “yea i figured” you say now standing beside real benny who is glaring at his carbon copy. “i’m confused. who is this” you gesture to the fake. Benny grabs the fake and we head to his house where he explains everything. as you and the two benny’s enter the house you feel a sharp pain and then it all fades to black. You wake up on bennys bed and you see his doppelgänger tied up in the chair, struggling. Benny comes into the room with ice and some tea. “Benny, why is he tied up in here. why not the living room” you ask as you take a few sips of they tea “so he can enjoy the show of course” he says while kissing your neck. before you can process what is happening you feel your body get hot and your breath draws heavy.

You grab him and pull him closer, giving him all access to your body and lean into his touch. you mew and moan as he caresses under your shirt, he’s good. a little too good. as your mind starts to question it’s pulled out of its bell hole by your shirt going over your head and he starts. he starts at your lips down to your neck to your chest and he trails kisses down your stomach. his piercing eyes eye fuck you as he kisses you through your pants. all you can do is let out a pathetic moan and a greedy look in your eyes. you hurriedly nod giving him permission. as he eyes you down he chuckles, “sweetheart i need to hear that mouth of yours tell me what you want” he says as he peppers kisses all along your stomach. you grab his hair to make him look at you, “benny please, fuck, i need you, please” you whimper and whine to him. without missing a beat he pulls your pants down and starts to eat you. the wet lapping sounds are drowned out by your pleasurable moans. he’s really good, so good that your forget about the other benny until you see him standing beside you with his cock out. “b..benny. how’d he get out” you say in between moans. “oh him, he’s been free for a bit, say hi to the real benny mkay” he say as he goes back to destroying you.

you look up in pleasure and confusion. if he’s the real benny then who’s the one going to town on you. before you can form another thought benny gets to your level and starts making out with you “open wide baby” he says, still stroking his cock. you obey and his big member fills your mouth. you gag and moan on his cock sending pleasure up his shaft to his head. as he fucks your face good you hear his twins belt buckle, “don’t have all the fun without me” he spreads you out “so pretty and so loose all for me” he murmurs as he slides himself in. a wave sends through your body, making you go deeper on the real benny’s cock. “fuck” he groans as you slide him in deeper. “your muffled moans make him fuck you deeper and harder.

you can tell he’s close. he pulls out before he finishes and he chi sees you pout. “don’t pout baby. i’m gonna be in you again, real soon” he says as he shuffles down to the other benny. the imposter moves away and lets the real benny have his way with you. he sits and strokes his cock as he watches you get ravished by your lover. benny flips you over and takes you from behind. “good fucking job baby” he says as he hits it from behind. he flips you over and spreads you out. “let’s give him a show hm” he fucks into you, showing his doppelgänger what he’s missing out on. he kisses and nibs at you, teasing his clone, showing him what he isn’t doing. the other benny gets fed up and decides he doesn’t have to sit around while you get pounded. he climbs on top and puts his cock into you. not slow but fast. it was sudden and it sent waves through your body.

your hole all stretched out by your love and his clone. the two cocks piston pumping your insides are making you mind go numb. all you can think about is the two of them moving in and out of you. “you feeling good huh” the copycat says while sweating above you. all you can muster is a pathetic whimper of pleasure. All you feel are kisses and lickes all over your body, the two bennys overstimulating you until you pass out. The next moment you wake up and you see only one benny spooning you “benny” you say, your voice still hoarse from the night before. He hum and kisses your head, “don’t worry, i took care of him” he say assuring you that the copy was gone. Since it was now the weekend you just layed with benny all morning.

[idolish7imagines]

So glad to see you posting again! I missed this blog <3 Could I request Gaku, Ryuuunosuke, Yamato, and possibly the Izumi brothers (separately) reacting to their S/O knocking on their doorstep in tears late at night, possibly having run away from or been kicked out by abusive parents with nothing but the clothes on their back and having nowhere else to go (no phone, keys, no cash or cards, just their clothes and their tears). S/O knows the risk of causing a scandal, but they literally had nowhere else to go. It's cool if the rest of the group (TRIGGER or I7) are in there, considering dorm-living. Sorry if this is kinda dark, drawing from personal experiences for this one (a dear friend let me crash at their place, so I'm fine) ^^;

Gaku, Ryuuunosuke, Yamato, Iori and Mitsuki reacting to their S/O being kicked out and living with them

a/n : Anon im so sorry! ;; i hope this makes your day a little easier

.::.

Gaku Yaotome

Gaku just wants you to stop crying. Its tearing him apart inside. The more he dries your face off, the more new tears come to replace the ones he just tended to.

His heart clenched, feelling like it was on fire. There was nothing he wanted more in this moment than to yell at your parents, tell them theyre wrong about you and everything else. Maybe even while you watch, just for you to get a chance to see how much he's on your side.

But, that would only make things worse, and thats not what you need. Right now, anyway.

His touch always lingered on you in some sort of way ever since you came in. On your back, neatly tucking a strand of hair on your head, half-hugs when he really desired to hold you completely and shield you from the world.

Gaku sort of...forgets to ask for permission before letting you stay over. You were in a rough place, so he couldn't just send you back into the cold.

He'd argue until his voice gave out if there were any protests about you staying with them though. Which there weren't, as Ryuu was fairly welcoming and while it was a surprise to Tenn, didn't mind after hearing out the predicament you were currently in.

Scandal is the last thing on his mind, he feels that as long as he's disguised, its fine if you two start going home together, but he'll be sure to be careful

Ryuunosuke Tsunashi

At first it was a pleasant surprise to see your face, thinking that this was a short notice visit, which he wouldn't have minded. But that quickly fades after his golden eyes get a glimpse of your tear stained face.

For a moment he's unsure what to think, even considering the possibility that he's the one that did this to you. But those worries were dashed and soon replaced with another, as soon as you opened your dry lips and began to recount to him what just transpired at your parents' house.

Once you're inside, he pulls you into a tight hug. One that'd probably hurt if you weren't so focused on how terrible you felt inside rather than your body.

While he wants you and your family to reconcile, tonight surely wasn't the time for it, you'd just have to stay at his place for now. It wasn't a bother, you're sad after all, he's actually glad he's here to help take some of the weight off.

His hands were always touching you in some way, holding your hand, rubbing your shoulders, or resting on your sides. Ryuu wanted so desperately to take the pain away.

Technically it was his house and he gets to say who can and can't stay there, but, he still feels the need to fill the rest of TRIGGER in on what's going on and that you could really use some positivity and support at the moment.

He also doesn't want you sleeping on the couch, even if it wasn't uncomfortable, it didn't feel right to make you do that after your night had already been so horrid, so you'll be sleeping with him from now on.

Yamato Nikaido

As he guided you into the dorm, Yamato drapes one of his jackets around your shoulders, inviting you to put it on. There isn't much he can say other than reassuring you that you have been wronged, now that your parents have made up their mind that they weren't letting you back (and he doubts they liked him more than you) but makes sure that you know you're welcome in the dorm whenever.

Despite that, he is pretty adamant on you getting your stuff back at the very least, and that he'll go with you to have his support.

While he can't exactly promise he knows where to go from there, he'll let you sleep in his room until you get things figured out

He might even finally get a bed to accommodate you.

Yamato is surprisingly helpful at getting you to calm down, keeping a cool head and gentle tone while he wipes your tears with a tissue.

"hey, Musashi is glad to have you here at least." He tries to lighten the atmosphere with a bit of humor.

Just for a moment, he'll leave you alone to explain to the other idols why you're here and that you probably aren't leaving soon.

Once he's back, he offers to help take your mind off of things with a movie and some snacks, since worrying right now wasn't going to do much of anything but make you more stressed.

Yamato is actually happy you came to him about this, that you decided to depend on him for comfort and somewhere to stay, even if it is a bit cramped for lack of a better term.

Unfortunately, he only has one chair in his room, so the best you can do is either find a way to cuddle up on the chair..or he's sleeping on the floor or couch in the living room. Not wanting to leave you alone for the night, he might just have to suffer on the floor with a blanket this time, but if its for your comfort, its not too much to sacrifice.

Iori Izumi

after predictably asking 'what happened', Iori gives a look of surprise and concern you don't see often from him, followed by quickly pulling you inside the dorm faster than you could process.

If/Once he's there at the dorm, the first person Iori tells about this is Mitsuki, seeking his guidance in a way for this situation. The dorm is plenty full already, and there's no rooms left, but he can't let you sleep outside or at some hotel since you have no money

Iori feels a little helpless for once, brainstorming of ways to take hold of the situation and fix this as soon as possible, almost to the point where he forgets you need to be comforted at the moment.

He forces himself to relax for your sake, but you can tell in his body posture how much its getting to him that this terrible situation came upon you. You, who's never done anything wrong in his eyes.

With reassurances that you'll get through this no matter what it takes, he goes to prepare a drink and meal for you, with his brother's help.

Iori will bring you anything you want, even if you don't ask, and from here on out will start texting you almost constantly when he's at lunch or on break at work to check on how you're doing. There's been a list started in his room on the steps the both of you are going to take to get through this and into a better situation.

His bed isnt that big, but its enough to get comfortable with. Pale cheeks had frequently started to turn a rosy hue when you cuddle up to him whether out of affection or to simply not fall off the bed.

Mitsuki Izumi

Mitsuki has to control his temper after hearing whats been done to you. He's ready to give those parents of yours an earful, but thats going to have to wait; you always are the first priority.

He hugs you in silence for a while, standing a little away from the door after he's let you in. Neither of you know how long the hug lasted, it could've been anywhere from 30 seconds to 7 minutes. But he stood there for as long as you needed.

Once you're sitting, he wipes your face with a handkerchief and asks if this is a permanent change and what all that you have with you at the moment. A displeased expression marrs his features one you say you came all this way with practically nothing, just that you didn't want to go back.

Thoughts flood his mind, not entirely of panic, but more along the line of what could your parents be thinking, kicking you out like this? As sweet as you are, he knows it couldn't have been your fault. And even if you did do something, it wouldn't have warranted something this drastic.

After a quick but gentle kiss to your forehead, he brings back blankets and gets to work on a meal or leftovers to offer you so you can start feeling at least a little better. It isn't much, but he wants to do whatever he can for his beloved.

Mitsuki's never dealt with something like bad or unfair parents before, so he can't even imagine your pain. But he promised you a long time ago that the two of you would stay by each other's side no matter what troubles or insecurities befall you, and he intends on keeping it.

Luckily since he's not that big, the bed sharing is pretty comfortable, and cuddling with Mitsuki for warmth, whether on the couch or bed is something you never minded before. His touches and presence made things more bearable.

[homara8524]

Good evening to all my brothers abroad. Sorry for the very long delay, new illustrations are ready: ‼️

It's been a little while since my last one, as I was very particular about the drawing this time as well. I apologize for making everyone wait, but I think I was able to produce a high quality work because of that.

I wonder how Yuki & Mai are known overseas.

I take the liberty of thinking that in Japan, the Touhou98 boom of recent years has gradually raised its profile. They are a cute duo, and I would be very happy if they become well known overseas as well.

Let me give you an update on my recent activities. I think I mentioned that I was going to be hospitalized for an examination when I posted my last illustration. I was successfully finised the hospital in mid-April for an examination, and the other day I heard the results of the examination. The answer was very painful, but the result was that my precancerous condition had returned.

Powerlifting is where I am improving my personal record more and more, but at this rate, I will not be able to powerlift for the second half of this year. Although I have not yet received a second opinion, my doctor's recommendation was to have surgery to remove my uterus, which would be better than having it metastasize into cancer and kill me.

However, since I have only seen that doctor, I am not sure if surgery is really necessary. So I will get a second opinion, and if he still recommends surgery, I will have it.

I may feel depressed and not be able to draw well for a while, but the fact that everyone overseas is waiting for me is the only thing that encourages me, so please support me.

I would be happy to receive RT or 💕, but if I could also receive comments, I would be able to understand how people overseas are feeling when they look at my pictures, so if you haven't commented yet, a simple comment would be fine.

[slightlyunconventional]

PLEASE MAKE SNZCANONS FOR WRIOTHESLY AND NEUVILLETE PLEASE PLEASEEEEEE

HI ANON HI HI HI HI HI i am so excited about this ask w/rio is my FAVOURITE RIGHT NOW AKSJAJDJS

i will be so biased towards this post honestly.. the way i literally have an extremely long post in my notes app of snzcanons for this loser. i feel like its gonna put my other hc posts to shame… oh well ! w/rio and n/euvi for you lovely anon

also should preface by saying i love these two as a pairing so there might be some shippy stuff or whatever, also i have some Thoughts about potential kink!n/euvillette but theyll be right at the bottom if that isnt anyones cup of tea so you can skip :)

w/riothesley

has 100% been said before but him having spent so much time in the fortress of m/eropide away from the entire outside world he has definitely got some awful hayfever

↳ i see him as the ceo of allergy denial too. he has no problem admitting when he’s sick but as soon as it comes to allergies its like talking to a brick wall “are you sure youre okay” “*very very obviously not okay* yep”

↳ will be denying until every subsequent snz has his head spinning

unless its someone(s) he’s properly comfortable with, he will be stifling in front of people

↳ …even though stifling is kind of a Task. i imagine it starts to hurt after a few

normally he will snz in doubles exclusively unless he does stifle then that will take it up to maybe four at once, nothing too excessive

↳ not hugely loud? but definitely not quiet. theyre pretty heavy too with a decent amount of force behind them, as such: “hhuh’dDJSHhh! …’djiISHHh’uh!”

↳ stifles into a fist, regular snz into his elbow and he grips the elbow w his other hand

↳ i also have this really specific thought that after he stifles a couple of times, the next snz gears up immediately after and he has this gasping, stuttery buildup before the last snz that will be very much harsher and ultimately unstifleable: and i spelled it out too! “hh’nNGt! ‘GKKts! -ahH! h-hhaaHh’GKSHHh’uh!”

(these headcanons are literally getting princess treatment im so sorry to all the other characters. my bias is showing)

aside from above though, (and allergic snzs) his buildups are next to nonexistent. he has a few tells, if you look closely you’ll see his brows draw together, nostrils flare and maybe a fluttery blink before a single hitching breath and then he’s off

colds 💭💭💭 when he’s sick i feel like he gets tired a lot, but he kinda ignores it and wont sleep any more than he usually does (which probably isnt a lot)

↳ although if someone were to insist that he take a break, he would 100% be passed straight out the second he was horizontal

↳ think he has such a gorgeous sick voice… LMFAO - its just slightly deeper and with the tiniest gravelly quality + those kind of rounded out consonants… yeah

definitely isnt particularly kind on his nose, especially when it comes to allergies.. he knuckles at it with way too much force

↳ i think partly because being just itchy would bother him to no end, doesnt let him concentrate on anything

i have a whole thing in my head about him fighting in p/ankration or whatever and getting a bloody nose, whether it be when he’s sick or allergies are just particularly bad but hes just sneezy about it … yeah

↳ broken/injured nose = no touching, so he can’t stifle for a while. because of this he ends up hovering a hand awkwardly in front of his face like a shield (blood everywhere, most likely.) also he cant rub it in this state, so his nose will most certainly be scrunched up (which hurts just as much, but he finds being itchy is more annoying than being in pain)

↳ some other thoughts idk. he’s trying to clean up a wound on his face but the alcohol reaaallly gets to him; eyes are streaming and hes sniffling so bad and he has a three second window to get it done before he’s sneezing lmfao

something to do with the dog/wolf motifs of his character, he definitely scrunches up his nose when its irritated

↳ maybe an involuntary little head shake/twitch after a particularly harsh snz

has a habit of turning fully away to snz, obviously to be polite to anyone whos there but he also does it when hes alone. just turns around lmao

i see him as slightly photic, again just because he spends so much time in the dingy ass fortress so there’s probably a bit of light sensitivity there

↳ however i feel like its never enough to actually make him sneeze, it just tingles a bit and is generally annoying… but it DOES prove useful for coaxing out a stuck snz

probably anti-holdbacks until he has a raging headcold with an awful throat so even breathing hurts, so he’ll try his best to stave sneezes off

n/euvillette

stifles all. the. time. i know this

↳ they’re basically silent, pinched between two fingers, but occasionally the tail end will slip out so there’ll be a bit of a “kssh!” to be heard

↳ singles usually with the occasional double that honestly catches him off guard, he never expects more than one

↳ probably takes a lot of convincing to get him to Not stifle. unstifled snz i think isnt super vocal in sound, and is decently forceful and kinda wet: “ehH’tchSHHhh!” something like that

i think dust and particularly potent fragrances make him sneeze - he isnt allergic per se, just sensitive

↳ for this reason he likes to keep his space very clean and tidy and without perfume or whatever. an outsider’s perspective might see it as plain but he does it for his own benefit

↳ probably had to tell w/riothesley to stop wearing cologne when he visits

doesnt get sick very often, he probably has a good immune system and this paired with being nonhuman probably means hes not susceptible to colds

↳ HOWEVER. on the off chance he does come down with something, you absolutely know about it. it’s very clear in his face - eyes and nose both rimmed red, and he just looks pretty tired in general.

↳ colds for him are probably very sneezy too,, poor guy lmfao

↳ also, with the thing where it rains when he’s sad… being the hydro dragon and all the weather probably turns pretty foul until he’s feeling better (puts a whole new meaning on the phrase “under the weather” hahaha)

↳ obviously continues to work through it who do you think he is! even if he has a court case, he’ll stay through the whole thing even if his head is pounding and he’s stifled enough to burst a blood vessel

↳ in court if anyone notices the obvious congestion in his voice nobody dares make a comment lmfao - this makes him think he’s got away with it even though its blatant he’s unwell

↳ the people close to him finding out he’s sick for the first time definitely involves a lot of “wow, i didn’t know you could even get sick”

handkerchief user ….. he really just seems like the type

dutifully blesses other people but gets lowkey flustered if anyone else says bless you to him

alright. here’s my kink!n/euvillette thoughts with w/riothesley so skip this part if that isn’t your thing :)

- is definitely one to comment on w/riothesley’s snz, and kind of challenge him when he denies being allergic to things… such as “that was five back to back, are you quite sure it’s nothing?”/“that sounded like it hurt”/“i’ve never seen you sneeze that many times in a row”

- would have a vase of rainbow roses or something on his desk completely nonchalantly when “professionally” meeting with w/riothesley. neither of them comment on it whilst n/euvillette watches w/riothesley try his damnedest to keep composure knowing full well he’ll never admit the flowers are bothering him

- n/euvillette definitely becomes a totally different person when its anything to do w the kink,, like he’s the last person you’d expect for it but he will literally be making an absolute wreck of w/riothesley

- something about dragons and “needs” or whatever….. i have no knowledge about monsterfucking or dragons or anything but there’s probably something there right??? someone who knows more might inform me do dragons have heat

thats all i have !!! ahhhhhhh anon ur awesome thank you for requesting my favs 😭❤️ i loved making this post im so so fixated on these two so i hope you liked these hcs :) sorry the post is kinda really long uh. blame the autism for that one

[emerxshiu]

rat brainrot going hard

sorry for not posting this week, i was cooking some stuff but this drawing took almost the entire week to do, worst part, it was a shitpost

i still dont know why this took me so much

so uh, almost all my drawings this week have been related to this two(and lis) so much so that i struggled because i wanted to draw other things so i would just stare at a blank sheet of paper for over half an hour, god that was torture, tho i dont mind drawing the sillies, sometimes it gets a bit boring drawing the same over and over y'know? im also going to take this as an opportunity to ramble about my forgo gijinka, because surprisingly i hadnt done that yet.

og image

ok now to actually talk about the wet rat

ive tried doing a gijinka of em since i joined the fandom (my first gijinka was fecto elfilis (well not really they were fnaf, but i mean when i got into kirby and when i started using the term gijinka))

but most of the time it just looked like elfilin but like...evil, with a different ear and a hospital gown, thats it, so i barely drew them since i didnt like that, but on february, i actually sketched an idea that i liked, and thought it looked cute but a bit off (i mean off in a good way)

(yes im posting this image again because i think its the best drawing of my forgo (im very inconsistent with my style ok))

they have their eyes closed most of time, like in game, i considered giving them legs but i ended up with the tail, since i didnt want to end up with like a fourth evil elfilin, the arms are like that so i can have em be small and weird like in the actual game, but i also made it so they can like change it, that way i can make em have hands and stuff if necessary (like to hold that frying pan for example)

not sure if a lot of you notice it but um, bro has no neck, i took away his neck privileges, i did it just to see but i ended up falling in love with that and stuck around, and also that allows me to draw them bending their head like in the drawing above because their neck isnt necking and i like that, i like being able to draw characters doing stuff that shouldnt be anatomically possible or is abnormal (i did something a bit similar with void) thair clothes are rugged because well forgotten land you know what i mean, but in general theyre actually pretty simple

i also did the drawing in digital

i tried doing very sketchy lineart, i tried a new brush in this one and thats the one im using for my last drawings (not sure if anyone noticed the brush change) it was pain painting it because i did it all with the brush in the same size, not changing it, god did my hands hurt and it was a bad idea

i accidentaly downloaded the following 3 drawings twice lol

sleepy zzzz

i think they would wear something like this to sleep, i dunno i just wanted to draw em in something cute, and sleepy, with elfilin slippers (the mug also has elfilin btw) oh and also i like changing their hair, here one of their long bangs is tied into a bow, kinda like callie from splatoon, i have some drawing im probably wont post, one more of forgo wich looks very much like the upper one but like eyes closed, and one of fecto elfilis gyaru because my sister asked me to draw them like that, bad thing is i didnt look up references on gyaru since i couldnt use my phone at the moment, i did like the hair i did for them in that one tho, they have their bangs tied up in a bun, and then left the rest loose, making it look longer than it actually is. i might redraw it, but actually looking up gyaru so i can make something more accurate, i like the style, but im not too informed on it

elfilin being silly like a kitty :p

not much more to say on this, just sillines :3

there is totally not a cropped drawing there

based on the kirby manga, where they make it so elfilis sings really bad, at first i didnt like it that much since i had imagined they'd sign great, but after i while i started to find it a bit cute so now its a headcanon, they like to sing but suck at it.

writing this just made me remember i wanted to do another drawing too for this with kirby and them singing, but i forgot to do it, im kinda tired (and its late) ill probably draw it, but for next post or another one

tried drawing fecto forgo as a plushie, silly.

i wanna learn how to sew so i can make plushies of characters (like prince fluf!) but im way too lazy, i will get around it some day! (hopefully)

elfilin too as a plush

i also wanna learn to sculpt, i tried doing a clay kirby once, but one his feet broke in half, and one day my mom put it in a box, and his eyes fell off and stuck to the box :(

i really wanna do figures for characters i like or dont have enough merch or my ocs (prince fluff, flamberge, fecto elfilis)

but as i said, im way too lazy and unmotivated, though its be nice, one day, maybe one day if i stop procrastinating

it doesnt have the same ring to it as "feto rata mojada alien" wich is how my sister and i call them (she doesnt know that much about kirby, but i sometimes show her my drawings (reluctantly sometimes, but im the older so like >:) she has too if she wants to show me her stuff too))

silly rat and wet rat, thats how i call em (because wet rat alien fetus is too long sometimes)

you can tell the brainrot was too strong (were near done(kinda))

they gain a mouth whenever i fell like it very much

artblock hit, and all the rest of pages i stared at them for 30 minutes

it felt weird looking at my fecto elfilis with the eyes so big, it looked off (in a weird way)

dunno, tried drawing them in a different pose i i dunno really

i think these are from tuesday. i did more but those were oc (mostly splatoon) or other kirby character related, and i want this to be a rat post (might post those tommorow or another day maybe)

i dunno (x2), i tried drawing elfilin like elfilis, i really liked the hands here. i still struggle a bit with anatomy but i think this was quite good for my usual character just stading looking at the front or a quarter profile. im considering making this into a fully digital drawing, what do i say by considering im actually doing that fuck it, i just think it looks kinda cool

"This new creation, driven by pure chaos, was defeated by the bright light of Kirby's hope."

Chaos Elfilis reminds me of a moth. kirby's hope is a bright light.

you can see my thought process. i just thought itd be a bit cute and kinda silly and funny.

the kirby fandom wiki, said that chaos elfilis looked akin to a moth, and it just stuck with me, so i wanted my gijinka of them to be moth inspired, and thats when i saw just how cute moths are! i mean im still a bit scared of insects but at least now i kinda like em.

i feel like i need to say sorry to that one moth i desintegrated in a matter of seconds with a book because i thought it was an spider and didnt think (im so sorry little guy)

but ah yeah elfilis, moth, it made sense to me since chaos elfilis has the soul of morpho knight, who is a butterfly, and moths are kinda like butterflies too. and i thought itd be cute

so uh yeah i sometimes like making my chaos elfilis be a bit like a moth, that includes liking light, a lot, so uh kirby is like a lamp in here because i said so

now to talk about the desing since for some reason i hadnt earlier, as i said before, they are very moth inpired so uh im might say that word way too many times (im sorry i suck at explaining stuff)

their horns are thinner to resemble moth anntenae, and they curve just because i thought it look cool, and to differentiate it a bit from fecto elfilis. their bangs tie into a bun (i forgot to draw that but i dont wanna go and change it now, way too tiredv man and i still have to post this on other places) the bun looks a bit like an eye, because well, they are basically a soul boss, and moths have things in their wings that look like eyes, btw chaos elfilis doesnt have their wings here because i got lazy and i didnt want them to like cover most of the drawing. the things coming from their bun are like the trhee things theyve got in their head, theyre shaped like that to resemble insects legs a bit, fecto elfilis also had the 3 things (i dunno how to call em sorry) as their eyelashes, but chaos elfilis has just white eyelashes, because the bun already has the 3 things and because my morpho has white eyelashes so (i still havent done my morpho gijinka yet, i just know im gonna give the butterfly some white eyelashes cuz cute and pretty grimm reaper) the rest of the hair is shaped into like a ponytail but like, adn shaped, with whats left shaped like a lil moth

the waistband they have is a nod to morpho, they used to have a bow shaped just like the butterfly morpho appears as, but i took it out because i thought it crowded the design way too much, and also because it was too on the nose. the arms have those golden things because my fecto has it and because my og chaos elfilis gijinka had them so i wanted to bring it back, the hand fades into white because the red in the hand wasnt hard to distinguish so i came up with that to make it easier to see.

the red part of the pants are actually a bit fuzzy akin to a moth and the white part has those stripes to loke like insect stuff because y'know akin to a moth. the boots are like the red part in their legs their model in-game has, so i just made em tall boots, the high heels? originally it was platform just ike my fecto but then i wanted to draw them in high heels when i was slightly redoing chaos elfilis, and welp, i loved it and now theyve got high heels. those rings around the ankle are inspired by the ones leaongar has around their arm. also can you tell anatomy is not my strong suit? and that i dont draw high heels often?

i made a slight change in my kirby, making the sleeves be a different color, since the one he had before i felt was way too white, and i wanted to have more saturation in it

i also forgot but elfilin is supposed to wear that during forgotten land, and then i decided that after the anding of the main story he changes clothes, but i forgot about that while doing this so he has his pre-ending clothes (also because i still cant really decide on their second outfit for the post-game)

god im so tired i wanna talk and show more drawings but o shit im sweating why is it so hot in here

um thank you for reading all the unnecessary long rambles about why i do certain stuff in my gijinkas, i appreciate it a lot (im still sorry about writing walls upon walls of text but i just cant help it)

Jambuhbye! :D

[walnutcookie]

sir i humbly request rambles about misfortune and more cappuccino hcs

perhaps some body horror doodles as well if you feel comfortable

i adore this au please spill your guts to me and i will feed on the titbits i find

also may i make fanart of this misfortune au thing (sorry not sure what to call it)

misfortune moment PART THREE!!!! ramble under cut :]

part one here

part two here

rbs ok!

misfortune knows exactly how to inflict the most amount of misery in someone.

heres the thing. if it just kept beating its host while theyre down, the host would eventually grow a tolerance to the pain and simply become numb. that means that it cant get any more misery out of its host and it would have to find another one.

So! it allows the host some joy. In cappuccinos case, it primarily involves his vacations :]c before she actually knows what causes all of the bad things in his life she just knew that Everything was always bad and miserable unless she was relaxing. while she was working, things would constantly injure her, nothing would stay organized, and bad things just kept happening one after another, but on vacation everything seemed to be just fine!! Great even! shes just able to surf or relax or nap and just ENJOY things instead of being hit by falling lights and bookshelves. even though every car shes ever been in has crashed hes always been safe on planes. of course its not all sunshine and rainbows because she can hardly even enjoy the break when he cant stop thinking about how AWFUL its going to be to go back to work

BUT!! the point is that her days off are like the ONLY times that he finds peace. Which is partially why hes so eager to catch another break!!! misfortune lets her have these lovely days but also uses it as an opportunity to make bad things happen during/right before her breaks so that theyre cancelled or cut short and shes filled with disappointment<3

this is also why it let langue into cappuccinos life ! of course it could EASILY just kill them but cappuccino was already getting a little too miserable and was far too adjusted to all of the bad luck in his life already so langue was the perfect solution to that problem. And also created misery all on their own like the longing cappuccino feels before they actually get together. And now that cappuccino has langue in her life and theyre someone who makes her so happy misfortune is able to cause harm to them/mess with cappuccino's plans of meeting them and just cause more distress :]c

of course that plan backfired when langue managed to weaken it and make cappuccino's life decent enough to the point it was forced to leave OOPS!!!!

but yeah ,,, i dont know i just love messing with this thang. too much misfortune is bad because then the host will adapt so it has to be a little lenient so the person doesnt feel completely and utterly hopeless >:] and in the event that the host does become useless to it then it simply posesses them to commit crimes and just cause misery to other people than the host before exiting the body and leaving it to bleed out and die

OKAY WHOOPEEE thats all i have to talk about right now i hope this is at least somewhat cohesive im kindof tired right now . BUT WOO RAVEN TIME!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS ASK IT WAS SO SO FUN TO DRAW ANS ANSWER /GEN AGHH hope you enjoy the drawings as much as i enjoyed making them X] ill likely put them in a seperate post since im really proud of the first one and i kind of want it to be in a post of its own agahsbfkhf

ALSO IVE ALREADY ANSWERED THIS BUT YESS ABSOLUTELY !!! I WOJLD ABSPLUTELY LOVE TO SEE FANART AUAGHHFF <333 YOU ARE SO SWEET !!!

if anyone has any further questions/comments feel free to shoot me an ask ! X]

[driedupeyeballs]

OH MY GOD???? I already love them sm

I literally edited a new profile for them for this cuz the old one was outdated BUT YEAH IDK IF THIS WAS AN INVITE TO INFODUMP ABT MY JAMIAZU FANKID BUT IM USING IT AS ONE

Btw I can only wish to achieve your level of snake knowledge I thought my reptile hyperfixation went deep but yours is deeper I wanna know your ways

But that isn’t relavent YEAH HERES MY JAMIAZU FANKID HI TUMBLR *lets them out like you would a spider under a cup*

So I have a shit ton of Twst fankids btw! They kinda swim around in my brain but only a few ppl I know have gotten the info dumps lmao

Skye was the first one I made I think (actually it might’ve been Rico (florid) but eh oh well who’s counting)

But yes this is Skye Ashengrotto!

They’re my older Jamiazu kid, I do have two. The younger one is my octo boy Akram :) he’s funny I wanna pinch his cheeks but he’s not the point here

So Skye! It feels weird publically infodumping abt my OCs like wtf am I even supposed to put here

They’re a half mer, which do work a lil different than normal mers in my lore. Half mers can transform without a potion but it’s still a long and generally painful process, esp going from mer to human. I kind of switch between calling them a snake mer and a naga but there’s lore there- Nagas exist in my lore outside of sea snake mers, there are also fully terrestrial Nagas. So the terrestrial nagas wouldn’t be considered snake mers but the sea snake nagas would be a type of mer while also still being a naga ITS CONFUSING DONT ASK (actually do. Ask everything so I can roll more of my fankids out like marbles)

Skye was created by a spell, I haven’t quite worked the details out 😔 but Jamil is part gorgon in my lore which is why they have the hair snakes which isn’t a typical naga trait. And to elaborate on the hair snakes: they are alive, the one w the bigger stripes is Flora and the smaller stripes is Jett. Skye can communicate w them telepathically and their eyes glow which is kinda neat. They’re kind of Skye’s version of floatsam and jetsam (unless u count Rico (florid) and Lilac (treyjade) which is like their ver of the twins- IDK ITS COMPLICATED)

idk what else to put here so LETS THROW SOME FHARACTER DYNAMICS YEAH and also mentioning some of my other fankids! They all have profiles (except my Malleus kid I’m sorry Aihan I can’t think of a design for you) but I’m probably gonna save those for another post-

So jamiazu in my lore live in the Shaftlands in a beachfront place and also live pretty close to Treyjade, however Florid live in the Queendom. The octatrio and their spouses is a close group so they’re essentially a big family. My treyjade kids are Maren (older) and Lilac, then my Florid kids are Rico (older) and the twins Mary and Eliza.

Skye saw Lilac more as a kid cuz they lived so close together but also saw Rico a lot when flrd would visit or they’d go to visit them. Rico is an agent of chaos and Lilac is Skye’s 2nd in command so their dynamic on a surface level is pretty similar to the octatrio, but there’s still a lot of differences once u get into the meat of it. Tho Lilac and Rico are Skye’s best friends and basically like siblings to them.

Outside of jamiazu Skye is particularly close with Jade, they share a love of tea :) he’s their cool but also slightly unsettling uncle

THEN THERES SHENZI- Shenzi is my younger kaliruggie kid and I am not gonna get into her here bcuz she rlly needs her own post w all her trauma but good lord these two do not like each other. Shenzi’s really nice but she’s not quite as nice as Kalim so after about 5 months of trying and failing to befriend Skye in their freshman year she just gave up and now their relationship is nothing but hostile (which was not helped when Shenzi and lilac started dating)

Speaking of that tho- so my idikei kids :) Ember (named after the pokemon attack) is the older one and he’s basically that “Jock idia can’t hurt you he’s not real Jock idia:” thing as a person he has the Fire hair n shit but he plays basketball and is heavily extroverted but no one gives a shit abt Ember this is NOT ABT HIM this is abt his sister! Her name is Zelda because you know Idia would name his daughter Zelda- she got all of Idia’s social anxiety lmao. She’s extremely shy and there’s a total of like 4 people in the school she can actually talk to without melting into a small stain on the floor. She’s an Skye are both in board games club and sometime in early freshman year she falls on her ass and knocks over a bunch of stuff which Skye happens to witness and cue the most awkward interaction known to man bcuz Skye can’t talk to pretty girls and Zelda can’t talk to ANYONE but they end up walking to the mirror hall together afterwards which becomes a routine. Except they’re both awkward as fuck take like almost two fucking years to get together bcuz neither of them are gonna do anything abt it BUT THEYRE VERY CUTE!! I love them

Also my ashengrotto siblings are very wholesome I need to write some stuff w them- Akram is a little shit and he loves pissing Skye off but at the end of the day he admires them and Skye loves their brother a lot :)

Anyway good lord I’ve yapped too much okay OH YEAH Skye has a Russian blue cat named Mariana who they just fucking found on the side of the road and thought it was a mouse so for like 2 years Azul thought Skye was gonna eat the cat

OK HERES RHE ACTUAL PROFILE these aren’t as chaotic as the other ones all the other ones are more meme than profile ALSO RHEIR UNIQUE MAGIC DOESNR HAVE A NAME AT THE MOMENT IF ANHONE HAS AN IDEA FOR ONE PLS SHARE I HABE NO THOUGHTS

(If you recognize my art style from instagram no you don’t also THEY DO HABE EYES I JUST DONT DRAW THEM CUZ MY STYLES WEIRD)

But yeah I love them I hope they explode (affectionate)

[meppets]

SORRY my original reply to this post got really long so I think tumblr ate it when i tried to reply to you directly 😭 imma just post it here then @frankenfreaky

I feel like Freddy's initial reaction and realization would come much faster than Quentin's. Like he knows this isn't his doing. He can tell immediately that there is no longer a hold on him from the entity, but I think its his realization that he lacks any of his real power that fucks him up at first.

Then comes his realization that he's no longer burnt and scared - that he's back to his pre-death self. That of itself sends another wave of emotions through him because while you'd think he would be happy with the change, it really just serves as confirmation to him that his powers are gone. And if his powers are gone, what does he have

For the record, I don't think his powers would be completely gone? I think he'd still be able to use them to some extent, and maybe he'd just have to slowly grow back into them, I'm not sure, but I digress.

The other thing, though, with him missing his powers/being alive again is that I genuinely think he loses a lot of his core bravo (at least initially)? Intentionally or not he turns back into the sweet gardener-sona he was before - this is just superficially because this is still Freddy ofc its just that he 1. Isn't looking to get burnt to a crisp again any time soon and 2. It probably is a shock to his system at first how nice the people of Springwood are to him. It's probably so jarring. Plus, if their memories have been warped into them just thinking he left town for an extended period of time and only just now is coming back?

Imagine people saying that they missed him - that their kids missed him. Dude would be going through it.

Going back to Quentin, I do think it takes a few days for Freddy to get his own bearings before he realizes that if he's back, then Quentin is back. And that in hand is what pushes him to go out looking for Quentin.

In my head I just imagine this as a partial adduction. Like Freddy just grabbing Quentin and throwing him in the passenger seat before driving off, but There is something to be said about them being the only ones who know anymore. Despite how happy they both must be (in some way or another) to be free, to be given that 2nd chance, its equally as isolating. Years of trauma, torture, pain all gone physically yet carved into their brains. No matter how much they may wish to forget everything and live happily, they cant and I think it's this fact that draws them together.

It would definitely be a gradual decent, but eventually they'd come to realize that they really only have each other. There is literally NO ONE they can talk to without sounding crazy at best, or being locked up at worst. I feel like Quentin would try his best to stay away from Freddy, try his best at denying that Freddy is all he really has left of his old life, but in the end it would eat him alive.

I have a lot more thoughts on this/this AU but this post is so long so imma make a new one talking about their progression but AHH sorry I've had brain worms about them for days now.

[drawberry03]

Sorry if this is super annoying but I just found your TSoF comic and was wondering if it was ever coming back, of if it's been finished and I just can't find the ending

Hello anon, don't worry it's not annoying. Glad to hear you like it so much ❤️ . Unfortunately TSOF is far from being finished 🥺. I haven't been able to work on any of my art for months now actually.

It's not out of laziness though! In fact I've bought a display tablet back in June 😗. The shorthand answer as to why I stopped posting is because I have health issues specifically with my hands and wrist. I meant to post this update months prior but I kinda just forgot about it sorry 😵‍💫.

Anyways, a few months ago I was both working and had my internship at the same time (12 hours + of work 😩). I was a UI/UX designer intern and if that wasn't enough my job required using the computer as well. Due to that my hands have been really tired 🤔. It's either my wrist from using my mouse for long hours or the joints of my fingers from typing and tapping left click and whatnot. This went on for about three months give or take. There have been mornings when I wake up with trigger fingers and it's kinda scary.

If you don't know what trigger finger is, basically the tendons are swollen and I wake up with my finger joints 'locked" into a curled position. And when you try to uncurl it, it's pretty painful and curls back on its own. One time I had to support my finger with a makeshift splint from a popsicle stick and yarn pfffttt.

https://www.brisbanephysiotherapy.com/news/trigger-finger-physiotherapy-management

Sometimes I don't even need to overwork them, holding my phone for too long or even something like cold weather makes my joints slightly ache. Basically my hands have been overworked and though I haven't gotten them checked, I'm pretty certain experiencing these symptoms in my early 20s isn't okay.

As soon as I could, I've avoided drawing (and writing and crochet and pretty much all my hobbies that use my hands). It sucks cuz that pretty much means it'll be a while before I can really have fun with my new tablet (which would've been another learning curve delay). Thankfully with my internship over with, I've been using the extra time to either rest my hands or find ways to support them (I've bought wrist casts, a heating pad and sports tape thus far). Yeah, so I've been trying to take it easy (as much as I can anyways I still have work after all).

Low key it kinda brought up a fear in me of never being able to draw again. And the problem with me is that when I'm in the zone you can expect me to draw for HOURS and I'll barely even notice 👁️👄👁️ . Plus trying to accomplish anything under 1 hour never seems enough to me. So I decided it was for the best to stop completely. To my fellow artists out there I hope you never have to go through the same thing 😵‍💫. Please rest your precious hands, don't be like me 🤣🙏.

For more happy news, I graduated 🎓 last October!!! 🎈 And I have continued working in my job 👏. I'm building my career and doing well generally speaking. My busy schedule is very much still busy but I really miss drawing too 😭.

I'm not really sure when I can go back to posting 🥲 cuz overworking myself again will set my recovery progress back to 0. However I can tell that my hands are definitely getting better (still not a full recovery but at least waking up with trigger fingers has stopped).

Be assured that all my unfinished works (whether its for gojohime, astelle, shortaki etc.) are still in the back burner of my brain. And I will get back to them when my health gets even better 😗.  And a big thanks to anyone that is still waiting by the time I come back 😌 💖.

[mybuginette]

My favorites fics

So, im a spanish speaker who is still learning english and my teacher said that if i want to improve i need to write/speak more in my ordinary life...and theres no better way of doing that that writing about my hiperfixations on Tumblr, so here i go.

This is the first long post that i do, so im sorry if i have any grammar mistake, im trying i swear 😔✌️ 

So here's the list (without order):

The Growing Pains Of Child Soldiers by BloodWolf13 What do the citizens of Paris do, when they realize that their heroes are literally growing up before their eyes? They freak the fuck out. Or everybody realizes that the heroes of Paris are young teenagers and are a little (extremely) worried about children fighting a terrorist.

I have always been wondering if in canon parisian knows that Ladybug and Chat Noir are just teenagers.

I mean, in season 1 we have Theo having a crush on Ladybug (ik that Thomas said that hes like 16/19 but still weird) so i asumed that people thought that they were adults but then remembered that in Bubbler, he didn't talk to Ladynoir as if they were adults.

Then Sabine is worried about them bc they have been working a lot and this fic shows how it could be if the other adults of paris worried about them too.

It was interesting for me because its like a realistic version of mlb paris socity, the discussions about mental health, ethical dilemmas and literally has a university essay in the first chapter. Its an amazing fic and if somebody knows if the author has a tumblr let me know pls.

Review of Les aventures de Ladybug et Chat Noir by @sunfoxfic Alya Cesaire, moderator and writer for the Ladyblog, reviews the newest movie in France — Les aventures de Ladybug et Chat Noir. How will this movie hold up to the hype? How will it hold up to the truth? All on the Ladyblog.

In-universe fics are my favorites, i like to see the events of the show from the pov of a normal civilian and the love that parisians have for Ladybug and Chat Noir. In this fic we have a review of the Ladybug and Chat Noir movie by Alya, one thing that i found funny is how in-universe Lady and Chat have like 2 or 3 movies while in real life we just got the 1 movie 3 months ago 😭.

Also, its funny that poor Adrien probably was forced by his father to do that role just like in Frightningale and he had to act like Chat Noir good enough for his father but not so good that anybody could tell that it was the same voice.

Miraculously Ladybug? by @the-angst-lord ON HIATUS FOR UNTIL SEASON 5 PROBABLY Marinus "Xiang" Dupain Cheung just wanted to go to school and keep his head down, design clothes, and bake cookies. Instead, he finds himself jumping across rooftops, defeating supervillains and partnered up with a cat who has the ability to destroy anything he touches. What a first day of school. Adrien Agreste just wants friends and the freedom to live his life outside of his father's influence. He's all too eager to become a hero of justice and defend the people of Paris. Gaining a handsome ladybug-themed partner who embodies said ideal is just a bonus.

I really enjoy the genderbend fics and this has to be the best rewrite of the show that i've ever read.Marin has the best features of Marinette, but with his own essence and characterization, when you read you really know that he is a reinterpretation of Marinette character and i looooooooooved him.

The situations, the relationships and the reinterpretation of Chat Blanc was so goooood.

I also loved the Dupain-Cheng family background in Shangai special ✨

(and it has drawings too and the suits are soo pretty)

@the-angst-lord i love your fic man

Perfectly Platonic (Unless…) by @frostedpuffs After accidentally revealing their identities in less than ideal circumstances, Adrien and Marinette must navigate their newfound relationship as both partners and friends. Becoming best friends was a quick process, but when romantic feelings begin to bleed into what's supposed to be a platonic connection, their friendship starts to change in more ways than one. Surely it can't be that hard to hide their feelings from their best friend? (A post-reveal, pre-relationship fic full of romantic crushes, best friend shenanigans, and a whole lot of dumbassery.)

I just lost count of the times that i've re-read this fanfic, the jokes are so funny and Adrinette acting like Ladynoir and Ladynoir acting like Adrinette >>>

These idiots are so horny and so in love, i need more 😭😭

[freuleinanna]

trials (and errors)

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | AO3

Chapter 5: Bonds

The afterthought. Of cold creatures, scarce friends, and inevitability that comes with it.

Welp....... As you might have noticed, I suck at consistent writing. I wouldn't blame you if you have no idea what was happening in the fic before :D Maybe it's even a plus. I struggled with this chapter so much, because I think it's kind of abundant, and then it kept growing longer and longer, and I'm sorry in advance if it's over-explaining or simply not good. I like parts of it, though, so I'm posting it to have it all there. Let's have the last look at Marisa - and see the aftermath of a bloodbath that was love.

Asriel walks out of the court that day stripped of all status, lands, and money, yet still somehow a free man.

She walks out a widow and a pariah with her husband’s estate still hers, with her money untouched, and a gnawing feeling of being flung into oblivion.

The car is moving, but she sits immobile: shell-shocked in a way, staring out of the window and not really seeing a thing behind the glass. Inside her, something spreads. What Marisa initially thought to be an exhaustive after-wave of tension, accumulated up to a breaking point and then suddenly released, continues to grip her in a far less decipherable manner. Head tilted in curiosity, she’s tracking an unfamiliar presence. Come to think of it, it’s been there the whole time. The presence appears alive, conscious even, and cold – cold enough to raise concerns with little icy snakes slithering through her limbs. So much so, it makes her frown and collect herself for confrontation.

She never does confront. In a similar way, victims of a shipwreck know it’s over when the last crumbs of their warmth succumb to the glacial sea. A tragedy, yes, but also a salvation. As the same coldness crawls between Marisa’s ribs and over the devastated lands beneath, a sigh escapes her, for at that moment she starts to feel preciously,

mercifully,

less.

Parts of her resist, fighting to keep the pain. Her daemon becomes restless. There’s turning and chattering, and looking around, and clawing at air as though he senses some vague threat but cannot locate it precisely. When his little paw brushes against Marisa’s elbow, she almost cries out, so hot it gets in her chest. She thinks of volcano eruptions: mountains of earth convulsing lava out of their smoldering depths, wailing in pain. No wonder it happens so rarely. It must be terror for volcanoes to erupt.

Marisa Coulter, née Delamare, cannot afford terror.

With her bankrupt nerve, she can hardly afford anything anymore, so she invites the freezing touch further in. The monkey zings away from her. It feels like discovering breathing for the first time. No one discovers breathing and then gives it up.

Questions of right or wrong do not entice her while busy streets outside grow emptier and wider, dissolving into landscapes. Her womb still aches, and her heart does too, and she is, simply put, tired of things constantly aching. She wishes for a relief.

Then, of course, the house. The car door opens, inviting the raindrops to draw a haphazard pattern on Marisa’s dress. She hesitates, locked in her metamorphosis. Funny, how colors get darker with water. Blue grows dim, as if across her knees miniature bottomless trenches appear, like those on a sea floor. Something’s coming from them. It is rising,

flowing,

entering her,

filling her to the brim.

Water is licking embers off the ground.

And then – it spills.

‘Madam?’

‘Yes.’

Snapping out of it, Marisa draws cool air.

She steps out with flooded lungs.

Raising its mighty roof into the drizzling skies, the house looks a living creature, a nightmarish one. It opens the hungry gates to swallow her, and rearranges the corridors, and prepares for a long, long digestion. A few lit windows could pass for unevenly placed eyes, the gravel – for the voice. Exile, exile, it whispers in the rain. What the house doesn’t notice, however, is the change occurred in Marisa, for a creature that came forth within her is strong, stronger than masonry walls, and much more twisted in its nature than their elaborate floral moldings. When she walks in, a spark of indigo against the muted shadows, she’s not afraid of being consumed.

She may be stuck with the house, but the house is just as much stuck with her.

From there, it’s fast.

Whatever isolated hermit life she was leading is rushing at her from every corner. Sinking into it was gradual, but sinking back after having got out is a plunge. A dive. A jump into abyss, now dreadfully deeper if Marisa cared to feel dread.

Instead, she–

Well.

She spends her days locked up in countless rooms with a maid that hates her and acid burning her insides. She drinks, and goes insane for a while. She wears the most extravagant dresses and demands dinners to be served in the dining hall. She tortures the help into submission. Whether it’s a part of her defense or something she was born with, Marisa doesn’t bother herself with contemplations. She contemplates very little at all, but enjoys contempt in Hilda’s eyes. At least it’s a feeling, a mark of her existence. Marisa struggles to feel properly alive. At the same time, she undeniably is.

That vicious mind of hers sits right between her eyebrows day and night, always hateful, always painfully alert. She drags it around like an anvil. Perhaps, it is the tragedy of brilliant people: their mind never truly sleeps. It studies everything with a probing interest, assessing and categorizing, analyzing and synthesizing, seeing in perfect clarity all the vulnerable spots to attack, everyone a subject, including the carrier.

So Marisa wanders, and watches, and keeps silent except to wound with words. Then wanders some more. Always an enthusiast for shadows, now she downright rejects having sunlight seep through heavy drapes. Oftentimes, she forgets to eat, or eats a pick or two out of whatever feast she makes the kitchen staff come up with, so she grows thinner, scrawnier. Maternal roundness slips off of her, no more missed than food leftovers she doesn’t think twice about. It gives her a girlish look. It gives her a girlish look in a sense of there being multitudes of girls who burn their woman’s grief like fuel to keep running.

Time is stealing around without causing too much disturbance to still waters.

There’s one particular day when Marisa spends hours staring at her reflection. Not for vane reasons, and not for philosophical ones – she merely stumbles across the mirror and feels drawn to it, exploring herself as a scientist would. To her genuine pleasure, she discovers that, when she makes a little effort to hide the monsters, she still looks extremely attractive, with the kind of allure that can easily be used as a weapon.

‘Why, yes, Your Excellency, I’ll gladly resume my work,’ she laughs, training the dry cracking out of her voice. ‘It truly takes extraordinary people like yourself to look beyond the old ways and welcome the scientific potential.’

Sounds flow lighter than a melody, equal parts fluttery and charm. Marisa tries a few more phrases. They all come out just as perfect – silver bells chiming in the wind, waiting for a listener to enchant. She winces in anger, at once losing her appeal. Words are just words until she has something substantial to offer, an actual line of research, because empty-handed beggars, however pretty, receive nothing.

Her mirror self returns a heavy look. She has a weary face now. That’s unpleasant. Around her mouth the lines have deepened, etched into her skin, adding elle-ne-sait-quoi to the appearance. Something monkey-ish, it feels. Animalistic in the worst form. Marisa stands miming violence at the mirror, conjuring the most horrible expressions in complete silence, biting air, so close to the glass that her reflection all but disappears under the foggy trails of breath she leaves on the surface.

Her daemon sits nearby, engrossed in picking at a loose thread of a curtain. In his crafty fingers it slowly, but inevitably, comes out, sometimes tearing the cloth when he tugs too hard. A hole appears then, and some growling is heard. The thread is golden, shiny. Beautiful. He undoes it for however high he can reach from the floor, then jumps on the table to continue.

To Marisa, he doesn’t pay attention. An unforgiving daemon he is and a proud one, and rejected things are prouder than any. When Marisa hisses him away, the monkey chatters aggressively over his shoulder before fleeing to the other side of the room. She throws a comb at where he sat. The ivory thing bumps against the drape and falls hanging on gleaming zigzags caught helplessly in its teeth.

Where there was a crack, now is a canyon. They never speak, yet he never resists another digging into his fur: the pain is excruciating, outweighed only by its intimacy.

Marisa thinks they still look impressive side by side, which is enough for whatever purpose she might pursue – a perfect mask to hide the holes and loose threads barely keeping them together.

She thinks she’d like another daemon.

She thinks no other daemon could match her.

She thinks, sometimes, that it is yet a question to be answered: whether it’s her who flooded him with darkness, or the other way around.

She thinks – she thinks. The process never stops.

She thinks of Asriel, too. The more time passes, the more within Marisa grows dissatisfaction, vague at first, then fully-fledged and poisonous. More and more she finds herself haunted, revisiting that day in court in her memory and boiling over her own stupid generosity. Generosity – for lack of a better word, although dozens of better words crowd her mouth, she’s just too embarrassed to even spit them. That brewing keeps her awake at nights, making her grunt into the pillow thinking: Asriel got it easy. His life wasn’t shattered, he hasn’t truly lost anything.

He continues his research, Marisa learns from the Institute’s monthly print, timely delivered to her a few weeks after the trial. She reads every word about harnessing Aurora energy and shrieks like a furious cat, because didn’t they both use to agree that that kind of research lacks zest? That it’s laughable at best, below their pride? Yet here Asriel is, obsessing over scientific expansion, resource control, wilderness, witches, and, somehow, spreading the holy teachings – all at once – still managing to make sense of it. She knows that kind of writing. That kind of writing attracts serious money, grants. He’s after the sponsorship, and he knows exactly what to promise to the high and powerful to become irresistible.

Pages are flicked through until they bulge in the middle of a thin print. Marisa has to burn them to stop reading.

Her own research article, the one she fought for getting published under her name, gets mysteriously pulled the last minute. It is a minor thing, considering. Still, the unfairness is driving her mad.

She could have crushed him. She should have. Even her daemon couldn’t pick this obsession loose.

So Marisa chooses the next-best thing. She grows colder still. Where this cold was used for mere bone-structure, it now thickens. Where it sent little snakes across her veins, she now feels rivers, oceans. No temperature is too low. No depths hold little enough life.

Every day, bit by bit, the swirling pool of scorching, messy emotions inside her starts to solidify under a crust, much like a pond in winter. Frostbites spread from the edges to the center. Waters become heavier to stir. Drowning in them, everything Marisa wants to rid herself of: the longings, the painful recollections. Nothing breaks into emptiness, she learns. There are always shards to graze and cut your fingers on, and she’s a walking bag of them – so out, out with everything that hurts. North has nothing on ice settling in her blood. Radical, youth is. Never thinks about what’s going to happen, when that numbing pool is drained, and emotions, shivering, half-forgotten, claw their way back into the chest. For now, Marisa finds not feeling to be quite liberating.

Thus, on her own will, she keeps sinking.

Further.

And further.

Yielding as much of herself as possible.

Excited for someone else to take over. Someone whose rage has cooled down into calculation and pain become productive, allowing her to wait and play the necessary part.

Roaming the empty halls in the shadows, Marisa is listening to the steps. To each of her own, there is another. The sea creature is following her closely, and very soon the little pauses between their steps disappear. She and Mrs. Coulter walk as one, talk as one, feel as one, until finally, at the very end of ends, become one.

Time keeps flowing.

***

Survival, scientists agree, is an instinct. All living beings have it. There is, however, a regrettably thin line between taking drastic measures for the purpose of self-preservation and repeating them beyond reason to keep up the illusion of salvation. In simpler words, a wounded animal gnaws through its own leg to escape the trap. A wounded person, already out of the snare, continues gnawing through the remaining limbs to recreate the feeling of escaping. No research is needed to say who stands a better chance at surviving.

It could have gone very wrong for Marisa at the time. She almost reaches the coldness incompatible with any life, her own included. Her predator mind almost starves on insufficient prey. It almost eats through itself, chained to the prison walls and slowly getting used to it.

What saves her, peculiarly, is Hilda – for none other reason than her being, thank heavens, human and petty, and fed up to her neck with Marisa.

‘A visitor for you,’ the maid announces shortly, voice no softer than a stale cracker fallen on the kitchen floor and forgotten there for days.

Marisa chooses to ignore her. A rather early morning escapes her worldview. Her sleeping habits have deteriorated so, it’s a wonder she still has any internal understanding of the time passage. Nights spent reading, or sometimes staring at the pages for hours without turning them, melt into mornings of withdrawal when the help starts clanking around the house with the usual noise of steps, chores, and rare conversations. Marisa prefers to avoid them altogether.

A thud comes – the monkey lands on the back of a sofa across from her. Behind him, bookshelves tower. Anbaric lights are gleaming off two black voids where nothing reflects but vicious animosity. Instantly, the house cat daemon bristles up. Ears twitch, flattened. The monkey leans forward: his tail rises straight to the ceiling and hooks a little over his head, long fangs silently bared. He hates that fucking cat.

Marisa feels his hatred as a deformed clump in her side. It moves, pushing at her insides like an unborn child. She grimaces at the sensation.

Her daemon, the purest, physical part of her soul, a faithful friend and companion, a confidant, a keeper, screeches like a common animal. Even Hilda is unsettled. Her eyes dart to the golden creature as she takes a step sideways to protect the cat. The monkey paws at the upholstery, scrutinizing them both. He doesn’t sound like a daemon. He doesn’t even look like one with his lustrous fur dusty and dimmed to a mere memory of gilt.

He appears a wildling with no consciousness.

A deformed clump, somehow forever attached to her.

Enough!

The book is slammed shut. Around the four of them, air sizzles – or, perhaps, it’s just the humming of the lamps making itself audible. Without saying a word, Marisa looks up.

Enough. Go.

The monkey is staring at her. She knows that stare very well. The feeling of it, rather: a tingling at the back of her neck following her around the library. A rustle of careful steps overhead. Beady eyes shining in the dark. Like a twisted game of hide-and-seek all children play with their daemons, only he’s the one both hiding from her – and seeking. Oh, how he seeks her.

Her things go missing at times: a ring, a bracelet. A hairbrush with a few hairs still stuck in it. There must be a pile of treasures somewhere in the house. Sometimes Marisa wonders if her daemon sleeps among them, and if so, if he’s doing it for comfort or bites on an old earring of hers, pretending to sink teeth into her flesh.

As if catching on to her thoughts, the monkey squeals a shredding sound, then quickly turns, and the next moment he’s gone. A spot of dirty-gold flashes on top of the bookshelves, and the dusty kingdom of neglect regains its ruler.

Marisa opens the book again. A different page, not that she’s noticed. The humming continues.

Has it always been this loud?

Symbols cluster in unpredictable ways, mocking her with gibberish. She might as well be reading in a made-up language, but she’d rather die than show it. Scanning line after line of outdated research – and badly composed at that – takes a considerable willpower on her side, yet Marisa feigns utmost concentration. Something about Hilda discovering that her pastime has been reduced to staring into space feels especially humiliating. Marisa couldn’t say exactly how it happened. There’s plenty of literature to go around, she’s just lost… interest. Prospects. Purpose. Whichever makes more sense.

Every seven lines or so, the lower humming switches to a high-pitched one that continues for another one or two lines of text. By the end of the second page, that’s all Marisa can focus on.

‘Did you want something?’ she snaps finally.

The hovering figure by the door scoffs, earning itself a hostile glance.

‘Well?’

‘As I said, Madam,’ if only politeness could kill. ‘There is a visitor to see you, waiting in the East Room.’

‘I don’t accept visitors.’

‘I am well aware.’

Oh, are you.

It is a pattern they have, admittedly, fallen into. Competing species in conditions of forced coexistence always do. When the mood is right, it even entertains Marisa to poke at the maid’s patience and see what insults her bitter mouth can produce. She is a fighter, that one. Never runs out of things to say.

Tell the staff to keep quiet, Hilda, they’re giving me a migraine.

Everything is, Madam, comes the response.

Or even: That would be the brandy.

Now is no such time.

‘Send them away,’ she waves a dismissive hand.

That’s usually enough to get the situations resolved. They tend to disappear when Marisa stops looking – a useful trick she’s applying to the world. Her mind wanders to having a half-glass of something and sliding into bed. Maybe sleep will come. Maybe, sleep will last. There’s hoping.

‘I had, on five different occasions, which is neither my responsibility nor a way matters are handled in respectable houses.’ An arrogant tight-bunned head is sitting so proudly on Hilda’s shoulders, there’s no denying how little of that respect pertains to Marisa personally. ‘If you want him gone, Madam, you can tell him yourself.’

It takes some restraining to not hiss an attack. Not hiss, in general.

What a rotten inheritance Edward left her.

‘Him?’

Marisa moves in the armchair. The eyes opposite of her are steel-colored and steel-hard. She, too, can be steel-hard. Her wrists limp in perfect arches over the armrests, whereas the features of her face sharpen. It’s almost a muscle memory at this point. A grimace she learned in front of the mirror – to warn, to scare.

Yet she forgets.

‘Don’t flatter yourself. His daemon is no snow leopard.’

She forgets that her bleak, unforgiving inheritance knows her too well to be afraid.

Meteors fall. A series of steady hits, one for each word, ruptures the surface. As loud and terrifying as it is, that’s not the worst. Stones keep sinking, driven by sheer combination of mass and catastrophic speed. Then: a series of quakes. An underwater impact. A shock wave of such magnitude, it pierces through miles of breathless, half-frozen space in a matter of seconds, exploding the sea outwards. Causing hands to shake with anger.

‘You are forgetting yourself, Hilda, darling.’

Marisa presses palms together. Tsunami almost breaks her fingers. There isn’t one imperfect note in her chiming.

From the library darkness, laying an undertone to it, a distant snarling comes. The cat daemon looks up. As does Hilda, for a moment. She steps from one foot to the other, clearly cautious of the malicious creature lurking nearby. And yet it only adds to her spite.

‘I suggest you hurry,’ she nods. ‘He did mention he’d be leaving shortly.’

‘Do you have any idea what I could do to you?’

Snarling is creeping closer. This time, the old maid doesn’t bat an eye. She pulls her apron down, demonstrating a remarkable resilience. The cat arches his back at her feet.

‘The East Room, Madam. If you can’t navigate the house in daylight, just ask the help for directions.’

On that, she leaves. Well-oiled hinges purr.

Humming, humming, humming.

Marisa imagines herself throwing a book at the lamps. Then going after Hilda with a pistol from Edward’s study. Both options feel unnecessarily dramatic, although the latter amuses her– but no, no. She’d have to stand another trial. The thought rips a laugh out of her lungs. It sounds sick. She feels exhausted.

It’s pleasantly dark when her forehead touches the smooth silk of the robe, and her hair streams down. Fingers are digging softly into the ribs. Marisa presses. Bones are right there, somehow unshattered by the rippling. The other thing is there too: that un-dissect-able part she drowns, and freezes, and can never fully extinguish. It flames underwater. In a palpable, scientific reality, it takes aluminum and something else to flame underwater. Finely powdered, set afire at the highest temperatures. What was the other thing?

Smoldering pieces fly out and continue burning brighter than day.

Did she see that somewhere? She couldn’t have, not in the Magisterium. Before Marisa’s eyes, a dozen of suns are exploding at the bottom of – what, tank? She must have seen it.

Well. She doesn’t want to see it now.

Dim lights attack her eyes. Reality is slowly fleshing itself back. A visitor in the East Room. Couldn’t be Hugh, could it? She ignored enough of his letters to earn a house call, but in no scenario would he have let an old hag to turn him around. People like him don’t. Not once, certainly not five times.

Actually, none of the people she knows would. Certainly not… but it isn’t a snow leopard. The snow leopard one (don’t flatter yourself) wouldn’t come.

The sensation of being watched tickles her skin, and as soon as Marisa notices it, she also realizes it’s been present for some time. From beneath the ceiling, her daemon is peering at her. They exchange a long look. The monkey doesn’t move. He resembles a statuette, an alarming little monstrosity placed on top of the bookshelf as a practical joke on those whose eyes drift up – and then forgotten, left to gather dust. His gold barely shimmers through it.

Just minutes ago, he was a wildling. Now some clarity has settled over him, knotting Marisa’s stomach. Her soul; unkempt, unloved. She would have preferred him an unintelligent beast. Unintelligent beasts are easier. They aren’t attached to people by umbilical cords, drawn to emotions like parasites, shining consciousness from their eyes until the chest boils. Marisa jerks a shoulder. The monkey shows teeth. At least, that part hasn’t changed.

I dare you.

He blinks. Two glimmering sparks hover in the dark.

Then they disappear.

Marisa hears herself exhaling. Proper ladies in proper dresses shouldn’t look for excuses to torture themselves, but she isn’t a proper lady. She’s not even a properly dressed one, which brings her back a little. She winces.

Right.

The visitor.

Marisa rises from her chair, half-suspicious that is she waits any longer, Hilda will bring him right to the library and lock the door from the outside.

The hallway light is way more irritating to the eyes. Daylight, that is, not the flickering lamps. Somewhere in the house heavy drapes are open, the air brings sounds of the help going about their daily routine. Marisa makes it exactly till the second door on the right and has a split second of pride to enjoy, when punishment comes. A brutal tug. She sways, clawing at the doorknob. In the library, her other part presses itself against the wall and growls in pain, scratching at the wooden panels. Ancient instincts yank their hearts back to the safety of blissful togetherness, but ancient instincts have never fought Marisa Coulter and her daemon before: each angry and stubborn, each pulls in their own direction.

The next few steps are a nightmare. Her chest feels raw. Every breath swishes right through, cold as a blizzard on the open wound. Nausea comes in waves. The damned monkey resists. Without seeing him, Marisa knows exactly how heavy the risings of his chest are, how sweaty the forehead; how clenched the teeth, threatening to crush from the force. How terrified, and pained, and longing he is. She’s all that too, but someone has to be stronger.

She has to physically drag herself forward until finally, there’s a release. Threads fall loose again, stopping the horrible stretch. A squeal in the back of Marisa’s mind mixes with the rattling in the air ducts. She smirks, panting. The little demon never wins. In equal measures he can’t stand seeing her – and being apart from her, so he’s taken a habit of following Marisa around through the ceilings. A smart solution, save for the dust. Most of the time, she can’t stand seeing him either.

Her dress of choice is jade-green. The color is as sharp as she needs to be, and, by coincidence, only a shade darker than splashes of Aurora lights.

When she leaves the room, her daemon is already glooming in the corridor. He’s evidently cleaned himself. Patches of old web have disappeared. His fur breaks scarce sunlight into a ripple of glints across the wall. He is beautiful, audience-ready, except when Marisa looks, the golden elegance crumbles to reveal the same dirt-coated creature, always hissing and snarling around. They walk down the corridor together. The care placed in keeping the distance might have reminded somebody with a keen eye of a crowded room where every soul treads just as carefully, stepping and flying around paws, hands, tails and shoulders, avoiding the forbidden contact to the best of their ability. Between two beings joined since birth, it looks oddly repugnant. Unnatural, one might say.

Marisa would put it differently. She’d recall coming back to their floral-molded prison. The burning feeling she got from her daemon’s touch, the piteous cry of him recoiling when coldness sprouted. She’d call it self-preservation.

One of the hallways she walks twice. Not that Hilda could pry it out of her, that stuck-up old if-you-can’t-navigate-the-house-in-daylight witch.

The East Room welcomes them with a closed door.

Marisa pushes it, and goes blind.

The light.

Winter sun is flooding the space. There are no drapes here, no peaceful twilight. Everything is hard, bright, and aggressive. Two nocturnal creatures withdraw, seeking shadows. Something golden is flitting around the space: floor – the fireplace – windows – floor again. Something green is standing frozen, tearing up against the cold shining. The hasty getting-up and the turning of another figure escape Marisa, taking away her chance to prepare.

‘Madam,’ a voice rises to her ears. What a curious voice it is. A male one, for sure, marked with slight roughness of age. There’s a quality to it that makes Marisa hesitate. An unexpected care, almost… respect. She got unaccustomed to hearing genuine respect.

Light keeps pouring in. As does her uncertainty.

‘Allow me,’ the man says.

Promptly, and with nimbleness of step that betrays years of excellent training, he walks to the window. Sunlight seems to collect around him for a moment, as if he was the source. Then a drape slides over, cutting the flow in half. Marisa blinks the blindness away.

Her daemon stops pacing around and settles beside her. Even before the man turns, they recognize the bolding head, and a winter coat, and the sleek black fur of a pinscher daemon.

‘Madam,’ Thorold repeats with a slight bow.

His pinscher follows the example. Marisa can’t answer. Her lungs get overcome with the urge to cough up ribbons of air, thickened and shredded by at least a dozen of invisible knives. The monkey crawls forward. His golden tail is rising in a warning. There’s a flash of surprise on Thorold’s face, one he is quick to hide, but not quick enough for Marisa to miss.

Good, then. That’s settled.

She makes an effort to miss sorrow in that surprise.

‘What does he want?’ A demand, not a question.

Thorold looks up. His shoulders shrink a little, even though a minute ago he was demonstrating the perfect posture. He’s obvious in searching for words but his own thoughts, apparently, are giving him a battle too. A mixture of indecision and half-concealed sadness boils into a real suffering across his face.

‘Have you completely forgotten speech?’

A beat of pause.

‘No, Madam, I have not.’

‘Be useful, then. He must have sent you for something.’

The pinscher daemon brushes against the man’s leg. The simple comfort of the gesture frustrates Marisa. It could be jealousy. Could be disappointment, because at least with Hilda, she always knows when cruelty hits. Counterstrikes never leave her guessing.

‘I’ve come on my own behalf,’ Thorold manages at last.

‘Is that so?’

‘Yes, Madam.’

Well, a man of few words and fewer answers. Her expression darkens. She would have understood Asriel sending his servant: reasons may differ and still remain plausible – but that? She hardly knows what to make of it.

And the way he says ‘Madam’. Like he’s asking a storm not to rage, soothing waters into clarity. Despite herself, Marisa catches a shiver. People who haven’t received a lot of compassion cannot abide the warmth it brings, thinning the numbness of detachment where their hearts plunge to heal. Survival is an instinct. All human beings have it.

‘Then what do you want?’ Anger clangs inelegantly in her voice.

‘To return something of yours. If I may?’

He hesitates for permission. Marisa, frowning, just nods. She watches Thorold approach a set of sofas: there, on a chair next to them, sits a leather bag she’s seen countless times before. Its worn-out patterns haven’t changed, still keeping in themselves a mystery. A reminder of home, perhaps. Half-illegible words of a half-forgotten language breathe northern air. On the side, a flock of birds, always just about to fly off the leather on spirit-borne wings. Marisa used to admire the birds. They never flew anywhere, but they looked free.

She moves closer, her steps drowning in a ridiculously thick carpet. The golden shadow follows in a distance. His observant presence tugs at Marisa’s side. She wishes for him to disappear in the air ducts again. It is a passing feeling, but the precise thing is, she doesn’t want to feel. It gets harder when her soul is wondering around.

Thorold turns.

‘Here it is, Madam.’

He hands her a book of sorts. A smallish one, and the first thing Marisa registers is that something’s wrong about it. Her frown deepens. She takes it with caution: not exactly alarmed, just confused. Thorold lets go – there’s a glimpse of his fingers with white calloused tips. Then his palm disappears, and the mystery of the book holds no longer.

It’s badly burned, that’s what’s wrong about it. The cover’s all bulgy, melted in random places. Patches of coal-black mix with the remaining tints of color but there’s no logic in it, no structure. Just a hardened, deformed leather flesh, curled from the heat. The bottom corner is the worst. Something burned through the cover there, leaving a crescent-shaped edge with brown contours. Pages underneath are burned in the same exact fashion.

The other side is nearly intact, save for a few spots blooming here and there. It’s been burned the front side down. Besides that, the examination offers very little.

Marisa has never owned anything of the sort. She almost says as much. Then it occurs to her to look inside. She sits down, book on her knees for convenience, and tries to open the smoldered brick. Pages refuse to give in: their fire-licked edges stick to one another. It takes Marisa a minute to part them. When she does, however, realization comes at once. She’d recognize her own handwriting anywhere. Line after line is filled with it, neatly arranged statements bursting in cascades of notes on the margins. Beginnings of phrases on one side and endings on the other have disappeared in flames, but it doesn’t stop Marisa from reading a whole paragraph, tracking her own ideas and filling the gaps with words that have once been written.

She recognizes now not a book, but a research journal she kept at Asriel’s house. Sea depths heave. A sharp sensation knots her stomach. Marisa blames it on her daemon approaching, taming an overwhelming urge to kick him away. Her mouth is aching with words she can’t spill.

‘Why?’ she croaks.

Thorold takes a seat, too. His plain wooden chair can’t be too comfortable, but it allows him a space next to Marisa without the inappropriateness of sharing a sofa.

‘I thought you might need your work back,’ he simply says.

She shakes her head impatiently.

‘No, why come five times just to return this?’

‘Madam?’

The old man looks so sincere. His daemon is tilting her head in attention. Marisa catches her eyes: brown they are, but nothing close to burned paper. More like almonds, or sunlight dancing on fresh earth. Brown kissed with gold. She never knew golden things can be warm. Somehow, right now, it’s Thorold’s fault, too.

‘You could have left it with my maid.’

‘She seems a good woman,’ he nods respectfully.

‘A treasure,’ Marisa sneers.

The journal rests on her knee. Thorold glances at it, appearing again to be choosing his words. He doesn’t resemble someone to whom the trick of conversations comes naturally, least of all with Marisa, but the effort brings out a heartfelt sympathy in his eyes.

‘If you pardon my saying… Madam,’ he adds, like he wanted to address her differently but didn’t allow himself the right, ‘I thought you may want to talk with someone.’

‘Talk?’

‘Ask questions, is what I mean.’

‘Questions.’

‘If you wish to… to know of…’

He struggles finishing the phrase without letting the ghosts in. Fails, too. Unnamed hauntings surround them, as if woven out of light. The pinscher flaps her ears and yelps quietly. Daemons are intuitive like that.

From the shadows, the monkey is prowling forward, his little face twisted in a grimace of pure hate. Marisa smiles. The scent of heated metal hangs in the air. It’s going to betray her emotions for years. She’s going to think everyone can notice. In fact, there’s only going to be one person who will, probably because mothers and daughters have a connection that, in human measures, is just as sacred as the one with their daemons.

Lyra will always associate metallic scent with menace, but will never learn to understand that it comes not from steel, of which her mother, an masterful self-deceiver, deems herself made, but of fires flaming underwater, where it’s the darkest and the coldest. Where human feelings shouldn’t survive at all.

Extinguishing those fires is something Marisa will never be able to do.

‘No, Thorold,’ she objects softly, softness honed to a sharp edge. ‘I don’t wish to know. Spare me your old man sentiments. If you thought we’d be shedding tears over your stories, you’re an even bigger fool I took you for, and you never learned a thing about me.’

See? Self-deception.

That is easily the moment when Marisa finally combines both sides of the mirror: the loud, perceptible beauty mixed generously with ferocious instincts of an animal hiding in deepened lines. It will cause her few allies and all of the enemies to address her respectfully as Mrs. Coulter even in her absence, barely restraining the urge to look behind their backs in case she’s there – or worse, her spying daemon is. High Magisterium officials and children will both learn the danger of pretty gleams dancing in those wonderfully blue eyes that make you think of frostbite. Marisa is quite happy with the image. It’s got enough claws to keep her safe.

She sees a change in Thorold’s expression as he’s watching her. The pictures must not be aligning: he’s searching Marisa’s face as one does when trying to uncover familiar features, match them with something from memory, but cannot. The pinscher nuzzles against his hand. The man hardly notices. A look of regret settles over him. He’s watching, and watching, and then his shoulders sink a little, and the kindest sorrow spills all over his wrinkles.

‘Oh, child,’ he says. ‘So very young.’

Just that – just that.

And suddenly, the pool is drained.

‘Copper?’ she asks, somewhat disgruntled by the eagerness, with which a golden lightning zings around the laboratory, fetching equipment for Asriel.

Asriel glances over, so incredibly smug she wants to both kick him and watch him forever. His investment in this stupid experiment is driving Marisa insane. It’s not even science, just a… well, a party trick, at best. His beloved professors at Jordan must be showing it to a bunch of 10-year-olds to gain their attention.

He just laughs, mixing a brown-red powder to the aluminum one. When he laughs like that, new universes spring into existence.

‘Watch.’

A strip of something white goes in. Magnesium burns silver, then – then everything is bright orange, and the little ceramic pot is submerged into a tank, and the fire is flaming all hells underwater. Resilient, absolutely magnificent.

Oxygen, Marisa realizes. An oxide, that is. Next to her, Asriel, a world-class scientist in the making, is looking incredibly proud of himself for that silly amusement. He’s always doing that, showing her something she missed out on. The same is true about their whole relationship.

‘Iron oxide,’ she exhales. Then nods, ‘Beautiful.’

Asriel chuckles. He looks at the blinding, raging fire shooting pieces of molten iron to the bottom. A corner of his lips curls up, but the eyes remain serious, full of furious admiration. The one Marisa often notices directed at her.

‘There’s beauty in corrosion, don’t you think?’ he says.

Iron oxide. Corrosion.

Rust.

The second part of that volcanic combination that keeps igniting the living day out of itself until the flames eat through. No wonder her fires keep burning.

She’s made of rust.

A steel carcass inside Marisa shudders and gives way. Down below, in the pool drained of mercifully numbing waters, the longings and feelings she pushed in have re-emerged. Shards sharper than glass and pain sharper still – she can see it all rusted, layered so thick with corrosion, the blazing is going to persist for years.

A barely audible whimper catches her off-guard. Marisa turns before realizing: the monkey is standing beside her. There’s not a single wretched line on his face. His hand hovers mid-air, reaching out. In his eyes, a plea for consolation. An offer of one, too. The brainless thing doesn’t seem to understand what he’s offering.

It is terror for volcanoes to erupt. Her chest, where the damage of connection grows, pulsates with it.

Making a conscious effort, Marisa twists her heart, watching her daemon flinch. He resists for only a second, and then drops to all fours, backing away from her slowly. The further he gets, he more hunted his expression becomes, until familiar sparks stare at Marisa, and it’s the same wild, ill-tempered creature that hides behind the sofa. She wonders if he would have touched her hand. She wonders if he wonders how badly her cold would have burned him.

She wonders how people breathe without pushing away their soul. Aren’t they choking on it?

‘I am… truly sorry, Madam.’

A voice holds her in embrace. Marisa does her best to reject it. Her teeth clench. Facing kindness feels unnecessarily cruel, so she avoids looking at Thorold, staring at the journal instead. Her fingers slide across mountains and valleys of disfigured leather, tracing the non-existent patterns. Every peak is whispering its own story, and yet none of them has sufficient answers.

She imagines Asriel. Was it morning, day, night? What was he wearing? What was he thinking? Did Stelmaria try to talk him out of it? Or was throwing the damned thing away simply not enough for his hatred?

‘Why would he burn it?’ Marisa whispers.

Her eyes stay low. She’s not waiting for a reply, but when it comes treading the air, her whole body listens.

‘I don’t think…’ Thorold pauses, starts again. ‘I think he was trying to do something else, Madam.’

‘What, then?’

‘Well…’

‘Well?’

Despite herself, Marisa glances. Sharp winter sunlight falls onto the old man’s shoulders. Where it touches his coat, light seems to lose its cutting quality. Gentle streams of gold float around.

Thorold sighs. His palms open, as though he’s trying not to grip the words too hard, afraid of saying anything too much, too certain.

‘I can’t speak for him, Madam. His thinking is of heights I could never follow, but I suppose… The way I see it, he was breaking a bond.’

Words are laid carefully on the air. Elusive to the grasp as they are, their shadows are heavy and fall into Marisa deeper than she can recognize at the moment. Another pinch of rust and aluminum to burn later. She just nods, not trusting herself with speaking. There’s nothing left to say anyway – or ask, or confess. Even coarse leather stops singing under her fingers.

Was it singing under Thorold’s? His hands are still open, fingertips calloused and hard. Mostly on the right hand, Marisa realizes. The placement is so uneven, it doesn’t look like callouses at all. Pinker streaks run from under patches of thick, pale skin. Like scar tissue. Like old burns. Those permanent kisses from burning coals and melting leather, pressed to the naked skin of hands that were hurrying to salvage something they cared about.

Palms curl, hiding the injury. Marisa looks up. Thorold is looking back with an apologetic smile which only makes his eyes sadder and warmer. He doesn’t say a word. There’s nothing left to say – or ask, or confess. It’s all there, between an old man, whose heart has softened for the sea, and a young woman with sea in her name. Both of them understand it is the care she cannot afford to accept. Both of them grieve it a little.

Any reasonable timing has now passed to continue the conversation. Marisa draws a long breath. She’s never been the one to avoid the inevitable.

‘Go now, Thorold,’ she says quietly. Thorold has no idea of knowing it, but that moment makes him the last person to ever hear Marisa’s actual voice – at least, for the next twelve years. There’s no silvery smoothness in it. Just cracks all over.

‘Madam.’

He gets up, takes his bag. A flock of northern birds flies in front of Marisa’s face. Buttons of a winter coat take Thorold’s attention for a few moments as he meddles with them. Just then, Marisa remembers what Hilda said: he’d be leaving shortly. She wonders, where. Is Asriel’s research finally taking them north? She concludes so. She also concludes that Asriel must have left earlier to set up, leaving his servant to oversee the last preparations here in Oxford. Otherwise, Thorold wouldn’t have come looking for her. A strange fondness moves in her.

He stands now, pinscher daemon by his side. Two heads bow courtly. With the last exchanged look, their shared grief stings a little, knowing it’s probably a farewell. Marisa just nods. When Thorold leaves the room, the light leaves with him.

At least, it feels that way to Marisa.

She wipes the sudden tears away. The gesture is nervous, angry. Embarassed. Her breathing sounds incredibly lonely in the emptiness of surrounding space.

‘Get away,’ she hisses, sensing the clump in her side twitch as it always does when her daemon approaches.

A golden shadow stops on the floor in the corner of Marisa’s vision. Thoughts and feelings, awakened so inconveniently, are buzzing worse than a beehive. His presence amplifies them. Flooding fires with water won’t make a difference now because he who is responsible for this madness is too close.

Leave me alone.

No movement. Marisa raises her eyes. She sees the hideous creature swing his tail. A hypnotic stare is burrowing into her, reaching where threads are caught in their warlike endurance of each other. He won’t go. There’s no place for him to be except between her ribs, leeched onto humiliation that is her feelings. The truer they are, the more powerful, and the harder he’s drawn. The closer he wanders, searing Marisa from the inside by simply drawing breath. She wishes desperately to cut whatever’s sewn them together.

She throws a cushion, and doesn’t look where it lands. She senses her soul clear enough to know it’s not as harmed as she’d want it to be. Maybe then he’d learn.

The monkey only growls, when she refuses to acknowledge his attempts at connection and opens the journal again. As far as choices go, hatred is a preferable one. Better hatred than constant self-pity. Pondering over half-eaten lines, Marisa recalls that thing Thorold said, about Asriel breaking the bond. Asriel, it stings her suddenly, seems to have succeeded. In fact, while she spent months sleep-walking through wall-papered corridors, Asriel kept himself busy.

Blood rushes to her head, throbbing in such an agony, her temples all but explode. Masses thick and hot come breaking against the eardrums. They seem possessed to pound their way out, tearing the thin veins. Asriel would have laughed at her.

She bites on a nail. A stupid habit.

Another habit is cold-ing herself down as soon as she hears paws coming nearer. Her daemon hesitates. Then turns. Marisa sits peering into space, gnawing on her lip until it swells. She doesn’t want to sleep. Not anymore.

The thing is, predators are not designed for prolonged sleep. They wake up hungry. Quite newly to herself, Marisa feels hunger for something to do.

Pages crust as she’s flicking through them slowly. Hard edges cut her fingertips, hardly even shifting her attention.

She thinks.

She thinks.

The process has never stopped.

‘Breaking the bond,’ her whisper ripples the air. It tastes like something. The golden silhouette jumps on the sofa across from its human in crisping, snow-fresh Aurora color. Sunlight remembers of there being winter. Chilly coolness spreads. ‘Breaking the bond.’

Something’s stirring in her mind, though what it is, Marisa cannot fully formulate yet. The idea, however, is strangely fascinating. Her eyes lay on the daemon heavily.

She’s made of bonds. One with Asriel, another with their child – she may resist it, but it’s handwritten all over her body, and the handwriting it hers. A bond with her own soul, too. The one she hasn’t yet succeeded in dissecting in order to understand and control. Cutting it should feel miraculous.

Perhaps, if she were still a child, she muses. She’d give anything to go back and nick those annoying threads that got handed to her as a given. She remembers questioning why they existed at all – not in words, certainly not in scientific terms, but he knew she thought about it. Always digging deeper than children do in glorious self-understanding. There seemed to be the answer there. Why she was so restless all the time. Why her behavior never satisfied anyone. Why she was doing every wrong thing, why she loved Asriel, why she needed Lyra. The answer might still be there, only there’s no way of harvesting it now –   

But a child. A child could answer those questions in all their childlike innocence. Marisa could learn the answer. She could steal it.

She could learn how, where, and when to cut.

The air is freezing now. The monkey is anxious. Marisa sits very-very still, like predators do. Much like an image, her fate comes to its fullest, cleanest form. It’s not a grand, heroic fate, and there’s no description to it yet, only anticipation. It is, however, going to be more befitting one for a woman, young with the cruelest of youth, with punches and heartbreak and blood on beautiful hands from hitting a wall, than anyone could have imagined.

She will spend her short life trying to break the three most powerful bonds she’s ever formed – and fail, miserably.

Marisa Coulter, née Delamare, walking to her late husband’s study with full intention of making it her own, is a long way from knowing it yet. The irony will unveil itself twelve years and a war later as she leaps off the edge of an abyss. Those three sacred bonds she could break however hard she tried, they will all weave together to save what she cherishes most. For now, she’s too enthralled by a monstrosity that will eventually lead to the silver cages, and lacks serendipity.

Youth, people say, is arrogant. It’s wrong emotions at the wrong time, it’s thinking that love can be left trampled to the ground. That love can be examined, prepared, dissected and understood. That it hides logic.

That it ceases to be if you just deny it enough.

As Marisa ravages through Edward’s old papers, three things occupy her mind. One, is that rattling air-ducts are a small price to pay for a chance to function productively instead of being crippled by emotions.

Two, is that she’s going to need a place somewhere else, perhaps in London, because these walls are making her sick.

And three, she hopes she succeeds.

After all, breaking a bond shouldn’t be that hard.

Just a simple process of trials and errors.

[breaddo]

Share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. If you have written less than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway.

thank you @weidli for tagging me! :] i will also be posting my last 5 fics posted on ao3 + 5 wips of varying recent-cy. would have done this on my sideblog but i included other fandoms

published:

1. cambi di me, pensieri e forme (doctor who; eight wears a pretty dress and charley realizes she's not quite a woman)

"Do we have to?" "Oh, where's your sense of adventure, Charley?"

2. you're so cold, keep your hand in mine (tatort münchen; vampires au in the 90's)

The neon lights were blinding in the dark, and Ivo didn’t like having so many people so close around him like this.

3. your burning yearning need (polizeiruf 110; vincent finds out about a vulgar deal adam struck with ulysses during demokratie stirbt in finsternis)

They were in the middle of a difficult case. One murder became two, then three, something more coordinated than they originally believed.

4. è vietato morire (polizeiruf 110; adam dies, or so vincent thinks.)

It's just a normal case. It's a long, grueling case that has them spending a couple nights in another town thus far, but in the end it's just another damn case.

5. Good Night, Sweet Prince (polizeiruf 110; the lead actor in a hamlet production dies that same night, and vincent becomes a main suspect in the death of his friend.)

“Horatio.” It was the softest word he’d ever spoken, as if tailored just for him to say. “Horatio, if thou didst ever hold me in thy heart…” Hamlet slowly raised his reddened hand to cup his face, dampening his jaw. “Absent thee from felicity a while, and in this harsh world, draw thy breath in pain.”

wips:

6. Untitled (polizeiruf 110/4 gegen z crossover; a retelling of abgrund in which adam reunites with an old friend)

Adam's side of the investigation started with the inn and its owner.

7. Untitled (tatort münchen; in which carlo is dead and franz disappears. sorry i riffed too hard off a mutual's blorbo dream)

It's been two weeks. They've been working together long enough that Kalli can tell when there's something wrong with Batic and Leitmayr.

8. Untitled (4 gegen z; au where everything is the same but jona has a cat)

The Guardians practically materialized on Jona's boat, flooding through the doorway. "Jona, we−What's that?" Jona looked up from his lap. "What's what?" "That." Pinkas pointed at him, and Jona looked back down.  The little ball of orange fur in his lap stared at the kids with wide eyes.

9. Untitled (doctor who; post-seasons of fear, eight is exhausted after his recent adventures and shows up to a familiar doorstep in san francisco in search for something grounding)

Another patch in time stitched over. Well, that was an extremely simplified and basic explanation of what really happened to the timeline since they chased after Grayle, but it would have to do for now, because the Doctor didn't want to think about time at the moment.

10. No Satisfaction (metamoro; x-files au idea based on the no satisfaction music video and fueled by multiple years of really specific brainrot. this is my wildcard option, babey!)

1:27 A.M. It wouldn't have had to be such a long night for him if he could just make himself stop thinking for a minute.

i'll tag @bunny-banana, @occhi-verdi-come-il-mare, @tinypi, @egirlgarak, @carlomenzinger and anyone else who wants to do it 👍