#specifically in language which i find really captivating

[whichwaytothebeachseabass]

Things We Carry

Summary: Two broken souls find each other.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Black Widow Soldier! Reader.

Contents: very short (about 1K words), description of being a Hydra assassin, description of violence (nothing too graphic), some sadness, some fluff, use of Y/N.

A/N: this is the VERY FIRST fanfic i'm publicly uploading on here! i've had this one in my drafts for a while (among several others lol), and now i've finally decided to upload this one. another note: English is not my first language so there might be some slight mistakes, but i think i got them all out.

enjoy! :)

Lying on an operation table, strapped down, unable to move. The faces of men in white coats and masks occasionally visible as they bend over to take a closer look at the functionality of the human brain. The taste of cold metal on tongues and the whiring of the mechanic chair were the last things to be noticed before everything was replaced by pain. Electric shocks surging through the human body, not enough to kill, though just enough to drive someone mad.

Punches thrown, guns firedguns fired, bodies collapsed on the cold floor, blood everywhere. Their rules where quite simple; don’t stop untill the mission is completed. Failure will not be tollerated. Although, there was no mission yet, this was just a training, a sparring session with fellow soldiers. They should have known better though, with Hydra, it was never just a sparring session. One could say that there was indeed a mission during these training sessions; that mission simply being surviving, taking out every last opponent untill you were the last one standing, and most importantly showing no remorse, no mercy, not a single emotion, as the trigger is pulled.

The missions in itself knew a few more specific ground rules; such as get to location unnoticed, retrieve whatever it it that Hydra wants, leave no traces and most importantly, leave no witnesses. Exterminate every last soul that gets in the way of the mission.

Sometimes, the missions weren’t really missions at all. Some higher-up person with status and a shitload of money would come to Hydra to have someone ‘taken care of’. A merciless killing, so the speak. Those merciless killings, however, were in fact the easy ones. To the average person, taking someones life isn’t something they would even dare to imagine. However for Hydra soldiers it has become second nature. They were being trained to kill. Brainwashed to become machines.

Tests, trainings, briefings, killings… This is what live was; day in, day out, for decades on end. In the beginning, there was resistence, oh yes. Unwillingness to co-operate. This is never what they wanted, never what should have become of their lives. But the pain became unbarable. Shocked within an inch of insanity, enough to break the soul. To become a merciless killing machine.

x / x / x / x / x / x / x / x / x / x / x / x / x /x / x / x / x / x / x /x / x / x /

This is what live was for Bucky and Y/N. Raised to be trained killers from a fairly young age. Being fully conscious, yet not knowing which part of you is actually you. Deep down, they might have know that what they were doing was wrong, what was being asked of them was wrong. But when their brains tell them to pull the trigger, that is what they did. That is all they’ve ever know.

Untill they were pulled out of it.

Years of living as an assassin and suddenly you’re expected to live life like everyone else. Mandatory therapy sessions with so-called ‘speciallists’ who didn’t in the slightest understand what they had to go through, what their everyday live was like. Both Y/N and Bucky might not have fully realised what they were doing in the years they worked for Hydra, but they sure remember all of it. Maybe being held captive is a better way of describing their years at Hydra, in stead of ‘work’. That’s what Y/N liked to call it anyway.

What also didn’t particularly help is that both Bucky and Y/N were somewhat in the public eye. Of course, citizens were not supposed to know of Hydra’s assassins. However; Bucky being Steve Rogers’ best friend and Y/N having worked together with Natasha Romanoff’s younger sister Yelena in the Red Room, who were ultimately the ones that got them out of Hydra’s grasp, gave them ties to The Avengers. Because of this, everybody knew what they had done, what they were. Trained killers. Assassins.

Monsters.

Oftentimes, Y/N wasn’t sure if live like this was supposed to be better. The menories of all the lives she took, together with the judgemental stares and scared faces of everyone around her weighing heavy on her shoulders. Bucky felt the same way. The both of them desperately wish they could just do something, anything to lighten that weight that they carry around everywhere they go.

And so, ultimately, they found each other.

Through The Avengers, or at least what was left of them, the two were introduced. Y/N had heard of him, of course she had, Dreykov didn’t call his little mind control games The Winter Soldier Project for nothing. He was the one she was supposed to look up to… what a sick and twisted world they lived in.

It may have taken a while, but the two ex-assassins warmed up to each other. Bucky found her presence refreshing; she provided him with a sense of normalcy as opposed to the constant looks of fear and sorrow of everyone around him. She knew, she’d seen it up close and lived it. Although she wasn’t a supersoldier, and he, being the literal blueprint of Hydra’s brainwashing system, had a lot more years on her as a Hydra captive, they understood each other. Sure, at first Bucky had Steve and Y/N had Yelena, two people that served as rocks for the both of them, as best friends. But Steve ultimately choose to stay in the past with the love of his live, and Yelena ran back into the field to look for any other Black Widow Soldiers that were still under Dreykov’s control. Neither of them blamed their friend for one second, claiming they wanted what was best for them. Still, it came paired with quite some loneliness.

Now, Y/N was laying on the couch with her head on Bucky’s chest, his arm slung around her body. A TV-show neither one of them were really paying attention to playing in the background while they enjoyed each others company in silence, softly breathing each other in. She loved moments like this; alone with him, nobody else around, no obligations at all. Just the two of them in their little bubble of calm and Y/N couln’t help but notice that the weight that they both have been carrying around for so many years, has finally begun to lift. She knew Bucky felt it too. He carressed her hair and placed a soft kiss on her forehead as he continued to look ahead at the TV screen.

In this moment, the both of them knew they were gonna be allright.

[jmliebert]

♡ when Aemond has a crush on you ♡ (modern) headcanons

he hides it well; Aemond is not the type to wear his heart on his sleeve. At first, it's hard to tell he has a crush on you because he is cold and seems indifferent. he observes, weights his options

he keeps his distance at first; both emotionally and physically. his behaviour might even make you think he hates you, though it's quite the opposite of course, he just have problems with showing his feelings :((

but (!) his piercing gaze always finds you. his eye follows you discreetly, hungry and restless

when he's near you, his body language is a mix of nervousness and inner pride. he wants to please you which is a weird feeling for Aemond, so his fingers may fidget a little, but still; he stands tall

he quickly learns your daily routine and starts showing up in places you frequent. these "coincidental" meetings are his way of staying close without being too obvious (in his head at lest)

you quickly learn he uses a lot of sarcasm, but you learn to enjoy this side of his, actually he's quite funny

if you ask him for a favour, he might act like it's a bother, but he always does it, despite his outward coldness

sooo.... as you can see he's a little lost, unsure, but(!) this one time when his brother Aegon makes crude, inappropriate joke about you, Aemond's anger flares and that's when he truly realises his feelings for you may run deeper than he'd like to admit

Aemond tries to be more straight-forward at this point. he assist you whenever he can, subtly offering help here and there, giving you this little smirks of his

he often asks you random questions about your life (often very specific), wanting to know everything about you and it's quite endearing that he's so focused on you

stil he respects your space! or at least tries to. he doesn't want to intimidate you or make you uncomfortable with his presence (most of the time), even though being near you all the time is what he would prefer

he spent many sleepless nights analysing your conversations and overall every aspect of you

long walks; during those you talk about trivial things and deeper subjects like psychology, philosophy, or your favourite books and movies. Aemond is silently enjoying when you put your hand on his arm during those walks. these moments are when he feels most connected to you, when he melts more and more...

because finding someone attractive is one thing, but finding someone attractive and genuinely interesting is a whole new level and at this point Aemond is charmed, really charmed

encouraged by this connection growing between you, Aemond asks you out. and let me tell you- he's SERVING! like he arrives at your home to pick you up, greets you with a gentle kiss on the hand and a soft smile, the kind that sends butterflies fluttering in your stomach

and he smells so gooooood!!!!! I just know it

at dinner he pulls out your chair, ensuring you're comfortable before taking his own seat. throughout the meal, he’s attentive and considerate, paying for dinner without hesitation (duhh)

his eye contact is intense, making it clear he finds you captivating

about the first kisss.... at first it's gentle and tentative, almost like he's testing the waters. he would begin by leaning in slowly, his lips brushing against yours lightly, his hand cupping your jaw. he would look deep into your eyes, waiting for silent approval and when he gets it, he smiles and you smile too

as the kiss deepens, you’d feel the intensity building. the touch of his lips would become firmer, his body pressing you closer as he wraps his arms around you. his grip might grow more insistent, almost aggressive, as he pulls you in tight, the kiss becoming more passionate and intense. there's a raw edge to it, as if he's letting go of the restraint he's been holding onto, revealing the fire and desire that’s been simmering just beneath the surface

when you gasp softly against his lips, Aemond is losing control. his hand moves down to grab your ass, pulling you even closer, your lips crash and then he suddenly halts. moving back just enough to regain some composure. he's breathing heavily, trying to steady himself, his eye fixed on you with a mix of desire and restraint

"We should probably slow down, but I really don't want to."

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

you can find more of my works about aemond ♡here♡

[homestuckreplay]

As somebody who’s nuerodivergent and has MDD (Major Depressive Disorder aka Clinical Depression), I find those points about John very interesting! Is there any other hints of this throughout the comic that we’ve seen?

hello!! sorry this took so long, I reread every John page so far and I now have a normal length answer to this question!! (2.9k words shhhh) I will broadly talk about neurodivergence first and then depression, but some of these points could apply to either or both.

I’m also neurodivergent, and I’ve had depression in the past, so this is based on my personal experiences + reading through the diagnostic criteria. if anyone else has different experiences I’d love to hear about it!

So my favorite academic article I’ve found this year is in a journal of disability studies by autistic writer David Preyde, and it’s just him listing all his special interests and how and why they became important to him. It reads like a blog post and I love that it was ‘officially’ published. It reminds me so much of how the Homestuck kids have been introduced, just more in depth.

John is hitting some common/stereotypical special interests, like computer programming and movie trivia, and some less common ones, like old comedians. I don’t think the fact of having interests makes John neurodivergent, but his approach to them might. John sees a Con Air reference and immediately starts explaining the plot of the movie (p.132); he also does recreations of Deep Impact (p.21), A Time to Kill (p.109) and Armageddon (p.223) He can list all the rare Gushers flavors (p.979). He thinks Colonel Sassacre will be able to tell him the ‘precise index of elevated hilarity’ of a joke (p.36). John treats things really methodically, he likes to list and sort and categorize. It’s why he likes programming computers but isn’t good at it – he knows it’s a great hobby for all that, but hasn’t quite mastered the rules yet.

This is also how he figured out punch card alchemy. Not only does he pick up a new skill much quicker when it relates to an existing special interest (stage magic), but he’s a super fast problem solver when the rules make sense and it works the same every time. He prefers familiarity, taking a while to adjust to changes, like taking time to warm up to the new MSPA adventure (p.112).

I would even argue that John’s sylladex could be a new special interest – it’s something he’s just found at the start of the comic (while his friends have all been into it for a while) and he’s deeply frustrated by the rules at first, when its behavior constantly changes due to different numbers of cards, lack of available cards, options to combine items, new modi, etc. But he still works at it for hours even though it’s hard, because it’s captivated him somehow. He picks up the language and techniques at a speed that’s only possible for someone very dedicated, and he’s super excited to get the control deck for his birthday, a very practical gift that other kids might be bored by. This is like the Homestuck equivalent of getting a backpack with a lot of pockets.

John is really proud of the computer wallpaper he made (p.25) and still gives his dad drawings to put on the fridge (p.253) – he’s very earnest about his interests. He also kind of has the fandom impulse to create his own canon that he likes better than the source material – upon seeing Harry Anderson: Wise Guy, he thinks that ‘Mike Caveney's glowing treatment of the man does him every bit of justice’ (p.253), but when he actually re-reads the book, Caveney’s ‘ambivalent attitude toward [John’s] favorite magician in these anecdotes always struck [him] as a little weird’. John is inventing Wise Guy fanfiction in his head which is incredible. It’s also an example of black and white thinking, and the quick switch from one extreme to the other in opinions without much room for nuance, that John often exhibits.

John also has a lot of specific object fixations, or comfort objects – the Con Air bunny has quickly become this. In the original movie the bunny is owned by a 7-year-old girl, while John presents as a 13-year-old boy, someone for who it’s far less socially acceptable to own a stuffed animal – but John isn’t concerned about that. The green slime ghost pogo ride is another object he returns to over and over – other people might see that as a dangerous knockoff piece of junk, but to John it carries a lot of meaning (p.105, 476). He’s always carrying things like a wizard’s hat (p.44) or shaving cream (p.488) in his sylladex that have no practical use, he just wants to have them.

John is really weird in social interactions, and often tries to avoid them altogether. The lengths John goes to to not run into his dad while exploring the house in the first 100 pages take more time and effort than actually talking to him, but John avoids him no matter the cost. On page 30 he’s also frustrated because Dave is texting him again, and John wants to be left in peace to look at his video games. Not play the games, just look at them. It’s very relatable to me to want to just enjoy my cool stuff even when not actively engaging in it, and to have a lot of ‘off time’ even from my close friends.

John responds to Rose’s genuine sentiments with ‘haha, oh jeez, that is silly!’ (p.256) and struggles with getting his dad to talk about his nanna’s death – on page 543 he considers asking her about it directly; I think some neurotypical people may see that as an unwritten social taboo. But John isn’t uncaring; he marks his friends’ birthdays on his calendar (p.999) and buys them all personalized gifts that they all end up loving, even if Rose interprets hers as a ‘subtle dig’ which John didn’t intend (p.442). John also says ‘ok, i guess i will take your word for it’ to Nanna (p.420) could come across as passive-aggressive, but John means it so genuinely.

John struggles to see beyond his own perspective, like when he’s surprised that it’s already dark in Rose’s house (p.174) despite knowing where she lives. He’s generally very preoccupied with his own concerns, but he eventually remembers to ask Rose ‘are you ok? hasn't your house been on fire for like... five hours now?’ He clearly cares about the people he’s close to, but doesn’t show it in the most obvious ways.

John is hilarious, but he doesn’t tell jokes in a standard format. He is straightforward in all social interactions, and doesn’t have the bantering instinct that Rose and Dave do. Some top tier examples of John humor: ‘it is understandable because you are really attractive. i am attracted to you... jk haha’ (p.35), ‘oh, btw... jk I was wearing a funny disguise this whole time. gotcha! hehehehe’ and Rose’s accompanying response of ‘I know, John.’ (p.63), and ‘yeah, more like the opposite of all those things is the thing that is true!’ (p.386). He clearly has the jokester’s spirit, but unusual execution.

John generally takes things at face value, thinking that Jade ‘seems like a pretty regular girl’ (p.652), and his dynamic with Dave is really fascinating. All their conversations read like Dave is doing a bit and John is taking him completely seriously, but Dave isn’t making fun of John, they’re both having a good time. So it’s not like when a so-called normal kid bullies a weird kid in school, it’s more like these two people who are both different flavors of neurodivergent bouncing off each other in a way that unexpectedly works. This also explains why John hates GameBro and Dave likes it – John takes it seriously while Dave is reading it as a satire of other gaming magazines. (I actually don’t know which is true).  

John has a bunch of rigid rules for the world that read like shortcuts – he doesn’t innately understand societal norms, but has figured out these approximations through careful observation. A kid’s yard must have a tire swing (p.27), a fireplace must have a fire (p.50), and a father must have a pipe (p.74) and by satisfying the checkboxes you can make a family. He’s hesitant to break rules he knows even when it’s a logical course of action, like when he doesn’t want to break the window of his dad’s car to get the Sburb disc and save Rose’s life (p.289).

But if he hasn’t added something to his List of Known Social Rules, it’s open season – he’s completely unconcerned when he accidentally throws one of Dad’s harlequin figurines into the abyss (p.266) even though he gets upset when the things he likes are defaced. The imps are ‘stupid lousy’ for ‘mucking up all [John’s] cool stuff’ (p.473) and have ‘fucking ruined’ his movie posters which ‘were like children to [him]’ (also another example of object fixation). John being overly cautious in some social situations but totally oblivious in others is SO neurodivergent to me, so obviously someone who wants to get it right, but doesn’t have the innate skill.

John clearly struggles with emotional regulation, I don’t think he’s good at masking in face-to-face interactions, and even online ones when he gets stressed enough. He also has very physical reactions to emotional distress (and excitement!), and that can’t be explained by the medium needing to show emotions visually, because he does this to a FAR greater extent than Rose and Dave. John does a victory dance when he wins in battle (p.405) but scrunches up his face and covers his ears when Nannasprite offers him cookies (p.429). Some panels where he’s having a meltdown are really evocative, and it’s so easy for me to imagine how he must be feeling – the chaos of page 517, where John is paralyzed and panicked from way too many stimuli both inside and outside his head, is my best example.

His panic is also evident in his pesterlogs with Dave and Jade shortly after arriving in the Medium. He’s pretty rude to Dave, saying ‘dude, i don't have time for your nerdy raps!’ (p.204) and his sudden use of lots of exclamation points make all his messages sound distressed. He pours the whole story of his meteor escape to Jade, seemingly unable to stop himself (p.293) where someone with more control over their emotional responses might bottle it up, or at least calm down before explaining the story to a friend.

John’s intrusive thoughts are part of the medium; hearing commands in his head is better explained by the story’s rules than by John’s mental state. However, studies have found that intrusive thoughts are very common among humans – they’re just easy to dismiss for most people, while a small minority find them distressing to the point that they affect daily life.

Rose posits that John’s reactions to WV’s commands could be ‘the early symptoms of an anxiety disorder, like post-traumatic stress’ but I read it a little differently; I think his distress at WV’s commands, as opposed to the background radiation of reader commands, kind of represents how a symptom that is manageable in one context becomes debilitating in another.

Related to commands, John likes having clear instructions to follow, and doesn’t respond well to uncertainty. When he has no idea how to use the alchemiter, he just stands on it (p.161) – but he also doesn’t uncritically accept authority. He defers to expertise and likes to ask specific questions and get clear instructions before acting, but that has to be earned. He sees Rose as smart and capable in general, so he follows her instructions within Sburb (for example, p.178) unless he has a better idea (for example, p.187). But the Wayward Vagabond hasn’t earned John’s trust or done anything besides shout and insult him, so John resists his commands (for example, p.264).

A few miscellaneous things I noticed are John just HAVING to complete high fives with his sprite’s raised arm (p.198, 880), John being clumsy and accidentally toppling his nanna’s urn (p.53), John having very strong preferences when it comes to food, as he loves Gushers enough to get them as a birthday gift (p.972) but pulls instinctive faces of disgust at the thought of eating cookies (p.430), and the line ‘there is apparently no crisis so imminent that will deter you from contemplating idiotic and frivolous actions’ (p.199). I think that someone whose brain processes things differently may appear idiotic and frivolous, and they might even internalize that perspective, but the logic actually makes sense. (In this case, John trying to eat a unit of build grist taught him more about how grist as a gaming abstraction works).

Most evidence for John’s depression is in early act 1, before the plot really kicks off. John is very depersonalized at the start of the story; it’s only on his thirteenth birthday that he gets given a name, and he’s associated with a regularly-changing disguise throughout the first hundred pages. There’s a broader theme of mistaken identity in his home – his dad might be a clown or might be a businessman, the figurines might be clowns or harlequins or mimes, the poster on the wall might be Michael Cera but isn’t, and both John’s dad’s room and his own room are not what he expected them to be.

I think this theme of disguise relates to how John doesn’t see himself as having a real identity, perhaps not even a recognizable personality outside of his interests. I also think John is much better at masking his depression than his neurodivergence in a way that’s pretty tragic. Both Rose (p.63) and Dad (p.89) see through John’s CLEVER DISGUISE immediately and think they know John for it, but there’s another part to the disguise that they never notice.

John puts himself down a lot in the early story, insulting his own taste in movies and skills at programming in his list of interests (p.4), thinking of himself as a pooplord (p.5), as neither a skilled magician nor cunning prankster (p.8), stupid (p.16), etc. The “sad clown paradox” (for sure one of my favorite Wikipedia article titles) refers to the correlation between comedians and depression, and while it’s not universal, I think it’s very true for John. Playing a prank on someone and seeing their reaction is a moment of predictable pleasure in an endless drudgery of whiling away the hours, and those tiny bursts of dopamine – and connection with another person, if they respond well – are what keeps John going.

John struggles to focus on reading – every book he owns, we’ve seen him contemplate reading and put off until later. He does this with Colonel Sassacre’s (p.32, 69, 885), Wise Guy (p.123, 253), Data Structures for Assholes (p.116), and the Shaving Almanac (p.544). When he does sit down to read, he’s easily distracted (p.391) – he has good reason here, but this struggle to focus could be a sign of depression. This could be why John has an interest, paranormal lore, that we don’t really see him engage in; it’s easy for depression to take the joy out of something that was once filled with it.

I actually think it’s really interesting how Homestuck’s version of Wise Guy presents Harry Anderson – John’s hero – as a clumsy, incompetent fool (p.629) while the real world Wise Guy describes him as charismatic and in control of the crowd. I say this with all the love in the world, but John has the charisma of the fake Harry Anderson and not the real, and he believes that of himself too. John picking a hero who is described in such a negative light speaks to the type of people he identifies with.

On page 82, which is both the Homestuck title card and the best evidence for John’s depression, he refers to the streets as ‘empty’, to the ‘voids keeping neighbors apart’, ‘hollow’, ‘Desolation’, to feeling something ‘missing’, ‘eluding’, a sense of ‘lack’, ‘Absence’, a ‘mystery dispersing’, a ‘black well’. All that imagery is packed into two paragraphs that do not describe a happy person. This sense of emptiness, distance, space and loss of something is what I most associate with depression, and it provides a real contrast to those autistic meltdown moments where John is feeling too much.

John explicitly says that he feels trapped in his room (p.30) but I think he’s actually trapped in a mindset, and the room or house is more like the physical manifestation of that. That’s not a criticism of him, as I think that can be equally hard to break out of. I have talked a lot about growing up in the suburbs being terrible for finding community, but there is another angle. The Egberts are comfortably middle class, Dad has a car, money, flexible enough work schedule to take John’s birthday off, and supports John’s interests. There are probably computer programming clubs or amateur magic classes in a nearby city, and if John said he wanted to join something like that, I bet Dad would support him. John’s depression makes it impossible for him to even imagine a better situation, much less take steps to grasp it – he needed to be seconds from death for his survival instincts to kick in and make him take action.

I hope that answers your question! Again, I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on this if anyone has different experiences or picked up on different John moments.

[imaginarypasta]

already having thoughts on this because i have something i'd like to write about (a list), but then i have to decide how involved i want to be with it...

thinking about making.... a blog.... to share all my thoughts and happenings

[saddled-on-stars]

Hellooo, may I request something Keatlejuice x reader ?

I was thinking of something inspired from the “do you think I’m qualified” scene from the first movie and basically the idea is: Beetlejuice keeps flirting with reader, which hasn’t been very successful so far… But at some point his voice switches back to his “normal” one and reader pauses because since when does he sound so good??

He notices the reaction and kind of uses it to his advantage to make reader swoon hehe

Thank youu :))

okay- don't mess this up, don't mess this up, don't mess this up... HI THERE MY LITTLE LOVELY CONSTELLATION! Okay, full disclosure, I've never watched either of the Beetlejuice movies. I don't really know how the model exactly works, so I'll make it to similar to the musical; where you just find him on the roof. (I HOPE THAT'S OKAY, DARLING) So yeah, I've never watched either of the movies... I KNOW THE PLOT OF THE FIRST ONE THOUGH, AND I WILL EVENTUALLY WATCH THEM BOTH I SWEA- As far as Keatlejuice goes, I don't know a thing about that scene, and nothing came up when I looked it up, so I'm just going to go off of what you typed. 😀 Please feel free to criticize if it's inaccurate. OKAY, HERE YA GO, LOVELY <3 Happy reading! - Star ★ -★-★-★-★-★-★-★- Trigger Warnings: Explicit Language, Suggestive Themes, Mentions of Break-Up -★-★-★-★-★-★-★- Key: ★ (Y/N) = Your Name ★ (L/N) = Last Name -★-★-★-★-★-★-★- - ★ - Spooky Smooth - ★ - Lying on your bed, listening to some music, it's about 2am. You have your earbuds in, connected to your phone, and are wearing some comfortable shorts and your favorite hoodie. You begin fiddling with the drawstrings, thinking of who gave it to you, then you frown in sadness. It was given to you by your now ex-partner, and they were a jerk. A TOTAL JERK. It all ended at dinner last night. But you hung on, and you still can't figure out why. But that's not why you're sad. You're angry and upset and heartbroken all at the same time, for letting yourself believe that they loved you. It crushed your heart into billions of pieces when they repeated to you that you just weren't good enough. They weren't the first ex, definitely not, and so, as usual, you thought they were the one. You poured your heart and soul into that relationship, only to have your heart shattered. You saw them in the bed with that fucking chick from some cheap-ass bar. You were so angry that you did things to them that you weren't proud of. You impaled all four tires on their small old Nissan Versa, to be specific. You wanted to do so much more, but your heart couldn't take it, and it crushed you in the most tragic way possib-

You drift back to reality as you hear something shuffling above you. It sounds like it's coming from the attic or the roof. You assume it's some sort of critter, and almost fix your earbuds back into your ear, until you hear something... sobbing, perhaps? Sniffling? Letting your curiosity get the best of you, you push your earbuds back in, still listening to the sad, yet comforting music, and you climb out of your window onto the roof. You climb up to the top, and quickly find yourself captivated by the stars. It seems to ground you for the first time you've felt content in a while. You pause your music, hearing something else. It's the sound of a small flyer blowing in front of you. Curiously, you grab it, wondering what it might say. Betelguese - The Bio-Exorcist. Speak my name three times. Betelguese? Like the star? Eh, sounds strange, and this flyer seems pretty aged and old. But how'd it get up high on the roof? You consider calling whoever this 'Betelguese' person is. If they're a bio-exorcist, then they could get rid of your nasty ex. After all, that bitch has some shit comin'. "Bettle-goose, Bettle-goose, Bettle-goose." You close your eyes, expecting something crazy to happen, but the only movement and sound are the stars twinkling and the crickets below chirping. You suddenly see another flyer blow by, and you pick that one up as well. Beetlejuice - The Bio-Exorcist. Speak my name three times. Now you understood. Whoever this person is, they must be here, and so, you put your earbuds back in their designated case, preparing for what's to come. You hold your hoodie in a self-hug, bracing yourself and you begin: "Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice." You close your eyes once again, fearing that something large might happen that might spook you, but instead you hear a raspy voice say, "It's showtime~" Suddenly, a giant puff of green smoke appears in front of you, and you're slightly startled, but your curiosity overpowers your fear. Standing there before you is some sort of creature? No, this must be the Beetlejuice guy. He's in a black-and-white striped tuxedo, complete with some typical black shoes. Though, it's all dirty, covered in green spots from here to there. His hair is a pale green, sticking out in all different directions, and his eyes are surrounded by black circles, and you can't tell if it's a fashion choice or not. "Hiya, Babes!", he says, his voice still raspy and rough. "H-Hello..", you reply, slightly still startled. He comes over and sits on the roof in front of you. "So, I heard ya' called m'name three times! Tre!", he says as he's holding up three fingers, his fingernails looking a little overgrown. 'He knows Italian? How strange...', you think. He puts his elbows on his knees, and lays his head on his hand, in a relaxed position. "So what's a pretty lil' thing like YOU doing, callin' a bio-exorcist?", he says, his eyes filled with flirtation. Damn. Straight to the point, you guess. "I-I've had my heart broken by some bitch, and I need you to get rid of them...", you say, while trying to avoid eye contact, as you can feel your eyes show your anger. His other hand comes up to his face as well, until he's resting in both of his hands. "Well then, who's the bastard, and we can make a deal, Babes! Don't worry, I don't bite-", he says as his hands come back to his knees and he leans closer.

"Unless... if you're into that sort of thing, Babes..", he says as he winks, his voice suddenly changed. It's no longer raspy and rough, but DAMN, it's smooth and gentle. You feel your cheeks flush, definitely flustered from his flirtatious remark. "I- uh, uhm-...", you stutter, trying to find the words to respond. He chuckles at your reaction, and he replies to you stuttering, "So, what do ya say, Babes? Wanna make a deal with the devilishly sexy?”.

He's so close to your face now, it's almost burning with electricity. You nod slowly, not knowing how else to respond. You've been holding your breath for a long time now, but your lungs are far from their limit. He winks, and brushes your thigh with his hand, and snaps his fingers. You release the breath you've been holding, as you realize that he's dissappeared into a cloud of smoke, leaving you breathless. "Damn, that voice..."

- ★ - Written by Saddled_On_Stars - ★ -

[bi-scottsummers]

Hi, hello, just came here to say that I love your fic "trending in Japan". I was wondering if you had headcanons regarding Kenji or Emi or interpersonal relationships and stuff. Many hugs for you.

hi hello, thank you for the encouragement and hugs! After some thought ive realized I do in fact have some hcs about some of the character dynamics in the movie as well as just kenji himself, cause hes captivated my entire brain:

Kenji & Emi

Emi does not have teeth but she does inexplicably have a teething phase. kenji is forced to hide all his (salvaged) fancy cars in the garage bc the corvette's already been chewed to hell and his heart is gonna give out if he has to watch any more classics get wrecked

he reads her bedtime stories. A lot of aesop's fables, because theyre short and fun and hes trying to raise his monster daughter with good morals. emi goes hogwild for these but its unclear if she actually understands what hes saying; kenji's pretty sure she just likes the silly voices he uses for different characters

they go flying together! they go first thing in the morning before breakfast - it helps kenji shake off the grogginess of sleep and emi gets to stretch her wings. shes not able to go very far for very long initially, but as she grows and gets those cardio gainz she almost gets to be quicker than him. they have races and play air tag :)

while she doesnt have the vocal range to speak english herself, it becomes clear that emi does understand it well. (kenji also develops an ear for her chirping/squawks, though body language & facial expressions play a big part in communication for both of them) during her (much later) rebellious phase she'll simply pretend not to know what's being said when kenji is telling her to do something she doesn't wanna do, which frustrates him to no end

Kenji

developed a pretty massive chip on his shoulder after moving to the states. it wasn't just bitterness over his dad staying behind, though that was a part of it. this is canon but he was picked on in school for "how [he talked], how [he looked] and what [he ate]." he felt like he had something to prove to both his father and the world. he threw himself into sports - specifically baseball - and his academics, and he did so well that it forced everyone to shut up about how he was different from them and focus on how he was better than them

^ playing off this: kenji had a bonkers fucking yonkers routine when he was a kid/in highschool. he'd get up hours before school started to practice his swing, go for a ~1hr run, workout, study, etc. He'd go to school, come home, and do it all again. this is exaggerated but my point is that this kid was DETERMINED and had the discipline to see that determination through to the end

didnt have many friends because of all aforementioned things. he had acquaintances, and he was invited to parties and outings and stuff (never went), but he spent most of his free time hanging out with his mom. he never really had a "parents are so embarrassing" phase. he always liked to do anything with his mother: going to the bank, going grocery shopping, watching cheesy telenovelas till ungodly hours in the morning, etc. she was his no.1 supporter, confidant, and best friend

he played for his university's baseball team and got scouted at 19. his mom forced him to finish his bachelor's first so once he graduated with his degree in kinesiology at 21, he was drafted to the dodgers

Kenji & Ami

both of them, up until meeting each other, were totally dedicated to their career (and child) so they had basically 0 time for friends. theyre both borderline losers but theyre juuust good enough at what they do for people to admire them instead of finding them sad and lowkey pathetic

kenji is way more into the idea of being friends than ami is. hes pretty enthusiastic about it; he thinks that they have a kind of rapport, since they share a similar work ethic and are both (unbeknownst to ami) single parents. he calls her to chat abt random things. ami initially isnt superrrr into it; she thinks kenji is kinda lonely and desperate for human connection, & it isnt until her mom points out that she has not spoken to anyone outside of work-related reasons in 10+ years that shes like oh shit, i am also lonely and desperate for human connection. so she grudgingly acquires a friend. theyre both really bad at it

need to clarify that in my mind their dynamic is 95% kenji yapping about work and drama in his personal life (circumventing the 8m baby kaiju hes raising) while ami goes "mhm mhm" and takes notes until kenji notices and is like What are you doing. at which point ami is like...... right . nothing. im listening. and forces herself to put the notepad away. she has a hard time disengaging from the reporter mindset and just hearing something intriguing without turning it into an article. the other 5% are the rare moments where theyre connecting super well - ami's psychoanalyzing the hell out of whatever kenji just said and hes like what are you my therapist. over time she starts opening up to him, too, and eventually theyre comfortable enough to be having philosophical discussions over breakfast just for funsies

before kenji reveals that hes ultraman, ami thinks hes in a gang. he keeps showing up to their lunch "dates" with like bruised eyes and fractured bones and gets all shifty when she tries to ask about what happened. when she eventually confronts him about it, hes so offended that she thinks hed be involved in something like that that he tells her about being ultraman

thats about all i can think of rn, though im sure ill think of more after rotating all the characters in my head for a while. thanks again for stopping in, i appreciate the support :)

[haveihitanerve]

Everyone, I require your original six avengers headcannons. They can be sweet, they can be angsty, they can be gay, they can be platonic (i would prefer them sweet and platonic but really whatever floats your boat) but they must include the og six avengers

I shall begin

Some original six avengers headcanons-

Tony steals everyones clothes. Steve gets annoyed by it because ‘clothes are so goddamn expensive nowadays Stark!!! Stop stealing my shirts you have your own!” nat is amused by it but gets violent when Tony insists he should get to keep it because he ‘wears it better’ clint gets very good at wearing certain clothes to get tony to wear them and tries to see how insane he can get before tony stops taking his clothes, but so far tony has not let up. Thor sees it as amusing and offers him certain garments that go well together. Bruce sees it as an honor and likes being included so he specially buys nice clothes to entice tony to keep taking his

Steve cannot sleep until hes checked that everyone else is asleep or at least safe(if they're like not at the tower or smth), which is a little bit of a problem when he lives with Tony freaking Sleep is for the weak Stark, but it does also mean Steve forces tony to sleep more so thats a plus

Thor forgets his own strength sometimes and after the first shattered wall Tony reinforced everything for him, and thor got so excited that he can use his normal strength, except as a prank tony actually underenforced a wall and the look on thor's face when it broke in half after he lightly tapped it will forever be a meme with them

They have monthly meetings that are supposed to be like ‘mission report’ meetings but really its just a catch up and gossip session

Clint, nat, and tony have a ‘human club’ and they specifically exclude the other three because they are technically not humans, and its literally just them going to spas together or grabbing a drink as a unit, and its literally only still alive because its so fun to hear steve argue that “Im human!!!!” also, just to antagonize him further they admitted Bruce into the ‘club’ and steve almost broke a table in outrage. Bruce was amused, thor was cackling and steve was near tears.

None of them ask tony to improve or build something for them, they just put a prototype or blueprints or make very very not subtle hints until he is fully captivated by the idea and does it for them and then shoves the item/items/thing into their arms when hes done and tony knows hes being used but most of the time they are actually good ideas and he cant not build them plus he likes doing stuff for them

Nat taught all of them ballet

They play darts almost every night merely because clint is an absolute unit at it (of course) and tony is convinced every time that he’ll somehow beat him

They feel comfortable sharing their trauma with each other

 Its a tradition at least once a year to get shawarma together no matter where they are they all get together to go to the same place every time

Clint is the only one in their group who actually knows how to cook so he cooks for them like once a month and then they attempt to bake him a cake or something but it usually ends with a last minute run to the store and the oven exploded (tony does succeed at making icing only to write on the store made cake “sorry we’re such a headache #human club 4ever”)

They are unironically all each others favorite heroes. 

Tony made them all these indestructible wallets that are small and compact and they each individual printed out the same picture of the six of them and keep it in their wallets to look at when they're apart

The language joke died out among the other avengers but they still use it all the time. Even steve even though its aimed at him

When tony passes out after working himself into the ground he’s still tense and wound up even while asleep, unless one of the others is the one to find him and carry him to bed, then he relaxes. 

They are all Morgans god fathers/mother

Clint did make nat his eldests godmother but tony and steve are his second oldests godfathers even though they didn't know he existed but now that they do they spoil him

Thor and bruce are nathaniel's godfathers

Steve is afraid of spiders. Imagine with that what you will. 

Tony is afraid of cockroaches

Clint is afraid of clowns

Thor is afraid of cats

Natasha is not afraid of anything(yes she is- broccoli)

Steve got tony a box of cockroaches, tony put fake spiders in the fridge, clint gifted thor a cat for christmas, and they all dressed as clowns for a mission once

To mock thor tony once made everyone a cape but the god was actually psyched to see them wear capes too and honestly the capes were amazing because tony made them and clint still uses his sometimes

Clint is honestly the funniest in the group and will roast the shit out of all of them at the drop of a hat

He and tony once got into a yo mama contest that lasted two weeks(no clear winner but the others will claim the other won when one of them is pissing them off)

Steve will casually hold up his hand and steal mjolnir from thor just to be a little bitch

They each celebrate the others birthdays but they cant do it normally nah they have to go extra, especially for people outside the og six like- its visions birthday? Hey tony do you have some rocket boosters? Yeah? Okay clint talk to the news we’re gonna lift a city and have a massive party for vision on it, but no threat of a meteor this time.

[irrelevantwriter]

Captive Heart

Pairing: Dark!Eddie Munson (Stranger Things) x Female Reader/You

Rating: Explicit, NSFW, 18+ only

Warnings: Dark!Eddie, language, mentions of kidnapping, Stockholm syndrome, hint of somnophilia, consensual vaginal sex, mentions of pregnancy, mentions of bodily fluids

Word Count: 2831

Summary: Eddie wanted you. And he got you. 

A/N: Dark Eddie is here and he’s pretty dark. This really came out of left field for me, but it also felt right so enjoy! Share with your friends! Feedback is that good shit.💗

Disclaimer: As always, reader inserts are true reader inserts. If you find any specifics in regards to reader’s appearance, kindly let me know and I will fix that.

Disclaimer: Characters are of age in my fics.

*Check out my other Eddie fics here

*Masterlist in bio.

**********************

Eddie groaned as he lifted his aching body into his van, his grease stained hands calloused from the day’s work.

He eagerly fished out a cigarette from his pocket and immediately lit the stick, not even stopping to start the engine. The cab was thick with the July sun, causing his overgrown bangs to cling to his sweaty skin. He ignored the suffocating heat and rolled down his window, sucking in a much needed breath of nicotine.

His body began to relax once the bitter taste of tobacco hit his tongue. Only then was he able to turn the car on.

Music assaulted him and he rushed to turn it down, the pain behind his skull intensifying. Cool air blasted from the vents as he threw the van into drive. He drove on autopilot, eager to leave the clusterfuck of a day he’d had behind.

The garage had been busy and customers were anything but kind to him. Which wasn’t unusual for a guy like Eddie Munson. The population of Hawkins had never been particularly welcoming. It surely hadn’t changed now that he’d finally graduated and held down a decent job.

That was too much to ask apparently.

The further he drove from downtown, the lighter he felt. The sensation was a reminder as to why he’d taken up residence in a nearly abandoned house on the outskirts of town. He’d let Wayne have his trailer back a few years back, wanting to give the old man his freedom after tying himself to the town freak. Wayne deserved that much.

Eddie thought of what waited for him at home. Who waited for him at home and an ache of a different kind began to settle into his bones as he thought of you.

Pretty. Smart. Kind.

All adjectives he felt were too good for him. But you’d been his from the moment he’d first spotted you in town. And unlike the majority of Hawkins, you’d treated him with respect. Like an equal. He’d fallen in love instantly. A rarity for a pessimist like himself.

He stopped at a familiar intersection, waiting for the light to turn. His eyes caught sight of the newest billboard posted. It changed every few months. The same face always smiling back. Usually the reward amount was higher, a family desperate to have their missing piece returned to them.

A honk sounded from behind him and he realized the light had turned green. He waved in apology and stepped on the gas, leaving the plea for help behind.

His fingers drummed against the steering wheel as he turned on his isolated street. There were only three homes that dotted the road, all separated by thick trees and bushes. Most of the yards were overgrown. He’d never met his neighbors and he preferred it that way. He liked his privacy. And so did they.

His heart sped up and his stomach filled with anticipation, excited to set eyes on you after a long day away. He parked his van under the car park, noticing the wicker basket that sat next to the side door leading into the kitchen. A pair of gardening gloves peppered with dirt lay abandoned at the bottom.

Eddie had mixed feelings about the sight. He turned off his van, finding it odd that you hadn’t come out to greet him. That was your normal routine.

He exited the vehicle and made his way up the concrete steps, doing his best to kick off any lingering grease and mud from his boots. He used his key to unlock the door, a refreshing blast of A/C hitting him in the face. He sighed at the feel of it on his overheated body. The van’s air conditioning was dwindling with every summer that came and went.

Silence permeated the air as he took in the kitchen. He noted the smell first. A mouthwatering scent that practically made him groan. He walked over to the stove, a large pot of pot roast sat beneath a clear lid, condensation collecting near the rim. He noted the oven was off, but the pot was still warm, signaling it’d just been shut off.

He left the food and set out to find you, his body tense and on edge. All he could think about since he’d left you that morning was being back inside you. That was his favorite place to be. And that was the only cure for the shitty hand he’d been dealt that day.

He made his way to the bedroom in the back. His bedroom. The door was ajar, the foot of the bed coming into view as he stepped closer. He reached out and pushed the door open, taking in your sleeping form. His cock hardened at the sight.

You were nude, lying on your stomach with your leg hitched up, face buried into his pillow. The position afforded him the kind of view he’d longed for all day.

He moved quietly as he approached your sleeping form, his fingers itching to reach out and touch you. He gave in to his desires and skimmed your ankle with his fingertips, watching you closely. You didn’t stir.

You slept soundly. And lately, you’d gotten increasingly hot natured. You hardly slept with clothing on anymore. Not that he minded.

He would normally shower once he got home from work, but the overwhelming urge he had to take you was too strong. You were laid out so perfectly for him, beckoning him to come closer. So he listened.

Eddie undressed and crawled onto the foot of the bed, letting his hands roam up the expanse of your thighs. He licked his lips as his thumbs spread your opening, your body winking to him in welcome. Without preamble, he dipped a finger inside. Warm heat coated him. He was desperate for more.

You shifted against his touch, hips inching towards the pleasure. He watched as your walls took him in easily. So he added another finger. He moved them deeper, almost betting he could feel the many loads he’d left in you that morning before he’d left for work.

He watched your face for any signs of consciousness, but there were none. He didn’t like that.

He removed his fingers and moved his mouth closer to your sex, hovering. A large glob of saliva fell from his lips to your skin and he sought out your clit, done with being considerate. He needed you.

He was aggressive with his actions, using his fingers to rub intentionally. A soft gasp was his reward. He smiled as your body jerked, your legs fighting to close around his hand as your eyes flew open. He held your thighs, keeping you in position as he shushed you.

“Shh…shhh,” he soothed, his fingers betraying his gentle tone. “It’s me, baby. It’s just me.”

You settled for only a moment before you whimpered and tried to push his hand away.

“M’still sore, Eddie,” you whispered, voice thick with sleep. The sound made his cock twitch.

He smiled down at you, not at all trying to hide the condemnation in his features. “Sore from what, baby?”

His fingers dipped back into your slit, the appendages flooded with your arousal. You bit your lip, the need to cry out written all over your face. Your brows furrowed and your nose scrunched in that cute way he loved. Your fists clung to bedding below you. It was an indication of just how close you were, despite your pleas.

“This morning,” you answered between moans, hips rocking into his hand now.

“You saying fucking you three times before I leave is too much?”

You didn’t reply. He hooked his fingers, making you arch off the bed.

“Answer me.”

“No. No, s’not,” you slurred, trying to reach for his forearm.

“That’s a good girl,” he praised, his pace slowing, removing his fingers all together. You whimpered and he soothed the ache with a swipe of his palm over your puffy lips.

“Turn on your side.”

You wordlessly obeyed, twisting so that your upper body was now turned towards him, your lower half still flush with the mattress and open to his touch.

“Hold still for me, baby,” he instructed as he shifted on his knees. He held your thighs in place as he angled his throbbing cock to your opening, rutting against you and coating himself in your wetness.

“Mmm,” you hummed, already cock drunk at the feel of him.

“Need you, baby. Need you so bad.”

Eddie gritted his teeth as the tip of his cock slipped past your entrance, your walls squeezing in acceptance. It’d taken him weeks to get you trained to that point and now he was addicted to the sensation.

As soon as he felt your body clench around him, his self control disappeared. He acted on instinct and buried himself to the hilt, his hips meeting the flesh of your ass. A high pitched moan ricocheted in his ears as your body took him.

You always made the prettiest sounds. Even when you cried.

“Fuck, baby…feel so good,” he babbled, fingertips digging into your thighs. Flesh slapped against flesh as he moved, watching the way your tits bounced in response.

This was the feeling he’d been chasing all day. Shit, all his life if he was being completely honest. That was why he’d swooped in and took you for himself. He had to. He had to do it.

He’d planned it for weeks. How he’d lure you to him. Which wasn’t hard considering how sweet you were on him. He could tell. He thought it was cute.

You fought him at first. Of course you did. He’d taken you and held you captive in his home. But over time you grew comfortable with him. You understood he wasn’t trying to hurt you. He took care of you. Took care of your every want and need. And pretty soon you were coming to him. Seeking him out to make you feel better.

Eddie had done his research. He knew all about Stockholm Syndrome. And he put it to the test with you. Now, eight months later with his cock buried so deep inside of you he could practically see the outline in your stomach, he could call it a success. You were well and truly his.

“More, Eddie…please,” you begged, knowing better than to disobey him. He gave you what you wanted and let two fingers seek out your clit. He never let you touch yourself. A rule you were good at following. It’d only taken you two times to know you didn’t want to do it again.

“My good girl…so good for me. Always. Isn’t that right?”

You nodded, mouth agape as your body writhed on his cock. You were close. And so was he.

He sped up his movements, seeing your face twist in pain as he hit deep. He didn’t stop. He kept going.

“Cum for me, baby. I know you want to,” he demanded, using his free hand to swat at your ass. You recoiled, but the moan that left your lips betrayed you. So he did it again.

You came with a shuttering gasp, limbs twisted so tight he was sure they’d snap. He held still so that every shock of pleasure that washed over you traveled along his cock.

When your body went limp, he resumed his efforts. He sought out your chest, squeezing the flesh as he fucked you. Your eyes were glossed over and staring up at him, your lips curved into a drunken smile. When his hand traveled further up to clutch at your neck, you let him.

Eddie growled as he applied pressure. You arched into his touch, your pussy so utterly fucked out that he was nearly slipping from its clutches.

“Fuck. Just like that, baby,” he grimaced between clenched teeth, feeling that telltale sensation at the base of his spine. “You’re so good to me. Letting me use you. Right?”

He released your throat and you sucked in air, your hand wrapping around his tattooed wrist.

“Yes, yes…whenever you want.”

“You’re mine. Say it,” he growled, punctuating his words with a punishing thrust.

“I’m yours, Eddie.”

That was all he needed to finish.

He pumped you full, like he usually did, hips never stopping, even when the sensitivity kicked in. Your whiny moans and whimpers only spurred him on as he collapsed over you, bodies sweaty and sticking to each other. He kissed your cheek sloppily, still stuck in the throes of his climax.

Everything always felt so much better with you. Before you, sex never felt this good. Coming home never felt as good. You were all he needed. And he would fight until his dying breath to keep that hidden from you. Because the moment you realized that you were the one that held all the power, he knew you’d leave him. Just like everyone else.

“Fucking fuck…so good for me, baby…so good,” he panted into your neck, hands squeezing at every part of you he could reach.

Several seconds passed before either of you attempted to move. He settled his full weight onto you, cock still very much nestled between your legs. He could feel his cum trickling out, so he lazily thrust his hips in hopes of catching the runaway drops.

“Sensitive,” you sleepily murmured, hips edging away from him.

He ignored your comment, peppering your chest and neck with kisses.

“You know the rule about wasting,” he reminded you, nose burrowing into your cheek.

Your hands came to rest in his hair in silent apology, pushing the tangled waves away from his face. You met his eyes and all he saw was adoration.

“Let’s take a shower.”

He groaned in protest, nipping at your bottom lip, eliciting a giggle. “Don’t wanna move.”

“You’ll feel better. I’ll help. And then I can feed you.”

Eddie acquiesced, shifting off of you. He was hungry. And a shower did sound nice. Especially when his muscles ached in protest of his movements.

“Come on,” you purred, somehow finding the strength to pull his hand into yours, helping him off the bed.

He followed you wordlessly.

************

An hour later Eddie sat at the small dining table in the kitchen, eating the pot roast you’d made. His hair lay in damp streaks along his naked back and shoulders, the slight chill helping him stay cool. He watched you move around the space with ease, humming to yourself as you made yourself a plate.

He admired the way your ass shifted in the little sundress he’d gotten you last week. The fabric fell over your curves like it was made for you. And with the sun streaming in through the little window near the sink, you looked like an angel with a halo. His angel.

He regretfully pulled his eyes away and reached for the newspaper sitting beside him. While your back was turned, he thumbed through the pages, looking for what he knew would be there.

On page six he found it. He stared back at the picture of you, the words MISSING printed above the image. You were smiling, looking as beautiful as you did now standing in his home. He quickly snatched the page, tucking it into the pocket of his pants, moving quickly so as not to alert you.

You turned just as he folded what was left of the newspaper aside.

“Saw you went into the garden today,” he commented, taking note of the way you straightened in your chair.

“I thought that was allowed,” you whispered, the fear in your eyes giving you away.

Eddie reached for your hand, soothing your worries. “It is. It is, sweetheart. I just want you to be careful. Don’t want anyone to bother you,” he gently explained, seeing you visibly relax. No one ever came around his property, but it didn’t hurt to remind you.

“I know, Eddie. I’m always careful. I promise.”

And he believed you. Because you hadn’t left him yet.

He’d given you more and more freedom over the last few months, and you’d proven time and time again that he could trust you. He still took precautions when necessary. He didn’t have a television. He didn’t own a telephone. Everything you heard about the outside world was through him first. He made sure.

“I know you are, baby. You’re my good girl.” Eddie planted a kiss to the back of your hand, his heart thudding wildly when you smiled at him.

You nodded in confirmation, letting him playfully nibble at your fingertips.

“Now eat your food. The baby needs it,” he gently ordered, releasing your hand.

You did as he said.

He had five months. Five more months to save and get you and the baby out of Hawkins. Shit, he was going to get you out of the fucking state. Settle down on one of the coasts.

He’d done what he’d set out to do.

You were his.

[qaraxuanzenith]

I've been saying this for a while, but finding this post on my dash has, I feel, given me more tools to express this thought about why Jews (especially in the US and American-dominated online spaces) are feeling increasingly alienated by their leftist friends. Why many Jews who otherwise lean left will vote right, much to the dismay and even revulsion of their leftist friends. Why many Jews end up feeling "safer" leaning right. Why it is not fair or reasonable to "blame" these Jews for exercising their democratic right of secret ballot in such a way.

I'm screenshotting the post because (a) it's long, and (b) most of its content is not actually the point here. I'm not trying to argue with the OP or with my acquaintance who reblogged it onto my dash. I just want to explain what I find troubling about it.

The post is, as I said, long. I'll be honest: I only skimmed it. I'm not American. So skimming past - scrolling past to see the rest of my dash - I saw a lot of things where my brain went "Oh, that looks bad," but, you know, in a vague sort of way. Bad, but doesn't impact me directly. Or bad, but not in a way I can do anything about it either way (especially since I can't vote in the US). Or bad-ish, but that's not an issue of deep importance to me personally. And then I saw this:

And suddenly I felt hostile to the OP, because oh look, they just lumped in supporting my homeland, where my family live, which is currently under attack and in dire need of support, as a "bad" thing. Suddenly I feel like OP hates me, or at least, considers my continued existence on their own list of "bad-ish, but that's not an issue of deep importance to me personally."

But you know what? I kept scrolling. It felt like such a mild lip-service anti-Israel line that I thought, "Maybe this person doesn't hate Jews and Israel so much." I reevaluated my initial hostile response and decided to give OP a second chance, to walk it back. It sickens me that I've gotten so used to racism against my people that some expressions of it just don't register anymore. But I kept scrolling, and it got worse.

So what I'm reading here is an excerpt from the document that sounds, to me as a Jewish person, eminently reasonable and reassuring. Couched in language and context from OP that wants to paint it as a bad thing that the writers of this document believe that Israel, the Jewish state and Jewish indigenous homeland, should be able to defend itself against... *checks notes* three terrorist organizations with genocide against Jews explicitly in their mandate, and one dictatorship country which has repeatedly expressed that it has the desire and is working on having the means to "wipe Israel off the map."

Perhaps OP has been living under a rock (or, like me, only really focuses on political updates that hit close to home) for the past 7 and a half months and is unaware of Hamas's horrific attack of October 7, 2023 against Israel, in which civilians were brutally slaughtered, young women raped, mutilated bodies paraded through the streets, and dozens abducted - many of whom are still in captivity to the terrorist organization which has not allowed any humanitarian visits to the hostages or even confirmed proof of life for those it still holds.

But when I read the above excerpted paragraph, I went from "I'm not American but I guess most of this sounds vaguely bad" to "I hope this party wins." "I hope that this specific part of this platform is implemented because it is offering support, protection, and safety for me and my family."

You - OP and people who share their views; you as non-Jews who do not share in our unique suffering - you have no right to blame us for choosing our own survival. I would expect you to prioritize yours, as well.

It is things like this - not this platform, but this post, lumping in support of Israel against three terrorist organizations and a genocidal dictatorship with all the other "bad" things like deforestation and nuclear weapons, that push Jews to the right, or at least away from this part of the left. It is reading things like this, that take it for granted that my family and I should not be protected, should not have a right to live in our home, that radicalize people like me.

You're right: most of the other things here are things I would deem as "bad," but if I embrace this platform with open arms at least I get to survive, to fight against the rest another day. Better than rejecting it in favour of someone who has otherwise wonderful ideals but wants me dead.

I want to be able to care about all the other "bad" things in that post, in that document, but right now, we are bleeding. If I had to vote on it right now, I would choose whoever penned this document or stands behind it, because I need to prioritize my safety and continued survival over any other platform issue, and if I am not for myself, who will be for me?

Not my friends on the left who decry support of Israel against genocidal terrorists as a bad thing, that's for sure.

[electric-s0da]

Please note that; this post has showings/depictions of blood and strong language found within some of the drawings. @moonverc3x convinced me to join on in the @kirbyoctournament with their very persuasive words.

Bro got a really captivating vocab, how can I refuse? /pos Anyways, I am submitting Neko! Pronounced as Nico cause it took me over 3 years to realize that I was dyslexic and had been saying 'Neko' wrong the whole time. Created on SEPTEMBER 11th 2018 My oldest Kirby OC. Lil Man started off as a little cat with an absolutely horrendous design that was bleeding with the affection I had for the Kirby fandom and anime. Filled to the brim with cringe.

[OLD ART FROM 2018] Skipping over a few years, he was redesigned with any sanity I had to salvage them. Thus came this new iteration of Neko. Which is whatever you call this.

[OLD ART FROM 2022-2023] Which is still a cannon version of him but not the specific version of him that I'm submitting to this tournament. I got out of drawing puffballs and borbs in the fandom so if someone asks me to draw in the Kirby species format it may or may not look very good 👍 Coming to my last design of him that will be submitted into the ring to fight it out in brackets. His biker arc.

[ART FROM LATE 2023 TO PRESENT] This variation of Neko was made for an RP with a friend group I've been a part of since 2017 on the good ol Kirby Amino I know traumatized a whole lot of you that was on it during the prime and golden age of Amino. Therapy isn't cheap but I hope those affected can find comfort knowing the place has fallen into ruins, dusted with spider webs and rotting as the app burns from the inside. Anyways, this version of him grew up in an underground fight ring which was his home after living on the streets for his whole life, before it was discovered and the whole place scattered him and his friends across the region where the story takes place. I didn't write the story for this RP that was heavily inspired by TOTK, but that's the gist of his backstory. He's very laid back now that he'd older but was much cockier when in the fight ring. He very much mellowed out after his whole home got taken away. Learning to not treat everything like it was easily disposable in life. Neko is and has always been caring to his friends and family, doing his best to take care of them without letting his strong persona mask slip off. His ethnicity is Filipino. His current design across the board is based on my childhood cat named Jingles and his personality is based on another one of my cats that passed away last year at the age of 18. While some may thing this isn't important to mention I have to say those people are wrong as he really did shape Neko into the character that they are. So overall I hope to whomever read this far you enjoyed learning about Neko! Thanks for reading and good luck to the other bracket competitors, may the best OC win this :] Ciao~! Bonus: I don't have pictures of Jingles but I do of Spookie <3

[i-want-my-iwtv]

I recently read Interview with the Vampire which is such a good ride and since I was already very much expose myself to many spoilers, I knew the trial would happen and all that. But since English was not my first language and though I like the poetic words, I can't seem to understand what exactly they are talking about sometimes 😂. I'm busy often and can't seem to get the time to actually search up things about it so I wanna know more about why exactly would Armand has the need to kill Claudia, I know about how he wanted Louis for himself but I think he's aware that Claudia was everything to Louis so killing her doesn't seem to be the best idea if he truly love and want Louis to be with him. And the second one being why is Lestat so indifferent to Claudia's possible death at the trial, I've seen his quote about Claudia and discussions about how great he love her even after all the killing attempt and that he never blamed her for anything (didn't read the Vampire Lestat yet by the way), so to say the least I was quite shock at how he allowed Claudia to be held by the coven and why is he only advocating for Louis survival, is his love too much greater for him? And can't seem to understand that why would he think Louis would be willing to go back with him without Claudia. I think there are other scenes related to these in the other books but I forgot about it, I hope to find out about it when I get to read more but I'm really curious and can't help myself back. I hope my question makes sense and I wouldn't mind any spoilers, I really wanna know more about it.

Hello! Wow, that's a lot of ask. I'm glad to take a stab at answering tho 😎

But since English was not my first language and though I like the poetic words, I can't seem to understand what exactly they are talking about sometimes 😂

Understandable, I'm always impressed with ppl reading these books and finding the stories and characters captivating even without being able to fully understand the words, that speaks to how well they're written that they transcend complete understanding! It can be poetic at times. The books are translated into a number of other languages, you might want to find it in yours, that might help, even though there are necessarily differences in the translations from the original. She also throws in some French from time to time so be aware of that 😉

I think there are other scenes related to these in the other books but I forgot about it, I hope to find out about it when I get to read more but I'm really curious and can't help myself back.

Yes, there are a few more mentions of it, but mostly just Lestat's perspective from TVL, and there's one scene in The Vampire Armand where he says he did surgery for Claudia after the trial but before she died (we're not sure that actually happened, or he was inventing something to intimidate David at the time!)... ANYWAY other ppl can reblog and comment on this to add more specifics! I'm trying to keep this concise and not spend hours on this answer, which I could do! 😅

why exactly would Armand has the need to kill Claudia, I know about how he wanted Louis for himself but I think he's aware that Claudia was everything to Louis so killing her doesn't seem to be the best idea if he truly love and want Louis to be with him.... And can't seem to understand that why would he think Louis would be willing to go back with him without Claudia.

Yes, Armand was aware that Claudia was everything to Louis! Briefly, Armand wouldn't share Louis with Claudia, as she told Louis that Armand spoke to her with the mind gift that Louis couldn't hear (Forgive the typos here, this is a bad PDF copy of IWTV 😅):

Armand also admitted to Louis that he pushed him into turning Madeleine to replace Louis as Claudia's companion, but Louis still doesn't give Claudia up even after doing that. That's a bigger discussion, whether Armand couldn't wait any longer for that to happen, or he lost control of the Theatre vampires, or Lestat re-entering the story changed Armand's mind about how to separate Louis from Claudia.

Regardless, Armand physically protects Louis from Santiago and warns him a few times that the Theatre vampires might harm Claudia if she doesn't leave soon, and it's unclear whether Armand is ordering them to behave that way to get rid of Claudia, or if Armand would be equally happy with Claudia just leaving Louis, rather than being killed by the Theatre vampires. That's also a bigger discussion for sure, and I could argue both sides.

And the second one being why is Lestat so indifferent to Claudia's possible death at the trial, I've seen his quote about Claudia and discussions about how great he love her even after all the killing attempt and that he never blamed her for anything (didn't read the Vampire Lestat yet by the way), so to say the least I was quite shock at how he allowed Claudia to be held by the coven and why is he only advocating for Louis survival, is his love too much greater for him?

I don't think Lestat is indifferent to Claudia's possible death, but he's wounded and starving, which definitely could have weakened him emotionally, too. In TVL, we get Lestat's point of view just before the trial: he came to Paris to beg Armand for the healing blood to speed up the wounds he suffered (from Claudia and Louis attempting to kill him) and Armand throws him in a cell and feeds him a dead victim, with cold blood (which doesn't hurt vampires, it's just distasteful and not as nearly as nutritious as living victim blood). While begging, Lestat admits to Armand that it was Claudia who damaged him so badly, probably thinking there's no way Armand could have her in his possession! Welp, he's wrong.

Even without that TVL context, I think Lestat was in a position where he knew he was physically weakened and outnumbered, he couldn't take on and fight the whole pack of healthy Theatre vampires AND Armand, so he was trying to use his words to save who he could. That meant choosing Louis OR Claudia 😭 The Theatre vampires were clearly going to kill one of them, if not both. So the best Lestat could do was argue that it was Claudia's fault primarily and try to rescue Louis.

Now why advocate for Louis' survival, is Lestat's love too much greater for Louis over Claudia? I think one's love for their lover is different than for their child, not greater or lesser, a different kind of love. One could say that he could see more of a future with Louis than with Claudia, after all, his relationship with Louis was probably more salvageable than his relationship with Claudia, bc ultimately, she tried to kill him! Her feelings were probably the same, or worse, knowing he had survived. She didn't speak to Lestat during the trial. Louis was advocating to Lestat during the trial, still hopeful Lestat could save them both.

Either way I don't think Lestat chose Louis over Claudia for revenge, because YES, you're correct, Lestat says in Tale of the Body Thief (or TVL, I don't have it with me to check) that he didn't blame Claudia for trying to kill him, and that he might have done the same in her position 😭.

[^X by miss-jose] I have a few more fanart pieces featuring this scene in #the yellow dress tag, if anyone has more, let me know!

I assume that Lestat felt awful after Claudia was killed by the Theatre vampires... he still speaks of her with love in the later books. The very next night, Louis finds Lestat clutching her blood-stained yellow dress, and could some of those blood stains be Lestat's tears, since he's sobbing? I think so! Here's the quote (my emphasis added):

“‘This is madness!… ’ I said, my hands rising suddenly to my temples. 'Where is she! Where is she!’ I looked about me, at their still, passive faces, those inscrutable smiles.'Lestat’ I turned him now, grabbing at the black wool of his lapels: "And then I saw the thing in his hands. I knew what it was. And in an instant I’d ripped it from him and was staring at it, at the fragile silken thing that it was - Claudia’s yellow dress. His hand rose to his lips, his face turned away. And the soft, subdued sobs broke from him as he sat back while I stared at him, while I stared at the dress. My fingers moved slowly over the tears in it, the stains of blood, my hands closing, trembling as I crushed it against my chest. - IWTV

[papa-evershed]

Re: anon who was asking abt rob’s singing: he sings in his role as Dr. Reggie Hughes in the audible drama, getting better: the fight for the nhs. I don’t remember which chapter exactly, but it’s during a scene where he’s at a bar with the female lead and he waxes on about a singer he likes. I would describe his singing voice as cute and pleasant, it’s not very deep but it’s charming.

Also, thank you papa evershed for your amazingly rob content. You have contributed heavily towards fostering my rjc obsession, so I’m holding you culpable 😤💕. I absolutely looove the voice clips you’ve started doing. I don’t know what it is about his voice that fosters such a reaction, it’s so distinctly recognizable, but he also manages to make it subtly unique for each role, as seen in the clips. Major respect for his acting chops. May I humbly request some clips of his voice as Saul Silva in season 2 of Fate? He sounds so much more northern in s2 compared to s1, and I’m living for it. There are also basically 0 clips of him as Saul in s2 online, it’s a travesty! I love how s2 Saul has robs manc accent but with a whumpy, more subdued edge. I would be over the moon if we could have some voice clips of that role, like the scene where he sneaks into Alfea to see sky and says, “I had a close call… I am sorry.” But honestly any time he speaks would be wonderful. Thank you so much!!

also my condolences and I hope the funeral went well ❤️ take care of yourself because you are a treasure!

Hello! First off, holy shit, thank you so much for the thoughtful words. You're very kind and I also hope you're taking care of yourself too because you deserve only the very best things. ♥

I'm going to have to go back and listen to Getting Better again because I don't remember this singing part you mention! 🤓 And now I must go find it. 🕵️‍♀️ I only listened to that one once, while I was playing Animal Crossing, so there's a very real possibility I was distracted during that bit. 😅

As someone that also adores his voice, making clips really is my pleasure. I've said it before and I'll say it 500 more times, but that man could read me the phone book and I'd be captivated. Going back and looking for sound bites was a little upsetting though because it made me realize how little Saul content there was for this season and that should honestly be a damn crime. 😤

But!! Here's the clip ya specifically asked for and a few others. Feel free to let me know if there's any other moments you had in mind. And thanks again for your kindness!

[philosopherking1887]

I initially put the following in a reblog comment on this post by @arabriddler, but I'm putting it in its own post because I wanted to add something but don't want to keep derailing that post, which was making a different point. Here's what that post said:

The way Ed’s sin is Pride and Oswald’s sin is gluttony, and the way Gluttony will always feed on The Other and Pride will always starve The Other, and for them to exist in the same space they have to feed and starve each other at the same time.

(This idea is discussed in their fic Philophobia, which I have been enjoying greatly.)

And then here's my comment:

I'm not sure whether Ed's sin (or vice, in less religious language) is Pride or Vanity -- a difference I think we don't recognize enough these days. The difference is in whether your feeling of self-worth depends heavily on being recognized and praised by others (Vanity) or not that much (Pride). Both Ed and Oswald believe in their own greatness, at least to some extent, even when it isn't recognized by others, and both are bothered by the lack of recognition. But I think Ed is a better candidate for Vanity and Oswald for Pride (in addition to Gluttony -- for money, power, and material luxuries) because Ed seems to crave attention for its own sake, while Oswald only wants certain kinds of attention, from specific people, and/or for specific purposes.

1. Oswald is showy when he needs to be, to demonstrate that he's someone to be reckoned with, but is also happy to operate covertly when that better suits his purpose. For Ed, the show IS the point, and he'll sometimes endanger or undermine his other goals for the sake of making a particular kind of show. Oswald, of course, also sometimes undermines his own long-term goals, but usually to satisfy a momentary emotional impulse.

2. Ed enjoys receiving praise from people in a position of authority, even if he considers himself superior to them (at least in intellect). He doesn't mind being in a subordinate position, serving someone else's aims, as long as he receives regular recognition and praise for his skill and usefulness (from Essen or Gordon in s1-2, Strange in late s2, Oswald in s2 and early s3, Lee in s4, or Lucius in s5). Oswald, by contrast, resents being treated as subordinate in any way, including being praised for his usefulness by Fish, Maroni, or Falcone in s1. Not all recognition is good, as far as he's concerned; he mostly wants recognition, in the form of respect or fear, as a sign of or a means to power. He also wants love from certain people; in s1 he does seem to want the kind of praise for usefulness that might reflect a subordinate position from Gordon specifically, which suggests that he regards that relationship as more than just a means to his own advantage.

What I wanted to add, because thinking about Oswald as Pride and Ed as Vanity really reminded me of it, was a link to this fic:

Here's an excerpt that sums up the basic thesis of the fic:

Ed wears layers, sure, but beneath them, he’s less of a person and more like a living reflection. Terrified of his own inconsistency. Fluid, yet in danger of shattering. And hellbent on glinting back at whatever faces him.  Over and over, Oswald finds pieces of this shimmer in Ed, and is more captivated by it as time goes by. Attracted to it, almost, in a delicately odd way. How Ed slithers out of the world’s grasp, even seems to slither out of his own grasp as he pours himself into the mould of the day, reluctant to stay in one shape for too long, too uncertain of his own identity to construct a permanent home and yet beautifully talented at building temporary shelters out of what he aspires to be at any given time. It’s a struggle Oswald has never experienced (–Oswald struggles more with the opposite, already knowing precisely who he is and where his beastly heart lies, being despised for it, and turning that shame inwards on himself–), so it’s a bit of a sad privilege to see Ed twist into so many forms, stolen and borrowed and handmade, just hoping to represent something worthy. Hoping to cast it out into the world and make it true, convincing everyone else of what he is as a detour to finally convincing himself.

The rest of the fic is just as gorgeous and insightful (and so is the rest of the author's work; all Gotham Riddlebird shippers should read all of it). It so beautifully captures the difference between Oswald's "vicious self-sufficiency" and Ed's existential need for an image to project and an audience to project it to -- made most starkly apparent in the fact that his Riddler aspect at first only appears as a reflection in mirrors. Ed is someone who exists only in being perceived, a reflection who desperately wants to be a real boy, while Oswald has more reality, more being, than he knows what to do with. That can be a beneficial symbiotic relationship if Oswald gives Ed enough attention, praise, and opportunities to shine, but it can also become a problem if Ed feels like he's hidden in Oswald's shadow... or if one of them is taking advantage of the other to get what he needs without giving enough in return.

There's another fic by that same author that illustrates a point similar to @arabriddler's about Vanity and Gluttony with heartbreaking incisiveness:

Summary: Ed craves the feeling of being needed, of being valued, more than anything. Only Oswald can give that to him.

And here's an excerpt:

He’s stuck on the way Oswald’s love feels: overwhelming, suffocating, and somehow complete despite all its missing parts. Their arrangement feels less like sex and more like holding each other underwater, spurring each other on because it’s the only way to feel what they want to feel. Ed is not quite ashamed of all this, but he’s not proud either. His idealised self wouldn’t be reaching for Oswald over and over just to feel whole, to add more fuel to his obsessive fantasies because he can’t even touch himself anymore without a fresh imprint of Oswald in his mind. He can’t feel good unless he feels wanted, and no one in the world pines for him like Oswald. No one ever could.  When it comes to their relationship, Oswald’s motivations are reassuringly transparent. He cares for Ed to the point of pain. He’s in love. Ed is unconcerned with love. All he really wants is to feel... The heat of Oswald’s gaze and the spark in his eyes that means he sees Ed, really sees him down to his core; the soft-hard press of his body against Ed’s own when Ed seeks him out and pleads to be held; the scratch of Oswald’s fingernails clasping like he’s clinging onto treasure.

Oswald's love seeks to devour Ed, but Ed feeds on the hunger itself and can't provide anything to satisfy it. It's not only that no one wants or needs Ed the way Oswald does; Oswald himself is a being made of want and need -- no one can want or need anything with as much heat and intensity as he does, so being wanted and needed by someone like that is irresistible to someone like Ed. Oswald is like a massive star with a gravity well that draws in everything around it, and Ed is a shiny planet that orbits to reflect its light but won't let itself be drawn in and absorbed.

[lilyvalleygames]

Sorry for any mistakes in advance, english isn't my native language. OuO

I played “Crystalline Cage” yesterday and while I'm writing this, im replaying your game because i love reading in between the lines and gather as much MORE info as I can, im just thirsty for more since I really loved your game. 💜 I found it through my endless searching of looking for games like this one, it's really interesting how you can find a variation of games like these! And every single one of them is unique on it's own way and carefully crafted, I just love that.

I'm aware that you recently dropped your demo but... I'm really interested on knowing more of what's to come or any new characters that are going to appear on the “Day 2”? It's okay if you don't want to share anything too “spoiler-y” but i don't mind.

Will we learn how this fantasy world works? Asking since Vesta/MC seems so... Detached? Uninformed? Ignorant? Towards things like that but it makes sense since they are a servant who doesn't really go out.

Is the Countess Dantalion aware of her son's attachment or... interest towards Vesta/MC? She acts rather odd towards them and i don't know if it is only me but... It seemed like she wanted to imply something when going to see her...? [“I see. I supposed it's only to be expected that he'd come earlier than necessary...” “ (...) Johann does enjoy his little surprises, doesn't he?” 👀]

Are you thinking of adding more good or bad endings to the games? There's so many possibilities and outcomes... Since this is your first game and you working on it as much as you can, please do not overwork yourself, your game is beautiful as it is, mistakes can always be fixed, if you think is okay as it is, that's fine and that is what totally should matter!

I laughed a lot when Vesta/MC said that they ONLY every considered being the... NANNY??? of the new heir and Johann is just like.... “😧” BAHAHHAHAHAHA

Also, I would recommend you to add your Tumblr account to your itchio profile, you really need more reach and im telling you, people will LOVE your blog since a lot of individuals want to ask questions and just look around to find more about this game while it's still in development. 👻

There's so many questions I want to ask... But i think most of them will be answered on the next update or so . 💜 I'll be patiently waiting for it!

Stunning visuals, really interesting and captivating storytelling. I love it!

No need whatsoever to apologize for your English, you're doing great! :D

Ahhhh I'm so glad that you liked my game!!! And even more that you're replaying it! I wrote it out specifically so that different choices would provide different bits of information, and for a more cohesive picture to be built out through multiple play-throughs!

As for Day 2, there will be several new characters introduced! They're largely people Johann knows and personally invited to the upcoming inauguration, and they all have their own interesting relationship dynamics with each other! I won't go too deep into them and their backgrounds, but 3 of the new characters will be old school chums of Johann's, and the 4th new character will be an unanticipated guest :D

As for Countess Dantalion, good catch! She's been aware of Johann's... infatuation for some time, and isn't exactly a fan of her darling boy marrying so far below his station. She would prefer that he get into a political marriage that cements House Dantalion into a more elevated position--currently House Dantalion is considered in the capital to be frontier-adjacent, and not as 'cultured' as one might consider the capital to be.

Regarding endings, I certainly intend for there to be more good and bad endings! There are a lot of directions that I can take this in, and I intend for there to be a loooooooooot of different ways to end the game, depending on your relationship with Johann and others. There will even be romance-able routes for Roy and Bridgette, which I'm excited about! That said, I appreciate your comment about not overworking myself! I love to do a large variety of creative projects, so while I take a little break from game development I've been doing some painting and reorganizing my apartment and even doing fun little kitchen experiments! Currently I'm trying to ferment ginger with sugar and make it into a nice bubbly beverage! But I digress.

As for the fantasy world, I'm glad that you caught that! Vesta was intentionally made to be unaware of much of the world around her. This is because 1) players can benefit from having things explained to them via Vesta and 2) Vesta is indeed incredibly sheltered! Even her name was carefully chosen: Vesta is the Roman goddess of the hearth, the personification of home and comfort and family. And she's very much... at home. Especially as far as Johann is concerned haha. He really enjoys Vesta's lack of awareness-- he considers it to be a kind of "purity" that makes Vesta special to him.

That said, I'll still definitely be doing some fleshing out of CC's world! A lot of the new guests are more well-traveled, and will provide whole heaps of world building and fictional politics.

And I'm so glad you enjoyed the funny bits in CC! I just adore pairing humor with horror-- the contrast just makes the scarier parts so much scarier! At least, that's my opinion lol.

You're absolutely right, I should update my game page to include my Tumblr-- I'll do that just after answering this ask! Thank you again for reaching out! These asks are so incredibly satisfying to me-- it's such a great feeling when your creative work resonates with someone!!!

[daisychainsandbowties]

Oh Casper: 4, 5, and 9 (🥺)

4. what are some themes you love writing about?

fascination is definitely one. writing about characters who are captivated by the world and touch it very reverently both physically and with language.

most of my ocs are like that, and i also explore it through ava and beatrice in different ways. for beatrice it’s often physics and the raw mechanics of the universe; for ava it’s the texturedness of things and how laden with meaning the smallest part of the world can be.

then there’s fascination in a romantic sense. love as fascination. it’s definitely woven into the fabric of how my characters look and think and feel about each other. it’s all driven by curiosity because i find that an interesting way to approach love; a person as a puzzle and then the knowing of them and the being known. to me that feels very much like love. an edge of it, maybe.

obviously violence, trauma, grief, and survival are themes i touch on constantly. i find it personally rewarding to explore what it means to survive a terrible thing (or to not-quite survive it, to be changed by it). what it means to live with the scars of that.

how people respond to violence is also a big theme for me, and with that you get themes of trauma, especially the challenge of depicting trauma in prose. there’s an instability inherent in most trauma narratives because of the thing itself. because trauma ruptures time; it unmakes sense of it.

it’s non-linear and often defies any attempt to capture it in language. it’s fear scattered over time and it’s often a specific event that has already happened but is happening now. the again and again and again of bad things, of that which is over, and over, and not.

probably that’s why non-linear narratives are so attractive to me; trauma doesn’t care what’s happening in the story. it’s a winged shape and it’s shapeshifting and it has visitations. it’s a ghost and it’s the monster come to eat you.

and it’s also quiet, aching, helpless. often it refuses speech and cannot be expressed. so the challenge of writing about it and having it as a narrative theme is very appealing to me. it’s an important thing to be able to represent because often it doesn’t let us speak until we adhere to the shape of its telling.

those are obviously just some of the themes i like to write about, but maybe the main ones at this moment in time.

5. what inspires you to write

you know? i really have no idea. part of it is how difficult it is. especially poetry leaves me feeling both drained and also incandescent. i think creating is just such a high and so satisfying - maybe it’s the dopamine chase of “i made a thing”? maybe also a desire to express things i can't get out in any other way

9. a passage from a WIP

from ligaments 8

//

your eyes resect her from the darkness, picking shade out of shade until there is the curl-cropped oval of her face, her hands below brighter than shadows, wrapped around an antique sword she has obviously pried from the cold marble hands of a statue. strange sense tells you that the blade is rust-pitted and weak, that you are twenty feet from her and faster, that her eyes are searching for you in the evacuated dark and there is a gleam of light on your blood, the curling trails of it cast over the flagstones.

you wonder, as pain lights a match in the pit of your stomach, if she will follow that blood to you. if it will take her home, or to her death.

you wonder if she can smell it. the faint, sweet rot that lurks inside the copper tang of your blood. can she feel how space is stretched and uncomfortable in the places where [redacted for spoilers]

beatrice once told you about closed-systems and you hardly believed her, but there’s an ache in the world around the places you dredged the demon out. frayed strands of matter fluttering around the spot where you pushed camila away, where she looked at you as the mouth of red fire swallowed her, and she could not have been safer if you’d taken her in on your tongue.

but the world is wounded, raw, the shadows threaded with stretched tissues. as ever you can only describe it in terms of flesh, as if the universe has anything so tender holding it together. and yet with a hand you can push through it, dip the backs of your knuckles into the scraping wind of the empty desert that is becoming your second home. it’s as easy as breaking the surface of water; it’s as easy as breaking a bone.

but it hurts. you are astonished by this mostly because you can tell the difference between your pain and the blunt thermodynamic pain of the world.

you always wondered what shannon meant, those times when she stood in a place where wraiths had ruptured through, staring up at the walls, tracing her fingers over the churned-up dust on the floor. on one occasion she listed onto her feet after examining a totally unremarkable section of the floor, glancing at you with an atypically maudlin expression.

“you’ll see it one day, lil.” she sounded very certain of this, though her eyes darted back away from you as she spoke, preoccupied with the cracked sections of the world that the halo laid bare for her.

“it takes time, but eventually you start to see the fractures. it’s… i guess it’s kind of like a poorly-set bone.” she winced, fingers reaching up towards her arm without meaning to. they aborted the gesture before it could happen, but you were thrown back nonetheless to the image of shannon braced against a wall, mary pressing her forehead into her shoulder.

they didn’t quite slot together exactly, and in fact the position seemed a little awkward to you from where you stood, white-knuckled. gripping the bumpy, unnatural texture of shannon’s forearm where the halo - in a panic, perhaps, or out of necessity – had reset the bone in a twisted approximation of itself. the flesh sat mutilated, lumpy with misplaced muscle. you had not, until that point, realised that the halo could make mistakes.

you stood as an off-kilter image of mary, one hand up high on shannon’s shoulder, pressing it into the wall. bare brick, or something equally – it felt, in that moment – cruel and uncompromising. your other hand gripped her forearm and she gripped yours back on its underside; the soft slope from wrist to elbow.

mary lifted her face away from where it had sequestered itself against shannon’s broad shoulder. her face set into an expression that made you want to look away, to go away and leave the pair of them alone with their pain.

you remember how she screamed, when mary twisted and twisted until her arm fell apart all over again, light from the halo spilling and crawling and writhing up along the brickwork. shannon, her mouth hanging open in shock, or horror, or something as simple as pain, watched the flow of light as it flickered off into nothing. it struck you as it did, on occasion, that what beatrice said about closed systems could not be true, or accurate. if that light came from God, was there more of it now in the world than there had been?

had shannon, a girl, split the world wide open with the breaking of her body?

“there she goes,” shannon said, and slumped forward into mary’s arms.

which were, as always, waiting for her.

you could not help the comparison then between mary with her body supporting shannon’s and those pictures you’d seen of Christ being taken down off the cross. the ease of that departure, nails slipping easily out of his upper wrist or the ball of his hand. he wouldn’t have cried out at all, or even sighed.

shannon did. both sounds roughshod in her mouth, tangling with each other like two people having sex. on instinct you tried to step forward, to bear the weight, but a look from mary set you in stone. you were not welcome. to mary, perhaps, you were the cross.

so you just stood and looked at them. how they slotted together better in that blood-and-light instant than they ever had before.

[clare-with-no-i]

read chap 3-13 of theogeny this morning since i was free until 2pm (wanted to wait until it was complete before starting, and did 1-2 last night since i had some time). very nice story! the tone and style of your writing feels totally professional (and honestly surpasses many published authors i’ve read LOL). however, i was especially blown away by all of the historical details about ancient athens & greece. i’m as close to the opposite of an expert on the time period as possible, thus am not fully convinced this isn’t based on a true story where you got sent back in time, but then chose to come back to the present afterwards. were there any sources you leaned particularly heavily on? even my own experience writing a gen-ed history paper about the original Olympic games during my undergrad felt about as straightforward as navigating a swamp of hopelessly entangled, greek-speaking, arguing jellyfish, what with all the completely speculative secondary sources and glaring holes in the firsthand accounts of the events.

i’ve been away from the depths of the hp fandom scene for a year or two, but my recollection of your blog was that you’re a law student? given that law ≠ classical greek history (as far as i know), i’d say the fact that you specifically researched all of this for the story makes it even more captivating. (although the attention to detail does also align exactly with the depth of case-research i’d assume is possessed by the top-tier, most competent lawyers, though that is purely speculation). but if your real answer is the time travel thing, just blink twice and cite wikipedia or whatever ;)

also, i’m curious how realistic it is for a classics scholar to know enough ancient greek that she can carry even a stilted conversation with native speakers. if so, i find it mind-blowing that such depth of knowledge of a dead language is wrapped up into a subset of a history PhD—makes my own discipline seem like 3rd grade times tables.

LOL thank you so much! this is such a wonderful, detailed review! I can safely say that I have not traveled back to ancient Athens, but if there's any way I can visit for about a day and then return to the modern era please LMK…

so: I tended to use a lot of sources from Google Scholar, JStor, my own university's online library, what have you; there are a few times I went back and read through my old Classical Civilizations lecture notes, but I only ever took an intro class so I wasn't exactly delving into the minutiae. many of the sources are listed in the end notes, but I have an entire bookmarks folder (which I should probably delete) that looks like this lol

of course, I had to suspend my disbelief and expect/hope the reader would suspend their disbelief at the things that I just couldn't really know; but that was my moment for artistic liberty, which I used a lot of let me tell you.

and yes! I'm a second year law student. but I started this story when I was still applying to law schools :") I have worked as an archival and online research assistant/hired researcher/research fellow since I was 19 in my undergrad days, so I've become very familiar with the process of sifting through online archives. I also just really enjoy it! I love learning about areas of history I don't know a lot about, so this was just such a perfect passion project.

so — in terms of speaking Ancient Greek, I think it's absolutely possible that students at the PhD level would be able to communicate, given that many programs have really robust Greek language curricula. however, and this is something I touched on in the early chapters and something I researched to the best of my ability, the way that academic accents from non-Greek native speakers (aka, modern Greek people) sound is very different in pronunciation and would likely sound strange and unnatural to someone in Ancient Greece; such is the nature of language development. so, I think would have been pretty much like any non-fluent language speaker being thrown into an immersive program with no preparation.

I'm not here for any discipline ribbing, though! I'm sure whatever it is you study is just as challenging and engaging as Lily's field :)