#the last month and a half has been utter hell

[raeathnos]

.

[torchstelechos]

Do yall think about the ending of ISAT in any other characters POV? Cause I think about it so much, that must be buck fucking wild. Like, you get to Dormont after MONTHS of traveling with these people, you're feeling strong, you feel like you have a chance, so yall go separate directions to get everything done before the big day tomorrow and your buddy Siffrin goes to take a nap. You're like, ah! Classic Siffrin, so silly and nonchalant about everything, they never once thought we would lose. What a swell fella :). Then not even a full half a day later, more like a few hours later, he appears out of no where with a fucked up face and starts hitting you exactly where it hurts emotionally. No reason! You didn't do a fucking thing! They just fucking went for it! And now you're pissed cause that was a close friend of yours that you considered family, you're sad, you're mad, you dont understand what happened. You meet up with everyone at the clocktower early because apparently he did that to everyone! So good! Good! It's not just a you thing! You all talk it out and you all agree that maybe you should leave them behind tomorrow if they keep acting like this. Except. Except. They never came to the clocktower, they never came to talk to you about what happened and thats. Not acceptable. You need to understand what happened because after sleeping on it, why did he do that? They wouldn't ever do that to all of you, so something must have happened!

And then a Star appears.

And you learn exactly what has been happening behind the scenes but it doesnt make sense. But you know that your buddy just went to solo the house and you know they arent strong enough to do so, you know exactly what their level and strength and weaknesses are and the King is rock type! He's going to kill Siffrin if you dont go save them! So you start running through the house to go save them while the Star guides you, but the doors are all unlocked. There are ghosts everywhere. The hallways dont make sense. Something is broken, failing, and you are running out of time. so you climb up and up and up until finally you get to the final floor and then to the King's room expecting Siffrin to be a splat on the floor but. He's still alive, theres a chance! So you go and protect them from the King but uh, huh. The King is nearly dead? Siffrin almost solo'ed the King? A scissors type versus a rock type nearly won? And it was only a nearly and not a he won because Siffrin was frozen in time? What???? So you freeze the King, you save Siffrin, but they're injured and sick and have a fever so you try to take them to the head housemaiden to get healed but uh. Shes speaking nonsense??? Utter bullshit. Skipping, repeating, saying things out of order, and then she says you all can go home and everything falls apart around you.

Cause Siffrin? Yeah, your buddy who was being a tad bit of an asshole? And they just solo'ed the bad guy without you? Yeah, he's the last boss you need to beat actually. And they're huge! So big! You get ready for them to fight you, except he. Attacks himself. In front of all of you while crying. He's sad. They're hurting themself. You can not do anything but you start to connect the dots and you figure everything out. Then everything becomes normal again and they say what they wished for and hey! You wanted that too! So you hug them as he cries himself out and all of you are tired. That was a lot. They're craft tired and sick but they're okay. So you're happy and relax. They want to go back to Dormont, so you all go. Then THIS LITTLE ASSHOLE WALTZES OFF ONLY TO COME BACK INJURED TO HELL AND BACK???? He said he was going to go say thanks to that Star person, who you still aren't sure is a person but whatever, and then he comes back exhausted and clearly just used craft after being told not to?

And YOU STILL DONT KNOW HOW SIFFRIN BEAT THAT FUCKER AFTER SOLOING THE HOUSE, OR THE DEAL WITH THAT WEIRD SHADE IN THE SKY IN THE SHAPE OF SOME FUCKING WEIRD LEGUME. WHAT. HOW???? WHY??????????

Anyway I think about this a lot, it must have been a long and confusing two days from their POV

[transformers-spike]

Yeah separately because that is. A whole can of continuity-hopping-worms that I’m not ready to open. I just want to bang the old men!!!!!!

As the pole dictates, I'm going for Alpha Trion in his alt mode. Consider this a prequel to Solitude. Will I ever do the TFA Ultra Magnus soft femdom? Probably someday, I already started writing it.

“Okay?” he asks, muzzle pressed against your cheek. There’s a slight mechanical warble to his words, but the English is nigh impeccable. It’s been a few months and he’s already grasped more than you did studying German for three years. His pronunciation has rapidly evolved, going from techno dial up noises to something almost human if not for the digitized waver in his voice. For someone so huge, let alone made of metal, he’s awfully gentle with your squishy human body. You kiss his snout, sending a wave of crackling energy to his horn and tail. “Yeah, I’m good, no need to fuss over me,” you say with a smile on your face.

You climb the last steps of the human-sized stairs up to his bed. The fabric is notably similar to a non-sticky gym mat, uncomfortable to sleep on, sure, but manageable when your goal is to get your rocks off. There’s no time for a strip-tease when he’s been insistently brushing his muzzle against your sex for half an hour, purring poorly translated but no less sweet praises. Naked on all fours, feeling all kinds of vulnerable in this new position, you brace yourself on your arms, arching your back to show your ass in what you hope to be an attractive display of your goods. Your heart is pounding in your chest like you're teenager waiting for "dessert" after a date , and no matter how many times you do this, he makes you feel like an utter virgin. He props himself over you, half standing on the bed, half on the ground; his hands (or paws if you want to get technical) pressing into the soft mesh of the mattress. Yes, he could fall down and crush you. But you trust him not to, because if none of the Primes have, there's no way in hell the chillest member is going to put an end to your life when he has the focus and self-control to create near-perfect sand replicas of your ships.

“Ready?” he asks to be sure, to which you reply with a quick “Yep!” and push against his panel. The feeling of his snug cock brushing over your sex and stomach sends a fire to your loins. The pace is slow and passionate, member languidly (and carefully) stroking sensitive nerves that make you shudder with delight. The blue fluid coating your thighs is warm and welcome next to the chilly air. His vents breathe excess heat onto your back, and you barely get the chance to thank him between moans when he finds the perfect angle to make you lose it. You grip onto the bed, ass up, face down, bucking against him pathetically. Ah, dignity. It’s been months since you lost her. “Like this?” he asks again, angling his head to catch an awkward glimpse of you under his frame. You give him a thumbs up and cheekily reply “I need you to fuck me like I owe you money.” A bit too jokey of an answer, because now he’s looking at you like you just spontaneously grew an extra head. “Yes,” you confirm, “like this.” He complies immediately, maintaining the perfect (and probably uncomfortable in his case) angle, pressing against your sex so pleasantly your knees are shaking. It doesn’t take long for you to cum, crying out his name as you’ve done many times before, legs buckling underneath you. He doesn’t seem to mind having you rest on his member, and he leaves you a few minutes to collect yourself before he pulls away and transforms back into his normal form. You roll over and spread your arms out welcomingly when he reaches over and takes you into his hand. Then, he sits back down on the mattress with you in his palm. “May I?” he inquires for the final time, gesturing at his hardon, terribly polite for someone who sounds like he’s on the brink of losing it from sexual frustration. “Please do,” you answer with proverbial popcorn in your lap, stroking your sex as he starts pumping his member.

[actual-changeling]

Crowley watches him silently, motionless, and with his shades securely in place. If he has been counting correctly, and he rather assumes he has, then Aziraphale has been talking uninterruptedly for twenty-five minutes and two seconds now.

Three seconds.

"…so, I'm sorry, Crowley. I'm so, so sorry."

He is wringing his hands, unable to stand still, and shifting his weight slightly from foot to foot, searching for Crowley's gaze and failing. The sudden silence feels almost odd, the expectation rolling off Aziraphale in waves even more so, only infinitely heavier, and for a moment, he entertains the thought playing the part Aziraphale has thrust upon him.

But only for a moment.

"Right," Crowley responds, tightening his grip on the door and pressing his other palm against the frame, effectively barring Aziraphale from entering like he has been for the last twenty-six minutes.

"Anything else?"

Confusion wrinkles his forehead, and his fingers no longer turn his ring round and round over a stretch of reddened skin. Maybe it is the utter monotony of Crowley's voice or the lack of reaction in general, but Aziraphale seems, finally, at a loss for words. His mouth opens and closes a few times, his eyebrows knitting together, and Crowley allows him another thirty seconds of patient waiting, after which he calls it a day.

"Great."

He steps back and closes his front door, normally and without slamming it, locks it, and then miracles up a deadbolt for good measure, before picking up his cup of coffee from the chest of drawers (still hot if it knows what's good for it) and strolling back to the living room.

Eighteen months. A year and a half. Another apocalypse is dawning on the world, but if there is anything the last six millennia have taught him, it's that humanity will fix it anyway; they have a knack for that, always outsmarting heaven and hell alike. Well, and him, since he is neither here nor there—so, a special mention to the former angel slash demon Crowley, thank you very much.

A familiar pain tugs at his stomach nevertheless, a faded lightning bolt of distress shivers down his spine, and Crowley sinks into the cushions with a sigh, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table and pressing play on Queer Eye again. The ache will never fully disappear, but it has lessened, and he has learned how to live with it, how to breathe around the crudely stitched-up black hole in his chest.

Aziraphale left, and Crowley stayed. It's really simple, in hindsight, and after weeks of moping and crying, being completely wasted for days at a time, and overall being so miserable, every single one of his plants stopped being scared and became concerned instead, Crowley had picked himself off the floor and kept moving.

Not moving on is worse, Nina had told him during one of their board game nights (none of them can resist Muriel's angelic puppy eyes in that regard, and it is, admittedly, kind of fun), and she had been right.

He still loves him, fuck, of course he does; he doubts he will ever stop. Yet if Aziraphale thinks showing up uninvited and monologuing without pause for twenty-five minutes is going to fix anything, he is sorely mistaken.

'Listen, do you hear that?'

'I don't hear anything.'

Ironic, somehow, that Aziraphale is still not listening to him. Crowley will wait because it's Aziraphale, because he loves him, because despite everything, he is fucking lonely and misses him enough to be tempted to take him back without any apologies whatsoever.

Just tempted, though. His barricades and well-practiced self-control are going strong.

He has to be sure this time. He has to be sure that Aziraphale won't break him again, because the most recent incident almost killed him, and Crowley loves earth, loves him—but he has to love himself more than he loves his angel, or it will destroy them both.

Jonathan van Ness gives some poor sod a new haircut, Crowley drinks his piping hot coffee, and Aziraphale goes home.

It's a nice Tuesday, all things considered.

-

i'm sorry but also not :)

[fandomficsnstuff]

Old Lady - 17

(Warnings: Ohhhhhh boy! SMUT!! Like, filthy smut. Exhibitionist kink, sort of threesome but also not really? Squirting, choking, like I’m blushing rn writing this and that does not happen often lol. Also a tiny bit of angsty fluff at the end as a small treat. Love you all!<3)

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“What the hell happened?!” Everyone turned to look at you as you stormed over, stopping in front of Chibs as you moved some of his kutte out of the way to look at the blood on him “Jesus!”

“You could see that all the way from the garage?” Tig asked and Chibs scoffed “aye, she’s like a bloodhound when it’s somethin’ like this-”

“When it’s blood on you or any of my boys, yeah, I’m like a damn bloodhound” you hissed before sighing, cupping his face in your hands “are you hurt? Did you get shot?” you asked as you padded around him and he took your hands and kissed both of them “I’m alright, leannan, okay? ‘s not mine” he admitted and you nodded, letting out a shaky breath “good… good” you determined before looking at Bobby and the sour look on his face, then Jax, Tig, Happy, then Chibs and then Jax again “what happened?”

“I’ll fill ya in later, alright?” Chibs asked and you hesitated but nodded “sure… I’ve just got a few things in the office…”

“I’ll see ya in there” he promised and you nodded hesitantly, looking at the others and Jax stepped closer “he’s good” he promised and you nodded “better be” you murmured, mostly to yourself, as you stepped back towards the garage where the small office was, Chibs watching you with a small frown while Bobby talked with Jax, Chibs walking over to join them while Jax yelled at Bobby.

You waited quietly, drinking the last of your coffee as you continued to look over the paperwork until someone knocked on the doorframe, except it wasn’t Chibs. It was Jax. “Jax… where’s Chibs?”

“He’s gone to wash up a bit” Jax admitted as he walked inside and closed the door behind him, making you frown with confusion “Jax… why are you closing the door? What happened?”

“I’m just closing a door, darlin’-”

“No, no no no. You’re ‘closing’ the door.”

“What?”

“You’re ‘closing’ closing the door” you pointed out and he frowned at you with utter confusion “I-... what?”

“Just-... what is it?” you asked and he sat down on the couch, hesitating before looking up at you as you sat by the desk “how’re things with you and Clay?” he asked and you scoffed with a smirk, looking away with anger “he beat up the woman who raised me and is without a doubt behind the home invasions and every shitstorm in the recent months probably which has caused Chibs and I to push our wedding further and further back. What do you think?” you asked and looked back at him, arms crossed over your chest as you leaned back in your chair, Jax nodding. “I know you love Gemma, even after everything… even after the wreck with my boys-”

“I-... I can’t just turn that shit off, Jax… I’m angry at her, so fucking angry! But-... I’ve lost a lot of people who were like my parents… I can’t lose her too… I’m sorry, I’ve tried, I really have and if it’d been my kids, maybe, but I-... I’m sorry, Jax-”

“It’s okay, I’m not angry with you, Tara isn’t either” Jax stated and you let out a shaky breath of relief as you nodded. “Good…” you stated softly and he smiled “how’re things with you and Chibs?” he asked and you scoffed with a smirk “what? You’re checking who I’m dating now?”

“Hey, just looking out for my sister” he defended half-jokingly and you scoffed and rolled your eyes “well, since you asked…” you trailed off, your smile fading a little and Jax noticed, frowning “you okay? What happened?”

“Nothing, it’s just-... it’s silly…”

“Tell me.”

“I-... I thought I was pregnant, yesterday” you admitted hesitantly, forcing a smile “‘thought’?... Shit… I’m sorry, I know you two have been trying…” he admitted and you nodded, still forcing that smile “yeah, well…” you trailed off quietly, looking down “I wasn’t-… the test was negative…”

“You took just one?” Jax asked and you nodded “Chibs went out to buy when we both got the idea, I think he just stormed into the store, grabbed one, paid and then got home again” you admitted sheepishly and Jax nodded with a smirk “maybe take another one? Maybe-”

“It’s okay, Jax” you stated softly before getting up and sighing “I uh, I’ve been correcting some of the numbers but everything is in order” you admitted and Jax got up as well, nodding, getting the hint that you didn’t really want to talk about it anymore. “Alright. I’m here if you need me, alright?”

“Okay” you muttered with a smile, hugging him tightly before leaving towards the clubhouse, giving the others a small smile as you passed them by on your way to Chibs’ dorm room, walking inside, hearing the shower and you smiled. You closed the door as quietly as you could and sneaked over, undressing ass quietly as you could before reaching the bathroom door, praying that he didn’t hear or see the door slowly open, or close shut again, praying that the sound of the water drowned it out. You smirked when you saw his clouded figure in the shower, feeling a fire burn through you and you casually began to tie up your hair, humming quietly as if you were alone and you could hear the water stop, an amused smirk on your lips as you got out a towel ready for you, your back to the shower and you grinned when you heard the door slide open, continuing to hum as you folded the towel neatly, taking as much time as possible until you felt a pair of wet hands wrapping around you from behind and you fake gasped “oh, you’re here too?” you asked innocently and Chibs scoffed, leaning down by your ear “you knew full well I was here” he whispered and you shivered a little, eyes almost fluttering shut. There was just something about it… something about his lips right by your ear. It didn’t matter if he was talking or moaning or was silent, it sent a rush through you and Chibs knew it, smirking a little as his hands moved up your body, leaving a wet trail behind and he pressed up against you, letting you feel his already hard cock. “Heard ya come in” he revealed and you pouted and turned around to face him “I was trying to be sneaky” you admitted with a pout and he chuckled, lifting a hand to gently lift your chin up to look up at him “I heard the door open, leannan” he pointed out and you shrugged, moving your chin from his hand, wrapping your lips around his thumb, sucking briefly and he groaned, backing you up against the wall, his hands on your hips squeezing the flesh as he caged you against the wall.

He leaned down and kissed you roughly, much to your excitement, and you wrapped your arms around him, feeling his hands trail down from your hips to your ass, gripping both cheeks roughly, pulling you against him and you felt his erection on your stomach. You reached your hand down, sliding down his chest, fingers brushing over his nipples briefly and he groaned quietly at the feeling, watching you as you kept your eyes on him while reaching down, gently wrapping your hand around him and he let out a shaky and quiet breath as you began to stroke him, your touch light and soft and it drove him mad. “Leannan-”

“Yes?” you asked innocently, Chibs reaching a hand up, cupping your face, attempting to lean down to kiss you when you let go of him and moved out of the way and past him, walking into the shower, turning it on as you began to humm again, the same tune as before as you tested the water against your hand before stepping under it casually, as though he wasn’t there, watching you with hungry eyes. It didn’t take long until you felt a pair of hands on your hips from behind, a smile forming on your lips as he let his hands wander, over the curve of your ass, up to your hips, your waist, your breasts, fingers teasing your nipples while he palmed your breasts and you moaned quietly at the feeling. You arched your back into him, closing your eyes as you felt the water run over your front while Chibs was pressed against you from behind, his hands practically covering your entire chest with their size. You began to swirl your hips a little, arch into him more and he groaned, reaching a hand down your front, a smirk forming on his lips when he heard you whimper quietly when his hand found your clit. Your knees nearly buckled as he began to rub circles over your clit, Chibs moving his arm to wrap around your, keeping your back against him as he continued to get you off, your heart racing as you held onto his arm that was wrapped around you, leaning your head back on his shoulder. You reached one of your hands down behind you, intending to help him get off as well when he shook his head against you and moved away from your touch “‘s all ‘bout you, love” he whispered and you couldn’t help but smile a little “what if I want to-” you were cut off when you felt his fingers near your hole, thumb still teasing your clit and Chibs smirked against you “you were sayin’, lass?” he asked and you groaned in slightly annoyance, a smirk then quickly forming on your lips as you reached up on your toes, spread your legs a little as you felt his cock slip between them, Chibs groaning against your shoulder and you closed your legs a little around him, Chibs smirking against your shoulder “you’re-”

“What? A minx? Relentless?”

“Beautiful” he finished and your cheeks burned as you smiled “then fuck me” you ordered softly and he let go of you to spin you around, reaching past you to turn off the shower before picking you up “yes ma’am” he stated jokingly and you giggled as he kissed you, carrying you out of the bathroom and throwing you on the bed, watching you bounce a little on the mattress and he took you in, wet from the shower, naked and legs spread, all just for him. He grabbed you by your ankle and you let out a brief squeal as he pulled you closer to him by it, a laugh spilling from you afterwards and he leaned down, lips soft on yours as he kissed you, the kiss slowly growing more and more intimate, his tongue licking into your mouth, desperate to taste you. You reached for his cock, wrapping your hand around him with a smirk, jerking him gently and he groaned against your lips, his hand reaching for yours to stop you and you slapped it away “I want it to be about you too” you whispered against his lips and he leaned down and picked you up, your legs wrapping around him as he turned around and sat on the bed with you on top of him, his cock in between the two of you as you kissed, only stopping because you raised yourself up on your knees, lining him up with your hole when there was a knock on the door, both of you flinching. “What?” Chibs asked with anger and a mischievous look formed on your face that he frowned at. You slowly sank down onto him and he gripped your hips, gritting his teeth to not moan at the feeling of you wrapped around him and you bit your lip to do the same.

“It’s Tig-”

“Kinda busy at the moment!” Chibs snapped and you giggled lightly, quickly placing a hand over his mouth, giving him a wink “come in, Tiggy!” you called sweetly and you both heard a moment of silence, your face carrying a large grin as you held in your laughter.

“(Y/N)?” the poor guy sounded so confused and you looked at Chibs, a way of asking for permission and he pushed your hand from his mouth, kissing you roughly, although it was a very short kiss, as he groaned “he don’t kiss you and he don’t stick his cock anywhere near you” Chibs growled as the ground rules was set before sighing “get the fuck in here” Chibs ordered, the door opening and shutting quickly, Tig stopping when he saw you sit in Chibs’ lap, naked as the day you were born with without a doubt Chibs’ cock buried inside of you, his hands on your hips. You raised a finger and used it to signal him to come over, Tig nearly stumbling over his own feet, mouth open in utter disbelief as he looked you over, making you giggle a little, your eyes moving to the chair in the corner and Tig stumbled towards it, mouth still half open as he practically fell into the seat. “Are you okay with this?” you asked softly to Chibs, your smile gone and he smirked “you like it?” he asked and you nodded shyly, making him smirk, his hands moving your hips in a swirl and you whined quietly at the feel of his cock in you, excitement bubbling in your chest at his answer. You looked over at Tig with a grin, tilting your head at him “you okay with this, Tiggy bear?” you asked sweetly and he nodded quickly “yeah, I’m, like, hard already-”

“No kissing between us” you laid out the first rule, lifting yourself up a little before slowly sinking back down onto Chibs’ cock, his hands gripping your waist tighter as you held eye contact with Tig, whining quietly as you slowly, very slowly, bounced on Chibs’ lap “you can touch, but I’m not doing anything with your cock. You okay with that?” you asked softly, a genuine concern behind your words and he nodded, the tent in his pants more than obvious and you giggled lightly, feeling excited and even more turned on. It felt amazing, having two guys who wanted you so badly, any insecurities were thrown right out the door with a boot in the ass to go with it. Tig had probably never undone his pants that quickly, taking his already hard cock out as he watched you bounce in Chibs’ lap, excitement running through you and you unintentionally clenched around Chibs, making him grunt quietly as he helped you bounce up and down. “You really do like this” Chibs pondered quietly and you blushed, looking down at him with a pleading look in your eyes and Chibs smirked, moving his hand from your hip to your throat “you like this, you like bein’ watched like a whore” he muttered to you and you whimpered, biting your lip as you began to bounce harder on his lap, hands grasping at anything you could to feel grounded. Suddenly he pulled you off of him and you frowned, about to ask what was wrong, if he actually wasn’t okay with this, but he merely moved a little further back on the bed before twirling you around and pulling you back into his lap, guiding his cock into your hole and you moaned out, arching your back as you began to bounce again, now directly facing Tig and he groaned when he saw you, the way your breasts bounced, the flushed look on your face, your pussy getting wrecked by Chibs’ cock. “Fuck” he groaned, Chibs biting your shoulder softly, leaving marks before speaking up “hold her by her throat, she loves that shite” he ordered as he fucked up into you, your eyes rolling to the back of your head and Tig quickly got up, walking over and leaning down, grabbing you by your throat, tightening as he continued to jerk himself off, your eyes locked with Tig’s as Chibs continued to pound into you. Your hands reached for Tig, holding onto his shoulders as you frowned, mouth open as Chibs hit that special spot that always made you see stars. “You gonna cum, pretty girl? Hm? Gonna cum on his cock?” Tig asked and you nodded desperately, barely able to moan as Chibs abused your hole entirely “he asked ya a question” Chibs scolded, gently slapping the inside of your thigh from behind and you yelped and clenched tightly around him as you nodded again “yes… Yes” you whimpered breathlessly and Tig nodded “you are, aren’t you? You’re gonna cum all over his cock while you watch me jerk off to you, hm? You like being watched like a whore?” he asked and you shut your eyes tightly as the knot in your stomach tightened even more, Tig’s grip around your throat tightening, his own hand jerking faster and faster, beads of sweat on his forehead as he watched you, completely enamoured with you while Chibs pounded into you. “Please please please” you begged mindlessly, too cockdrunk to make sense, all you knew was that the pressure in your gut was building and you felt the knot snap, your eyes shut tightly as you moaned loudly, Chibs’ cock pushed out of you as your orgasm soaked the floor and down Chibs’ thighs and cock, your body twitching as both men was completely in shock, Chibs already back inside you, continuing to pound into you until he held you down by your hips, both men cumming. Chibs came inside of you, painting your insides white, his cock pushing it even further into you while Tig came on your stomach, his grip on your throat loosening and you panted for air, leaning back against Chibs with closed eyes and sweat covering you. “Holy shit” Tig muttered as he stepped back and took in the scene, your juices all over, Chibs’ cock still inside of you and you panting hard as you still twitched while Chibs ran his hands up and down your sides.

“That… was…” you trailed off tiredly and Chibs smirked with amusement “aye” he agreed, kissing your shoulder before looking up at Tig, giving him a nod and Tig nodded back, panting heavily as he tucked himself away “shit…” he muttered, already hardening and Chibs noticed, shaking his head “no. Go” he ordered softly and Tig nodded, a large grin on his face as he left, peeking down the hallway before scurrying off to his own dorm room to clean up. “You’ve made a mess, love” Chibs teased lightly and you hummed, opening your eyes to look down, only for them to widen “holy shit… Oh my god! The carpet a-and the bed and what the hell?!”

“It’s a little thing called squirting, love” Chibs teased, reaching around your front and down to between your legs, rubbing circles on your clit and you winced and flinched, feeling more overstimulated than you’d ever felt, panting heavily as you moved to get up but Chibs held you in place “don’t tell me you’ve never done tha’ before?”

“No!” you admitted with a groan “fuck, I bet it’s hell to clean up” you muttered and Chibs laughed against your skin “don’t worry ‘bout that, I know a kid who’d happily clean tha’ up.”

“Tig?”

“Nah, some kid. Not the brightest bulb in the chandelier” he admitted, gently biting your neck and you shivered, moaning quietly. “Come on, love, let’s get you cleaned up” he muttered against your sweaty skin, helping you off of his cock before picking you up bridal style and carrying you into the bathroom. “Thanks, baby” you murmured tiredly and Chibs chuckled “which part?”

“All of it. Everything” you admitted, looking up at him with soft eyes “you didn’t have to do that… if you don’t want to, just say it. I-I mean I know I kinda thrust you into it but I want you to know that you can always say no, no matter what, I won’t mind… I’d rather not do it than have you hating me…” you admitted and Chibs frowned as he put you down, sitting you down on the toilet and kneeling in front of you “darlin’, if I didn’t want it, I wouldn’t have done it” he pointed out and you frowned, nodding a little “you’ll tell me no if you don’t, right? Please tell me that… and please trust that I would never, ever, do anything-”

“Aye, I know that, love. Don’t doubt it for a second” Chibs promised and you nodded with worry “just-... talk to me, okay? Tell me ‘no’ or ‘maybe’ or ‘I don’t know’... okay?”

“Aye, I promise” he stated with a soft smile and you nodded “I’m-... trusting you that you mean that” you admitted and he nodded, kissing your sweaty forehead “having you squirt all over my lap is worth pretty much anything” he teased and you blushed and looked down, much to his amusement as he got up to get the shower ready for you.

[rosazoldyckk]

-Yandere Chrollo X Reader-

⚠️warning⚠️mentions of obsessive actions, stalking, breaking an entry.

Fandom: Hunter X Hunter. Character(s): Chrollo Lucilfer

A/N: in honour of 100 reblogs🥳🥳

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Is this love?

The overpowering feeling that drives one to the brink of insanity. The sensation of absolute euphoria prickling at the flesh. To dream of drowning in one's utter admiration, submerged in their welcoming warmth. To be all they see, the only one they trust. To be so close that you could sink your teeth into their skin, their lips beckoning your presence. Lost within the poisonous gaze of one another, the sweet breaths that slip past their lips. Love, that's what they say it is, yet could Chrollo truly call this feeling love? No, it cannot be, it's something more perhaps frightening, intriguing...

Dare it be... an obsession?

If it means Chrollo is guaranteed their endorsement, or even an ounce of their recognition, their time; would you call it that? The overpowering selfish desire to monopolize every last drop of their days as each second leaves them more hopeless than the last.Clockling each and every second you two spend apart...a bit obsessive wouldn't you agree?

Desiring to be lacerated open and stitched together, sharing both blood and skin. Lips locked with no intention of breaking from one another. Longing to sink into the endless depths of hell if it means you'll belong to him and him only. Screaming out hysterics such as "You are mine! No one can have you!" or "You belong to me now!"

But sadly Chrollo cannot.

For you still remain unaware of his everlasting love for you.

Though Chrollo did wonder, what has been stopping you two? Was it the fear of rejection? abandonment? The undeniable fear that due to Chrollo's reputation you may be...taken away from him?!

For Chrollo even imagining such a cursed thought would send him to the brink of madness. He'd tear off his own fingernails if such a thing were to happen. His blood boiling with complete rage.

You must understand that he needs you in order to live. Don't you see that he'd get down on his hands and knees and kiss the very ground you walked on? Must he rip out his heart and lay it on a bed of roses for you to acknowledge his undying emotions for you?

Oh well. As irresponsibly naive as you have been, Chrollo has waited long enough, he is growing impatient of your ignorance. If he waits even one more second he just might rip his eyes out. For months now the seemingly 'patient' man had been stalking watching you, observing every single thing about you, eliminating any distractions for you, doing all that he could to understand something what he may be feeling towards you.

Already this night was going way better than it had started. Chrollo wasn't surprised though, not when he had found his way back to you before the night was even half over. Things couldn't be going anything but great when he was standing watch on your windowsill, looking into your bedroom and watching as you slept.

Although, Chrollo's night hadn't begun with such promise.

No, on the contrary, he had started his night so far from you—much too far, in his opinion. Hunched over at the bar, Chrollo had been nursing a heavy glass of whiskey, tipsily sipping the glass as he gazed at you across the bar. Ignoring the chatter of other drunk bastards scattering around him. Chrollo guzzled the rest of his whiskey, his gaze never leaving your dancing form as you chatted happily with your friends. Chrollo wanted to memorize every inch of you—until he could pull them you from his mind whenever he needed the comfort of your presence.

You looked so impossibly adorable, what with your tranquil expression and your hypnotic voice. Chrollo couldn't help but wonder how it might feel to have you so at peace in his arms, with your steady and gentle breaths pushing against him. He wondered how it might feel to have your hands so securely wrapped in his own, with the softness of your skin soothing his.

Chrollo's fingers scrape against the table as your fingers touch the forearm of the man next to you. A charming smile on your face as you leaned in close to the strange man; as if there was some beautiful secret you had to share. Chrollo watched as your head dipped backward in laughter. Your laugh, a beautiful sound, that echoed through his mind despite the fact he couldn't hear you. But all Chrollo could do was stand at his table and watch on, his teeth clenching and grinding.

"Excuse me sir." The bartender interrupted, snapping Chrollo out of his thoughts. "Are you planning on paying for your your drinks anytime soon, the bar closes in an hour?"

"I'll pay when the hours up then," Chrollo growled as he took another sip from his glass, not wanting to be distracted from you. "Or at least when that gorgeous person leaves."

The bartender rolled his eyes as he tried looking for what he was seeing. So what if the guy wasn't going to pay? Heck, he was practically getting payed peanuts. Just don't cause a fuss 45 minutes before closing.

"What's the point of being in love with someone if you aren't going to do anything about it?"

Chrollo froze as the man walked away whistling, though not in anger as he had expected. No, the bartenders pointed question did not enrage him, although he wished that it did. Instead, all it did was drain him. Rooted to the floor, all that Chrollo could hear was those words echoing in his mind, piercing his heart with each painful repetition. When he was finally able to move again, which felt like it took hours but in truth only took about two seconds. Chrollo let go of the glass and looked back at where you were standing, only to see nobody there anymore.

After running out of the bar, Chrollo hadn't stopped to think about where he would go. He just needed to find you, to get away from the questions that had seemingly been pried out from his own heart. All he wanted was to move closer to you, he didn't care where he was moving towards. Perhaps then he should have expected—or perhaps he did expect—that when he allowed his instincts to take over, the only place he could have ended up was where you were.

And that left Chrollo outside your bedroom, his face practically pressed against your window. The moment that he had reached you, had first caught sight of you curled up under your covers, he felt his pounding heart begin to calm, felt the burning of his blood subside. You were a god/goddess to him, his salvation, his mantra, his church. The only one Chrollo could ever lay his eyes upon. Yeah, he might have a weakness for you, but he still has the ability to control himself. So long as he could take these moments, ones where all he could see was you, Chrollo knew that he could keep things under control. He just had to wait until he had gotten his fill of you and then move on. You were just a short-term craving, he told himself, one that would disappear soon enough, even if he ended up having to wait another two months or more for it to do so.

At least, that was what he had hoped.

But as Chrollo gazed at you through that fogged-up window, his hunger for you refused to lessen. No matter how long he looked or how closely he stared, that ever-present desire to melt the glass that separated you from him did not budge an inch, staying firmly front and center where Chrollo could not ignore it. His yearning for you, to feel your soft skin brush against his and to have you wrapped securely in his arms, did not weaken. No, it only grew stronger, until Chrollo was trembling at the sight of you, trembling at the effort it took to hold himself back.

*"What's the point of being in love with someone if you aren't going to do anything about it?"*

As Chrollo clenched his fists with all of the strength that holding back his most basic instincts required, that haunting question once again resounded through his ears, his mind, his heart. What was the point of holding himself back, he asked himself. It wasn't making him any stronger, Chrollo realised with a look towards his shaking hands. And it sure as hell wasn't making him any happier. Why not just give in then? Why not just let himself indulge in you then?

Before he even realized that he had come to a decision, Chrollo found himself clutching the lock on your window tightly, using one of his nen abilities to burn it until it completely melted away. Unable to take any longer now that you were so close, he pushed your window open, clambering through it with all of the silence he could muster while rushing so much. From the moment that he stepped into your room, that he was able to breathe in your scent, your presence, Chrollo felt himself be soothed. But still, it wasn't enough. He couldn't turn back now when he was so close.

"Oh god, fuck it," Chrollo sighed, climbing into bed beside you as slowly he could force himself. When you did not so much as stir, Chrollo had no choice but to wrap his arms around your waist and pull you close.

And with you finally enveloped in his arms, where he could sample the taste and touch of you as much as he wanted, and oh dear god was it glorious. He was a dangerous sinner that no recognition of the taste of heaven that you so mercifully provided.

After tonight nothing is going to be the same ever again. He will make you love him, he'll make you so obsessed with him that it will be impossible to live without him, you will need Chrollo just as much as he needed you. After all, you are the beginning and end of who he is. You are everything he could ever care for and more. He would praise every hair on your head, every breath you take, every glance you give in his direction. You fill his mind to the point that it's difficult for him to focus, seeing you in the dark when he closes his eyes. He feels himself reaching out to your shadow. He just wants you. Chrollo wants you. Chrollo needs you.

Deep down he knew he shouldn't have perused you in such a way, especially with the reputation he has made for himself, but, when you smile, even if it isn't directly towards him, he knew he had to protect something so... fragile. In his eyes you were fragile. Something so soft, so breakable, and didn't have any self-protection.

And what better way to protect you than to follow you, to hold you, to make sure you were safe. Everywhere.

[unclewaynemunson]

Read from the beginning | Read on ao3

Eddie finally manages to let it go. Truly, he does. Whenever he and Karen Wheeler accidentally cross paths, he doesn't stare at her, follow her, or try to strike up a conversation with her; he doesn't do any of that inappropriate shit anymore. He keeps his distance, gives her no more attention than a polite nod in passing. He keeps wondering, sometimes, if she knows who he is – but he mostly manages to shove that thought to the far back of his mind, where it belongs.

When Nancy starts dating Grade A Douchebag Steve Harrington, he suppresses the hell out of any lingering Concerned Big Brother feelings and he doesn't spare the two of them a second glance whenever he walks past them in the Hawkins High hallways. And even when Barbara Holland goes missing, he doesn't fantasize about being a hero or a shoulder to cry on for this girl who has no attachment to him in any way. In another life, he'd be the one comforting her or helping her look for her best friend. But in this life, he's just some guy who has nothing to do with her business.

He does think it's odd that both of the Wheelers' best friends have gone missing within a few days of each other; but hey, what does he know? It's not his business, so he stays out of it. He stays far away from Will Byers' funeral and doesn't think about this other life, the life in which he'd help little Mike put on a suit and dry his tears. He merely lets out a relieved breath when he sees the two boys reunited about a month later, both giggling about some private joke with matching innocent smiles on their faces.

He doesn't fantasize about punching Steve Harrington in the face when the douchebag drags Nancy's name through the mud on the front of the Hawk and he doesn't reach out to her when she seems to grow smaller and paler over the course of the months that follow with still no news about Barbara. He doesn't even talk to her after the news breaks that Barbara is dead. He knows his place. He has learned to keep his distance.

Which is why he's taken by utter surprise when someone knocks on the door of the trailer one night and he's suddenly face-to-face with none other than Nancy Wheeler.

She doesn't exactly look like the little miss perfect he's come to know from the glimpses he caught of her over the years at school or in town. She looks... Well, she looks distressed, that's probably the best word for it. Her resemblance to Eddie has grown over the years, especially since she started sporting curls and her girlish features made way for something more grown-up. She looks like the loss of her best friend has forced her to mature quicker than she would've if her life was still the picture-perfect suburban dream it should've been. It suddenly strikes Eddie, when he looks into her eyes for the first time in years, how much more similar they've become exactly. They're not as different anymore as they once were. They both know more grief than most of their classmates. They're both haunted, in a way. They've both been forced to grow up when they weren't quite ready for it yet.

'Wheeler,' he says, keeping his voice as distant and careless as he can, complemented with an indifferent nod to make the whole thing as convincing as possible.

'Can I come in?' Nancy asks him.

He's got to say he's surprised. It's not an uncommon thing to have people knocking on his door at odd hours, shielded by the dark and with varying levels of desperation in their eyes while they ask Eddie for whatever it is they need to calm themselves down from whatever demons they've got going on. But it's not exactly something he was expecting from Nancy Wheeler, even though he supposes she has plenty of reasons to need some help calming herself down after the loss she suffered last year.

He knows he should keep his distance. He remembers the promise he made himself, for his own good, more than a year and a half ago. But the look in Nancy's eyes is making his heart weak.

'Sure,' he says before he can stop himself. With a bow he opens the door further and steps aside to let her in.

She looks a little lost, standing in the middle of the trailer with her perfectly styled hair and expensive-looking clothes.

'Whaddaya want?' he asks when she says nothing. 'Just some weed? I'm guessing something not too strong, you don't strike me like a particularly experienced person – do you even know how to roll? I can do it for you, but I'll have to ask for a fee of –'

'I'm not here to buy anything,' Nancy interrupts him. 'I – I just need to talk with you.'

'Talk with me?' he repeats, confused. ''Bout what?'

'About my mom.'

The implications of that simple confession hang heavy in the air between them. It's quiet for an endless amount of seconds, the two of them merely caught in each other's equally wide-eyed gazes.

'You knew, didn't you?' Nancy asks finally. 'That's why you were, like, stalking me back in my freshman year.'

He still doesn't know what to say; the only thing he can do is nod slowly.

'Can we talk?' she asks.

He sinks down on the ratty old couch with the faded cushions, which Nancy seems to take as an invitation for her to take Uncle Wayne's worn-down but insanely comfortable armchair.

Never in a million years would he have expected things to play out this way. Oh sure, he's imagined it, Nancy sitting across from him in the exact same chair she's sitting now; he's imagined it countless times. But he never actually thought it would happen. And certainly not like this.

For fuck's sake, just when he managed to let it go, it all comes crashing back... He doesn't know what to think, doesn't even know what to feel right now.

'Did she tell you?' he blurts out.

A humorless laugh escapes from Nancy's mouth.

'God, no,' she says. 'I think she's planning to take it to the grave with her. I snooped around in her stuff.' She doesn't seem too ashamed about it. 'I met this P.I. a few months ago, when I was trying to find Barbara. He said some weird things, about my mom. That she was hiding shit, keeping secrets. Johnathan kept telling me to let it go, but I couldn't, so I started digging and...' She sighs. 'I never expected this. But I just – I needed to meet you. To talk with you.'

She seems to hesitate for a moment, biting her lip. 'I'm so sorry she did that to you,' she finally says.

Eddie wants to tell her a million things: that it's not her fault, that she has nothing to say sorry for, that he's beyond glad she showed up at the trailer... But he feels pressure building behind his eyes and finds himself stunned, only able to blink rapidly in order to keep his tears from falling.

He tries to hide himself behind his hair and his hands, but there's no use; Nancy is smart, he won't be able to hide anything from her...

And suddenly she's right next to him on the couch, wrapping her thin arms around him and nudging him until he's leaning against her and his head is on her shoulder.

'It's okay, I'm here,' she murmurs, putting a hand in his hair.

And it's all so goddamn ridiculous. He can't count the times he imagined himself being the big brother this girl never had. All the times he dreamed about catching her when she'd fall, being a shoulder to cry on whenever she suffered loss or grief or pain in any way... Not once had he thought about a reunion where he would be the one breaking down in her arms like a fucking child.

But when he looks up, trying to get his breathing under control again, her face shows him a reflection of what he himself must look like: Nancy's lip is wobbling, her eyes are wet and traces of tears are visible on her cheeks.

It takes his breath away in a whole new way: he doesn't think he's ever cried with someone before. Sure, Wayne was never above comforting him when he was younger. But he's nineteen now, an adult who no longer lets his uncle see him when he cries. And no matter how close he is to Jeff, Freak and Gareth, he has never let any of them witness his tears.

'I'm really glad I found out,' Nancy says, her voice unsteady but sincere. 'You must've felt so lonely.'

Eddie can't help but return her tentative smile.

'Are you gonna confront your mom?' he asks.

Nancy sighs. 'I don't know,' she quietly confesses. 'I honestly don't think I can even look at her right now. I just – I needed to get away from there. I think I need some time to process all of it.'

Eddie almost bursts out into unbelieving laughter with what he's about to propose.

'Wanna make this a sleepover, then?' He makes a broad arm gesture towards their surroundings. 'I mean, we don't exactly have much here, but my uncle's at work all night and I think I got enough room in my bed for two. If you want to.'

Nancy gladly takes his offer, borrows one of Eddie's old shirts that don't fit him anymore, and crawls under the covers beside him. It all feels more than a little bit surreal; like Eddie will wake up the next day to a cold and empty bed, and the sisterly love he's been yearning for will turn out to have been nothing but a dream all along, slipping through his fingers yet another time.

But, surreal or not, they keep talking until well into the night. They're lying in mirroring fetal positions, facing each other from their own pillow. They let words rapidly stream out of their mouths as they desperately try to catch up on seventeen years of not being together before the sun comes up, in a race against the clock. Maybe Nancy feels the utter outlandishness of this whole situation as well, making it feel like they'll only ever get this night, instead of a whole lifetime to properly get to know each other. As if everything they tell each other will be gone by the time they'll wake up the next day, and they have to cram as many words into it as possible.

Finally, Eddie can stop imagining what it would've been like to grow up in the big house on Maple Street. Nancy tells him all about her parents' loveless marriage, her annoying little brother and spoiled little sister; about what it's like to eat in the spotless kitchen and play in the neatly maintained garden. About how she feels like that picture-perfect life has its fingers wrapped around her throat and has been slowly choking her for years.

She tells him about Barb: about how she's been feeling as if she's walking around with a gaping, throbbing wound in her chest ever since she lost her. About the guilt that's still consuming her more than a year later. About how she wishes every single day that she had done things differently on the night Barb disappeared.

She also tells him about her mother: about how she resents her sometimes, for settling for a marriage devoid of love and willingly inhabiting the cage of being a housewife. About how much she looks down on her for caring too much about things like tablecloths or apple pies or smudges on freshly cleaned windows – and about how much she loves her despite it all, for knowing how to listen when Nancy needs her to, and for encouraging Nancy to become something unlike herself. She confesses to him how fiercely she hates her right now, for abandoning a baby and keeping that from her family. She tells Eddie how she feels like she never truly knew her.

And he tells her things, too. He tells her what it was like growing up as the son of Clyde Munson. What it was like to be a child without a mother, to have nothing but a father raging about some bitch whenever he'd ask questions about this mystery woman who brought him into this world. How he could tell that his father still loved her, despite everything, because he refused to give up her secret.

He tells her what it was like when his father got locked up for grand theft auto and arson, what it was like to come and live with Wayne. He tells her how he found out who his mother was; how he ended up in the Wheelers' yard on the night he learned the truth, and how he could never stop staring at any of the Wheelers during the all the years that followed. He tells her how he let his obsession grow big enough to make him fail his senior year. He even tells her the one thing he's never told anyone before, not even Jeff: that he feels guilty towards Uncle Wayne every single day. The supply of love he gives to Eddie is endless, and yet it will never be enough: he'll always keep standing in the shadow of this fantasy of a family.

But he doesn't only talk about his messed-up family. He also tells her about good things: about his friends, his band, and his other passion projects. When he finds himself talking a mile a minute about D&D, Nancy smiles and tells him it must be a family trait, because her little brother is equally obsessed with that game.

They talk until their throats are sore; until Nancy's eyes are falling shut every two seconds and she can't stop yawning.

He has so many things to tell her, so many things to ask her, so many lost moments to make up for. He understands all too well that they're both almost adults and that there's no possibility to turn back the clock and pretend like they're little kids again. There's no way to get back the versions of them that might play hide-and-seek on the street in front of their house, or egg each other on to see who can swing the highest in the playground. Those are the memories they'll never get to make. But they're here. Against everything he ever expected, he's having a sleepover with his little sister. They're sharing secrets while wrapped up in the same blanket. They're only properly meeting each other for the first time, but they're already connecting like they've known each other all their lives. And, against all odds, they get to build something neither of them ever thought they'd have.

[lizzybeth1986]

Reader Fatigue

Book: The Royal Romance

Rating: G

Pairing: Hana Lee x Kiara Theron

Word Count: 2, 501 words

Summary: Over a year after she has settled in with her wife in Cordonia, why does Hana not feel the same joy when she reads??

Tagging @hanaleeappreciationweek and @sazanes for HLAW Day 3: Bookworm, @choicesficwriterscreations for FoTW and LGBTQ Archive, and @choicesmaychallenge24 for the theme "Athena: Wisdom".

Three months.

Hana stirs in her bed, frowning drowsily at the abandoned book on her bedside table. The thought is small, fleeting, a tiny grain of doubt that could be swept away in the wind. Yet it persists, in the harsh, too-bright sunlight streaming in from the French windows in her bedroom, reminding her that it's mid-afternoon; the time she typically would use to enjoy a cup of tea and a light read.

Hana allows herself a small smile as the figure next to her groans and inches a little closer to her, her arms still wrapped loosely around her waist. It's usually Kiara who gets up earlier from their afternoon siestas, teasing her over wanting to read "when your eyes aren't even half-open yet, chérie!"

On weekends, Kiara would encourage her to sleep in a little more. She knew Hana would appreciate the opportunity to binge-read cover-to-cover - perhaps re-read if she really liked the material.

It's been three months now since she's been able to complete a chapter, much less a book.

Hana stretches, catlike, before blindly groping for the book she'd left abandoned on the bedside table. The Crown and the Flame. It's an abridged version, one she'd carried from her childhood home and always found herself devouring in less than two hours...yet somehow she hasn't been able to move past Dominic Hunter's account of his first encounter with a young Princess Kenna at a Beltane festival.

Hana wishes she know how - when! - it had come to this.

When she got married to Kiara last year, it was almost as if the floodgates had opened on everything. Whatever Esther had predicted in that patisserie in Paris - maybe you're fated to be a prim, girly girl adventurer who has unknown depths just waiting to be found! - seemed to be on the cusp of becoming a reality.

Back home in Shanghai, almost every morsel of literature Hana managed to devour was a guilty pleasure; she'd hidden books in secret corners, savoured words and worlds unknown underneath the comforting cocoon of a blanket, uttered half-truths to keep the more scandalous material out of her parents' hands, weaved happy endings and bright futures for favourite couples and charactes, long after she had put the books down.

Hana wonders now if half the fun, back then, was in the secrecy. If half the comfort had come from sharing space with Father and Mother, and knowing they would never truly be able to capture the joy she experienced from reading or make it their own. There was a freedom in that - and for Hana, any freedom would be a luxury to be savoured, like a bonbon from a visiting relative, savoured bite by tiny bite just so the pleasure could last a bit longer.

That shift in circumstances when she married Kiara, had been overwhelming. And perhaps the way she had just gone rogue the minute Kiara gifted her her own personal library, was to be expected.

No rules, no restrictions, no restraints on what she could or couldn't read. The cocoon of her blankets gave way to the vast expanse of her library, with its wide welcoming spaces, its winding staircases, its comforting, velvet seats that allowed her to sink into them, whenever she felt like having a reading marathon.

(Which was often).

Hana had spent so much of her childhood looking over her shoulder as she devoured her books, that the idea of just reading whatever the hell she wanted felt overwhelming. But she grabbed it. With both hands. And embraced the prospect. With all her heart. Hours and hours perusing over every possible scrap of reading material she could find - history, mythology, mystery fiction, true crime, even gothic horror (which she didn't expect to wholeheartedly love the way she does now!).

Whenever the two of them got even a sliver of free time, Kiara would come to expect that Hana would suggest sneaking into the library first.

(For a reading session? To ravish each other against the bookshelves, sending an entire pile of French Renaissance literature tumbling to the floor? Both possibilities held equal appeal)

Hana would even give the occasional gossip rag the once-over, though the abysmal editing and the awful typos made her grit her teeth on occasion.

It was glorious. Novels, poetry, essay collections, her favourite mythological retellings. There was nothing Hana wouldn't read; this library was her oyster. Some evenings when Kiara came home later than Hana did, she wouldn't even bother searching anywhere else in their manor - she'd just make a beeline to the library.

That was a year ago.

Wearily, Hana places a bookmark (handmade, laminated, with pressed dried flowers she had selected herself) on the very page she'd opened, letting out a soft sigh. It's almost as if - after the exhilaration of reading whenever and whatever she liked - her brain has decided it's had enough, and has shut down.

In the first two weeks of this strange predicament, Hana had tried to put it down to different things. Overwork, or the aftermath of juggling all her new roles and all the new skills she'd managed to learn. Perhaps her reading has suffered because she doesn't have the time.

But she knows in her heart that that isn't quite true. Hana isn't sure she has been as free in her life as she has been these past few months. Her calendar has been freed up considerably; she's managed to have more romantic dates with Kiara in the past month than they'd had all year. It can't be a lack of time or even general fatigue, because these days she doesn't do much else that taxes the mind.

No - she has the time. She has the resources - thanks to Kiara, far too much of the resources. And there's no question that she has the desire to keep reading. She just can't ever bring herself to finish.

As she places the book, dully, back on the bedside table, Hana feels a slender arm snaking its way around her waist, a chin nestling against her shoulder with a murmur of approval.

"Mon ange," Kiara whispers, her voice rough, grainy, deep, like freshly-ground coffee. She plants a kiss on Hana's shoulder, lacing their fingers together.

Lazily, Hana turns in Kiara's arms and moves her hands so she can lightly finger her curls, marvelling at how soft they feel in her hands. Kiara takes a long, hard look at Hana as her vision clears, probably wondering what she's hiding. Hana wishes her wife wasn't so good at guessing when something doesn't feel right.

She tries hard to school her features into something more neutral - more fitting for someone who just woke up and wasn't ruminating over something she has lost - but Kiara has never been that easy to fool.

"Everything's okay?" Kiara says, "You've been looking a bit...off for the past few weeks."

Hana looks down, pretending to busy herself with the crocheted fringes of the blanket. Could she laugh it off? Claim that her wife is probably overthinking, that she is worrying over nothing?

Because in the grand scheme of things, it is nothing. She's been doing well. She's never been happier than she is now - she has a home, a purpose, a wife she is madly in love with, passions that she's never felt more free to pursue!

She curses herself as she begins to feel that tell-tale burn in her throat. Struggling to read a book shouldn't affect her this much.

She looks up at Kiara, and almost begins to lie. But Hana knows she's not the best of liars, that most times her eyes give her away. Kiara's fingers are already moving towards the corners of her eyes, brushing the teardrops away.

Hana sniffles. "It's silly."

"Humour me," Kiara nudges her gently. "I don't care how stupid it sounds."

Hana sighs, and tells her. Midway through it all, Kiara props up two pillows against the bedstand and gets them to sit up, Hana safely ensconced in her arms. She tells Kiara everything. How much joy she'd had every time she'd picked up a book. How that joy would spring up double fold if it was about something she barely understood. How easy it was, a year ago, to speed-read the first time, then savour re-reads. How - whenever she felt a little bit naughty - she'd read a book backwards, from the last chapter to the first; giggling as she came to the beginning of the book knowing how it would end.

How...of late...she can find no fun, no joy, in turning to the next page - much less the end of a book.

"It's a stupid, stupid thing to worry about," Hana rails on, "I can just imagine my people at Krysanthe looking at me and shaking their heads and thinking 'oh, the Duchess and her first-world-problems'."

Kiara laughs gently, snuggling Hana closer to her. She passes a small handkerchief to her free hand. "That's all of us, with our people. And they're not completely wrong - of course our lives have always been far better and easier than theirs...most times through their labour. But that doesn't mean that you have to ignore things that confuse or distress you, ma moité." Her hand caresses Hana's shoulder in an attempt to give comfort. "And learning that a pastime so beloved no longer gives you the joy you always got from it...is bound to confuse you."

Hana blows her nose into the handkerchief. "I think a part of it is that...I'm beginning to wonder if I was lying to myself about loving reading books, this whole time."

She takes a deep breath, running her hands back and forth over the soft blanket for comfort. "And if I did...what else have I been lying to myself about? What else will I find I don't like, now that my parents can't dictate the way I live my life? Fashion? Poetry? Music??" Hana takes in a deep breath, almost shocked at the things she's revealing because she hardly ever allowed herself to dwell upon any of this before, much less say it out loud. "What if there's nothing that I liked that I can't put down to parental pressure? What if I keep unraveling, and peeling off, everything I thought I was and find that I'm...well...nothing?"

For one moment, Kiara's eyes seem to search her face, frowning deeply. Then her body goes slack, only her hands enfolding her in a tight, comforting hug. She sighs softly against Hana's hair. "Oh, Hana."

For several minutes, Kiara says nothing - just cradles Hana in her arms, rocking her back and forth, her hands moving in a light caress up and down her spine. When she feels Hana go calmer, she moves her hands to her face, cupping her cheeks.

"What you're facing right now...that's something almost every book lover will have gone through, sometime or other. Especially if their passion was something they had to keep a secret, and they suddenly find that they're no longer bound by any rules or restrictions."

Hana raises her eyes to Kiara's face. "Even you?"

Kiara laughs. "I'm not exactly as passionate about reading as you are, but I've seen that fatigue in Baba often. And I've faced that often with my translation work too. It's what happens when you haven't learnt yet how to regulate your passions. You do too much, you overtax your mind. And maybe this phase...maybe it's your brain and your body screaming for you to find a little bit of balance, darling."

It's now Hana's turn to frown. "What do you mean?"

Kiara's eyes dart upwards, in that way it does whenever she is pondering deeply over the best way to convey a thought. And then she suddenly smiles, almost as if she's found the perfect way to get it across. "You do love chocolate, don't you?"

Hana takes a long, hard look at Kiara's face, then bursts into delighted laughter. "Well, it's impossible to argue about or deny that!"

"What if you gave yourself unlimited access to it...no restrictions, no holds barred, allowing yourself to have as much of it as you've wanted all the time? Would it always taste the same?"

Gazing into her wife's face, Hana marvels at how perfect this analogy is. How fitting. "Of course not. I'd maybe even grow a little sick of it at some point!"

"Does that mean you'd been lying to yourself about loving it this whole time?"

Hana throws back her head and laughs, a full-throated joyful sound this time. "You could even say I'd probably get back to remembering how wonderful it tasted if I spent a little time away from it."

Grinning, Kiara bumps her forehead playfully into Hana's. "Only a bookworm would understand a metaphor that quickly. I wasn't even halfway through explaining that."

Hana slips her hands into Kiara's curls again, just the way she knows her wife likes it. She lets out a watery giggle. "That's very nice to hear."

Kiara exhales and shakes her head. "So much has changed for you, Hana. And it isn't your fault that you found freedom in a thing you loved and pushed yourself into it so much. It's natural for someone who was expected to live her entire life on someone else's terms." She holds one of Hana's hands tight within her own. "When we got married, you approached your reading the way a child would approach a shop full of bonbons for the very first time. Now you're learning the more adult way of doing it - enjoy it... but never too much all at once."

Smiling, her eyes a tiny bit watery, Hana gently cups her wife's chin. "So wise, for one so young," she teases gently.

Kiara playfully punches her arm, pursing her lips in muffled laughter. "Stop sounding like my Baba and act more like my mrati."

In higher spirits now, Hana gives Kiara a quick kiss, then makes a move to get off the bed. "All this talk of chocolate is making me hungry. What do you say I make us a mug each of my special hot chocolate, now that it's almost teatime?"

Kiara smiles, sighing in relief. These are not the words of a woman who is trying to move away, unsuccessfully, from thoughts that disturb her, or an attempt to change the subject. Just a sign that her intrusive, self-flagellation thoughts are moving in a different direction. A better direction.

She nods, eagerly. "Hayati," she says, giving her wife a saucy grin, "when have I ever said no to your hot chocolate?"

--

Translations:

Ma moité - French for "my other half"

Hayati - Darija/Arabic for "my life"

Mon ange - French for "my angel"

Baba, Mrati - Moroccan Darija terms for addressing one's father and wife, respectively

A/N: Post the pandemic I've been struggling a lot with my reading, and had a lot of the same questions my Hana had running in my head. I guess this fic was an attempt to make sense of that, but using Hana's post-marriage context as a springboard.

[yonomori-rei]

Is this...the end?

A/N: Hey all! Y.Rei here! I felt that my last angst fic about Chuuya wasn’t that good (although I did get many likes for that so thank you!) so I decided to give another try with our lovely Agency’s resident idealist! I think this scenario will be much better - I genuinely prefer angst where the character caused their own misery…sorry, sorry, I’ll stop blabbering and let you get on with reading!

BTW: Chuuya fic link is here for anyone who wants to check it out: Wake up!

Pairing: Kunikida x Reader, Dazai x Reader (briefly mentioned at the end - I couldn’t help myself…)

Genre: Angst

Content warning: Arguing, swearing (in the bonus story), STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPID Kuni - kinda mean to…

Synopsis: Kunikida is so caught up with work that he forgets about his own girlfriend. “But perhaps, the end is for the best…” that insecure voice whispered at the back of his head

Your eyelids are drooping as you struggle to stay awake, sleep hell-bent on preventing you from seeing your boyfriend, Kunikida. You swear it’s been weeks - no months - since he last took you out on a date. Forget dates, it’s been eons since you even last saw him! All Kunikida seemed to know and care about was work; he left the house before you woke up and came back home hours after you fell asleep. For God’s sake, you don’t even know if he’s alive at this point!

The clock beside you reads 1 am, and finally finally the door swings open to reveal a dishevelled blonde carrying enough pieces of paper to make a paper version of your house. You blink at him hazily, successfully breaking free from the imprisoning clutches of sleep. Tiredly, you call out,

“Hey Doppo.”

He whips around in shock, staring at you sitting on the sofa, legs curled up underneath you as you lean against the armrest on your left. He opens his mouth, hesitating before asking,

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

Your heart plummets at his question. Was he not eager to see you, to talk to you? It’s been so long since you last conversed properly, and you don’t even get a “how are you?” or a “I missed you”? Plastering a fake smile that was too bright on your face, you half-heartedly say,

“Wasn’t tired. Besides, I wanted to see you. It’s been quite long since we last spoke.”

He simply hums, barely listening to you as he balances the papers in one hand as he opens the door with the other, walking away without any more words. Tears swell up in your eyes at his callous dismissal, as you attempt to silence the beginnings of your sob with your hands. Does he want you gone? There used to be a time when he would rush into your arms, showering you with love, whispering how much he could spend every second of his day with you instead of babysitting his annoying coworker.  Was all of that a grand lie?

You shakily get up, knowing you have to confront him. It was now or never, but as you walk to your bedroom with a heart of steel, your boyfriend is nowhere to be seen. Frantically, you search for him, momentary distress gripping your heart like a relentless vice, fearing he has left you. Yet, another part of you shatters when you see him in his office, pouring over the documents spread out in an organised mess.

And just like that, your fear evaporates, and instead, anger takes control over you, forcing you to storm into the room and swipe the documents off of his desk in a frenzy. Alarmed, Kunikida jumps out of his chair, exclaiming angrily,

“(Y/N)! What has gotten into you?! You’re acting like that annoying waste of bandages!”

The dam inside you breaks, as endless tears pour down your cheeks, but Kunikida stands there like an emotionless robot. Your boyfriend would have immediately rushed to you, comforted you, but the man before you frowns in displeasure as he utters in frustration, 

“Look at this mess! I should be the one crying, not you! Now, I have to clean this mess up, reorganise, and sort this problem out! And I’m already behind schedule!”

“W-what?! That’s what you care about?” You can barely register how hysterical you sound over the roaring sound of blood in your ears, heart thumping noisily as you furiously wipe away your tears. He isn’t worth it. 

Exasperated, He asks,

“What is your problem (Y/N)?” I don’t get why -”

With a scoff, you cut him off,

“Oh, I don’t know. We haven’t talked to each other or even seen each other for months, and now that we have, you act like I don’t exist at all! Not to mention, when you’re not staying at work, you’re holed up in your office!”

He sighs, as if he’s dealing with a tantrum-throwing toddler, and calmly replies,

“(Y/N), you’re being unreasonable -”

“I’m being unreasonable? I’M BEING UNREASONABLE? How..HOW DARE YOU?! You’ve tested every last inch of my patience! I’ve been nothing but tolerant…waiting and waiting and waiting for you! I knew what I was getting myself into when I began dating you, Kunikida, but this…this is too far!”

Kunikida stalks closer to you, and for the first time in his eyes, you see anger…anger that is directed at you.

“No, that’s not fair. You know how important my job is. The Armed Detective Agency keeps the citizens of Yokohama safe, keeps you -”

“I know, okay? I understand, but I’m tired of being the second priority - no scratch that - I’m tired of being of no importance to you! I’m your girlfriend, but it feels like I’m a stranger. Do I even exist to you, Doppo? D-do you e-even care…care a-about me?”

You break down once more, and this confrontation is making it more and more obvious how far you’ve drifted apart from one another. Kunikida is too busy staring at his documents as you cry your eyes out, not even trying to comfort you. With a final burst of courage, you ask,

“What are you going to choose, Doppo? Work…or me?”

Softly, he replies,

“I cannot abandon Yokohama for fleeting desires of my own. I have ideals, and I must follow them through. I live for my ideals, and I cannot let distractions interfere with my work.”

You nod, trying not to register his hurtful words, shakily asking,

“Is this…the end?”

He gives you a barely audible, “yes”, sending you running to your room, attempting to muffle your sobs. It was over…It was over.

       —————————————————————————— 

By morning, you had already left, and Kunikida surveyed the bedroom - the one he had previously shared with you - noticing how it lacked your bubbly presence. He had to do it to keep you safe. How can he go into war against that Russian Demon, without knowing if he’ll make it back alive, whilst you wait for him at home? It was better to end things now. You deserve so much more than what he has to offer. A normal life, void of any danger, and a loving boyfriend who will pamper you like the princess you are.

So, why does it hurt all these years later, when he sees you on the street across from him, looking lovingly at his brown-haired coworker wrapped in bandages whilst holding a baby in your arms?

A/N: Thanks for reading! BTW, from now on, I’m gonna include a little bonus story at the end of my sadder posts. It’s usually gonna be a comedy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Yei (Pronounced “Yay” - cuz u guys are happy to get this, get it? nvm…) Bonus Story:

Paperine and Plasticine were two close friends. They always did EVERYTHING together! They play together, eat together, sleep together (NOT LIKE THAT U DIRTY-MINDED WHORES), and even *whispers* go to the toilet together…

However, this soon proved to be a problem…since they did EVERYTHING together, they began to have the same likes, same dislikes, same PERSONALITY, and so…they had no unique identity other than being each other’s shadow. They simply were two of the same, no differences at all, and if one talked about one of them, the other was automatically linked into the conversation.

Now, there was one difference internally…Plasticine was SHREWD. And Plasticine, wanting to be popular so that he can have a shot at scoring the popular girl - Scissorine - decided to step up his game and become the “cool” guy.

He began learning pranks online, researching in depth and creating an A1 poster about pranks, and decided to prank his ONE, TRUE friend and share the videos online! *le gasp, the betrayal* So, he started his game of chess by licking ice cream off the floor, and because Paperine copied everything, he did the same, and Plasticine recorded this. Only…he forgot to press the record button…whoops! 

No worries, he can always try again! And then…he ate pie inside a toilet cubicle without his hands like a dog, and Paperine copied him because he is stupid and therefore, does not have a brain to use. But Plasticine had accidentally dropped his phone into the toilet, and Paperine had unintentionally pressed the flush, and down the toilet went Plasticine’s phone. 

He wanted to shout out Paperine - he really did - but the stupid look on Paperine’s whipped cream-covered face was too hilarious and utterly adorable to scold. So, Plasticine grabbed Paperine by the collar, dragged him out, and pushed his face into the first girl he saw…and unfortunately, that was Scissorine’s face, and soon, the two ended up making out in front of the whole school - because Scissorine is obsessed with the taste of whipped cream and lips - and in the end, Plasticine essentially found the perfect girl for his best buddy Paperine. How lovely!

Oh, why is Plasticine incapable of being evil?

[cookiepotofchaos]

As women's football grows, for all the positives, there is also a growing volume of homophobia, misogyny, racism and other bigotries. I dreaded it, hoped it wouldn't be the case, but knew it was a painfully likely possibility.

I've seen a lot of it this week and last, seems like more than I have before, so I'm just working through some frustration and anger.

(cont. below cut)

It's not like it didn't exist at all before. We know players have been subject to awful abuse previously; a quick search will bring that up. With those who hate women's football even existing, it has never been a surprise to see those abhorrent views, but it's increasingly coming from people who call themselves fans of women's football.

The overt bigotry is horrible: condemning players to hell, accusing them of grooming younger players, and throwing out comments like "I want all the gays out of my club" or "lesbians are ruining the women's game" or "lesbians should just not be allowed in football clubs, they fall in love and cause problems", as if lesbian and other sapphic players haven't driven women's football forward for decades. Haven't been the core of women's football, probably since its inception.

Jess Carter's social media comments sections on and off the last few months have been a source of an ever growing blocklist of homophobes.

I've seen claims that the USWNT are better again because they "got rids of the gays". As if there aren't gay players on the team, out publicly and otherwise.

But there's the less obvious bigotry growing, too, which I see and have to weed out of the algorithm constantly on TikTok. Using trends to insult players or demean them, pitting players against each other and using terms and implications rooted in bigotry to do so. Then claiming it's just banter or club rivalry and that's all "part of sports".

It's the edits where a player is juxtaposed with another one, claiming one is utter shit and doesn't deserve to be thought positively of compared to another player, and how often the player being put down is a woman of colour. At least half the ones from accounts I've blocked, the player has been LJ. The comments sections of those are awful.

It's the edits with those daft vertical bar charts of the amount of Talent vs Popularity a player has, asking which players are over-popular but terrible footballers, with comments sections filled with thinly veiled misogyny or racism or homophobia. You want to know who has that little talent in football? Me. Any footballer who is better than me is automatically excluded as a response to those silly edits.

Then people on heavily algorithmically reliant social media are stunned that their messages insulting players and pushing thinly veiled bigotry are attracting outright hateful people who despise all women's sports. "Why are there so many homophobes and racists finding my edit/post/tweet? How did it end up on that side of TikTok/Twitter?". Probably because the algorithm thought what you were saying would resonate with homophobes and racists and misogynists. Or one asshole found it, agreed with what you were saying, and as soon as they responded, you were pulled into that part of the algorithm.

Might want to consider why?

I hate that this is probably going to become more and more commonplace. I want it drowned out with positivity, with love of women's sports. I'll find a way to just keep looking at the good; like I said, just working through some feelings. But I wish this wasn't happening at all.

[blackvelvetmuffin]

I’ve been hearing much about Hazbin Hotel coming out this summer except...it didn’t. With news of WGA Strikes and the Actors Guild joining them, it would make a lot of sense for the show to be delayed. 

However even that news feels extremely suspect out of these facts.

1. Hazbin Hotel season 1 finished production nearly six months ago - meaning its ready to be marketed with a trailer not far behind it except...

2. It still doesn’t have a platform to air from and...

3. Despite the completion, it had little to no marketing whatsoever which for me, is a VERY BIG red flag. With mini pics, character redesigns, and 1 sec gifs from the show to hype up the audience.

But how the hell does Vivziepop ever expect for her show to be successful on a mainstream platform if she’s only showing teasers and speaking with her little club house of fans that is a very small minority on twitter?

I understand being presumedly gagged by a company you sold your rights too out of fear of violating a contractual legal agreement but come on...

Everyone wants to deny it but I’m gonna say it.

There’s a lot of smoke from this. 

It was back in 2020 that A24 bought the rights and property of Hazbin Hotel with the big fallout of the entire VA cast being replaced with those that are a part of a union and with some hoping that the show didn’t need the helping hand of ANY corporate middleman or assistance so the show would remain an indie project from start to finish. 

Most projects are marketed at completion with a trailer out at least a season away from release. This level of silence and underexposure and sending just GIFs and design work is just extreme BIZARRE, even more so, from the creator herself! 

We should have gotten interviews from the new VAs, a TV opening, a trailer, a soundtrack, ANY SOUND OR HUMAN INVOLVED OR ATTACHED TO A GIF with the project especially with the release date being this summer! None of what is happening with Hazbin Hotel is making sense on any realistic or creative level. 

We haven’t even gotten any word of WHO IS VOICING the cast this close to scheduled release with radio silence from both A24 and BentoBoxAnimation about it, that is also a big red flag as its listed as current work but they aren’t bringing attention to it with it so dangerously close to scheduled season release. 

Everyone has a right to be concerned about HH by this point but blaming the delay on the strikes seems more like a very convenient excuse and cover by this point as Vivziepop said the season is finished....or is it?

It makes me wonder if all the social media selfies with her merch is covering up a very probable fire involved that she doesn’t want anyone catching on too. The lack of VAs involved or exposed almost makes one wonder if she even managed to hire any union VAs to voice her cast in time, let alone getting voices recorded and OST made for the show. It makes one wonder she only managed to complete the animation part of the season to make room for finding VAs to cast later to finish up at the last minute. 

But that would be crazy right? It would be utter batshit on a stick. No creator, let alone a professional production team, would be THIS crazy to do a reckless career and reputation killing move as to do false advertising on a half-finished product to keep the hype and traffic moving on said product and keep moving the goal post on release?

But how else do you explain the near radio silence on HH with barely any real marketing or advertising and with the series still not finding a streaming home? 

Now is the time to question Vivziepop’s transparency and credibility as this is truly getting out of hand with the teasers and vagueness and excuses. 

This is not about her personal life or past as I’m completely and utterly uninterested in the drama even though half of which is debatable. This is about her transparency and credibility as a creator in her field as this is not the first time she has been dubious and creative with the truth or avoiding it all together when it comes to her work. 

I see so many flags that it might as well be a crime scene and it feels like a big scam. If my theory holds any water, then Vivziepop is playing an extremely dangerous game with her own fanbase.

[daytaker]

Oh No, This is a Horror Movie Setup with Satan?

Finally, FINALLY, I am doing what I said I'd do months ago and actually writing this drabble. It's rather silly, I'm not as proud of it as I am of many of my other fics, but in my defense, that prompt was actually way harder than I anticipated.

Nine Fish

Starring: Satan & MC Genre: Silly Word Count: ~1.7k CW: mentions of blood, Satan getting angry and making threats, overall lackluster writing

“It’s only natural I would be a skilled fisherman,” Satan says with an obnoxious level of nonchalance as the two of you head back to the campsite. He carries a cooler stuffed with about ten hell salmon, nine of which he caught, and one of which somehow accidentally managed to get snagged by your own fishing line. “I’ve read up a good deal on fishing technique in preparation for this trip, and I think it paid off.”

Beel managed to talk a few of you into going camping with him. Not ‘glamping’, not backyard camping or indoor camping… actual camping. He managed to recruit you, of course, but also Lucifer, Mammon, Satan, Belphie, and Solomon. Belphie presumably came along because it was Beel making the request, Solomon probably just came to see what stupid situations you’d all end up in, Mammon came because you were coming, Satan came to get away from Lucifer, and Lucifer decided to come along at the last minute, either to make sure you all didn’t end up burning down half of Darkwood Forest or out of some instinctive need to enrage Satan.

You and Satan had been assigned fishing duty on the second morning. Unfortunately, it was almost two in the afternoon as you returned to camp. After Lucifer’s impressive haul of eight fish last night, in a display of one-upmanship truly fitting a demon of his pettiness, Satan refused to give up before catching a ninth.

“We’re back,” Satan declares as the tents come into view. He holds up the cooler proudly. “We brought ten fish, nine of which I caught myself.”

You approach the tents, and you’re met by an eerie silence. You and Satan glance at each other, then approach the tents.

“Hello?” you call, peering into the tent shared by Satan and Mammon. It’s empty.

“Hmph,” Satan snorts, annoyed. “Of course they’d leave without seeing my successful catch.”

You ignore his harumphing and go to check the other tents. 

“Anyone here?” you say, peeking inside Lucifer’s tent. Nothing. The same was the case for Solomon and Asmo’s. But when you looked inside the twins’ tent…

“Satan?” You take a few steps back. “There’s blood in there.”

“Beel was probably just eating ketchup in his sleep again,” sighed Satan, but you grab his arm and point at the tent.

“It’s blood,” you insist. “Maybe someone got hurt and they all went to get help. But there’s definitely blood on the pillows.”

And when Satan checks it out for himself, he has to admit you’re right. That’s blood on Beel’s pillow… A lot of it too. He sighs irritably. “Let me text someone to ask what’s going on…”

You check your own DDD. “I don’t have any service,” you notice.

“Neither do I,” grumbles Satan, shoving his device in his pocket. 

“So what do we do now?” you ask. “I guess we just sit here and wait?”

Satan hesitates, then shakes his head. “Something’s not right,” he murmurs thoughtfully, putting a hand to his chin. “Even if someone was hurt, why would the entire group of them leave? Wouldn’t they have left one or two people behind to let us know what had happened?”

“I guess,” you admit. “But what other explanation is there?”

Satan looks at the bloody pillow and crosses his arms, speaking in a voice of utter seriousness. “Murder most foul.”

“Excuse me?”

“Look at the quantity of blood. This isn’t from some superficial cut. Someone bled a lot.” 

You shudder a bit, but you have to admit he has a point.

“So someone was severely injured… Not an easy task, you know, getting a demon to bleed so much. I have trouble imagining that this was unintentional. So presumably, the others have either apprehended the offender and taken him to the proper authorities, or…”

“Or…?”

“Or��there’s someone here capable of silencing even the most powerful demons in the Devildom, along with humanity’s most powerful sorcerer.”

“Why don’t we see any victims, then? We don’t even see whoever bled in here. I think you’re overreacting.” …is what you would have said. If you were boring.

“Gasp!” …is what you actually say. Because sometimes you just need a little spice in your life. “Now that I think about it, this is kind of like a horror movie scenario… Out in the wilderness, friends go missing, no cell service…”

“Someone carved the word ‘Croatoan’ into this tree,” Satan adds.

“Also that,” you say, nodding emphatically. “Honestly, Satan, things aren’t looking so good for you. Odds are, you’re either the killer, or a victim.”

Satan glares at you. “What do you mean? I can’t be the killer. We were together all morning.”

“Then…” You shrug awkwardly and make a slashing motion across your neck with your forefinger sympathetically. “I mean… I’m the final sheep, that much is obvious.”

“What do you mean, the ‘final sheep’?”

“I’m the innocent, virginal survivor who outlives everyone,” you explain. “You know. Like a sheep, brought to the slaughter, but subverting expectations by surviving.”

“Is it really a subversion of expectations when you’re practically glittering with main character energy?” Satan snaps, and he glares at the puddle of blood in the tent. “Well, I don’t intend to die today. I’m subverting this entire text by shifting the genre.”

“Wait, what?”

Satan begins to pace up and down the treeline of the clearing, his hands folded neatly behind him as he seamlessly pivots into a detective story.

“I propose that I can solve this mystery through deductive reasoning and the scraps of evidence we’ve uncovered. Let’s consider our cast: Lucifer, Avatar of Pride and consummate asshole. Mammon, Avatar of Greed and consummate moron. Beel, eternally hungry. Belphie, presumably slept through whatever happened. And Solomon, a cryptic, mysterious sorcerer of great power. Then we have a potential third party—or sixth party, as the case would be. An unknown villain from outside the camp who enters the clearing wielding an unknown weapon or weapons, somehow overpowering all four demons as well as Solomon.”

“That sounds pretty unlikely,” you say.

“I agree. In fact, I’d say blaming this on an outside party would be ridiculous, because the true culprit is obvious.”

He pauses dramatically, an obvious cue for you to react. “It is?” you say obligingly.

“It could be…none other… than Lucifer!”

He points at Lucifer’s empty tent. You stare at him.

“How could I possibly know, you’re probably asking yourself,” Satan continues when you’ve stood in silence for a few too many seconds. “Well, consider the simple fact that Lucifer is far stronger than any of the others. None of the others could possibly have overpowered him. Next, consider motive.”

“Yeah, consider motive,” you echo. “Except he didn’t have one.”

“Patience, Watson,” chuckles Satan, folding his arms and closing his eyes with an obnoxiously smug expression. “Because Mammon and I were forced to share a tent, last night, I was made to endure the smell of his weed pen. Mammon, evidently, packed it before he realized Lucifer was going to be coming with us, and when he found it last night, he couldn’t help himself. He took a hit right in front of me.”

“...And that’s the motive?”

“Not directly. I believe Lucifer discovered the contraband, and Mammon ran.”

“He ran?”

“Mammon is the fastest demon in the Devildom. He can outrun anyone, even Lord Diavolo, which comes in very handy for him when he’s fleeing creditors or, as the case was today, Lucifer.”

“Oh no…”

“I posit that, with Lucifer already enraged at his failure to capture Mammon, Beel approached him and complained about the lack of breakfast, given the…amount of time we spent fishing.”

“We?”

“Lucifer snapped. And before he knew it, Beelzebub was bleeding out on his own pillow. Recognizing the magnitude of what he had done, Lucifer quickly apprehended Belphie and Solomon and took them to—”

“Why are you being so loud?”

You and Satan both jump and turn around to see Belphie leaning out of your tent and rubbing his eyes, yawning.

“Wh—you’re here?” Satan stammers, looking extremely agitated to have this wrench thrown into his theory.

“Uh-huh…” Belphie yawns and smiles sleepily at the two of you.

“I thought you said you checked all the tents,” Satan snaps at you.

“I mean… I only didn’t check mine. I know where I am. Belphie, why were you in there?”

“There’s too much blood in my tent, so I borrowed yours while I waited for you two to get back. Lucifer is pissed at you, by the way. You guys took so long that Beel ate some food Solomon offered him.”

“He didn’t,” you gasp. Satan purses his lips gravely.

“He did. And Beel started puking blood all over his pillow. So between that debacle and the weed pen he found in Mammon’s stuff, Lucifer called off the rest of the trip and left with Mammon, Beel, and Solomon. He left me here to explain the situation to you since I’m the only one he can trust, apparently.” Belphie’s lazy smile morphs into something of a smirk. “So you two had better start packing.”

“What? Wait, he expects us to clean up this entire camp?” Satan rages. “He leaves all the grunt work for us, and doesn’t even stick around to see that I caught more fish than he did?!”

“Satan, calm down,” you say soothingly, but he’s having none of it.

“Beel, that idiot! He knows better than to touch Solomon’s food! And Solomon! That bastard should know better than to let anyone, human or demon, eat anything he’s touched!”

“Well, they wouldn’t have been in that situation if you’d gotten back from fishing a little quicker,” Belphie counters with a yawn.

“Shut up! Just shut up!” Satan fumes, clenching his jaw. “This is all Mammon’s fault! If it wasn’t for that stupid vape pen…! I’ll kill him!” His demon form manifests, and you know it’s too late to calm him down. “No… This is all down to Lucifer… It’s always Lucifer! Why does that arrogant, self-satisfied, humorless prick—”

He continues in this vein as the two of you pack and Belphie naps in a folding chair.

You never do eat the fish.

[strqyr]

I think, Salem, is a wonderful gal yknow, she's seen the rise and fall of humanity, the good and bad, I think if all of humanity needs a villain to hate, she'll take that role. Is she bringing back the gods, to finally die, or is she ready to remove them, what good has the gods done to her and her people, all of them lived a life forsaken. I have no idea what I'm mumbling about here, but basically everyone in the rwby fandom hates Salem because she's a woman with a mixed moral compass, and thus must been seen as a bitch, she's 'evil' so she must of course have all these flaws, but in reality, remove the context and compare her to Oz, and you'll find similarities, if the genders were swapped, I think Salem would have been someone the fandom praises, for being a hot immortal man

i've been along this ride since day 1 and lemme tell ya, at this point it's mostly just funny to watch the absolute pretzels people will twist themselves into to "prove" their point, like.

salem (allegedly, can't exactly say for certain at this point of time) lying to her followers about her true goal is manipulative, but ozpin lying about salem being immortal, the actual reason he was made to reincarnate by light, and the true nature of this war (it's unwinnable y'all) isn't. he's just some guy :( he has trust issues, of course he wouldn't trust team rwby with everything right off the bat even when yang made it clear that she'd follow him as long as there were no more lies and half-truths... eh, qrow branwen? never heard of him! yeah he's made some missteps but he learns from his mistakes!!... let's just ignore how he's been running in circles for who knows how long. he's doing his best :( and he cares about people :( that makes everything he does actually okay, right? at least, you shouldn't bring his mistakes or fucked up things up or blame him! that's bashing :(

salem though. what a bitch, she should have accepted the death of the only person in her life who truly cared about her (pyrrha and penny though, they're coming back any day now, even if it's in someone else's head). it's not like watching humanity get wiped out and the utter solitude she would have lived in for thousands, hell, millions of years afterwards would have some effect on a person. no sir, she's always been mean and manipulative and evil and have you considered her father kept her locked up since she was a baby for a reason????

the last part about her father is a hyperbole... i think. i hope.

anyway. the double standards are funny.

there's also the aspect of people taking a simple statement like "salem isn't planning the destruction of the world and instead wants to fight the gods and this is a good thing bc the gods are the main problem here", read way too much into it and end up turning it into "so you think salem's the actual good guy and oz is the villain???" and it's like. no one said that but you. like, man...

my dog has a better reading comprehension than this, and he's five months old and chews walls. c'mon.

[perexcri]

isn’t it messed up how i’m just dying to be him? - [byler week 2023 - day 3]

everyone give it up for Mikhailgate!

title from: sugar, we’re going down by fall out boy

dedicated to: bbc’s sherlock for scarring 14 year-old me and making me leery of getting invested in and interacting with fan theories for fear of the writers choosing to never answer any of their open-ended questions! also my freshman year Russian phonetics class, which was slightly useful for at least one of these sentences

To say that things had been odd since they returned to Hawkins would not just be an understatement, but a flat-out lie. Odd implies bizarreness on conceivable terms, and what has happened in the last three months–nay, two and a half years–surpasses any preconceived notion any of them had about anything. Certain immutable laws of the universe have been casually broken ever since Will disappeared and El showed up in the woods, monsters are real, and the government is in on all of it, and oh, yeah, Will and Mike are best friends! Except they’re not.

Well, they are?

Kind of?

Maybe?

Is there a term for very clearly friends but there’s something under the surface that keeps pushing into both of them, and neither person knows what to do?

Well, there should be a term for it, because whatever it is, Mike is feeling it pretty hard right now.

See, even when they fight, there’s this unspoken law of the universe itself that still makes them the closest out of anyone in the party. They understand each other on a fundamentally different level than most other people, can communicate entire conversations in glances–in short, they know each other almost as well as they know themselves. Despite how much every other conceivable point of stability has been torn apart in their lives, they know that they at least have each other, that no matter what, despite the fights and whatever thing keeps occupying the empty spaces of their conversations and glances, they’ll always snap back to each other, just like how they’re supposed to.

Mike is very calmly mulling these things over when El, who’s sitting a little too close for comfort, pulls the plastic fork that had somehow broken in half away from him and sets it on the table. Her fingers linger on his for a beat too long before falling away. “Mike?”

“Hm?” he hums with pointed exasperation. He’s too busy–thinking, of course.

But also staring.

“Do you not like the new guy?”

Well, first of all, new guy is another one of those phrases that’s not simply an understatement, but a complete and utter lie. New guy implies somebody unfamiliar, somebody they’ve never seen before.

And this guy–well, he’s definitely not that. He’s got hair just as wavy and dark as Mike’s, except instead of flattening his bangs and the top of his hair out like Mike takes painstaking time to do every morning (despite the fucking apocalypse happening outside the government base’s doors), he lets them hang wild and loose all over his head, like if a bird’s nest just looked effortlessly cool and flawless despite it undoubtedly being a mess to comb through. His eyes are just the same shade of brown as Mike’s, freckles spattered in nearly-identical constellations all across his skin, and his bones stick out of his body at awkward junctures, in nearly all the same places that Mike’s does.

The only difference?

The heavy (and we’re talking honey thick) Russian accent that drawls through every last bit of Mikhail Antonov’s speech, that omits articles wherever it so desires and can’t pronounce an H without sounding like he’s hocking up a lung. And yeah, sure, Mike gets it: all languages are different and unique in their own ways! If he tried speaking Russian, he’d probably sound abysmal, and all the Mikhail Antonovs of the world would make fun of him in their language for not pronouncing a word right or mixing up sounds so he ends up saying Jesus instead of vinegar, or whatever, but to hell with propriety and understanding, because Mike doesn’t care about any of that shit when Mikhail won’t unglue himself from Will’s side.

“Mike?”

With a huff, Mike momentarily peels his eyes away from Mikhail’s confident–nay, imposing–posture towards Will, how his hand casually rests against Will’s arm as they sit at one of the cafeteria tables a few rows down.

And Will?

Well, Will isn’t exactly trying to dissuade any of these advances. No, ever since Hopper called in a favor and smuggled his buddy Dmitri and his family out of the Soviet Union and into the swirling hellscape that had become Hawkins, Mikhail Antonov has been positively enamored by Will Byers, and Will doesn’t seem to mind. He leans into Mikhail’s touches, calmly tries to explain any weird American things to their new peer–hell, they even have inside jokes now! Something will happen, and they’ll immediately lean in towards each other and begin muttering and laughing, like they’re kids in the back of class trying to entertain themselves to keep from falling asleep.

Just like how Mike and Will used to before monsters became real and physics regularly decided to go on vacation and let all hell break loose.

So, yeah, Will doesn’t mind.

Mike minds, though. He minds very much.

And, sure, maybe this is him getting a taste of his own medicine after he ditched all of their friends for the better half of last summer to hole up in Hopper’s cabin and alternate between making out with El and then not making any kind of conversation with her. Okay, yeah, maybe this is karma’s sweet, sweet revenge on him. Fine. Whatever.

It doesn’t mean he has to like it or agree with it.

“Yeah?” he finally asks, but he has to grind the single syllable out from the notches between his teeth.

“You’re glaring at Mikhail again,” El notes, nodding towards the broken plastic fork.

“Yeah, well, maybe he should talk more quietly,” Mike grumbles.

As if on cue, the rest of the cafeteria grows a little quieter just as Mikhail is reaching the crescendo of one of his many long-winded stories about surviving winter on the Kamchatka peninsula (of which he has certifiably too many for them all to be true, if you ask Mike). He and Will burst into laughter, and Will’s doing that cute thing where he tries to hide his mouth, but it doesn’t stop the laughs from seeping out between his fingers, and the light hits his eyes just right and highlights the crinkles on their edges, and for once, he doesn’t look troubled by the supernatural.

And Mikhail?

“See, Will–”

Oh, and that’s another thing: since their totally unasked for adoption of Mikhail into the Party and subsequent crash course on Russian phonetics and that language’s intricacies, they’ve learned that there is no W sound in Russian, so Mikhail doesn’t even say Will’s name right. He doesn’t say Will, he says Oo-Ill, and fuck being brave enough to speak two languages, because it makes Mike’s blood boil every time.

He absconds from his moment of disgust to tune back into the (incredibly loud) thrum of Mikhail’s voice in the cafeteria:

“I told you,” Mikhail coos, “Call me Misha. It is much better than Mikhail.”

Will responds, but because he’s a sensible human being who doesn’t shout in public, Mike can’t hear what he says, but he does grin and nod his head and look the teeniest bit bashful.

He looks cute. He really does. He used to look like that at Mike, back when they were younger, before Mike let his own big mouth run, before the mall became a battleground, and before Will had put up a wall of silence after giving him a painting that El had supposedly commissioned.

The fact that Mikhail looks strikingly similar to Mike himself just adds insult to injury, really. Like the issue isn’t something physically defective with Mike, but some core nature of himself that’s thoroughly rotten and Will knows he doesn’t deserve.

“Mike,” El consoles, turning in her seat so she’s more properly facing him. “It’s not like he could ever replace you for Will. You guys are best friends.”

Best friends. Yeah, that’s a funny term.

“I’m gonna go take a nap,” Mike mumbles under his breath, and before El can ask him to repeat himself, he scoops up the leftovers from his meal, pushes his chair out from the table, and begins the shuffle of shame down to the front to dispose of his trash and dunk his dishes in the gray dishwater.

Worst of all is the fact that he has to walk by Will and Mikhail’s table. That when he does so, Will’s eyes snap up, and just for a second, they alight with interest.

Mike keeps his eyes down. He focuses on what he can see of the core of an apple he only got halfway through, and he pretends like Will’s gaze doesn’t send spikes of guilt into his chest and skittering down to the bottom of his gut.

The cold dishwater doesn’t do anything to dispel the heat of embarrassment currently settling over his skin like a blanket made of hot coals, and his hands shake. His mind automatically drifts to his relationship with El as well as with Will, and he can’t tell if they ever had proper breaks, or if they simply just fell away; if Mike let them fall through his fingers like this, just so he could tell himself this pain could mean something.

As he stomps out of the cafeteria and down the long hall of dorms, his thoughts remain on one track:

Fuck Hawkins. Fuck the apocalypse, and Vecna, and trauma, and feeling like you have to conform to society’s expectations for you.

But most of all, fuck Mikhail Antonov.

---

um hi i do feel the need to say that Mike’s jealousy-induced views on speaking a language that isn’t your native one do not reflect mine! his views here are exaggerated for laughs because it’s a silly thing :)

[stormyoceans]

mon, i’ve been wanting to text you since friday night, as soon as i finished ep9 but i’ve been so incredibly overcome with emotion, i just have not had the courage to process everything and put what i feel into words.

i have been bawling since the very start of the ep, mon. right from the night-&-day conflict-cause reveal, to the first time day realises he’s losing sight, to the intimate scene, to (of course) the final scene, i have literally been in tears, unable to process any of my feelings. hell, i couldn’t even watch the full ep from between my tears, but i’m too scared to go back and watch so soon. there are so many things i felt, so many thoughts i had that i wanted to share with you but i’m just so overwhelmed even as yet, and i just want you to know, that if ever my thoughts become a little bit more clear and my feelings a bit less overwhelming, you will definitely be the first to hear all i want to say (sorry to be a bother but you’re like one of the few people i can share the utter happiness that this show is for me and i really want to discuss ALL ABOUT IT with you, and get all your thoughts!! but i get so overwhelmed and am so random with being active on this app, ughh it’s so hard 😭😭😭😭😭)

i just wanted to share this one thought with you that i had while watching the ep though, because i know you’d appreciate it so damn much. this series feels like such a beautiful gift to all us fans from jimmysea and p’aof, mon. like the heart that has gone into this project and the sheer beauty that everyone involved has created feels like the best present one could ever ask for (🥹). truly, i have no words other than the fact that i have never, ever experienced anything like this ever before and i am truly so, so overcome with a myriad of emotions, half of which i can’t even name.

WELL FIRST OF ALL YOU’RE NEVER A BOTHER AND YOUR MESSAGES ALWAYS PUT A SMILE ON MY FACE AND MAKE ME INCREDIBLY HAPPY SO JOKES ON YOU SAM!!!!!!!!!!! YOU’RE ACTUALLY STUCK WITH ME NOW AND I WILL BE SITTING HERE PATIENTLY WAITING FOR YOUR THOUGHTS ON LAST TWILIGHT WHENEVER YOU’RE READY TO SHARE THEM

take all the time you need tho, i definitely understand feeling overwhelmed by this show and not being able to write down everything you want to say. and idk if im the only one experiencing this, but these past couple of months since last twilight started have been so surreal to me like. i haven’t even begun to process 13% of the things that happened in episode 9 or any past episode really and it’s already time for episode 10 tomorrow. we’ve waited for this show for a whole year and in two more weeks it’s already gonna be over and yet somehow im still stuck on the very first episode with so many things to say and so many emotions to deal with and so many thoughts i want to share with you all but it seems too late now except it’s not!!!!!! we’re still here talking about vice versa after almost two years, we’re gonna be here talking about last twilight long after it ends!!!!!!

and to me this does feel like a show that you need to let sink in and settle a little before you can fully appreciate it, not because it’s overly complicated or controversial, but because it strikes something so deep into your soul that you need to watch it multiple times to unravel all its beauty. the feelings you get when you experience something for the first time can’t ever be repeated, but there is new understanding to be found in all the times after it. like you said, even just by watching episode 9 you can tell that there’s so much love and so much care that went into this show, and then you watch the bts videos and you see how hard everyone worked to make this happen, how the entire crew climbed that quite literal mountain just to deliver something special to us

i think that’s why despite all of my fears and worries about the ending that i can’t quite shake off, im also trying really hard to have faith in everyone involved in the show, because it’s a product of love and i will always be so deeply grateful to them for gifting it to the world

[lohtulauluja]

So life has been utterly tiring and stressful for the last couple of months, since we had change negotiations at work and about one third of the employees will be dismissed in the end of November, and most of my team will be gone, and it will be hell for the next year after that too, and – well, you probably get the picture.

So to cope, I've resorted to kind of baffling addiction. I've now binged two and half seasons of The Mentalist in about a month, and usually I don't even get past the first season of any series. I've watched over two seasons of any series only twice before (Doctor Who (3,5 seasons) and Star Trek: TOS (2,5 seasons)) in my entire life, yet here we are.

It has been an utter delight and it had one of the best slow burn romances I've ever seen, and although the scripts are sometimes total trainwrecks, the actors do a splendid job. I just wish I wasn't bingeing through it because it is a way to keep my head together, but alas. It is what it is, and sooner or later this too shall pass.