#the only person who was another one of my ocs was Sage. and they showed up in sorta a flash forward thing

[lulubeanie]

Had a dream about Eliot finding a big abandoned library that a giant spider person had made into their home. the spider person was very not nice and the experience left Eliot afraid of spiders even though normally he likes them (the spider person was also in control of all the normal spiders that lived there or something)

[twstfanblog]

*~RSA Is Weird~*

A/N The starter for my first little series! I'm going to make one for each dorm and their respective 'Weird RSA kid' The first one will be Neige, and I will try to get that one up tomorrow.

Warnings: She/They Yuu OC, Swearing

Pairings: Platonic Crowley & Yuu

Enjoy~!

~I Own Nothing~

Hope you guys enjoy~!)

Starter, Part 1 (Pomefiore), Part 2 (HeartsLabyul), Part 3 (Diasomnia)

The headmaster’s office felt both the same and very different. Surprisingly the wreckage of the castle barely reached the area. Crowley’s office was basically untouched from the disaster of the end-of-the-year ceremony. The bare bones remained the same, but now the walls were filled with photos upon photos, some Yuu had taken herself, and the classic photos of the Great Seven. Some looked to be far older, one had a student who looked suspiciously like Crewel covered in mud and glaring at the camera. Another had who Yuu assumed to be Trien napping in what she thinks is the rose maze in Heartslabyul, a kitten Lucius curled in his lap contently. They wanted to ask where Crowley even got the photos, wondering if he had used the Ghost camera before dumping it on them. The rug once plain was full of woven patterns and shapes. If she looked long enough she’d find a new object in the mess of colors and lines.

Crowley’s desk had survived, not so much as a nick on the polished wood, surprisingly filled with paperwork for once. But they were most pleased with the newest additions of multiple matching end tables and various lengths of seating for the office. Yuu sat in one plush armchair, newly tailored school uniform along with an official Ramshackle armband around her bicep. She sat sideways in the chair, legs crossed and dangling off the side as she twirled a tuff of her wolf-cut hair, looking at the fae organizing the papers in his hands.

"Tell me again why the fuck we're doing this?" 

Crowley sighs, looking at Yuu with a pitiful pout. The crow fae bent across his desk slightly to make sure she could see his face, "My hatchling, so rude to me. This event is to show the people of Sage Isle that their donations have gone to good use! Not only has our campus been restored, it's been improved!"

"..." Yuu stands, walking to an open window in a calm manner. They take their time, pulling back the curtains of the room and looking out to the campus before turning back to Crowley, "Where!?"

"Child." Yellow eyes lock onto her, the silent command of ‘Enough’ heavy in the air.

Rolling her eyes, Yuu moves back to her seat, grabbing her cup of tea from the end table and raising her brows in a mocking tone, "Dad."

The severe presence Crowley had instantly evaporated, the fae smiling slightly and letting out a soft coo before clearing his throat. Crowley's bouts of seriousness used to make her uneasy, but with how many times she's been graced to peak behind the headmaster's elaborate play of personality, she was able to tell when he was bluffing or actually serious. Bluffing could be sassed still and was easily broken with paternal acknowledgment. Luckily Crowley hasn't felt the need to be truly sincere since the campus was destroyed.

Yuu sipped at her tea, thinking back to before the summer break. The whole mess of Grim's overblot and just how badly the campus was affected before they beat him, how badly everyone was injured in the fight. Not to mention-

Crowley's gold-tipped fingers snap her out of her thoughts. His masked face looking at her in mild annoyance, "Hatchling, did you hear a word I said?"

"...No." Turning away to sip her tea, unbothered by Crowley groaning and standing from his desk.

"As I was saying. This is a way to show the people of Sage Isle their donations have gone to a good cause -blah blah blah-” Crowley was suddenly right beside her, bright yellow orbs glowing in an almost manic glee to match his fanged smile, “-But! I’m also using this open house week as a way to rub it in Ambrose’s face that Night Raven is still standing!” He stands up straight, mumbling under his breath about the other headmaster and pacing in a tight circle in front of her.

Yuu was well aware of what was ruffling his feathers. Night Raven had to put a hold on new admissions for their next school year since the campus was destroyed and under reconstruction. Not to mention the pocket dimensions and classroom expansions he had to weave. Seeing how the current students of Night Raven had made the choice to simply repeat a year, dorms were bound to be cramped when the new students appeared. But Crowley having to actually do his job for once wasn’t the cause of his mood. It was Ambrose the 63rd himself. Seeing how the other headmaster “dared” to offer a place at Royal Sword Academy to Night Raven students if the campus wasn’t completed in time for the new school year.

Now, Crowley needed to swing his newly built dick around as a show of dominance to the friendly old man. But it was none of her business what helped him sleep at night.

She checks herself back into her crow guardian’s rambles, muttering into her cup of lukewarm tea, “What fucking family is naming their children Ambrose sixty-three times?” “EXACTLY! It’s so stupid…”

“So why are you making this my problem then?”

Crowley stops his pacing to lean into her face, a smile on his lips, “Well, every good event needs a planner, dear. Since I am your humble father-”

“Don’t call yourself that-”

“-Your most humble, caring, gracious father, I will be handling the final stages of planning. I just need you to do rounds during the week and make sure no one is dying on campus.” He uses a single clawed finger to poke her nose, his smile growing seeing her fight off her own grin at the tease, “I paid good money for that new pavement. Can’t have it all be stained with blood before the school year starts…”

“Wasn’t your money but go off, dad.”

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

And that's the start! Pomefiore is first and the chapter is almost done. Here's hoping I can get it done and posted soon.

Thanks for reading!

[livewireprojects]

A small collection of sketches I did recently, most of these were talked about with my friend @tay-likes-toons who has gotten into Muppets again recently

Left to right

Top:

-This is a new version of Elaith(forgot which version) as a muppet, I’ve only really drawn him from a distance or drawn Arthur in his outfit

-Kermit dressed as Elaith because Vincent joked about the idea of Kermit playing the role of Elaith in something. His face reminds me of Kermit from Scoob & Shag which I need to reread cause I haven’t seen it in a long time. I wasn’t sure how to pose him & mostly had him flip off Merlin cause Merlin is an asshole & I needed an excuse to show his arm to show off his sleeve.

-This is my Welcome Home version of my OC Arthur dressed as Elaith. Partly cause it’s cute & partly cause Elaith is a version of Arthur & since the theme of this collection of sketches is Muppets why not use a version of Arthur that reminds me of a horror version of Sesame Street which is connected to Muppets. I find it funny that when it’s Welcome Home puppet people I give them joints but if it’s Muppet related puppet people they get noodle limbs.

Bottom:

-Vincent asked me to draw to draw this, it’s the Reawakened dealing with Elaith(in muppet form) having a level 5 Kermit style fit. Elaith is usually a calm person but the Unicorn Warriors just bring out a lot of raging. Lao Xi & Clarice are worried about their lover & wondering what they got into. I find it funny how before their return they’re seen as the crazy people but this makes them look like concerned sane people while Elaith is the crazy one. It’s semi funnier cause Vincent made jokes about Elaith puppeteering muppet Elaith meaning Elaith is using muppet Elaith to channel his rage. That likely also means his partners are watching him likely kneel down while making a puppet version of himself rage.(I dunno where I’m going)

-This wasn’t intended to be here but I got nowhere else to put it & didn’t want to start up another sketch dump at the moment. Pretty much Sage & Lou with their daughter Chrysanthemum & her newborn brother Basil. This is an oddly sweet moment between some creepy people & their young kids. I don’t know how Basil looks so I tried to not add many features in.(Then again this is a small pic so it was tricky anyway)

[titlemewickedwonderland]

Just Witchy Stuff (Nameless Poly!Ghouls x OC) Part 1

Summary: As a witch, Ollie lives a quiet life. While most people find her stingy or eccentric in her beliefs and superstitions her presence is well known around the town as that 'witch' at the corner with her little witchy shop. But unlike what people think she has been around a very long time - never staying too long in one town for them to realize she never seems to age. Because of her moving around she wracks up a lot of favors. What she didn't expect was for one of her old favors to show up at her doorstep.

AN: Ollie is an old OC of mine based on a lot of myself that shows a glimpse of the writer behind the writings :) Enjoy!

Pairing: Nameless Ghouls Poly x OC

My Workshop!

-part 2

If you were to ask her what her favorite part of being a shop owner in this part of town was; she'd surprise you with the answer. While most people would say the foot traffic or tourism that comes through. Maybe they'd say it's just business and they love the money aspect of things; being able to do something to pass the time? Ollie would say she loved being a business owner because she loved to meet the people that would wander into her shop - the souls that would come in all clouded with whatever troubled them only to walk out with a precious part of them returned or uplifted with hope. To be able to make a difference even without them realizing it. Even when people often scoffed at her methods. She never batted an eye at them; perhaps when she was younger it bothered her. But when you were over 500 years old scathing comments and judgemental gazes did little to chip anything off her shoulder.

Ollie loved her small shop. She'd taken great pride in making it comfortable. As if one walked into another's home. Upon entry with the sound of a jingle bell above the door like a fairy chime to announce your arrival the first thing you'll most likely take in is the heady scent of Cedarwood, Sage, and Rosemary in the air around you that Ollie used in a homemade cleansing spray to clear the negativity and promote a protective cleaning aura upon entry to her small but protected domain. If you look at each corner of the room there are fresh sprigs of lavender and eucalyptus hanging from intricately intertwined leather cords that give the room an added layer to your senses also used for protection and calming. There are two areas in the large open space that is partially blocked off by a Japanese partition wall for a sense of privacy each section contained comfortable couches, an armchair, a low coffee table and some throw pillow to sit on to relax in with a single small bookshelf to each mini portioned privacy rooms with a bowl of crystals and some incense holders burning cones on top of the short bookshelves for others to choose from to indulge in. Beyond the closed-off rooms, it looked like any other small store; with rows of dark antique shelves lined with products - everything from spell books, bundles of herbs, and satchels of premade crystals charged and cleansed personally by the residential witch that owned the shop. There were loose leaf teas of all sorts of blends promoting different aspects of chakra, aura, and mental spell barriers to help the mind, body, and soul.

Other shelves were lined with different jars with spells within, jewelry made and blessed, and even a little bar area that offered complementary teas that were on display for sale as well. Signs offering personal spells made to order and other nicknacks only a witch or pagan would appreciate for she did not just delve into the surface of what people thought witchcraft was. There were things from all sorts of different religions as well as deities to work with. From candles, offerings, and little booklets she'd written and printed to help those who wanted to work with certain deities. Some items were....not for the faint of heart that involved voodoo and dark magic that she kept locked behind the checkout counter at her personal disposal. It would be bad if some unknowing wanderer were to get a hold of such items not knowing what it was.

Ollie prided herself in her cozy store. She had put a lot of work into it as well as money but mostly mental focus and energy to be able to keep everything up. No one would have realized that there were certain aspects of her store she was rather protective of and took seriously. Like the line of salt just inside the door of her shop. How there are lines of salt on the edges of window sills and any entry towards her home. Of how beneath the wildly colorful rugs scattered around her store there would be graphs and symbols carved or painted into the hardwood floor where no one else would see.

She was thorough if nothing else but despite the protection meant for not only herself but those who walk through her door, she is rather open and friendly to new faces. That was one thing she had going for her. So deceptively sweet, sassy, and kind that people did not see the beast that lurked beneath her violet eyes. Another signature trait of hers that people believed was contacts. The one thing people did not understand was that that kind person like Ollie who was sweet and open; giving without expecting anything in return their other sides are just as extreme and strong - god or whatever deity that person serves better protect them well if anyone gets on Ollie's bad side for there is nothing worse in this world and the next than a woman scorned - destructive if she's a witch; for she does not work alone.

After a long tiring day of smiles, spells, and emotional distress that her psyche took today, Ollie was more than happy to be able to flip the sign from 'Open' to 'Closed' on her door so that she may make herself a cup of tea and meditate but as she turned to walk back into her store a voice called from down the street sounding awfully familiar in it's over the top cheerfulness that no one should be having at midnight.

"Olivia, My dear! Won't you wait a moment?! We must see you, urgently!"

The woman spun on her heel and watched with furrowed brows as a group marched their way in a cluster down the deserted streets towards her quickly. Now because of her profession, Ollie kept her store open no later than midnight in case there was a wandering poor unfortunate soul that needed her help without the stares or judgment of others on the otherwise timely streets her store was located on but those were few and far in between. But the voice was certainly one she hadn't heard in many years - and she secretly grimaced at the realization of who was approaching.

The woman was tall and blond with her greying hair pulled up into a form of bun updo at the back of her head and her face although far more wrinkled than Ollie had last remembered her having was more prominent in the yellow light of the street lamps - no amount of concealer, foundation, or lipstick could conceal her age.

"Sister Imperator." Ollie's voice was even as she eyed the group while leaning against the open door. "I'm surprised you remember my shop after all these years." a wry smile tugged at her pink lips as her violet eyes gleamed in the light while she examined the ragtag group behind the imposing woman and the oddly dressed man trailing nervously.

Besides Sister Imperator, there were 6 others. A man who was dressed in a scarlet red suit from head to foot and what looked like some kind of mask painted on his face that made him resemble a panda as he walked with a cane in one hand although he clearly didn't need it and a fedora hat on his slicked back black (but greying) hair. His eyes were mismatched she'd noted. One white eye and the other a normal green that looked almost grey in the shadows. Behind him were 5 others dressed all in the exact same black attire. Black skinny jeans with black suspenders while their skin-tight black button-down shirts tucked into the pants and black riding boots. What was curious was the fact they all wore what looked like a faceless silver mask with engraved hair and horns - a form of devil mask or something of the like. But the masks only covered their heads and faces down to the noses leaving the people's chins exposed; well would have been if they weren't covered in black fabric. They looked stoic and their stances were....unnatural; too stiff and detached. She wasn't too keen on their energy either; dark and foreboding - like swirling black smoke that only her eyes could see coming from them.

"Olivia, dear?" Sister Imperator's voice broke through the fog of the witch's thoughtful examination bringing her slowly back to the present as if she was slowly being pulled from the water.

"Hmm?" Ollie blinked and turned her attention back to the woman before her lips curled slightly. "Sorry, Sister. Of course, come on in." she swept her hand inside her store.

The blonde woman walked straight in with no problem and while the man began to follow he paused halfway in and turned awkwardly towards her. He pointed with a gloved hand at her face and she raised a brow curiously when he didn't say anything at first.

"Is that you're real hair color?" he asked in a tone of voice that clearly spoke volumes of his lack of social skills.

Ollie reached up to tug a piece of her pure white hair in front of her eyes in amusement as she looked closely at her own hair as if realizing it for the first time that it was snow white.

"Why, won't you look at this?" she murmured before meeting the man's gaze with a humorous one of her own.

"Yes, it's natural. I actually used to be a brunette but...it changed over time. One of the hazards of my profession" she replied truthfully which seemed to satisfy the man as he gave a little hum and began walking inside again.

Ollie watched as the bulkiest of the silver-masked fellows followed after the man and presses a hand to the door to keep it open to allow Ollie inside first and she began to turn away until she realized that...he wasn't moving. His foot was hovering over the edge of the door but it didn't go past the line of salt at her doorstep. Her gaze stared at the foot before slowly dragging her eyes back up to meet the pale purple behind the mask.

"Sister Imperator. I don't believe you introduced me to your friends." Ollie's gaze did not leave that of the masked figure.

"Oh, yes well..." the woman behind her cleared her throat uncomfortable as she looked around the store as if realizing for the first time where she was.

"They are safe, Olivia. I promise you on my life." the blonde said her tone leaving no room to argue but Ollie did not move for a hot minute.

"It's not your life I'm worried about." she finally shot over her shoulder before her foot moved forward carefully and brushed the toe of her boot across the salt line slowly.

"Don't touch anything," she warned the masked figures in a low voice that broached no argument before swiftly turning and heading deeper into the store.

The store itself was dimply lit. The lights above were shut off and only a few oil lamps on a few surfaces within the store gave light. She led the way to the partitioned area and moved to the small counter where she kept her complementary teas.

"Alright, now that you've invaded my holy space." her voice was only partly joking as she busied herself in preparing a personal blend of tea.

"Would you like to make the introductions?"

Sister Imperator sank into one of the armchairs and sighed. "Always with the pleasantries, Olivia."

"Ollie."

"Or should I call you The Arcane Priestess." there was a gleam in the other's eyes that made Ollie tense up.

"I haven't gone by that name in centuries. A name you should not even know. Now talk. You know damn well I don't enjoy these little visits of yours so let's stop with the pretense of friendship. I'm tired, I've had a long day." Ollie snapped her gaze sharp as she turned cooly towards the group.

"Touchy aren't we?"

Ollie's violet eyes flashed and her hand clenched around the edge of the counter. "Your crossing the line sister, do you want me to take back the youth I gave you?" one brow quirked up and that seemed to shut the other up if only for the moment as the older woman's jaw tensed and she flapped her hand around the group.

"This is my son, Papa Emeritus IV -"

"Please call me Copia, mi cara." The awkward man in the suit gave a little smile to the witch who merely flicked her gaze up and down his frame a few times as if seeing him differently.

"These are... Well, these are my ghouls." Copia motioned for the masked group that had yet to take a sit; they damn blended into the darkness of the room so silent and still she didn't even bat an eye at them.

"I know it may seem a little out of this world -" Copia began but Ollie raised a hand to him to stop his upchuck.

"The names Ollie." she interrupted with a tip of her head and outstretched hands. "I'm a witch. There is nothing from this world or the next that can surprise me Copia. I think you should have already known that - or at least realized upon coming to a witch shop in the middle of the night." she snorted.

Copia seemed to flounder for words as he idly tapped his fingertips together. "Si si..."

Ollie then turned to Sister Imperator. "Now, you delivered your charges in my care. You may go."

"I am not leaving Olivia this is-"

Ollie leaned forward towards her; violet eyes darkening into something dangerous; the threat within them was clear as day and dangerous. "I. Wasn't. Asking." her gaze flickered to the door.

"Copia can fill you in after the visit when he returns to you. You're aura is suffocating and I cannot work with you breathing down my neck, snake. Now leave."

Sister Imperator stared shocked at the younger woman. It was hard to think that a girl who looked no older than her early 20s was speaking in such a way to a woman old enough to her be mother; the lack of respect. But it was the look in those purple eyes that held such years in them. A power in them that radiated through her entire being so palpable that even Sister Imperator had to rise to her feet feeling like a caged and cornered animal in a cage with a predator that could rip her to shreds and then some.

"Papa, I will be waiting for word." the woman stated with a false smile and nod before she all but ran from the shop. The door clicked shut behind her with more force than needed.

Ollie inhaled deeply and raised her hands to her temples to rub at the throb that was beginning to form but when she felt the unnerving pairs of eyes on her she lifted her head to peer at the others in the room. There was a heavy silence before she let out a puff of air from her mouth and placed her hands on her hips.

"Sister Imperator and I have known each other since before you were born Copia." Ollie gave a slight smile. "I knew Papa Nihil when he was younger than you when the Clergy was first starting. Trust me, I know a lot more about you guys than I should; I just like pretending like I don't in front of your mother. Gotta keep my trick cards close hmm?" the witch gave a bit of a more genuine smile before straightening up and motioning around.

"Alright, now let's go somewhere more private so we can talk. These walls have ears." she led the flabbergasted Papa and his ghouls from the room and behind the counter. She stood in front of a bookshelf and did an intricate sign with her hands. Seconds later the bookshelves parted to reveal a small well-lit tunnel.

She could tell as soon as they began to walk how the ghouls at her back visibly relaxed as the trap doors closed behind them - locking them inside as they walked. The tunnel was deceptively long in comparison to the building's structural making and if that itself was confusing the hellish creatures could feel the magic that palpitated from the very stone as they walked. Like honey coating the walls they soaked it up subconsciously basking in the magic energy like starving animals while they listened to the little witch and Papa talking ahead of them.

"You may have felt a difference," she shot her violet gaze back at the creatures with a small smile that held hundred years of secrets. "I don't like to practice my personal preferences in the common shop. That is more for show - for the customers that need the basics; it's for protection...for the light magic that people expect. Down here, gentlemen. This is where my true art takes form. Where the darkest of lies and secrets can be unfolded and the more...macabre and black magic can be done without the judging of others."

They came to an old-looking Victorian door with a brass knocker in the shape of a demonic-looking lion's head before she grasps the ring the head held within its menacing-looking jaws - knocking it loudly with a sound that vibrated the air around them it. And then with a start, the lion's head came to life - its golden eyes blinked open and they landed on the group.

"Sorry, Volrath. Didn't mean to wake you. May we enter?" Ollie spoke to the head.

The door knocker blinked slowly at her before its eyes closed again and the door clicked open allowing the group within the confinements of within.

"Oh...." Copia murmured as he stepped in looking around the vast space.

Ollie spun her arms around with a proud smile on her face as she pinned her guests with a look.

"Welcome to where the magic happens, boys."

The space was large. Looking like a two leveled warehouse filled to the brim with shelves of books, statues, and cases filled with items that looked older than time. A living area with comfortable couches covered in soft fabric with an old kitchen off to the side of the open floor space. The top level was guarded by archways made of stone and railings of iron that lead to a half circle wrapped around. One side was what looked to be a library or office space filled with all sorts of things up there that they couldn't make up while the other side looked like her personal living space and bedroom.

"This place is..." Copia began as he spun around feeling as if he'd stepped out of time for a moment.

"It's neat hmm? I like to contribute different eras I've lived through to my personal space. This is where I live. Below the shop. This space was designed to house and entertain different creatures and such that would pop down here for my services." Ollie looked visibly happier and more relaxed now that she was in her space as she idly pulled her snow-white hair up into a messy bun.

"What kind of magic work do you do?" the quiet voice of one of the ghouls spoke up causing her to look over her shoulder at the bunch.

"What do you think?" her lip curled up slightly but when no one replied she sighed out a chuckle. "To the world above," her voice was gentle and almost wistful as she pointed to the ceiling.

"I am just the crazy witchy lady that sells stuff people think is a hoax or a scam. Down here though, I practice far harder and more dangerous magic than some love spells, blessing crystals, and burning sage." she laughed

"There is a reason Sister Imperator calls me The Arcane Priestess. I've been around a lot longer than I look, boys. I've worked with so many deities, gods, creatures, and magic that you'd be surprised. So trust me when I say, my personal space is a safe space for you lot." she wagged a finger at the ghouls.

"Now drop the glamor. It gives a bittersweet taste to the air and I don't like it," she ordered placing her hands on her hips.

Heads tilted to look at each other silently but she was patient as she gave them time to adjust and instead look over to Copia. "Trust me, they aren't the first ghouls I've worked with or helped before. Now, what's going on that needs my help?"

Copia played with his cane as he nervously looked around. "Well..."

"Copia. I don't judge. I'm a freaking witch for crying out loud. Working with hellish creatures is child's play for me. Shit! That reminds me. I need to visit Luci." she clapped her hands and darted up the stairs towards her office workspace on the second floor; unbestowed to her that others followed behind her.

She was finishing lighting a black candle with a white marked seal on the side when she turned to find one of the ghouls reaching out to touch one of her other alters and she reached out sharply to grab their wrist.

"Don't." her voice was firm even when her grip was gentle as she guided the clawed fingers from the alters and shiny objects placed on that particular alter.

"Mother Hecate isn't very fond of others touching her stuff," Ollie stated softly before she turned away to view the others.

The ghouls were all standing there looking around but silent; deglamoured and their ashen skin and tails were flicking back and forth. She did not say anything about their masks figuring when they were ready and comfortable enough that they'd take it off when they were good and ready to do so. Instead, she guided everyone further into the room and motioned for Copia to take a seat on one of the couches situated inside the room.

"Sorry about that. Now. Go ahead and tell me what trouble you've gotten yourself into. Have you summoned a ghoul you can't control?"

"No....well not really. I mean si." Copia floundered waving his hands. "We did do a summoning but it backfired and well...it wasn't exactly a ghoul that we summoned - we sent it back of course but not before...well..." he looked towards the ghouls.

"Not without a scrape or few..."

AN: If you guys enjoyed this let me know if you'd like for me to make one shot series for Ollie and the Ghouls! I'd love to hear your thought. Did you like it? Would you like to see more of Ollie and the Ghouls outside of this series?

[occasionaltouhou]

updated refs for a character you guys have seen before (rumia but a big deal) and one i’ve drawn before but haven’t posted here (miss iwanagahime)

one of my goals for this year is to update some of my old ocs -- though technically speaking both of these are canon characters in one way or another -- and so, y’know, i thought i’d make a strong start

summaries under cut. if you want

Shinguro Ryumiya (新黒 竜宮)

Capable of manipulating darkness

Ryumiya was born from, well, the joke of Rumia. The idea that a youkai of darkness was meant to be intimidating, but ended up being just a weakling. But, you know, darkness used to be a lot scarier than it is now -- if anything, with all the electric light pollution, perhaps we don’t have enough darkness.

So that got me thinking; what if Rumia wasn’t always a weakling? What if she used to be really strong? What if -- and bear with me -- she used to be one of those really strong youkai who helped build the Barrier, but she did it too late, and ended up reduced to little more than a feral beast?

More than that, what if, by storing a little bit of her power in that charm in her hair, just enough to keep a bit of what she used to be around, and with a little bit of scheming, she could get it all back?

Then I turned those ideas into a very rough draft for a fangame with her as the final boss, got through about a route and a half, and got distracted. That’s the same game as those two fish I reblogged ages back without context, actually.

But she’s here now! The concept of Ryumiya is that she tied her idea of darkness to more unknown, abyssal darknesses, like deep space and the ocean floor and even stuff like eldritch gods and the like in order to make herself into something that humans still don’t understand and thus fear.

She’s much more powerful than she was even for a long time before raising the Barrier; in addition to her traditional powers of darkness manipulation, she gained the ability to create youkai from the ocean depths (there could be anything down there, after all) and she gained the ability to create pseudo-black holes from deep space (not that she can control them once she creates them, though, so they usually pop pretty quickly). Of course, having spent a full century as a weakling, she’s still kind of a loser, but that’s her charm point.

-----

Iwanaga Yatsugi (岩長 弥継)

Capable of manipulating volcanic activity

Yatsugi comes from... I think specifically it was talking about a character belonging to someone in the occasional discord who was tied to Youkai Mountain that made me think about its other resident kami, but truthfully I’d been thinking about her since I first read that one chapter of CiLR. After that, it was really just a matter of, well, making my own claim of the identity of the Hakurei Kami.

Because like, despite only being mentioned twice, Iwanagahime is kind of important to Gensokyo, right? She’s the kami of eternity, so she’s who Akyuu prays to; and she’s the kami of Yatsugatake -- that is, Youkai Mountain -- so presumably she was involved in the negotiations surrounding Gensokyo’s location.

Probably? I mean, I don’t think ZUN really thinks about this bit of lore so much, but at the same time I wouldn’t be surprised if he dropped something in the next chapter of CoLA that totally contradicts this idea. But that’s why she looks like Reimu.

Until then, though: Iwanaga Yatsugi. Not a Sage (she’d honestly be amused to be regarded as such), but rather the foremost representative and the greatest beneficiary of the establishment of Gensokyo. Honestly, I feel like she’s probably not a hugely active character, unlikely to cause or resolve an incident, but probably shows up to parties a lot. Mostly acts like a retired old person who doesn’t have to work and spends all their time doing a relaxing hobby (in her case, using heat and pressure to create precious gems).

I drew her with Reimu as a point of comparison, but obviously canon says Reimu doesn’t know who the Hakurei Kami is -- but then again, Reimu’s never been the most observant...

Unlike Ryumiya, I never really had plans for Yatsugi beyond making her, but she exists now. They both exist. I might put them in a piece of writing at some point (sooner if anyone requests. wink wink) but until then. Please enjoy responsibly

[luckyashes-art]

Do you have any OCs other than your Splatoon ones? I'd love to learn about them!

WAAA ‼️‼️ I do actually !! Though I have . quite a lot of them 💀💀

Other than Splatoon OCs I got uhh-- primarily D&D OCs/Characters, Homestuck OCs, and a few actual original characters JDHSFSD some of which I've doodled and posted about before !

I'll stick a few of em down in the read more so the post isn't immediately unbearably long 🗣️‼️

Hmm let's start off with some original characters

Evix (they/them) is one that I've actually been working a lot more on lately !! They're kinda like an undead creature and live on essentially a post-apocalyptic Earth centuries later (might make a whole separate post on all that eventually because they're a part of an original species I wanna make)

Uhh then some original humans (w/ powers ofc) would include Anthony (he/him, one of my oldest OCs creation wise, in short a traumatized young adult with horrible anxiety and is struggling to get thru life 🗣️), Raymond and his niece Raven ( he/him & she/her, victims of loss of a brother and father (respectively), and they live in a world where ppl have elemental-based abilities !), and uhh Kacey (they/she/he, specifically with a c-- they're a cyborg (lost an arm) with no recollection of who they were (calls themself Kacey because of initials "K.C" branded on their robo arm (it stands for their actual name, Katya Cameron)))💥

[unfortunately not gonna doodle any of my other OCs so Evix can have special treatment LMAO]

Next up we got uhh some D&D characters !! [Who actually I have Hero Forge figures of so I'll add those]

Starting off with the first legit D&D character I've made, Glow of the Sun (aka "Sun" - she/her) 😼 Tabaxi Druid (Circle of the Shepard)!! After escaping the massacre of her tribe in the forest, Sun was taken in and mentored by a human druid named Sage (they/them)

Another one I got would be Gale (he/they), who's more-so inspired by my first attempt at a D&D character (who then got scrapped). But basically he's an Air Genasi Warlock (Pact of the Tome) that was raised only by his father until he managed to contact his mother (who was a djinn (an air genie) !! so yea, his patron's his mom LMAO [His Hero Forge is outdated so please keep that in mind ☹️ ]

Lets see ermm I also got !! A Dragonborn Artificer (Battle Smith) named Kai (real name Kazys) Tempest (she/her). Paralyzed from the waist down upon . hatching? She was left to be raised by her mother, which left the little dragonborn spiteful to show that she isn't useless. So she learned and became someone who creates things like prosthetics and kinds of aids to help others who may need it :D

I'll then drop off a last D&D character for now (cuz I rlly do have a lot), but this one's a personal favorite !! Meet Bone (she/he/they/it [does not care]), my funny lil Goblin Barbarian (Path of the Beast) !! Abandoned by her tribe and miraculously raised by a pack of wolves, this feral lil goblin spends her days living a free and wild life while causing problems for adventurers and the like who cross her path :3

Anddd onto the final stretch, we got some Homestuck OCs !! [Which btw I have models made by Xamag's Fantroll Creator (which I also edited a lil) so ermm]

Starting off with my personal fav, here's Arvenii Traket (she/her, Sign: Gemun, Derse + Breath). Goldblood with telekinetic psiionics, this smart(-ish) lil gamer is a hot-headed, anti-social introvert that enjoys things like cosplaying and programming 💥💥

Obviously then gotta follow up with her moirail, Teikai Dregut (he/him, Sign: Lenius, Prospit + Hope) !? A very idiotic yet excitable Oliveblood that loves to run, talk, play tricks, and hang out with his bestie (they tend to take care of each other otherwise they'd constantly not do things like eat or shower 💀)

What else uuuhhhh . How 'bout I drop Raiiko Ekneer (she/her, Sign: Scoriborn, Derse + Rage) !? A laidback, prideful brute of a Ceruleanbloodthat enjoys FLARPing and taking people's treasure/valuables 💥💥 Fun fact tho !! She used to FLARP with Teikai back in the day (he doesn't play anymore). Anyway she doesn't really have many braincells yet she managed to score a kismesis and moirail LMAO

And then I think I'll drop off her kismesis cuz ngl I rlly wanted to show them together 😩but meet Valeri Krovet (she/her, Sign: Sagigo, Prospit + Space) !! This Indigoblood is yet another blue business woman who specializes and takes pride in creating custom weapons of high quality. Can be a little snappy, mainly due to agitation of being on high alert 24/7 (had a gnarly, violent experience when she was younger), but yea :3

What if I was also silly tho and dropped the rest of my main HS OCs' lil models (i would talk abt all of them in more detail but thats A LOT of text ,) 🥴🥴

I do also wanna mention that I have. Ancestors and Dancestors for these guys as well . AS WELL AS OCS THAT ARENT APART OF THE MAIN 12-- Thats a whole other thing tho

BUT YEAH THAT'S JUST. SOME OF WHAT I GOT-- TY ANON FOR THE ASK-

This took so long to type LMAO but I enjoyed it !!

[phantomdecibel]

almost 4000 words XD this is going under another “read more”

*ahem* READ MORE TO LEARN ABT MY OCS ND ORIGINAL UNIVERSE :D

*nods sagely* best flavour of god-

Yeah! I definitely didn’t just want to have them kill her just for the sake of it, especially since she is a kid lmao. Then I got to thinking abt the idea of changelings and whatnot, and well… there are already things here that are known to use corpses as vessels, like Salix (though those are less corpses and more dolls lmao) and beings most often just known as Roadkill! This is why vultures are incredibly important to the universe; they eat the dead things before the dead things can eat you

Alouette definitely had a talent for getting lost – hell, that’s part of how she met Time! She got better at directions (somewhat, when you don’t have a definitive home, when all you do is wander… what does it even mean to be lost? Can you get lost, if you don’t have anywhere to go back to?) as she got ‘older’, but its never gonna be her strong suit lol

She’s sure ended up in a number of time-related messes and a lot of lectures, though the lectures are more like uni lectures only you’re the only person there versus getting scolded by your parents lectures. Although what they do less causes things like paradoxes and is more… ‘time’ is like a river, and the universe is a paper boat floating along it, and Time and Alouette are a pair of fish trying to help it along as best they can. They’re pushing and pulling the universe down certain paths, and can see where the river splits and bends, and where the rocks are, except on a lot larger of a scale, where they can see and examine each water droplet. Alouette can’t redirect the river completely, but she can step into it! But that’s a lot of futures, possibilities, people, cause and effect scenarios, and it’s very hard to find your way back to the surface once the water is rushing over you. She could – and has – live through multiple different lifetimes if she forgets which one is the ‘real’ world, which would be a lot like a time loop for her! Time has definitely had to pull her out before, before she lost her mind, and teach her how to ‘safely’ maneuver it, stuff like that. The ‘veils’ are like running your fingers over the surface of the water to take a quick peek at the most likely immediate futures – is that man going to run into that person? will that lady trip? Who will that sales associate approach, if anyone? It can fuck up her vision sometimes lol

The crystal ball is Time’s eye, and it’s still seeing futures n shit! It reflects what Time is seeing, like real still-in-socket eyes do, and it helps Alouette look into the Stream of Time without actually having to step into it, though her actual control over it is pretty minimal. Since. Yknow. Not her eye :p

Her powers are mostly trained… just through living with them, learning how to make things easier for herself. What muscles to flex to move the Veils, how much does she have to focus to not move them? It’s a long and frustrating process – Time… isn’t always the best teacher haha. If Alouette were to ascend she could, theoretically, be able to make a similar crystal ball esque thing – though it wouldn’t really be a great idea to give them away, unless whoever she’s giving it to were tied to Time the same way she is

Yeah! The idea is that Death is a Timeless domain – and vice versa. Time is a Deathless one. Deaths aren’t set in stone – in some futures that person lives, and she can still see echoes of them in the ones where they don’t. It’s like – they just… stop showing up, most of the time! Someone walks into that allyway, and they don’t come back out, and she has no way of knowing that they’re dead. There’s a sort of magical mental block involved that prevents her from putting together the dots – and really makes her second guess everything she sees in her visions. Because sometimes the person is fine, they just went somewhere else and she didn’t see! She’s not omnipresent, she has to actually be there to see what happens, still has to walk that same distance. She cant be following every person at once – even if the way time works is different for her than everything else. On that note, things aligned with Death have a hard time comprehending the passage of time! It’s one of the few things keeping my girl Stella alive. She had to work very very hard to not leave the child she ended up in possession of alone for a couple centuries :p

I imagine the way they work is that they start out as just plain puppets, but the more they’re forced to pretend to be people and their puppeteer has their attention split between, say, an army, they can slowly form sentience. So if u wanted to… definitely not impossible that one or two could have slipped through the cracks! They’d have to be very, very careful not to be caught and reduced back to a will-less puppet, thought……

Ash and Constellation’s relationship is a little bit of everything – at least from Constellation’s side!

Okay – a bit more worlduilding lore stuff; one way for a god to be born and to die is form them to Shatter. There used to be a god like Time called Balance, but they couldn’t adapt to the changing times and shattered into three main parts; Growth, Decay, and the Desolation from which all life is born, and all death returns to (that last one is Ash!) due to, ah, personal reasons, let’s say, Desolation ends up trying to kill Growth and Decay – though it doesn’t exactly work, and they Shatter instead (oh yeah and there’s also one more ‘aspect’ of Balance that was just like all the leftover bits that formed a fuck-off huge semi-sentient tree in a huge underground cave). They Shatter into Delta, Ibis, Stella and Salix, with Delta and Ibis being the only two true gods out of the four (Stella is just a godling – not even at that point yet, really – and Salix is more like a Really Complex Creature for a while). The Deadzone also forms as a part of their death btw

Constellation is just the only one who ends up w Ash! The others, barely conscious, essentially just god-children, lol-nope outta there haha. What I’m thinking rn is that Stella sticks around out of a sort of instinctual reaction to her (future) aspect – which is. uh. Un-losting lost people? I’m… still working on how to explain that bit yet XD

Anyways – the result is that Stella sort of see Ash as her, well, everything! Her mother, her sister, her boss, her best friend, her god, even. They’ve got such a complex relationship – though Ash is not a good person (I mean all of my characters are incredibly morally grey, but still. She’s definitely the villain here). Ash doesn’t really see Stella as anything other than a particularly useful tool. She trusts Stella to a certain extent – though she’s perfectly aware that she’s the one holding all the power here, and that’s the way she likes it.

Mhm! Agreed love those, though Stella and Ash isn’t exactly the example I’d choose for that :p – maybe more along the lines of Constellation and Foxglove (bestest boi love him) or Delta with Clove and Loki!

Constellation and Time… don’t really have much of a relationship, tbh. She’s been manipulated a lot by Ash, and is Very Resistant to it’s ‘nudging’. Time’s got a bit more of a relationship to Arceli, though they definitely interact sometimes, since it hangs around her friends (all three of them are pretty key to the universe’s storyline, so Time likes to keep an eye on them, so to speak, and Salix gets into the business of making prosthetics eventually! That’s mostly related to Alouette, though I haven’t quite worked out just how she’s injured). Alouette though… eventually, after Stella’s been ‘banished’ and then Salix lends her a puppet, Alouette stumbles upon the two of them, and is pretty rightfully freaked out by their magic signatures (?) – and then ends up stumbling her way into Stella’s prison (she’s got a habit of doing that lmao). Alouette and Stella become… something like friends, though it’s incredibly complicated, and Alouette helps keep her company, though she’s torn on whether to help release her or not…

Time was just kinda hanging around when Alouette found it – it’s got all the time in the world, why not do some sight seeing? There was something interesting in the area, it was sure of it… oh! A child! though they do take fieldtrips to the End every once in a while, especially when the world is just… too much. Its quieter there, and the few things that end up there don’t have many options available to them. There’s nothing to look at, and Alouette specifically finds that comforting at times.

Salix has lived in her puppets before – it’s one of the few ways she could escape, even if only for a little while. She feels more guilt over the way she was forced to give them to someone who only ever used them to hurt others, honestly. It can definitely be a bit dehumanizing for herself to jump from body to body, makes her acutely aware of how different she is even from other gods, though she’s the one holding all the strings for the body she builds, so losing agency isn’t really a concern for her. Living in her puppet form fills her with hubris, though, because no matter what happens, she can just get a new puppet! Living as ‘mortal’ for that short period of time puts things back into perspective for her, as well as the scolding she’s gonna get from her friends for being so reckless :p

Yeah, Arceli stops being mortal, to a point! When she nearly dies from being separated from the Deadzone, Ibis saves her by granting her some of his magic, a piece of his aspect, almost, so he kind of becomes like her patron, perks that come with that included. In short, their lives are tied together now (which she isn’t very happy about, but he’s… decent enough, she supposes), because if he dies, then so does the protection from the ill effects of not being in the Deadzone – though the longer she has to adapt to the world without its radiation, the more likely it is that she could survive without him. She’ snot going to risk it just yet, though. Arceli’s animosity with the gods come from growing up in the Deadzone – there aren’t any gods there. In fact, the only ones who can travel there with relative ease are the Splinters of Growth and Decay – and there’s like. Four of them, in the whole world. But the Deadzone didn’t exist until G + D’s deaths, so as far as the people who live there are aware, one day they were just… abandoned by their gods. And the Deadzone is an incredibly harsh place to live, so Arceli’s a bit peeved. After finding out about how they… kinda just can’t be there anymore she softens a bit towards gods in general, but, well, they haven’t shown her many reasons to temper that animosity.

Tbh the way to leave the Deadzone is super simple; you just walk out. It’s kinda like walking through a sandstorm, sure, but in this case, perfectly possible (don’t quote me on my sandstorm knowledge. I don’t think it’s actually simple or possible to walk through a sandstorm-). Its surviving once you’ve left that’s the problem. The Threshold is the point where the Deadzone truly ends – and where most things perish as their air is pulled from their lungs (not literally, I’m just not sure how to explain, exactly, haha). Being with Stella helps hold the effects at bay for a certain amount of time, but eventually, Arceli succumbs to it like all those before her.

Arceli’s never sent to the End of All Things, Constellation took most of the blame for that situation, and made the others promise to leave her alone if she willingly let them try to get rid of her (though that tale gets twisted, after so long). Arceli is hunted, often, there’s a sort of bounty on her head. She’s incredibly dangerous, out for blood at times, and has strong ties to the gods (even if she hates them). In the time period the main storyline takes place, there isn’t much love for divinity, and Arceli isn’t much different from it. Gods and their acolytes have to be very careful. Often, godlings are prosecuted once they start showing signs of ascension. Arceli doesn’t have many gods on her side – though she’s taken a number of godlings under her wing, so to speak (although she likes to blame Constellation for leading them to her. Its very lighthearted, though). Most of the divine community blames her on some level for the role she played in their fall – and they’re not exactly wrong to. Arceli’s having a hard time figuring out whether she feels guilty for the way things have turned out or not. Arceli doesn’t really ascend – it’s more like a powerup lol. it could have very easily taken away her sense of humanity, though she works very hard to stay as ‘mortal’ as she possibly can. Talking with people helps a lot.

Arceli is very not happy that Stella and Salix kept that Willow is actually her friend from her – but they don’t keep the secret for long and also reveal it by busting her out of being kidnapped and studied like bug. Plus, whatever reason I come up with for our dear Ss to have kept that information to themselves for a lil bit ‘Celi’s gonna understand, so she finds it in herself to forgive them, after letting them stew in the consequences of their actions for a while. And she can recognize that neither of them are really… in their best place mentally. Stella and Sals gets a hell of a lecture for making important decisions like that on such impaired judgment, and the two of them work hard to make it up to her.

You want that drama, that betrayal, Salix going full on puppet master and then having to face the people she’s hurt? You’re gonna get that – she was ‘raised’ by her adoptive brother who cares very much for her, and his boyfriend/fiancé has a pretty big extended family they’re close to, too. That’s where all the drama is, my friend, and I am living for it too! Very angsty, especially since Arceli is on bad terms with the family, and Salix essentially chooses her over them :)))

“What’s it like for them to be Sam?” whooOOOO BOY.  Oh boy is this something I LOVE. Stella is… not in a good place by the time she gets the chance to possess the puppet that’s later known as Sam. She’s starving, been in isolation for a couple thousand years at least, there’s literally nothing for her to do in this endless white expanse… her sanity is getting a bit spotty, in short. She’s mostly survived through dissociating and sleeping through the most of it, keeping her consciousness as buried as she can, so her mind doesn’t have the chance to break under the pressure of the nothingness. And a lot of that gets translated over to Sam.

Due to multiple factors – the starvation, the fact that this isn’t her real body, that thing’s still mostly pretending its best to be braindead, the way she’s been ‘living’ all this time, etc. etc. – Sam looks constantly exhausted, like she’s never aware of anything that’s going down at all. Getting to live as Sam both helps and hurts Constellation, but until she’s freed, she can’t bear to give up this meager taste of freedom. She can feed much better from this form, but she’s actually conscious when in it, and it becomes harder and harder to dissociate her way through the End once she starts waking up. Her magic is still there, but she’s not channeling it through herself anymore. It’s like trying to drawing while wearing oven mitts. If she needed to she could force her magic through her connection to the puppet – but that would have a High Risk of breaking it, which she cant risk. So she has to be careful, which isn’t something that her barely-consious mind is great at, right now. It takes some time, but living as Sam eventually becomes better than worse for her, keeps her alive just that little bit longer, pulls her away from where she’d been teetering on the edge. Definitely incredibly unstable right now though, as a treat!

Living as Sam is like wearing a shitty vr set to playing a shitty rendition of real life. Their thoughts are definitely really hazy, like trying to think through a migraine, and being Sam doesn’t help, but… it has given her back the ability to think at all, even if she has to get used to it again. I think it would remind her a lot of living with Ash, and she would hate it.

What happens when Salix ‘dies’ is that either her puppet is destroyed to the point where it’s unusable and she abandons it willingly (though she usually tries to get them back to her workshop where her real body is hidden), or the puppet is destroyed so thoroughly she’s dropkicked back there by force lmao. The puppet doesn’t really go anywhere – it’s essentially made out of clay and magic, and just… falls apart.

In short; Stella’s not really worried about Salix and Celi turning on her. Arceli pegs her as a godling pretty much right away, after her first real encounter w divinity, though Stella herself only finds out once it’s said to her face (live my oblivious jackass), and that’s before they meet Salix, who’s a god and not exactly hiding it. Yeah they’ve got issues they have to work through – but Stella and Arceli have been working together long enough that it doesn’t really shatter their relationship or anything, and Stella isn’t really anything like how Arceli imagined a god to be, and there’s certainly a big gap between the gods she finds herself allies with, and the ones she’s hunting down.

That’s not to say they don’t go through their strains – Ash is a skilled manipulator, and manages to pin Foxglove’s (real) death on Salix and Celi, and tempts Stella back to her side, for a time. They get into a bit of an altercation, before Stella gives up on revenge for her friend and stows away on Delta’s warship, where she eventually ascends. They’re forced to Communicate eventually though, and everything works out in the end, especially once Stella ends up with custody of Foxglove’s daughter.

The gods they are hunting down are the ones who willing joined the Phoenix King – his name is Taldos btw, I don’t I ever mentioned that. His ghost ends up haunting Clove lmao. At this point in the past, there’s a large power dynamic between the gods and those who’re effectively ‘mortal’, and Taldos and his followers both in and outside of the divine community are looking ot exploit that. He wants control, and what he and his allies are doing is purposely destabilizing their world, for the sake of having everything under his thumb. Those who weren’t involved in that God War were mostly safe from the resistance. It was war, and everyone was doing their best to win it. Stella, Salix, and Celi went out for a bit of revenge once the war was over and tried to keep their targets as the gods who didn’t have any remorse over the suffering they caused to those who couldn’t fight back. They made mistakes, of course, or let the power go to their heads on occasion, they’re not innocent. But in the situation they were in? they were the better option, the ‘right side’, if such a thing even exists. Delta and Ibis and the others did the same thing – though my girls were the real powerhouse uwu

Mostly, their crime was in teaching the more ‘mortal’ of the population how to kill – or even just hurt – the gods, and making it easier. Arceli was mortal during the beginning of this and so was Stella (to an extent) and they all had mortal friends at some point; they, along with a large number of gods who were part of the resistance, thought it was only fair they give them a means to defend themselves. This… wasn’t well received, and the divine host started to prosecute those involved after it was over. Constellation turned herself in and made a deal; she would take the full weight of the punishment, they would stop so blatantly advertising murder, and her friends would be left out of this. That’s how she was banished to the End of All Things; through an immense and complicated ritual. She’s bound there by the life forces of all those who participated. The original deal was just to keep her there for a certain amount of time, though, just until she’d “learned her lesson” (it wouldn’t look good for them political-wise to kill someone who was so endeared by the mortal population, at the time, not to mention that Stella’s got powerful allies), but eventually, it was decided that she was to dangerous to let live. I’m not here to say whether she deserved it or not – only that Constellation did not want to die. And she has a number of powerful people looking out for her who didn’t want her to die either.

Arceli and Salix had been out of the god-killing business for a while now; they’d proved their point, and though they weren’t happy with Stella, they were honouring her decision, and sacrifice for them. Now though… well. They were rusty, but still good at what they used to do. And they’d learned from their mistakes, and started offering their ‘targets’ more of a choice – even if it was only “abandon your part in the ritual or die”.

Being trapped… it doesn’t really change much about Constellation’s relationship with killing and dying, other than give her an increased distaste for torture. Her morals were always a little bit warped from being raise by Ash, and she was an assassin up until the end of the God War. She’s killed before, she’s nearly died before, she’s been captured and tortured and captured and not tortured before. Plus; she’s… trying not the get caught up in her thoughts. She definitely spends some time second-guessing whether some of her victims deserved their deaths or not, and there’s an increased guilt over the harm she did working under Ash – but at least their deaths were quick. Not like – not like this. Once she gets out, well, if need be she can and would fight again in a heartbeat. But mostly… mostly she just wants to rest.

Being sent to the End of All Things isn’t the only way for gods to die – but it is the easiest and most common!

The uncontrollable urge to just turn my characters back into cats strikes again

[actorfrustration]

No Judgement

Title: No Judgement Chapter: One-Shot Pairing:Zak/OC Rating: T Fic Summary: Whenever Zak comes home from a rough lockdown, he only wants to see one person.

[A/N - Inspired by "No Judgement" by Niall Horan.]

“You sure you want us to drop you here?” Billy asked Zak.

“Yeah, pick me up in two days.”

They were scheduled for another lockdown in a couple of days.

He knew he should probably go home, all he wanted was to spend time with her. Zak got out of the van and pulled his bag out of the trunk before walking up to the front door. He pulled out his key and unlocked the door, going inside.

He dropped his keys in the bowl and his hat on the table, running a hand through his hair. He smiled when he found a sage stick ready for him. He lit it up with his lighter and did a quick cleansing.

She always required that he cleanse before walking into her house. She wasn’t interested in being attacked by whatever was attached to him.

Zak had already done his cleansing and prayers after the lockdown, but he saged himself just to appease her. He carried his duffle bag into the laundry room and dropped it on the washer. He could worry about that later. Right now he just wanted to see her.

Zak walked into the kitchen and found her. His Lexi was standing by the kitchen sink, rinsing dishes off and setting them on the drying mat. He walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, nuzzling her neck with his face.

“Hey you,” her sweet voice said.

Zak placed a kiss on her neck as his hands slid up her loose shirt, settling on her stomach.

She dried her hands and leaned back into his arms. “How was it?” she asked him.

He was quiet, which meant it was a difficult one.

“Go sit down. I’ll crack open a bottle of wine and you can tell me about it.”

Zak let go of her and went into the living room to sit down on the couch. He pulled off his boots and socks and pulled the blanket off the back of the couch.

Lexi came into the living room and laughed. “Well you certainly made yourself at home.” She handed Zak a glass of wine. She knew he wouldn’t drink it, but it gave him something to do with his hands.

Zak told her all about the lockdown. How he had been terrified, how Jay had been affected, how Aaron had been attacked.

As Zak talked, Lexi’s hand settled on the back of his head, rubbing the nape of his neck with her thumb. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

Zak sighed. “It’s fine. I love my job, you know? But sometimes…”

“You’re an investigator Zak. It’s in your blood. You’d never be able to give it up.”

“I could. Could move to some little mining town. Live in the mountains.”

“You’d be investigating every building in town, Zak. You wouldn’t be able to help yourself. You’re too curious. Besides, you have your museum. That provides you enough paranormal evidence every day.”

“The show can’t go on forever. At some point, we’re not gonna wanna travel so much. It’s already getting harder. We’re not as young as we once were.”

Lexi giggled. “Oh, I know. Mr. “Oh my god. I’m turning 40!”

Zak playfully shoved her.

“Hey! Don’t spill my wine!”

Zak loved being here with her. There were no expectations from either party. He was free to come and go as he pleased. He could be himself around her instead of Zak “Big Bad Demon Hunter” Bagans.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Two days later, the guys pulled up to the house.

Billy sent Zak a text to let him know they were ready to pick him up.

Zak looked down at Lexi who was still sleeping. He kissed her cheek. “See you later, sweetheart.” He set the alarm and locked up before throwing his bag in the back of the car. He got in the passenger seat and buckled himself in.

“You ever gonna tell us who you visit every time we’re home?” Billy asked.

“Nope,” Zak told him. Zak understood their arrangement. No strings attached, but sometimes he wished there were. He wished he could always come home to her.

Billy turned on the radio as Zak opened the file for the next lockdown.

He needed to get his head in the game.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Lexi woke up to find she was alone.

The last two days had been bliss.

Zak made her breakfast the following morning and they spent all day watching crappy ghost/haunted house/demon movies.

She loved listening to Zak criticize Hollywood.

He was also able to identify filming locations as places he’d been.

Lexi sighed and got out of bed. She needed to get ready for work instead of pining after a man she knew she could never truly have.

[spade-snax]

Alright! Here goes my Bugsnax Grumpus last name headcanon!

(This ended up being way longer than I thought it would've been, oh god-)

I think we all can agree that the headcanon where a Grumpus child has their parent's combined last names as their own last name is a very common headcanon people share. It's a good one! Even I like it a lot. And when applied to OCs or fankids it makes for some hilarious names.

It'd make sense in-canon and I feel like it gives the Grumpus world more depth as their own little tradition. (Honestly give me ANY culture/tradition headcanon for Grumpuses PLEASE THOSE ARE MY FAVORITEEEE I even had one for teeth a while ago that I may share publicly one day!!)

But I've been thinking about this, especially because of Cromdo and my own OCs - Neddy and Rason Honeyfidget. With Rason being Neddy's dad, if we only used this headcanon then Neddy shouldn't have this last name... Well, there's a lore reason why he doesnt and that is that his mother has died while he was still an egg, a while before hatching. Rason made him take on "Honeyfidget" only.

But that's just the backstory that got me thinking at the name traditions as a whole, so I'll try to avoid OC talk any further to make this friendlier for others who do not know about my OCs and are just interested in reading this headcanon.

Another headcanon I want to mention as I apply it to my own is the headcanon that Triffany changed her last name to Bronica's last name as a way to honor her. You can definitely change your name to anything you want in the Grumpus world, but changing your last name to a relative's like your grandparent's last name is possibly quite common!

And now I want to bring up Cromdo and the fact he is divorced. It has been confirmed that Cromdo is divorced and that his name may reflect that. (Though originally it was answered in the AMA that "Cromdo Face" just sounded funny at first and that it is possible that he did loose a half of his last name this way!)

Also I want to say that he wasn't abusive to the child mentioned! I remember there was a small confusion and drama about that. And I believe one of the devs on the YH discord mentioned that the 1# tie was a reference to Octodad. I do not remember if that confirmed that he is a father or if this answer by Sage was possibly wrong. He cannot see the child because he lost custody of them and lost in court. I do not have screenshot evidence of this. On a side-note I believe this could be one of the reasons he grew to be so money hungry. He didn't have enough money back then to keep his child. Again I want to say it could be ONE of the reasons and not the exact reason why he is this way.

This is more so of an ramble about my headcanon and what I want to say rather than some comprehensive thing, I am so sorry dfwergeg it's just how I write and explain things and I gotta mention it ALL (Great addition to "Guzma, your ADHD is showing")

Anyways, back on track with my HC.

But in this/my headcanon - Cromdo is divorced, he has had a child, and lost a part of his last name because of the divorce. I do not know how human marriage last name and stuff works properly so uh, see this as just speculation about a fictional species' culture rather than a carbon copy of our own. Which it clearly isn't LOL

I personally think that you can do multiple things with your last name when you get married! (And how it can affect the child's last name!)

Let's use Chandlo and Snorpy as examples, because I think they make great last name combinations. (And Snorplo is HELLA !!/pos)

- You can change your last name to your partner's last name, like we do commonly. (At least, with all the cultures I'm aware of and how marriage works for us.) Examples: Snorpy Funkbun, Chandlo Fizzlebean

(This one isn't very common to do!)

- You can change one half of your last name to a half from your partner's last name. Examples: Snorpy/Chandlo Funkbun/Fizzlebun

(Not as common either, but it still happens. It is actually more common than the first example. This was the case for Cromdo. I'll get back to this later. Grumps usually reserve this for their childen, which is the most common way of naming your children!)

- You keep your last name after marriage! Example: Snorpy Fizzlebean. Chandlo Funkbun. Canon examples would be Wambus and Triffany as well!

(Most common one to do as many wear their last names with pride or for other reasons - such as Trifanny when she changed her last name to Bronica's last name in this headcanon.)

Before we get to the kids again, I'm gonna go back to Cromdo and what can happen during divorce.

During divorce you can simply change your name back if you changed it, or keep the last name you took from your partner. Many simply change their last names back to what they were originally. Some, if they went by the half/half method, take away the half from their ex-partner only. This leaves some Grumpuses with one worded last names, such as Cromdo.

I think he changed a half of his last name during marriage. After the divorce, he didn't want to "wear" his partner's name anymore and changed his name to Cromdo Face only as Face was a part of his last name he was given at birth. This is most often the default for Grumpuses who have been divorced and took only half of their partner's last name.

If Cromdo - (or any Grumpus with a one-word last name! There's certainly rare cases of Grumpuses who have one word that didn't go through divorce. Possibly Grumpuses with bad attachment to one of their parents - so they change or remove that half of the last name they got from said parent. If their last name was a combination.) - were to re-marry he could take one half of his new partner's last name, or not change his name at all.

I want to get onto how naming a child would work with this situation, so I will talk about ways of naming children before I get back to this! And by naming I of course mean the last names only, lol.

(One rule is that, unless you change your name later in real life for any reason, it's gonna have to be one of these otherwise! Your Grump parent cannot make you up a new last name. It is just a part of the tradition they have. Though re-naming isn't looked upon in any way by the majority of Grumpuses as there are many reasons to do so!! Unless you're a jerk or you value your last name TOO much.) (Also when I say "you" I don't mean YOU as the reader literally. I mean a hypothetical Grumpus child!! It's just how I like wording things.

(...I've been writing for almost an hour, brain scrampled eg)

- Your last name is the combined name of your parent's last names. Examples: Fizzlebun, Funkbean

(VERY COMMON! Most Grumpuses will do this when first naming their child!)

- Your keep one of your parent's last name! Fizzlebean or Funkbun.

(This all works if you have multiple parents btw! Can make for SUPER crazy long and funny last names. This *all* applies to marriage, too! I hope it is easily applicable. I do not want to go in depth on that. Feel free to hit me an ask about this if you want me to explain it more in depth!! I wouldn't want to exclude polyamorous relationships ^^ )

(Also yes, last names that are just the same word repeated twice/multiple times are possible too. Fizzlefizzle, Funkfunk... How fun are these to say? Gives me Grumpus OC name ideas already.)

But yes! Back to Cromdo! Or any Grumpus in the same situation, but as I've stater earlier, Cromdo is just an example here. If he were to re-marry and NOT change his name, there's two posibilities:

His new partner has a full last name.

In this situation, if they have a child they can keep the full last name from Cromdo's partner. Or they can have one word from his partner + Face. For reasons stated below the child cannot have "Face" as their only last name.

His new partner has a one-worded, short last name like he does.

In this situation, if they have a child they have to name it a combination of their last name's. No exception. Having a short last name is a sign of something happening in your life, and it is traditionally not put onto a child, unless they are adopted with no last name. That still counts as something that happened in their life, as their birth parents possibly just gave them away with no care in the world.

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

At this point I am almost completely off track, so please do ask me questions as I am not sure where I completely left off - Or rather if there is something I forgot that I wanted to mention.

By the way, for combining last names and such, you can also mis-match! Doesn't even have to be combinations. This applies to everything, even for (Full last name + one-word last names) where it makes sense the most. Examples: Beanfizzle, Bunfunk, Bunbean, Bunfizzle, Beanbun, Beanfunk. I'm personally a big fan of Bunfunk and Beanbun :P)

And this applies to siblings, too! It isn't uncommon for parents naming their children mis-matched last name combinations if they have multiple ones. (This ties into my headcanon for Filbo's many siblings and that he isn't a single child. He's in a big household and has at least 2 siblings. ONE OF WHICH I want to make into an OC! This requires me to make the parents, too, but I am not so bothered about that :P)

I'm out for now, all my brain power has left me a few paragraphs ago and I've got to go eat lunch

But again I encourage people to ask me questions (If anyone was brave enough to read through this!!)

And if I got anything wrong, do let me know! I am not all-knowing and I could've missed some VERY OBVIOUS mistakes.

And sorry if the writing is wonky at times! Sometimes it is done on purpose but sometimes the fact I only pretend I know how to write + the fact English is my second language IS SHOWING

(Also I sometimes just write how I think, without much thought put into the sentence if I don't proof read, so HSDFWERGRGT)

[bebepac]

Pop’s 🌎 World

This is a very special Mia’s 🌎 World. It’s kind of a stand alone, as you could have not read the previous series and know what’s going on here.  It’s about a father’s love for his daughter.  But if you are curious to go on a binge read:

Book One:  Pop’s Place

Book Two: Mia’s World

I’m also participating in @wackydrabbles​ prompt # 91 picked by  @ofpixelsandscribbles​ “I’m worried about you.” which will appear in bold. 

Original Post Date: 04/20/21 at 7:03PM EST.

The Book:  TRR (this is typically a crossover, but none of the crossover characters appear in this chapter) 

Pairing:  Mia x Jaiden  (TRR MC x M!OC)

Word Count: 1976

Warnings: Pops laying on all kinds of Daddy Fluff.  Brief mention of pregnancy complications, with no specific or graphic detail. 

Summary:  A glimpse into the past, present and future of Pops. We will be getting to know, the softer side of Pops Jones.

A/N: Writing is truly one of the ways that I have dealt with a lot of unsettling feelings I’ve had over the years, and this one is very cathartic for me.  I never had the best home life growing up.  Pops is the personification of the father figure I wish that I had growing up in those more formative years.  He does remind me a bit of my Grandfather, but he passed away when I was young.  So I write my Mia having the strong base that I wish I had.  And maybe some things would have turned out differently.  

A/N2:  I don’t own the rights to the poem “I Trust You’ll Treat Her Well”  by Dan Valentine which the words will be bold and italic throughout this episode.  I did modify a few words to make it representative to Mia and her family, as Mia does not have blue eyes and light brown hair.   

Song Inspiration for this Episode:  I Loved Her First by Heartland

I don’t own the rights to the music.  

Jaiden and Mia were staring at each other in awe as if they were in their own little private universe.

Tears welled in Pop's eyes as he watched Mia.

Pops never thought he was super sensitive until that moment. But seeing Mia, his baby girl, slow dance with Jaiden in her wedding dress, tore his heart to pieces, in a good way. Together Gloria and Pops had raised a beautiful, intelligent, strong young woman, who had found the love of her life.

Their very first dance together as husband and wife was breathtaking, and the newly married couple had nothing but smiles and a few tears for each other, and whispered sweet nothings in each other's ears.

Maybe not so sweet.... as whatever Mia had whispered caused Jaiden's cheeks and ears to flush a rosy pink, as he gently tugged at his collar a bit. 🍋🍋

"She picked a good one, Pops. He'll take care of her. He always has." Gloria whispered in Pops ear.

"I know. It doesn't make it easier. I loved her first."

Pops stood before them with a smile. Since they were done with the formal pictures, Pop's tie was completely gone, and the first few buttons of his dress shirt were unbuttoned. Pops was a simple man. But his feelings about that day were anything but simplistic. Pop's soul was a storm of emotions inside his heart: happy, melancholic, and bittersweet, because not only had he given his daughter away to be married, but he was also gaining a son, whom he loved dearly.

His eyes met with Mia's from across the room. She smiled at him, but as he refocused on her, he saw the little girl that loved to play dress up in Mommy's clothes and makeup.

Clearing his throat, Pops began to recite the poem that he picked for today. His confident voice was already shaking as he gazed across the room at his little MJ, his eyes already beginning to tear up.

"Dear World,

I bequeath to you today one little girl… in a crispy dress...with two brown eyes… and a happy  laugh that ripples all day long...and a flash of black hair that bounces in the sun  when she runs. I trust you'll treat her well."

He never knew the person who would completely change his whole entire world, his heart  was a little bouncing baby girl that weighed seven pounds and twelve ounces when she was born.

When he found out Gloria was pregnant, Kelvin wanted a boy. That's all he thought about. Someone to play ball with, and fish with. He got the shock of his life when he heard those three words. It's a girl.

Mia was born a week before Christmas.  Gloria went into labor while they were at a Christmas party neither one wanted to attend. Labor was a fitting excuse for the pair to leave early. The one time in Mia’s life she showed up early to benefit her parents. 

Gloria’s due date was Christmas Day.

When he first saw Mia's big brown inquisitive eyes, he knew she would be special. And Mia was, and she was the light of his world.

Mia’s first word was Pop.  The reason everyone called Kelvin “Pops”  was because of Mia.  When Mia started talking she said it repeatedly.  And it stuck with EVERYONE!

Mia was definitely a Daddy’s girl. 

Mia took her very first steps following behind Pops. He had walked into the kitchen to make Mia a snack, when he glanced up from the counter seeing her toddling towards him.

"Pops!" Mia exclaimed enthusiastically as she took her slow and deliberate steps towards him.

Pops immediately knelt, opening his arms smiling brightly at her.

"Come to Pop Pops."

Mia made it to his arms. He picked her up and spun her around planting kisses, and raspberries on her cheeks and tummy.

He wanted his little MJ to stop growing.  

Even though he loved Mia dearly, Pops thought about the possibility of them having another child.  He thought then having one of each would be perfect.

But sadly the lightning never struck again for them.  

Gloria sat on the side of the bed in tears.  

“We weren’t even trying when we got Mia, and now that we are…. Why isn’t it happening?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe we just got it perfect on the first try, my beautiful Morning Glory.”

“I know you want a boy Pops.”  

“I wanted our child Gloria.  Mia is our baby.   I wouldn’t trade a thousand little boys for our Mia.”

He wiped Gloria’s tears.

“I’m worried about you.”  

“I feel like I'm failing you.”

“You’re not, you gave me Mia.  She’s more than we could have ever asked for.”  

Mia had asked several times for a baby brother or sister.  Until a sweet family with a little dark haired boy moved next door.  

Daniel and Mia were inseparable.  

“Prim and proud she’ll wave her young and independent hand this morning and say “Good bye” and walk with little lady steps into the school house.”

It was  Pops that cried the first day of school when he waited with her at the bus stop.  They had always had a very special close relationship.

“For five full years now I’ve been her sage and Santa Claus and pal and playmate and father and friend...”

Mia had her “Mommy time” with Gloria but as Mia aged, she liked to fish with Pops.  She enjoyed being in the kitchen with him.   At age ten Mia called out her first order to Pops that day taking the first step of creating ‘their special language' they talked to each other to this very day in the kitchen. Mia sat at the table with her book watching the waitress in front of her, listening closely to the order.

She called out the order to Pops loud and proud.

Pops glanced down at the order that Ginny handed him, as Mia recited in her own language what the customers wanted.  He smiled at her, it made sense to her, and to him.  

“I’m on it, MJ!” His voice boisterous.  Little Mia learned the menu and started calling out all the orders to Pops. 

His mind drifted to Kyle.  Mia’s first serious boyfriend.  The one he had basically thought he was so proud of Mia for finding.  Kyle appeared to have it all.  He came from a good family, and he appeared like he loved Mia.  

Pops mentally took off his rose colored glasses and looked at his daughter’s relationship with him.  

Pops saw all the warning signs he had been oblivious to the first time around.  The sadness in his daughter’s eyes, she was trying to hide.  The crash dieting.  Mia wasn’t insecure before, but he now saw all the hints of it.  And he had been afraid to ask. Why did he not ask her what was wrong? When he had such a good relationship with his MJ.

“Today she’ll learn for the first time not all who smile at her are her friends….”

Mia found the courage in herself to end that relationship.

And with the ending of that relationship ended another one.  Daniel’s father was transferred to North Carolina.   Mia was devastated with her friend moving away.  But, it was very short lived, as Daniel’s father Jonathan let Pops know of a restaurant that was for sale in their area, that would give Pops the chance to branch out completely on his own and have his very own place.  

Pops took a chance and packed up his family and moved to North Carolina and bought that little restaurant that the community now fondly known as Pop’s Place. 

He remembered the first time he saw Mia interact with Jaiden.  The two were very friendly with each other talking and laughing.   Jason Brooks elbowed him.  

“There is something special blooming between those two.”

Pops laughed looking at the two of them again.

“I doubt it seriously.”  

Mia’s dance card was full, between Drake Walker, but Pops had his money on Liam Rys walking away with Mia’s heart.

“Twenty bucks says they’ll be dating before the end of summer.”  

“You’re on Brooks.”  

Pops lost that bet.  

Watching the love blossom between his daughter and Jaiden made him feel young again.  The love and the heartache.  

The sweet little gestures of love and understanding.

*^*^*^*^*^*^* Fast Forward a year after the wedding *^*^*^*^*^*

"I think I finally got it right now. Hi MJ, hey Jaiden. Can you all hear me now?”

"We can hear you now fine Hey Pops, where's Mom?"

"I'm here, I had to take dinner out of the oven."

They talked for a few minutes.

"MJ you look like the cat that ate the canary. What's going on?"

"So we didn't agree on how to do this.  We both wanted to tell you face to face but we didn't want to wait until Thanksgiving."

She looked at Jaiden.  He smiled nodding.

"Mom, Pops…..”

Pops saw the tears in Mia's eyes.

"What's wrong?"

She held up a single picture.

Both her parents screamed in joy.  

“It’s a boy!!!”  

“We wanted to tell you sooner.”  

Jaiden’s eyes filled with tears, as Mia leaned into him.  His grip tightened around her.

“We had to wait a little bit, because we had some complications. I had to take some time off work. But we’re okay now.  All three of us.”  

“This is the best news I’ve ever heard!!!!” Pops was laughing and crying at the same time. 

“You can't tell anyone yet. We’re telling Jaiden’s parents a little later on this evening.”

"We understand."

“So that means Pops, when we have the baby you’re getting on a plane and flying out here.  Mom’s not going to let you drive cross country.”

“It will be fun, we could rent an RV like we did that summer.”

“NO Pops. NO!!!”  Gloria and Mia exclaimed in unison.

“That summer was a nightmare, Jaiden.”

For MJ, when it was time, he got on that plane.  The simple man who lived between North and South Carolina his whole life, had raised a girl that loved adventure, and was living her life now in California as a fashion designer  with her successful architect husband, and about to give birth to their first child.  

Jaiden walked out of the delivery room with a proud smile on his face.  

“He’s here.  Six pounds and two ounces and twenty one inches long.  He’s perfect in every way.”

Jason went to hug his son.    

Later that evening, Pops and Gloria went in to see the baby.  

Mia had been in labor for over twelve hours, but you couldn’t tell it from the serene smile that was on her face, as she held their first child in her arms.  

Jaiden took the baby from her arms.

“Pops, meet your grandson.  His name is Kaiden…. Kaiden Riley Brooks.”

(Author’s Note: yeah…. I know, I said Riley Brooks would never exist in a place where my MC is not named Riley…. But you know…. I had to mix things up. Technically this is NOT your Riley Brooks.)

Pops held Kaiden in his arms.  The little baby opened his eyes to look at him. And in that moment Pop’s life was changed again by another little baby, this time, weighing six pounds  and two ounces.  

He kissed the top of his head gently rubbing Kaiden’s head full of dark brown curls.

“We finally got our boy Pops.”  Gloria whispered as Pops rocked Kaiden in his arms.

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^* Fast Forward  *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

Time flies as time always does.  Pops and Gloria were visiting during the first week of school.

Pops grip on Mia’s hand tightened as she held her youngest child Luna on her hip, watching little Kaiden walk down the driveway to the bus.

Mia softly gasped as Kaiden stopped, turning around to her, and  waved goodbye to her, and his little sister, and his Poppy; Mia was holding back tears.

“I know how you feel.”  

“Does it get easier Pops?”

“You’ll always see him….them the way you do now.  They will always be your babies. It’s how I see you. I’m so proud of the woman you’ve become Mia.”

“Thank you Pops.”

“So, world, I bequeath to you today, one little boy… in a little blue and gold uniform…. With two hazel eyes and a flash of curly brown hair that bounces in the sunlight when he runs.

I trust you’ll treat him well.”

Tags in the comments!!!!

[goldie-claws]

A moodboard for fun for my OC Aldrich bc I just think they’re neat! :>

I want to give them a proper reference post outside of WorldAnvil, as well as work on an actual plot where I can be very self indulgent and kiss the Behemoth, so I’ll use this board as a reminder to make said post at one point or another bc I love talking about Aldrich and showing them off to people! 💖✨

(Aldrich is Non-Binary and uses They/Them pronouns, thank you)

Each photo is explained under this readmore:

Crown - Aldrich’s full title is Dread King Aldrich Coulstra, so called as they are the king of all Behemoths, having created them thanks to being a literal god as well. Aldrich does also answer to Dread Behemoth Aldrich Coulstra (albeit only from fellow Behemoths) and Aldrich Foxglove, the surname of their sister: Sage Foxglove (who helped create Behemoths alongside their sibling).

Rathalos Eye - One of Aldrich’s most distinctive features is their black scleras and white iris/black pupil. Their right eye, which is completely blind, lacks a visible iris and pupil and constantly glows white because of the electrical charge in Aldrich’s body.

Red Moon - Aldrich appearing to others, ESPECIALLY as a fully transformed Behemoth, is considered a very bad omen and can result in either one person dying or potentially mass destruction and many people dying, depending on how severe Aldrich deems the problem that caused them to go full Behemoth to be.

Teeth - Aldrich, as a full Behemoth or in their humanoid forme, always has two pairs of very large, long canines that stick out of their mouth. They also have sharp, canine-esque teeth in general.

Fur/Hair - Aldrich has a very thick mane of dark red hair that sticks up bc of the aforementioned electrical charge in their body and like their eyes, is one of their most distinctive features in both formes.

Mountain - Aldrich is a very private person and prefers to live alone as far away from civilisation as possible. Naturally, their prefered home are mountains that are very tall and difficult to climb.

[luvjoyed]

┃ soulmate alphabet

summary ━━ a troubled assassin and a hopeless romantic are somehow made for one another.

pairing ━━ c!dream x my oc june

warnings ━━ swearing, mentions of murder ( aging stops at 18, esp, nurse, and wrists ), and described injuries/slight gore/blood ( damage, nurse, passionflower, and zzz )

word count ━━ 2,318

a/n ━━ this idea is from @shubbled !! full credit to them for my inspiration and for this idea !! my lover and i have created the story of these babes together. june is very close to my heart so i hope you enjoy this tiny insight to her/her and dream’s love story :’) i’ve been working on this piece for months, i really hope that shows through haha but there’s a description for each letter in the replies ( some have been changed from mushroom’s ) !!

━━ aging stops at 18 ᵎ

thirteen, dream was when he wished to meet june. it felt to him as if he had shape-shifted into another person’s body, his life changing that quickly. while he murdered those who he was assigned to keep his mother and sister safe, his soulmate never left his skull. selfish, he said to himself, selfish of me to wish for her.

━━ body art ᵎ

small, dorky smiles scatter the skin of june’s forearm. the black ink contrasted majorly with the pale tone of her body’s surface. her fingertip curve along with the new smile that appeared. she rolls her eyes with an idiotic grin on her face. picking up her own pen, she draws a tiny heart in red. i miss you, it reads in his handwriting.

━━ color ᵎ

june’s world had once been verdant. the skies were painted in hues of olive and sage, pistachio being the color the clouds were made of. she came to adore seeing the earth she knew in such tinge. it reminded her of him, of course it did. she hoped for the day that her and her soulmate would see the natural beauty of the planet together. she remembers vividly of the day it happened. it felt like a dream to her, and now that made since of why. him being the first thing she ever saw properly was enough to remember for a dozen lifetimes.

━━ damage ᵎ

her eyes grazed upon the many bruises that marked up her skin. she looked at herself, tears threatening to spill in worry for him. her brown orbs met themself in the mirror. she broke when blood spilled from her cheek and down her jaw. soft fingertips gather the liquid. a sob shouts into the endless void of her hope that he’s okay.

━━ esp ᵎ

dream had adrenaline flooding his bloodstream, pumping through his heart, and pushing the emotion-filled blood through the paths of all of his veins. he had just taken out a group of people, all on his own. he felt sick for feeling like this — proud of himself for doing his morals wrong — but he couldn’t help that he had been shoved into this job head first, barely knowing much else besides it. deep down, he liked it. why? he didn’t know.

━━ first words ᵎ

a masked man walked into june’s father’s blacksmith, she always attended to the front of the business. she welcomes him in with a sweet “hello, sir!”. he hands her tattered papers with dagger designs sketched onto them. “i’d like something like this made for me. here’s the designs.” from the looks of the smudged and messy ink, the drawings seemed to have only taken minutes to put to the paper. panic settled in as june realized what words had been spoken to her. it was the infuriating words that’d been written into her skin for years.

━━ guardian ᵎ

“h–hello?” she asks the man approaching her who had an axe attached at his waist. her voice wavered into the night air, a stream of smoke coming from her lips as she spoke from the cold temperature. he had been given her as a target, he was supposed to kill the girl in front of him. staring into her eyes, he saw pure fear in someone for the first time. something in him screamed to keep her alive. he couldn’t kill her, he’d rather be killed than to have her life taken at his own hands. “do you need help home?”

━━ heartbeats ᵎ

june’s heartbeat never changed from the steady pace it was set at from birth. from time to time, she questioned if she had a soulmate at all due to the lack of change in the beats. he could have been dead for all she knew, or rather that he was dead inside. maybe he had never had an opportunity to feel something other than the slow passing through the inside of his chest, possibly it had been instilled in him from his birth. at an alarming rate, enough to make her jump, her heart started racing. she looks around to be met with a white mask, the black painted eyes of its smile peering back into her own brown ones. it was him and his heart was racing because of her.

━━ identifier ᵎ

june leans forward into dream’s touch. his hand rested on her jaw, thumb tracing her cheekbone. her eyes flutter open and land on his green irises. the two share a smile before he pulls his hand away, but her eye catches a rose inked to the pad of his thumb. “roses are the birth month flower for june!”

━━ juxtaposition ᵎ

sitting, looking at her made him wonder what she saw in him. what made her pester him in the first place. whatever that reasoning of hers might have been, he wouldn’t have it any other way. although he might never be able to admit it, he did love her — it was nearly impossible to keep acting as if he didn’t — despite whatever front he pushed up to protect his true feelings.

━━ keep talking ᵎ

“it’s been a comfort thing for me since i was small. i remember my mom reading me bedtime stories and it’d be hours before i stopped asking her for more. she knew how much i loved— wow, this is so dumb,” he cuts himself off with a laugh. “no, it’s not! it’s cute,” june murmurs back, a smile adorned her face. his laugh echoed in her head — it was almost the sound of a tea kettle, but she found it awing — and she giggled along with a hand over her lips. she breathes out, “i like knowing we have such a love for something though we talk in our imaginations.” “you will never be just in my imagination.”

━━ lover ᵎ

cat paws scattered her thigh in a trail, a book with a name that was peculiar sat left of the prints, and a stack of three flower crowns claimed the right side of the paws. june had assumed from these things that her other half must have been female — not that she minded, it was simply uncommon for same sex soulmates — and it surprised her when her own face had appeared upon her thigh. she ignored the fact of the two being soulmates; “you’re a dude?”

━━ marks ᵎ

a glossy film covered her eyes, tears dared to spill down her blushed cheeks. in a blur, she saw bright colors marking up dream’s arm. the correlation doesn’t hit her. his arm had just been around her shoulders to keep him steady from his intoxicated state. june’s eyes focus onto his arm, blinking away the tears to streak their way down her cheeks. hues of green, yellow, and indigo paint his arm, the portion she could see of it anyway. she smiles while meeting the painted eyes of his mask — holy shit.

━━ nurse ᵎ

she presses a gentle kiss to the gash he wore upon his cheekbone. the blood from it transfers to her lips, the mark disappearing, and her lips presently ghosting the smooth skin. “he’s such an asshole. i swear i’m murdering him, dream.” june’s eyes meet his with a hard glare in them from the man — if he would even be considered as such — she spoke of. her look softens as the man whose lap she sat across took her palm to his lips, placing a kiss to it. “thank you, seriously.”

━━ opportune outfit ᵎ

she stuck out terribly in the sea of townspeople, dream beside her only making the color more visible as he was matching. “why do you have to wear neon fucking green?” june whines at him and he only laughs, swinging his arm around her shoulders to pull her into his chest. “at least you look cute.”

━━ passionflower ᵎ

a white anemone bud sprouts out of his forearm. he sucks in a breath as the flower blooms, making a hiss out of the pain it was causing to have a flower grow from his arm. the white petals are glazed in gore, painting them cherry. usually, dream could handle pain, but this? this was close to unbearable for him. another breath comes to a sharp hitch in his throat, causing him fight back coughs. he looks around for her despite what agony he’s feeling. despondency rushes to his core when she is nowhere to be seen.

━━ quill ᵎ

he asked her the most boring questions imaginable. he wanted to know her through and through, every single detail he wanted to memorize before they met. he wanted his heart to whisper “oh it’s you” on the day they meet. how’s your day going?, she writes in fine print. she swallows back a laugh when the words better now that you’re here appear on the paper laid out in front of her. you’re an idiot, the brunette female grins at his handwriting. instead of writing that back to him, she jots down a quick is that so?.

━━ red string ᵎ

it was quite annoying, their situation. they were stuck together for a lifetime only to be mere inches apart at all times. the string that linked them had yet to break and they always seemed to end in having conversations about it. “we’ve literally gotten nosebleeds from falling trying to break this thing,” june laughs as she tells her and dream’s mutual friends — george and sapnap — about their oh-so-lovely experiences with the infuriating red string that they came to hate over the years of being bound to the other.

━━ songbird ᵎ

a smile crept to june’s lips as her soulmate was back to singing the lyrics she grew so soft for. “the world’s not perfect, but it’s not that bad,” he sings. her smile widens, aching her cheeks from the grin. “if we got each other, and that’s all we have…” her heart begins to slam against her chest, yet she knows what words comes next. they’ve become awfully familiar to her. “i will be your lover, and i’ll hold your hand. you should know i’ll be there for you.”

━━ timers ᵎ

habit had been made out of him for his eyes to flash to the timer implanting into his wrist for how many more seconds were left until his eyes were on his forever love. stark white numbers flashed 7,889,231.49. seven million, eight hundred eighty-nine thousand, two hundred thirty-one seconds, and forty-nine milliseconds. to be exact, that was three months left before he met her. three months left to go. three whole months. he didn’t know if he could wait.

━━ unrequited ᵎ

from the beginning, she knew he could care less about her. a glimmer of hope pushed her towards something greater than either of them expected. through all of their turbulence, they made it. they made it to a day of where they were on the same page, and that happened to be the one in which they fell in love.

━━ veiled ᵎ

the first thing that june saw was the lime of his hoodie. she was met face first with it. the color had been so strikingly bright for the first thing she ever saw, it jump-scared her. a hand flies over her heart and she huffs out a breath that she had sharply inhaled due to fright. dream’s eyes had already become familiar with her small frame. a laugh bubbles from her throat and then he knew it was actually true. “why the hell must you wear such bright colors?” fate only proved itself further and he grinned.

━━ wrists ᵎ

dream had stared back to june from her wrist for the longest time. the word almost mocked the name on her right. schlatt, it read. she made a promise to herself then and there that if this schlatt person ever had anything to do with her soulmate, then she’d murder them without thinking twice about it.

━━ x (free space) ᵎ

it was obvious the two were soulmates. the transition from dream hating her to touching her at all times was given that they were meant to be. he at first had no part in it, he’d already given up before it started, but alas, he felt the desire deep in him to stay alive for a girl he wanted nothing to do with. his friends laughed at the pair. they knew of dream’s feelings, and yet, her head was pressed up against his upper arm with his hand placed to her knee so long as she didn’t leave his side or else they’d be dead.

━━ yellow fellow ᵎ

purple had been her assigned color for anger, yellow for sadness, blue linked to fear, red to disgust, and lastly, green for happiness. her world turned green for a moment, she sneers. turning to face his goofy smile, he looks away, but she caught the smile he donned. “you’re dumb. so dumb!” a laugh she’d been holding eventually coming out. “what? is it illegal to be happy around you?” the grin met gaze for his head had turned in her direction. “i’ve never saw such a neon green before, it was the same shade as this,” she paused, tugging at the hoodie he wore, “you must be really happy.” the grin got wider. “all because of you.”

━━ zzz ᵎ

a heavy gasp awakens him, his heart hammering against his sweaty chest. flashes of what nightmare he had woken from paint his closed eyelids. fluttering them open in a hurry, he shakes his head to try and rid of the memories. he saw her. he saw her covered in blood in front of him, smile slapped on her face. he couldn’t help but wonder what in the hell happened. thousands of questions blazed through his head, wondering about a person he’d never met.

[shannygoatgruff]

Only Fan(s) - A Thriller

Genre: Thriller

Pairing: Modern Ivar/OC

Warning: Language, sex, stalking, obsession, kidnapping, sexual assault

Rating: MA+18

Summary: Sometimes OnlyFans subscribers want a little more than internet pictures. Sometimes they want to be your ONLY fan…

Header by: @flowers-in-your-hayr

Thanks to @xbellaxcarolinax for being my beta.

Disclaimer: This story will deal with some topics that might be a little uncomfortable for some people. As always, I’ll try to tackle the hard stuff as tactfully as possible.

a/n: I wrote this months ago and let it sit on the shelf. I’m finally ready to dust it off and give it another go...so let’s see what it do...

Part iii - Trifecta

Torren Sykes hadn’t lived what anyone would consider an exciting life. In fact, in her twenty-three years, she had only just left her mom’s double-wide trailer in East Bumble Fuck less than a year ago. Not quite 365 days later, she still didn’t have a pot to piss in, nor a window to throw it out of.

Truthfully, she usually didn’t know where she would be getting her next meal - that sort of thing wasn’t really a big deal to her. She actually liked the mystery of it all. There was something undeniably sexy about not knowing what the day would bring - who she would run into, or have to take something off of to survive. If someone else had to get hurt so she could make it through another day, such was life. She’d won. Those other people just needed to be better at playing the fucking game, plain and simple. 

Besides, pulling a caper or two kept her on her toes. She learned how to pull off the best of them from her mother. It’s not like adulting was one of Leslie’s strong suits. 

If only her mother had been more like her Me-Maw, now that woman was a saint. For reasons that Torren never cared to ask, she lived with her Me-Maw until she was five years old.  Leslie would periodically visit her to drop off the obligatory present on Christmas or her birthday if that bitch remembered. Not that they were ever good presents – just some cheap ass, unwrapped items she happened to pick up at the dollar store. Torren couldn't remember a gift that she had received wasn't still in the plastic bag with the receipt in it.

Cheap, whore.

Just once she would have liked a real baby doll from Toys-R-Us, instead of those cheap, hard, plastic dolls that the hand molds weren't cut out evenly, and the jagged edges cut the shit out of her face when she tried to sleep with it. But, that was Leslie. Torren didn't choose her; Leslie sure as shit didn't choose her daughter.

It became painfully clear to Torren that her mother didn’t want anything to do with her after her Me-Maw died. Unfortunately, she found herself as her mother’s unwitting roommate at a very young age, forcing the girl to spend a lot of time alone. 

By the time she turned nine, Torren was convinced that her mother was a prostitute and she was a trick baby. It was the only explanation she could come up with seeing as how her mother never worked but always had enough money to pay the rent, keep the lights on, and have plenty of booze, chips, and hot dogs in the fridge. 

Not that Torren had many other life experiences with a working parent to compare her situation to, but it just seemed pretty fucking difficult to have a job if one were passed out drunk all the fucking time. Besides, who had time to work when during your waking hours you were spending them with one of your many, many boyfriends? 

Torren used to wonder if one of the multitudes of men that would traipse in and out of that trailer were her father - but the more she got to know what type of person Leslie was, the more she realized that whoever that guy was, had gotten the hell out of dodge. 

Lucky son-of-a-bitch. 

But for all of Leslie’s flaws, she did manage to impart her three philosophies of life onto her daughter - the three things that Torren still lived by to this day. It was the least she could do. God knows that whore sure as fuck didn’t do anything else for her.

Mama’s Life Lessons #1 - There is no such thing as too much black eyeliner

As trivial as it sounded, it proved to be a precious lesson. Shortly after she had moved into the trailer, Leslie had forced Torren to sit on the bed and watch as she got ready for another one of her "dates". She had told the little girl that beautiful eyes were the one good gene that ran in their family. “You got to learn how to work ‘em,” Leslie exhaled a long plume of smoke at her reflection in the vanity mirror, “You listenin'? This's important. This right here," she held up the black liner pencil, “is gonna be your best friend.”

Of course, Torren had no idea what she meant. How was a pencil going to her friend? She didn’t really care so much as what her mother was saying to her at the moment, it was more of the fact that she was actually talking to her that made Torren hang on to every word. 

That’s why she picked up the black liner pencil from her mother's cluttered vanity table and leaned over to look in the mirror. She tried tracing her bottom lid, the way her mother had done, but at six it was a little easier said than done. She had just learned how to color inside the lines with a fat crayon; mastering the art of applying liner would have to wait a few more years. 

Leslie, however, was not willing to wait that long, "What the hell's amatta wit'chu, Dumbass? You doin' it all wrong," she said snatching the pencil from the girl's hand. Grabbing Torren roughly by the chin she said, "Gotta teach you every goddamn thing. Hold still." She mumbled more curses and said something about her good-for-nothing mother not teaching her brat anything useful.

By the time she had finished cursing her name, Leslie roughly turned her daughter's head toward the mirror, "Yeah you got those eyes. Now, learn to use ‘em.” Leslie dropped the pencil onto the vanity before picking up her drink and shooing Torren away. 

That was the day that Drew Watkins bought her an ice cream. It had to be the eyeliner. It was a true fact, not just another one of her mother's drunken theories. Eyeliner and her eyes...she didn’t know how she used them, but they worked.

From that day on Torren opted to never step foot outside without heavy black liner again. 

Mama’s Life Lessons #2 - As long as there are men around that want to fuck you, you will never need to work

It wasn’t like she going to go out and get a real job. She wasn’t raised with much of a work ethic. She was too young to remember if her Me-Maw worked and what she gathered from her mother was that there would always be men around to take care of her. 

Leslie told her that she didn’t need to work because working a man was a full-time job. If she were doing that right, she wouldn’t have time for a fucking 9-5. It didn’t matter if he was in a relationship, gay, or the fucking Pope. As long as he a dick and she could bend over, and her eyes were done, her rent was as good as paid. 

If she wanted more than just the basic bills paid, she would have to rethink what all she was willing to do - but just make sure she didn’t do too much otherwise she couldn’t guarantee a steady paycheck every week.

This sage advice didn’t make much sense to 8-year-old Torren, but as the years progressed she started to work it into one of her life’s mottos. She would never want for anything. She could always rely on the kindness of strangers and when that got to be too boring, she could always take it, just to spice things up a bit.  

Mama’s Life Lessons #3 - If you want something do whatever it takes to make sure you get it

As a child that grew up with the television as a babysitter, Torren Sykes knew that she was destined to love Ivar “Lothbrok” Ragnarsson since she was a little girl. Ever since that day she turned on the TV and saw this adorable blue-eyed boy drawing Mickey Mouse ears saying, “I’m Ivar Lothbrok and you’re watching the Disney Channel,” she knew that he had to be hers. 

He was co-starring on a show called The Baker Boys, about three foster kids, who had come to live with a family that owned a bakery. Ivar’s character was named Simon Baker - a mischievous kid that lived with his grandmother until she died and never felt like he fit in with this cookie-cutter family. 

His life was just like hers - minus the cookie-cutter family that loved him and all. She was actually with more of an alcoholic whore that didn’t give a shit if she lived or died, and not pulling stunts in a bakery with flour and messing up orders like him, but she still saw them as kindred spirits. 

When the show got canceled she was devastated. How dare the world try to keep her from her man? Didn’t they understand this was love? Didn’t those people at Disneyland know that he was the only person in the world that understood her?

As if on queue, she happened to find the Season 2 DVD box-set at the library one afternoon. Her mother had kicked her out of the trailer because she had a date and couldn’t have the dumbass child around fucking things up for her. Torren had nothing else to do - at 11-years-old, she had no money, and nowhere to go. At least the library was air-conditioned. 

She wanted that box-set. Slipping it into her backpack unnoticed was the easy part. Trying to get it past the alarms would be harder. She watched for a while, paying particular attention to the way the check-out system worked. 

When the librarians changed shifts, she let a smile cross her lips as she picked a few random books from the shelves. 

Her beautiful eyes went as big as saucers when the alarm buzzed, and the young male librarian looked down at her, still clutching the large reference book to her check. Carefully she had stepped across to the other side of the alarm sensor waiting to collect the books she was checking out.

“I’m sorry, you can’t check out reference books,” the young man said, blinking his hazel eyes at Torren, the corner of his lip tugging into a smile.

She let a pout fall on her lips as she lowered her large eyes down to the book in her arms, “Oh...sorry.” She handed the book back, “I didn’t realize I still had it.” And like that, she walked out of the library with her prize.

She had stolen for Ivar...now if that wasn’t love what was?

The only thing that had threatened their love through the years is when Ivar got married. It damn near broke Torren’s heart. How could he be so cruel? She didn’t give a fuck that the marriage was short-lived. She even understood why he had to do it. He had gotten that bitch pregnant, and he didn’t have much choice. But, he cut her deep. 

Didn’t he know how much she loved him? Didn’t he know that she stuck by him when he had joined 6cess and had seen him in concert 3 times? She still had the autographed photo of the two of them from the signing at Spring Hills Mall - when she was wearing that blue midriff cardigan and ripped jeans and he had his arm around her. That shirt brought out the color in his eyes. She even wore Happy, which he said was his favorite perfume. She thought it smelled like Comet, but she stole a bottle of it from Macy’s right before the photo-op to smell good for him. 

And he went and pulled this shit?

Besides, Johnny Law said that she was still too young for him and that he could get arrested for being with her. She knew that he had to pretend to have a normal life so that no one would know about their love affair. She was just understanding like that. It gave her time to grow up a little more so that when they could he be together, the law wouldn't be standing in their way. She really didn't give a fuck, but she suspected he did. Why else hadn't he come for her?

Torren didn’t even like their music. She wasn’t a boyband kind of girl, but for him, she would make the exception. She was more of the gangsta rap or heavy metal type girl. But if Ivar was serenading her, she’d listen to sappy, wrist-slitting, emo, shit rock all fucking day long, because she loved him. 

She hated that he had gotten that whore pregnant, too. She understood that he had to pretend that they had a normal marriage. She knew that when he was fucking that bitch, he was really imagining it was her. The years apart had made him a master at hiding his true feelings for her. He couldn't give anyone cause for suspicion. If he let on the truth he could risk losing everything…his house, cars, job, and his kid. That whore was trying to keep them apart. But, she was just a small obstacle that posed no real threat to Torren.

She did not doubt that she would be his daughter's new mommy. The kid would probably be sad at first that she wouldn't be with that other woman like Torren had been when her grandmother died. But, the kid would get used to it. Torren was going to be a whole hell of a lot better at being a mom than her piece of shit mother was to her. That was for damn sure. She was going to teach her stepdaughter all about eyeliner, and how to dye her hair. 

She was going to teach her what party clothes every woman should have in her wardrobe and how to get a man to do whatever she wanted by just batting her eyes at him. She would even share her secrets on what pills to mix and what dosages to give for submission, making a man catatonic, and if she was really good, she'd teach what to put in a drink to kill someone. Hell, she even planned on giving the child her most discrete drug contacts. That would of course have to wait until she was older – at least 13. She was going to be such a good mommy. 

Ivar's daughter was going to love Torren as much as Torren loved him. They were going to be the perfect family.

Torren was as hopelessly devoted to Ivar as he was to her. He had waited for her to become legal. Just months before she was old enough to legally consent to sex, and get married without parental permission, his marriage started falling apart. She knew that Ivar was trying to make a clean break from his wife, and get his daughter used to the idea of them being apart before he could come home to her. 

Torren had been thoughtful and respectful enough to give him that space to make sure everything was right before she stepped into the role of the new Mrs. Lothbrok. He had to test the waters, make sure that she still wanted him as much as he wanted her. He had to get back into the swing of things…have sex constantly to make sure he could keep up with her. She knew that "the prude" wasn't doing it nearly as often as he needed to - why else would he have an Only Fans page?

Torren was the only one that could feed his appetite, and he hers.

Now, they were both finally ready. She was mature and developed. She knew what she needed, and it was him. He had his fun before her, but now he was auditioning again and getting everything back on track for them. He had a great relationship with his daughter and his dumb ass ex-wife finally understood that their relationship was a fling that went too far.

His face told her everything that her heart already knew. He loved her. 

Why else would be looking at her like that? She could feel herself blush when he smiled on Instagram like that into them. Then he gave her that smile. That was her smile; the one that he reserved for her during their private times. Yet, there he was doing it in front of an audience of millions, and he didn't care who saw it. He had to let her know that it was time for her to come home. It was like a sleeper cell being awakened.

She didn't have a choice. She did what any other woman in her position would do. She packed a bag, threw it in the car she stole a few days before and drove. Armed with her trifecta of knowledge and determination, she prepared to face the obstacles that were bound to get in her way. There was nothing that was going to stop her from getting her man.

Nothing.

Part ii || Part iv

Tags: @ideagarden-blog1​  @youbloodymadgenius​ @xbellaxcarolinax​ @a-mess-of-fandoms​ @didiintheblog​ @conaionaru​ @peachyboneless​ @flowers-in-your-hayr @heavenly1927​ @zuxiezendler @waiting4inspiration​ @saldelys @didiintheblog​  @revolution-starter​

[risualto]

Fic ask game, 1, 4, 6, 11, 17, and 23?

Thank you for asking! ^_^

1. Is writing cathartic or stressful for you? Already answered!

4. Tell me about one of your abandoned WIPs. Why did you abandon it? I had a story once called “The End of the Second Floor Hallway,” that was supposed to be a college AU for the show Fairy Tail, but I ended up taking a large hiatus from writing shortly after posting the first few chapters.  This was about the time that I actually started college myself (lol this project is older than I remember), and when I finally came back to it, the writing was so foreign to me that I didn’t know how to continue it, so I never did.

6. What are some topics you will never write about? I’m really not sure about this.  Most things I never want to write about have very specific context--for example, I don’t like writing about characters who willingly use mind-altering substances, and I especially won’t write about characters under the influence having romantic or sexual encounters unless I’m using that as a plot point and it’s meant to be portrayed as a bad thing.  Not because I’m vehemently anti-drugs or alcohol or anything, but purely because it makes me uncomfortable to see people confess or (especially) have sex for the first time while not in their right mind and then treat that as perfectly normal and like there were no consent issues.  But, like I said, if the lack of consent in that situation is acknowledged by the story regardless of how it’s dealt with, then I have no issue.  So, the kinds of things I won’t write about are very, very context dependent.

That said, I avoid second-hand embarrassment like the plague.

11. Which OC of yours do you think is the most similar to you? Which OC is the most different? Why? Other than Rebecca, who is just straight-up a self-insert (lol), the character who is most similar to me is probably one of my D&D characters, Montgomery von Calliston Radcliffe.  He didn’t start out that way, but through a series of meta events, I had to make him a much less volatile person, and in the process, he became kind of a leader and emotional support pillar for his friends, all the while dealing with imposter syndrome and trying very hard to pretend that he wasn’t.  So while we’re not entirely the same person, Montgomery has a lot of me in him because I had to change his personality so rapidly in order to support the fact that I, Risu, was the only experienced D&D player in that group, and so playing a careless and reckless, even ignorant, character wasn’t going to work.  I ended up defaulting back on my own personality a little bit when I felt lost, and so Montgomery and I share a sense of duty, a sense of needing to fix other people’s problems, stubbornness, love of music (and insecurity about it), inquisitive mind, curiosity, love of the stars and technology, and absolute abhorrence of passive-aggression.

The character currently most different from me is probably a new Speaker MC named Sage Almstead.  Xe is upbeat, bubbly, a bit of a clown, unrepentant in xyr teasing of xyr friends, strongly extroverted, and xe lacks my fundamental quality of “never wanting to argue with anyone if it can possibly be avoided.”  Xe also hates planning and would rather just go with the flow, which drives me up the wall.

17. What has been the proudest moment for you so far since you started writing? Already answered!

23. What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone who wants to start writing or posting their writing online? Already answered, but here's another one: I don't recommend starting out with a massive, longform project. This includes when you come back from a hiatus--trust me, the worst thing you can do when you're still finding your footing is throw yourself into a project that massive. There are going to be times when you doubt your style, or more specifically, when you're (re)discovering your style such that the first chapter you write and a chapter halfway through might sound completely different because you've finally found your voice. And in large projects like that, you often are going to have bits and pieces that you're really excited about writing--the big climactic emotional confrontation, or a little scene with two side characters that you just know is going to make the whole chapter shine--but it's easy to get bogged down in the connecting bits and feel trapped when the parts that are driving you to want to write feel so far out of reach. Don't let that happen--write the things that are reminding you why you wanted to write in the first place, and use the emotional feedback from that to power your longer projects in the future.

[capricornus-rex]

A Shadow of What You Used to Be (6)

Chapter 6: No, There Is Another | Cal Kestis x Irele Skywalker

Summary: There is another! Years after young Anakin Skywalker departed Tatooine, his mother Shmi delivers a second child—this time, a daughter. Whilst the circumstance of the girl’s birth remains unexplained, Irele Skywalker has yet to choose the true path between those laid out for her.

A/N: Sorry it took so long, you guys! ;;w;; What with the holidays and me managing what to order for my 24th birthday today (It’s the 27th where I live so we’re celebrating in a quite chill way heheh), so this is my birthday treat to you! A new chapter! 💖💖

Tags: Fem! OC, Irele Skywalker, Force-sensitive! OC, Anakin’s Younger Sister, Skywalker! OC, Darth Vader’s Secret Apprentice, Long-lost Sibling

Requesting to be tagged: @heavenly1927​

Also in AO3

Chapters: Prelude – 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 | Previous: Part 5 | Next: Part 7 | Masterlist

7 of ?

19 BBY

Irele, her stepbrother Owen, and his now-wife Beru Lars live together in the same roof. After their father had died of natural causes, they placed him next to the grave of Shmi, as they deem it appropriate; they have taken full control of the homestead, though their ways didn’t change that much.

Now thirteen years old, Irele Skywalker had grown into the spitting image of Shmi Skywallker albeit younger. Medium length hair always secured as a ponytail with thin braids woven along the tail, warm and earthy-colored eyes, and a somber yet friendly smile.

The teenager had grown into an adventurous young spirit. Perhaps, if one is to see Shmi as a girl, she would have been the exact same as her daughter. Gaining friends in Anchorhead and even as far as Mos Eisley, though she had learned to steer clear of the latter town unless the need truly arises. Taking odd jobs in either of the towns, her hustler’s nature remained intact, she did not want to depend heavily on her brother and sister-in-law for monetary support—albeit Owen strongly disagrees, but to not avail.

“You’ve been out more often than staying at home!” chided Owen, who was now perhaps in his early thirties.

“Well, I do need to work, don’t I, big brother?” she tapped his bulky arm as she strolled into the house.

She had just returned from her work in the shop that’s a hybrid of a speeder vendor and a servicing center. Whether she realizes it or not, she always finds herself tinkering with something, fixing them… like her real brother’s pastime as a child.

Irele had taken home a piece of a machine to her house, a personal project of sorts, completely unrelated to her work. She settled herself on the small worktable in her bedroom and immediately casts her lamp’s light on the working space. A metal rod put together with various, mismatching shafts and components held together by screws and sewn leather wrappings; it’s even a miracle that it worked, one way or another, it would serve better as a melee weapon than that of a Magnaguard’s electro-staff. Perhaps this staff is one of the many testaments of Irele’s skillfulness and resourcefulness, for growing up as a hustler and being exposed to machinery at an early age.

As she grew, she always donned a woven scarf made by Shmi. It has been a few years or so, and the heartache is very much fresh; every time she catches a glimpse of her headstone, with Cliegg’s next to it, the healing wound is ripped open once again—though she found comfort in confiding and speaking to both of them as if they were still alive, sitting with her and listening.

“Oh, circuitry should be here. Mom would have pointed that out too.” she mumbled to herself as she fiddled the wires with the sharp end of a thin screwdriver.

Come the hour of sunset, Irele had finished her chores after her handicraft. In the middle of her working, she felt a presence—it was sage and calming—she also heard the grunting of a single eopie. Curious, she and Beru went to the door. She was right about the eopie, carrying a single rider who held the reins with only one hand and is carrying something with the other. Irele thought the hooded rider to be her brother, as she remembered his own cloak, but the cowl revealed a slightly older man—his jaw was covered with a full, sandy-brown beard, his eyes were kind and yet she hinted the sadness in them, as if tragedy had befell him shortly before coming here.

It was Obi-Wan.

When the stranger coaxed the animal to kneel, he carefully hopped down, and supported his precious cargo with his free arm. He approaches the older girl and she willingly takes what he gave. The wide sleeve of his robe gave way to show an infant boy, perhaps a few weeks old. Beru and Irele’s eyes lit up, they spoke nothing to the stranger but they bid him with a short, polite bow.

Obi-Wan noticed the second girl, her olive skin and brown eyes gave him a memory of Anakin—the reminder sharply jabbed him into the recesses of his mind. The angry voices, the echoes of the sputtering lava, and the sorrowful howling of Anakin drummed behind his ears.

“Are you alright, sir?” Irele noticed.

“Oh, dear. I am fine, thank you,” he cleared his throat and tucked his arms inside his sleeves. “I am just not used to travel here in this place… but I will be.”

“I see.”

“My dear, may I know your name?”

“It is Irele…”

“Irele…?”

“Irele Skywalker-Lars.”

Obi-Wan slowly angled his head upwards, concealing his surprise as her name sinks into him.

Another Skywalker?

“Well, Irele,” he cleared his throat again. “May I ask a favor from you?”

“I’ll do my best to fulfill it.”

“I’m sure you can,” Obi-Wan’s gaze went to Beru carrying the baby who joined her husband, Owen, looking at the binary sunset. “Take care of him.”

“I don’t mean to sound uptight but… Who is he to me?”

“He’s your family. Your nephew. His name is Luke.”

Irele was a smart girl. She knew whose son the infant would have belonged to. A part of her wanted to ask where the father is—her brother—but perhaps it was for the best that she does not obligate the stranger to indulge her questions.

“Then I’ll do everything in my power to keep him safe.”

“I know, Irele,” Kenobi smiled, although a little sadly. “I know.”

“Sir, I’m sorry but I don’t know your name.”

“Ben… Ben Kenobi.”

Kenobi did not stay long in the premises of the homestead. He bowed to Irele, who returned the gesture, and returned to his steed. The eopie grunted as Kenobi hauled the reins to the right side, then spurred the tall quadruped to the distance, clouds of sand puffing under its hooves until the figure disappears as the twin suns set.

When Kenobi was gone from her sight, she turned to her brother and sister-in-law, along with their nephew—whom Owen would have probably called his son, given the chance. Irele was excited. She was already thinking of the things she and Luke would do—what games they’d play, what machines she’d teach him to fix, what kind of speeders could they hop on together.

He was the brother she never had.

From a certain point of view, it’s a wrong that she could right, while fulfilling her promise to Kenobi.

After Beru nursed the infant, she laid him down on their bed, Irele never left Luke’s side. She chuckled every time he would squirm, coo, and smile at her. Her heart fluttered and she fell in love with him. When Beru left the two children alone, Irele tasked herself to watch over him.

She moved her finger to his tiny hand and with his tiny, soft fingers he clasped her thumb with a grip as light as a feather. Irele’s heart melted once more.

And then she whispered as she kissed the tiniest hand that held hers, “I’ll keep you safe, Luke. I’ll always protect you.”

[a-third-attempt]

The Long Green Line

A/N: Presented on the occasion of @call-me-clever-girl’s 22nd birthday. Thank you to @selectedtrash for beta reading!  (3428 words)

Santiago is an OC of @call-me-clever-girl. Source (at her writing blog).

Warnings: Food. Brief mentions of gore, horror, overeating, violence.

 * * *

You paced frantically around your one-bedroom apartment, towel in one hand and yardstick in the other. You’d been living there for nearly a year now and while you had no illusions that it was some grand estate, you never had the occasion to quantify exactly how small it was.

Today, that innocence died. As the aroma from slow-cooked pork wafted through the kitchen, you learned that there was about three and a half feet between the appliances attached to the wall and the countertop that butted up against the living room couch. You walked up and down that corridor, all nine feet of it, as you tossed in vegetables and spices. The aforementioned couch was exactly seven feet long and the coffee table stood two feet from it, the television ten. The front entrance, as well as the door to the bedroom and the bathroom, measured just under three feet wide. Tricky, but not much to be done about it.

After a day spent creating carnitas and egress, the apartment smelled of garlic and sage but looked almost spartan, a far cry from the cozy atmosphere that you normally enjoyed. The only hints of its prior life were found in its dusty corners, where tall piles of treasure and clutter alike were packed into as little floor space as physically possible. This was the price you paid for precious inches of maneuvering room. And today, today only, that price was worth it.

You knew that he was going to arrive exactly on time, because for the last week he had been so excited about seeing your place. So when you started waxing the floor you knew that you had exactly nine minutes to finish up and change your clothes, which you did, with eleven seconds to spare. You spent those last seconds fidgeting with the ends of your hair, trying to shake off your analytical mindset. This should be fun. It was going to be fun.

Ding Dong!

“Just a minute!” you called out. Stealing one last look in the mirror, you stood up straight, put on a big smile, and opened the door.

Standing before you was Santiago, the love of your life. A naga, with russet-brown skin fading into mottled dark green scales, he stood a whole head above you, looking down with luminescent yellow eyes. His black hair was tousled in beautiful waves that fell just above his broad, muscular shoulders. His features were naturally sharp, but they were softened by the smile that came easily to his face.

“How are you, my clever girl?”

“Lovely, now that you’re here.” You stood on your tiptoes and kissed his neck. “Say, what’s that behind your back?”

You grinned. He never came to a date empty-handed, always bringing along some little bauble that made him think of you. Sometimes they came from a shop, sometimes they came from the swamp, and you loved them all the same. But this time you were surprised; you gasped as he revealed a bouquet of plump white roses.

“Oh, Santiago, they’re gorgeous! This is incredible, thank you!” He beamed back at you. “I’ve got just the spot for them in the kitchen. They’ll catch the evening sun.” 

You rinsed out a glass from the sink, put the flowers in, and set it on the windowsill. During it all, an uneasy silence rested in the air. You hadn’t invited him in, and he didn’t make to enter. He simply sat in the doorway, watching you walk around your nearly-empty apartment. “Looks like you’ve been busy.” His tongue fluttered out and tasted the air, “Mmmm… and it smells like it, too!”

“Like I told you, you need to eat a proper meal for once.” He didn’t exactly fill up at restaurants. Despite his protests, you always felt guilty for ending dinner so much more satisfied than him. So now, meeting at your own place for the first time, you had resolved to feed your boyfriend as much as he could eat.

You returned to the doorway and unbuttoned his big black coat. It hung well below his torso but still looked comically small, his tail easily spilling out from the bottom and far into the hall. Clothes weren’t terribly useful in the water, he had explained to you on your first date, but the coat helped him remain decent in human society. Still, he grew up wearing nothing at all, and that’s what he preferred. You preferred him that way too, which had probably been obvious from your uncontrollable blushing.

You tossed his coat to the side, then hesitated. “Come in, babe.” Both of you understood how much anxiety you were hiding behind those simple words. But he said nothing, and if he had reservations of his own, they didn’t show. He held his smile and began slithering in.

His powerful muscles glided his body across your newly waxed floor, thick waves of scales shifting to and fro. You tried not to stare as your brain automatically began measuring out his length. Three feet. Six feet. Nine feet. He turned back to face you, sheepishly, coming back toward the door as his tail began piling up in the space behind him. Twelve. Fifteen. Eighteen. He stopped suddenly, looking around. 

“Um...”

“Wrap through the kitchen?” He nodded wordlessly, sliding between the counter and appliances. In one opening and out the other. Twenty-one. Twenty-four. Twenty-seven— The tip of his tail was nearly through the doorway, and you shared a relieved sigh, knowing that you’d cleared the first hurdle. As soon as it crossed the threshold, you slammed the door shut, perhaps a little too hard. He winced, then broke into full-chested laughter.

“Well, that was a little adventure,” he said, reaching the end of his tail up to embrace you.

You wriggled free, thoroughly embarrassed. “The first of several, perhaps. Now, sit down, and I’ll check the pork.”

He did not sit down, and instead followed you eagerly into the kitchen, his tongue lapping the fragrance of the meat. The walkway is barely big enough for one person, certainly not accommodating two plus a tail. “Sit down, sit down,” you say, shooing him away. “I’ll bring the food out when it’s done, but give me some space.”

He begrudgingly retreated, flopping down on your couch. At only seven feet, it wasn’t even pretending to be long enough for him, his tail lazily draping over the end.

After cooking the meat for hours, the last steps for carnitas always felt strangely rushed. You took a big vat of sour cream from the fridge, tortillas and hot sauce from the pantry. Placing the trays on the stove to cool, you dropped one steaming piece of pork in your mouth. Perfection. Mama would be proud.

From the couch came a small whine, as the top of your boyfriend’s head peered over the back of the countertop. “Dear god, that sssssmells so good. I’m about to drown in my own drool.”

You clicked your tongue and shot him a sideways glance. “Are you a dog, whining for your food like that?” His brow twitched in embarrassment. “Am I dating a dog, Santiago?”

He collapsed dramatically onto the couch, whumping down on the pillow. “You’re always teasing me, Raptor.”

“You make it too easy, darling.” Your lips curled upward as you poured the juices over the cooling meat and tried another piece. 

“It’s reeeeeaady,” you sang.

“Yaaaaaaaaayyyy!” He threw his hands in the air as he cheered. He was playing it up for you, of course, but he was still clearly excited, his tongue rapidly flicking in and out of his mouth. “I can get up for it.”

“Nope,” you said, already setting down the toppings on the coffee table.

“What are these for?” he said, shrugging his shoulders. You rolled your eyes. He was always feigning ignorance about food, saying that a childhood in the swamp left him with simple tastes. Humans make it all too complicated, he insisted, with these vegetables and sauces and spices. But it was all a ruse. He loved savory food especially, and there was no hiding it; he rolled each bite around on his tongue to bask in its flavors.

You brought over the two heaping trays of pork, and he rubbed his hands together. “Not yet,” you admonished, a pair of fingers tracing the lines between your eyes and his. He smiled but said nothing, tongue still snapping out between his lips. Last, you brought the tortillas and napkins, plopping yourself down on the couch. “I’ll make your first?” you asked.

He nodded. “Thank you, sssweetie.” You loaded it up with everything, including nearly a fistful of the pork. You smirked as you passed it to Santiago, who was now visibly salivating. 

He grabbed it from your hand and didn’t— maybe physically couldn’t— force himself to wait a moment longer. He took his first bite, and his eyes fluttered shut. “Mmmmmm, oh zhissssh is ssssho good,” he said, barely getting the words out before cramming the rest into his mouth. 

You laughed quietly as you piled up your own tortilla and laid down on his chest. He was only too happy to have you, his tail curling slowly around your body, tiny by comparison.

“Why would you ever eat out when you can cook like thisssss?” he said, licking the grease off his fingers. 

“You flatter me.”

“It’sss not flattery if it’sss true.”

You cocked your eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure it still is, actually.” Then, slapping him playfully on the tail that laid across your chest, you nodded to the trays. “Anyway, eat up. I made this for you, it’s all yours.”

His tail abruptly stopped sliding across you, shocked. You could practically hear his eyes bug out. “All of it?”

“As long as you let me sneak in a few, yeah. I told you I was gonna feed you for real, didn’t I?”

He wrapped his arms around you and kissed the top of your head again and again. “Oh, whatever I did to deserve you, it couldn’t possssssibly have been enough.” 

You hummed, lifting his hands off of you to prepare yourself another. “I’m not gonna keep making them for you, though, you gotta dish your own from now on.” 

He giggled and mussed your hair, and then hastily piled some meat on a tortilla. As he scarfed it down, the tip of his tail poked up to lie on your chest, as it always did when you ate together. Warm on both ends, he would say. 

He ate for nearly an hour, cleaning every last bit of meat off the trays. Mama always told you that the highest compliment that a cook could receive was a silent meal. But she was wrong. Santiago’s gratitude was vocal as he pounded one loaded shell after another into his mouth. His tongue turned its flavors into all manner of sighs, grunts, and murmurs. You said almost nothing the entire time, soaking in that beautiful music of his.

Swallowing his last bite, he smacked his lips and heaved an enormous sigh. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! It was amazing, sssweetheart. A gift from heaven.” His scales tickled as you pressed himself closer to you.

Your cheeks flared and you gave him an embarrassed smirk. You rubbed his belly, engorged from the sheer size of his dinner. “You full now?” 

“Oh god, yesss,” he groaned, his hand resting on top of yours. “I won’t eat for another week.”

“Mmmm, then I’m satisfied.” You nuzzled his side, and he squeezed you gently in response. By then he had engulfed you entirely in his tail, leaving only your head and arms uncovered. It was not a warm embrace; you, in fact, were the furnace in the relationship. But it was still immensely comforting to you, like nothing you had known before. His tail rarely came to a complete stop, always slithering gently in place, and the texture of his scales soothed you as they brushed over your skin. 

You were lost in that full-body massage when he cleared his throat. You lifted your head to see him watching you, with a look in his eyes that you couldn’t quite place. 

“Ssssssso, we were going to watch a movie?”

You smiled. One of the few things you loved about your apartment was that when the sun went down, it got dark. There were no streetlights and the road rarely saw traffic that late, so the most light that made it into your apartment was filtered through two window shades from your neighbors. It was a gentle reminder from the world that it was time to sleep. 

Or, more relevant to present company, it set the perfect mood for a campy horror movie. Watching them had become a Friday night ritual, and you were delighted that this week, Santiago was going to be part of it.

There was just one problem. “Aww, you’re gonna make me get the lights?” You brushed one hand along his abs and the other up his tail, from the tip to as far as you could reach. It wouldn’t take more than ten seconds for you to hit the switches, of course. But in that moment you wanted nothing more than to stay wrapped up in him forever.

He cocked his head. “No, I’ll get them. Where are they?” You didn’t exactly want him to stand up either— it takes two to cuddle, after all. But instead of arguing, you pointed to the wall next to the front door. To your surprise, he did not move to stand up. He scrunched his tail into a hump where you had pointed, and then smacked it clumsily against the switch. 

You giggled, but it worked.

The title screen rolled and the score began, a creepy little melody that already had you grinning. You could already feel his body tensing around yours. Stealing a glance at him, you barely recognized the voracious predator that destroyed your carnitas. In his place, a young man, wide-eyed and lock-jawed, features tensed as if preparing for a fight.

You tried to sound casual. “Hey darling, what’s up?”

“I— I don’t watch a lot of movies like thisss...” he said, softly.

“Oh,” you said. A little disappointed, you reached for the remote. You had others you could put on, of course. Honestly, you’d watch anything if it meant you’d get to snuggle with him the rest of the evening. But still, this shift in the routine felt like you were betraying the tradition.

“No, I want to watch!” he said, grabbing your wrist, and then immediately releasing it. “I mean, if you like it, I’m sure I’m gonna like it.” His eyes narrowed into a smile, their dim light seeming to sharpen as they glinted off his teeth. “I’ll tell you if we should ssstop, I guessss.”

Understanding flashed through your mind. “Oh my god, Santiago are you scared?” No way, you thought, it couldn’t be that perfect. 

He shifted in place. “A little, yeah,” he admitted.

You covered your mouth to stifle a giggle. “Oh, now this is gonna be fun.” 

His eyes suddenly widened. “I ssshouldn’t have told you that, should I?” he asked weakly.

You set down the remote and brushed his cheek, still giggling as you shook your head. “No, Santiago.” You leaned up to plant a small kiss on his lips. “You absolutely should not.”

He sighed and buried his head in your shoulder. “Hmph. Sssome help you are.”

The film was new to you, but it was clearly a love letter to the B movies that the directors had enjoyed as teenagers, hitting beats that were all too familiar. Your boyfriend probably had a harder time seeing that love through the spooky veneer. But his reactions breathed life into the experience like you hadn’t felt in years. After all, you could see the jump scares coming from a mile away, but he was caught off guard every time, letting out small yelps. And as the tension mounted, you could feel him instinctively constricting more and more around you, anticipating the next big release.

But it was the gore that really got him. The first death scene was a decapitation, and when the guy’s head flew off, he shuddered so hard it rippled down his entire body, jostling you several times on the way down. You could tell that the second one was going to be bloody as well, which gave you an idea. Just as the nerd’s guts spilled out of their chest, you dug your nails into his sides as hard as you could and scratched them across the same spot.

He bucked wildly and howled, tossing you around in his grasp. You collapsed into his chest, laughing. “Geez, Santiago, you’re gonna wake the neighbors.”

“Damn you,” he muttered, bopping you upside the head.

You hugged him, but before long your hands had other plans. They began roaming around his sinuous curves, matching his motions along yours. You relished the gentle firmness of his spotted green scales in your palms. He rewarded your affection with sharp, breathy gasps, and deep shivers that shook both of your bodies. Soon the movie was forgotten entirely as you wrapped around each other, snuggling ever closer.

Your intimate dance was interrupted by a bloodcurdling scream, the heroine finally succumbing to a grisly death. Your poor boyfriend nearly jumped out of his skin, spasms flinging his tail around wildly until—

CRASH!

His tail connected with the pile on the far side of the room, striking it to the ground.

“Oh my god, I’m ssso sssorry!” he said, immediately stilling himself and letting you go.

“What happened?” you asked, still dazed.

“I’m sssorry, I’m sssorry, I didn’t mean to, I should have been more careful!”

Putting the pieces together, you let out a relieved chuckle. “Hey, hey, it’s fine! Stop—” you fumbled around for the remote. “It’s fine, Santiago.”

He groaned. “I should never have come over, it was ssstupid, we both knew there wasn’t room—”

“No, listen—”

“I broke everything!” His voice was loud but it wobbled, as if he was on the verge of tears.

“Darling, stop. Look at me.” You grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “Where’s the light?” you grumbled, tripping over his length as you turned on a lamp. His gaze immediately snapped to the mess he had made, but yours kept trained on him. You didn’t care what had fallen down. You rushed back to him, grabbing his chin. “Darling, look at me.”

He did, and what a sorry sight it was. His normally toned skin was near-white and his mouth sagged, hanging open. His eyes were wide, downcast, and wet with half-formed tears. You stuck out your neck toward him, trying to match his pathetic look with one of patient determination. 

“First of all, you did not break everything.” You glanced over at the trinkets now scattered across the floor, none of which had any significance at the moment. “I don’t think you broke anything at all. But even if you did, that’s okay.” He whimpered in protest. “No, Santiago, I mean it. It’s okay. We both knew it was going to be tight, and I wouldn’t have let you come over if it mattered that much to me.” Your features softened, but you spoke seriously. “That stuff doesn’t matter. You matter. I’m glad you’re here.”

As you spoke, he closed his eyes and took long, deep breaths. He began to nod, your words bringing him to his senses. “If you want to go home, I get that, but I’d rather have you stay.”

He nodded, swallowing. “Me too,” he whispered.

The two of you sat in silence for a while as he continued calming down. You smiled at him; when he opened his eyes, he sighed in response. “You’re too good to me, Raptor,” he said, dipping his head. You bent down to meet his far-off gaze. The embarrassment was still etched into his face, but at least his hysterics seemed to have passed.

“Now, you want to finish the movie?”

He let out a weak grunt. “What, so I can wreck the resssst of your apartment?”

“Yeah, well,” you said, grinning. “I wasn’t really watching anyway.” You blinked, surprised by the truth in your words. Years of Friday night movies, and you couldn’t remember a single time that you’d actually stopped watching one entirely. But somehow, you thought to yourself as he began wrapping you once more in cool scaly coils, this change in the routine suited you just fine.