#they’ll set themself on fire anyway

[frostbitebakery]

“I,” he gasped, blinking the spots from his vision in lieu of shaking his head. “I just want you to understand, I’m not in here with you.”

“You’re in here with me.”

[heres-to-all-that-is-mine]

Hr-HM, let’s see here…

Formerly-A-Doctor Jonah Juni Emile West, they/he (they/them preferred), is an interesting character to be sure.

For starters, despite their somewhat violent and strange tendencies when it comes to teeth, they’re not actually particularly malicious. Strange and off-putting? Sure, to some degree - that’s just kind of how they are! They try their best to be friendly and cheery, but it hardly seems to matter when people are unsettled by him anyway :(

By the time he picks Phoenix at random for a “checkup,” they’re not in a particularly good state of mind - having been fired and blacklisted from their profession pretty recently, the one thing they knew for sure they enjoyed and found fulfilling to work with! (To make matters worse, it’s exactly the way they felt about it that got them fired! (That is, if one disregards the other little things, of course.)) And, well, who wouldn’t get a little carried away seeing that inside someone’s mouth?

Now, from a young age, Emile’s just kind of known he wanted to be a dentist. Maybe it started the first time he lost a tooth as a child (he can still remember the taste of blood on their tongue, the feel of the gap in their row of teeth, if they try), or perhaps the time they’d had to get a tooth pulled and got to experience the wonders of laughing gas left his head all mixed up afterwards. Maybe it was a hundred little things that built up into a conviction. (Maybe they were just born like this.)

Regardless, they’re a nice enough chap, but they find themself… well, to put it simply, obsessing over teeth. All the thoughts feel like an itch they can’t scratch! Usually they ignore it, but at that point…

Either way their “little” slip-up irreparably changed the course of their life. While they try to track down Phoenix (to apologise, they say, but also - they’re rather invested in what the hell is up with their teeth), they stumble into things they never should’ve seen. For one, turns out Zoraxis - that giant company with its fingers in pretty much every pie out there, you know? - is involved in more shady business than your average mega corporation, and also tends to employ people with guns! Which they found out the hard way.

At one point they find themself hospitalised and teetering between the brink of life and death and they might have met the devil/death itself? It’s a little unclear if all of that happened or if it was the extraordinary amounts of painkillers making them hallucinate or have weird dreams. Either way after a surprisingly speedy recovery they set off again, thrown back headfirst into this confusing conspiracy theory supposedly involving doomsday devices and the CEO of that corporation hiring… supervillains? Honestly, Emile’s not entirely sure they haven’t just entirely lost it. But they have a quest and they’ll finish it if it kills them!

They were never the best with this whole “social interaction” thing - he’s never really been the most well liked guy. And really, they should’ve known not to expect anything different in their dream career, either. His coworkers avoid him, gossiping behind his back, and so on. They don’t mind too much, honestly. It’s just the norm in their life, and at least these people aren’t really rude to his face. They do wish the others wouldn’t shirk quite so many duties onto them, though, because while they do like their job, all the tedious things are starting to wear on them. They’re most definitely not used to things like “comfort” or “affection”.

…on more than one occasion, they’ve sampled the nitrous oxide for themself. It’s a funny feeling.

[glitchtrees]

//The following is very long so there’s a TL:DR at the end :)

Hello good people of tumblr! Welcome to my account, glad to have you here. This is a roleplay account for the omens au by the lovely bunfloras and quizb. Any and all posts will be related to that, unless I specify otherwise! Ooc posts will be dignified by two slashes, like seen in the beginning of this post.

If you were part of omens before, you may or may not recognize me from the week of chaos that I shall now be dubbing the unfortunate happenings that once occurred (with various variations). I will not go into any detail of the events that occurred. In fact, I will be so cryptic about it that people who don’t know what happened will think that someone was kidnapped and replaced by a clone that then tried to kill the original and his closest friends. Oh wait, wrong au.

ANYWAYS! I was indeed quite active in the week of omens over on Twitter. Same character and everything, @glitch_trees if you want to check it out and learn more about my character. Some of my personal favorite moments of mine are the following:

-Getting the oh-so-elusive Bikeman follow. He was a true homie, he will be missed

-Almost getting burnt alive when a hero set the warehouse I was in on fire

-Making raccoon robots after the racclone fiasco

-Falling into a dumpster during parkour

-Writing in villains with sharpie and putting stickers on them with Phosphor/Lightning Bug

-This sick photo taken when running from the police:

-Hiding eggs all over the city for Easter with other vigilantes:

And that’s basically all the notable/entertaining things I’ve done during the last go around. I should note that I don’t consider any of what happened last time canon unless the creators themselves mention it and make it clear that it’s canon. So events like vote Bikeman for god, the racclone fiasco, etc. won’t be brought up by me a lot. I may mention them once or twice to make a funny haha joke, but it’ll be more like a vague reference and I’ll treat it like it was a weird collective dream everyone had.

ENOUGH OF THE PAST! It’s time to talk about what will be happening now!

I will continue to roleplay as Glitch going forward. Don’t know who Glitch is? They’re my vigilante omens oc who loves inventing, coffee, explosives, and being a pain in the ass for heroes.

They do in fact have a power, but it’s not revealed to the public. It’s a pretty discreet one, so unless you knew what to look for you wouldn’t know what it was. To sum it up, they can control any machine that’s within a certain distance from them, with a passive effect of knowing where nearby machines and their parts are (like wires and such). How it works is they split their consciousness, some of it going to the machine they control. This lets them do things like hear and see through mics and cameras. They can change how much of their consciousness they put into a machine, so they can either have a very loose control or go fully into it. Their skill in controlling the machine also changes with how well they understand it. If they made the machine themself, or are familiar with its structure and how it functions, they can get a pretty tight control. But if they don’t know a lot, they’ll get a lot of fight back. It’s still possible to control a machine they don’t know, but it’s a lot more taxing and time consuming, so they don’t do it often. Side effects include migraines, fatigue, dizziness, nausea, and disassociation, depending how much of them goes into the machine.

They have quite a few tools in their kit, all of which were made by themself. Their main weapon is their staff, which is actually a pair of escrima sticks that combine together. They can be electrified as well. They have a laser knife, which is just a regular knife with a button that activates an electromagnetic radiation field around it. It can be used to cut and burn stuff that way. Then they have an eye mask, which is styled to look like one of those LED eye changing ones. But it has an earpiece connected that automatically hacks into police/hero radios so they can listen in. They have some animal robots, mostly smaller things like birds or bugs. Yes I’m keeping the raccoon robots, it was a cool idea okay. They use these to gather information before going into a fight or to distract their opponents. Some smaller things they have include hover boots, wrist braces that have various tools like a grapple gun, and generic tools like flashbangs, bear spray, lock picks, and smoke bombs.

But they’re not Glitch all the time! By day, they’re Emery Hart, a software developer trying to make ends meet.

They actually wanted to be a hero when they were younger. But when they applied for the academy, they were rejected, the only reason being that their power wasn’t “heroic” enough. So, they took matters into their own hands, taking on the Glitch persona and saving people their own way. This might not be set in stone, if anything the creators say contradicts this backstory I will change it.

That’s about all you need to know about Glitch! Let’s talk a bit about me now.

I go by a few names. You can just call me Glitch ooc if you want. I also go by Apple, which is my regular username. Honestly I don’t care what you call me as long as it isn’t intentionally rude. I use she/her pronouns ooc, but I get it if you just want to use they/them so you just use the same pronouns for the same account, I get it.

I do use tone tags a decent amount myself. You don’t need to use them when talking to me, but if it can come across a few ways then I would appreciate them just to clarify. If you don’t use them for whatever reason, then I’ll probably ask what the tone was meant to be if I’m confused. If I don’t ask and get the tone of your message wrong, just let me know no biggie.

I’m not actually that into the dsmp anymore, mostly I’m just into fan content like this. I do love Minecraft though, and a lot of video games in general. I mostly play Nintendo games, with Splatoon, Pokémon, and The Legend of Zelda being my favorite series. My favorite games are Kid Icarus: Uprising and Undertale though.

I write fanfics! I’m planning on uploading a ROTTMNT oc fic on my main Tumblr. It’ll mostly be crack with no real plot in the beginning then I’ll decide where I want it to go lol. I also have BNHA and Harry Potter fanfics that revolve around other ocs of mine. The BNHA one follows a quirkless vigilante and the Harry Potter one follows a Slytherin girl in Fred and George’s year. They’re both on Ao3, Quotev, and Wattpad, so if they sound interesting or you just like how I write on this page, then check them out! I assure you, you’re not missing out on much if you don’t know the plots of the source material. Each fic follows its own plotline, and while they might follow canon loosely, there are many differences that make it easy to follow without prior knowledge.

I also do art! I post ROTTMNT art and videos on TikTok along with some other content mixed in, and I post more finished pieces and WIPS on Twitter. If you like any art I post here and want to see more, check them out!

That’s about all I have to say. It was a big text dump so if you made it through all of it then congrats to you. You have my applause. I’ll link the socials I mentioned previously below if you wanted to look into any, so peruse at your leisure.

Let’s make this au amazing, and remember to PLEASE respect bun and quiz and all the work they’ve put into this!

TL:DR: Hi I’m gonna be role playing for the omens au by bunfloras and quizb. I’ll be playing a vigilante character named Glitch who can control machines and is just an all around chaos incarnate. They have a bunch of cool gear that they made themself. They use they/them, and their civilian name is Emery Hart. When ooc, you can call me Glitch or Apple, and I use she/her but they/them is fine if you just want to use the same for op and oc. I use tone tags and would appreciate it if you use them as needed. I do a bunch of cool writing and art stuff on other sites which you can find the links to below. Let’s have fun and not be weird okay? Woo!

Socials:

Original Glitch Twitter Page: https://twitter.com/glitch_trees

Main Tumblr:

Ao3:

Quotev:

Wattpad:

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@appple_treee?lang=en

Main Twitter: https://twitter.com/appple_tree

[troubled-tums]

Been thinking about this lately. A and B work together and secretely dating (althought everyone seems to know that they are dating) A get's sick, bad stomach ache, super nauseous, can barely move. Skips work. B is at work, constantly checking their phone, more worried than a normal co worker would

Since you mentioned checking their phone, I decided to include texts sent between the two. Before anyone asks - yes, I do text like that. I don’t use text speak.

B: Baby, are you okay? I just heard that you called out sick. Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have called out to take care of you too.

A: Nah, it’s alright. It’s better to have you be there at least than to have both of us out.

B: You don’t call out sick unless you’re really sick. I remember that time you ate some really spicy food and just came to work anyway despite having diarrhea. Can you tell me what’s wrong?

B puts their phone back in their pocket and continues working, even though they’re finding it very hard to concentrate. They have to keep tidying their section or else the store can’t open, though, so they set their phone to vibrate and busy themself with work.

Fifteen minutes later, B’s phone vibrates. They whip their phone out of their pocket so quickly they nearly drop it.

A: Sorry, I was… occupied. I haven’t vomited in years but I think I ate something wrong. I’m so nauseous it’s not funny anymore.

B: 😱 That’s scary. When did this begin?

A: In the morning when I got up? I thought I was fine, but I threw up after breakfast.

B: How many times have you thrown up since then?

A: I’ve only puked twice in total. I’m just feeling nauseous, that’s why I called out. It’s okay, really. I’m fine.

B checks their watch. They know A usually gets up at six to make it to work at seven, and it’s eight in the morning already. Twice in two hours isn’t that bad, so they try to relax a little.

B: Are you keeping down any fluids? There’s Gatorade in your fridge. Can you try that for me please, sweetheart?

Ten minutes later, B’s phone vibrates again.

A: I can keep it down. Don’t worry about me, alright? I’ll see you after work.

B is in the middle of typing a response when their manager comes barrelling down the aisle.

“B! Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you’re using your phone. This section needs to be tidy in ten minutes, can you do that?” the manager asks.

“Uh! Um, yeah. Sorry,” B stammers, uncharacteristically nervous. B is usually confident and calm and suave, but A being sick has got them on edge. Upon seeing that, the manager sighs and gives them a rueful smile.

“What’s going on? You can tell me,” they reassure B.

“Uh. My friend called in sick. I’m a little worried, but I think they’re okay,” B explains, fidgeting and chewing on their lip.

“Do you mean A?” the manager asks. B blushes beetroot red, but nods, looking down at the ground.

“Alright. Just make sure you stay on track. Let me know if it’s serious,” the manager instructs B. Grateful for being let off the hook, B nods gratefully. They fire off a quick response to A, telling them that they’ll be there as soon as possible after work.

The rest of the day drags on and on. B keeps being worried, and they have to try to be civil and cordial to customers and coworkers even though all they want is to go take care of A. B messages A during their break after a few hours of radio silence, and received a message saying that they’re ok, thankfully.

At three-thirty after their shift, B is standing on A’s doorstep. It takes A a minute to come to the door, and B gasps quietly when A opens the door. They look horrid. Their face looks devoid of colour, and the way they’re moving tells B that they’re really sore and drained of energy. B sets down the groceries they bought on the dining table quickly and goes to sit with A on the sofa, taking note of the half empty bottle of Gatorade and the mug of water on the coffee table.

“Are you okay? What are your symptoms?” B asks quietly.

“I’m not nauseous anymore. That passed around noon. I had a bout of diarrhea, though,” A tells B miserably, their hands clutching their belly.

“Did it help you feel better?” B moves closer, putting a hand on A’s lower belly and rubbing it gently.

“A little. I still feel pretty sick, though,” A admits, scooting closer to B to cuddle up to them. “I’m quite bloated and I keep feeling my belly growl.”

“It’s okay. I’ll take care of you,” B reassures them, holding A with one arm around their shoulders and their other hand on their upset tummy. “Have you been drinking enough fluids? Did you eat something else today?”

“I managed to get down some toast after I stopped being nauseous. And yes, I’ve been drinking lots of water and Gatorade,” A answers weakly. They lean on B, drawing comfort from the hand rubbing their tummy. B reaches for the remote and clicks play on the show A was watching, settling in for the late afternoon.

[arend000-blog]

Hello welcome to my blog. If you came here because you were confused as to what the heck is going on in one of my posts I hope this post will help.

Here’s some basic information if you want more it’s under the read more

In normal text it's Nick, “me”, you can assume it's me if there's no other indication in the tags if i think it's necessary i’ll add Nk: in the tag to clarify it's him speaking.

In red and/or cursed we got Azerium, the demon, in the tags i’ll lead with Az: if he’s saying it.

Green is the overworked and tired Berrian, half-elf feywanderer ranger, Br: in the tags

And finally in golden text it's Amashiel, the angel, going by Am: in the tags.

Quick reference: me, Ames, Az, Berrian, me and Az, me using my powers, god of true ends🎶

Boreon, Sol, Cinys

Who are using this different font cause i ran out of colours a bit

Boreon is a ghost with ice powers

Sol is some kind of sun spirit

And Cinys is a lying manipulative ash demon

All of us (except Cinys) are no longer sharing my body, still sharing the account though it is an rp thing it's just me playing them they're not actually living in my head

Hope this helps!

Alright time to introduce them properly

Let’s start with “me” Nick(this is me for all intents and purposes, no this is not my real name but you may address me as such), he/him pronouns (at least at the moment i don’t really know my own gender or sexuality so the best you can get out of me regarding my oc’s is pronouns), okay so he’s kinda stuck in a roguelite-like kind of loop spanning the entire life of the multiverse, link here if i ever write that down, he's an inter dimensional gaurdian but he can’t really use his powers at the moment (don’t tell the-crimson-river-society or florida, i’m trying to keep up appearances), the only one with common sense and enough self restraint to not stab people, has the most control over who gets the body, still ends up sleep deprived despite only needing two hours of sleep, likes milk chocolate, doesn’t like swearing and is currently playing host to an angel and a demon but probably more somewhere down the line.

Okay onto Azerium, the living blade, as they like to call themself, a demon straight from hell and actually got banished from there for promoting the idea to kill all the damned souls now, since they would end up down there anyways, it didn't help that he’s a halfbreed, a result of a succubus and a fallen angel, which makes him the lowest ranked demon in hell even below puny imps, pronouns are he/they, might look like they’ll go apeshit but will actually sit down and let you cry your emotions out before setting the responsible party's house on fire hopefully with them in it, only wants to kill the damned souls, supports the lgbtq+ with pure chaos energy especially the arsonists, somehow pretty good and responsible with kids, also the one who usually gets us out of trouble, he’s the only one with actual combat training and is also training us, absolutely loves duels and fights especially if there’s swords involved, despite having wings he can’t actually fly, has a tiefling like prehensile tail, likes dark chocolate, swears the most easily out of us and often takes over to have Nick not swear.

Now for the angel Amashiel, protector of the innocent, got kicked out of heaven by the archangels because she wanted to guide humanity instead of simply sitting back and letting them figure out their own problems, may look like a cinnamon bun but will absolutely go on a crusade should someone hurt one of their friends or loved ones, also has only one brain cell which is mostly occupied with figuring out how absolutely everything works, might make it as an technician if she remembers to unplug whatever they are dismantling, initially disliked Azerium but now they quarrel like siblings, somehow the more vengeful of the two, also the more annoying one, we call her Ames, might look like the team mom but is somehow the most irresponsible one out of us, they almost got us electrocuted twice already, also not good with kids, inexplicably has sparkles appear whenever they are in control, she's also british somehow, hard to piss off even harder to calm down, likes white chocolate and pronouns are she/they.

Fun tidbit, apparently chocolate is a very good substitute for prayers and whatever the heck demons get their powers from, screams, terror, human souls? nah it’s just terror if we used human souls for power we’d run out of ones to torture Oh alright!

Quick rundown of abilities and powers:

Nick: having a body, knowing how the human world works, phoenix fire healing power, being the best host an angel could pray for, thanks ames, having potential as an eldritch knight, creating and stabilising portals, being able to go into a trance like state and keeping all the other ones on track.

Azerium: being able to transform his arms into tentacle blades, fighting skills, having a prehensile tail, being able to set his hands on fire and simple curse magic. i also have my own blog now @azerium don't tell the other

Amashiel: creating force fields, simple healing and blessing magic, flight and emitting enough light to rival a lighthouse.

Together we got resistance to non supernatural damage and a downright immunity to fire, also only needing two hours of sleep a day.

And here's the posts with some charcter artwork

Ames is now working for osha

[chipper-smol]

Hollow Knight Telephone Round Two: Babysitter SL

Prompt: Shade (lord) is in the midst of final exams and they’re more stressed and tired than usual while babysitting. They accidentally fall asleep in the middle of a calm spell and the god babies become worried. The next time Shade comes over, all of the god babies present a gift they all made together!

By @minnesotamidian-blog​

Shade barely noticed their surroundings as they entered the nursery playroom. Plastic clattered and they sighed as Radiance yelled at the top of her lungs. At least she wasn't screaming. Yet. The scene was set: Unn was still in a crib and chewing on a bar, Root was climbing slowly onto a chair. Radiance was knocking over plastic blocks as Grimm cackled away. For once, Wyrm was playing peacefully with a kick toy, batting at it with his tail. Root got onto the chair and squealed, raising her arms. "Big Root now!" The little blue-eyed godling squeaked out.

Shade picked her up, hugged her to their chest before holding her out. "Now you're a flying Root."

She screamed laughter as Shade tiredly walked her around the room before setting her down near some of her favorite toys. They made sure nobody else had claimed the chair and took a seat, bending over to pick up the fussy moth. "Ancient enemy!" Of course she bit their hand.

Shade winced and just ran a hand over her fluff. "Are you hungry for something that isn't void?" They spoke tiredly.

"Oranges!" She yelled out.

The teen sighed as he went to the mini-fridge with snacks and found some miracle of miracles! pre-peeled oranges. Shade pulled them out and put her in a high chair with one at a time so she wouldn't be tempted to throw the extras at them.

Finals were here and they were really taking it out of the gangly god. Why did they have to know stuff about inorganic chemistry? Why did they have to know about history nobody cared about? There were some fun subjects, but the finals seemed to even suck the fun out of those classes, going over notes and studying everything just in case. They'd been pulling long nights and the night before had been an all-night cram session-and they still had to come to work, they couldn't afford not to. They'd underlined all the stuff the teacher had said was important to remember and had written down stuff from the last finals about each teacher's usual tests.

It made narrowing down what to study from impossible to I'm totally toast. They groaned as they set down a calmer Radiance the opposite side of the room from Wyrm. She found toys that interested her, at least. Root wandered over to Wyrm, who was really into knocking at the kick toy and purring. Root settled nearby and burbled as she hugged and gnawed a plushie.

The teen couldn't help it. The kids were calm for once; their head started to tilt forward, eyes heavy. They were exhausted. Shade's eyes closed and their breathing deepened. At first, their toys were too interesting to notice their babysitter's state; but it didn't take long for Grimm to get bored enough to fly over and notice. "...Shade? Shade's eyes are closed." They landed and the four children not in a crib headed for the batlike godling.

"Is Shade dead?" Wyrm sounded worried.

"Don't be stupid, they're having a nap!" Radiance huffed.

Root looked up and swayed before patting Shade's leg. "Grown-ups don't have nap times." She was tearing up.

"Nuh-uh, they're having bad dreams and it's tasty!" Grimm clamored onto their lap.

The others joined, Radiance grabbing Unn to join them on the sleeping teen. Grimm rested between Shade's horns, Unn was on one shoulder, Radiance on the other, with Root and Wyrm curled up together on Shade's lap, Wyrm purring for once.

When Shade woke up, they were surprised by the weight on their body and forced themself to look down and around before moving. "Uh oh, I fell asleep… sheesh, I'm glad this place isn't a fiery disaster." They picked the godlings up. "You're not dead!" Wyrm exclaimed.

Root burst into tears and even Grimm joined in on the crying spat. Shade sighed and spent the rest of the time comforting them until meal time and settled them down. Time to go home for them all!

But the worry didn't leave the heads of the little godlings. "We should make something for Shade. If they're having nightmares, they might be sad." Radiance sighed. "But that doesn't mean I feel bad for my ancient enemy!" "What do we make?" Root twirled around, slowly turning in place until she fell onto pillows in her dizziness.

"Something of clay! I can burn it dry!" Grimm hopped around.

"But there's no clay." Unn spoke slowly, thoughtfully. "But there's crayons and paper."

"Oooh. We can make a pretty picture for Shade!" Wyrm waved his head happily. The group went for papers and each started to draw on the paper. "You're taking up too much paper!" Wyrm whined.
Radiance complained in turn, pointing at the color he was using. "I want that color!"

Wyrm growled and argued back. "I had it first!"

They started rolling around over their drawings, biting and clawing. Grimm gave a solid scream that startled the two. "You ruined Shade's pretty pictures!" He yelled.

The two looked at each other and hung their heads. "...sorry." Radiance muttered.
"-'m sorry." Wyrm looked away from the moth, skulking. "Start again? You can have the crayon, Radiance…"

Radiance took the crayon and they all picked up the last piece of paper. "I think this is better." Root spoke cheerfully.

It was three days later, once Shade had a solid night's sleep and finals completed that they'd returned to work. A large construction sheet of paper in grey covered in scribbles and rough names and messages was waiting for them.

Feel better soon Shade

Love you

Best babysitter

Tastiest nightmare!

Not the worst anciant ancient enemy.Shade could only feel warmth and laugh, hugging the drawing to themself. There were some days the job felt like the best thing in the world.  ------------------------------- By @tomatotimes

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

By @loud-whistling-yes

"No."

The kids protested louder. Shade lifted the TV remote higher up, now above their head.

"Screentime's over, I said no."

Wyrm attempted to crawl up their leg in what was a rather pathetic attempt at stealing the remote, but was promptly shaken off. Grimm tried next, flying overhead to snatch the controller. Shade ducked and grabbed him by the tail before he could send himself flying straight towards the ceiling fan for the third time that day.

"Find something else to do," Shade said as they stuffed the remote deep into their pocket, much to everyone else's dismay. "Look, as much as I'd love to shut you guys up for the whole day, you've all been staring at the TV for hours now and I don't want to get in trouble with your parents."

Louder complaints.

"No, no, no. I am not cracking this time." Shade announced as they pulled Radi, who was hissing like an angry cat, off their jeans and pulled their phone out. "You guys got me last week, never again. No more TV for you, we're doing something else before I lose my money for tonight. Google almighty, what is your suggestion."

activities to do with children

fun activities to do with children

activities to do with toddlers

what can I do with kids that isn't a major headache to deal with goddamnit

Go to the park? Shade took about half a second to consider the thought before wondering why they even thought it was possible anyways. Five kids from the deepest depths of hell, outdoors? No. No park.

Finger painting? A pain to clean up, but better than outdoors. Then they looked up from their phone and considered the idea with greater thought. Grimm's wings, Radi's legs, Unn and Wyrm's… er…. Body?.... Nevermind.

Play pretend? …. If they hear the name Hallownest one more time they might just go insane.

Hide and seek? No. No no no no no. No more hide and seek. Shade was utterly sick of hide and seek. If they had to spend another second stuffed inside the closet or trying to get Radi off the roof they'll probably quit the job right there and then.

Baking?

… That might work. Sure, cleaning up is gonna be absolute hell but it's the only thing Google suggested that they haven't tried yet without horrible results.

Shade stuffed their phone back into their pocket and made a getaway to the kitchen, everyone else following, probably still trying to get the remote back. Butter, eggs, flour, sugar, oh, even some chocolate chips…

"Well then," They declared, pulling every ingredient out of the cabinet and fridge. "We're making cookies! And no, no one is allowed to touch the oven when it's hot. If you guys behave we'll have cookies in like, an hour or something like that."

The kids watched in confusion as Shade ran around the kitchen, pulling out bowls and spoons and a bunch of other utensils while typing furiously on their phone.

Cookies recipe

Cookies recipe easy

Cookies recipe for beginners

Cookies recipe for kids

"What do you guys think about chocolate chip cookies?"

Multiple chitters of approval. "Chocolate chip cookies it is then."

Step one: sieve the flour. Oh wyrm, first step and it's already gonna go to shit.

"Okay, you guys can watch this but for the love of the holy wyrm, do not touch it." Shade measured the correct amount of flour before scooping Wrym and Unn off the floor onto the table so they could see while Radi pulled herself onto the chair. The Lady had already clinged herself onto their sweater and Grimm was doing just fine flying nearby.

“You guys get one chocolate chip each if you guys behave and don’t get flour everywhere.” Shade added. “Now, Lady, hold still and don’t move, I gotta keep my hands steady for this…”

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

"Okay, chocolate chip time." Shade popped open the jar of chocolate as the kids cheered. "Actually, we’re not supposed to be eating this plain, cause it's going into the cookies. But no one actually does that so you guys get five chips each for not setting the kitchen on fire so far."

"The recipe says a cup of chocolate chips but we all know that's a lie." They added while shoving their phone back in their pocket and grabbing a handful of chips before mixing the batter together. "I'm probably not someone you should take life lessons from, but here's one thing I can guarantee you should take to heart: never follow the recipe when it comes to chocolate chips, you count that with your soul."

Final step: oven time. The oven was preheated earlier, and the only thing left was to get the cookies into the tray and into the oven. "Now, who wants to make heart-shaped cookies?"

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

Three deformed stars, five mutated trees, two malformed cats, several irregular hearts, a couple handfuls of chocolate eaten straight from the jar, and one (1) perfectly round cookie later, the cookies were on the tray, in the oven, and in a surprising turn of events, no one burned themselves… yet. Shade grabbed everyone and made sure no one was in a five-meter radius within the oven before picking up all the dirty bowls and utensils. “Cookies will have to sit in there for about 15 minutes, we’ll be cleaning up in the meantime.”

“Don’t look at me like that, and no whining, if you want cookies you gotta deal with the mess afterwards. That's the payoff, unless you're a wizard who has a passion for baking. Then that's fair, I guess." They dumped all the used utensils they could find and turned on the sink. The sief, three bowls, tablespoons and teaspoons.. Oh wait.

"Radi, the big wooden spoon, please?" Shade called, sponge in their hand and bowls being thoroughly rinsed.

Radi, of course, was not willing to help, because she's basically a feral house cat that just so happened to grow more legs than the average feline. Shade sighed and moved on to finding the next helper they could find.

"Grimm, I know you're touching the oven, stop it. I'm pretty sure you're immune to fire but not everyone else and you're setting a bad example for them. Get me the spoon please."

“Lady, here’s a cloth, help me dry the bowls up. Wyrm, … i have no idea how you can help, no limbs and all but uh, could you go get Unn? I have no idea where she went. Thanks.” The last sentence was to Grimm, who flew over with the mixing spoon and dropped it into the sink while Wyrm scurried away to find Unn, wherever she’s napping at.

"Radi? Radi, I know you're right behind me, stop pretending that you can't hear me. Lady has an extra cloth with her, you're on table wiping duty."

*********

“See? That wasn't so bad,” Shade sent the last of the bowls back into the cupboards and closed it shut. “And the cookies are pretty much done.”

“Also, no. You may not eat the cookies the moment I pull them out of the oven. These rules also apply to Grimm because it's unfair to everyone else.. Don’t look at me like that Grimm, I know you’ll eat them all before they cool and leave us nothing.”

The cookies smelt delicious, and were left on the dining table to cool. “Now that it's cooling down, it's naptime.”

A chorus of groans and wailing.

“It’ll be ready when you guys get up. Up up up, sleep time.”

**********

If you’ve been anywhere near toddlers before, you’d know that getting them to nap in their bedrooms is a near-impossible situation. And Shade was not a person who deals with near-impossible situations well. So following the months old custom, Shade turned on the tv, remote miraculously not pickpocketed, collapsed onto the couch, and waited for everyone piling on them to fall asleep before moving them into their bedroom and pretending they managed to wrangle them all into bed.

And it all goes to plan, the Lady and Wyrm were sound asleep on their lap, Radi and Unn were dozing off on their shoulders, and they're pretty sure the snoring from the top of their head was coming from Grmm. Now, step 2: get everyone off them and onto the beds.

… Or maybe later. It's been a long day, and the couch is pretty comfy. Yeah, just five more minutes, nothing wrong with that…

And if the parents came home to see a cleaner-than-expected kitchen, a tray of chocolate chip cookies, and five kids snoring on top of their babysitter, also sound asleep, then that’s nobody’s business.

And if the originally completely full jar of chocolate chips was pretty much empty, then that’s no one’s business as well.

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

By @astronomicartz​

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By @hollow-kin​

Shade lord wanted to take a nap. They are sooo tired, but they are babysitting 5 baby gods for 5$/H. Grimm is a brat, Radiance his sister is also a brat. Unn was ether eating or seeping, same with grub1. Lady was, well sweet and cuddly. they needed to find a distraction for the kids, what would work?

Would tv work, would cartoons work? They had dinner already. Tv had to work or grub and radiance would destroy the house. They needed to take a nap. Now what to watch was a different question, they would have to ask the kids. “so, what do guys want to watch? “Movie!” well they were all in agreement, what was good. “What kind of movie do you guys want to watch?” “Fire!” “dath” “animal” “tree” “ok. No, we are NOT watching fire.” “awww” “i do not know what dath means so no. So nature show it is then.” they go over to the tv and turn it on, then select the world around us. Lady was quick to fall asleep, on their lap. Shade lord slowly fell asleep, and grub nested between grub and shade lord. Grimm climed up to shade lord's head. 

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By @hawaiianbabidoll

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By @neoliberalsatan

A gentle darkness surrounded the shade lord. He finally felt at ease. "finally", he thought, "rest." it didn't take long after that before the darkness started to take shape and a whole new world created out of shadows sheathed him.

But the happiness of the shadows didn't last long. A new and a new sound drowned out their world and all the animals and plants took to hiding back in his head. The shade lord felt the distressed creations stir inside his mind and woke up to the sound of his phone ringing. He rubbed his lowest eyes and accepted the call

"Hello, with shade lord. How can i help you?" "Oh sorry dear, i know it's terribly late but we got an unexpected call and need to leave. Since you've babysat Unn multiple times we assumed she would like to stay with you. Is it okay for you? Can we bring her to your place?" The shade lord thought for a moment and decided he could use the money. "Yea it's fine, she's always such a pleasure to babysit." The voice on the other side sounded relieved. "Thank you. You're a life saver. We will make sure you're compensated accordingly."

Feeling a bit more awake after the phone call he started to prepare for having baby Unn over. After a while her parents arrived and after some greetings he was home alone with the baby. He walked with her in his arms towards the living room and placed her gently inside the crib. She opened her eyes for a moment after losing the feeling of someone holding her, but then closed them again and fell back asleep.

The shade lord decided he couldn't sleep anymore and made some popcorn and decided to put on a movie. It didn't even take 20 minutes before he got called again.

"Hello, with shade lord. How can i help you?" "Oh yes finally someone who answers. Sorry but you're our last hope. We were going somewhere tonight but our babysitter called off. Do you think you could babysit our lovely Radiance? She's very good behaved and won't cause you trouble." "yea, no problem. You'll just need to bring her to my place if it's no trouble"

Not even 5 minutes later the parents showed up and dropped of their larva. Shade lord looked at it a bit confused but didn't get the time to say anything because the parents left as soon as they handed her over. He closed his front door and gave the larva a good look. She was white and had a fluffy appearance. She had 5 pairs of legs and yellow-orange eyes. She started to writhe a little bit and shade lord made sure to hurry to the living room. He took a pillow and placed it on the couch and softly laid her on it. She seemed at ease and rested on the pillow all stretched out

Shade lord continued his movie, which was finally starting to get interesting, but as usual the commercial break hit. He was in the kitchen making more popcorn when he got another call.

"Hello, with shade lord. How can i help you?" "Hello, is this the babysitter?" "Yes, that's the one you're speaking with." "Great, a family member had an accident and i need to be there for them so do you think you could babysit for me?" "Yep, totally." "Thank you, can we bring him to you?" "Oh yea, no problem."

A few minutes later his doorbell rang and he hurried towards it. The father carried his toddler in what could only be described as wing-esque appendages. The shade lord extended his arms for the man to put his toddler in and felt a gentle brush of the leathery membrane. He shivered lightly before feeling a sudden warmth light up in his face, like someone has started a fire. When he looked back up the man was gone and he closed the door. The creature he was holding in his arms was unlike anything he had ever seen. 2 horns sprouted from its black head. The face was as bleak as white linen on a summer day. It seems she likes make-up because she had already 2 black lines running from her cheeks towards her eyes, eventually fading into the darkness of her head. She had the same membranes as her father and no limbs besides it.

He wasn’t even in the living room before he heard his front door being was under siege. He put the weird creature down and opened the front door. Immediately he was assaulted by Hollow, a very energetic child. He was wearing a green cloak today and it finally seemed he was starting to grow bigger than a hand. His horns has also branched into the inside. Immediately after Hollow jumped on his he could hear Pale complain about his unprofessional work attitude. Although he was bigger than most it seems he wouldn’t grow much anymore. His tiny stature didn’t discourage him from being bossy. Finally White entered. By far the biggest of the bunch, she was also the most introverted. Her roots slid elegantly over towards him and even managed to stop Pale from talking for a moment.

He took them inside the living room only to find that somehow the larva and the winged creature had somehow gotten into a fight and now both were in hiding in opposite sides of the room. Normally he wouldn’t make such a big deal out of this if somehow his couch wasn’t full of tiny needles and a chair was on fire. He rushed to the tap to fill a bowl of water to extinguish the little fire. With the attention being diverted Hollow managed to slip from the watch of Pale and could now be found in the corner Radiance was hiding. The larva figured out quickly he liked to play games and had soon enough set up a plan to make him betray Pale.

In the meantime White had climbed the couch and started pulling out the needles while Shade lord had figured out what the membrane between the appendages from the weird creature were for. Namely, for flight. And now she was attacking his horns and he couldn’t reach her. As if her flying was not good enough alone, whenever he raised his arms she would back off and launch a little fireball  All this commotion woke up baby Unn who slowly started to slither away from her crib to find food.

The shade lord finally had enough of the little fire hazard and rushed towards the pantry to get a kettle. Once he had found it he peeked around the corner only to find that fire hazard eating his popcorn! All caution was thrown aside and he grabbed her by the guts and put her inside the kettle. She tried to heat it but he added some water to it. While it evaporated quickly it was apparently enough to bring over the message. Now he could focus his attention back on the larva again, only she could’ve produced those needles, which White was making great progress with removing them as a quick glance told him.

Now back to Pale and Radiance who were apparently having a fight (Darkness, that larva really has a talent to provoke others). They were arguing near the coffee table, because apparently they wanted a fight so bad they just ran to each other and met in the middle. Hollow was climbing one of the legs of the table, but wasn’t noticed by the shade lord because he was too occupied with the other 2. He tried to separate the arguing pair but they were at each other’s throats. They even had summoned a needle and a tiny dagger to fight each other. The shade lord obviously didn’t count on this tiny factor and had soon enough one in each hand. He screamed, trying not to curse, barely not failing miserably, and Pale managed to escape. In any other situation this wouldn’t pose a problem, but Hollow, after eating some popcorn, found himself at the right edge of the coffee table and pulled out his tiny wooden sword he got from Pale. The larva, Darkness curse her, used this to her advantage and made the sign to Hollow to betray Pale. The act of betraying Pale involved jumping off of the coffee table and hitting Pale as hard on the head as possible. Naturally, all of this went according to plan and even brought some extra spectacle. After Hollow had hit Pale on the head he wasn’t prepared for the recoil of the wood and ended up hitting himself in the face.

All of this lead to 3 crying children (1 of them from laughing, the others from pain) and 1 very angry young adult. He put the larva on the couch and took care of the others while White held a close eye on the damned 10 legged thing. After Pale and Hollow weren’t crying anymore he took the little fire hazard out of the kettle and continued his movie, which was getting to an end.

After the film ended a documentary started and had all the kids hooked. He went to check on Unn only to find an empty crib. He could however see a slimy trail lead up his wall and onto the ceiling. It went through the door into the pantry where he kept his food and toys for the toddlers. He looked up on the ceiling only to find a sleepy Unn with a letter block in her mouth. Suddenly Unn started to make a very weird noise and fell from the ceiling onto his face. He swiped her off of his face onto his shoulder and then washed it.

He returned back to the tv to watch the documentary that was still playing and plopped down on the couch. Not long after he was asleep with White on his left shoulder, Unn on his right shoulder, the little fire hazard on the same arm and Pale curled up in his lap. Radiance and hollow were still awake but occupied with the documentary instead of causing trouble. After the documentary ended they crawled up against his sides and fell asleep.

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

By @constantlost 

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By @bugbeee

Exhaustion seeped into Shadelord’s body, limbs weighed down by a heaviness they hadn’t experienced in a while. The smatter of godlings that lay around them on the couch, or on them in Radi’s case, was enough to convince them that they had died and that this was the Eternal Void that was created to punish them for cheating on that test in the 8th grade. In their defence, it had been on rock sedimentation.

Wyrm continued his grumbling from the corner of the couch, still infuriated by the attack on his person only moments before. Root, the aggressor, looked remarkably pleased with herself. Shade knew they should probably punish her further in some way but... well, to be perfectly honest, they simply were not paid enough to do so.

They really should have charged more. Fifteen dollars at least per tiny demon they had to look after rather than the whole bunch. Fifteen dollars was not enough to encourage discipline. It was enough for them to make sure none of the godlings killed the other. And they had thought they had come up with an ingenious plan to secure some peace and quiet.

After much wrangling, they had finally managed to set up two separate playpens, each far enough away that the godlings wouldn’t start screaming if one of them saw their rival. Wyrm and Root in one pen, Grimm, Radi and Unn in another. It was a gamble, but one that thankfully seemed to have paid off. Radi was still exhausted from the tussle she had just had with Wyrm, and Grimm seemed content to chew off the heads of the plastic Garbies they had found. Unn continued to watch, and occasionally helped Grimm execute a Garbie in a spectacular manner. It was both reassuring, and beyond disturbing. Root and Wyrm meanwhile were cheerfully ignoring each other as they both played with their own toys.

It should have been foolproof.

Unfortunately for Shade however, they were dealing with infants instead of fools.

For some damned reason, Root had decided that now was the perfect time to act up, instead of being the sweet little darling she had been so far. Her target, much to their dismay, had been Wyrm. In all fairness, the godling had probably deserved it in some way; most likely he had tried to worm too close in order to steal some of the grubpaste and mushroom sticks Shade had left out as a snack. Root had seen this theft as a cardinal sin, and had subsequently decided that Wyrm deserved nothing less than absolute annihilation.

The momentary doze Shade had managed to fall into was abruptly interrupted by loud shrieking and wailing, resulting in them vaulting over the couch to hurriedly find out which one of the godlings was being tortured.

The scene that greeted them was... well, it wasn’t any less ridiculous than some of the other stuff the little goblins had pulled before.

Using her flexible tendrils, Root had seen fit to wrap them around Wyrm, and aggressively dunk him into the bowl of grubpaste he had attempted to steal from. His shrieks and hisses had woken up Radi and drawn the attention of the other children, who were now cheering on Root’s attack on Wyrm’s person.

“Enough,” Shade declared, shooting a glare behind them, “Root, let him go.” Root looked up innocently.

No, she seemed to say with her eyes, justice must prevail.

“Justice won’t get me my fifteen dollars,” they hissed out in return, and they could have sworn that Root shrugged, turning away from them to dunk Wyrm into the bowl yet again.

“No!” they cried out, quickly whipping down to grab the poor child before he could be further humiliated. After finally being saved from his vicious tormentor, Wyrm decided it was time to go into hysterics, lashing out with a sharp tail to fully show his displeasure. Root simply watched impassively as the rest of the children cheered.

Shade wondered if fifteen dollars was even worth it at this point.

“Alright, alright, enough! Root, you go in time out. We do not waterboard our fellow godlings in grubpaste. Wyrm, calm down, it’s just grubpaste- Settle down!” they yelped out, flinching as something heavy settled onto their head. The soft fluff revealed that Radi had decided to fly out of her pen and taunt Wyrm in person. Shade wanted to sob with frustration.

The door cracked open, and Ghost peered in, head tilted curiously.

Need help? they signed, and Shade wanted to collapse in relief.

“Please,” they begged, and their sibling nodded grimly, even as amusement danced in their eyes. Shucking off their school backpack, they quickly headed over to the other pen and signed to them, bobbing their head up and down in a soothing motion. Grimm and Unn were entranced. Radi less so. She remained seated on their head, but at least seemed to have finally stopped provoking Wyrm.

“I’m just going to clean him up,” Shade explained uselessly, watching as Ghost simply nodded and waved them off. 

With a tired gait, Shade wandered into the kitchen and turned on the tap, listening as Wyrm’s panicked yelps grew louder at the realisation of what was going to happen next. Radi snickered softly, before leaping off and gliding back into the living room.

Bath time, according to the godlings, was a fate worse than death, and something to be avoided at all cost.

Unfortunately for both Wyrm and Shade, it was a necessary evil. Wyrm disagreed. Loudly. And with claws.

He howled furiously as Shade slowly lowered him into the warm water, softly scrubbing at the now-dried grubpaste sticking to his skin. Despite his attempts, Wyrm failed to prevent them from continuing his bath. He turned to pathetic pleading instead, making soft mewling sounds as though he was nothing more than a poor innocent child who had done nothing wrong, ever.

Shade, who remembered the little bastard knocking a glass ornament onto their head, was not convinced. Ultimately there was no escape, and Wyrm reluctantly gave in to the soft scrubbing, though he made sure his rumbling complaints were known.

“Yes, yes,” Shade said quietly, “I truly am the worst. Close your eyes so I can rinse you.”

Wyrm, in a dumb act of defiance, did not close his eyes. The hysterics started again, and Shade contemplated drowning themself in the half-filled sink. Fifteen dollars, they repeated. Fifteen dollars.

Grabbing a tea towel, they quickly dried the godling off, carefully teasing out water droplets from soft scales. He child gnawed on their fingers in revenge. “I’m done,” they announced, wandering back into the living room with a now clean, and furious, Wyrm.

Ghost looked up from their position on the floor, back leaning against the couch as they played with Grimm. Radi immediately perked up at the sound of Shade’s voice, and quickly flew over, making herself at home on top of their head. Unn seemed to have decided to undertake the momentous task of scaling up the back of the couch, leaving a thick trail of slime behind. Root, still stuck in her pen as punishment, let out a wail, demanding to be let out.

Shade was all out of energy to fight back or deal with a tantrum.

“Alright, alright, out you go,” they muttered, depositing Wyrm on the couch before reaching down to lift out the petulant child from her terrible prison. She clung to them desperately until they finally collapsed on the sofa. She quickly wriggled out of their hold and instead plonked down beside them. Wyrm had hissed at the sight of her, and slunk to the other side of the couch to sulk.

Grimm let out a raspy cackle at the sight, before diving down to nip at Ghost’s fingers.

Unn finally made her way to the top of the couch and waved her eyestalks victoriously. All Shade could do was give her a tired pat.

They sank into the couch, the exhaustion creeping back in. It should have been foolproof.

Fifteen dollars.

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

By @arandoskeleartist​

[silverpsychedelic]

Hey I adore your artwork! As a NiGHTS and Balan Wonderland fan it's great to have someone on Tumblr who represents us in a positive light. I keep seeing references to characters named Amity and such. Are these OC's of yours, what do they do?

Surprisingly there are a lot of us! It's just sometimes hard to see it when there's been so much negativity surrounding BWW, but hey, there's enough of us who genuinely enjoy it to keep it going strong!

Amity, Ambi, Versi, Phantasma And Magoria (and more, though currently unnamed) are all ocs of mine I've created! They're usually results of crossover AU pairings I play around with which fall under various titles. Ambi, Versi, Phantasma and Magoria all come from a timeline I've dubbed the Lavender Gold AU (a reference to the colour schemes of Balan and NiGHTS -the main pairing). Amity comes from something called the Broken Mirror AU -formerly called the Broken Crown AU, and features Balan and Reala as a main pair (NiGHTS x Lance also happens in this one).

I MAY put this under the cut cause it's going to be a bit long, but I'll try to keep the character profiles relatively short (Ive been needing a post that puts all of them together anyway). So, if you want to check it out, feel free to take a look!

Ambivé (Ambi for short) is the firstborn between NiGHTS and Balan! She was kind of an accident that happened due to an intense spark of wild magic between the two, and she's basically a lil gremlin harbinger of chaos. She's wild, hilarious and is usually finding new ways to drag everyone around her into hair-brained schemes. For a while, she struggles with feeling as though she's not good enough to take over for Balan someday -because let's face it, he casts an enormous shadow and that comes with many expectations. She struggles with feeling as though Balan doesn't quite give her a chance, and that he's too scared of her messing up (like he has a few times in the past, which still haunt him). She ends up proving herself of course, and after a while she discovers she doesn't actually want Balan's role! Instead she leaves the theatre to set out on her own, and develop a gateway to Wonderworld that acts as a traveling circus!

Versi (short for Version) is Ambi's counterpart, and an adopted child of Lance! They came to the theatre as a child who had escaped a horrific home life, one of the worst Balan and Lance had ever seen. After their parent mode was majorly activated, Lance decided then and there that they would not allow the child to return to where they came from if it meant they would be placed in more danger, so Lance basically adopted them! Wonderworld also chose to bind Ambi and Versi together as counterparts, so Versi actually goes on to help run the circus with Ambi as her negative balance (and is often roped into her dumbassery). They're mostly mute, and often use sign language to communicate. In the circus their acts usually comprise of the darker, grittier stuff like contortionism, sword swallowing, fire and practical magic elements.

Phantasma and Magoria are the twins and second children to Balan and NiGHTS, and they come about when Ambi is around 18-19 and is becoming far more independent. Basically, Balan and NiGHTS aren't ready for the nest to be empty! The twins are even more adept at using practical jokes to their advantage and will terrorise everyone in a 50ft radius, they also speak in rhymes and riddles and attempt to confuse people by switching places all the time. I don't have a lot to them yet, aside from the fact they are the ones who will eventually succeed Balan's role (since Ambi decided she didn't want to do so). They are also, curiously, more Positi than anything, and they're the highest class of Positi Balan has ever created -hence why their ideya look like drops! They also have peculiar abilities with switching roles on command, and can change themselves from Positi to Negati at the drop of a (literal, I suppose) hat. It worries Balan a bit, because he fears his negative side a lot, and yet these two dip in and out of it like it's nothing.

FINALLY, there's Amity. They are the child between Balan and Reala, in the completely separate timeline called the broken crown/mirror AU. It took Balan and Reala a long time to reach the point of wanting kids, but they are their parent's pride and joy. Amity is a little intimidating when people first meet them, they're even liable to sometimes scare visitors at first! But they're a huge sweetheart, and they dedicate themselves to helping people just like Balan does. They can traverse mirrors, and this is often how they'll call upon visitors and summon them to the theatre! They primarily choose people based on problems to do with identity, self confidence, dysphoria and basically those who are struggling with feeling good about themselves. However, they struggle with their own sense of identity in the fact they don't quite feel connected to either side of themself -Maestro or Nightmaren.

There is also a LiGHTS kid in development but I don't have a name for them yet, all I have to their character is that they're strange and kind of off-putting and they hardly ever seem to blink lol

Thank y'all so much for listening to my NONSENSE, it's now 2am and I must pass out

[yandere-daydreams]

Concept: a dumb ass obsessive, just the dumbest little Yandere shit ever, completely fucking pea brained, an absolute moron, Amelia Bedelia of yanderes. You want things to get hot in the bedroom? Either they blow your lights out by adding to many heaters or they set your room on fire by knocking down a candle you want them to be more romantic? Breaking into your room should help! If wattpad has anything to say about it anyways, they’re trying so SO damn hard, they’re just? So fucking dumb lmao

tw - stalking, mentions of blood, reader is technically in danger but no one’s taking it seriously.

It only works if they’re trying really, really hard to be intimidating, and they genuinely don’t understand why it’s not working. I mean, they broke into your house, right? That’s scary, right? They just don’t understand it loses its effect when this is the third time this week you’ve found them sleeping on your bedroom floor, since they’re too embarrassed to touch your bed. They’ve been trying to send you letters written in blood, but they always wait too long after it dries and the end-result is more of a very crusty bio-hazard than a threat. They bought a burner phone just to send you vaguely cryptic texts throughout the day, but they’re not that creative, so most of their messages are very memorable, very searchable quotes from late-2000s horror movies. You’re not even sure why they bother trying to hide their identity anymore, honestly, considering you’ve had to return their wallet (ID and all) a dozen different times, and your neighbors know to let them into your place whenever you’re not home because if they don’t, they’ll try to break one of your windows, and that’s going to be more expensive than letting them steal a couple tubes of chapstick. It’s kind of like being in a relationship with a hyper-active puppy who can’t decide whether or not it wants to stab you, at any given time. At least they bring gifts, sometimes, whenever they start to think you might be mad at them.

In conclusion - please be gentle. They’re trying. Maybe, like, fake a scream every once in a while to make them feel a little better about themself. They’re doing their best.

[shadeofazmeinya]

Relatively Unharmed (Rewrite)

Summary: Jeremy gets Gavin home from a deal gone wrong that left a bullet lodged in Gavin's arms and fear of how the other Fakes are going to react. Sure Jeremy's chest hurt from the fight, maybe enough to leave them just barely able to catch their breath, but Gavin is surely what the focus should be on here. To make sure the others aren't going to be mad at this new crewmember they've added in not protecting their own.

Prompt fill: One of the crew is in a bad way healthwise for whatever reason but hides it so no one will worry, but its worse than they thought and the other have to find them passed out and nurse them back to health.

A/N: Rewrite of an older fic to remove a certain character. Also to have nonbinary Jeremy with they/them pronouns because Rimmy Tim is canon, baby! Let me know if there are any parts not edited properly. And as always comments and reblogs are supper appreciated!!!!

Jeremy grits their teeth as they push forward, Gavin’s arm thrown over their shoulder as his feet drag out of the elevator floor. Gavin shakes with a wet cough that chills Jeremy’s heart, blood dripping and spilling. Just a little longer, Jeremy thinks, their own chest tight under their body armor, where growing welts stretched with every shift. Making every step and breath ache, burn. But it doesn’t stop them, as Gavin was drifting in and out, body heavier in their arms. Jeremy punches in the security code of the penthouse door, pushing inside to meet the startled and worried eyes of the other Fakes as they stumble and all but collapse inside.

It wasn’t often that trade deals went south. Especially ones that were supposed to be easy, ones with people they’ve dealt with before. But it happens. This might not be the first time. But it is the first time it was Jeremy’s fault.

They shouldn’t have shot first. They shouldn’t have sparked it all going down. Because of them, Gavin was just barely conscious on his feet, the others catching his broken body as they pass the threshold of safety.

“What the fuck happened?” Geoff’s angry face is on them. Michael and Jack were carrying Gavin away, relieving Jeremy of his weight and it takes everything not to fall down after him. They watch him go as Geoff steps even closer.

Jeremy knows, deep down, the anger is only stemmed in worry and fear at Gavin’s state. It still makes Jeremy flinch back.

“T-They pulled out a gun. I didn’t know what else to do, so I shot them. But there were too many and one of them got Gavin in the shoulder. H-He fell so hard. I got him out of there as fast as I could, I came straight back –“

They’re interrupted by a howl of pain from Gavin as Jack and Michael work together to try to set and disinfect Gavin’s shoulder. Jeremy pales at the sound. Geoff gives them another angry glare before rushing over to Gavin’s side.

Jeremy wants to go to Gavin too, heart wrenching at another scream ripping from his throat. But with the others already working over Gavin, there wasn’t room for Jeremy to go to his side. The rest probably wouldn’t want them to either. Not after they were the reason Gavin was screaming, crying in pain, so much blood dripping down, spilling onto the floor.

Jeremy slowly leaves the room, moving further back into the penthouse, away from the wailing. As the adrenaline drains, as the panic of getting Gavin home, getting him to safety drains, they can start to feel the ache in their chest worsen.

They nearly double over in pain when they reach the bathroom, bending over the counter, clutching their chest. Taking off their armor nearly makes them collapse, hissing and cursing the strains pulling every muscle. There were two bullets stuck in it, one right over their heart. At least Jeremy did one thing right remembering to wear it.

Despite it being off, Jeremy still feels like they can barely breathe, chest on fire with every heaved breath. They glance to the mirror, looking at their now bare chest already molting into purple and black. It looks hideous under the harsh bathroom lighting, the pristine mirror missing none of it. Jeremy tries to feel around their ribs, tries to feel the damage, but all they can do is hiss and wince in pain the second their hand touches sensitive skin.

They start to reach for some painkillers in the medicine cabinet but then stop. There was only one bottle. Only one pill bottle left and Gavin needed it more than them. Gavin was hurt more. Sure Jeremy’s bruised, maybe bones even cracked, but that’s nothing compared to a bullet ripped into one’s shoulder. So Jeremy sighs, dropping their arm away from the painkillers. They grab their shirt to slip it back on, which proves difficult but they manage, sliding back out from the bathroom to see how the others are doing.

Gavin’s unconscious as Jeremy walks back to the living room. His shoulder was wrapped up but everyone still looked worried over him, fussing around him. Jeremy doesn’t blame them, he had lost a lot of blood. They’ll still need to keep a close eye on him even if the wound was closed.

Geoff turns to Jeremy as they come back in, eyes narrowed and it makes Jeremy freeze and their heart sink.

It was their fault Gavin got hurt. It was because of them that they could have lost him. It’s grounds enough for Geoff to want them gone, want to kick them out or worse. Jeremy swallows under his gaze, starting to shake, in fear or pain or both they can’t tell.

But before Geoff could say anything, deliver his sentence, Jack appears, eyes knit in worry as she looks him over. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Jeremy says, the lie slipping past their lips before they can even think to stop himself. Relatively they’re fine, they tell themself. Compared to Gavin, they’re fine.

Jack doesn’t look convinced, not completely, but Jeremy still hides their stiffness, hides their labored breath as they go over to a chair and carefully sit down. “How’s Gavin?” they ask quietly, getting the focus away from them.

Jack sighs. “He’s going to be alright. The bullet didn’t hit anything major. Just barely missed breaking his bones.”

There’s an awful silence after that, as they all glance at Gavin. Watch his chest move up and down, slow. Quiet. “I’m sorry,” Jeremy breathes out.

“What do you mean?” comes Geoff’s gruff voice, piercing eyes to them. Jeremy has to look down, speak to their knees.

“I shot first,” they admit. “I know I wasn’t supposed to. They didn’t even have their guns fully out yet, were only just reaching for them and I… I panicked and shot. I started the shootout.”

“From the sound of it you had plenty of reason to,” Michael speaks up. “If they were going to shoot one of you, better you don’t give them the chance to.”

“I didn’t know for sure they were going to shoot,” Jeremy mutters. “I just saw one of them raising a gun and I shot. We were outnumbered, but I still did it anyway.”

“What happened after that?” Geoff finally speaks, making Jeremy shrink back more, even if Geoff’s tone was even.

“I kept shooting, but one of them hit Gavin in the shoulder. I got as many as I could before dragging Gavin out with me to the car. I’m not sure I got them all…”

Geoff sighs, a sound Jeremy is sure in disappointment. They should’ve tried to not let any survive, but they needed to get out of there. Needed to get Gavin somewhere safe.

The room fills with awful silence. Something strained in it as they watch Gavin breathe, body too pale, so much paler than he should be.

Jack finally moves, hands stained with blood that she goes to wash off. Jeremy can’t look at it. Instead, they sit back against the chair, trying to keep their breathing even, but it’s hard as the pain seems to only be increasing. A rib has to be cracked, there’s no way it hurts this much and it isn’t. Maybe Jeremy should find some bandages later and wrap it up. But they’re not even sure if they can get themself back up off the chair.

The others all start shuffling around, getting some food started and wrapping Gavin up in blankets on the couch. Then Jack comes back, footsteps pounding on the floor as they all see her pulled face.

“Is this your body armor?” Jack snaps, voice sharp but strained. Worried. In her hands she holds up Jeremy’s armor, bullets stuck in it, shining under the living room lights. Jeremy realizes they had just left it on the bathroom floor after changing out of it.

“…yes…” Jeremy mutters in response, hurting too much to shrink back from Jack’s intense gaze.

“What the fuck Jeremy?!” Comes Michael’s shout as he sees the bullets, knowing they would at least cause major bruising, if not worse. “I thought you said you didn’t get hurt!”

“I said I was fine!” Jeremy shouts back but then winces. Screaming was not helping their state.

“You’re not fucking fine!” Michael hisses, storming up to them and lifting their shirt up to see their chest, to expose the horrible bruises to the others. Jeremy tries to bury into the cushions of the chair as they all gasp.

“It looks worse than it is…” they try, but the others can all tell they’re lying, as their voice shakes and body grow paler.

“You’re supposed to tell us when you get hurt!” Michael retorts, dropping his shirt.

“I didn’t want to worry you, Gav needed to be helped first –“

“And exactly how long after Gavin being helped were you going to tell us?” This time Geoff’s sharp voice, again glaring at him.

“I don’t know…” Jeremy mumbles.

“Did you at least take some painkillers while you were in the bathroom?” Jack says as she digs around for more bandages.

“No –“

“What?!” Again Michael’s loud voice cuts through. “Have you gone completely fucking stupid on us? They were right there!”

“Gavin will need them more –“

“We have plenty to spare,” Jack says, pushing Michael aside and sitting besides Jeremy, bandages in hand. “It takes five minutes for us to get more. Michael, grab the idiot something for the pain. I’m going to make sure they didn’t break any of their ribs."

“Did you drive all the way here with your ribs hit like that?” Geoff says as Jack works on getting Jeremy’s shirt off, Jeremy hissing through their teeth.

“Had to get home –“ Jeremy utters, falling back and gritting in pain as Jack starts poking at their chest.

“You should’ve tried to call us to pick you up! It’s a fucking miracle you didn’t break a rib into your lungs!” Michael yells.

Jeremy can’t even retort, just groaning in pain as Jack continues to try to examine their chest and then more for any wounds she needs to wrap.

“Can’t fucking believe you!” Michael continues his rant, as he disappears into the bathroom, voice and stomping feet heard as he continues to his spew of curses. He returns moments later to hold out a pair of pills to Jeremy. Jeremy doesn’t refuse it this time, immediately taking them and swallowing them dry.

“There,” Jack says as she’s done examining them. “We need to get you laying down. And no more moving around. We’ll get the Docs in here later to properly check it out. But for now nothing seems broken.”

“You’re such a fucking idiot,” Michael grumbles, but he leans over and presses a kiss to their forehead, showing the more worried side of the anger.

“Next time, tell us when you’re hurt,” Geoff says, his face softer, eyes less intense.

“I’ll do my best,” Jeremy says, giving a small grin despite the pain.

Geoff sighs, shaking his head, but the small smile return tells enough. And Jeremy knows all is forgiven. “Let’s get you in bed,” Geoff says, pressing a gentle kiss to their cheek. “I think we all need a rest from the excitement of the day.”

“Next person who hides being hurt is getting fucking shot, I swear to God!” Michael says, regaining his rant as Geoff and Jack help Jeremy up.

Jeremy can only just smile, feeling better knowing their family isn’t that angry with them. Knowing their family is going to take care of all of them just fine.

[ziracona]

Just blown away thinking about how /fundamental/ to Ritsuka’s survival, physically to some extent but way more like resilience and mental wellbeing and like, established personhood speaking, Shimosa coming right after Shinjuku was?

I mean Ritsuka is a tanky kid, long since proven, and that helps for sure—I mean they watch 80% of their group die in the prologue, and almost got killed by a bomb themself, an ally is murdered in front of them at the end of arc one, which is a city on fire and terrifying and full of monsters and dead people, and it only gets worse; every arc is rough in its own way, and obviously Temple of Time specifically left some lasting and deep wounds. But Shimosa?

Ritsuka is this fun, goofy, resilient kid full of trust and love and dedication and perseverance, and maybe most of all goodness, and basically no power at all on their own. They have been forced to depend on others not to be annihilated every step of the way, surrounded by impossible tasks and literally with the weight of the world on their shoulders, but they’re brave, and kind, and they’ve always stuck to it and tried their best and been kind to people even that they shouldn’t, and it’s always been enough, so far. They fight for survival and for those around them, and people choose to help. Their faith and goodness and determination and strength and sacrificial nature is rewarded or not left to fail for long because people see them and fight with them, and it’s an incredible strength and power kind of unmatched that has made them never truly powerless, in reality. Most of all they have always found a way to get. Back. Up. And fight, even when they have almost nothing left to offer. And Shimosa is the first time that just...isn’t enough.

Even with Musashi and Kotarou, the MC is almost completely alone—totally cut off from her usual support system and the people who they know and depend on. And so many people get killed. Over and over and over. It’s the first time innocent people are being slaughtered and screaming for help, and they’re forced to hide because they /can’t/ win, and they can’t try, because if they’re found the two kinds they’re looking after will be too, and they’ll doom all four of their group. Ritsuka tries and is forced not to. They leave behind a new ally to buy time full of faith he’ll make it back, and instead he gets killed and his body is turned into a monster that goes on to hunt them and their friends down and slaughter innocent people, and they have to put down while knowing it’s who was their friend and died for them. They believe in Danzo and the second that works and she decides to turn and fight for them, she’s forced to kill herself in front of them and /does/. It is just absolute ‘life is not fair’ hit after hit in Shimosa. And it takes a toll on Ritsuka absolutely—I think Shimosa is the arc they’re truly forced to grow up a lot—not like get better, like face a lot of brutal realities you’re not really totally forced to both accept and understand until an adult. But they survive it, and more importantly maybe, they come out the other side still the same person. And you know why?

I’m sure it’s a lot of reasons. It’s who they are, it’s who they choose to be. I think Danzo and Kotarou and Musashi and everyone who helped them in Shimosa were a part of it. I think Romani and Da Vinci and Mash and all their old friends were too. But I think a huge part of why is Shimosa happens /right/ after Shinjuku. And Shinjuku is also an arc like no other. It’s the arc where the long term ally betrays you, like several other arc, but this time, your time with them mattered and they feel guilty and more than that, they’re won over. It’s the arc where instead of a finale boss fight even harder than last arc, the antagonist throws the finale fight and it’s one of the easiest fights all arc. Because he doesn’t want to win. It’s the arc where a man in his mid sixties who has been a criminal his whole life and killed many people and never felt bad about it at all, who is dead and a spirit set in his saint graph and ways, famous /for/ being a villain, who has striven his whole life to prove his mathematical formula right and beat his rival, and finally, finally absolutely wins and gets both in the palm of his hand, lets go of his entire life’s purpose and desire and everything he’s ever been as a person, because who Ritsuka is and strives to be as a person, and how they treated him, mattered more. Because he didn’t want them to die, or to fail, and loved them. Just because of how they live and the choices they make.

It’s the arc where this villain to the core somehow isn’t one just this once for you because you loved and trusted him even knowing it was stupid and that mattered. The arc where he tells you as he vanishes to never be ashamed of who you are or think you’re wrong; that you’re incredible. The arc where life just isn’t fair, but it’s a good thing. It’s the arc where the only thing that saves the world is who Ritsuka is as a person, weak and trusting and good and determined and eternally hopeful and full of love, and just a little bit goofy.

And that’s the arc end right before Shimosa, where you keep getting knocked down and there’s no progress, no hope, and yet you make it. Because it might be possible and I think, because Ritsuka has this moment they just came from they can’t say was luck or someone else—that was them and all them and just them—that saved the world and means they might be able to again. Even if who they are is all they have to offer. And anyway this all makes me so happy & so sad but good sad.

[nothingunrealistic]

Hello I am the “what is billions about” anon pls share ur thoughts as well I am listening

hello!! i have many thoughts and milo covered quite a few of them in their answer (which i’m sure you checked out already but maybe someone Else reading this hasn’t yet, who’s to say) so i’m basically gonna supplement that post / give a slightly more structured Season By Season breakdown of What Is Billions, Anyway. spoilers, naturally.

first, an Overall Statement, on which i’m going to quote one of the billions showrunners, brian koppelman (here he’s also speaking for the other billions showrunner / his creative partner, david levien), on what he hopes people take away from the show:

I think that people love to watch hyper-intelligent, hyper-verbal people who are charismatic and charming, and who really love what they do, and who love being in this contest and this game.

For us, what we’re interested in, is why America is willing to substitute verbal acuity, charm, power and wealth for true qualities of character, like kindness and empathy? We hope that by watching the show and getting off on it when these characters do really bad things, it makes us all wonder why we’re rooting for them sometimes.

these characters are forever gunning to speak in the most obscure references and quickest witticisms of anyone in the room, to give the most inspirational off-the-cuff monologues, to indulge in the best meals and the most expensive luxuries — and constantly saying and doing horrible things to one another and to total strangers, because they can. so that’s a major Theme to keep in mind. (we talk about brian and david quite a bit. authorly intentions are interesting.)

season one sets up The World Of Billions and the tangled relationships between the three initial leads. bobby “axe” axelrod is a rich & successful hedge fund ceo who’s widely loved in nyc for famously surviving 9/11 and engaging in philanthropy. chuck rhoades is a ruthless us attorney in manhattan who prosecutes financial crime but has, until now, avoided going after axe and his hedge fund, axe capital, despite axe’s reputation for Shady Dealings. wendy rhoades is chuck’s wife, and axe capital’s on-call performance coach / therapist and axe’s bff. (allegedly. i’m rarely convinced that their friendship is as Real And Weird And Deep as we’re meant to believe, but we are meant to believe it.) chuck can’t deal with his wife being best friends with some other guy, let alone some guy who’s doing finance crimes, so once he resolves to Take Axe Down, he spends most of the season figuring out how, with the help of two assistant us attorneys, kate sacker and bryan connerty. axe doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong, and can’t deal with any man getting more of wendy’s attention than he does, so he spends most of the season fighting back. (let’s also note that axe has a wife, lara, who is at best uneasy about wendy’s sway over him.) 

chuck uses his power to do a lot of questionable things, up to and including stealing wendy’s notes on her axe capital patients, ostensibly in the service of justice. axe uses his wealth to do a lot of questionable things, up to and including letting one of his employees die to protect axe from prosecution when he could have extended the employee’s life, so he can keep making money. (also, we — and many, many people in nyc — find out that axe made his fortune off of 9/11 and tried to keep it buried for 14 years. he’s not so well loved after that.) the season ends with wendy deciding she’s sick of both of them, quitting her job at axe capital, and kicking chuck out of the house, followed by axe & chuck meeting face to face to yell about how much they hate each other and how they’ve both lost wendy by being so exquisitely terrible.

so this is the world that taylor mason (the most important character, as you know) walks into. rich men make their wealth of off suffering and death; powerful men abuse their public trust for personal ends; and the lives and wellbeing of everyone else turn on the whims of the rich and powerful and whatever years-long personal grudges they feel like satisfying today. (and sometimes, rich and powerful people will walk up to each other and say things like “What’s the point of having fuck you money if you never say fuck you?” and “You’re sure to become President of the Libertarian Club of Danbury Federal Prison.”)

season two introduces us to taylor and demonstrates that it’s not so easy for axe & chuck to become disentangled from wendy, or one another. early on, axe, chuck, & wendy are all under legal scrutiny due to the circumstances of chuck stealing wendy’s notes and wendy leaving axe capital. when axe is introduced to taylor by mafee, their mentor, and recognizes their brilliance, he enlists them to help attack another hedge fund ceo who wendy’s chosen to work for (and who is generally awful); chuck, who’s in danger of being fired, holds onto his job by successfully prosecuting (with the assistance of connerty and sacker) a prominent banker who’s also a friend of axe. axe decides to invest in a poor town in upstate new york, as a favor to a family friend, and puts taylor on figuring out if it’s a good deal; chuck is pushed to run for governor by his father, chuck senior, and senior sabotages a deal that would have brought a lot of money to the upstate town, which means a lot of money potentially lost for axe capital. (taylor, perhaps surprisingly, calls for stripping the town for all it’s worth to make up the loss.)

taylor gains favor with axe, gets used to a life of increasing wealth and power, finds themself on connerty’s radar, and starts to see the personal costs of doing business at axe capital. chuck & axe set their sights on one another again, which isn’t helped by axe finally managing to hire back wendy, a deal that strains chuck and wendy’s ongoing attempt to repair their marriage and hastens the crumbling of axe and lara’s marriage. (other than axe, the only person happy to see wendy back at axe capital is taylor — the two properly meet for the first time and click immediately.) chuck convinces senior to invest in a company, ice juice, that chuck’s best friend, ira schirmer, has also invested in, knowing that axe will try to ruin the company to hurt chuck and profit from its ruin — he does, and chuck gets it all on camera. wendy is again stuck in the middle, without knowing what chuck is planning, and decides to take a chunk of the profits axe is making. axe gets arrested, and wendy & chuck go home together, but only after axe sets taylor up to lead axe capital in his absence, lies about coming home to lara, and hugs wendy goodbye while chuck watches.

season three elevates taylor to more and more power, while setting axe against them — and, shockingly, on the same side as chuck — for the first time. axe is frustrated about the ice juice case and about having to give up his right to trade in order for axe capital, under taylor’s leadership and (allegedly) without axe’s input, to do business at all. (he’s also frustrated about lara deciding to divorce him, but it’s on the back burner, really.) chuck isn’t doing much better — senior and ira now hate him for using them as bait for axe; the new attorney general, jock jeffcoat, is forcing him (and sacker, who’s now his right hand attorney) to take on cases he hates in order to keep his job; and connerty, who’s supposed to be leading the ice juice case against axe, keeps finding evidence that points to chuck’s involvement. while taylor is in charge of axe cap, and with wendy advising them, they get accustomed to doing things their own way & dealing with crises, decide to hire quantitative analysts (aka quants! hello winston!) to help develop an algorithm that will change how axe capital does business, fend off / work around axe’s repeated attempts to make their decisions for them, and grow disillusioned with the culture of axe capital. (an example: taylor, and everyone at axe capital, watch a man die in an explosion on live television, and almost everyone around them starts cheering because they’ll make money off of it.)

chuck & axe are both fighting to make sure the other guy goes down over ice juice — until the news of wendy’s involvement gets out, and they have to work together to keep her safe and out of jail. (their plan to do this involves putting mafee in the line of fire, which taylor picks up on and confronts wendy about.) once the case is resolved, and chuck, axe, & wendy all get off scot-free, chuck reconciles with senior & ira and fires connerty for daring to come after him, and axe returns to axe capital and knocks taylor off their perch, back to being a regular employee. axe prepares to raise new money for axe capital, while undoing much of taylor’s work and belittling them and their requests for input and autonomy. chuck gives up his run for governor and tries to get jeffcoat out of office. but both of them are blindsided by betrayal — axe by taylor starting their own hedge fund, taylor mason capital, with the money raised for axe capital, and chuck by connerty and sacker siding with jeffcoat to get chuck fired. with chuck no longer the us attorney, he and wendy agree he’s got nothing against axe, and the three of them meet to start planning their retribution.

season four focuses on everyone’s desire for revenge against someone else, particularly axe & wendy’s separate but related desires for revenge against taylor. axe is trying to crush taylor & their company any way he can (sometimes with the assistance of his new girlfriend, rebecca cantu), and firing / threatening anyone at axe capital who gets in touch with them, because he can’t bear to let them succeed. chuck is running for state attorney general, because he needs a position of power to go after connerty, who’s now the us attorney, and jeffcoat. axe & chuck make a deal: if axe helps chuck get elected, chuck will make sure taylor is arrested. (“arrested for what?” axe doesn’t care what. just crimes.) wendy is helping both axe & chuck with their respective goals and feeling vindictive herself because she believes taylor took advantage of her empathy for them to put them in a position to start their own fund. taylor does well fending off axe’s attacks at first, with the help of mafee, their coo sara hammon, and other new employees. then their father, douglas mason, comes to visit, and three things become clear: 1) their relationship is difficult because he has almost no respect for them 2) they’re desperate for his approval 3) he’s come to see them because he wants their financial support for a personal project.

chuck wins his election, with axe’s help and with a very personal public speech. once in office, he agrees to help senior with a real estate deal; his legally questionable “help” catches the attention of connerty, sacker, and jeffcoat, who go to equally questionable lengths to prove that chuck is doing crimes. (an example: breaking into senior’s apartment to steal evidence from his biometrically locked safe.) wendy, who’s angry about her inclusion in chuck’s very personal speech, reaches out to taylor to talk. she learns that taylor is funding douglas’s personal project and, using her knowledge of their strained relationship from therapy sessions with taylor, works with axe to force taylor to kill the project. douglas walks out; taylor is devastated and wants some revenge of their own. (so does sara, who reports wendy for medical malpractice.) taylor attacks a company owned by rebecca, and axe supports her, until rebecca & taylor cut both their losses by cutting a deal. this makes axe so mad that he destroys the company instead, alienating rebecca and bankrupting taylor mason capital. chuck & senior’s real estate deal turns out to be a trap for connerty and jeffcoat (but not sacker, because she’s too smart for that), and it succeeds. however, chuck was supposed to be helping wendy keep her medical license; when she finds out that he didn’t do a thing, she walks out on him and into axe’s apartment. chuck, who was already sick of axe, “arrests” taylor and tells them that, though axe wants him to blackmail taylor into returning to axe capital, chuck wants them to go back as his operative to take axe down. taylor agrees to all sides of this deal, and returns to axe capital with their employees in tow, intending to just wait it out until axe and chuck destroy one another.

season five forces the leads to deal with the messes they made in season four, and smashes up & reforms the relationships of that season. axe, who’s feeling adrift after reaching a net worth of $10 billion and not feeling happy about it, is going in all directions at once. he decides that fellow deca-billionaire mike prince, who keeps swiping things he wants, is his new arch-nemesis; he applies for a bank charter for axe capital so he’ll never have to work again; he hires a artist, nico tanner, to paint for him on commission. the only thing he doesn’t do is run axe capital, even with the return of taylor, who he said he wanted around to help him make better plays, and their confession to him that they came back in collaboration with chuck. axe & chuck are ostensibly still allies, but chuck, with sacker behind him, is trying every angle he can think of to send axe to jail and prevent him from getting a bank charter. taylor, who’s struggling to achieve anything under the weight of appeasing both axe & chuck and the interference of other axe capital people in taylor mason capital’s work, teams up with wendy to win over investors and reinvents their fund as taylor mason carbon, focused on environmentally friendly investing. wendy and chuck get divorced, but are still entangled by shared assets and familial commitments; wendy and tanner take to one another romantically, axe finds out, and as we recall from season one, axe can’t deal with any man getting more of wendy’s attention than he does; and all of taylor’s employees are suspicious of wendy and her intentions.

season five hasn’t yet been filmed or aired in full thanks to covid, but where we’ve left off, axe has lost out on his bank charter, discovered that taylor and wendy teamed up with prince, and deliberately driven a wedge between axe & tanner, all in one night. it seems likely that wendy’s soon going to be as alienated from axe as she already is from chuck, and probable or at least possible that there’s more to taylor’s partnership with wendy than we’re led to believe. but we really have no idea what’s going to happen or even when we’re going to see it happen, and in a way that’s the best description of billions anyone could give.

[jpsbookshelf]

Credence Review

BOOK REVIEW- yay im back!

❌SPOILER ALERT!❌

Credence by Penelope Douglas

Let’s jump right in, shall we? First let’s introduce all the important characters. 

Tiernan De Haas, the girl who just care about anything anymore. Then there’s Jake Van der Berg, the one who has her, Noah Van der Berg, the one who wants her, and Kaleb Van der Berg, the one whose going to keep her. That is directly taken from the back of the book minus the names attached. The story starts with Tiernan’s parents, who are celebrities, killing themselves. Causing the media to spin out of control. Desperate to escape she decides that staying with her fathers’ step brother, Jake, who live way out in the mountains in Colorado. Key word being step meaning no blood relationship at all. Still makes me feel weird though. Anyways, Jake has two sons, Noah and Kaleb, Noah is great. We love him. Kaleb is... a lot. We literally meet him as he’s forcing himself on Tiernan since he thinks she’s one of his...night buddies who are usually waiting for him after he spends a lot of time in the woods. Noah ends the situation and explains to Tiernan what happened cause you know...Kaleb doesn’t talk. Yeah. He doesn’t talk due to traumatic event that led to him being left in a car for days as his mom did who knows what. 

They get past it obviously and the whole gang bonds. You might be wondering why I’m not going into detail about Jake or Noah and that’s cause you don’t need to. So time goes on and Tiernan decides to stay and she celebrates her 18th birthday with them. *devilish smirk* They go to a bar in the closest town, called Chapels Peak. The guys of this town have already set their eyes on her when she first arrived to town. Especially Terrance Holcomb. Since Jakes, Noah, and Kaleb know that he likes to engage in...group activities and then rank whatever girl is involved and he has quite the list already. The Van de Berg boys come to her rescue after she gets cornered and they make an escape to the house just in time for the snow that will keep them locked up in the mountains for months to start. Since there was a chance they were followed Kaleb and Noah stay up to guard the place but of course Tiernan joins them. The put a movie on and of course a sex scene starts. This leads to the obvious sexual tension everyone has been throughout the book to show more. After a moment of playful banter between Noah and Tiernan, because obviously Kaleb can’t talk, Tiernan ends up in Noahs lap. He tells her she should go to bed and gets her off of him. He then says

“Last chance, you should go.” When I tell you I have never laughed so hard. She obviously doesn’t leave even as he starts to stroke himself. Then asks if she wants to watch as if that hasn’t been what she was already doing. Anyway she keeps watching and notices that Kaleb got a lil bulge. Next thing you know they all getting off to this movie. Noah and Kaleb aren’t watching the movie. Just her. Tops are being pulled up, kisses are given in all the right places from both guys. Noah then delivers the funniest line ever.

“I get your cherry. As long as I promise not to touch your ass. He’ll want that.”

I gasped and then choked on my laughter. She was about to DP’d for her first time. Yeah she’s a virgin. Kind of ruined my imagination on the scene but it was interrupted by Jake anyways who then spanks her, which she of course enjoyed, after sending the boys away. He then precedes to fuck her the very next chapter...in a truck...three times. THREE! They go back to the house obviously looking all sexed up and Noah sees. Noah and Jake argue and they pretty much agree that if she wants any of them they’ll gladly give themself to her. 

Anyways, the book continues and Jake is still getting all of Tiernan, Noah ain’t getting anything, and Kaleb is throwing oatmeal at her, disappearing, and being a little bitch. But Kaleb does lay with her when she’s having nightmares and she never remembers. Cute. Next theres a barn fire Tiernan get really injured and they have to clean her wound and stitch it up. It’s to much for her even with the whiskey, so naturally Kaleb hits her so her focus isn’t on the pain. Yeah...

He hits her. The she asked him to do it again.

Im not shocked this point. Noah kisses her to distract her and they finish. She then accuses Kalbe of being an abuser which I mean...it was to help her? But was also not helpful. Until the second time lmao. Then Noah gives, in my opinion the BEST line.

“I’m the only man in this house who hasn’t hit you, and I’m the one you don’t want. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

I’m laughing even writing. Please he’s so sassy and so true. Then they have a threesome, them being Tiernan, Noah, and Kaleb. Yes, she takes it both ways now. Moving on, she really only has sex with Kaleb the rest of the book and they bond and shit. Then she’s like yeah I love him. They fight and then have angry boundary breaking sex and then she goes and cuddles with Noah and he tells her about there mom. Jake returns, I forgot her left to be honest, and Kaleb saw Noah and Tiernan the night before and wrecked her art shit and then they argue, well she does and he leaves. She goes through his room and finds that he has written about her and what he’s wanted to say to her. So, her and Noah go out into the woods to find him. They find him and they have makeup sex. She tells him she loves and he doesn’t say shit back obviously. He jokingly throws out her birth control when they get back to the house. Ha.

Anyways, everyone but Tiernan goes to town now that winter is over. Terrance Holcomb comes and fucks things up again. He tries to hurt and blackmail her but also saying he’ll be her boytoy. Anyways the boys come to her rescue and she practically is pushed into her moms assistants car who had been there to visit and she leaves town.

Time skip, she’s back in Los Angeles. I think Im way to lazy to fact check that but she’s living life there. Trying to get used to being away from those guys but then Noah shows up and is like yeah I’ve been working here for 6 weeks and then he practically says that he don’t like her like that no more and he just views her as family. I believe it was a couple weeks later and Jake is now at her place since Noah is staying there and he’s off arguing with Tiernans moms assistant. She looks to her backyard and the tire swing her mom had lit up was back and so was Noah. She talks to him and she says something along the lines of…

“ You finally left Colorado”

“It was time.”

Yay! He talked. It was pretty predictable though. In the epilogue it starts with tent sex and then you find out they have a kid now and they live happily ever after.

I don’t hate this book in fact, the sex scenes were written very well adn had me feeling some type of way most of the time. Recapping itt though made me realize a lot of issues with it causing this review to make is seem like a joke this book gets.... *drum roll*

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

[ghost-at-the-masquerade]

Recklessly Polite

Rating: G

Count: 1581

Summary: Link is invited to a spring celebration on Death Mountain

It's traditional, Yunobo says. A celebration of the coming of spring. A joyous occasion he can't imagine not having Link participate in. What spring means on a volcano, they haven't yet worked out, but they also haven't worked out how to say 'no' to an invitation.

The gorons around them are cheering something in their own language, each and every one fired up and eager to get started. The racers are all done up in regalia Link's never seen before; smooth golden shoulder guards connected with a sash as red as the depths of the mountain, the goron ruby embroidered on it in gold thread. Much like Yunobo with Daruk's scarf, they all had a unique piece representing their families.

From his spot upon the lip of the volcano, the elder manages to shout over the crowd, quieting even the rowdiest of them to at least a dull roar.

"Brothers!" he cries, his arms raised high, "We have a special guest with us here this year, and one to whom we have a lot to prove!" The elder looks down at Link, all mischief and good humor as he declares, "So give them everything you've got!"

Despite their uncertainty Link nods, and can't help but smile at the uproar of playful teasing that follows. They can only laugh at being jostled by so many large hands.

Yunobo shoots them a warm smile and a pair of thumbs-up before getting into the starting position. Link returns the gesture and braces themself, heart pumping, waiting for the explosion that would signal the start of the race. They adjust the helmet over their head one last time, staring down the long and craggy track. It's more than just the heat that has them sweating.

The force of it so close behind them almost knocks them off their feet, causing them to start a second behind the others. With no time to practice and no intention of participating in the first place, they didn't actually have a plan. Following their first instinct had them throwing themself head over heels into a roll, picking up dangerous and wild momentum almost instantly.

It was impossible to see where they were going; they only caught brief glimpses of gorons around them, both audience and racer - and brief, terrifying flashes of lava as they sailed over it. Though Daruk's blessing and the hardy cloth of their fire-proof suit kept them safe from any real harm, a choked gasp for air was punched out of them with every landing.

After the first slope had thrown them clean over a small plateau, they came to a bruised and bumbling stop with their heels grating against the stone. The crowd gasps and murmurs while Link waits for the pitching and spinning of their vision to slow, at least enough for them to get to their feet. The pack was quickly passing them by. Concerned healers were heading their way, squawking a confounded, "Little brother, what on earth are you doing?"

Link only shrugged and smiled at them, jogging towards the next slope and getting out a rusty shield. Just ahead, they catch a flash of a bright blue scarf, and their target is set.

Sparks fly out behind them on the harsh stone, the grating drowned out by a fresh cheer; they'll take that as approval of their non-traditional methods. Here the ground was beginning to even out, the cracks full of molten lava far less frequent. They wove around the larger stones, gaining speed, gaining ground on the first of their opponents. To their shock, once they were in range, the goron swerved hard in their direction, sharp defensive spikes sprouting from their back and ripping new grooves into the track. The crowd gasped at the aggressive gesture but Link, once they had recovered from the initial shock, only laughed, full and deep in their chest.

Drawing a rock crusher from the infinite depths of their pouch, Link skirted hard toward the stranger. They took a swing once he was in range, a miss that sent them scrambling to counter-balance the momentum of the heavy stone weapon. Countering, however, left them with a dramatic loss in speed that their opponent was eager to take advantage of; rather than just pass them and have it be over, he pulled his arms free and dug hard fingers into stone, leaving his spiny back directly in their path. Link took a sharp gasp of the burning hot air and whipped the crusher out in front of themself.

The spike that made first contact left a jagged gouge in the side of the crusher. The goron howled, though it was hard to say if from pain or just surprise, as the tip of the spike snapped off. This break let them twist away, sailing past their opponent, though he's quick to tear at the earth and start after them again.

Crossing and narrowly missing each other time and again, passing each other and being forced to fall back, the friendly rivalry kept on through most of the open plain. Onlookers held their breath, far more aware of the danger than Link themself. Finally, they felt like they had seen enough, knew enough about his patterns, and Link took one more decisive swing. The hooked end of the crusher caught him in the side, sending him spiraling far out of range, disappearing behind a fork in the track. With a victorious cheer, they tossed their weapon on their back and pressed their weight forward, determined to catch up to their friend before the end.

Soon the pack passed from rocky plain to a narrow pass filled with stone pillars. The other racers disappeared from view, but there was no time to worry about that; the ground was uneven, pitching them unpredictably to and fro, making pillars difficult to reliably dodge. Link crouched low, hoping to take a bit more control. Somewhere off to their left they heard a pained grunt as someone smacked into one of the pillars. Several more were heard as the path took a sharp turn and became ever narrower. Some of the pillars at the edge of their vision even rattled with the impact, sending pebbles scattering down the track like tiny racers.

When at last the pillar-filled pass opened up, it was into the final stretch; a long, steep slope that eased into a plateau at the finish line. Several racers had already finished, and there would be no catching Yunobo before the end, but they could hear the rumbling of numerous others they could still beat.

Glancing back, their eyes widened to see the other racers piling in behind them. More than a few had drawn their spikes and were swerving toward each other. Link's ears stood on end at the sound of metal scraping against itself - or, whatever those spikes were made of. Mentally they leafed through their options, trying to think of any way to go faster and coming up with nothing. Gravity was doing all the work here. They try anyway, almost down on their knees. When they adjust their weight they can feel several spots where the shield has worn dangerously thin.

All they can do now is call on Daruk and hope for the best. His protection dulls some of the noise and the burning wind whipping past them. Link can feel their heart beat with a familiar rhythm. Daruk's voice sounded in their head, growling as a crack formed in the back of the magical dome. They look back again, just in time to catch the goron who had glanced off the barrier. The pack had closed in much faster than they had anticipated, and now a few were pulling ahead, boxing them in.

Just as they hit the last curve leading onto the plateau, their shield finally gave up the ghost, cracking jaggedly down the center. With a sharp gasp they were thrown back into a wild roll. Now waiting on the sidelines, Yunobo watched in utter horror as Link disappeared into the crowd. The hero themself couldn't say much of what happened from there, shutting their eyes against the flashes of red stone and blue sky and terrifyingly close goron spikes.

The avalanche of gorons, Link just barely keeping from getting flattened between them, tumbled at last across the finish line. Some failed to stop and hit the far wall, others ground their hands into the stone and ended up piling on top of each other. Yunobo ran for all he was worth.

"Link!" Yunobo shouted, concern thick in his voice as he pushed through the crowd, literally tossing a few still-rolled gorons aside in his desperation to find them.

Laying on their back, the sky spinning slowly above them, Link raised a thumb for Yunobo to see they were alright.

"Oh, good, what a relief," He sighed, a hand to his chest. Perking up again, he said, "You did amazing, Link! I mean, I knew you would, but wow!"

Link stayed where they were while Yunobo gushed. Daruk's magic had been exhausted, but a few wisps still hovered around them, as if Daruk himself was still curled around them in a desperate attempt to keep them from getting crushed. With a soft, appreciative smile, they closed their eyes for a moment to tell him it was alright now.

Then Yunobo was pulling them to their feet, pushing them toward the final ceremony on legs full of pins and needles.

[xxbyimm]

25 oc questions: 🌟🌙❄️🔥🌻💎👀 and I know who you wanna talk about 😆

Lol, you do???? I have no idea... 

Thank you so much for asking me these questions, my dear sister from another mister! <3 I really enjoyed answering these.  🔥

🌟 When your OC loses all hope, who do they turn to first? What helps make them feel better? What calms them down and reassures them? Why?

Enya Blueheart always turns to her husband Thorin first. If something or someone is letting her down, she will needs his reassurance and support. Since a large part of their love language is physical touch, they’re often found hugging, kissing (among others things.. LOL). Within his arms, she feels safe and at home. Snuggling up with him in front of the fireplace is one of her favorite things in the world.

Secondly, Enya’s tiny pet dragon Dracarys never fails to make her laugh, because of he’s too stupid to be even alive to be honest. His cuteness has saved his tiny ass more than once!

When Thorin or Dracarys aren’t available, I can see Enya seeking comfort with Dís. Because Enya is about the same age as her sister-in-law’s sons, Dís is very protective of her.

 🌙 If your OC could have one wish come true what would it be and why? Would there be consequences to this wish or would they regret it once they get what they want? What would they give in return for this wish to come true?

Hmmm… Quest Enya has one wish in mind, but that one will get granted fairly easily and she has no regrets. At all… ;D

I think Queen Enya desperately longs for some private time with her king. And with this I don’t mean quality time in their private quarters, but more like an equivalent of a holiday we humans have. She wants to go on an adventure with him, explore Middle Earth and have long, passioned make out sessions without having to worry which member of the court is playing peeping Tom. The consequence of this wish would be that the kingdom has to survive without its’ king and queen for a few weeks, but I think they’ll survive…

 ❄️ What makes your OC sad, so sad that they can’t help but cry all day? How do they cheer themself up? Does their sadness upset any of their loved ones too?

Losing Thorin. As we’ll see in the upcoming chapters of Enya’s journey, losing Thorin will devastate her. There’s no cheering up from that. At that point, En just wants to crawl into a hole and die.  

 🔥 If your OC known for having temper tantrums? If not, what gets them really angry? What makes their blood BOIL? Is there anyway to calm them down or are they unstoppable? What are they like when they’re angry? Do they take it out on their loved ones?

UM, YES! We’re talking about a bloody fire-witch here! Enya is notorious for her temper tantrums, in which she sometimes loses control over her powers (a.k.a. setting the bed on fire). She despises arrogant people, females who dare to even look at her husband (Dolvira and Elmilynn are honorable mentions) and gender inequality.

Calming this sassy lady down isn’t easy, especially when she has turned into a literal fireball. But somehow (I’m not sure how he does it), Thorin manages. He listens to what she has to say or simply distracts her from the topic that’s enraging her.

 🌼 Write a short drabble from your OCs POV meeting their LI (or if they don’t have a love interest, their best friend. If you don’t want to do a drabble, describe their first meeting instead!)

Oh yass!! If you don’t mind, I took a snippet from the remastered Enya’s Unexpected Journey series I’m currently writing!

‘Ouch!’

She landed on something hard and unrelenting. Next thing she knew, the world was literally spinning on its axis and she was lying under a gruffy, very angry man with long, dark manes and a beard. The fight was over before it even had begun and Enya found herself being pinned firmly on the ground, a sharp blade pushing against her throat. She hissed in pain as her assailant’s deep blue eyes flashed over her, scanning the level of danger from his current foe.

Even to someone as inexperienced in combat as she was, it was clear that the man was overpowering her in both strength as deadliness. Resistance was futile. Enya stopped writhing under his tight grip and the can containing her only way to defend herself, rolled onto the ground.

‘Honestly, my dear.’ Her mind huffed. ‘Are you even trying to escape or what?’

For a moment, they were taking each other in and emerald eyes burned into their pale blue counterparts. Aside from those gorgeous eyes that looked straight into the depths of her soul, the man possessed a characteristic nose and a carefully kept -though no less majestic- beard. His mouth was set in a grim line. A strand of his unruly, dark hair brushed over her face. His scent, a mix between tobacco, musk and worn leather, was both soothing and intoxicating.

Good gracious. He was hot…

 💎 Does your OC collect anything? Is there a reason? When did they start and is it beginning to turn into a little bit of a hoarding issue? What do they do with their collection?

I don’t think that other than pets, Enya doesn’t really collects anything. She loves animals and once Dracarys bonded with her there was no going back. Thorin often jokes that Erebor is a kingdom, not a farmhouse… xD

 👀 Describe your OC through the eyes of another person! (bonus + specify who)

This is a snippet from a chapter I have yet to write!! Lady Dís meets Enya!

A slender female clad in black appeared behind her trusted informant Daniel. Dís, who wasn’t used to Dan bringing companions with him- especially not ones covering their face with a hood-, arched a brow. Dan caught her gaze and grunted something incomprehensible, making the princess of Durin smile. The poor ranger just couldn’t help himself, could he? He always had to play the hero.

‘I don’t remember asking you to bring me anything other than information, Dan.’ She spoke. ‘Who’s this?’

The female lowered her hood and a wave of chestnut brown locks fell over her shoulders. She had pretty, delicate features and though the lack of any apparent facial hair (not even a slight sideburn) was a bit disappointing, the fiery, determined gaze in her pale blue eyes made up for it. But there was something else. A small flicker in her gaze betrayed there was much recent hurt and heartbreak lurking beyond the surface. Whoever the girl was, she had been through much.

‘I’m sorry for intruding your home like this, lady Dís.’ The girl said, her light and melodic voice sounding polite but yet quite certain. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you.’

‘None taken.’ Dís replied. ‘What’s your name?’

‘My name is Enya Blueheart and I’m the last royal descendant of the firebeard clan.’

Ah, a dwarrowdam. Of royal ancestry no less! Dís neared her new acquaintance with curiosity. ‘You’re most welcome here, miss Blueheart.’ She said. ‘May I offer you something to drink and a place to rest? You look rather tired.’

‘Yes, thank you.’ Enya murmured as she let the princess of Durin guide her towards the long dining table near the fire.

‘My my.’ Dís muttered as her fingers accidently dug into Enya’s ribcage. ‘You are too thin for my liking. If I may inquire… Who broke you?’

@criminaly-supernatural, do you approve of this Dís and Enya scene? ;D

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Shake: Chris and Laken

(Why do so many of Chris’s pieces end up having a title of just a single word? Huh. This is just a very smol drabble I’ve been meaning to write and is basically a present for @slaintetowhump, as is most of my Laken content let’s be honest here)

Timeline: College!Chris, early in his burgeoning relationship with Laken. I’d say first semester in college. 

Tagging: @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @endless-whump, @whumpfigure, @stxckfxck, @slaintetowhump, @astrobly, @newandfiguringitout, @doveotions, @pretty-face-breaker

CW: Some brief references to past trauma/noncon, fucky survivor thoughts on navigating consent and relationships post-recovery, memories of conditioned thoughts around spice

“I can’t believe you’ve never tried this before,” Laken says, leaning over, so close their knees are nearly brushing his, and Chris’s eyes are caught in theirs. Dark, so dark, and ringed in black eyeliner that makes them seem even wider and darker, pools he could dip into and not ever come back from. 

“I... I, I might, um, might h-have,” Chris says, his voice strained and a little rough around the edges. All the hairs on his arms and his neck have stood up, goosebumps rolling over his skin as Laken’s hand moves. “I don’t remember.”

Laken pauses, giving him that sort of thinking-look they have sometimes when he says he doesn’t remember things, or doesn’t know a movie or show or some big national thing everyone else does. Then they seem to shrug that moment off, but Chris caught the pause.

He should have pretended to know about this. 

He’s just so tired sometimes of lying.

They pick up a single french fry from the plate they and Chris and are sharing, skinny as a matchstick, one of the fries not already drenched in the neon-yellow-orange cheese sauce they’d ordered. Laken smiles, top teeth just resting on their full bottom lip, and dips the fry into the chocolate milkshake with whipped cream and a cherry on top they have right in front of them.

“See? Dip, hold for one second-” Laken holds up a single finger on their other hand for emphasis, and Chris can’t help the way his own mouth stretches in a smile. “-and eat!” 

They pop the french fry into their mouth, closing their eyes, and Chris loves the perfect even line of their eyeliner, the way it swoops just a little further than the corner of their eyes. 

“Now you try.” Laken points back at the plate, and Chris’s eyes drop quickly down to it, his face reddened and warm at the idea that Laken caught him staring at their face. A bit of their hair has fallen into their eyes and he wants to bury his hands in the thick, curly black hair that runs over the top and back, rub his fingers into the soft, short shaved hair at the sides, wants to-

Just wants, in formless ways that go no further than the idea of what he might feel if they held him, kissed him, were near him, legs intertwined, a subtle weight against his side.

The wants are good, but under them lingers the fear of what comes after the holding. When the weight is no longer subtle but heavy, when kissing isn’t enough for them, when they want him to perform. 

They wouldn’t call it that. That’s not what it’s called, out here. That he’ll lose himself again, and the next time maybe he won’t remember how to run from it first. He can’t be rescued every single time he gets in over his head, can he? He’s supposed to be able to do these things himself, now. 

It was less than a year of his life, lost, they think. Nat and Jake think so, anyway. 

How can less than a year of his life still hurt so much later?

“Chris?” Laken snaps their fingers in front of him and he blinks, sitting up in a sudden flinch backwards-

Pay attention, darlin’, you should always have eyes on your owner

-and catches himself just as fast, giving them a smile. “S-sorry, I, I was in my, my my-my head I guess. What, what did you say?”

-won’t repeat myself, you should have focused on me-

Laken pulls their hand back.

-what else is there for you to look at, hm?

Laken’s hand hesitates, as though they might want to reach forward instead of pulling back. He wants them to touch his face so badly and he doesn’t want to be touched at all. He wants both things. 

He wants to grab at them and hold on and say please tell me I can do this and he wants to say just walk away before you find out and the sentences are so jumbled together in his brain he can’t say either at all. 

The lights are making a sound, a sort of hum that he thinks Laken can’t hear but he can hear it and it drills into his ears, under the memory of Sir’s voice, slick and smooth, the sense-memory of a hand lying on the back of his neck, pressing soft leather into his spine.

Pay attention. I said-

“I said,” Laken says, softer this time, “that it’s your turn.” They hold out a fry, skinny twig potato, with only a hint of cheese sauce at one end. “Dip it in the shake, take a bite. I promise it’s amazing.”

Amazing. You really were worth every penny I paid, weren’t you?

 Chris is sure he sees uncertainty in their expression, but he’s not always good at knowing what the people around him are thinking. The subtler shifts of expression that don’t contain the threat of violence he was trained to prepare for sometimes mean nothing at all to him, and between the weight of their face at the front of him and the pressure of the fluorescent lights in the diner above and behind him, that buzzing noise that no one seems to hear but him, Chris wants to run.

Get up and run, like Kauri used to run, and that feels safer than what he’s trying to do here.

The train tracks of his thoughts are scattered, unsure. He wants to get up and walk out, go somewhere dark, and remind himself that people like him weren’t ever supposed to have moments like this.

You are a pet and you’ll never be anything but-

Chris sets his jaw and tries to remember that memories can’t grab you out of the light, the buzzing is just a sound - the lights are just cheaper than any other kind - and Laken’s hand is safer than the hand in his mind.

You’ll never be anything but-

This. He can be this, instead.

He takes the fry from Laken’s fingers, lets his brush theirs just a little for the rush of electricity along his nerves, the feeling of touching lightning, and dips his fry in the shake.

Then he pops it into his mouth, and his eyes widen at the sense of cold and hot, chocolate ice cream and fried potato, salt and sweet. He picks another fry up and tries it again.

Laken laughs, sitting back and clapping their hands, ducking their head slightly. “See! You like it! Didn’t I tell you?”

“You, you, you-you you did, you told me,” Chris smiles at them around the french fry still sticking out of his mouth, prompting another peal of laughter, catching the eyes of people in the other booths in the diner. Chris would sink into himself, except he realizes after a second that the older couple looking at them is smiling, watching Laken laugh.

So he starts to smile again, too.

“Great.” Laken picks up a long-handled spoon, dipping it into the whipped cream and picking the bright-red, fire-engine-colored cherry off the table. “You want my cherry?” They start to giggle, blushing themself, and Chris just blinks, not understanding this joke, either.

There are so many jokes he doesn’t understand but he smiles along with anyway.

“I’m kidding, I’m just-... sorry, being out with you makes me kind of nervous, and I’m just covering it by being ridiculous,” Laken says, sighing, eating the bite of whipped cream and the cherry themself. “I really am sorry, Chris.”

“You, um... you, you, you-you... you’re nervous?” Chris asks, voice low. That... he can’t have heard that right.

“Uh, yeah, of course I am. You’re fucking gorgeous and you dating me... it’s a lot. You know? You make me really nervous.” Laken hesitates, swirls their spoon around in their milkshake without looking up. “Like I’m going to fuck this up for sure.”

 “Me, um, me-me... me me me, me-... wait, my words, um-” Chris groans, reaching for the black bracelet he always wears on one wrist, pushing the little metal circles wound into the heavy nylon rope to focus on the press of an edge against his finger, the way they spin against his skin. “I’m... I’m nervous, too.”

“Are you?” Laken cocks their head, and there’s that hair again, falling over one eye. “Well, I guess we’re both nervous, so that cancels us out, right?”

Chris takes a breath, reaches out, and brushes the bit of hair from over their eye, watching Laken’s smile grow and change, become softer and warmer all at once, as they look up at him.

This look, he knows. The I want you look. He’s given himself, practiced and performed, with a smile that never reached his eyes. 

Laken’s eyes, though, are warm. He’ll fall in.

“I, I, I think I’m too weird for, um, for you,” Chris says, finally, hesitantly. 

Laken grabs his hand in theirs, twining fingers warm around his chillier ones, and kisses the back of his hand. “Not possible.”

“No, really-”

Laken shakes their head, pulling his hand to rest his knuckles against their cheek and his voice is caught in his throat, then. It’s lost somewhere in the look on Laken’s face. He can’t quite remember how words work, but he’s pretty sure he doesn’t have to. 

“No.” Laken says the word soft as can be. Chris thinks of the way it felt to pet the kitten when Ruth’s stray cat had a litter. “Really. You’re not too weird for me, Chris. I want this to be our first date, not... not the last one. Yeah?”

Chris breathes in and out. His hand is on fire with sparks from Laken’s touch.

He wants, all those things that feel safe. The holding, the kissing, the things that go no further. He has no idea how to ask.

“... right,” He says, finally. “First date, not, not, not-not last date.”

“Perfect.” Laken kisses the back of his hand and then gives it back to him, but he kind of hopes they’ll just keep his hand forever, it can be all theirs, whatever, just keep smiling like this and he’ll give them anything they want. “So. Next fry?”

They pick one up.

Chris picks a fry up, too.

They dip their fries into the milkshake in unison, and Chris can’t think of anything but how gorgeous Laken looks in the awful fluorescent light.

[kirishwima]

sooo, for the cute prompts can I request some domestic life scenarios with the RFA? Have a great day/night ♡

YES, this is exacty what i meant when i asked for cute prompts hehe ^o^ I’ll also add Saeran bc well, i haven’t written anything for him before and he deserves love too!!

YOOSUNG:

* There’s two scenarios for this sweet bean; living with him as students, and living together after graduating.

* As students, his scedhule is a bit hectic-he leaves early for classes, comes back dead tired in the afternoon, and honestly he wants nothing more than to just throw himself over MC and rest his head on their chest, taking in their warmth to recharge from the days’ fatigue.

* He loves to be pampered and cared for-if MC offers to rub his back, or help him study/make him some tea or snacks while studying, he’ll be so happy! 

*He also loves to care for them though, and as a roommate, although often messy, he’s really caring-he’s usually the one cooking most of the meals, and loves to make MC’s favorites (the smile on their face when they eat something he’s cooked makes him twice as happy really), and will absoloutely cuddle them to sleep at night (aka at 3am when he’s done playing LOLOL, and is this kis a FURNACE WHY IS HE SO WARM)

* He loves to go grocery shopping together! He’ll absoloutely try and put MC in the shopping cart and run down the aisles with them until a security guard scolds them for it lmao

* When living together after graduation, he might mellow down a little-the initial jitters are gone, and he’s more comfortable around MC, especially if they move out and get a flat together-this is now their space, one they worked on and decorated together.

* Will absoloutely bring foster animals home, and even if they make a mess he cares for them so much MC finds it absoloutely endearing. Seeing him chase a bunny around begging it to stop pooping is quite freaking funny though and they do film him doing so and send it to the RFA chatroom lmao

* Honestly. Just an absoloutely sweet boyfriend, he’s just so grateful to have a person he loves to come home to everyday

JAEHEE:

* She’s the one that suggested moving in together, and though excited, she’s a little apprehensive at first

* She’s so used to having her own space and is really rigid about cleanliness even with her busy scedhule, so she’s afraid how she’ll react if e.g MC is a very messy person

* However she eventually learns to compromise, and so does MC-Their house is always clean, even if its’ a little messy at times. Jaehee learns to relax a little, and is just happy to have MC to come home to everyday

* Since they co-own the cafe, they take turns manning the shop and running house chores. She does however love whenever they’re able to go shopping for supplies for the coffee shop together.

* At home she’s always brewing new roasts of coffee or trying out new recipes of cakes and muffins-she loves baking with MC, finding it so adorable whenever they end up with flour on their nose, blushing a furious red if MC tries to feet them bites of the dessert themself. 

* She’s not a cuddler, but loves to hold MC’s hand in hers when going to bed-nowdays she actually finds it impossible to fall asleep without the feel of MCs hand in hers

* She’s almost always the first one up in the mornings, and always brings MC a cup of coffee in bed to wake them up, along with a quick kiss

* They have movie nights once a week, and take turns choosing the film-it’s usually Zen’s musicals whenever it’s Jaehee’s turn, but MC doesn’t mind-not when Jaehee cuddles up with them, resting her back on MCs’ chest as they watch, constantly turning around to MC with wide bright eyes to comment on specific scenes.

* Seeing her smile every day is honestly such a blessing who wouldn’t want to live with her aaaaa

ZEN:

* This boy LOVES living with his SO, loves it!!!

* He is however extremely busy....and often comes home late....

* He’s happy MC is so understanding, but he’s furstrated with himself for not spending more time together even though they live under the same roof

* After deciding to live together, he’ll be willing to move out of his half-basement and into a place they choose together-that house holds many memories for him, yes, both good and bad, but he’s ready to say goodbye to that part of his life to start a new chapter fresh with his beloved.

* He’ll have so much fun going furniture shopping-absoloutely he’ll drag MC down with him on every bed to ‘test how comfortable it is’ 

* MC that’s a lie he’s absoloutely just trying to make sure how durable its springs are RUN-

* Ahem. Anyway yeah creating a place for the two of them to call home is an amazing experience, and he’s very lenient with compromises-he wants MC to be as comfortable as possible in their shared space, especially when he’s often home late leaving MC alone.

* On his free days he absoloutely makes up for his absence, becoming the absoloute boyfriend material-will wake up early and make MC breakfast in bed, waking them up with the sweetest kiss and the smell of freshly baked pancakes, will spend the day pretty much lounging like a big fluffy housecat-he’s s such an active and sporty person, yes, but he’s human too, and we’re lazy by nature lol

* He loves to rest his head on MC’s lap, feel them running their hands through his hair as they watch something on TV. The feel of their hands on him bring him ultimate bliss.

* Honestly just absoloute husband material, if only he had a little more free time lmao

JUMIN:

* He’s also a really busy man, but has the blessing of being able to more or less make his own scedhule, considering his position, so he’s sure to never miss dinner time with MC-it’s his own little ritual with them

* He loves to lay in bed with MC in his arms, stroking their hair as they tell each other about their day. He can’t go to bed otherwise.

* If he’s abroad, he’ll skype MC every night and fall asleep with each other on camera, and he’ll make it up to them a thousand times over once he’s back home

* He loves to bring little gifts and surprises for MC when he comes home-from a bouquet of their favorite flowers, to something he saw that reminded him of them

* On days off, he’ll want to do something creative with them-Jumin’s always up for finding new hobbies and learning new things, so he’s eager to share this joy with MC

* ((his current obsession is sculpting-he’s absolotutely working on making a reailstic life-like sculpture of Elizabeth the 3d to place on their home’s entrance))

* Often he’ll cook with MC, trying out new recipes together, ones they picked up from their travels around the world-he’s not afraid of trying new things, and same goes to flavours. He especially enjoys meditarranean cooking, and will search for the best products to cook with.

* Loves to wake up first simply to watch MC as they sleep-their peaceful expression brings the biggest of smiles on his lips MC wake up you’re missing the purest sight in the whole world

* Such a loving husband, perfect bean, 10/10

SEVEN:

* When all’s said and done, when both he and his brother are safe and he can finally breathe, he’ll absoloutely refuse to live together with MC in the fort he’s lived in for so long. It’s such a dark and gloomy place, he doesn’t want MC, his bright wonderful MC to live in such a constricting place.

* He’s really a family-oriented person-he’ll want a proper home for him and MC and Saeran to live in, one where their lives can actually finally feel normal.

* LOVES looking for a home with MC, viewing different properties and getting a feel of what suits them and what not-when the real estates agent tells them of homes with rooms perfect to eventually become nurseries, he can’t hide his gleeful smile, how he squeezes MC’s hand at the thought of having a home, a family, children-all he never thought he could have.

* Adjusting to a normal, everyday life is hard at first-he’s so unaccustomed to the most basic of things (like a freaking normal sleep scedhule) but with help he’ll get used to them

* Eventually he can’t fall asleep without feeling MC besides him-if he wakes up and finds the bed empty he panics, thinking of all the worst scenarios. 

* Sometimes he’ll even get up at night to check that Saeran is alright, the fears of his past hard to completely leave behind.

* Learning to cook with MC and Saeran is a challenge he enjoys-it’s almost like a little cooking class, with MC hovering over the twins trying to make sure neither of them chops off a finger cutting onions or set the kitchen on fire by accident.

* If they have a backyard he’ll love tending to it-he doesn’t know much, but Saeran teaches him, and he has so much fun planting different flowers and watching them grow.

* Going to the supermarket with him is like taking a baby to the amusement park. He’s constantly finding candies and weird foods and stuff and tries to discreetly throw them into the shopping cart-it’s almost impossible to tell him no when he finds something he really wants and makes that cute ol’ puppy face as he clings to it ((that ‘it’ is most often Dr. Pepper and a heckton of junk foods))

* It takes a little getting used to, sure, but at the end of the day, living everyday with Seven is nothing short of an experience, and well, a way to make life fun.

V/JIHYUN:

* Honestly....he’s so caring and loves to have someone to care for and greet each morning every day with, but he’s been hurt so bad by such a person, that he’s really apprehensive at first.

* It took a long time for him to finally ask MC to move in with him-and even then he’s scared, scared of what they’ll see of him, scared of the power they hold over him-it’s like inviting a vampire into your home, a threat and pleasure all at once, and an offer impossible to take back once it’s been given.

* He’s so scared to love and give himself, worried there’s not much left of him to give-it’ll take a lot of patience and reassurance to allow him to open up again, to find who he really is and show his true feelings.

* When he does open up however-oh man. He loves so much and so strongly, and after starting to live with him, it’s impossible to think of how life was before him. It’s so natural, existing in the same space with him, it was as if there was nothing before him, no life to speak of.

* He loves to care for MC in the smallest of ways-from planting their favorte flowers on the windowsill, to softly humming songs to them when they can’t fall asleep, his hands wrapped around them, their head nestled in the crook of his neck as he rubs soothing circles on their hand.

* V’s a giver by his nature-to love means to give, and with MC he learns that to love is more than that-it’s to share. So he learns to share, to give and be given in return.

* He’s not a great cook, and more often than not something ends up burnt when he attempts to make meals, but he makes the most delicious hot chocolate in the whole world, and in the summer, he loves brewing all kinds of different lemonades, sitting out on the balcony with MC on particularly hot days.

* He’s not one that likes to stay home much-his soul is adventeruous, and he always feel a nagging feeling, the need to go out there and explore, see all there is to see-only now he wants MC beside him, wants to experience all there is with them.

* That doesn’t mean that he hates staying at home though-spending late lazy nights with MC, both in their pyjamas as they curl up on the couch-he’ll often smoke during those nights, be it his pipe or cigarettes, leaning closer to the window as they talk with MC about everything and anything. There’s something vulnerable about the night, and they’re the only person he wants to feel this vulnerability with, the only one he’s not afraid they’ll hurt him with it.

* Eventually he’d like to have a family, if MC also wants to-and even if not, he’d like to at least move into a house with them rather than an apartment, no matter how big or small it is-he’d just like a space with a yard they can plant a garden in, take care of it together. He’ll absoloutely grow fruit trees and herbs, bringing in the fresh produce daily to use for recipes with MC.

* He’s such a big softie and perfect husband material just-give this mint unconditional love p l e a s e

SAERAN/UNKNOWN:

* It also takes a l o t to get Saeran to agree to living together with MC. It’s not that he doesn’t want to-he does, more than anything, to be able to wake up everyday to his beloved’s smile, he’s just...scared. He’s not certain how he’d handle himself in certain situations, and living together with someone means they get to see every part of you, the good and the bad, and he’s afraid of how MC will react to the bad.

* They’ll have to remind him that they have seen the bad and the good, and they’re still here, and always will be. Only when he’s truly reassured of that will he agree, and even then he’ll be really shy and closed off at first.

* A place with a garden would be ideal, or somewhere with a view to a forest or away from the bustle of the city-he likes solace, and laying beneath a tree is the perfect remedy for his stress.

* Eventually he opens up, gets more comfortable around MC, starts to show his true self. The Saeran who’s happy, who is curious about the world, who constantly wants to explore and learn.

* He’ll love taking up a hobby like gardening with MC, will spend entire evenings with them on the couch and a book of botanology open on their laps as they sit with their shoulders touching, pointing to different plants and deciding on what they’d like to grow or not.

* He’ll visit Saeyoung frequently because well, he has to (aka he wants to but refuses to say it)), and will often inivte him back to their place, secretly laughing at his brothers’ jokes, enjoying how comfortably he and MC interact, seeing these two people-his family, in the same space he shares.

* It’s scary, to have a normal life after so long-but it’s what he craved the most, and now that he has it, he’ll never let go of it.

i had so much fun writing these aaa~

-send me mystic messeneger headcanons/prompts for characters to react to!-