#this is genuinely untenable

[azems-familiar]

holy fuck the number of pornbots i've blocked in the last few days is UNREASONABLE. and they just keep coming too good lord

[lokh]

would u trust me to be able to carry heavy grocery bags

[the-polyhedron]

The kindest cruel thing anyone ever did for me was my older relatives with experience in teaching breaking it to me that it’s really not a field I (or most people) want to get into right now

[bijoumikhawal]

Florida's passed a law wanting the death penalty for child sex crimes and now everyone's gonna pat themselves on the back and not enough people are gonna think about how kids are hesitant to report already and this'll just make it worse

[multicarinata]

sth to be said for how many new and discrete ways I've found to sleep Bad this year

[uni-seahorse-572]

fuck. fine. at least this one sort of came to a survivable conclusion but i can't keep getting emotionally invested in first seasons just for another cancellation

[humanimalgam]

this shit makes me wanna kill honestly. american public transit is genuinely untenable

[artbyblastweave]

Heroify Coil!

This one is pretty easy, assuming you're willing to frame all parties involved correctly- you take his canon plan but enact it with scruples north of "kidnapping a child to shake like a magic 8 ball," go whole hog on framing the PRT and indie heroes as corrupt enough that Coil's quiet takeover wouldn't be meaningfully worse, frame his doxxing E88 as a masterstroke upset of a corrupt status quo that protects the well-situated rather than an untenable escalation that leads to hundreds of deaths.... go beat by beat like that and you can get pretty far into making his canon deal super palatable.

I've remarked before that the really interesting thing about Coil is that in terms of his objective behavior he's genuinely a very pretty boss, he's a type of "good villain boss" character that mid-2010s tumblr would have a collective hardon for, but as viewed by a POV character who doesn't register any of that because she's hyperfocused on a couple moral rubicons he's crossed and made her complicit in by extension. Tell more of this from Coil's perspective and drop the inconvenient child-kidnapping thing- or even just find a way to mitigate it! Maybe it's a step up from her home life! Maybe he manipulates a tween into helping him willingly rather than drugging her! -and you're most of the way there.

[scoonsalicious]

Unwanted: Chapter 13, Uncomfortable - Pt. 2

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Fem!Reader

Summary: When your FWB relationship with your best friend Bucky Barnes turns into something more, you couldn’t be happier. That is, however, until a new Avenger sets her sights on your super soldier and he inadvertently breaks your heart. You take on a mission you might not be prepared for to put some distance between the two of you and open yourself up to past traumas. Too bad the only one who can help you heal is the one person you can no longer trust.

Warnings: (For this part only; see Story Masterlist for general Warnings) Sadness, realizations.

Word Count: 633

Previously On...: A phone call in the middle of the night sends Bucky to Jade's side at the med bay to help her through a "panic attack," which you're sure she's faking. You warn Bucky that if he keeps going to her, you might not be willing to take him back.

A/N: I didn't realize some of these parts were so short. They were difficult to write, so they took a lot of time, and therefore seemed longer. I feel like I'm drawing out the inevitable, and I probably am. I'm sorry!

Banner By: The absolutely amazing @mrsbuckybarnes1917!

Thank you to all those who have been reading; if you like what you've read, likes, comments, and reblogs give me life, and I truly appreciate them, and you!

Taglist: (Please let me know if you’d like to be added!) @jmeelee @cazellen @blackhawkfanatic @les-sel @marcswife21 @buckybarnessimpp @mrsbuckybarnes1917 @erelierraceala @hayjat @capswife @itsteambarnes @jupiter-107 @marygoddessofmischief @sebastians-love @learisa @lethallyprotected @rabbitrabbit12321 @buckybarnesandmarvel @fanfictiongirl77 @calwitch @fantasyfootballchampion @selella @jackiehollanderr @wintercrows @sashaisready @missvelvetsstuff @angelbabyyy99 @keylimebeag @maybefoxysouls @vicmc624 @sashaisready @j23r23 @wintercrows @crist1216 @cjand10 @doublejeon @pattiemac1

When you woke up a few hours later, Bucky wasn’t back. You checked your phone. It was well past the time you’d planned on leaving to go Upstate, not that you were surprised. He’d text you, apologizing, telling you that Jade was too emotionally distraught to be left alone for the time being, but he promised to be back soon, and you’d still make your trip. You knew the promise was hollow. You didn’t believe he was sleeping with her, not really, but the situation was becoming untenable. You’d always said you would never try to control who he could or couldn’t be friends with, but you began to wonder if it was time for an ultimatum. The idea of imposing one sat poorly with you; it wasn’t the kind of girlfriend you wanted to be, but you felt he was leaving you no choice anymore. Every boundary you had asked him to keep with her, she’d somehow find a way to push him past. 

He wasn’t blameless in the situation, you knew that. You knew he loved you, wanted to be with you, but how many chances could you give him to put you first, only to have him fail you? He wasn’t doing it on purpose; he was a genuinely good person who saw someone who had suffered as he had, and who wanted to provide support in a way that had been denied to him, but he was doing it at the expense of your relationship, your heart, your fucking sanity. He was taking you for granted, assuming that you’d always forgive him. And why wouldn’t he? You’d done it each and every time before.

You got up and got dressed, trying to find a use for your time so that you weren’t incessantly staring at the clock, waiting for Bucky to finally decide to make time for you. You suddenly remembered the request that Sam had made of you the night before– that you check the Tower’s systems to see if Jade had attempted to access anything that might set up red flags. 

Grabbing your laptop, you made your way to the kitchen to grab a bagel and glass of juice before curling up on a chaise lounge in the common room and began working. It was going to be a time consuming task; the Tower’s systems were massive, but you’d built a good portion of them yourself, so it was a lot like wandering the forest in your own backyard. 

Hours later, you were rubbing your eyes, regretting that you had left your glasses in your room. The sun was low in the sky, hovering just above the city skyline. Standing up to stretch, you cracked your neck and lower back before shooting off a text to Sam.

>>Just ran a check of the Tower systems for Jade’s footprint.

Ole Sammy: And???? Don’t leave me hangin in suspense, Baby Girl!

>> And, nothing screaming ENEMY AGENT. 

>> She accessed Bucky’s unlocked files.

>> Like, a lot.

Ole Sammy: Creepy, but not surprising.

>> No, considering she’s fucking obsessed with him.

Ole Sammy: Unless…

>> Unless what, Samuel?

Ole Sammy: Nothing. Just a thought. Probably nothing. Don’t worry about it.

>> Stop being cryptic. Tell me.

Ole Sammy: Not unless I have proof to back it up. I don’t want to make accusations without evidence. Bitch’s scary AF. Besides, she could kick my ass.

>> Pretty sure I could kick your ass.

Ole Sammy: Only if I didn’t have my wings!

>> Not the flex you think it is.

Ole Sammy: How’s Upstate?

>> Wouldn’t know. Jade had a ‘panic attack’ in the night and has needed Bucky by her side ever since.

Ole Sammy: That dumb ass mother fucker! How much longer you gonna put up with this shit, Baby Girl?

>> I’ll talk to you later, Sam.

<- Previous Part / Next Part ->

[pricegouge]

Alone, Together

alone x reader | on AO3

cw: male reader. dubcon/noncon/coercion. pseudo-tentacles, ghost has two (or more, depending on how you count 'em) dicks. ass eating, oral, overstimulation, anal sex, frotting/handjobs, a small smackeral of cbt, slapping, degradation, exhibitionism, breathplay. implied character death. MDNI

if you need a good visual aid for what i have in mind for the cocks situation, see my ramble here

divider by @/cafekitsune

Taglist @pricegouged

You're helping them. You have to remember you're helping them.

There's some method to it, some reason. Pseudoscience and technobabble bullshit that went far over your head even as Reynolds yammered on over the coms. It didn't matter, not really. Not when your entire team is - 

Compromised.

"And how will this help?"

Reynold's voice is croaky in your ear - probably burnt out the long string of five syllable words he'd just thrown at you. It's a struggle to hear him over all the commotion in the room next door, the deep groans of pain and frustration. Confusion. "They way he - it -."

They, you decide, trying to remember that's your team in there, somehow.

"- absorbs people… I think it's a defense mechanism. So you gotta make yourself as inoffensive as possible."

A hard feat, carrying forty kilos of weaponry and tac gear. Removing the most egregious pieces had seemed logical enough when Reynolds suggested it, plates and straps falling away with an odd sense of relief and dread. No one ever relished keeping a full kit on another minute, but to take it off when you knew the next room held a potential hostile went against everything you'd learned since your very first days in basic. Taking it off when you knew the thing in the next room was fuck off big, fuck off angry, and had access to the weaponry of four S.A.S. officers, if not also the capabilities, was downright untenable.

Still, when your boots crunch over the broken glass of the window which separates you from your target, your tread is that much lighter. And when they turn, they do not find you armed to the teeth as they had with all the people who went in before you. It's hard to tell if this pleases them, the whole team having been dressed for a ghost mission meant each head now wore an obfuscating mask. Further, the cold eyes that stare back at you are decidedly not the varied eyes of the men you'd expected to see, each head somehow having adopted Soap's pale gaze. It lends a sense of lifelessness to them, each eye matching the cataract-cloudy irises of the head on the end. They each look like corpses, but the animated way they move toward you reminds you they are something much worse.

They - Simon. The heads - cannot move independently, which renders their necks a bit obsolete. When they turn toward you, their whole, immense chest follows suit. One of the arms toward the back dangles limply, perhaps genuinely dead. You try to clock the equipment which adorns it, hoping against hope it doesn't mean one of them is dead in there. 

"Easy," you try as it barrels closer, stumbling backwards before you can even think it through. 

"Steady," Reynolds warns - must have a good view through the lab cameras - and you cringe when you see he has the right of it, your falter acting as blood in the water. 

Their steps come heavy and hard. Quicker than you'd expect them to move. The rhythm of their steps strike you as odd and when you glance down, you're shocked to find one leg is nearly double the size of the other, an extra shin and foot spliced into the side of their right leg. The boot there has movement, but doesn't quite reach the ground beside the odd tap of thick tread off the tile. Whoever's that was - is -, they're not quite as tall as Simon, it seems.

Despite your backpedaling, it doesn't take long for them to overtake you. Gloved fingers wrap around your wrist, yanking you closer and you can't help the yelp that escapes you, rubbery black tendrils which burst through the seams of your captain's glove brushing against the hair of your forearm unexpectedly. It's sticky, almost, and you can't help but think of this being the end; you've seen how quickly the stuff grows, drags bigger men than you into its collection. If they wanted you, this brief contact would likely be enough and suddenly it doesn't matter that you promised Reynolds you'd be as friendly and approachable as you could manage because this thing has you, and you're going to be taken in, lost amongst them, just another set of useless arms it can hang from its armpits like trophies -

And then the touch is gone, the tendrils with it. You inspect your skin for damage, feel premature relief flood you when you find none. It's not a guarantee that you're safe, ofcourse, but it's further than the others made. 

"Holy shit, it's working," Reynolds breathes, and then his voice is ripped unceremoniously from your ear when another gloved hand lashes out like a viper and yanks the cord that runs up your neck right out.

"Okay! Okay, sorry," you stammer, hands coming up in that oddly placating gesture you know would never work on any of them, least of all from you. "Just you and me, yeah? Is that what you want?"

You're not sure why you don't expect an answer. Perhaps it's the way the visible jaw of the middle head bleeds ominously, lined with more black growth than proper gum tissue at this point. Maybe it's because the one on the left has been eaten away to bone, hanging precariously. Or perhaps it's because the one on the right - somehow the most human of them despite the eye currently trying to escape the confines of its face - looks so twisted in pain and anguish you don't imagine it's capable of thought, much less speech. But they do speak, a low growl which sounds like none of and all of them at once, and the dread you feel when they bend to tilt toward you, talk down at you like your captain was wont to do is a cold, physical thing. 

"No," they drawl, their voice echoing in their own throat like layered vocal tracks, "just want you and us."

***

The jump from one life altering event to the next moves quickly, the way things often do in the field. You'd long ago stopped measuring events in time stamps, the markers ultimately meaningless when they flow like a river, here white water and rapid, there a slow meander. It's usually much more meaningful to chronicle missions by snap decisions - which choices led where, when things started to go pear shaped. When you decided to help your team, and when they decided what that help would look like.

It's all very concise on paper, when viewed as such. They say they need help and you say that's why you're there, sent to take them back to base where a specialized team can start the process of reversing the damage. They scoff, say you all know there will be no recovery. When they say you can help them in another way, you balk. They say they can just absorb you if you refuse and you concede, rationalizing that you are still helping them, in a way. They've already stopped screaming in pain, at least.

So it's not a very wide web of possible outcomes, all told. A concise, logical statement of events you'd feel no shame in returning to your superior at time of debrief. Even if it's landed you here, grinding your ass back onto the skeletal remains of one head's jaw while they work you open with the long, surprisingly prehensile black growth which you had originally mistaken for a vein of sorts running down their thickly corded neck. It seeped through their skin at their jaw, twined and morphed their tongue into something much longer, harder. It still leaked spit like that was its job, soaking your thoroughly in drool as it wedged itself ever deeper.

They had requested comfort, something to take their mind off the pain, but so far you're the only one being touched. Not that you're complaining. As good as the slimy appendage feels inside you, you're not exactly eager to touch them - so much melty, dead-looking flesh triggering the base parts of your lizard brain which still feared things like communicable, flesh eating diseases on a cellular level. There may be some selfish, brazen part of you that wants more of them, but it's the same part of you that can't look away from a car crash or a fallen soldier - a part that revels in the fear and revulsion, mistakes the stomach churn for an excitable swoop. It's not an instinct you want to be listening to now, considering you're riding a razor's edge of being merged forever with this thing but there's no ignoring it, and there's no stopping yourself from thrusting forward into the wet heat of the middle mouth when prompted, your own hardness surprising you when they note it, encouraging you forward with a twined hand at your back. And there's no stopping the whine of frustration when they slacken their tongue, let the base curl back into their mouth to keep you rocking on just the tip. It's no use correcting your movements to compensate, much as you try. The angle's all wrong, your thighs planted above their heads on one side and positioned firmly on their sturdy chest on the other. With your legs spread so wide, you cannot gain enough leverage to thrust properly and even when you do, the black growth moves nimbly with you, never letting you take it any deeper than a few frustrating inches. 

The far head, the only mouth unoccupied, laughs when you groan impatiently. They tell you to beg but you're not far enough gone yet to oblige so instead, a thick arm is propped up behind you, Price's gloved hand sliding up your front to palm your belly. They take over your pace, rocking you back and forth with more speed than you'd been able to manage on your own. But they keep you raised too high above them, your cock barely reaching their tongue no, and when they keep you like that, just there, it would be understimulating enough to let you flag considering the circumstances and the feeling of raw mandible rubbing up against your balls, if not for the free mouth which suddenly won't shut up, prattling on about how good you taste on their tongue, how hot and tight your hole is for them. How much they want you to take their entire length, want you to swallow them whole while they do the same to you.

You tell yourself you're being demanding when you ask why they don't, know you land somewhere closer to whiney. They don't entertain you either way.

"Told you to beg."

And so you do, quiet and shameful, until they stop altogether and suddenly you're calling for them - for their mouth, their strange hot tongue, their fingers, anything. You even beg for their cock when they order you to, a desperate little whore for the hot, wet tendril they slide back into you, so far you nearly convince yourself you can feel it in your diaphragm. This time when they tilt you forward and take you into their mouth all the way to the root, the appendage stays put, rooted deep. And when it begins to pulsate, sliding a knobby bend of itself which may have once been a hyoid bone back and forth against your prostate with a rhythmic series of contractions, the shudder that wracks you nearly knocks their hands from you. 

"Fuck," you hiss, somehow shimmying your hips even lower, reveling in the tight heat which which engulfs you. The unused mouth hums in agreement between gasps for air. When you realize it's probably breathing for all of them in that moment, you lean forward to plant your hands on the ground and fuck into the middle mouth for all you're able, aided by a hand on your hip when your legs go shaky and weak with the work the tendril is putting on you. 

And when they tell you they can feel your pulse in their throat, you cum so hard your vision whites out. They're relentless, the grip on your hip turning iron strong when you try to flinch away from them, the tongue in your hole never once stopping until you're wrung out and crying, too overstimulated to care about the noises you're making other than to worry you're being understood. Small miracle perhaps, given you're too fucked out to grasp the names they call you, or how they tease you for getting off to an abomination like them. If you were present enough to comprehend them, the shame would have overwhelmed you. Good thing your ears are still ringing too hard for that. You're still floaty when they jostle you into position, get you straddling their considerable hips. Two hands hold you high above them while the other works their belt and fly, and you come back to yourself with a cold jolt when their cock springs free, an incomprehensible meld of two genitals which makes you cringe in pain just to behold. 

At the center, Gaz's cock stands high and proud, relatively normal looking all things considered. But around it, split up the center like some kind of perverse flower, a thicker, shorter dicck wraps itself in two branches around the inner stamen, leaking trace amounts of precum from the seams where it clings. 

It makes your stomach roll.

It makes your mouth water.

"Just as ugly as the rest of us, is it?" the middle head growls. They do their best to coordinate a peak down, but the head on the right seems cemented too stiffly to account for the movement. You don't think they can see it at all, though you wonder if that's for the better. You suppose if you saw your cock split up the middle one day, you'd never be able to get it hard again.

For the better? 

"Worse." 

You're surprised when they laugh, though you suppose you shouldn't be. You know the men trapped in there, even if they don't seem very familiar anymore. But then, as if to prove you wrong, an alien hand grips your ass cheek hard while another set of fingers prod your hole to make sure you are indeed stretched enough for them. And then, when they lower you on to their cock, any sense of familiarity leaves you.

The stretch is not unmanageable at first, Kyle's pretty head notching deliciously within you. But the further you sink onto him, the more that second head prods at your hole and you hiss in warning, not trusting the quick preparation you'd received. They tell you to relax, rock you shallowly on the tip until the second head grows wet with precum and when you reach below yourself to spread it over the shaft, you're surprised to find it already slicked. 

They don't stop you when you pull back enough to get a proper look at them, inspecting the shaft and your own hand to find it covered in pre. Curiosity takes over and you drag your fingers along the shaft, ignoring their shiver in favor of tracing the slick back to its source, the seam where the two cocks splice together. The more your fingers explore, the twitchier they get beneath you until you can't help but tease them, ignoring your baseline revulsion in favor of running your thumb over the split head. "Hurt?" you ask, tone indicating you know full well it doesn't.

"Fuckin' -!" This time when they pull you onto them, they do not heed your protests.

You know tensing up will only make it worse but it's an instinct you can't fight, shrieking when they bully their way inside, the flare of the second head becoming soaked when you squeeze against the intrusion. They gasp, throats working around thick swallows while they keep you anchored to them, aborted little thrusts jostling you just enough to keep you  off balance. Keep you from adjusting properly. It fucking hurts, but the surprising amount of pre and spit helps to ease your grip on them eventually, especially when their weak little grinds begin to work the slick into you, their movements coming deeper and quicker the more you let them in.

They know when they've found your sweet spot by the embarrassingly garbled mewl you emit. 

"That's it," one of them growls, the hand on your left hip squeezing impossibly tighter. On the other side, the one in the balaklava calls you a sweetheart, tells you you're taking them so well.

You can't manage much beyond a bobble headed nod in response, but they don't seem to require one, three arms now working to keep you bouncing on their cock at a quick, deep pace which has your breath catching in your throat, embarrassing little punched out sounds bubbling up each time they bottom out. So overwhelmed, you don't even notice your cock stirring back to life until it begins bobbing uselessly, slapping against their marbled belly and leaving pathetic little dribbles of cum to catch in the thatch of hair there. Even the brief touch makes you whine, makes you grab yourself by the base to keep your twitchy length from grinding too hard against the coarse pelt. Except they don't like that, one hand from the seeming never ending supply snaking up to grab your wrist, holding  it behind your back. 

"Useless little thing, ain't you? Can't even properly take us without crying about it."

You don't think that's fair, but you suppose they don't want to hear how this wasn't what you had signed up for, nor would they likely wish to know that no human could probably take them anymore.

But they seem to realize that anyway. "Maybe we should eat you up? Take you in and make you part of something strong for once? They can't expect us to find any real satisfaction in you, can they?"

And something about the way they say it cuts through your addled thoughts, makes your blood run cold. "Reynolds. He said -?"

"Peace offering," middle head clarifies. 

"Not a very good one," righty adds.

The mix of emotions their words bring is concerning, not least because the pre-existing shame you'd felt for even being in this situation now combines with a deeply confusing feeling of being not good enough and the deep seated need to prove yourself to your superiors rears its ugly head. This time, when you work yourself back down onto them, they let you take the lead, dead eyes adopting as near an expression of smugness as they can manage. 

"Better do a good job, sweetheart. Hate to have to merge you with that backstabbing Reynolds just to get a decent play thing."

"Oh, fuck you," you hiss, wires crossing now as you try to figure out if you want their approval or their apology.

You get neither. "That's the plan."

Maybe it's a bad idea. Probably, you'll get your fingers bit off and then you'll sink so far into their chest you'll come out the other side and they'll wear you like a backpack until your cells all melt into an unrecognizable puddle. They'll call you Six despite the fact you'll never watch it for them, just waiting to die every minute.

None of it stops you from sticking your fingers into the offending mouth. "Shut the fuck up."

Your stunt earns you peace for all of three seconds before you remember which mouth you've chosen to take your frustration out on when that same dark, prehensile tongue wraps itself around your wrist, drawing your fingers down its throat eagerly. The shudder it earns isn't entirely disgusted and the other heads laugh at you, insultingly amused. 

You'd almost rather be Six. Especially when the slimy drool begins to coat your wrist, the weird tendril working itself across your skin as if it could wring more pleasure from the appendage while they groan in apparent pleasure, breaths coming slightly quicker.

"Feels so good," one of them confesses, their hips beginning to piston up into you. Sensitive, must be. Fresh new tissue despite its leathery texture. It would explain the way they stroke the skin of your hairy forearm at least. Your frustration grows when you realize that not only have you failed to shut them up, but you've also managed to give them even more satisfaction, somehow. 

Well, maybe they won't kill you at least.

But the hope dies in your chest when they grab your cock in their meaty fist, squeezing until you flinch and cry out in pain. They tut at you condescendingly, continue to work your length with far too much aggression. You're prevented from curling in on yourself by the broad hands at your waist and the hand currently being held hostage by a concerningly strong tongue. All the while they rumble about how useless you are to them, how they'll have to make you into something that suits their needs if you can't please them. It's a bad enough threat, as is, but when they start talking about alpha team like just more meat for the grinder, more limbs with which to combine you, the sob that wracks you isn't solely rooted in pain and overstimulation.

Somewhere, in some base part of your brain which still craves the approval of the men beneath you, you spare a thought for how badly you will have failed your mission if the amalgamation you'd been sent to wrangle, in an attempt to split them back up, ended with you earning the merge of your entire team. Probably, you shouldn't be worried about it right now, but the way they ramble about you being a disappointment to them has already turned you into a needy little thing, so you've just been set up for failure, really. So when they tell you you'll have to do better, you try; and when they prompt you to shove your fingers further down their throat, you do. And when they say you're much too pathetic to please them if you can't even take their smallest cock without crying, you falter, apprehensive.

"Smaller?"

They're mean, your open fear making them shutter beneath you. Their cum is so hot it nearly burns, leaking from you in a frothy ring as they continue to pump into you for a minute longer, working themselves back from the edge before pulling you off their length, Gaz's cock still hard at the center despite the way the split cock still dribbles weakly. They keep you raised high enough you can see when they reach down, one set of thick fingers working their fly looser. In retrospect, you're not entirely certain how you never felt it beneath you. Likely just assumed it was another strange black growth, like the kind that corded him all over, pulsing strangely with angry-looking veins. What he pulls out of his pants next isn't too dissimilar, a thick, angry-looking shaft which splits toward the tip, the pulsing blue vein which runs along the bottom branching into two merged heads, each of which look plenty formidable on its own. The end result is a frankly terrifying behemoth, its head the thickest part except perhaps its belly which looks swollen with whatever that blue vein carries. It leaks in some places, the familiar pearl of precum collecting at its heads and a darker, thinner substance which seems to ooze from the strange veins. It's… pretty, in its own way. At the very least, far more human than the one which now rests against their belly, too heavy to stand tall now that the outer cock is no longer hard. Still…

"That's not gonna fit."

Their laugh is slightly breathless, chest still heaving from their sudden orgasm. "You'd best make it. Told you what would happen if you couldn't please us."

For a moment, you think to call their bluff, your self-preservation instinct finally outweighing your loyalty. Your team isn't here, surely it wouldn't be as easy as they say to turn everyone? But ultimately, they do not need the rest of the team to turn you into something you do not want to be and you decide not to try your luck.

There's no easy way to take the heads all at once so you reach back to stretch yourself on your fingers, surprised at how easily three slip in among the spit and cum. A tendril of shame winds up your spine, the way you've so easily accepted them settling uneasily. Your expression must be telling because they laugh at you, swat your hand away so they can properly assess your stretch. 

"Christ, what a slag. Already dripping with it and wanting more?" The hand they're using is ungloved, but the texture of the skin is all wrong anyway, and the way it twitches and shakes makes it hard to close your eyes and just forget what's working you open on thick, probing fingers, much as you try. It's bad, uncomfortable, makes your skin crawl. Worse even than that, however, is knowing that they're right.

Slick with spend, the noise their fingers make within you is inescapable, a lewd sound you've been conditioned to appreciate since you even knew what getting your dick wet entailed. Despite yourself, it's not long before you're rocking back onto the alien fingers, your head thrown back as they tear breathy little gasps and curses from you. A proper moan when they hook the forefinger of another hand in against your rim and pull.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," you pant, unable to get away from the middle finger which slides in against this new intrusion with little preamble due to the way the remaining arms hold you in place. 

"Shut up and take it," they order, fingers now holding you open like a pair of forceps as they wrangle you into position above their second cock. "Should be thankful we even bothered stretching you out."

But despite their words, sliding down onto the double heads makes it feel like they haven't bothered to at all. Their fingers keep you spread until you're notched over the flare, the stretch of their fingers and their cock bringing tears to your eyes which they quickly wipe away with that long prehensile tongue. You hadn't even noticed when your fingers had slid from their mouth, both hands now braced against their chest as you try to keep yourself from sliding down their length before you've had time to adjust. It's a worthless attempt of course, all hands now gripping your waist, hips, thighs, shoulders, and dragging you down centimeter by relentless centimeter. They chatter all the while, degrading words somehow keeping you grounded if only because it gives you something to focus on other than the unpleasant stretch of your ass.

"Ungrateful, that's what you are. Worked you open on fingers and tongue. Slicked that hole right up when we came in you, didn't we? And all you do is whine -."

The slap to your ass isn't too surprising, but the gloved hand striking hard against your cheek with the strength of the two combined arms that wield it, is.

Barely audible over the ringing in your ears, you hear them demand you thank them and you do so, stuttering. "Th-thank you!"

You're not sure if it's your cry that gets them, or their patience finally snapping. You see the cords of their neck flex beneath a ridden-up balaklava when they groan and then their hips are working up beneath you, burying themselves to the root within you. They lay there panting for a moment, collecting themselves. You take advantage of it as best you can as well, wriggling your hips against theirs in an attempt to adjust, feeling the slick leaking from your hole as you do so. 

Overflowing. Fucking slag, indeed.

They want you to ride them again but you can't, legs too far spread and sore to be much use. They roll you over with minimal complaint after a few failed attempts, their grumbling getting lost in the rush of your ears when they pin one leg to your chest and lean heavily against it. Gravity lets their first cock flop onto yours, hot length sliding against your flagging erection while you try to ignore their comments about how tiny you are beneath them.

It doesn't work, and the fact it only makes you harder makes your shame burn hotter.

"Pretty little thing, though," they mutter, one heavy hand cradling your jaw to keep you looking at them. They're the stuff of nightmares, looming over you as they are, but your cock twitches anyway because you've always been so desperate for their approval.

Another fist finds yours, wraps your hands around your frotting cocks as best it can. Combined like this, your fingers are barely able to encase even half of it, your grip not nearly tight enough to do either of you any good despite the way he tells you to give him something to fuck. He hisses in frustration when you're unable, one hand slapping the back of your thigh as he bullies it off to the side, his own hand twining with yours and squeezing much too hard as he begins to fuck up into you, his slick cock moving against yours as the other notches against your prostate when he withdraws, earning a ragged moan from you.

"There?" he asks, pistoning hard enough into you you'd go shuttling across the ground if not for the grip he still has on your hip, or the immense weight he leans on to you. You nod, throat and tongue working uselessly. One hand remains locked in his grasp but the other scrabbles up his chest, catching on some PALS webbing and holding on for dear life. 

"Fuck yeah, squeeze me just like that, love," he pants. You're unsure if he means the way your walls clamp down around him or your fist, currently gripping too tight to be comfortable. You remain tense in both anyway, suddenly desperate to hear more of his labored breaths. It's an instinct you do not want to analyze. Can't, given how suddenly your every thought is occupied by the way the heads of his cock scrapes against your sweet spot, has your mouth hanging open uselessly. 

The grip on your jaw shifts, palm laying heavy and flat against the column of your throat. They don't squeeze, waiting until you whine in want to duck closer, long tongue sliding against your lips as drool drips down on to you. The middle head hums, pale eyes heavy on your pathetic display. "Still need more, honey? Is that it? Need something to suck on too?"

"Knew 'e was a fuckin' slag," the last head mutters, and the tongue slips into your mouth before you can respond - not that you could've, brain sent skipping by the relentless pace he's set. The tendril in your mouth swells, fills the area between your teeth until your jaw aches with the stretch. It thins out some as it creeps down your throat, the very tip of it a thin little column which it eases past your gag reflex. You'd think they were trying to be nice if not for the way it immediately swelled again, your breaths coming hard through your nose as it continued, threatening to cut off your air from within. 

"Needy," the head on the end gripes, but the one in the middle is nicer. "Deep breath, sweetheart."

But nice as the sentiment is, the tongue in your throat doesn't actually give you enough time to abide, forcing its way deeper as the middle head does nothing more than tut disapprovingly. The hand around your throat flexes, all three heads groaning in unison as you tense up tighter on reflex, panic beginning to climb up your throat - only made worse by the knowledge you can't express it for the intrusion blocking your airways.

Within you, the tendril pulses once. The hand around your throat flexes with it, a pressure from within and without which feels like it might tear your delicate skin apart - and then they both relent, pulling away from you altogether until only their thick heads remain notched within you. They watch you splutter and cough, vaguely sympathetic noises cooing down at you while heavy hands trace over your body, too rough to be soothing. After a moment, one of them asks if you're ready, but again they do not wait for a response before filling you completely, hips bucking into you as they make you gag on their tongue. They stay there longer this time, cock twitching against yours when your throat works around the intrusion. 

"Again," they hiss, but you gag and cough, eyes growing swollen and leaky in your panic and they relent, panting nearly as much as you as they wait for you to collect yourself.

They don't even bother to ask if you're ready this time, their hips fucking up into yours the only warning you get before the hand around your throat tilts your face just so, the slimy tendril slipping down your raw throat nearly familiar. "Breathe," they warn, and this time they give you enough time to comply before slipping past your reflex, their fingers drumming off the column of your neck as they sigh into it, curling around you as their hips keep working. You whimper when their grip tightens around your cocks, but it just comes out as a snotty sound.

"Swallow, sweetheart," the far head whispers, breath hot against your ear even as it's filtered through the mask. You blink a few times, confused as to how you can manage that, and then the tongue in your throat pulses and it's automatic, reflex, the mouth at your ear groaning as the hand against your throat tightens. 

"Can feel ourselves," the middle head admits, flexing their grip again. "Here."

This time, when they grip your throat, their fingers dig into your pulse points and your vision tunnels, sensory input narrowing down to each place they touch you - the way they occupy your throat, control your breathing, your very pulse, the way their cock slides hot and wet against your own, grip so tight it would be painful if not for the way their twin heads keep notching against and framing that spot deep within you on each pass.

They only make it worse when you cum, tongue thickening in your throat as their grip tightens. They relent when you gag, the relief of your first breath only heightening your release until your back arches and you're cumming up to your chin. They hiss at the way you clench around them but their hips work even harder, balls slapping against your ass as they bury themselves into you until they're cumming so deep you think you can feel them in your stomach. 

Panting, you feel them pull out and the flood of cum that follows. You grimace, your leg lowering as you try to regain some semblance of pride. You have no clue how you're ever going to look any of them in the eye again, if they're ever successfully split. Despite your lethargy, your body spent after two rounds with a literal monster, your brain is finally coming back online, conveniently choosing now to remind you that Reynolds definitely saw all that from his end of the security feed. You roll onto your stomach when they pull away from you, desperate to bury your head in the ground while you collect yourself -.

But then a firm grip around each ankle makes your blood run cold, and you yelp when they pull you close again, leaning forward until they hover over you ominously, the length they slide into you slipping past your rim with ease.

The first cock. Gaz's. He still hasn't finished.

"Not going anywhere, are ya luv? Thought you could handle all of us?"

[assortedvillainvault]

Hii i wanted to ask if you only write scenarios or oneshots as well?

Aaand if you do what would you think about a horned king x wife reader oneshot?

Pretty pleeeaaassseee?? ^_^

These are officially counted as 'requests so old they have their own moss', so THANK YOU for your patience I'm legit so sorry you've had to wait so long T-T

Married Life Headcannons: Horned King

HK as a husband would be attentive and yet also intuitive as a bag of rocks.

He’s a warlord, a king, a hunter, a necromancer and a villain. He’s very new to being a husband.

Don’t get me wrong – as his Consort you’re now a Royal, you’ll be given royal standards. Food, clothes, coffers, the better rooms of the castle and command over his servants. You have privileges now that you could only dream of before.

On the other hand…

He watches you. All the time. In the dark, from doorways and staircases. He’s not even hiding (why would he, in his own castle?), he just blends in so well with the shadows that unless he gets upset and his eyes glow you have no idea he’s there. Beyond the creepy feeling of being observed that is.

He’s also prone to saying whatever is on his mind and just. Leaving. Like, Sire, what the fuck-

I’m note sure if I like the idea of an arranged marriage more (in which he would be distant, cold, aloof and would take a long time to warm up to you when he’s not ignoring you entirely) or that of a genuine relationship become marriage (in which case your class prior was irrelevant, he wanted you so he got you – case closed and hell be damned). Either way it’s a learning curve for you both.

Though blessedly he values direct communication. Please tell him what you need, how you’re feeling, how what he's doing makes you feel. He’s not going to lash out. One thing it’s taken you a while to realise is that he needs time to parse through what you’ve told him and what his actions should be moving forward. He respects you more for being direct and is secretly relived that you’ve given him some direction, because he is lost.

(But do it reasonably. If you get shouty then his response is to get colder and double down. The way forward is to approach him like a child who was never socialised properly and add ‘my liege’ etc to your sentences.)

He feels as though his spouse is the equivalent of a fallen wishing star somehow residing in his castle. Something beautiful, unknowable, untenable. Something that could explode in his face at any moment if handled incorrectly. Hence his ‘not handling only observing’ approach at first.

As time goes by, however, and you both warm up...you realise this is a bag of surprisingly malleable putty in lich form.

He loves to sit together, both on your thrones and in private, reading or talking over a bottle of wine. He loves seeing you wear the gifts he has made for you: new furs, bone jewellery, custom weapons he painstakingly teaches you how to use if you don’t already know. He loves to pick your brain, talking on all manner of subjects deep into the night.

After seeing how much you love the gwythents, and realising that the two he owns are both male...he’s on a secret mission to procure an unhatched egg for your first anniversary. Baby dragon time for you, cariad.

*Cariad - Welsh for 'Love'.

Hope you enjoyed these rambles and again, so sorry for the wait!

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Genuinely I don't understand this view that a relationship has to be 100% perfect in order for it to be acceptable. I don't see this with anything BUT relationships. You can be messy, that's OK, but God forbid you get in a relationship that has a "power imbalance" which- every relationship has a power imbalance! Your partner has a better job! You're older! Why do relationships need to pass with an A+ or else you're Literally Defending Abuse.

I do want to, like, gently trouble the use of the word "relationship" here to (implicitly) refer to romantic-/sexual relationships, because every dynamic with another human person is a relationship of some kind and it is romantic/sexual partnerships (and they are usually assumed to be both romantic and sexual, people really cannot comfortably conceive of a relationship that's one without the other) that get held to this unique level of scrutiny and demands for untenable levels of purity

but anyway while I can't speak for everyone and this is the result of a lot of complex forces I'd say broadly it's like. people learning like half a theory and then regurgitating it badly. like, genuinely I think a lot of people's sincere belief in the oppression olympics comes from hearing about Crenshaw's intersectionality one time, misunderstanding it one time as a system that neatly lines up which identities are more privileged than others instead of a means of understanding the way all people are impacted multiply by several identities simultaneously.

and then, you know, there was also a lot of very needed critique in the movement widely known as second wave feminism of relational violence and the ways in which domestic partnerships can be uniquely dangerous for women, which was genuinely very important to establishing legal protections against marital rape and protections for battered spouses (speaking to my own country's history there, this is very America-centric) but also it's like. the same principle where you learn about things that can potentially be sources of harm in relationships and you combine your understanding of privilege that works like a fucking chart of pokemon types determining who is weak against who and you arrive at "it's abusive for a person who [you are assuming] is neurotypical to date someone with a mental illness" and it's like. congrats! you've successfully circled back around to categorizing neurodivergent people as a class unfit to interact with wider society and in need of being isolated for their own protection. very cool, super progressive of you!

idk man it's so great that so many people are interested in social justice now but this is kind of an inevitable byproduct of so many people learning from twitter and tumblr and never supplementing that with actually reading any books or developing a sufficient philosophical framework of their own through which to analyze information.

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

thinking about how low-key disturbing captain spirit is (positive).

like, the way the Water Eater and Mantroid sequences are genuinely freaky as hell. the way Emily is haunting a house she never lived in with the sheer force of her absence and the mystery of her death that'll never be solved (unlike Rachel Amber, despite the fact they're Blackwell alumni with similar physical traits). the way indoor sequences are dominated by Charles getting increasingly more aggressive towards the tv/more intoxicated in the background, until he's unconscious and then it's the countdown until the shitshow when he wakes up. that weird fucking evangelist. the way you randomly get an option to violently kill an imaginary supervillain while he begs for mercy. the fact that you figure out what Mantroid actually represents right when you realize you can't defeat him.

little details like the newspaper clipping about Esteban's murder or the fucking Jefferson book as a reminder that as dangerous as this house is, the world outside isn't much better. how both the dialogue and internal monologue dance around how untenable this situation is, and how you never get an option to directly confront Charles about what he did or explicitly tell Claire what's going on. the way that even when Claire figures out there's a problem, she'll still leave Chris in the house with Charles. the fact that Chris's superhero persona provides a coping mechanism while potentially putting him in danger in lis2 proper. that triumphant feeling for Chris at the end of the episode, but then you see it in Sean's eyes in lis2 and it's a what-the-fuck-oh-shit moment that ends up putting him, Chris, and Daniel at risk in so many ways.

it's just, for a game about childhood nostalgia, so much about captain spirit does is dominated by the sheer helplessness that comes from being small and young and at the mercy of forces you don't actually understand or know how to deal with. it fucks me up so hard and I absolutely love it.

[white-collar-cannibal]

thoughts on different rgbtrio combination escape au's:

charlie + sneeg + ranboo: most stable probably. no surprise that when your support system is larger you do better. this does not mean they are normal they just are more balanced. ranboo's inclusion cuts somewhat through sneeg and charlie's relentless codependency and fucked up family dyamic. charlie + ranboo: most common escape au. probably the most possible (would require the least canon divergence to happen) but i need people to recognize the loss of sneeg in this one more. charlie's the older brother now and he doesn't know how to do it. charlie's the older brother and he has no idea how the outside world works. ranboo is fucked up but desperately emotionally clinging to the fact that they managed to get charlie out alive and trying not to think about everyone else the two of them left behind. charlie insists they have to go back and save them, but ranboo doesn't want to risk them being captured again and never making it out. charlie + sneeg: stable mostly by mutually assured destruction. i Know these two are both repressing their emotions but get soo upset when they realize the other is also doing that. both of them feel like they should have saved ranboo and failed- this + the fear of losing the other makes them spiteful over the other's attempt to save them (charlie calling sneeg selfish for trying to leave without going back for anyone, sneeg calling charlie stupid over not trying to save himself) sneeg + ranboo: don't think i've literally ever seen this one and it's a shame. even moreso than charlie+ranboo (since ranboo has less interaction with sneeg) this is an open wound of a duo. sneeg is repressing his emotions by being Useful and ranboo doesn't know how to recognize it and is too caught up in his own rock bottom mental state. ranboo wants to go back to showfall so bad but sneeg won't let them. sneeg keeps cooking ranboo's eggs how charlie liked them. ranboo solo: genuinely the most untenable. they harbor so much guilt over everyone's deaths i truly believe that the best outcome from a ranboo solo would be them returning to showfall. charlie solo: also would probably return to showfall i think. not as fast as ranboo because i think charlie feels less at fault for people's deaths, but he would realize at some point he had absolutely no idea how to interact with the outside world sneeg solo: this man is a hammerhead shark if he stops moving he will Die, and he would probably rather die than return to showfall, since he left everyone else behind and showfall was so so cruel to him personally. unsustainable but takes longer to fall apart than ranboo or charlie solo

[sunset-a-story]

Hey, folks! I just had to quit my new job. Its "flexible hours" (a requirement for my physical disabilities) were actually over-managed deadlines that required a 7-day work week and it was untenable. So! As an income-less person, I'd like to put this out there:

I'm Offering Alpha & Beta Reading Services

Why me? I have a degree in Creative Writing. I was gainfully employed as a professional writer for 6 years. I have been published in literary journals and was a founding editor of a literary journal that I helped run for years. I have a 1,200+ page serial that will start to be released in the next 6 months and I just plain love stories.

Alpha Reading

Alpha reading is geared toward Zero Drafts or First Drafts where the creation process is still a work in progress. I'm reading as a writer who wants to help make your story work. As an alpha reader, I'm not worried about your grammar or spelling--just the content. My job is to cheerlead you through this first draft while giving helpful, gentle notes as a fellow writer. We'd nail down exactly what sort of comments you want or don't want but it can look like feedback on:

Plot structure

Pacing

Description

Setting/world building

Characterization

Dialogue

Spotting plot holes/continuity issues

You can also request no critique if what you really need is just someone who will read your draft, leave encouraging comments, and get excited with you.

Beta Reading

Beta reading is for more polished drafts from writers looking for constructive criticism on how their wip reads. I'm approaching your story less as a writer and more as your test audience. I will be honest but kind about issues and genuinely excited about your victories. Again, exactly what you're looking for can be nailed down on an individual basis so you get the type of support you want. (Note: I am not a line editor. I can point out obvious errors but that is not what I do.)

As far as pricing, $0.0015 USD per word seems like the lower end of the industry standard and, while I have alpha/beta read before, I haven't been paid for it yet so that feels fair. That works out to a 25K word story being $27.50.

Thanks, all! Please DM me if you're interested.

[kaurwreck]

hi! i really want to tell you that i love love love your blog. i feel so much joy when i see you've made a long post with your thoughts. i admire the way you engage with things you enjoy! you've genuinely inspired me to get back into reading. i've been struggling with migraines and after some time i started associating reading with suffering. i stumbled upon your blog because of bsd, and i got so fascinated with the way you communicate with the source material that i had a childlike realization: i want to have that too! and i picked up akutagawa, and i'm enjoying myself so much. i'm never not thinking about the post where you said that the trick to being clever is to stop obsessing over being right. life-changing, really. sending you so so so much love! p.s. as a russian-speaker it's a delight reading your thoughts on dostoevsky, especially seeing you use diminutives, for some reason. in russian slang we sometimes say, "ты так чувствуешь!" ("you are really feeling!") meaning "you really get it on an emotional level!" and that's what i think every time i read your thoughts on dostoevsky.

I hesitated to answer this ask because I wanted to covet it and hoard it and keep it tucked away where I could revisit it to my greedy heart's content without anyone noticing, but I'd rather you know that this ask was so delightful to receive and absolutely melted me in the best way, so I'm publishing it even though that means submitting to the mortifying ordeal of creating a tag so that I can more easily return to your kind words, and perhaps other, similar asks and posts that are emotional balms.

Also, I am so sorry, I'm sleep-deprived and I was so excited and charmed and delighted by your ask that I lost my mind and wrote you a veritable novel in response. Thus, I've added a readmore and headings (because WOW, I went on tangents, sorry!)

Returning to Reading

I'm so sorry you have migraines; I don't get them often, but I do occasionally get them, and it's some of the worst, least tolerable pain I've ever experienced. So, whatever it's worth, you have my sympathy and admiration, especially since returning to reading when you experience frequent migraines implicates some common triggers. (Never mind how annoying I know it is when you're in too much pain to read as a distraction either.) But I'm delighted you're reframing your relationship with reading separate from suffering, and that you're enjoying the process! I'm also returning to reading, and while I don't have the same challenges, I am also engaging in a process of relearning and recontextualizing reading for myself, so I'm always here to chat about it.

I'm especially thrilled that you picked up Akutagawa; Akutagawa is the author who also coaxed me back into reading literature (as opposed to comics or webnovels). He might still be my favorite even now that I've read several, several other modern Japanese authors.

Akutagawa Adoration Hours

[I apologize; I hyperfocused and wrote an entire multi-paragraph essay on how much I love Akutagawa below... I promise I come back to your ask!]

Akutagawa's literary voice is just so vivid, sharp, and intentional. He compels you to cling to the weight of each word with rich, clever language that cuts to the hearts of matters frankly, bluntly, and sometimes scathingly. But even when his authorial voice is ostensibly irreverent or lacquered with detachment, he cradles his most foolish characters, bundling them with naked affection for their sincerity, vulnerability, and childish conviction. They embody his unadulterated faith, and he reserves for them in the implication the same salvation he's convinced he's too sullied by shame, terror, and self-consciousness to deserve. Akutagawa does not squander the gravity of your attention, and even in brief vignettes in which humans become lice or have had their personhood severed from them by the untenable yet escalating demands of their responsibilities to others, there's humanity in his horror and absurdity, and closure in his ambiguity. I rarely feel as if there's certainty in Akutagawa's narratives, but neither do I feel as if nothing that occurred mattered.

Even when nothing has objectively changed for the characters, Akutagawa sources meaning from the subjective perceptions of the characters, the impact of which is rarely diminished by the objective or observable. Thus, the bleakness, horror, and absurdity of the characters' circumstances are sometimes interminable, but they shelter Akutagawa's fondness and latent certainty that existential meaning is inherent to humanity because of, rather than despite, our fragility, foolishness, and callous disregard for measurable truth.

His contemporaries criticized him for the detachment and perceived stagnancy lent by his polish and technical brilliance, but I've never read any of his stories and not felt an earnestness that persists entirely apart from the explicit narrative, as if someone is reading over my shoulder and murmuring "isn't she brave?" whenever a character is so simple in their sincerity that they become vulnerable to humiliation and abuse. And that's not detachment; that's Akutagawa relentlessly writing hope, love, and compassion into the creases of his own grotesque fear, and in doing so, filling spaces we perceive as empty in ourselves with the faith and devotion he was so certain he lacked.

You Said Childlike In Passing But Chapter 55 of the Tao Te Ching Rewired My Brain and I Was Lost In the Akutagawa Sauce So...

And it's childlike how, even when characters like O-Gin are debased and humiliated, Akutagawa yearns for their salvation enough to smudge the ink at the edges of his precisely rendered language so the silly, ignorant little fools might transcend the boundaries of the narrative that otherwise ruthlessly scorned and punished them for their guilelessness. His need for innocence is itself indicative of the keen sense of violation that prompts a toddler to indignation when his jejune reliance on fairness is first exploited and then provided as cause for exploitation.

Akutagawa was wise enough to know childlike conclusions are the most profound and self-actualizing insights we can have, but too certain of the inevitability of his suffering and too overly prescribed barbiturates to nurture and cherish his own salvific childishness. So, your realization was brilliant for its childlike wisdom, and I think it's both wonderful and meaningful that you then nurtured that wisdom by pursuing the relationship you wanted with the source material.

Being Right vs. Playful Engagement

I'm also so glad that the post about being clever =/= obsessing over being right was sticky and impactful! It's, quite frankly, immensely less fun and more pressure if you're hinging your enjoyment on whether you're right when engaging with media where "right" is subjective and layered, and where you're engaging with a foreign cultural context. I get the impression that centering your engagement on making and assessing the accuracy of predictions also lends itself to biases, defensiveness, disappointment, misplaced resentment based on unmet expectations, and incuriosity; at least more so than engaging with the story playfully and sincerely.

I'm also just extremely biased towards bsd and Asagiri's approach to storytelling; I think he's engaging in a challenging and layered approach to storytelling that is wholly unique to him. (At least, based on my own experiences with referential multimedia titles.) I'm so charmed by how Asagiri throws himself into creative challenges and engages in meaningful and remarkably substantive conversations with the source materials, his own portfolio of interlocking narratives, and his audience. I would kill to chat with him about his processes.

Everyone I'd Encountered Who Seemed Parasocially Obsessed With Dostoevsky Was Right

Before I get into this next babble tangent, I want you to know that your kind words and perspective as a Russian-speaker regarding my Dostoevsky thoughts mean SO much to me; I'm very proud if I'm able to do an ounce of justice to the text in my ramblings, and I'm so excited to know the appropriate phrase for what I'm experiencing right now because I am REALLY feeling.

I was admittedly a little nervous about reading his works with only minimal background, and I went into Crime and Punishment without first consulting any published critiques and analyses (which I sometimes do for foreign classics to bridge gaps in context). But, I was eager to start the story, so I decided to just get into it with the understanding I might need to pause for further research if I felt I was missing too much context to engage with the text meaningfully. But, wow, I was immediately consumed. I struggled to put it down for most of it, and I've been staying up too late and sneakily reading at work; things I haven't done since I was in middle school.

While I know I'm missing context, even with the attentive footnotes (and I absolutely will read so many academic papers on it once I finish these last fifty pages), I was pleasantly surprised by how not only engaging his writing and this translation are but also by how familiar with and connected I feel to the characters and circumstances and emotions and dynamics. He has rendered the human experience and specific flavors of People into such compassionate, teasing, sincere, frank, and sobering characters who I feel like I've had entire conversations with.

I love classic lit, but Dostoevsky is sincerely rekindling a joy I haven't felt in years while reading. Also, his frankness and compassion regarding alcoholism and parentified children and trauma and ennui and guilt and the contradictions we grapple with within ourselves and with who we are to different people are giving me a framework for reflecting on swaths of my trauma and childhood that I've struggled to articulate my thoughts and emotions around for years.

I'm so energized and excited about reading his other works, but, wow, I'm going to miss these characters so much.

Accounting For My Crimes Against the Russian Language

I have very little background in Russian, but I'm passingly familiar because in high school (i) I was obsessed with Russian history, particularly related to the USSR and swaths of imperial Russia (I actually taught the lesson on Ivan IV Vasilyevich in my Western Civ class because my teacher was pregnant and exhausted and I knew the material better than she did); and (ii) I studied Russian with a private tutor in my senior year of high school (very lightly; once a week, only for a year, I met with her and two French language teachers from my school who were also interested in Russian for hour-long lessons and to receive homework assignments).

So, while my experience with the language is shallow at best, I've always loved Russian diminutives. I'm obsessed with the sheer amount of information relayed in someone's name. It's incredible. Of the languages I'm familiar with, none have a comparably satisfying gradient range of (i) affection and (ii) disrespect.

That said, I use diminutives for characters I'm particularly fond of, to show affection, and to teasingly disrespect them since I think it's quite overfamiliar for me to take such liberties.

Also, while I try to check after myself to ensure I'm using them correctly, I have only a surface-level understanding of what I'm doing, and some language forum threads are more helpful than others, so I'm very, very sorry if I use any incorrectly, and I encourage you (and any other Russian speakers and learners) to yell at me if you notice I'm misusing someone's name.

So far, my approach has been to check general searches, forums, and Reddit when I've encountered diminutives in Crime and Punishment, and I'll continue to look up every single name variation in the Dostoevsky novels I'm reading, no matter how long it may take me to realize what I've been scouring for isn't a diminutive at all but instead probably (emphasis on "probably," because no one providing English explanations seemed wholly certain) the same name but spoken in the form native to a separate Slavic language than the languages anyone else in the conversation was using, not that it really seemed to matter, since the same characters within the same conversation each used multiple forms of the same, with only one remark on what was most likely the correct form, which everyone ignored/disregarded, including the remarking character. So if you have context on THAT dynamic, I would love to hear about the etiquette and conventions around language forms among the many different languages and dialects in Eastern Europe.

For reference, the diminutives I've been using re: Crime and Punishment and bsd, with more context:

Raskolnikov is "Rodya" unless he's naughty, in which case I call him "Rodka." Unless he's REALLY naughty, then he's Raskolnikov.

Avdotya is Dunya always; I do feel egregious because she commands grace and gravitas, and I respect her SO much. But I love her dearly and am very warm towards her and everything she does, so I call her Dunya as if she were my sister because if she were, I would treat her better than Rodka right now.

Razumikhin is Dima which may be wildly incorrect, both in form and historical context; the only reason I haven't confirmed it yet is because I had an OC named Dmitri in high school that I was very fond of and referred to affectionately as Dima, and I'm similarly fond of Razumikhin, so I've delayed confirming and correcting myself here, although that's very Rodka-naughty of me, I know.

Fedya is always bsd!Fyodor, and only when he has really wide eyes and is being adorable bunny Fedya. He is Fyodor when he is being nasty or squinting. I call the author by either his last or full name, although I'm sure I've carelessly called him Fyodor before too. I try to maintain some consistency in distinguishing who I'm referencing between the characters and their namesakes.

Tl;dr: I love Russian diminutives. The only other time I've come close to feeling the same amount of immense delight over names-as-love-and-violence is when my work mentor, who is Chinese, was providing me with her preferred titles (laoban ["old boss," old meaning "venerable" rather than indicating age], jiejie ["big sister"]), and my other coworker chimed in to say, "Wouldn't you be da-jiejie ["first/eldest big sister"], since you're the oldest?" If looks could kill.