#this is one of the ones i intended to submit myself but never got around to

[do-you-know-this-adhd-character]

Do you know this (noncanon) ADHD character?

Evidence below the cut!

There's a lot going on. I don't know where to start. Impulsivity, emotional dysregulation, hyperfixating, distractibility, infodumping (related to excessive talking), hyperactivity (present mostly throughout excessive talking(throughout the show, ever since his introduction actually, he's been said to blabber and talk a LOT, for longer periods of times)), sensitivity to surroundings (sensory issues?)(Specifically to noise), are all traits he presents throughout the whole show.

[cherryheairt]

Hi :)

I’ve had this headcanon for a while where thranduil, upon falling in love again, makes it quite obvious he feels strongly about reader but won’t push physical limits of affection quite yet. Due to him having been married before he wants to be sure the Gods approve of him falling in love/marrying again as to not cause ill intend to fall upon reader because of him not being in control of his carnal desires. Reader is oblivious to this and pushes/teases him relentlessly.

Might end in smut upon him knowing reader is safe and he may pursue them fully or just him saying fuck it I see no god but me down here lol

Or just might end in him teasing back big time n leaving reader high and dry (but maybe with an explanation lol we love some open communication ✨)

Thank you! And feel free to mix it up and or change ending I’d just love to see a take on this 🙂‍↕️

hello! I'm so sorry that its been forever since you submitted this. thranduil is a character that we only ever got to see in super serious king mode, and had little screentime at that so I wanted to think through his personality a lot. might be ooc

I personally don't know how to write smut, so I didn't include it. I hope that's okay.

The character will be named Myria (meer-rhea), but have no skin color, body shape, hair color, etc description. She is eleven though, if that matters.

👑

The Gods had long since forsaken Thranduil. After he lost his wife, Legolas' mother, the world seemed to darken along with his own attitude. He changed, and everyone in Middle Earth knew it. Legolas never grew up to know the kind and magnanimous person his father was before his late wife's death.

To him, and the world, Thranduil was a stoic and unforgiving King.

To all, perhaps, except Myria. Myria had been born not too long after Thranduil—in Rivendell. Though the two never met until well into adulthood, Myria liked to say that they hit it off well. Thranduil would never admit the same out loud.

Myria moved from Rivendell to Mirkwood for her studies, thanks to her friend Elrond's advisory, and had since lived there for thousands of years. Youthful as ever, Myria made it her unofficial duty to occupy the King of Murkwood's free time.

She had even befriended his only son, Legolas, despite their age gap. The young elf was approaching 3000 years old soon, and he swore that he was more mature than the she-elf that graced their halls.

Myria didn't mind the head shakes or comments from royal advisors, telling her to mind herself around their King. Thranduil had long grown used to it, anyway.

Myria made her way to his royal chambers, uncaring about her unpropriety with visiting without being called upon. This was their daily routine. Thranduil had his meetings before breakfast, then went back to his chambers to dine alone. Or, he would, if Myria wasn't always waiting right there at his table for him.

"What is for breakfast today, My King?" Myria asked jovially, perched upon one of his carved wooden chairs. Originally, there had only been one for himself, but he ordered a matching one to me made after the woman's incessant visits. Before there was a seat, she simply stood at the table. The thought bothered him, a tinging in the back of his mind telling him that she must be on the same level as him, at all times.

Thranduil's long flowing sleeves and cloaks followed behind him as he entered the room. "You ask this every day, Myr. And what is my answer every day?" He asks, though there is no bite to his words.

"That you 'do not know'. Quite amusing, the all-knowing King not knowing something so simple." She mused, scrunching her nose up at his tall frame.

He fought an amused eye roll, sitting in front of her. He poured himself a chalice of sweet red wine, sipping on it as he replied. "Simple, or trivial? I do not concern myself with such affairs, the food is brought to me and I eat it."

"Careful, Thranduil. That may one day get you poisoned." She mirrored his movements, having waited for him to start drinking.

"By whom? Yourself?" He chuckled darkly, amused at the prospect of such a thing. Mirkwood elves' loyalties ran deep, the chances of him dying suddenly from a cold where higher than dying of poison. "You are the only outsider residing here."

Myria 'hmphed' vehemently, lifting her nose at the accusation. "I hardly can be called an outsider these days. How long have I lived here? Four...five thousand years?"

"Five thousand, two hundred and thirty." He answered for her.

Shocked, she stared at him, mouth agape. "You know the exact year?"

"How could I not? That is the year when my life started to get ten times harder."

She snorted, shaking her head. "I disagree. I think it only got better."

Two servants entered the chambers, one plate in hand each. Platters were lifted to reveal the neatly presented food, a light breakfast of fruit and toasted bread.

Myria and Thranduil dug into it, a pleasent chatter filling the room. "What are your plans for today?" She asked him.

"Same as usual, final preparations for the Feast of Starlight. Though, there is a task I wanted to assign you–" Thranduil was interrupted by a guard rushing into the room. He lifted an unimpressed brow, staring the guard down for his brash action.

"Your majesty, a party of rogue Dwarves have been apprehended in the Mirkwood forest!" To this, Thranduil immediately stood and strided past the guard out of the chambers. Myria, struck by the news, eagerly followed in suite.

"You are not supposed to sit in on prisoners being interrogated, Myria." Thranduil told her sternly, knowing the sound of her light steps trailed behind his own heavy ones.

"When has that stopped me before?" She laughed. It had been a nearly a hundred years since she'd seen a dwarf, and much longer than that since one had been in the depths of the Elvenking's Halls. She was excited to see what brave adventurers had come, and survived the dark forest's curse.

Thranduil seated himself at the head of his lifted throne, elegant giant antlers rooting themselves out from behind the throne like a crown. The one perched on his head mirrored that, thick branches striking in contrast to his pure white hair. Myria took a moment to admire him from her spot at the base of the stairs. The guard next to her didn't even blink at her intrusion, knowing the relationship between the ward and the King was a complex one that even the elders didn't bother to deduce.

Myria stayed silent during the precedings, not moving an inch except to lean her head forward and inspect the Dwarves. The party was quite large, a whole gaggle of Dwarves were bravely setting off to reclaim Erebor's keep and defeat the dragon nested under it. The leader, Thorin, was quite handsome for a Dwarf, not that Myria would say so aloud. For all her teasings, that would surely be the tip of the iceburg for Thranduil's patience.

As the majority of the Dwarves were escorted to the dungeons, only Thorin was left in Thranduil's audience. She listened as Thranduil made his offer, then got rejected harshly by the Dwarven King. Screamed at, being told off by a life form deemed lesser than an Elf, Thranduil had enough. He sent the man away with a flick of his wrist.

As he slowly desended the steps after the dwarf 'king' was escorted away, Thranduil placed a hand on Myrias shoulder.

The cold rings on his hand raised goosebumps on the back of her neck and arms, shivering at the feeling. She cursed herself for wearing an off-shoulder dress, dressing herself for the nice weather that morning. If he noticed, Thranduil didn't say anything. But the tiny lift to the corners of his mouth said plenty. "Do not fraternize with the filth that dirties our halls."

Our halls. The brief words pleasently rung in the back of Myria's mind. She nodded. He knew her well, guessing that she would try to sneak into the dungeons during the feast to try to speak with the curious Dwarves.

He moved his hand down, resting it gently on the small of her back. "Let us go, the feast will not oversee itself."

👑

Myria and Thranduil lounged in his chambers, simply biding time until the Feast of Starlight had begun. Admist muted chuckles and jests, mostly from Myria, Tauriel entered the room. "You called for me, My King?" She bowed shortly. "I have come to report to you." Tauriel glanced briefly towards Myria, nodding when she lifted a goblet towards her silvan friend.

"I thought I ordered that nest to be destroyed." Thranduil said, voice taut with frustration. The spiders had been plaguing their forest for years now, unrelenting.

"We cleared the forest as ordered, my Lord." The woman insisted. "But more spiders keep coming from nests in the South. If we could kill them at their source–"

"That fortress lies beyond our borders. Your orders are to keep our lands clear of those foul creatures. That is your task."

"And when we drive them off, what then? Will they not spread to other lands?" Ever the bleeding heart, Tauriel worried for other people.

"Other lands are not my concern." Thranduil said coldly. "The fortunes of this land will rise and fall. But here in this kingdom, we will endure." As had been the way for thousands of years. Thranduil insisted that Mirkwood keep to themselves, not needing or offering help from any others.

Tauriel nodded stiffly, excusing herself from the King's presence. Before she left, however, he spoke again. "Legolas said you fought well today. He has grown...fond of you."

She paused, thinking his words over carefully. "I assure you my Lord, Legolas thinks of me as no more than captain of the guard.

"Perhaps he did once. Now, I'm not so sure." Thranduil pushed.

"I did not think that you would allow your son to pledge himself toward a lowly silvan elf." She responded, voice slightly hopeful.

Myria leaned forward, too, curious of his answer. Would he allow his heir to love an elf with no royale blood?

"You are right, I would not." Thranduil chuckled humorlessly at the thought of it. Myria bit her tongue, hurt by the comment indirectly. She was no common-born Elf, sure, but had no royal blood to speak of either. She deflated in her seat, drinking down the rest of her wine. "Do not give him hope where there is none."

Is that what Thranduil had been doing for Myria, merely giving her hope? Slivers of special attention, with no intentions of truly loving her. She stood from her seat, leaving the chambers without a word.

Tauriel, too, left quickly after that.

Thranduil stood alone in his chambers, looking at the spot where Myria had once been.

👑

The feast came and passed quickly, Myria in no mood to sing or dance like she usual did at such events. She attended for the sake of politeness, leaving when she had greeted enough people for the night.

She spend the rest of it wallowing in her chambers.

Word got out that the entire party of Dwarves escaped, and Myria silently applauded them for their boldness. She hoped, for their sake, that they were successful in freeing their home.

Days passed, and news of Smaug's death had spread to every corner of Middle Earth. Thranduil was quick to organize his army to march toward Erebor, wasting no time to retrieve his precious gems. Myria had come along on her own white elk mount, following behind Thranduil silently, if only to satiate her curiosity. Last time they had come, Thranduil had rejected the Dwarves' desperate plea for help. This time, he came to declare war if they refused to return his gems.

The damned gems. Always on his mind. True, they were a physical reminder of his late wife and Queen. But it seemed as though he dwelled on them more than he cherished her memory. He did not speak of her, ever. Even to his own son, his wife was but a ghost haunting the halls.

Myria couldn't begin to understand the loss of a spouse, but she did understand that he was too caught up in himself.

Even though she had little intention of fighting the Dwarves, Myria still brought a dagger and bow on the march. Could never be too careful, Thranduil always reminded her. She guided her elk to stand behind his, watching him greet the human leader stiffly. It was almost laughable how mad his manners were, his kingly presence deemed to good for polite small talk.

Myria had been given a temporary quarter near Thranduil's, their tents close as they usually were. He had been too busy to notice her absence lately, both to her joy and displeasure. She missed his daily warmth around her, but knew it was best to distance himself from him. Just this last journey, then she sould go back to Rivendell to live out the rest of her long and lonesome life.

Thranduil plotted with the human leader, Bard, and a wizard by the name of Gandalf. Myria wandered the decrepit town while they did, having no place in war council, nor did she wish to.

By the time she had returned, night had fallen and all the humans of the town were asleep. Myria ducked into her tent, desperate for some solid rest before a potential battle on the morrow. She was surprised to see Thranduil sitting awkwardyl on her cot.

"Thranduil? What are you doing here, you should be resting." Myria insisted, brow furrowed.He stood at her entrance, possibly being left waiting for quite a while.

"I wished to see you before we go to Erebor's gates in the morning. I suspect that the Dwarf will have something up his tiny sleeve. I know you are a capable fighter, but I want you to stay in town tomorrow just in case."

She protested sharply, "I am just as much a fighter as any elf in your army. I will not sit around and wait for you to return–"

"Please, Myria." He rested both of his hands on her shoulders, looking down at her with his deep blue eyes "I could not focus if I knew you were behind me somewhere. If I know you are safe, I can retrieve the jewels easier." Always about the jewels. He should have married them, she thought bitterly.

"Is that an order?"

"It is a request. From a friend." Thranduil said softly.

Myria bit her cheek, crossing her arms. "Fine. I will stay here on the morrow. But, if any fighting breaks out, I will join."

He seemed content with her answer, knowing its as far as he'll get with her stubbornness. "Very well, I'll see you when this is over." He planted a tender kiss to the top of her head before he left to his own tent.

👑

Myria could only watch from afar as negotiations with the Dwarves had clearly gone to shit. More dwarves had shown up, an entire army to match the Elves' golden one. Myria rushed back to grab her bow, bursting out of her tent to the sound of screams in the town. Surely the Dwarves wouldn't target the women and children who had stayed behind?

She was right. It was orcs who had invaded the town, cutting off exits as they slashed through defenseless crowds of people. Myria rushed to help whoever she could, shooting down orcs' fat heads whenever they got too close to a fleeing human. With her dagger, she slashed through whoever she could reach to retrieve each of her arrows.

This arduous process repeated for some time, Myria panting with effort as she continued. The sounds of screams toned done as golden-armored soldiers flooded into the cobble streets and started to push back at the beastly creatins. Myria breathed a sigh of relief, engaging another orc. It was larger than most, with armor protecting its head and chest. She slashed at his with a sword she had taken from dead enemy, yelping when he stabbed into her abdomen with his own weapon. She gasped, trying to keep her composure as he approached above her menacingly. As he lifted his sword above his head again, ready to strike down the Elf, his head was detached from his body in a spray of hot blood.

Myria flinched at the feeling on her skin, feeling disgusted more than she already was with the sweat and dirt covering her. Thranduil came from behind the orc, who was now dead on the floor. He crouched down in front of her, a frantic look in his eye that betrayed his regal appearance. "Myria, look at me!" He shouted, her blurry vision shakily focusing on him. He held her face in his hands, watching her try to keep them open. "It's okay, I'll get you help." Thranduil promised her, gingerly lifting her up princess style. He flinched when she protested in pain, clutching at her stomach to stop the blood from gushing out.

"It's okay, you'll be alright, sweet." He told her, repeating himself multiple times as if to convince himself, too.

He brought her outside of the town, where Elven medics had set up a discreet few tents disguised to the orc's vision by Elven magic. The King layed her gently on a stiff cot, petting her hair comfortingly as she screamed in pain at the medic disinfecting and stitching her wound up. He glared at the Elf assigned to help her, making the poor young fellow sweat in fear of messing uo in front of his King.

Eventually, the sounds outside died out. Thranduil regretted taking his forces to this pit of death. He had lost more Elves today than had ever been lost at one time since the Great War. Elves did not die easily. This was a massacre of great damage to their ranks, to their people. Thranduil mourned the deaths of his kin dearly.

Myria had calmed, pain dulling when given some numbing herbs. She focused her attention on Thranduil, "you came for me." She said, voice barely a whisper.

"Of course, I did. Why wouldn't I?" He asked, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles.

"Your gems...they're still locked away in the keep, aren't they?" She asked.

"The gems are not my priority. They are merely objects, remembrances. You are alive, I need you."

Myria felt tears blurr her vision, clamping her throat shut. "But–I am not from any important bloodline. I am not a Princess, nor—"

"I do not care. You are Myria. The woman who has been by my side for five thousand years. The only lady worthy of being Queen by my side is you."

Thranduil took her into his arms as she cried. He shushed her gently, hands locked into her hair as she clung to him.

"I love you, Thranduil. I have for a long, long time."

"And I, you, my dearest Myr."

[fangbangerghoul]

It's *drum rolls* WIP WEDNESDAY! (I made a new banner that is Ghoul-coded...because it is Ghoul)

Where I dig out things to share that are a 'work in progress' and it has to be on a Wednesday because I was told I would be exiled if I tried this on a Friday.

I also include small updates like the fact that I got a 92 on my research paper! (which I would have cried if I got under a 90 because I gave her more than what the professor asked for and THEN SOME) Another update is I only have a week and a half left of my spring semester!

I have several WIPS in the works. Now that I don't have to constantly write academic papers for class, I actually want to write for myself. Also! My 100 Follower Celebration prompts really have helped me get back into the groove. I am doing them until tomorrow so please feel free to submit a prompt in my ask box to get a snippet in return!

My current list of WIPS: (doc names not work titles)

Great Fireballs of Faerun

Bog Witch Trials

Delghoul

GhoulxHalsinxAstarion

Thorny Feelings

Cup Runneth Over

AND NOW

to the fun part! The current snippet of wip is under the cut! (it's a continuation of the last snippet sunday)

The hissing river helped drown out some of her worries along with the symphony of sounds of the creatures that roamed the forest. It was like its own pocket of time, maybe its own dimension. She was used to the smells of leaves, mud, and pollen that floated around and it felt like home to her. Ghoul was so entranced by nature in front of her she did not notice with her vampire spawn companion sat beside her. He moved so silently that when she did notice she felt her body go on guard, ready for a battle. It took a lot of focus within her to calm her pulse and her body’s knee jerk reaction to fight.

“I didn’t come to bite, unless that’s what you want.” Astarion said with a toothy grin and his smooth voice rung with a coyness that was almost luring. His red eyes examined her with curiosity as if he was waiting for a particular reaction when she did not give it, he looked ahead to the forest across the stream.

“What did you want?” She said pointedly. Ghoul was not trying to be rude but she could tell on his face that question was not said as smoothly as she intended.

“I am just trying to enjoy the companion of my favorite companion and maybe bask in,” He paused for a moment clearly looking for the right word within his mind, “the beautiful nature.”

Ghoul gave a light huff of a laugh she was not born yesterday even if compared to the longevity of life Astarion lived made it feel that way.

“Sounds like Halsin is rubbing off on you, perhaps that’s a good thing.” She gave him a subtle smirk to tease him a bit more.

“There are others ways I’d like him to rub off on me.” His voice was low and Ghoul noticed the excitement in his eyes from the thought. She rolled her eyes at him and waved her hand to signal a whatever. “What? I know I am not the only one whose eyes catch the giant elf. Don’t act so prudish now.”

“I didn’t object, did I?”

“Not with your words, no.” Astarion was now sitting beside Ghoul on the sandy bank with her. She had slowly dipped her bare feet into the cool water and it stung at first before slowly relaxing her muscles. He had followed suit though it was clear he was not enjoying the cool water as much as her.

“Tell me,” She begun as she leaned back onto the palms of her hands to get a better look at the stars. “What are you going to do after all of this is over?”

“My, my, what a question, dear.” His index finger rested on his lip as he pondered Ghoul’s question. The silence from it was starting to make it feel like he would never answer but she remained patient.

“Live freely, revel in debauchery, continue my existence for as long as I can.” He finally answered not looking directly at her. His eyes seemed wistful, yearning perhaps. Ghoul nodded softly taking in his answer. It sounded honest enough for him and she was not going to claim he was lying to her outright. She never knew where she stood with the vampire so on occasion when he seemed to bare himself to her, she was cautious of what he was telling her. She was no saint by any means and she also never spoke the full truth. There were just some things better left in the past of unsaid.

“You?” He leaned in a little closer now, his eyes fixed on her neck and she had a feeling she knew what he was thinking.

“Assuming I don’t die.” She started bluntly and there was a spilt second where a flash of concern or maybe fear appeared on Astarion’s face but she continued. “Perhaps if enough gold were to be made on this journey I can attempt to live in the city, properly this time.”

“Properly?” His eyebrow raised at her statement and she could hear in his voice that he was both dumbfounded and skeptical of what she was saying.

“Not living on the streets again.” She answered to alleviate some of the confusion. “Maybe I’ll just travel as a sword for hire.”

“Isn’t that what you are basically doing now?” Astarion sounded unamused by her answer and a tad disappointed, which now had her raising an eyebrow.

“I suppose.” She leaned up to straighten her back in hopes it would help her think better but in a quick movement she felt Astarion’s arm pull her closer.

“Don’t you ever dream of bigger things?” His voice was smooth, and his eyes pierced hers. Astarion's free hand lightly traced the line of her jaw and for a moment he looked enamored.

“Bigger things than Halsin?” She asked with a devilish smile. Ghoul knew what he was really asking but she was not ready to admit to herself or to him that she never thinks too far ahead. There were always consequences when she did. He snorted at her after she killed the moment and released her from his grasp. She gave him a look that was not necessarily disapproving but perhaps mixed with a disappointment. Ghoul realized she had enjoyed the close contact, but her pride would not allow her to give in to reach for more.

Tagging: @bearlytolerant @ellstersmash @staticpallour @spookyspecterino @lisa-and-shadow @therealgchu @the-californicationist

[helixobesity]

What do I assume about you from your blog? Well, you're sweet, nice, nerdy, and very affirming of people.

But you've got a bit of a dark streak. Sure, it's all consensual, full of positivity and praise. But you like...control. You like being in charge, and creating a space for others to let go, submit, and hand over control to you. There are lots of ways to do that in kinky spaces, but fat? Fat doesn't just go away whenever piggy wants, whenever they need to look presentable and normal. No, fat is a collar one can't easily take off, a restraint the pig carries with them wherever they go, a constant reminder to themselves and the world of who's really in charge.

And the irony is, that's real freedom. No choice other than to be one's true self. So now, somehow, we're back to sweet, nice, positive, affirming, praising Helix. Because you love your fat piggies, and want them to feel like they can be their fat, piggish selves, their true selves, all the time. And sometimes, they need someone in charge to push them there. That's you. That's what I assume about you.

I’ve been trying to find the right words to answer this because this feels like such a perfect description of what has made me love feedism while also being so incredibly sweet and kind to me in general

I struggle with being myself around strangers and especially around family, and it’s something that (pun intended) weighs heavy on me

I like having control, not in a sense of having an iron grip on someone, but to be nurturing and to be understood in a way, where giving up control becomes natural, as sense of love and respect

I want to be responsible for someone to grow, to have my name be almost interwoven in the pounds added to someone’s body, for them to grow fat and see themselves in a way that every inch of their body reflects the love I put onto them

Sure, I have a darker streak, I have… very particular fantasies about gaining, losing control, dumbing down, becoming unhealthy as the weight adds up more and more

But no matter what, I want to be responsible for weight gain, in every sense of the word

🌀 I want you to gain weight for me 🌀

And I never want my perfect piggy to look back 💞

Thank you very very much for the kind words and wonderful ask~ :)

🌀💿🌀💿🌀💿🌀💿🌀

[princepestilence]

New Year's Resolutions 2024.

We're going for simple but profound life improvements this year.

I don't really feel like resolutions is entirely the right word -- it feels like giving yourself an ultimatum, which isn't how I see this purpose, or the tone, of my practice. They're more an acknowledgement of aspirations, a voicing of intentions to help clarify the path I want to take that year.

In 2024, I am making choices to bring more joy, more art, more rest and relief, and more connection with people I love into my life.

write to mum every day. For mum's early Christmas present, I gave her a day planner with a beautiful cover (Van Gogh, one of her favourites), but she never got to use it. I've taken to the idea of writing to her every day, since the thought I've been having most frequently this month, about little inconsequential things, is "I wish I could tell mum about this." .

make a memory book. More of a scrapbook than a typical photo album. I want to make a memory book of my mum, all the things I don't want to forget about her, and all the things I want to celebrate and reminsce fondly about. I've kept so many little bits and pieces over the years, like ticket stubs and cards, which I now feel was subconsciously for this exact purpose. .

take care of myself. In many ways, 2023 was a good year for this goal, but 2024 can absolutely be better. I intend to sleep well, eat well, exercise, do things that are enjoyable as often as possible, and say no + use my time for myself. I see it as infinitely more precious at the moment, and I'm not happy any longer to give it away to just anyone who wants for free labour. .

dress for fun. Another continuation of 2023, but also another that can be improved. I can for sure get weirder with it. .

make art. This is one I am so looking forward to. I've really missed it, and in some ways regret that I've prioritised nearly every other thing over this one. But not anymore. I'm excited to draw again, and do craft, and write when the mood strikes. .

read for pleasure. Another one that fell to the wayside again and again in my pursuit of productivity and trying to finish my thesis, and work, and volunteer, and be social, and keep on top of life admin. .

play games. Ditto above! I get too much fun from playing games not to do it more often. .

run (and play in?) tabletop games. In some ways, this folds in under both 'make art' and 'play games' but I feel it combines the two enough as a distinct third option to count for another goal. I particularly want to run Dread again, and try out some other kinds of tabletop / board games too. .

go on outings more often. I have a year pass to the aquarium that I want to start using ASAP, and I want to visit the botanic gardens more often. It's a beautiful place and really nice to walk around, so will be an ideal place to get a little more exercise into my life as well. Likewise, I'm looking forward to going to see theatre further afield, and visit more galleries and museums. .

decorate home / start renovations. We've decided it's about time to start seriously making some changes to our home, which is exciting but also a bit anxiety-inducing. We're fairly confident the first port of call will be installing aircon, followed by kitchen renovations and electrical work throughout the house. That's going to make such a huge difference to the QOL (quality of lighting) and the functionality of the kitchen / living space and desk areas. .

connect more with friends + family. I've sacrificed a lot of time with family and friends to keep afloat with work and my dissertation etc., and while I know that was a sensible decision, it's not a situation I want to keep living in. I would rather achieve less and spend more time with the people that are important to me. .

submit thesis. It feels a bit silly to put this here when it's so close to done at this point already, but it's still worth acknowledging -- and also celebrating. It's hard that my mum won't be here to see me graduate, or read what I've spent all this time working on, but I know she wouldn't want that to detract from the experience for me so I'm trying to walk the fine line of pride / satisfaction and grief as I travel down this final stretch. .

manage workload better. Work is usually fine, but the busy periods really slam me and I have to really struggle to keep afloat in that environment. I've assessed the problems and have started to put things in place so I'm not being overloaded, and I think that + some recent talks I've had with my manager will make a big difference in how that all happens this year coming.

[esnyshire]

amateur pt. 4

summary: In part four of amateur, Harry and Love go out on a date. They bump into some familiar faces and some not so familiar. Do they mesh together in a public setting? Or is the chemistry purely from lust.

warning: first date jitters, soft harry, the i would do anything for you Harry, may be my cleanest chapter yet, bitchy old woman

wc: 4.5k

♫ Somethings Got A Hold On Me by Etta James

A knock on the door stops my frantic running back and forth.

"Crap, shit, fuck me!" I stumble over my words as I hop on one leg, fiddling with the straps on my ankle. I had two hours to get ready and that still wasn't enough time.

I decided on a nice two-piece set, it had a muddy orange and yellow tie-dye pattern. A singular flower sits in the middle of each piece. It's low-waisted and shows off a lot more skin than I intended. I decided to wear my double-plated name chain, 'Amor' is written in cursive lettering. She's tiny, cute, and doesn't take away from the outfit. I rush to open the door, not wanting him to wait outside any longer.

"Hey, you're here!"

"I wouldn't miss this for," His eyes fell to every part of my body, covered and uncovered. "you look... wow."

My face heats up, most likely turning three shades gradually. His presence alone is enough to cause uncontrollable heat to seep to the top of my cheeks, I don't think I can handle such compliments. To distract me I take in his outfit, trying to figure out where we are going and if by some chance the clues to that are in his outfit.

"It's not too much, right? You told me center of attention, I just didn't know how much attention I was dressing for. I can change, you know what I'll ch-"

I don't get to finish my sentence, cause I'm interrupted with a hand to my waist and a tug to the nape of my neck. Our lips crash together in a rush, they're soft and so inviting. I feel the room begin to spin, which only makes me smile into the kiss.

In my twenty-three years of living, I have never had a kiss make me feel like I was falling but in the best way possible. It's the soft, slow pecks that are making me weak in the knees, his hands roam my body with no shame. I've lost all my breath trying to keep up with his feverish kissing.

I slide my hands into his hair, lifting myself on the tip of my toes. I'm still nowhere near his height even with heels on, but he has no problem helping me out. He wraps his arms around my waist and lifts me the rest of the way.

He breaks the kiss, "Who knew you could be so self-conscious?" He smiles down at me, pushing my body into his. We can't get any closer.

"Don't get ahead of yourself, pretty boy. I may have submitted to you but I'm still in control here." My face is so close to his as I speak, I smell the mint gum he has under his tongue. My lips linger, teasing and ghosting over his.

"But, you sound so sexy when you beg me to touch you." He's more confident with his words, and I don't mind finding out how far he'll go with this.

"I was begging, yes, but who was on their knees?"

Silence surrounds us as he from what I can see thinks about what to say, and just like I expected his confident act comes to a screeching stop when he opens his mouth, intending to say something but nothing comes out.

I let him come to his realization as I loosen my grip around his neck and slide down his body. My heels clack on the floor, momentarily breaking his concentration.

"I'm gonna go get my purse, hold tight." I tap his chest, quickly leaving the door entrance. "Come in!"

I skip steps rushing up to my room, quickly grabbing my phone purse and keys, the jingle of my keys causes my cat to come shuffling out of my closet, nails scratching at my marble floor. I bolt out my bedroom door, trying to keep up with my drift queen of a cat. She charged down the steps, and onto the couch, jumping from one cushion to the next.

She doesn't even hesitate when she leaps in Harry's direction in the middle of the living room. She clings to his pants and climbs her way up to his body, aiming for a seat on his shoulder.

"Ow, ow ow!" Harry yells, most likely feeling her nails claw into him.

"Finnegan!" I yell, stumbling down the rest of my steps, ready to yank my demon of a cat off of Harry.

"So, you're a cat person?" He questions me, a smirk permanently displayed on his lips.

"You're not?"

"I am, you just don't seem like the type to own a cat."

"I'm offended that you would even think that." I scoff, genuinely taking offense. Cat people are the best people.

He pets Finnegan who's still sat on his shoulder, purring so loud I'm starting to grow jealous. Am I jealous cause he's touching her and not me or jealous she gets to climb him like a tree and I don't?

"Someone's got the right idea," I whisper to myself, watching Finnegan rub her entire body across Harry's head.

"Hm? What was that?" He asks barely paying any attention to me, absorbed in the hypnosis my cat is succeeding in.

"Nothing, c'mon that's enough for tonight." I step forward giving Fin access to my shoulders, she jumps down from Harry landing delicately on me. I hold my arms out giving her a bridge to the sofa and she walks across, not even being phased.

"Okay, we can go now." I inhale deeply, feeling a tickle in the back of my nose. I freeze in my spot, arms out like I'm hugging a huge balloon, taking small intakes of air.

Right when I think I'm in the clear, the flood gates open and I sneeze. I'm not one for normal sneezes, no. I sneeze consecutively, and my record of sneezes is currently at twelve in one sitting. It's loud and high-pitched, sounds like a guinea pig excited for food.

"Are you allergic to cats?!" He's instantly frantic, looking at me with worry on his face. "Why do you own a cat if you're allergic?"

"I love cats," I say honestly, I don't care if I'm allergic. He couldn't say anything, he was just loving her. You can't help but love them, they're the best things we humans have.

"Oh, so you're crazy. Good to know." He laughs, shaking his head in disapproval. "Let's go, we've got places to be!"

"Places? As in more than one?"

"Yes, Love. More than one." At this point, he knows what saying my name does to me, and I can't help but laugh, he's subtly antagonizing me.

"Keep it up." I look at him through my lashes.

"Oh, I will."

I stifle a laugh at his tone of voice, he's admitting to acting out to get a rise out of me. Tonight is going to be very interesting.

"Ven aca, carino." I take his hand in mine and walk to the car.

The ride is lengthy but the view is amazing. I see from the size of the buildings and the abundance of traffic that's accumulated around the car that we are headed to the city. Living in New York has never meant much to me considering I was born here. Everyone loves it but the people who live here.

The streets are dirty, the people are loud and they don't know how to fucking walk. I truly wouldn't wish the city transit on my worst enemy.

The people are bustling, music is blaring from every direction. Someone's fighting a bird, the lady in the car next to us is yelling so loud and it doesn't help that I hear the person on the other line. I avoid direct eye contact from my side of the car, seeming to have fallen into the trap that is Harry.

He's tapping along to the song quietly playing as background music, the windows are down and his top is up. The light turns green and the view that I'm given nearly knocks my breath away.

His skin is illuminating from the various jumbo screens surrounding us, it looks like we are in a room with a bunch of lights. I'm seeing him in a completely different light.

No, seriously.

The sun was always so blinding when we would meet at the pool, and then in the stuffy locker room, there was barely any good lighting. This whole time I've seen a half-ass version to my eyes.

He's gorgeous, I'm finding myself speechless and I always have something to say.

♫ The Stripper by David Rose

The sound of a specific song claws it's way into my ears. My interest is peaked when I hear feather fan music, more popularly known as burlesque type music.

It's my favorite music to dance to. It's a true talent what those women do, it would be nothing but an honor to go out to watch them dance.

We turn down the corner, the same direction of the music and I begin to fidget in my seat from the anticipation. I could kiss him for how grateful I am, I don't even know for sure if that's where he's taking me but I might scream.

"We are here." He says nonchalantly, not taking his eyes off the street ahead. I know he can see my excitement practically oozing off of me, his smile says it all.

"Get the fuck out of here," I say slapping my tights, turning them a nice tinge of pink.

"Does that mean I did well?"

"Well?! You did fucking awesome!" I squeal, no longer caring how childish I look right now. I've wanted to go to a burlesque show since I learned how to walk in heels. That was at the brilliant age of five.

Harry parks the car, flips the top, and slides out. He runs to my door, opening it and holding his hand out for me to grab. If he keeps doing this my heart is going to combust, it's the bare minimum but I haven't been treated like a lady in god knows how long and my shriveled up heart can't take all this unraveling he's effortlessly doing.

When we get inside, the soft lights above us do nothing in comparison to the ones just a few feet outside the building. I don't expect much though, we did come to a nook in New York for a burlesque show. The only seats available are in the front row, confusing me a bit. Who wouldn't want to sit in the front row? There's way more space than I thought there would be, and a lot more people to hold in. We weave our way through, quickly sitting at our table.

"I wonder why no one wants to sit upfront?" I whisper to Harry who's sitting next to me. The circle tables provided for us are useless to people like Harry and me, needing to be close in proximity.

"You'll see why." He says expectantly. I side-eye him, he sounds cryptic and I don't know how to feel about this.

The lights flicker, a voice from the loudspeaker shrieks throughout the room. "Good evening ladies and gentlemen! Glad you could join us. Make yourselves comfortable, fifteen minutes till the first act!"

"Hey, uh would you like to order some drinks?"

"Oh, yea. I'll have a martini." I say this, remembering that the conversation of age never came up between us.

"So, you're the drinking age." He quips. "That's good to know." He smiled sheepishly. There's no sign of discomfort or embarrassment, just a funny realization. I'm just glad he's fine with my age and not turned off from the low number under my belt.

"So, you're okay with me being younger?" I ask, genuinely surprised he's taking this so easily.

"You're legal, I see no problem. But your drinking choice is questionable." He makes a joke, discreetly breaking the ice. He's a lot more attentive when it's just me and him alone. I enjoy him talking.

"Harry, is that you?" We are interpreted by a voice behind us. It sounds vaguely familiar, I can't put my finger on it. My assumptions on who it is are cut short when a tall slim figure comes into view.

The first thing my eyes go to is her chest, it's decorated in pearls, slightly tanned. Painfully red. I can just feel the throbbing of her skin from the sweltering heat. It's the women I used to sit with at the pool.

"Yeah?" He turns his head, "Oh, Mrs. Bradshaw. Back for some more I see!" He smiles, truly pleased she's shown her presence for what I'm assuming is the second time in a short amount of time.

"Why of course! You've given me and the girls a place to hang out, and I have to say Harry, wonderful taste!"

I listen in on the conversation going on around me, giving them my undivided attention. The only thing is I look like I'm spacing out cause I'm frozen staring directly at the empty stage in front of me. I'm on the verge of zoning out. It's not that I don't care about the conversation, it's just I've never been one for interacting with people. I always say crude and crass things one like myself shouldn't be so confident saying it in front of others.

Harry doesn't seem to mind my quietness as he continues his conversation with the lady.

He goes to introduce me. "Mrs. Bradshaw this is-"

"Oh look at that, they're coming this way!" Her words are dragging along the floor, probably from all the drinks she's consumed while being here. A sworn of bees they sound like, calling out his name. Each lady starts their tangent over the excitement they have about the facility.

Harry seems to be a regular here or comes here often enough to give this place a recommendation. In my own world, spacing out I feel someone tap my shoulder. It's the lady who told me she saw Harry and I leaving the locker room.

"Hiya, toots." She nudges me. "What happened to no one knowing." Her knowing smile would normally annoying the absolute fuck out of me if it was anyone else, but she seems more tolerable than the rest of her group.

"You've seen what he looks like," I chuckle. "It's not an easy thing to do."

"Can't really ignore it, now can you."

"Definitely not." She smiles and rests her hand on my shoulder. She winks and silently departs from our table.

"I see you've brought a friend," my thoughts are interrupted by a voice next to Harry. She knows she saw me when she first came up to us, she's doing a shit job at pretending she didn't.

Her use of the word friend fuels my anger, first, she ignores me completely, then when Harry tries to introduce me she skips over me like I'm a piece of gum on the floor. I'm trying my hardest to stay calm, not wanting to ruin the night. Plus, I want to watch the show.

"I wouldn't use the word 'friend'. My name is Love, but Harry calls me Amor." I remember when he told me what he said to the ladies of Kings County, basking in the lead up to their stunned faces.

"This is who I was telling you about the other day." He sounds elated that he can show me off, not even caring how mind-boggling mad they'll all be for the rest of the night with the new information they just learned.

I don't stick out my hand for her to shake, looking straight into her eyes with a small smile.

"How wonderful, Harry." She clasps her hands together, holding them close to her chest.

"We were just going to order drinks. So, if you ladies don't mind, I'd love to get back to my hotter than the sun date!" I wink at her, throwing in her little nickname for Harry. A stifled laugh gets stuck in Harry's throat, failing miserably to hide his true feelings about this whole situation.

One by one they silently leave, filing into the booth in the back. Shame. What a waste of an experience. Why does no one want to sit upfront? Harry orders us drinks, his hand never leaving my thigh even as he speaks to the waitress to keep his tab open. The music cuts out, the lights dim and a new track starts.

♫ Show Me How You Burlesque by Christine Aguilera

"I know this, oh my god."

"The dance or the song?" He asks way too fast for my liking.

"Both, why?"

He ignores my question. He brings his hand to his face, sticking his pointer and middle finger from each hand into the corners of his mouth and blowing so hard. The sound that leaves his lips causes me to flinch at the volume, instinctively my hands go to cover my ears. My attention goes back to Harry who is now crazily pointing at me while looking across the room. I flutter my eyes between Harry and who he's communicating with.

A flock of feathers and fishnet stockings comes barreling in my direction, the beautiful women have their hands out reaching for me, bright smiles and smirks are all I see. This is the first time I can say I truly feel intimidated. I grab the first hand I see, not prepared to be peeled away from Harry's grasp and towards the stairs to the stage. The panic I get before getting on a stage courses through my body, the excitement of being put on the spot. It's all so exhilarating. I look at Harry, my arm forcibly being pulled from the socket. He gives me two thumbs up.

I rolled my eyes, now understanding why no one was sitting upfront. They like bringing people up on stage. The only difference is they have no idea how much I've wanted to get up here and dance since I entered.

"We say, hey, here come the ladies about to give a little show"

They sing out to me, crouching around me. Like they're waiting for something. I'm about a hundred percent sure Harry sat us in the interactive section of the show. I can only guess they're waiting for me. The thing is mc I've had this dance engraved in my brain since I was eight. It comes to me like muscle memory. My shoulders begin to sway as I catch onto the beat, the girls sway along with me, their show faces on ten, hyping me up with their mimicked moves. As if I'm a part of their show they get into formation, all in spots and ques going around me while I dance in the middle. The woman all dance around me, twirling in their beautiful costumes. Dancing has always been the best way I communicate, my body always doing enough talking for me. Being on stage isn't a foreign feeling, I strive for a career where I can dance, wear banging ass outfits and not have a care in the world with who's watching.

Right now the only feeling I have is happy. My feet are quick as my body fluidly follows closely behind. My emotions are strong and my chest is heaving, adrenaline pumps through my veins. This is the best feeling. I watch Harry, watch me from the stage. He's snapping and moving in his seat. His genuine smile as he watches me on stage has my stomach in knots and my cheeks ache from smiling so hard. I just want to kiss him. He doesn't even realize how much of a dream this was for me, him giving it to me and enjoying my excitement makes me feel things I haven't felt ever.The music is so extremely loud, and the energy is at an all time high. I don't even register the crowd cheering and yelling in my direction. The song comes to its end and they incorporate seating me where they snatched me from. Cooing at me and showering me with compliments in my ear, all their words swirling around my head. Filling me up to the brim with an ego boost I did not need.

I'm gonna be riding this high for the rest of the night and my happiness only brings my attention straight to Harry who is smiling so adoringly at me. I shake my head, pulling his face towards mine, his lips crash onto mine. The second his lips touch, The exhale I let out sounds borderline pornographic. I give no fucks if someone can hear me, hell I don't even care if they see. The kiss is quick, nowhere near enough for us both. We take in deep breaths, our faces only a fraction away from each other.

"Having fun?" He asks. A big smirk adorns his face knowing I kissed him because I am so happy about what just happened.

"Not as much fun as I'll be having with you later, but this is a close second." I involuntarily looked at his lips, then back to his eyes.

He noticeable gulps, choking on nothing. He pats his chest a couple of times, holding back a laugh I know he wants to let out. He always reacts this way, and I can't bring myself to mind. It's endearing and unintentionally sexy.

Our drinks came while I was on stage, so I grabbed my glass and sip from the tiny red straw. I try my hardest to hide my smile, not wanting to mock his amateur behavior. He speaks in my ear, guiding me through our night. We stay for four more dances, which leads me to three drinks into the night. Nowhere near enough to get me drunk, but enough to lower my inhibitions.

Next on the itinerary is a club, the night is young. It was only ten o'clock.

♫ You Make Me Wanna by Usher

The conversation is flowing naturally and I don't think I have laughed so much in my life. Between the flirty words we exchange, he has yet to break physical contact with me. His pointer will softly rub at my knee, or he'll run his fingertips up and down my thigh, talking softly and tenderly. The eye contact is becoming so heavy, I want nothing more than to take him home and have my way with him.

He's effortlessly beautiful, I feel the need to hold my breath so I don't ruin him somehow. Out of the blue, Harry grabs my hand and guides me out of the building. He's quick with his steps as he leads me to the car.

"Can you drive?" I ask.

"Yes, I only had one drink." He assured me.

He proceeds to buckle me in, "to ease the mind."

It doesn't take long to reach our second location, the music is unbelievably loud and the crowd of people at the front of the club bursts my social balloon.

"We aren't staying here long, I may not know you well, but I know enough to know this isn't your crowd." He takes in my face, I'm terrible at hiding my distaste for things. "There's someone who wants to meet you."

"It's a little early to be meeting the parents, don't you think?" I quip, too proud of myself for that joke.

"I- no, what? Ha! No, that's not what I-"

"I was joking, don't shit yourself!" I laugh at his now pale face.

We walk through the room, all the way to the VIP section of the club. A bouncer is near the velvet rope, keeping people from getting in. We walk through the small group of people, being let in immediately. I don't say anything, waiting for some type of context clues with the situation at hand. I get nothing. I recognize nobody, I don't even know who Harry would know that I just so happen to know too? Other than the women in our neighborhood.

"Harry!" I turn my head at the sound of his name, being met with a tall, dark-skinned man. His face is kind and full of life, he seems genuinely excited to be here. "Just the person I was looking for.

"I've been getting videos, texts, and phone calls for the past hour, did you bring her with you?" He asks, looking around Harry's vicinity. I giggled at his face, eyebrows lifted, eyes frantically looking for this woman. I'm tucked away behind Harry, holding his hand tightly. I peek from behind him, smiling softly.

"Videos of what?" I ask, my curiosity getting the best of me. "Also, who's her?"

"He's talking about you." He pulls me from behind him, wrapping his arm around my body. "This is who wants to meet you. Love, this is Sterling Ford"

"Good evening Mr. Ford,"

"Please, call me Sterling!" He laughs. "I like her!"

He stares at Harry, taking his arm and pulling him into a hug.

"Like isn't a good enough word, old friend."

Old friend? Now this interaction makes a little more sense.

"You've caused a big stir at The Garden." He says as if I'm supposed to know what he is saying. I give him a look, tilting my head in question.

"He owns the burlesque joint we just left." He says casually.

"Yes, and I texted Harry right after I heard about your performance. Everyone loved it!" He yells over the music in the club. "Would you like to work for me?"

"What?"

"Just say yes!"

"Yes."

"No, I need a ye- wait. Yes?"

"Yes." I don't even hesitate to say yes, it's my dream job. This can open so many doors for me, dancing every night and getting paid for it? I'm already drooling from how pleasant that sounds.

"Great! I'll get your number from Harry, we can work something out as soon as my schedule clears up. Except for a call from me within the week." He reaches out for my hand and I gladly take it.

"Thank you so much, you have no idea what this means to me!" I firmly shake his hand.

"No, kid. Thank you, we haven't gotten that much positive feedback in a while! You could be my ticket to fame." He takes his hands and glides them across the air, like he can see the stars as he speaks. He sucks his teeth and shakes his head, his phone rings breaking his train of thought. "Money calls!" He walks away without another sound, his lips move a million miles a minute as he walks away to take his call.

"What the fuck just happened."

"Exactly what should have happened." He watches me stare at him in shock. I can't stop the giggle that leaves my lips, not believing I just got my dream job from simply enjoying my night out with Harry.

"Thank you, Harry." I look up at him, only now grasping how this was all his doing.

"Don't thank me. Your dancing did all the talking." What he says causes me to stop in track, I smile at his words.

At this moment, I now realize that Harry understands me. Weirdly, these past two days have been astronomically better with him in my life. I find myself wanting him around more and more.

[trying2cope]

It took me a year to find him.

I searched different internet BDSM sites. After my horrible failed vanilla marriage I'd sought therapy and realized that the inner sub I'd repressed had never gone away. I had put up with my now ex husband's crappy behavior because I was unconsciously submitting to him, but it got worse and worse and more toxic and abusive. So I felt if I was going to have a healthy marriage in the future I would have to be the sub I know I am.

Hunting online for my future Master husband kept me sane as I tried to live my new life as a single mom with two traumatized culture shocked kids. The divorce had involved an international move.

I found him in January. He was one of many Doms who answered my personal on a "Let's Get Married and Breed" sub forum. I know, romantic. But I liked that it specified the marriage first part, so it wasn't just for the kinksters who like anonymous breeding. That's not me at all. I'm deeply monogamous.

I only had two sexual partners prior. Sexual partners meaning their male member had entered one of my holes. The first was my Master when I was 18-19. He had my mouth and ass. But I told him I was saving my v for marriage and he respected that. Truthfully I only went that far with him because I intended to marry him. When we broke up I was devastated-- even though I was the one who had done it. I had started having feelings for someone else, too, and it confused the hell out of me. I spiraled, mental health wise, into reckless and destructive behavior. Thankfully my "temporary insanity" only lasted a few months, but it was enough.

I was growing in my faith and when I got my sanity back decided that all sex was sex and no loopholes. I'd save it all for marriage again. And I did. I found my now ex husband on a Christian dating site instead of a bdsm one. I'd hoped he'd be a little kinky but he wasn't. Our sex life was never very satisfying. I want sex multiple times a day. He was content with once or twice a month. I have never really been sexually satisfied.

So when my marriage ended in his cheating and dishonesty and mental abuse, I decided a few things. My next man would be a Dom. I needed a man with high libido. He needed to be safe around my kids of course. I wanted a man who wanted more children. And I wasn't going to wait for marriage this time.

I felt a little bad about that. I love God and I don't want to sin. But I also knew the kind of man I want, with the libido I want, wouldn't be celibate.

When my eldest kid realized I was thinking about dating she made me promise her whoever I dated would "love Jesus, kids, and cats".

And when I met him, he checked all the boxes.

We talked online for 6 weeks and then he suggested we meet in person. We did and it was amazing. I could not resist him. I melted in his presence. It was magical, like he held the key to me and every other man, even my ex husband, had only ever picked the lock.

I asked him to be my Master and my boyfriend and he agreed fervently as we made out. I let him into my body that night and quickly we fell madly in love with each other. "You're so sweet to me," he kept saying when I'd just be myself. It made me happy but also sad he'd ever been treated shitty.

He was a single parent too, he has a toddler daughter. He came to me, when she was with her mom, so while he met my kids I hadn't yet gotten to meet her.

And that's where I'll end this post for now.

[tergridguy]

The Boom Box Deck; Learning and Playing Standard in Paper

For the last few months, I've been doing what I can to make playing standard in paper in my community a reality. How exactly I got on that trip is a story for another time, but suffice to say there were others in my community who planted the seeds and provided the right conditions for the concept to find root and bloom into reality. What was once an absurd dream has become real, and the event that was dreamed up to make it happen is only a few days away.

On July 17, 2024 at the Game Underground at 349 Moody st, Waltham, at around 6:30 pm, we're gonna have us a real Standard Showdown in paper. There will be decklists submitted, sideboards will be in evidence, a rarity in these parts considering the formats that have them simply aren't played, and we will have us a winner. That's something our events never have, a champion. Maybe you win a few games, 3-0 a draft, whatever, but no trophy, no grand prize, no champion. This week, that changes. This week we are gonna find out who's the best.

It might even be me. I might be a longshot, but if I don't take the gold, it won't be for lack of trying. I've never had the chance to play magic, constructed magic at least, truly competitively. I was born a casual in the era of commander and best of one on my phone, I never got to play a grand prix or a Friday night magic in a 60 card format. My whole life, I feel like I've never put all of myself into a competition, I always said I didn't care or held back or fucked off so when I lost I could say 'well I didn't really try.' This time, I wanted to change that.

I have a problem with pet cards, joke cards, silly, stupid, narrow, 'flavorful' cards. As soon as my decks start to function I get excited to see how much jank I can weigh them down with before they stop working entirely. In my natural stare, I will eventually arrive at all bad cards and a deck that doesn't get to make the joke it wants to make because it doesn't work at all.

I think it's part of my fear of trying my hardest and still failing. The jokes, the jank, the silliness, it's a defense against the pain of really losing, of being bad, of sucking. I'm learning that getting better at the game is about getting better at losing and trying your hardest. You have to learn to be excited to lose because you are excited to learn.

One of my strengths is that I want to try so many things, but it's a weakness when I leave the job half-done, treat my sideboard as a clown car, pepper my deck with one-of's, and put all my wins on my (undeserving)pet cards. I've been trying to beat that shit out of myself, get it out of my system, and learn what it means to play to win 100%.

Having said that, Boom Box seems like an odd choice I guess. It's not exactly many players' idea of a good, or even a playable card. On the surface it looks like just another joke-- a card players squint at real hard thinking if they even want it in their limited deck, but it has matured into something I think is quite serious. There is just so much artifact support in standard right now, it's taken me months to test all the things I've tried in the deck and I would need many more than I have to try all the things I've thought about trying. It's a deck with a very high skill curve, with so many interactions and esoteric artifact lines that only make sense to the deranged or lobotomized mind. I'm hoping none of my opponents have one of those.

The Boom Box Deck as it stands now is my best effort. I've tested and practiced and played hundreds of matches to try to really find out how to do my best. I want to be vulnerable, to go out there and play my hardest, and be willing to accept victory or defeat without qualification. No excuses, no holding back, no bad cards kept around to serve as excuses. I intend to make a decent showing of myself, and I wish each and every other competitor out there the best of luck, I hope everyone else who can comes to support the members of our community who have invested in bringing this event to life because we are going to do our damndest to put on a hell of a show. See you all there.

[nevergiveuponyourdreamss]

How did I come to the UK?

My dreams of studying abroad have been around for as long as I can remember. First, I wanted to go to America. My aunt lived there, and every time I went, I admired a different part of it. In my country, the education system in Turkey is a little different. We do not receive education in line with our abilities in primary, secondary and high school periods. Every student has to take every course under equal conditions until the end of high school, then in the 12th grade, when high school is over, all students take the same exam, they choose according to the scores they earn, they win the school in line with the ranking they make to whichever university their scores are sufficient, or they fail to pass the exam again the next year. In line with this system, I have never seen myself in it. I wanted to study abroad, in one of the few universities in the world with high quality of education, with equal rights and conditions, in the department I dreamed of and felt I belonged to. England was a country I was always curious about. I was excited to receive education in a quality environment in a country with a high understanding of history, geography, famous universities, rights, law, human rights and justice. 

When I reached the 12th grade, I thought it would be right to start this path with an educational advisor. As a result of the meetings we had with the EDUKAS education consultant in Izmir for days, I decided to go to the Media Communication department of Bournemouth University in England, where the most suitable place for my dreams was me. Thereupon, I started studying for the IELTS exam and submitted the documents I needed to submit to the advisor. Among the documents I submitted to the advisor, I showed my high school course average, a letter from my teachers about me, a letter of intent I prepared for the school, the documents of the activities I have done in my entire school life so far, and the school where I applied for courses, seminars, competitions and activities. And the reason I chose Bournemouth University is that I wrote it in the form of a letter.

 In addition, after a long study, I got an IELTS grade that will be accepted to universities. Just in case, I applied to a few cities and universities and got accepted. One of the main reasons why I chose Bournemouth is that it is similar to Izmir, the city I live in Turkey. It is a city by the sea, but Izmir is always sunny and warm.

This is the first time I've left my family and I've come to study in a different country away from my family. It's a little exciting, a little free, a little bittersweet, I can say. In this year when I experienced all the emotions at the same time, I am very happy to be in England and to study. I hope everything will continue as I dreamed. There are many more cities in the UK that I intend to explore. It is really exciting to learn about the history of the past as you live it and to be in this history. I'm getting used to my system and I hope I always have good days here.

[dark--eclipse]

God, this whole thing was a sensory nightmare.

It was bad enough that his shoulder hurt like a son of a bitch from literally getting a spike shoved through it--thank the gods for his accelerated healing factor--but then the Krang had taken him to some location and bound him up in this disgusting pink substance that he couldn't seem to break out of, no matter how hard he tried. Not to mention that his magic still wasn't working as intended.

Never mind. The important part was that his family was safe. That everyone else was safe. Donnie would.....find some way to get out of this eventually. He was sure.

In the meantime, no one said anything about not insulting the giant bubblegum monsters. Or being defiant to the last.

"You mutated gumballs-" He let a hiss sound under his words then, writhing and baring his teeth in a feral snarl. "--are rapidly reaching the point where I will no longer be in anything even remotely resembling a merciful mood when I get out of here. Now release me. I promise to make your deaths relatively quick and painless if you do."

The tallest one, the one that appeared to be a leader of some kind to the other two, smirked, drawing closer. "In due time, child. I was curious as to why your brothers seemed to fear you, after all."

"They do not fear me. You don't know anything."

"Oh, really? Do you honestly believe they understand the extent of your powers?"

"Don't act like you do in turn," Donnie snarled, writhing again. "What would someone who's been stuck in a pocket dimension for a millennia know about modern magic, anyway?"

"I know much more than weaklings like yourself could comprehend." The brother approached, then, his tentacles curling around Donnie in an effect that was utterly nauseating. "Even if, by some miracle, you are able to resist the might of Krang, your planet is weak. Vulnerable to threats. We can save your miserable way of life. You can stand alongside the Krang, as we usher in a new era of existence."

Okay. This was starting to sound uncomfortably like the whisper in all of his dreams, as of late. Shake it off, shake it off. "Huh. Got any other slogans you want to pull out of a fascism 101 textbook? Spare me the cliché villain speech, will you? The people of this earth, myself included, would rather die than submit to you. Any smart conqueror would know that."

"Submit? Like you have to your siblings?"

Well. That certainly shut him up. An irritated hiss was all he could offer in retort, even as the brother smirked down at him. "I must say, I do admire your resolve, however tragically misplaced it is. Your powers in action are quite a thing to behold. You are strong. Far more worthy of respect than your weaklings of brothers. And within the ranks of the Krang, strength prevails. I can see your thoughts, little thing. Your desires. You have never felt enough. You have always been looked down upon, when you were stronger than any of them."

How did this thing know. How did it know about his dreams, about the whispering, about-- "You don't know anything about me."

"I know even the parts you try to keep hidden. Frida."

"That is NOT my name."

"You have never felt good enough. Not strong enough for your brothers, not composed enough for society, not caring enough for your precious daughter-"

"Keep Themis's name out of your gods-damned mouth," he hissed, the shadows writhing around him for a moment. "If you even breathe in the same direction as her, I will destroy you."

"The Krang could make you greater than people's expectations. We could make you strong. Worthy of respect. Of power. Of all your deepest, darkest yearnings. You would pass beyond Frida, or Donatello, or any other worldly title. You would be a foremost figure in our new empire."

It was tempting. It was so, so tempting to listen to their words, and that frightened Donnie more than anything else that had happened to him so far. But he steeled himself. Inhaled slowly. Spat towards the Krang, then, ignoring the low warning hiss that he received from the sister of the bunch. "Empty flattery won't get you anywhere with me. You three must be even more imbecilic than I thought, if you think I'm willingly joining you. Torture me all you want. You won't get the location of the key. And you WON'T get me to break."

"Oh, no. All I need are your powers, little one."

He should have taken heed of how the brother was smirking at him, in that moment. He should have held his fucking tongue. But he didn't. "So you're going to kill me. Is that it? Fine. Do your worst. But my brothers will fight twice as hard to avenge me."

"No. I need you in full health to serve me--" And the tentacles curled around his head, twisting, probing. "--but I never said such service would be voluntary. You had your chance to submit, little one. Now, you will be the first to bear witness to the might of Krang."

"Wh-"

It burned. It burned it burned it burned, and he must have been screaming, but somehow he couldn't even get enough air into his lungs to manage that, all he could do was writhe and dry-heave and--he'd thought that when his powers went haywire, the pain was bad, but this was so much worse. He....he had to fight. He had to fight through it and kill this thing, he had to--

He--

What was he fighting for? He felt....stronger. All of a sudden.

He'd always been stronger than the other three.

no. they're Raph, Leo, and Mikey. they're your siblings. you have to remember.

So why didn't he SHOW them that.

NO--

Why didn't he show them how FUTILE it was to resist the Krang? How they could ALL be powerful?

NONONONONO

And if they stood in his way, he could just KILL them. Like he should have done so long ago with the red one.

STOP--

He'd make them PAY for his having to hide away.

st---

[bestworstcase]

slides in. the irony of the shoutout here is i actually don’t think i have ever like, specifically laid out my reasoning i just gesture expansively at it a lot hfhgfg

but!

the whole thing’s really predicated on how i read salem—i think when you say “summer joined salem willingly” what that evokes for a lot of people is this kind of edgy, like, shocking twist evil villain summer, which is obviously absurd; for myself (and i think, most people who are on this train with any seriousness), “summer joined salem” has to go hand-in-hand with “and salem isn’t a genocidal lunatic, her side of this war is about defiance of the gods.” otherwise it’s just nonsense.

so there’s a couple things that Have To Be True, as a baseline. i’m not gonna argue them here (bc we’d be here ALL DAY! and also i’ve talked most of it to death before) but for the purposes of this post these are the necessary presuppositions:

1 - salem’s first priority is to free remnant from rule by the brother gods; if she actively wants to die that is a secondary goal, and while she is willing to accept catastrophic amounts of collateral damage, she isn’t interested in destruction for the sake of it.

2 - her hatred of ozma is grounded primarily in his loyalty to the gods, she understands the huntsman system to be an apparatus of his effort to guide humanity towards redemption, and she is operating under the general belief that A) he does intend to summon the gods himself and submit humankind to their judgment someday, and B) when he does, the gods will use her existence and undiminished hatred of them to justify vaporizing the planet before cooking up some innovative new way to torment her. she Does Not Want This To Happen.

3 - thus, the entire conflict here is two immortal people, neither of whom wants the world to be destroyed, both of whom are convinced that the other one WILL bring about the destruction of the world if given half a chance, locked in fundamental disagreement over how to save it: he’s committed to earning redemption, she thinks redemption is both impossible and oppressive and that rebellion is the only way. her presumable reason for acting NOW is either that she thinks she’s figured out a way to defeat the gods or she saw post-war developments (‘unprecedented peace,’ tightening security around the relics, raising atlas as a symbol of global unity etc) as ozpin preparing to trigger eschaton.

4 - summer got shoved onto the same pedestal that ruby did and subjected to the same sort of pressures with similarly devastating consequences to her wellbeing, and when she took off to hunt salem down by herself, she was experiencing a traumatic breakdown on the level of what ruby’s going through rn.

if all of that is taken to be true, “and then summer joined salem” is… pretty intuitive, i think? because all it really takes is for salem to talk about what her side of the conflict is. and we know that’s more or less exactly how salem recruited hazel, by letting him beat her to death until he keeled over from exhaustion and then getting chatty about her plans to dismantle the huntsmen academies!

like “join me, help me put an end to the system that ground you into the dirt and maybe we can spare your daughters the same fate” is a pretty compelling recruitment pitch to someone who’s been broken down in the way ruby is breaking down now, yeah?

running parallel to that, there’s also just a lot of circumstantial details that if put together start to look suspiciously summer-rose-shaped.

summer’s body was never found; she just never came back. salem’s had somebody stationed at beacon this entire time—and whoever that person is is most likely the one responsible for leaving ruby unharmed when she dragged cinder down from the tower. salem first tried to capture ruby and then, after tyrian screwed that one up, simply made it a standing order that ruby was to be left alive. yang spits venom in salem’s face before identifying herself as summer’s daughter, salem proceeds to… free all of her hostages… and then make not the slightest effort to stop them when they escape. (in fact she has hazel immobilized by the time the kids snap out of their shock and start to run, and she… immediately yeets him in the opposite direction and turns her back on the escapees hghsvxm either the writers idiot balled salem HARD in witch or she let the kids go on purpose.) etc.

and now in V9 we’ve gotten a weapon reveal and glimpses of a new summer model along with her haunting the narrative much more tangibly than before; summer herself is Rapidly Approaching.

ruby’s conclusion that salem grimmified summer also smacks pretty strongly of red herring. the timing for it doesn’t… make sense: summer disappeared over a decade ago, but salem calls the hound an experiment and he truly does seem to be a prototype, so if salem did try to grimmify summer, then she obviously failed and wouldn’t succeed for quite a long time afterwards; ergo summer should be long dead, which at this point she clearly isn’t. ruby also doesn’t have any actual reason to think meeting summer is what sparked salem’s interest in creating the hound in the first place—all she knows is that salem MET summer, and the hound had silver eyes. she’s catastrophizing

(personally, i think it’s a lot more likely that cinder was the prototype for the prototype, so to speak. “graft a grimm arm onto a living person” -> “grimmify a living person” does have a logical sense of progression to it.)

and also generally speaking if a character makes a big declaration like that on very thin evidence in a story, it is… probably not going to turn out to be right, or at least not completely. “summer IS with salem, but not in the way ruby thought” fits that narrative pattern neatly.

and then—lastly—in terms of the broader narrative and how summer working for salem willingly fits into how everything shakes out in the end, salem Can’t Be Beaten. they need to find a way to reason with her. (or vice versa, lmao.) and if summer rose is on salem’s side—the idealized perfect huntress! the mother of two of the main characters! the person who lived the pinnacle of the huntsman ideal and fled from it to join its bitterest enemy for whatever complicated, humanizing reasons she may have had!—then her narrative role is obviously going to involve being a bridge or a point of connection between the two sides.

bc joining salem doesn’t mean she’s wholly evil or no longer loves her daughters or can’t be aching for a better answer than the one salem’s committed to. like this would put summer in a perfect position, narratively, to either be the one reaching out on salem’s behalf or pushing for change from salem’s side, or both, or giving the heroes a compelling reason to try to negotiate, or whatever the case may be. she makes the resolution a lot more possible simply by nature of who she IS to the heroic cast, but that really only works if she’s on salem’s side of her own volition—if she’s been forced or corrupted or mutilated into a hound-like creature, then it’s about Saving Her from salem and negotiating a truce becomes much harder, if not impossible.

Where did this whole Summer joined Salem willingly theory come from anyway?

I'm not sure if there's an earlier source, but I know @bestworstcase talks a lot about it and would be able to explain it more coherently than I could lmao

Scroll through her blog for a bit and you should find her posts about it no problem

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

*submits this and passes out*

HERE IS THE FIRST HALF OF THE FIC THAT HAS TAKEN OVER EVERY LAST ONE OF MY LIFE OBLIGATIONS FOR THE PAST WEEK AND A HALF

I STG I DID NOT MEAN TO GET THIS INVESTED BUT

@ckhalloween22 spoopy season Elimetri for the “monstrous transformations” prompt, as promised!!! Chapter 2 will hopefully be up later this week!

Fun fact: I actually made that moodboard ages ago (like...early 2021??? Purple Hawk did not even exist yet :O) and just never got around to posting it. Mainly because I was planning on posting this long list of vampire/werewolf headcanons to go with it, and I just...was too lazy to, RIP. But now there’s a whole-ass fic to go with it, so it seemed like a good time to post it XD

Spoilers ig that there are in fact werewolves in Chapter 2 lmao

Hopefully this will be on AO3 soon!!! Just gotta like. Recover from binge-writing this entire 14k-word fic in a few days, whoops. Y’all this was originally gonna be a one-shot and then it turned into a MONSTER (no pun intended) and now it’s a two-shot XD

Anyways enjoy the exact kinda angsty nonsense that I have been using as Daydream Scenarios for months now to entertain myself before I go to sleep. I never thought they would leave my head, but here we are.

ALSO @lizziefanconfessions I vaguely remember you saying you liked my vampire!Elimetri content, so. Come get fed!!! Highkey went all out with this one XD

EDIT: Chapter 2 is HERE!

Nocturnal Chapter 1 - Before Daybreak

There’s a strange smell coming from the hallway.

Demetri clutches at the lavish bedsheets. He should feel spoiled, but he knows it’s just another taunt.

He’s willing to bet Terry Silver has 15 identical guestrooms, all lavishly furnished. Each costing maybe 3 thousand dollars—or more.

A reminder that Terry Silver has enough money to do whatever the hell he wants. Even kidnap teenagers. Even…

Demetri’s hand drifts to the sores on his neck. They still hurt like a bitch.

He tastes the air again. There’s so much more than there used to be, and it’s unnerving. Lacquer. Candle wax. Velvet. Carpet cleaner. Marble. Stonework.

The one in the hallway is new, he can tell that much. Different enough from the olfactory default he’s gotten used to. Now if he could just tell what—

He chokes on his breath.

It’s Eli.

He’s not sure how he knows. Perhaps he’s always been able to recognize it, on a subconscious level. But every scrap of his fucked-up body is suddenly certain.

Eli, leave! Just fucking leave! Demetri wants to scream into his bedsheets.

When he screamed at Silver that his friends would come for him, he was bluffing. Always bluffing. He didn’t want any of them anywhere near this place, Eli least of all.

And yet here he was, strolling in on some convoluted rescue mission and about to get himself killed. Or…worse.

Eli’s scent draws closer. Demetri wants to shout a warning, tell him to get out of here…but with dear old Terry’s cronies and guards and henchmen behind every decorative statue, calling attention to his best friend’s presence would be about the most morally reprehensible thing he could do.

A discordant clicking fills the room, and Demetri realizes Eli must be fiddling with the electronic padlock.

It won’t take long to hack. Unfortunately.

The door swings open, and Demetri forgets how much he isn’t supposed to want this.

Eli’s face is glistening with sweat, scar flaring up red the way it sometimes does when he’s out of breath. Long hair—down, undyed—is plastered to his skin.

He must not have wanted to stand out. He must have insisted on being the clandestine part of the operation.

The one who found Demetri.

He drinks in everything about Eli Moskowitz—wiry limbs, track pants, gray jacket, blue eyes, panicked face. All things Demetri was convinced he’d never see again.

“Demetri.”

Eli whispers his name. A tactical maneuver, meant not to alert any hostile presences nearby.

Nonetheless, Demetri gets the feeling Eli wants to shout.

“I—”

There are too many things he wants to say. I missed you. You shouldn’t be here. I just want to hold you. Get the fuck out. I need you. You’re in danger.

“You need to leave,” he manages. He sounds raspy, unsure, and probably desperate. Fucking pathetic.

“Not…without you?” Eli’s brow furrows in confusion. “I’m rescuing you, asshole.”

Demetri shakes his head, eyes wild. “No—no, you have to stay away from me. You have to. You—”

Eli’s scent is overwhelming now. Something vaguely bringing to mind Mrs. Moskowitz pulling fresh-baked hamantaschen out of the oven.

Tantalizing.

And Demetri wants it. All of it.

“You’re not making any fucking sense!” Eli is scowling, and Demetri shoves the hunger down.

He slides off the bed, starting to back toward the wall. “He did something to me,” he gasps out. “Silver. I don’t know what, but now I want—there’s a part of me that wants—”

There’s a part of me that wants to kill you.

He can’t say it out loud. It wouldn’t be his first thought of Eli that never makes it into the spoken world.

“Demetri.” Eli slowly moves toward him, as though approaching a scared wild animal. Not that far off the mark, really. “What happened to you? What did he do?”

Demetri’s back hits the wall. He realizes with a prick of dread that there’s no way to run to the door without Eli intercepting him.

“Please.” His voice is barely a whisper. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Whatever it is.” Eli is as calm as ever—a jarring change from his usual demeanor. “We can figure it out. Just let me get you out of here.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t. I can’t go. Something’s wrong with me. I don’t—I don’t know what I’ll do out there.”

Eli steps closer. Demetri’s about to be cornered.

He knows he’s sick in the head, for letting this happen when he knows the risk.

Eli’s blood could be on his hands. A beautifully, terribly layered statement.

“I’m not leaving until you tell me what he did to you.” Eli’s voice hardens.

Panic sears through him, and he feels like he’s on the verge of collapse. The hunger is hissing at him to pounce, to slice a hole in Eli’s neck…

Shut the fuck up.

Not Eli Moskowitz. He’ll tear through the rest of humanity if he has to, leave a trail of carnage wherever he goes…but he’ll be damned if he ever lays a hand on Eli again.

“Hey.”

Eli doesn’t break Demetri’s gaze. Another step. Demetri holds his breath.

“You think I’m afraid of you?”

Eli doesn’t sound scornful or dismissive when he says it. Not like the way Demetri spat it out in the comic book store, all those months ago.

He only seems worried.

“You should be,” Demetri says. “I’m not the same. I’m not who you remember, I’m just…” He struggles for an appropriate metaphor.

“I’m just corrupted data.”

“That’s not true.” Eli smiles. “I come in here, and not 10 seconds later you’re freaking out and fussing over me doing some reckless shit you’re not cool with. That’s exactly who I remember.”

Slender fingers wrap around Demetri’s wrist, and he gasps.

Eli’s hand is warm. Not in a burning way, but…a cozy way, almost. Like coming inside on a rainy winter day.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Eli says cheekily. “You have a mental breakdown every time your mom puts too much coriander in the shawarma. One time you stepped on Heracles’s tail and prepared an apology soliloquy. Like, ooooh, I am quivering in terror.”

Demetri laughs, and Eli looks at him with a fondness that makes him ache with longing.

It’s then something clicks.

Eli’s close enough to see Demetri’s teeth, now honed to unflattering points. He’s felt Demetri’s skin, which now looks and feels like a bedsheet left by an air conditioner.

He has to know by now what’s going on.

Why is Eli still here? He’s smart enough to run. At least Demetri hopes so.

Eli’s hand slides down his wrist, slowly weaving their fingers together. It’s the type of soft gentleness Demetri hasn’t experienced for a long time.

And it’s enough to make him shatter.

He crumples into Eli and erupts in sobs. His hands knot into gray fabric, clinging to it like it’s the only thing left in the world.

Strong arms wrap around his back, hands tracing circles along his spine. He almost wants to laugh at the irony.

It’s always been Eli who needs this. When the panic attacks or the meltdowns hit, or when the world just gets to be too much, Demetri holds him until he feels safe again.

Now Demetri’s on the inside of it all, frantically trying to stabilize.

“Shhhh. It’s okay.” Eli’s voice slides out in a soothing whisper. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”

Demetri shakes, and Eli holds him tighter. Everything about him is warm and steady and secure, and the anxiety and sheer terror of the last several days finally starts to drain away.

“Please let me take you home.”

Demetri knows he shouldn’t say yes. He nods anyway.

***

“So he held you down and…” Eli trails off.

“Drank me.” Demetri shudders at the memory. “Bit a hole in my neck and started gulping down my bodily fluids like they were Mr. Pibbs.”

“Ew.” Eli scowls at him. “Bodily fluids? Just say your blood, dude. I don’t need that mental image.”

Demetri scoffs, bumping Eli’s shoulder. “Still gross, either way.”

“So…what then?”

He freezes, going rigid as the image of snakelike red eyes boring into him comes trickling back. “He, um…”

A thin arm snakes around his neck, and Demetri feels Eli’s hand on his shoulder. A couple quick squeezes, and Demetri can breathe again.

“I guess I was kind of out of it by the end. My head felt all fuzzy. I remember someone dragged me into that room, and then I started feeling…hungry. And I could smell everything.” He turns, smiling weakly. “I could even smell you coming to get me.”

Eli smirks. “Do I smell good?”

“You smell amazing.” He nudges his friend’s side. “An absolute snack.”

Demetri leans into Eli as he laughs. His hand roams up his chest, clutching at the hand still squeezing his shoulder.

“‘Metri.” Fingertips brush against his neck, and he winces at the sudden pricks of pain. “Do they still hurt?”

He sighs. “Not as much as they did, but…yeah.”

“I can get a cream or something. My mom’s got a whole cabinet full of that shit.”

“I don’t know if it’ll work on undead skin, but I guess it’s worth a try.”

Eli walks out of the room, and Demetri is alone with the moonlight streaming through the window. He reclines on Eli’s bed, letting out a long breath.

It’s 3 am now. At least a few more hours before Demetri has to figure out what the fuck he’s going to do about his mom and Heracles. About his Tech Town shifts. About Miguel and Sam and Chris and Nate and Mr. LaRusso and everyone else who he can’t go near ever again.

That was supposed to be Eli too, but he was a stubborn fucker. Getting a redwood tree to budge would be easier.

He stretches out his arms, and his hand hits something plush. He turns, smiling.

He didn’t notice when he first came in, but Raptor Reynaldo, the stuffed hawk he won for Eli at a carnival when they were 7, is perched on his best friend’s pillow. Demetri spent an hour getting the damn bird out of a claw machine, and he’s been a scowling Eli Moskowitz bedroom presence ever since. Eli got his mom to sew a stupid red mohawk onto Raptor Reynaldo’s head during junior year, and he still hasn’t gotten around to taking it off.

Edgy idiot.

Despite himself, Demetri grabs the bird and pulls him in. It’s nice to have something soft to squeeze. Gets some of the tension out, at least.

Besides, maybe Raptor Reynaldo’s ridiculous new hairdo will pop off and go flying across the room. Perhaps into the garbage.

“Demetri.” A tired voice from the doorway. “Please don’t tell me you added Raptor Reynaldo to your legion of the undead.”

“Mmmm. I tried.” Demetri smirks. “Little hard to suck cotton stuffing, though.”

The bed compresses next to him. “Okay, sit up. I need to put this on.” Groaning, he reluctantly complies.

As Eli coats his fingers in some type of unpronounceable soothing lotion, he looks at Demetri with narrowed eyes. “Are you…are you going to let go of Raptor Reynaldo?”

Demetri scoffs. “Make me.”

Soft fingers brush his neck, and his eyes slip closed. They rub gentle spirals and curls, careful to never press too hard.

Demetri has no earthly idea whether the gel Eli picked is actually helping or not, but his best friend has a warmth that he could drink in forever.

His stomach tightens, arms tensing around the plush hawk. He grabs at his shirt and squeezes, trying to banish the thought of how badly he suddenly wants to grab Eli.

Get the fuck out of my head.

He’d sooner run full-speed into the sunrise than hurt Eli again.

“See if that helps.” Eli’s fingers slip away, and Demetri wilts in disappointment. “You want me to kiss your booboo better?”

“Oh my god, Eli.” The taller boy snorts out a laugh. “What am I, five and a half?”

“You sound pretty offended for someone cuddling a stuffed animal.”

“How could you!” Demetri does his best to sound aghast. “Raptor Reynaldo understands me, Eli.”

“I’m sure he does.”

Before Demetri can process it, Eli is swooping in and pressing warm lips to his bitemarks. The fragility he felt earlier comes rushing back.

It’s almost cruel, he thinks, Eli taunting him with what he can never have now. Not that Eli even realizes he’s doing it.

Tears threaten to leak out of him again. He gathers his resolve and holds them back.

Not twice in one night. He needs to have some standards.

“Fuck.” He leans his head on Eli’s shoulder. He feels he’s allowed that sort of small pleasure, at least. “What do I even do?”

“About…?”

“About everything. What the hell do I tell my mom?! ‘Oh, hey, sorry, I need to drop out of high school, can’t go to college, and have to work graveyard shifts at Ralph’s for the rest of my life?!’ And I know fucking Silver’s up to something, too. Betting he bribes the Hunter’s Guild not to go after him. And now he can tell all his buddies in there that there’s a new vampire on the loose. Oh, boy!”

“Demetri,” Eli murmurs into his hair. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you ever again. You know that, right?”

The scent of Eli—so torturously close—wraps around him. Something dark roils up inside Demetri, like a snake making its way through his intestines.

“I shouldn’t even be here with you.”

His voice is breaking again. Humiliating.

What’s even left to break?

“Says who?” Eli demands.

“Uh, says every piece of vampire lore since the dawn of time? I’m a resurrected corpse with no soul.”

“Like you would ever be cool enough to pull off the ‘resurrected corpse with no soul’ descriptor. You’re like…an anxious zombie with less skin falling off.”

Demetri laughs, and some of the stones in his stomach lift. “Then it makes even less sense why you’d want me around. You can’t get into an Ivy League if I eat your brain, Eli.” He jabs at Eli’s temple, and the shorter boy scoffs.

“Oh, please. You’d spend so much time worrying about eating my brain that you’d never get around to actually doing it.”

If he was wondering before, he’s sure now. Eli has no intention of letting him go.

In better circumstances, he’d be flattered. Ecstatic, even. But as of this moment…

If he wants to run away—if he wants to put as much distance between himself and Eli Moskowitz as possible—he’ll have to do it by himself. If he wants to keep Eli safe, there’s no way in hell Eli’s going to help with it.

Eli’s loyal. He’s stubborn. He’s reckless. He’s an utter pain in the ass.

And when Demetri loses him again, it’s going to gut him a thousand times harder than the last time.

He has to leave. He knows this. Anything less would make him deplorable.

The embodiment of the very monster he’s turned into.

After all, who is he to put his own happiness above Eli’s safety?

“I can get the spare blanket,” Eli says. “You can stay here tonight. We’ll…I don’t know, we’ll watch the Star Wars prequels and make fun of them. Get your mind off shit for a while.”

He uncurls himself from Demetri. As he stands up, Demetri grabs his wrist, pulling him back.

If he doesn’t say something now, he might never get the chance.

“I love you.”

Eli turns, eyes bright with shock. “You what?”

“I love you.” His voice trembles as he repeats it. “And every second, I’m so fucking scared that I’m going to lose my grip on this…thing Sensei Targaryen made me into, and I’m going to hurt you. Or kill you, I don’t know. And it’s destroying me.”

A moment of silence. Demetri feels like a clogged drainpipe about to burst.

Then Eli steps back and sinks onto the bed beside him. Wiry arms wrap around his neck, and Eli presses their foreheads together.

“You don’t have to be scared,” he whispers. “You won’t hurt me.”

“How do you know?” Demetri’s voice croaks as he says it, and he feels another sob rising in his throat.

“Because I trust you. Well, I mean…”

Hesitation. If Demetri still had a heartbeat, it would stop.

“Not with Raptor Reynaldo’s hair—I see you over there, giving it the stink eye. Basically everything else, though.”

Despite everything, Demetri laughs again. How strange, he thinks, to be the one who needs to be distracted from his misery by stupid jokes. Stranger still that Eli learned the tactic from him.

Warmth fills his stomach. All those years of his inane comedy routine to get them through the hellhole of middle school and high school, and it’s the first thing Eli pulls out when he’s hurting.

Then again, how could it be any other way?

Demetri was always the one who looked like he had it together. Making wisecracks, rattling off Doctor Who fan theories, steering lunchroom conversations toward Dungeon Lord so Eli wouldn’t notice people staring. Eli was the one who broke easily, and Demetri was the one who put him back together. And when Demetri’s own defenses finally did give way…

Well, it’s not like Eli was around to see.

And now Demetri’s fraying apart like the world’s flimsiest pipe cleaner, and the only model Eli has to pull him out of the darkness again is the only one he ever saw. The only one he knew, for years and years and years.

Demetri’s.

Something about the thought soothes him.

“You’re the strongest person I know.” Eli’s voice grows serious again. “You never gave up on me when I gave you every reason to. You were the only one who got all the squabbling rival dojo kids to see any damn sense. You see the best in people even when they treat you like shit. And some pony-tailed fuck isn’t going to bite you one time and make all that go away. I’m not abandoning you.”

“But…Eli, I…”

“We can work with this. I know it sucks balls right now, but you’re going to be okay. I’ll make sure you’re okay.”

His eyes blaze, and Demetri chuckles. “Is that a threat?”

“It might be. Don’t make me follow through. I—I…” Eli chokes on his words. “I won’t let that fucking asshole take you away from me. Not now, not ever. Get used to it.”

Eli takes a breath, and Demetri feels it ripple through his entire body.

“I love you too, Demetri.”

Demetri is still processing this when Eli closes the space between them.

Eli kisses like a hurricane—a whirlwind of ferocity and passion and power, and Demetri’s stomach may as well be swirling right toward the eye. The gales are howling in his ear, and he could swear he’s being lifted off the ground.

He’s not sure if vampires can actually do the bat shapeshifting thing, but if they can, he imagines this is what it feels like. Swooping through cool clouds, wind rushing across his small, lightweight body, starlight shining on his wings, a world of sparkling lights below him and eternal stars above.

It’s the best thing he’s ever felt.

Nonetheless, he holds back. He doesn’t give in to Eli’s vigor all the way.

He’s terrified of how far he might go if he does.

So as Eli kisses him like he’s dissolving, he returns it slower—gentle, steady, slightly tentative. His hand slides up, cupping the side of Eli’s face and rubbing his cheek with a cold thumb.

How funny is it, Demetri thinks, to have their old roles so drastically reversed. He remembers again of when he was the abrasive one and Eli was the timid, fragile one.

There’s a thump, and Demetri pulls away to see a stuffed beak glaring up at them from the floor.

Eli lets out a cry of despair. “No! Raptor Rey!”

“Now you’ve done it.” Demetri shoves Eli’s chest playfully. “Look what you’ve done to our only son.”

Eli sticks his tongue out—a tongue that Demetri now knows tastes very nice. A little bit like the Chinese food leftovers he had for dinner.

“You were the one who dropped him!”

Demetri sighs, leaning off the bed and scooping up the stuffed bird. When he puts Raptor Reynaldo back on Eli’s pillow, he pointedly faces him toward the wall.

“There. We don’t need to soil his innocent eyes.”

Eli snorts. “You’re such a fucking dork.”

“Yeah, but you love me.”

It feels strange to say it. Demetri likes the sound of it though.

He scoots across the covers, wrapping long arms around Eli’s waist. Something giddy rises in his chest, briefly overpowering any of the dark impulses still churning around down there.

“You love me,” he says again.

“That’s what I said.” Eli jabs him in the chest accusingly. “What, did Silver bust up your hearing or something?”

He swats Eli’s hand away and pulls him in, stealing another kiss. “You love me,” he hums against his lips.

“Ugh. Don’t let it get to your head.”

Demetri grins. “You love me.” He lets his voice adopt an annoying singsong cadence, and Eli groans. “You love me, Eli Moskowitz.”

He kisses Eli again, and the other boy leans into it. Demetri’s grin grows so big his face hurts.

They slump onto the bed, Eli sprawled on top of him. His arms lock down on either side of Demetri’s waist, effectively caging him in.

Apparently, Eli’s taking precautions to make sure he can’t dart away like a scared rabbit. He wants Demetri to stay that badly.

The thought is strangely flattering, if frustrating.

“You love me,” Demetri whispers in between kisses. Because it’s true. Because he can. “You love me, you love me, you love me.”

If he hadn’t already risen from an early grave, he’s sure he would have died of shock by now.

They end up a tangled mess of limbs and blankets, Eli’s head under Demetri’s chin. He feels Eli trace his chest with one hand and his arms with the other, and for a moment, everything seems like it’s going to be fine.

Demetri kisses Eli’s hair. “I’m sorry I got bloodstains on your hoodie.”

His tears have blood in them now. It’s such embarrassing edgelord nonsense right out of a middle school scene kid’s poetry. Nonetheless, it’s a sad reality he’ll now have to make do with.

Hopefully in a way that doesn’t involve ruining half of Eli’s closet.

Eli only laughs, taking it in stride. “Oh, that? Please. I have like fifteen others just like it. Went out and bought a shit ton when I stopped wearing polos.”

“That’s just as well. You looked a little dorky.” Demetri kisses his head again. “I miss the sweaters, though. Those were cute.”

Eli snorts. “I can’t wear those around you. Do you know how much of a bitch it is to clean blood out of knitted shit?!”

“Well, then, don’t make me cry. Extra incentive to make sure I’m not sad! That, and. You know.” He snickers. “You love me.”

Eli groans again. “God, shut up. Smug asshole.”

He shuffles against Demetri, turning his head slightly. Moonlight glows off his skin, washing it in a sleek silvery-white.

Demetri’s stomach contracts.

Eli’s exposed neck suddenly looks a little too clean. A little too…unmarred.

He shoves the impulse away. Nonetheless, the reminder worms into him, putting the stones right back in his chest.

“It’s dangerous, you know,” Demetri murmurs. “Being with me. Being around me at all.”

“Mmmm, don’t fucking care.” Eli pushes a hand into Demetri’s hair, gently twirling a strand around his finger. “I stole a venomous snake from a zoo, Demetri. I also backstabbed a literal war criminal who could probably make my death look like an accident. And I may have survived rabies. I can handle danger.”

“This isn’t the same.” Demetri shakes his head. “People will hunt me. Maybe…maybe forever. And if they find out we’re together, they’ll hunt you, too.”

Eli scoffs. “Yeah, I know, genius.”

Demetri looks at the boy wrapped around him. Cozy, comfortable, completely relaxed.

Perhaps putting a tad too much faith into Demetri’s Vampire Hunger Regulation Abilities.

He takes a breath. “I don’t know if I’m going to keep being…me. I could still hurt you. Without…without even meaning to or wanting to or anything.”

Eli has no idea what he’s getting into. Not really.

Demetri at least owes him that out.

“I know.” Eli presses into his chest. “But that’s my decision, isn’t it? You can’t make that for me.”

“Maybe not, but you have to know it’s ill-advised to—”

“You’re not getting rid of me,” Eli cuts him off sharply. “Stop trying.”

“Just…if I get worse…” He rubs gentle circles along Eli’s back. “You need to—”

He can’t finish. He should tell Eli to run, but the words won’t come out.

“We’ll worry about that later.” Eli pulls him closer. “Just…let me try and help you. You shouldn’t have to go through this alone.”

“Okay.” Demetri exhales, fingers brushing through light brown hair. “Okay.”

***

A disgusted shout fills the cool night air as Eli’s arm flies over the boat railing. Two bright spoons plummet from his hand, plopping into the starlit ocean.

His eyes lock on them until they sink out of sight, lip curling.

Demetri nervously taps a finger against the railing. “Is that the last of them?”

Eli turns and walks over to the unzipped silverware pack, lying on the deck a few feet away. He crouches down, peering inside.

Demetri can sense his heartbeat slow down a little as he relaxes. “Yeah. They’re all gone.”

He reclaims his spot next to Demetri, staring out at the inky water with a furrowed brow. Demetri inches closer to him, pressing into his shoulder.

He sighs. “You know, Moon wouldn’t like this shameless environmental degradation you’re causing.”

Eli rolls his eyes. “Silver’s a naturally-occurring metal. It’s fine.”

Demetri pulls his lips into an exaggerated pout. “Oh, Eli, the bottom-dwellers are weeping at your disrespect! What, you want the giant isopods to break their teeth trying to eat metal?!”

“If an isopod breaks all their teeth eating metal, I think it’s like…natural selection. The species’ll manage.”

Eli leans into Demetri’s shoulder, and Demetri feels him tense up.

“I couldn’t let that shit anywhere near you.”

Demetri’s hand inches across the railing, finding the other boy’s. He weaves them together in a fluid movement that has become second nature.

“You know I wouldn’t dissolve in a puff of smoke, right?” he murmurs. “I’d probably just get a nasty burn. A little antiseptic and I’d be right as rain.”

Eli grunts disapprovingly. “No one says that anymore. And do you know for sure you wouldn’t turn into smoke?”

“Well, if silver evaporates us, that would’ve been helpful to know earlier.” He throws an arm around Eli and jostles his shoulder, earning a reluctant chuckle. “Someone could’ve chucked one of those $4000 ladles at good old Terrence when he showed up at Mr. LaRusso’s door. Would’ve solved at least half of our problems.”

Truthfully, Demetri shouldn’t have even known what was going on at the LaRusso residence. He should’ve been gone from their lives weeks ago.

But, of course, his attempts to freeze out the dojo have been a resounding failure.

It was easy enough to have his Tech Town shifts “keep interfering” with daytime practice, but people weren’t about to let him get away with bailing on every single social event. The house parties, the game nights, the pool hangouts…eventually nothing short of working 60 hours a week could account for missing all of them.

And by “people” he means Miguel. It was always Miguel.

Another beautiful spectacle of irony, he thinks. That’s twice Miguel Diaz has nagged him not to quit karate…although he likes to believe his reasons are a little better this time around.

Still, the guy missed his terrible puns more than Demetri was anticipating. So to the nighttime events and get-togethers he went, attached at the hip to Eli and wallowing in the strange melancholy of being surrounded by friends who loved a version of him that didn’t fully exist anymore.

“So let me get this straight.” Eli’s voice brings him out of his thoughts. “Terry Silver just…rings Mr. LaRusso’s doorbell, says he ‘hears he’s having vampire problems,’ hands him a box of antique silverware, and then fucks off?”

Demetri shrugs. “That’s what he told me. Sensei Toxic Waste Scandal loves his little mind games.”

Eli wrinkles his nose. “How did he even carry the box without hurting himself?”

“He has minions, Eli. I’m sure they help haul around all the garlic and stakes and crucifixes and anything else he might need to antagonize his many vampire karate rivals. Guy seems good at making enemies, so I’m betting he has at least 15.”

Although Eli forces a chuckle, it quickly gives way to a concerned frown.

“Did Mr. LaRusso know? About you being…”

“Not before that, no.” Demetri sighs. “But it wasn’t exactly hard for him to put two and two together. Me never being out in the sunlight anymore. Only showing up for movie nights and pizza parties. Not eating many of the snacks. Not using that Pizza Hut garlic dip anymore. Making some excuse to leave if someone got a cut. Not…smiling with my teeth for group photos.”

He winces. Eli clutches his hand a little tighter.

“Word gets around.” Demetri shrugs, trying his best to look indifferent. “The whole dojo knows now. Don’t know why they’re still protecting me, to be honest.”

“Because…they care about you?” Eli knits his brow.

“For now.” He lets out a tired breath. “Wait until I accidentally do something creepy, and someone ‘spills’ the garlic dip. I don’t know. They’re going to figure out I’m more trouble than I’m worth.”

“You’re not.” Demetri feels Eli’s thumb brush against the back of his hand, and his skin flutters.

“Not…” He looks away. “Not according to Silver, I don’t think.”

“What do you mean?”

Eli’s voice is suddenly terse with worry—the exact kind of concern that would be much better spent on the land of the living.

“Don’t you get it?” Demetri turns back, giving him a morose look. “That’s why it was so easy to rescue me. He let you. He figured I’d go crazy eventually and try to eat everyone, and then Mr. LaRusso would remember who swooped in like a knight in karate armor and gave him the very MacGuffin he needed to save the day. You know, the…vampiric Excalibur. Good way to get Mr. L in his debt, I guess.”

“But…Sam’s family’s already pretty rich.” Eli sounds dubious. “Don’t they have their own fine silver?”

“It was probably more a symbolic thing. But I mean, who better to know what kind of silver is actually lethal to vampires than…vampires?”

A silence falls over them. Demetri stares down at the lapping waves below, following the curves in the moonlight.

Eli presses closer to him, and he drinks in the warmth.

“He was wrong, though. You haven’t tried to eat everyone. You haven’t touched anyone.”

His voice is soft, hopeful. Demetri can’t stand to crush it.

But he knows he has to.

“Not yet.”

“Do you need to feed again?” Eli’s tone is casual. “Because you know, Sam and I could just scam another blood bank—”

“And is that okay?!”

It comes out with more ferocity than he intends.

“Probably more okay than draining our friends? Or…random people on the street?”

Demetri looks up to see Eli’s lips slightly apart, the way they always are when he’s genuinely confused.

“But people need that for blood transfusions. Aren’t we like…indirectly killing them or something?!”

Eli snorts. “Yeah, well, you also need it to not die. Why are you any less important?”

“Because I’m a blood-sucking monstrosity with evil dagger teeth?!”

“If you’re trying to sell me on how horribly undeserving of life you are, you should stop using the coolest possible descriptors for yourself.”

Demetri rolls his eyes. “Not my fault you’re turned on by everything even slightly morally-depraved.”

“Hell yeah I am.”

Eli brushes a kiss against his cheek. Demetri smiles at the boat railing, the edges of his unease ebbing away.

“Cheer up.” Eli bumps his shoulder. “Mr. LaRusso’s not an idiot. He wouldn’t have given us that box to get rid of if he thought you were gonna go on a rampage.”

“Hmmm.” He squeezes Eli’s hand, trying to push down the growing worry. “Maybe that’s his mistake.”

“I think the only one here who doesn’t trust you is you.”

And just like that, Eli is giving him the doe eyes again.

Curse this kid’s faith in him. There’s no way he deserves it.

Still, he can’t help but be grateful.

He kisses the side of Eli’s head. “Thank you. I love you.”

Another silence passes over them. Demetri closes his eyes, letting himself hear nothing but the ocean and the wind and feel nothing but Eli’s heartbeat.

Steady. Slow. Relaxed. Unafraid.

It’s one of the only things that can calm him these days.

“Nice of Yas to help us rent this boat,” Eli pipes up after a while. “Must’ve had to really pull some strings to get the guys to give it to us at 2 in the fucking morning.”

“And nice of her to check if the silver’s real, too,” Demetri adds. “Growing up in the most bougie part of Encino has its perks.”

Eli glances behind them, and Demetri follows his gaze.

The boat cabin is lit up, giggling trailing out of the windows and weed smoke wreathing through the cool night air. Whatever Yasmine and Moon are doing, the girls seem to be having a lot more fun than them.

“You wanna go upstairs?” Eli asks.

Demetri smiles. “Read my mind.”

His boyfriend shoves him playfully. “Don’t I always?”

He clicks his tongue. “Goes both ways, love. Didn’t need fabled vampiric mind-scanning abilities to get access to yours, though. Memorized the keycode ages ago.”

For a moment, Eli looks thrown off.

“Can you read minds?”

“Ha! No.” Demetri snorts. “I’ve already got the enhanced strength and speed and rapid tree-climbing thing. They had to give us some nerfs.”

“Oh, yeah. Otherwise I know you’d take over the world.”

Eli ducks out from Demetri’s arm and turns to the boat cabin, pulling his boyfriend along.

“You know…” Demetri plants his feet in the deck, gaze straying toward the empty silverware box. He lets out a long, weary breath.

“That won’t be the last time that happens. People are going to keep trying, Silver and whoever else.”

Eli scoffs. “I knew what I was getting into, Demetri. I’m not stupid.”

“I know, but are you sure you want to—”

“Yes, idiot. For the millionth time. I…” His voice cracks slightly. “I meant what I said, you know. The night you got turned. No one fucking touches you. And if they try…”

His eyes darken, taking on a sheen that Demetri used to dread. The kind of No Mercy look that’s still hardwired into him.

“I’ll end them.”

“Oh, I know.” Demetri chuckles. “If I know you, you’ll do your damndest. But I suppose not everyone has a giant karate trophy to back up that kind of claim.”

“Not a bad weapon, either.” Eli smirks. “All else fails, I can smash them over the head with it.”

“Oh, that would be a sight.”

Eli laughs, and Demetri pulls him in. He plants a lingering kiss before smiling against his lips.

“Have I ever mentioned that I love you?”

Every time he says it, he means it a little more.

***

“It’s a terrible idea, Eli!”

Eli rolls his eyes, pulling Demetri out the back door. “Come on, man. I’ve done the math. If we stay on the west-ish side of your house, the sun won’t touch you.”

“But—”

“You haven’t seen sunlight in...what? 3 months now? That’s depressing.”

“Fine.”

Demetri’s loathe to admit it, but it doesn’t turn out to be a terrible idea.

The sunrise is gorgeous, all rich golds and peachy pinks. It glints off his neighbors’ windows and bathes the street’s murky trees in a soft glow.

Of course, Demetri hides behind Eli the entire time, clinging to his arm with pale, freezing fingers.

“See?” Eli weaves their hands together. They’re intertwined more often than not these days. “Told you I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. Like seeing daytime again?”

A deep yearning stirs inside Demetri. His fingers twitch, suddenly wanting more than anything to poke out of the shadows.

He kisses Eli’s shoulder. “Yeah. Thank you.”

They stand in silence for a while, watching the sky go from light gray to orange-rimmed to blue. The yearning only tightens its grip.

Before the change, he never had a preference for day or night. You could watch TV or play Crucible Control or read comics in either. But now…

He realizes he missed the sunshine. He missed the fluffy cotton clouds that he and Eli used to watch at recess, lying on the grass next to the playground. He missed the sound of birds, as much as he once complained about them waking him up at ungodly hours.

Sharp pain seizes his toes, and he jumps back with a hiss.

“Shit.” Eli’s brow furrows. “You okay?”

He sighs, glancing down at where the house’s shadow has started to rescind. “Yeah, yeah. Just wasn’t paying attention.”

“You want to go inside?”

Demetri shakes his head. “We can spare a few more minutes.”

They back up, sitting against the wall. Demetri drinks in the growing morning, wondering how he convinced himself he was content to never see this again.

“Dude.”

Demetri frowns. “What?”

“Are you crying?”

He notices the wet sensation around his eyes a few moments too late. His entire body burns with embarrassment.

“I…” He does his best to sound nonchalant. “…have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Look at me, Demetri.”

“No. Fuck off.”

He feels Eli’s hand on his cheek and swats it away. “Leave me alone,” he grumbles.

Vampirism is already bad enough without him bawling like a 4-year-old because the sky turned blue. As in the color it had been Demetri’s entire fucking life. This is beyond humiliating.

Eli reaches for him again. He turns away, only for his boyfriend’s other hand to slip from his own and shoot up to catch Demetri’s cheek.

“Hold still, moron. People are gonna freak out if they see you leaking blood out of your eyes. They’ll think it’s some shit from The Exorcist and douse you in salt or something.”

Demetri lets out a defeated sigh, letting Eli brush gentle thumbs across his cheeks. “You’d better not use this as blackmail.”

“First of all, I’ve got better shit for that.” Eli pauses to wipe off his fingers on the grass, creating what will inevitably end up looking like a squirrel crime scene. “Second of all, like.”

He gives Demetri a searching look as he continues to gather up the tiny, blood-filled droplets. “It’s okay to be upset about this, man. It sucks. I mean the teeth are badass and I’m kind of jealous, but yeah, I mean…shit’s hard.”

Demetri hums thoughtfully. “You should bribe your dentist to file your teeth into little fangs. What with all the hair dye and the tattoos, what’s asking your parents for a few more hundred bucks?”

Eli laughs, giving him a look so soft that he’s now at risk of crying more. Absolutely unfair, not to mention counterproductive.

At some point, Eli pauses, hands resting on Demetri’s cheeks and scarred-knuckle thumbs in mid-swipe.

“I’m glad your eyes didn’t change,” he says suddenly.

Demetri blinks at him. “Huh?”

“I thought they’d turn red or yellow or something. But they’re still green.”

“Are they?”

He chuckles. He’d wondered here and there how different he looked now, but it wasn’t as though his house’s mirrors were going to be much help figuring that out.

“Yeah, like…” Eli inspects him through narrowed eyes. “Slight gold-ish tint, but that’s it. Thank god. I’ve always liked your eyes.”

Demetri’s face goes hot. “Can you stop saying cute stuff for like…10 seconds? You’re making me too flustered to function.”

“No chance in hell, asshole.”

They settle back against the house wall, fingers entwined again. The morning continues to crawl in, and Demetri knows they’ll have to go inside soon.

Regardless, he’ll drink up every nanosecond of daylight until the time comes.

Demetri takes a long breath.

“I told my mom.”

“What?” Eli turns, eyes wide. “What happened? What’d she say?”

He chuckles. “She was…surprisingly unsurprised. I guess it checks out, her growing up in Orestiada and all. All the folklore and whatnot was right next door. She just never put a lot of stock in it. Woman of science, as you know.”

He smiles weakly. He never knew his dad, but he imagines he has Ms. Alexopoulos to thank for most of his good traits.

“I kind of had to explain why I wanted to drop out of school and get an online GED,” he adds, grimacing. “And even before that, um…well, I couldn’t hide this forever.”

He pulls up his flannel sleeve to uncover a crisscross of burned skin, seared into his upper arm. Eli winces.

“Shit, right. What did you tell her happened that night, anyways? No way you’d come home roughed up and she wouldn’t throw a fit.”

“Said we got jumped by some Cobra Kais. It’s the standard explanation for being a victim of violence in the Valley these days.”

“You’re lucky she didn’t look too much into it.” Eli traces delicate fingers across his skin, brushing over the branded crucifix. “On your bad luck arm, too.”

His right arm. The one Eli broke what seems like a lifetime ago.

“God.” He laughs. “It really is.”

“So is she…okay with it?” Eli bites his lip, giving Demetri’s bad luck arm a small squeeze. “Not just the crucifix burn, but like…everything.”

“Seems like it.” Demetri chuckles again. “She did a garlic purge as soon as I told her. Said she was actually a little relieved because she was worried her skordalia had been really shitty lately. I mean, I told her she could still eat it, but she was adamant that she intended never to touch a clove of the stuff again.”

“So she didn’t disown you, then.” Eli laughs. “Thank god.”

“Well. It’s not like I came home and told her I want to re-decorate our living room to look like Mrs. Hasapi’s. Now that is a disownable offense.”

Eli snorts. “What even is your mom’s beef with her?”

“Oh, none, really. She just thinks her armchairs look like they were unearthed from the local landfill.”

They both laugh for a while, leaning into each other and taking in the neighborhood coming to life. Eli rests his head on Demetri’s shoulder, letting out a small sigh.

“I looked into some online colleges, by the way. They’re not bad. UMass has a pretty good online CS program.”

Demetri doesn’t allow himself to indulge in Eli’s hopefulness.

“Oh, yeah?” he mutters forlornly. “And what tech company needs night watch guys, may I ask?”

Eli shrugs. “You could do contract work. Just charge people independently to fix their shit. Might be a pain in the ass to get customers at first, but you’d probably make bank eventually.”

Demetri purses his lips, thinking.

“I…guess it’s not a completely unreasonable idea. But you know you don’t have to do all that for me.”

“Yeah, I do.” Eli’s thumb rubs along the back of his hand. “I love you, stupid. And you’re too busy moping and crying blood everywhere to do it yourself.”

He beams.

He should be used to Eli loving him by now, but he doesn’t think he ever will be.

***

So I was joking with some friends in a discord server before S5 dropped that maybe the reason Dem wasn’t in a bunch of the trailer scenes was because he got kidnapped by Terry Silver and/or turned into a vampire and can’t be in direct sunlight and then it just kinda. Became a fic. Against my will. Like I do not at all have the time to write this AND YET.

Also, yes, Demetri did indeed fight off his vampire impulses just by being like “hey fuck off” and then they did. And that’s on the power of gay love <3

I am an evil god who loves writing Demetri angsting and having breakdowns because if the show will not let him McFucking Lose It, then I will <3 <3 Peace and love on earth!!! Anyways, if Eli’s a lil bit more gentle with him than usual here, that’s why. Boy is Going Through It to the highest degree.

Enjoy the abundance of “I love you”s here, because these idiots are not going to get there for several more chapters of the road trip fic XD Kinda my first crack at writing Established Relationship Elimetri, but don’t worry!!! There will be angst and drama aplenty!!! I am putting them through horrors >:3

This goes with this, this, and this!!! Most I was able to work into the actual story except for the last one :P Also Raptor Reynaldo is from this post!!!

[teddi-too]

Shadow x Female Reader (NSFW)

CW: NSFW, AFAB Female Reader

Jumping in to writing some original content a bit more, hope you enjoy!

Another long day at the office done, you return home to your empty apartment and flip on the tall floor lamp in the living room.

“Hello, no one, I’m home.” You called to the emptiness. You sigh and remove your shoes and head to your bedroom to change out of your work attire. It was Friday evening and you got paid today so you opted for takeout tonight. Once your favorite meal arrived, you settled onto the couch and dove into your favorite show.

Your Friday nights used to be much more exciting. Evenings out with friends, flirting at the bars, dancing and sweating with handsome strangers. At one point all of your close friends and you were inseparable but one by one they found someone and paired off. Now you were the lone single friend and your Friday nights looked like this.

Sometimes they invited you over for game nights but you were always acutely aware that your presence made the teams uneven and you could only be scorekeeper so many times. So, alone it was.

Dating? You’ve tried it so many times. If one more of your married friends asks you if you’ve tried online dating, you might actually audibly scream. You’ve had no luck clicking with someone. So, you figured, alone might just be your thing whether you like it or not.

Companionship was a thing you could try to numb yourself to through TV dinners and binge watching tv but you had other needs too.

You knew exactly how to pleasure yourself, all your spots to make you writhe and finish. In fact, you had almost become too efficient at it and it just wasn’t the same anymore. You longed for the touch of another. For someone else to be giving you and adding to your own pleasure.

Later, you lay in bed, half heartedly palming your sensitive parts. You sighed, looking up at the ceiling. Moving your eyes around your room before settling them onto the dark corner opposite your bed. As you stared into the dense blackness, you almost thought you could see movement.

The more intensely you stared, the more you were certain you could see discernible features in the shadow.

“Hmmm,” you whined as you dipped your fingers between your slick folds. “Maybe that’s what I need. A ghost? Something I can conjure?” You spoke out loud towards the shadow. You let your imagination run wild at the thought. An otherworldly creature appearing solely to pleasure you.

“I am not a ghost. But I think I could be of assistance.” A voice low, like old creaking wood filled the room. Your heart stopped for a moment then beat so intensely you felt white hot. You froze. The room seemed to suddenly feel full as if you were not alone.

“H-hello?” You managed to squeak out in a voice that was even smaller than you intended. Your back felt damp with sweat against your sheets.

The features of your room were obscured as an opaque black sheet moved over your field of vision. You would think you had absolutely lost your mind except that this...shadow...seemed to have weight to it. You could feel it passing over your feet, then your calves, soon your entire body felt like it was being touched, held.

The touch wasn’t frightening somehow. It was the first time in so long that you felt the beautiful weight of another being on top of your body—even if this being wasn’t human or even solid, it was still comforting.

“What are you? Are you real?” You whispered dryly.

A ripple of cool energy passed over your body.

“Can’t you feel that I am real?” The voice rumbled back. You nodded, unsure of if it could see you or just hear you. “I believe humans refer to us as shadow people. Though our real name can not be comprehended by your kind.”

“Shadows are...alive?” You tried to take everything in. You shivered as your slick cooled on your skin as your attention had been turned away to the situation in front of you. A chuckle emerged from the darkness.

“No, no. We are beings separate from shadows and yet we can hide and move through the shadows of your world. Shadows cannot touch you, I can.” A pulse of cool energy passed over your soft stomach and ghosted lightly over your core. Heat immediately pooled in your abdomen.

Despite all the logic your mind was trying to throw at you to tell you this wasn’t real and wasn’t happening, the aching in your body overpowered. You decided to allow yourself to submit to the situation at hand.

“You can really...do things to me? I mean, do you...want to?” You fell over your words as your heartbeat raced in your chest. An insecure thought popped into your head, me? Really?

“Oh yes, I want you badly. I’ve observed you for quite some time.” The voice creaked and sounded fuller than before, almost lustful. You felt your cheeks flush as you thought about all the times you had pleasured yourself never thinking twice about another presence in the room.

“I….want this too…” you shifted your weight to open up your body a bit more, unsure what this shadow might have in mind.

“I can and want to do so many things to you. Who do you want?” It breathed over you.

“W-what?” You breathlessly reply, trying to steady yourself to listen to its question.

“Hmm, have you ever noticed when you look for too long into a shadowy room you can sometimes see a face in the darkness?” You nodded. “Who do you want me to be? I can make myself look like anyone...anything” the deep voice cracked through the static feeling of the air. You thought just for a moment, a few faces from your past flashed through your mind.

“No one.” You finally answered. The shadow swirled over you, a concentrated feeling cupping your face almost like caring hands reaching to support you.

“No one?” The shadow repeated back. You sighed.

“There’ll be no one in the morning, so there should be no one now.” You hoped you had hidden the tired sadness in your voice. The energy over your body shuddered and receded slightly. Tears stung at the corners of your eyes. “Please, I-“ you moved your hands down your torso, tracing your soft skin, reaching towards your sensitive spot that was begging for the pressure to return.

You halted your movement when a tendril of energy pressed across your lips. The sensation was warm and somehow wet like the tongue of a lover asking for entrance. Your mouth fell open without thought.

“I wish you could understand how beautiful you are.” The voice rumbled and the shadow engulfed your mouth in a kiss. That’s the only way you could describe it. No discernible mouth or tongue or chin, just darkness but you could feel it all. You returned the kiss with equal passion and the warmth that was pooling in your core previously started to unravel you again.

As you continued your deep passionate kiss, a dreamy light pressure settled on your breasts, making your nipples harden and your back arch just slightly. You let out a soft moan assuring the shadow that it was touching you perfectly. As the shadow massaged your breasts, teasing and pulling your nipples, you slowly rolled your hips hoping to feel more pressure down there.

You were so wet the movement of your hips caused a cool drop of slick to rub on to your inner thigh. You clenched your thighs together, squeezing your sensitive area and giving you some much needed relief. You broke the kiss, gasping for air and reached out into the darkness. Your hands were enveloped in a now familiar cool, tingling pressure.

“I need you...there-uuungh” your plea was interrupted by your own whine of pleasure as the “tongue” you felt earlier on your lips began to glide over your slit. You shook out the disruptive thoughts in your head that were trying to figure out how the hell something incorporeal could give you this intense physical pleasure and tried to let yourself just enjoy what was happening.

The shadowy tendril pressed into your folds and moved upwards from your entrance to your pearl achingly slow. It repeated the movement, wide, equal pressure a few more times before settling over your most sensitive spot. The tendril moved around the bundle of nerves with such incredible deftness, you could already feel an orgasm building. You whined and moved your hips simultaneously wanting more and not knowing how much more you could handle.

Without losing any pressure on your bud, you felt something hard resting against your entrance. Energy danced along your entire body, it was almost as if the shadow was as excited for this part as you were. What felt nearly like a hand grazed longingly across your cheek, as if it sought permission for this next development.

You nodded your head wildly and let out a loud moan. You were already starting to feel over stimulated between the “hands” still teasing your breasts and the “tongue” on your clit. You were fairly certain all it would take is the shadow pushing into your entrance to make you come. Still, you needed it. Needed it inside you. Your dripping entrance needed to be filled and full like every other part of you felt just now.

The shadow seemed to hesitate, seated at your entrance. You pushed your hips down, pushing the shadow just barely inside you, ghosting your inner walls. Your jaw tightened as you tried to relax your body. The shadow finally pushed into you and it created a sensation that was hard to describe. It felt like a cock pushing into you except that the size seemed to change when it was inside you. It moved in to you and felt big at your entrance but not painfully so. Once inside of you, it seemed to grow to fill you perfectly, like it was made to fit inside of you and only you.

The shadow pressed inside of you slowly and finally stopped. You instinctively pushed your thighs out on either side of you to open yourself up as much as possible. The feeling inside you was perfect though you did feel a bit exposed. You missed feeling the weight of someone’s body pressed firmly against your pelvis.

“Shadow…I want to feel you against me….is that...can you?” You tripped over your words. Shadow was giving you every sensation you could dream of but you still ached for the feeling of another body against you. You felt the pressure that was playing at your breast dissipate and a feeling of fullness, of weight settled against your hips. Suddenly the immense “cock” within you felt as if it were connected to a body.

“Like this?” The shadow asked, you swear the voice sounded bashful. A breathy moan was all you could manage as you shifted your hips to feel the weight against you once more. With that, shadow began to move its “hips” in and out of you. The size of the appendage changed to keep you stunningly full all the time while still giving you the sensations of movement you needed.

Your orgasm was building again and you knew you couldn't stave it off and prolong these sensations any longer if you tried. Every nerve ending in your body was screaming with pleasure and your body was heating up white hot. Shadow snapped its hips into you deeply once again and a scream tore through your throat. Your orgasm crashed against you, your walls spasming, your back lifting off the bed.

Shadow never stopped its movements as it did everything it could to your body to help you ride the sensation out as long as possible. As you were beginning to catch your breath, you ground your hips down on to the mass inside you hoping to return the wonderful sensation you’d been given, unsure if the shadow could even experience something like an orgasm.

The energy all over and in your body flickered and receded for a flash before expanding even larger and making your body tingle all over. It felt electric and strong and you forgot to breath for a moment as you let the static wash over your body.

Then the feeling receded completely and you were left lying on the bed alone, covered in your sweat and slick, panting. It would maybe feel lonely on a different night but you felt so completely fulfilled you couldn’t help but smile.

“Does that mean it was good for you, too?” You called out to the empty room. Movement caught the corner of your eye and you stared into a corner of your room where the darkness looked particularly dense. A low, gravely chuckle filled the room and moved over your skin.

“You know, that was the first time I-with a human...I mean, I could do better next time.” The voice responded. You pushed yourself up to sit on the bed.

“Better than that?” You asked.

“Oh yes.” Your core tightened just at the thought. It was the first time in so long that you didn’t feel lonely. In fact, you felt excited about the possibilities your connection with this shadow presented.

“You’ll come back again?” You asked with a tinge of hopeful uncertainty in your voice. The room darkened, filling up with the intense shadow.

“As often as you’ll have me, beautiful human.”

[invisibleanonymousmonsters]

Father of Mine – 2/2

Character: Bruce Wayne x Daughter!Reader

Summary: With the tragic passing of her mother, Y/N learns to the truth of who her father is.

Word Count: 4,100+

Warnings: absent father, subtle violence, mention of family death

A/N: The reader is described as tall in this fic. Bruce Wayne is 6′2 and I’m tall, so I’m indulging myself with no apologies. Read it or don’t.

Part 1

Bruce was working in the cave when Alfred interrupted him.

“Master Wayne, a guest has arrived unexpectedly.”

Bruce gave him a strange look. Hardly anyone showed up to the manor unannounced.

“Ms. Y/L/N,” Alfred added.

“Right,” Bruce sighed.

“She’s waiting for you in your office.”

Bruce found Y/N pacing in the room, refusing to take the seat that he was sure Alfred offered her.

“Y/N,” he greeted, remembering how she disliked the formalities last night.

She whipped around at his greeting. “Am I your charity case now?”

He feigned confusion. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”

She looked offended by his lie. “Don’t insult my intelligence. You paid all of my outstanding expenses that my mother left me.”

Bruce opened his mouth.

“Don’t try to lie to me,” she warned.

Bruce closed his mouth.

“Look, I don’t need your help,” Y/N sighed in obvious irritation. “Did you or did you not pay them?”

He took in a shallow breath, “I did.”

Y/N clenched her jaw as Bruce finally admitted his deed.

“I was only trying to help.”

“You can’t just throw money at me and expect it to make up for being a no-show.”

Bruce tensed. 

Did that mean…Did she know?

“You read the letter?” He asked.

“No,” she clarified. “But I figured it out.”

“I had no idea,” he tried to tell her.

“I don’t care,” she almost snorted.

“You have ever right to be angry with me…”

“I’m not angry. I’m annoyed.”

She took a defiant step toward him and crossed her arms.

The heeled boots she had on caused her already tall height to make her be eye to eye with Bruce. 

How many people had faced off with Batman and cowered with fear? 

But she didn’t submit or show any signs of intimidation.

“Do you think I cried myself to sleep every night as a child, wondering where my dad was or why he didn’t want me?” Y/N hissed.

Bruce didn’t respond.

“You think I give a fuck about the father-daughter dances? Or whatever the hell people think dads are only capable of doing?” She narrowed her eyes. “The thing is…I didn’t need you. I didn’t need you then and I don’t need you now.”

Bruce felt sick as he listened to her.

“I have the sneaking suspicion that you wouldn’t have been there for those anyway,” she added roughly. “My mom loved me more than enough. I didn’t need anyone else. And she made damn sure of that.”

“So I’m not your charity case to make yourself feel better after my mom made it clear she thought it was better to keep me from you, than to ever tell you that I existed. Says a lot about what kind of person she thought you are, huh?”

When Y/N finally stopped, she was taking deep breaths.

Bruce wondered how long she had that all bottled up. He didn’t think anything she said was a lie. Y/N didn’t need him. That had become clear.

She had grown up to be a successful, intelligent, and independent young woman.

And she got that way without a father figure of any sort.

After a few moments, Bruce finally bowed his head and cleared his throat. “I never intended on making you feel like a charity case.”

Bruce saw as Y/N took in a deep breath and the guilt slowly took over her expression.  

“Look,” Y/N sighed, “we finally know the truth. Let’s just…let’s just move on with our lives. OK?”  

Bruce couldn’t deny that the suggestion hurt.

After processing the news over the past week or so, he realized he wanted to get to know her. This wasn’t the first time a child of his had been dropped on him far too late. He had failed Damian in so many ways because of it. 

But Y/N was a young woman, fully developed and independent now. And Bruce couldn’t help but wonder that him being absent from her childhood had only benefitted her.

“If that’s what you want,” he finally told her.

Y/N didn’t know him well enough to hear the underlying pain in his words.

So she simply nodded and walked past him, having nothing more to say.

——————

Bruce adjusted his tie. He wanted nothing more than to rip it off his neck.

But he was on his best behavior tonight.

This year, the Gotham Gazette was given the honor of hosting the Pulitzer Prizes. And since Bruce and Wayne Enterprises donated quite a large sum of money to the Gotham Gazette, they felt inclined to invite him.

Bruce had every intention of skipping, until he found out that Lois Lane was receiving an award and Clark would also be attending.

He figured the least he could do was congratulate her and say hi to both of them.

That’s why he was trying to find them as soon as possible so he could and get the hell out of there.

Bruce finally spotted Clark talking to a woman whose back was to him. All he saw of her was the black dress and y/h/c hair. 

He made his way over.

Clark noticed him when he was a few feet away.

“I see you’ve finally left your cave,” he teased with a lift of his brow. “I honestly didn’t expect you to show.”

But when the woman Clark was speaking to turned to look at him, Bruce swore he felt his heart stop.  

Y/N’s eyes widened slightly, clearly just as surprised at seeing Bruce.

None of this went missed by Clark. “Oh, do you two know each other?”

Bruce didn’t know how to respond. What would Y/N want? 

So he hesitated.

“I shot him for a cover once,” Y/N answered quickly.

She was a shockingly smooth liar.

Maybe she got that from Bruce, too.

But she didn’t realize that Clark could hear her heart rate quicken, catching the fib.

“And how exactly do you two know each other?” Bruce asked, recovering quickly.

“Y/N works with Lois a lot,” Clark answered. “She basically refuses to work with any other photographer.”

Y/N managed to force a smile.

“I should actually go find her and say my congrats,” she answered. 

“And I need to hunt down a drink,” she mumbled. 

Both men caught it.

Clark was rather taken aback by how she fled.

The Y/N he knew was always charming and kind, usually life of the party. He’d never seen her dodge a conversation in such a way before.

As soon as she was out of hearing range, Clark gave a intimidating glare to Bruce.

“Want to tell me what that was about?” He asked Bruce.

But Bruce only clenched his jaw.

“Past fling?” Clark asked with a somewhat disappointed tilt of his head.

“No. Nothing like that,” Bruce quickly corrected.

Not only did the idea make him feel sick. But if rumors started of the two of them being romantically linked, Bruce knew it would only make Y/N hate him more than she clearly already did. 

Thankfully, Clark took his denial seriously.

“She’s not my biggest fan,” Bruce added darkly.

“Y/N is a good friend,” Clark told him – almost in warning. “Lois and her have become rather close over the years.”

Then Clark smirked. “She does know how to hold a grudge though. And she’ll make your life hell...if you deserve it.” 

Bruce’s brain hurt as he realized how easily Y/N and his path’s could’ve crossed. She had been friends with Clark and Lois this whole time?

“I’m happy for her,” Clark added.

“Happy for her?”

Clark looked at Bruce as if it was obvious. “She’s being awarded tonight, too.”

How could Bruce not have realized? Why didn’t he think of looking at the list of people being awarded tonight? He’d been dreading attending so much that he didn’t even consider it.

“Bruce?” Clark asked with concern.

“Hmm?” He was not one to hum or mumble.

“You alright?”

Bruce didn’t have a lot of friends.

But Clark Kent was one of them. And him and Diana had noticed how Bruce was acting off for weeks now. Bruce was notorious for remaining stoic and giving nothing for people to try and guess what he was thinking or feeling. But they both knew it was something different. 

Someone over Bruce’s shoulder suddenly waved Clark over.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Clark told Bruce politely.

Bruce’s first instinct was to leave now that he knew Y/N was also in attendance.

But he knew he couldn’t act so cowardly.

Was he really that scared of his own daughter?

His eyes glanced around the room looking for her.

He spotted Y/N at one of the bars.

Either her conversation with Lois had been quick, or she simply used that as an excuse to get away from Bruce.

Bruce walked up beside Y/N at the bar.

He knew she felt his arrival by the way her body tensed.

“Had I known you would be here I would not have attended,” he told her while looking straight ahead.

Y/N ignored his apology. “How do you know Clark?”

“He’s a friend,” Bruce answered casually.

Then he allowed himself to take a sideways glance at her.

Her jaw was clenched.

He wondered what thoughts she was holding back.

Y/N really did remind him of her mother.

When they were together, Bruce was convinced she was the prettiest girl in the world. He wondered if Y/N had found someone in her life who told her the same.

“Congratulations on being honored tonight,” Bruce offered sincerely.

“Thank you,” she answered shortly.

A beat passed between them.

Bruce was about to give up and leave her be.

“Does Clark think I’m one of your one-night stands now?”

Y/N might not know Bruce well, but everyone was familiar with his romantic history. He wasn’t one to keep the same woman around for long. 

“No,” he quickly answered. “I made sure to prevent such a rumor from starting.”

Y/N finally slowly turned to him, her annoyance clear. “And you’re convinced that he really believed you?” She asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes, Clark has always been rather good at detecting a lie.” His tone was so confident that it left little room for argument.

But Bruce knew a losing battle when he saw one.

He dipped his head. “Enjoy the rest of your night. Congratulations again.”

But Bruce lingered, debating if he wanted to say what was on my mind.

“You look very beautiful. Just like your mother.”

There was nothing creepy or contrived about it.

Y/N blinked at the compliment, completely taken aback.

“Goodnight, Y/N.” Bruce dipped his head and finally surrendered, leaving the party.

Y/N felt a presence behind her shoulder as he watched him leave.

“Was Bruce Wayne just hitting on you?” Lois asked with amusement.

“No. Not at all,” her tone was dazed and confused.

“He’s a good guy,” Lois told her lightly.

“Doubt it.”

“I mean it,” Lois insisted. “The media has given him a bad image. But I think he likes it that way,” she shrugged. “It’s not easy for him to open up. He’s not quick to trust.”

Lois thought she was building up a possible suitor for Y/N, having not a clue that she was describing Y/N’s father to her.

But Y/N was too busy thinking about how much Bruce sounded like her.

—————

A few weeks had gone by since Bruce and Y/N had run into each other at the ceremony.

It got Bruce to thinking: would he and Y/N had run into each other at some point in life – even without her mother’s posthumously confession?

Y/N knew Lois and Clark, lived in Gotham, seemed to know the same people through her work that Bruce was forced to interact with to keep up his persona.

Would he have sensed a connection had that been the case?

The possibilities kept Bruce up at night…along with the guilt that had already been eating away at him since he first read the later. And he’d read it 100 times more since.

Of all the boys, Dick was the only one that knew of Y/N’s existence. And if he hadn’t been at the right place at the right time, Bruce never would’ve told him. He had just been in shock after reading the letter that he blurted out the realization while Dick was in the same room.

Since then, Bruce didn’t linger in a room alone with him, knowing Dick would finally let all of his questions loose. And Bruce wasn’t ready to answer them.

While Tim was the one to connect them, he never followed through with what the situation was. He already had too much to deal with on a daily basis. Tim simply thought he was doing a nice favor for a beautiful woman. 

But if Bruce had told him, Tim would immediately do every possible background check on Y/N. He would be suspicious of the timing and underlying motives. He would probably assume that Y/N’s end goal was to get money or fame – or both. Bruce knew eventually Tim would come to the conclusion that Y/N wanted neither of those things. But it would still get an unnecessary rise out of the boy.

Bruce didn’t even want to think about how Damian would handle it. He knew his son felt a certain level of pride from being the only blood-son of his. Knowing he had a sibling – and an older sister at that – would most likely enrage him. And that wouldn’t make anything better. 

Jason…Well, Jason would get a kick out of Bruce letting down yet another child. And it would just be worse that she was blood related. He’d be curious about Y/N. Hell, he’d probably be tickled by the no-bullshit attitude Y/N had towards Bruce and her harsh efforts to keep him out of her life completely.

Now, Bruce sat at a Justice League meeting.

They were only a few minutes into a council session when his communicator started going off.

The boys knew not to contact him unless it was an emergency. So, he quickly excused himself and stood to leave the room.

“What is it?” Bruce answered, his Batman voice in full form.

“There’s been an attack at city hall,” Dick reported back hurriedly.

Bruce frowned. The boys had handled much worse things on their own before. There had to be more to it than that.

“Scarecrow,” Dick confirmed. “He released a fear toxin. It’s bad Bruce. The mayor has been infected, along with half of their staff. I think it’s a new string. Our antidote doesn’t seem to doing anything. Even if it did, we don’t have nearly enough for the amount of victims.”

“The others?” Bruce asked quickly – meaning Damian, Jason, and Tim.

“They’re fine. Jason’s trying to get everyone out before they inhale too much. Tim and Damian went after Scarecrow. GPD is in a panic.”

Bruce turned to see Clark had raced to his side. Clearly he had been eavesdropping on the conversation. But the expression in his face prevented Bruce from getting into an argument about it.

“What?” Bruce asked him, knowing something was wrong.

“Lois and Y/N were at that council meeting,” Clark breathed out.

“We’ll be there soon,” Bruce told Dick before hanging up.

—

Bruce thought he knew fear from the few times his boys had been in trouble. But it was nothing compared to the fear he had knowing it was Y/N this time. She wasn’t a trained vigilante; she was just an innocent civilian. Bruce had not insured that she was trained and could take care of herself.

As soon as Clark dropped them on the ground, they were in the midst of the chaos.

“Lois!” Clark yelled.

People were too distracted to notice Superman and Batman had arrived.

Bruce looked over to see Lois rushing to Clark. He could tell it took all of Clark’s willpower not to embrace Lois from his relief.

“Are you OK?” Clark asked as he dipped his head and his eyes raced across his wife’s body.

“I-I’m fine. I got lucky. Somehow I was out of range of the gas explosion.”

“Y/N?” Bruce interrupted. “Did you see Y/N?”

“She was helping these kids get out and I was getting shoved out of the building. I tried to get to her but it was impossible with everyone’s panic. I think she’s still in there.”

Before Bruce could turn to Clark to come up with a plan, Clark flew into the building. A few people finally noticed the presence of superheroes and started murmuring.

“Nightwing, Red Hood – I’m at the front entrance of City Hall.”

Clark flew back to them not even 30 seconds later.

Y/N was unconscious in his arms.

“Oh my god,” Lois muttered at Y/N’s condition.

“She’s gone into shock. We need to get her to the medics,” Clark informed them. “She was exposed to the toxin more than the others.”

But Bruce was already shaking his head. “They won’t be able to help her.”

Clark gently handed Y/N to Bruce as he explained, “There are others in there.”

Just then Nightwing and Red Hood dropped in front of them.

Nightwing immediately recognized Y/N and his eyes shot up to Bruce with worry.

“Nightwing, I need you to take her back to the cave,” he tried to sound as controlled as possible.

Bruce was confused why Dick hesitated to take Y/N out of his arms.

“Do you have the batmobile? I brought my motorcycle,” Dick sounded apologetic when he explained.

Jason stepped forward before Bruce could answer. “I got her.”

As if she were the most fragile being ever, Jason carefully took Y/N’s unconscious body from Bruce’s grip. He could see in Bruce’s gaze that she was someone special. How and why, Jason would figure out later. 

Jason had seen Y/N trying to help as many people before she was completely poisoned from the toxin. She’d risked her life to help. 

Watching Jason cradle her into his body caught Clark off guard, always seeing the brute strength and almost animalistic energy from Red Hood whenever they so happened to fight beside each other.

“Meet us at the cave,” Bruce clarified. “Alfred will know what to do. We have to help out here more.”

Jason nodded before he hurried away with her and rushed to his hidden car.  

——————

Y/N’s eyes snapped open and she shot up, sitting in a cot.

“Hey, hey, hey,” a voice she didn’t recognize said beside her. “You gotta relax.”

She turned to see a mammoth of a man sitting beside her, wearing vigilante gear with at least two guns being displayed at his sides. But it was the red helmet completely hiding his face and true voice that made Y/N feel uncomfortable.

“What the fuck,” she groaned at the sight of him.

Just a few seconds later, two men rushed into the room.

Bruce walked in still in his Batman uniform, but without his cowl – to Jason’s shock.

Clark was beside him, making Jason confused as to why he was still here. Surely he would want to be with Lois. 

Y/N took in the sight before her.

“You were poisoned with a new strand of Scarecrow’s toxin,” Superman explained.

Y/N had seen plenty of pictures and shaky video of him. But now that the man stood before her, she immediately recognized him.

“Clark?” She gasped.

He didn’t say anything. But his expression didn’t fight her realization, just silently waited for the truth to settle.

“Does Lois know?” Was her next question.

Clark smirked at that. “Of course.”

Y/N gave a slight nod.

But now her attention switched to Bruce. 

The Batman symbol was large across his chest, and his cape was still intact.

She looked around her surroundings and then up at the ceiling.

They were in a cave.

“You’re…you’re…” she couldn’t finish her sentence.

“Batman,” Bruce finally offered.

Y/N’s eyes were wide with panic.

How was this possible?

Now that the others had exposed their identity, Jason felt inclined to take off his helmet. Clearly, it was making her uncomfortable.

The hiss of his helmet being removed caused Y/N to finally look away from her father and to Jason, who still wore a domino mask. But it was far less frightening than the helmet.

“We’ll give you two a moment alone,” Clark spoke for both him and Jason.

Jason nodded and stood up from the seat beside Y/N, and walked out. 

Clark lingered in the doorway. “I’ll be right outside if you need me,” he told her.

He might’ve revealed his Superman identity to her, but she was still his friend.

Y/N managed to nod in thanks, but was clearly still shook by all this news.

Bruce very slowly made his way to the chair that Jason had just been sitting in.

“How are you feeling?”

She shook her head. “Body’s sore. Migraine is killing me. What happened?”

“You were more exposed to the toxin more than the other victims. Jason brought you here. We had to make a new anecdote, and quickly.”

Bruce wanted to add that she could’ve died. But he didn’t see the use in scaring her.

“Oh,” was all she managed to mumble.

An awkward silence settled between them.

“Very few people know the truth about me,” Bruce explained.

Y/N’s gaze flickered up from her lap to look at him.

“I don’t expect you to forgive me. But I figured I couldn’t ask you to allow me into your world if I didn’t allow you into mine.”

She was silent.

“Y/N…” Bruce cleared his throat. The time had come. “The reason I left your mother was because I was starting this life. I pushed her away to protect her. I knew I couldn’t be the man she deserved while also being Batman. Had I known the truth…”

His words died out. It was starting to become harder to control his emotions.

He leaned forward in his chair, just getting slightly closer to her.

“Had I known about you, I would’ve…” He cleared his throat to try and hold back his tears. “I never would’ve abandoned you or your mother.”

He leaned back then. “But I know those are just words. And to you, they probably sound like empty promises for the past.”

“She never knew?” Y/N whispered.

In the few moments she was allowed to process this information, her mind immediately wondered if her mom had known about Bruce’s double life all along. And that’s why she kept him away from her.

Bruce shook his head.

“Thank you…for trusting me enough to tell me your secret,” Y/N finally told him. “I promise I’ll never tell anyone,” she quickly added, feeling like she just needed to clarify that to him.

He gave her a small small, “I know.”

Y/N winced as she thought about how terrible she’d been to him all this time. Now that she knew the truth – the whole truth – she was looking at everything with a new perspective. Even what she knew about Bruce Wayne, the spoiled socialite... it was clearly all wrong. 

He used it as a cover. It was all a cover.

“I’m sorry for how I’ve treated you,” she whispered shakily.

But Bruce shook his head before she could even get the apology out.

“Do you think it’s too late for us?” She breathed. 

Could they ever find any fragment of a father-daughter relationship?

Y/N was an adult – she had been for years now. And she made it clear she didn’t need nor want a father.

“Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time this has happened to me,” Bruce sighed.

Her brow furrowed. “This meaning…?”

“My son, Damian. His mother kept him a secret from me. She didn’t reveal his existence until he was nine. And she only did it in an attempt to disrupt my life.”

“This seems to be a rather strange pattern in your life,” Y/N couldn’t help but point out.

Bruce glared at her, causing her to chuckle.

“My point is,” he continued, “I don’t think it’s ever too late.” And he cleared his throat quickly. “That is, if you want to try.”

“I think I do,” she answered with a shy smile.

It was the first time she’d done so in his presence.

“I don’t know anything about raising a daughter,” Bruce rubbed his face as he attempted to make the joke. But she could tell there was sincerity there, too.

“Well, I’ve already been raised,” Y/N laughed.

There.

That laugh.

It brought Bruce back to his teenage years. It sounded so much like her mother. Her face lit up just like her’s had.

“You remind me so much of your mother,” he gasped.

Her face dropped at his confession.

“Really?”

He nodded. “She said you were just like me. But there’s more of her in you than I think she ever realized.”

Bruce saw his much his words effected her.

Y/N’s eyes were shiny with tears, but she managed to hold them back.

“So what now?” She quickly asked, obviously trying to distract herself so she wouldn’t have a complete emotional breakdown.

“Well, Alfred should have dinner ready soon. Would you stay?”

She gave him a tear-filled smile. “I’d like that.”

“You can meet the rest of them,” Bruce told her casually as he stood.

“The rest of them?”

He nodded. “Well, you only have to meet Damian now. You already met Jason, Dick, and Tim in passing.”

“And here I thought you had no idea how to be a father…” Y/N muttered with amusement.

Bruce helped her get out of bed, making sure she was alright to stand and walk on her own.

“Well, depending on which of them you ask, they might tell you that you’re right.”

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

Thank you to everyone who read the first part. Let me know what you think <3

BONUS: This Game of Ours

[jincherie]

important; please read

hello everyone! long time no see! to be perfectly honest, I'm pretty ashamed at how long it has been since I have tended to this blog.

To cut a pretty long, convoluted story short: this past year has not been good to me.

In fact, I could argue that as it went on, it just got progressively worse. My mental health has taken the biggest blow it ever has in my life, and to be honest that makes me a little ashamed because I thought I would be able to handle myself better after how harshly it suffered when I was living with my mother. The culprits are anxiety, stress, and the somewhat-recent diagnosis of ADHD and a mood disorder that throws me into depressive bouts every so often. I have always been easily overwhelmed, but this past year it feels like that has been the only way I have lived.

My room hasn't been truly clean in over a year; I'm constantly drowning in clutter both literal and figurative because I'm so overwhelmed I don't even know where to start sorting it out and tidying it up. My grades have suffered, my body has suffered. As I write this I am also writing a 'show cause' response for my university because I haven't made satisfactory progress through my degree and if it continues the result will be expulsion. fun!

This is probably oversharing, but to be honest everyone here has supported me so much, so long, that I think you deserve to know what's been going on behind the scenes.

I did start to get a little bit better around the start of the year, actually. But that progress went down the drain faster than it was made due to the unfortunate combination of emotional distress caused by my mother being herself, one of my much loved family pets passing away out of nowhere, and my grandmother having a number of heart incidents only for the last one to lead to the discovery of something cancerous on her lungs. I am not having a good time.

I am so fucking ashamed of myself for letting things get so bad, despite the admittedly little control I had over it. I have still so many things I want to write and finish and so many ideas that I wish I could just will into existence that it's not even funny. I want to continue to write and create without having this tremendous stress hanging over my head all the time. I can't even think about writing on a good day without feeling so damn guilty because there's so many things I need to write, and so many other things in my life that I also need to be doing. It's overwhelming.

I am at the point where I have to acknowledge, however, that I cannot keep up the lifestyle I used to and I need to put more priority into certain parts of my life. And so, I need to announce a few things.

I will be going on indefinite hiatus for the time being.

This will be my first official hiatus. I intend to continue my writing at some point, however it's not something I will be able to even think about doing until my current semester is finished and I have some control back over my life.

I will be refunding all commissions received that have not been completed and posted.

this is something I should have done a while ago, but I didn't want to hand the towel in because I wanted so badly to write the wonderful things that were submitted as commissions. I wanted to show my thanks for the support given to me, and above all else I didn't want to disappoint. However, as a result I probably ended up disappointing you all even more.

To those who commissioned me and didn't end up receiving the goods that you paid for in a timely manner, I sincerely and wholeheartedly apologise. In all honesty, I feel so fucking awful that it almost makes me sick. It was never my intention to take your commissions without fulfilling my end of the transaction for so long, and for the fact that it ended up that way I cannot apologise enough. It has broken the trust you had in me and I don't think I will stop beating myself up about that for a while. You who supported me so willingly deserve better than the way this ended up.

Those who commissioned me, please message me your paypal details and how much you paid -- please send it to @jooniecherie. I will be refunding the money as soon as I see the message. Again, I can't apologise enough for making you wait so long.

There are a number of commissions that I started and are part-way completed. I will be endeavouring to complete these and post them after my hiatus, but those who commissioned them will still be refunded.

Ultimately, I am so incredibly sorry that my own personal issues and struggles have bled out to affect others in such a way. A number of you have worried about me and checked in, and for that I am eternally grateful. I'm fine without really being fine, if that makes sense? But I'm grateful for the support I've gotten over the years, and I'm sorry I haven't been able to live up to expectations. I hope to do better, but first I need to heal myself and my life.

Thank you for reading this. I sincerely hope that you're all doing better than me, and I hope it won't be too long before I'm updating you all again. <3

[where-theres-smoak-2]

Darkling raised his hand was he going to kill Alina? After she gets her power back and stabs his hand. Right before Mal tackles him off the side of the ship, the Darkling raises his hand. Do you think he was planning on seriously hurting/killing her? Or to just try to get her to submit again but with his powers?

This is an interesting one and something I've seen debated quite a bit within the fandom. I mean we are never really going to know for sure because of that interruption from M*l. But it is something I myself have spent some time wondering about, whether he in a fit of anger had lost control and did intend to try to kill or harm her. I actually decided to look at the scene in question where he lifts his hand in ep 8 and compared it with other times when the darkling had the intent to kill or harm others, grisha powers are controlled by hand gestures so we can look at those and compare them and yes I did spend an unreasonable amount of time studying these hand movements in 0.5 speed on Netflix in an attempt to answer this question. One thing to note is that in most instances he uses the cut to harm others and I have seen quite a few people say they believe that he was going to use the cut on her. Having looked at all the scenes I personally don't think he was going to hurt her. But, for funsies, I'll show you my train of thinking and you can decide for yourselves if you agree or not. Far warning there are both book and show spoilers.

So to start with this is the hand gesture he uses in ep 8 when he raises his hand to Alina.

The difficulty we have here is that, one the gesture is never finished because M*l tackles him so we don't know what he was going to do next, but also his hand disappears from the camera shot. But we can see that he raises one hand with his thumb out and two fingers raised and the other two fingers are kind of curled down, he then begins to slowly turn his hand. So lets compare it to all the other times we've seen him harm others and see if it matches. First I looked at all the times he used the cut to kill or attempt to kill to try and figure out if he planned to use the cut on her.

The first time we see him kill someone with the cut is in ep 2 when he saves Alina from the druskelle.

Here you can see the gesture begins with him drawing his hands towards each other like he is gathering his shadows up, the same way you might gather water between your hands. He then raises an arm and slashes it diagonally across his body with his hand flat like its a blade. This sends the cut towards his target.

Another time we see him try to kill with the cut is when he and Kaz go against each other.

Something both this scene and the one between him and Alina have in common is that in both scenes Aleks is very angry. This is useful because it means we've got that frame of reference of how Aleks behaves when he is angry enough to want to kill someone as oppose to having to out of necessity or protection like with the druskelle. As with the druskelle it is a very similar hand gesture he uses, drawing his hands towards each other in a scooping motion then slashing outwards with his hand flat. The only other time we see him using the cut against a human is when he kills the king's men in the flashback of ep 7.

Here the gesture is slightly different as he brings his hands together at his back then swings them around to cross over in front of his body. The other difference in this scene is its the only time, I think, that we see him use the cut against more than one target. This could explain that slight change in the hand gesture. But one thing that is still the same is that his hands, as with every other time we see him use the cut, are flat and it has that chopping or slicing movement that makes the viewer think of a blade.

Aleks also uses the cut with a slightly different hand gesture when he kills the stag.

This hand gesture is a bit more similar to the one he uses with Alina in that instead of drawing his hands together horizontally he raises his hands up. However it still isn't the exact same gesture and him raising his hands is the only thing that is similar the rest of the movement is still more similar to the others he used when summoning the cut previously. It is still a scooping or gathering motion to start and then a slash with an open flat palm. The difference in this instance is that he has formed a vertical cut as opposed to a horizontal one.

I think looking at all these instances when he uses the cut and how they all have similar gestures that don't match the one he used in ep 8 with Alina, its safe to say that he wasn't going to use the cut on her. However that doesn't necessarily mean he wasn't planning on hurting or killing her. There is one other instance where Aleks kills someone and its the only time we see him kill someone without using the cut. It's when he kills the conductor in ep 6.

The hand gesture in this scene is definitely alot more similar to the one he uses in ep 8. Here he brings his hands together before raising one with his thumb stretched out and two fingers raised up and two curled down. He is also very angry in this scene just like he is in the scene in ep 8. However there is one slight difference that I think is significant and that is that the conductor is behind Aleks. When Aleks raises his hand and flicks it he does it towards the conductor, towards his target in the same way that when he slashes out when using the cut he does it towards the target. In the scene with Alina however his hand turns away from Alina which is odd considering if he is trying to hurt her then she is his target so his hand should turn towards her not away if we follow this logic or pattern.

Another thing that makes me think that he likely wasn't trying to hurt her is his first attempt against the stag where Alina throws up that protective dome of light the hand gesture is again very similar to the other times he's used the cut but there was something else that I noticed.

When I first watched this scene I remember thinking it looked like the cut hit the dome too far to the side and I wondered if he had actually redirected the cut when he saw Alina was in the way of the stag. I mean if you look at the trajectory of the cut, if the dome wasn't there I don't think it would have hit the stag anyway. The funny thing is when I read the book later that is exactly what does happen:

The Darkling turned on the stag, lifting his arm in a gesture I knew only too well. “No!” I screamed and, without thinking, I threw myself in front of the stag. I closed my eyes, ready to feel myself torn in half by the Cut, but the Darkling must have turned his body at the last moment. The tree behind me split open with a loud crack, tendrils of darkness spilling from the wound. He’d spared me, but he’d also spared the stag.

So there is evidence in the book itself that supports the argument that he is unwillingly to hurt Alina, even when he is angry with her, even when she is acting against him and getting in the way of his plans, he is still unwilling to cause severe harm to her. He will do what he needs to do to subdue her but he won't try to kill her. I think its also important to remember that even if you take away his feelings for Alina or even if you believe that he never had true feelings for her, Aleks still needs the sun summoner. Killing her would be foolish and would ruin his plans, his objective isn't to harm Alina but to make use of her powers. He knows killing her would act against his own plans for the grisha, therefore it doesn't make sense for him to try to harm her. In book two he is seeking out the sea whip for Alina showing that even after her betrayal he still has plans for her and they don't include killing her.

The last thing I did notice though is that the hand gesture he uses in ep 8 is similar to the hand gesture he uses to summon his shadows. One gesture that is very similar happens in ep 3.

I personally think this hand gesture is the most similar to the one he uses in ep 8, in fact I think its pretty much identical. Also this and ep 8 are the only times we see him use his powers with just one hand, even with the conductor the full gesture makes use of both his hands. There's also the fact that with both this one and the ep 8 gesture there is no apparent target that he is aiming at, he just slowly turns his hand, if that makes sense. So I actually think its much more likely that he was just summoning his shadows. Maybe his plan was to subdue Alina by blinding her to her surroundings, just cloaking her in darkness so she couldn't see him if he tried to grab her to restrain her, for all we know his plan could have been to grab her and escape off the skiff with her as his prisoner. To me it is much more likely that he was planning to use his shadows to cloak his actions so she wouldn't be able to see him coming or what he was going to do next. The same way that you might throw sand in your opponents eyes as a distraction. But as I said at the start we will likely never know for sure what his true intentions were, all we can do is speculate.