#this makes more sense in the context of the fic it belongs to but here

[solarisburns]

Somewhere in the ministry archive there is a memory labelled:

"The phone call from Remus Lupin to Mary Macdonald informing her the war had been won."

This is what it contains.

“Mary.”

No.

No it can’t be. 

Anyone but her.

Anyone but Lily.

“Mary. Lily and James they’re, they’re just gone. Peter is dead, fuck, all that was left was his fucking finger. And Sirius is the bloody traitor. He killed them all. Everyone is dead.”

Her and Remus, thousands of miles apart; her in her dingy apartment living off a junior journalist's salary and him off fighting a mythical war, have never been more the same. They share choked off sobs and gasps of desperate air. The bitter tinge of impossible denial rests on their tongues only sweetened by the promise joining them or bloody revenge. Her shoulders sink with the weight of another responsibility, another fate she had tried to run from but will now carry for those who died taking it.

“Harry. Remus what happened to Harry? Is he?”

“Dumbledore has him. He uh, he killed Voldemort.”

“Dumbledore did?”

“No. Harry did.”

“I’ll be right there.”

[madridfangirl]

A Weekend in Ibiza - Part 4 (final)

(Jude Bellingham smut fic)

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

5.2k words. Jude*female reader. Smut & suggestive language. And many confused feelings.

A/n - When we don't get Jude holiday content (the kind with other women), we make shit up

................................................

You missed him.

Son of a bitch, you actually missed him.

Jude had left an hour after waking you up for an early morning tumble. It had been your idea, since he kept yapping in your ear after you two were done, with the typical annoying chirpiness of a morning person, while you just wanted to snuggle in the cozy sheets, & enjoy the pleasant relaxation washing over your muscles. So, you had nudged him to take care of whatever it was he needed to take care of and he had left, promising to return soon.

But now, you missed him. The room suddenly felt too big, too empty, too quiet without him. 

His cologne was still all over you, on the pillow next to you. The sheets reeking of his scent. His belongings spread on the side-table - an expensive looking watch, an LV waist pouch, and a box of condoms.

Would it be downright pathetic to ping him for an ETA?

YES. Your inner voice chided you, loudly.

Remember what this is. What you are to him. The flavour of the week, if even that. 

Fine, you were gonna wait. Let him take his sweet time. You’d rather die than be accused of being clingy, especially in this context.

It’s been 90 minutes, stop being so dramatic. Screamed your inner voice again.

You stretched your limbs before getting out of bed, sighing at the soreness. A hot bath was the need of the hour. And house keeping.

Twirling in front of the mirror in your new deep blue summer dress, another daring purchase for the trip, you wondered if he’d like this one. 

Well, he had liked blue on you yesterday. A lot.

Heck, it DID NOT matter. It SHOULD NOT matter. You were dressing for yourself. To look good for yourself. 

But a little bit for him too.

3 hours. He’d been gone three hours now. It was already 10 am. You started to wonder if he was coming back at all. But he left his stuff? Well it won’t even be pocket change to him. Did he get bored already? Moved on to finer pastures?

Right on cue, the door opened, taking you by surprise. Jude emerged, in all his glory. Donning a loose multi-coloured unbuttoned summer shirt, with matching shorts. Chiselled abs on full display. The chest hair, with a trail going down into his shorts. And then there were those legs. Despite your annoyed state, you nearly salivated at the sight. 

He was mumbling something about taking your keycard, in case you were still asleep. But you couldn’t register a word. Senses too distracted to focus.

Jude had this air about him - a casual nonchalance, an unshakable confidence, an inherent swag. Used to getting his way in life. Making the world bend to his will. It was sexy as hell. 

But it irked you too. Was it because he operated like he owned every room he walked into, and everyone in it? Or because you wanted to let him own you? You couldn’t tell anymore.

‘Could have knocked first.’

Jude cocked his head sideways at the comment, smirking mischievously, scanning you up & down. A sight for sore eyes. Blue really was your colour.

‘Nothing that I haven’t seen already.’

But something he’d like to see a lot more of. All day today. The dress looked like a million dollars on you, but he’d still prefer it on the floor.

Your hands gripped your dress (a movement his eyes followed), to curb the shiver running down your arms. Even while being arrogant, he was still charming.

‘Someone else could have been here with me.’

You managed to find your wits, and shot back. 

His whole demeanour changed. Features hardening, gaze intensifying, as he stepped closer. Subconsciously, you retreated, gasping when your back hit the desk. He stood toe to toe now, towering over you. Your fingers started fiddling aimlessly as you avoided his burning glare, realising you had touched a nerve. HARD. 

The tension in the air reverberated through your body and you jumped when his large hands gripped your ass, kneading the exact spot he had spanked yesterday. The residual sting making you whimper & bite your lip, drawing his attention to your mouth.

Jude bent down, biting your earlobe, drawing another whimper, as he whispered in a low, raspy, menacing tone.

‘I NEVER share what’s MINE, especially when I have wanted it so much.’

You wobbled, and clutched his biceps for support, as his hand slid under your dress & found your dripping core. 

‘Already?’

The tone was half-mocking, half-proud, as he cupped you over your panties, your legs spreading on their own accord to accommodate his hand. Then, with a measured move, he lightly slapped you there. Sending shockwaves through your nerves.

You mewled and fell forward onto his chest. Stunned & turned on beyond any fathomable limits. Moaning his name, sounding unabashedly needy.

That proved to be his undoing. 

You found yourself bent over the desk, face down into the glass top, your dress yanked down & pushed up to pool at your waist, your hips adjusted to his preferred angle, your panties discarded somewhere, your hands struggling to find some kind of purchase on the glass, your shaky breaths making patterns on the sheer surface.

Vulnerable and spread open for him. Exactly as he liked.

A quick preparation with his fingers, and he was sliding inside you, groaning at the hot, tight squeeze of your walls, stretching you fully. Your back arched, as your body struggled to take him in. But he kept going, till he bottomed out. 

Sounds of sex filled the room - your choked moans, his uneven grunts, his body slapping against yours, while yours slapped against the desk. Your nails scratched on the glass, his angles shooting sensations up & down your spine, hitting spots inside you didn’t know existed. The rapid movement of your bare nipples pressed on the cold glass made you scream. Which brought him out of whatever trance he was in.

Jude paused instantly, bent down, & brought his face to the side of yours.

‘What’s wrong?’

Words failed you. Somehow, you managed to point to your chest. He understood, bringing one arm underneath your breasts, shielding them from the glass. You whimpered at the relief. He stayed put, unmoving, panting over your neck.

‘Too much? Should I stop?’

Your nervous shake of head was all the signal he needed. He went again, tad slower this time, but still rocking your world in a thousand different ways. Making you see stars & entire galaxies as your vision blurred. Your scream when you came was muffled by the glass, and you were far too overstimulated to register his groan as he climaxed soon after.

Jude put his hands on either side of you, half-bending, half-standing, still buried inside, as he came down from his high. Looking over your spent form.

As you stayed half passed out, few things became clear in your mind about him. 1) He was possessive to the hilt. 2) He liked to take from behind when he was in the mood for fucking / hard sex. Face to face was for softer, calmer, gentler situations, like this morning. 3) He was as much a boobs guy as an ass guy. 4) Football wasn’t his only natural gift, to the point it was unfair to other men. No way they could compare to the whole package that was him, and he knew that all too well. 5) His dominance and aggression didn’t end on the football pitch, he brought it to bed too.

Lost in these thoughts, you didn’t register when he carried you bridal-style to bed, looked you over for any bruises (he was kicking himself hard for not factoring in the glass top properly), cleaned you & tucked the blanket over you.

Only coming to your senses when you were pulled against a hard muscular body, laying on your side, his arms wrapped around you, his cheek caressing yours, as you heard him mutter softly.

‘Say something. Please.’

Jude had been half-hard before he walked in, the hours away were literal physical torture. Then that dress, and especially your comment made him tip over the edge. He hadn’t planned to be rough, not so soon in the day at least. Definitely not after last night.

You sighed as he showered you with forehead kisses, somehow re-discovering your voice.

‘You snore in your sleep.’

Amused, he turned his face slightly to look at you, then laughed an infectious laugh, his whole body shaking with the sensation, as he squeezed you lightly in his hold, bringing a smile to your tired face.

‘Well, we have already established you are a liar.’

‘Please, have the others not told you this?’

He didn’t usually sleep in the same bed with the others all night, not so soundly anyway. Even on some rare occasions, he parted ways swiftly in the morning, without much conversation. What was happening right now was not the norm, it was a massively astronomical exception. Something he was still struggling to wrap his head around.

‘Stay a few days more?’

That came out of nowhere, even for him. 

She turned her head, looking at him oddly.

‘Can’t. Work calls.’

‘Say you’re sick. Or, if your boss likes football, tell him he can have season tickets in whichever stadium he wants.’

You rose up on your elbows, to laugh at his silliness. But he looked sincere so you changed tact.

‘Clearly you haven’t worked in a corporate before.’

He hadn’t. And that effectively shut him up on the topic.

Few lazy minutes passed in silence. Your fingers traced patterns on his chest, half laying over him,  while his fingers carded through your open messy hair.

‘You really don’t do this, do you?’

He didn’t need to elaborate. You understood he was referring to casual sex.

‘I meant what I said earlier. Every word.’

‘Then why this? Why me?’

He sounded sincere, not trying to fish for compliments or anything, genuinely curious to know.

Because it became physically impossible to resist you.

‘An adventure I guess.’

You shrugged, trying to not give away anything more. Anything real. Anything about the state of desperation he had put you in.

He hummed, as he mulled over it.

‘And this trip was an adventure too?’

This time you didn’t need to lie.

‘Kinda. Work was getting a bit much. Needed this mini escape.’

‘Me too.’

He blurted out, again out of nowhere. Jude started to wonder if he was coming down with some kind of bug or something. 

‘Like how?’

He had sworn not to dwell on this, to leave it behind on the field, like he had promised his mum. But it was easier said than done. 

You sensed the heaviness in the air, and in his mood. Your hand moved to his face, stroking it gently, nudging him to continue. He accepted the comfort, leaning into your palm.

‘Lost a very important final for my country. Couldn’t play my best. Failed them.’

You didn’t know what to say to that. It must have been hard to deal with, and almost impossible to forget. 

‘Well, you have a long journey ahead. Second chances will come.’

He shut his eyes, not wanting to reveal the heartbreak. But his expressive face did the talking. 

‘This was the second chance. A third chance rather. And we blew it. I blew it. They won’t forgive me.’

His face contorted, and he sank further into the mattress.

The words clutched at your heart, and his pain hurt your soul. Deeply.

‘Heyyyy, look at me.’

He didn’t. He couldn’t. Still too raw inside.

You climbed on top of him and smothered his perfectly symmetrical face with kisses, every inch of it, slowly. Then moved to his lips, giving them a quick peck, which he reciprocated. Moving below, you brushed your lips against his long neck, as his hands unfisted from the sheet, wrapping around your waist. Your whole body weight was on him now, which he seemed to welcome.

But he was still hiding from you, behind closed lids.

Your thumbs massaged the frown lines on his forehead, soothing them, as you bit the tip of his nose affectionately. He sighed, a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

‘If you care this much, then you’ll make it happen again. And this time, you’ll go over the line. Just need to keep believing and working for it.’

Finally, he popped his eyes open, flashing a delicate, hopeful smile. You smiled back and leaned in to peck his nose again, but pulled you in for a deep passionate kiss, only breaking it when he sensed your breathlessness, & let you roll off of him. 

Jude turned to his side, eyes roaming your spent form (you hadn’t even bothered to pull up the blanket), as his warm hand splayed on your stomach.

‘We need to work on your stamina.’

Offended, you tried to push him away, but he stayed put & giggled at your meek efforts. 

‘Well, I am not a professional athlete, hello? And….I don’t do all this….stuff…nowhere as frequently as you. So, I am good, thanks.’

‘But what if someday you want to try more?’

Irritated, you decided to get back at him, knowing he won’t be able to retaliate given his guilt over your exhausted state.

‘Yeah, like what? A threesome maybe?’

That wiped the smile off his face. Good start, then.

‘Not gonna lie, it’s always been a fantasy having both of these (you pointed to your tits) sucked simultaneously.’

Jude had recovered enough to catch on to your little game by now. 

‘Careful, doll.’

You ignored him completely. Having tasted blood, you couldn’t stop, going for the kill.

‘Anyone from your entourage, maybe? Or a teammate? Cama looked cute on your Insta, is he here by…’

Jude didn’t let you finish. In a flash, he was on top of you, pinning your hands over your head as his mouth claimed yours in a punishing kiss. You squirmed under him, to no avail. 

‘Threesome huh?

He barked in between demanding kisses.

‘You barely take ME fully and you want another man? Tell me, how will you take two together? WHERE will the other one go?’

For the second time today, you realised you had bitten more than you could chew. The bear had been well & truly poked.

‘Here?’

He shoved two fingers in your mouth, past your gag reflex. Eyes wild, showing you what he was picturing.

You shook your head from side to side, desperate to hold on to at least some of your erstwhile principles. And panted when he withdrew his fingers.

His hand slid behind you, poking at the back entrance. Your whole body jolted at the touch, and the implication, as you tried to peel his hand away.

‘No? Didn’t think so.’

Next, he gruffly squeezed your boobs close, admiring the valley in between.

‘Now this is tempting, but still not enough to climax. Which leaves this.’

Jude grabbed your right hand, looking straight into your flustered eyes. Challenge loud & clear in his animalistic gaze.

You wanted to run. At the same time, you wanted to meet him head on, to wrestle the control back.

He could tell you were considering it, and pounced on the opportunity, dragging your hand to his briefs, over his crotch. You both gasped at the touch.

‘Yes? Say yes.’

You couldn’t deny him. You didn’t wanna deny yourself either, curious about what he’d feel like.

The moment you nodded, he ripped away his briefs, and brought your hand back over his already excited member, covering it with his. Guiding your motions.

Your eyes widened at the feel of him - he hadn’t put on a condom this time, wanting you skin to skin. No barriers.

‘Come here doll, let me show you.’

Jude proved to be a good teacher. And you had always been a good student. Keen, curious, eager, fast learner. And in this specific instance, deeply enchanted with a gorgeously horny boy, therefore extra motivated to be good for him.

Going by his grunts, you WERE good. Considering the way his eyes were rolling to the back of his head, you were better than good. He grabbed your face and smashed his lips to yours, cursing into your mouth, while his hand continued to guide yours, going at a frantic pace now.

Throughout, you couldn’t sway your eyes from his face. Every little twitch imprinted deep into your mind, a core memory even. One could climax just looking at him like that. If you weren’t so sore & spent right now….

‘FUCKING HELL.’

He came with a groan. Splashing everywhere. Making a complete filthy mess of the sheets. And of you.

He panted against your lips, slowly calming down, plopping back on the pillow. While you remained dazed by what you had just done & witnessed.

After a few minutes, he gathered you in his arms again, carrying you to the shower. You welcomed the comfort of hot water, and the support of his body engulfing yours, keeping you from crumbling. The sight of him under the water, all wet & glistening, was pornographic. Another memory stored for life.

A nap seemed super enticing post the shower. Wrapped in bath robes, limbs intertwined, you both fell into a relaxing sleep. When you woke up, it was time for lunch. Jude knew the drill by now, quietly hiding in the washroom when the waiter came with the tray. Both had built an appetite, so the food felt extra delicious.

Post lunch, you cleared out a few emails on your laptop, preparing for tomorrow, while he sat next to you, watching some pre-season match on TV, head resting over your shoulder. It was impairing the movement of your arm as you typed but you were never going to make him move. 

‘So, where do you work?’

You paused, and gave him a side-eye.

‘You are not supposed to know.’

‘Jeez, I mean which city.’ 

‘Amsterdam for the next 5 weeks. Then, back home.’

‘And where’s home?’

‘Far away. Not in Europe.’

You kept typing, eyes firmly on the screen, and Jude understood he wasn’t going to get anything  more than this.

‘Wherever it is, I could fly you out, you know.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Fly you out, to Madrid. To be with me. Whenever we want.’

To be his booty call is what he meant. Now you understood. Is that what he did with others too? All part of some playbook? Well, she wasn’t going to become another entry in the long list of girls he had at his beck and call. 

‘Jude, I told you this was going to be just one weekend. Then we go back to our lives.’

‘I know, but, why is that set it stone?’

‘Because this is not me. I can’t go about my life while still doing this.’

‘But why? 

‘Why? Because I don’t recognise the person I am right now. I am not so rash, carefree, whimsical, BOLD. This is an anomaly. And for what it’s worth, I like who I am in my real life. I have my own little world that I am content with. My own principles, which I stand by. Taking an 8-10 hr flight for hook-ups does not really fit into my scheme of things. I’d much rather wait for a real relationship, stick to my beliefs.’

Jude listened intently, soaking in every said and unsaid thing, trying to get to the root of what was getting you so riled up.

But he had always been a straightforward person. Didn’t like living with regrets. Go after what you want was his mantra.

‘Do you like the person you are right now, with me?’

You stared open mouthed, connecting the dots of how he was trying to check-mate you.

‘I am not gonna play this game with you.’

‘It’s not a game. Maybe the universe is sending you a message.’

‘I highly doubt the universe would be messaging me to keep hooking up with you. Universe has better things to do than that.’

‘Has this been so forgettable for you, then?’

He knocked the wind out of your chest with the poignance of his words and the disarming vulnerability of his voice. You felt lightheaded, and reached for his arm to steady yourself. Your tone softened.

‘I - I never said that. Never meant that.’

‘Then why are you so cross with me? Looking at me like that. Was it so wrong to want to see you again?’

You scooted closer, towards his body heat, and rested your head on his shoulder.

‘Didn’t mean to. I guess shit just got too real when you said that.’

And because you hadn’t still fully come to terms with the choices you had made this weekend. Deciding to continue it will not let it remain an anomaly, and will go against everything you believe in. No, you can’t fall for this. Will have to resist the temptation that was this man. Cut the chord this weekend, for the sake of your sanity. And return to normalcy. Never letting a single soul know what happened here.

He was quiet. And still. Processing the rejection. You climbed into his lap, cupped his jaw, gazing into his turbulent eyes.

‘We still have half a day. Let’s not spoil our remaining time together?’

He didn’t say anything, just looked at you with a blank expression, and you threw your arms around his shoulders, hugging him close. Feeling a strange sense of guilt. But you hadn’t done anything wrong, this had always been the arrangement. He was anyway going to get bored of this (you) soon even if you had agreed to continue. This was for the best. A clean cut.

Then why was it eating away at you? Making your insides churn?

‘Please, Jude. Please, just..’

You snuggled your head into the crook of his neck, and felt his arms settle around you. He lifted you out of his lap and made you lay on your back, as his eyes roamed over you. And his mind worked extra time to arrive at a decision. You waited patiently.

‘How much do you like this dress?’

A lot.

‘Do whatever you want.’

He tore it off, ripping with force, taking his frustration out on it. Laying you bare for him.

But he wasn’t rough. No, what happened over the next hour was more intense than even any BDSM out there. 

Because, Jude made love to you. Worshipped your body. Touched you in ways that was ruining you for other men. Whispered such things in your ear that no other voice would ever be good enough. Looked at you with such longing & passion that you could see your image in his honeyed orbs. Kissed you so fervently that you were becoming addicted to his lips. Sucked your boobs so thoroughly that you almost came just from that. Ate you out with such determination like his life depended on it. Fucked you to oblivion, to the point you thought you were getting a stroke. Made you peak over & over, like he was trying to set a new record in the history of mankind. 

All while never breaking eye contact with you, never letting you slip away or hide from him.

You could tell he was proving a point, showing you what you would be missing out on. That the two of you still had a lot more to discover together. That only he could make you feel a certain way. And that sex with him can be like this also - more, different, real. Not just a sating of lust.

But you had to stay strong. Because if you fall, it’s gonna be a slippery slope. A bottomless pit. You had so much more to lose in this, because he clearly was not ready for anything more. Even if he didn’t fully realise that, you could tell as much. And this half-in, half-out arrangement would be a recipe for disaster in your life.

As your sweaty bodies laid intertwined with each others, basking in the afterglow, you couldn’t resist placing little kisses on his chest, earning sweet sighs from him.

It was almost evening now. Only a few more hours left with him. 

You had to pack, book your cab to the airport, do your web checkin. And call home - since you had been practically MIA for two days. So much to do, but you couldn’t move from his side. Just a few more mins like this.

Finally, you got up, moving around the room to gather your stuff. While he laid on his stomach, towards the edge of the bed, arms crossed & tucked under his chin, just watching you silently.

‘You…don’t have to stay if you are getting bored, you know.’

‘Do you want me to leave?’

You zipped your bag and kneeled in front of him, cupping his cheeks with both hands.

‘I want you to stay.’

‘I want you to stay too.’

You sighed, pressing your foreheads together, unable to respond in any other way. Because there was nothing to say.

‘How about dinner on the balcony? And some wine?’

You tried to sound enthused, looking at him expectantly. He gave in.

‘I have a bottle you’d really like.’

The dinner was light, neither of you in the mood for anything elaborate. The wine was heavenly though, you hummed appreciatively with every sip during your first glass. Later, both of you gulped it down fast, to fill in the awkward silence, emptying the bottle in an hour.

You swayed a little as you walked to the railing, soaking in the sound of the waves and the moonlight dancing on it.

Jude stayed on the couch, eyes firmly glued to you. The silver nightdress shone in the moonlight, creating a halo like effect. An elusive, mysterious fairy, who was flying away from him in a few hours. Never to be seen again. Pangs of a strange, hitherto unknown emotion gripped his heart.  And he closed the distance between you two, while he still could.

Strong arms came around your waist, holding you gently. You leaned back into his chest, as your hand reached behind to stroke his face.

‘Won’t you miss this?’

Wine had numbed your filters and inhibitions. You couldn’t lie anymore. Couldn’t pretend.

‘I will.’

‘No one special back home then? Someone who could make you feel this way?’

‘No.’

His lips brushed your shoulder, sending a shiver down your back. The cool night air adding to the charged touch, as his fingers played with the strap of your nightdress.

‘So let me have you till then. Till there is….till you find…..and then you can…..’

He couldn’t bring himself to say the rest - the sheer thought of you settling down with someone so unpleasant, like a punch in the gut.

‘If you are around, I won’t be able to.’

He was dangerous, so dangerous for your sanity.

He had gotten what he initially wanted - your body. Why wasn’t that enough? Why was he asking for more than you could give? Why did he want to come for your soul, your heart too?

‘You won’t know till you actually try. Maybe I’ll change your mind. Or maybe you’ll change mine.’

Another emotional whiplash with his thoroughly befuddling words. Chipping away at the carefully constructed shield around your heart.

It had to stop. This had to change course.

‘Please, this is the wine talking. You’ll be repeating this to someone else a few days later.’

‘You think so? You think I’d jump in bed with someone else straightway? Like tomorrow?’

His grip became firmer. On your body. And your senses.

‘Won’t you?’

‘Would you like that?’

‘It’s none of my business.’

‘WOULD YOU LIKE THAT? Answer me.’

‘Jude please…’

He flipped you by your waist, grabbing the back of your neck.

‘Stubborn. So stubborn.’

A wet, needy make-out ensued, where you met him halfway. Gripping your butt, he lifted you up as your legs wrapped around his waist. 

But he didn’t take you inside, settling on the balcony couch instead, making you straddle his thighs.

‘Not outside.’

‘Yes outside.’

‘But…’

‘It’s dark. No one can see us. Trust me.’

He lifted your nightdress over your head, pleased to find you naked underneath. His briefs were quickly discarded too, as he started to pull you down over himself, spearing you with this angle, while his mouth wreaked havoc on your chest, and his hands roamed your back with abandon.

For one last time, you submitted to him. Wholeheartedly. Just laying in his arms as he took you on a joyride. His hands doing most of the work when your legs couldn’t keep up with his thrusts.

‘How are you still so tight? After everything?’

Your body was filled with his marks and bruises, and you refused to even acknowledge the unseen marks he had left on you. The way he had penetrated the depths of your conscience. Clawing his way in.

Tears started to pool at the corner of your eyes, but you fought them valiantly. Not letting him see.

Jude had finally been able to put a finger on the strange emotion he had been feeling all day. It was desperation. He was desperate to not let you disappear forever. Feeling completely powerless - he’d never been on the receiving end of this before.

‘At least give me your Insta.’

He mumbled as you both were close, his strokes becoming sloppy.

‘I won’t follow. Won’t do anything to draw attention to you. But at least I’d be able to see you.’

But then he’d know who you were. Where you lived. Where you worked. He’d be able to find you, reach out to you. And this weekend won’t remain your secret only. 

‘Let me…think about that…yeah?’

You kissed him, shutting down any further protests, taking in the feel of his lips. For the final time. You moaned into each others mouths as you fell apart together. Wrapped around each other. Naked on a balcony. Under the dim moonlight. 

He carried you back to bed, settling in next to you. Both too emotionally & physically exhausted. You clung to him, moulding your body to his, snuggling into the crook of his neck, breathing in his scent as you both willed yourselves to go to sleep. With a heavy heart.

Next morning, when he woke up, you were gone. Unable to handle the prospect of another goodbye, plus not wanting to wake him up after he had twisted & turned restlessly most of the night. Frankly, you weren’t sure you had it in you to leave if he woke up and looked at you in that trademark way of his.

He understood why you did what you did, looking around the now empty room. Not knowing what to do next. Feeling a sense of loss he didn’t know how to process. Needing a hug from his mum.

Just then, he saw a note on your pillow, carefully tucked under the TV remote.

‘I’ll always remember you. Please know, this was the only way.

Love,

Your first name.’

That made him smile. He said your name over & over, deciding it suited you perfectly. The signature making his heart flutter a bit.

He clicked a photo of the note. As a plan formed in his head. Of another post, drawing you back in. He knew you’d be checking his profile, maybe even following him by now. Yeah, he’d get you back, he just knew it already!

.............................................................

And there it is, the final chapter. This was meant to be a 2 part series but your love & feedback kept it going.

Thank you, I am so grateful. And I can't wait to hear your thoughts on this final instalment :)

[hoseoksluna]

HEAVEN-SENT | knj

pairing: idol!friend!namjoon x f. reader

genre: fluff

word count: 2.8k

summary: when a certain bad experience with a guy makes you run to namjoon, he heals you and changes you once and for all.

warnings: lack of willful consent in a way, crying, religion, smoking (namjoon smokes a cig, reader vapes), the context of this fic is of sexual relations though none are described, heavy daddy issues.

note: after i sat down to write last chapter of berries, i discovered that i simply couldn't because of what happened to me this week. there was nothing left for me to do, but to run to namjoon in my head and let him heal me. yes, unfortunately, the events that i wrote about in this fic happened to me. the dream, i had it last night. and the consolation in the form of words in the fic, i constructed it from everything my friends told me. to be honest, i feel deeply healed. i finished it in two hours or so and i feel so much better. now, like the reader i put myself into, i'm gonna take a shower and wash everything away. i'll be able to write berries after that. i love you, guys. sorry, if this is triggering in any way. i just needed to get it out.

“I think I heard… God in that dream.” 

Your words create a wisp of tenderness in the air. Saddened, moist with the tears that sting in the back of your eyes. The sun of the summer has descended, hid beneath the city—and you feel as though the same occurred in your life, despite the fact you’re being held by someone who holds the skyscrapers and the manufactured greenery in between like a burden on his shoulders and could easily stop its departure if only he looked up to the heavens with puppy eyes. 

God would’ve nodded. Flicked his fingers. The source of light and warmth would’ve paused, stared down on you, shone a little more mercifully. Beckon you out to breath in the fresh air, breathe in the protectiveness you find yourself to be in the middle of. 

God protected you from a boy who had different intentions from you, led you into the arms of a man who’s able to take your pain and transform it into an eternal artwork of beauty and importance. A harmonious poetry, mixed with English and Korean, flooded with colors akin to the ones your eyes would stumble across on a field of wildflowers. 

It’s where you are right now. No blanket, just the soil, the blossoms, the warmth from Namjoon’s body, your bruised knees and rawly abraded elbows—your injury from earlier that the boy feignedly kissed, but didn’t care much about. A means to get you into bed, nothing else. A banana vape in your fist while Namjoon holds his cigarette backwards, shielding the smoke with his palm, even though you’ve told him multiple times that you didn’t mind it. 

You smoked so much of them with him within the hours you spent here and didn’t receive any sort of alleviation from it that you grew a certain distaste for it in your mouth. Settled for the sweetness of your vape. Enjoyed it as much as you enjoyed Namjoon’s closeness and a sense of safety that he radiated as he let you rest your head on his clavicle, leaning his entire weight on just one hand, and nothing else. 

So unlike the boy, who would’ve kissed your feet if you let him take the endeavor further like he wanted. 

You were on a first date with a boy you didn’t even know for a week. With a boy who stuck his tongue down your throat. Almost fondled the most private parts of your body, had you not stopped him. And who didn’t drive you home after. 

The prose of the shallow, insolent face of a young male, who didn’t want to be provided with your love and empathy, who kissed you to shut you up, in fact. And the demons of your brokenness, conspired with your father complex, manipulated you into believing that he was moved by it, rather than repulsed by it as his only objective was getting you comfortable enough so you willingly give over something that doesn’t belong to him. 

Your purity. Your private parts. Your femininity. 

Two days later after the date, you had a dream. While you slept beside your best friends who spent the night smoking with you on the stairs outside of their apartment, helping you realize the truth—popping your bubble of pink vapor gained from the kiss and the male attention you’ve always had so little of. Many dreams swam past your sleeping consciousness, but only one resurfaced upon waking up. 

A large beige room; a man standing in the middle of it as he made your bed while you stood clutching your pajamas to your broken, dejected form. You were looking at him, regarding him from head to toe. From his shortly cut, blond hair, to his broad shoulders and toned, muscular arms that would lift you without blinking. From the tank top he wore, to the dark shorts. And once you viewed the same bruises on his body that were on yours, concealed from his sight and awareness, you heard a gentle voice inside your heart. A voice, entwined with the purest form of love, which told you that this was the man you were supposed to be with, not the boy you were seeing. 

You listened to the voice, obeyed it in a way that you didn’t quite understand—silently, tenderly. While you internally quivered in fear in regards to the male species. You were frightened of the man who was taking care of you—not because of who he was or what he potentially had done or would have done, but because of a very simple reason. 

He was a man. 

And you didn’t trust them. 

Not anymore. 

Namjoon was different. Namjoon was a man who was your friend for the longest time. A poet who nurtured his life. Who viewed the world’s secret poetry and sought it in every way he could. He was as much like you as you were like him. But you weren’t his and he wasn’t yours. 

It wasn’t written in the prosaic constitution of this wretched world; and never will be. 

He’s not the man in the dream. 

He never made your bed, although he would if you needed it. But his heart doesn’t belong to love. It is tied to the arts; tied to the people he takes care of, works hard for. His heart belongs to his voice. 

And his voice was silenced in deep indignation when you told him what happened to you. He’s known you for years; he’s known of your lack of manliness in your life—has supported it for as long as he’s walked beside you. Wrote you poems about how perhaps that’s what life is. Aloneness and the arts, the heartbreak if it crawls inside and what you do with it after. You’ve read them, worshiped them, obeyed them, even though your need for love always persisted within you. 

And it led you here. Back to him, needing his poems, although now your deeper brokenness asks for his recitation. 

But he’s still silent. 

Not silent to your pain, however. Not silent to the tornado in your sternum that makes you pause between your words due to its intensity. That makes you look at the leaves of the grass instead of the earth within the pools of his eyes. But you can feel the strength of his indignation that is mightier than the whirlwind in your bones. And it’s warm, so terribly warm, growing warmer the longer he looks at you, in spite of the lowering of the heat of the sun and the evening sweeping past the field, the coldness of the soil as if it never had been touched by that heat. 

Like you, almost. 

“I think it was him who told me that,” you continue, brushing your thumb over your yellowing bruise upon your knee from your injury. “It’s why I remember the dream so vividly. Why it made me never want to see the guy again. Why it suddenly made me understand why my friends reacted the way they did when I told them what happened.” 

You believe it, and nothing could cover your belief due to its force—its quiet, tender force that graces you with a little bit of strength to be here with him, to be able to share it with him with the said understanding and calmness, calmness so akin to nothingness. 

How delightful it is, that state of emotions. 

You feel as though you’re telling the story of another person. Perhaps Namjoon has done it in you by letting you talk without interrupting like your friends did. They outburst so colorfully and it made you feel so small and so stupid. Namjoon did no such thing—through his silence he put great meaning into your story. 

And it feels nice. More than nice. You appreciate it with the little you’re able to feel towards a man. 

“Why did you let him kiss you again?” Namjoon asks, softly, breaking that nearly long season of his silence with the kind of gentleness that only he’s capable of. 

He must be a different breed, you conclude. One you’ll never have the opportunity to know, intimately. 

Your mouth rounds in a faint pout because you know your answer, and sheepishly you camouflage it by taking a puff of your vape, expecting the banana flavor to give you the courage you need in order to say it. 

You hear Namjoon follow you suit, sucking on the bud of his cigarette before he puts it out in yours and his makeshift ashtray—a bottle of water that you both drank. The hiss and the dying out drives you quicken your scrambling of bravery and you don’t really know where that vague sense of impatience comes from. 

Namjoon is anything but impatient. 

You sigh, taking another puff, blowing it into the wind, watching it where it takes it to. Wish you were taken elsewhere, too. By an invisible hand that means well. Take you to a place of joy and respect, of devotion and care. 

You wonder if a place like this exists, at all. 

“Because…” you trail off, the tornado in you thickening, threatening your calmness and you can’t stop the blooming of your pout, the deepening of it, either. “Because it was my first real kiss with a guy and I wanted experiences like that. I wanted to live. I wanted to have what everyone else has so easily.” 

A beat of silence. The tornado enlarges. And you feel as though you were in the middle of it, not the other way around. The raw truth, you’ve said it. Thank God you said it to a person that knows he must handle it with care. It’s the reason why you ran to him. Why you invariably do. 

“But he didn’t have your consent. He didn’t ask for it, so he didn’t have it. He just grabbed your head and kissed you. And because you wanted experiences doesn’t mean he had your consent.” 

You furrow your brows, out of step with him. “It was me who kissed him at one point. I even bit his lip.” 

For some reason, your uttered words cause you to look at him. With his arms wrapped around his knees and hands interlocked, he scowls. His scrunched brows cast a shadow upon his marble face, upon the thin line of his tightly pressed lips, and you fear you did something wrong. 

“Did you kiss him because you wanted to kiss him or did you kiss him because you wanted experiences?” 

That question shocks you and you can’t speak. You swivel your head back in shame, tipping it, and you twiddle your thumbs, the answer raw and obvious, out in the open without needing any transportation of words.

You felt comfortable with the guy. Had chemistry with him that would run deeper if you were on the same page as him. But there was something about him, which you still can’t pinpoint, that built a translucent wall between your heart and him. You didn’t find him attractive enough to kiss. You didn’t expect to be kissed either by the end of the date. But you went on with it for one sole reason. 

The tornado explodes through you and Namjoon can feel it. 

He places a hand on your shoulder. Makes you look at him with that singular gesture and your eyes well with tears, the residue and effect of the explosion. 

“Never, and I mean never, do that again. Never do things that you aren’t innately hungry for and never do them in order to live a life you think you should,” he says and it’s a proverb that must be written in the book that had opened within your dream. “I don’t believe in God, but I do believe that you were protected from that piece of shit, who had the audacity to put his hands on you.” 

And there it is, the recitation of a different poem, one you didn’t quite want, but find yourself to be in need of. Your tears flow without direction, dripping onto the petals of the violet and pink wildflowers that brush against your legs with every breath of the wind. 

And you nod. 

Maybe they needed it, too. Maybe that’s why you’re here, why God put that lesson in your life that made you run to Namjoon. He took your hand and gave you a role. 

To be a helper of his. 

Quench the thirst of the flowers and quench yours, too, through that work. 

“No one is allowed to think they can touch you like that on the first date. I know how guys think. They think that because they paid for you, they paid for your body—and I’d kill them for that if I could,” he breathes out, waggling your shoulder to emphasize the importance of his words. And you breathe them in, consider them the scolding of a father, one that is done out of love and care and one that is good for you. Not meant to harm, not meant to express the voice of his upper hand. It’s meant for you. For your well-being. “He was dead to me the moment you told me you had to stop his hand from going further down. And the moment you told me he didn’t drive you home at night. That’s not someone you experience life with. That’s someone you walk past.” 

You nod and you sob, weaving your way into his step, believing his words—the depth of them, the meaning of them, the end to the sentence piercing your heart because that’s how you met the guy. He stopped you on the street and chatted you up. Gave you a false sense of comfort and safety.

Namjoon kisses your worth over and over again, clutches your brokenness and puts it together with his gentle touch—all through his grip on your shoulder, through the verses of his poem. 

He doesn’t dare to go further. Because he’s respectful, because he’s older, because he cares for you, regards you as human and not a piece of meat meant for satisfactory purposes. Thrown away after the deed is done. 

You take mental notes of those attributes. Write them somewhere upon your flesh to remember later on. 

Respectful. Older. Caring. 

The antonyms of the boy you were seeing. 

“Someone will come along who will serve life to you on a silver platter. He will find you and he will respect you. Will be afraid to touch you because of how golden you are; afraid to stain you. He will love you and only then will you love him back. That’s how you’ll know he’s the one. He’ll love you first,” Namjoon recites on, your tears dropping onto the back of his hand and trickling down his fingers. He grasps your hand and you feel the liquid of your understanding on his skin. Somehow it locks it in. “He’ll wait before he kisses you. And you’ll be filled with so much longing to kiss him that you’ll feel like bursting. That’s how it should be.” 

You nod for the last time, overwhelmed, but changed. You believe the tornado won’t find you for a long time—for as long as Namjoon is here. 

“Don’t rush. Do what you love to do, your hobbies. Read. You’re not missing out. You’re living already. You’re alive. You’re experiencing life, even if it means you’re doing it in the company of your friends, in a platonic realm. It counts.” 

The last stanza. 

He hugs you. Grateful, healed, reassured—he seeps those new attributes in you by giving names to them as he wraps his arms around you and you perceive that’s precisely what you’re feeling. 

Grateful. Healed. Reassured. 

And you perceive he showed you how love is meant to be expressed. The man does it first. 

And when a storm rolls in and the wildflowers startle against your skin, Namjoon walks you home. Doesn’t leave until he knows you’re safe inside. 

Heals what he didn’t break. Reteaches what you’ve been wrongly taught. 

You’re living. You’re alive. You repeat those words to yourself as you undress yourself and wash away the wrong touch from your body, this time with great consciousness and will. And the vapor from the water, different from the one that was conjured from your madness of falsely living, seals in Namjoon’s touch on your skin, writes upon it the stanzas of his proverb. 

You’ll remember them the next time. 

And there will be a next time because you’re living. You’re alive. 

Namjoon is a different breed because he must be an angel, dressed in white as he was. A helper just like you, ordained by God he doesn’t believe in for you. 

Otherwise he wouldn’t be in your life at all because while you quenched your thirst, he filled up your hungry belly. 

𓂃 ౨ৎ LOVE-KISSED BABIES: @tkslovechild, @jjk7k, @parkinglot-nights, @bethvar, @Sexytholland, @yoongibaybee, @crystaleah,@fennecnco, @lil-kpopstan, @euphoricmyth.

© 2024 hoseoksluna, all rights reserved

BACK to masterlist

[max--phillips]

Okay here goes

First, the spoiler free stuff:

Ridley Scott knows how to make a fucking film.

If I don’t see fics of Acacius x reader x Lucilla I will begin biting

If you are going in it for Pedro, I will warn you his character is very important but kind of… idk, shallow is too strong of a word, but not very fleshed out. I don’t think that’s an issue in the greater scheme of the movie though, it makes sense in the plot and doesn’t feel out of place or bad in the universe.

If you are going in it for Paul Mescal, you will not be disappointed.

Please watch the first movie first. The story will not make any fucking sense if you don’t.

Just the right amount of flashbacks and footage from the first movie . Chefs kiss

Ridley Scott really said “all emperors and tyrants are nasty little freaks with terrible vibes”

Oh also if you’re squeamish about gore and stuff like. It’s a movie about gladiators so set your expectations accordingly. There is an instance of a disembodied head used as a prop. So y’know

Okay, spoilery stuff below the cut

Arishat was hot :( rip

Monkeys at the beginning? Terrible. 0/10 did not enjoy that. Also did not enjoy seeing and hearing Mr. Mescal BITING ONE

I love Ravi I would watch a whole movie just about him tending to gladiators’ wounds quite frankly. Give me that story

We love to see bisexuality on screen (even though that wasn’t a social identity at the time but we’re not here to talk about that) what with the concubines and drunk as fuck Macrinus

Speaking of drunk as fuck Macrinus: that whole scene was so fucking funny. They’re like that meme about people getting high. You know the one

Speaking of Macrinus—Denzel Washington stole the show. When TIME magazine pushed a story to me today headlined “Gladiator II Belongs to Denzel Washington,” I was like, pshhhh, nah. But it really does. It’s not about him? But it’s his fucking show.

The politics . THE POLITICS

It feels a little heavy handed right now but that wasn’t probably how it was intended, given it was made before. Y’know. The election. But the whole dream of Rome being a place where everyone is equal and cared for but you can only whisper it or it’ll shatter? Yeah.

Oh, right, Acacius: that dude is so tired he does NOT want to be there. Let him go home to his hot wife. Alas, his hot wife is the way she is and like… no good deed goes unpunished.

And I fucking called it with my text post a few months ago. Two (2) movies now where Denzel Washington (either directly or indirectly) kills Pedro Pascal. Brilliant

Admittedly selfishly I would’ve liked to see more of him. But it felt like the correct thing in the context of the story. If he didn’t die then, if he wasn’t the inciting event for the uprising of the people of Rome, it wouldn’t have made sense and it would’ve just been fan service and “look, we got Pedro Pascal!” at that point.

I would’ve liked to see a more in-depth exploration of the change in relationship between Lucius and Lucilla—it seems like they went from Lucius screaming at her to get out to them hugging it out without any real development between the two of them specifically. Obviously a lot had happened in the world of the movie at that point but nonetheless

Macrinus shooting Lucilla was his Icarus moment. There was no coming back from that. “But what about Geta” “but what about Caracalla” no. It was Lucilla. If she’d gotten got by the praetorian guards or something else, it would’ve been fine. But because it was Macrinus there was nowhere he could go from there other than [checks notes] getting his hand chopped off and then gutted in a dirty irrigation ditch.

Remember kids, the people in power who are causing all of the things going wrong in the world have names and addresses and are mortal <3

Also another takeaway from the movie: imperialism, religious extremism, ableism, and authoritarianism will be the end of us all <3

Anyway. Good movie. Can’t wait to watch it again in my own home with subtitles so I can actually like… process everything everyone was saying LMAO and take better reaction notes.

I’m still sitting in the theater parking lot it’s been like 30 minutes LMAO okay thanks for coming to my tedtalk or whatever

[eternal-honeyy]

Clawing Ever Upward A Luminary Oneshot

Astarion Ancunin x fReader!

Synopsis: In Smallest Star; Unknown we learned that Tav and Astarion have spent a few accidental nights together after he's finished feeding, but what exactly does a sleepover between them entail? Well, for Astarion, much more than he initially anticipated.

Or, alternatively: How to give comfort to one who seeks it simply by being, in 700 words or less.

Note: This fic takes place within the Luminary storyline, an Astarion x f!Reader oneshot-based series that you can read here if you'd like some additional context, though this can also be read as a oneshot :)

Luminary Masterlist

Two hands reach outward into the darkness, seeking, scrambling, and grasping for purchase upon something sturdy, something to anchor on to, almost as if they belong to some drowning, floundering body being pulled beneath a heavy current.

The night is quiet, the gentle breeze and the buzzing of bugs the only sounds to be heard, and yet, Astarion's eyes flutter open, his pale eyelashes briefly brushing over his cheeks as he takes in his surroundings, seeking that which may have removed him from his trance even on a peaceful evening such as this one.

The answer to his curiosities comes in the form of a warm hand pressing against his cool chest, and of dull fingernails scraping at his skin weakly before the appendage falls away once more. At this, he sits up on his forearms, upper body rising slightly and pale skin meeting cool air as his gaze darts about his tent.

He looks down to the left of him and finds you lying there, exactly where he had last seen you before he'd slipped into his trance for the evening, that favorite spot of his upon your neck still slightly red from his most recent feeding.

Though, as much as he adores admiring the not so subtle marks made upon your flesh by his fangs, he finds his attention slipping instead to your expression, noting with no small sense of alarm the discomfort that can be found there, your nose scrunched up and your eyes squeezed shut so tightly that there's wrinkles forming around them from your efforts.

He looks around, searching for the cause of your obvious unease, eyes roving endlessly for some unseen light and ears perked for some unheard sound, when suddenly he hears you let out a whimper so pitiful that it has his undead heart lurching within his chest.

His eyes flit back toward you again, and he finds that your expression has only grown all the more tense since he had last seen it, and your hands have started to reach out into the darkness, the tips of your fingers so close to his side that he can feel the disturbed air left in their wake.

Your fearful whines have turned into choked gasps now, and as Astarion watches on, uncertainty coloring his thoughts, he realizes with a start that you must be dreaming, your "waking" hands emulating those found within your slumber as you almost certainly scrambled to find something, anything to hold onto.

He knows this feeling well, or at least thinks so, the desperation of trying to claw ones way forward, upward, against all odds, against all hope, and he feels his chest tighten at the realization that whatever frightens you so might not be so different from what horrifying fates he's suffered.

And Gods, your face is just so twisted up in fear, and the sounds you're making are so very desperate in the absolute worst way, in a way he had never hoped to hear, and before he can think he's reaching out to you, allowing your grasping hands to find purchase upon the cold and solid flesh of his forearm even as your nails dig in and your grip grows impossibly tight.

He allows you to ground yourself beside him over the next few minutes, his eyes never fully leaving your face as he waits for all of the fear that was once so present there to fade, some softened part of him needing to see your ease before he can lay down once more.

And he would never admit it, not to himself and certainly not aloud, but there is a level of comfort he had never anticipated in the feeling of your warm hands resting upon his skin, especially as your grip loosens and your wave of fear passes, leaving him with only the weight of two soft hands to serve as a reminder of what had just occurred.

And oh, what a mighty weight they bear,

What a permanent mark they leave in their wake.

[blessphemy]

@comment-bingo get me on that Blackout Prize List!!

These are all AO3 fics I commented on because.... I like fics. What about it. Perhaps on my next bingo card I'll remember to comment on some fanart and fanvids...

List of what I commented on under the cut! Because I'm a nerd.

Action/Adventure: Slapdash Neural Wiring by potatoturnipbean. This fic is part 2 of a series, but you can start by reading this one no problem. (That's what I did.) Featuring original construct characters set in the Murderbot Diaries universe, amazing heist fiction, drama, emotional turmoil, cool scifi gadgets, and line after line of hilarious, snappy prose. Do you want to be mercilessly punched in the emotions while laughing at the same time? Have you been craving a book that's exactly like Murderbot in tone and setting, but a littttle bit different? Do you want something gripping and fun and affecting? This fic is incredible and I'll tell anyone who listens. For free. Pleaes read Slapdash Neural Wiring it's an amazing work that needs love.

Poetry/Filk: Poetry installation: Untitled ("my friend always chooses the media") by borth. Very cool stuff. You have to actually read it to appreciate it I think... it's difficult to describe why I like it. In-universe poetry written in a bathroom stall.

Outsider POV: Cinema Verite by BoldlyNo. BoldyNo does it again with sensitive writing that explores canon and characters from various angles, this time it's Ratthi's perspective of creating The Video in System Collapse. Very good. Emotions.

Fave Trope: Road Trip For Science by Thirteen Primes. I don't know what my Fave Trope is, but I love Road Trips, and this fic has got a road trip. The author was inspired by a scene that came to them in a dream. There's something charming about this fic that is difficult to put my finger on. Featuring Mensah who'd done trucking to pay for school when she was younger, and Murderbot, driving a truck through a planet recently opening up to outside trade and which is being courted by corporate rim.

An Author You've Never Read: An Audacious Undertaking, Even to God by lumpy_space_princess. Featuring SecUnit 3, who is desperate to restore and re-upload the consciousnesses of SecUnits 1 and 2. Experience emotions from this fic or your money back. This fic is a multichapter and still updating!

Respond To Other Comment: On Constructs And Cats by ForestWren. Murderbot finds a kitten. What more do you want? It's exactly what you want.

Original Character: Happy Birthday by Jewels9162. Part of a prolific series about rogue Barish-Estranza units and their human handler. Bit of a nice slice-of-life here. About friends and birthdays.

Character Study: Sense of Belonging by ArtemisTheHuntress. Listen. I don't care what plans Martha Wells herself has for SecUnit Three. This fic is what truly happens with it in my heart after the events of System Collapse. It's such a good character study, about finding yourself in the context of a new strange social scene, about grieving what you've lost, about making a positive difference in the world using your specific skills and interests. So good.

Multi-Chapter: Slivers of Existence by musicofthespheres. A collection of loosely-connected ficlets. About Murderbot. It's very nice, okay. A bunch of pleasant scenes you can sip tea over as a pick-me-up. Enjoyable.

Long Fic (5k+ words): Family Portrait by ramshackle_fey. Are you ready to experience emotions about Murderbot and The Mensah Kids? Prepare yourself. Gird your heart.

Bharadwaj's Documentary: If You Want To Write by borth. This is a very neat concept. Chapter 1 is Murderbot and Bharadwaj talking to each other about the illiteracy enforced upon Murderbot by the company, and how Murderbot sneakily learned to read, and how its secretly-gained literacy is what allowed it to hack its governor module. Chapter 2 is a meta text exploring themes of literacy and worker control.

Old Favourite: In Another Life by Lick. Frankly it's impossible for me to pick only one favorite fic, so this is just one of many favorites. Frankly anything written by Lick is a favorite. This one is an AU in which Murderbot continued on its adventures for 4 years before returning to reunite with its humans on Preservation. The shifted dynamics with ART, SecUnit 3, and its humans, are a delight.

Free Space: do humans even dream by BWizard. A 4+1, times Mensah experiences nightmares, as noticed through the eyes of the people close to her. :')

Make a Rec Post: This post.

Crack: mining for copper (or ways to annoy your construct friend) by friendoftheJabberwock. Short and silly. Murderbot must do a very important infiltration at a costume party.

Canon Continuation: In Defense Of What I Never Had by Thylacine_Wishes. You ever want to ruminate on the Implications of Murderbot's shitty creation in comparison to ART's state-of-the-art University birthplace? Welcome. We have baby AIs.

Posted/Updated Pre-2023: precious cargo by FiannlyPhoebe babyfic. Fast forward some Years: Iris and Amena generate a human baby.

Fluff: people look east the time is near by BWizard. The secular space X-mas cookie making vibes. Sweet. Cookie decorating.

Hurt/Comfort: Memory Fault by Yellow. Murderbot and ART in the wake of the difficult events of Network Effect... talk it out.

Bot POV: Hints by i_have_loved_the_stars_too_fondly. Technically this is SecUnit POV. But I'm counting it. An exploration of how Amena may have come and done Murderbot's hair, pre-System Collapse. Made me feel a little sad :') I want them to feel connection and careeeeeee please.

Additional Canonized Tag: Third Dorm Mom by BoldlyNo. The canonized tag in question is "#Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland." Y'all this fic is AWESOME. If you love slice of life. If you love character and relationship studies. If you want a fic that is alllll about the relationship between Murderbot and Amena. It's this fic. Warm your heart over the coals, go on.

Fanart with <50 Notes: This collection of drawings by paging-possum. It had <50 notes when I reblogged it with commentary tags. You should check out this artist's works if you like Murderbot. Very nice drawings.

Podfic: [Podfic] Cog in the Machine, by FlipSpring by CompassRose and mistingsidekick on AO3. Come ruminate on the nihilistic POV of the Combat SecUnit that Murderbot faced off against in Exit Strategy.

Funny/Silly Tags: a comforting presence by afjakwrites. The tag in question: "#featuring secunit carrying ratthi bridal style." Consider, if you will: what if Murderbot is Objectively Hot.

Crossover: We Provide... Security by Blue_Bees. Very very good very good crossover!!!!! You don't need to know Leverage. Case fic + screw over Corporations time!

[estro-gem]

Jax x Gangle (Situation-ship): Raptors and Reptiles

The Amazing Digital Circus AU: Oasis

Author's note: Thank you all who showed your support for my previous fanfic! I didn't expect people to actually enjoy it, but I'm not complaining at all. You all made me blush like crazy! I'm really flattered.

Welcome to the Gangle-centred fic! These events happens after those of the previous oneshot, but you don't really need context for it to still make sense.

This story is a little less of a series of events and a little more of a descriptive narrative - definitely not everyone's cup of tea - but at least you get to see unhinged Gangle, I guess... And a little bunnydoll is sprinkled in there too....Maybe a speck of Zooble x Gangle to wrap it all in a nice little bow.

Ths fanfic is very much a situation-ship, instead of a romantic ship. I love the concept of Jax x Ragatha too much to break it in this AU. We are all free to ship whoever; we are all here to have fun!

I hope didn't make too many distracting mistakes in the grammar.

Warnings: Angst, easy on the fluff. All characters and the story of The Amazing Digital Circus belong to Gooseworx!

SUMMARY:

Gangle meets Jax in the hallway right after his long visit to Ragatha. It's been a hard day with a new face arriving so suddenly and Jax looks a little worse for wear.

One look at Gangle's face was enough to have him on edge again.

Please enjoy!

RAPTORS AND REPTILES

In the desert, there is a bird that, despite their wings and the ability to hunt mid-flight, nests beneath the very ground.

The burrowing owl.

It’s small, it’s quick, and it’s silent. The Amazing Digital Circus was a desert, inhabited by characters who banded together to form their own paradise. It was far from flawless, but together, they made a desolate hell into an inhabitable home.

The owl was fleeing back to its burrow after stalking the delicious fresh meat that graced them with their arrival earlier that day. The new arrival was known as Pomni and she had unfortunately proven to be a nuisance to their beloved Ragatha. Minutes prior to the raptor’s flight to her burrow, she spotted the jester loudly blubbering from the hall while standing just outside the ragdoll’s door. She can only imagine Ragatha’s face upon hearing Pomnni’s voice frantically try to apologize.

Of course, Ragatha wouldn’t let the jester in so soon; just as the owl suspected. Pomni had a lot to learn and a lot to prove before she was going to be accepted. The soft sobs that the burrowing owl had heard from Pomni’s mouth, before walking through her new room's door, gave enough of a clue for the raptor to find that the jester seemed to realize that.

But that was enough spying – she had a burrow waiting for her.

“We really need to get you a bell.”

Gangle halted at the sound of Jax’s voice. She was almost startled by it since she just passed his door without hearing it open next right to her. His voice came from further down the hall. Based on the today’s event’s, the petite character could easily deduce that the male paid a nice, long visit to Ragatha. She had the suspicion that he would, but it was nice to receive confirmation.

When Gangle turned around, she almost missed how he stiffened in alarm.

Jax’s smug expression was fixed, and he seemed to be the personification of ‘unbothered,’ but she knew better. When it came to one’s headspace or emotion, she always knew better – call it a blessing from being born with 2 faces.

Jax was deeply disturbed, but he wouldn’t show it. It was understandable, she thought to herself. Today was a rough day and they had fresh meat to worry about. The ribbonoid girl suffered greatly under the brutal bullying of Jax, with tears practically staining cheeks by the end of it all. She should’ve been broken down and crying. Jax was prepared to see her sulk until the following morning, but he wasn’t prepared for her to present as she had in her current state.

Jax wasn’t prepared to be faced with Gangle’s bright smile.

“Someone has a pep in their step.” He quipped sarcastically, “One wouldn’t be able to say that you spend the entirety of the day with tears streaming down your face.”

It didn’t matter how easily Jax was able to fool everyone. Sure, it wasn’t all a simple façade; he really did enjoy being the menace that would ruin anyone’s day, but to call him incapable of caring would be a crime. The snake struck because it was his role – his nature – and the snake was arguably the most dedicated to his role in the oasis.

She saw the rabbit shift into a wider stance as he suddenly took extreme interest in one of his now torn gloves. Gangle didn’t notice that little detail before – something must’ve gotten his skin. Him reacting the way he did, meant that he was immeasurably uncomfortable.

Something within her shifted. If anything, the sight of his torn gloves and the fact that he just left Ragatha’s room, prompted the burrowing owl to come out of its shelter.

She suddenly craved the meat of a reptile.

“I was crying all day…” Gangle slowly took a step forward. She wanted to see him squirm a bit more before she struck her talons into him, “No thanks to you, of course…”

“What can I say? My theatrics tend to bring people to tears.” Jax kept up his aloof demeanor. He didn’t seem to quite catch on to what had her ribbons in such a twist. All he could do in the meantime, was suppress the shudder that crawled up his back while witnessing Gangle’s positively, unsettling smile.

It’s one of the only ways she could express anger, after all. It was bone-chilling.

“Judging by the state of you gloves and your previous whereabouts,” the girl used her head to motion to the door behind Jax, as he did his best to block her view of it, “I’m assuming that you were responsible for tears other than mine, yes?”

THUMP

Now that did it.

Jax was so adorable when he lost his temper. Being the only ‘animal’ in the circus, Jax tended to revert to his feral instincts when he was overcome with emotion. Gangle always found it so queer.

“Cut the crap.” Jax spat, averting his gaze in embarrassment, before glaring back sternly, “I didn’t do anything to her. I wouldn’t!”

“Your outburst doesn’t support your case, Bunny~” her voice chimed smoothly as Gangle’s smile stretched inhumanly wide in response. She knew just how to drive into her personalized predatory charms. As a burrowing owl, it’s impossible to believe that Gangle was above anything. She spent most of her time stalking underground, below their feet. Unnoticed, until she revealed herself.

And reveal herself she did.

“You know that only I do what I have to do – nothing more!” Jax’s grin widened in kind, like a snake baring his fangs as he poised to strike. He lowered his voice to a harsh whisper, “Our little dolly needed some special attention. Since you were M.I.A. I bit the bullet. You’re welcome, by the way.”

Gangle’s eyes narrowed to slits, “I dealt with Caine to get my mask fixed. He drew it out more than necessary. I was about to pay Ragatha a visit before I saw you slip into her room.”

“And you figured that 2 is compony and 3 is a crowd, right?” His sarcasm never let up, even when he was rattled by her unwavering gaze.

“We both know that you just loved every minute you had with our sweet Ragatha…” Gangle leaned in closer, until she was too close for comfort. She intended to bait Jax into losing himself. If he did, she could take it… until she could wrap her ribbons around him as restraints. She would scream for someone to help; to check on Ragatha. Until then, she needed him to give her reason to do so, “Want me to believe that it's a chore for you to manhandle your doll?”

“Want me to wipe that smile off your face, Ribbons?”

Silence.

Tension.

Feral looks that could kill.

All, but no violence. No claws or teeth. Jax was perfectly composed, despite being as disheveled as he was. Yes, the rabbit was on edge and oozing with anger and frustration, but I kept his hands to himself, and his claws retracted. He only displayed his wide, feral smile – inches away from Gangle’s face. The snake’s threat display.

That was all Gangle needed to calm her racing mind.

Jax was still sane and merely acting within his role. Nobody got hurt, despite Jax having felt the need to bare his claws at some point this evening. A wave of relief washed over her as she allowed herself to pull back and deflate her stance.

No need for talons to sink into snakes tonight.

Jax drew back as well, mirroring her stance. Gangle could see his eyes soften slowly, upon realization that she was just fulfilling her role as his was fulfilling his. Unbeknownst to the ribbinoid, Jax heart swelled as the moment lingered. He felt the urge to display his appreciation to Gangle for wanting to protect their Ragatha.

Their precious water spring.

Sure, he was offended that she would think him capable of even thinking of harming the ragdoll, but it was the sentiment that won him over. Gangle was the raptor with the bird’s eye view, after all.

She poked and prodded; she searched and tracked for anything and any sign of Jax falling out of line. The masked girl’s mind was racing and calculating, as she was assigned to; with a brilliant mind such as her own. A certain gleam in Jax gaze had Gangle deduce that his mind was called back to a fond memory of them, operating in sync.

Maybe back to when Gangle first arrived in the circus…

Since no one could remember anything before entering The Amazing Digital Circus, Gangle considered her memories to be precious. She was prone to cling to as many as she could.

Her memory was actually brilliant. The mess of ribbons she was, with nothing more than a mask for a head, would leave one thinking that Gangle’s mind was as empty as the space behind her mask was, but her memory was practically photographic. Every shift, every twitch, every mannerism and every micro-expression along with the extensive description of what it all meant – enabled Gangle to easily read and understand her peers.

She could practically read their minds with a single glance.

She’d recall almost anything to the finest detail, but no one needed to know that. It didn’t concern them… and being frail and weak in stature, means that her mental ability was her greatest strength.

Her only strength.

She could still precisely recall her arrival in this forsaken hellscape.  

When she first arrived in the digital realm, she ripped off her comedy mask – thinking that it was her headset that she put on moments before.

However, instead of escaping the new virtual reality that she ungracefully stumbled into, she was just overwhelmed with an undeniable sense of dread and sorrow. The negative emotions brought her to her knees as she scrambled to maintain her grip on the smiling mask. Back then, she didn’t know that it was just because of her tragedy mask fronting. It wasn’t until she saw herself in the mirror, when she could fully comprehend her masks’ ties to her emotions.

Ragatha remained by her side throughout her first day, gently providing a safe space for Gangle to breathe. She did her best to shoo away the chaos that always possessed the tent, whether it be the NPC's the Caine cooked up for them or the other's curious, prying eyes. Gangle couldn't voice it then, but the doll was her saving grace.

They all thought that the ribbinoid wouldn’t last a week.

It felt like hours as Gangle sat in front of that mirror, wearing and removing the respective masks… growing used to the internal waves of emotions that ebbed and flowed from joy to sorrow. It was uncanny how she could feel an indescribable, undeniable joy in the most unfortunate circumstances.

A part of her wanted to believe that she had already lost her mind... but she could never experience the full range of emotions all at once. Maybe, for that reason, Gangle held out for so long.

Maybe she couldn’t abstract, no matter how hard she tried to.

Can one experience a mental breakdown if you already had 2 heads?

One mask would always nullify the other – and that, in itself, was Gangle’s own personal hell. As time progressed and days went by, she’d wear her comedy mask for the kick of it. A close friend abstracted? She’d pop that bad boy on and revel in the horrified faces of her fellow inhabitants as she laughs and smiles like she doesn’t have a care in the world.

That little trick had even brought Jax to unadulterated unease.

She was addicted to the control she had in her self-expression, as it was the only control she believed to have at the time. A smile amidst that tragedy. It drove everyone around her to the brink of insanity. She apparently left them to question the urgency and distress of the ones they lost by the day, but that only had her bursting with uncontrollable cackles.

Nothing mattered anyway.

Everything was so much funnier and lighter with her comedy mask – a high she couldn’t live without at the time. Upon having it broken by Jax for the first time, forced a tsunami of the pent-up negativity to crash into her being. The bunny presumably couldn't stand another minute of living with the girls cold, chilling smile.

This was when Gangle realized that any of her emotions were banked until she wore the relevant mask to let them out.

It was a never-ending dive from the previous high.

Once she recovered after days of crying, screaming, and wailing in fear, agony and sorrow, she accepted and welcomed the bitter melancholy of her existential crises. For the first time since she woke up in the digital world, Gangle found comfort in sadness.

And she realized her need for Jax.

He was the panic button she needed but didn’t always want. He was happy to bask in her tears. She knew that he would be on the prowl to hunt her down, desperate to still the ever-growing hunger he had; to be the greater evil. Gangle would always welcome him with open arms, because in the end, she couldn’t trust herself anymore. She needed her friends.

Because without them, she would turn to that undeniable happiness once again – and she would lose herself in it. This was the very beginning of Jax’s new role of ‘snake’ and her new role of ‘owl.’

Jax and his charming, fiendish stunts operated the groundwork by biting everyone in an attempt to be the occupational hazard. Gangle and her bird’s eye view could oversee it all and silently direct or divert Jax to and from suitable victims. She was the only one who could unnerve the bunny into having him take someone seriously. She was the only one whose eyes and mind he could trust when reading into their behavior. The owl snatched the snake who carelessly parades his antics.

On the other hand, Jax was the only one that could read her state of managing her… ‘addiction.’ He was the only one who would dare bash into her shield – her comedy mask - because the snake strikes the owl weighing heavy with neglect of self-reflection.

Two predators with each other as prey.

Gangle blinked to find Jax searching for something in her expression. Even though their dispute was quietly resolved, Jax still seemed to be bothered by something. The girl made quick work to figure out what it could be – starting with today’s events.

He took such good care of her, Zooble and Kinger today.

This day was stressful and disorienting with Pomni’s arrival. Gangle felt the phantom urge to reach for her comedy mask; her smiling shield of denial. By some devine intervention, her mask was broken due to unfortunate circumstances and without her consent or control. At least, when Jax broke it, it was because it was her choice to plead for his intervention with her eyes – desperate not to fall into old, destructive habits again.

Today, her mask broke, because of her clumsiness.

Her mistakes.

Luckily, Jax was quick to fix that! He purposefully stepped onto it, effectively rubbing salt into the fresh wound. Suddenly, it was him that was the problem! Yes, he didn’t need to do that - that was just evil!

The greater evil – the menace.

Throughout the day, Jax kept them under his heel and stomped on them for good measure. The day’s stress and uncertainty regarding the arrival of Pomni and some fake exit door was gradually drowned by Jax’s antics, and they all fell into routine once again. It was a crying shame that Ragatha had to suffer alone. If only they could’ve done something more…

Something clicked.

Gangle paid attention to Jax’s face again. He looked so tired, but desperate all the same. The masked girl blinked again and suddenly she knew exactly what he needed. What he yearned for.

He needed to see that he’d done enough.

...

With slow movements, Gangle reached for the edges of her comedy mask and removed it from her face. Jax fixed his gaze on her current, sad expression and found no suddenly overflow of tears, no uncontrollable sobbing and no screaming. It was just Gangle’s calm, sad, yet content expression staring back at him. There was no repressed emotion for her to show.

“You asked me if I want you to wipe the smile off of my face...” Gangle spoke, voice wobbly due to her sad expression, “It’s not necessary, I don’t need to be smiling to be ok.”

Jax eyes widened by a fraction, but that was all she needed to understand that he was truly surprised, as if he didn’t expect her to really be content and coping.

She gave a bitter smile; the friendliest one she could muster on her tragedy mask, “You won’t see me crying, though. You’ve already done enough of that today.”

You’ve already done enough.

To an outsider, Gangle's words would sound bitter and petty, but with the way she looked at him, she wanted Jax to feel nothing but reassurance.

You've done enough.

Gangle wasn’t surprised to see Jax stare at her in disbelief, but she was surprised to see sudden, spontaneous tears sprout from his eyes. She almost missed it with how quickly he ripped away his gaze. She couldn’t say or do anything fast enough, before Jax swung around and ripped Ragatha’s door open, entered, then throw it shut just as fast. The ribbinoid stood awestruck in the silent hallway.

She wasn’t upset; she felt honored.

She’d savor this moment until the day she’d abstract, like so many of them had before her. Brief worry flashed in her mind, but it dissipated upon looking at Ragatha’s face on the door. Jax was where he needed to be at this very moment. Although she couldn’t hear Jax sobbing into his arms as he sat against the door with his knees brought to his chest, she was sure that his doll sat right next to him.

Even though Ragatha would be tired and drained after today’s events, she would always make room for someone in need to wash away their sorrow in her clean water.

Knowing the doll, Gangle could only guess that Ragatha ended up eavesdropping on their whole encounter - biding time before splashing into action once things got too heated.

Gangle loved Ragatha for that.

She turned slowly, still dumbstruck and touched by what she had witnessed from Jax and then walked down the hall without a worry in the world. Maybe she will pay her beloved Zooble a visit before retiring for the night. She'd love to let her guard down.

She'd love for something to wrap around.

Gangle looked down at her comedy mask, smiling at her. It felt like a warm, welcoming smile... and she couldn’t help but feel content.

She didn’t feel like wearing a smile anyway.

Oasis: TADC AU list

Masterlist

[giantchasm]

"It turns out that sometimes the future actually belongs to someone else."

Happy Taransusie Tuesday, everyone! Here's...

Content that only ostensibly focuses on Taransusie and is more than anything character analysis of a third party?

How romantic! 🎉🥳

Okay, but no, seriously. Joshing aside, the other day I posted a meme about Sectonia and how she might feel about the idea of Taranza eventually moving on from her. And it was funny. We all laughed. But things can't always be goof-goof "If everyone started saying 'she sent her for you' I would start haunting literally everyone here because no I didn't." I'm a serious guy. I like exploring concepts that make me go "OUCHIE!" and so let's look at that sort of idea through a more somber lens for a moment.

...How would Sectonia feel if Taranza eventually moved on?

Now, I don't know if she's out there... somewhere in Hades or haunting his ass, but either way I think about her a lot. How she might feel in death, especially if she was returned to her right mind.

I think... Sectonia would have a lot of complicated feelings. Like, before we even get to the relationship nonsense. Let's toss all that aside for a second. I think Sectonia would be simultaneously be crushed by the state she left Taranza in and still... upset to eventually see him heal from it. She'd be glad, of course, to watch the scars she left on him fade, but all the same... seeing him make new friends— leave her behind...

That would have to hurt a little bit, wouldn't it? After all, it's not like she'd be afforded the same opportunity. She died young. Via circumstances that were hardly her fault. Of course she'd be a little bit jealous. Of course she'd be a little bit depressed. Maybe even a little bit angry. And she'd feel bad about it, but she would.

So when you factor in the idea of Taranza entering another relationship... oh my gosh, those complex feelings would only intensify. Taranza deserves to be happy. Taranza deserves to move on. She would know that rationally, but at the same time, the heart isn't always rational.

I do think ultimately she'd support him. In whatever he chose to do. Even if it hurt her a little. The least she can do is give him her blessing after everything that happened.

But that's something that applies to just about any Taranza ship. Let's talk about Susie for a moment.

I... think Susie and Sectonia are people who have some similar issues. At least in my interpretations, they're both people who have warped and maimed themselves in an endless search of perfection hoping it will grant them acceptance from others. But this hasn't granted them peace of mind, and in fact all it's done is pull them further from 'themselves.'

I don't know. I just think they'd have a lot to talk about, even in contexts that don't flagrantly disregard the Bechdel test like this one. They're both girlies who would, like, really vibe to both "Oh No!" by Marina and the Diamonds and "Body" by Mother Mother if that's a sentence that makes even a lick of sense. Their mental illnesses aren't the same, but they're like cousins. Their mental illnesses went to school together.

I think this sort of... self-recognition through the other would both make things easier and harder on Sectonia. Because on one hand, I think it would further be a reminder of all the things she'll never have no matter how badly she wants them, but I also think it would help her... have more empathy for this person she's initially inclined to see as her enemy, and maybe even help her eventually want good things for her.

It's kind of a complex scenario. More serpentine than I could possibly portray in a single comic or Tumblr post. Eventually, I'd like to write a fic from a deceased Sectonia's perspective exploring these sorts of ideas. But for now, I'll leave you with one last preposterous observation:

Perhaps this, too, is yuri. 🤖🐝

[omegaverse-guide]

On Omegas

This post is supposed to summarize and explain omegas in the context of the omegaverse. If you don’t know what that is, refer to Omegaverse 101 first. To see the corresponding post about alphas, click here. For betas, click here.

Biology

For the most part, people in omegaverse story are baseline humans and function as such, unless your canon (or AU of that canon) deals with aliens or magic. The difference is mostly in the reproductive system, which, in the case of omegas, can vary quite a bit, though the important shared conclusion is that all omegas regardless of their primary gender, can give birth.

So there is a womb?

Yes. Male omegas do have all the internal parts to make babies. This usually does include wider hips to enable childbirth, though in some fics it can be more difficult for them to deliver babies compared to women, or even require a c-section (though this realistically only makes sense if omegas were genetically engineered because for most of human history we did not have c-sections so this is rather unbelievable from a natural selection standpoint).

But how do you get to that womb with your (alpha) dick??

Good question. There is no definite answer, but omegaverse authors usually choose one of two options: ass or pussy.

If you choose ass, your (male) omega now gains self-lubrication in the form of slick to his ass, as well as a connection to his womb from said asshole. Usually this also makes the hole loosen itself with arousal, diminishing or erasing the pesky need to prepare and stretch before you get to the fun breeding part.

If you choose pussy, well. Your man's got a pussy now and it works like a functioning pussy on a real afab human. Easy.

You could also make up something else, though - I've seen extra holes just below the asshole that function like a vagina and only open noticably after presenting. The only limit is your creativity and your reader's suspension of disbelief (but don't let that one stop you if you got a vision).

So are there dicks?

Usually, yes, but not necessarily. Omega dicks tend to be small. How small? Hard to tell. Some of them are tiny, like an inch or less, and practically useless, while others are small only in comparison to the ridiculous alpha dick sizes, and could reasonably belong to an adult human irl. It's also entirely up to the author if these dicks are necessary for orgasm, if they can even get properly hard, and if they have the ability to eject real semen that could get someone else pregnant. Sometimes, though, there are no dicks at all, just a pussy, and all I ask the authors of those fics then: so how did you assign this baby as male then? Sure, in adulthood you see the difference through the lack of boobs, but baby girls also don't have boobs. I've never seen anyone explain this in fic, so I'm curious if someone has come up with a solution to this. Do you wait for kids to express their own gender identity if they lack a dick? Unlikely but cool. Do you just assign them all female and then go back on it if they get secondary male characteristics during puberty? Is there a magic or science way to know?

So no boobs?

Nope, not usually. Importantly, omegas can frequently lactate and breastfeed if they do end up getting pregnant, and they may grow boobs during this process, but they tend to be rather small and then disappear once there is no more baby to feed. Though if your fav fictional male is already well-endowed in the chest area you can always claim those are just his boobs and they're always there. Nobody's stopping you.

...Do I need to worry about periods?

No. They're rarely mentioned, so we can just comfortably assume they don't exist or just not talk about them. It sounds kinda like a pain to bleed from your ass anyway. Though it also is a pain to bleed from your pussy so. I mean. It's up to you. Wolves don't have periods so you could take another helpful piece of their biology and get rid of them for everyone including women! Nobody likes them anyway! You'll be doing society a huge service! Unless of course you wanna make your fav male blorbo go through that shit, then of course he has them. He probably deserves it, anyway. Or at least he deserves his sweet alpha boyfriend to pamper him and/or go buy pads and ask him what size pussy he wears.

Heats

Here it is, perhaps the most defining feature of omegaverse besides mpreg. All omegas (at least past puberty/presentation and before menopause) frequently enter heats. How frequently? Often once a month, so around an actual human's cycle, but it may be once a year for a mating season, or only happen when triggered by meeting their fated mate.

The heat itself is the period of time when an omega is fertile. It expresses itself with increased levels of horny, unstoppable production of slick, and a raised body temperature similar to a fever. This heat may just be an annoying itch, or it may make the omega completely bedridden and also overwriting their higher brain functions, being reduced to nothing but a willing, desperate hole for any alpha passing by. Though if an omega is mated, those desires may only be directed towards the mate, with all other alphas losing their appeal.

Heats do tend to pass after a select period of time (anywhere from a day to a month, though there is no upper limit and it usually depends on the frequency - more frequent heats tend to be shorter, though of course there may always be exceptions), though they're usually at the very least not comfortable to spend on your own. Even if the omega can bring themselves to orgasm, it won't have the same effect as being knotted by an alpha, or being filled with an alpha's cum. Of course, if you're looking for a fuck-or-die, heats can easily be repurposed to last forever and drain an omega of all their energy until they die unless a generous alpha fucks them.

Mating glands

A staple, typically located around the neck. I've seen them on the back of the neck a bunch, though personally I usually assume they're on the sides, where neck and shoulder meet, though you can do whatever you want. These glands can be bitten into by an alpha and form a bond that attunes them to each other. This could go as deep as being able to share thoughts, though it's not usually that, more often it means the mates will only be attracted to each other, recognize each other's scents from far away, be more affected by their partner's scent, make them want to take care of the other, and of course synch their heat and rut cycles. For the most part, this is a one-sided thing - the alpha bites and the omega is bitten, though it can be made mutual in some fics, or it may only work if the omega is aroused and willing, or it can be forced regardless.

Scent glands

Like most omegaverse inhabitants, omegas have a stronger scent and/or a better sense of smell than your average real human. The scent may be anything you desire and fits your blorbo, though omega scents tend to be on the sweet side. They also often have a calming effect on others, especially children or their mates, though they may also make their mates very horny and possessive. The glands are also usually located around the neck area, though extra ones may be placed on the wrists or inner thighs.

Societal standing

Omegas are generally thought to be sweet and caring, traditionally relegated to very specific roles such as child-rearing. If you don't wanna think about it for some pwp or incosequential fluff, just. Women. They're treated like women, generally, you live in a society, you've seen what that means.

Unlike for alphas, the inclusion of betas rarely changes much for the omegas in the stories, they're the lowest in the pecking order regardless, however, there is still some variety in how they're treated, depending on what kind of story a given author wants to write. I'll lay out a couple trends, but be aware that there are infinite amounts of nuanced takes and worldbuilding out there, and I can't possibly cover them all in this post.

The sex slave

This one tends to suck the most for omegas. In this version, they're not (or barely) seen as people, and their only purpose in life is to get fucked and give birth, rinse and repeat. They may be sold like goods or traded between packs, owned by a singular alpha or used by the entire pack come mating season, but either way, they do not get to choose.

The perpetual minor

Taken from historical restrictions imposed on women, this one doesn't treat omegas as objects, but they're not seen as full members of society either. Lip service may be paid to their important role, but their role is still limited and usually not their choice. Omegas in these kinds of worlds may not be bought and sold, but they're prohibited from many jobs, may not be able to open a bank account on their own or inherit property, or need permission from someone else for medical procedures, especially concerning their reproductive health. That someone usually being their father until they get mated and married, at which point it switches to their mate.

Omega Rights

This is the common trope you see in modern AUs. It assumes omegas have been oppressed in the past, but society has changed due to a political campaign similar to the real women's rights movement, and won them personhood status. More often than not, these societies are still in the process of change, even if most or even all legal barriers have been removed, old views and stereotypes as well as some structural barriers still remain. This can be chosen for the ease of writing what you know, or because you have shit to say about how things currently are, or just because you don't love dub or non con.

The Queen Bee

In a subversion of the usual standard, it's absolutely possible to make omegas the most powerful members of society. Omegas may be genuinely revered for being able ot give birth (esp if betas do not exist or are infertile), they may be rare and chosen as royalty, or be seen as closest to some kind of god. Playing with the tropes, they may be able to manipulate alphas according to their will with their scents, or become the ultimate prize to claim only for the most succesful alphas to give them a chance to reproduce. You might have to do some math on how to sustain the population if you get too crazy with it, or you can just forgo that and say it works somehow if you don't feel like math is worth your time for a horny fic with a subtop alpha and a dombottom omega.

Omega instincts

Whether it’s just nebulous feelings or a distinct inner voice the POV character can actually talk to, omegas have instincts that are stronger than what a normal human experiences - perhaps even impossible to resist, if the author so chooses. So, what are they compelled to do?

Mate & Breed

Obviously, that’s the first and most important one, the one the whole trope is famous for. An omega wants to be mated and bred by an alpha, especially if the omega is in heat. That’s just how it is.

Nest & Nourish

Not quite as integral but still wide-spread, omegas will feel the need to build a nest, especially if their heat is close, for themselves and their alpha if they have one. That nest is usually made of pillows and blankets (or whatever else they have available that's comfortable), and is the ultimate safe space for the omega. Outsiders are usually not allowed inside, and the nest is the place where they take care of themselves, their mates, and their kids. Omegas are usually not depicted as particularly aggressive, but the exception is often when they feel their offspring (or any children) are threatened, though omegas tend to naturally show affection more through taking care of others rather than physically fight for them.

Submit sexually

Whether they like it or not, omegas tend to be natural subs. They are turned on by alphas being dominant, possessive, and often rough/aggressive. It's up to the individual author if this is just a fun, healthy kink, an issue of consent the main couple has to work around, or an internal conflict for the omega as they enjoy (or are at least aroused by) alphas forcing themselves on the omega.

…And that’s about it! You’ve made it all the way to the end!

Remember, I’ve been generalizing - if there is any one thing you don’t like, you can remove it from your fic! This is your playground! Everything here can be changed and challenged, adjusted to fit your fandom and your blorbo and your own desires. This is just an overview.

Have fun writing and reading!

[azure-firecracker]

Unbroken

An excerpt from Chapter 4 of Raise Your Voices that I’m particularly fond of. Some context may be missing but not enough to affect the crux of the story.

This takes place somewhere between Irresistible and Colony.

Summary: A night staying with a host family while working undercover opens some of Mulder’s old wounds.

Rating: Gen

Word Count: 1,653

TW/CW: Flashbacks

Tagging @today-in-fic

“Where are you from, again?” Mulder asked Dmitri on the car ride back to Derek and Sandra’s house. The couple seemed pleasant enough, but neither were the intrusive type, which meant that it was up to Mulder to keep the conversation going.

Dmitri rolled his eyes. “I have said before. I am from Belarus.”

“What brings you here?”

Dmitri scowled at him. “I am trying to study music. Is harder to do in Belarus.”

Mulder wanted to ask more questions, but could tell they wouldn’t be well received, so he allowed the car to lapse back into silence for the rest of the drive.

“Don’t mind Dmitri,” Sandra murmured to him as they unpacked the car, about half an hour later. “He gets those same questions a lot, as you might imagine. It can be a bit frustrating.” That’s fair.

“I promise I meant no offense. I’m just a curious type.” Though maybe Mitchell the maple farmer wasn’t. Careful.

“When Dmitri first got here, we were, too,” chimed in Derek as he walked out to help. “We wanted to know everything about his past. But the more time we spent with him, the more we realized just how alienating our questions were. To him, it must have felt more like an interrogation than anything else.”

The voices hit Mulder so suddenly that he almost dropped the bag of groceries he was holding.

What happened, Fox?

Why didn’t you call us?

Why didn’t you help her?

Where is she?

It was nothing he hadn’t flashed back to a thousand times before, but somehow it got to him every time. You’re undercover. Stay here.

He nodded as Derek opened the door and they walked into the kitchen. “That makes complete sense.” God, the feeling of being interrogated with the same questions over and over again. He knew it all too well.

You know why you’ve been admitted, right?

We’re just going to ask you some simple questions.

No, you can’t leave yet. You aren’t better.

Why aren’t you better?

Dammit, Mulder, stay here.

“Are you alright?” asked Sandra, breaking through the haze. He forced himself to nod.

“So, how do you know Dmitri? Are you related?”

Derek shook his head. “Dmitri placed an ad in the paper when he got here seeing if anyone would rent out a room. Our kids were long gone, and things were getting a little quiet in our old age,” he and Sandra both chuckled, “so we said yes.”

“So you’re his landlords?” Awfully protective for landlords.

Derek and Sandra exchanged a glance. “It started out that way,” said Sandra, “but Dmitri really became part of this house.”

Derek smiled. “He seemed quite lonely when he got here. Understandable, of course, but it was hard for us to see, so…”

Sandra interrupted, “We made sure to let him know that he belonged here.”

Derek nodded. “He’s family now.”

The whole thing was a little too saccharine for Mulder’s taste, however lovely it might be. “He’s family now.” As if it were that easy to just have a family. As if it were that easy even to keep the family you were born with, to not let them down. As if it were that easy to deserve love.

The room started to spin.

How could you just let them take her?

What do you mean the doctors haven’t fixed you yet?

We’re splitting up. There’s nothing keeping us together anymore.

Your mother’s already lost one child. Make sure you don’t break her heart again.

Stop calling me. I don’t have time for this.

They say they’ve found her.

They’re always wrong.

Why didn’t you do more?

This is your fault. It’s all your fault.

Mulder barely managed to force out an apology mixed with an excuse about not feeling well before he was stumbling up the stairs, his body overtaken by sensations from the past, old words mixing with his thoughts, his memories, and his guilt.

This family had extended their deepest love to a complete stranger. It was so easy, so simple, yet Mulder had still failed to deserve the same sentiments from those who were supposed to provide them to him without question. Even now, he was still trying to make up for everything he’d ruined. Most days, it was all he wished for. But even if he did find Samantha, he knew it would never be enough. Love wasn’t feasible for him, not in the way it was for Dmitri or anyone in the Green Mountain Singers or the rest of the world. It was a fact that Mulder was used to carrying with him, but sometimes it shattered him nonetheless.

Sitting in a stranger’s house, curled up against the bedroom door, Mulder was a lonely child all over again, wishing and waiting for his parents to arrive and tell him everything was going to be alright, burdened with the knowledge that they never would. He felt as he had in the child psychiatric ward: ruined and alone and afraid. He needed to come back to the present. He needed to feel safe, to feel cared for, to feel alright.

It was against protocol, but he picked up the phone and dialed the one person who made him feel like he wasn’t broken.

“Hello?”

“Scully, it’s me.”

“Mulder,” she whispered over the phone, “we’re not supposed to call each other. You know that.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered back, trying (and failing) to keep his voice from breaking. “I just…” I needed to hear your voice. You’re the one person who can keep me grounded.

“Mulder,” her voice was much gentler now, “what’s wrong?”

How do I even begin to explain this? “Can you just…can you stay on the phone for a while? Can we talk about nothing?” Bring me back. You’re the only one who ever could.

“Sure, Mulder,” she quipped. “Tonight I spent three hours singing Eastern European folk songs and making potato and cheese casserole.”

“There’s a combination of words I never thought I’d hear from you.”

“You know, Mulder, these people are definitely…strange,” she observed, “but there’s a certain charm to them. Their unconditional support for one another is rather admirable.” He had to stop himself from letting out a bitter laugh. Support is never unconditional. Not really. He gripped the phone tighter, wishing Scully was really there for him to hold onto. Support is never unconditional. But sometimes I can believe that hers is, even just for a second. She was unique to him, in that way and in so many others.

“I get what you mean,” he replied. “The couple I’m staying with basically adopted this kid Dmitri, just because they wanted to, and…” He stopped, not wanting to burden her with his pain while she was already miserable on this assignment. It was too late. He could almost hear her put two and two together over the phone. Though the human mind was his area of expertise, his mind fell within hers. She knew what set him off, and he often caught her trying to protect him from those triggers when she thought he wouldn’t notice. She was naïve in that particular regard. Care was such a rarity in his life that he never failed to perceive it when it graced him.

“Adoption is a wonderful thing,” she said. “Some parents are very compassionate. Some less so. Studies show that the levels of compassion have very little to do with the child.” He knew why she was sharing those particular statistics. It didn’t help, but the fact that she was trying spoke volumes.

“Have your statistics accounted for outliers?”

“Not from Martha’s Vineyard.” Her directness caught him off guard, but of course she’d figured him out. She was too clever not to.

“Scully, I…”

“Mulder, I haven’t met your family, but whatever they made you believe, it isn’t true.” They didn’t make me believe it. It’s the Truth.

“My family did the best they could, Scully. It’s not their fault they didn’t have the mental capacity to raise a kid after what happened. I mean, who would?”

A pause. “It’s just…it’s not productive to blame yourself, Mulder. You were too young.” You don’t blame me. You’re the only one who doesn’t blame me. Why?

“It’s alright,” he replied. It isn’t, not really, but it’s better now that you’re here. Everything’s easier with you here. “I’ve accepted that. It’s just…” he sighed, “sometimes places like this get to me.” They make me wish I had a home to go back to. A real home. A home that feels like autumn sweaters and hot apple cider and warm hugs. A home that isn’t broken. This was the one thing about him that Scully would never understand. She had a home, and always would.

“Well,” she answered after a moment, “it’s no community choir. But you’ve got me, and I’m not going anywhere.” Her words held extra weight after all she’d been through lately.

He thought of days spent in dark basements crouched over files, of long road trips and meaningless back-and-forth chatter, of running into the dark together, of him being pushed to his limit in her name, standing over a hospital bed or wrapping his arms around her at the base of a darkened stairwell. He thought of her going to the ends of the Earth for his sake in Idaho, Washington, Puerto Rico, California, and everywhere in between. He thought of running after the Truth and her running after him, no matter how many times he showed her that he didn’t deserve it.

Maybe he had a home after all.

“I know.” And how lucky I am.

Another pause.

“It’s getting late. We should get some sleep. Especially you. You have band rehearsal in the morning.”

“Don’t remind me,” she groaned. “And Mulder?”

“Yeah?”

“You can call me again if you need to.”

He smiled. “Same to you.”

“Goodnight, Mulder.”

“Goodnight, Scully.”

[evenmorecrows]

(Nice Dream) - 1.1k ( Aug 4th: Dreams )

In a car, body, world that is not his, Johnny dreams.

Written for @silverv-week! Would you believe I wrote this months and months ago, when the prompts were first released, and I still haven't finished the main fic the V in this belongs to? Whoops!

Anyway, this is supposed to take place after the Temperance ending, and before the fic that I'm still working on, so it's at least not missing too much context. I cannot say the same for what I wrote for the August 10th prompt, haha.

Fic title from Radiohead's song (Nice Dream), of course.

The world feels fuzzy- warm. He's in Night City, but it's empty. No irritating buzz of chatter on the sidewalks, no ads blaring from screens almost as big as the building they were slapped onto. The LED lights aren't searingly bright like they usually are, all of them emitting a soft, fading halo. He's walking, and it feels like moving through waist-high mud, but for whatever reason, he can't find it in himself to care. He stops outside of a megabuilding, which one was this again? Something pulls him inside, past the unmanned ramen cart, into the elevator, some red string of fate. Something compels him to press a particular floor, and something compels him to wait there till the doors ding open. The scenery blurs in his head- and then he's in front of an apartment door. H10. He stands there, his hand hovers, like he's reaching for a knob. He knows it's empty, it has to be empty. After all, he's wearing it's last tenant's corpse like a fucking coat. But with the door closed, he thinks, what if? V could still be alive, behind this door, for as long as it stayed closed. Johnny could be the specter he was always meant to be, should've been, haunting this hallway until there's no hallway to haunt anymore.

His hesitation, however, doesn't stop the door from automatically sliding open. It doesn't occur to him that it should've slid open the second he stepped in front- not when a shock of blue-purple hair catches his eye on the other side of the room. For a moment he is destabilized, stands there in the doorway like a gonk. It doesn't make sense, but does it matter? Nothing fucking makes sense in Night City- that's how he ended up as a parasitic little chip in the first place, in the neck of one of the best people Night City's ever shat out. V's standing there, looking out the window beside his bed- Johnny remembers their first night, smashing his head against it- nausea rips through him at the memory- before he looks over his shoulder, having heard the hiss of the door. He turns to lean against the window sill, and he smiles warm and brighter than the sun itself, it takes Johnny's breath away. "Hey Johnny. Didn't think you'd be back so soon." Back? He takes a few tentative steps forward, eyes always on V- if he looks away, the other might vanish into thin air, his brain tells him. "What-" His voice is gravelly, hoarse. It warbles and distorts off the walls. He clears his throat, "What're you doin' here, V? You're... You should be..." He can't bring himself to voice it, his tongue sits leaden in his mouth even thinking about it. He hovers now, in front of V, too scared to touch him in case he's made of smoke and ash, another person Johnny's burned down. "I live here, duh. You feelin' alright?" His face pinches, and he comes closer, reaches out a hand to Johnny's forehead, and Johnny squeezes his eyes shut, scared, so fucking scared, that the second V makes contact, he'll just collapse into dust, disappear back into cyberspace, leave him alone again with what it cost to still be alive-

But the feeling of the back of a hand graces his head, and he opens his eyes, and V's still there, looking even more worried. "You feel fine, but... Maybe you should lay down. Actin' a bit weird." So close, so tangible, and Johnny's never yearned for anyone's touch more, so it's no surprise when he crushes him into a hug instead, V letting out an 'oof' with the force of it, but quickly wrapping his arms tight around him, one traveling up his back, cradling the back of his head. The rage, the unease, that awful fucking pit of depression- none of it exists, not in his arms. He wants to say, 'I missed you', and 'Don't leave me', and 'You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, will ever happen to me.', but his throat constricts around the words. That mushy shit just isn’t how Johnny Silverhand rolls. "Hey, hey. It's alright. We got all the time in the world." He says, rubbing soothing circles into his back. "You're doin' good, real good. But listen, alright? You can't keep boggin' yourself down like this, can't keep usin' me to deny yourself a life. You know why I gave mine to you." I love you, he means. They shared a brain, after all. Not much either could hide, only things they didn't acknowledge. "V-" He croaks. Somethings not right, his surroundings shift and twist, less of a place and more of a concept. He tries to cling to V, impossibly tighter, like if he holds on hard enough he won't fade away. It doesn't work. V melts right through his fingers. His eyes open to the roof of V's his car, his eyes streaming. Of course it was a fucking dream. That's the only place V can exist now, he should have known. He sits up in the backseat, scrubs at his eyes, caught between wishing he could've slept forever and never sleeping again. He shouldn't fucking be here, it should be V, in his body, living his life goddammit! It's not. Fucking. Fair. And there's jack shit he can do about it.

In his frustration, he lashes out, smashing his fist into the passenger seat headrest, which startles Nibbles, who was apparently sleeping up front. "... Shit." He takes a breath- better yet, he gets out, has a cigarette. Calms his nerves. He's currently in the middle of nowhere, Nevada, which means the light pollution isn't god awful, and the air smells clean. He can actually see the stars. It's a nice backdrop, all things considered. Tomorrow, he keeps driving, or tonight maybe, depending on how he feels when he gets back in the car. He doesn't have a real destination in mind; all his old contacts are still in Night City. He just knows he has to keep moving, like a shark pushing water through its gills. If he stopped, he figures he'd do one of three things; drink himself to death, fuck himself to death, or waste away in a bed till death was his only option forward. And as much as the guilt ate him alive, burned him from the inside out, he wants to at least make an effort to live, for what V gave him. It'd feel like spitting in his face to throw it all away because he was, what, too sad? Fuck that. One foot in front of the other. He gives a weary sigh, puts out his cigarette, and gets back in the car.

[deliciouskeys]

Co-parenting Butchlander is a bad idea for canon even if done in the tamest way possible and I feel like this needs to be said because this shit is getting out of hand to disturbing levels.

Homelander is the rapist.

He doesn't have custody of Ryan. He doesn't and shouldn't have rights to him. After getting Becca (Ryan's actual parent) killed, and against her wishes, he has stolen or in other words kidnapped Ryan.

Ryan is not his to take and shouldn't be viewed as such. Just think rationally for a split second on this.

Do you think a rapist should have rights to custody of a child they force on someone just because that person chose to keep it or god forbid, couldn't manage to get an abortion? Do you think it would be okay for that rapist to then kill the mother or get her killed and steal the child simply because he wants to be a dad?

That's not cute. It doesn't matter what the rapist's backstory is, that's horrifying and wrong and so gross on so many levels.

And look, it's fine if you want to romanticize this idea for fics but that is the one and only place it should be framed this irresponsibly. Because it is a bad idea with horrible implications that shouldn't be rose tinted into something adorable just because there are a few moments Homelander isn't pushing Ryan off a roof.

And you cannot complain about canon treating Becca badly when you advocate for this in canon.

This would be so much worse by make her nothing more than an incubator for the kid of the guy who raped her and then steals her husband. And that is disgusting.

Can we not forget that Ryan and Becca are both victims here, for once?

Romanticize it all you want in fics. It does not belong in canon.

Context link: My dumb crack idea for a Diabolical episode that Anon is referring to

“Co-parenting Butchlander is a bad idea for canon”

Maybe it doesn’t really matter for this discussion, but : I wouldn’t consider Diabolical “canon”. They had an episode about a woman talking to her poop, with a Deep cameo because it involved a sewer. It’s not canon.

“He doesn’t have custody of Ryan”

Well… okay, this is interesting, Ryan is in his custody as of end of season 3, whether HL has legal custody or not. In fact, NYS law is particularly lax and kind of messed up in the sense that you need a rape conviction to be deprived of your parental rights to a child that is genetically yours (and wasn’t made via a sperm bank). So not that it changes things ethically, but legally speaking HL may have legal claim here until someone convicts him of rape or CPS finds his parenting criminally negligent/inappropriate.

“Do you think it would be okay for that rapist to then kill the mother or get her killed and steal the child simply because he wants to be a dad?”

Do I think it’s “okay” ethically, morally, legally? Hmmmmmm, idk, what do you think I think, Anon? I’ll clear it up and say: no, I don’t . But am I watching and enjoying a show that already portrays this fucked up scenario? Yes, I am.

“You cannot complain about canon treating Becca badly when you advocate for this in canon”

Were you up in arms about this Amazon video?

Because it’s along the same ‘teehee this is so fucked up’ humor lines that you are clearly revolted by. If you were, then okay, at least you are consistent. And I’m going to chalk it up to different tolerance/interest levels about fucked up scenarios.

Come off anon if you still think I’m being glib and “romanticizing” dead incubators. I promise I’m not that scary to talk to off-anon. I even promise to hear you out if I’ve misunderstood the problem you have with my hypothetical dumb spin-off plot that wouldn’t be part of canon. You’re allowed to disagree.

[therentyoupay]

Hiii, love your writing! I read "two homes" and was wondering what do you think would be Elsa's Center and if you think it depends on which stage of her character arc she is at when she is chosen as Guardian (I'm not sure if that made sense, sorry about my english)

😘😘😘 i'm not sure what your first language is, but as a bilingual(-in-training) myself, I GET IT. 💕💕💕💕 thank you so much for your beautiful lovely ask, and it makes perfect sense! 😭😭😭😭 i love this question!!!

(however, i'm also afraid to answer it 🤣 because i feel like i might spoil things for my WIP stories, in some ways!?!?!? see below 💕👇)

long story, short:

i love, in particular, one (1) (and a half) center(s) for guardian!elsa in most of my writing, and it's usually the same one each time; however, that said, most of the stories i've written in which she has become a guardian (i.e., a Being With a Center) have also featured her discovering/accepting/leaning into her center at similar times at her character development.

(and i am SO GLAD that you mentioned this SUPER IMPORTANT POINT, i love you, you beautiful brilliant critical thinking brain, you 💕 i subscribe to the theory that personalities are, to a degree, relatively fixed at their core after a certain point in an individual's development but there are, of course, significant events that can continue to influence a person's intrinsic idea of Self, and thus allow them to change and grow over time, all very much depending on context.)

so, THAT SAID, yes, i also believe that depending on the specific story being told, we could argue that elsa could have any one of various options for centers, depending on who is telling the story!!

(i personally usually just tell variations of different stories that follow similar trajectories, so elsa's center ends up being the same across AUs, more or less 🤣)

more specific-ish story:

here's one fic in which i have established and fleshed out (a bit) my headcanon for what elsa's center could be as a guardian: cosset on ao3. if you're curious, please go check out that baby ficlet! it's about 2.5k words.

(i also have other stories in which elsa may or may be finding her center but i am afraid to spoil anything.... 👀💕 hmmmmm ✨)

as for two homes, however, in which elsa's rise into guardianship is similar to that of cosset!elsa, i think it's safe to say that i would see her having the same center!

heads up though, i am not a super fan of elsa's center being "love" 👇

first, i think we could make a case for lots of different options for what might be elsa's center, and yes, i agree that it is all very context-dependent on the story and where she is in her development! the only potential center that i do not particularly enjoy for elsa is love because WHAT IS LOVE?? BABY DON'T HURT ME

how do you operationalize "love?"

how would you operationalize love for childhood/children, if that's what the story is going for?

sure, you could operationalize it as feelings of warmth, light, and comfort, embodying a feeling of safety and belonging and connection and trust, etc. etc., or break it down into sub-categories like unconditional love, familial love, friendship, and self-love, etc.

but "love" as a construct is so wide and varied and nuanced in really particular ways, so all in all it is a squishy squishy center to me. although each center carries its own subjectivity and nuance (e.g.,, "fun" is not the same for each person), its especially fluid, abstract, complex, multi-faceted nature seems rather expansive and nebulous for a "core" center, or a guardian's unique purpose... especially since it could be argued that at the center of each guardians' centers (hope, memories, fun, wonder, dreams) is (already) love, in that all the guardians are driven by different types of love to fulfill their centers. in other words, i'm not a huge fan of calling elsa's unique center "love" because, in my view, love is in many ways inherent to being a guardian, anyway.

it is in this vein that i am usually much more interested in seeing what specific aspects of "love" or other constructs (growth, happiness, etc.) that people have in mind for elsa's core journey, in addition to the love inherent in guardianship!! i feel like people can be so creative 🥹💕💕💕💕💕

and again i usually just stick with the one and a half centers each time HAHA OOPS

thank you again for the super fun and interesting ask, nonny!! 🥹💕💕💕

[professorspork]

Hey, a little while ago, you reblogged that post about AI learning when people insert fics into AI text generators, and I wanted to offer good news and bad news: the good news is that AI learning models mostly don’t work like this. The publicly accessible text generator isn’t the whole learning model, it’s a single machine that the learning model generated. It won’t get fed directly back into the AI.

The BAD news is that there’s not really anything stopping them from saving that information separately to use later, and (much worse) anything that’s publicly available has probably already been scraped and saved. The good-in-this-context-but-depressing-overall news is that these models operate on the scale of billions of words, so, like. Idk. Individual fics ending up in a database mostly isn’t going to matter. That’s part of why the data-scraping isn’t something devs think about, ethically. This info is a paraphrase of another post I’ve seen going around saying the same thing, but I can personally corroborate it; before AI was a “crypto people hate when artists can earn a living” thing, I took some college courses on it and followed blogs about AI stuff for years. The last year or two of AI news has been really shitty :P It’s been really cool to me for a long time, but it is now clear that it’s even-more-vulnerable-than-usual to “capitalism uses every tool for oppression first” Knowing how it works is exhausting because anti-AI people are sometimes not all that much more accurate about how it actually works than the fervently pro-AI “I think chat-gpt is a person and human-generated art is dead” people, and then both of them skip talking about the more concrete problems like the “chat-gpt is propped up by slave labor” stuff.

I really appreciated this series of asks and wanted to make it available for all!

I think what we run into here is where like. A rhetorical device to invoke a sense of stakes and a bit of a guilt trip ("this is plagiarism because it feeds the AI" and its many permutations) can run up against misinformation (it's not literally becoming part of the AI's knowledge base, though as you noted it certainly COULD.) Because like

Where that post was coming from was someone being like "but why shouldn't I do this?" and the answerer resorting to "because it takes my work away from me" and this is still true in like, the rules of community and creativity if not necessarily in the hard lines of code. it's harder to articulate "this makes me uncomfortable because it's violated my ineffable sense of mutual belonging with and ownership of my own work, which I already felt on shaky ground on because it's fanwork but still FEEL with my WHOLE HEART" than it is to say "this concretely makes my words fuel for the machine" which I think people grok as a more sort of understandable breach of that social contract.

Which is why I like this post a lot because it gets at the WHY of why this is so perturbing and violating and isolating

Fandom was never meant to be a solo endeavor! when I write fic and put it out into the world, it's like echolocation. the words I put out are only half of what gives it shape and meaning to me-- the other half is the sound of it reverberating back to me as it bounces off the people it hits by way of comments, tags in reblogs, and DMs and they tell me their reactions and interpretations. that's what makes it a complete picture and not just screaming into the void.

to be removed from that process at all is a heartbreak to me; to have my words taken without my consent is insulting and misses the point and just. ultimately makes all of us that much more alone. which is to say that it's factually correct to say individual fics ending up in a database won't matter because it's probably already been scraped anyway because that's true for the AI and for the data. but individual fics DO matter insofar as like, these are choices people are making about what this hobby is and means and why they like it and what they think it's for and how they enjoy it, on a communal and social level, and THAT matters to me a great deal, in the same way that like, people now might end up getting videoed for a tiktok without their consent or whatever. it's about the erosion of privacy and respect.

but also yeah ChatGPT also runs thanks to exploited and underpaid workers, consumes horrific amounts of water in a time of increasing drought crisis and emits tons of carbon to boot.

[eemoo1o-kuroo]

I love that ep 1 scene with the boys and Kaoru too! I agree that Kaoru was studying them like the nerd he is, but I also think he may have saw a bit of himself in Langa at that moment cause of what happened when he first met Adam.

Like he saw Langa's awed face and was thinking, "Yeah, I know that look, doesn't lead to anything but heartbreak."

That frame is one of my favourite shots. It belongs right in a “Sk8 No Context” video. In fact, that’s probably why it was included.

I see it as caution, and instead of seeing himself in Langa, he sees Adam*. There’s the “Blue Theory” that I’m yet to write out I full, only backed up by that after-credits scene with Kaoru/Kojiro in episode nine. And while what Kojiro and Kaoru say about the matter contradicts what I just said, perhaps Kaoru’s stance on Kojiro “overestimating Langa” wasn’t that to begin with.

*I can quite unfortunately see a whump fic somewhere about Reki breaking up with Langa, or something, and pushing him into becoming the “next Adam”, either alongside Adam himself or against Adam’s desires (now that he’s all “reformed” or whatever… spoiler alert: he really isn’t), though given the circumstances of such a fic being created I can imagine it’s alongside Adam. (Eve goes a bit crazy, for real.) It’s shipping. I don’t want to find out if such a fic exists unless the ship, if included at all, is depicted negatively and as a “grave mistake”, or something. So, I’m not looking.

I see it, with episode nine in correlation. Kaoru is studying Langa, and Reki, and seeing himself, Kojiro and Adam from when they were kids (with a few differences, of course). Reki in this situation is Kojiro and Kaoru, and Langa is Adam. Makes sense, right?

Well, there’s a few shifts that I think Kaoru has studied (as the “smart one” of the group, I’m sure) Langa and Reki as to assure his suspicions of the similarities, or a lack thereof.

In fact, when I’d first seen this ask a few days ago, I’d gotten the idea to make a Venn diagram of all the similarities I could remember without rewatching the show:

Incidentally, Langa’s exclusive qualities are also connected to Adam — but he’s not included here, for obvious reasons.

The immediate parallels in terms of “Renga vs. Matchablossom” would be Reki/Joe and Langa/Cherry. Though, outside of ship dynamics (I’d so badly wanted to put “bisexual” and “gay” in the diagram, but withheld my compulsions — though, I did allow myself the “Lovestruck Stare”, as that’s canon compliant enough, with Kojiro giving several to Cherry and Langa to Reki, breaking the “obvious parallels” immediately, giving Langa and Joe more leverage as counterparts over Langa and Cherry) the parallels, as I’d just mentioned in parentheses, are more complex.

TL;DR: I really need to write my Blue Theory out in full, but here is the “character parallels” in the main cast (which doesn’t play into the Adam/Langa parallels as much as the Blue Theory does, with some Cherry on the side, and maybe some Tadashi/Reki parallels to compare with how they nurtured their own foils with Adam/Langa respectively).

The parallels aren’t as straight forward, but I think the main takeaway is just:

[pynkhues]

Hi Sophie, so sorry if this is a double ask but I can’t tell if tumblr ate my first one…I was wondering if you would be comfortable sharing anything about your writing process (for both original projects and fics). Do you outline? Or is it more freeform with a general idea of where you’re going?

Hi! I'm so glad that you re-sent it, because it's not a double in my inbox. I'm more than happy to share about my writing process! I've been writing for a long time, and I think I might like talking about actually writing things more than I like actually talking about the finished story, haha.

My process is pretty much the same for both fic and for original works, and in that, I do a lot of wriitng in my head before I start actually even 'officially' writing it. To the point where I'll usually have a pretty strong sense of what the underlying idea of the story is, where I want the emotional anchor of the story to be, and often have roughly choreographed a few climactic sequences in my head in a way that gives it not necessarily structure or an outline, but a general shape.

So in writing Ungodly Hour for instance, I knew that I was interested in this sense of perception as the underlying idea of the story - Lestat's perception of himself and what happened to him, Louis' perception of what happened to Lestat, Daniel's potential perception of Lestat through the interview.

Then I knew I wanted the emotional anchor to be in Lestat telling Louis what happened with Magnus, and this collision of those perceptions, because I just found that like - - exciting creatively, and I had these scenes in my head - weirdly, the gallery one was quite formded for me, then the dressing room blowjob, then the fight (although I re-wrote the fight quite a few times).

So I had all that in my head when I actually started to write it, and at that point, my process really becomes a matter of asking 'Why?' I ask that constantly when I'm writing, because at the end of the day, writing is just cause and effect. One of the best bits of writing advice I ever got was that your story is always 'And so this happens' or 'But this happens', never, ever 'And then this happens'. Good scenes are built on the backs of the ones that came before them, so they need to have purpose for there to be any payoff.

As a result, anything that feels either instinctual or appealing to me, I end up asking it well, why, or how, or what needs to happen to make this feel right? I find that usually steers me in the best direction, and it helps me to especially get into a character's head, or even sometimes the context of the story overall.

In terms of the actual writing though, - this sounds so wanky, haha - but I generally say I'm a bit of a painter when it comes to writing. I like to lay a base coat and then build from there. I'll usually start with scenes that are fairly skeletal with what's effectively placeholder dialogue that evokes the vibe of the final dialogue that I'd like, just so I know what emotional beats I'm wanting (and these can and do change), and so that I have a full story on the page, and then I go back over and over again and build it up and up and up.

I'm kind of at that base coat skeleton stage with the reunion fic now, so to give you a sense (and please don't judge, like I said, this is basically a skeleton of a scene with some placeholder dialogue!) it'll usually look a bit like this:

So yeah, it'll start pretty thin, but it'll be what I know I want it to be, and sometimes I'll keep parts of it, but usually it's entirely re-written by the time I post or it gets published.

Things often fall into place late too. As I've gotten more experienced as a writer, I think I'm better at trusting my instincts? Like in Ungodly Hour, the gallery scene was the first thing I wrote in full, and I think I even posted here that I almost cut it several times. It was so fully formed for me, and I knew on a gut level that it belonged in the story, and more than that, needed to be the opening scene, but I didn't really get how it folded in until later in the writing process when it just clicked that it not just established the themes of the story, but placed Louis in a rawer emotional state to be entering this particular night with Lestat.

So yeah, I build up ideas basically, haha.