#this took me absurdly long to make lol

[lucysarah-c]

Mounting Spring Ch. 5

Summary: Paradis has opened its doors to the world, and the Rumbling has not yet occurred. The military board insists, "We need more Ackermans!" to avoid ruining Mikasa's life. Levi agrees. Arranged marriage, explicit consent, Omegaverse. Alpha! Levi x Omega! Y/N. Mentions of underage marriage but it doesn't happen, the reader is over 21.Age gap but they are both adults. (I would say enemys to lover but they don't even know eachother to be enemys lol.) Author note: I've had this idea for so long… Omegaverse is my guilty pleasure, and I decided to treat myself with it. From the creator of "Not in season?" I bring to you "Mounting Spring" lmao haha sorry it's just that my first omegaverse was rather a success… so I decided to do another. Masterlist to the previous parts! Ao3 link in case you prefer to read there! Chapter dedicated to @satoruandkento Who did good in an exam! Congrats sweetie!

“... Hello?” 

She opened the door of the room slowly, peeking through the crack, only to find the ransacked office completely empty. The space was faintly illuminated by the softened natural light filtered through the drizzle outside. The storm had passed, leaving only the gentle, persistent patter of rain. 

Flicking her fingers absentmindedly, she stood barefoot in the stillness. The silence was unnervingly heavy, making her skin prickle. She rubbed her arms against the chill. Turning on her heels, she retreated to the bedroom and glanced at the clock. 

“What a great wife I am... waking up at midday,” she muttered, her gaze landing on the drawers. She hesitated, debating whether she should rummage through them for a sweater or something warmer to wear. But a muffled commotion from outside the room caught her attention. 

Her curiosity piqued, she took tentative steps toward the small window above the nightstand. The angle was inconvenient; she couldn’t see much from where she stood. Carefully moving a few items off the surface, she climbed onto the nightstand, kneeling on it with her hands gripping the frame. Peeking just above the sill, up to her nose, she felt absurdly catlike—like her pet trying to sneak a bite off the dining table. 

Outside, the training grounds came into view. Nothing unusual stood out at first glance, save for a cadet surrounded by scattered equipment. She could hear voices carrying over the rain. 

“Jean-boy, are you really that useless?” Connie's voice rang out. “You’re going to drop a thunder spear one day, and that’ll be the end of you.” 

“Don’t call me that, baldy!” Jean shot back, hurriedly picking up the pieces he’d dropped. 

That seemed to strike a nerve. “I’m not bald anymore! I grew my hair out!” 

Jean straightened with his arms full, ready to retort, but froze when his golden eyes locked onto hers. 

“!!!” She squeaked in surprise, almost toppling off the nightstand as she lost her balance. 

“Jean, we’re going to be late,” Connie called, approaching his friend. He frowned when he saw Jean standing motionless. “What are you staring at?” 

“I saw a girl in Captain Levi’s room,” Jean muttered, dazed. 

Sasha, who had been trailing behind lazily, perked up with a mischievous grin. “Are you sure you’re not just hungry and hallucinating?” she teased, referencing one of Jean’s infamous complaints. 

“Tch! I’m not imagining things! I saw her,” Jean insisted, pointing toward the window. “She’s right—” But when all three turned to look, the window was empty. 

“Why would Captain Levi have a girl over?” Sasha wondered aloud, clearly entertained by the thought. 

“Isn’t he, like, really popular?” Connie asked. 

“Short men aren’t popular,” Jean retorted. 

“Maybe you think that because being tall is your only redeeming quality,” Sasha fired back, smirking. 

“Guys, what’s taking so long?” Armin approached, puzzled. 

“Captain Levi kidnapped someone!” Connie blurted out. 

The pause that followed was almost deafening as Armin processed the statement. Finally, he grimaced and said, “Alright...” He dragged the word out, rolling it on his tongue as if dissecting it. “You’re going to have to walk me through how you reached that conclusion.” 

Back in the bedroom, she muttered under her breath as she replaced the items she’d moved earlier. “He owns so little furniture, and I almost broke it,” she grumbled. Time felt distorted—passing yet standing still. Determined to accomplish something, she opened the drawers, searching for warmer clothes. 

Her fingers brushed against a thick, knitted beige cardigan. A faint smile tugged at her lips as she pulled it out. Its quality was better than anything else in the drawer, and it appeared barely worn. She slipped it on, savouring the cozy warmth and the elegant braided patterns that adorned it. 

Her hair, however, was another story. With nothing at her disposal to tame it into a neat bun or anything similar, she opted for a simple braid. Her “skincare routine” consisted of splashing water on her face and brushing her teeth. The bathroom cabinets offered little—no face cream or other luxuries. 

She wanted to look more presentable, but there wasn’t much to work with. Her dress was still a muddy disaster, and her shoes sat damp by the unlit fireplace, refusing to dry in the humid air. At least she’d managed to put her bra on underneath his clothes, even if they were slightly damp. It was... something. 

But as the minutes dragged on with no sign of him, her attention drifted to the door. The knob gleamed temptingly, as if beckoning her. Her fingers wrapped around it, testing its cool, polished surface. With a light press, she tried to turn it—and froze. 

“What?” 

She tried again, her confusion mounting when the result didn’t change. 

“Excuse me?” she huffed aloud, offended. 

Determined now, she moved to the office. Dodging the desk, she pulled back the curtains to find the main window. She grasped the knob and tried again. Nothing. 

Panic rising, she rushed back to the bedroom and tried the window she’d peeked out of earlier. It wouldn’t budge. 

“He locked me in!” 

The realization hit her like a slap. Outrage bubbled up as a thought from the previous day resurfaced—that he treated her like one of his cadets. 

“I take it back!” she declared, indignant. “I’m not a soldier under conscription... I’m kidnapped!” 

When the front door of his chambers creaked open, she jumped from her seat as if propelled by springs. Levi stepped in, quiet as ever, carrying a tray in one hand and his muddy boots in the other. His gaze was fixed downward, his movements precise, only to falter when he noticed her staring at him with wide, startled eyes—like a deer caught in the hunter’s sights. 

“You’re awake,” he said, stating the obvious as though it were groundbreaking. His attention, however, quickly shifted to the cardigan she was wearing. His brows furrowed slightly, his displeasure clear, though the reason for it escaped her. 

“I was cold,” she explained defensively. 

Levi pressed his lips together, shifted to set the tray down on his desk, and gave a curt nod. “It’s fine,” he said, though his tone didn’t match the words. 

“Where were you?” she asked, her voice sharp with accusation. 

Levi ignored it entirely. “I brought you something for lunch,” he said instead, carefully placing the tray on his desk. His sharp eyes caught the teacup she’d left behind—nearly full, now cold, and utterly wasted. 

It was like an unpractised waltz, each moving out of sync with the other. He felt a flicker of irritation at the wasted tea but refrained from clicking his tongue. She, on the other hand, felt the growing need to demand answers. 

Kicking off his socks near the unlit fireplace, he dropped his mud-splattered boots beside it. He was damp, though not as drenched as the day before. His green cloak had served its purpose well enough. As he moved purposefully through the space, she trailed after him, shadowing his every step like a duckling following its mother. 

The first time he turned sharply and collided into her, Levi froze, startled and visibly annoyed. “Where were you?” she asked again, her persistence dogged as though tethered to him by an invisible thread. 

This time, he spared her a side glance. “Working,” he said curtly, as if she were prying the words from his mouth. 

“With this weather?” 

He didn’t dignify the remark with more than a curt “Yes,” as he made his way into the bedroom. Opening the wardrobe, he pulled out another pair of uniform boots with the ease of a man who knew exactly where everything was. Unlike her, Levi moved through the space like he owned it—which, of course, he did. His demeanor lacked curiosity, replaced by a brisk efficiency. Everything was where it should be, and anything out of place drew his immediate notice. 

Could he have explained that the soldiers trained in such weather to prepare for maneuvering their ODM gear in storms? Possibly. It might even have smoothed the conversation. But Levi wasn’t inclined toward unnecessary elaboration. Instead, he moved to his drawers and opened them, his jaw tightened when he noticed the contents had been rearranged. 

“Tch.” His annoyance was audible. He worked quickly, deftly refolding the clothes and restoring his meticulous color-coded system. 

“Where are you going?” she pressed, her relentless questions earning a sharp exhale from him. 

“Working,” he said without looking up. 

“Still?” 

“Yes.” 

“Are you going to keep training?” 

“No.” 

“Then?” 

“Meetings.” 

“Now?” 

“Yes.” 

“When will you be done?” 

“Later.” 

“Later when?” 

“I don’t know. As long as it takes.” 

Each question landed like a pebble tossed at his patience. She followed him step for step, persistence wearing his resolve thin. “You locked me u—” she began accusingly, only to stop abruptly as he spun around to face her. His expression was dark, his irritation palpable as they stood in the doorway leading to the bathroom. 

She froze, lips pressing together as her wide eyes met his. His jaw tightened, and his heavy breathing was audible. 

I want to take a shit,” Levi growled, his tone flat but sharp. “Would you let me do that, or are you planning to follow me inside too?” 

Her eyes widened, and her lips parted slightly, but no sound came out. Silently, she took a step back, clearing his path. Levi shut the door firmly behind him. 

Later, during a meeting, Levi would reflect that he should’ve kept his composure. But at the time, frustration got the better of him. As unfamiliar as all this was to her, it was equally new to him. He wasn’t used to sharing the four walls he called home. Seeing them disrupted—by his standards, turned upside down—was far from easy to stomach. 

Levi wasn’t used to this. His quarters, his routines, his calm—it had always been his. Seeing it disrupted, even slightly, felt unbearable. The wasted tea, the cup left precariously on his desk where it could stain, the tea set not cleaned immediately, his clothes rearranged, stray hairs in the bathroom sink—it all gnawed at him. 

Levi wasn’t sentimental about objects, but the cardigan? That had been a gift from his previous squad for his birthday. He hadn’t yet worn it—by choice, not for lack of opportunity. It was a high-quality piece, and he’d never felt the need to use it. Now, seeing it draped on someone else without permission added to the sense of invasion. 

And the way she chased him, trailing at his heels like an overeager recruit, added insult to injury. The last time someone had followed him around like that had been Isabel, back when she was just a kid. That had been over a decade ago. 

Levi was a man of discipline, order, and solitude. This upheaval felt like his carefully ordered life had been tossed out the window on the whim of a few bored members of a military board. And he wasn’t handling it with grace. 

Levi emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, his hair slightly damp and a faint scent of soap clinging to him.  He had tidy up his appearance after heavy training, back inside the room. Only to find her sat down at one of the office’s couches. The pouting and demanding glance from her didn’t stop him. 

He ignored her gaze, brushing past her to grab the tray of food he'd brought. "Eat," he said simply, placing it on the coffee table next to her. 

She hesitated, glancing at the tray—a bowl of steaming soup, some fresh bread, and a cup of tea, the latter clearly a replacement for the one she'd neglected earlier. “Thank you,” she murmured, though the tone held a trace of reluctance. 

The sound of the bathroom door opening snapped her attention back. Levi emerged, his damp bangs brushing his forehead, his expression as unreadable as ever. His eyes flicked briefly to the tray, then to her. Giving her quick flickering checking looks as he sort through a stack of papers. 

“Eat while its warm,” he insisted. 

“I’m waiting,” she replied, though her tone carried an edge. 

Levi raised an eyebrow, then crossed the room to retrieve his cloak. He pulled it on with practiced efficiency, securing the straps across his chest. “I’ve lunch with the squad,” he said shortly, his tone brooking no argument. 

“Where are you going now?” she asked, her voice rising just slightly. 

Levi paused at the door, his hand on the knob. He turned his head just enough to glance at her over his shoulder. “I told you. Meetings.” 

His grip on the door tightened for a moment before he sighed, turning fully to face her. “I don’t know how long it’ll take. But I’ll be back. Don’t go anywhere.” 

“It’s not like I can leave this place,” she spat, her frustration spilling out. 

For the first time, a flicker of amusement crossed Levi’s face, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re not a prisoner. You’re just confined for now.” 

He searched for patience within himself. “I don’t know,” he muttered, ready to leave, “Take a nap.” 

Before she could fire back, the door closed behind him with a decisive click. Was he always like this? Was he angry, or was this just his way? She hated this imbalance of power. 

“If his idea of marriage is locking me in and giving me orders, this is going to be a long arrangement,” she muttered aloud to the empty room. She had heard of Alphas who kept their Omegas close, but this felt excessive, even extreme. 

Levi arrived at his meeting, letting his weight fall into the chair with a sigh. He couldn’t help but reflect on the situation. His mind drifted away from the discussion at hand. ‘I’m not angry, I’m just busy’, he told himself. But then, his thoughts returned to the cold tea left behind, unused. ‘Maybe I’m a bit angry.’ 

Dragging his feet down the hallway, Levi entered his chambers quietly, the door creaking softly as he stepped inside. The room was warmly lit by a few candles. “Y/N, I brought you dinner,” he announced, his voice flat as he moved toward the bedroom. The lights were dim, but bright enough to make him think it had been left on for a while. 

She was asleep, curled beneath the covers, her arms sprawled outward, fingers almost touching the floor. The sight of her like that—a far cry from the tense, demanding energy she had shown earlier. 

The glint of something caught his attention, flickering in the night. Levi bent down to pick it up and examined it closely. The ring had likely fallen off her finger and onto the ground. "Tch," he muttered, irritation bubbling up—not because she wasn’t wearing it, but because he had one job to do. 

He didn’t know her well enough yet, and honestly, matching her ring size would have felt like a miracle, but still—he couldn’t help but think it should have gone a little smoother. He placed the ring safely on the nightstand, then checked the clock. 

Almost midnight. Exhausted, Levi ran a hand through his hair, frowning as a heavy sigh escaped him. He had intended to finish quickly, but this was exactly why he hadn’t married by choice. Do I look like someone who has time to be a present husband? 

With the windows shut, the air in the room felt thick and stale. Each breath only reminded him why he had kept her confined. He could breathe through it, but barely. His eyes, whether intentionally or not, had drifted to her parted legs, one hanging out from under the blankets. The weather had improved, and she’d taken off her sweatpants. 

His throat tightened, saliva thickening as his senses kicked in. The lingering scent was lighter than yesterday, but still potent, and her body’s confusion over the heat slowly dissipated. Meanwhile, his body felt like Christmas had come early. Recalling his thought the day before the wedding—when had been the last time he’d gotten laid? Especially with an omega? 

His instincts didn’t care about the specifics, though. They just kept track, happy that the wait was finally over. 

“The last thing I need right now... is getting into a rut,” he muttered under his breath as he stepped out of the room. The quiet of the building settled in now that everyone was asleep. He opened the window, letting the cold spring night air flow in. 

From one of his desk drawers, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one up. It would cloud the scent and, hopefully, give him some mental peace. His instincts couldn’t distinguish between the smell of a passing heat and the prospect of an upcoming one. All day, he’d been making sure no hormonal alpha had caught wind of it and gotten into a rut, but now, he feared he might be the one who needed to worry. 

His eyes flicked toward the food tray. The bowl of soup remained mostly untouched, only a few bites taken from each item, the bread barely nibbled. She had eaten very little, if anything. Something about that unsettled him, as if the quiet act of leaving the meal half-finished was an unconscious rejection of the care he had tried to offer.  

The candles—those half-melted stubs—still flickered weakly, forgotten in the dim light. She had left them burning, and it struck him as careless. It was a small thing, but it stood out in his mind. He moved over to extinguish the flames, quietly placing everything back into order, the habit of tidying his surroundings kicking in without thought. When the candles were out, the only light in the room came from the faint glow of his cigarette. 

“Tch.” He clicked his tongue again, moving to his desk to find that the papers had been shuffled, his pencils moved. Perhaps his standards were too strict after years of having everything in its place. 

But then, he saw it. 

A small, simple drawing—done with the precision of someone who knew what they were doing. A bird’s nest, complete with baby swallows peeking out. His gaze narrowed as he studied it, his attention caught by the perspective. 

Instinctively, his eyes flicked to the window behind his desk. He glanced to the right, and there it was—between the roof and a column, the exact same nest. A small smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. Not bad. Not that he had any right to judge—his own art skills were nonexistent. 

He turned the paper over. 

She had written, “One swallow does not a summer make.” 

Levi scoffed. She had probably gotten it from some old book he didn’t know about, or at least that’s how it seemed by the way it was phased. He stubbed out his cigarette and made a silent promise to try harder the next day. 

“You’re up early,” Levi remarked, his voice tinged with surprise as she stepped out of the bedroom. He was still getting ready for work, adjusting his cravat in front of the small mirror by his desk. 

“I’m tired of lying in bed,” she mumbled, her words nearly as tangled as her hair. “I slept all day yesterday.” 

Levi sighed and stepped closer, placing his hands on her shoulders to steer her toward the couch. “Out of the way,” he muttered, guiding her out of the narrow corridor that connected the rooms. He needed the space to move around without tripping over her. 

She sat obediently, her eyes following him with unwavering attention as he continued preparing for the day. The morning light was unusually bright, the weather having improved dramatically. The birds were chirping, and the sun had already begun to heat the room. 

“Look at the bright side,” Levi said, almost forcing himself to be more conversational than the previous day. “Your stuff might arrive soon.” 

“Can I leave the room?” she asked tentatively, her tone almost hopeful. 

Before she could even finish, he turned sharply, his expression serious. “No.” 

The reply was firm, final. There was no room for debate. 

Instead of her continuing to bombard him with questions like an interrogation, Levi moved quickly, pacing around and delivering a monologue of his own. 

“Listen,” he began, his voice steady but low, “This isn’t the kind of place where you wander around on your own. Not in your state. You’re not a soldier, and you don’t know the layout. You get lost or end up somewhere you shouldn’t, and it’s on me.” 

He paused to finish tightening his cravat before throwing her a sharp glance over his shoulder. “When it’s safe, I’ll let you out. Understood?” 

She simply nodded, not saying anything. 

“I brought you breakfast. Eat.” His tone softened slightly as he moved away from the bathroom and over to a cabinet in his office. “Where the hell did I put it?” he muttered to himself, not expecting an answer. 

Levi crouched by one of the lower cabinets, rifling through its contents with the efficiency of someone accustomed to order but occasionally betrayed by his own lack of use for certain items. “Aha,” he murmured, pulling out a small glass jar of raspberry jam. “Farmers nearby gave it to me.” 

He set the jar down on the tray alongside the other food he’d prepared. It was clearly homemade, the seal still intact. 

Ready to leave, Levi glanced at her again. “I’ll try to come back earlier today.” 

Levi’s sharp grey eyes settled on the untouched tray sitting on his desk. The stack of paperwork tucked under his arm wavered slightly as his fingers drummed against the wood in slow, deliberate taps. His jaw tightened, irritation brewing beneath his otherwise stoic demeanor. 

Turning toward her, he fixed her with a pointed gaze—like a parent catching a child avoiding their vegetables. She sat curled up on the couch, avoiding his eyes. 

“You barely touched anything I left you,” he said, his tone edged with annoyance. His mind raced. ‘Is she doing this on purpose? Some sort of protest?’ 

Her gaze flicked away, searching the room as if trying to escape his frustration. Levi, however, wasn’t the type to let things slide. He raised his hand, expecting—no, demanding—an answer. 

“So?” he asked, his tone sharp. 

“…I’m not used to eating barley bread,” she murmured, her voice small and hesitant. The dark, dense bread hadn’t been to her taste, especially compared to the soft, fluffy buns she was used to. Her fingers fidgeted with the loose ring as she added, “And plain black tea gives me heartburn.” 

“…I usually have it with milk,” she finished, almost as if confessing a secret. 

Levi released a weary sigh, one that seemed to carry the weight of a man pushed to his limits. ‘This is so fucking hard.’ 

“You could’ve at least tried the damn jam,” he muttered, his frustration softening into something closer to resignation. 

Her lips pressed into a pout, the kind of silence settling between them that Levi had learned to dislike. Finally, she spoke, her voice barely audible. 

“…I couldn’t open it.” 

The honesty of her admission, paired with the image of her struggling to twist the stubborn lid, tugged a rare chuckle from him. Grabbing the jar, which was still vacuum-sealed, Levi effortlessly twisted it open with a single motion. 

“Here,” he said, handing it back to her. 

But instead of gratitude, she frowned up at him, her pride clearly bruised. Her tone was sharp as she retorted, “I loosened it.” 

The corner of Levi’s mouth twitched into a smirk. “Sure,” he replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. 

Two thoughts flickered through his mind: Cute, and Grocery shopping—noted.

Link to my masterlist and my other works if you feel like checking them out.

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Levi's inner alpha thinking they are going to get laid ->

[circle-with-me]

My, My, Those Eyes Like Fire

Pairing: Noah Sebastian x Female Reader

Content Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI, fingering, unprotected vaginal sex, sex with strangers, panty sniffing (lol), creampie, bathroom/mirror sex.

Word Count: 2.2k

Taglist: @deathblacksmoke @concretenoah @tearfallpixie @nerdraging4point0 @lyschko666

Author’s Note: I saw this post the other day and @spicywhenspeaking’s little blurb gave me total brain rot so I thought I’d expand on it. I hope you enjoy it ♥️

Also second shoutout to @deathblacksmoke for being the best beta reader ever 🤍

You caught him staring not long after arriving at the party. His tall slender frame leaning back against the green velvet couch. His tattoo covered arms were stretched along the back as he took in your form. You felt his gaze burn into your skin and at first you refused to look at him.

A few moments later you pluck up the courage to sneak a peek at him. Thankfully, he was focusing on his friend who was somehow equally as gorgeous as he was. You turn your attention back to your admirer and you were certain he was the most beautiful man you’d ever laid eyes on.

Your eyes scan over his jaw, neck, and shoulders assessing him completely and making mental notes of which parts you wanted to sink your teeth into first if you got the chance. You continue your assessment as you examine his chest and arms. One of his hands rested on his thigh, his long fingers were flexing and lightly gripping the fabric of his trousers. A nervous habit, you presume.. The thought of him gripping your hips as you bounces on his cock entered your mind and you bite your lip to hold back a moan.

You slowly lift your gaze up his body to find him staring at you again, a devilish smile on his face. Your breath hitches and he must have noticed because he raises an eyebrow at you. Slowly, he brings the hand that was resting on his thigh up to his face, flexing his hand and using his index finger to trace his bottom lip. Before you can catch yourself, your mouth drops open and the smile on his face turns into an outright grin.

You turn away quickly to hide the blush on your cheeks. Dammit. He caught you ogling him not once but twice, and what the fuck? Was he teasing you, now? Pushing down your embarrassment you decided that if he was going to play this game you were going to play too.

And you were going to win.

It may have been the alcohol, or the thought of this absurdly gorgeous man gawking at you, but as the night progressed you became much bolder. You start out with little teases. You want him to focus on your lips first, so you lick your lips as you talk to your friends. You remembered you had lip gloss so you reapplied it tediously, making sure to drag the brush slowly along your lips.

You even bought a margarita just to lick the salt rim from the glass. You weren’t typically a margarita girl, but since you had an audience you thought you’d make a show out of it. There was no point in checking, you knew his eyes were still on you. He had barely looked away from you all night.

When you bounce from your friend group to the bar you make sure to sway your hips as you walk. You bend over the bar slightly, making sure your dress raises a little, and look back to see him leaning forward resting his arms on his knees. He didn’t even try to pretend he wasn’t checking out your ass.

Strike one, you giggle quietly to yourself.

Next, you play with the long necklace around your neck slowly dragging your hand down into your cleavage and letting your fingers linger there a little longer than usual. You catch him ogling again and his eyes meet yours. If he was embarrassed, he didn’t show it. You threw his signature devilish smile back at him and returned to your friends.

Strike two.

Your little game with each other continued for a while longer and you wondered if that’s all it would be. He hadn’t moved from his spot on the couch all night and there wasn’t enough alcohol at this party to get you to approach him.

If your teasing so far wasn’t enough to get him to make a move, you were going to take it up a notch.

You scan the room trying to find a reason to get closer to him. You weren’t going to say anything to him, but you figured closing the gap between the two of you would increase the tension. A familiar face comes into view on the second couch across from your admirer and you practically trip over yourself to take the seat next to them before someone else does.

As you walk in his direction his eyes widen and you watch him swallow harshly. Your heart rate quickens and you consider just saying hi, but you wanted to see if this last idea of yours would work on him.

You wait until you’re almost right in front of him before you take a sharp turn towards your friend. You sit down and strike up a conversation about nothing in particular. You sit at the edge of the couch with your legs crossed, giving the man across from you the perfect view of your legs and thighs.

You delicately run your hand up your thigh and back down to your knee, repeating the motion a few times. You hear him clear his throat and you look towards. His eyes are locked on your hand as he pulls his bottom lip between his teeth.

Strike three.

Running your hand down to your knee one last time you don’t stop this time and continue down the rest of your leg bending over to “adjust” the strap of your shoe. You watch his eyes move with your hand the whole time and drift up your leg to your breasts that are spilling out of the top of your dress.

He leans forward and licks his lips, nostrils flaring. Even in the low lighting you can see his eyes darken. His gaze returns to yours and he subtly jerks his head in the direction of what you assumed to be the bathroom. Your mouth goes dry because holy shit this is actually happening.

Wasting no time, you stand up from your seat and do as you're told. Sure enough, not far down the hallway there was a bathroom. You slip in and shut the door behind you, leaning against the door and trying to control your breathing. The gentle knock on the door startles you and makes you jump a little.

That was quick.

You turn around to open the door. You’ve barely cracked it and he’s pushing in, backing you into the counter behind you. He rests one hand firmly on your hip and the other wraps around your jaw forcing you to look up at him. The realization of how big he is settles in quickly because he’s towering over you and you’re not exactly short, especially in heels.

He runs the pad of his thumb along your lips, silently asking for access and you open your mouth. He pushes inside and you suck on his thumb, twirling your tongue around him. A quiet groan escapes his mouth as he stares at yours.

He shoves his knee in between your legs and you grind down on him involuntarily. Removing his thumb from your mouth, he envelopes your mouth in a searing kiss. It’s desperate, needy, and makes you grind against him more for some relief from your throbbing pussy.

He grabs the hem of your dress and bunches it up around your waist, gripping your hips tightly. He pushes his hand between your legs and moans at the soaked lace material he finds. “All this from our little game, huh?” he rasps, sinking his teeth into the flesh behind your ear.

You gasp and nod. Those were the first words you had heard him speak and you hoped to hell you would hear more. You didn’t even know the man’s name and here you were pinned against the bathroom counter with him rutting against your thigh.

He pulls your panties down, bending down to retrieve them from your ankles. He bunches up the material and brings them to his nose, inhaling your scent. You watch intently as his eyes turn black with lust and he slips your undergarment in his pocket.

Without saying a word he twirls his finger motioning for you to turn around. You do as you're told and you feel his hand press firmly into your back as he bends you over the counter. You watch him in the mirror as he runs his hand around the curve of your ass, gripping and kneading at the flesh. His eyes are glued to your pussy and he smacks your ass firmly causing you to jolt forward.

You hear him groan behind you, then he runs his fingers through your folds, slipping one inside you with ease. He curls his finger and pumps in and out of you slowly. You clench around him and a quiet “oh fuck” falls from his lips.

You watch him fumble with his belt and push his pants and his boxers down, his cock springing free. He strokes himself a few times and licks his lips. He removes his eyes from your pussy and makes eye contact with you. The devilish grin from earlier returns and he bends over you, his chest flush against your back. He grips your hair and pulls your head to the side and leaves a trail of open mouth kisses up your neck and jaw.

Your intense stare down continues as he grabs his cock and places it at your entrance. The smile on his face is replaced with a look of pure lust and he slams into you with a single thrust, both of you moaning loudly at the feeling.

He sets a brutal pace immediately giving you no time to adjust to his size. His harsh shallow thrusts cause your hips to dig into the countertop. It’s slightly painful but the tip of his cock is hitting that spot and you’d proudly wear any bruises or marks for this. He pushes off of your back and grabs handfuls of your ass, forcing your hips back into his.

You gave up on trying to be quiet and let your moans fly free. The music from the party was still playing in the background and this man felt so good you didn’t care who heard. In fact, you wanted everyone to hear. He wasn’t particularly loud, but his panting breaths and quiet “fucks” as he watched where the two of you were connected told you enough.

You feel your climax building and you selfishly needed even more from him. You push your hips back to meet his and it feels so good your vision is blurring. You hear him moan “Oh god” loudly and look back into the mirror. Through your blissed out vision you can still see him, his eyes shut tight and head tilted back. His mouth is hanging open as he moans louder. You notice a sheen of sweat on his face and his exposed neck and you wish you could bite into his neck.

As if he could feel you staring, he looks back at you. He smirks at you and pounds into you harder. You were thankful for the countertop below you because your arms and legs were completely useless at this point. He sneaks his hand between your legs and massages your clit. You reach behind you and grab his arm to find some sort of purchase as your orgasm quickly washes over you.

You convulse and shake around his cock as he fucks you through your orgasm. His fingers don’t leave your sensitive bud until you're scratching at his arm and practically forcing it away. He pulls you up against his chest and fucks into you, wrapping his hand gently around your throat. You can tell from his quickened panting and sloppy thrusts that he’s near his climax as well.

The hand around your throat slides up to your cheek and he brings your lips to his. It’s all tongue and teeth and you almost sense desperation in it, like he doesn’t want it to end. You pant into each other’s mouths as he continues his thrusts.

“Please” he whines, breathlessly.

You knew exactly what he wanted. You didn’t even have to ask. You nodded and kissed him again. He grunts and thrusts into you one last time. You feel his cock twitch and ropes of cum painting your walls. He stays inside you for a moment, his lips attached to yours trying to catch his breath.

Finally, he pulls out of you and you wince from the loss of him. Stuffing himself back into his pants, he searches the cabinet for a washcloth. He wets the cloth with warm water and softly pats the side of your leg to get you to spread them. After he cleans you up he throws the cloth in the hamper, and turns to you. You haven’t moved a muscle so he pulls down your dress and adjusts the straps on your shoulders.

You stare at each other for a second and this time you can’t read his expression. He presses a kiss to your shoulder and turns towards the door, slipping out without saying a word.

[powerfultenderness]

Hello there author! I know you're taking your time writing the chapter 2 but may we have Neighbor!König visiting y/n to her office, where könig drop off her things or she kinda forgot her lunch something. Thank you for the hard work you put into your fic! WE LOVE IT!

Ahh, i'm sorry! I guess I needed a little time off from writing, but I'm back! And thank you very much!

Lol idk what Reader does for a living, but it sounds nice! I hope you like it!

(Rated T+)

It wasn’t until an hour after your shift started that you realized you’d forgotten your lunch in König’s truck, and it was only because he texted you. You sighed and shot off a quick response, telling him not to worry about it. You can just walk across the street to one of the fast food joints and grab lunch there. You thought nothing more of it and got back to work. 

And you would have continued to think nothing more of it until you saw more than one security guard making their way to the front. Odd. You glanced at the clock, it was still a few minutes before your lunch break, and thus a few minutes before you could be nosy and check out what was going on. Well, at least that's what you thought just before your desk phone rang. 

“There’s a man here for you,”  the receptionist sounded a bit anxious. “I’ve got security keeping him in the lobby, but he’s insisting that he see you.” 

Oh! No! 

“Let me guess, big guy, like, absurdly big. With a scary looking mask?”

“Yea. Should I call the police?”

“Oh please don’t! He’s…harmless.” 

“Are you su-”

“I’ll be down in a sec!” 

Ok, you weren’t entirely sure he was harmless. He had told you stories of his time fighting in war zone conflicts, and though he never said it outright, you’re pretty sure he has a kill count that’s higher than one. But in this particular scenario, just visiting your office, as long as no one tried to fight him, you’re almost certain he wouldn’t do anything. (The thought never crossed your mind that the only other situation in which he’d react violently is if you were threatened in any manner). 

By the time you reached the lobby, there were three security guards standing a few feet from König. Two of them were very clearly nervous. They’re not at all in any kind of shape, one of them is on the elderly side and the other on the pudgy side. The one young man that is in any kind of fighting shape honestly looks so small compared to König. 

“Oh, you can let him through, he’s with me!” You spoke up in a loud, clear, and forcibly cheerful voice. 

You were glad for the time it took to get to the lobby, it’d given you just enough time to think of what to say to security. You weren’t entirely sure on where you stood in relation to König. What were you supposed to refer to him as? At this point he was more than just your neighbor. You could say he was your friend, but somehow that didn’t feel like enough either. Yet to call him your boyfriend or partner felt like a stretch. (He was just a really nice neighbor, who was also a good friend, who you maybe sometimes had a little bit of a crush on). So, for now, he was just “with you”. 

König was used to having his orders followed. It had been years since he had been denied access to anything and these small men that pretended like they could stop him, all while shaking in their boots, were beginning to…annoy him. Just when he was about to push past them, he heard your voice declare that he was with you. 

It was you who slipped past security as you lightly ran up to him. “König!” You smiled and, much to his surprise, pulled him into a quick hug. 

Just like that he forgot about the way dealing with these civilians that worked with you had made his anxiety flare, how he wanted something to fight, to put his physical energy into. It all melted away as his world shrunk to just you. Your body flush against his for a single moment, the soft touch of your hands on his back. He was so tempted to lift his hood and bury his face into the crook of your neck, to inhale the intoxicating aroma that haunted his dreams. He almost whined when you pulled out of the hug, one of your hands moving to the bag that he was carrying. 

"I thought I told you not to worry about it?" 

Before he could stutter out some excuse, you turned around, to the little audience in the lobby, and he had the urge to pull you behind him, to shield you from their eyes. They didn't deserve to look upon you, and certainly didn't deserve your attention. 

Perhaps you thought this too (not quite) since you turned back to him and motioned back to the entrance. "Let's go sit outside, it's nice out." 

He would follow you anywhere, especially when you looped your arms around one of his like that. You led him to a side patio, where a couple of picnic tables and benches were set up under comfortable shade. There were already other people seated in the area, but one look at him and they returned to their business, better to ignore the frightful stranger than to antagonize him. 

You chose a picnic table furthest away from others and took your bag that he had still been carrying and set it down. "Do you have to leave right away?" 

“No.” He shook his head as you sat down on the bench facing outwards.

“Good, then, want to join me for lunch?” 

He sat down next to you, glad that he didn’t have to try to squeeze his legs under the table and probably bang up his knees in the process. He realized, a soft smile pulling at his lips, as you turned to start digging through your bag that that was probably the reason you sat this way, for his comfort. 

He shook his head when you offered a share of your food. "I don't want you to get hungry later." 

"Please, you've seen me buy car snacks, you really think I don't also have desk snacks? I would be just fine even if you hadn't brought my lunch, which, thank you, by the way. This is really nice of you." When was the last time someone had been so thoughtful? 

"You're like a squirrel." He laughed as he accepted the offered food.

"Psh." You playfully rolled your eyes and softly bumped your shoulder into his arm. "If I'm a squirrel, what does that make you?" 

He was silent for a moment, head slightly tilted to the side, before he looked at you, eyes crinkled under his hood in a way that you’d come to recognize as a smile. "A dog." 

"A dog?...But dogs are always chasing squirrels!” You then gasped dramatically, "don't tell me you want to eat me!" 

König fought down the sudden surge of heat brought on by the memory of a dream. It made his responding laugh a bit too loud, a bit too awkward and forced him to attempt to cover it up. By growling and leaning down quickly to nip at your shoulder. 

"Ah!!" You half shrieked and half laughed as you leaned away from him just enough to get out of his silly attempt at biting you through the hood that covered his face. "Stop!" You finally managed through giggles. 

He pulled away with another playful growl and snapped his teeth at you twice. "One day I will catch you, Squirrel." 

"Yea? Then what?" You laughed again. 

He was quiet for just a second too long, eyes boring into you a bit too intensely. He even dropped the playful tone in his voice, now deeper and rougher than you were used to hearing. "I'll eat you." 

It’s a good thing that you weren’t eating or drinking anything at that exact moment or you would have choked at the way it sounded! He certainly couldn’t have meant it like that! You chuckled and looked away from him, hoping he could not tell that your thoughts were less than appropriate. 

Finished with the main part of your lunch, you opened the packed snack cake and portioned it in half, once again intending to share with König, but he shook his head. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t like this particular snack, not that he’d ever go out of his way to buy the like either, it’s just that he knew it was your favorite. Though, you must have sensed that, as you narrowed your eyes suspiciously at him.

You portioned an even smaller piece, “not even a little taste?” And held the piece of confection up at level where you assumed his mouth was.

König froze, if you were offering to feed him…

You reached for the edge of his hood and pulled it forward, giving you room to slip your other hand under it without revealing his face. The backs of your fingers lightly ghosted across his chin until you held the treat near enough to his mouth. Though he remained stock still, eyes never leaving yours, his lips wrapped around the offered treat and his tongue barely brushing against your fingers. 

It was hardly a bite, and his lips and tongue had hardly touched your fingers for half a second. You smiled, hot in the face, and pulled your hand back, “good?” 

He hummed and nodded. “Very good. Sweet.” 

As if your face wasn’t burning enough! 

You looked down at your portion of the sweet treat to realize there was a dab of cream on your finger still. You glanced back at him, not completely titling your head back up, casting your eyes in a coquettish shadow, and licked your finger. “Good.” 

König quietly grunted, one of his hands landing on your knee as he leaned in a little closer to you. He didn’t know why. He just needed to be closer to you, needed to feel you. 

Your breath hitched but you pretended not to be affected by his touch as you quickly finished off your lunch while his fingers fidgeted with the hem of your skirt. You then grabbed his hand, gently squeezing before you pushed it off your knee. “Unfortunately, I am not a general that can dictate my own break times.” 

“What?” 

You cleaned up what trash was left from your lunch and tossed it in a nearby bin. “My lunch is just about up.” Sure enough, an alarm on your phone sounded just as you returned to the table.

König frowned, it felt like he just arrived! How could your lunch be up already? “Oh, let me.” He stood up and grabbed the bag you had stored your lunch in. An excuse to visit you later.

“Thanks.” You started to walk back to the office, him right beside you again. “And thanks again for stopping by. Can you still pick me up after work?” “Yes. Five?” “Yep!” 

König is practically walking on air after lunch, though eager for the end of the day. He couldn’t wait to see you again. 

[Neighbor König Masterlist]

Neighbor König taglist (blurbs): Please let me know if you wish to be added or removed.

@warrior-of-justice  @cumikering @ihateuguys @rand0m--fangirl @keiva1000 @dtftheavengers @takeyour-pants-off @aeeliy @milenko115 @sodonuthideout

[rafyki]

(Lil snippet of the Goth!Nico/Surfer!Percy fic inspired by the beautiful amazing incredible art by @neo-kid-funk !! It's definitely going to be much longer, but I hope you enjoy this for now!!)

(under read more bc it's more than 1k words lol)

~~~

“He's here again”.

Jason didn't even turn around to see what Nico was referring to with those words - at that point it was such a common occurrence that it wasn't really necessary. Still, Nico felt a little offended at his friends' dismissal.

“Jason”, he said, almost in a whine. “He's here again”.

Now finally (though with a smile and a roll of his eyes) Jason did turn around to look at the current source of all of Nico's troubles and the main character of many of his dreams.

Dark hair, tall, all tan skin and toned muscles, swim trunks hanging way too low on his hips - all in all, the most handsome man Nico had ever seen, and he couldn't keep his eyes off him.

Nico looked at him coming out of the water holding onto his surfing board as if it weighted nothing (and Nico knew that wasn't true, he had almost collapsed under the weight of one once), a hand going up to card through his wet hair plastered to his forehead. He looked so beautiful and at home in the water Nico couldn't help but feel like he was some sort of sea god.

He was too far away to see it now, but he knew that even his eyes were the color of the sea.

What is he even so hot for?

As ridiculous as it sounded, Nico could feel himself blush just looking at him. Yet there was something (everything really) about him that was so magnetic it made it impossible to tear his eyes away - really, at this point Nico spent most of his shifts at the beach kiosk looking at him; he wasn't sure if it was a blessing or a curse that that man came to the beach so often.

Percy.

He only knew the name because he had heard a girl calling him (was that his girlfriend? God, Nico really hoped she wasn't), and obviously not because he had had the courage of talking to him outside of the small exchanges whenever Percy came to buy something.

He kept following him with his eyes, teeth absentmindedly biting his lips, playing with the rings there.

He was so busy thinking and trying to stare without making it too obvious that he almost missed it when Jason said: “Looks like he's coming here”.

Nico jumped out of his skin. “What!? No, Jason, please please, you take his order, please”.

Another roll of his eyes and another fond smile that Nico had seen all too many times. “Nico”, Jason said. “It's your chance. Talk to him!”

Nico shook his head vehemently. He could already feel his heart starting to pound in his chest and his cheeks grow hot. “No way. He's going to smile at me! I'm a weak man Jason, don't do this to me”.

An obnoxious laugh reminded Nico that Leo was there too - he was so caught up in thinking about Percy that he had completely forgotten about him; but of course there he was, sprawled on the counter as if he belonged there (and with how much time he spent there even without working with them, it might as well have been). “Goth-boy, you're on a beach wearing a black t-shirt under the august scorching sun - you're anything but weak, man, you can do it”.

“Oh shut up Leo, we all know you're no better than me - remind me how long it took you to talk to Jason?”, Nico shot back.

He wasn't looking at his friends though, his eyes still drawn to where Percy was - and yes, Jason was right and he was definitely coming there.

Nico's heart was beating absurdly fast; it really was ridiculous how much he liked a boy he barely knew. But he did - oh god, he really did. Percy was handsome and bright and had the most beautiful smile Nico had ever seen.

And Nico was just a boy who looked very out of place on a beach.

Still playing nervously with his lip rings, he took off his hair tie and fixed his ponytail. Did his hair look good? He hoped so at least.

What did Percy think about him? Did he even have an opinion on him? Or was he just the weird kid working at the kiosk? Probably.

“Don't deflect Nico, Leo is right”, Jason said, cutting through his line of thought. “And don't worry you look good”.

“As cute and charming as always, man!”, Leo added, and maybe from someone who didn't know him it could have sounded teasing but at this point Nico knew him well enough to recognize the honesty in his smile as he did a thumbs up to show his support. “Just smile and he'll fall for you in a second”.

Nico scoffed at that, but appreciated the sentiment.

It was probably too much hoping that Percy would even look his way, let alone anything more than that.

Jason nudged his shoulder, once again taking him away from his thoughts. “Really, you're all good”, he said. “Now get ready to take his order”.

The next second, Nico found himself staring into a pair of sea-green eyes so deep and mesmerizing he was sure he was drowning in them, could almost feel the water filling up his lungs; and if that wasn't enough, a smile so bright it could rival the sun came with them, effectively cutting off the last bit of breath. Oh it was so unfair.

And he wasn't wearing a shirt - of course he wasn't, they were on a beach and he had just come out of the water five minutes ago. His tanned skin seemed to shine under the sun, water was still dripping from his hair and Nico had to use all of his willpower to not follow with his eyes the little droplets' way down his neck and collarbone.

It was more than unfair, and it was definitely a curse.

“Hi, can I get you anything?”

Thank god he was so used to his job that he could sound natural enough saying that even while panicking on the inside.

Even without looking at them, Nico could feel his friends almost laughing at him; he would have been offended if he weren’t so busy trying to survive the moment. Percy really was way too handsome and hot for Nico’s sanity.

Don’t stare at him, he berated himself, it’s not polite to stare at customers. He’ll think you’re weird.

Oh god, he needed a smoke as soon as possible. If he kept biting on his lip like that he would end up biting his lip ring away.

“Huh”, Percy seemed to think about it for a second. “Can I have the same blue drink from last time? You remember?”

Nico did remember. It had been the longest conversation he had ever had with Percy (the longest and most intense five minutes of his life until now), with the surfer asking for some kind of blue drink, and Nico trying his best to understand and make it for him - he had managed to, in the end, and then had proceeded to think non stop for days about the happy smile Percy had gifted him.

For some reason, the way Percy said “you remember?” made Nico’s insides melt, a swarm of frantic screaming butterflies flying in chaos in his stomach. Like it was something between the two of them, something they shared.

Nico had never felt more ridiculous in his life.

“Yeah, I remember”, he managed to say, and in a way it was a relief to turn around and get to work. Part of him wanted to drag it out as long as possible just to make Percy stay a little longer; at the same time, though, part of him wanted this to be over as soon as possible just so he could finally go back to breathing.

“Great!”, Percy said with a smile, like Nico had just told him the best news of the day.

It was such a peculiar request, “can i get a blue drink” - no flavor or anything, just a blue drink. It was weird and endearing at the same time, and it left Nico wanting to know more about it, more about Percy. He wondered how many other weird and endearing things like that Percy did.

“You like it that much?”, he found himself asking, his mouth moving before his brain even registered it.

Another blinding smile. Nico was so weak.

“Everything tastes better if it’s blue”, Percy said with such conviction that he almost made it sound like that made any sense.

It made Nico stop, and then he couldn’t help the short laugh that escaped his lips.

“Does it?”, he asked, smiling back, as he handed Percy his drink.

Percy nodded. “Of course. You should try it sometimes”.

The butterflies were going absolutely crazy in Nico’s stomach, so much he almost forgot to take the money Percy was giving him. “Maybe I will”, he said.

“Thanks for the drink, Nico”.

For an instant, Nico’s brain went blank except for a mantra of he knows my name, oh god he knows my name. Then he remembered he was wearing a nametag, so of course he did.

Idiot.

“Have a nice day”, he said through the lump in his throat.

“You too!”, Percy said and went to leave. He seemed to think back on it though, because he turned toward Nico again, holding out his right hand to him. “I’m Percy, by the way”.

It felt like looking at himself from the outside, like it was happening to someone else, as Nico shook his hand. It was warm and big, and Nico wanted to hold onto it. “Nice to meet you”.

Percy smiled, big and bright and happy, and Nico smiled back.

“See you next time, Nico”.

Nico stared at him as he left and went back to his friends, pretty sure everything that had just happened must have been a dream.

[starqueensthings]

Dork Love: Part Three

Summary: Tech returns to Coruscant to take charge of the required repairs on the reader's electrical panel, and his anxiety is only intensified by the unexpected surprise waiting for him at your shop.

Rating/WC/POV: Teen 16+ for slight whumpage. 6161 words, 2nd POV (though this chapter follows Tech, and reader is only alluded to).

Warnings: casual conversations about anxiety, mentions of blood splatter, mentions of blood soaked objects (LOL this one took me down a weird path).

A/N: this one was a challenge and a half, my friends, so I apologize that it’s not up to my usual standard. I just need to finish it and move on before I pluck my eyebrows off my face. But pls enjoy! LMAO. And thanks to the queen of whump herself for proof reading @staycalmandhugaclone

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Four | ao3

As if it were funneling every effort in to soothing his nerves, the weather had fashioned itself significantly more pleasant than when he last traversed this pathway; the cool drizzle falling that day managed to dampen the typically unabsorbent collar of his blacks with an irksome ease, and had lingered unpleasantly against his skin for several hours afterward. Despite now being favourably warm and dry, elongated shadows cast by the sun’s obtuse position over the mouth of the underworld was making the screen of his datapad annoyingly difficult to discern, the intermittent bouts of intense glare blinding him to the articles that he was only absentmindedly scanning, yet relentlessly fetching.

Bemused that the apex of Tech’s affection had landed itself upon a person and not a superfluous piece of technology, Hunter was insistent that he accompany his brother on today’s voyage, though the guise he’d chosen to conceal his disbelief was a weak one. The coils of wire that he had absurdly deemed “too heavy” for one man to carry, swung daintily from the crooks of their elbows with every stride, and despite having bore witness to the innumerable sleepless nights that Tech had spent meticulously studying current commercial Electrical Code, Hunter remained unwavering in his adamance that his heightened senses may prove valuable – (“what if you need me to sense where the wires are in the wall?”)

‘If only the journey to Coruscant had been for a more inconsequential reason,’ Tech found himself longing as the armoured duo departed the ship. ‘Simply a mission to seek a replacement part, or a simple separatist data decryption.’ Had this been the case, his sergeant’s company would have been welcomed and even encouraged; independent as he was, Tech rarely declined an opportunity to be accompanied by a brother, particularly so if it meant freeing the cockpit of any officious, unsupervised visitation in his absence. Today on the other hand, as his mind continued to shirk his every offer of distraction, and perpetually whirred with cyclical, desultory thoughts, he would have much preferred to make the journey solo.

As they typically did to pacify his overactive mind, his fingers danced fervently across the illuminated buttons of the device clutched tightly in his left hand, the absentminded prods and swipes of his fingers triggering a near constant pull of new, yet continuously marginalized information. Most recently ignored was a collection of graphs depicting the primary effects of seasonal climate changes on the pollination schedule of Felucia’s native flora, though more imperative to Tech in that moment, was calculating the likelihood that you would notice the droplets of engine oil still splattered across the toes of his boots; the only remnants of a night spent repairing the damage that Wreckers most recent attempt at landing the ship had caused to the Marauder’s undercarriage.

Regrettably, the poor condition of his boots was only one of several trivial misgivings. In its company was the budding dread that his lenses had dirtied themselves again despite having mastered the disinfection process, and the fear that the callouses emerging on his palms from several hours of dismantling and reassembling the hyperdrive would deter you from initiating the contact that he’d found himself near-addicted to.

But anchoring all of the other menial anxieties, was the gnawing possibility that the entirety of this adventure could be naught but a misunderstanding; those were, admittedly, frequent occurrences for Tech. The disfigurement of his genetics had rendered him largely unable to accurately identify and categorize the infinite array of human behavior, particularly when expressed by those with whom he was unfamiliar.

What if this was one of those times? What if the request that he come find you was merely a parting statement made with the sole intent of being complaisant, and not one that you intended he act on? Much to his dismay, it was a hypothesis that warranted investigation; after all, you were quite polite… and intelligent… and munificent… and welcoming… and so very becoming to him. What if the profound sense of adoration that welled inside him at only the thought of you, was not a feeling mutually shared? What if the unrelenting desire to be back in your company, with your chilled yet capable hands curled around his, was simply unreciprocated? Could all of this be yet another miscategorization of body language, and was he presently walking toward a potentially crippling rejection? And why did Hunter have to insist that he come along?

Seeking any semblance of reprieve or solace from the advice of a brother was an idea banished from his mind almost as swiftly as it presented itself, as even the most casual, off-hand comments regarding a squad mate’s possible love interest typically had Wrecker jeering so extravagantly that even droids in the immediate vicinity saw their circuits overheating under a potent, secondhand indignity.

Crosshair’s passive yet targeted quip of being to spot “dorks in love” from a mile away had caught Tech entirely off guard as the squad marched otherwise silently through the arid and brittle forest abutting a Separatist ComHub on Sullust, yet the sardonic remark, while unprovoked and initially jarring, did succeed in diminishing a portion of Tech’s uncertainty, and he clung to it as if it were a talisman against the degenerative doubt.

That was until today. With boots clunking noisily along a familiar pathway now bathed in a radiant sunlight that in no way mirrored the turbulence in his mind, his every step toward the bright, yellow door of his emotional demise saw the protection of his brother’s sentiment almost entirely stripped of its integrity.

Tech swallowed heavily, stumbling over the fragmented motions of his feet, the fluidity of their typically athletic movements interrupted by the sudden and irrepressible urge to try and remove the oil from the toe of his left boot with the back of his right pant leg. Hunter, nostrils flared against the onslaught of foreign underworld aromas, remained tactfully blind to the uncharacteristic stumble on his right, only concealing the first signs of a smirk by shifting the coil of wire from the crook of his elbow to the ridge of his shoulder bell, and offering the tip of his nose an absentminded scratch.

“You, uh… excited?” the sergeant probed, waiting until the pair had fallen back into a casual cadence to cast an inquisitive glance toward his brother.

“I am most eager to begin the installation, yes,” Tech answered smartly, his response somehow void of the apprehension currently plaguing his thoughts. “I suspect this to be a multi-faceted problem requiring an equally detailed and well-planned solution. The existing circuitry was designed to house breakers of a 15-amperage allotment, and was thus outfitted with 14-gauge wiring throughout. The previous owner was, regrettably, an amateur in the field of electrical requirements and failed to investigate the symbiotic correlation of breaker-to-wiring before interchanging several breakers, thus rendering the preexisting wires incapable of transporting the increased charge and escalating the likelihood of an electrical fire. A complete overhaul of the electrical panel, including all new breakers of the correct specifications, paired with a 10-gauge wire that appropriately fulfills the demand of several different amperage allotments, would serve the in building’s best interests. Additionally, I will need to determine which of the machinery have a load requirement exceeding that of the common 20 amperages. I suspect both the generator and the lens polisher will both require a replacement breaker with a higher allotment, which may, in turn, require me to reconfigure neighbouring breaker requirements to accommoda—”

“That’s not what I was asking,” Hunter interrupted, the vocoder in his helmet failing to smother the exasperation that wreathed his words. “And I think you know that.”

Offering only a guilty glance toward his sergeant, Tech pursed his lips and refocused his gaze upon his datapad. All too aware of the heat surging to his cheeks, and the failure of his helmet to completely veil its presence from the attuned senses of his brother, he maintained a contemplative silence while earnestly scrolling back to the beginning of the article he’d been thoughtlessly skimming (an abstract on the ‘Primitive Parasocial Behavior Patterns of the Felucian Flying Manta’, a species they were likely to encounter during their next mission).

“You know, you don’t need to deflect, Tech.” Hunter finished the assertion by pulling his helmet from his head and shaking his long locks from his shoulders, an absentminded smile peeling across his lips as the radiant sunlight warmed his tattooed features. “I’ve been in your shoes before… I can help you sort out your feelings if you want.”

The gentle, yet, surveying gaze that his sergeant turned toward him while a discomfited silence expanded the space between them saw Tech nearly flinching; not entirely prepared to respond to his brother’s request for vulnerability, he inculpably reattuned his attention to his hands.

“The Felucian Flying Manta bears the ‘Repatavian’ genus, unlike its fellow Manta counterparts with the Reptaquatic subclassification, though socially maintains a similar hierarchy—” he read futilely for the ninth time. “—A lone alpha maintains a symbiotic and systematic breeding schedule with the females of the colony, and remains largely unchallenged for his position as protector and genetic contributor. Rival males must only challenge the alpha for authority during that of a waning gibbous moon, when shifts in the atmospheric currents bring forth—”

“Or… we don’t have to talk about it at all,” Hunter continued with a small shrug, noting both the redoubled avoidance and the subsequent microshift in Tech’s posture. “That’s cool too, but don’t feel like you need to suffer in silence. You know that I’m here for you.”

The likelihood of retaining any imperative information about the flying Manta continued to reduce at a rate that nearly matched the dwindling of Tech’s confidence; the source material slipping from the clutches of his mind as if both the memory of you (and the remnant oil on his boots) were expropriating any and all available cranial space.

Despite his sergeant’s head swiveling about next to him, eagerly taking in the domestic sights of the under-city and offering respectful nods to passing pedestrians, Tech could spare no consideration for the surroundings attempting to permeate his attention. It was likely that they’d already passed the seamstress’ shop that he knew to be only a dozen doors from yours, its impeccably maintained windows exposing the myriad of wealthy politicians pompously designing their senatorial wardrobe from scratch. And if that were true, then surely the cobbler’s shop would be approaching imminently, its windows nearly opaque under the duress of a hundred exuberantly colourful signs, all iterating the implausible claim that Mr. Purble’s shoe repairs were “out of this world!” Yet… despite the dwindling proximity, he still could not summon the resolve to lift his gaze and watch that jubilant yellow door draw nearer.

Tech cleared his throat quietly, nudging his goggles further against his brow in a motion as soothing as it was unnecessary, as he’d long since modified the bridge of his helmet to keep them securely in place on his nose. With time continuing to betray him, now seemed an appropriate opportunity as ever to seek a moment of private counsel.

“I… I am not sure how to quantify the nature of my feelings,” he admitted with a sigh, conceding to Hunter’s periodic glances of encouragement. “I am undeniably excited to be returning, as I have been anticipating this reunion for several weeks, yet I am unreasonably apprehensive. I fear that I may have misconstrued the entirety of this situation and am walking toward an… ignominious encounter.”

Hunter’s sharp eyes softened under the admission, lips momentarily compressing into an empathetic grimace before offering his reply. “I’d argue that’s a pretty normal emotional reaction,” he acknowledged with a reassuring nod, “though even normal is a spectrum from person to person. And some degree of insecurity is to be expected in a situation like this, especially when we’ve placed a high value on someone else’s opinion of us. But your actions speak volumes about how you feel if you take a step back and look at logically: for one, I couldn’t tell you the last time you put your datapad down and forgot about it, let alone for hours and immediately before a mission. That’s gotta mean something, right?”

A moment’s hesitation stilled Tech’s response on his tongue, his eyes narrowing against the embarrassment of his previous, neglectful mistake. Discarding both his datapad and the com system on his gauntlet had been a highly irresponsible oversight, but the hours hidden away in the blissful seclusion of your workshop had seen him too enraptured by your capabilities and intelligence to spare his squad even a transient thought.

“I suppose that is accurate,” he beseeched, apologetically glancing downward to the aforementioned device still encircled by his hands.

“And I have a scar on my wrist from the last time that I tried to touch your goggles. From the few details that you’ve agreed to share, you seem to have no issue letting this mysterious ‘labcoat’ completely dismantle them. Surely, that means something too?”

“Well… yes. Yes, I would agree.” He barely managed to get the words past his lips before they began to curl into a reminiscent smile; the petrification that had coursed through his veins upon hearing the audible snap of his lens unceremoniously snapped out of his goggles, now only a comical memory.

“And you tried every trick in your arsenal to keep me from joining you today,” the sergeant continued with an amused scoff. “So there is obviously an element of confidence here that you’re just overlooking in the shadow of nerves. Seems to me that you really like this person. As far as if the feelings are reciprocated or not? There’s no way of knowing until it plays out, but show me a person that holds hands with a stranger platonically and I’ll eat my fucking boots.”

A chuckle that perfectly matched the hoarse nature of his smoky voice, left lips now smirking under his feeble attempt at humour. “And speaking of boots,” he continued, the smile slipping from his features and replaced with the ghost of a mildly disgusted grimace. “You should have thought about giving yours a quick wipe before we lef— Tech?”

But the sage advice had utterly dissipated into that moment’s soft gust of summer wind; frozen mid step on the pathway, Tech had fallen long out of stride with his brother, the response stolen off his tongue by the peculiar and devastating sight that had finally torn his attention from his hands.

The vibrant entryway that he’d deliberately forestalled seeing was, quite frankly, nowhere near as welcoming as he’d remembered it to be, the joy of its vibrant colour almost entirely negated by a new and… obtrusive… addition.

A perplexity as dense as the furrow in his brow triggered those magnified eyes to fervently dart across the unexpected dereliction in front of him, and a prickle unrelated to the blissful daydream of which he’d just been yanked quickly raised the fine hairs along the back of his neck.

Hunter reappeared at his elbow a moment later, his posture quickly moving to mirror that of his brother with bewilderment knitting his brows, and his head tipping delicately toward one shoulder. “Is this the place?” he asked Tech, his query dripping in skepticism.

“Yes.” A solitary word was all that Tech could formulate, the shambolic disrepair having entirely robbed him of both breath and understanding, his mind whirring near frantically as he tried to make sense of the unheralded situation.

Almost every inch of glass had been opacified; the oversized windows spanning the entirety of the storefront, now completely obscured by the adherence of several, nondescript wood panels affixed into place from the interior of the store. They’d been hung somewhat impetuously; this was apparent on first glance with the lopsided positioning and the subsequent gaps created between panels intensifying the appearance of arrant abandonment. The smaller window inset into the entry door appeared to have been treated similarly, but it was the barrier hung hastily behind its panes that had seized Tech’s attention and refused to free it.

An untidy, scrawling note had been imprudently scrawled across the wood, the dark ink of each letter seeping into the surrounding fibers and ominously distorting the redundant message.

“Temporarily Closed.”

His lips wrapped their way around the pairing of words though no sound left them, his throat bobbing under the duress of a heavy swallow as his heart slipped unsettlingly from his chest to his stomach.

“Looks, er… welcoming…” Hunter chirruped from Tech’s left side, removing the thick loop of wire from his shoulder and tossing it unceremoniously to the ground at his feet.

Tech remained deaf to everything except the trepidation still tickling the hair on his neck. Even the dull ache radiating from his elbow as the joint began to mutiny against the prolonged oppression of its freight was rebuffed, disappointment and a puzzling sense of foreboding fighting for position at the forefront of his mind.

He stepped over Hunter’s abandoned cargo, deftly stowing his datapad away into its respective pouch as he neared the door. “Temporarily closed,” he repeated to himself, as if the act of voicing the phrase might provide some semblance of the understanding that he just couldn’t seem to excogitate.

‘This is highly nonsensical.’ The thought flashed like a warning across his mind as he cautiously pressed a palm to the glass. It was unsurprisingly warm to the touch, the heat of the sun trapped between the glass and the wood panel on its other side, radiating easily through the pliant yet protective Kevlar of his gloves; a sensation that entirely juxtaposed the blossoming dread prickling his skin.

“Safe to assume this isn’t what you expected?” Hunter mused, the soft chortle that encapsulated his words exposing his equanimity, but something sinister had caught Tech’s eye as he tipped his head back and reread the sloppy message. A smattering of red dots, soaked deeply into the fibers of the wood below the scrawling penmanship that he did not recognize to be yours…

Something near a gasp left his lips as he yanked his hand from the window, quickly jerking the wire from his arm and hurrying to engage the mechanical visor on his helmet. Hunter continued to mutter queries over his shoulder, but Tech remained incognizant to it all, too intent on initiating a scan of the liquid that he was praying he’d misidentified upon first glance.

“Sanguination: POSITIVE.” flashed devastatingly across his vision. “Origin: HUMAN- HS.”

“I… I do not like the looks of this.” He pushed the visor up and out of his line of sight, the presumption spoken lowly, and saturated in a sense of foreboding that could not be immediately rationalized.

“Talk to me, Tech,” Hunter probed, knotting his arms semi-impatiently over his chest. “What am I looking at? Other than a sign that looks like someone wrote it with their kriffing toes…”

“There… there are several things amiss,” Tech muttered unhelpfully, wrenching his gaze from the carnage only long enough to tug his helmet from his head and lower it sightlessly to the ground beside the abandoned wire. “I cannot make sense of this.”

“Sense of what, exactly?” Hunter urged through another infuriating chuckle.

But all desire to answer his brother had dissipated, its urgency overtaken by the dread surging through his veins and pounding heavily in his ears. He turned his attention toward the window on his right, eyeing the linear gap between the frayed edge of the wood board and the window frame. Desperate for a clue as to why there would be blood splattered ominously across a barrier hung where it shouldn’t be, he jammed his eye to the glass; the audible clunk of his goggles hitting the window went completely ignored, his attention funneled blindly toward only that which would provide him even an inkling of plausible reasoning. But the opacification of the boards had rendered the inside of the shop completely enshadowed, and the only detectable movement in the dim was the soft cycling orange glow of the sleep light on your computer monitor.

He affixed his gaze to it determinedly, squinting his eyes to near-closed in an effort to focus on anything in the area that its glow may illuminate, but the same irksome glare that had rendered the screen of his datapad nearly indiscernible minutes previously continued to rob his eyes of the clarity that he desperately sought, and while the cupping of his hands around his face helped marginally, he was soon wincing against the pain of his goggles digging forcefully into the side of his nose as he pressed his eyes ever further against the rigid glass.

“Anything?” Hunter probed curiously.

“No,” Tech lamented, shifting his feet below him to further alter his vantage. “It is too dark to differentiate anything.”

“Well, here…” the sergeant chuckled. “Here, Tech… Tech!… Maker, will you just take the damn flashlight?”

Tech permitted his gaze to depart the shadows for only long enough to snatch the offering from his brother’s outstretched hand, igniting it with a deft flick of the switch and aiming at as precisely as he could through the infuriatingly small gap, but the presence of any obvious clues remained shrouded in darkness… evading him, and every panicked exhale accumulating like a cloud on the glass in front of him, saw the simmering panic in his chest continue to boil until even the innate act of swallowing became a challenge.

“Well… I don’t sense anything weird,” Hunter offered, his voice perfectly pairing the phlegmatic way he stepped backward and looked casually toward the direction they’d come from. “I thought I could smell blaster fire a few minutes ago, but it might have been that pair of shifty looking Rodian’s we passed. And, if I’m being honest, it’s hard to smell anything over the rank trash scattered everywhere in his hell of a hole-in-the-ground. How does anyone even bre—”

“There is a mug,” Tech interrupted gravely, his gauntlet clunking against the glass as he impatiently moved to wipe away the condensation collecting in his line of sight again.

“A what?” Hunter chirruped, cocking an eyebrow.

“A mug,” Tech repeated, stepping away from the window and pointing uselessly at the gap he’d been peering through. “On the counter nearest to us. During my last visit, the sullied dishes had been collected and arranged in the sink in preparation for washing. I– I cannot fathom that someone partaking in a planned, prolonged absence would abandon dishes to garner bacteria.”

But those lips, pressed thin with worry, relaxed only long enough to shift into an indignant frown at the nature of his sergeant’s suceeding reaction; Hunter’s long hair brushing gently atop worn, painted shoulder bells as his head tipped back, and his chest heaved beneath uninhibited laughter.

“Come on, Tech,” the sergeant chuckled. “You’ve lived with Wrecker your whole life. You’ve seen how he leaves his bunk on Kamino… wrappers everywhere… used spoons hiding under his pillow… dirty socks crammed at the bottom of the bed…”

Growing increasingly inexorable, and frustrated that his brother continued to make light of a clearly ominous situation, Tech shook his head. “The Fichus is limp, Hunter,” he spoke intently, jabbing his finger toward the narrow space between wood boards.

“The what-now is limp?”

“The fichus,” he repeated unhelpfully. “The potted plant beside the computer. It appears as if it’s been severely neglected in my absence.”

“Probably,” Hunter agreed, his shoulders jerking lightly in motion of delicate frustration. “It’s dark as hell in there. It’s likely starving for sunlight.”

“Precisely.”

Tech disengaged the flashlight and held it loosely at his side, jamming his goggles back up his nose as he turned pleadingly to his brother. “That is precisely my concern, Hunter. During my last visitation, I observed several written reminders. There was every intention to ensure that all the soiled dishes were sanitized, that each of the various plants were watered, and that the electrical panel was urgently cared for. It was written in ink clearer than this foreign writing. I saw it; I kissed it.”

Hunter’s eyes shifted behind a lagging, unhurried blink, the weight of his skepticism apparent as he looked doubtfully back at the anguished hitch in his brother’s eyebrows, those large brown eyes peering at him in something near a plea behind now crooked goggles. “I don’t know, Tech,” the sergeant sighed, tightening the fold of his arms across his chest and dropping his gaze to the small pebble below his boot. “I’ll agree it’s unusual that someone would board the windows for a temporary closure, but it probably has a valid explanation. I hate to say it because you’re usually not one to jump to conclusions, but… I think you might be overreacting on this.”

“I’m going inside.”

It was not a question nor a request, and Tech didn’t spare his brother even a glance before pocketing the flashlight and stooping to collect both his helmet and the coils of wire from the pathway at his feet.

“Woah, woah, woah,” Hunter protested immediately, unknotting his arms and extending a hand to still his brother’s seemingly impulsive movements. “I can see you’re a little worried, Tech, but this isn’t a separatist stronghold. It’s a private place of business, and we can’t just break our way in and sniff around. It’s an invasion of property and privacy.”

“I familiarized myself with the locking mechanism during my last visit,” Tech answered smartly, throwing a heavy coil over each shoulder. “So nothing is required to be broken for me to gain entry, and my scanners will ensure that neither of us are required to make determinations based on the evidence gathered by the use of our respective olfactory systems.”

“Tech…”

But Hunter’s impatience was matched by only that of the man in front of him now jamming his helmet back onto his head and reengaging his visor.

“I will not cause a disturbance of any kind, I assure you,” Tech continued, dropping to a knee in front of the door and examining the keyhole with narrowed eyes. “My objective is simply to gather the evidence capable of disproving my emerging theory that a perilous, possibly life-threatening event has taken place.”

“Perilous and life threatening?” Hunter repeated after an indignant scoff left his lips. “What in Maker’s name do you think happened here? It’s likely this is just a planned vacation and the topic just didn’t come up in conversation last time. Let’s just take a deep breath and head back to the ship for now. If everything goes to plan on Felucia, we can stop back here on the way to Kaliida Sho—”

“Hunter,” Tech interrupted, pivoting on a knee to look upward at his brother. “My feelings on this are clear and unclouded. I– I feel an admittedly unprecedented yet intense sense of unease, and I am confident neither will subside until I am able to disprove my suspicions. Several aspects of the present situation do not stand to reason. Our final conversation, while frenzied by the urgency of my departure, left me with the premise that I was to return here at my earliest convenience. There is no mistaking the task list that I observed: ‘wash mugs, water plants, call electrician.’ And– and my scanner indicates that there is substantial sanguineous residue embedded into that sign. I suspect the source of the blood is inside, so I must go in and investig—”

“Okay okay okay,” Hunter appeased, his dark eyes thankfully beginning to soften again as he acceded to his brother’s concern. “I don’t necessarily understand your fear, but it’s very unlike you to lose your cool so I’ll heed your curiousity. But make it quick; this walkway is a little too crowded for my liking and we’re already turning heads by loitering.”

Anything even resembling an argumentative retaliation didn’t dare depart Tech’s tongue, the risk of Hunter redacting his already precariously offered blessing was simply too probable, and this was too important. It was imperative that he gain entry.

“I’ll go up top and keep a lookout,” Hunter continued, gesturing with a nod to the roofline above them. “Poke around, but don't linger. Can you get in there without making a mess?”

“Well, of course I can,” Tech answered immediately. “The door is equipped with a primitive deadbolt system; one easily disengaged with the right leverage of a micro tool similar to that of—”

“Okay, do it.” Hunter waved away the unnecessarily lengthy explanation, impatience and regret beginning to ghost across his features. “If you’re interrupted for whatever reason, Plan-11.”

Tech signaled his understanding with an appreciative nod and a heavy swallow, returning his attention to the door while Hunter’s heavy footsteps vanished amongst the crowd of passing children, their raucous screeches and laughter echoing tauntingly into Tech’s ears.

His composure began to dwindle, adrenaline inciting a tremble in his fingers as he retrieved the soldering needle from his belt, sitting back on his heel to reevaluate the best method for a clean and concise entry. Overriding a lock system with his datapad was child’s play, but manually disengaging a deadbolt was not something he practiced regularly. After a deliberative pause, he jabbed the fine tip into the keyhole and began to methodically maneuver it around. With ears attuned for the nearly inaudible clicks that would affirm his success, he redirected his efforts into preventing the simmering panic from permitting his mind to wander; concerns for what potentially lay on the other side of the door pulling droplets of sweat to his furrowed brow. Fear was not a commonplace emotion for soldiers, particularly not for a squad of enhanced commando’s with a 100% mission success rate, but fear for the safety of someone else… a civilian… was both a foreign and a potent feeling, and not one that he was eager to reexperience.

The deadbolt released with a click audible enough to warrant Tech quickly glancing over his shoulder for prying eyes. When satisfied that he hadn’t garnered any unwanted attention, he quickly turned the handle and pushed the door ajar. Long stagnant dust particles danced about in the beam of stark luminescence as the disturbance imbued them with new life, yet Tech observed them for only moments before hurriedly shutting the door behind him; he could not risk a pedestrian risking the open door as an invitation to enter.

He reactivated the borrowed flashlight, his eyes hungrily following the beam as it darted toward the darkened corners. Was it worth calling for you? Making his presence known before clearing the area of perpetrators seemed a foolhardy action given your obvious incapacitation, but his frantic need to establish any semblance of your safety, paired with Hunter’s request for efficiency, demanded that he at least try. The echoing silence in response to his call only succeeded in inflating the now undeniable dread sending his blood pounding heavily through his veins.

He engaged the visor over his eyes again, ignoring the strobing alert in the upper corner warning him of his increased heart rate, and directed both the beam of light and his line of sight toward the floor beneath his boots. Despite having anticipated its presence, the blood splattered amongst the floorboards threatened to tear the breath from his lungs.

Sporadically smattered like a trail of morbid breadcrumbs, he followed the droplets into the open space of your shop, peering around in the oppressive darkness. The familiar orange glow from the computer stole his attention almost immediately, and after casting a final glimpse at the gruesome implications dotted across the floor, he departed their path and made for the counter. The dilapidated ficus was offered only a fleeting glance as he passed, as was its equally dehydrated fern counterpart and the ivy trailing down the wall, their dilapidation having already been registered. No, he was more interested in the mug; the second clue.

The degradation of its contents became obvious within seconds of stepping into its proximity, yet despite the aroma of its putrefaction forcing his top lip to flatten, Tech continued toward it without hesitation. Milk had coagulated densely in the center of the unfinished liquid, and a quick activation of his scanner indicated a bacteria progression only achievable by several weeks in an undisturbed environment.

“Unusual,” he mumbled to himself, stooping to observe the sparse layer of crystallization forming around the rim where the anemic looking liquid met the white ceramic.

A sudden, booming thud against the window sent his shoulders jerking in alarm; his datapad stowed deftly into its pocket and his pistol departing its holster in the span of a blink, but the ringing laughter and jeers of the passing children outside quickly exposed the intrusion as nothing more than an inopportune distraction, and a reminder that time was of the essence.

Tech cast one last surveying look at the mold festering in its unmolested paradise before departing the area and retracing his steps back toward the droplets of blood scattered atop the floor. Like the worn footpath that his own boots had traversed during his last visit, the red blemishes formed a direct path toward the back room, scattered at near precise intervals as if a gruesomely soiled object had been dripping as its holder tread across the store, yet the macabre trail was but a walk in the park compared to the door to which it led. He stared, horrified to the point of immobility at the once glimmering gold knob that would permit his entry, its radiance hidden by a crusted, red handprint.

The grip around his pistol tightened until his hand began to tremble, yet despite its demand for absolute security, he longed to simply drop it and reach instead for his datapad, his always reliable source of information… his comfort, but too much unknown still lingered in the air; too many enshadowed spaces still to explore. A horrifyingly developing theory needed disproving if he were to be able to leave this place with his heart intact.

He dared not disturb the third clue lest it be scanned at a later time and tested for identification purposes, so an assertive kick of his boot saw the door swinging ajar, the hallway opposite as hauntingly enshadowed as the one in which he stood. A seemingly endless trail of blood lay on the floor in front of him, nearly stealing what was left of his resolve; the droplets increasing in frequency and size before diverging into a small room on the left that he knew to be the kitchenette.

His fear only intensified at the sight of another morbid handprint, this one smeared across the faucet of the sink where… in the depths of the aluminum basin, was a soiled hammer.

The threat of suffocation encompassed him as a sinister realization began to fit puzzle pieces into place, but he was robbed of the opportunity to process the additions by the chirp of his comm.

“Tech,” Hunter urged. “I think you may have a visitor inbound. Someone is hovering by the door but I can’t get a clear line of sight through the crowd.”

Plan-11: The Perceiver. Hide and observe; do not engage until you’ve established a visual on your approaching backup.

A degree of focus that only imminent danger could provide saw his jaw tensing beneath his helmet, his gaze darting from the bloody tool in the sink toward the door in which he’d just passed through. He raised his pistol, crossing one wrist over the other so that blanching beam of light may guide him back through the din.

Your workshop, the haven in which he’d mentally prepared himself to spend the next several hours in, was as dark as it was silent, and for the first time hesitation stilled his steps from exploring the the uncharacteristically lifeless space, as there were numerous shadowed corners in which further clues, or dare he think it, your body might be found.

But time had seemingly diminished, and every extended blink into the darkness was a moment wasted; a moment he needed to enact Plan-11 while he still could. He disengaged his flashlight, and a quick nudge of the door with his knee saw him reentering the retail space, his eyes immediately darting around to search for any semblance of cover; somewhere he could stoop and watch until Hunter appeared in the doorway to flank the intruder, but his moment of hesitation had cost him.

Poised to welcome the perpetrator who’d likely come to clean up their mess, he refused to squint against the onslaught of sunlight as the door creaked slowly open and exposed the intruder.

Final Chapter coming soon!

taglist: @anxiouspineapple99 @sinfulsalutations @starrylothcat @nobody-expects-the-inquisitorius @dystopicjumpsuit @freesia-writes @blueink-bluesoul @littlemissmanga @523rdrebel @wings-and-beskar @sunshinesdaydream @clonemedickix @drafthorsemath @jediknightjana

**if you are on my taglist but were not tagged, it's because you indicated whump is a no for you**

[lunalucykat]

what's your favorite thing about your favorite character?

Crazy ask tbh!! Cause this gives me free rein to talk about any favorite character in anything and that's so many options!!!

(Also I've been sat here staring at this question in my inbox for a week cause I was like, who do I even choose??? lol)

After a long and hard deliberation I said, Fuck it! Might as well pick the characters that I have been rotating in my head for the past few months. Sorry I'm gonna be a little One Piece lover for a minute because legit the storylines are SO good and I love SO many of the characters!

I'm gonna give love to the ASL brothers because I love each and every one of them so much (even though I haven't even met Sabo, but I know about him, so it's chill lol)

One Piece spoilers below if you care, also I anticipate this getting absurdly long lmao

Like, I am actually sorry how long this got, cause I went off on some tangents. But if you give me a platform to talk about One Piece I am Going to TALK about One Piece (and, I think, get off prompt way too often.) That being said, I am still REALLY sorry about the WALL of text. You don't have to - nor should you - read this whole thing. orz

Ah, yes. The Age, Sex, Location brothers (lmao I feel like this joke shows my age cause I would make this joke, but TJ would make the joke as: the Am.erican Sign Language Brothers.)

This is definitely more than you asked for because you asked what is your favorite thing about your favorite character, but I'm doing things about characters, so... sorry lol!

Sibling characters are so important to me in general, and any group of siblings are usually gonna be some of my favorites (e.g. Sand Siblings from Naruto.) I have two older siblings and one younger so that might contribute to why, but I usually love the dynamics. And I love these guys all separately and as a package deal.

Ace- TBH what's not to love about Ace? He is the epitome of cool! Everybody wants to be him (or maybe I'm just projecting, but GOD he's so cool!) He is Literally The Cool Older Brother, and I love that for him. He also sort of has the cowboy look too, so that gives him bonus points lol!

Something I really love about Ace is that he loves so fiercely and it's obvious in everything he does. It's the way he's protective over Luffy and makes sure he gives his baby brother some way to find him again if he ever needs. But it's also the way he freaks out when he realizes said baby brother comes to rescue him when he's in a dire situation. He definitely has eldest child vibes in that regard; giving help but not accepting help. It feels like a very eldest sibling thing to do. It's also the way he adamantly refuses to call his biological father his dad, and insists that his father is Whitebeard because he was the man who took him in and cared for him as his son. He literally states it to the world. He loves Whitebeard and won't let anybody tell him that he's not his father.

He is literally all about his family. And that feels stupid to say cause this whole show is about found/ forged families, but Ace wears his heart on his sleeve and isn't afraid to show just how much he loves his family, not only in his actions and words, but also in the things he wears. He's so sentimental that he keeps all of his most precious people with him in some sort of memento. (Some of these are more canonical than others, but most of them you can read a certain way and it makes sense, so bear with me).

The most obvious (and canon) is his back tattoo which is Whitebeard's symbol. He literally calls it his pride and displays it as such. That's his father, and he is happy to show it off. (I don't know if these next few are canonically correct, but the vast majority of fans agree on their symbolism connecting to his other family members.) The red beads around his hat and necklace are the same as the ones his foster mom, Dadan, wears, so they're likely a memento to remember her by. The next one I think has a lot of legitimacy to it, because for some reason I think some people still don't believe it, but the X'd out S in his arm tattoo ASCE is to remember Sabo by. (Textual evidence for this is the "what if" cover story Oda drew where the brothers were never separated and in that scenario Ace's arm tattoo it literally just written as ACE.) The X through the S I think has a double meaning because when he got it Sabo was presumed dead so it could be crossed out because his younger brother was gone, but also the X through the S could be because that was Sabo's mark. Like, it was his jolly roger when he set out to sea. Some people also like to say the little buttons on Ace's hat resemble a goggle-like appearance to mimic Sabo's goggles on his top hat, which I think is cute, but maybe not as legitimate lol. That just leaves Luffy. I'm not gonna lie, there's not a lot on his design that points specifically to Luffy, probably because he was confident he'd see him around. But if we wanna stretch we could say maybe his hat symbolizes Luffy (and probably Sabo too). He got a hat so he could join his little brothers' cool hat club lmao!!

The Symbolism on this boy goes WILD!!! He LITERALLY wears his heart on his sleeve, or back, or around his neck, or his arm, or his head lol!

I also love that he's also susceptible to sibling dumbassery. I'm talking about that shit where you're polite and respectable towards peers and shit, but the moment you're around your siblings you revert to little gremlin mode. Cause Ace met all the Strawhats and was like "Hello, yes, nice to meet you. I am Luffy's respectable older brother, thank you so much for taking care of him all this time, I know he's a lot to handle :)" But when he was alone with Luffy literally 5 minutes ago he was like "What's up fucker? Wanna arm wrestle you little bitch baby?" It's hilarious. I love it.

Also his character design is hot! What can I say? lol! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sabo- I am actually insane about Sabo and it makes no sense cause I haven't even met the dude yet! Like, I'm looking for some excuse to change my icon to him but it's going to be like at least 3 whole arcs until I meet him so idk lol (that probably won't stop me lmao! Sanji's days are numbered lol)

So I haven't technically met Sabo yet, but I do know a bit about him (because my brain decided to snatch him up into my "3 more of these little blonde bitches club [consists of Sanji, Sabo, and Rosinante/Corazon (WHOM I ALSO HAVEN'T MET BUT I LOVE HIM)]" and now I know more about him than I did like 4 months ago) so I'll talk about what I do know.

Erm, it's him being the middle child (as a middle child myself I heavily fuck with middle children characters.) As a kid he looks mostly well-adjusted and like, the peacekeeper of the three, but as a young adult he looks literally so unhinged, and that's the middle child experience babeeeyyyyyyyyy!!! (I'm only half kidding lol)

I also headcannon him as aroace. It's so easy to do that with any of Oda's characters tbh because he doesn't really focus on romance (which I'm thrilled about, because it means he's most likely not gonna do that thing that every mangaka does that everyone fucking hates which is to pair off characters who have no chemistry together or never interacted in canon, but they get married in the end just because he needs everyone to end up with someone and have a family in order to continue the story, but with the kids this time! I am literally looking at Naruto. Cause when the fuck did Choji and Karui ever interact? Literally never. Also, God. Don't EVEN get me started with Sasuke and Sakura.) ANYWAY!!!!! The way Oda writes his story makes it easy to headcannon characters as aroace, and I do with Sabo at least cause I'm also aroace and he's one of my favies, so.... rejoice! Aroace be upon ye! :) Idk, he just gives the vibe :) Also it's funny to make the joke that they're all "Ace."

He's also got that steampunk drip. Love that for him. Go whiteboy, go! Not only does he dress like he's smart, but I'm almost CERTAIN he IS the smartest of the three brothers. I mean like, he probably has similar qualities about him that he shares with Ace and Luffy in terms of general dumbassery, but he definitely gives the vibe that he Knows what the fuck he's doing. Probably helps that I'm pretty sure he was the only one of the three that received a proper education lol. But I love the potential for the duality of him ping-ponging between being really smart and doing something really dumb and reckless.

I think Sabo was the softer of the older brothers. Like, Ace wanted to check in on Luffy and make sure he was okay and everything, but also he and Luffy seemed rougher towards each other (literally arm wrestling upon first meeting again after 3 years of not seeing each other.) Sabo gives the vibe that instead of armwrestling upon seeing each other, he would instead give hugs. I LOVE soft interactions with siblings just as much as I love interactions with them roasting the shit out of each other, and I think Sabo brings the softness needed. I mean, had he and Ace interacted in their early 20s I think there would definitely be sibling ribbing, but I guess I'll never know that for sure :) :) :) I'd've loved to see it though! :) :) :)

But at least Sabo can be soft and baby the baby brother. And you know what? Luffy deserves hugs! And I'm sure Sabo does too! And hell! Throw Ace in there too! He also deserves hugs!

He's also part of the Revolutionary Army, that much I know for sure, so he is absolutely out there doing some much needed shit (Luffy also does liberation every now and then, but he doesn't exactly go out of his way to do it like the R.A. does, he more happens upon it as he goes lol) And we've already met some cool-ass R.A. members (IVA!!!), so he's in good company. Also - side tangent - but Luffy adopted him as his brother, Garp adopted him as his grandson, and Dragon essentially adopted him as a son, so all I'm sayin' is..... Monkey D. Sabo?????? (eyes emoji) [I'm on desktop so I can't do emojis]

Anyway! Can't wait to meet Sabo! Can't wait to see him be absolutely baller!! Can't wait for him to see Luffy again!!! Can't wait to find more reasons to love him than the bare minimum I know about him!!!!

Luffy- Luffy is literally The best MC of any shōnen anime ever and nothing can change my mind about that. I have watched nearly 500 episodes of One Piece and Luffy is one of my top favorite characters, and that says something cause the MC's are usually never even close to my top favorites. Ever.

Like, I watched all 720 episodes of Naruto, and Team 7 (Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura) are some of my least favorite guys in the show, I'm not gonna lie!! Like, I don't hate Naruto or Sakura, but because of their obsession with Sasuke (worst character, sorry Sasuke stans) it makes them SO boring to me. (I could so easily rant about Naruto, but this isn't about him lol, but I'm just sayin' you hit Shippuden and he gets real dull. And just to compare- 500 episodes of Naruto counts the first 220 from the original and then 280 of Shippuden so 500 in is a little over halfway through Shippuden, so I was basically over Naruto as an MC by then. ANYWAY! Enough about him!)

There's so much to love about Luffy. He comes out of the gate being Iconic as fuck in episode 1 and he STAYS that way! He stays that way but he also grows, but even after character growth moments he stays the same goofy guy in the end and I love that! He has a death grip around embodying joyous whimsy. It probably helps that he starts his journey already knowing who he is and what he wants. There is little in the way of self-doubt, and I love the confidence he has in himself and his dream and in others.

I also love that sometimes he's a little rude-ass! Okay, well he's blunt, so sometimes he comes off as rude, but it's funny as fuck. I also love that he displays many AuDHD symptoms, it makes him feel more relatable in some ways.

He's also just so emotionally intelligent. I mean, can he read the room most of the time? Not to save his goddamn life! But is he a great judge of character? Always. He is a ride or die homie! He often feels overly optimistic, but he's also so realistic in those tougher situations or decisions he has to make and I appreciate that kind of depth in a character, and it's SO important for an MC to have those traits! He knows when it's okay to be silly and when he HAS to be serious. And he doesn't mind relying on his friends!!! I see so many main characters insisting they can do something on their own, but Luffy admits time and time again that he DOES need to rely on his friends because they have skills he doesn't! He lifts others up and values them for the qualities they don't always see in themselves! I love him so much.

HE IS ASEXUAL!!! Like it's actually been very heavily implied and there is contextual evidence for it in canon. For example: he has these interactions with Boa Hancock whose Devil Fruit power turns horny people to stone (yeah), and when she tried using it on Luffy LITERALLY nothing happens to him. Aro/Ace King!!! (Again, I'm also aroace so that's why this scores big points with me!) Luffy will never go to horny jail, and good for him!

I also think there is a subtle but noticeable shift in his behavior when his brothers are around (well I can only really use Ace as an example here). But in a different way than Ace, because Luffy is the baby. Like Ace goes gremlin mode, and I think Luffy slips a bit into baby mode. It's harder to see the difference because Luffy is always kind of silly, but when Ace was around he feels a little more like he's clinging to his brother in a way. And to be fair Ace sort of lets him. Like in Alabasta before Luffy realized Ace was there, he was doing his damndest to use the one braincell he has to think through his predicament when encountering Smoker, even if it meant just running away from a fight he probably wanted to have but knew he couldn't win so he didn't engage. But the moment Ace stepped in and told Luffy not to worry about Smoker he was kind of like "oh yippie! :) Okay! Yayyy! <3" and just did what big bro said.

Idk how he'd be with Sabo, but I think he'd be even MORE of a baby around him because I feel like Sabo would let him get away with it more than Ace would.

Anyway!

I just like imagining the siblings having fun and doing sibling things together and everyone is happy and alive :) I love them! I I love the potential! I love what we could have haaaaaaaaaaad!!!!

Sorry this is so long. I love One Piece if you couldn't tell. And this could've been WAY longer. I really, really tried to hold back. But, erm, Your Honor, I love One Piece... I know some crimes can never be forgiven -_-'

[thateldribitch]

A Red Sky's Interlude

Chapter Two: Local Lure

TW: Horror, Yandere (and everything that comes with it), mostly implied gore and murder. (For once lol.)

Totally forgot to post this chapter here; here's the link to the AO3!

Truth be told, Floyd hates towns like these.

Kitschy little tourist traps with a thousand neon items and a thousand different stores with those same items. Houses in absurdly tropical colors that look good nowhere else —lime green and tangerine orange, cyan and banana yellow. Ugh. Beaches and bitches and weirdly rude, weirdly… entertaining magicians. Scammers. Tourists. But Shrimpy took them to a hole-in-the-wall, local little place. Ugh, taking Shrimpy on land is anxiety-inducing enough. They have a safe cove, good food, strong mates. What more could they ask for? Cold. Fries. Yeah, of course it’d be cold ass french fries—but then again, he craves stuff from home sometimes. And he can’t judge them too much. Dive bars always have the best fries; they’re not just stopping for carnival food or something. This shit’s actually good. 

Not as great as they could be, of course. He pops one in his mouth, rolls it around on his tongue. Mashing it between the points of his teeth, he nods after a moment. Yeah, he should make them french fries. Doesn’t fit Azul’s ‘adjustment to the water’ plan , but clearly that shit isn’t working. He can make better french fries, obviously.

Floyd’s claws dance to the tune of his trepidation. Shrimpy’s taking too damn long. He needs to check. Are they okay? Were the fries bad? He’ll fucking kill the line cook if they were bad…. But there’s a clatter in the bathroom. A distinct click.

His eyes slither to Jade’s, finding his mirror looking right back at him. Gold-olive eyes hood in amusement, a sharp flash of a smirk. Such a sneaky little shrimp. Should they let them wander a little? Get it out of their system? Aw, but what would they do for, like, twenty minutes? Well, he did see their eyes linger on a few of the colorful stalls on the way in…. 

So what does Floyd get out of this little runaway act? A few brightly colored, stupid little knick knacks. He hates the little snowglobes and the best knit ‘save the turtle’ he found in each store is horrifically mutated. But the idea of his Shrimpy smiling at these makes him grin like an idiot. He even has to pull a Jade and hide his teeth behind his hand. He’s already distinct enough. He doesn’t need people getting wind of merfolk in the area. 

“You look like me with bad posture,” Jade rolls his eyes, hiding his smirk behind a hand.

“You look like me with a resting bitch face,” Floyd smacks at Jade’s shoulder with a goofily colorful sign. It’s wooden; a solid knock off. The brothers lock eyes, a brief spark of a potential tousle. But they both decide to save it for later. That being said, Jade steps just centimeters in Floyd’s way; Floyd keeps bumping their shoulders too close as they walk. The little spites make up for the fact that they both know a straight-up brawl would bother their Shrimpy. 

He’ll just hog Azul later. That’ll teach his preppy ass of a brother. 

“No it won’t.”

“Bitch—”

He kicks his ankle. Jade dodges and does his weird polite giggle. Fuckin’ weirdo. Same face, different brain— yeah bitch, get insulted. His brother’s annoyed brow twitch makes him snicker, feeling a slight rush of joy as he sees a human jolt at the sight. Then his joy turns a little more genuine as he looks at the souvenirs again. Just little silly island things. Shrimpy will like it.

“You are such a dork,” Jade sighs.

“Uh, I can’t hear you over the mushrooms in your ears,” Floyd sneers.

“We’ve probably spent enough time away for them to calm down—”

“Don’t change the conversation, Prick.” And yet he falls into step anyway. Much as he’d like to dick-kick his brother, Shrimpy’s the most important. That cute little smile. When their cheeks get all pink and dimply. Hehe, so cute. His smile turns a touch more intense, the whites of his teeth contrasting with the pleased heat of his blush.

Twenty minutes are up.

Ready or not.

“...They’re not as close as I thought they’d be,” Jade’s voice cuts through the pretty picture of Shrimpy’s smile. Floyd feels the hairs rise on the back of his neck. 

“Shit, I didn’t think they’d be that bold,”  Floyd’s lips tug down into a panicked frown. “We miscalculated.”

“You think, brother fucking dearest?” Jade lands a kick on his ass. That’s fair. Vengeance later, shrimp hunt now. Being on land is no different from when they’re underwater. They move as one. Drifting apart, but always within eye shot. Less suspicious if two big guys aren’t seen together in the water. Easier to approach prey. Carefully zipping through crowds, looking for any fond trace of their newest. Smallest. Cutest. Floyd won’t even be mad. He hopes he catches their smile. A sneaky little grin, at having evaded them. They haven’t done that in a while. He wants to see it again. 

Please let them be okay.

Please please please let them be okay.

But then, if they get hurt…. No, that’s unacceptable. Not on their watch. Never on their watch . Jade nods shortly. Floyd follows after him. Can’t be that hard. Just harder than expected. What a good, sneaky shrimp, that’s a good undersea skill, he’ll have to tell them later. His heart pounds.

Fuck, fuck, fuck , where are they?

Floyd’s eyes dart through the streets, teeth gritting a bit tighter every time he doesn’t catch a familiar flash of their Shrimpy. A bead necklace they liked from Azul. A particular birthmark on their neck. Nope, nope, nope— none of these are his shrimpy, none of them have that sweet smell, that blend of him and Azul and Jade and it’s too weak anyway. They’re not even marked.

Not that they’d even consider asking them yet.

But his teeth itch.

A red scarf. A set of cracked glasses. The limp of one woman, the strut of a man, the gait of a person loping their way into a bakery to order a sweet. Not his shrimp, not his shrimp, not our shrimp . He clicks his teeth together. Jade clicks his. Okay. No sight of them. Shit. Jade taps his elbow; Floyd lightly checks his shoulder into his. They’ll find them. They’re good hunters. Shrimpy’s fine; they’re stretching their legs, they’re fine, they’re fine. What if they’re not?

The thought burrows into his skin like a bobbit worm. Spines claw through his veins, scratching at them and setting an itch to his skin. The teeth snap at his ankles, driving him to walk faster, look harder— a scent. Sweet. Jade-Floyd-Azul-Shrimpy. The musk of their cave. A tiny hint of perfume. Shrimpy . His mirror pauses, catches the scent as well. Oh thank fuck, they’re close by. That’s fresh. A very, very fresh scent. Okay, okay, okay. Shrimpy’s not in the best part of town. Shit, he wished they’d gone into the thousand-replica stores. Bright colors and a goofy smile. Not this. But Shrimpy’s fine. They’re fine, they’re fine. Shrimpy. The unspoken nickname catches in his throat, chokes him as he hurries along the trail. Get the Shrimp, protect our Shrimp, my Shrimp, my Shrimp.

They’re close and he’ll get them and hold them and who the fuck is that?

Doesn’t matter. He’s going for Shrimpy; Jade’s got the bastard. One, two—Jade yanks the guy away; Floyd steps in to hold their little mate. A relieved, dry sob escapes him, more akin to a wheeze after a punch. He needs to make them better. They’re scared, so scared. Small in his arms. Small. Small sobs…. His heart aches and he squeezes them closer, face burying over their throat. Floyd’s only half aware that he’s flipping between babbling reassurances and trying to see how aware they are.

He gets closer and takes a big whiff near their mouth—and he can taste it. Big sparks of pleasure-pain-panic spike through their sweet scent, bursting into an intoxicating ichor that burns like bile in his throat. Something in their drink . They said someone put something in their drink. The worst kind of thing in their drink. Poison isn’t as cruel, and no other drug can be quite so painful as the panic in his littlest lover’s eyes. 

His teeth part before he clicks them shut, and he squeezes Shrimpy closer. Jade’s got that asshole’s… remains; he’s got their Shrimp. Their poor, hot little shrimp. Squirming in such pathetic terror in his arms, as he achingly clutches them close. 

If things were simpler, he’d take them home and curl them into a soft bed. They’d all take care of their smallest, their newest, their cutest. Reassure their Shrimp in all the best and proper ways. Show them that he’ll keep them safe; that all their mates would. But they don’t ask. All he can do is hold them tight and get them home. He buries them in his arms as they swim, still tasting it. Still tasting that awful, bitter alcohol— fuck, they let this happen. He can’t make up for the fact they let this happen. His heart hurts. And he wants to tear someone’s throat out.

Things aren’t simple.

And it fucking sucks .

Fun fact, based a lot of the locale on a vacation to Florida I took.

[ahiddenpath]

Life Update

Chatting about life beneath the cut.

TW: medical talk/mentions of cancer/mentions of animal injury

It's been so crazy lately, I'm not even sure where to start or how to capture everything. Ig I'll go for broad strokes?

Work

It's been so busy. Bit annoyed because I took over an important project for someone for two weeks while they were on vacation, and it's been a little intense. But it's been going well, so I'm glad for that. I am a little... Hm. No one has ever done my work while I'm away, lol! But mostly I like contributing and I like my teammates, so I'm just grousing.

Creating

I'm working on the next chapter of Infinite Possibilities for Odaiba Day. In it, Koushiro tells Eimi what happened during Tri, specifically so he can explain why the Chosen/Bureau relationship is where it is now (it's not in the best place). It turns out that condensing the events of six movies into a few thousand words is really hard, especially with all the different factions! So I MADE A CHART, I think you will love it, lol! That's where I am in my fanfiction career, chart making (she says, as if she hasn't already made several).

It's been going... Fine. Not great, not bad. I haven't had as much time/mental space lately.

Life

Holy crap man. A family member has cancer, and I don't want to get into details bc... You know, it's their situation, not mine. But they removed the cancerous organ, only to find that it spread to a non-removable organ. So... Well, they will learn their options before long. We are hoping for a non-chemo option.

My first reaction is wanting to do something myself, wanting to help or make it better. You certainly can help a person with cancer in terms of practical and emotional support, but you can't... You know... Medically help. I keep googling how to help and what to say and not to say to a cancer patient. That's so human, you know? How do I help? Tell me how to help. It's sweet. Humans are sweet.

I'm feeling a lot of feelings, and I can't imagine how my family member feels.

It's jarring to talk about my own little stuff after something so much worse, but...

My energy has been just awful lately. I've been dragging my butt through life for what feels like... Idk, three months or so? I just haven't been feeling well, although I'm not, like, sick. I'm not sure what to do, if I'm honest. Very recently, we have been trying to eat better, and I did a not successful exercise today, lmao! I just hope I can physically perk up.

I had a small emergency last week. I was trying to groom a clump out of my (absurdly beloved) cat's fur, and I cut his skin. I can't even describe it- the skin just, like, unzipped in front of my eyes. I basically just froze and shut down, my husband called vets. We lost a lot of local vets over the pandemic, and the local ER was closed for renovation that day, so it was nerve wracking, but we got him seen. Meanwhile, I had a hugely busy workday- I had to keep that important project going. But we went to the ER and they said it only needed staples, not suturing. I feel so guilty. The vet said that she's done it herself to a dog, you try to help them and they wiggle, it's common. Luckily, Darcy isn't scared of me and acts the same (in fact, he's sitting with me now). It's healing nicely and we will remove the staples later this week or next week. The vet said Darcy was a good boy, and the only problem was that he purred too loud for them to hear his heartrate. I worked pretty late that day.

There's been a lot of stuff at that level (sort of like... a mild emergency) going on lately. I don't have the wherewithal to list everything, but that's how life has been lately.

That's all for now, I hope you are healthy and doing well. Love you, big hug!

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s1 episode 23 thoughts

back at it again with another post surgery painkiller and x-files combo, let's goooo!

i'm almost done with season 1, only 1 more episode! i'll have to see how long it took me to get to this point and then update accordingly- but i might finish today- which will be bittersweet

(update! i started watching 20 days ago, so a i'm at a little over an episode a day! wow, time flies. and yet it seems they have always been at my side)

anyway this episode was again Problematic but i did chronicle my journey like always. i am a citizen journalist.

episode opened with some math words, math words which i definitely knew the meaning of (/s)

then the scientist we see working on a sort of jet thing gets sucked into his jet- he was locked in there by the custodian- with a sound the closed captioning described as a "squishing thud" which was. unfortunate.

enter our duo! "how was the wedding?" "you mean the part where the groom passed out or the dog bit the drummer?" (mulder, teasingly) "did you catch the bouquet?" (scully, teasing back) "maaaaybe :)"

(your honor i would die for them. no hesitation. mulder, what do you care if she caught the bouquet? dreaming of her as a radiant bride or something? scully, you stringing him along with that imagery? lol. lmao, even. i need to put them in a bottle and study them)

another scientist is killed when the custodian puts him into liquid nitrogen which is not something i can endorse but he WAS rude asf so i get it. and then his ear falls off and crunches which was nasty!

scully says she has seen this happen on a fish before! mulder responds that this is not something they'll see on "beakman's world" (had to google that one but it seems to be a contemporary children's science programming of some sort. and there was a man in a rat suit playing a rat. which is absurdly funny to me. hold on NEED to get an image of him for you)

i'm. gonna fucking cry why does he look like that. need to end this line of commentary here before i start begging for explanations on what the hell was going on in the 90's

so mulder seems to think that the custodian killed his boss and all the other members of this team working on the fancy jet stuff, which we know to be true but we don't know Why. turns out our custodian, roland, is the twin brother of the head scientist, arthur, who died a few months back, and has since had his brain placed in a cryogenic freezing chamber. JUST the head!

i love when scully and mulder need a visual on what a person would look like so they go to the woman in the fbi that presses some buttons on a computer and generates a dude. it brings me pleasure to no end. then they look at the guy like :0 yup that is exactly who we are looking for. i eat it up every time.

! SCULLY LORE REVEAL ! she has two brothers, one older and one younger! (she's a middle child omg.........)

mulder thinks siblings have a psychic connection (which is actually deeply tragic if you consider his circumstances) and that the ULTIMATE psychic connection is between twins. so the twin that is currently in an icy soup is somehow connecting to the other twin to get him to kill all the other scientists and finish his research. sure. why not.

there's then a scene where mulder tries to walk in the wrong direction and scully has to correct him, which recalled him getting lost in the woods in an earlier episode i had No Positive Feelings Towards, but it does make him always driving funnier. like, can he follow a map but has no internal sense of direction? was the gps still in its early days? did he have one at all? how is he getting places? a lot of people want to know

the last remaining scientist who was not killed lowered the temperature on brain soup twin, which was stored in another part of the university campus where they worked. man my university campus has no jet propulsion wing OR brain soup section. did i get ripped off? what is my tuition even for?

anyway, the episode ends with the seeming psychic curse of soup twin being lifted from custodian twin, which we can hope to mean positive things moving forward

overall, like i said, any episode of a show from the 90's with the words "mentally challenged" in the description is bound to have aged poorly, which i am not surprised by- up there with the earlier Indigenous appropriation episode and the aforementioned episode i Shan't Name- but, we did learn things! for instance, that scully has 2 brothers (!!!), just went to a wedding where mulder teased her about maybe catching the bouquet (and also a dog bit a drummer, drop the full story time scully don't be shy), mulder believes in the psychic connection between siblings, and that there was a rat on a kid's show that was a mere man in a suit. that i'm still gonna cry laughing at.

[good-to-drive]

Weedkiller and healing from the overturning of Roe v. Wade

This album is so healing and cathartic and I haven’t been able to stop listening to it on repeat since it came out. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so seen or understood in my entire life, and I just need some room to rant about it lol. Fair warning that this is pretty long.

When the news about Roe v Wade came out I was so angry and upset I couldn't stop shaking. I truly never thought I would live to see this happen. I felt disgusted and afraid and angry and violated, and it felt like no one cared or understood just how horrific and repulsive this is for people with female bodies. Every time I hear about another state restricting abortion rights or refusing to track maternal mortality rates or making birth control harder to access I want to vomit. I know pro-lifers think we're just being dramatic when we say these things, but it's so visceral and horrific to have your bodily autonomy taken away, to feel like you're being crushed by this huge machine that neither knows nor cares that you're a sentient being, not just a vessel. It truly gives me the same feeling that you experience when you watch a movie with body horror and gore. It's not political, it's as intensely personal as anything can be. And although I could find plenty of people expressing sadness at this situation, I couldn't find anything that captured this visceral horror and disgust that is so overwhelming all the fucking time. I felt lost and wrong, like I was less than human in this society and a fool for not knowing my place before. Like the disgust and horror I was feeling made me disgusting because no one else seemed to be feeling it. I think, like most of us with a female body, I felt that I had no right to be horrified that I was being reduced to flesh for men to use, like I should’ve already known that’s all I was.

This album did more than encapsulate and validate that horror. It wrapped it up into a little ball and took aim at it and blasted it into pieces, and left me seething mad and ready to rip the world a new one. World Eater alchemized this horror into a tangible enemy, a machine that kills for pleasure, and WEEDKILLER let me smash that machine to pieces. You Make Me Sick! let me scream to the world that I’m mad, I’m disgusted, I’m dangerous, and I’m allowed to be. Chokehold Cherry Python was like Daisy on steroids, the avenging angel returned darker and more disturbed because the world she inhabits is sicker than we knew. Worms is hysteria and numbness all at once, when the world makes you vomit until you’re dry heaving and only able to laugh at how absurdly cruel this life really is. Cheerleader let me take pride in my femininity without feigning weakness. And Possession of a Weapon made me feel like a dark, wounded goddess, my body grotesquely reduced to pieces in someone else’s chess game, but still in possession of the pussy weapon, the vagina dentata that disgusts and frightens the people who want our bodies to be pliable and abusable.

And then there’s songs like Super Soaker, Moonlight Magic, and Don’t Look At It that express queer female sexuality without shame, because even in an apocalyptic cyberpunk wasteland we’re still only human and our desires deserve to be celebrated. And Want It All, which makes me remember that however fucked up this life is I still want every last piece of it, even the ones that hurt.

The most emotional songs on the album for me were Miss Nectarine and Dying Star. Miss Nectarine is such a delicate and beautiful story about a vulnerable time of life, and so heartbreaking and moving. I think a lot of us relate to the experience of discovering a piece of ourselves that our immediate world is hostile to, and wanting to be strong enough to save ourselves and the ones we love from this reality – wanting to play hero – but being crushed and heartbroken instead. That feeling of powerlessness and heartbreak is especially visceral for me right now, wondering if I or someone I love will be put through forced pregnancy or even killed because of this new political reality I never thought I’d live to see.

Dying Star as the last track was so unexpected, but so, so necessary. It’s like this album transformed my fear and self recrimination into righteous fury, but at the last moment instead of being consumed by it I was given a chance to want something soft. To want the world to listen to me when I say “ouch”, to mourn the magic in me that was drained away even when I repressed myself and behaved like a lady and very politely asked not to be killed. To feel not just angry but hurt that even when I shrink myself and try to be what I’m supposed to be the world still grinds me under its heel. The anger doesn’t drain away – the anger is legitimate, the anger is allowed – but I’m allowed to be gentle, too. To have longing. To have a broken heart. To dream of something or someone that could soothe this pain. The legislation around female bodies is like a dying star, collapsing in on itself and creating this black hole of howling horror and fear. I have been trapped in its orbit, circling and circling the same pain, and breaking orbit might pull me apart but it’s what I truly want. At least, it is now that Ashnikko has allowed me to feel my rage and my disgust and my power and my helplessness, to own them without shame, and then to look beyond them and search for something more.

Sorry this is such a novel, I’ve just been so emotional about this album ever since it came out. The very first time I heard Ashnikko I just knew that finally someone got it. Finally there was a person out there who wasn’t forcing theirself to play nice or perform femininity in the way that was expected. Who wasn’t ashamed of being exactly who they were, feminine and masculine energies combined, expressing gender and the lack thereof in ways that I had never seen before but that felt intuitively right. And honestly this album took it even further. I am so freaking grateful that Ash released this, listening to it was a journey but it was a journey that healed my heart.

Ashnikko, if you ever read this, thank you so much.

[infiltracion]

I'LL ASK YOU A MUSIC QUESTION SINCE YOU LIKE THEM SO MUCH. GIMME SOME SONGS THAT FIT YOUR FAVORITE SHIPS FOR SOMBRA.

...ESTABLECIENDO CONEXIÓN, @spec08 .

YAYYYY this is a fun question especially for the both of us since, as mentioned often here, there is a whole blog canon that scoob and i have behind the scenes. it's the reason why my blog is not open to shipping with sombra cuz we just like these pairs so fuckin much LOL so here's the pairs. (keep in mind that this has to do with specifically scoob's portrayals of these characters. anybody reading this who happens to write these characters? does not apply to u we will have a different dynamic entirely <3 anyway with that out of the way, throwing it all under the cut bc its long since i felt the need to explain everything)

starting with our real toxic girls.... sombra & ashe. this relationship is summarized as "i girlbossed a little too close to the sun." tl;dr for any readers that aren't scoob: sombra fucks off to deadlock for a while after ditching talon, ashe gets dangerously attatched real quick to their "casual" relationship, sombra underestimated the situation bad. ashe is dangerous and now has it in her head that they should DEFINITELY get married cuz shes got everything she wants here and sombra like..... lol i dont believe in marriage? :3 (spoiler: that's not a good excuse.) now she's gotta worry about a white woman jumpscare when shes out and about after ditching deadlock. whoops!

SOMBRA @ ASHE.

JOKES ON YOU — charlotte lawrence. this entire song has just a shit ton of symbolism and the build up to just being like fuck it im done this is going too far? it was fun in the beginning but theyre in too deep now and shes gotta GO?? MESSY!

HIGHLIGHT.

drag me to death like a lit cigarette took my last breath like the smoke from my lips i've lied for you and i liked it too but my knees are bruised from kneeling to you i've had enough, but you're too hard to quit we've had our fun, now your sugar makes me sick i've lied for you and i liked it too but my makeup's ruined

ASHE @ SOMBRA.

YOUR LOVE (DÉJÀ VU) — glass animals. once again, entire song has such good symbolism n it mentions so many details that just Sound like sombra like blue hair and the references to all the tech n cameras n the whole like fleeting love situation.... also references to sombras toxic ass side of the relationship they both suck.

HIGHLIGHT.

maybe in time when we're both better at life daylight can open my eyes and you'll still be by my side but meanwhile i've got my contact high you've got your powdered lies we've got these summertime nights night by night i let you eat me alive i want you to eat me alive i want you to eat me alive

bonus: this one's a significantly funnier song but it describes their dynamic perfectly. ashe is the guy, sombra's the woman.

now the other one that's our lil endgame for these two... sombra & satya. also messy but ultimately ends pretty great after sombra is forced to get over herself. tl;dr for any readers that aren't scoob: her and satya meet on a long term talon mission (unbeknownst to satya) and get on absurdly well. tension n all but satya's focused on her work and sombras headin out anyway so nothing really comes of it. she disappears then reappears a couple years later, out of talon and highkey trying to avoid the raging deadlock leader who's mad at her for leaving her at the altar (ashe's words, not her's.) india's a pretty good curveball. the details are fuzzy here but they ultimately get back together here which is great until satya keeps jabbing her and being like FIX YOUR ISSUES OR YOURE LEAVING and shes like ://// FINE! DAMN.

SOMBRA @ SATYA.

NO ES QUE NO TE QUIERA — hello seahorse! i mentioned this one in that music meme i did because it fits sombra in general in relationships but i think it especially fits with the two of them since she's extremely avoidant... runs at any INKLING of intimacy or permanence and it fits especially well after she leaves satya that first time around and is still thinking of her.

HIGHLIGHT.

no es que no te quiera es que te necesito lejos pues es cuando estas lejos, que (yo) más te quiero

(rough translation)

it's not that i don't love you it's that i need you far away because when you're far that's when i love you most

SATYA @ SOMBRA.

VETE DE UNA VEZ — daniela spalla. funnily enough this is another spanish song but it reminds me from satya's pov before they come together for realsies. kinda accompanies the last where it's frustrating that sombra can just come and go and still be accepted back in even tho that shit HURTS.

HIGHLIGHT.

he pasado tantos días, tantas noches haciedo el duelo, el duelo por tí lo dijiste claramente no querías una vida junto a mí pero cada tanto vuelves, me llamas y sabes que jamás voy a decir que no cada tanto, vuelves, basta te pido por favor vete de una vez y ya no vuelvas

(rough translation)

i've spent so many days, so many nights grieving because of you you clearly told me that you didn't want a life with me but every so often, you come back and call me and you know i'll never say no every so often, you call me, enough. i beg of you, please. go away now, and don't come back

[pantherinaeee]

trust the mirror, not the cameras - megathread part 2

in r/infp i posted some screenshorts from videos, saying that i look better in screenshots than in selfies. here are the coments...

YYY

I'm gonna try this too. I believe I look absolutely horrid in selfies and pictures. But in the mirror, I love my face structure and features; but I don't know for certain what people see, so it makes me feel insecure lol.

I think it might be the lighting on your pics that makes you feel that way, because I think you look the same. But honestly you look extremely attractive and cool in all of them. And that's something I very rarely say or admit to anyone.

PANTHERINAEEE

omg, thank you so much!! 🥹😭

All the images I posted are screenshots; I haven't posted any comparison selfies, haha. But I was really touched by your compliment. 🥹

And I have an answer to your question - actually, it's a long thread. I talked more deeply about this with someone else here in the comments if you'd like to read. [part 1]

Basically, cellphone lenses cause VERY high distortion to our faces, so never trust selfies; what you see in the mirror is what matters!

To give you an idea, a lens that doesn't distort your face much would have to be 2 - 5 meters away from you. So just imagine how round (like a fish eye) your cellphone camera needs to be to frame you from such a close distance.

Moreover, cellphones have a resolution capable of processing more information than our eyes/brain. Often, you can see lines of expression in the camera that you can't see with the naked eye.

So, don't feel bad if you don't look good in photos; you are beautiful just as you see yourself in the mirror! 💕

To get a sense of this, ask someone to take a serious front-facing photo of your face with the 1x lens on your cellphone, then ask them to step back and take a photo with the 3x lens. You'll see how absurdly different it looks!

Finally, I think I look better in videos because I have natural expressions. When someone takes a photo of me, I automatically tense my facial muscles unintentionally. Our expressions and how we communicate say A LOT about our image, even influencing our features. My mom took a visagism course, and this was a major point of attention when analyzing someone's facial characteristics!

YYY

Oh, I thought the comparison photos were mixed in lol. I was looking at them and thinking, "hmm... yeah I don't see a difference." [striked to focus on the central subject] You're welcome on the compliment. I almost never compliment strangers. Not to be weird, but I truly rarely see an actual beautiful woman in general out in public or even on social media lol. And I would see a lot when I'm out in public. Most women, I don't really see any "highlighting" features about them, and dont see anything that draws my attention(not saying their ugly). If at most, only maybe 1 or 2 max highting features, but thats rare. But I see about 5 highlighting features on you. Your thick eyebrows, your eyes, high cheek bones, your nose shape, and lips. Just, wow. Then also your hair color and style looks awesome. And youre also an INFP personality type just the same as the most interestesting celebrities; Johnny Depp, Robert Smith(The Cure), Morrissey, Heath Ledger, Ian Curtis(Joy Division), Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, John Lennon, Edger Allen Poe, Björk, etc. Like really, who's cooler than these INFP celebrites? Lol We have the coolest personality type. So you have both the looks AND the personality. You look like you were crafted by Tim Burton. If you have any insecurities about your looks would be the same if like Ian Somerhalder/Damon Salvatore from The Vampires Diaries Season 1 had insecurities about his appearance and style. I would truly be surprised if you were in slightest bit insecure about your appearance.

Ok. Also, Thank you for the compliment. It really did make me feel better and in a way, made me feel a little validated haha.

It was a lot of very interesting information you've shared. My knowledge on photos and the drastic effects in has if not taken from the right distance and lens was almost nonexistent. I thought all cameras were just bad and avoided them haha. But this definitely sheds new light and aspires me more to start post myself on social media. For the longest time, I almost never posted a picture of myself on any social media at all (maybe only twice) because of how insecure I felt in photos. Of course I would never tell anyone my insecurities lol, but when I posted my photo online somewhere I would get compliments and women would be a lot nicer to me, and that would confuse me severely and made me question their motives haha.

I think I know what you mean about the facial expressions and how even tensing the muscles a little can alter a person's appearance. There was this colleague I used to see regularly. I noticed this person with an extremely blank relaxed facial expression would always stare directly at me and "follow" when I would walk by in the vicinity. This went on for months and this person's face was always the same impassive expression. I thought it would be funny to walk up to this person with the same expression and just tell a dry joke in a bored tone and see if I can make them laugh lol. I saw them one day, and I walkled directly towards them with the same facial expression and they were just staring at me all bored walking up to them. I told my joke and we would stare in each other's eyes with a blank relaxed expression and once they understood the joke I told; I saw their eyes, face, and neck area tense up a little for a second before turning their head to audibly laugh quietly and hide their face. But in that one second moment, their face looked drastically different. It was at that time I learned how "telling" micro facial expressions can be. And I've been getting okay at reading them haha.

But thank you very much for all of the information you've shared. I'm now interested in experiementing with camera lens and distance. I feel I might even be open to posting myself online now. I might even pick up photography.

PANTHERINAEEE

(...) [removed to focus on the central subject]

About the lenses, it’s not just a matter of distance. I mentioned this because cell phone lenses are 24mm (the iPhone 15 Pro Max has lenses of 24mm, 28mm, and 35mm) and the lenses that cause the least distortion range from 50-80mm, with 80mm being the most accurate. As these lenses have a smaller field of view, meaning they zoom in on the image, to take a portrait, you need to stand far from the camera.

Despite this, even the 24mm lens takes better photos when we move away from the camera! And we can also take photos with the 35mm lens. The 35mm lens makes our faces look rounder haha, but I think it’s much better than the 24mm.

Message me in the DM, and I’ll send you comparisons!

SHORT YOUTUBE VIDEO

LONG YOUTUBE VIDEO

[carsonsbackwardscap]

Non us asks (randomized)

4,9, 15, 22,26

omg this took me so long to answer, but thank you for asking lol

4. favourite dish specific for your country?

Vegetarian barbecue or vegetarian carreteiro (basically rice and carrots, but oh so good)

9. which of your neighbouring countries would you like to visit most/know best?

Cuba for sure!

15. a saying, joke, or hermetic meme that only people from your country will get?

"Todo dia sai de casa um malandro e um otário" (pensei muito nessa resposta e não há nada mais suco de br)

22. what makes you proud about your country? what makes you ashamed?

How we always find a way to have fun / Our collective lack of class consciousness

26. does your nationality get portrayed in Hollywood/American media? what do you think about the portrayal?

Oversexualized women and corrupt men / Not inaccurate, but absurdly shallow

This was so fun to think about. We don't often think about Brasil in a positive way, but I really do love this shitshow of a country <3

[forsakenn]

My 2023 in Books :)

January

“The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger (5⭐️)

- I first started this book during quarantine but I found the protagonist annoying so I dropped it lol. Started it again this year and I actually enjoyed it. I still think that the protagonist is annoying but I get it now. It’s because he’s a teenage boy and I think that the writing is accurate for a teenager. There are some lines that really resonated with me and there are times when I related to Holden. The book itself didn’t hit me that hard but when I read the analyses, damn. I’m much more similar to Holden than I thought and that scared me.

“Bata, Bata… Pano Ka Ginawa?” ni Lualhati Bautista (5⭐️)

- It’s truly a progressive book and I wish more books like this were being read in school in the Philippines. As the Philippines is still very conservative, it opens your mind to see the nontraditional ways of living in the PH and will make you question societal constructs. The way that this was written through the perspective of a mother raising her two kids really solidifies the idea that almost everything is a societal construct and how a conservative society affects children raised progressively. I’ll never forget the look on my classmates’ faces when they saw the title of this, a real life example of why conservatism needs to be killed in the PH.

February

“Canal dela Reina” ni Liwayway A. Arceo (5⭐️)

- Another Filipino book! I’ve been wanting to read more Filipino literature to be more connected to my roots lol. My sister recommended me this as it was similar to Parasite (2019). This is actually the second time I read it since when I first read it I feel like I didn’t understand the whole message. This kinda hits home since the premise is something similar to what my family has experienced before. I really like the build-up of this book and how it tackles so many things like class disparity, monopolization, environmentalism, and materialism but it wasn’t overwhelming at all.

“To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee (5⭐️)

- This is also a reread. I was raised in the legal field as well so I related to Scout a bit. Reading the court scene was An Experience. It’s one of those things that I wish I could forget about to experience it again for the first time.

March

“Circles of Hell” by Dante

- I honestly just read this book because I watched a Wendigoon video and wanted to see it for myself lmao.

June

“Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom (3.5⭐️)

- I’m indifferent to this book. It just didn’t make an impact on me I don’t know. It’s alright and offers valuable lessons I guess. One line that struck me was “like all youngest children, he was pampered, adored, and inwardly tortured.”

July-August

“The Goldfinch” by Donna Tartt (4⭐️)

- This was an impulse buy. I was waiting for my friend at a bookstore and saw it and was curious about all the hype Donna Tartt’s books have online. It was alright? Crime books aren’t really for me but I can see why people like this. I really liked how Tartt wrote grief and how easy it was to empathize with the protag when his mother just died especially when he hadn’t known yet that his mother died and the audience just have to sit with that uncomfortable knowledge and read about this kid waiting for his mother that will never come back. The build-up to the climax was so long though and that’s why it also took me a long time to finish it. I got bored in some parts of it.

September-November

“1984” by George Orwell (4⭐️)

- I have been wanting to read this for a long time! The thing is that this book is so absurdly dystopian and yet I can see how it reflects our current society. It’s so scary to read this and see how current systems can lead to this dystopia, some aspects of this book are even true…

December

“Dekada ‘70” ni Lualhati Bautista (5⭐️)

- Another great book from our queen, Lualhati Bautista. This has been in my to-read list for such a long time. It’s about the PH’s martial law era during the dictatorship of Marcos Sr. This was the fastest book I read this whole year. I finished it in like less than 10 days. It just hooked me in like that. Unfortunately, since a Marcos is president again, I feel like it’s my duty as a young Filipino to educate myself on the horrors of martial law since I wasn’t there to experience it myself. This book made me empathize with my mother so much and yet I can’t tell her that. It also fueled my hate for the patriarchy lmao. This is like a retelling of the Martial Law Era combined with the ideologies of the Barbie movie since it’s told through the perspective of a mother.

Short Stories I read

“Apokalipsis” ni Alvin Yapan

- This rewired my brain like actually. Me and my friends read this at the same time. The whole thing is crazy itself but there was just that one scene that hits you and everyone else will see the Look on your face and just nod in understanding. We had to have a whole debriefing of it to process what we just read. Lunch was… eventful that day.

“No is Yes” by Paul Jennings

“The Lorenzo Project Questionnaire”

- DUDE. THIS. I read this because of a literature club halloween meeting AND OH MY GOD. It restructured how I looked at horror stories. It’s just so unique and horrifying, but it’s not like other horror stories where the monster is on your face all the time. It’s like you have to dig under implications to understand the story. I recommend this every time someone asks me about horror.

[pangolinheart]

And another: how did you go about creating Rhiki? was she always a Miqo'te? Did she change at all from where she started?

Rhiki was actually my second FFXIV character, albeit my first long-term one. I had started the game like 2 or 3 years earlier via the free trial and had a character on the Aether server who was a Roe lady named Styrnlona. I never really got very far though and then I got busy with work and other things, so I ended up putting it down and not picking it up again. (Styrnlona also started out as a lancer.) When I picked it up again it was at a recommendation of a few friends I played D&D with. Because I played a tall, buff goliath barbarian woman, it somehow seemed too on-brand to remake Styrnlona on the server they played on. So I tried to make a character that was totally different from anything I had played recently (mostly buff women and shitty magic elves). A miqo'te or viera seemed like a sufficient departure from what I would usually choose, so that's how Rhiki ended up being a miqo'te. That being said, I was really tempted to make an au ra... If female au ra weren't so short I probably would have (though Rhiki ended up absurdly short anyway so the joke's on me.) As for her personality, I kept with the theme of trying to make her different from my typical character. I don't have very many recent characters who are super social or emotionally intuitive, and the idea of playing a character that was more fun-loving and mischievous appealed to me. Originally I envisioned her as being more of a trickster-type character, but as I played she ended up becoming a little more excitable and dorky.

Compared to other rpgs I've played, ffxiv doesn't really give you any sot of starting point or background for your characters, and since I knew nothing about the game or plot when I started I wanted to make her motivations general enough that it would be easy to adapt to whatever direction the plot took. Lots of "fledgling adventurer" backstories I had used before or felt too edgy or played out, and I also didn't know enough about the game to 100% commit to a backstory. I ended up with the general idea of "some dumb wayward 20-something who doesn't know what they want to do with their life so they're just vibing and trying stuff out." Appearance-wise I really just kind of played around until I found a concept I liked. I had a hard time deciding between the sun-seeker and moon-keeper subtypes (I like the moon-keeper lore better but I'm just not a huge fan of the giant round pupils lol). I ended up trying to make her coloring around a theme of "sunrise/sunset" - thus the original purple and orange hair and purple and orange highlights and purple/pink eyes. I originally intended for her skin to be darker, but the lighting in the background I was using made it look much different than it ended up being in-game. I've thought about my free fantasia to change it, but I'm not totally sold. If I could go back I would give her the lion-like tail instead, and maybe the slightly darker nose facial feature... But I've already gotten so much art of Rhiki as she is and I can't think of a good story-relevant reason for her appearance to change lol.

Overall, Rhiki hasn't changed too much since I originally made her. Obviously she got a new haircut that necessitated a slight color change (the orange looked too weird with the highlights on the pvp cut.) She really does look older with her new hairstyle. In regards to her personality, she definitely ended up less "alluring and impish" than I intended and more "goofy and obnoxious," but she's still a fun character to play around with! And of course there's the maturity that comes with age and experience. And the compounding effects of trauma. You know how it goes. If I ever made an alt I might try to go with someone a little... taller lol. Maybe go back to Styrnlona, or try out a duskwight or viera. There are a lot of glams Rhiki just doesn't look good in because of her body type. I'm still tempted to make an au ra though because I love the horns and scales... A hyur wouldn't be off the table either. I might also try to make a character with longer hair - sometimes i want to try out a longer style for Rhiki but every time I try them on she looks like a totally different catte...

[sygzie]

my first few drafts were absurdly long so i'll try to keep this reasonable. & thank u @dreamcaught for asking!

the gist is that he's pushing her away after school reunion. they both of course knew that they wouldn't last forever, but then they are confronted with a physical demonstration of that standing right in front of them. rose is willing to stay with him, but the doctor, having experienced this many times before and knowing that what he has with rose is even deeper, knows he can't put rose or himself through that ("no, not to you"). so he pushes her away, by allowing mickey on board (even after he looks to rose for her approval and sees her huge "absolutely fucking not" eyes) and again with the whole reinette thing. and the part at the end is not him "choosing reinette," it's just him not letting an innocent person die for his own convenience because that would be very out of character i think. and then. my favorite part. he is ready to take reinette to the tardis but leaves for two minutes for the sole purpose of hugging rose tyler. like that's it. he hugs her and reassures her that he's okay and will be back soon. and it was obvious that this could easily let too much time pass in reinette's world, and he, a literal time lord, should be aware of this, but he was so distracted by the thought of rose that he couldn't keep track of his time-senses. it almost sounds familiar? it's almost like there's another moment in the show where he can't keep track of two minutes because his love for rose tyler is so consuming that it interferes with his timey senses? lol!! oh i would also like to have a moment of appreciation for when they are separated and both stare up at the sky. ugh it reminds me of the doomsday wall.. being so in love that they are lowkey psychically linked no matter what distance separates them. i love.

anyway. i do think he cared about reinette. but that's part of what makes timepetals so special--the doctor cares about so many people, but rose tyler is different. she's the one that the moment took the form of. she’s the one he is living out a happy life with as we speak. and she’s the one that’s his actual frfr soulmate.

i think this episode is a nice one to have in the season. a story dedicated to his desperate attempt at being normal about rose, which runs underneath the entire season. and of course the plan is foiled by the love that he was trying to run from in the first place. bc timepetals is all about their love getting them into the mess that they are (.. until it comes together into tentoorose bc they were truly meant to be despite it all, but i digress.) anyway i used to detest this episode so i just wanted to share the thought process that made me actually appreciate it. and i think there are other, non-timepetals issues to be had with it but that's another topic lmao. thank u for reading my jumbled thoughts. always glad to talk about the only couple ever.

what if i said that girl in the fireplace is a timepetals episode. would that be crazy. would that be absolutely wild. because i’m right