#wasn't meant to be but i know better now

[nikatyler]

I love the dynamic between my three main vampires and one of them isn't even in the main story

[rocketbirdie]

face value

[astracora]

A Mandated Holiday Break - Chapter 7

Characters: Sylus x gn!mc (poly lads)

Warnings: None

Word Count: 1554

Written: 22nd December 2024

Notes: Post-relationship Sylus/MC-centric but poly LADs, with my personal pov of the game and lil headcanons littered in.

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Masterlist

He's been relegated to picking up supplies. You'd thrust a list at him that morning, and he'd almost seen a tail behind you, flicking and curling like a question mark.

It isn't the first time you've had him wrapped around your finger, requesting his assistance. Normally you only ask when you're sick, desperate for supplies and he's available. (He'll always be available.)

Still, this time you've handed him a list for crafts, shoved him from his own base, and you peppered his face in kisses before he can even respond or argue. 

Not that he would, but he wishes you would at least come shopping with him. He's found himself enjoying the domesticity of you puttering around aisles while he pushes a trolley. If he takes his eyes off you, you'll steal the trolley and go skidding down an empty aisle.

Which is how he stands now, in the living room of his base, hands full of arts and crafts supplies, while he stares at a tree he doesn't remember buying.

It's twinkling with lights half done, but otherwise it bears no decoration. The twins are balancing on each other's shoulders trying to throw the multicoloured flashing lights up towards the top of it. You're there underneath, ready to catch them if them.

He's pretty sure someone's going to end up with a broken bone. (Which he does not want to explain to the doctor.)

With a flick of his finger, black and red swirling mist quickly remove lights from hands and twist them around the top of the tree. Gently, and carefully.

He's only slightly smug, smirk in full, when you turn to him in surprise. He's even more smug when your face instantly warms, eyes twinkling at him.

If he were really a crow, his feathers would poof up and he'd preen. Instead he wipes his hand on his shirt collar and extends the bags he's holding, "For you, kitten."

Your whirlwind of activity rushes over, the twins wobbling before they manage to detangle themselves, grabbing at the bag and pulling them to the floor. Separating things out.

He watches absently, but you're focused and tapping on your chin as you think, so he abandons you to your considerations to make himself useful. Warm drinks in hand before he returns to you.

Sylus finds you showing the twins how to fold and make ornaments with coloured paper. He hesitates at the door, if you had wanted ornaments, why did you not just ask for them? He could have ordered any number. Any colour. Anything you wanted.

He's again unsettled by a strange uncomfortable dissatisfaction, you do not make it easy to provide for you. To satisfy every desire. He wonders how you became someone who holds them so close to the chest, scared to want, all over again. He offers hot chocolate to the twins, and frothed coffee to you, (the smell never gets better), before sitting next to you on the floor, cross legged and curious.

You look over and grin, and for a second he sees ears tilting forwards in mischief, pupils blown and ready to pounce. "We didn't have a lot growing up, so me and Caleb would make ornaments for the tree with Gran. The twins wanted to try..." there's a question there that you want to ask but you can't quite... get the words out.

He can read you well enough to know the hesitation, and he leans in, voice low, fingers brushing your cheek, "Show me."

Sylus prides himself on learning, he's good at picking up skills, but he cannot be said to be creative. He is, however, good at following steps. He does, however, enjoy trying.

It's not a new skill that will be useful for anything other than moments like this, but truthfully if he only ever learned skills for moments like this, he'd be a happier fiend than he has any right to.

The twins decide to get pens and decorate the shapes he folds, while you sit nearby fretting over a new challenge. He finds himself looking over and peering but you catch him and point at his hands in an unspoken order. Focus.

He chuckles, only you would dare to order him about, and only you would gain his obedience as he follows your orders.

As they end up with a pile of... he's not sure he'd call anything he and the twins have made art, the fish would surely have something to say if he tried, he already dreads the upcoming conversation, but you're thrilled and excited as you come over to look. Picking up paper baubles and stars that the twins have drawn silly faces on.

There's a happy flush to Luke and Kieran's face as you wholeheartedly approve, and he swallows a lump in his throat that he doesn't really understand. Yet he wants to cry, he thinks, and he's not really sure why. Or what caused it.

He doesn't linger, doesn't have time, as you're pushing him towards the tree, "You get the top, Luke, middle, Kieran, bottom." Then you're running off.

He's starting to think the holidays are a little too much trouble... (Warm, vibrant, comforting.) That lilting voice that sounds like yours again.

Your soul is always so noisy, he muses, warmed and placated.

They're almost done when you come back, this time you're not as energetic. There's waves coming off you, nerves and anxiety rippling under skin. He pauses, where he's about to hang a star, and looks down  at you. As soon as he does you swallow, shoving a cardboard box into his arms.

Not a box? It has numbers on it?

"We-" you swallow past the nerves and push on. Ever ready to fight a monster. Even if the monster is yourself, "also used to make calendars for each other. It's late, so it's only twelve days." He catches your hand before it scratches at your arm, smoothing his thumb over your fingers and then rubbing circles into your palm. He blinks down at the thing, and sees today. He drops the star he's holding unceremoniously and presses the little cardboard flap open.

The calendar is decorated with a picture of a crow surrounded by presents. He remembers the fish encouraging your artistic pursuits, and while he's not sure if it's good, he never seems to be sure if it's good... he knows he likes it.

Inside is a hand wrapped chocolate and a small note.

Day one - A reminder that I love you, and appreciate you always, thank you Sylus.

You're still fidgeting, and at this point the twins have peeked their heads over to stare at his bounty. The longer he stares, the more he realises he has to speak, has to respond but his throat feels closed and his chest is so tight. It hurts. It hurts.

"If it's stupid you don't have to-"

He drops his calendar and he presses you into his chest. He's sure if he were better practiced in his emotions he'd cry. Instead he just encompasses you in his body, squeezing and holding and drowning in you. He nips at your cheek, hand squeezing your face, he wants to bite and chew and claw and scratch.

He can't understand and he doesn't want to hurt, but he breathes you in. Relieved he has no tail to betray him, wagging furiously. You're giggling at his reaction, trying to pull away from his rough handling, calling his name out like knives in his heart, and he finally kisses you. Over and over and over. Tasting his name on your lips and your love in his heart.

Then he startles, pulling away quickly to see that thankfully the twins had caught his gift, the note and the chocolate. Placing it on the side. They're giving him a look like he's a fool, he might be, because he has an evol that can move things for him. Instead his foolish body betrayed him.

"Hunter! Do we get one?" Luke calls, pouting, and you keep a hold on Sylus' hand. Grounding him as he looks at your note over and over, pressing your thumb into his wrist, and smoothing his rapid uneven heartbeat there.

Still you extend a makeshift calendar to the twins, one each, identical except for the names. He can tell that you'd been careful to match every line. "Of course."

He absently notes that you've left four more on the side. The fish, the doctor, the prince and an untouched one for your family. The note is finally placed in his pocket, right over his heart, where he knows he'll keep it until it's worn and unreadable. Not that it matters, because he'll remember it always.

As you watch him smooth his fingers over it, you laugh, "You know there's eleven more days of those right?" Your nerves are still simmering, he can tell, but you're thrilled for his reaction and eased with his earnestness and joy. He lets your words settle and then darts to the calendar on the side, he hears the twins opening theirs but barely cares.

You panic when you realise he's going to just tear the thing open for more of your feelings recorded in pretty stationary paper, before you throw yourself at his back, "Sylus! No! They're for other days!"

[camellcat]

I love spuffy as much as the next guy but ohhh my gawddd I really kinda wish it had been buffy wil and xand to finish the fight. they started it together, and while they've always had outside help, I just think it would've been so good if each of them had their own big important parts to play since this was the last we get to see of them

[stagefoureddiediaz]

Thinking thoughts about Abuela being back and with this backstory about her being taken in by charlatans and Eddies whole catholic guilt thing and how the two things kind of play into one another as an exploration of faith and being taken in by something.

Abuela giving all her money to the tarot card readers etc because she was searching for something - for connection (with Abuelo) - trying to recapture what she had lost, and How Eddie has spoken about trying to re-find the magic he had with Shannon - how Eddie hasn't actually fully reconciled the Shannon of it all when it comes to relationships and how his Catholic guilt connects into that.

How Marisol as a physical representation of Catholicism is part of that narrative - how Eddie is entering a place where he has to chose his path - in order to move on from Shannon he needs to fully square the hole - catholic or non catholic. And how that needs to happen first - before he can begin his queer journey!

[hnnny]

Frederick's adventures, DLC edition

[fideidefenswhore]

the tudors (2007-2010) / wolf hall (2009) / henry viii & the king's men (2020) / eustace chapuys to the emperor (june 1535) / the other boleyn girl (2008) / the downfall and execution of a tudor queen (2023) / eustace chapuys to the emperor (april 1536) / henry viii, stratford festival production (2019) / wolf hall (2009) / elizabeth i & her enemies (2017) / the mirror & the light (2020) / becoming elizabeth (2022) / the mirror & the light (2020) / the tudors (2007-2010) / the mirror & the light (2020) / the tudors (2007-2010)

[weirfq1]

with all these gaston crackships/rarepairs that are coming out lately it would be so fucking funny if he had a flig with all the main characters (ambar, nina, simon... hell luna too if you want) and they all know it except matteo

[colorsofthestorm]

I am not immune to asking questions when I know the answer might hurt me.

[bisexualmaedhros]

i feel like the afab trans people* who believe in "male/female" socialization are the same people who talk about how eeeeevery afab person has like trauma from being told to "act more ladylike." i'm not saying that never happens, but it annoys me when people paint it as this universal fixture of being an afab child.

i do not remember a single time in my childhood where i felt pressured to be more feminine. like, i did already enjoy "feminine" things, but i also sat however i wanted and played in the mud with the boys, that kind of thing, and all the people around me were totally cool with it.

i know that unfortunately my experience isn't universal, but that's kind of my point- you can't act like an assigned sex dictates everything about how someone was raised. you can't act like it gives every afab person some secret unique knowledge on misogyny. some of the most misogynistic people i can think of are cis women! when i was a kid and thought i was a cis girl, i held misogynistic beliefs even while calling myself a feminist, and obviously that's common.

like, i'm sure all this seems pretty rudimentary and it certainly feels like it as i say it. but my god, the number of transmascs i see online acting like they're incapable of misogyny makes me feel like i'm losing it sometimes. and i don't often post about it because i don't want to sound like i'm white knighting or anything; i don't want to sound like i'm going "haha wow those guys are crazy, good thing i'm one of the good ones ;-)" and i don't know if this post will come off like that but i hope it won't because that truly isn't my intention.

my intention really is just like... idk if i somehow have afab followers who think like this, please god examine it. every time you accuse trans women of "dividing the community" or whatever, you're closing yourself off from learning something indispensable. but more importantly, you are actively choosing to make yourself someone women cannot trust. the most valuable lessons i have learned when it comes to feminism and untangling internalized misogyny have been from trans women. so many people who were afab seem to think we have a uniquely pure understanding of misogyny, that everyone else can never understand it as well as we can. that is not true at all. i know for a fact you have met cis girls who were misogynistic as fuck. remember that.

*note: when i say "afab trans people" here i'm not "reducing you to your agab" as many people claim. your agab is directly relevant to the post. i mean this genuinely: please learn to move through your gut instinct of guilt/defensiveness. it's only human, but it will not serve you well in the path to self improvement. acknowledge that it's there, and then learn to listen and consider the things that trigger it anyway. that's the only way you'll actually improve in any meaningful way.

[sporco-filth]

I was thinking up ideas today for the superhero-becomes-slob story but didn't really feel like writing so instead I drew a picture of Jupiter/Justin post-slobbification

[thethingything]

shoutout to antibiotics for existing. holy shit I love being able to not die of stuff that would have killed someone just over a century ago

[mydr3aminvi0let]

i wear a lot of skirts and pink and whatnot as my style has developed with me & my personality but when one of those age regression girlies latch onto me....i do not like that

[sleep-nurse]

Im sorry all of this is happening to you and that you're not safe. I hope that this ask can at least make you feel less bad. Know that someone out there genuinely cares about you and wishes that you didn't went through so much. I hope it gets better on your end. I love you/p

-a mutual

thank you

[sschmendrick]

I kinda miss hanging out with old people. All my friends used to be old people.

But the older I grow, and the more I'm expected to behave well like a normal adult, the harder I find it to keep those links. I'm lost between trying to stick to a script I don't know the words of to have a proper normal and interesting relationship for them, and allowing myself to screw up a little, be boring, be interested in stuff they aren't, having opinions they don't agree with (for silly stuff like music, though yk me), not be cool. Cause the latter stresses me out. Cause I see no reason for people to want to be friends with me if not that.

[dazais-guardian-angel]

delighted that i'm so much more fond of chuuya at this point than i was just a couple years ago. it took the stormbringer play, the cannibalism play, and the fifteen manga (still haven't gotten to those two novels in their entirety, I Will Soon I Promise), it took 6ish+ years, but i can confidently say I Get It Now. Now i just need asagiri to break him (affectionate) in the manga and actually give him a character arc already <333