#well that and bugs in general also birds flying to close to my face

[wraithdance]

To the sweet angel who said jumping spiders are cute in the tags of the post they reblogged from me, please know I had a visceral reaction to that

[moonlit-jeno]

red door, yellow door (m.)

pairing: mark lee x fem reader x jung jaehyun

genre/warnings: explicit sexual content | demon au | slight dubcon??? the mans a lust demon idk | Very mild horror themes | minor mlm | don’t attempt this game pls !!!

words: 8.1k

a/n: this is a repost from my old bts blog! pls don’t ask abt it bc i no longer actively follow bts :)

One of these days, you’re going to kill your coworkers.

You love them, you really do, but sometimes they can just be so dumb. It was Donghyuck and Renjun who came up with the idea to play this stupid game, one that is probably only played by naive 12 year old girls during slumber parties.

Normally you’d just brush it off, but Renjun had called you a wimp, so naturally you had to do it. Which is how you’ve ended up on your back with your best friend massaging circles into your forehead.

“Red door, yellow door, any other color door,” is being chanted around the room. You fight the urge to move your neck to a more comfortable position on Mark’s lap. Your hand twitches above your head, where your arms are raised. “This is stupid,” You whisper, and Mark laughs, scolding you lightly.

After a while, the mindless chanting lulls you to sleep, and you feel yourself drift off.

“What do you see?”

Two doors appear in front of you, one red and one yellow. They both look kind of old, paint chipping and peeling off.

“Anything else?”

A black door appears next to the yellow one and you find yourself drawn to it, wanting to go in. This one is shinier, considerable newer and more inviting compared to the other two

“Go in.”

You open the door and walk through, a sense of relief flooding through your senses as you give in to the pull. The room that you find yourself in seems never ending, the only thing in it a large bed.

“Do you see anyone?”

A man appears, sitting on the bed. The suit he’s wearing is unfitting for the plain surroundings- in fact, he’s unfitting for the surroundings in general. His teeth are blinding white when he smiles, not a hair out of place on his entire head. He’s attractive, all golden skin and beautiful features. Almost too beautiful. A shiver crawls up your spine, a tinge of discomfort bleeding into your senses. He smiles, dimples popping out, and you push the discomfort to the back of your mind.

“Who are you?” Your voice comes out distant to your own ears, echoing around you.

“Call me Jaehyun. Why don’t you come here, little bird? We can get properly acquainted.” The voice sounds haunting, like a distorted video. You wouldn’t believe that he’s speaking if his lips didn’t move in sync. Despite the unnatural voice sounding warning bells in your brain, you find yourself moving forward automatically and settling down on his lap when he pats his thigh for emphasis.

“And what’s your name, little bird?” He trails a hand up and down your thigh and you shiver, leaning back against him. He chuckles when you tell him your name, a pleased smile lighting up his features.

“Well, little bird, seems that we’re going to have some fun together.”

Your name is being echoed all around you, and you wake with a jolt, eyes flying open to see Mark staring at you.

“Are you okay?” The rest of your group is also gathered around you, standing in a half circle.

“Yeah, just fell asleep for a bit. Why?” You push yourself onto your elbows, sitting up so that you can lean against Mark.

Donghyuck plops down on the floor, sitting so that he’s facing you. “You were talking like you were having a conversation with someone. Who was it?”

You shrug, trying not to dull his excitement. “I don’t know, just some guy.”

“Was he wearing a suit?” Renjun asks, standing behind Hyuck. He grimaces when you nod. “Y/n, we literally told you not to talk to anyone in a suit. We told you not to talk to anyone. It’s in the rules.”

You roll your eyes, knowing how serious he gets when it comes to stuff like this. “Relax, it’s fine. He seemed nice, and it’s not like it was anything real.”

Renjun still doesn’t look convinced, but Mark interrupts his paranoia by doing what he’s best- or worst, depending on who you ask- at, cracking jokes.

“Hey, was he eating deviled eggs?” He laughs at his own joke, and everyone else groans. “Hey, don’t get mad at me. His place was probably such a hellhole.” The bad mood dissolves into jokes and loud laughter for the rest of the night.

You leave the party- or gathering as Donghyuck had called it because it sounded more mysterious- when it starts storming. The rain drenches you and pretty much everyone else that’s sitting on the porch, leaving you scrambling for shelter. Luckily, Mark offers you a ride.

“Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite!” Mark hollars out the window of his truck, his words getting lost in the night as he speeds off. His truck hits a pothole and you can imagine him swearing as his head hits the roof. Giggling to yourself, you unlock your apartment and slip inside. It’s close to 2 in the morning, so you decide that if you’re already not going to get that much sleep, why not binge Shameless?

You only get through two episodes before your eyelids feel heavy, and you have to fight to keep them open. On screen, there’s a bar fight that you try to take interest in, but sleep quickly pulls you under.

“Welcome back, little bird.” The voice is all around you, but no matter how much you turn and search, no one’s to be found.

“Turn around, little bird, I am here.” Spinning abruptly, you come face to face with the man from earlier, Jaehyun. He gives you a chilling grin.

“So we meet again,” he starts, and his voice no longer sounds eerie or inauthentic. He sounds like, well, a normal man. “Tell me, what would you do if I were to kiss you?”

You swallow, tongue darting out to wet your lips on instinct. “Depends. Are you a good kisser?” You aim for coy, but you miss the mark and land closer to worried.

“You could say that.” He pulls you close with one hand on the back of your head, stopping right before your lips. “May I?”

You nod, and he pulls you in for a gentle, closed mouth kiss.

It’s like that touch ignites a fire in you, because before you know it, your arms are thrown around his neck, dragging him closer to deepen the kiss. You lick along his lower lip and he readily grants you access, a throaty groan leaving him when you suck on his tongue. Liquid heat courses through your veins when he nips at your lower lip, tongue flicking over it in apology. You moan, raw and needy. He likes that, if the chuckle and wicked grin is anything to go by. Picking you up so that your legs are wrapped around his waist, he walks over to a bed that definitely wasn’t there before.

He drops you on the bed, and then suddenly you’re both naked. Jaehyun leans over you, all lean muscles and golden skin. His cock hangs hard and flushed between his legs, and you have the urge to swallow him down. He groans, as if reading your mind, and then reaches to pump himself slowly, long fingers wrapped around the length. “Not now, little bird, not now. I have something else in mind.” With one gentle push to your shoulders, you’re lying flat on the bed, Jaehyun between your legs. His mouth hovers over your core, already wet and dripping despite not having been touched. He plays idly with the slick on your upper thigh, drawing random patterns into the flesh. His eyes are dark, and you could swear that they’re entirely black, no white visible. He peers curiously up at you from between your legs, watching your reaction as his fingers get closer and closer to where you want him. Your breathing picks up as arousal thrums through your body, center pulsing and aching for some sort of relief.

“May I have you?” His breath ghosts over your center when you speak, the sensation making you even needier. 

You nod quickly. “Take it, fuck, you have all of me.” He grins, wasting no time in diving in. His tongue feels impossibly good, licking up your folds and circling over your clit. He leaves sloppy kisses along your core, one hand massaging your thigh and keeping you spread open. You cry out when his tongue pushes into you, his nose brushing your clit and sending sparks up your spine.

His tongue feels impossibly long, so good inside of you that you feel like you’re losing your mind. Your hips buck up desperately, riding his face to hell and back. One arm gets thrown over your stomach to keep you in place while two fingers from his free hand dip into your soaking core, curling into that spot immediately. Stars flash behind your eyes, one hand coming down to fist in Jaehyun’s hair. Your feet scramble frantically along his back, heels digging in in an effort to anchor yourself, toes curling at the sensations singing through you.

You feel your orgasm drawing closer, heat pooling in your center. You whimper brokenly as you try to chase after your high, grinding your hips along his tongue. He lets you, just holding his tongue flat out for you to ride.

You come like that, falling apart on his tongue, screams of his name falling from your lips. He works you through it, tongue gently licking along your folds, slurping up your arousal as if he hasn’t had a meal in weeks.

You lay there, boneless and whimpering weakly through the aftershocks until Jaehyun pulls away to kiss up your body. He licks into your mouth hotly, reminding you that he hasn’t come yet. You bat weakly at his chest, pushing him onto his back. “Your turn,”

He groans in appreciation at the view of you above him. “So perfect, little bird. I’m gonna have so much fun with your soul.”

This sentence freezes you in your spot. “What the fuck does that mean?”

Jaehyun meets your gaze, black eyes entrancing you. “That means, y/n, that I’m going to have your soul. You belong to me now, hmm?” One of his hands plays gently with a strand of your hair. “That’s what you agreed to earlier, no?”

“N-no.” You try backing away, but the inhuman voice from earlier is back, echoing everywhere, repeating his words over and over until you can’t take it anymore-

You wake with a gasp, hitting your head as you sit up. Your computer is still on your lap, episode fifteen playing. Fuck, you’ve only been asleep for forty five minutes. It’s not even three yet, and you don’t have to go to work until eight. Deciding there’s no way you’re falling back asleep, you get up and decide to bake.

Five hours later, your coworkers love you when you show up with containers of cinnamon rolls, five different types of cookies, and a coffee cake. Mark looks mildly worried.

“You okay? I haven’t seen you bake since high school.” You snap out of your thoughts and turn to face Mark. The look of concern on your best friend’s face is enough to make you feel guilty and you nod, forcing a smile onto your face.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Had a bad dream last night and couldn’t sleep, that’s all.” You respond, trying not to show how bothered you actually are.

“Wanna talk about it?” Mark leans forward over his desk, chin planted on his hand.

“No, it’s gonna sound dumb.” You whine, shaking your head. And it is dumb, even to you. You’re scared because you had a dream that some man ate you out and then told you he was going to take your soul?

“Well, you always sound dumb. Of course your dreams are gonna be dumb.” Mark laughs as you chuck a piece of cake at him, infectious laugh soothing you. You sigh.

Mark raises his eyebrows at you when you finish telling him your dream. “You’re scared because you had a wet dream? Damn, I’d be living in a nightmare if I was scared after every wet dream I’ve had.”

You kick him under the table. “Mark! It was really scary. He told me he was going to take my soul!”

Upon seeing that you’re actually freaked out, his face softens. “Look, y/n, you’ve got nothing to worry about. You probably just thought that he was hot, and your brain remembered his face and put it in a dream. I wouldn’t worry about it; what’s the worst he’s gonna do, haunt you?”

You give a shaky nod, agreeing. It’s not like something from your dreams could actually harm you. Mark reaches across the desk, taking your hand in his and giving a tight squeeze, warm brown eyes gazing at you openly. “And if something does happen, just remember that I’m your best friend. I’ll be here for you.”

“Thanks, Mark. Means a lot to me.”

He leans back in his seat. “Anytime, anyplace, anything. Triple A.”

You smile, raising an eyebrow. “Anything?”

His eyes go wide, taking in the glint in your eyes. “Within reason.”

“How about a sip of coffee?” You nod down at his cup, pasting a huge smile on your face.

“I did say within reason, so no.”

You huff. “I expected that.”

Although you don’t scare easily, it’s safe to say that you’re a bit unsettled tonight, especially after your nightmare last night. You find yourself jumping at every little noise, hand slamming the light switch on with your pulse racing every five minutes. This has been going on for an hour, and after a final sweep of your room reveals nothing, you decide that maybe a face mask will help you relax.

Your bathroom has two mirrors facing each other, which is normally a blessing when you do your hair, but tonight it does nothing but make you want to hide under your blankets.

Get a grip on yourself, you chastise, grabbing your phone and opening spotify. Maybe some music will help? You click on your Christmas playlist because what better way to cheer up than to think about your favorite holiday?

A mistake, really, because it seems that you’ve forgotten how creepy Santa is.

“He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake,” Yikes. You stop that song in a hurry, feeling anything but comforted. No music then, noted.

You reach for your face wash, turning the sink on and waiting for the water to warm. You can’t help but glance in the mirror behind you every so often, paranoia getting the best of you. Man, you feel pathetic, worrying about monsters in your closet like you’re six and not twenty-six.

You wash your face quickly, hoping that your fears will wash away as well. No such luck.

You swear you see something move behind you after you dry your face off, but there’s nothing there. Shaking it off, you reach for your face mask, taking your time painting your face with the green clay.

It’s after your face is coated that you spot someone in the glass behind you. You scream, whipping around to come face to face with a man. Not just any man- Jaehyun.

Your heart thunders in your chest, eyes widening in fear. He seems to be in the mirror, copying your petrified expression mockingly.

“Hello, little bird.” He purrs, smirking lightly.

“Are you- are you in my mirror?” You’re in disbelief, mind struggling to comprehend this. First you spot him while in a weird trance, then in a dream, and now in your mirror? Maybe you’re having a quarter life crisis.

“No, I am not. Mirrors are just gateways to alternate dimensions. I’m merely using the mirror to visit you.” He says this like it’s common knowledge. It feels like your throat is made of sandpaper with how hard it is to choke out your words. “O-okay. I’m just gonna- yeah.”

You grab your phone from the counter and bolt, fumbling for your keys before jumping into your car and speeding off in the direction of Mark’s house. You call him, fingers fumbling on the screen. He goes to voicemail the first time, and your heart drops. “No, no, no,” you whisper frantically, calling again. He does pick up this time.

“Y/n? It’s the middle of the night.” His voice sounds gruff, and you feel guilty for waking him up. One glance in your rear view mirror reveals that Jaehyun is joining you on this ride, and you scream, car swerving violently to one side before you straighten it out.

“Where are we going, little bird?”

“Y/n? Are you okay?” Mark’s voice has lost its sleepy edge, taking on a concerned tone. He says your name again, more frantic.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Your tires squeal as you make a turn, now only two blocks away. “Can I- can I come over? I really need to be with someone right now.”

“Of course, you know you’re always welcome. The door’s unlocked.”

You hang up, willing the tears in your eyes to not spill over. Finally arriving, you slam on the breaks and haphazardly pull next to a curb, yanking the key out of the ignition and sprinting to Mark’s house.

You lock the door behind you when you step inside, testing the handle as if a door could stop a mirror traveling demon or whatever the fuck Jaehyun was from coming inside. “Mirrors,” you mumble, reaching the stairs.

“Y/n? What’s-” Mark stands at the top of the stairs, one hand rubbing at his eyes. You cut him off, flying up the stairs.

“Mirrors, fuck. Mark, we need to cover the mirrors!” You breeze by his shocked figure, not noticing the way he turns to stare at you incredulously.

“What, why? Y/n, are you crazy?”

Ignoring him, you throw a towel over the mirror in his bathroom, ripping open a pack of bandaids to use as adhesive.

You throw another towel over the mirror in his bedroom, collapsing on his bed when you’re done and finally allowing yourself to sob.

“Y/n, hey, what’s wrong? Talk to me.” Mark, as gentle and caring as ever, comes over to sit next to you, one hand combing through your hair.

“I- don’t laugh at me.” You stare him straight in the eye, pleading with him. You know you’re going to sound crazy, but you’re praying that your best friend listens to you. He nods, urging you to go on.

“That- that man I saw in my dream and during whatever fucked up game Hyuck had us play? He was in my fucking mirror, Mark. I- the whole night, I had this feeling that I was being watched, and then I went into my bathroom and he was just there, and-” You’re hyperventilating at this point, fighting for every breath, tears clouding your vision. “He was in my car, in the rear view mirror-” Mark pulls you closer, enveloping you in his arms and allowing you to sob loudly into his chest. You cry for a few minutes, until you’re finally able to pull yourself together.

“Shh, it’s okay. You’ve had a rough week, I know. It’s okay, everything’s going to be okay.”

He wipes a tear away from your check, patting you lightly. “Why don’t you go wash this off, okay? We can watch a movie after.” He offers, and until that point, you’d forgotten you were wearing a face mask. You grimace at the green imprint on his black shirt, but he just chuckles. “I’ll go grab you some water in the meantime.”

Nodding, you garner up the energy to walk to his bathroom. It’s fine, the mirror’s covered, he can’t hurt you. You close the door just in case, wanting an extra level of protection

You rinse your face with cold water, hoping that it will clear your mind. You give your face a couple more splashes before drying off with a towel.

“You missed a spot on your forehead.” You freeze before looking around wildly. There’s no one around, which can only mean that Jaehyun can still see you. Swallowing, you start the water again, rubbing at your forehead.

“And your left cheek.” You rub at the skin, being way too harsh but you excuse it considering your situation. “No, your other left. My left.”

“Jesus,” You growl in annoyance, reaching up to rip the towel down. Sure enough, there’s a splotch of green on your cheek. Jaehyun’s nowhere to be found. Maybe I am losing my mind.

You finish rinsing the mask off, finding some face lotion buried in Mark’s drawer, screaming bloody murder when Jaehyun appears in the mirror again. “Looking for me?”

“No! Leave me alone!” You cry, head spinning. Jaehyun fakes a pout, holding a hand over his heart in mock hurt. Do demons even have hearts?

“Ouch, little bird. You don’t want to finish what we started the other night? When I had you moaning so pretty, so wet for me. I’m sure your pussy would take me so well, hmm?” Your heart rate kicks up again, but for a different reason this time. You almost moan, thinking about the dream.

Because he was right, you had been so wet. The want comes back full forces, slamming into you like a truck. You remember how needy you were, wanting to suck his cock so bad, wanting him to fuck you like there’s no tomorrow. All fear that you previously had is slowly disappearing, fading into lust.

The demon smiles knowingly. “Ah, little bird, so you do remember. Remember how you promised me that you’re mine?”

You nod, eyes glazing over. You’re wet, panties starting to stick to your throbbing core uncomfortably.

“Mmmh, I bet you’re already dripping for me. Just waiting for me to come out and fill you up.”

Hearing your name leave his lips sends a wave of arousal crashing through you so strong that your knees buckle, grabbing onto the counter for support. He chuckles, but whatever he’s about to say is cut off by Mark.

“What were you say-” Your best friend trails off, eyes wide as he observes the scene. You snap out of your haze at the interruption. His mouth parts in shock. “You really weren’t kidding, shit.” He laughs humorlessly.

Then, quick as lightning, he rears back and punches the mirror. You scream in surprise at the crack, shards falling to the floor.

You and Mark both stare at the broken shards of glass on the ground, gleaming under the lights. “Mark,” You start, trailing off once you realize you have nothing to say. He seems to understand, walking forward until he’s close enough to pull you into a hug. You feel tears start to slide down your cheeks, dampening the cotton of your best friends shirt. You hug him closer, burying your face into his broad chest. He wraps himself around you, and you let yourself be lulled into the sense of security that his larger frame brings you. A sense of security that vanishes once you hear a low chuckle that definitely does not belong to Mark.

You both scream, leaping backwards and away from the noise. Jaehyun stands there, just in front of the door, with a shit eating grin on his face. You cower behind Mark, who is wrapping a protective arm around you while simultaneously trying to hide behind you.

“I really must thank you for finally setting me free. Normally I have to wait for some asshole with a ouija board, but then there’s just so many other demons that I have to compete with. So I just stick to the dream world-” He pauses to wink at you for emphasis “-but this is so much more fun.” His eyes are black, and you can’t tell where he’s looking. Swallowing, you clutch onto Mark’s arm for dear life.

The demon seems to regard the two of you for a moment, before his amusement seems to grow. He begins to move forward.

“Ah, Mark Lee. Lovely name for a stupid boy. Didn’t you know breaking a mirror is bad luck?” By this point, you and Mark are flattened against the wall, while Jaehyun stands less than a foot away from the two of you. There’s nowhere to run. This is it, you think, this is how I die.

Jaehyun chuckles, turning to you. You lower your gaze to the ground; it hurts to make eye contact with him. “No, little bird. This isn’t how you die, don’t worry.”

Then he’s backing away from the two of you, motioning to follow him. The logical part of your brain is screaming not to, but you find yourself drawn to him, legs carrying you after him without your consent, Mark clutching your arm tightly as he walks next to you.

Jaehyun seems to know the layout of the house, leading you straight into Mark’s bedroom. The demon grabs a chair from the desk and spins it around, straddling it so that he’s facing the bed.

He motions lazily. “Go on now, have a seat. Get comfortable.”

You find yourself sitting down on the edge of the bed, following his words like marching orders. Mark sits about half a foot away from you. Jaehyun shakes his head. “No, no, no. That won’t do. I said to get comfortable, did I not?” He raises an eyebrow as if daring you to argue with him. “Go lay down at the head board.”

You crawl to the head of the bed, settling so that you’re on your side, facing the demon. Mark follows suit, pulling you close to him so that you’re spooning. Jaehyun lets out a pleased hum. “Much better. Aren’t you much more comfortable now?” Nodding, you realize that you actually are more comfortable. It’s not just the change of position, but the energy in the room as well. The demon is no longer giving off a threatening aura. It’s more relaxed, maybe even happy? He certainly looks more relaxed, probably as happy as a demon can get, if not a little smug.

Your body is pulsing with energy, and it takes you a moment to place what you’re feeling. The earlier need to run that you had felt has been replaced with another need, albeit further down. Your thighs clench as another surge of heat pulses through your core, and your face warms at the realization. Why now, of all times, are you horny?

Jaehyun’s grin broadens as he seems to sense your dilemma. “Oh, little bird, if only you knew. Tell me, what type of demon do you think I am?” He watches you curiously, black eyes staring into your soul.

You try to tilt your head towards Mark, but the position’s too awkward and you only catch a glimpse of the side of his face. He looks a bit flushed from what you can see, teeth digging into his plush bottom lip, teeth that you could easily replace with your own- you blink, dazedly. What the fuck? Sexual thoughts about your best friend? That’s a new one. Even if you’ve noticed that he’s hot, you’d never thought about him sexually. Now, though, you can feel the hardness of his dick against your ass, and you can’t help but think about how good he could fuck you.

“Incubus,” You finally manage, blinking rapidly to clear the haze of your vision. Jaehyun grins, looking genuinely surprised that you’d gotten it right.

“Good girl. Make a little sense now?” You nod, fighting a moan as Mark starts to rock against you, slowly, as if he’s unconsciously doing it. Jaehyun notices.

“How about you, Mark? You doing alright over there?”

Your friend, your best friend, buries his face in your neck and groans, deep and delicious. It sends another surge of heat through your body, the growing need between your legs pulsing pathetically. “What are you doing to us?” The words are growled behind you, vibrating against the skin where his lips are pressed.

“Oh no, Mark, I’m not doing anything to you. The only thing I can do to you is make you realize your desires. Your deepest, darkest fantasies? I make that happen. Finally being able to fuck the girl you’ve been in love with for years? I make that happen.” The words take a minute to register with you, but you stiffen when the meaning hits you. Mark Lee, in love with you? An unlikely story, bordering impossible.

The demon chuckles at your inner turmoil, rolling his eyes at how dumb humans can be. “You too, y/n. You love Mark, even if you won’t admit it. You let the idea that he was too good for you scare you away from him. Do you not remember how often you thought of him, late at night after first meeting him?”

You groan in protest, not because it’s not true, but because you do remember. It had been so long ago. When you hadn’t known Mark, had only known of him. You pull away from Mark, awkwardly pushing him to lay flat against the pillows while you clamber on top of him.

“Mark, is it true? Do you love me?” You hold his face between your hands, staring into his eyes. He meets your gaze, pupils blown and eyes half lidded. He nods as best he can.

“So, so much.” Mark’s voice comes out raspy, matching his flushed skin. You lean down to kiss him, uncaring of the other presence in the room. Mark moans when your lips make contact, hands pulling you to straddle him. Your eyelids flutter at the feeling of his clothed cock against your center, rocking your hips to try to ease the throb of your core. His hands fly to your ass, pulling and kneading at the flesh as he urges you into a harsher pace.

The kiss is rougher, needier now, open mouthed and panting. Mark’s got his tongue tangled with yours, sucking in such a way that sends waves of heat through you. You want him in you, any part of him really.

Jaehyun seems to agree, speaking up from right next to you. You jump, having forgotten he was there although he’s the reason you’re like this in the first place.

“Let’s get the show on the road. As much as I’m enjoying this, I think we’d all enjoy something else a little more.” The demon reaches for the hem of your shirt and you nod, raising your arms above your head to let him pull the garment off. Mark groans at the newly revealed skin, hands going to cup your breasts through the fabric of your bra. “Fuck,” He whines, staring in awe at your chest. He doesn’t waste time before leaning up to kiss along your cleavage, pulling the bra down to expose your breasts. Another set of hands unclasp the bra before traveling down your torso to rub circles into your hip bones, sliding your sleeping shorts and panties off at the same time. Jaehyun throws the shorts somewhere off the bed. He keeps the panties, a pleased sigh leaving him as he appreciates the ruined fabric.

“Fuck, little bird. You’re really enjoying this,” He comments, as if he isn’t a fucking lust demon that can sense these kinds of things. You don’t voice your thoughts, because Mark chooses this moment to suck a nipple into his mouth, nibbling and sucking on the sensitive skin so that all you can do is moan. “You’ve even ruined your panties. They’re soaked.”

He hands the strip of lace to Mark, who lets out a throaty groan at the sight. “You’re not getting these back.” He informs you, slipping the garment into his bedside drawer. You ignore him, instead tugging insistently at his shirt. He takes pity on you, grabbing the collar and yanking the baggy tee over his head.

You let your hands slide down his chest in admiration, feeling the hard lines of his muscles. You lick your lips at how broad his shoulders are, how strong he looks. Jaehyun doesn’t give you much time to enjoy the view, gliding two fingers along your slit before circling around your little nub. A cry of pleasure leaves you to mindlessly press your face into Mark’s collarbone, nipping and sucking the flesh until you’re sure you’ve left a bruise.

Jaehyun slips the two fingers into your aching core, curling and dragging them so well along your walls. Sparks of electricity flow through your veins, heat pooling in your center.

Mark groans from below you. Looking down, you see that you’ve unconsciously dug your nails into his hard chest in an effort to ground yourself. You remove your hands, only to spot little red half crescents littered over his skin. You rub your palms over the marks as if to soothe them, but it seems that the man wasn’t groaning from pain.

“Y/n” He sounds so fucked out, voice hoarse and raw even though hardly anything has happened yet. “You look so good like this, so perfect for me.” He brings one large hand up to cup your cheek, thumb delicately stroking over your cheekbone before moving down to trace your lower lip. You part your lips, letting him slide in before sucking around the digit, tongue curling around it as if it were his cock. His eyes darken a fraction, tongue coming out to wet his lips, swollen and kiss bitten.

You moan around the digit as Jaehyun adds a third finger, stretching your walls so pleasantly that you can’t help but buck your hips back for more. A whine forces its way out of your throat as the demon pulls his fingers out of you, leaving an empty ache between your thighs.

“Don’t you think it would be more fun if she was sucking on something a bit bigger than your finger, Mark?” The voice startles you, breath tickling your ear as he speaks. The man under you nods, swallowing thickly. Your eyes are drawn to the way his Adam’s apple bobs with the movement, and a gush of wetness pulses down below. Your thighs are probably covered in your arousal at this point.

You scoot down his body, trailing kisses and bites down his toned stomach. You take your time unzipping his pants, sucking a mark into the soft skin below his navel. He’s hard as a rock, and you moan in appreciation at the sheer size of him once you shimmy his jeans down his thighs.

“No underwear?” You ask, mouth curling up in a teasing smirk. He huffs out a laugh, propping himself up on his elbows so that he can watch. “No, ‘s too restricting.”

You lazily pump his dick, thumb flicking over the tip once or twice. You plan to tease him more, but then Jaehyun’s pushing your head down and you have no choice but to open your mouth wide, innocent eyes peeking up at Mark as you take his cock in your mouth. He’s so big that you can’t take him in all the way, keeping one hand curled around his cock to stroke what your mouth can’t reach. You let it get sloppy, using your spit to ease the glide until you’ve got a pleasant rhythm going. Mark replaces Jaehyun’s hands with his own, gathering strands of your hair in his palms and using that grip to control your pace. “F-fuck,” He lets out a shaky exhale, letting his head fall back against the pillows once he’s satisfied with the pace.

Jaehyun slaps your ass, a loud smack sounding throughout the room. You moan, pitching forward onto Mark’s cock and gagging as he hits the back of your throat. A strangled cry leaves the man above you, his hips thrusting even further into the tight, wet heat of your mouth.

The demon kneads your stinging flesh before using his grip on you to pull your hips up. “Good girl,” You keen under his praises, sticking your ass up even higher. The warm, wet pressure against your center has you faltering, moaning almost violently around Mark’s cock. He doesn’t seem to be having any complaints, the vibrations forcing a moan of his own out.

Your eyes roll up into your head as Jaehyun wraps his lips around your clit, sucking harshly. You’re sure you’d be screaming by now if Mark’s cock wasn’t halfway down your throat. You’ve given up sucking him off by this point, content to let the man fuck your mouth while Jaehyun sucks your fucking soul out from between your legs. It feels so good, not used to being the center of even one man’s focus, let alone two.

Mark eases you off of his cock after you accidentally bite him, using your spit to ease the slide as he lazily fucks up into his loose fist. You rest your head on his thigh, alternating between moaning wantonly and mouthing messily against the skin as you feel your orgasm approach.

Jaehyun pulls away at the last second, and you whine loudly as your orgasm is cut off. The feeling of frustration leaves you close to tears, and you jiggle your ass in hopes that it will regain his attention. It does momentarily, as Jaehyun lands a harsh smack on the flesh, but he pulls away again.

“Mark,” The man in question looks up, hand freezing on his dick as if waiting for Jaehyun’s orders. And fuck, what a sight that would be: your normally brash and confident friend being so pliant and submissive to a near stranger… You blink out of it, feeling mildly ashamed even in your current state. Luckily, Jaehyun interrupts your thoughts. “I’m feeling generous today, so I’ll let you go first. You’ve been waiting long enough for this, anyway.”

Mark nods eagerly, pulling you into a desperate kiss. You paw at every inch of skin you can reach, searching for a release from the ache inside of you. Your wish is granted when he hooks two fingers in your soaking cunt, groaning at how wet you are. He scissors you open quickly, hissing at how tight you feel.

“Ready, angel? Want my cock?” The pet name has you moaning, though it draws a low chuckle from Jaehyun, who’s watching from his position next to Mark.

“Hurry up, already. Need you in me, ‘ve waited so long.”

Mark lights up at this, smile stretching his features. He looks so breathtaking in this moment, skin glowing and flushed, hair mussed up, eyes blown wide and half lidded.

“I’m yours,” He breathes, leaning up for one last kiss. His hands slide down to your hips, pulling you forward so that you’re hovering above his thick cock. “Ride me baby.”

“I’d love to.” Reaching one hand down to position him at your entrance, you start to lower yourself down. Of course, Jaehyun chooses this exact moment to stop you. He truly is the spawn of Satan.

“Little bird, hold on just a second. I found something of interest in the back of Markie’s brain.” You cringe as he mocks your earlier nickname for the man. “What’s this I’m seeing, Mark? You like it up the ass?” His tone is teasing, but Mark groans in embarrassment. His face has gone an alarming shade of red by this point. “N-no,” He tries to deny, sputtering excuses but Jaehyun cuts him off with a press of a finger to his lips. “Oh, Mark, don’t get shy on me now. It’s a perfectly fine thing to like. Little bird, you’ll get your turn in a minute. You,” He snaps his fingers at Mark. “Come here. Kneel up, just like that. Perfect.” He appraises Mark’s ass for a moment, hands moulding the flesh before slipping a finger in. Mark’s eyebrows furrow, and you shoot up in alarm. “Doesn’t he need lube?”

Jaehyun looks at you, surprised that you care, before chuckling. “I can produce lube. Perks of being a lust demon.” Winking at you, he returns his focus to Mark. You can’t see what he’s doing, but the pure pleasure present on your best friends face has you clenching your thighs together, waves of need crashing through you. If you thought he looked good before, he looks absolutely gone now. Breathless groans are leaving him now, eyelids fighting to stay open as he sinks down on the others fingers. You watch him, mesmerized, before shuffling over to him.

“How close are you?”

He forces his gaze down to you. “Kind of- nngh- close, w-why?” 

Wrapping a hand around his base lightly, you start stroking. “Will you come if I blow you?”

He moans, a punched out sound that takes you by surprise. “Fuck, yes, I’ll definitely come if you blow me.” You pout in disappointment. Upon seeing your crestfallen expression, he continues. “Maybe we c-can- oh, yes- figure something out. Jaehyun,” He turns his head back behind him, struggling to get the words out between moans. “Can I eat y/n out?”

There’s just something so hot about Mark asking for permission from someone else that you can’t help the whimper that escapes you. Jaehyun must nod, because then you’re being laid back, Mark settling between your thighs. He’s sucking sweet kisses into your core almost immediately, pulling your legs over his shoulders to give him better access. You’re letting out sharp cries of pleasure the whole time, eyes fighting the urge to roll back in your head in favor of watching Mark between your legs. A particularly well placed flick of his tongue has your hips rolling against his face, grasping the sheets in your hand as your mind blanks. The pleasure climbing through your system is insane, threatening to burn you from the inside out.

It only gets better once Mark starts moaning, his sinful mouth sending sweet vibrations traveling up your core. You manage to catch sight of Jaehyun behind him, kissing wetly along his shoulders and neck, features curving into a smirk once he notices you watching him.

“Little bird likes this, hmm? Like watching another man pleasure your boyfriend while he pleases you?” You hum, unable to tear yourself away from his gaze, unable to even think, letting his boyfriend comment slide. Whereas before it hurt to look directly into his eyes, you now find yourself getting lost in his dark orbs. It’s like a drug, your pleasure being amplified by the man, demon, whatever in front of you.

You finally break eye contact, head falling back against the mattress as Mark draws you closer and closer to your peak. Burying one hand in his hair, you use the leverage to grind your core against his face, chasing your sweet release. “C-close, Mark, please-” You don’t know what you’re begging for at this point. It’s too much but not enough at the same time. Jaehyun saves you from having to decide by cruelly ripping your orgasm away from you, again, dragging Mark’s face away from your pussy.

A few tears slip down your face at this point, frustration reaching its peak. Jaehyun wipes the tears away, laughing lowly. “Don’t worry, you’ll get what you desire soon.”

He must pull out of Mark, because your friend whimpers before seeming to realize what he just did and clears his throat uncomfortably.

“Mark, would you like to fuck our little bird now?” Mark nods, tongue flicking out to wet dry lips.

Jaehyun smirks. “Good. On your back. Y/n, ride him.” You don’t have to be told twice. You scramble onto your knees, wasting no time in straddling Mark before dropping yourself down on him. You both moan in satisfaction, you at finally being filled and Mark at your tightness. You have to brace both hands on his chest, almost collapsing at the overwhelming relief you feel. Beyond the burn of the stretch, his cock filling you up so nicely, there’s a sweet pleasure, a satisfaction.

You don’t wait very long to adjust, grinding your hips in smooth circles before lifting yourself off of him and dropping yourself back down. You quickly start a rhythm of you bouncing on his cock, eyes rolling at how fucking big he feels in you.

Mark’s hands are locked in a vice grip on your ass, fingers digging into the supple flesh and using his grip to urge you into a faster pace.

Jaehyun decides to join, coming up behind you to kiss at your neck, one hand reaching up to your mouth. “Suck,” He commands, slipping two fingers past your willing lips. You do, hollowing your cheeks and slurping around the digits, wishing that it was his dick. He hums behind you, bringing the wet digits down to your entrance, finding your clit with ease and rubbing fast circles into the little nub. You moan even louder now, feeling yourself speed towards your climax. You’ve been on edge for too long, you can’t hold on anymore.

“You close, little bird? Going to come on Mark’s cock? Gonna make him fill you up, pound into that dirty cunt?” His words get to you, your head falling back against his shoulder once more.

“Yes, yes! Oh, please, please-” He cuts off your mindless rambling by pulling you in for a kiss, one that you melt into. This is the first time he’s kissed you, and you’re quite upset that you hadn’t kissed him earlier. It’s a hot kiss, lots of tongue and teeth. It heightens your pleasure immensely, and you can’t stop kissing him. You suck on his tongue filthily, and oh, he must like that if the resulting groan is anything to go by. Even when he goes to pull away, you won’t let him, one hand fisting in his hair to keep him close. He seems to be speeding up your release, if that were even possible. Your mind feels hazier now, every sensation heightened, core screaming for release. You feel your orgasm twisting painfully at your insides, pulsing before finally exploding. The intensity of it rips a scream out of your throat, nails scratching across Mark’s chest as Jaehyun licks even deeper into your mouth, drinking up the noises you make.

When you come down, Mark is still thrusting desperately up into you, though he stops at the demons command. “From behind,” You hear Jaehyun say, but everything’s hazy at this point. Your mind is still fuzzy from your orgasm, and it’s like watching through a screen. Like you’re high, though you hadn’t had anything the whole day.

Mark manhandles you into position, hands and knees with your ass raised high in the air. He leaves one gentle kiss on your shoulder blade before relentlessly pounding into you, cock hitting even deeper in this position. Jaehyun kneels in front of you, pulling your face in towards his cock. You moan around him as he slips inside, mouth not quite burning at the stretch like Mark, though the demon still has you gagging. His cock has the same effect on you as his kisses did, and you feel addicted. You’re slurping and sucking and moaning around him, not wanting the intense pleasure to stop. You barely hear the kissing above you, taking far too long to register that Jaehyun has pulled Mark into a messy kiss above you. The image has you moaning even more wantonly, ass pushing back against Mark.

The kiss seems to have a similar effect on the man, because then he’s slamming into you at an even more relentless rate, moans higher and more frequent before he’s coming with a shout, finally filling you up. Your core pulses again at the feeling, and you suck at Jaehyun’s dick with renewed vigor. His hands fist in your hair, keeping you still so that he can fuck your mouth as hard as he wants. You relish in the feeling of your throat being fucked raw, spit dripping out of your mouth and down his cock. He lets out a deep groan, hips slamming deep one last time as he finishes. His cum seems to ignite a fire within you, because you’re coming almost simultaneously with him, despite not even being touched.

You collapse afterwards, dragging yourself to Mark and letting him drape himself over you. You let yourself drift off to sleep, sated and still riding the high.

The demon kisses each of you one last time, drinking in the last remaining parts of your soul, watching as the two humans take their last breaths. “Thanks for the meal, lovelies.” He chuckles, petting your head almost affectionately before walking out into the night sky, not sparing a single glance back.

[ray-ray-writings]

Why is your writing so gooooooood. I just loved the tiny techno. He’s so smol and so cute, tiny pig, and while I don’t typically deviate from Techno requests I gotta put in more ideas for Y/N the tiny animal tamer.

Schlatt/Glatt will get too drunk or will spend a little too much time in a river and transform into his tiny goat form. You know the one. And you’ll just see him lying around either passed out from the alcohol or lying in the water face up and you just pick him up and take him home and let him sleep by the fire until he wakes up. He secretly loves when this happens, one of the few times he can be happy and sober because he doesn’t have an responsibilities on his shoulders as a tiny goat. Very gentle, will rest his head on your lap (or not so gentle snuggle into your boobs (be you dude or not) if he’s got the chance why not take it)

Tubbo transforms into a goat much more rarely. He’s not as often on low health but if he stays up too long with president duties or experimenting with redstone he’ll transform from tiredness. He’s much smaller than Schlatt and you just gently pet him. Typically he wakes up human again with his head in your lap and your fingers in his hair humming a song and he’ll just,,, close his eyes. Let himself sleep just a little longer.

Fundy turns into this tiny cute fox when he’s particularly upset, though he’s gotten better at handling the transformations through the years. He used to run to his dad, then to philza, but now he’s got no one left and he’ll just curl up in the forest. You find him and be it your senses or just a gut feeling you pick him up and take him home and give him some nice cuddles and love. He always leaves before he transforms human again to try and keep it a secret who he is from you, even though you are completely aware of who he is, but he always returns in his tiny Fox form to be held and just feel okay.

Dream turns into a blob and he really can’t control it, so every now and then you’ll see a steaming tiny little blob who just squeaks and is upset. You’ll pick him up and hold him in your hands and take him around and /very/ seriously deliver threats for him. You’ll mess up one of his threats and he’ll squeak at you indignantly until you lean closer, nod as if you understand and amend your threat. It always devolves into laughter though and you spend the rest of the time prancing people or goofing off. Being happy in general.

At some point you find the white little blob balancing on the walkway through prime and you just pick him up expecting him to be a silently pouting Dream only for you to look directly into XD Dreams face (the one with the crossed out eye on one side, sadists design I’d think but blob) and he just silently accompanied you everywhere spooking people.

Quackity of course turns into a tiny duck from time to time, you get a lot of quacking and a lot of rowdy little noises until your petting his fluffed up feathers. Once Philza even stopped by in his bird form and papa bird took over and just preened the tiny chick and Quackity has never been the same since. He will never admit he loved it.

Anyways this is meant to be less of an ask and more of an addition to my last idea I just love the idea of being the most liked person in the SMP because you give everyone a place to be small and soft and themselves. A way to kind of hideout from the SMP and just enjoy being friends and feeling loved. It’s just very soft and very sweet and it makes me very happy.

Might send in an actual ask later lolol.

With lots of love- 🌻

(Honorable mention, Charlie turns into a slime and bounces around all over the place, he only settles when you’ve carefully set him on your shoulder and he kinda just melts. It always stains your shirt but you never bother him about it.)

(SECOND HONORABLE MENTION FROM MY PERSONAL HEADCANONS: Tommy and Wilbur both have bird forms as well. Tommy is this tiny white falcon chick, can barely fly on his own and he sits on your head or shoulder and acts all regal until Dadza stops by snd preens his feathers and treats him like his tiny boy, his little son, until Tommy baps him away with his wings. He’s so loud and just constantly squeaks from your shoulder until he has you all to himself, and then he half falls half glides into your lap and requests pets.

(Wilbur is this pretty hawk, like a red tailed hawk maybe, and he nuzzled along your cheek while he sits on your shoulder or preens your hair as if it were feathers and is just an all around cuddle bug. If he’s not on your shoulder then he moves to Fundys and just affectionately nuzzles and preens his son until Fundy picks him up a nod drops him unceremoniously into your lap.)

Ummmmmm  🌻??????? This is SO GOOD!!!!! I love these so so so so much!!! Fundy, not wanting you know know who he is so he runs away before he shifts back as if he isn’t the only fox hybrid on the server??? Amazing!!!

Blob Dream being extremely upset about his predicament but you just vibe with him and deliver his threats for him???? Hilarious!

Tiny duck Quackity? Oh my heart! Especially after JSchlatt I feel he would have a hard time being that open and vulnerable around people in that tiny of a form. So the fact he trusts you to take care of him is so heart warming. And then big poppa Phil preening him and taking even more care of him???? I’m melting!!

Little slime Charlie who stains your shirt because the only way he’ll settle is on your shoulder? That’s so cute oh gosh, especially because I’ve revealed I love setting things on my shoulders haha I’m obsessed. 

And the thoughts that maybe Tommy and Wilbur can also turn into birds is so adorable and so gooooooooood!!! I would picture Tommy as thinking that he’s a total badass as a bird but then Phil comes in and ruins that vibe by trying to preen him and Tommy tries to smack him away but Phil glares at him and Tommy grumbles and settles down and allows it to happen. And you definitely would be going deaf in the ear because of how loud Tommy is when he’s a bird sitting on your shoulder. He screams and squawks at every little thing. You would think that because this was a form he had to take because he needed to heal up that he would be a lot more calm... Hell no. 

And WIlbur? Oh gosh! He def would be so cuddly and would not go anywhere without being on someone else’s body. I think he would absolutely love it when you called him “Pretty Bird” and would squawk and coo in affection, nuzzling your face and preening your hair when you give him that compliment. And Fundy having enough and dumping him on you would be so funny because it makes you laugh every time and sometimes bird Wilbur lets out a gasp of offense, but he is quickly settled by your hand running down his body and smoothing his feathers. 

This is amazing. Thank you so much for this!!!!

[black-streak]

Little Pistol - Daisy

Chapter 1

Previous Next

I'm trying to keep this in line with her canon personality to an extent here. Determined, focused, conniving and scheming. A little obsessive. But also needs to give herself a little pep talk to go through with things. Let me know how I'm doing?

Btw, title is by Brand New.

LP Taglist

@zalladane @moonlightstar64 @amayakans @elmokingkong @queen-in-a-flower-crown

Permanent list

@naoryllis @throneoffirebreathingbitchqueen @my-name-is-michell @maribat-is-lifeblood @dast218 @novicevoice @shizukiryuu @princess-of-fangirls @bigpicklebananatree @pirats-pizzacanninibles @abrx2002 @breemeister @darkthunder1589 @thestressmademedoit @severelyenchantedwonderland @isabellemasen @multi-fandom-freak0221 @fantasyloversblog @bzz75 @cloudiedraws @jardimazul @orbitsvt @gingerdaile @sotheresthatthought @kadmeread @novaloptr @unabashedlyswimmingtimemachine @crazylittlemunchkin @18-fandoms-unite-08 @tiny-goddess-of-chaos

~---~

Convincing a miniaturized pocket god that your intentions are sound came surprisingly easy to her.

That could be in part due to all the prior planning. Considering every possible argument the goddess could come up with and creating contingencies to match. Really though, taking out Tikki's own advice and laying it out as a perfect reasoning quieted her down quite nicely. Not that Tikki agreed with her, but the logic was too sound to push back on and the little bug never expected Marinette to come up with such thoughts without getting emotional. It just wasn't the way the girl was as far as Tikki was concerned. So it could only be taken at face value without the usual accusations of her being overdramatic.

It was an early Saturday when she voiced her thoughts.

"Hey Tikki?"

"Yes, Marinette?" the red bug looked up from her perch.

"Our biggest priority is to stop akumas and find Hawkmoth, correct?"

"Of course. You know that," she dismissed.

"So is it reasonable to say that Chat has been a hinderance to our duty?"

"How do you mean?"

"He distracts me or sits out on important battles. Threatens to quit if details that don't pertain to our purpose are withheld. He refuses to remain professional in the face of an attack."

"Well yes, he has been rather unhelpful lately, but then again, you are teenagers. It's to be expected, I suppose. Though I do wish he'd be a bit more focused," she easily agreed.

Marinette bit back a victorious smile and kept her expression closed off but for the determined, calculating expression she saved for important moments. Like now.

"In that case, it would be a good idea to make him focus any way I can. To make it easier. To hurry along the hunt for Hawkmoth."

Tikki's expression became weary as she stared at her welder, taken off guard by the open statement, "I don't know, Marinette...What did you have in mind?"

"Nothing yet, but I think I'm going to start brainstorming some ideas. Maybe do a little research. Something needs to change though," she emphasized, staring down her kwami with a hopeful, prodding look until she hesitantly nodded her agreement.

With the god's blessing, she turned to her tablet, pulling up everything she could on different heroes and their methods. Down the rabbit hole she fell.

… 

Some thirteen hours had passed and she felt the strain of her eyes and the bright burn to her retinas for the effort of her work. She refused to believe that no inspiration would come from this effort, though she'd moved on from conventional heroes and into a more sketchy territory by now, having been let down by the uptight views of others who'd obviously never been harassed or neglected by their partner and therefore wouldn't understand her need for a more, let's say, gray solution.

She'd seen the ideals of Superman and the Lanterns and the generalized view of both the Teen Titans and Justice League alike. Many worked with partners, many had betrayals or interpersonal problems. The solution they always took was for one or both parties to leave the team and travel to opposite sides of their country. Or world. Or separate worlds. Either way, avoidance was key. That didn't really work for her though. She had to stay in close contact with her partner while not truly working together. Remain civil within the same city limits. Fight side by side even. And it's not like she could just leave her responsibility here or allow Chat to go unchecked with a miraculous on his own. 

Then she stumbled upon Batman's history. The infamous bat had many a partner or sidekick with their own rough history and seemed to be operating with them regularly still. His solution to a lost or dead partner seemed to be a steady stream of replacements. Unfortunately, unlike a vigilante suit, a miraculous has to resonate with the wearer and no one she knew and trusted would fit the black cat. So she was stuck with the one.

Still though, Batman apparently had a falling out with his first Robin who became Nightwing. Those two were seen together regularly now so something must have happened to fix their issues. Gods, she was so lucky the internet seemed to stalk these people hardcore enough to have so much information on them so readily available. However, looking deeper, the resulting theories and knowledge did not bode well for her. It seems Nightwing had been in much the same state as her and with zero apologies from the Bat, had forgiven the man and resumed operations as usual. Well she was done with forgiving and forgetting. She wanted a real solution, not just rolling over and letting Chat do as he pleased! 

Alright, so Batman was the Chat Noir to the Robin's Ladybug. Maybe the others fared better?

Nope, second one died.

Current one seems to be a literal feral child out to bleed Gotham dry. Not sure how that helped, though maybe she could go just psycho enough to force Chat to be the responsible one? No, he'd just try and quit again.

Huh.

There was a third and fourth one apparently? Between the murder baby and the dead one. What happened to them?

The fourth was a blonde girl with a short stint. Seems she just moved departments since many speculated she might be a batgirl or working with a few others in the city. Not much more.

But what about the other one?

The third Robin, who worked with the Teen Titans for a stint. Who worked many years under the Bat, who gave away the title to the blonde only to return after and disappear once more with the coming of the blood toddler. What happened? Where'd he go?

…

Thousands had apparently asked the same question themselves. All signs seemed to point towards a betrayal. Something went wrong. The first resigned, the second died, the third just seemed to drop off the face of the planet. Did Batman kick him out? Replace him? For child's play, sword addition? She couldn't be sure, but it seemed the most likely guess. Much more believable than alien kidnapping or a quest for a dead man or his predecessor coming to life to end him.

But what after that? 

Surely, Marinette could've stopped there. Obviously, this wasn't the same as her situation, but she couldn't help but be so very intrigued. She watched videos of the boy in his Robin suit (much more practical than the first two if you asked her, though still slightly shameful) fighting and flying across rooftops and working with his team. He was so. So. Efficient. So clean. Ruthless when he decided to be. Calculated. Everything she ever wanted to be. 

He was amazing.

And then he disappeared.

Where did he go, that perfect Robin. How could anyone ever think the position needed an upgrade when the perfect bird was already there? It made no sense. And then she found him. Hunting through the rogues and heroes and inbetweens of Gotham, hidden in his own layerings of cover stories and identities. Her new aspiration of what a hero should be, mixed into the Anti-heroes of the city.

The vigilante of the more morally ambiguous variety, manipulating the world to the way he saw fit, using whatever method he wished. And the way he seemed to bend the city to his whim, well it matched quite well with how she wished her own city would be. She found her solution. Now it was showtime.

…

"Are you ready to apologize, m'lady?" Chat dropped down at her side, the akuma of the week tied up below them. It was a relatively easy battle, with no need for special abilities for once.

"Whatever for, Chatton?" Marinette asked, already tensing at the response she knew she'd receive. She hated when he tried to coerce her into apologizing for things that aren't her fault.

"For your neglect of your kitten, obviously."

"I don't have a kitten," she stated plainly.

"What? You wound me, to disown me so abruptly," he put a clawed hand to his chest, offense and hurt in spades marking his features.

"I can't disown what I never adopted," she went along with the analogy so he wouldn't complain about her ruining his fun again. The last thing she needed was his whining.

He perked up with this, "Well we can draw up some adoption papers right now if you wish? I'd love to be yours," he smarmed, leaning into her space further. 

This was it. Time to turn the tables. To make this work in her favor. She just needed to play it right, the way her Robin did. By manipulating the enemy into doing her bidding. She could do this.

"That's just it, though. I don't believe you would," she frowned, letting her eyes soften the way she'd seen Lila do so often. Might as well learn something from the girl.

"What? I would," he insisted, eyebrows furrowing.

"See you say that, but where's the proof? You've done nothing but pester and punish me over these weeks. You say you love me, but then watch me get hurt by akumas and make me fight all alone and threaten to leave me. That's not the actions of a loving partner. It feels like you hate me."

That had him panicking.

"No no, I don't hate you, you're my sun and my moon. My everything. Surely you know your worth in my life. I only did those things to show you how much you hurt me." He attempted to reason with her.

"See, but I've never intentionally hurt you. And always apologized to you when I realized I had. Whereas you just admitted to causing me distress as a form of punishment. It seems to me that I'm far more attached to you than you are to me and I'm just not willing to hurt myself by getting involved with someone who so obviously dislikes me."

"I- no- that's not- I love you! I didn't mean to do that, I shouldn't have. Please believe me? I love you, Ladybug," he begged, ears dropping and body tensed in fear.

"I'm sorry, but until I see some proof, I can't do that," she shook her head before taking off home without a backward glance, leaving the cat to his misery.

…

That night, Tikki went straight to bed and refused to speak to her for the next two days.

[gale-gentlepenguin]

Gale’s Top 10: Favorite Pokémon

Rules:

1. No mega evolutions/gigamax alone. I have to like the Pokemon outside of just those bits.

2. Regional versions are covered if they make the list.

3. These pokémon are not Meta, they are my personal favorites. 

4. This is simply my favorites. I would love to hear yours.

_______________________________________________________________________

10. Volcarona

This thing just looks really f***ing cool.

The Fire bug typing.

The mothera reference. The insane special attack.

Stupidly fun to use when playing.

Volcarona is Alder’s ace for a reason. And if you don't kill it quick. You will be begging for your life by turn 3.

When ever I get the chance. It always has a spot on my Unova team. No question about it.

_______________________________________________________________________

9. Guzzlord

The Ultra beast with the code name Glutton.

I will say that gen 7 was... interesting in its approach towards Pokémon. I honestly didn't care much for the designs (outside of the Alola forms). The Generation did have a few cool things going for it, but I found most of the line up to be kind of boring.

UNTIL THIS MOTHERF***ER SHOWED UP.

This Dark Dragon type Pokemon just looks so ... monstrous. In the Ultrasun and Moon games, The pocket of space where you find it is a decimated city with nothing in it but it, waiting for something to eat. This thing destroyed its world, likely ate every person and Pokemon. Its downright terrifying. It looks like a boss monster or the final form of a JRPG boss. (Plus his appearance actually made me watch the anime for a brief moment, so kudos)

And it hits like a truck. Sure fairy type attacks grind it to dust. But outside of that, I can just RELATE to this thing. Being unable to fill its stomach and wanting to eat all the time. 

But the reason he is so low is that... you can't really use him until late game and in a sea of other ultra beasts, his impact is minimized

_______________________________________________________________________

8. Electivire

I just love this Thunder Yeti.

One of my favorite build on evolutions. The means of getting him are a bit hard, (having a special item to trade with just to do it) but the benefits are vast. He is fast and his ability neutralizes electric attacks, allowing him to go even faster. 

His movepool allows him to use fire, ice, ground, rock, steel and even Psychic attacks.

He can even learn a move that lets him get rid of his ONE TYPE WEAKNESS. 

Regardless of what side of the fight he is on, Electivire is one tough customer.

_______________________________________________________________________

7.Arcanine

He is a big fluffy boi!

ITS A DOG THAT BREATHES FIRE AND IS BIG ENOUGH TO BE RIDDEN!

My 10 year old self DREAMED about having one. It has soft fur and is loyal. It also is mega versatile. It can learn dragon type, electric type, ground and even grass type moves. It also just looks so cool. I wish we got to see it more commonly used, but sadly it is always outshines by ANOTHER fire type of the gen and that is sadly that.

_______________________________________________________________________

6. Rayquaza

Its a giant green dragon that looks like Shenron and has the best mega evolution. He is also my favorite Legendary. Sorry all other Legendaries. not even Arceus or Mewtwo could touch this beast at his best.

It is majestic, and I have played through emerald version MORE times than any other Pokemon game ever.

So let me tell you about how  monstrous this thing is. Its mega evolution was banned BECAUSE IT WAS SO RIDICULOUSLY OP and it is the reason why Mega evolution is no longer allowed because Z moves couldn't counter this thing. 

It always is cool. And THIS is what a dragon is.

______________________________________________________________________

5. Empoleon 

This might have been shocking to see him so low on the list. Only barely making the top 5.

His design is one of my favorites. And his evolutionary line is my favorite LOOKING of all starters.

Its just... I always keep forgetting he is steel type and when someone uses a ground or fighting move he gets rekt. Now this is more on me and not on the grace that is empoleon.

I also wish this Pokemon got more love. It was overshadowed in the anime, its constantly ignored by most when talking about Sinnoh, and it has a diverse move pool.

I just wish it was either more of a tank or more of a fast sweeper. 

I want to love him more, but battling is kind of important to me and I just feel on edge using him.

______________________________________________________________________

4. Hawlucha

My favorite Gen 6 pokemon.

Bar none. This wrestling bird is just so cool. It has THE best Shiny colors. It is based of a luchadore. It has its own special move, Flying Press. And it hits like a truck.

He has great versatility, he also is just fun to look at. And the Pokemon anime gave me a new appreciation for this bird. If he was a penguin, he would be number one.

_______________________________________________________________________

3. Lucario

Okay I admit it, Lucario is my more obvious pick. BUT COME ON!

It is one of the coolest Pokemon ever created!

It is fast and strong. It has Aura Sphere (one of my favorite moves in the game)

He was also my main in smash before Ultimate came out and nerfed him.

He was my boy. He also has one of the better Pokémon movies made about him and he deserves it.

Also you know a trainer is a bada*** when he/she has one on her team. Its like a status symbol.

And with the coverage he has, its no wonder he is so well loved. 

Plus his design is amazing, his shiny is one of the coolest designs, and he looks like a good boy.

_______________________________________________________________________

2. Raichu

HE IS SHAPED LIKE A FRIEND!

okay so I always liked the Raichu line, but I always felt Pikachu was overrated.

I still love the electric mouse, but I always evolved him.

When Gen 7 happened and THIS form of Raichu happened. I fell in love. Look at this Electric Psychic typing. And the answer to evolve or not was put to rest forever.

Having access to Thunderbolt, surf, psychic and an assortment of other moves. I just love how amazing it is to use. He also looks so cute and cuddly. This is the ideal Pokemon design, you may not agree, but this is what perfection looks like.

Plus, his tail is a surfboard. Your argument is invalid.

_______________________________________________________________________

1. Feraligatr

Let me tell you all a story.

My first Pokemon game that I ever played by myself was Pokémon silver.

My first starter was Totodile.

I started my journey with this little gator and every step of the way, whenever I was backed into a corner, this guy came through for me. I called him Gatorhawk. Because he had the little red tuft that I thought was a mohawk.

I remember playing the game in the car on my way home, doing my best against Lance and his three dragonites. The rest of my team was down. Only Gatorhawk remained as I faced his 3 remaining Pokemon. Surviving attack after attack.  Yet somehow finishing off his dragonites.

I got down to his last Pokemon, Out of healing items, and up against charizard.

My Gatorhawk was in the yellow. I was so close. All I needed to do was survive that Charizard’s attack.

It fired a hyper beam. I thought it was over. All of the hardwork I had gone up to this point, it was for nothing.

But Gator tanked it. By some logic He tanked a hyper beam with only one HP left.

And he hit with a critical Surf. It was over. We had won. 

I screamed so loud my mom thought something bad had happened.

I was a pokemon champion. I had beaten Lance. No older cousin help, no sister assistance. it was just me, and my Gatorhawk.

So when I see Feraligatr. I think of Pokémon, I remember the nostolgia, the good times.

I remember what it meant to be the best.

[brave-clarice]

“Clarice” Liveblog: Episode 2

Again, some extremely unfashionably late hot takes.

(Special thanks to @kathrynethegreat and @special-agent-pendragon​ for encouraging another liveblog!)

Clarice is working out! And eating junk food! I love it.

and cleaning her gun!

hey, Ardelia is drinking what I’m going to assume is her grandmother’s “smart people tea”.

Krendler disciplining Clarice already is infuriating but appropriate.

“I lost control.” Oh no, I don’t like that. Don’t make Clarice unstable. Her mental and emotional state never had anything to do with her failing career.

getting weird mixed signals from Ardelia. Last week, she obviously didn’t want Clarice to lie/stick to the script Krendler gave her, but now she’s telling Clarice she messed up by not doing so...?

“I better know you if you’re calling this early.” Amen, Ardelia.

I’m in love: this cinematography is straight out of the film (when she’s flying to WV with Crawford)!

“When’s the last time you went back to Appalachia?” “It’s been years.” What??? It has NOT been years--Clarice was JUST in West Virginia last week as well as in Silence, and she arguably attended college there as well. (UVA is at least nestled in the mountains, and you don’t have to drive far outside the Albemarle Valley to hit Appalachia proper.) After all the details about her character they’ve been nailing, they miss this glaring error? 

I like the tiny details she’s noticing (like the guy biting his nails). Not only because she’s an investigator, but because it’s reminiscent of Hannibal’s influence (imo).

Clarice Is Short: The Saga continues

still not getting any creepy vibes off Krendler. He’s going to be much less effective as an antagonist if he isn’t lewd as well as a dick.

I really don’t care for the way the opening “credits” fade out from the death’s-head moth to Clarice’s face. There are MANY animals that represent her, or parts of her, in the books--lions, lambs, horses, and of course birds--so this choice feels empty and lazy to me.

also lazy: having a fellow agent straight-up tell her in episode 2 “you shouldn’t be in the Bureau.” Maybe in two or three years, after some further “Death Angel”-type incidents, I could see this blatant rudeness, but not yet.

“Reesey”? Thanks, I hate it.

this flashback must be of Clarice’s little brother. That answers one question I had last week. That said...Clarice’s brother doesn’t play the same role in her story that Mischa does in Hannibal’s--but this sure feels like a Mischa-esque flashback.

good: they’re finally getting to the source of Clarice’s actual trauma!

bad: this is NOT how Clarice found out about her father. In fact, that whole incident is laid out in detail in the novels, and there’s nothing overly literary/un-cinematic about it, so this feels unnecessary. “The police are here! Something happened to Daddy!” No, bad! Show, don’t tell!

she would’ve known better than to introduce herself to that kid as “Clarice Starling, FBI,” come on now.

were they regularly able to wire tap hair clips in 1993? 

actually, nothing in this show looks very 90s to me so far. I’m sad about it.

so in eighteen months, Ruth Martin has gone from a junior Senator to the Attorney freakin’ General, and now she might run for governor?? At least let her get settled in one position of power first, why don’t you!

yet more Buffalo Bill flashbacks...alas.

are they trying to make this guy another surrogate Hannibal character? He’s commenting on Clarice’s accent and the dryness of her skin, asking about who she “left behind”...it all feels very Hannibal. (I know he’s a Charismatic Cult Leader trope, too--but when played off of Clarice...)

“Ew.” “I hate this guy.” I laughed.

I understand that Clarice probably feels conflicted re: her siblings in the book, but I’m really not digging the flashbacks of this Tim Burton character her brother.

@ the writers: Clarice already has the lamb backstory/symbolism, too. We don’t need this Little Brother stuff.

*shrieking* Mrs. Starling! At the sink washing the blood out of his hat!!! 

...aaand they had to ruin it with the brother’s painfully bad dialogue. Will still be good for gif-making, though.

are we supposed to interpret all these flashbacks as Clarice being incapable of controlling her emotions/state of mind? She keeps losing herself in memories and emerging all doe-eyed and panicky. I don’t like it.

not to be a broken record but...Clarice should be TOUGH. Again, Ardelia only saw her cry once in seven years. But she’s more worked up in this scene than Jodie was in Memphis!

when Mr. Cult Leader shouts “Agent Starling! Agent Starling!” he sounds exactly like Hannibal calling her back to his cell in the asylum. That has to be intentional. 

damn, wish that I could look as good five minutes after I’ve been crying as Clarice does.

I LOVE that Ardelia gets to be the crucial behind-the-scenes book-smart partner to Clarice’s action heroine.

AG Martin’s just playing politics by turning a blind eye to the crooked sheriff. But when her own daughter was just kidnapped and almost killed, she looks like a real hypocrite.

gosh, Rebecca Breeds is great. I already hope she gets nominated for an Emmy.

so Krendler is...doing the right thing???

Clarice’s father was definitely not a sheriff. I hope she’s just exaggerating for dramatic effect. (Maybe this will be clarified later.)

she couldn’t just sit with a manipulative guy without getting emotional, but she’s cool as a cucumber while telling an extended story about her father? HmmMM.

sometimes her mannerisms and facial expressions are so much like Jodie’s that it’s uncanny, like here when she leans forward to confront the Cult Leader.

“She did it.” Damn straight!

another great callback to Silence. this show’s camera crew knows its stuff!

“He’s concerned I have some residual trauma from Bill.” I. Hate. This. Subplot--and all its OOC implications.

“Catherine was close to her father, too.” Ooh, a nice allusion to the novel! Clarice makes note of their “common wound,” the loss of a father, when she’s in Catherine’s apartment in Silence.

she is just SO pretty.

little Clarice looks a LOT like Rebecca Breeds. I hope we see some more of her. 

The Good:

the continuing visual nods to the Silence film via cinematography

Mama Starling!!!

Clarice’s “The World Will Not Be This Way Within the Reach of my Arm” attitude, refusing to leave without helping the victims.

Ardelia Mapp coming in clutch! 

Clarice being, generally, a badass

and using psychological tricks/mind games to pin the antagonist...that’s the woman who disarmed a monster with just a few words.

Rebecca Breed’s acting has been phenomenal so far.

I like Clarice’s haircut a lot better when worn down (though it’s not very practical for fieldwork, so we probably won’t see it much).

The Bad:

the continuing Buffalo Bill-related Trauma Subplot. Ugh.

all the flashbacks to Clarice’s brother (and the not-so-subtle suggestion that her brother is, symbolically, another lamb).

will the real Paul Krendler please come forward? this guy is so TAME.

the other agents’ hostility towards Clarice needs to be toned down slightly so that it can escalate. Otherwise, where’s the tension?

is this actually 1993? I’m not feeling it. Shouldn’t it have a little of that Season 1/2 X-Files aesthetic? Please give me more than once-an-episode references to pagers and fax machines!

that glaring Appalachia continuity error...it’s still bugging me.

I missed the overt Hannibal references, even though they’re not necessary to any part of this episode. A lady can dream!

Overall, I really liked this one despite my various issues with it. It started shakily but built to a great finish. The emphasis across both episodes on Clarice being in the FBI not just to “get out, get anywhere,” but out of a genuine desire to help victims has been wonderful. I just hope they don’t swerve too far into the “too traumatized and emotionally compromised to function” lane. It would be a disservice to Clarice’s character and to her journey (and would smack too much of “Hannibal really did prey on her weak mind/brainwash her”.

Things I’d still like to see: More of her personality. Her hobbies and interests. That she’s cleaning her gun is great! Now let’s see “Poison Oakley” practicing her sharpshooting skills. Or car shopping. Or clothes shopping to show off her “developing taste.” (Ardelia can come!) I’ll take literally anything. Give us more of Clarice’s sense of humor as well. She had some subtle funny moments in the pilot, and it’s nice to see Rebecca smile for a change.

And Krendler? Smear that man in grease! I appreciated a happy ending even though Clarice’s career is, as we know, already in a downward spiral--the last thing we want is for every episode to be a slog, especially when a good chunk of the audience hasn’t read the book and doesn’t know Clarice is doomed to fail in the Bureau.

However... Krendler’s not a “redemption arc” kind of character. Or even a “run-of-the-mill sexist asshole” character. This is a man who spent seven years systematically sabotaging a young woman’s career because a) he was jealous that she solved the Gumb case before him, and b) she wouldn’t fuck him. He was a Justice Department official working fist-in-glove with a serial child molester who was planning some of the heinous vigilante justice imaginable. THAT’S why his very gruesome end at Hannibal’s hands felt deserved--even Clarice thought so! In short, he needs to get nasty.

Anyway, thanks for coming to another long-overdue TedTalk. Fingers crossed that the next one will be more timely (aiming for Sunday night)! 

[theinfamousdoctorf]

[So I wrote such a massive dissertation on this subject that I decided it deserved an actual diagram. This is my concept for the Among Us crewmates anatomy.] Not only are the crew in Among Us not human, but the torso mouth is NORMAL for them. It’s the killing people with it that’s the issue. [Same as the knife and the gun. The new Airship map actually has guns to be put away as a task.] It’s just considered a cultural faux pas to talk with it instead of using the tablets to type on. [You’re specifically told to be quiet!] And because there’s a chance that people will talk over each other in discussions and evidence would get drowned out. Also it leaves a recording of the meetings in case their actions are questioned by their commanders later. The tongue is strong enough to lift up another crew-mate, sharp enough to pierce and kill and precise enough to lash out and hit a small point- It probably has dexterity as a primary limb for tool use. But it's not very sanitary to go around tonguing buttons and levers, so using advanced tech to make hands would be cleaner. And it would reinforce the quiet taboo that you shouldn't even open your mouth around others. Not just as a possible threat display, but for hygienic reasons. So the issue isn’t aliens trying to kill the crew, they’re trying to eliminate anyone who’s going stir crazy from claustrophobia or isolation before they can have a total breakdown. This also explains why you’d set off the reactor even though it would certainly kill the imposters too. The argument for why the ‘suits’ are actually just their skin has several salient points - Wrong number of fingers, weird anatomy in general when dead, too short, too light on the med scan, color is listed on the scan as if it’s an unchangeable thing, the 'family’ pic in your wallet shows three entities all different colors. Turning the oxygen off kills everyone [why would that work if they were in space suits?] Clothing cosmetics also go over their 'suits'. The faceplate breaks when you die because it’s a big contact lens that shows your task screen and alerts like a DBZ scanner. Crew-mates hatch from eggs. You can have a nest on your head with two eggs and an upper limit of two mini crewmates. One of which sits on your head. The person with the broken egg on their head fucked up and broke one of their own. It’s a 'shame on me’ adornment like the 'Dum’ post it note. Crewmates with the best 'hats' could have a stronger chance for impressing mates and reproducing. Thus keeping the duller browns, blacks, dark greens and whites from being bred out of the gene pool. Also, if they reproduce by laying eggs; then they could easily be naked and not show any sexual characteristics because you never see them from below with legs spread. Birds just have a slit that serves multiple functions. And certain carnivorous dinosaurs and modern birds like Kiwi's are good examples of animals that functioned despite having minimal or completely useless 'arms'. I'm also cannoning that they are a cold blooded species, they have smooth skin and varied/bright colors like a poison frog. The eggs would be carried because they're a fairly civilized species, but not sat on. [Young stick close to their parents for safety.] The nostrils are likely too small to see easily and they have the forward facing eyes of a predator. [You can make a burger on the new map, so they eat at least some meat.] The squares on their backs could also be interpreted as a type of implanted tech. Specifically a mechanical cyborg backpack like the bug pack that Invader Zim wore. This is why you don’t see hands unless you’re manipulating something. The hands are small flying drone prosthetics and they go back in your pack to charge when not in use. [The new half metal player skin for the airship also establishes that this is a culture where mechanical augmentation exists. ] So obviously my mini crew-mate vanishes when I use a ladder because I put them in my backpack temporarily to go up or down. Something akin to small tractor beams would allow the

floating limbs to pull realistically on the torso as well despite being disconnected. Novisor also works well enough with my earlier suppositions. He’s horrifying not just because of his mouth [which is normal] but because of the complete lack of eyes. The open slavering jaws are crude and it makes the crew uneasy because it’s taboo and considered gross to just hold it open and drool like that. Also removing someones visor is scary

because it’s like stealing a crew mates cellphone. They can’t see their task list, “use” items, or report bodies without the heads up display. And being blind would mean they can’t see their tablets to type or read in meetings either. Obviously he’s a threat because he’s a killer creepypasta, but it can be for more specific reasons as well. I’m thinking in particular of Japanese type evil spirits that constantly do a rude thing and force their victims to do the same rude thing.

[lady-divine-writes]

Kurtbastian one-shot “Surprise Guest Stars” (Rated PG13)

Summary: Chaos ensues when some uninvited performers show up to Thomas's Christmas pageant ... (2221 words)

Notes: Blaine friendly. Assume this happens in a world that hasn’t met Covid yet. A re-write for @kbweek2020 Day 4 prompt Parents.

Part 60 of Daddies.

Read on AO3.

“You tell him!” Sebastian whispers. 

“No, you tell him!” Blaine whispers back fervently - a huge fail if he was trying to keep Kurt from hearing him. For a man who’s been working in theater professionally since college, how could Blaine forget that Kurt would be able to hear him from every corner of the stage? Rule number one of working backstage - no shushing and no whispering.

“Why me?” Sebastian asks.

“Because you’re his husband! You have a child together! If I tell him, detectives will never find my body! He won’t hurt you!”

“Yeah, right. Wanna bet?”

“Sure. Can you break a hundred?”

“For God’s sake!” Kurt snaps, too overwhelmed this close to curtain to handle anything that might go hand-in-hand with those two and their whisper fighting. “Would one of you just tell me what the heck is going on? What are you arguing about?”

Sebastian looks at Blaine, waiting for him to give Kurt the explanation he’s demanding while Sebastian searches for a place to hide. He’s out of luck when Blaine catches him off guard with a huge shove towards center stage right in the path of the steely-eyed man walking aggressively toward them, the thick heels of Kurt's Jimmy Choo loafers pounding against the wood floorboards marking down the remaining seconds of their lives.

Blaine may have made his living on the stage, but Kurt takes theater much more seriously than he ever has.

“We might have a problem,” Sebastian says.

“What? What problem!? It’s fifteen minutes to showtime! Don’t talk to me about problems!”

“O … okay ...” Sebastian smiles sheepishly, splaying his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Let’s call it a hiccup then.”

“A hiccup is a safety-gated synonym for problem, and I refuse to accept that there are any problems.”

“And yet, we still have one.”

Kurt sighs, throwing a hand to his forehead to shield his already blooming headache from whatever stupidity this is, and ends up smacking himself with his clipboard. “Fine!” he groans, rubbing the sore spot. “What is it!?”

“Look up there.” Sebastian reaches out to take his husband’s shoulder and redirect his attention. But after considering the possibility of getting his hand bitten off - a hand that will become most important if Kurt decides to never sleep with him again after this - he motions with his chin instead.

“Up where?”

“Up … up there. In the Christmas tree.”

“What? Is Mrs. Popson complaining that the ornaments are unbalanced again? Are we going to have to re-Feng Shui the lights to better complement her third graders’ angel piglets?” Kurt allows himself a snicker as he follows Sebastian’s instructions and gazes up. Eight dozen ridiculous things have happened so far, and their little pageant has yet to even open. That’s probably all this is - something ridiculous. A minor inconvenience blown way out of proportion.

At least, that’s what it had better be.

But as he peers through the branches of their picturesque twelve-foot Fraser fir, he realizes no. This isn’t a little thing. It’s a rather large thing. So large, he wonders how come he didn’t notice it before now.

“Oh … shit,” he mutters.

“It's Blaine's fault. I didn't see it until he pointed it out,” Sebastian says, passing the blame off on an offended Blaine and leaping quickly aside in case this revelation has consequences. 

“This,” Kurt hisses, jabbing a finger upward, "is why I told you I wanted an artificial tree for the Christmas pageant! Where did we get this thing anyway?”

“It was donated by Father Bruno at St. Adalbert’s Parish to show support for the school's LGBTQ+ inclusive program. He went out to the woods and cut it down himself!”

“Right!” Kurt folds his arms over his chest. “He probably planned this! Did it on purpose to sabotage our pageant! You can’t trust the Catholics! Don’t I always say that!?”

Sebastian looks at Blaine, and a confused Blaine looks back, each wondering if this is some inside remark directed at the other.

“No!” Sebastian pulls a face. “I have never heard you say that!”

“Well, you can’t,” Kurt sniffs. “And whether I said it or not, it’s generally implied.”

“I don’t think the man did this on purpose,” Blaine says, but does so in that soothing tone he used so often on Kurt in high school. A bad decision, Blaine realizes, the moment Kurt's head pivots his way, and he sees everything from Kurt’s neck to his scalp turn a bright, crayon red.

“Really!? Then let me ask you this - during the time it took the good father to cut this tree down and drag it over here, he never once noticed there was not one, not two, but three nests inside!?”

“I guess not! But neither did y---we,” Sebastian corrects, his life flashing before his eyes when he comes close to implying his husband is at fault. “We got the tree last minute. I guess they slipped through the cracks.”

“Obviously.” Kurt closes his eyes and drops his head, searching for an answer in the dark behind his lids.

Five minutes.

By now, they only have five minutes. He hears the children lining up with their teachers backstage while he and his husband argue. But they need to stop arguing and come up with a solution.

Fast!

He takes a deep breath in and exhales out, the inklings of a plan forming in his head.

“It’s okay,” he says, reassuring himself more than anyone, the headache simmering behind his eyes threatening to become a full-blown migraine. “It’s going to be okay. They haven’t let the parents in yet. They’re still in line outside. We can fix this. We can still fix this. We can move them, right? Just … shimmy up there and get them down?”

Blaine and Sebastian shoot each other anxious looks. This time, Blaine starts, choosing to jump on the grenade for Sebastian. “Uh … no. We can’t.”

“Yes, we can,” Kurt counters, over-enunciating consonants through teeth clenched so hard they’re about to pop from his skull. “Figure out a way to skitter up there and pluck them out. It can’t be too difficult.”

“I’m sorry, Kurt …”

“Or come at them from above. You can reach down from the catwalk. That might work out better seeing as they’re so high up.”

“No, Kurt …”

“We’re not going to hurt them,” Kurt interjects as if that might be the big hold up. “We’re going to relocate them.”

“Kurt …”

“There’s a cat carrier in the fifth-grade room,” Kurt continues desperately, unsure why it is this can’t be done, why Blaine can't say, "Brilliant, Kurt! I'll get right on that!" He’s seen people do it before. The Crocodile Hunter (God rest his soul) rescued birds left and right. That nice Officer Kevin from the SPCA who rescued the deranged pigeon from his father's auto body shop. And wasn’t there a famous Vine where some guy got an owl out of his kitchen using a broom? It can’t be that difficult. “We’ll toss them in there for the time being and then …”

“Kurt!” Blaine cuts in, raising his voice a tad higher than advisable considering the situation. “We can’t move them!”

Kurt's glare nearly takes the top of Blaine's head clean off. “And why can’t we?”

“Because those aren’t just any birds.” The three men look up at the exact moment nine fluffy faces peek over the edges of their nests and look down, probably wondering what all the commotion below is about. “Those are loggerhead shrikes.”

Kurt and Sebastian both look at their friend with confusion on their faces.

“How do you know that?” Sebastian asks.

Kurt puts a hand on his husband’s shoulder and shakes his head. “That question is going to require a longer answer than we have time for. Plus, there are children in the building. Just accept that Blaine has a thing about birds.” 

"PG? Or R?" Sebastian asks, needing clarification regardless.

"Try X," Kurt says in a lowered voice.

Sebastian looks at a blushing Blaine with wide, disgusted, but somewhat amused eyes.

"Continue," Kurt says, "from the part where you tell us why these birds are about to ruin our pageant.”

“Loggerhead shrikes are threatened. That means they’re protected. We can’t move them ourselves. We might not be able to move them at all without taking the tree with them.”

Kurt’s eyes bug. “We can’t … we can’t … the tree!? Oh great! This keeps getting better and better!”

“Relax.” Sebastian takes the risk and puts a hand on Kurt’s shoulder. He tries to massage it, but it’s hard as a rock. “It’s okay. We can still sort this out.”

“And how do you suggest we do that!? Huh!? Our Christmas pageant, which your son is starring in by the way, and is supposed to start in …” Kurt spins around in search of a clock. When he can’t see the one on the far wall, ironically because of the tree, he fishes his cell phone out of his pocket and checks the screen. His eyes bug out farther “… two minutes! has been hijacked by birds!”

“Look, Kurt, they’ve been chill so far. Maybe we can have the pageant with them there and move them after. Problem solved.”

“Yeah,” Kurt agrees optimistically, trying to force his heart to slow down, seeing how, with no time to spare, this could be a feasible option. “You're right! We’ll let them stay! Problem solved! I mean, what’re a few birds? It doesn’t look like they can even fly yet. And they’re cute! They’ll add realism. They won’t be any trouble.”

“Not exactly,” Blaine says, and Kurt has never wanted to punch him in the face so hard in his life. Wait … come to think about it, there may have been one or two other times. “There may be a whole other bigger problem.”

“And that is?”

“Those are babies. Juveniles, specifically. I don’t see any moms. Or dads for that matter.”

“I know I’m going to regret asking this,” Kurt moans, resigned to whatever fate Blaine’s knowledge is about to bestow upon them, “but … that’s a problem why?”

“Because loggerhead shrikes are protective. Being separated from their chicks, the parents will get aggressive. Also, if the babies don’t know where their parents are and they get nervous …” A series of jarring screeches interrupt Blaine’s explanation. Kurt glares up at the birds, mouths open wide, cawing loudly into the air. Blaine points up. “They’ll do that.”

“Great!” Kurt yelps, at the end of his rope. “So we have potentially agro birds loose in the theater, baby birds that spontaneously scream bloody murder, and a play set to start in half-a-minute, which we may have to postpone indefinitely in case we need to call animal control - do I have that right?”

“Basically, yes.”

“Well, skippidy do! Is there anything else!? Anything at all you’ve forgotten to tell me!? Because what else could possibly go wrong!?”

The doors at the back of the auditorium fly open, and Kurt blanches, knowing that right then and there, his question is about to be answered.

“Kurt! Sebastian!” the assistant principal yells, looking a little too much like Tippi Hedren in The Birds for anything good to come from her sudden appearance. “Come quick! It’s an emergency!”

“What? What, what, what is it now!?” Kurt asks, sounding less than sympathetic.

“Insane birds are dive-bombing parents in line outside! Three people have already been pecked! Everyone is scattering!”

With the auditorium doors thrown open, Kurt can hear the panicked yells of parents banging on the steel doors outside, begging to be let in. Above that, the shrieking of the birds searching for their babies echo through the halls, their screams so high-pitched and piercing, they make their way through the thick stone walls and double-layered storm windows. Hearing their parents’ cries, the baby birds respond, frantically flapping their wings in an effort to take flight themselves and reach them.

Bitterly Kurt thinks all of his problems might be solved if they give it a go, plummet to the ground, and break their little birdie necks.

How un-festive of him.

Sebastian looks at his done-in husband. “Do you want me to go outside and handle this one alone?”

“No.” Kurt straightens his back, squares his shoulders, hands his clipboard over to Blaine, and makes for the stairs to the stage, head held high like a gladiator going off to fight an unwinnable war. “I’ll go. Blaine? Tell the teachers … there’s been a bit of a delay.”

“Will do,” Blaine says, leaving the stage with a solemn salute and a sigh of relief.

“And Sebastian?”

“Yes?” Sebastian says, falling in behind his husband, unwilling to let him walk off into the bird battle alone.

“Do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

“The next time I ask what could possibly go wrong - gag me.”

“Absolutely.” Sebastian smirks, preparing to die on the hill of bringing a smile back to his husband’s face. “Just so I can plan appropriately … will you be asking that anytime tonight, perchance? Because I can get a babysitter and rent a room in about five seconds.”

“Great,” Kurt replies humorlessly. “Do that. Let’s pray I’ll have enough blood left in my body to enjoy it.”

[thewhumperinwhite]

ATTD: The Hunting Party (2)

ATTD Masterlist

I agonized over this for ages bc everybody knows prophecies rhyme, but i am deeply Not A Poet, so like... be gentle with me lmao

@whumpitywhumpwhump @favwhumpstuff

Ongoing TW for this series: the Big Bads here are bug related, so tread carefully if you you have any level of entomophobia. It’s mainly referenced here, but it will absolutely get worse. If you have specific bug-related triggers, you can always message me for a more detailed description of what to expect. So.

TW for: body horror (relating to mummification, and, separately, Bugs); blood-drinking; referenced/implied possession (of a sort); captivity; implied magical torture; lady whump; referenced murder. Also, uh... evil flies. Like not giant. Just evil

----

Awake, at least, Middle Sister had seen nothing but this room for three long months.

The room was of a respectable size—high-ceilinged, not wide but long enough to be properly called a Hall—but far enough underground that the air felt close and stale regardless. The walls and ceiling are polished marble, black with veins the color of old bone. The furnishings—richly carved but sparse—were the same. An altar, bare. Two benches, never occupied. A high-backed throne for her to sit upon, slumped and unmoving.

Middle Sister did not know how long this room had been here. The past was her Sister’s business; for all that Middle Sister know, they might have carved the chamber just for her. Her mark, upon the throne—a sun, inlaid in gold, above her head—would seem to show that it at least had been custom-made.

The chains, hammered into the arms of the throne, and ending in manacles around her wrists, were the same muted gold as the inlaid sun. She was held immobile by other, crueler means—could not move without blood in her veins; the gold cuffs hung loose on her dry and leathered wrists—so the chains were just for show.

She was going to kill everyone responsible—from her captors to whatever craftsmen carved the sun and forged the chains—but she could, at least, respect the commitment to aesthetics.

To keep an Oracle in one’s basement, one needed chains. To leave her without them—even as a dried out husk upon her throne—would be positively gauche. Someone might think they’d left her corpse here by mistake.

The old man—the Emperor’s Advisor—who had no other name than that, and who always brought with him the buzzing of flies, right at the edge of her hearing—was the only living thing she had seen in months.

He was halfway through his usual ritual now. He brought a candle and a golden chalice with him from upstairs, and now he was holding the chalice over the candle and half-chanting in his scratchy buzzing voice, a stream of nonsense about the sun, how it knew all and saw all, and now he wished to know and see all as well.

The ritual was exactly as practical as the gilded chains. The chalice was full of blood, and blood was all she needed.

The old man finished chanting, and stepped around the altar, approached the throne. He put the chalice up to her desiccated lips and carefully poured about a tablespoon of blood down her dry throat.

Middle Sister breathed in, as even this tiny helping of lifeblood wet her tongue and throat and lungs enough to take in the first air she’d had since the old man’s last visit, more than a week ago now. The blood soaked into her heart and filled it out, like a raisin turning back into a grape. The first few beats were always painful.

Part of Middle Sister always hoped that he would measure wrong—bring her two tablespoons someday, instead of one. This blood is enough to bring life back into her mouth and tongue and lungs and throat and heart. Another gulp would bring life back into her arms, enough to tie these stupid soft-gold chains into a pretty bow around the old man’s neck, and drag herself upstairs, to find enough blood to fill her wings with life as well, and away from here, at last.

It wouldn’t be that easy, of course. She was going to have to wait. Sit here like so much salt-dried meat, until she’d gathered enough cards to make a meaningful play.

Then, when she was out, she’d spill enough blood to bathe in.

“I hesitate to wake you so soon after the last time,” the old man was saying, with a hint of irony. “However: It seems we’ve had a bit of a setback.”

With a tablespoon of blood, Middle Sister could lift her head, and raise and eyebrow at the old man, too, with a little effort. Her dried skin wrinkled with a sound like old paper, but thankfully it didn’t tear.

Oh, she said, her voice made more of magic than of air. We have, have we?

The old man smirked, and bowed his head. “Your meaning is well taken,” she said. “The miscalculation was not yours, my Lady. We attempted to act on the information you so generously provided—”

Middle Sister snorted. She had been accused of many things, but rarely generosity. Is that what we’re calling it, she asked airily—her voice dry wind against the old man’s ears—I provide you—generously—with prophecy, and you—generously again—replace enough of the blood you stole, to let me move my lips?

The old man almost laughed. “Again, Lady: Your criticism is understood. I apologize once more for the lack of—creature comforts.”

She didn’t waste energy on rolling her eyes, however much she might have liked to. It’s true that I am accustomed to indulging in pleasure such as blood, and life. She sighed, tipping her head back to see him better. What is this setback ‘we’ have suffered, My Lord Advisor?

“We’ve lost the boy,” the old man said.

Middle Sister blinked at him. Then she half-crumpled forward, using up most of her borrowed blood in painful, dry-heaving laughter.

Lost the—you lost him? You found the boy from Future’s Rhyme and then you lost him?

The old man watched her laugh with bland amusement. Middle Sister collapsed back against the throne, wheezing, already half a corpse again.

Oh, my lord Advisor, she croaked, almost with affection. Your masters mustn’t be very pleased with you, eh?

The old man’s mouth twitched slightly. “They are not thrilled,” he allowed. He did not sound especially distressed.

He was a funny old riddle, the Emperor’s Advisor. There were flies in his head, certainly. But they seemed to have left behind an unusual amount of brain.

The old man bowed his fly-ridden head, with his wrinkled hand over his heart. “Thus, I am instructed to ask you for further direction, my Lady. Any further words from you would be a blessing.”

I’ve none to give you, Middle Sister said, with real pleasure. And I am hardly in a position to be offering blessings, my dear, she added. She was fading fast now, but there was just enough blood left in her dried-up veins for another pointed arch of her brow.

Advisor squinted at her. Clearly he was thinking hard, and—though maybe this was wishful thinking on Middle Sister’s part—he seemed to be looking with own old man’s eyes, and not with the faceted compound ones hidden behind their sockets.

“Perhaps,” the old man said delicately, “in return for further prophecy. I can persuade my masters to come up with some sort of reward.”

And then he gathered up the chalice—empty, now, of blood—and gave her a sly little smile.

The offer was clear enough.

I’ll see what I can do, my dear, Middle Sister told him, and that was all she had the blood to say.

For now.

----

The dream, when it comes again, goes like this:

There is a hall, with carved alabaster columns and tile the color of the sky, or the Wolf-Killer’s eyes, beautiful—but blown open at the sides, to reveal a sky that is not blue, but is a roiling bloody red as though the clouds themselves were cut open and bleeding to death in the dust.

In the center of the hall there is a tree, and the tree grew from a seed, and the seed was born in blood.

Will be born in blood.

The problem with riding Little Sister’s dreams is that it is hard to keep track of one’s tense.

The other problem with Little Sister’s dreams is that they are starting to repeat, which Middle Sister has never known them to do before—

In spite of herself, she thinks of Little Sister, watching this, over and over—how Little Sister always hurt, how it always hurt Little Sister to dream.

(Middle Sister breathes out, in her sleep, relieved: last time, Little Sister was wild with fright, the dream patchy and confused, as Little Sister snatched fitful minutes of sleep; Little Sister was always frightened of small spaces, and the cage was much too small, twisted her wings in around her little body; now she is sleeping out under the air, and her wings are sore but whole, and at least one of them is free.)

Focus, now, Middle Sister tells herself.

In the center of the hall there is a tree, except that now it is not a tree, it is a door, and the door is shut, but—

(a flutter of fear in Middle Sister’s dry and bloodless chest)

She is not sure the door is locked.

Behind her she hears the fluttering of enormous wings and whirls toward the sound, jealousy sour in her belly; she wants to fly again so badly—

Black birds scatter everywhere; although she is not really there she imagines they kick up quite a breeze.

She watches them go, and thinks that as omens go, this is not traditionally a good one. Last time she rode piggyback on Little Sister’s dreams, when she squinted to see past Little Sisters real-life-present fear, it was almost the same—the hall and the tree and the door—but instead of crows she had heard the howling of wolves, about a thousand great grey monsters with sharp teeth and sharper eyes, and ugh, why can’t Little Sister’s dreams just say what they mean.

As she is thinking this she hears, behind her—the clearing of a throat, simple and quiet. She turns on her nonexistent heel to follow the sound.

There is a girl standing in front of the door-that-is-closed-but-is-not-locked. She has long black hair, covering blunt human ears, and—behind the hair she does not have a face.

The words, when she speaks, are the same as last time, but last time Little Sister was too frightened to properly see the speaker. And Middle Sister can see nothing Little Sister doesn’t see.

The black-haired girl speaks solemnly, although she has no mouth. Her voice is full of—sympathy, perhaps. Middle Sister isn’t sure who for.

She says it again—the same rhyme—which seems to so excite Advisor, or at least the bugs that live inside his skull. It doesn’t mean much to Middle Sister, but she listens carefully.

She wants to know what the words mean, properly, before she gives them up.

----

Fatherless brother

Where did you go?

Does your mother miss you?

Does your sister know?

Little boy lost,

Little boy lying,

Little boy scared,

Little boy hiding.

Little boy hurt,

Little boy crying,

Little boy cold,

Little boy dying.

In two worlds a brother,

In one world a son:

You’ve opened the door, boy.

How fast can you run?

[thenixkat]

More aliens from the Animorphs knock off project. Do note that the Aran are originally from my Aranverse/On Silver Thread project. ANd the Sobrik-Ra are based on my first Indrim design b4 I made those guys racist space ponies for Drako Frajo.

Aran

Big fucking spiders

8 limbs= 6 legs + 2 arms. 6 eyes= 2 large primary forward facing+ 2 secondary eyes on the front corners of the head + 2 secondary eyes on the back corners of the head.

Secondary eyes are good for seeing light/darkness, motion, and shapes. Primary eyes do all that but also fine details, colors, and depth perception. The only blind spot they have is right bedding them since their butts block part of their hind vision.

A diverse and cultured people. The smallest of their kind are dog-sized while the largest are car-sized.  

Come in dozens of colors. And even more patterns. Much like real spiders. They’re separated into 8 races based on body type, hunting strategy, and culture.

Their homeworld is in the middle of a massive apocalypse b/c the male moon (the smaller of their two moons) orbit has changed causing a decent chunk of the land that the nomadic tribes live on to become desert causing famine, disease, and strife over the remaining resources.

The nomadic tribes are the ones enslaved/colonized by the femoro who promised them a steady supply of food and fancy space weapons to wage war with the settled tribes for remaining resources

Have a thing for the number 8. Describe themselves as 8 races descended from their ancestor hero-god Aransi.

Think that mammal-like creatures are actually kind of gross b/c it reminds them of the pest animals on their planet. They fear and respect reptilian creatures as the most dangerous creatures on their planet and many of their gods are giant bird and lizard-like creatures. They think amphibian-like creatures are adorable b/c they remind them of their world’s version of cats and dogs.

Are predatory, eat mostly ‘meat’. Can and do supplement their diet with pollen and nectar/honeydew. Are generally social, tho how social varies with their race.

Taste with their feet and hear with their hair. Are functionally deaf when wearing full-body space suits.

Communicate via hissing, sign language, and dance. Have a ‘written’ language made from knitted silk sheets/scrolls that are read like braille.

Do have access to magic. Electricity-based magic which most use to fly or start fires or power electronics. This makes them partially resistant to the femoros ability to control minds.

Are perfectly fine with cannibalism for many different reasons.

Can spin silk from the spinnerettes on their hands and abdomen

Sobrik-Ra

Bug lizards. If scyther was a digimon

Native to a planet where most of the surface is covered in grasses as long as the ocean is deep. Specifically live in the upper layers of grass where there’s plenty of light and open sky

Have 3 hornlike crystalline eyes. A pheasant-like beak with grinding teeth in the back of their mouth. A long mobile neck. Humanlike torso. Arms somewhere between pterosaur wings and bladed mantis forelegs with thumbless clawed hands. Parrot/woodpecker legs. Tail somewhere between gecko and insect abdomen full of fat/should be full of fat if they’re eating properly. Tough skin made up of chitinous overlapping scales that get spikey over their hips and shoulders and feathery on their back. Can change color depending on their mood, their default is pinkish-orange along their belly side and greener along their topside. They are pale and dull when stressed and more vibrant and lush when happy and dark-colored when content.

They cannot blink and have very good depth perception. And excellent hearing.

Their arm blades are used to cut grass, defend themselves, assist in climbing and gliding.

Are very lightweight for their size, but still very strong. And can leap/brachiate at breakneck speeds.

Their babies cling to their backs by clutching the feathery scales.

Make buildings and clothing from woven grass.

Don’t naturally read or write, do not technically pass the mirror cognition test, have difficulty conceptualizing numbers past 10.

Have a deep oral tradition that stretches unbroken covering over 10 thousand years, most are multilingual and know at least four languages at the conversational level, can accurately memorize the faces and names of hundreds of individuals as well as the social and familial relationships of those people, can navigate solely via the stars even on different planets, can memorize the effects and properties od just as many plants and quickly deduce the properties of newly encountered plants

Herbivores, supplement their diet of grass, epiphytes, fruits, seeds, and fungi with insects and scavenging fresh carcasses and bones.

Relatively peaceful and polite and their primary defense is flight, but they are fully capable of throwing hands and will do so brutally if flight is not an option.

Can heal and regenerate very quickly

Have notably short lifespans, are elderly when they hit their 20s and most don’t make it to 30.

Technically their blades can be disabled the same way that lobster claws and crocodilian mouth can. The opening muscles for their blades are rather weak while the ones for closing are very strong. So duct tape wrapped around their forearms can keep them from using their blades. They can however still slap the shit out of things with their clawed hands.

[moonguilt]

and maybe i climbed it for you

(Written for the Rolling 20 zine, which I highly encourage you to check out!  Also, huge thank you to @kuranico for collabing with me on this!  Please follow them, they are an incredible artist!)

Pairing: Keith/Lance (and Pike/Thunderstorm Darkness)

Wordcount: 5023

Read on my AO3 here!

---------

“Hey there, big boy,” Pike purred, leaning in with his eyes lidded.  “I don't think I've seen many men in this area quite as ... muscular and rugged as yourself.”  His eyes twinkled as he flashed a wink and caught his lower lip between his teeth.  “In fact, I think some free time just opened up in my schedule.  What do you say … you … me … a little privacy?”  He slowly extended a hand, fingers gentle and searching—

———

“I cast Moonbeam.”

“Very well, Keith, please roll for—”

“Hey!” Lance sputtered indignantly, hands flying up in the air as Keith, looking all too leisurely where he sat at Lance's side, reached for the twenty-sided die.  “I was about to seduce him!  I rolled a seventeen!”  He snatched the die right before Keith could grab it, turning it to the side with the number “17” and shoving it in Keith's face for emphasis.  “You can't just barge in and attack him!  I was—I was—”  He let out a groan of sheer aggravation.  “I was really getting into character, too!”

“Yeah, we noticed,” Pidge piped up from across the table, leaning on her elbows and watching Lance's antics with a bored expression on her face.  “Ew, by the way.  Get a room next time.”

“I was trying!”

Keith just rose an unimpressed eyebrow at Lance, then wordlessly plucked the die from his fingers—Lance's skin tingled where their hands made contact—and tossed it onto the table, where it rattled around for a second before coming to a halt.

“Ah! Another seventeen!” Coran exclaimed, a cheery lilt to his voice, unfazed by Lance's huffing and puffing nearby.  “Very good, then, Keith.  So …”

———

Pike was generally not one for heroic quests.  He found them interesting, sure—but he wasn't one to be persuaded by the mere promise of noble accolades.  Money and fun, though—those were motivators he could get behind.  A little (or, well, a lot of) cash and a bit of adventure was all it took to catch his attention, and he prided himself on showing off his genius plans and his uncanny ability to outmaneuver the enemy.

He had agreed to join up with this traveling group on their mission to defeat something called a Xloraznor under the condition that he would: a) receive a sparkling heap of silver coins as his cut of the reward, and b) get to satisfy his thrill-seeking, wanderlust desires to his heart's content.

He considered his flirting skills to be not only top-notch, but also an essential part of his ideal adventure fantasy, and so it was getting on his nerves that a certain companion of his seemed incapable of letting him do his job.  Every time he attempted to charm his way past an enemy encounter, the party's obnoxious druid decided to attack the target instead, like some kind of boneheaded barbarian.  It was denying Pike any opportunity to show off his brilliant seduction skills, and it was making this journey much longer and more combat-heavy than it needed to be.

“Aren't druids supposed to, like, value life and all that?” Pike grumbled, kicking pebbles as the group trekked through the Forest of Clianuun on their way to Elmora-by-the-Falls.  “I thought that was your whole thing.”

Thunderstorm Darkness, in all his ridiculous, brooding glory, did not even spare Pike a glance as he stepped over a fallen branch and continued following the others toward a faint sound of running water.  “Do I look like that kind of druid?” he replied dryly, his tone flat.

Pike gave him a quick once-over.  Thunderstorm certainly had the animalistic qualities of a stereotypical druid, but admittedly not the nurturing, life-loving ones.  His attire was dark and rugged, revealing enough to expose rather dangerous-looking muscles along his arms, which started off pale and faded into dark black hands with vicious claws—a notable sign, along with his pointed ears and glowing silver eyes, of the galra blood in his veins.  His jet black hair fell in a braid down to his knees, and long bangs framed his angular face, which was decorated in red paint that Pike still suspected might have traces of enemy blood in it.  Thunder always seemed offended at the implication, but hey, he was the one giving off constant murder-vibes.

In all honesty, Pike probably would have protested Thunder’s place in their group by now, if it weren’t for the mildly annoying fact that he found the druid to be unfairly attractive.  It wasn’t his fault, okay?  Really, who walks around with their biceps just hanging out for the world to see?

“… Guess not,” Pike eventually muttered beneath his breath, shaking his head to clear his thoughts.  He opened his mouth, ready to formulate some off-the-cuff insult—

“Look!” Valayun's voice rang out ahead.  “There it is! Elmora-by-the-Falls!”  She pointed through the foliage and took off into the brush, and a moment later, her gasp sounded in the distance.  “Oh, it's beautiful …”

Eager to lay eyes on whatever Valayun was gushing about, the rest of the party picked up the pace and pushed their way through a swath of hanging fern-like vines.  What they saw when they emerged on the other side was … well, Pike thought “beautiful” was an astonishing understatement on Valayun's part.

Pristine marble towers stretched high into the sky, rivaling the treeline and glinting in the afternoon sunlight.  Vibrant pink ivy climbed up their shining surfaces, and expertly secured rope bridges connected the peaks of each tower so that citizens could easily commute from one to the next.  Flowers of all shapes and colors grew along the ropes and spilled down in great draping clusters to hang over the streets and houses below.  The buildings on the ground level looked like giant, upturned clay pottery—ruddy orange and round, with symmetrical designs carved all over the outsides.  No two houses looked the same.

The entire town of Elmora-by-the-Falls was bordered by a three-foot-tall hedge that was home to a species of flying bug that glowed violet, even in the daytime.  They buzzed, but not like bees—almost like birds, actually; their humming had a lovely sort of melody.  Pike found himself perking his ears just to catch the tune.

Beyond the grand display was the town's namesake: Clianuun Falls.  It was magnificent and awe-inspiring: bright blue water catching every ray of the sun as it tumbled over the crest of the cliff side against which Elmora-by-the-Falls was nestled.  The water drummed ceaselessly into a pool below, which then flowed out into a small river that burbled playfully as it trailed off into the forest.

Once the party managed to break themselves out of their trance, they started tentatively moving toward the town gate, staying quiet for fear of shattering the tranquility of the scene before them.  Even so, the purple bugs scattered to avoid the group, and as they passed by the riverbank, a pair of water sprites stopped dancing along the surface and chirped to each other before flying further downstream.

“This place is so pretty I could cry,” Block breathed, gripping his staff tightly with both hands—a nervous habit of his.  He sniffed once, and his lip quivered.  “Aw, man, I am crying!”

Meklavar patted him on the back, as high up as she could reach.  “Keep it together, Block,” she warned, her eyes alert.  “Just because it's pretty and flowery doesn't mean it's friendly.  Some species of flower are known for being beautiful, but will spit poison in your face if you aren't—”

“Relax, Mekky-Mek,” Pike said, then winced when Meklavar shot him a glare.  “Yeah, okay, the nickname could use some work.  Anyway!”  As they neared the gate, he turned around, opting to walk backwards while he fixed the dwarf with a cocky grin.  “I'm something of an expert in mood-reading.  And this place?”  He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.  “Good vibes, my small, cynical friend.”  His tail swished back and forth at a lazy pace.  “This is gonna be a piece of cake.  We drop in, get what we need, maybe meet a few lovely—aiee!”

Pike jumped a full two feet in the air when he felt his back press against something solid and distinctly person-shaped.  He scrambled for balance and spun around, finding himself face-to-face with a grim-looking guard in a full suit of armor.  Her hand was gripped tightly around a halberd, and her eyes spoke of danger.

“Outsiders are not welcome in Elmora-by-the-Falls,” she intoned in a deep, gravelly voice.  “You will leave now.”  She raised her halberd and slammed the butt of the weapon into the ground, making a sharp cracking noise that had Pike covering his sensitive ears.

“Gah!  Hey, no no no no,” he protested, ears now flat against his head.  “I—uh.”  He cleared his throat, put on his best, most charming smile, and batted his eyes up at the woman.  “I'm sure there's something I could do to convince you …”

She met his sultry gaze with a hard stare.

Pike winced a little, but recovered quickly.  “You know … some kind of … arrangement, between you and me?”  He slowly, slowly licked his lips.  “You'll find I have many talents … especially in the—”

———

“I cast Moonbeam.”

“Wha—Keith!”  Lance clambered over the table, his long limbs flailing as he grabbed the die before Keith could so much as twitch.  “Stop ruining my class fantasy!”  His eyes were blazing with genuine annoyance as he shimmied back into his seat, clutching the die to his chest protectively.  “I have very high charisma!  This is supposed to be my thing!”

Keith returned Lance's glare with one of his own.  “Has it occurred to you that maybe my class fantasy doesn't involve sitting here watching you flirt relentlessly with every single NPC we come across?” he retorted, then reached a hand out toward Lance's closed fist.

“Back!” Lance objected, smacking at Keith's intrusive fingers with his free hand while lifting the one with the die as far away from Keith as he could.  “Back, you monster!”  His arm protested the strain, but he held strong as Keith started grappling with him, trying to pull the die-hand back down while Lance smooshed a palm into his face.  It would have been easier if Lance’s traitorous heart wasn’t beating rapidly in its cage at the physical contact, but … he wasn’t complaining.  In fact—

And then Keith stood up, and Lance realized:

Oh.  That's not good.

Lance shrieked and pulled his hand back down to his chest, turning away and curling into a ball with his precious die tucked securely against his sternum.  He managed to remain impervious to Keith's prodding for a few moments, until Keith decided to switch to the tickling tactic, at which point Lance broke down into laughter and gasped for mercy.  Keith, like the absolute demon he was, just smiled.

“… As entertaining as I'm sure this is for both of you,” Shiro spoke up, causing Keith to choke on his own spit while Lance willed his cheeks to cool down, “I have a Zumba class with Adam in an hour and I still need to get changed, so I'd appreciate it if we could keep things moving.”  His mouth quirked with faint amusement, but his eyes betrayed his exhaustion.

Keith sat back down and turned to Lance, raising an eyebrow expectantly.  He outstretched his hand, palm up, and made the universal “give it here” motion.

Lance grumbled as he pulled himself upright, pursing his lips and eyeing Keith contemplatively for a moment.  “Actually,” he said, his lips twisting into a smirk just as Keith's started to twist into a scowl.  “Coran, I have an idea.”  His heartbeat was still recovering from earlier, but he managed to slip on a cocky facade.  “So, you wanna go around killing everyone I flirt with, huh?”

Keith's frown deepened with confusion.

Lance's grin spread.

Keith's eyes widened.

———

“Why, Thunder, has anyone ever told you your eyes are like the sparkling gemstones of the Ilygia Mountains?” Pike inquired, sidling up to the druid's side as the others watched with expressions that ranged from surprise to intrigue to disgust.

Thunderstorm's face darkened with a flush that crept from his throat to his ears—

———

“My character would not blush!”

“I'm sorry, Keith, but that was a very good roll,” Coran admitted, looking up from the game.  “Thunder isn't immune to Pike's advances.”  He shrugged helplessly, but there was a twinkle in his eye.

———

“I love this outfit of yours, Thunder … It shows off your delicious biceps … How did you get so strong?”

“After my older sister was killed by a band of Arovian brigands, I swore to train every day so I could avenge—”

———

“Coran!  You can't just reveal my character's origin story without my consent!”

“My dear boy, Pike is quite the charismatic fellow!  Now, where were we?  You begin to feel like you can truly trust Pike with your heart's deepest secrets …”

“Hold on.  Lance, gimme that stupid die.  Coran, I'm rolling to seduce.”

———

If anyone had told Pike at breakfast this morning that he would be flirting with Thunderstorm Darkness before sundown, he would have laughed it off entirely.  The druid was as prickly as they came, and he had acquired a nasty habit of relying on violence for, well, everything.  Not exactly the safest target for Pike's romantic endeavors.  Sure, he was admittedly a handsome man, but he seemed like the type to bite Pike's hand off if he got too close.

But, here Pike was.

With his hand.  On Thunder's cheek.  In broad daylight.

This was meant to be a joke—a brief reprieve to lighten the mood and perhaps get that stuffy guard to crack a smile.

And now Pike was falling in love.  Which, first of all, what?  It was only a few minutes ago that he had started flirting for fun, but things turned very serious very quickly, and now suddenly he was practically swooning as Thunder turned his head to press his lips to the palm of Pike's hand.  Again, what?  If someone told him right now that some omnipotent force had waved a magic wand and decreed the two to be head-over-heels for one another, Pike would probably believe it.

Whatever the case, Pike was never one to question the power of true love.  And as Thunder fixed him with a heavy-lidded stare, dark and intense and enamored, Pike felt the words tumble out of his mouth before he could stop them:

“Will you marry me?”

———

“Oh my God,” Hunk whispered, biting his fist and watching with wide eyes.  “Oh my God, he went for it.”

Lance puffed out his chest, ignoring the blush that he felt flooding his face.  “That's right,” he declared, placing his arms behind his head and leaning back on the couch.  “I went for it.”  He fixed Keith with his laziest smirk, letting his left knee knock into Keith's right leg teasingly.  “I win.”

Lance thought Keith was sure to burn a hole in both of their legs from how hard he was staring at the point of contact, but instead, he just turned an unreadable gaze toward Lance and said, “Oh really?”

Lance's smirk faltered.

Keith didn't look away.  “Coran, I say …”

———

“Yes.”

Pike's blood pounded in his veins as the words reached his ears.  He blinked owlishly at Thunder, feeling his heart overflow with immeasurable joy, and suddenly beamed.  “Yes?” he repeated in awe, his smile blinding as he leaned in close.  Thunder's expression was fond and doting as he mirrored the movement, tilting his head as his lips grew closer to Pike's—

“What a joyous occasion!”

Pike and Thunder pulled back a bit, exchanging a bewildered glance before looking over toward the gate.  There stood, of all people, the guard from earlier—surrounded now by a small crowd of Elmoran citizens.  Her face stretched into a broad, happy grin as she regarded the pair, and the crowd, which consisted mostly of humans and a handful of elves, erupted in cheers.

“Congratulations,” she announced, stepping toward Pike and Thunder, both of whom were mildly frazzled by the shouting.  “Elmora-by-the-Falls is most honored that you have chosen our town as the location of your engagement.  Truly, we are humbled and grateful beyond words for your kindness this day.”  She laid a hand on both of their shoulders, her expression warm and inviting.  “Please, allow us to welcome you into our home.  You and your companions are our most treasured guests.”

Pike was still stunned into silence, but after a quick jab from Thunder, he nodded swiftly.  “Uh, yeah! Yes. Totally.”  He hurried to catch up as the guard spun around and marched off toward the town.  Finally, he and Thunder managed to spare a look over their shoulders.  The rest of the party just gaped, wordlessly shuffling forward as excited citizens began beckoning them all through the gates.

Elmora-by-the-Falls was even more splendid from the inside, Pike decided as he followed the guard through the winding cobblestone streets.  He looped an arm around Thunder's elbow and peered about in amazement, blinking as small children ran past them with cries of “a wedding! A wedding!”  Citizens stopped in the street to gawk at the procession, and soon people started emerging from their round, engraved houses to offer well-wishes and words of gratitude.  The children returned a few minutes later with two long necklaces made of pink ivy from the towers, and Pike graciously accepted both of them when Thunder failed to do anything other than squint in confusion.

“Thunder,” Pike admonished, donning his own necklace and then reaching to put the other one on the druid.  “It's a necklace. You wear it on your neck, stupid.”  Pike winced and shook his head all of a sudden.  “I mean, sweetheart.”  Weird.

———

“Ugh,” Lance groaned, planting his head on the table after his little slip-up with Pike's dialogue.  “This is too hard.  Let's get a divorce.”

“We're not married yet, 'sweetheart.'”

“Don't you 'sweetheart' me, sweetheart,” Lance grouched, peeling his face from the table and jabbing an accusatory finger in Keith's direction.  “This would never have happened if you hadn't tried to turn this into a flirting competition.”

Keith hummed, leaning back in his seat and picking at his gloves with an air of fake casualness.  “Well, at least this answers the question of who wins.”  His eyes, aglow with the glint of challenge, darted in Lance's direction.  Lance's throat suddenly felt quite dry. “Since you're throwing in the towel.”

Lance opened his mouth once, shut it, opened it again, then began making blustery noises of inarticulate indignation.  There was no way he could let Keith win at romance.  He would never live it down.

“Uh, no no,” Hunk interrupted, frowning sternly at the two of them.  “Nobody's throwing in the towel.  In case you've forgotten, the sorceress told us we need Clia Root from this place, and the only reason we're allowed to set foot here right now is because you two—”  He pointed at them both emphatically.  “—are gonna make moon eyes at each other and smooch under a flower pot or wash your armpits in the Clianuun Falls or whatever these guys do to celebrate a wedding.”  His voice and expression left no room for argument.

Lance grimaced at the mental image, but nevertheless turned to meet Keith's gaze.  They both stared at each other for a moment, then simultaneously nodded in silent agreement.

———

So, it turned out that weddings were kind of a huge deal in Elmora-by-the-Falls.  Like, a monumental deal.  Pike had done some asking around while he was being whisked through the streets.

According to Elmoran tradition, marriage was not something to be taken lightly.  It was extremely rare for romantic partners to decide to join each other in union; the vast majority of Elmoran people spent their whole lives unmarried, to the extent that there was, on average, only one wedding per decade in Elmora-by-the-Falls.  A wedding was said to bring the town spiritual favor and good luck for an entire year afterwards, so when someone did get married, it was received with overwhelming joy by the general populace.

It just so happened that Elmora-by-the-Falls had not hosted a wedding for thirteen long years.  They were practically itching to get the ceremony started, and so it was not long before Pike and Thunder found themselves shoved out onto a marble balcony by a plethora of eager hands.

The balcony was already meticulously arranged: a sturdy burgundy cloth canopy swayed in the breeze overhead, acting as a sort of ceiling, and holes had been cut in the fabric to allow flowering vines to drape down in various places.  The edge of the balcony was lined with a shorter variant of the bushes that bordered the town; the strange little purple bugs glowed as they flitted around harmlessly.  The sun was beginning to set now, so their glow was more prominent against the backdrop of Elmora-by-the-Falls at evening time.  To the left, the waterfall roared; it was far enough not to be an inconvenience to the ceremony, but close enough to cast a fine, cooling mist that Pike reveled in.

The centerpiece, however, was the small white table set up at the edge of the balcony.  It was simple and square, about two feet high, and on its surface sat two small wooden bowls, a pitcher of water, and an array of sparkling powders whose rich and varied hues reminded Pike of a spice stall.

Pike and Thunder shared a look, then instinctively reached for each other's hands—because that was a thing now, them being stupidly in love—before approaching the table.  A cheery old Elmoran woman followed behind, hurrying them along, while the rest of the party spread out to the sides of the balcony and watched with a mixture of fascination and wariness.

“There you go, you two, right up to the front,” the old woman babbled, then grabbed them and turned them to face each other.  “Now, you see the soul dust?”  She gestured to the wooden display piece that held all of the powders in little carved-out holes.  Pike shot a look of alarm toward Thunder and mouthed “soul dust” at him, but the woman either did not notice or did not care.  “You will select the soul dust that you feel best embodies your partner.  It must be an instinctive decision.  Follow what you are most drawn to.”  One crooked finger pointed at the pitcher of water.  “You will use the pitcher to fill the bowls with the waters of Clianuun Falls.”  The finger shifted down toward the two small bowls.  “And then you will pinch your chosen powder into your bowl.  It will disperse in the water, and you will drink it.”

Pike waited for her to continue.

She did not.

“Is that it?” Thunder spoke up, voicing Pike's own confusion.

The woman huffed indignantly.  “Is that it?” she repeated, shaking her head and tutting as she turned around and hobbled off to the seats in the back.  “The boy is about to bind his soul in sacred matrimony, and he asks, 'Is that it?'”  Her muttering became unintelligible as she lowered herself into a plush chair.

Thunder blinked once at her, then turned back to Pike with a glimmer of determination in his eye.  “Ready?”  He squeezed Pike's hand briefly before finally dropping it.

Pike flashed him his most swoon-worthy grin.  “Born ready, baby!”  He whirled around to face the table and immediately grabbed the pitcher, pouring it into his bowl—and into Thunder's, because he was a gentleman, of course.  He wasted no time in inspecting the powders; he knew exactly what he wanted, and he spotted it instantly: a bright vermilion, twinkling like fairy dust.  With delicate precision, he transferred several pinches of the substance into his bowl and gasped as the water took on a glittering red color and began to emit a beautiful glow.

Thunder seemed similarly certain of his choice—an azure powder, Pike noted with no small amount of intrigue—but far less concerned with finesse.  He was just scooping the stuff into his bowl as if he was seasoning soup.  It was maddening, but it was also very Thunder, and for some reason that was no longer a negative assessment.

Thunder's water swirled into a shimmering blue, then started glowing just as Pike's had. The druid let out a soft “oh” and waited for a second, then gently—surprisingly gently, considering his manhandling of the soul dust—cupped the bowl in his hands and cradled it in front of his chest.  He turned to face Pike again, waiting for the man to mirror him, and when he did, they both stood there, suspended for a long moment.  Their gazes flickered quietly between the bowls and each other.

“Well,” Pike finally chirped, taking a deep breath.  “Bottoms up.”  He knocked the whole thing back in one go, coughing a bit when it went down the wrong way; Thunder merely watched with amusement and tipped his own bowl back, and their Elmoran audience erupted with praise.  “Eurgh,” Pike groaned, wincing at the flavor.  “Your soul tastes weird.”  He raised his hands in a placating fashion when he caught Thunder's flat look.  “But like, weird in a good way!  You know, in a romantic way!”

Thunder, impatient as ever, simply grabbed Pike's bowl, stacked it over his own, set them both down on the table, and placed his clawed hands on Pike's hips.  “I want to kiss you now,” he stated honestly and with no hesitation.  His lips glowed with a faint blue gloss—the remnants of his soul dust concoction.  It made Pike's heart stutter.

“Wh—uh—”  Pike paused for a second to regain himself.  “Um.”  He watched as Thunder tilted his head, his gaze penetrating and inquisitive as he waited for permission.  His eyes dipped to Pike's mouth.  Pike swallowed.  Waited.  And then: “Yes.”  And then again: “Yes yes yes yes.  Come here.  Yes.”

And Pike marveled at the rumbling laughter that escaped Thunder's lips as he leaned in, more than happy to oblige.

———

“Sorry, everyone, but I think that's all we have time for tonight,” Coran announced, his tone predictably peppy as he reached across the table to collect the various devices and dice that had gotten scattered about over the course of the previous couple of hours.  “An excellent session, if I do say so myself.  At this rate, you'll get that Clia Root in no time!”

“What?!” Lance interjected, rising to his feet.  He barely noticed as Keith stood with him.  “We only just got to kiss!  You can't just cut it off there!”  He spread his arms with outrage, smacking Keith in the chest by accident.  Oh, Lance thought absently.  That’s a nice chest.

Rather than bat the hand away, Keith said, “Lance is right.  We're in the middle of an action.  We should finish the scene.”  His mouth was set in a firm line, and his brows were drawn together in a display of resoluteness.  It was oddly attractive.

God, Lance was starting to find Keith's stupid eyebrows attractive.  How far he had fallen.

“Hm,” Allura began, a mischievous, faux-thoughtful lilt to her voice.  “I thought you two weren't enjoying this?”  Her expression was innocent enough, aside from the hint of a smile that she tried to hide by busying herself with gathering her belongings.  “Did something change?”

Lance squawked and turned to the others for help, but the traitors seemed preoccupied with grabbing their things and getting out.  “This is—it's not—”  He folded his arms across his chest and glared as Hunk, Pidge, and Allura, gave casual little waves and strolled through the door as if Lance was not currently having a crisis.  Hel-lo.

He was so caught up in his indignation that he failed to analyze Keith's silence as they all packed up and prepared to leave.  It wasn't until Lance was halfway out the door that he paused and turned around, only to find that Keith had followed him, that easily-identifiable Keith-brand of concentration plain on his face.  Still reeling from his embarrassment, Lance was seized by the conflicting impulses of wanting to crawl into a hole and die, and wanting to keep staring until his eyes fell out of their sockets, because—

Because Keith was blushing.  Wow.  What a sight.  It was darker around his neck, fainter around his jaw, and bright as a cherry on the smooth skin just below his cheekbones, where it mottled like sunlight on an ocean floor.

“Hey,” he said.

“… Hey,” Lance replied.

“Do you want to grab dinner with me?”  He looked like he was sucking on a particularly sour lemon.  It would have been funny if it wasn't mildly alarming.  “I was thinking we could talk some things over.”  His head was held high, but his hands were shoved in his pockets awkwardly, like he couldn't decide what to do with them.  “For—you know, for our characters.”

Lance felt his throat tie itself into a knot, twisting around at the base of his neck.  He regarded Keith for a moment, trying to read this odd behavior while simultaneously trying to convince himself this is not a date, McClain; you guys hang out all the time.  Get your head out of Elmora-by-the-Falls.  He thought he did a pretty credible job of ignoring the fluttering of his heart and keeping his expression neutral as he said, “Yeah, man.  Sure.”  He lifted his shoulders in a huge shrug.  Oo, no. Overkill.  His shoulders sank back down.  Casual.  Chill.

“Cool,” Keith breathed with a smile, like he could just do that, like it was simple.

And maybe it was.

“Yeah,” Lance replied, turning toward the exit and burying his own smile in the collar of his jacket. “Cool.”

———

“Hey, Coran?”

“Why, yes, Shiro?  How can I help?”

“Didn't you say you came up with all of these plots in your head?  Did you just … invent the whole sacred marriage tradition on the spot?”

“Shiro, my dear friend, sometimes one must guide the hand of fate.”

[x0401x]

Q&A with the Archery Men

Translated compilation of the eleven-part Q&A from the official Twitter. Feel free to message me about any mistakes. Please consider supporting the creator by purchasing the novels here and here. (Raws || Index)

Question 1. What is your family structure?

I live with just my father. My mother passed away in a car accident when I was in sixth grade.

I live with my father and mother. My older brother lives by himself. Of course, Kuma is a precious family member too.

Grandma, Dad, Mom and Nee-chan! Eeeveryone is nice! I’m a grandma’s boy.

Dad, Mom and little sis! If I do say so myself, I think we’re a family of good-looking men and women. ★

Dad, Mom, two big sisters and our cat, Lucy. The height of my shoulders is close to my Dad’s.

Dad, Mom, Aniki. Dad and Aniki travel outside of the prefecture for work-related matters. I also currently live by myself in an apartment complex close to the shrine.

Father, mother, younger sister. There’s a bit of a gap between mine and my sister’s ages, so we have never played together that much...

Question 2. What’s a food (or drink) that you like?

Egg rolls. Not with sugar but salt! It’s gotta be salt!

Stir-fried water spinach. I’ve never come across a stir-fried water spinach that wasn’t delicious.

Cream stew! I kinda feel happy whenever I eat it.

Soy latte. ❤ Soy is good for health and soy latte is fashionable, huh?

Salted plum. It has a bactericidal effect for recovery from fatigue and is also all-purpose! I have it pickled at home.

Coffee. The ones you can drip yourself are good, but I also like canned coffee. Getting to enjoy the scent is kinda adult-like, isn’t it?

kyoani did you really have to romanize his name like that oh my god

Japanese-style food in general. Spending time with my grandfather might have had a big influence on this. I like takoyaki.

Question 3. Any foods (or drinks) that you hate?

Japanese ginger. That smell is just... I wonder if I’ll grow to like it when I become an adult...

Ratatouille. Lots of things I don’t like are mixed in it... What I don’t like is a secret.

Sukiyaki... Everyone likes it, but I once ate too much and ended up feeling sick...

Bitter gourd. I’m a bit bad at dealing with bitterness. Ah, but if it’s a bitter gourd chanpuru made by you, I’ll eat it. ❤

Chocolate. Can’t really eat sweet stuff...

Eggplant. The texture doesn’t go well no matter what...

I make sure not to hate anything.

Question 4. What are your hobbies?

Pottering. I also go play in the river with Seiya a lot during summer. Of course, Kuma comes too!

Watching soccer games. I like collecting data and coming up with tactics. Eh, why don’t I play it myself, you ask? Haha, because I’m more on the analytical side of it!

Bouldering and traditional drums! I like moving my body, and traditional drums have been on display at a festival in my hometown too!

I like gaming and mangas! But what I’m into right now is gathering frog merch. ❤ The girls give me lots of goods.

Gaming and reading. There’s a game I’m into now, and coming up with tactics is really fun. As for reading, anything goes, I guess... What d’you mean by “that’s unexpected”?

Visiting cafés and enjoying the shop’s coffee! I enjoy reading too. I also go hitch-hiking and there was a time I went on a journey.

I don’t have what could be called a hobby, so... let’s go with “meditating”.

Question 5. Any special abilities?

None in particular. Saying, “This is my talent!” is kinda embarrassing...

Creating smartphone apps. I also register my hit counts in my own self-made app. It’s pretty simple to make one, y’know?

Kendou! I was in the kendou club in middle school. But I don’t like hurting my opponents...

Hip-hop dancing! Cool, ain’t it? I’m also in the middle of studying many languages, not just English! Maybe because I sound good, I get compliments on my pronounciation.

Archery! Nothing other than that! Period!

Car driving. Parallel parking is a breeze too! But the roads and parking lots are large here, so I don’t do parallel parking that often...

None in particular. Aah, archery? I don’t want to attribute it to a category as narrow as “special abilities”.

Question 6. Are you a dog person or cat person?

Kuma! He’s the dog kept at Seiya’s place, and he’s cute and a good boy! I wanna cuddle with him!

Dog, I guess. My Kuma is more attached to Minato than to me, though... I can’t get in-between the two of them.

Dog! People tell me I’m like a golden retriever, so my affinity with them just goes up on its own!

I’m a kitty person. ❤ Of course, I’m talking about you!

Cat. Our Lucy is obviously the cutest thing in the world.

Can’t I be an owl person? In the past, after I took care of an owl that got injured, I became an owl person!

Dog. Japanese breeds are cool, aren’t they?

Question 7. Sea person? Mountains person?

Mountains. I used to often go insect hunting when I was a kid, and climbing trees is my specialty! Be it in spring, summer, fall or winter, there’s a lot to enjoy.

Mountains. When I was a child, I often went to play in them with Minato. I also quite like playing in the river.

Both! I can’t choose between either sea or mountains~. Except, the fact that there are bugs in the mountains and jellyfish in the sea is a bit...

Sea, I guess! I wanna walk on sandy dunes with you. ❤

Sea. Hey, don’t go making that “thought so~” face. I’m into hover boating.

Sea. Why, you ask? Because pretty women in swimsuits are there!

Mountains. My parents have a villa, you see. I’d often play there when I was little.

Question 8. If you could move through space and time, would you want to travel to the past or the future?

Future. I’m sometimes like, “I should’ve done this or that”, but rather than thinking about these things, I wanna move forward.

Past. The reason is a secret.

Future! I wanna try riding on flying cars! Also, maybe going to outer space!

To a happy future with you, I guess. ❤

Past. I’d become a warlord in the Warring States era! The warlord I admire is Date Masamune!

I live cherishing the present. That’s the most important.

Either. If I were to say it, I guess it’d be the future. I’m interested in space travel.

Question 9. What if you could use magic?

I could easily buy the stuff I want in limited-time sales. Last time, a 90%-off black wagyu fillet sold out before my eyes...

Controlling people’s minds. Haha, why’re you looking away?

I wanna try flying in the sky! If I do that, maybe I’d get to be friends with birds!

I don’t need magic. Like, it’s meaningless if you don’t make it happen with your own hands.

Not interested. It kinda feels like there’d be a catch, so I can’t trust it. For example, losing something important every time you use magic...

I’d be able to perfectly clean up the shrine’s grounds in an instant! We’re short-handed, so the cleaning takes up time... I wonder if someone couldn’t help out.

I wouldn’t rely on magic. It feels like I’d soon lose anything I get my hands on without effort.

Question 10. What’s something that made you happy lately?

I got to buy a good pork meat in a limited-time sale. But even though I made ginger pork with it, Dad said he was coming back late from work so he didn’t need it...

That I was able to safely enroll into high school. Eh, sounds like a lie, you say? It’s true.

I found a four-leaf clover! I gave it to Onee-chan!

That I met you. ❤ Hey, are you happy that you met me?

I went to the live show of a band I like. The lyrics that the vocalist writes pierce into your heart...

I got “winner” at the vending machine. I have strong luck, if I do say so myself! Guess I’ll try my hand at buying a lottery ticket or something if it goes on like that...

My sister drew a portrait of me. Of course, I keep it soundly in a safe place.

Question 11. What’s something that made you cry recently?

Tears came out when I was cutting the onions for the ginger pork. I was spacing out...

I don’t cry. If I have time to be crying, I make some effort to get strong instead.

I cried after watching a movie about animals! The child-raising struggles of that cheetah mom were so touching... *cries upon remembering it*

Out of happiness for meeting you. ❤ Speaking of which, why have you been giving me this cold look since earlier!?

I don’t cry.

You used to cry like a pipe in the past!

Shaddap! It’s in the past!

I haven’t ever since I became an adult. My tears have dried up... Just kidding!

I didn’t cry even when I was a child. I don’t even know what’s the kind of time that one should shed tears.

[shigarakis-fifth-hand]

Yandere! Shigaraki x Reader; All An Illusion

tw: kidnapping, messed up relationship, parental abuse, eating disorder, knifes, gayness, depression, stalking

❤️ Enjoy the series! one two

I know heroes are supposed to hate villains with a passion and don't get me wrong, I do. But, my alarm clock comes close in second. I slap that sucker with my fist, sending it to the ground and unplugging it. " I hate Mondays," I tell myself, dragging myself out of bed and putting on my white fuzzy socks. As I walk to the bathroom, I take my icy blue, almost white hair out of the ponytail that is half undone. 

Looking into the mirror, I almost am scared of myself. I look like a zombie. I put on some music and wash my face before going to the closet. My dorm room isn't huge, but it's nice. Especially since my roommate is one of the gayest, most fanboyish guy in the world. "Deku! Did you take my concealer again?" I shake the broccoli headed boy, waking him up.

"Wha- oh, ya. Sorry Y/n, it helps cover up all the bruises from training. I don't like anyone worrying about me, and with all the news reporters, I'm scared my mom will see." I think of Deku's mom. 

So nice, so sweet, and such a good cook. 

"Yea, you're lucky about that one." I sadly smile, taking it from his bedside table. "Just let me buy you your own, or get your boyfriend to buy you one. What if you wake up someday and you're tan?" I tease as he throws a pillow in my direction. "Todoroki isn't just my boyfriend Y/n, he's my soulmate. Don't be jelly." he jokes. "At least my eyes didn't look like Christmas colors until this year." We both giggle hysterically.

In our world, everyone is born with two different colored eyes. Our left color is the one of our soulmate, and the right one is our own color. Once we make eye contact with our soulmates, they return back to their original color. My eyes are red on the left, and then purple.

 I go to the opposite wall and open the windows, letting the sunrise fill our view. Even though Deku covers his face with a pillow, I can't help but watch the birds in the distance. They're free to go wherever, be with whoever. They're not stuck in a certain place, they fly everywhere and anywhere they want to.

I do some makeup and curl my hair a little bit before slipping into my uniform. "Y/n, you've been getting skinnier. Are you okay?" Deku asks, waiting for me by the door. He's already in the UA uniform and is currently eating one of the donuts his mom brought for us yesterday. "Oh ya, I've just been training so much it's hard to find time to eat. But I'm fine. See?" 

I grab a donut and take a bite, chewing it slowly and giving him a fake smile. He smiles back, relieved as I slip on my shoes and take a final look in the mirror, trying not to throw up. My eyes are purple, but today they're looking extra vibrant. Maybe it's the sunlight filling the room, or the fact that I cried myself to sleep last night. Either way, they look different. Deku and I walk down the hall as I try to find a way to get the bite of donut out of my mouth without him seeing.

I haven't eaten anything for over 48 hours, and I can't have the first thing be full of calories and sugar. Finally, we get to the classroom. When Deku walks in, I immediately spit it out and stuff the donut into the nearby trash can where nobody can see. I feel bad about wasting food, but I would feel worse if anybody knew about me not eating. I sit down in Bakugo's seat so I can talk to Deku, eventually talking to Todoroki and Mina. 

Finally, Mr. Aizawa comes into class, followed by someone I don't know, and we all sit down. "Today we are going on a trip to the USJ for some training. Go change, and come straight back." I quickly go up as Mina and Asui join by my side to walk to the girls changing area. I hate this part with a dying passion, letting everyone see my scars, bruises, and ribs. It always starts a conversation that I don't like, making people worry about me. 

"So Y/n, I've been thinking. You haven't told me about a single crush that you've had since we got here. What's up with that?" Mina looks at me with curiosity. "I just don't see the point in dating someone who's not your soulmate. It seems like a waste of time." Mina laughs at my response, taking off her uniform and changing. 

"I've noticed that too, actually. I-" Uruaka stops talking as I take off my shirt. Everyone's eyes bug out, looking at the colorful display on my body. A large gash is in the middle of my shoulder, and another as my hip. There's a new scar near my collar bone and a large bruise on my upper stomach. " Y/n... What happened?"

Ururaka steps closer to examine me, before reaching out to touch the large scar on my arm. "Uh, Sensei has been training me extra hard lately. It's fine." I quickly put on my uniform outfit and fix my hair as Mina tries to start up the other conversation. "Anyways, do you really not like anyone else? What about Kirishima, or Sero? Personally I thought you'd be cute with Asui, or Momo. But Momo already is soulmates with Jirou, and Ururaka is soulmates with Asui." 

I laugh, thinking about how all my friends have been able to find their soulmate in our class, except me. It's kind of sad honestly. Is it impossible for me to develop feelings for people? Am I that hopeless? Maybe my soulmate is gone, or has found someone else. Maybe I’ll never find them.

Ururaka chimes in, but I blank her out mostly. "Maybe Tenya, but he gives me asexual vibes. I think you'd be cute with Shinso but..." I stopped listening as we walked to the courtyard of UA, where everyone else waited. "Fashionably late is not acceptable ladies. I expect you earlier next time." Aizawa told us as they stopped talking. "And ( y/n ), take your contacts off." 

I slid the contacts out and into my contact case. We all loaded up on the bus as Lida gave all the boys a hard time about the seating chart. I sat between Mina and Asui near the window, playing footsies with Momo for a little bit before I put my music in. Just loud enough to drown everyone out, I rested my eyes.

I guess it would be good to tell you about myself. Well, you already know I have icy blue hair that turned even lighter since I've been in the sun so much. My skin is darker than my friends, but I wouldn't call myself tan. I'm Y/n Kayama, the daughter of Kora and Magazaki Kayama. Kora Kayama, my mother, is currently in rehab for her addiction to her meds. The nurses at her facility tell me all the time that she says terrible things about me. It's not a surprise to me though, she always hated me. My dad wasn't any better though, as he drunk a lot and hurt me a lot before we got the dorms system.

 That's what all the bruises were from, not training, but my dad's fist. He was a gang member, who went to prison for trying to attacking a fellow gang member, and sent my mom to rehab because she was the only one in his way of having complete custody over us. He was obsessed with completely controlling us... well, I say us, but it’s just me now.

My sister killed herself last fall when I got into UA, she knew I'd be able to take care of myself and wouldn't need her to live. She felt her only reason for living was to keep me safe, and when we got dorms, she felt she was finally free. I remember watching her jump off the large red bridge downtown, the smile on her face. She hadn't smiled like that in a while. 

When my dad showed up to the school and demanded to see me, his breath smelling like alcohol and his tattoos showing, Aizawa knew something was up. Aizawa and my father had been acquaintances when they were kids, but my dad went down the wrong path. Aizawa knew about the drinking, smoking, gangs, and his violent attitude. Aizawa instantly looked over me and my sister from the moment my mom went to rehab, knowing that my dad wasn't a good parent. 

Aizawa and eventually Present Mic gave us rides and cared for us in general. I had only seen Aizawa cry two times, once when Mic almost died in a villain attack, and the day of my sister's funeral.

Oh right, my quirk. Silly me. My quirk is theft, which means that when I look someone in the eye, I inherit their quirk for 24 hours. The best part is that I can use multiple quirks at once.  The bad part is that when I accidentally look at someone, I end up using their quirk. I once looked at Ururaka and began floating. I also looked into Mina's eyes and turned pink. We looked like sisters though so it was cool. I do have a bad memory though, so I often forget my contacts. I didn't take the entrance exam since my quirk can't work against robots without me using someone else. 

Instead, Aizawa recommended me to take the special exam. Deku idolizes All Might, but I idolize Aizawa. Aizawa has known me since I was born. I think about what Mina said, and I can admit that I've never felt love like that. Maybe it's because I was never loved as a child, or never saw a loving marriage except for Aizawa and Mic, but I've never felt for someone in that way. 

Sure, I love my friends to death and would do anything to help them, including risk my own life, but it's different. I've never felt connected with someone, even if they've ask me out or something. Lida asked me out once in middle school, and Denki perused me multiple times before he found Sero, but I never was able to say yes. Mina and I made out at spin the bottle once, but it was more fun than romantic.

" Y/n, we are here. Please wake up." I woke up to Lida playfully poking my face as everyone else giggled. Immediately Lida's quirk registered in my brain. It was okay, I had used Lida's quirk before. "O-oh sorry, I must have fallen asleep." The class laughed as Lida smiled. "I recommend that you get more sleep immediately. Deku has told me about how you lay awake watching makeup tutorials, so maybe you can go to Recovery Girl and-" 

I cut him off by pushing my finger to his face. "I'm good, thanks." I walk past him to Mina and the girls who are waiting for me. Immediately I inherited Ururaka's quirk. It was hard to control, but I had an effect on my shoes that kept me stuck to the ground until I used her quirk. As we walk up to the USJ, I see it's a large dome with different areas of natural disasters. I hope I get the building on fire or the ocean. I can run on water with Lida's quirk, and float above the fire with Ururaka's quirk. 

"Hello 1-A students, I am Thirteen. I've looked at your files here for recommendations, and right now we will be working on rescuing people from natural disasters." Thirteen sets down files with our profiles. I can’t help but be curious about what’s in mine.

" Now, I want to send you all to the biomes that will challenge you, and challenge the way you go about rescuing others. Now if I can have Shoto Todoroki, Bakugo Katsuki, Izuku Midoriya, ( y/n ) Kayama, and then Denki Kaminari to go to the mountain land. You will be dealing with an avalanche, and then getting people to the bottom safely with no equipment. Go ahead, and wait for the buzzer before you start."

I linked arms with Midoryia, registering his quirk, as we walked towards the mountain, eventually joining up with Todoroki. As I made eye contact with Todoroki, I felt a cooling sensation on my left and a heating sensation on my right. "Nervous?" Todoroki asked, grabbing onto Deku's waist romantically. " A little, but at least broken bones aren't an issue anymore. I am worried about the-", "Ugh, you guys make me sick!" Bakugo yelled out from behind me. I try not to make eye contact with Bakugo. I don't like his quirk. It makes me sweat, and it’s way too sweaty.

"You're just upset that Kiri isn't here," I smirk as his face turns pink all over. "At least I have someone who likes me." he snickers before walking over to Denki. I watch him walk off, and realize he's right. I'm unlovable, or else my parents would have liked me. I might have someone by now if I wasn't so broken. Maybe I'll never find my soulmate, or they won't like me. I finally come to my senses and realize that the buzzer hasn't sounded yet. Is everything working right? 

I look around to see that everyone else is confused too. Even the volunteers I can see on top of the mountain are looking around. Suddenly, a large boom comes from the middle of the USJ. I begin to go up the mountain towards the volunteer when I hear screaming. I turn around and see Deku, looking down at the center. I gasp, watching a large purple portal open in the middle and many people walking out. 

"Is this part of it?" Denki asks as Deku shakes his head. I register Denki’s quirk. Now is not the time! "No! That's the League of Villains, I've seen them on the News! They're not good news!" Todoroki suddenly grabs me and Deku, building an ice tower high off the ground with us on top. "We need to stay safe up here, who knows what they want."

Before I can even gasp, I look out into the center to see the entire league running towards the mountain area. "Bakubro, what do we do!?" I looked behind myself to see Denki and Bakugo on one of the mountain ledges. "I don't know, but they want something." I can hear my teeth chattering, and I can't help but feel dizzy already. Luckily, Todoroki has me and Deku in his tight, protective grip. I never thought Todoroki liked me, since me and his boyfriend spent so much time together. 

The league is now under us though, and I can picture out two familiar faces out of the group. Toga Himiko, a villain with a quirk for blood cloning, and Twice, a guy who can make copies of himself. We can take them and a bunch of villains I've never heard of. We are about to attack when I hear something that makes my legs shake. "Y/n~Senpai! We've come for you!" Toga yells up, making direct eye contact with us.

Todoroki and Deku look at me, as I can feel Bakugo and Denki staring at me from behind. "I don't know what's happening," I whisper to them, and they nod. They trust me, and can probably read the fear in my eyes. "Come up here and fight us for her you reject!" Bakugo yells down as them as Toga giggles. 

"Orrrr... you can come down here!" She yells as one of the random villains touches the ice tower. Immediately the tower begins to turn into melting sludge as we begin to fall to them. Todoroki grabs Deku and me, jumping and creating an ice path for them to walk on. The only issue is that Todoroki grabs my hair instead, and I begin to fall towards the villains.

Luckily Denki's hand is there to grab me and pull me up. "Get behind me," Bakugo commands as sparks begin to fly out of his hands. "No, I can fight for myself. I don't need y-" Bakugou and Denki physically push me behind them. "No, they have a portal quirk with someone. They get their hands on you for a split second and you're gone." Denki explains as I sigh. Boys. 

"Now stay back," Bakugo growls, scaring me a little bit. I wonder how Kirishima deals with this all the time. Bakugo and Denki step towards the front of the ledge, making me step towards the back. I sigh, still shaking from fear and nervousness. Why are all these people here for me? What do they want? How do they know my name? What did I do to deserve this? Do they want to kill me?

Looking out into the center, I can see all of my classmates are fighting villains while Aizawa and Thirteen are trying to get to us. But they can't, with a weird creature that looks like a bird but has an exposed brain and is purple. It's kicking Aizawa's ass too, which is depressing. I back against the wall and shut my eyes tight, wishing they would let me protect myself. Suddenly I feel a sharp pain in my neck, and look to see Toga, right next to me, holding a knife to my neck. I register Toga's quirk accidentally. 

"Oh, boys. Some protectors you are." Bakugo and Denki look behind them to see us, their eyes wide in horror. "Y/n! Let her go Toga!" Deku yells, trying to get to me, but Todoroki holds him back in fear. Everyone looks scared out of their minds, which they probably are. I know I am freaking out, trying to think of some way to get out of here. Some hero I am! 

"Toga, don't hurt her," Denki whispers, trying to inch closer. "Not another step lightning-boy!" Toga threatens, pushing me closer to the edge of the mountain. I look way down, seeing how deep the side of the mountain goes. That's surely a deadly drop, and who would save me? Nobody. "You won't push her off, and I know it. Not after you all did all this work, just to kill a random student? Seems pretty useless.", Bakugo begins to take a step.

"Kacchan don't!" Deku yells, right before my life flashes before my eyes. Toga pushes me off the cliff, and I plummet to the ground. I look up to see Aizawa and a few other students watching me, their faces filled with sorrow, regret, and fear. I'm going to die right here. At the hands of an amateur villain attack. How pathetic. They know I'm going to die too. 

As I hit the ground, I fall into a purple void that consumes me. I hear yelling, screaming, even blood-curdling screeches as I enter a dark room. Immediately the portal closes behind me, and I'm left inside a dark basement. I try to look around, but the moment I move, a thick cloth covers my eyes, and a towel is stuffed into my mouth. 

I can feel picked up, and thrown into a room. I hear a door slam, and then laughing. I smell something weird, and before I realize it, a gas fills the room and puts me to sleep. I've been kidnapped by the League of Villains, and now I have no idea where I am.

Comment below if you want to be added to the taglist!!

[daminettes]

Flying Ladybugs and Birds at Disney World

hey guys!!! this au is based off of @ozmav au :-) tysm for blessing me with your art!!!!

Please keep in mind that they are both aged up, this all didnt just happen on the day they met LOL,,, but imagine if this were to happen,,,, that would of been wild!!!!

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Damian and Marinette were suppose to wake up bright and early today but Damian was having a little trouble on his end

Marinette practically pushed Damian off of their shared bed.

“Damian!!! Wake up !! We are going to be late,” Marinette cheered.

Damian mumbled something that was no near close to english. In an attempt to wake him up Marinette quickly jumped on bed and started to shout

“If you don’t hurry up I’m going to leave you behind and find myself a new prince,” Marinetted said while giggling her head off.

“IM UP,” Damian screamed.

They both shared a few giggles and finally got ready for the day.

Damian and Marinette both needed a break from superhero stuff so they both decided to have a lil fun and go to Disney Land Paris!!

Marinette and Damian threw on their matching t-shirts that marinette made and they both said “I’m with him” and vice versa. Marinette made cute lil mickey ears for Damian and he died right on the spot. They were custom made, On one ear there was a his signature R logo, and on the other there was a lil red heart.

“Angel, These are amazing, Thank you,” Damian gushed.

“No problem love,” She said while quickly kissing his cheek.

“Are you ready to head out angel,” Damian said while looking at her with a lovestuck smile.

“Yes beloved,” Marinette beamed .

They both walked out of their hotel room hand in hand

As soon as they approached the entrance gate Marinette’s blue bell eyes lit up. She quickly grabbed her sketchbook out of her bag and sketched out the castle. The castle was gorgeous. It was an exact replica from the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty. Many different shades and pink, blue, and gold lingered around the castle making it look even more stunning.

Marinette was too busy sketching out the beautiful castle standing right in front of them to notice Damian staring right at her.

“She’s so talented, I can’t believe I’m able to call her mine,” Damian thought to himself.

His mind quickly snapped back into reality when he felt his beloved angel tugging onto his shirt lightly.

“D-Damian can I try something,” Marinette questioned.

“Yes of course Angel what is i-“ Marinette quickly took his face into her hands and lightly kissed his cheek. She was able to take a picture of this cute moment with them and quickly changed it to her lock screen.

“Thanks Damian,” She said walking away with a smile plastered on her face.

Damian was left behind a blushy mess, he quickly gathered up his emotions and ran to his angel.

“W-What was that angel???” He stuttered

“I just wanted a picture with you my love,” She said while shooting one of her famous adoring smile at him.

Everything was going just as plan Damian though, right until Jason jumped right onto his Angel.

“Hiya Mari-Bug,” Jason yelled right into her ear. This caused Marinette to freak out and flip him right off of his feet.

“Oh my goodness I am so sorry, You just scared me oh my gosh are you alrigh-“

“I’m alright Mari-Bug!! Don’t worry I should of never scared you,” he laughed off.

“What are you doing here,” Damian hissed while staring right into his soul.

“Hey Hey Hey Demon Spawn calm down I just wanted to see if your plan was going well, The others would of came but they are waiting on line for the Phantom Manor ,” He sang.

“What plan?,” Marinette asked with a confused face.

“Nothing Angel, Dont worry about it, and if you would excuse me, Jason and I have to have a word together, please wait here my love,” He said while placing a lil kiss on her forehead.

“Oh alright love,” Marinette squeaked out.

Damian quickly pulled Jason off to the side causing him to yelp.

“What. The . Hell. Do you think you are doing? You could of spoiled the surprise,” Damian yelled.

“Calm down Demon spawn, look she’s clueless she literally has no idea that you’re going to propose to her,” He said excitedly

“Will you keep it down? She’s probably going to get suspicious so please leave us alone till the end of the day,” he hissed.

“Alright, Alright don’t get your panties in a twist! I’m leaving,” Jason joked.

“My panties are not in a twist, now get lost,” Damian growled.

Jason quickly ran towards the manor to join his family, and Damian walked anxiously towards his beloved.

“Is everything alright Dami?, you seem a bit pale, sit down next to me love,” Marinette worried.

“I’m quite all right don’t worry about me, Now let’s go on some rides alright Angel,” Damian asked while offering his hand.

“Ya sure, lets do that,” Marinette chirped while accepting his hand.

The two lovely couple were having a blast, sure the lines were long but they made the most of it. While waiting on lines they both played charades, cuddled, and talked about super hero stuff. The two of them were getting tired so they made their way to the Discovery Arcade. Damian attempted to win Marinette a ladybug themed plush toy but failed miserably.

“It’s ok Dami, Really, Here let me try,” She giggled.

Right on her first try the claw grabbed right onto the ladybug plush toy. They both cheered!

“Here you go love,” Marinette laughed while handing Damian the cute lil plush toy.

“Thank you Angel, Now if you don’t mind I have a little surprise for you, So let’s go to the castle alright?” He said while kissing the top of her hand.

“Oh alright Damian,” Marinette smiled.

Marinette and Damian both walked to the castle slowly, Damian was practically shaking because of how nervous he was.

“Damian, Honey, Are you alright? You are shaking,” Marinette asked.

“I’m quite alright Angel I’m just a bit on the nervous side.” He said trying to shoot a reassuring smile towards her way.

“Why are you nervou-,” Marinette was quickly caught off, Damian slowly grabbed one of Marinette’s warm hands.

“Marinette, My Angel, My beloved, Thank you for making me a better person, Thank you for always being there for me when I needed you, Thank you for taking care of my wounds after battles, You are so sweet, beautiful, kind, and generous. Words cannot describe how much I love you. I want to be there for you, I want to comfort you after a long day at work, I want to care for you when you are sick, I want to be there when you wake up, because gosh you are amazing, you deserve the whole world and I’m trying to give it to you.” Damian gushed.

“Oh Dami-“ Right before Marinette can finish her sentence Damian dropped down on one knee and opened up a black velvet box.

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng would you please make me the happiest man on earth and marry me,” He asked with a nervous smile on his face.

The ring was stunning, It was a white semi pave ring, it had four diamonds engraved into it, it symbolize how long they’ve been with each other. Four amazing years, full of laughs, smiles, and cries. There were three words also engraved into it, I Love You. The ring shined in the light. Which made it even more beautiful.

Marinettes eyes quickly filled up with tears, and Damian quickly panicked.

“Oh my Angel I am so sorr-,” Damian was quickly cut off by Marinette, who had jumped right into his arms.

“Of course Damian, I will marry you. I love you so much, Thank you,” She cried into his neck.

She said yes. She said yes to ME. He thought, His mind was going 100 miles per hour and he could not handle.

Damian quickly gathered up the courage to picked her up and swing her around into a warm hug. While this lovely event unfolded, both of them didn’t notice the huge crowd that formed around them, while they started to cheer with glee they both snapped out of it.

All of the sudden there was a huge streak of light exploding into the sky. The two new engaged couple stared at the sky in awe.

“Marinette.... I- I love you so much,” Damian gushed.

“I love you more Dami,” Marinette chimed.

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SO HI!!! THIS IS MY FIRST REAL AU!! I HOPE YALL LIKE IT <33

this is so bad i want 2 cry , sorry daminette shippers i did y’all dirty 😞

[ckret2]

What’s your personality headcanon for rodan?

I’ve had this in my inbox like a week because I wanted to wait until my TF big bang rough draft was done to write this, and then i spent several days recovering from the rough draft lmfao. OKAY SO

The tl;dr is “Rodan assumes everything is normal, no matter how weird it is, and that basically informs his entire worldview. Also he wants to be everyone’s friend and fight them at all times.”

First let’s talk about instincts. Because Rodan’s species plops their eggs in volcanoes and flies off, there’s basically nothing in the way of parenting. If an adult Rodan sees a baby Rodan flopping around its volcano like a fool, it might swoop down to check on the kid and show it how to do something it’s struggling with—like, if an adult human saw a five-year-old trying to get on the subway, thought this was a perfectly normal thing for a small child to do, checked to make sure they knew which line they were taking and where their stop was, showed them how to use their card to get through the turnstile, and sent them on their way. Because Rodan eggs take so long to incubate and don’t depend on a parent sitting on the nest to do so, a hatchling might pop out long after its parents are dead, or even—as in this Rodan’s case—when no other members of its species are alive at all.

So because of that, and the way evolution ran to compensate for the fact that these hatchlings might be getting zero adult education, Rodan runs on intuition, moreso than titans who raise their kids. He was born knowing how to fly, hunt, fight, defend his nest, patrol his territory, find and judge potential mates, establish more nests. He was born recognizing many titan species that had been around most prominently during his species’s evolutionary history, and knowing whether they’re likely to be friends, foes, or food. (Mothra is “friend.” Godzilla is “proceed with caution.” Ghidorah was only active for one or two generations of Rodans, not long enough for them to evolve an instinctive reaction to multi-headed yellow fliers, so Ghidorah was a total unknown when he charged his happy flappy ass into Rodan’s territory.)

So Rodan was born with a immense amount of knowledge about the world around him.

Most of it’s wrong.

Since the day Rodan hatched, he’s been faced with nothing but weird shit. So he has no sense of scale for weirdness. Fishing boats are weird. The fact that the sky isn’t thick with giant stony pteranodons is weird. The lack of a land bridge between Alaska and Russia is weird. The Himalayas are weird. The shape of that tree over there is weird. Three-headed two-tailed lightning-spewing siren-singing hurricane-summoning golden dragons from outer space are weird. The size of the Sahara is weird. A bird accidentally flying up Rodan’s nostril is weird. Farms are weird. Bells are weird. All of the above things are equally weird to Rodan.

As a consequence? He’s extremely chill with weird shit. You throw something wild at him and he thinks “I guess this is just what we’re doing now, huh,” and rolls with it. He’s willing to immediately embrace anything as the new normal. He just finds a convenient spot to jam it into his pre-existing conception of the world and rolls with it.

Which is why, when Three-Heads McGee appears, Rodan is like, “… Well, okay, apparently this is just what other members of my species look like and i somehow didn’t know it until right now" and does what he knows he’s supposed to do when he meets one of his kind: see who can win a fight. Ghidorah beats Rodan up, Rodan expects that if they impress each other then the loser promises to follow the winner and they go make nests, so he yields and swears to follow Ghidorah; but instead they fly several hours north to knock over the weird square hives made by tiny apes? Does this mean they’re hanging out first? That’s fine, anyway Rodan swore to follow so he’s gonna keep doing that, destroying cities is now the thing that they are doing. Maybe they were always supposed to be destroying cities and he just didn’t know it. Now they’re fighting Godzilla and Mothra for some reason? Yeah, alright, sure, he’s not sure if this is a turf fight or a grudge match or just for the absolute hell of it, but Ghidorah has clearly got dibs on Godzilla which Rodan is NOT gonna argue with so Rodan’s taking Mothra. He doesn’t know why they’re fighting. He doesn’t know why they’re in Boston at all. He doesn’t know what Boston is. It didn’t exist the last time he was awake. 

And days or weeks after the fight, he still doesn’t know why they were fighting. He’s got no clue Ghidorah was trying to destroy the planet. He didn’t think to ask what they were doing.

So you can throw the weirdest thing in the world at him and he just sort of assumes that it’s perfectly normal, he just hadn’t heard about it yet. Like, someday somebody is going to tell him Ghidorah is an alien, and he’s going to spend about twenty seconds freaked out, and then it will be just a fact, and nothing will ever throw him for a loop again. When everything is weird, nothing is weird.

The good side of this is it makes him very open-minded to new and different things. He’ll accept just about anything and anyone. He’s not resistant to new ideas, and he’s got an advantage over a lot of other titans socially because he’s a lot more able to accept members of other species on their own terms. The bad side is that it makes him very uncritical—he’ll accept anything presented as the norm, often even negative situations that can and should be changed. And, very frequently, he just doesn’t think to ask questions: “when did THIS become a thing??” or “why are we doing this, exactly?” or “why is this the new normal” or even “IS this the new normal??” He’s as curious as any other titan, but he rarely asks questions, because if he doesn’t see anyone else asking questions he sort of assumes that everyone else already knows what’s up and so he should be figuring it out the way they did. So he observes closely and puzzles things out alone.

Also because he assumes Everything Is Normal, he’s oddly spontaneous—in the sense that, if a massive life change is thrown his way, he’ll decide whether or not he wants to roll with it for the next thousand years in about a minute. And then he’ll stick with it. Even if he doesn’t have to, even if circumstances change so that he COULD go back to how things were before, even if it gets a lot more difficult/complicated than he was expecting—he already made his decision, this is The New Normal, his old status quo is dead, he’s sticking with it. After the decision’s been made it’s next to impossible for him to let go of it unless a new decision is offered.

One of the biggest disappointments between what Rodan expected the world to be like and what it’s actually like is that there are a whole lot less people in it. There’s like… seventeen people. (Humans don’t count as people. You can’t talk to humans. Humans are to Rodan as bees are to humans: they make interesting clever geometric homes and they’ve clearly got a very complex organization system in their colony—they can even communicate information to each other, how interesting—but they certainly aren’t people.) And this is a shame because Rodan is a major extrovert. When there are other people around to bug, Rodan is there, bugging them. He’ll just flap around getting into other titans’ business and asking what they’re up to. He’s down for joining it, whatever it is. If they don’t want him joining, he might just find somewhere nearby to perch and watch. Other titans’ opinions of him vary from “he’s very friendly and helpful” to “he’s an obnoxious pain in the ass. And he’s violent, too.”

He’s so violent.

He’s one of the only titans who just, attacks people out of nowhere, for no reason. His species has got a permanent suit of armor on, so fighting doesn’t come at the same cost and risk to them as it does to other creatures, so they’ll skip past the intimidation displays and warnings that most other species use to try to avoid a fight and just charge straight in to battle. Which is why Ghidorah managed to completely KO him and he still thinks that was a courting dance rather than a real battle; his species’s courting dances can get that violent.

But, even beyond courting dances or defending himself and his territory? He’ll still pick fights, with anyone. He’ll pick fights with total strangers. He’ll see a titan, go “Hey there my name is Rodan what’s yours!” and dive for their eyes. He thinks fighting is fun! His life is a sports anime about martial arts whose main plot is a tournament arc and he’s the plucky happy-go-lucky protagonist who’s determined to win every fight and befriend every single opponent he defeats, while everyone else thinks they’re living in a medium-difficulty survival sim. It’s impossible to teach him not to attack strangers. If a new acquaintance tells him they don’t like fighting he will respect that and not do it again, but no matter how many people tell him they don’t want to fight, he will not stop going “maybe the next one will” and trying again.

Mothra, he’s learned, does not like fighting, and he understands how her reincarnations work just enough to know that he can’t attack new Moths the way he would a New Person; but every time Mothra’s reborn he’ll hope the new one likes fighting and ask. She’s always like “it’s still no” and he’s like, “someday. Someday.” He’s not sure why Boston was the exception, but thinks maybe she likes group brawls more than one-on-one fights? Maybe he’ll fight her the next time they’re in a group and see if she’s into that.

His favorite people are the ones willing to throw down, any time, any place. He sometimes mistakes eagerness to fight back as a confirmation of friendship rather than as, like, “I hate you so much I wanna kick your ass every time I see you” or something. Friends that spar together fly far together.

Aquatic titans are the few exceptions. They freak him out. Water is already an inherently terrifying location because you can’t breathe in it, you can’t stand on it and yet can’t fly through it, it washes off your armor—it’s just Bad, it’s a Bad Place. And then there are things in it?? Things living underneath the surface, unseen and unknown, that can crawl out when you’re asleep and try to eat you if you’re not completely under your lava? Gelatinous color-changing things? Long cold things that can wrap around you and crush you? Oh no. No thank you. Rodan doesn’t mess with that stuff. To him Godzilla is no King of the Monsters, he’s Ambassador of the Nightmares. He’s one of those terrifying subterranean guys except he’s got LEGS which somehow simultaneously makes him just barely tolerable but also a bigger threat than the other water things. Godzilla is Cthulhu in a business suit: an eldritch abomination masquerading as a normal person.

And, that’s about what I’ve got worked out so far. Since I’ve spent less time writing inside Rodan’s personality than Ghidorah’s, he’s less developed than they are lol. It’s a continually evolving work in progress

[tiredcowpoke]

TITLE: Rise and Falls [1] PAIRING: Arthur Morgan/OC REQUEST: Unprompted. BLURB: Ida O’Donnell, no more than a petty thief, realizes that her life really comes in a series of firsts, and some unfortunate seconds and thirds. WARNINGS: Talk of hanging, mostly. Nothing too graphic. NOTE: I’ve had this idea in me for a while and could never really figure out how to write it before I decided to approach it like this. Kinda self-indulgent, has tropes I personally enjoy and whatnot. Anyway, I figure this might be a good way to close off my 2018. ALSO: since this is a series, I do have it posted on A03 for people who want to read the next chapters I post or missed a couple, feel free to ask for the link!

Fate sometimes reached out to pull the strings attached to her path, much as Ida wasn't all too inclined to believe in such.

It wasn't so much as the bumping of a shoulder on the street or the switching of a partner in a dance, but rather opposite jail cells. There were four in the dusty jail, two on each side of the small room off the front of the building. She had been tossed in there three days ago, and set to hang in another three. She could still remember the almighty scramble she had taken to gather the money out of that safe, risking the cuts that were scarred on her arms by breaking and climbing out of a window once that front door had been busted open. White hats, desert, and a satchel full of cash. Still, with how open it was, and deputies riding around on horseback, it didn't take much for her to get cornered in behind the general doctor's practice. Days of wandering had slowed her reflexes, much as she was always a fast runner, before someone had a rope around her legs and she was suddenly tasting dirt. She could remember the boot pressed onto the top of her hand, the satchel pulled from around her shoulders and tossed onto the ground, dollar bills peeking out from under the flap as it landed within eye sight.

At the click of a loaded revolver, she had exhaled heavily, raising her free hand up in surrender before she was hauled to her feet.

It seemed that had put her right where she needed to be. Three days worth of rough sleeps, and the lump of dread in her gut at the prospect of death.

Her father would be proud—this is exactly how he wanted to go out, not shot in the back by some bounty hunter like he did. However, the thought didn't weigh much, considering she was hoping he was having a fitful sleep six feet under.

It was on that third day that the door to the jail's cells was kicked open—not with the force of breaking, but because the man opening it had his hands full. Ida had been leaning against the bars of her cell, arms resting leisurely around the bars as she watched the odd bird fly over the small patch of sky she could see from the tiny window at the end of the room. Though, she found herself shifting back, hands resting against the bars as three men entered the room. One was a bounty hunter, she could place her bets. She knew the type. The other was the sheriff, looking more disgruntled than he usually did. Then, there was likely her new neighbor, who appeared to be barely conscious, blood leaking out from under his hair and down the side of his face.

“How much you say this one goes for again?” the sheriff asked once they were both in the room, following along behind the bounty hunter as he practically dragged his bounty in.

“Poster that matters most to me said five thousand,” he replied, casting Ida a glance as he moved toward the cell across from her.

“Five thousand?” the sheriff asked, eyes bugging out of his head, “The hell're you doin' here? Look around you, we ain't even got more than two thousand, and we can't exactly spare all of it.”

“Well, you weren't the one chasin' him around the damn desert, let alone havin' to worry 'bout that gang he runs with. A cell's a cell, far as where Arthur's concerned. Now, can ya open the damn thing?”

Five thousand dollars. You don't get bounty hunters just looking to make a week's pay at that price, but somehow this one had dragged him into this jail instead of peddling him off to some government officials. They surly had the money to pay him, too. Still, eventually the cell was opened and the outlaw was dumped onto the bunk, a dull grunt being the only thing signifying he had been taken in alive. With a sigh, the bounty hunter started to walk toward the front of the jail, the sheriff pausing to smack a hand against the bars near her face.

“Show's over, thief. Stay by your bunk.”

Ida took a step back, raising her hands silently with a rather indifferent expression before he turned and walked off after the bounty hunter, closing the door behind him. She sighed, moving back to how she was before with her arms through the bar, turning to glance back toward the sky through the window. However, she did find her gaze lowering to glance toward her unconscious companion, blood and bruising appearing on his face as he lay, limp, on the bunk.

Fate had a way of bringing people together, but it wasn't so much about Ida and this Arthur as it was about her and Dutch.

Arthur had really only been in the cell for a day or so—second last day of her life, if the town had anything to say about it, when there had been some sort of commotion out near the front of the jail. Horses pulling up wasn't an unfamiliar sound, deputies ducking in and out, but not often enough for a town like this. Ida hadn't thought much of it, and it seemed Arthur didn't, either, considering neither really sat up from their bunks. More often than not, she had found herself trying not to think about the rope that was waiting for her as each hour ticked on. Though, there was some sort of stirring up front that had her gaze falling from the ceiling toward the door on the other side of the room. Some muffled voices, a clatter and a loud thud, then heavy foot falls moving toward them. Ida could feel her heart in her throat, but it seemed that Arthur was expecting something like this. She heard him sigh, her gaze moving toward him as he gathered himself up a little woozily as he approached the door to his cell.

As he did so, the cell room's door was opened, two masked strangers walking in. Interested, Ida shifted so that she was sitting up, dark eyes following the two men as they approached Arthur's cell.

“'Bout time,” Arthur muttered, his voice low and rough—first she'd heard it, much as that really was from a lack of trying.

“Patience, son,” the black-haired man stated, his voice registering deep in Ida's gut as her eyes widened. It put her back to a time she had broken away from the family, which took some time to get back into with her father's reasons to hold any sort of power over his kids, to a city and a couple days running with a charming if not overly ambitious man.

She knew that voice. It had her rising to her feet, approaching her cell door as she tilted her head. All she could see was the back of his head as he opened the jail cell, the other man shifting around behind him, casting glances back toward the front of the jail. He stepped aside as Arthur's cell door was opened, Ida's gaze solely on the black-haired man, catching the side of his face and a moment of eye contact. There was no recognition—she was just another outlaw, and he wasn't there for her. Shit, she had to draw attention to herself.

As he moved forward to escort Arthur and his other companion toward the outside world, she found her legs moving forward before she was gripping the bars to her jail cell and finding her voice for the first time in days.

“Dutch van der Linde?”

Despite the disuse, her voice was rather sturdy and clear. Though, there was a slight shake of desperation to it, watching as they all stilled somewhat before Dutch was turning to look back toward her. There was a sharpness to the glare he shot her, hearing his name in full most likely like nails on a chalkboard in that situation. She swallowed, holding his gaze as she almost begged him with her eyes to remember. This was the last thing she expected if she knew she was going to be offered a chance to escape the hangman's noose, but she certainly wasn't going to give it up for anything until she knew it had passed.

Though, as it seemed, fate had put her exactly where she needed to be. Dutch's expression shifted, at least from what she could see in just his eyes, but the tension melted somewhat in surprise.

“Well, I damn well don't believe it...” he started with a quick huff, “Miss Ida O'Donnell.”

“Dutch,” she greeted back in return with a nod of her head, reaching a hand out toward him once he had moved to approach her cell. She gripped it in return as he covered it with his free hand. “Long time no see...”

“Oh, indeed! Here I'd been thinkin'...”

“Dutch?” the man she didn't know the name of yet spoke up from behind him, Ida meeting his gaze as Dutch turned to glance toward him, her eyes moving toward Arthur as he seemed to be studying her as well. She didn't like the spotlight—been told all her life to avoid it, and she did her best to. Still, it might just save her life.

“This really the time?” he continued, “We ain't exactly got a lot of it.”

“I agree,” Ida replied, swallowing down the tightness in her chest, “Sheriff's deputies don't linger long, but they check in every day. Don't know how often. I just...I'm set to hang tomorrow, and I hate to ask this for old time's sake, but...”

She squeezed her fingers around Dutch's hold, meeting his gaze as he looked toward her, her request clear. There was a pause, some debate in his gaze—who knows what situation his gang was in now, but she wasn't looking for a permanent place where she couldn't take one. She didn't exactly have anywhere to go anymore with her father dead, but she wouldn't impose if she knew she would. Plus...well, she'd turned down the offer from him before for a reason that still stood.

Still, the sound of that cell door opening was as close as she could describe to freedom.

Last time she had talked to Dutch, he had mentioned a small group he ran. No more people than she could count on her hands. However, it appeared that wasn't the case this time, if the fully fledged camp that she was greeted with was anything to go by. They were situated in a small clearing through a thick gathering of trees, wagons and tents set up around a couple campfires. She had noticed someone standing guard, but seemed to take in her presence with a glance. Sitting on the back of Dutch's horse might have been enough of a message that she didn't mean any harm—trouble wasn't a great way to pay back someone who had just saved your life. There had been some idle chatter between the three riders, Ida trying to follow along but it was hard to focus with what was going on and the previous days in the jail catching up to her.

Dutch seemed rather excited to have her riding along, Ida not too sure on the reason just yet—it wasn't that they were close friends, she couldn't pretend that. A week compared to the amount of time he had likely spent with some of these people wasn't anything to be impressed by, much as he had made some sort of impression during that time. She had learned a good bit, and stole a good bit. It might have kept her on the path she did, that was until she thought she had fallen in love with someone who loved her back. It had her turning down his offer to come run with him, that she had talent and, well, he wasn't wrong about the fact that she didn't want to stay in that city. However, she had thought...well, it wasn't important anymore.

That ended about a well as most things in her life did—the guilt over it not really leaving her, even years later. It always sat in her chest, shifting weight down into her gut if she let it sit for too long. What was she to do now? She wasn't sure. Ida only knew for certain was that she couldn't show her face around that town anymore, the sheriff had gotten a good look at her. If she were to move on, it would have to be away from there. Not that the town held much there for her, but the idea of moving again sat strangely in her mind. Wandering around, sleeping under the sky and in the odd saloon. Even if she hated the place, she used to have a home to return to. Familiar faces, ones she could trust, much as that just became her siblings in the end.

Wandering alone, truly alone, was something she still hadn't gotten used to. Couldn't let go of that lifestyle, either, in the end. It put into motion an interesting series of events, if her current situation was anything to go by, but it was hard to tell if that was where she wanted to be.

Still, she took the help that was offered. To wash the grime off her face and arms, put some food in her stomach that she had almost forgot about. Far as the sheriff was concerned, they weren't looking to spare much for a prisoner that would be dead within the end of the week. Waste of food. There were some interesting people, too. She only somewhat knew Dutch, Arthur by name from that bounty hunter's irritated explanation, and the other man that rode with them had been called Hosea at one point in their journey back to camp. Then there was Grimshaw, who watched over her settling in somewhat at her arrival.

A tough woman, and she wasn't too sure if she wanted to figure out just how much.

So, it was a bit of a relief to be able to sit down in Dutch's tent once she had been given a bowl of stew, Ida just liking the idea of having something in her stomach more than the taste of it at that point. Something to chase off the fog around the edges of her mind, and the emptiness in her gut. There was another woman there, looking to stand out among the rest of camp—hair a deep red, her gaze coming across as somewhat suspicious. Really, it was hard to shake the feeling of her eyes on her, especially after Dutch had sat down across from her on his cot as she ate.

“Quite the interestin' situation you've found yourself in, Miss O'Donnell,” he started, there was some lightness to his voice, friendliness, but she couldn't help but feel like there was something else to it. Nothing that made her too overly uncomfortable, but more that she might start to wish that he'd just spit it out.

“Outlaws get hanged all the time, I wouldn't say it's all too interestin',” she returned, offering him a grin in good nature, “I was robbin' a safe and I got caught. They found some of my older bounties, considered that I'd been runnin' free long enough.”

“A safe?” he asked, tilting his head slightly in interest.

“I don't know where the money went after they took it off me, might've gone back in there but I'm not sure,” she replied with a soft shrug, “Last I saw it was in the doctor's practice, looks like he'd been making a little something on the side, but it certainly wasn't worth getting hanged over.”

“Is that what's gotten you out this far? Robbin' safes? Last I had talked to you, it seemed like you were talkin' about marriage.”

Ah, there it was. Married women usually didn't find themselves waiting to be hanged for a string of robberies through a number of states, at least that's what had been grumbled at her from time to time during her stay with the local law. She found her expression falling slightly, struggling to keep interested indifference but there was some tension to her brow.

“Didn't work out,” she explained, “Somethin' got in the way, ended up heading back home. My father was shot in the back for the trouble he caused, and my brothers had went before him. I've seen no other way since, I suppose.”

“My condolences,” Dutch replied, shifting back as she shook her head.

“Didn't bother me none to see him go, he was a nasty man,” she explained, “Though, tryin' to pick up the pieces was a struggle.”

Indeed. Couldn't keep their home, couldn't hang around it because of the lawmen. She had to keep moving and...well, she was just a petty thief. She had to reach a little higher than pocket change and that was likely what had that boot stomping down on her hand in the end. Dutch seemed to weigh that himself a bit, too, Ida meeting his gaze a moment before she was scooping the last of the stew into her mouth.

“Where to next?” It was a good question.

“Not anywhere near that town, that's for sure,” she remarked, a touch sarcastic—they were close, but out far enough to ease some anxiety about that. Still, it was the nearest town, so that would be an issue.

“Wise choice,” he returned, Ida offering a small grin at the returned sarcasm before she shrugged slightly again.

“I don't know yet, I hadn't been thinkin' I would survive until the end of the week this morning.”

“Well,” Dutch started, “You're safe here, and there are a number of people in here who share your...line of work. For...old time's sake, my offer still stands, should you find yourself unable to move on.”

“Would I be allowed to think on that?” she asked, tilting her head as Dutch shot her a look that suggested that her question may have insulted him slight.

“'Course,” he replied, “Ain't keepin' anybody prisoner here.”

A relief, if not an interesting thought. Most gangs she had come across, she wasn't sure if they let people come and go freely. Perhaps Dutch didn't either, but Ida at the moment he seemed fine with either outcome. However, she wasn't certain if that would change. She had watched the gang for a bit when she had first arrived, the way Dutch carried himself. They respected him, though she had yet to know in what ways. Still, she found herself nodding lightly.

“...Well, in that case, thank you. I appreciate that.”

She'd just have to see. Really, that was all she could do in the moment.