#which again follows up his character song better

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

Still blows my mind the disparity between the Eng and the JP localization of Sonic Frontiers

So in the og English Tails expresses that he needs to part ways from Sonic so he can grow into a hero on his own, right? That he can't grow by being with him?

But like. The director of the game, who worked with Ian Flynn, worked on the JP localization and it's like. You're telling me that when they localized that scene for the Japanese audience

That it was about Tails learning that there are things only he can do? That instead of concluding that he needs to part ways from Sonic and become a hero, he just comes to realizes the ways in which he and Sonic fill each other's gaps? He learns that he already is on equal footing with Sonic. The two of them are just heroes who save people in different ways?

[snowball-doie]

| pairing: johnny x manager!fem!reader

| warnings: 18+ MDNI. rough sex. hate? sex. quickie. bathroom sex. unprotected sex. breeding kink. praise kink (bro's obsessed/down bad).

| wc: 2.8k

| aurora's note: this is originally written as johnny x manager!oc, so it's mildly plus size coded and includes background about johnny and reader being married and having a kid together already. enjoy <3

Being as busy as you were handling a million other issues backstage, you didn’t realize that Johnny was trying to get your attention for an entire song until a staff member finally interrupted what you were doing to tell you that something was wrong with Johnny. When you stopped to look at the stage, you saw Johnny standing there. During the middle of a song, he was just standing there, staring at you, waiting for your attention so that he could finally point at his mic and mouth frustratedly: “It’s not working!” Immediately, you groaned. How was it that you had a million staff members standing around doing nothing and not a single one of them thought to actually do something to solve the problem? Did you really have to do everything yourself? It seemed that you did indeed have to do it because you were the one who told the techs that something was wrong with his microphone and that it needed to be fixed— All the while, Johnny was still on stage, protesting the whole thing during his parts of the song by refusing to even lip sync or put full effort into the choreography.

By the time the song was over, they had a new battery pack and microphone ready for Johnny to switch out during the ment next up on the cue sheet. So you gestured for Johnny to come over.  When Johnny ran off stage, he immediately tossed his mic to the side angrily and snatched the new one from you without a word. You stared at him as the sound team closed in to check Johnny's in-ears as well to make sure that everything was working fine again. Johnny huffed and brushed them off so that he could check it himself. You sighed and shook your head at him. You understood that he was frustrated, but he was taking it out on the wrong people, and he was putting himself and everyone else in a sour mood unnecessarily. Then just as he was about to run off without a word, you caught his hand and pulled him back a few steps.

“Hey, look at me.”

Johnny reluctantly spun around while rolling his eyes.

“Smile a bit. Have fun. Don’t get upset again.” You kissed him quickly and smacked his ass— Which he usually would have giggled in response to, instead he continued to pout before escaping your hold and running off. “What’s got his panties in a twist?” you muttered to yourself.

Granted, once he was back on stage, Johnny was smiling and being his usual self that he presented in front of fans. Why he had to take his anger out on you was a mystery. You figured that he let it go or at least felt mildly better, however, because he was acting completely normal again and wasn’t continuously glancing off stage again for help which no one but you was eager to supply. Maybe he just needed a breather. The boys seemed to cheer him up, and interacting with the fans seemed to put a bright smile on his face… Surely he wasn’t mad anymore.

When the concert ended, the boys ran off stage to immediately hand over their equipment and get their water bottles which they all chugged for dear life. Except Johnny. Mr. Pouty angrily threw his mic and in-ear into his labeled basket without any care of if it would break; and in the process of throwing his public tantrum, he shocked literally everyone with his out of character behavior, prompting all of backstage to fall eerily silent and still. Johnny ignored them as he stormed off. Of course your first and only reaction was to follow him— Not as his worried wife but as his pissed off manager who was seeking an explanation about how a fucking mic could possibly do all that to him on the first night of their tour when they were supposed to be happy and just roll with any of the issues that would accidentally occur— That always happened during the first shows! Always! Johnny knew better than anyone that the first show was a trial run, so things were bound to go wrong…

Johnny suddenly diverted into a bathroom in the hallway, and before you knew what was going on, your wrists were being held in his tight grip as he pulled you in with him. You stumbled in, giving him time to lock the door.

“What’s your prob—”

The thought of scolding him was washed away within an instant when he cupped his hands over your ass and squeezed roughly so that you were pulled flush against his chest before he pushed both of you to the wall where he immediately began kissing you roughly.

“J—”

“Stop talking.”

Despite being caught completely off guard by Johnny, you did as you were told, instead of talking you used your energy to kiss him back in the hopes that he was just trying to ground himself with something real— with you. But the longer you kissed, the more aggressive Johnny got. You realized quickly that if you continued that it would go further until neither of you could stop, and you just couldn’t do that with everyone walking on eggshells around him and waiting for you to cool him down. If someone noticed you were gone for so long… If someone heard you… You just couldn’t risk it.

“Joh—”

“What did I say, hmmm?” With a rough grasp on your hips, Johnny spun you around and moved you over a few steps so that you were bent over the sink. “Why do you have to be so fucking pretty all the time? It’s a distraction… But you wouldn’t know that with how you get distracted during our performances. Do you realize how long I was trying to get your attention after my mic stopped working?”

“I had other things to do—”

“What part of ‘stop talking’ do you not get?”

You watched Johnny through the mirror as he focused on checking you out from head to toe with his lip bottom trapped between his teeth. He still looked angry. Honestly, you'd never seen him mad on stage, but what was even stranger was how mad he was with you. Johnny was kind and quiet and understanding. He hardly ever raised his voice, and he always stopped himself from going too far when he got upset. Now, though, it was like everything boiled over until he couldn’t control himself anymore, so his only salvation was bending you over the sink and pulling your cargo pants and underwear down in unison. You grabbed the cold counter top to hold yourself steady.

“Someone could catch us,” you warned warily, worried that he would scold you again for talking.

Johnny grabbed your ass to spread you open before groaning at the sight. “I don’t care.”

“But—”

“It’s not a crime to fuck my wife.”

“It’s unprofessional.”

“Tell that to the techs who couldn’t do their jobs earlier.”

“That’s not their fault.”

“Someone has to take the blame,” he told you sincerely, his gaze meeting yours in the mirror, not a hint of humor or kindness in those dark eyes of his. “Who’s it gonna be?”

You stared at him and exhaled. “It’s my fault for not making sure the techs checked the mic after your outfit change.”

Was it actually your fault? No. But if there was anyone you wished Johnny would be so angry with that he couldn’t see straight, you wanted it to be you because you knew that you could handle him. Who knew what he would do if let loose on the poor crew who made one silly mistake that ruined the whole show for Johnny? In his state, Johnny probably would’ve chewed into everyone there, regardless of their job title, so you instead offered yourself up, which seemed to do the trick because Johnny immediately took that answer and ran with it. With your pants barely pushed down around your thighs and no wiggle room between the sink and Johnny's body pressed up behind you, you had no choice but to stand still as Johnny began to undo his pants with one hand while the other remained glued to your hip. Without so much as a courteous warning, Johnny took you by surprise— Literally. One second you were bracing against the sink for what was to come, the next Johnny had his tip kissing your entrance, and then he was in all at once. You barely stood a chance. You tried to stay quiet by biting your lip and inevitably slapping a hand over your mouth to muffle your moans, but it was too late. The shock of having Johnny fuck you so brutally and so suddenly was too much for you to handle. Surely if the boys were eavesdropping outside in the hopes of hearing you two argue, they were immediately scarred forever knowing that Johnny was railing their Noona in the bathroom… If crew members were walking by, they were likely running to gossip about the moans echoing from the bathroom… There was nothing you could do about it, not while your brain felt numb to everything but the fact that Johnny was deep inside of you, and he was being relentless.

“So fucking perfect,” he grunted quietly. “Look at you…” He reached around to grab your face and force you to look up into the mirror to watch your disheveled self bouncing into the sink every time Johnny thrusted forward. “What do I do with you? I just can’t help myself, baby, it’s getting dangerous… All I can think about is you— Even when I’m on stage, I think about you, you, you. It’s unprofessional.”

He hit a sensitive spot that made you moan his name.

“And that face… You always look so pretty when you go dumb on my cock.”

Sure, Johnny was the type to talk dirty in bed, but never like that with you. Back when you first started dating, you used to think about all the women he had been with before you and what they had gotten up to, and if Johnny missed any of it. Over the years, though, when Johnny never showed any changes in your sexual life, like wanting to be degrading, you figured that you assumed wrong about him. Yet there he was, bending you over the sink, holding you steady, and telling you dirty things that made you wet and your legs shake.

“I think I have an idea of what to do with you,” he said between deep thrusts. Leaning in close, his breath was hot on your ear as he whispered sensually, “I’m gonna fill you up…” The two of you moaned together at the thought. “You keep talking about wanting a girl who looks like you, right? We can do that. I can do that… Give you the little girl you want so badly… Maybe then you’ll be at home again like you were when you were pregnant with our son, so I won’t have to be distracted by you all the time.”

“Bold of you t— Fuck— B-bold of you to assume… you wouldn’t still… think— Shit— about me when I’m like that…”

Johnny chuckled. “True.” He brushed your hair off your shoulders so that he could have access to your neck where he started leaving visible hickies.

You reached back to slide one of your hands through his long hair before tugging on the strands to urge him to moan again.

“Gonna cum in you, darling,” he muttered desperately.

Those rough thrusts of his didn’t waver, even when you grunted about him going too fast or too hard. The sound of skin slapping together and moans echoing through the bathroom were enough to convince you that there was no way everyone in the building didn’t know about what you were doing in there. For whatever reason, though, you stopped caring. Maybe it was because the thought of you and Johnny having another kid made your brain melt… All of those comments you made about wanting a baby girl were just jokes to poke fun at how your son looked so like Johnny and not you, but to Johnny it wasn’t just a joke, and you should have known better after the fourth time you brought it up and Johnny kept saying, “One day.” You thought he was kidding too! But no, there he was, a man on a mission, driving into you like there was no tomorrow, like you were the last two people left on Earth.

“You’re so fucking perfect, fuck—” Johnny leaned back just enough for him to be able to look down at the obscene image of his cock disappearing into you over and over again as his nails left imprints in the fat on your hips. “So fucking pretty.” He slid his hands down to drag his nails up, leaving a trail of red marks in their wake along your plush thighs. “All mine, too.” He threw his head back and let out a moan as he very suddenly started cumming inside of you, also without any warning, just like everything else that night.

You stood with your weight being held up by his hands and your supportive grip on the sink, but your legs shook too hard to keep entirely still while you felt the warmth of his cum seep into your core. You could’ve sworn you heard him mumble something along the lines of, “Good girl,” but your head was spinning too fast to make sense of it. So just as quickly as Johnny had been in you, he slid out with a lewd sound caused by your wetness and his cum, then he pulled up his pants. With shaky hands, you pulled your pants up too. Neither of you said anything as Johnny pushed his hair back out of his face with a heavy, relieved sigh, like he couldn’t remember why he was mad in the first place now that he had gotten off inside of his wife who was left with a dry mouth and a body that was vibrating uncontrollably. You tried to calm yourself down the only way you knew how: You squatted down and bowed your head so that you could focus on catching your breath. Johnny gasped and reached out to grab you, but you had yourself still supported by holding onto the sink, so he backed off slightly but remained close in case you needed his help.

“I’m sorry, baby— I got ahead of myself, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m so sorry.”

Swallowing hard, you croaked, “John…”

“Yeah?” he replied worriedly.

“We’ve been together for nearly five years… You need to fuck me like that more often.”

For a moment, he didn’t do a thing, but then he started laughing loudly while leaning over to brace his hands on his knees. You stayed where you were on the ground. He nodded, still laughing. “Okay, baby, I can do that.” When he got his laugh out of the way, Johnny held his hands out to help you off the ground and up to your feet slowly so that you could carefully regain your bearings. “You okay?”

You nodded.

“Promise?”

“It’s not sexy if you keep asking.”

Johnny chuckled lightly before kissing your forehead. “By the way, I know it wasn’t your fault that my mic got fucked up. Stupid cord came loose, it’s no one’s fault.”

You looked up at him with a smile before kissing him with a peck at first until he used his height to tower over you and kiss you passionately while he inhaled for air and you reached up to tangle your fingers in his hair. When someone knocked on the bathroom door all of a sudden, you both pulled away and took a large step in opposite directions of each other as if you had actually been caught with your pants down.

“Are you two done?” Yuta asked from the other side of the door.

You sighed quietly. Yeah, everyone definitely knew about you two.

“Yeah,” you replied, giving up on the idea of pretending you weren’t in there or that you hadn’t just fucked. “Coming.”

Johnny chortled.

Your attention snapped to your husband, and before you could pull paper towels out of the dispenser and throw them at him, Johnny made a run for it out of the bathroom with his tail tucked between his legs.

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[artyandink]

You should definitely do an imagine of Jensen's characters reacting to stretch marks!! I need that 😜😔

nature’s beauty

SUMMARY: You have stretch marks. How would the boys react to that?

TW: Body image, issues with stretch marks— but they’re normal girlies, I have them too, Jensen’s characters being normal about it cause yeah, mild angst, mild smut, mentions of sex, making out, spice

SONG INSPO: Golden Hour by JVKE, Scars to Your Beautiful by Alessia Cara

DEAN WINCHESTER

Dean kissed down your body, undoing your jeans and pushing them down. He had you on your back in his bed, his breaths coming in harsh pants as he marked your skin like the possessive son of a bitch he was, taking your panties with them. “Fuck, baby, you’re gorgeous.”

Dean was the type of guy to hit on every girl he saw, but that’s cause he found them beautiful. Shape or size. Then he met you, and he kept coming back for more and eventually made you his girlfriend after being a charming son of a bitch instead. He normally kissed every dip and curve he found, but today, you pressed your thighs together.

Not in a sexy way. You’d closed your legs. That was a problem— were you ok? You weren’t hurt, right? Or maybe you were on your period, but he didn’t see a pad on your panties and your cycle would be coming way too early— better to ask you.

“You ok, sweetheart?” Dean asked you, lifting his head up and sitting back on his heels, and you were turned on by the sight of his freckled, muscled upper body but also scared he’d get turned off by seeing the stretch marks that had appeared on your stomach and upper thighs. Well, not so much appeared, but you figured you lost some weight.

You nodded, trying to not look at the very obvious stretch marks and play your crippling insecurity off at the same time. “Yeah, I’m good.”

But Dean’s eyes followed yours, and they landed on the stretch marks, and his thumbs immediately moved to trace them. “Darlin’, you can’t seriously think I’m gonna mind these.” Then he saw the embarrassed look on your face, and he kissed down your stretch marks, which surprised you. “God, I love ‘em. It’s nature, baby. Shows you’re a damn beautiful woman with damn beautiful normal things. And guess what?”

He climbed back up until your face was level with his, and he gave you a kiss that blew your mind, took your breath away. “You’ve earned yourself a first class, five star worshipping.”

Your eyes widened, knowing what that meant. “Wait, Dean—”

Your legs went over his shoulders, a wicked grin on his face. “Can’t have my gorgeous girl feelin’ insecure, hm? So you’re gonna feel good. All. Night. Long.”

BEN

You’d just come off the effects of giving birth, and man, when Ben realised that one, you had his kid and two, you were ready to get fucked into oblivion again, he was ecstatic. You’d had a baby girl, Austin, named after the city (“Austin? What the fuck kinda name is— wait, that’s actually perfect.”) and she quickly became a daddy’s girl, as Ben promised you she would as soon as he held the baby in his gigantic hands.

But then there came the problem of stretch marks.

Your belly had, in your words, ‘deflated’, but now you were left with the horror of stretch marks, which kind of made you think. What would Ben say? He loved his women ripe and pretty and perfect, what would he say if he saw those marks on your skin?

You found out when you were standing shirtless in your bedroom, inspecting the marks when Ben stepped in, and his libido fired up the moment he saw you standing with only your bra on. That’d be torn off in a few moments, he was sure.

“Hello, sexy mama.” He grinned wolfishly, stepping behind you, dropping his lips to your neck as his hands rubbed over the stomach that held his kid. “Don’t know about you, but I’m lookin’ to pamper my gorgeous wife and the mother of my kid. Gonna make you come so many times, I swear to God.”

But when you stopped his hand from going down the front of your pants, he raised his eyebrows. Not the time? Or… did someone hurt you?

“Sweetcheeks, did something happen?” He asked, his brow now furrowing. Ben was an impatient man. “I swear, baby girl, you tell the name of the motherfucker who hurt you and I’ll-”

“You don’t see them?” You asked in confusion, and his eyes travelled around the room and then back to you in mirrored emotion. See what? What the fuck was he supposed to see?

Ben chuckled, cupping your cheek. “Did you get into my weed? Are you high, gorgeous?”

“No, I’m not high.” You smiled despite yourself, and gestured down to your stomach, rubbing over the marks. “These. You don’t… see them? You don’t care?”

Ben scoffed, his hand resting over yours to stop them from moving. “Why the fuck should I care when this is proof that you carried our kid? Shit, darlin’, you did that for nine months. If anything, that’s a mark of a damn strong woman, and that? It turns me on. Gets me going.” A kiss to your neck. “Gets me rock hard.” Another kiss, pressing himself fully against your back so you could feel it. “Ain’t no life in which you won’t turn me on, babydoll.”

It brought a smile to your face.

“Now, you’re gonna sit pretty, and I’m gonna fuck this crap out of that gorgeous little head’a yours.”

Shit.

BEAU ARLEN

“H-Hey, Beau, c’mon, that tickles!” You were lying on your back on the bed, your shirt pushed up while Beau kissed over your stretch marks, beard tickling your skin while his hands held your hips in place.

But the Texan cowboy looked up with a shit-eating grin, pressing another kiss to another mark. “You’re the one who felt insecure about this, darlin’. I’ve gotta give it some good old Texan lovin’, so you brought this on yourself.”

He continued kissing over them, fingers tracing them while you couldn’t help but giggle and squirm, but also feel reassured. “Come on, handsome, I get the point.”

Beau still gave you an indignant look paired with a smirk— the stubborn bastard. “No can do, gorgeous. Can’t tear myself away from these. It’s like they’re magnetic.” He continued pressing kisses to them, chuckling under his breath.

His hands kneaded your hips, then rubbed comfortingly up and down your sides, humming at every press of his lips to your stretch marks as if he belonged there.

Beau kissed up your body, then nuzzled his nose against yours before pressing a slow kiss to your lips, covering your hand that came up to cup his cheek, your giggles dissolving into an identical hum. His lips were soft, and they felt like home. He was your home.

When he pulled back, Beau took your hand in his and pressed kisses to your knuckles this time, then every finger.

“I love every inch’a you, sugar.” He rumbled with a loving smile, brushing your hair out of your face. “Don’t you ever forget that, y’hear me?”

CJ BRAXTON

You and CJ were cuddling on the pull-out couch in your co-ed, your head tucked into the crook of his neck while his arms were around you like a koala. His hand rubbed up and down your side over your shirt, fingers lightly brushing your skin and tracing patterns.

It was no secret to anyone that CJ adored you so much it could give him a cavity with how sweet he was on you. He kept on looking down at you, a small smile on his face while he thought of how much of a lucky bastard he was.

His hand slipped under your shirt, not to initiate anything like sex but to just feel you closer, but his fingers brushed your stretch marks and he instantly felt your hand take his wrist, stopping him. That set him off into a world of worry.

“Woah, what’s wrong, sweetheart?” He asked, frowning as his eyes abandoned the movie, instantly locking on you. “Everything ok? You’re not hurt, are you?”

“No, it’s fine, just don’t wanna be touched there.” You murmured, kissing his cheek, but he didn’t believe that. His hand slowly lifted up your shirt, watching you for any signs of extreme discomfort, or even slight. But you didn’t stop him, so when he saw your stretch marks, he raised his eyebrows with a smile.

“Hey, there, beautiful.” He chuckled, rubbing his thumb over them. “Where have you been hiding?”

Wait, what? He didn’t mind?

“You don’t- you’re not grossed out, or you don’t hate them?” You asked, severely confused but hopeful. And slightly embarrassed that you immediately expected him to hate them.

CJ’s eyebrows raised to his hairline, and he kissed your forehead. “Being grossed out by these is like being grossed out when you get your period, and I love you even more when you’re on your period. I get to cuddle with you and love you. This right here just gives me an extra opportunity to show you how beautiful you are. These are normal. It’s a natural process, and I’m a nature guy.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Really.” He grinned, kissing you briefly but sweetly, and it melted all your nerves. He was controversially perfect, you thought, and that made you love him even more.

Damn him.

“Thank you.” You sighed, cupping his cheek. He responded with a smile and kissed the inside of your wrist, rubbing the marks on your skin with a grin on your face.

CJ looked down to the stretch marks, kissing you deeply. “Don’t you ever think anything about you makes you less than.” He murmured against your lips, hand coming up to cup your chin.

ALEC MCDOWELL

Alec McDowell, a cocky-ass son of a bitch. He knew it, everyone knew it, and he did well to remind everyone of it whenever he opened his goddamn mouth. However, he was your cocky-ass son of a bitch, because he was your boyfriend.

As he was a transgenic and you were a human, he’d heard of stretch marks but never seen them on a person because transgenics didn’t have bodily imperfections. It was practically impossible. So when you opened up to him about your insecurities about them, well, he was more than willing to comfort you even if he was inwardly confused as fuck.

You were beautiful. What was this nonsense?

“I don’t see anything that ain’t beautiful, if that’s what you’re asking.” He shrugged, being a little shit and acting as if your stretch marks didn’t exist. “In fact, I see some gorgeous tiger stripes. Absolutely stunning.”

The comparison had you chucking a throw pillow to him, which he caught, obviously. “Alec!”

Alec gave you a grin, setting the pillow aside and catching another one. “What, you’re telling me those things don’t look like tiger stripes? Come on, dollface. Be entirely honest.” He pointed at the stretch marks with a sexy smirk that would’ve had your knees weak not for the situation. “Tiger. Stripes. Cause you’re fierce. Majestic.”

“You’re actually crazy.” Despite yourself, you were grinning like a lovesick idiot.

“Crazy for you, baby.” He replied with a wink, setting the pillow aside before reaching the bed with his advanced speed, beginning to kiss your neck. “Now, about that body of yours…”

JASON TEAGUE

“Wait- hold on for a moment.” Jason raised an eyebrow, pulling back from kissing you senseless on your bed. “You saying ‘I wanna show you something’ wasn’t code for sex? Baby, we gotta make signals more clear.”

You lifted your shirt, showing Jason the marks around your stomach. His eyebrows raised slightly at them, and you bit your lip. “Is this ok with you?”

Is this ok?

Is this ok?

“Should it not be?” He raised his eyebrow with a small smile. “I’m not fazed by these, sweetheart. In fact, the fact that you have normal bodily reactions, that makes you more gorgeous to me. In fact, the knowledge that you breathe turns me on, because it’s normal.” You could practically taste the amusement in his words, and you swatted his shoulder with a laugh.

“Alright, I get it.” You pouted, and he let out a small ‘aww’ and wrapped his arms around you, kissing your temple. “I get it.”

Jason hummed, cupping your chin so he could turn it for a slow kiss. “Look, I’m gonna revert back to… seventh grade. I think. And I have no shame in it, especially not when I say that I think you’re really pretty. And I think you’re smart, and funny, and you have a killer body - that’s not seventh grade - but my point is that nothing about that bothers me. Ok? So don’t let it bother you, I don’t love you any less.”

©️ 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐲𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐤 / 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐲’𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐨

𝐈 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐝/𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝

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[sulumuns-dootah]

Waking up from a wet dream while sharing bed

⟡ Masterlist ⟡ 

Characters: Satan, Astaroth, Glasyalabolas, Beelzebub, Ronové, Belphegor, Gusion

Warnings/Notes: Beelzebub's part contains Somnophilia, Ronové's part was inspired by scenes from this official music video to a song Mein Teil by Rammstein

‎‧₊˚✧ 18+ Minors Do Not Interact‎ ✧˚₊

    ༺☆༻

“Oh~!” a breathy moan turns into a gasp as the deliciously erotic scene in front of your eyes turns into a darkness with a faint light coming in through the window. 'So it was all a dream, huh? Well that's annoying. And just as I was about to finish.'

The irritation at your denied release seems to physically manifest itself as a faint red glow right next to you. Looking in its direction you realise that it's Satan's eyes glowing from your annoyance. A slight move of your legs to get a better look at his sleeping form reminds you of your very real need, which only seems to have become more intense from looking at the mostly naked demon next to you. Sleeping on his stomach,only in his underwear, the blanket covering his bottom half, exposing his toned back, and his head turned to your side.

Images from your dream resurface in your mind. The positions and the things he told you and had you in your dream. If only you could go back to sleep and continue from where it left of, or maybe replay it and this time without missing out on the ending.

“Do you have to stare at me like that? You know I'm awake, right... Fuck, you look like Beelzebub when he's about to devour the whole meal with the table and the waiter.” a voice, even deeper due to his sleepiness, grumbles at you while the glowing red eyes slowly blink.

“And how am I supposed to tell? Sleep like a normal person and I'll stare at you only when you sleep.” letting your frustration cloud your voice you lay back down and turn to your side, away from him. You don't stay in that position for long though, as a strong, muscular arm pulls you back into position on your back. With a grunt, Satan moves himself to lay on top of you with his hips between your legs.

“M'kay... Explain yourself. Why the hell are you awake at this fucking hour?” he mumbles and nuzzles his head between your tits. As simple and innocent as that action was, it made your ache for him even worse. A soft moan comes out of your neck and you try to use it as a subtle hint by following it by a long sigh.

“Oh?” a single-worded question turns into a chuckle as Satan's tired mind catches up. Even while barely awake, the demon can't help but tease you with few slow drags of his awakening dick against your thigh.

With a few grunts he pulls himself up to face you and align his now hard cock with your needy, but still clothed pussy. As sleepy as he still is, his hands are quick to move the fabric of your underwear away and plunge himself into you. Satan can't help but chuckle at how little resistance your walls give. So needy, huh?

Picking up a rather fast pace quickly catches you up with the bliss from your dream. Trying to anchor yourself you reach out for Satan's horns. His thrusts are forceful enough to make you move up the bed, making your hands glide on his horns. The stimulation from both ends makes the angry demon roll his eyes back and loll his tongue out.

God, he looks even better than in your dream. No, you don't wanna finish yet. You wanna enjoy this view for as long as possible. This time he's real and there's nothing that will take your release away.

Satan's strong arms travel down to your hips to slam you back onto his cock. His nails dig into the flesh, adding pain to the intoxicating mixture of pleasure and weariness. To return his actions, you trail your hands down his hair, by pulling on it, to end up scratching at his back. Your actions make Satan growl and increase his pace.

The demon's red eyes start to roll back again, but this time he decides to ground himself by biting down on your neck. All of this stimulation and pain together trigger your earth-shattering orgasm and as an attempt to not lose your sanity, your hand flies back to Satan's horn and squeezes really hard, in turn triggering his own orgasm.

While still inside you, Satan lies back on top of you and curls up to have his head back on your chest. ”That'll teach you to stare at me while I'm awake.” he murmurs at last and softly bites one of your tits before falling asleep again, you soon following after.

    ༺☆༻

“Y/N.” a deep voice calls out to you, shattering your very vivid dream about having your cunt stuffed full with just two fingers of a certain depraved demon. Your eyes open even slower than you'd like to. Why did he have to wake you up?

“My, my... How clouded your gaze is. Was the dream so salacious, you'd nearly forgotten that it's merely a dream?” a low chuckle comes from Astaroth.

“Yeah, I just wish someone didn't wake me up!” you're mad. You barely have dreams, and erotic dreams at that. And now that you finally experience one, it has to be rudely ripped away from you?

“I do apologise, but you were calling my name oh, so sweetly, doll. I'd hoped that perhaps it would be rather kind of me to allow you to experience such scenario in your waking life, rather than merely as an, albeit vivid, but still nonetheless a dream.” for someone, who seemed to have gotten woken up by your gasps and moans, Astaroth was still very articulate. It takes you a while to process what all those words meant. Well, at least he wants to make up for the scenario he'd robbed you of.

“Oh.. Um...” you try to form a response, but the demon doesn't really wait for it. You find yourself being positioned between his spread legs, your back against his chest. “Now, tell me. What wicked things did I do in your dream?” he murmurs into your ear.

“B-but you already know anyway...” despite being made to voice your needs every time, that one part of your brain made you feel embarrassed each of those times. A veiny hand travels up your inner thigh only to ghost over your clothed pussy. “I believe we've been over this many times, darling. I cannot give you what you crave if you don't tell me.”

“Uhm... Well... In my dream, y-your fingers were inside me and you were whispering to me the nice things you always do.” you close your eyes and rest your head on Astaroth's shoulder.

A small gasp comes out of you as the ghosting fingertips start to make a contact with the fabric of your underwear. The tickling sensation immediately sparks your arousal back to life. Letting out a shaky breath your hands move to Astaroth's thighs and squeeze them in anticipation.

“Now, that's a good girl. I do wonder, what exactly have I been saying to you to earn such lovely reaction. Seemingly, in your dream you've lost all shame, dirty girl. I've never heard you say my name so unashamedly before.” the long, slender fingers start to push onto your nub with slow, small circles.

“F-fuck...” you let out a breathy moan as your body quickly starts catching up to the point where it's been interrupted. And all of that before Astaroth even barely started doing anything.

“Mhm... Such a good pet. Just look at the way your legs are trembling already. My fingers are going to ruin you.” a low chuckle vibrates from the demon's chest as the slow circles start to pick up speed.

The delicious friction is interrupted when the pale fingers move your underwear aside, exposing your heated core to the cold air of the room. Running his fingers through your folds to collect your leaking wetness, the demon uses it to make a few more quick circles on your clit and then finally plunges them deep inside you. You're so aroused at this point, that if it weren't for Astaroth's amused hum, you wouldn't notice their entrance. Just the feeling of having them filling you would be enough for you to finish.

“How wet you already are for me, my dear. If this is how wet you get dreaming about my fingers, I wonder how ruined you'd be after merely dreaming of my cock.” he taunts as his fingers start to move. Your grip on his thick thighs strenghtens to the point where your nails are surely drawing some blood.

“Nnghh...” the knot in your lower belly is tightening at a dangerous rate and you know that once you finish, Leraye and Paimon in the rooms sharing a wall with Astaroth's room will know.

As the pace of the digits inside you picks up, so do your moans. Every so often they curl upwards and make you make you bite your lip harder. Your legs are ready to give up any second, until finally, you can feel yourself getting close.

“My, how wonderfully you sing, dove. I can feel you're ready to come for me. Come now, wake His Majesty Satan himself with your sweet voice.” the notion of having Satan break the doors down to the very same room where Astaroth's fingers are exploring your insides, makes you shiver. You don't know yourself weather from embarrassment or excitement. Either way, the added sensation helps you push over the edge.

With toes curling and your thighs snapping shut, a whine leaves your chest as the blissful feeling takes over your mind. The lips, previously talking to you in such an obscene way start to kiss down your neck to taste the sweat which had formed there.

With your eyes now closed, the world starts to slip from you again without a care for the position, you're falling asleep in. The last thing you somewhat remember is Astaroth pulling the cover back over you and laying down with you still between his legs.

    ༺☆༻

“My queen... What a way to wake me up, but we should rather sleep. His Majesty has asked us to do a lot of things tomorrow.” as your consciousness slowly returns to your body, you become aware of your hips slowly dragging themselves against Glasyalabolas' thigh on their own.

“Oh... I- I'm sorry... I think I just had an exciting dream...” you blush as you bury your head in the brutal demon's chest even more than it already was in your shared embrace.

“Ah, but I'm afraid your 'sorry' won't do much in this situation, pet.” Glasya responds and only now your core becomes aware of the situation it's caused. It just so happened that the thigh you were humping from your sleep also had now rock hard and already leaking dick in the same pant leg.

“I suppose the only way to make such thing up to me is by offering yourself to me.” a slight thrust against your heated core fully indicates to you exactly what the tall demon plans to do.

To your surprise, you're not rolled back onto your back and your clothes torn off. Quite the opposite, actually. Glasyalabolas merely pulls his length out and slides it between your thighs, which are resting on top of each other due to your sleeping position.

“You might as well finish what you've started. Well go on, get yourself off on my cock like you intended to.” he slowly starts to drag his shaft along your pussy. The tip teasing your clothed entrance and never entering. Your clit experiencing a delicious friction both from the movement as well as the fabric barrier between your heated flesh.

“M-my king, I need your cock inside me, please.” you grip onto his broad back and dig your nails in ecstasy. Sadly he seems to do the exact opposite as his hips are slowly coming to a stop.

“No. Think about this as your punishment. Now get to work or I shall punish you much worse tomorrow.” the thought of being spanked and whipped with a crop until you're sobbing sends a thrill down your spine. It almost makes you want to misbehave, but your body really seems to need this release, so you start slowly dragging your hips. The deep groans coming from the brutal demon are like music to your ears.

The closer you're getting the harder it is to keep your hips moving at a steady pace. A strong arm comes down to move your underwear to the side, unlocking a whole new intensity to your mutual stimulation. Glasya seems to also have picked up on your struggle and decided to help you out by grabbing your ass and moving your himself.

“My God, My king, this feels so good!” you sob into his chest as your walls clench around nothing.

“Hah, flattery won't make me go easy on you, dove.” a breathy chuckle leaves Glasyalabolas at your blissful babbling.

A large hand lands a few spanks to your ass, making you jump in surprise and fist the demon's sleeping shirt. You can tell he's getting impatient with the way he's moving you back and forth on his dick. His hips also seem to start thrusting again. All of this bliss makes you feel like screaming, but you bite your lip as hard as you can. If you woke someone up or even worse, made someone investigate, you'd surely be punished extra painfully.

The temperature seems to be only rising under the covers and you're starting to feel the familiar tingling, meaning you're starting to get close. The same hand from before now squeezes one of your ass cheeks, bringing you dangerously close, only for a low moan coming from Glasya to push you over the edge. As you cum, your thighs clench together stronger than before, pushing the tall demon to completion too.

“Good girl. Too bad it had to be me who finished us both off. I expect you waiting for me on the bed on all fours when I come back from my last errand tomorrow.” with his eyes already closed again, he grumbles. His softening dick is still between your thighs, but you don't really care. Now you have more fun to look forward to tomorrow.

    ༺☆༻

As your dream slowly slips away, the feeling of something wet against of your pussy and wet sounds mixed with moans takes over your senses. At first you think it's your, oddly, very early period, but then the wet thing starts moving. A sudden, brief wave of movement sickness takes over you as it seems that the bed is slightly moving back and forth.

A loud moan forces you to finally look between your legs and see Beelzebub having the time of his life there. His horn is fully drenched, making a mess of your oversized sleep t-shirt that bunched up above your abdomen. His green eyes are fully focused on the sight of your cunt, as if carefully deciding on which part of his meal he'll devour next. His hips are moving in a thrusting motion, rubbing his dick on the mattress, causing the bed to move like that.

A blissful whimper leaves your lips at the realisation of what's happening, when Beelzebub, who started to suck on your clit, slowly looks up at you, making an eye-contact. His eyes are clouded over with lust and his cheeks are red with blush. The sight alone is so euphoric, you close your eyes and allow your head to fall back onto the pillow.

Beelzebub licks a stripe from your hole to your clit and bites right next to it. “Wakey, wakey... Finally joining the party?” he chuckles and makes a trail of kisses down your inner thigh, starting at your knee.

“Mhm.. With a pretty invitation like this, one can't refuse.” your hand finds his golden hair and start playing with it. His hair is sticky with his horn cum, but you don't care.

“Exactly! You called my name so hungrily, smelling so divine, it led me right between your legs and you weren't even awake! Those are some bad manners, Y/N.” Beel playfully scolds you and pulls himself up so your faces are the same level.

You can feel his pierced cock throb against your thigh as he pulls you in for a heated kiss. The pierced tongue explores your mouth and makes you taste yourself. You hands travel from the demon's back to his ass to squeeze it, making him buck his length against your soaked core.

Beelzebub moves slightly down your body, to start playing with your nipples. He pulls one into his mouth, biting and sucking on it, occasionally running his cold piercing over it, making you whine underneath him. To tease him back, you start to run your tongue around the tip of his horn. His deep moans vibrate your nub back in return.

Lining up his manhood with your entrance, the king of flies only pushes in the tip, waiting for you to beg for him to push in even deeper. Instead of that, however you start stroking his horn slowly, to drive him insane.

Having provoked a reaction out of him, he starts slamming into your without a mercy. Stars start floating in the corners of your vision and you're pretty sure your neighbors are going to complain tomorrow, but who cares? It's not like you'll be able to go open the door to them, or go anywhere else for that matter.

The headboard of your bed is loudly banging against the wall and if you weren't having your insides rearranged by the strongest demon in Hell, you'd be worried about denting it or the bed falling apart.

You're both starting to reach your peaks. It seems like barely anything even happened, but who even knows how long he was between your legs, rutting against the mattress before you woke up. Deep growls leave the demon above you, indicating that he's holding back to allow you to finish first.

Your hand moves to rub fast circles into your clit. Finally arriving, you bite into Beelzebub's shoulder so your neighbors don't call the police on you. Letting loose, the demon stuffs his dick as deep as he can and fills you up with his cum with a loud moan.

“Wow... Stay the night?” you pull Beel into an embrace once he slips out with a few whines.

“Can't. Wouldn't be surprised if Bael or someone else was monitoring your place to send for me when I'm here. Besides, I don't want you to be in danger if angels decided to attack me.” he lights up a cigarette and offers it to you after blowing a cloud of smoke, ”I'll stay until you fall asleep, though, if it'll make you feel better.”

“Good enough for me.” you accept your small win with a smile and accept Beel's cigarette.

“Just make sure you don't have any of those dirty dreams of yours. If I have to come back here, I'll have you screaming the whole night without mercy.” he jokes, but you know his threat is real.

The two of you manage to once more sloppily make out, before you rest your head on his chest and fall back asleep.

    ༺☆༻

A thud startles you awake. Your eyes snap awake to see Ronove standing in front of the door to your shared bedroom. Even without being able to fully see his eyes, you can tell they're mischievously scanning your form as his leatherbound arms are crossed over his chest.

Why? You wanted to surprise your beloved demon by waiting for him, dressed up in a white lingerie complete with angel wings. Sadly, the lunatic infector took his sweet time and before you had the chance to present yourself, you apparently fell asleep. And only now, noticing the position of your hand, in your underwear, the realisation of having a wet dream completes the puzzle.

“Having fun without me, angel?” he enunciates clearly around the red ballgag in his mouth, his head cocking more downwards as if to meet your gaze more intensely.

“Well, what was I supposed to do when you were who-knows-where for so long?” the sleepiness fully leaves your body the moment he starts to slowly walk towards the edge of the bed. Ronove's strong hand yanks you towards him by your leg, making you squeak out. Your legs are forcefully spread out to expose the wet crotch of your lace bodysuit to the cold air of the room.

“So sassy, for a poor soul who's trying to clearly get ravaged by me. You must be really brave to dress as something I'm known to enjoy breaking apart. Or perhaps, you'd wish to experience the same, hm?” he kneels between your parted legs, leaning over your body, which is now completely at his mercy. Maybe you've actually made a mistake.

In mere seconds the large demon manhandles you into a kneeling position right in front of him with your upper body held against the front of his chest. A hand with black-painted nails comes from behind you to fondle your tits as the other one stays firmly around your waist.

“Ah, exquisite choice of lace, little one~” Ronove muses as the active hand moves down your body over the material, tracing the stitching only to arrive to your heated core. Instead of continuing his fondling there, however, he tears the fabric with one firm tug, eliciting a yelp from you at the sting of the action.

A slight chuckle leaves the lunatic demon and your upper body is roughly pushed forward, to leave you ass up, pushed against his growing hard on. The sound of a small clasp being undone is followed by his saliva-drenched gag landing next to your head resting on the bed.

“Now, when it comes to dismantling angels, I personally enjoy doing such while they're still alive. For me, the best part is, you see, the way they scream. So please, don't hold back.” his voice is now more clear as he purrs. The words he says make you even more nervous. What is he intending to do?

The sound of Ronove undoing his pants interrupt you from your slightly panicked thinking. His two large hands come down to spank both of your cheeks to rip the first scream of the night out of you. He's barely touched you and you can already feel tears well up in your eyes.

Another scream is pushed from your lungs when the strong demon's rather large cock gets slammed into you without mercy. You barely have the time to regain some air in your lungs when he starts punishingly pounding away. Your hands start fisting the sheets below you as each thrust pulls another small scream or cry out of you.

You can't see it from your position, but Ronove is very intrigued by the wings you'd chosen to wear. He reaches out to stroke them. The feathers feel nice against his hands. He really wants some of them in his collection despite not actually being from an angel. You're his angel and that's good enough for him. Still, the need to destroy is still present and so he can't stop himself from grabbing a fistful of the white, iridescent feathers and tear them off of the cardboard base and throw them into the air above you.

As the small fluffy things descent around and on top of you, you're shocked to realise, that Ronove's rough approach to you is already managing to start drawing out your first orgasm of the night. One of many. You cry out and writhe underneath the mountain of a demon, but there's not escaping.

“How deliciously you sing, my angel. If you keep this up, I won't be able to stop myself until the sun's come up.” he laughs hoarsely, almost like the brutal pace is not taking a toll on his stamina at all...

Sometime around your fifth orgasm you'd started hoping he'd finally be satisfied and allow the two of you to rest, but you did keep screaming and he did, indeed, keep his promise. By the end of the night you'd completely lost track of how many time's you'd called out his name on the verge of consciousness, barely holding onto your last threads of sanity.

As you passed out, completely exhausted, Ronove admired his work. Your bite and scratch covered form laying lifelessly, surrounded and covered by the feathers, which your wings few hours ago consisted of. He was starting to feel slightly tired too, but he had to yet add new feathers to his collection. And so he picked out few, which seemed practically unharmed and silently left the room to go update his collection room.

    ༺☆༻

Your blissful sleep gets interrupted by your body's involuntary twitch. If only there was a clock in the bedroom so you could tell how late at night it is.

“Oh, you're awake.” a simple statement forces your eyes wide open.

Rolling over to your other side, you're able to take in Belphegor, awake and watching some anime on his tablet. The light from his device gently illuminates his features from a low angle and interestingly highlights his peculiarly placed piercings.

“Some kind of dream you've had. Been tossin' and turnin' most of the time.” his eyes don't leave the screen for a second. With his head bent down, some stay strands of hair are loosely hanging in front of his face, but he doesn't seem to mind.

Images from of your dream suddenly start flashing in front of your eyes, reminding you of why your body kept thrashing around. You had a really hot dream. A vivid picture of the dream's Belphie's double-irised eye rolling back makes your thighs clench together. With that action more pictures arise.

Even dream you should've realised that it's a dream since the sleepy demon was uncharacteristically energetic. Tossing you around and bending you over various furniture that seemed sturdy enough at that moment before breaking it and moving on to another available surface.

“Must you glare at me, woman?” Belphegor interrupts your recalling. The vision of being pounded into while most of your body is in mid-air dissipates and you come too see him giving you a tired side-eye.

“Oh! Uhm... Sorry, just wondering how come you're awake.” you try to hide your embarrassment at being caught by squashing your face more into the pillow, still intently watching the demon's actions.

“Sure ya are,-” he pauses the anime, which only now you realise in actuality is a Hentai,”Y'know I gotta be awake sometime too, right?” a grumble comes out of Belphegor as he runs a hand through his hair to fix the stray hair back into place. With a slow blink his focus is fully turned towards you, expecting an answer.

“I mean, yeah, but why in the middle of the night? Why not during the day so we can do something together?” the three irises are staring at you intently, almost boring holes through you. Both of you know the answer why, but it's worth to try asking every now and then, right?

“'n why are ya awake then?” completely disregarding your questions, Belphegor sets the tablet on the nightstand next to him. His attention is fully on you and you know he knows. He has to. There were times he smelt your arousal before it even hit you.

You pull yourself up to sit and proceed to crawl on all fours towards him. Bringing your face extremely closely to his, you whisper: “I need your dick inside me.”

The demon's eyes slightly widen and he smirks. His hands find your hips and pull them into his lap, “Well you're lucky I'm in a good mood.” He's already hard, as if he'd expected your request. So he did know. “But ya still gotta do all the work.”

“Yeah, I don't think you need to tell me each time at this point.” you say with bitterness lacing your words. Was there even a time you haven't done all the work? Your hips at this point as if know from memory all the right movements to make you both feel good. Still, you want some variation, dammit!

“Hey, ya better be grateful that I'm letting ya have any. If ya don't like it, ya can use your fingers.” he grunts, his threat of leaving you needy only half empty. As you try to answer, he takes his length out and slams you on it, making you whine out instead. To his credit, his hands are guiding your hips this time, which already is more participation than usually.

“I-it's just that I'd like to change things up sometimes. Doing the same thing over and over again can get boring.” you try to answer him again, this time successfully. Belphegor doesn't answer anymore. From his movements, you can tell he's over this conversation. His head is tilted back as his half-lidded eyes watch you as you fuck yourself on his cock.

All of a sudden darkness starts creeping up into your vision, but it's not one of passing out or falling asleep. It's Belphie's power engulfing you. Your heart starts to race to the point where you're afraid it'll give out any minute. The building pressure of the void that's fully surrounded you and the king of sloth somehow makes the knot in your lower belly tighten with much greater intensity.

The very tips of your whole body tingle and are numb at the same time. The only thing that feels right is the movement of the pierced length that's dragging in and out of you. Your body seems to be moving on its own, as if he's the one moving you up and down despite not being able to feel his hands, or see them for that matter.

It's not long until you feel like you're either gonna die or have the most intense orgasm in your life. The sight of you must be one to remember. Your brain is so clouded over with pleasure and the sheer intensity of your surrounding nothingness, that the only thought you're able to muster up is 'This is it. I'm dying.'

The knot in your stomach coming undone hits you like a gunshot. Your eyes fly open as if there was something to look at in the void. The void doesn't last for long, though. The more you start feeling yourself move on Belphegor's still hard cock again, the more you're coming down and the room starts appearing once more, the emptiness dispersing until it's gone.

“How's that for changin' things up?” an exhausted question brings you back to earth and only now you realise, how much your thighs burn from the workout. Yep, you're definitely gonna have to be carried around for the next week.

Your body fully gives out and you slump right next to the demon. Only now you notice that he didn't finish alongside with you. You'd feel bad and offer to despite all your soreness help him get off, but looking up from his chest, you realise that he's soundly snoring away.

Oh well, maybe you can still put your fingers to a good use, just like he wanted you to. Unless you yourself don't fall asleep during it, that is.

    ༺☆༻

“Gusion?” your bare feet make their way through the hallway of your house. You're looking for your beloved demon, who you've failed to find sleeping next to you. Normally, you'd feel guilty asking for help with your problems, but you have the feeling he'll be glad to help out with this one.

A soft light coming from your office slash library reveals the location of the smart demon. Pushing the door open, it takes you a second to find him. The desk is covered in many scattered papers and some opened books, but the from of a tall demon is missing. Only after fully entering the room you spot him crouched down like a goblin, his back to you, intensely muttering to himself above a paper filled with numbers and symbols.

“Gus?” you call out to him. At first you're not sure if he's even heard you, but then his head slowly rises and even slower turns in your direction. His demeanor makes you slightly nervous. It's almost like you're his prey.

“I-I might have something I need your help with.” you squeak out but Gusion knew that already. When you interrupted him from his thoughts, the scent of your arousal hit him like a truck.

The demon's body triples in size as he rises from his crouching position. His sharp eyes are scanning your half-naked body, still clutching a corner of a blanket in your hands that's dragging between your legs on the ground. It almost makes you look like a toddler who had a bad dream and searches for its parents.

Each step he takes towards you helps him regain his composure despite wanting to do the exact opposite, but he can't, not yet. Once he's standing in front of you, his slender fingers lift your chin up to meet his gaze, ”Hm, and what can I help you with, love?”

He's teasing and you both know it. You drop the blanket and reach out to pull Gusion down to your level so you can look him deeply into his eyes. “You're smart. Figure it out.”

An amused laugh leaves the smart demon and his hands are quick to pick you up to lay you down on the paper-covered desk. A hopeful thought about all the ink writing being dry flies through your mind.

“Now, judging from how sweet you smell, I gotta deduce that you've had an interesting dream.” Gusion thinks out loud as he's undoing his tie. His hips slot themselves between you legs which have fallen open on their own. “Mmh... you're so soaked. Did you already try to handle your problem on your own?”

“Not quite!” you giggle on your little victory while you can, knowing that you probably won't be able to laugh once he's inside you. The smart demon hums contemplatively as he's pulling your underwear down, possibly coming up with the best punishment for your little taunt. Still, you decide to push your luck even further, ”Actually, I woke up with my fingers already inside me.”

“Semantics.” Gusion's head rises with a toothy smirk. Oh, you're in for a ride for sure. His hands spread your legs more than necessary until your thighs start to strain. As he's pulling his uncomfortable boner out, he contemplates: “Now, what am I working with here?”

You're about to respond with another witty remark, but all that comes out is a gasp from having the long, slightly girthier dick plunged inside. Just having it inside you is enough to reignite the fire inside your womb. The situation you're is just as hot as the dream you've had.

Gusion's thrusts are slow, teasing even. You could sound off and ask him to go faster, but you're smart enough to know it's just a ploy so that he can start pounding into you to the point the desk's legs will surely break.

“This what you needed?” the demon taunts you when he doesn't get the reaction he expected.

“Hm.. Not really. Guess you gotta come up with something else.” you mock pout in fake sadness. There's no way you'll let him win that easily. Your response lands perfectly as intended and only seems to rile Gusion more up.

“Well... Then you better hold on tight, because I'm not responsible if something happens to you.” a growl leaves his lips as he swiftly flips you over like you weigh nothing to him.

Your hands grip onto the edge of the desk just in time for Gusion to start pounding into you, making the desk slowly move on the wooden floor. Thankfully the desk's got those floor protectors or your floors would get ruined. Not that either of you care at the moment. Funnily enough, it was Gusion, who suggested them.

You can feel the papers underneath you get crumpled and wrinkled. Some of the book stacks start to topple from the surface on which you're on. The sound of the books hitting the floor interrupting the sound of your moans and Gusion's grunts.

A tattooed hand sneaks its way from your hips to your hair, tangling itself into it. It's not pulling, but it is firmly holding your head in one place as his hips force your body to move back and forth on the wooden surface.

The pain on you scalp, as good as it feels, gradually makes you wish you already finished. It's late in the night and you've got things to do tomorrow. Gusion can sense your frustration and his other hand moves between your legs to trace random equations on your clit.

Before he even manages to finish tracing the first one, you can already sense the cusp of your climax. To push you over the edge, Gusion leans down to your ear to deliver one more teasing line, “You've been quiet for a while now. Did I also manage to find a way to shut that smart mouth of your up?”

You finally come with a whine, making the demon above you laugh and with few more trusts he finishes as well. As the serotonin floods your brain, you're trying to catch your breath. A strong, inked arm hooks under your waist and helps you get up. Not for long though. The moment you're upright, your knees buckle as a warning that they're about to give out.

Sitting down on the chair in a short distance from the desk, Gusion sits you in his lap as well. His hand comes to your face to brush away any hair that stuck there due to the sweat. The demon gently pulls your face towards him so he can plant a soft kiss on your lips and mutters: “I just want you to know that this is my favorite problem to solve for you.”

[beifong-brainrot]

Something I've always loved about atla is how it handled scars, particularly Zuko's facial scar and Aang's lightning scar.

I've probably spoken before about how, as a burn victim with a ton of skin grafts on my legs, torso and hand, Zuko really was the first character "like me" that I saw on TV. It was, as you can guess, quite a momentous moment for kid me. Which is probably why I'm so disheartened on the live action show shrinking and toning down Zuko's scar significantly.

Too often scars, especially burn scars are seen as gore or body horror and too graphic to be seen on TV that isn't horror or related genres. And often scars, especially facial scars are reserved purely for villains and are used as a signifier for 'evil'. A trope that you'll find is still alive and kicking even today even in big franchises.

And while Zuko does reinforce this trope to some extent, I think it was subverted enough for it to have irs own merit. Atla also steers away from the scars=evil narrative, by having a lot of "good" characters have scars too like Bato and Song. This helps destigmatise scars as a whole, making Zuko's 'scarred villany' seem like a more individual case.

In Atla, scars are more the trademark of victims rather than villains and this rings true for Zuko too.

Zuko is a victim of the Fire Nation in the sense that the Fire Nation's values of war, strength and honour facilitated Ozai's abuse of him, particularly the scarring.

Zuko's scarring does follow a very established trope of a son being scarred by a father, which is surprisingly prevalent, especially with burn victims. Seriously I collect these men like pokemon. This tropiness isn't a bad thing, since I think it leads to us very quickly sympathising with him. I certainly did, since his experience mirrors my own.

The scene of Zuko's scarring is also particularly special, due to it being rather unique, because it isn't quick or an action scene, nor is it shown as an overly gory horror scene, despite it being, well, horrific.

It's... tasteful. Or at least, as tasteful as the scene of a child getting scarred by their father can be, I suppose. It doesn't linger on the violence, but also doesn't sugarcoat it. The scene of Zuko's scarring, and the events leading up to it also give us a good exposition to his better qualities, like his compassion, and a good explanation for why these qualities stay buried.

I can understand why some people in the fandom believe that Zuko's scar symbolises his 'worse side', but I actually believe its the opposite. Very often, when a character has a 'split down the middle' type of scar, their scarred side represents their worse half, like with Two Face from DC.

Because Zuko's scar doesn't symbolise his allegiance to the Fire Nation, it symbolises the fact that he failed to live up to the Fire Nation's standards. It's a physical reminder of the time Zuko actively defied the Fire Nation's standards and mindset.

We get a lot of nods to Zuko's scar aymbolising disgrace and failure to uphold ehat the Fire Nation expected of him. It's literally a physical blemish upon his 'honour'.

This is especially noticeable when Zuko's appearance is contrasted with Ozai, who exists as sort of the human stand in for the Fire Nation's imperialism. For most of the show, we are not shown any of Ozai's features, his face being obscured by shadow or out of frame.

We finally see Ozai's face, it's when Zuko is seeing hik for the first time in years. And Ozai looks so similar to Zuko. An unblemished, perfect, complete Zuko, so to speak. In Zuko's fever dream, where we see an unscarred Fire Lord version of Zuko, he looks exactly how I imagine a younger Ozai would look. I also love that Zuko's adult design seems to lean into this similarity.

Furthermore, Zuko's scar is used time and time again as a way he connects with victims of the Fire Nation. People who don't know him, like Song and Jet, assume him to be another victim of the Fire Nation, citing his scar as the reason why. Which is half true, Zuko is a victim of the Fire Nation, just not in the way they think.

Jet: I think Lee would make a good Freedom Fighter. He's just trying to find his way in the world, like us. Smellerbee: You don't know anything about him, Jet. Jet: I know he didn't get that scar from a waterbender.

One person who doesn't connect to Zuko over his burn scar is Katara. I love the scene of Katara and Zuko in the crystal catacombs. It's a profound scene and one that always makes me a bit emotional, especially in the wider context of atla, a subject I've touched on in this post.

However, the handling of Zuko's scar in this scene is especially dear to my heart. I strongly remember that, when Katara offered to heal Zuko's scar, I actually got scared and upset. I was terrified of Zuko's scar being erased, of the connection I felt to him snuffed out and one of the best parts of his characterisation being erased.

But that's not what happened, and the scene is amazing on that front and all others.

We learn that Katara asscociates Zuko's face with the Fire Nation, which makes sense, since he's been kinda clingy for the entire 1st season. Katara denies it having to do with anything with Zuko's scar.

Katara: It's just that for so long now, whenever I would imagine the face of the enemy, it was your face. Zuko: My face? I see. [He touches his scar.] Katara: No, no, that's-that's not what I mean.

The Katara lover in me believes her. As a a member of the Sothern Water Tribe, she probably has seen many burn victims. And her pursuing healing would also probably lead her down the route of normalising and understanding burn scars.

However, I would not be surprised or disconcerted if the scar did have something with Katara perceiving him as a villain. After all, to a lot of people, scars and "ugliness" denote moral ugliness. The very obvious fire asscociation probably doesn't help someone traumatised by the Fire Nation too. It is a sad fact of life that even those who know better subconsciously react to people with scars and other "deformities" with disgust and distrust.

We also see Zuko explicitly give us the rundown of his previously unspoken struggle with feeling like his scar is defining him as a person.

Zuko: It's okay. I used to think this scar marked me. The mark of the banished prince, cursed to chase the Avatar forever. But lately, I've realized I'm free to determine my own destiny, even if I'll never be free of my mark.

This is something I can relate to as someone with prominent scarring and I'm sure we all sometimes feel defined by things outside of our control. Sometimes It's hard to seperate your identity from your appearance. And it's even harder to seperate yourself from events that influenced you so harshly.

As I previously highlighted, Zuko's scar relates strongly to his failure to adhere to the Fire Nation's ideals and conventions, his failure to be the perfect prince of the nation. And while to us, that is a good thing, to Zuko, at least at first, that is a very, very bad thing.

To Zuko, the scar is a symbol of his flaws, and a just, if not harsh punishment for his percieved transgression. He sees it as a brand, denoting his mistake and shame. He sees it as the physical manifestation of what his banishment and scorn from Ozai means.

It's only when he begins growing as a person away from the Fire Nation's influnece, that he starts to realise that the scar is just a scar. It holds no power over him. And while he relapses for a moment, "demystifying" his scar allows him to do the same to the event of his scarring. It allows him to look back at that moment and not see righteous discipline, but rather see it for what it was and go "hey wait a minute that was actually fucked up.". Which allows him to look at The Fire Nation's conquest of the world and go "hey this is also fucked up.", when the lessons he's learnt in the Earth kingdom finally click.

I believe this is why we see Zuko almost purely from the side of his scar in the scene where he confronts Ozai, especially when it's contrasted with Ozai's unscarred eyes.

Zuko's scar, like many scars in fiction, symbolises imperfection. But rather than an "objective" imperfection, as most fictional scars do, Zuko's scar symbolises his imperfection through the skewed and biased eyes of the Fire Nation. It's a nice subversion of the trope that usually encourages us to equate beauty with goodness and ugliness with evil.

Side note, I know I've been using the terms "ugly" and "ugliness" to talk about scars. I just wanted to note that I don't think scars automatically mean someone isn't attractive/scarred people are ugly. But in a lot of media, scars are seen as gross and ugly, which is why I've been using these terms.

I like that Zuko defies this trope by being drawn as very attractive with his scar, and even being seen as desireable in canon.

Even though it does loop back to the 'attractive=good' symbolism, I don't think it totally invalidates the story Zuko's scar is telling. Plus it WAS an ego boost to child year old me who thought no one whould ever love me bcs I looked like a burnt chicken nugget. So I'll let it slide.

I love Zuko's scar, and I love how it seamlessly fit into the story, while also subverting tropes and invalidating stigmas towards scarred people. It's probably one of my favourite, if not very personal aspects of the character.

I do however, also want to analyse and go over Aang's scar from Azula's lightning and I plan to go over it at a later date, since this post is getting a bit long and overwhelming.

Toodles!

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 7: Tell Me That I Won't Feel A Thing]

A/N: Hello besties! Thank you for voting in the poll for Chapter 7. Below are your predictions...let's see how you did! 🥰

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon™️, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes, Jace is back yay!!!

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Give Me Novacaine” by Green Day.

Word count: 9.6k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

Billboards ask you as the Tahoe flies across the flat emerald sea of Iowa: Have you heard the good news? Have you been saved? Where will you spend eternity? Are you struggling with same-sex attraction? Do you regret your abortion? Do you fear the Lord? Do you want to end up in Hell?

Aegon snickers, gnawing on a Slim Jim. The sun glare turns his wild hair to gold, etches crinkles into the ruddy skin around his eyes, murky like deep water, oceans you recognize from other corners of the world. “I thought I was already there.”

Jace’s Honda Rebel 300 is left on the shoulder of the highway with its fuel tank uncapped, drained to feed the Tahoe, prehistoric combustion, bottomless mechanical hunger. Rhaena takes over driving so Baela can sit with Jace, touch him, inhale him, convince herself he’s real. Aegon climbs into the passenger’s seat and skips songs on the CD player until he finds the one he wants: In Da Club by 50 Cent. The miles roll by so soft and so infinite that you can’t imagine ever feeling trapped again, warm July air unfurling down the darkest corridors of your lungs, hawks on lifeless power lines and fields dappled with white-tailed deer. And you think: Everything will be better now.

You cross the Missouri River and into Nebraska at Plattsmouth, which—according to a plaque mounted on the outskirts of town—the Lewis and Clark Expedition passed through over two centuries ago. Rhaena follows Aegon’s directions to cut between Lincoln and Omaha, avoiding the roiling wastelands of the cities and keeping well north of Cooper Nuclear Station, where in the absence of a successful manual or computerized shutdown before the power grid collapsed, rods of uranium are melting down and irradiating the surrounding area, anemia, cancer, heart disease, radiation sickness, an affliction that eats you alive.

Rhaena takes Nebraska State Route 66 north and then Route 92 due west, lush fields of corn and soybeans and sorghum planted before the dead began to walk, bones of devoured livestock. You stop for the night in a town called Broken Bow, the sky turning the colors of fire and rust and blood, the Tahoe exsanguinated like a man with a slit throat. Every vehicle you pass already has its fuel cap unscrewed; the farther west you go—the scarcer the resources, the longer it’s been since the world began to end—the less the earth will yield to you: less guns, less gasoline, less food, less human settlements scattered across what was once called the frontier. You commandeer a two-story house: white wood, wraparound porch, a long gravel driveway that winds like a snake. There is a small cornfield and a barn, both of which you sweep for zombies before making yourselves at home. You try not to think about what happened to the family that used to live here.

Helaena lights candles, Luke and Rhaena distribute bowls and silverware, Aemond and Rio gather kindling for the woodstove, Daeron keeps watch on the porch, Aegon picks all the Twizzlers out of a mixed bag of Hershey’s candy for Jace. There is a 12-pack of Ramen noodles in the pantry, gallons of water in the cellar, and a pot large enough to cook it all in one batch. Cregan takes Ice and disappears into the cornfield for half an hour at dusk—something none of the rest of you would ever consider—and reappears with an opossum that he’s nearly decapitated with his axe. He butchers it and you brown cubes of meat in a sauté pan placed directly on the glowing embers. The others are horrified and won’t eat a single bite until you do. It’s the first real food you’ve had since you left Saratoga Springs, and you feel satiated in a way you had forgotten existed.

In honor of Jace’s resurrection, some revelry is in order. There are bottles of Grey Goose vodka in a kitchen cabinet, and Aemond allows a two drink maximum for anyone eligible to participate: Baela is too pregnant, Daeron is too young, Aemond himself is too vigilant, too self-sacrificial, too indoctrinated into the religion of his own martyrdom.

“Daddy loved his screwdrivers,” Cregan says. “I remember being five or six and taking a big gulp of one thinking it was Sunny D or Tang or something. Lord almighty, was that a shock!” He guffaws, then inspects the pantry, scratching at the dark stubble on his cheeks. “We ain’t got nothing like orange juice though.”

“Mama made hers with Hawaiian Punch.” You point: there are several jugs of it on the floor between boxes of Pop-Tarts and Welch’s Fruit Snacks and Cheddar Whales, red like crushed blackberries or fresh blood.

Cregan grins at you over his brawny shoulder. “That’ll work, Miss Chips.”

Luke and Rhaena have first watch, Rio and Aegon will take the second. You are blessedly unburdened tonight. This house is big enough for you to get your own room; you climb the staircase with Grey Goose vodka burning in your throat, your head warm and dizzy, a sensation like freefalling as you lie down on the bed.

I left them, you think, the walls spinning around you, echoes of Mama’s voice through the phone as Rio stood there nodding, encouraging you to hang up. I left them and I never looked back. Can someone commit such an act of ancestral betrayal without incurring a curse?

You are still considering this when you feel Aemond’s weight on the mattress and fold into him, the world going dark and hushed and harmless.

~~~~~~~~~~

“I think it’s safe,” you tell Aemond between sighs, his lips on your throat, his hand between your thighs. Late-morning sunlight slants in through the bedroom windows; goldfinches and blue jays flap by chirping blithely. The dead pillage the misfortunate beasts of the earth, but creatures of the air and water are spared. You can hear geese honking from a distance, and the breeze through the cornfield, and calm indistinct voices beneath the floorboards. You can smell pancakes turning from white to gold in a pan sizzling with Crisco. Cregan must be cooking breakfast in the woodstove.

“How sure are you?” Aemond murmurs, his breath warm on your neck, those small teeth he’s always hiding nipping playfully, and if he leaves marks like stains of ballpoint ink you don’t care. He’s whisked every scrap of your clothing away. Beneath him you are bare and helpless and needing more.

“Like…eighty percent sure.”

“I’ll pull out.”

“Like Jace did?”

He laughs and kisses your mouth, not just ravenous but wild like a storm, and all the rest of the world goes quiet. Your ankles are linked around him, his hips rocking with yours. He is wearing only his boxers, black plaid from a looted Walmart, apocalypse chic. “Hopefully better than that.”

“Just try your best. I trust you. I’m willing to risk it.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s worth it to me.” I could be dead in nine months, he could be dead in nine months. I’m not wasting the time we have left.

“It’s your decision. You would be most affected by the consequences.” He draws away and glances down. “I want to look at you.”

“Ohhh.” You stall. “I’ve been trimming with scissors by candlelight. It’s a hack job.”

“I won’t mind.” He grins. “You don’t mind my hack job of a face.”

“I love your face,” you say as you skim your fingerprints down the length of his scar. And then, when he raises an eyebrow roguishly: “I didn’t break any rules. I didn’t say I love you, just your face. I’m totally using you for your face. Your personality is terrible.”

He snickers, kisses you goodbye, retreats to your hips and pushes your thighs apart as you cover your face and whimper, nervous, exhilarated. And then his lips are on you and the trepidation melts away, puddles pooling and then evaporating, and you have a vision of being home again, shivering and dripping in front of the crackling flames of the woodstove after playing outside in the snow and waiting for the fire to take the cold away. Now the fire is growing over you like ivy, tendrils snaking through veins and leaves opening in your lungs, bones vanishing, muscles turning pliant and weightless. You can feel Aemond’s fingers pushing into you, a fleeting second of tension and discomfort, and then a fullness that is delectable, irresistible, maddening.

“Come back,” you plead, and when he does you clasp his face with both hands, kissing him deeply as his fingers remain inside you, thrusting and bathed in your wetness. You’re finally ready for him, you have to be, you need him so badly: like you’re dying of thirst, like you’re running out of air. “Now, Aemond, please. I want all of you.”

And he wants it too. His boxers are gone and he’s positioning himself between your legs, his tongue in your mouth, one hand cradling your jaw as the other guides his cock to where you are slick and aching and aware of an emptiness that has never felt so dire.

He’s so big…

But you are determined to take all of him. You don’t care if there’s pain, if there’s fear. You want to feel what it’s like to be with him before it’s too late.

Aemond presses himself against you, rolls his hips cautiously…and nothing happens. He is a bit more forceful. There is immense pressure, then the beginning of a stretching that is sharp, searing, dreadful, unfamiliar in a way that is completely disorienting. You gasp before you can stop yourself; a wince ripples across your face too quickly to camouflage. Aemond shakes his head and climbs off you, settling beside you on the bed.

“Fuck,” you exhale in frustration, slapping a palm down on the mattress. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand why…why I’m like this…”

“Shh,” Aemond soothes, kissing you. “It’s okay, it’s fine. I’ll help you finish and then we can try again later.”

“Why isn’t this easier?”

“You’re just nervous,” he says gently, smoothing your hair back from your face, like it’s no big deal, like he’s pointing out a bird or a rabbit or the shape of a cloud.

“I don’t feel nervous.”

“It’s not always conscious, sometimes the body reacts without the mind even being aware of it. You tense up and things become…more challenging. But fortunately for us, the treatment is very enjoyable. We just keep messing around and working up to it until one day you’re so aroused and so relaxed that I can glide in without any discomfort whatsoever, and then your body adjusts to this glorious new experience and you aren’t so nervous anymore.”

“Can’t you just…you know…sorry, this isn’t very romantic, but like…shove it in?”

“I could, sure,” Aemond says. “If I was a horrible person. And then you’d learn to associate sex with pain, which would just exacerbate the situation.”

“The problem, you mean.”

He smiles patiently. “You aren’t a problem. We’ll figure it out, we have time.”

Do we? You stare morosely up at the ceiling, shadows of clouds, shades of wings. “I should have hooked up with that Marine at Corpus Christi. Then I’d have practice. I was so afraid of giving a man the power to hurt me or get me pregnant or otherwise ruin my life, but I didn’t know I’d meet you one day. And now I just want everything to be easy for us, and it isn’t.”

“Hey.” Aemond turns your face towards his. “For me, you are…” He struggles to decide on the words, his eye drifting to the window, sunlight turning the blue of his iris to a shallow, glass-clear river. “You’re like an island, and everything else is a sea of poison, and violence, and catastrophically fucked up situations, and when we’re alone together it all goes away for a little while. The world gets quiet. It’s never been like that for me before. I don’t mind if it takes time for us to figure this out. I just want to be with you.”

“What happens when we get to Nevada, and you’re supposed to turn south for the Bay Area while I go north to Oregon?”

Aemond shrugs, but his expression is contemplative. “I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe we’ll all stay together and go to one place, then the other. If Odessa is safe, I can bring my parents, Criston, and Grandfather there. If it isn’t, we can bring Rio’s family south and live in California in that beach house on the cliff.”

“I never thought I’d set foot in a mansion.”

“I never thought I’d eat opossum.”

You laugh and curl up against him, resting your head and a palm on his chest. “How was it?”

“Not too bad, actually. Kind of like dark meat chicken. A little gamey, but I like lamb and venison, so that’s fine with me.”

“Just wait until you try bear.”

“Bear?!”

There is a knock at the bedroom door. Luke’s bashful voice is muted through the wood. “Aemond?”

“Yeah?” Aemond replies impatiently.

This was not an invitation, but Luke doesn’t seem to know that. He opens the door, and as he does Aemond throws the blanket over you so you’re covered, leaving himself completely exposed.

Luke begins: “I’m really sorry, I didn’t want to bother you, but…” His eyes go wide. “Oh, you’re like, all the way naked.” He turns and stares at the wall to be polite. “If it’s a bad time, I could come back in five minutes. Do you need more than five minutes? Wait, that was rude, I didn’t mean it like that, I’m sure you can last way longer than five minutes…um…”

Aemond sighs. “What’s wrong, Luke?”

“Jace is sick.”

“Sick?” Aemond sits up straighter, his eye narrowing. “Sick how?”

“He’s been puking since he woke up.”

You and Aemond exchange a startled glance as you clutch the edges of a blanket patterned with wild horses. Illness, virus, plague, curse.

“He hasn’t been bitten or anything,” Luke says quickly. “So it can’t be…you know…that. And he and Baela don’t seem that worried. But you should probably take a look at him.”

Aemond nods, less alarmed now. “I agree. Can I get those five minutes first?”

Luke smiles. “Yeah. See you downstairs.” He leaves and shuts the door behind him.

You look to Aemond. “Why—?”

He yanks the blanket away and drags you towards him. “I said I was going to help you finish,” he says, grinning, a hand slipping between your thighs.

You bite at his lips when he kisses you and tease: “I don’t need your help.”

“No, I’m sure you don’t. But it’s better when I’m here.”

And he’s right; it is.

~~~~~~~~~~

Daeron is out on the front porch sharpening sticks into arrows and using goose feathers for fletching, attaching them to the wood with a tube of Gorilla Glue that Helaena found for him. Helaena herself is presently floating through the house—soundlessly, ethereally, traceless like a ghost—and partaking in what you all call “apocalypse shopping,” pilfering the clothes and accessories of the former occupants. She seems to know everyone’s sizes without needing to ask. Aegon, Rio, and Cregan are sitting in the living room and eating pancakes off paper plates, carelessly spilling Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup on hideous 1970s couches ornamented with scenes of pheasants and autumn leaves. Down on the Turkish-style area rug, Ice is merrily chomping her way through a stack of burnt pancakes.

“So Cregan,” Rio says, his bare feet propped on the coffee table. “What did you do before the whole zombie situation?”

“I was a lumberjack.”

“No way!”

“Yes sir. I cut down trees for the power company.”

“What a coincidence,” Rio says around a mouthful of pancakes. “I was an electrician!”

“Well how about that? We oughta go into business together once the world straightens itself out. Where’d you work?”

“All over. Wherever the Navy sent us.”

Cregan sets his fork down on his plate. “You were enlisted?”

“Yeah, me and Chips both. That’s how we met.”

Cregan, much to Rio’s surprise, seizes his hand and shakes it soberly. “Thank you very kindly for your service.”

“No problem,” Rio replies, then turns to Aegon. “No gratitude from you, huh?”

“I showed my gratitude when I let you have the last pancake, you ogre…”

In the only bedroom on the first floor, down a hallway and towards the back of the house, Jace looks worse than you expected. He is heaving into a reusable plastic popcorn bucket, gluey ropes of saliva dangling from his lips; his skin is pale and bloodless, his dark curls damp with sweat. Baela is perched beside him on the bed and holding a wet washcloth to the back of his neck. Rhaena and Luke are loitering anxiously in the doorway, watching Aemond to determine if they should panic.

Jace casts you a bitter glance. “You poisoned me with your poor people food.”

“There’s nothing wrong with eating opossum,” you say, somewhat defensively.

Aemond feels his forehead. “That wouldn’t give you a fever. And everyone else is fine.”

“Maybe I’m extra sensitive. My digestive system has higher standards. I’m built different.” Jace resumes retching into the bucket.

Baela tells Aemond: “He can’t keep anything down. There’s nothing left in him, but he’s still so sick…it has to be a stomach flu, right?”

“Who would he have caught it from?” Luke asks, and Baela doesn’t have an answer.

“Stand up,” Aemond orders Jace when his wave of nausea abates. “Strip down.”

“Aemond, he wasn’t bitten,” Baela says. “I saw his whole body last night. He doesn’t have any scratches or bruises or anything.”

“Fine. But I want to see for myself.”

Jace stumbles out of the bed, pushing away Baela’s hands as she tries to stop him. “Okay, Nick Fury. If you wish to gaze upon the goods, I won’t deny you. I’m not shy.” Aemond rolls his eye. You turn around to give Jace privacy. “What’s the matter, Chips? The only dick you’re interested in belongs to Mike Wazowski over there?”

“Jace,” Baela says, but she’s chuckling. Amused, you stare at a picture on the wall—a haloed Jesus guiding a flock of lambs—as Jace sheds his clothing and follows Aemond’s instructions: lift your arm, turn around, show me the bottoms of your feet.

“No bites,” Aemond confirms, deep in thought. “But the symptoms…”

“It’s not that, Aemond, I’m telling you,” Jace insists, rasping breaths between each clause. “Listen, I got sick when I was alone, before I found you guys again. My stomach, my head. Maybe it’s the same thing now. It didn’t last long, and I thought I was over it, but I guess not.”

“People don’t get better and then worse again after they’ve been bitten,” Rhaena observes softly. “They just get worse.”

Jace lies back down on the bed, his face crumbling with pain. Baela uses the wet washcloth to cool his cheeks and neck. “My head hurts so fucking bad…”

“Because you’re dehydrated,” Aemond says.

“Helaena brought pills, but every time I try to take one I throw it up before it can start working.” There is a gurgling sound in his guts, and then a horrified expression. “Baela, I gotta get outside again.” She and Luke immediately swoop in, grab one arm each, and usher him out of the bedroom, through the back door of the farmhouse, and into the cornfield to allow him some semblance of dignity.

Rhaena gives you and Aemond an awkward smirk. “Helaena found Jace a 24-pack of Angel Soft toilet paper in the basement. So there’s some good news.”

“He needs electrolytes,” Aemond says. “We can’t let him get so dehydrated that his kidneys shut down. IV fluids aren’t an option. Pedialyte would be the next best thing, Gatorade or Powerade if that’s all we can find.”

“We passed a pharmacy on our way here,” Rhaena recalls. “It’s only a mile back, I think.”

Aemond nods. “Then that’s where I’m going,” he says, and walks out of the room.

You say as you follow him: “I want to go with you.”

“No.” Aemond points to Rio, who is now playing Uno with Aegon on the coffee table in the living room. “You and I are going to a pharmacy to get Pedialyte for Jace so he doesn’t die.”

“Cool,” Rio says, standing and fetching his Remington shotgun from where he propped it against the wall. “What’s wrong with him?”

“We don’t know. Maybe food poisoning.”

Aegon says, a hand pressed to his heart: “Personally, I loved the opossum.”

You stare defiantly up at Aemond. “If Rio is going, I have to go too.”

“Aww, so you can protect me?” Rio teases fondly, patting your back with one monstrous palm, an unintentional battering.

“Yeah. Exactly.”

Rio looks at Aemond. Aemond looks at you, touching his chin agitatedly. “You are stressing me out.”

“I’m the best shot. I want to be there in case anything happens.”

“Fine, okay, whatever you want. Just stay near Rio.”

“That’s the idea.”

“A pharmacy?” Aegon asks excitedly. “Can I go?”

“No,” Aemond snaps, and continues out onto the porch. In the gravel driveway, Cregan and Daeron are kneeling by the Tahoe and inspecting the front tire on the driver’s side. “What’s wrong now?” Aemond asks, exasperated.

“Got a flat,” Cregan says. “The little fella here noticed it.”

Daeron is mortified. “Please don’t call me that.”

Aemond peers around mistrustfully, out at the road, into the cornfield. “Someone sabotaged us?”

Cregan shakes his head and taps the tire. “Naw, we just ran over a nail yesterday. You can see it right here. A big one too, a masonry nail, I suspect.”

“Can you fix it?” Rio asks.

“I think so. I saw a jack and a lug wrench hanging up on the wall in the barn, now I just need a new tire, a real one. A spare wouldn’t do us much good, not with all the weight we’re carrying. It’d pop in twenty miles.” Cregan gestures to the main road, but westward, the opposite direction from the pharmacy. “Don’t remember seeing a tire place on our way in. Figured I’d try the other direction. I’ll walk ‘til I find a shop or a truck with the right kind of tires to steal from, whichever comes first. Can’t change a tire on gravel, though. I’ll have to drive the Tahoe out to the road and fix it there. I’m gonna need Rhaena’s keys.”

There is an uneasy lull as Aemond studies him. You, Rio, Daeron, and Aegon—who is lingering on the front porch, not yet ready to admit defeat—glance between them apprehensively. Ice is rolling around in the gravel, coating her grey fur with dust. “How do I know you won’t take off without us?”

Cregan’s face goes dark. His brow, heavy and furrowed, settles low over his eyes. “Look buddy, I’ve done a lot of things for you and your people that I didn’t have to. And now I’m fixing the Tahoe so it can take you west, someplace you decided we’re going. If you don’t trust me, do it yourself. Kill your own opossum. Change your own flat tire. But you can’t, can you? Just like I can’t shoot a zombie straight through the eye or tell you how to cure that sick boy in there. We’ve all got jobs here. Let me do mine.”

Aemond glowers at Cregan, knowing he’s right. Daeron averts his eyes; Rio, grinning, eats a handful of Cheddar Whales from a pocket of his cargo shorts. You lay a palm on Aemond’s forearm. “Aemond…he’s trying to help.”

“Sure,” Aemond replies crossly.

“You want collateral?” Cregan says. “Take my dog.” He whistles, and Ice scampers to his side. He points to you. “Go on, princess.” Ice obediently trots over to stand with you, shaggy ash-colored fur, bestial amber eyes like a rattlesnake’s. “She’ll look after you on your way to the pharmacy and back. And if the Tahoe and I have mysteriously vanished upon your return, you can eat her for dinner.”

“You don’t want a warning if you’re about to run into zombies?” Rio asks.

Cregan chuckles as he picks up his axe off the gravel. “Don’t you worry about me. We haven’t heard a peep since we got into town, and I’m just going a little ways up the road. Any less than ten of those abominations, and I can take care of myself.” He gives you and Rio a parting salute and strides into the farmhouse to collect the Tahoe keys from Rhaena.

Aemond turns to Daeron. “Stay here, keep watch. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

Daeron nods, glancing to where his compound bow rests on the front porch. “Got it.”

“Aegon will help you.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Aegon says. “I want to go to the pharmacy too.”

Aemond is losing what remains of his patience. “No.”

“Please?”

“No!”

“Then can you at least bring me something back?”

Rio is confounded. “What do you need?”

“You know…” Aegon gestures vaguely. “Percocet, Vicodin, Oxy, maybe some of that cough syrup with the codeine in it—”

“Grow the fuck up,” Aemond flares, and Aegon falls silent. “You’re thirty years old. Take some goddamn responsibility for something, for anything. I have to go to the pharmacy, Cregan has to fix the Tahoe, someone has to stay here with Daeron to help protect Jace and Baela, and Luke and Rhaena, and Helaena too. Just shut up and do the right thing. You have to start acting like an adult. Who do you think is in charge if I get killed? I’ve never for a single day of my life had the luxury of making selfish choices, and now I feel like I’m not even allowed to die. Leaving everyone else with you would be like leaving them with nobody.”

Aegon gazes up at him, not offended but childishly, mortally wounded. His oceanic eyes are huge and glistening. “But you’re not going to die before me.”

“That’s not the point,” Aemond pitches back, cutting, caustic. Then he starts down the long gravel driveway towards the road. You give Aegon a small, apologetic half-smile and then follow after his younger brother, Ice loping alongside you.

Rio thumps Aegon encouragingly on one shoulder. “See you soon, Honey Bun.” And Aegon watches the three of you disappear, standing in the dazzling midday light with his arms folded over his chest and his hair in hie face, kicking at the gravel with the Sperry Bahama sneakers he once wore on yachts and golf courses.

“Please try to be nice to him,” you tell Aemond when you’re far enough away to be out of earshot. Rio is humming a song you don’t immediately recognize—probably Enrique Iglesias—and acting like he’s not listening. “You don’t know how much longer any of us have. And if that was the last thing you ever said to him, you’d feel awful about it.”

“You have no idea what it was like being his brother. Since I was born all I’ve done is try to plug the holes he blasts into ships. But there’s always water on the floor, I’m never done bailing it out. He needs to learn how to do things for himself.”

“Yes, he does. But he loves you, and he wants you to be happy. He would never intentionally take anything from you. He’ll grow into his purpose, whatever that is.”

“He needs to do it faster,” Aemond says harshly, and you walk the rest of the way without speaking, listening for snarling or lurching footsteps, hearing nothing but birdsong and wind whispering through leaves.

The pharmacy—a diminutive family-owned business, not a chain—has been ravaged. The glass of the large bay window has been broken out and the shelves looted, empty containers and wrappers littering the floor, crystalline shards threatening to gash, stab, infect.

“Stay out here with the dog,” Aemond tells you. Ice is panting calmly, her ears relaxed, her strange yellowish eyes taking in the scenery without any concern. “If she gets her paws sliced up, Cregan will have yet another accusation to levy against me.”

“You’re going to have to get used to him.”

“Not much of an adjustment for you, it seems,” Aemond says, then steps through the shattered window, glass crunching beneath his shoes. Rio gives you a wink and goes after him. They rummage through the remaining merchandise, strewn about randomly and interspersed among trash. Aemond peeks behind the counter where pharmacists once filled prescriptions and climbs over it, searching for any bottles or boxes that were left behind.

“Sorry guys, no condoms,” Rio announces, then laughs at his own joke.

“Be careful,” you urge from outside. “Look underneath, check the bottom racks. Rio? Rio, down low, check them!”

“Relax, ain’t nothing going on in here. It’s silent as the grave.” He laughs again. “Get it? As the grave.”

“Aemond?”

“I’m fine,” he tells you as he squints to read medicine bottles.

“Okay, okay,” Rio says, squatting to examine the shelves closest to the cluttered floor. “I’m checking all the racks. There’s nothing scary under the racks. Happy now?”

“Very. Helaena said something that freaked me out.”

“She can be a bit of an enigma,” Aemond admits. He is taking a tiny box from a drawer to keep.

“Oh, we got Pedialyte!” Rio says, yanking a jug of pink fluid from a pile of debris. “You think Jace likes strawberry?”

Aemond hurries over to help him hunt for more. “Yeah. It’s like a Twizzler, right?”

Ice noses your hand and whimpers softly. You look down at her. “What?”

She whirls and canters around the side of the pharmacy, then returns to make sure you’re keeping up. You go after her, slow and wary, a hand on one of your Beretta M9s. There’s nothing of note to be found in the narrow, shadowy alleyway other than an overflowing dumpster and two skeletons stripped of every shred of fabric and flesh; even the bones were licked clean.

You turn to Ice. “Did I need to see this?” She whines and shifts her weight from foot to foot, ears perked up. Something else? You look down the alleyway. Far behind the pharmacy and the shops that surround it is a church on a jade green slope, old-fashioned, white wood and a belltower. There is a cemetery beside it, and amidst the small grey blurs of headstones are… “Oh,” you breathe. “So that’s where the rest of the town is.”

The graveyard is full of limp, swaying figures that can only be zombies. You are far away and draped in shadows; you retreat back to the pharmacy without any indication that you’ve been spotted, Ice trailing close behind. Aemond and Rio are climbing out of the window just as you arrive. They are each carrying three jugs of Pedialyte in various flavors.

“Where the hell’d you go?” Aemond says; but he sounds more relieved than irritated.

“There’s a church about an eight of a mile away. And there are a lot of zombies in the cemetery.”

Rio sets his Pedialyte down on the sidewalk and reaches for the Remington 12 gauge hanging over his shoulder by its leather strap. “Okay, let’s go clear them out.”

“No, I mean a lot. Like a hundred.”

He freezes. “Oh.”

“We should leave town,” you say.

“While Jace is puking and shitting everywhere? You want to be stuck in a car with that?”

Aemond is thinking, toying with the little box you saw him pick up earlier. “We’ll leave as soon as we can.”

“What’s that?” you ask him.

He shows you the label. “Injectable morphine. All the pills were gone, but I found one vial of this, and I have syringes in my medical kit. It doesn’t need to be refrigerated. It should still be useable.”

“For Baela?” For when she delivers the baby?

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Just in case.” Then he looks at both you and Rio meaningfully. “Don’t tell Aegon I have this.”

“We won’t,” Rio promises. And Ice begins trotting back towards the farmhouse, as if trying to rush you along.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Tahoe is at the mouth of the long gravel driveway, still up on a hand-cranked scissor jack. The tire appears to be new, but the lug nuts haven’t been tightened, and the wrench is nowhere to be found.

“Cregan?” Rio says uncertainly, peeking through the cornstalks as they bend in the wind. “Hey, Cregan? Aemond’s sorry he was a bitch to you earlier. He wants you to return ASAP and do manual labor for him.” Aemond grimaces; Rio beams in reply. But Cregan does not appear.

You can hear them long before you reach the farmhouse, muffled chaotic chattering, raised voices and rushing footsteps. As you ascend the steps of the front porch, Rhaena bursts through the door.

“Thank God you’re back,” she says; there is blood on her hands. “It’s Jace, he…he…come look at him. Aemond, you have to do something. He’s sick, he’s really sick. He’s bleeding.”

“From where?” Aemond asks, urgent, bewildered.

“From everywhere,” Rhaena replies, and beckons for him to follow.

The bedsheets Jace is swathed in are blooming with crimson, flowers of doomed gore. Blood drips from his nostrils and his eyes; when he retches into the popcorn bucket, clots of pink and red spew out. Everyone is gathered around him and speaking at the same time, except Helaena. She is crouched on the floor of the hallway just outside his room, her arms wrapped around her bent knees and her face stricken. Ice curls up beside her.

Above the other voices, Baela screams at Aemond, a desperate horrified moan: “What’s wrong with him?!”

Aemond pushes by the others and feels Jace’s forehead, then grabs his wrist to measure his pulse. As Aemond’s fingers tighten, Jace’s skin rips beneath them, the top layer sliding off and leaving only glistening, raw pink. Jace howls, tears of blood streaming down his cheeks. “I don’t know,” Aemond says, his voice unsteady.

“What the fuck do you mean you don’t know?!” Baela shouts back. “You’re a doctor! Fix him!”

“It hurts, Aemond,” Jace gasps, fresh blood on his teeth. When Baela touches his hair, locks of it fall out into her hand.

“He’s turning, right?” Rio says to you. “This is what happened to Snowflake, the blood and the skin and everything—?”

“He wasn’t bitten!” Luke insists, positioned in front of Jace’s bed as if he’s guarding it.

“I don’t care if we can’t find a bite mark, he’s decomposing for Christ’s sake, what the fuck else could it be?!”

Daeron returns with more blankets and towels. Aegon grabs a strawberry Pedialyte out of Rio’s grasp and tries to help Jace drink it. Cregan is muttering: “I ain’t never seen anything like this…”

Decomposing, you think dizzily. He wasn’t bitten, but he’s falling apart…what else does that to a person?

Baela cleans blood from his lips, a towel turning from snow to rubies. “Jace, baby, it’s going to be okay, we’re going to help you…”

“Could it be rat poison or something?” Cregan is saying. “Rabies? Mad cow disease? Ebola?”

“How the fuck do you think he got Ebola?!” Aemond exclaims. ���You think he took a jet to sub-Saharan Africa when he was on his own? Use your brain.”

“I’m just trying to come up with ideas here, doc, and I don’t see you with any bright ones!”

He’s decomposing. He’s decomposing.

And then you remember. You kneel down beside the bed so you can look into his face, so you can make him pay attention. “Jace, listen to me.”

“I’m listening,” he replies faintly. He coughs, wet and gurgling. Fresh blood paints his lips. There are blisters beginning to form up and down his arms, you see now, the skin bubbling and separating.

“Jace, do you remember Three Mile Island?”

“What the fuck.” He is baffled, dismissive. “Three Mile what? Huh? What are you talking about…?”

“You’re upsetting him,” Baela says fiercely, tears glittering in her eyes.

But you are determined. “Outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, after we left Fort Indiantown Gap. There were these huge concrete cooling towers. We saw them from the Wawa parking lot.” But he wasn’t there when we talked about radiation. He was still inside searching for guns. “Remember, Jace? Do you remember?”

Now Aemond and Rio are looking at you, petrified, realizing what you must be thinking. No one else understands yet. After a long pause, Jace nods feebly. “Yeah. I remember the towers.”

“Good,” you say, smiling to encourage him. “Okay, this is important. After we lost you at the river, before you found us again, did you see anywhere that looked like Three Mile Island?”

“Yeah,” Jace murmurs as he stares back at you with glazed, bloody eyes; and Rio sighs and shakes his head. “I drove right by it on the Honda. The sign said Byron.”

And it’s been over for him since that moment.

“Alright, Jace.” You want to touch him, to embrace him or cup his cheek. You know it will only make his suffering worse. “Thank you. That’s all I wanted to ask.” He begins to gag again, and Baela hurries to place the popcorn bucket so it can catch his liquefying organs. You turn around and walk through the doorway.

“What’s happening?” Aegon asks you, hushed voice, frantic eyes. He has followed you to the living room, along with Aemond, Rio, and Cregan. You nod to Aemond. He knows.

“It’s radiation sickness,” Aemond says, low and bleak.

“What?!” Aegon gapes at him. “I mean, are you sure…?”

“It fits all the symptoms. He was in close proximity to a nuclear power plant, something the rest of us have intentionally avoided. If there was a meltdown, there are miles and miles that are poisoned with radiation. Passing by on a motorcycle could definitely result in a lethal dose.”

“Poor guy,” Rio says. “Not a good way to go.”

“No,” you agree. It isn’t.

“So how do you treat something like that?” Cregan asks Aemond.

“It can’t be treated,” Aemond replies tersely. “Not here, not by me, not by anyone. Not even if the world was normal again.”

“What do you mean it can’t be treated?! Everything can be treated nowadays! Cancer, heart attacks, diabetes, hell, my cousin got testicular cancer and he was fine a month later, he even got to keep one of his balls!”

“Radiation sickness can’t be treated. He’s going to die.”

“But how is that possible when—?!”

“I need you to try to not be stupid for five minutes,” Aemond snaps.

You say quietly: “He’s not stupid, Aemond. He just doesn’t know about this.”

“You are always defending him.”

“Because not going to med school isn’t a character flaw.”

Cregan asks mildly, looking at Aemond: “Could you explain it to me?”

“It’s pennies in a jar, man,” Rio says. “Radiation stacks up and at a certain point it kills you. It destroys your DNA and your body falls apart. You can get it just by going near someplace contaminated, and you might not even feel it happen. And there’s no way to undo the damage. The pennies never leave the jar.”

Cregan raises an eyebrow at Aemond. “Was that so difficult?”

Aemond ignores him. “We have to tell Jace,” he says instead.

Back in the bedroom—a mineral stench in the air, coppery blood and the salt of sweat—Aegon sits on the edge of the bed and takes one of Jace’s swelling, blistering hands carefully in his own.

“Don’t hold my hand, you loser.” Jace mumbles, and Aegon respectfully releases him.

“Jace,” Aegon begins. “We think you have radiation sickness.”

Jace blinks up at him, wincing and disoriented. “Which means…?”

“Which means, um, it’s going to be…not great.”

“Why are you the person explaining this?”

“You’re right, I really shouldn’t be explaining it. Can someone else explain it…?” Aegon glances around hopefully.

“Jace,” Aemond says. “Those cooling towers you drove by were part of a nuclear power plant that melted down when the power grid collapsed. You received a fatal dose of radiation. It’s the only thing that explains what’s happening to you.”

“Fatal…?” Daeron ventures.

Rhaena gasps and reaches for Luke. Baela’s face is a mask of numb shock. Jace stares up at Aemond for a long time before he speaks. “Aemond, fix me.”

Aemond’s words are brittle and fracturing. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Stop fucking around, man, you’re a doctor. You can fix me. I know you can. You’re a genius. You’re a total freak but you’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. Give me the pills, give me the shots. Cut me open if you have to. I won’t scream, I promise. Fix me. I trust you.”

“Jace, I can’t do anything. No one can.”

“I have to meet the baby, Aemond,” Jace whispers, scarlet tears bleeding down his cheeks. “I have to be here for Baela and Luke. Fix me, man. I’ll do anything you tell me to.”

“Jace,” Aemond says, his voice breaking. “I’m so sorry. I can’t help you.”

Jace looks to Baela, Luke, Rhaena, and at last back to Aemond. “How long?”

“Not very. A few days, maybe.”

“Days?” he echoes, dazed. “What happens?”

Aemond shakes his head. You don’t want to know.

“Yeah I do. Tell me.”

Aemond can’t respond; clear silent tears snake down the right side of his face. Rio answers for him. “You continue to bleed out of every orifice and the rest of your skin falls off. And eventually you die.”

Jace breaks down in sobs. “I was trying to find you guys.”

Suddenly, Baela turns to you and Rio and Aemond, wrathful, hissing. “This is your fault.”

Aemond pleads: “Baela, please don’t—”

“You made me leave him at the river. I knew he was still alive, but you forced me to leave him. If he’d been with us, this never would have happened. But he was alone, and it was because of you. You did this to him. You stole him from me.”

Rhaena tries to console her. “Baela, no one meant to—”

“I just got him back!” she screams, and then shelters Jace in her arms as he clings to her, the skin of his fingers and palms flaking at the pressure, holding onto her anyway. No one knows what to say; everyone has tears burning in their eyes and embers in their throats. “Get out,” Baela demands. “Leave us alone. This is the last time I’ll ever have with him and it’s your fucking fault. So get out.”

And you leave them to their final moments, failing flesh in a dying world.

~~~~~~~~~~

Only Luke and Rhaena flit in and out of the bedroom, carrying soiled linens and the plastic popcorn bucket to be periodically emptied. The rest of you are engrossed in a grim, thunderstruck deathwatch in the living room. You discuss the inevitable in hushed murmurs. It is cruel to let Jace suffer; it is unspeakably horrible to let Baela witness it. Ice alternates between receiving scratches from Cregan, Helaena, and Aegon, never trying to enter Jace’s room. You can hear Jace and Baela talking in there, his retching and groaning, her sobs.

It is not until dusk that Rhaena summons Aemond. Luke is weeping as he paces back and forth in the bedroom. Baela is still sitting on the bed with Jace, resigned now. She does not apologize, but she doesn’t have any more venom to spit either. The rest of you watch from the hallway, keeping a respectful distance. Ice nudges your hand with her nose, but you ignore her. Jace’s bloody eyes roll to Aemond.

“I’m keeping you here, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” Aemond replies. There’s no point in lying.

“And I don’t need to feel myself melting like this for days. I get the idea.” Jace looks at Aemond for a while. His voice is anemic but calm; there are fresh blisters on his face and neck. “What can you give me?”

Aemond opens his medical kit and shows Jace the vial of morphine. “I found this at the pharmacy today. It would be painless, like going to sleep and never waking up.”

“Why do you have that?”

“I was thinking a small amount might help Baela during labor.”

“Is it the only morphine in your kit?”

“Yes.”

Jace nods. “Save it for Baela.” His gaze drops to the Glock in the holster at Aemond’s waist. “Can I borrow that?”

Rhaena stifles a dismayed yelp. Baela closes her eyes, but does not protest. Aemond says: “I don’t think you want to do this.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Cyclops,” Jace says, smiling. “I’ll be quick, I promise.”

“It’s heavy,” Aemond warns. He clicks off the safety and gives the Glock to Jace. “Are you able to use it by yourself?”

“It’s a very simple two-step process. Barrel to skull, finger on the trigger. I think I’ll manage.”

Again, Ice bumps her nose against your knuckles; again, you barely notice. Baela kisses Jace on the mouth, her lips coming away bloody. Rhaena says goodbye to him, then Luke, whispered parting words you don’t try to listen to. Before Aemond exits, Jace grasps his hand.

“Take care of my family, Aemond.”

“I will.”

“Don’t let the zombies eat me afterwards.”

And then it becomes real. Aemond’s composure falters. “Jace…I’m so sorry…”

“Go,” Jace urges him. Then there is a coughing fit, fresh blood and pieces of stomach and lungs. “Right now. Before I lose my nerve.”

Baela is the last one to leave the bedroom; she shuts the door behind her. Almost immediately afterwards is a deafening bang. Baela sinks to the floor and wails, one hand on her belly, the other embracing Rhaena and Luke when they rush to her. Ice is whining and pawing at the floor, her nails screeching on the hardwood. Aemond alone returns to Jace’s bedroom and reappears with his Glock. He places it back in his holster, his scarred face vacant. There’s blood on his fingers, you see. Jace’s blood, the last he’ll ever shed. Aemond hasn’t noticed yet.

You reach for Aemond’s hand; he flinches away. You ask him, pained: “Do you think if you don’t touch me, it won’t hurt you when I die?”

“Please don’t say that,” Aemond responds in a hoarse, splintering whisper.

Ice yowls, and Cregan is abruptly aware of her. “Oh shit, the Tahoe is still up on the jack. I’ll go get it.” He opens the front door. Under the moonlight, there are upwards of a hundred zombies stumbling down the long gravel driveway. Everyone begins screaming. Cregan slams the door shut and shoves one of the couches in front of it. “What now?!”

“We go through the cornfield,” Aemond says as you are all frantically gathering your sparse possessions. “It will be more difficult for them to see us. We kill as many as we can and we make our way to the Tahoe. Cregan, how long will it take you to get it ready to drive?”

“Maybe a minute. But I’ll need someone to spot me while I tighten the lug nuts.”

“Sounds like my kind of job opportunity,” Rio says, pumping his Remington. Helaena gives you a flashlight. Cregan secures the lug wrench under his belt and picks up his axe. Rhaena has her Ruger out and is telling Baela to breathe, to stay focused, to let her and Luke lead the way.

Aemond comes to you and leans in close so the others can’t hear. “How many bullets do you have left?”

“Not enough. Maybe fifty.”

“Do what you can. Stay near Rio.”

“I’ll try.”

Now there are zombies at the front windows, beating their spongy swamp-colored palms against the glass. Baela, Rhaena, and Luke are leaving through the back door with Daeron; you can hear the whizzing of his arrows and the sick soft sound they make when they pierce rotting meat. Under the weight of so many hands, one of the living room windows pops from its frame and clatters against the floor. You open fire, bullets exploding skulls and spraying brains, corpses jolting and then diving to the ground. You shoot until both M9s are empty, then pause to reload, boxes of bullets that Cregan gave you back in Iowa.

“Let them in,” Helaena says.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?!” Aegon shouts at her. He’s firing his Marlin .22 beside you, quite poorly; Rio and Aemond are in the backyard killing any zombies that find their way towards the cornfield. “We’re not letting them get through the house!”

“Not through,” Helaena says placidly. “In.”

“Oh.” Aegon understands. “Oh! I get it! Trap them inside!” He races to the kitchen and tears the remaining bottles of Grey Goose vodka out of the cabinet, then begins spilling them onto the wood floor. “Helaena, give me a lighter.”

She places one in his outstretched palm and then leaves with Cregan as he escorts her away, leading her by her fragile hand. They vanish together into the cornfield, Ice on their heels.

“Time to go, Chips!” Rio booms; he can’t be far behind Cregan.

“We’re on our way!”

Zombies are pouring through the front of the house; another window has given way. You pull the trigger over and over again as you move with Aegon towards the backyard, his clear river of vodka drawing a path from one end of the house to the other. You hit the grass before he does, then wait for him by the edge of the cornfield. Aemond and Rio are shouting for Aegon to hurry up. He crosses through the threshold, flicks the lighter to life, and throws it into the house. His plan works—the farmhouse is abruptly aflame, cooking zombies like long-spoiled hams—but he neglected to realize that in his haste, he had also accidentally doused his own left leg and Sperry Bahama sneaker. The fire licks up over Aegon’s skin and blazes there radiantly. He shrieks and falls to the ground. Rio yanks his own shirt off and uses it to smother the inferno, then throws Aegon over one shoulder to carry him.

“Go to Cregan!” Rio tells Aemond, shoving him in the direction of the Tahoe. Rio will be slower now, but no one else could still run with Aegon’s added weight. “You and Daeron spot him until I get there!” When Aemond is gone, Rio glances back at you.

“I’m fine,” you say, felling zombies as they round the house. “Get Aegon to the car!” And Rio listens to you like he always does, vanishing with Aegon through the cornfield.

You weave through the leafy stalks, investigating each growl and rustling with the beam of your flashlight. Grotesque, fetid faces plunge through the greenery, and you demolish them. You’re in the rhythm now, wheeling for a target and locking in, squeezing the trigger and watching ghoulish faces disappear. And then you spy a zombie lurching towards you from fifteen feet away, a twenty-something in a red Nebraska Cornhuskers t-shirt making her way down the dirt aisle between two rows of corn; and when you pull the trigger, there is only a dry click in reply. Your other M9 is already empty. You’ve used all the ammo Cregan gave you.

“I’m out of bullets,” you say, but no one hears you; you are alone. Aemond always told you to stay near Rio and you never did. Too late, you realize what an oversight that has been. “Rio? Aemond?!”

There are human voices and gunshots, but reverberating from a distance. Far closer are snarls and groans of the dead. You click off your flashlight, drop to the earth, and crawl until you are as far under a row of corn as you can be, long leaves tickling the back of your neck and damp soil in your nostrils. Clumsy, lumbering footsteps trod by you. From the road, you hear the Tahoe’s engine start with a rumble.

They’re leaving.

You shake your head, here with no one to see you in the dark. Still, the thought persists.

They’re leaving. I left my family and now my family is leaving me.

“Chips, stay where you are!” Rio shouts. “We’re coming back, we’ll find you!”

You wait until they are within ten feet of you, Rio cracking skulls with his Remington—he must be out of bullets too—and Aemond firing his Glock. “I’m here, I’m here!” you cry, and they are lifting you up from the dirt and dragging you towards Tahoe, and Aemond puts his pistol in your hand knowing you can do more good with it. You fire ten rounds before the Glock is empty, and you think with terror: Do any of us have bullets left?

Then you are being helped into the Tahoe, and the second all the doors are shut Rhaena floors the gas pedal, heading west on State Route 92.

~~~~~~~~~~

“I got my drugs after all,” Aegon rasps as Aemond injects him with morphine on the floor of a laundromat on the edge of Merna, Nebraska, far enough to escape the zombies, not so far that the Tahoe risks running out of gas before you reach the next town. His left leg is burned from the knee down, and burned badly: skin, fat, muscle, blood-red scorched ruin. Even through the modest dose of morphine—Aemond is terrified of accidentally killing him—Aegon can still feel what has happened to him. He knows it’s bad. He knows it could be the last mistake he ever makes. “I’m so thirsty…”

“I got you, Honey Bun,” Rio says, and then uses the butt of his Remington to bust open the vending machines and bring him bottles of Powerade. Baela is sobbing in the corner with Luke and Rhaena. Helaena is shining a flashlight on Aegon’s leg so Aemond can see. Daeron and Cregan are keeping watch by the entrance. You don’t even know why. All the bullets and arrows are gone, Aegon can’t walk, the Tahoe’s gas tank is nearly drained. If you are descended upon now, what will you do?

Aegon sobs and clutches for you, links his arms around your waist, rests his head in your lap. You hold him and comb your fingers through his unruly hair over and over again, like a compulsion, like a ritual. You are so afraid to let go of him. You are terrified he’ll disappear.

I wish I knew what to say. I never know what to say.

He’s shaking uncontrollably as Aemond cleans his leg: peeling away dead skin, wiping down the raw flesh with disinfectant. Aegon’s eyes are wide and glassy. There is blood on the white tile floor, pinkish lymph fluid, bits of charred skin. Ice is whimpering, her muzzle propped on her paws and her eyes darting around the room. Aegon manages through the pain, a reedy, gasping whisper: “Tell me about all those places you went when you were in the Navy.”

You can see it like the miles-deep blue of his eyes: the Indian Ocean, the jewel-tone equatorial sky. “On Diego Garcia, they have these birds called red-footed boobies—”

Aegon barks out a weak laugh. “They do not. You’re making that up.”

“No, really, I swear! They’re like seagulls, but they have blue on their face and bright red feet, hence the name. They’re extremely stupid, and one night a few of us were hanging out drinking Guinness and playing pool, and a booby flew in through an open window. We panicked, it panicked, and then it was flying in circles and couldn’t get out. We opened all the doors and windows, and the booby still just flew around banging into the walls. And of course the whole time it was shitting and bleeding and getting feathers everywhere, we knew it was going to take hours to clean up. After thirty minutes of chasing this idiot bird around, Rio snapped, took off his boot, and smacked the booby with it. He was trying to fling it out the window, like hitting a tennis ball with a racket, but he accidentally hit the bird too hard and murdered it. Its beak literally separated from its body and flew across the room. None of us could believe it, we didn’t even know that was possible. Rio felt so bad he started crying. We took the booby—and its beak, of course—out to the beach for a Viking funeral. We made it a little raft of coconut tree leaves, set it on fire with a lighter, and pushed it out into the waves.”

Aegon is cackling. “Bryan Osorio, terrorizer of the homicidal undead and boobies!”

“What else?” Baela says, and you look over at her, startled. The flashlight incandescence turns you all to ghosts, phantoms, half-shadows. At first you don’t know what she means. “What else did they have on Diego Garcia?”

“Oh, tell them about the coconut crabs,” Rio prompts you. He’s settled down beside Aegon and is resting one broad hand on his trembling shoulder.

“Coconut crabs?” Rhaena asks you, wiping tears from her cheeks with her delicate, small-boned fingers.

You are abruptly aware that you have an audience. You can feel yourself shrinking beneath their gazes. “Rio should tell the story. I’m not good at it.”

“Sure you are,” Rio says, smiling kindly beneath dark, wet eyes. “Go on. Tell them.”

So you do.

[chiisana-sukima]

nine people i want to get to know better

Thank you for the tag, @slutsons-blog! Starting a new post because I'm autistic and therefore mostly only care about the "Current Obsession" question, and want to ramble excessively as usual in that one.

Last song: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team: Pokemon Square because I'm currently playing Pokemon Mystery Dungeon with my daughter. Otherwise I honestly couldn't tell you. Whatever was on in my car.

Fave color: Purple

Currently watching: Star Trek Discovery

Last movie: Knives Out

Sweet/spicy/savory: Sweet, tart, salty

Relationship: married x 27 years

Last thing I googled: the word "dependent", for spelling assistance. which is a good thing because I spelled it "dependant".

Current Obsession: it's been spn since 2016. Truly we are the Hotel California of media franchises. I did recently play Disco Elysium twice in a row in quick succession, and I follow the DE tag. I can't recommend the game highly enough.... but I can feel my Special Interest-level obsession with it fading already. Spn has never faded even a tiny bit and I wonder if it ever will.

@slutsons-blog I feel after reading that you're watching spn for the first time, that I did you a bit of a disservice with my Sam takes to you before in that I mostly talked about Sam's evolution as a character as the show goes on and very little about him from the first five seasons.

Gotta be honest and tell you that although I liked both brothers all along, I was a Dean girl until the end of s6/beginning of s7, when the balance of who gets whumped the most started shifting and my subconscious suddenly decided to switch allegiances. It's not that I liked Dean any less; my id just loves a sopping wet pathetic kitten of a man who has been sexually abused, and Sam got suddenly way more kitteny and pathetic after the Cage. So I don't actually have a ton of takes on "what to love about Sam in the early seasons". I do love early seasons Sam too--she is my beautiful baby princess--but my early seasons takes are a lot more inchoate.

I count myself lucky about my id's sudden defection though, because I think we have limited control of who our blorbos are, and having Dean as a blorbo is a tough row to hoe as the later seasons go along. You know how you noticed that in s6, Dean suddenly gets a lot more assholey without apparent reason? Unfortunately he never gets better again, and in fact keeps getting worse and worse as the years go by, until by the last seasons he is openly far more abusive to their joint child(-in-an-adult body) than John was to him and Sam. It's a realistic picture of what can happen when trauma keeps piling up on people, but it's also honestly pretty distressing, especially if he's your blorbo.

If one is in it for the ship, there's some good destiel content in the later seasons, but if you're in it for Dean, you're left either 1) dealing with the fact he's got extremely significant interpersonal problems that he never gets much of anywhere on solving and that negatively impact his chosen family in profound ways, or 2) pretending he's the same character he was in s1 and Sam is the same Sam from s1, only more boring, and Dean is just trying to put up with him because he was brainwashed by John (or ig 3- something in the middle between those two. But that seldom seems to happen in practice for whatever reason). These two versions of the show are poorly compatible, and that's how the Sam girls and the Dean girls end up in isolated silos. A few people manage to live in both, but not many.

Anyway, I feel like without the context of how Sam and Dean change in the mid to late seasons, the two fics I recc'd as Sam character studies are going to seem insanely Dean-critical, so if you haven't read them yet, you might want to wait until s10. In the meantime, the general recs are fun reads and hopefully do a good job of showcasing both characters earlier on.

Tagging (but I would be a huge hypocrite if I didn't specify there's no pressure to respond, since I almost always fail at responding to tag games myself): @adihildilid @aliusfrater @quietwingsinthesky @sammygender @ardentpoop

@peanutbutterandbananasandwichs @schizosamwincester @normalbrothershow @jellybracelet.

[imagine-silk]

Hello! May I request fallout 4 companions (Nick especially) with Sole who shares the bare minimum of information about themselves? Not because Sole doesn’t trust them, they really enjoy theirs companions company. Perhaps they busy themselves so they don’t have to think about all the little and big things they miss. (I bet Codsworth would find pristine things that Sole would miss (like a favorite movie, vinyl, or comic?))

Sorry if its not something you’re interested in doing right now. The ask kinda came out as a ramble, I’m lacking sleep haha. Thanks again for considering my request!

》Honestly one of my favorite kinds of characters.

【Cait】 She doesn't appreciate it. Her contract was traded to some random weirdo who barely says anything. It took three days before the topic of your name came up. And two weeks to know what you were looking for, who. But in return you don't ask what she does on her own time or what she's done. It feels like you don't mind rather than you don't care and that makes her feel seen. It stays between you unsaid in her eyes.

♡If romanced she doesn't push for any information. You'll tell her if it's important. People think it's weird the two of you to not share about yourselves like normal people but you're happy, that's all that matters.

【Codsworth】 It's just like it was before. He, unlike the others, already knows you. He knows you very well. Not only did you do an intake for daily preferences but he also served you for a few years. While you're out and about you'll do something or say something that sounds like no information to others or out of context and he'll answer, "Just as I was thinking as well." While you camp with some of the other companions he does chores the way you like without needing to ask, making comment on recent events, which makes them jealous for sure. He digs up things from the house he preserved or found and fixes them up brand new before presenting it to you. Songs you liked or wanted to hear. Movies and shows and comics. Clothes pressed for you and the furniture is redone the way it used to be. He knows you and wants to keep it that way.

【Curie】 Low-key doesn't care. She has one thing on her mind and that's her own goal to better medicine. Finding things to do that is all she needs of you. When she goes to be a synth her feelings overwhelm her and you guide her through that. She's never ever asked about you. She'll tell you about what she's feeling but never thinks to ask what you feel. In her defense, is doesn't understand the nuance of social interactions. And to her credit, it works for the both of you.

♡If she's romanced she realizes she wants to know what you feel and if it's the same as her. She's mostly interested in what you feel now rather than what your opinion is in the past or isn't currently relevant.

【Danse】 Right away he doesn't care for it. A mercenary who talks very little can be dangerous. But you followed orders well and are a damn good shot. The way he asks is more like demanding. It was all for a vetting process but still rude. After the intake he didn't care about your lack of openness. Didn't matter to him personally. After BB he suddenly regrets not knowing you. He was so rude and dismissed you as another faceless soldier and you saved him, from the Brotherhood and himself. Now he wants to know you.

♡If romanced he makes effort to know you, like really know you. For a long time he refused individuality so his own sense of self is not great. But you know yourself and make no attempt to hide it. You are so sure of yourself you don't need to explain. That's one of the things he loves about you.

【Deacon】 He thinks you're like him, that you want to hide in plain sight. As much as he gives that to you he's nosy as fuck and takes every chance to learn about you, mostly from afar. It doesn't take any time at all for him to realize you'll just tell him. Most of them are one word answers. It takes him even less time after that to realize you'll comment on things from before the war especially.

♡If romanced he goes out of his way to show you stuff. Old posters and toys. If you follow my headcanon that he's pre-war, he makes old references and generally adds comments on things to bait your answers.

【Hancock】 He thinks it's pretty cool. "Oh, tall, dark, and handsome/beautiful." He does play twenty questions with you 24/7 and is very happy with your half-answers because an answer is still an answer. Plus he knows at least two other people like you. He is the one who figures out that you just don't have the time or think about talking about yourself rather than purposely keeping secrets the fastest. He knows people so he knows better.

♡If romanced he plays with it. You want a kiss? Tell him what's your favorite color. He'll get on his knees if you tell him what you like about your new home. But honestly he'll do it anyways. All he needs to know is that you want him like he wants you.

【MacCready】 He was more concerned about you putting a bullet in his head while his back was turned. Everyone in the Commonwealth was looking out for number one. So imagine his surprise when you were looking out for your number one and it wasn't you. Not only were you looking for your son but you stopped to help every person who asked for help. Your actions spoke to him in a way your words, he figured, couldn't. You didn't need to help him but you did. You didn't take the caps back. And you killed the gunners the second they turned their guns on him even when they said their beef wasn't with you. It was what you did, not what you told him.

♡If romanced he will ask things. Basic ones are like, "How was your day?" Normal questions that are the peak of domestic life. Then the more personal things. Some sound silly, "What's your favorite color?" But most build off of a quick thing you said in passing, "Wait, you've been to California? What was it like?" He trusts you'll tell him the truth.

【Nick】 As a private detective this simply won't do. He gets it at first, you just need him to find your son, it's business. However, you want him to stay with you after that. It confuses him because you made no indication you like him in the slightest way. He's the second fastest to realize you're not keeping to yourself on purpose. As one of the only ones who are pre-war he's able to get things the others can't. He'll talk about things and give his options and bait you into answering it. That was a common way to get people to talk back then when you were trying to be polite and keep up the conversation, even if the conversation stays a bit thin.

♡If he's romanced he makes fun of the fact you forget to say things about yourself. Don't get it wrong, he makes it clear you don't need to share. He's just poking fun.

【Piper】 This simply won't do. She asks as many question as they come up but she gets depressing short answers. You either give one word answers or say you're not really in the mood, on some occasions you admit you don't know, you never thought about it. It takes a long time for her to stop and that's only because the questions start getting old. And you still feel like a mystery even though you've told her everything.

♡If she's romanced she realizes how much you've told her and pushes it. What is your type? How do your lips feel? Why do you look so good? It becomes playful and light, never serious.

【Preston】 In the beginning he didn't realize he didn't know much about you. He took your help selfishly to get him and his people back on stable ground but you told him you were happy to help. So he takes time to learn about you and give you everything he could possibly help you with. In hopes you would share by yourself he gives things to you without any prompt. It doesn't really work most of the time.

♡If romanced he asks things with hearts in his eyes. He is so lovesick he takes all of your half-answers and files it away in his mind. It hardly matters at that point.

【X6】 It wasn't his mission so he didn't care. You owed him no explanation or justification. Doesn't mean he doesn't question you. He asks why you helped someone, why you stopped for a distraction. And of course you give short answers like, "They needed help." or "I wanted to." Later, after the Institute is gone, he sees how you carry yourself and tries to copy it. Obviously he can't so you help him too. You showed him he can figure himself out by himself and he didn't need you. So he held the same opinion; he doesn't need to know you like that.

♡If romanced he's still comfortable with you keeping things to yourself. It's only after months of being together do you realize he's never asked you a personal question, that you've never shared anything that personal. When you bring that to him he tells you that hardly matters. But seeing you make the effort after that gives him a feeling he can't describe. It's a good feeling he thinks.

[bones4thecats]

Their S/O Is An Ancestor of Odysseus 

Type of Writing: Random Idea  Name: Their S/O Is An Ancestor to Odysseus  Characters: Poseidon, Ares, and Hades  Idea-Giver: Random Thoughts, Epic: The Musical, and Homer’s The Odyssey 

A/N: In honor of the fifth saga of Epic: The Musical coming out today, I decided to finally write this fun prompt I made months ago. I hope you guys enjoy this piece, I personally loved writing it so much! Anyways, I have a question for you all; What is your favorite Epic: The Musical saga and your favorite song/character? 

⚠️ TW: Mentions of death, attempted murder, and permanent physical damage ⚠️ 

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Deity! Reader ; Ancestor to Odysseus - Relationship: 3/10

🔱 When he first met you, you had told him you had human descendants, and he accepted that whole-heartedly. You cannot change your lineage or who they have kids with *ZEUS

🔱 Anyways. Poseidon did eventually ask to see your only known descendant, at least to you. And he was not amused to see him again 

🔱 You and Hermes just stood alongside one another and lead Poseidon to the male’s home, the only reason Hermes knew is because your initial descendant, who was the human’s father, had a child with Hermes’ female descendant, Anticlea 

🔱 Smiling gently as a young male named Telemachus ran up and hugged you as a female, that being Penelope, also came out and embraced you while she smiled and nodded to Hermes 

🔱 Asking to see the boy’s father, Poseidon gained a small sense of nervousness. Why was he suddenly a hair off about seeing your once-living descendant 

🔱 Oh, this was why… 

" Poseidon, my love. Meet- "  " Odysseus?! " 

🔱 Looking back and forth between your blonde-lover and your brunette descendant, Odysseus, you began to look at Hermes, asking him with your eyes how they knew one another 

" What a coincidence, Uncle Poseidon! It seems that Y/N is the ancestor to Odysseus, the man who you tried killing multiple times centuries ago! How intriguing! "  " You tried to WHAT?! " 

🔱 Odysseus narrowed his eyes at the God of the Seas and walked to you, opening his arms for a hug, which you sincerely accepted as you glared at your husband in silent rage. Your eyes said everything to him; you better explain yourself. 

🔱 Poseidon sighed lightly and began to tell you everything, right from the start of his involvement with Odysseus 

" You do remember Polyphemus, correct? "  " Of course I remember him. Why? "  " Your boy here blinded him. He and his men had come in and attempted to steal his flock of sheep from him. And, after a mild fight, he blinded him with a burning steak, as he slept nonetheless. How cowardly. " 

🔱 While you were now upset with both parties, Telemachus and Penelope eventually got the two to come to an understanding as to not upset you and possibly cause a massive dispute that may end up with you losing your mind, and not fakely like Odysseus tried 

🔱 Odysseus and Poseidon may act nice when your looking, but they literally glare at one another when you look another way. And you know this, but seeing them at least try to bond to help you warms your heart to much to say anything ✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅

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Deity! Reader ; Ancestor to Odysseus - Relationship: 6/10 

⚔️ You were thankful that Ares had enough free time to come with you down to Elysium to meet your descendant 

⚔️ He has always asked you questions of him, and because you finally got back into contact with the man who distantly shared your blood, you excitedly told him that he, his wife, and his son were all available the following week 

⚔️ Ares was nervous as hell when approaching the house of your descendant 

⚔️ They’re basically the only family you have left, since Hermes doesn’t count because you weren’t related, your lineage members were 

⚔️ But, in a way of generosity, Hermes decided to join you both. In his words, which were twisted majestically with a suave tone that matched the once youthful Zeus had, he just wanted to encounter the man who was the result of two deity-influenced offsprings coming together 

" Lady Y/N! To what do we owe the pleasure? "  " The pleasure is all mine, youngling. Now, where's Penelope and her husband? They invited me here with my husband- "  " Lord Ares! "  " Uh- yeah… "  " Can you please direct us to them, ma'am? "

⚔️ After being directed to a long dining room, which was where you found a young male with brunette hair, an older-woman, and an older-man with the same hair as the younger one 

⚔️ Smiling as you hugged him and the two other mortal and humanized souls, Ares narrowed his eyes at the older man, before asking who he was 

" Odysseus, King of Ithaca. And this is my wife, Penelope, and my son, Telemachus. And you must be Ares, the God of War. It is a pleasure to meet you. "  " And you… Odysseus. " 

⚔️ While Ares was caught off guard by how adaptive and calm-seeming Odysseus was, he was quite pleased with how accepted the human was with his ancestor marrying a relative of the man who tried killing him and did kill most of his men 

⚔️ But, he is thankful that Poseidon doesn’t randomly come up in the conversation. As that would’ve led to Odysseus hearing the stories of how, in Poseidon’s eyes, he was a horrendous person 

⚔️ Well, they ain’t wrong. His personality kinda lacks sometimes

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Deity! Reader ; Ancestor to Odysseus - Relationship: 9/10 

💀 Hades was pleased to hear how adoringly you would speak of your human lineage. Most deities would shun that, as they believe Humanity are a bunch of scum and worse than rust on a boat’s underside 

💀 He is a family-centered man at heart, so seeing how close you were to these humans made him want to meet them himself 

💀 But what he didn’t expect was seeing a familiar face standing alongside a woman and younger boy 

💀 It was Odysseus. The man who blinded his nephew, Polyphemus, and enraged his second-younger brother, Poseidon 

" Oh! How unexpected, right, Uncle Hades? " 

💀 Yeah, he just stood there for a good few minutes, just staring with wide eyes like this; 🤯 

💀 Hades eventually snapped out of his daze and cleared his throat before offering his hand to the King of Ithaca, his wife, and son, while you just opened your arms to embrace them as if you had known them for centuries 

💀 Well, you have, but you get the point 

💀 You and Penelope had nudged Hades through the castle before landing in a room where there laid many tapestries of happenings from Odysseus’ journey back home, but the three decorative fabrics that stood out were Polyphemus’ attack, Poseidon’s iconic rage, and Odysseus in the Underworld 

" Ah, you seem to have found my small shine. I remember all of these events as if it was yesterday, and I suppose 9 years prior. "  " Yes… I seemingly forgot that you had come to the Underworld to seek out… oh what was his name again? Oh, yes, Tiresias. " 

💀 Hearing of Odysseus’ experience in Hades’ Kingdom made them slightly closer, as Hades allowed him to visit some of his deceased previous crewmates and his mother, whom was happy to see him years later 

💀 They have a far better bond than Hades does with the rest of his brothers, but he must keep that from Poseidon. His jealousy knows no end

[sugar-crash]

🍬King Candy (Wreck-It Ralph) x (gn) Reader👑

(Beginning Relationship Pt. I Edition!)

(I thought this song would be fitting considering King Candy’s voice is based on the vocal performance Ed Wynn did for the Mad Hatter… That and its… Nostalgic🔑 [I saw the animation meme culture rise and fall.] lol)

- So, as we all know, the more unpleasant parts of his personality (which could tie him to Turbo) are suppressed, and hidden, though they can still peak out when he’s feeling particularly malicious.

- He’s a slime, a real manipulative rat who’s so sure he can keep everyone in the dark, who takes it slow with you at first to try to maintain his hard work.

- There’s a clear wall between what he displays in front of others and how he is, just the way he likes it, but honestly— If you mean so much to him, you get a weird mix of the two (well, more than usual), a kind of sweet goofiness that’s followed up with a snide remark about being the most skilled in some specific topic.

- Again he’s not the best lover, though from his previous indiscretions he has learned to be more open to others feelings— But only for your sake, mostly cause he can’t stand anyone else besides you…. And Sour Bill sometimes, but he’s mostly the personification of a minimum wage worker.

- Spending time together after hours is a must, though he’s more understanding now than he was before, not demanding every moment of your time but relishing whenever you do.

- I think all that time alone before Sugar Rush got plugged in made him lonely, and less stubborn to admit that he wants that comfort from someone else.

- I don’t think it’s much of a far reach when I say maintaining the King Candy persona is something he is very fluid in, but it’s exhausting at times.

- When he gets that seldom time alone without any of his kingly duties he finds himself yearning for your comforting touch, that stubbornness making way as he makes Sour Bill retrieve you.

- I can see moments between the two of you to be on the tamer side, not as many arguments like Pre-RoadBlasters, little to none really, but there are these tense moments where you ask him something a little too close to home and he becomes stiff in your arms if only for a brief moment.

- As much as he wants to be, not only for himself but maybe even you— He isn’t perfect, he isn’t the person he tries so hard to be, that gleeful and peppy voice going flat the second he isn’t feeling it anymore.

- It becomes apparent the more you know him he’s far more serious than he lets on, puffing his chest up slightly when things don’t go his way and he has to play dirty, which he’s certainly no stranger to...

- In comparison to himself when the arcade first ever opened, he’s certainly grown from that childish hatred, for better and for worse.

- He’s more affectionate for one, providing you with comfort fitting to how you are feeling at that moment, little compliments, and gestures of affection to quell your anger and anxiety in a matter of seconds.

- Quick to learn every little thing about you to make sure he’s able to relate to you, though his intentions with this information go back and forth.

- He wants everything on a silver platter, not only for himself but also for you, making the other subjects of Sugar Rush bend over backward for you, even when you object to all the attention.

- I think one of the ways he dotes on you in a way is date planning, various areas in Sugar Rush vary which can be very nice date spots… He seems like the picnic blanket and tea liker as King Candy, as stereotypical as that is lol.

- Though if that isn’t your style, he can always do dates at the castle, like baking— chatting the night away, it’s the simple things in life <3

- Even with his character growth he is far from a good person, which we all know and love for the most part. He’s fully aware that the things he does to bar you, Venallope, the Sugar Rush inhabitants, and even the arcade entirely is cruel, spiteful even. But what could he have done? Let himself fade into obscurity and be characterized after one of his biggest mistakes?

- No, no, not when he still has so much to provide— He’s a person, just like everyone else, better yet he was programmed to be better. Why should he stand aside and let the world spin without him? Why should he look at you from afar when he has every right to want you?

- That’s part of the reason why he’s so adamant about keeping his spot as the monarch of Sugar Rush, he’s the rightful ruler after all.

(Cr cqh’r lncp, hjw cq cr?)

[kurokens]

Everything I Love Will Make Me Cry | Satosugu

anime/manga: jujutsu kaisen

character: gojo satoru & geto suguru

words: 1.5k

pronouns: they/them

request: none

notes: part 3 of In The Middle, my first satosugu piece. trying stg new by including some texts in the middle but idk if i'm a fan, just didn't know how to convey it better than this way.. don't judge the quality of the text this is an app i used to use back in 2020 and i didn't want to try and find a new one. also thank u to 🪼 anon, ur message helped me get out of writer block, this one for u!!

not proof read

song rec: Everything I Love Will Make Me Cry - Movning

genre: hurt comfort, fluff, slowburn, a little bit angsty, poly?

warnings: satosugu are in a loving relationship, misunderstanding, pinning, a lot of pinning on satosugu's end, reader is so oblivious, insecure and self conscious reader

Taking all of your clothes and getting out of the apartment was probably one of the hardest thing you ever had to do in your life. Especially what forced you to do it. But what else could you do? You no longer were welcomed there, and you knew it, the longer you stayed and the worse it would hurt. So you took advantage of both of your roomates being gone for the day to pack your essentials, write a note and get out of there. Not without your vision blurred by your tears. You didn't really plan your next moves but it felt like an evidence to just go and crash at Shoko's, such an evidence that you refused to do it. After all she was just as close with these two as you were, well, as you used to, so it would be quite an awkward position for her, and you refused to impose this on her. That's how you found yourself at the door of an old friend of yours, looking like a kicked puppy. "What are you doing looking like a sad little puppy?" Namami said after opening the door.

"Please don't, I already told you, and I don't want to cry any more than I've already did." You replied in a whine, to which he just gave a roll of his eyes, stepping aside to let you in.

"Haibara is in the kitchen, he is making some food for you. He thought you could use a warm meal right now." The blonde man told you, leading you towards the kitchen.

"M'not really hungry though..." You sighed, following him without another complaint.

"Ah! Don't say that, I've poured my soul into this meal. You better eat and appreciate it!!" Haibara exclaimed, popping his head through the door after hearing you two coming his way. "I made your favourite!"

"It smells wonderful Yū, I'll eat it, just for you. And enjoy it, that's for sure." You giggled, seeing his enthusiam and the effort he put into this, pulling the younger boy in your arms.

"You can stay here as long as you need. And I promise I won't say a word to Satoru and Suguru about your whereabouts." Nanami chimed in, a soft smile on his face at your interactions.

"Haha, you don't have to worry about that. They're probably not gonna look for me at all, on the contrary." You whispered the last part, tears starting to well up again.

"Just, don't rush yourself to find a new place okay? You're more than welcomed to stay there. And I'm sure all of this must be a big misunderstanding." He gently answered.

"Thank you so much. It means a lot, even though I do doubt your last words." Was all you could muster as an answer.

To say the lovers were frantic was an understatement, they need to find you, they needed to tell you what they felt and how all of this was a misunderstanding. There was no way they were about to lose you over this, no not like this, not before you knew what you meant to them. It couldn't end with you thinking they hated you, lord, it was so far from the truth. They would never forgive themselves.

"Try calling them!!" Satoru shouted, pacing around your empty room.

"I already tried Toru, they're not answering, I go straight to voicemail." Suguru replied, his heart sinking at the potential meaning of his calls going straight to voicemail.

"No, no, no... You have to try again, please Sugu, try again!" The white-haired man begged, his voice breaking as the tears made their way up. "Sugu, this can't be it. Sugu we need to find them, this can't be it, please this can't be it."

All Suguru could do was take his lover into his arms, letting him break down and cry on his shoulders. Words stuck in his throat, as his own tears made their way down his cheeks. He never felt this helpless.

"Maybe..." He began slowly, "Maybe we should try and text them. So they can read it whenever they feel like it and not feel pressured to answer right away."

"Let's do that." Satoru grundgingly said, his pout never leaving his face.

Both of them let out a breath seeing your answer, it wasn't really positive one but at least they weren't blocked, and right now it meant already a lot for them. They would give you all the time in the world you needed, they were ready to wait an eternity if it meant that you would come back to them in the end. Well, at least Suguru was ready for that, Satoru was a whole other story. "M'gonna die Sugu. M'gonna disappear from the face of the earth if I don't see them soon." The youngest whined, holding onto his lover for dear life. "Why don't we call Shoko? I'm sure they're with her. Even better, we could just go there and tell them how this is just a misunderstanding, and we can tell them how much we love them and how we want them in our space forever, and never out of it."

"Baby, we have to wait and you know it. We don't know what they heard, and why they're so hurt. It made them leave our place Toru, it's not something we can fix that easily. We probably lost their trust, and winning it back won't be an easy task. That's why we can't force this on them. We have to be patient, and wait for them to come to us, no matter how much it hurts." The dark-haired man explained, not fully convinced by his own words, but one of them had to be rational in order to mess this up further.

"I know you're right, but knowing we hurt them and that we can't make it better is so hard. I never wanted to hurt them in the slightest, and now we drove them away. At least, I'm glad I have you in all of this." Satoru confessed, hiding even further in the crook of his lover's neck, hoping this wouldn't last too long.

You couldn't help the small smile that made its way on your face after reading your conversation, but it didn't stay for long. After all, you heard what you heard, and there was no way you could have gotten it wrong in any way, it was pretty clear who they were talking about, so this all misunderstanding thing seemed like a lie to you. But why would they lie about that? What was the point in hiding the truth now that you knew about it? Wouldn't it be easier for them now to get rid of you? Not having to go through the burden of telling you directly to leave and everything?

You were confused, a part of you wanted to believe they were telling the truth, that all of this was a misunderstanding, and your best friends didn't hate you. But at the same time, another part was scared because what if they really did hate you, and they were doing all this just to be able to humiliate you even further, and have the satisfaction to tell you in your face how much they wanted you out of their life. You were kind of used to be the odd one in friend groups, and ultimately being left out, so why would it be different this time?

"You realy should hear them out." A voice suddenly said, making you jump.

"Gosh Kento you scared me." You squeaked, hand on your chest in a futile try to appease your beating heart.

"I'm sorry, but really. I'm not the biggest fan of these two, and I think that's why you decided to come here, but I know they would never hurt you." Namami chuckled softly, sitting down next to you.

"Well, look at that, for once in your life you're wrong." You tearfully laughed.

"I've been wrong a lot of times in my life, but not on that. I promise you, they would never intentionally hurt you, especially not with their words." Your blonde-haired friend affirmed, and the look in his eyes told you there was no convincing him otherwise, almost as if he knew something you didn't.

"I don't know, I need time, I don't think I can face them yet." You explained, curling into a ball next to him.

"Take all the time you need." He simply replied, petting your hair as if to comfort the crying child you were. And for now it's all you needed, some time and a comforting friend, you would deal with all of this later, maybe.

oki here it is!! sorry im not quite satisfied with this part, i wanted to make it longer and have them maybe meet to talk it out but i also didn't know if it was the mood of this part or not... also, yes, don't worry there will be a part 4! part 4 here!!

[yuujispinkhair]

Sukuna gave up on love years ago. But somehow, your eyes and your smile are all he can think about. -> This is part of my Blog Anniversary Event. A sweet anon requested the song "Lovebug" by the Jonas Brothers.

Pairing: Modern!CEO Sukuna x Reader (female) Genre: fluff Word Count: 700 Warnings: Mentions of alcohol. Sukuna and Reader meet as business partners, and feelings spark between them. All characters are of age. Minors don't interact.

God, it's ridiculous!

Sukuna slams his vodka glass down on his desk, laughing and shaking his head. He isn't a sentimental person. He isn't one of those fools who let their emotions get the better of them. He knows love is more trouble than anything else, and he isn't chasing it anymore. He decided years ago to stop doing that. No, Sukuna hasn't been looking for love for a long time.

And yet, all it took was one business phone call followed by an afternoon and a dinner spent with you, and now he can't stop this weird feeling from spreading through his chest. He sees your smile even when he closes his eyes. He still smells your perfume even though it can't linger on his skin after such a short moment of holding your hand and bringing it to his lips to kiss it.

It is highly ridiculous. And irresponsible. And foolish.

He swore off love. Swore off everything that could tear down his walls. And he is good at this, brilliant even. No one can see beneath Itadori Sukuna's mask of arrogance and indifference!

And yet your eyes looked at him with that knowing look. As if you could see right through him. As if you knew.

You treated him differently than the others. Your eyes didn't stray to his expensive watch or his car keys. You didn't order the most expensive meal off the menu when he said he would pay. You didn't act mysterious or slutty or any of those other things the others did, who were always so calculating, so desperately trying to fit into the image of the perfect doll, not realizing that it only made them seem fake.

There is nothing fake about you. You didn't hold back your laughter during dinner. You didn't worry about smearing your lipstick while eating. Your makeup was light, and the eyeliner applied a bit crookedly. It made his heart do a flip somehow. You didn't shy away from sharing a huge dessert with him, smiling and rolling your eyes in pleasure at how delicious it tasted. He had chuckled in genuine amusement and joy when you pushed a spoonful of ice cream towards him, telling him he simply had to try it.

So light. That's it. He feels so light when he is around you. It's as if all the small and big stresses of his busy CEO life just vanished into thin air, and instead, the sun is shining on him, and he can breathe in clear, fresh air.

He catches himself smiling as he thinks of how you snorted with laughter about one of his dry comments. Usually, none of those women laugh about his humor. And it's not just that you think he is funny. You replied with the same humor, making him laugh too.

He sighs and turns off his computer. It's late at night. Time to go home and get some rest. But not before he grabs his phone and types a quick message to you, thanking you for the lovely evening and wishing you a good night. He only hesitates for a small moment before he adds, "I would like to see you again. I know a place with even better dessert variations for two."

He is surprised by the smile he spots on his face in the mirrored walls of the elevator when he receives your reply, telling him that you would love to share a dessert with him again.

A catchy love song starts playing on his drive home. The type of song that Sukuna usually finds annoying and which would lead to him changing the radio station. But not tonight. Tonight, he lets it play, and maybe he hums a bit in tune with the melody. Maybe he feels a little fluttery sensation when hearing the lyrics about freshly found love.

Maybe all he can think of are your eyes and your smile and how good it felt to sit there with you and talk and laugh and not even realize how many hours had already slipped by, so caught up in his conversation with you. So caught up in your eyes.

He isn't someone who catches feelings easily. He thought for a long time that he had managed to become immune to all of this.

But does a man who is immune to falling in love hum along to a stupid catchy lovesong? Does a man who gave up on love smile to himself while he pictures your laugh?

Maybe the lovebug bit him after all. And maybe he is glad it did

Thank you so much for participating in my event! I hope you enjoyed this little story!! I am swooning so much thinking about spending a flirty business dinner with CEO Sukuna aww!!

Comments and reblogs would be sweet!!

[doodler16]

"If anything Ozzie could’ve been the one who would ask where Stolas is, yknow an established character we already know and someone who knows the details and gave Blitzø the ozmedous crystal so they don’t have to travel illegally."

i think this is the exact reason viv wants to act like ozzie was incapable of doing anything by passive aggressively liking fans tweets that argued he couldnt have possibly spoken up. because if he had even tried to save blitzs heiny by saying truthfully, "hey, wait - i know that guy! my partner fizz is friends with him! and he didn't force himself onto stolas, stolas personally asked me for an asmodean crystal for him when he realized he had, and i quote, 'feelings' for the imp! see? look at his right forearm, that there's one of my crystals, legally approved of." then they all would've believed a seven deadly fucking sin over some pissy elsa rip off that's ranks below ozzie, who has NO evidence of these vile accusations, vs the literal asmodean crystal on blitzs arm that you can literally see throughout the entire the trial. it's not like they took it off or anything! it's still there! keeping in mind theres no such thing as bootlegs crystals, because every on screen depiction (and i think even on screen description) states that an asmodean crystal is a personal item tied to it's owner - it's LEGAL owner.

but if that had happened, then we wouldn't have gotten our stoliz climax where stolas shows he loves blitz by.. doing the bare minimum of NOT letting blitz die due to STOLAS'S DECISION in murder family to make them fuck for the book, instead of giving his "first ever fwiend" an asmodean crystal immediately. how romantic!

im just getting so sick of the parasocial vivziepop stans doing backflips in logic to justify the way the story is, without realizing that they could and SHOULD be given something better. they see the cracks, but viv just doesn't want them to, because it's her way or the highway - she's the biggest fan of her own show, so things happen the way she wants them to, not in a way that makes any logical sense when you put it under the usual critical eye the average writer (and casual viewer) would.

i mean, what if oz said that, but satan still deemed a punishment against blitz worthy for having the grimorie to begin with at all as an imp, still tried to execute blitz as a public display of power, and THEN oz texts stolas while notifications of fizz texting oz pop up? you still get your angst, have ozzie ACTUALLY be a good person who's willing to put his neck out on the line for someone lesser then him with no personal gain and not just be a canonical complacent royal fuck who was about to let his lovers reunited best friend die on public television, which is why i will never be invested in fizzozzie ever again tbh, and STILL have your big stoliz savior moment, without it happening due to just because of stolas just so happening to turn on the news that day. a text from oz could've given stolas a moment to very briefly consider if this is something he should intervene in, before realizing he has to, because blitz made him feel free for the first time in his life. now he can free him too, from the grimorie, and from suffering the consequences of his actions that put blitz in this position unfairly to begin with. also i wouldn't personally write stolas following this up with a song about how he's the mastermind behind a plan he knows nothing about or have him insult his "lovers" intelligence repeatedly within it, "that's the point," my ass, stolas could've just sung about the way blitz made him feel when they first met as kids and then again as adults, and why he gave him the grimorie because of that, contradicting andres imp rape claim and showing blitz that stolas DOES care in a way that ISNT self sacrifice, but nooooo, we need just one more song of stolas being a entertaining dick! no wonder she said this episode was self indulgent lol

Someone get rid of Vivziepop’s Twitter or someone on her Spindlehorse team get Viv a social media manager. 💀 The fact this woman is passively aggressively liking tweets in defense of her show is insane. And maybe just maybe Vivziepop should explain herself in the show instead of Twitter.

I don’t care what anybody says Ozzie could’ve done more and spoken up. He is one of the seven deadly sins and has the power to make a difference. If Stolas (someone who is lower than Ozzie in terms of status) can make a heroic entrance to save his booty call and talk/sing against Satan. Then Ozzie has a chance.

Anon why is your version so much better. That “Mastermind” song so unnecessary (it’s one of the few songs I personally don’t vibe with except the ending, I will admit Satan and other sins part is fire). Stolas says how he love blitzø yet uses any chance to insult and demean his intelligence in the most mean spirited way possible.

[zettaireido-emotion]

Camus character analysis: games VS anime

If you finished the Uta no Prince-sama anime and your opinion of this man is "wow, he's kinda terrible," I don't blame you. in fact I've seen a lot of people say this

In this post, I want to talk about his characterization in the games and give my two cents on what the anime was trying to do with him, especially in his single focus episode Saintly Territory (S3E6).

Disclaimer: I wrote this on a whim because I'm sick and stuck at home so if anyone reads this, sorry I might go all over the place

Spoilers for all of the games!

The "be my slave" thing

Starting with Anime Camus's most egregious crime: treating Haruka like a servant/slave (however you want to translate it)

Basically in his focus episode, Haruka is tasked with writing a song for Camus. She wants to learn more about him in order to write it, but Camus will only let her follow him if she acts as his servant. She accepts without complaining, Cecil is rightfully angry, Haruka continues anyway and the song gets completed.

Now, am I about to say that Game Camus would never do this? No because he literally does lmao.

The anime doesn't pull this "servant" plotline out of nowhere, here's the context in his route:

Haruka accidentally overhears Camus talking about a plot to assassinate Saotome on the phone. When he notices that she heard everything, he basically tells her that he has to kill her now. But if she served him, he'd be able to keep an eye on her, make sure she doesn't leak anything, so she could escape death.

Okay uh "work under me or DIE" isn't exactly better, nor is it a good start to a love story, but I'm not finished!!

(A side note: I have to add that the anime made him look like an even bigger asshole and borderline dumb when it came to the things he made her do. Like he expected her to know that snapping your fingers means you want coffee without prior explanation. bro

^This might have been for comedic effect but I promise he can be actually funny and endearing.)

What the anime couldn't cover

The Camus episode wraps up with Haruka pulling through and writing a song that makes Camus "sincere," he says it's cool at the very end and that's the episode. I think the problem is that we technically didn't see him being sincere or what that even means to him, besides when he was singing (banger song btw)

It's a shame because in a 20-minute episode you really can't show the game experience of slowly piecing together what this man's problem is.

First of all, in Debut and AS you'll be quick to notice that he always has homeland and duty on the mind, constantly reminding himself that he's in Shining Agency/Japan for a reason, and it's NOT to have fun or make friends

The truth is, he slowly starts to appreciate the banter with his colleagues, music, and working there in general.

But because of his initial mindset, he has to rationalize & justify every connection he forms, like "it's just for work" or worse: "actually it was ALL A LIE and I NEVER ENJOYED A SECOND OF THE TIME WE SPENT TOGETHER, I'm such a great actor haha"

He uses that to fool himself and to push the other person away so it doesn't happen again. This scene is probably the best example:

(I'll be using google lens because it's faster but I checked that the tls were okay)

He also does this in the Non-Fiction drama, which may or may not have actually happened, but I think it's still a pretty good reflection of what could happen in reality because he tells Ranmaru their bond was a lie, then mopes around in his guilt thinking about the good times and wondering why he's sad, and THEN later doubles down on the "it was a lie, I don't care about you" because he just can't let himself get attached to anything.

Basically, he's terrified at the thought of forming actual bonds because he genuinely thinks he's nothing if he stops being a cold weapon:

At one point he does admit he sucks (as a love interest)-

-which is pretty huge by utapri standards. I love these games, but the amount of times where a male lead does something icky, and everyone, including Haruka, acts like it's normal or like it's Haruka's fault is ehhh but I digress

Upbringing

Of course he's very proud of his homeland and status, but sometimes it's to the point of thinking he can't be anything other than his title. So why is he like this?

We got to hear about his childhood from Camus himself a few times, and it often ended with Haruka thinking "wait? that's kinda messed up?" and Camus insisting it's nothing/it's normal so yeah that's something...

His parents were in an unhappy arranged marriage, and his mother was forced to birth an heir which traumatized her so much that she can't see Camus without falling ill. Overall it's a pretty tragic situation since what happened to her was horrible, though not Camus's fault either. Even now she refuses to see him, and I wouldn't say that makes him sad because he never really met her, but simply knowing of her sacrifice probably adds a lot of pressure. As in, he only exists for this one purpose (inheriting his father's title and serving the country), so if he doesn't play his part correctly, it would have all been for nothing.

He was raised by his father not as a child or son but as the heir, always treated and judged as an adult (even during physical training apparently, make of that what you will)

When Haruka asks about childhood memories he has a very hard time finding something that doesn't have to do with his duties or the nation. And then admits he didn't truly have a "childhood" since he was never treated like a child

As for the queen, I think his love for her is sincere: she taught him a lot of things growing up, and according to him, she's also a victim trapped by her duties so he wants to ease the burden.

So hypothetically, if he found things or people that made him happy in Japan, he would feel obligated to lock them away because that happiness is incompatible with his life: he'll have to leave when his mission ends, he shouldn't be spending time on things that aren't "useful" as he doesn't have the free will to pursue them

In his mind he's completely tied down by the fact that he was born and raised for a single reason, and the fact that he does want to serve the queen.

(This is Saotome describing him btw)

Also it might sound ridiculous to bring his self-worth into question because of how pretentious he is, but I've counted a few situations where he seemed to have complete disregard for his own life, only worrying about Haruka and Cecil's safety in scenes when they were present. And he thinks wanting to be loved unconditionally is a childish thought he shouldn't have.

"Double Face" was a lie. There's like at least 10 layers

On the surface he does have two personas, his perfect polite butler act for the media, and his cold bitchy attitude off camera. But honestly, even when he's not acting as a butler, he's often putting up a front to hide any form of vulnerability (from himself as well)

His main struggle is finding who he is outside of what he's being told to do. Before, he never actually stopped to think about what he WANTS because it just never occurs to him, or if it does he ignores it.

That's why realizing that he has his own desires is essential to his character development, and him staying with Quartet Night (and Haruka in his routes) is so important. It's why Reiji feels the need to reach out and when he does, Camus either freezes up or tears up;

This all makes him the opposite of Ranmaru (being true to yourself and sincere), and similar to Ai (gradually learning to view the world in a less cold and logical way), but I kind of want to save that for another post lmao

He is especially hard on Cecil because Cecil says & does whatever he wants, and everything still works out for him, which is a way of life that Camus can't imagine for himself at all (despite maybe wanting it?)

That he can realize this and eventually admit out loud, despite all his pride, is also one of my favorite things about him

Season 2 does hint at something, so that's pretty cool!

Side note, I really love that his theme in the new Oracle series is "Change," the melting of ice.

So what was the anime supposed to do??

Of course there's no way to show all this in a single episode or even during the runtime of the anime, and I never expected them to because the story is very surface-level (that goes for all characters).

It's just unfortunate since the anime is the most accessible and well-known utapri media in the western fandom, and the character's main episode is bound to leave the biggest impression.

I understand the choice of being laser-focused on the servant plotline, it's supposed to be funny (?) and waters him down to a trope that's easy to understand at first glance (the step-on-me guy I guess)

Still, I can't help but compare it to Ranmaru's episode, who was also hard to work with in the games but was chill in S3E7 and got to pet cats. Anime onlys will never know how much Camus loves to dote on his dog smh.....

[hkthatgffan]

Hey! You seem like a huge *Gravity Falls* fan, so I was hoping you could answer some of my biggest questions about morality in the show. Since the release of *The Book of Bill* (which I’ve read), do you think Bill could ever be redeemed or seen sympathetically? Is there a possibility for him to get better and maybe even have a happy ending?

I ask this because I see a lot of fans saying, "He's awful," or "He deserves everything coming to him a thousandfold," and "Don't sympathize with him!" But then I watch the show, and I see characters like Gideon Gleeful and Robbie who were also problematic—they did terrible things but still got happy endings.

I know Gideon went to jail, but he broke out and ultimately had a positive resolution. Robbie, for example, tried to brainwash Wendy into a romantic relationship (which is super messed up!). Even though it didn’t work, and Wendy only dated him because she thought he wrote her that song, Robbie knew what the CD was supposed to do. But instead of facing real consequences, he just went through a breakup and still ended up with a happy ending, with friends and a new girlfriend.

As for Gideon, he tried to kill Dipper, manipulate Mabel, and invade the entire town’s privacy—basically doing some of the same things Bill did. Yet, after going to jail and making a last-minute turn toward good, he still got a happy ending.

So I’m super confused. What should I be feeling? Is there a correct way to view these characters? What do you think?

Bill at his core is the personification of denial. We see in the book that the harbours some regret and hatred for what he's done to the people around him but he refuses to try and take it to heart and use it as a point to grow from. I mean, look at what he did.

He killed his entire dimension and family and yet tries to deny it was anything bad and that in fact he liberated them. He manipulated and almost destroyed Ford and yet denies ruining the friendship they had. He tried to kill Dipper and Mabel and yet acts like it was nothing. Bill is unsympathetic. He's a narcissistic sociopath who doesn't wanna admit it.

The difference with Robbie and Gideon is that they changed and grew past their issues. Robbie tbh was more so being a literal teen drama story while Gideon was made that way through his exposure to Journal 2 and how that corrupted him. Once both found a new lease on life, they were able to grow and become better.

Bill is not that. He cannot accept that he's not fine and that he's the sole survivor of his kind and has pushed everyone he knew out of his life through his own actions. We've all probably dealt with people like Bill Cipher. Be it a person, co-worker, significant other, friend, family member, etc. We've all had that person who acts full of themselves and manipulatively but in reality is suffering. But because of how they act and their refusal to do anything, you start to lose any sympathy or interest in helping or being there and just let them go. Congrats...you just escaped a toxic relationship.

As someone who has dealt with Bill Ciphers in my life like many of us probably have, it's easy to feel sympathy for him. Bill make his case out as such that you wanna feel like he deserves better. But he's a trillion year old being that has been doing the same thing over and over again and refuses to make an effort to move on and let himself accept what he did to his dimension and to people around him like Ford.

Ford on the other hand realized that and cut Bill out of his life. He's doing better now because of that and has his family by his side. Ford is an example of how to move on from such toxic situations and people and find happiness in your life again after that. Bill is the example of what happens if you can't.

Life is short. We all will die one day. We all deserve to lead a life free of people like Bill Cipher in it. The best thing we can do is follow Ford and find the people in life that make us happy and let go of Bill.

So, to answer your question, NO!

I don't think Bill Cipher can be redeemed or seen in a sympathetic way. He tried to. But he's shown even in the Theraprism that he can't. He's doomed to live forever with the shit he's done. And it's his own fault.

Bill can say he's fine but in the end...he's not. And he never will be. There is no redemption for Bill Cipher.

[macknshift]

THE ONE WHERE . . . I INTRODUCE Y'ALL TO LEO!

SOOOO…i have mentioned leo in like, 90 different posts atp and never actually made a "leo intro" (mainly bc i have weird feelings ab sharing him heavily to the rest of the world lol) but! i figured now would be the best time to get into explaining him to y'all.

LEO , commonly given the last name SCOTT (depends on the dr!) is actually originally the main character's love interest in a hockey romance book i've been in the process of writing. after getting #sickandtired of annoying ass book men i gave up and began drafting one of my own. the main character is literally me (i mean, for christ's sake her name is sloane mackintosh,) and eventually, i began thinking of him in other "au"s (i used to do this a lot on wattpad - i mean DRs but the term AU is usually more digestible to ppl that may not be aware of reality shifting. Anyways.) and began kind of placing him in everything. a list of the drs he is my love interest in is follows;

BETTER CR : (fc silasj2004*) the hockey romance book pretty much as a dr. small changes occur but basically he's the exact same as leo in the book lol

PARENT DR : (fc jack schlossberg. yes. i am one of those girlies. i am not ashamed! at least he has morals + a backbone y'all this could be much worse) the "backstory" is my better cr dr. i'm now a mother of 3 (amelia or mimi, aged 5, giselle or gigi, aged 4 and i'm pregnant with vincenzo, our final kid,) and it follows our life after what would be the events of the book. i sort-of made it also as like a WAG dr in a sense bc leo is a professional hockey player! (but he retires 2 years before this point in time so idk where my thought process is w this lol)

FORMULA 1 DRIVER DR : (fc pato o'ward MY!!!! mclaren man ln4 U ARE NOTHINGGGGGGG) leonardo dempsey, son of actor patrick dempsey (my forever celebrity crush ugh he's so fine) and driver for aston martin aramco f1 team under #99. i essentially took l*nce str*ll's daddy's boy backstory and gave it to leo bc he is indeed a daddy's boy. the only dr leo and i are enemies to lovers bc i'm too obsessed w him otherwise LMFAO

MARVEL DR : (fc marcello hernandez (MY MAAANNNN)) leo scott, secretly the speedster superhero 'comet'. hired by my dad as essentially a bodyguard (leo's not intimidating AT ALL idek how the hell this is supposed to work LMFAO) as comet and knows me out of costume as his sister's roommate (mj is also in every dr ever and actually is here in this cr. i can never leave her out i love her DOWN) basically marichat vibes (god i miss marichat)

POP STAR DR : (fc marcello hernandez, again) leo sinatra, nepo baby great-grandson of frank sinatra (there's a whole, incredibly large bit of lore ab this LMFAO + he's also a great-grandson in my better cr dr too bc i need my man RICH!) and Saturday Night Live cast member. basically i go on snl and immediately fall in love. i've stolen the 'unlikely couple' weekend update sketch for us & he does domingo, which is my song lol we're funny for it idk

THE FCS, in color photos:

i'm missing like, 18 other drs that i can think of but some important info about him;

he's half oaxacan mexican. i've tried my damnedness to find a way to make it obvious but when i was 'designing' him (aka drawing him out) i used jack, silas (*NOTE: he is leo's typical fc if i don't have an designated one for him) and marcello as references to make him look the most like him as i can. the fcs are kind of loose for him but i need a way to like fully visualize him. so. yeah. his 'color palette' (weird way to put it but idk how else) makes him tanner than all three of them i fear. all of the fcs i use (other than jack schlossberg but like. idk his main celebrity lookalike in the better cr is him so i kind of had to) are latino, but i feel like it never ever properly translates when i talk about him bc his name is fucking leopold scott. like. huh.

he's also tall AS FUCK lol and built like a tank lowkey (think tom welling clark kent GOOD GOOGLY MOOGLY) but it's mainly bc he's a hockey player. in every vers he's like. 6'3. shortest he is is w marcello as his fc and even then he's 5'11. (note in pop star dr he gets a lot of comparisons to jacob elordi for some reason??? idk my fans are weird)

he's got big brown baby cow eyes. every. single. time. like that is this man's defining trait and you know what? i would not change that for the world lol

his position in hockey is a goalie! he uses the number #29 and plays for our college and later for the new jersey devils before being traded to the anaheim ducks. after he retires he becomes a firefighter!!!! (which is sooo hot btw)