#which is to say. it'll do something eventually but not quite yet.

[dragonfruitflamb3]

Didn't follow the idea exactly buuuuuuuut I DID use it as the inspiration to finally help me start getting out of my writing slump!!!! So that's a BIG plus!!!!!!

It's about 1,600 words and very fluffy ^v^ minor mental struggles for Siffrin, but I can't just write and NOT have the sprinkled seasonings of angst in there sorry

I didn't know how to start it so no context sorry they're just chilling in bed together :P

You lay there, among the palace of pillows and blankets, ignoring them all in favor of focusing on trying not to focus on the warmth from the human equivalent of the sun behind you.

Yes, he's cheerful and bright and handsome, but you're more talking about how he actually radiates heat to the point it's making you a little sweaty. You aren't sure how uncomfortable you should feel and want (maybe even need?) to start focusing on something else.

You steel yourself, using the same resolve you used to face the king again and again, before slowly wrapping your fingers around his wrist, picking his hand up from your side, pushing your thumb against his palm…

You bring Isabeau's hand up near your face and press one of his fingertips against your lips.

You hear him squeak quietly behind you. You feel your heart skip slightly, ashamed of the feeling and ashamed of how you enjoy it.

You then kiss his middle finger, then the ring finger, then place a gentle little peck onto his pinkie. He almost sounds like he's going to explode as his arms go limp, one under your head and the other still partway resting across your torso.

You don't know if that's a good sign. You aren't used to this.

“I'll stop.” You blurt out, pulling his hand away from your mouth. It takes a moment before Isa finds his voice.

“No, it's o… okay.”

You can hear the flustered smile in his voice. The shame that blistered in your heart feels slightly soothed by… something.

You aren't sure whether it would be called pride, joy, or something else entirely. You don't know how to act in these sorts of situations!

You hum. Isa sighs quietly and moves his hand further away from your face. You don't protest against it, despite wanting to.

Should you feel bad for this? Should you listen to the little voice saying that you're disgusting for treating him like this? For wanting to treat him like this?

Time and time again, Isa has made it clear he likes you, that he somehow loves you, even. You think you've made it clear you feel more or less the same, in one way or another.

You're just. Afraid.

You don't want to repeat your past mistakes from the loops.

Your disgusting, disgusting mistakes.

Ah, wait. You know Isa reads all those romance novels, the same ones Mira reads. He enjoys those.

Aren't they filled with mushy gushy cuddle moments? You wouldn't know. You don't read them.

But! But, but, but don't give up hope yet, you've heard about them, heard plot summaries and exerts, from your dear Mirabelle.

(To be fair, she's told about maybe 2 stories, and one of them the main character bonded with a monster but you can work with that! You guess.)

…

“..Isa?” You tilt your head slightly as you ask, trying to look behind you. The Fighter perks up. His cheeks are dark with the shade threatening to spread to his ears.

“...Yes, Siff?” He whispers.

You bite down on the inside of your cheek, fighting back a laugh.

The way he said your name makes you think he's already imagining flower petals around you.

Now, think, Siffrin, think.

What happened in those romance stories? What did the monster do that the human enjoyed??

You roll over, facing Isa now as you lay beside each other. The not-scarred side of your face sinks into the pillow as you force yourself to continue breathing steady.

Right. Okay. This is fine, this is great!

…Wow.

Isa’s face is really dark right now. You smile softly, watching how he shakily returns a grin.

You have to look away, worried your heart might explode or something stupid like that.

“Can I kiss you?” You ask, ignoring the way your brains screams for silence.

Isa blinks in surprise, his lips cracking into a wide smile before fading into a concerned line.

Wait what. No that's. That's not the good response no no no-

“Do you… want to?” His voice is soft and his question is genuine. “I don't mind either way! But, it's…”

He trails off and lifts his hand, slowly, to graze his fingers against your cheek, making it very apparent that he's going to touch. You're grateful for the silent warning and find no need to flinch.

“Why would I not want to?”

You ask as you hide your working eye in the pillow. The darkness is more comfortable than looking at Isa’s expression, even if he's not mad at you.

He sighs quietly, moving his hand away from your cheek.

Ah. You find that makes you a little sad.

“Even if you don't want to… talk about it, it's kind of obvious how you've been avoiding certain… things.” He mumbles, you can hear how he's talking out of the corner of his mouth.

You lift your head and prop yourself up by your elbow, looking over at Isa and finally seeing how he's looking away from you.

He looks conflicted. Stars, he looks like he's about to bite off his own tongue. You really don't want that.

“Can. I. kiss you?” you repeat, more steady this time. Isa lets out an embarrassed chuckle and looks back up at you.

“You can. I think I'd enjoy it.” He grins, and it reminds you of the face he made right after the loops ended. It was when you told him you kissed him once during the loops, and he, bafflingly, suggested you “practice” kissing so you'd get better at it.

You blink and pinch the sheet between your fingers. You had forgotten about that. You're annoyed you need to keep being reminded that you aren't as disgusting as you think.

….you might still be a little bit rotten, but at least Isa doesn't hate you.

You take a deep breath in. Then let it out.

You move a hand to his cheek, bringing yourself closer. He closes his eyes as you lean in, his face just going darker.

And then you chicken out.

You kiss his cheek as your heart almost explodes in your chest. Oh, stars, oh stars! That might've been too much for you. Oh wow, how sweet it was but it makes your mind buzz with everything in existence.

You hear Isa laugh. His warm, bright and slightly cracked laugh. You adore the way it sounds like thunder on a cold day, you know that a comfortable storm will follow and keep you safe inside.

Ahh but that's almost too much for you to handle right now, so you lean back and hide your face behind your hands.

He follows you for a moment, leaning closer, before staying where he is and settling on laughing at you still. You don't know if he's actually laughing at you, but you wouldn't mind if he was. You're just too… “Flustered” might be the nice word here. “Scared” might be the correct one.

“I'm not comparing at all, but I thought you meant you'd kiss me on the lips..?” His voice is riddled with bubbles and soft shades. Stars, you're worried you disappointed him.

You try to say something. It comes out as a muffled grunt as you reach for his hand again, bringing it close to your face. You are really just driving yourself insane today, huh?

Because then you kiss the palm of his hand. Quick, gentle, barely a peck, but it does the job. Isa sputters again, he laughs again, and you feel overwhelmed with it all.

You want to keep going, to keep making your friend giggle and flush and lean closer to you, but it genuinely might be too much for now. You take a deep breath in, then let it out. It's wonderful.

You smile up at him, not sure what to expect from it yet feeling wild for it anyway. Isa is smiling down at you, his face so, so dark. It's as funny as it is adorable. If you're being honest, he might be as overwhelmed by this as you are.

You sigh out a chuckle, letting go of Isa’s wrist and looking away. You hear him sigh as well and feel his hand move to your shoulder.

“You… feeling any bet…ter?” He mumbles, smile apparent in his voice.

“I'm great.” You say. The build up already starts. Isa perks up. “You could even say I'm…”

He expectantly takes a breath in.

“Feeling im-peck-able.” You grin as you look back at him. Sure, it wasn't your strongest pun, but you're too frazzled and brain melted to think of anything better.

Isabeau laughs nonetheless, his shoulders shaking as he leans back away from you. It's comfortable and warm, you're considering leaning in closer to him.

And so you do. You can't help it this time and the bubbly little voice in your head wins.

You snuggle up against him and put your head on his chest, and while it doesn't quite cause a full malfunction, Isa does pause before wrapping around you tight. He squeezes a sigh out of you that turns up into somewhat of a laugh/yelp/bark- something. And embarrassing noise that you just ignore as you feel every part of the Fighter burn warmer. He loosens his grip slightly and the two of you lay in silent for the long moments that follow.

Isafrin hc for ya:

Siffrin isn't comfortable with kissing Isa months after the loops, at least directly on the lips, i think eventually they could be comfortable but i think it would be cute what the build up to that would look like. Hand holding to little bit of cuddling, hugging to sleeping close together (spooning vry much included), the first hints of kissing start with Siffrin kissing Isa's knuckles, his hand, his palm, his arm, up and up to his neck, his jawline, his flushed cheeks (they really like kissing his cheeks), his nose... forehead... and maybe then... his lips.

[stickyspeckledlight]

Tidal Cesspool [Yan!Chrollo x GN!Reader]

Chrollo brings up your favorite literary genre in a typical conversation.

WC: 3.6k

Tags: n0nc0n mention (chrollo hasn't done anything yet, but there's...there's just a VERY brief mention), potentially a bit OOC *sweat*, borderline crack at the end

Note: Ngl I think there's an ask which covers this crack scenario. However I can’t find it but this silly lil thought was still plaguing me so here we go. If I’m not hallucinating, then don’t fault me for the “plagiarism…on accident [which I will fix immediately]” (Somerton, 2020). IF anyone knows abt such an ask then pls put it in the reblogs. Anyways this wasn't necessary I just wanted to put in a plagiarism joke before the fic starts lel

Anyway here's chrollo being a pretentious shithead who should just go and die or something (ngl sometimes i can't help but think he's shalnark expect he tries to pretend to be a gentleman lol).

enjoy my yandere comedy piece <3 xoxoxoxoxo

There is something inane to the way you stare up at the ceiling. You're sprawled over the couch like a sea star, waiting for the tide to come take you.

However, the air continues to waft over you. Continues to prick at your skin, tangling your hair and stinging your eyes.

But you're stuck to your rock. You can't move from your tide pool to the nearshore, much less the deepest of depths, even if you wanted to.

It's not because of your own attachment to the rock walls, however. Rather...

"Deep in contemplation again, love?"

A hand keeps you pressed and trapped against it; a hand that currently runs down the leather spine of a book that you think he's been going through for about a week. Probably about this or that; but most likely, a word salad of pretentious philosophy he’ll use to justify his usual fatalism and/or the Troupe’s actions. Taking after his name (which you’re convinced he must’ve chosen for himself), he does play the devil’s advocate well; but you’d say his ability to twist words to suit his own needs is much, much more impressive. And annoying. But begrudgingly, impressive all the same.

You only wish you weren’t on the receiving end of it.

Chrollo regards you with a patient smile. Joy doesn’t reach his eyes—even if he was capable of such an emotion, he’s irritatingly good at concealing his emotions—but he can never fully mask the hunger that crinkles his eyes; crinkles, like a wolf’s snout, right before it tears into prey. It's the only reason you believe in his insistence that you're of some interest to him. You don't believe in that interest being 'love,' as he likes to say, but you're wholly assured in being a passing, if not intense, interest. Like being enamored with a new show, movie, or game. For a bit, it'll be all your life is defined by, etched into the sand, but eventually, the tide will come back and wash it away like it was never there in the first place. Only truly precious things can be engraved in rock.

For him, only the Troupe is engraved there. And you'd be a fool to think you would be there, too.

The couch shifts. Chrollo's closer to you, his hand barely a pace away from the edges of your hair. Though it tries to beckon, you only ever feel repulsed by it.

...That said, if you only try to delay the inevitable, the inevitable will become much, much worse. And if he gets in a bad enough mood, he might suction you to his chest come nightfall, rather than his usual trick of the room's temperature coincidentally dropping to where cozying up to his warm body would be nice, so why wouldn't you do so? Well, nice, if you disregard the fact that it's Chrollo's body, and not someone you actually like.

You roll over with a grimace, looking up at him from where you lay. You don't bother to sit with him eye to eye yet, and soon enough, you look straight ahead. All you see are his legs and the rest of the couch.

"And I thought you were deep into that book," you unenthusiastically respond, tracing patterns into the cushions.

“Quite,” he admits, “But few things match your level of salience.”

Salience? Really? “What’s with you and talking like a book? Talk like a person, please.”

“But you understood what I meant,” he breezily counters, “Seeing as you are my only present company, it follows that in this rhetorical situation, I need only ensure that you understand me, love. And in that, I have succeeded.”

You frown, “Oh, for Christ’s sake. Not this again.” You would normally bury your face in your hands, but given your position, you bury it in the couches. Sure, he’s technically not wrong, but goddamnit if it doesn’t annoy you. You thought hearing stuff like that was far behind you, with the completion of your required writing and communication classes all the way back in college…

“You’re admonishing me, yet here you are taking the Lord’s name in vain.”

“Says the guy whose last name is a letter off from Lucifer. Shouldn’t you be alight with exuberance?” You suppress a sneer at your own mocking mimicry.

“I never claimed any moral superiority before, though. I’m only stating facts, love,” the book is set down on the couch, next to your head. His hand inches closer. It’s a sign for you to get up.

As you rise, he continues.

“If you have complaints about my language, then you should watch your own…that’s all I’m trying to say, love. I'm not contradicting myself.”

You grumble. “I’m only saying you should talk more…casually. More normally. Swearing is a part of that.”

“Ah, but I am speaking to you like that,” Chrollo tips his head, “Casual and normal are both subjective. No two people will have the same definition of them. My and your speech are wholly normal, both from our perspectives.”

“Not from my perspective. You've always been a weirdo.”

He challenges, “Even if I cared about what was ‘normal’ or not,” his fingers entwine with yours, despite everything, “I wouldn't call your situation...normal. Do you think 'normal' applies here?"

Now he's just deliberately pushing your buttons. Raving on from some weird, philosophical ledge, twisting out technicalities to craft arguments the average sociologist would drool over. Maybe you could appreciate it more if you were the academic type, but you were never really interested in that scene. Most of what those types talk about just seem too abstract, too pedantic (pretentious) to be of any use at all. Whenever you'd overheard some of the sociology majors (either kids with no idea about what they wanted to do, or kids with parents too rich to let them fail---though, that's not to discredit the kids with a loose screw or two. You actually like those kids, but those kids also talked normally), you'd end up scoffing to yourself and rolling your eyes. You swear that those kids were doing everything in their power to use as many big, weird nobody-could-find-anywhere-besides-the-annals-of-a-dictionary words as possible to describe something that could be more easily described as "power activate many monkeh brain, so monkeh fight."

It's exhausting, and you want him to stop. At least---at least stop pretending that there's some sort of deep meaning to be twisted from this, and not just what the situation really is: "an obsessive psychopath kidnapped and imprisoned you and is trying to make you obsessive for him too because he has no capacity for real love or care."

"Whatever," you mumble, already drained. It's not a response; your response would've been begrudging agreement, followed by you sulking and him preening (even though he never seems to have to try too hard to win an argument against you; but you think it's just because he likes the overwhelming power and 'superiority' he holds over you).

No, you just want him to shut up. In an ideal world, his mouth is either sewn shut, or its not there at all. Actually, the latter would be truly ideal, because if that were the case, he would've died from dehydration hours after leaving the womb.

But, that's wishful thinking. Even when he has you stuck against sharp rock, he never resists the urge to twist his palm, grinding you impossibly closer to it.

"So you don't care about what's normal or not after all?" Chrollo muses. You bristle as his grip firms up. As you feel sharp rock edge on puncturing your skin. "That's a curious change of heart."

You groan, "Chrollo---" you swear he glows "---it doesn't matter. You can talk like some sort of cult member or something for all I care. Just because I'm annoyed at your weird pretentious hoity toity thing doesn't mean you'll stop it, considering the circumstances." You feel even more heated, and take a deep breath to try and quell it. A bit of shame creeps up your cheeks regardless, though. You're getting worked up for the worst, useless reason. Even if Chrollo egged it on, even if you hate him, even if you're just lonely and want to di---you're getting worked up over so, so, so little. "Just...just chill out or something, man."

(Or is that just his manipulation creeping into your thoughts?)

"But it's indicative all the same," He hums. His smile has dropped, leaving behind the blank expression wholly characteristic of him (the only expression that looks like it belongs). Now, he did little to hide his observation. He prowls out in the open, right below the overhead sun. Perhaps it's a contradiction, given his profession, but you understand it as sheer, almost lackadaisical confidence. "If you're able to drop your conviction so easily, even for something as small as this," his hand raises so he can rest his chin on it, leaning forward in thought. He does not let go of your hand. "Then it stands to reason you could drop the conviction that has you refusing me."

You don't mention Chrollo's many, prior claims that you'd give into him, eventually. There's no need to, because from the look in his eyes, you're both thinking about those exact same claims. A futile pursuit, he called it.

And you know? It's true.

But if you've gone this far with futility, then there's no reason to not indulge in it for as long as you can.

"Just because I get annoyed with your conversational meandering doesn't mean I'll just suddenly get all kissy wissy with you," you snap.

"You're getting caught up on the macroscopic level. Today was just a microscopic display, no?"

Despite yourself, you feel heat returning to your cheeks. To your heart. Your whole body, really.

"As if. There's nothing redeemable about these circumstances."

He'll probably cheekily mention your use of room service, curling into the luxurious bedsheets---things like that. Expected things. Actually, things that have already happened, because he really likes mentioning that. It serves its purpose of pissing you off.

He doesn't say any of that, though.

"Are you sure?" he raises an eyebrow, "I was sure you’d enjoy this kind of situation."

Anger spikes in your heart. You realize in the back of your mind its bait, that he's trying to draw out this exact reaction, but emotion already courses through you. Maybe it's because you're so shocked that he didn't go the route you were expecting---or, or---

"Me? Enjoy?" You bitterly laugh, because what else can you do in front of such sheer audacity? "Wh-what," you sardonically chortle, "The kidnapping? Losing my friends, my family---my life?!" And oh, oh no, tears bead at the edges of your eyes--- "How you---how you force me to be with you, to---to kiss you---" the words are hissed, "just so you don't massacre the people I actually care about?! And---and even then," you swallow a lump, unpleasant scenes of sufferance and cruelty unwillingly passing through your mind, "You'll just kill other people anyway?! Steal, plunder, kill, massacre---" your mouth runs with words now; your mind feels too white, too raging hot to string together coherent sentences---

And Chrollo wears that patient fucking smile.

“Love,” he blinks languidly, fluttering his eyelashes, “Are you sure you aren’t lying to yourself?”

"Why would I be lying?!" You snap. Your hand now has a vice grip on Chrollo's, which he simply responds to by drawing circles on it with his thumb. It only incenses you more. "What, annoyed that I can't be your happy little doll of your fucking fantasies and, and---"

For the first time, a chuckle rumbles in his chest. Somehow, it makes you freeze. It sends a shudder up your spine, and though you still shake with unreleased anger, it's forcibly tempered. It shouldn't be. Chrollo laughs during your conversations often. Before everything went to hell, he'd laugh with and for you. After everything went to hell, he laughs at you. Nothing boastful, of course; Chrollo's a reserved man to the greatest extreme. But it's always small. A slight rumble through his chest, a huff accompanied by a smile, and a chuckle in his throat. They're much different than the laughs with or for you---sometimes they were chuckles with a smile ear-to-ear, or even boyish giggles---but they ARE the closest thing to 'genuine' you think you'll ever be able to get with him. You hate them, but you've developed some defense mechanisms against them. They don't happen often, but when they do, you tend to be able to largely ignore them.

But what's so different about this laugh? You don't know, but something about it feels meticulous and planned. It feels---

It reminds you of the day he took you. It reminds you of all the times you've unwittingly sprung a trap.

Now that you think about it, Chrollo's smiled more in this conversation then he has in entire weeks.

"You used to ask me what kinds of books I read," Chrollo calmly starts, lifting his head to raise his book up. You did, but ever since that fateful day a few weeks ago, you haven't bothered.

"And?" You spit.

"Aren't you still curious?" There's a twinkle in his eye. It tells you that there's no choice but to be curious.

You don't want to take it. You're not going to give him the clean segway he surely wants. If not, prefers.

"No," you sneer, "I've got no interest in what a murderer likes to read. Like I said, if you want some nice little doll, go somewhere else."

"If I wanted a doll, I'd have killed and displayed you somewhere," he flippantly replies. You don't think he's serious (you think maybe it's a joke, as cruel as it is), but you can't tell at all. "What I want is you."

"Oh, so then, the 'me' you want is one locked up and currently miserable?"

"You catch on quickly," he teases. He chuckles at the glower you give him.

You think you're bleeding from the sharp rock.

"Since we both understand this, then you should know I love nothing more than some conversation, darling," Chrollo sweetly says. Sweetly, as in a weird, perverted approximation of it. You would've fallen for it before, but you don't anymore. Can't, anymore. "You haven't engaged with my interests for a good while. It worries me about the state of our relationship. Don't you think so?"

He delivers the words lightly, like a soft spring breeze, but the subtle threat doesn't go unnoticed. You feel like you're being plunged into sharp rock directly, now. Like you're being placed on a series of pikes.

"Ok, ok, ok," you breathe---you still want to scream, but maybe Chrollo's patience has started to wear, and maybe if you don't play along with his stupid little game, maybe he'll do something to you you'll really, really hate. Even more than being spooned by him in your sleep. "What are you reading? ...Chrollo."

Chrollo regards the tome in his hands almost tenderly. Almost dearly. Like a treasure. A priceless one, even, and not just something to admire before pawning to the highest bidder.

"Why don't you see for yourself?" He offers it toward your bloody, pinned hands.

You gingerly accept it, and when you do, he finally lets go of your hand. The tide still hasn't come for you.

You start to read. But you quickly notice...perplexing things. The language seems too...too normal, too casual. Not the sort of thing you'd expect to be printed in this sort of fancy leather bound book. It's not bad, of course. The prose is solid, the imagery magical, and the dialogue vivid; but it's just so...understandable. And familiar, but you can't quite place your finger on it.

Then you come across a name, and you swear you've just lost a good 10 years of your life.

“What…” a cold sweat forms on your back. Should you laugh? Should you cry? Should you rage? What are you supposed to do but ask? What CAN you do but ask? When this whole conversation---when you've been put on edge over this fuc---

“Shal has a way of tracking down info even I can't match,” he explains, running his hand over the paper, “Before his help, I never would’ve thought…” his eyes lock onto yours with a devious grin, “You had this…interest. It was a pleasant surprise."

You want to scream. You'd love nothing more than to take his head and slam it into the ground over and over---you'd love nothing more than to scream into the couch and flail your arms and legs with revulsion---you'd love nothing more than to laugh until you're blue and choking.

"H-how," you choke, "The book. And just. This. How'd you---how'd?"

"I went to a bookbinder," he explains. "I'm quite happy with the results."

Your eyes are wide. "...How long? How long did you know?"

"Long enough."

You're too mortified to be properly offended by the non-answer.

The bastard went to a bookbinder so he could physically behold the copious amounts of yandere fanfiction you consumed.

You look over at him helplessly.

"It's a fairly niche genre," he explains, like you aren't currently going through the five stages of grief, "But above all, fascinating."

Someone should just kill you.

"You've been so resistant to loving me because I stole you away. Yet, for years, you've taken escapism in these narratives of the unwilling 'darling' and doting lover."

Doting lover? That's what Chrollo is using to describe the person who imprisons? Who quashes any semblance of individuality out of a person whose only crime was being loved by the wrong person?

The leans in. "Rather than being my fantasy, don't you think you're the one living out a fantasy? I certainly never fantasized about this; of being at the mercy of someone powerful who chooses you to covet." His eyes rake over behind you, where the spoils of his recent heist lay, "Well, I never fantasize for long. I take before I drown in escapism, as you so gladly chose to."

"N-no," you weakly defend.

"No?" He hums, "But there's everything. You, unsuspecting of a charming man, who eventually betrays your trust to whisk you away. And yes, you fight. But...you aren't truly threatened. You are surrounded by all manner of luxury---even if you say you don't like it. Deep down, you're happy you're away from the life that's been giving you all manner of grievances."

"Don't tell me you can't differentiate fiction from reality," you stammer. "Why the fuck do you think just because I read about it meant I actually wanted it?"

"I didn't," he admits, "How long do you think I've had this book anyway?"

...A week or so, you think. After he took you. But he could've read a ton beforehand and only had his favorites binded. You just glare up at him in lieu of an answer.

"It doesn't matter," you raise your hands and let them fall unceremoniously, "The fact that you've read all of this makes everything worse. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised given the whole murdering thief thing, but I'll never not be surprised at just how depraved a man you really are."

"Depraved?" He smirks. That's not a good sign. "Darling," he pointedly says, "I'm not sure how much more depraved I can be than someone who gets raped vicariously through transformative fiction."

Humiliation punches you in the gut.

You choke. "If---if you---" you feel heat rise to your eyes, "You don't let me even have silly little secrets," you helplessly breathe, unable to say anything but the first thing that came to your mind when you read that damning name, "You can't let me have anything of my own."

"Not necessarily. You possess a portion of my heart." A lesser half than the one belonging to the Spider, you'd bet.

"And I'd be happy to relinquish it."

"It really does put a lot of things in perspective," Chrollo ignores you, attention turning back to the accursed book you have half a mind to tear, "How, sometimes," his eyes become lidded, "There's a small part of you that wants to give into me."

"Bullshit," you spit, reflexive more than anything, "A bunch of stupid fanfiction doesn't tell you shit about me."

"Clothes maketh the man, as they say. I imagine a similar principle applies to fiction."

"Have you even heard of---" you bite your lip, "Well, sometimes really good people read stuff that isn't deemed good or vice versa. I hear there was an artist who painted lots of cottages, but was a horrid drunk in real life. My favored sorts of stories doesn't inform my desires, and with you, I desire to skedaddle and never see your face ever again."

"Your most common tag is Stockholm Syndrome." He hums. "Say what you will; about the barrier between fiction and reality, but it tells me that, at least, a small part of you is...receptive."

You groan. "You do realize you sound like some weirdo pearl clutcher with that line of logic, right?"

"I'm not speaking in absolutes, love," he preens, "Merely that it's not remiss to consider you have some semblance of an agreeable predisposition to all of this."

"You---you're just," you want to scream, you want to tear out your eyes and ears and--- "fucking delusional and I---"

You don't realize you're heaving until a hand is placed on your shoulder. The ice it sends down your spine is enough to freeze over the fire of rage, embarrassment, and humiliation fueling you.

"Often, when people read," he begins, "They envision themselves as the perspective character while they do so. They try to feel what they do, and think as they do. Given the genre's heavy use of the second-person perspective, it's safe to say you were able to do that with ease."

"So, if that's the case..." he doesn't smile, not anymore, because there's just no need,

"Why don't you start eroding that barrier, now that the real thing is in front of you?"

It's going to be a long time before the tide comes back, you think. Until it does, you've nowhere but this cesspool.

ㅤㅤ Works Cited

Hbomberguy. “Plagiarism and You(Tube).”

Youtube, 2 Dec. 2023, youtu.be/yDp3cB5fHXQ?si=KsUuykgb8Xswn_he. Accessed 26 Mar. 2025.

Somerton, James. “James Somerton Stream .”

Youtube, 11 Dec. 2022, cant.be/botheredto?si=findlinkonwaybackmachine.. (qtd. in. Hbomberguy, Plagiarism and You(Tube)) .

plagarism joke after the fic 🔥

(it'll be off on mobile i think RIP)

[prettyboykatsuki-moved]

toji’s cock is just ridiculous for a regular man like

its crazy.

like. genuinely. i dont think you fathom how big it really is because early into your relationship - you just dont see his dick a lot. you can feel it pressed up against you or sometimes you catch a glimpse of it in his hand when he jerks himself off

and you know it's above average but its like. toji just wont let you see it. and for a long time you don't get why. it feels like he's shorting you somehow. and when you bring it up he always says the same thing, maybe eventually when you're more experienced. when you can take three of his fingers without breaking a sweat.

its not really a matter of benevolence on his end but he knows you're gonna try to be brave about taking him if he lets you. you're so stubborn and ridiculous you'll trip all over yourself trying to shove the thing in you all in one go.

he just doesnt want you to do anything stupid.

its not that toji doesnt want to fuck you. but in the same way you threw yourself at him in some aspect, he thinks you're bound to be reckless and do it again.

and predictably you do eventually get . whiny enough, desperate enough to do that. paw at the waistband of his pants like he's neglecting you of something and you look like you're gonna burst into tears and he just sighs. tells you to quit your crying and hold still

he wont fuck you. not yet. but you can see it if it gets you to shut up.

and you.... honestly underestimated how big toji would actually be.

he never really says it. he just says it'll be too much for you which is part of what you find so frustrating. but he wasn't showing humility really, just didn't think there was any sense in bragging.

he's huge. his cock is fucking huge. its not something you are prepared for despite your insistence that you are. its the size of your forearm—too much. too thick. too heavy. you try to wrap your hand around it and it's like a fucking pole and you can barely do that. your fingers barely touch when you use one hand. it's alarming to say the least.

just looking at it makes your thighs feel weak. you're shaking like a little leaf in his arms and toji can't even laugh really. just sighs and says he told you so. he's about to give you some corny speech about it too.

so imagine his utter confusion when you blurt out.

"i want you to fuck me. right now. please,"

[so-i-did-this-thing]

Hi, sorry about this, I don't really have anyone to consult on this so I'm kinda just looking for anyones input.

I'm a current high school junior, who is 99% sure they're trans yet won't be able to come out to their family in the foreseeable future, but I'm hoping to start socially transitioning during college. I've also been swimming the majority of my life, and I'm debating as wether or not to go through the recruitment process for NCAA swimming, which my coach is pushing for. The issue is that since I'm hoping to begin socially transitioning during college/possibly go on t in upperclassmen years, to join a team would be stalling that indefinitely, since although I could still socially transition, to go on t would be considered doping and therefore highly illegal. And even if I do socially transition it would still be known that I'm on a women's team and therefore a lot of peoples first impression of me; not to mention swimming is a highly revealing sport, so everyone on my team would see me as a girl/I'd never realistically be able to pass (in the pool and out).

But also I love to swim! So it feels like no matter what I'm either giving up something I love to feel comfortable or to delay feeling comfortable in order to do something I love. And I'm worried that if I don't transition the dysphoria I'm already experiencing will get worse, because now the fact I'm not transitioning won't be to not get in conflict with my parents, so it's completely in my control. But also if I don't take the opportunity to possibly swim at college I'll feel I've worked on my strength and stamina for years for nothing. And knowing that I'll still be able to transition after, it'll just be a few years longer than I previously anticipated, makes it feel like it might be worth it, but on the other hand I know I won't feel 100% if I do.

Hello, Anon. It seems like you're thinking already pretty solidly about your pros and cons, which is great to see! "Indefinitely" seems like a big concept - isn't this more so just about the next 5 years? But let's back up a moment. Maybe another question to ask yourself is: exactly what do you like about swimming? Is it the competitive aspect? Just being in the water? The structure? Hanging out with other swimmers? Do you want to get a scholarship? Go pro? Coach, eventually? For each thing like about competitive swimming, ask yourself - can you find similar joy elsewhere? (The answer can simply be, "no".) I wouldn't say that your training is for naught - building healthy habits at your age is going to mean you'll be a healthier middle-aged and eventually, senior person. You can always swim in a community pool for exercise and fun. Or become a lifeguard. Or teach swim classes. So again, I think it boils down to how swimming fits into your identity. "Swimming" isn't exactly a gender, but being a college athlete seems pretty important to you. If you're not going on a scholarship, I think your risk of deciding to stop swimming at some point is fairly low, other than having begun your college career socially female and then having a more awkward coming out. And getting a Lecture from a coach for "quitting". (And fuck them if they do this.) I don't want to tell you to stop doing something you love, but if you do swim, you should be in tune with your dysphoria and check in with yourself often. Come up with lines that, if crossed, mean you need to stop and reconsider. (Skipping too many classes, not taking care of yourself, etc, etc.)

And if you're serious about transition, have a Plan A (transition in college), Plan B (transition after college), and Plan C (hybrid model), with milestones you want to achieve, both socially and medically. Get your resources all researched, phone numbers ready to call. Having a plan can keep you motivated. Either way you decide, it's going to be stressful. So don't skimp on the self-care, like hanging out with friends and doing other things that affirm the various parts of your identity. All that said, I'd caution about a few things:

If you swim and socially transition, you are likely to face a lot of scrutiny, especially from folks who will think you are a trans woman. Things are very fraught right now for trans college athletes.

Keep an eye on the news for how trans students are being treated at your college. You might actually want to postpone your transition for simple safety reasons. The world is pretty unfriendly towards us right now.

I wouldn't assume you can socially transition without your parents finding out. Just assume it will happen and be prepared for those consequences.

I really feel for you here. I've had to choose between a career as a musician (fulfilling, what I went to school for) and a career in tech (more money and stability). I chose stability, knowing I could do music on the side. I'm still a little sad I'm not a fulltime musician, but my financial stability allows me to enjoy the gigs I do get. (Or used to, since I'm mostly retired now.) Transition and swimming might be the same for you. Maybe you transition for the peace of mind, so that swimming for fun is less stressful, even if you're no longer competitive. But if competitive swimming is that important to you and something you wish to carry with you all your life, the experiences and connections you make in school might outweigh postponing transition. I don't want to give you an answer either way -- we hardly know each other. But I do hope I've given you a little more food for thought to make a decision.

[lee-stargallery]

how is the Samarie, Levi and Marina polycule kinda work in your mind? both in regular funger and the wafflehouse AU

HAHAHA I wish I knew, I just rlly like both marina x levi and still enjoy marina x samarie on the side, and I saw some people just made them poly and it's like LETS GOOO!!

now while I'm not quite sure how well it would work out in canon, but in my silly little au it def started as like,,, Levi and Samarie both kinda crushing on Marina, Marina realizes it but doesn't say much at first cause she thought they were both kinda weird (Samarie much more than Levi, Levi was mainly just nervous and unsure of himself) but eventually through small chitchat over time her and Levi become friends.

Then with Samarie, her crush is so obvious, like,, it would be harder to miss LMAOOO and while Marina thought she was weird it also was nice to have someone that basically worshipped the ground she walked on, as long as Samarie didn't get too carried away with it. She limits Samarie to three compliments a day, which was hard to reach at first when Samarie didn't have the confidence to talk to Marina, but now if she's not careful she'll burn through them within the first five minutes of their shift.

So Marina figured she'll give the weird girl a chance, maybe she'll seem less weird if they're kinda friends, and that ended up being the case. Then it turned into Marina having two, while pretty nervous most times, scary guard dogs. Like, Samarie goes from zero to hundred so fast when it involves Marina, she's almost thrown knives at customers that are rude to her. And while Marina is glad she hasn't done it yet,,, it is pretty nice to have someone willing to throw knives at people pestering you.

And Samarie has almost committed violence for Levi too, if she notices someone is being bitchy to him, he won't say anything himself, maybe just mention that table needs silverware and ask if someone can take it over real quick. Without a word Samarie will do it and when she gets to the table, she slams the knife into the table right between the ride customers fingers, mumbling something like "there's your silverware" but it's pretty inaudible before scuttering off to the back.

At first with Samarie and Levi, Samarie knew Levi made Marina happy so she was okay with him being around, then it turned into kinda like,,, well Levi and Samarie aren't dating, they're just both dating Marina, they're like boyfriend/girlfriend in laws LMAOOOO but then it developed into, okay yeah they're all three dating each other. Samarie finds Levi easy to talk to and he doesn't judge her for things others find strange, perhaps like verbal and physical tics (idk if it's from a condition or if it's from nerves and stress, haven't figured that out yet so it'll be up to you guys) and Levi feels like he can let himself just exist with Samarie, he knows he also comes off as weird sometimes and she doesn't judge him for it, neither does Marina.

so yeah, just silly little teens managing through working at a damn waffle house

[terresdebrume]

I've written a couple of scenes of Charles' having an emotional breakdown and Edwin comforting him, I felt is was time for the reverse. Set in the I'm down on my knees universe at like. Some point, IG.

Warning for mentions of racist behavior throughout and also implied ableism via the Paynes vs Edwin. Hurt comfort. Sorta.

Edwin's fists start mashing together the second his hands come off the steering wheel, which Charles knows very well is the the top one sign of a stress spiral. It's pretty much the default position for Edwin's hands whenever they go to a social thing he hasn't got the hang on yet, and the morning before all his business law exams. It feels wrong to see them like that now, sitting in front of a rustic looking restaurant where his parents are waiting for them.

"We can still leave you know," he tells Edwin. "Tell them I tested positive for COVID and you don't want to risk giving it to them or something."

Edwin doesn't quite laugh, but the corners of his mouth lift up, and the creak of his leather driving gloves subsides for a moment. He makes a face like when he's trying to figure out how to say something he's not sure how to handle. Charles, one hand on his still buckled seatbelt and the other on the door handle, waits him out. Eventually, Edwin speaks.

"I should have said earlier," he says, sounding for all the world like the words are taffy stuck in his teeth, "but my parents are sort of... Well. They have a certain idea of how the world should work and be divided—"

"Yeah, I figured," Charles says. He grins when Edwin blinks at him. "Everyone else, when we've got plans, you say shit like 'Oh, Charles is making curry tonight'—"

"I do not sound like that," Edwin protests, but Charles snorts.

"You sound exactly like that, you big toff," he says, grin widening despite himself.

Edwin rolls his eyes and calls him ridiculous, fists softening against one another. Grinning to the point his cheeks ache, Charles gives Edwin's knee a light knock with his knuckles. It makes Edwin click his tongue, but Charles doesn't lose his smile.

"My point is, with you're parents it's always like 'Charles is making dinner' and stuff. Like you're playing the pronouns game with food."

Charles suppresses a wince when. Edwin's eyes widen and his fists tighten together again, like tectonic plates gearing up for an earthquake. Of course Edwin was going to take it the wrong way. Charles should have bloody well known better.

"I'm sorry," Edwin says, I didn't mean to—"

"It's fine," Charles shrugs. "I mean they know what I look like, right?"

"Yes!" Edwin promises, hands so tight together it looks like they're going to merge. "Of course. I made sure they couldn't pretend they'd misunderstood, too, I just—"

"Then I'm fine," Charles says, making sure his smile looks easier than it feels. "I was friends with racist gits for years, I can handle your parents for an hour."

Plus, they'll be in public. What are the Paynes gonna do, try to make him join the staff? Calling him the P slur over dessert? They might think it but Charles suspects they're too interested in seeming proper to be that crassly racist where they can be heard. Probably they'll just make some noise about certain types of people and NHS fraud and jobs being stolen away from the homeless people they have no intention to help. Maybe something about Islam—there people tend to assume Charles is a Muslim a lot. He chalks it up to two birds one stone mentality, and the appeal of unlocking two rants over a single guy.

"Alright," Edwin says, looking relieved but not guilt free yet. "But if you wish to leave early, please pretend you just remembered a favour you promised Jenny, will you? I will drive us back immediately."

"Sure, I'll do that," Charles promises. He genuinely doesn't think it'll be that bad, but if he's wrong he'll be glad have the out anyway.

Reassured, Edwin takes a deep breath, and nods, and in they go. Everything is very posh in that very 'bling is for lesser people' kind of way. The menu predictably shows no prices. Edwin's parents make the usual thinly veiled remarks about Charles and Indians and brown people in general, and it's not the most comfortable but Charles could deal with it if not for the Issue.

It starts when they approach the table, Edwin's parents standing next to it with spines so straight Charles half worries he's hunched down again. Edwin places his hands in his mother's to kiss the air around each of her cheek, but then when he goes to press his fists together again, she takes his wrists and pulls his hands apart. Charles's entire back goes rigid at the sight, but he manages to push it aside and smile as he extends a hand for Mrs. Payne to shake. He said he'd do his best to make the dinner a success, and he meant it.

They sit down, Edwin and Charles on one side of the rectangular table, Edwin's parents on the other. Edwin's hands are very flat on the white tablecloth, gloves pulled away and fingers carefully aligned together. They stay there while Edwin answers increasingly invasive questions about his studies and his life, but they drift together again when the Paynes' attention turns to Charles.

"Stop that," Mr. Payne says with a stern look, cutting himself off in the middle of a sanctimonious explanation of why Charles is not being ambitious enough in life.

It's such a complete contrast to the polite, vaguely affable air he took one when speaking to Charles, and he goes back to it so quickly, Charles barely has time to react. The only thing he can think of is to press his knee against Edwin's in comfort. He should have thought of a signal for Edwin, too. Or at least asked if he wanted one.

The entree's arrival provokes some surprised praise over how their brown waiter is surprisingly well trained and articulate, and Charles takes it in stride. They're not actually saying anything to the waiter, and when they do speak he's out of earshot. He's had worse, and Edwin doesn't quite seem to be ready to throw the towel in, so he'll stick it out a bit longer. Even if Edwin's going pinker and pinker with every minute that passes.

They're about halfway through their main dishes and another rant from Mr. Payne—augmented by his wife's approving noise and not much else, Edwin having fallen silent somewhere around the time his gaspacho touched the table. Charles hates to see him like this: Edwin has always had a big personality, a larger than average presence in any room. He should be leading the conversation, or at least insisting on being heard through it, not looking down at the tablecloth with his mouth shut.

Charles is halfway through opening his mouth to pretend Jenny just texted him about plumbing issues, when Edwin's dad speaks again. He has the kind of articulation they promote on the BBC, yet Charles doesn't register any of what he says, only the fact that Edwin's fists fly together without him even noticing, and then Mr. Payne's hand darts from the other side of the table to slap Edwin's closed hands.

Now, see, the thing about Charles, is he's got excellent reflexes. Between dodging his dad's many and varied projectiles over the years, a decade of cricket, and countless hours of playing shooting games, he's pretty much primed for it. Add to that the fact that he's been getting angrier and angrier on Edwin's behalf throughout the meal, and really Charles doesn't think he can be blamed for dropping his knife, reaching out, and slapping Mr. Payne's hands.

"How dare you?" The man hisses in the deadly silence that falls over the room after the exchange.

The whole restaurant seems to hold its breath, the way Charles and mum used to do whenever dad stopped and asked 'What did you just say?'. In the corner of Charles' vision, Edwin's mouth hangs partially open in shock even as Charles hisses:

"How dare you?"

"The way I discipline my son," Mr. Payne starts, and Charles snarls.

"Your son is twenty-five," he says raising his voice on purpose. "You don't get to treat him like a bloody toddler."

"You little—" Payne senior starts, but before Edwin even has the time to react to his dangerous tone, Charles stands up with a loud scrape of his chair against the floor.

"And another thing," he says, loudly speaking over the fast purpling man in front of him, "there's nothing wrong with Edwin. That thing with the hand? You're making a mountain out of a bloody molehill! And if you didn't spend so much time worrying about it, maybe you'd realize Edwin is really bloody mint, actually, and if you can't appreciate him, then I don't see why we should bother staying here at all." Charles pushes his chair back against the table with another loud scrape, and turns to Edwin. "Come on, let's go."

Edwin's parents protest, mildly at first and then more loudly, but Charles doesn't care. He's too furious at them, at the way they filled their son with a sort of guilty shame Charles had never seen until the, at the way they somehow managed to stop him from even wanting to answer.

He waits until Edwin stands up, and then he takes hold of Edwin's wrist and drags the both of them outside. Edwin has to tug hard on his arm to remind him they used a car to come in, actually, and they can't leave it there. He sounds—well he sounds strained, is what he does. The sort of voice that means there's an emotion somewhere he's not letting out, and this time Charles knows exactly where it's going.

"I'm so sorry," he says, "I ruined dinner!"

"Oh," Charles, Edwin sighs.

His eyes are wide and wet and his grin ks kind of wobbly, but he steps up and engulfs Charles in hug anyway, hands tightly clasped around Charles waist. Charles responds in kind, putting as much love as he can into the embrace, into the pressure of his arms around Edwin.

"Thank you," Edwin mumbles against Charles' neck. "No one ever stood up for me line that."

"They bloody well should have," Charles says, gentling his tone when he realizes something warm dripping down his neck.

Edwin, too busy controlling his crying the best he can, doesn't answer, but it doesn't matter. Charles holds him tight until he's done crying anyway.

[misc-obeyme]

With an extremely lazy mc, that can be worse than belphegor in that aspect yet is always on top of what they need to do.

Homework? Finished, Chores? Done, Pranks? Happened. Yet they haven't seemed to move from their spot in the last 7 hours.

It's later revealed that it's just them using magic but entertaining nonetheless

Hi there, anon!

This was fun to write, I have to say. I mean, if I could just use magic to get everything done, I absolutely would.

Thanks for the request!

brothers reaction to lazy GN!MC who gets everything done with magic

Warnings: none!

Lucifer

Previously thought there was no way anyone could be lazier than Belphie… but he's surprised by how close you get. At first he's annoyed, but then you somehow get everything done anyway? And then he's just confused.

Confused… but also suspicious. How are you doing that, MC? He wants to lecture you so bad, but he can't since you actually do everything you need to do. Secretly a little worked up about it, but he's trying to keep his cool.

That essay he knew was due for your class tomorrow isn't just finished, it's well written, too. The dishes it was your turn to do are all washed and put away. And yet you haven't moved for hours.

Figures it out when he falls for one of your pranks. Because he can see how the prank was done with magic. Confronts you about it directly. Go ahead and pretend you don't know what he's talking about. It'll drive him crazy, especially since you haven't actually done anything wrong and he can't actually prove that prank was yours.

Mammon

Amazed. He's just shocked that you're able to do everything while actually doing nothing. How is it that all your homework and chores are done when you haven't moved?! What is going on here?

Asks you to teach him your ways even before he knows you're just using magic. He's imagining a life of never having to do homework or chores ever again. He'd be able to spend all his time partying or finding a way to rake in the Grimm. Ya gotta show him how ya do that, MC!

Mammon is in awe of all your perfectly executed pranks, too. Doesn't even mind if he falls victim to one considering how good they always are.

Doesn't figure it out. He'll only know you were using magic the whole time if someone tells him. If you tell him yourself, he'll pretend he knew all along. Now teach him all those spells.

Leviathan

He's amazed, but he's also suspicious. There's no way you're able to stay on top of everything like that. You can sit with him and play video games all night while your homework somehow still gets done. Something is up with that.

Doesn't care too much, though, so he doesn't try to figure out what's going on. Your ability to do your homework and chores isn't his concern. Let Lucifer worry about it.

He's just happy that you have more than enough time to spend with him, watching anime or reading manga or playing video games, etc. Let's be real, Levi has different priorities.

Only figures it out when he asks you to help him clean his room, which has gotten a little cluttered. You proceed to assist with magic and that's when it clicks. Of course! Everyone knows what a good sorcerer you are, MC! He can't believe he didn't realize it sooner!

Satan

It doesn't really register at first. He just knows that you're very efficient at getting things done without being busy at all. Assumes you have a strict time management style to keep yourself on track. That's certainly the most logical explanation, right?

Eventually realizes that you are in fact quite lazy, though. The fact that you haven't left the couch in hours makes him a little antsy. Don't you have things to do, MC?

Make him really crazy by just smiling and saying you've already done everything you needed to do that day. Tell him all about whatever homework, chores, and pranks you've done in the time you've been sitting on the couch.

He does figure you out pretty quickly, though. Satan is smart and he can tell that you're doing magic over there, even if nobody else seems to realize it. He's impressed. Why shouldn't you use magic to accomplish everything? Your skill as a sorcerer allows you to do it, so why not?

Asmodeus

Complains about how lazy you are. He doesn't care about your homework, chores, or pranks. But MC, you really should be more diligent about your skin care routine. Do you even use the products he gave you?

Show him your half empty product bottles and watch his expression go from surprised to happy to confused. He's thrilled that you're actually using what he gave you, but… when? How? He's never actually seen you use them?

Keep your secrets, Asmo likes how mysterious you are. Always sitting around, always doing nothing, and yet everything is somehow still done. How interesting! You're like a little puzzle he needs to work out.

He does, eventually. He really wants to make sure you're doing what you say you are, so he spies on you to see what you're up to. Won't figure it out until you actually use magic to apply the various skin care products. Now he's onto you. He's another one who's going to be impressed by your clever use of magic.

Beelzebub

Doesn't notice how lazy you are, but does notice that your stuff still gets done. His instinct is to help you out, so he might try to do some chores for you only to find that you've somehow already done them? How did you do that? He's confused.

This is going to go on for a while. He's going to notice your stuff is done, but he's just gonna go ??? and then move on with his life. He's not worried about it, though it is a little mind boggling.

Assuming you're sometimes on meal duty, though, that's when he's going to make the connection. If you use magic to make meals and they turn out really good, he's going to want to know how you're doing it. He's going to notice that you somehow get it done without even going into the kitchen? MC, please explain. He needs to know where your food supply is coming from.

In the end, you likely just tell him about it yourself. You go ahead and use magic to make him snacks. He's so thrilled, but he's not going to ask you to teach him. He's just going to ask you to make him food all the time. You're really good at magic, after all.

Belphegor

Annoyed at first. How dare you surpass him in laziness? This isn't something he actually cared about until he realized that some of his brothers were saying you were lazier than him. Hey. MC. This is his thing, you know?

Turns out he's too lazy to actually pursue any kind of rivalry with you about this. So instead you become partners in crime. If you're sitting around for hours, you can be sure that Belphie will be by your side, probably asleep. He's happy to keep you company.

Figures out what you're doing pretty fast. Since he's with you all the time, he sees that you're using magic to get everything done. Starts trying to get you to do his stuff, too. You get to decide if you're going to or not, but if you do, then he'll never leave your side again.

Especially fond of your pranks, particularly ones aimed at Lucifer. Will never give you away. The others might ask him how you do what you do, considering he's spending all his time with you. But he'll never tell, so they'll have to figure it out for themselves.

masterlist | Thank you for reading!

[sopostflower]

Not what I was planning

Axl rose x gn!reader

Warnings: Axl being a lil bitch, swearing, one bed trope (because I'm not a little bit original), sexual jokes from r

You're exhausted.

It's been a long week, being part of guns n' roses was fun but the shows surely were draining you your fault for jumping around the stage with your guitar so much.

Now you're with the boys back to the tour bus, heading to the hotel in yet another city.

"so, are you just gonna lay there and be fucking stupid or are you gonna help Izzy?"

Axl says, in his typical moody tone

"what are you pissed about? You look like there's a stick up your ass"

You tease the ginger who flips you off

"go help him, you're doing nothing anyways"

You raise an eyebrow, he's also doing nothing, why can't he help Iz? But either way you get up and go see what the fuzz is about.

When you get to the raven haired man, he's rounded by Duff and Slash, you peak over his shoulder to see and... They are trying to open a bottle... A bottle with a cork... And the can't get it right...

"Seriously?"

You raise an eyebrow, Izzy just looks at you with a deadpan expression and smirks right after

"Ten bucks if you can open the bottle"

He bets and handles it to you, you walk to your bag and find something he can't quite see what is, but is metallic.

You stick the tip of the thing on the cork and push it back with ease, slipping the cork out the bottle and give it back on duffs hand.

"I want my ten bucks"

You tap Izzy on the shoulder twice and go back to your place on the bus for the rest of the travel but you end up falling asleep after five minutes.

You wake up god knows how much time later with duff shaking your shoulder.

The blonde duo has always been the most caring with you, maybe because you joined after, but duff and Steven are always sweet to you just as much as you are to them.

"gotta wake up, we're here"

You nod, yawning and sitting up. You look around for a second and then get up.

After a bit of shuffling around you eventually get to the hotel room, which after some fight because there would have to be duos, you got to share with Axl.

"belive me, I'm hating this just as much as you"

Axl just looks at you and mumbles under his breath

"you wish"

As the both of you get to the room and you unlock the door you get overcome with a surprise

"umm.... What the...."

You say realizing there is just a double bed in the room, it must be a mistake.... Right?

"what?"

Axl says and looks into the room

"fuck.... I'll take the floor"

He mumbles, you just look at him in disbelief

"own you're being so sweet for once!"

You tease and you enter the room

"fuck off, it's just.... Just..."

"what? You're scared you'll get a boner in the middle of the night if we share the bed?"

You keep teasing, watching him get tomato reda and flip you off

"what? The cat got your tongue?"

He sighs

"if we sleep on the same bed will you stop tormenting me?"

He says lowly, you giggle and nod, putting your bag on the ground

After all of you have eaten and got changed for bed, you hop on one side of the bed, the ginger gets out from the bathroom in only his boxers and a shirt, you can't help but let your eyes trail down until-

"take a picture, it'll last longer"

He says before getting on the other side of the bed, you chuckle, a smirk appearing on your lips as you look at him

"so you want me to keep polaroids of you in just underwear with me?"

You giggle as his face gets red again and he turns around, you scoot closer and suddenly you start to feel bad

"I'm sorry Ax, I passed the point"

Axl turns around to look at you and just let's out a slow sigh after a little smile creeps to his lips

"nah, it's okay... I'm also a asshole... Now can we please sleep?"

You nod, but what you dont expect is Axl scooting closer to you and laying his head on your chest, his arms wrapping around your torso

"this never happened, okay?"

He mumbles, his voice muffled by your shirt

You giggle "okay... Good night Ax"

"Good night..."

And you're both out like a light, your hand resting on top of his head.

You slowly wake up to little giggles, when you open your eyes slowly you see the other four boys pointing a camera to you, you look down to see a bunch of red strands of hair on top of you snoring lightly.

Without much resistance you flip the other boys off and cover your eyes with the back of your arm, but you can't help the little smile tugging on your lips.

A/N: I actually really like this

[tarysande]

Apologies if I'm prying, and obviously you don't have to answer at all, or publicly, if you don't want to: I've only been diagnosed with ADHD a couple of months and I'm still looking for admin jobs/working a few part time bits. Do you disclose? Or do you think it's a bad idea to disclose/wouldn't work for your situation?

I'm always happy to talk about my experiences!

So, my situation is a little different because I'm self-employed. Part of the reason I'm self-employed is because I have ADHD. I like being able to set my own schedule. I like not having to work in the morning (when I'm pretty much useless). I like being able to (for the most part) choose my work based on whether it's interesting/novel/challenging enough to keep me interested--and I like that my work is always changing. Even if I get bogged down on one project (i.e., I'm so bored I want to pull my eyeballs out), I know it'll end and I'll get to move on to something else.

In my primary source of employment (I'm a freelance editor and writing coach), I'm quite open about my ADHD specifically because I want neurodivergent writers to know I understand and empathize with many of their struggles. I can (and do!) tailor my approach when working with folks who have, for example, issues with rejection sensitivity, emotional dysregulation, or trauma around criticism. We're all in this together.

That said, I am also very aware that my employment situation is made possible by the fact that my husband has a good, salaried job that includes the health insurance that pays for the various and sundry (ridiculously expensive) medications I'm on. And I live in a country where my health care is not tied to employment.

I do have a very, very part time gig for an employer (I'm still considered a contractor, though), and I did disclose to them--but only after we ran into a situation where I was made incredibly uncomfortable by the extremely neurotypical way they decided to handle a difficult situation. Without going into details, they called me in for a meeting that I would much, MUCH rather have preferred as an email. I explained that everything about the way they handled things led to extreme issues with rejection sensitivity and emotional dysregulation that would have been entirely mitigated by a) clearer communication and b) giving me time to process the information in a private space. While they didn't get it at first, I was able to eventually make them understand where I was coming from, and they changed the behavior to accommodate me. But--and this is a big but--I already had a good relationship with the management, so they were willing to listen without judgement.

Even though there are meant to be anti-discrimination protections (including providing accommodations for neurodiverse folks), I'm not entirely sure I believe they ... work? There's still a lot of stigma. And sometimes people hear "ADHD" and assume "flake"--which absolutely is not the case.

I would say that if you do disclose, be sure to clarify what kinds of accommodations you might require and to heavily lean on the strengths you bring to the role instead of what an employer might perceive as weaknesses. (For example: I work extremely well under pressure. I will be less effective if given work with vague or non-existent deadlines. I am an excellent problem solver who often discovers or invents solutions not just for existing issues but for those that haven't yet become critical. My enthusiasm for work I find interesting, novel, and rewarding is boundless. I am creative, dedicated, and motivated ... but only after about eleven in the morning.)

[karoochui]

I just wanted to say I am so enamoured with Binary Insurgence! I eat up everything, every little crumb, you drop about it and the entire idea is so interesting to me! I'm so in love with stories and worlds like this! I'm also curious to know about the relationship between Sun and Moon, if it's alright to ask. How was it before the fire compared to after? Does their relationship begin to mend (because I'm certain over the years it deteriorated) when y/n comes back into the picture? If any of this is too spoilery or you just haven't fleshed it out yet then you don't have to answer! I'm just super curious about the boys and how you see their dynamic/relationship. I just look forward to seeing how their bond has grown and/or broken and how it may be mended over time.

AHH im glad you like it so much!! Im happy to talk about what i've got, but you are right not everything is fully fleshed out. I have points i wanna get to but while im brainstorming and planning i make up a lot of stuff as i go and then go over it again later to see if i like it or can connect stuff in any way. I have 3 chapters for Arc 1 fully summarized as of now! (Which probably doesn't seem like a lot but i like my chapters long, so it's quite a bit actually).

I wanna say, too, that i'm planning for the first story to be more in the perspective of the reader, so most things about Sun and Moon's personal thoughts and feelings are gonna be more implied than said. I might have some switching points of view, i'm not sure, but i haven't found a place i'd do it or think it's relevant. The sequel is gonna be more from their perspective since it'll mostly be about them.

NOW! I see Sun and Moon as brothers, so they really treat each other in a way that's like that. Before the fire they get along pretty well. Most instances of issue would be when Moon blocks out Sun when he fronts, or just mutual panic over the fact Moon lost his shit w/ the virus. They'll have their disagreements about things (i havent planned specifics yet) but generally they're chill. Sun just worries about Moon hurting people, but Moon worries too. With the way the virus functions in this AU it's hard for Sun to fully fault Moon for what he does, especially because he's also affected by it but not nearly as bad. (I'm gonna explain this more in another ask i have).

Plus, even before the virus they were always glitch/bug-ridden because technicians fucked up their programming continuously after removing them from the theater to work in the daycare. So they had to kinda navigate through that together, glitches and errors on both ends (though not deadly). They hate P&S bc of this, obviously. Hardware fixes suck but they fucking HATE software examinations.

Later on though some issues come into play whenever Sun starts getting worse by being further exposed to the virus (it gets worse for him when they eclipse) because it presents itself in Sun differently than it does Moon. He gets snappier and angrier at times (that comic i made that's captioned "well someones snappy") and while they both understand he doesnt mean the shit he does it's still not great. And nobody's gonna just let themselves be talked to like a dog even if the reason it's happening is because of something the other person can't really help. They're still relatively fine at this point, though.

It's at the end when shit goes really bad, because this part of the story does end badly. I won't spoil specifics but after the fire Sun loses his shit. He starts trying to put the blame on Moon for everything (the virus enhancing his already bad habits/fucking with his line of thinking) out of grief and anger. That carries over into the apocalypse and he just gets worse in general. He gets irrational.

It's a long period of time though, so he eventually also manages it, in his own way. But! I did say before in an ask that in the sequel he's "not evil, persay, but he's a fucking nut". He damns Moon to an hourglass to just fucking get rid of him about 100~ years before they meet you again (he fully thinks he's in the right for this (and he also just hates him) and the only reason he really even stayed around after that was to make sure Moon didn't get out again). He's not a bad-intentioned individual, but he's off the fucking wall at many times bc of the virus having made him worse. He's stubborn as all hell to an infuriating degree, he's irrational, hard-headed, reckless, and while a good bit of his old, kinder self is still pretty prevalent he can be downright fucking mean if provoked. Again, worse than before, and it doesn't take much these days! I always imagined him to have more dramatic, snappy, diva aspects to his personality (even before Help Wanted 2 came out) bc hes so theatrical and intense, so basically take a Sun that's like that, crank it up to 100 and put him in a Bad Situation. That's what Round 2 Sun is like at his worst. He's not a complete lost cause though, and he's far from dumb when he does stuff, just clouded by his own judgement. He doesn't think anything's wrong with him (or does he?).

Moon doesn't really hate him like Sun hates Moon, because although he knows that what happened (the ending of the first story) is technically both of their faults he just feels guilt. They do fight a lot, though. Most of it is Moon trying his best to tell Sun that he's basically full of shit and not seeing things right after Sun starts something, but Sun's at the point where he's gotta learn by consequence. Part of the reason he's so bad is bc 1: hes been infected by the virus for so long now and 2: in his grief, anger, and resentment he's learned to live with it rather than fighting it.

But the sequel is gonna be a feel-good story! Falling in love w/ the reader all over again, i want things to get cleared up - or at least some kind of middle ground between Sun and Moon - the whole sha-bang.

[mysticsparklewings]

Ohuhu Palette Generator

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Hey look, I am actually capable of finishing & posting something!

What can I say? Life was just too chaotic the past couple of months and something had to give. Art posts were unfortunately the easiest thing to cut. 😅 

Anyway. I have managed to chip away at a few projects in between other things, and this in particular was kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision I spent most of January working on: A very basic website where you click a button (or two) and get a random assortment of Ohuhu marker colors to then use however you see fit! ✨

If you are interested in listening to me ramble about how exactly we got here, that's what the "Keep Reading" button is there for. 😉

Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

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Well Sparklers, this is certainly not how I expected to start off 2025 (nor did I plan to end 2024 as silently as I did as far as art posts go), but here we are! 🤗

Quick Recap: I made a very bare-bones website that will generate palettes of randomly selected Ohuhu markers colors for you!

I've probably said this somewhere before, but it bears repeating: I've been slowly but surely chipping away at various projects behind the scenes, a couple of the bigger more involved ones being related to yes, Ohuhu markers. [And for the record, no I really didn't forget about OhuHueVember, this past November just turned out to be one of the most chaotic and busiest of my entire life, and unfortunately putting art posts on Pause was what made the most sense at the time, and then December was just naturally busy what with Christmas and Family and all.]

A few days into the New Year, while I was taking a break and scrolling social media, since I am pretty deep into the wider Ohuhu Community at this point, I saw a kind of post that I've seen a few times before: Someone asking about generating color palettes of Ohuhu markers for coloring (as in adult coloring books). Usually, the "answer" to this is to use an existing color palette generator (of which there are many) and just manually match your markers to the colors, but that's not usually as easy of a solution as people are looking for.

I think there's at least one generator out there that can tell you Copic marker (and maybe Prismacolor pencil?) matches for the colors it generates, but it hasn't quite caught up with the boom in popularity that Ohuhu has had, so instead of matching to the color itself, you'd just be trying to match to the Copic color instead, which I would argue might actually be harder to do, even with some community resources that are out there.

The point is I know in the Coloring Community, people tend to like easy solutions and there really wasn't one for this specific problem. And I've known this for a while—since the first time I saw a post asking for something like that, which was many, many months ago (maybe even a year or more), but yet for some reason this most recent, totally inconspicuous post sighting was the straw the broke the camel's back and made me finally snap:

Surely there has to be something out there were you can put in a custom list of colors and it'll randomly spit like 5 of those colors back out at you. There are all kinds of random generator tools out there, surely at least one could do something like that, couldn't it?

So down the rabbit hole I went.

There wasn't a terribly straight line that lead me here and I went back and forth to a few things a few times, so I'll just give you a list of the highlights that had the most influence in how we got to this point:

I tried just about every keyword combination I could think of for "custom palette generator," "make your own palette generator," "make random color palettes," "color randomizer," etc. Even if it wasn't terribly fancy and the absolutely barest of bones of the concept I described. No real luck there, but it's very possible I just totally missed something.

I eventually checked Flippity.net because I love their Flippity Manipulatives tool (for digital Mini-Magnets), and their "Flippity Randomizer" would have worked except it has a very strong default color palette for what the final randomizer looks like. While it still would have been totally functional otherwise, I know the strong color mistmatch could very well be a dealbreaker for some people to not want to use it at all. (And, to be fair, the final Flippity links tend to be...long and suspicious looking if you've never seen one before.) You can use images with the Flippity Randomizer, but the thought of having to make 300+ separate small image files that would also need to include the color names and numbers directly in the image and then also put them in order in a Google Sheet sounded torturously tedious (even for me), so I filed that idea away as "Plan C" and kept looking.

Flippity did give me the idea to try looking for more generalized randomizers that could be re-purposed for what I wanted since theirs' was originally for making sentences. Through that, I finally stumbled upon perchance.org

Perchance all by itself was a big step in the right direction because it's entire purchase is making your own generators and you can use existing Perchance generators as a starting point to make new ones.

So imagine my delight to learn that there have been a few color generators already made with Perchance, and buried among them even a couple of Ohuhu ones!! 😃

But you'll notice my final generator isn't running through Perchance. Suffice to say, I know just enough about coding to be a menace, but not enough that I could truly say I ever really "know" what the heck I'm doing. My "coding experience" consists of:

Messing around with CSS and Journal Skins on deviantArt, back before the Eclipse update when those were still Things™

Many half-hearted attempts to make a Blogger blog, all of which were eventually deleted and lost to time

Creating and Maintaining Fandom Wiki pages (and, within the last couple of years, a whole Wiki for my own personal use)

Relatedly, I briefly tried messing around with some code on Toyhou.se but that ended up going nowhere

Playing with a premade theme here on Tumblr to make my page look nicer

And anyone with real coding experience might gather from that list that I certainly don't have the skills to build anything from scratch, but I can generally fumble around with existing code and figure out how to change things to make the end result look the way I want. So, as I said: I know just enough to be a menace.

This means that I started off by spending a lot of time hopping back and forth between different palette generators that had already been made with Perchance and Google while trying to combine various elements I liked in a way that ran smoothly...and also trying to not "break" anything so it would run at all.

I kept hitting walls with Perchance because, as I eventually figured out, I kept finding solutions and suggestions that were for "regular" HTML coding, not Perchance's specific variety.

After some Googling, this led me to move over to Glitch.com so that I could use regular HTML code but also still see the "live" results alongside the code, which was something I really liked about Perchance (and was familiar to me from Tumblr themes).

I also thought I'd end up making posting the final site through Glitch too, but we'll get to why that didn't happen in a bit.

The primary culprit that had me switch from Perchance to Glitch was the fact that I realized the code would be so much longer and probably what would be considered "messier," and I would guess more difficult to update at a moment's notice if I had to manually type 300+ color number codes, names, and hastily-selected hex codes (just to have a visual representation of the color) in there, let alone if I decided to basically do that twice to cover both the Honolulu and Oahu lines.

I keep a few different spreadsheets for Ohuhu markers already, so I wondered if there was a way to get the code to reference something like that instead to keep the code itself "cleaner" and maybe make edits/additions to the color list easier in the long-term. And lo and behold—There is! You can, apparently, paste in "CSV" Google Sheets links in a specific way into the code and it'll look at those instead of having to type everything directly into the code itself. I did have to make three separate spreadsheets—One for Honolulu, one for Oahu, and one for Kaala—but I was able to copy and paste a lot of the information I already had in my other spreadsheets into those, so overall that was still way easier than the alternative! The catch is that, as I alluded to, there might be a way to do that using Perchance, but the results I was finding were all for regular HTML code and I really did not feel like chasing down Perchance-specific instructions. So to Glitch I went.

Moving to Glitch did have the additional bonus of me being able to paste in the widget for my Ko-fi Page, which I only thought to do because I got a Ko-fi notification in the middle of working on the code and while I was checking that, I remembered: "Hey doesn't Ko-fi have like an HTML thingy you can put on your website?" [They have two, actually!] Anyway. I got what I'd already been working on moved over to Glitch, which was most of the basic set up for the page; I was just using a placeholder list of colors from OhuHueVember so I could get the Categories and page layout taken care of first. Then I did kinda the same thing—I set up the basis for the spreadsheets I'd need using the OhuHueVember list as placeholders since I already had hex codes picked out for them and wanted to make sure the whole spreadsheet thing was actually going to work before I went any farther.

Once I did verify that method was working, I got to take a very tedious detour and actually fill out the spreadsheets with the proper information. As I said, I was able to paste in a lot of what I needed from my other spreadsheets—The number codes and names for all the colors—but it was that last piece of information I needed for each color that ended up taking the longest: The hex codes. Since I wanted to have this thing at least functional sooner rather than later, I did not have time to go through and meticulously curate matching hex codes for each color like I did for OhuHueVember, and technically I couldn't have done that even if I wanted to for the Oahu and Kaala lines since my collection is all Honolulu. So I relied mostly on quick eyedropper color-picking from swatch photos from my collection and photos/images online for the rest.

From that, I know a lot of the hex codes are not good matches, but again: The point was to get everything functional first. Especially since I was able to switch to using spreadsheets to store the information, I can always (and intend to!) go back and update the hex codes to better matches later on.

Still: Once I got all the hex codes filled out, the most basic version of the generator was in fact functional! 🎉

That by itself was super exciting and I had to spend several minutes generating palettes just because I could now...But me being me, and not always knowing when to quit when I'm excited about a project...I wanted to do more, especially now that I was working in regular HTML coding.

So I spent the next couple of days trying to figure out how to add a Filter so people could narrow down the types of palettes a little more. My very first thought was Pastel, since I know soft/pastel palettes tend to be kind of popular in coloring communities, and then I figured if I was going to do Pastel, why not include bright "Vivid" pastels and dark "Moody" ones, too? [And a little later on I ended up adding a "Neutral" filter for greys + earth tones too, just because I could.]

Getting the little dropdown button in there for the Filter wasn't actually that bad, but getting it to actually filter like it was supposed to was another story. I lost count of how many times I accidentally broke the whole generate (mostly buttons not working like they should) while trying to get the filter to cooperate with me. 🫠

I did eventually....mostly get both the filters and the marker line buttons to work at the same time after enough trial and error, though.

And originally, this was the point in the story where I had to explain that I did run into issues with having "Kaala" + "Similiar Colors" in the dropdown selected at the same time causing the generator to freeze up about 7 out of 10 times, even though everything else was working fine, and I couldn't figure out how to fix it to save my life. 🙃

But! Shortly after I started writing this description I took a procrastination break and I went back in to try and clean up some of my notes I'd left in the code to tell the different sections apart...And I couldn't help myself. I had the code in front of me, so I started fiddling with it again.

Finally I hit the right keyword search I needed and was able to find a solution that actually worked and I could mostly just copy and paste in without breaking anything else in the process! 🙌

As I had suspected, the problem mostly stemmed from the fact that there are just a lot less Kaala colors to pick from—150, vs. the over 300 for either Oahu or Honolulu. So sometimes the generator would try to pull 3-8 "Similar Colors" and it just...couldn't because there weren't 3-8 colors that fit the "Similar" range it was calling for.

So I put in a few lines that basically force it to just use whatever colors are available even if it's not the intended 3-8...This does mean (as noted in the preview image and on the site itself) now you'll sometimes get just 1-2 colors with that specific combination (Kaala + "Similar Colors") but I think that works a whole lot better than the entire page bugging out.

But so, okay! Generator is (mostly) working as intended and I even added some extra things I hadn't originally planned on—I even got really crazy and tried adding some SEO things to the code because I found a template and you hear so much about how important that is now [I can't tell if it's really working or not, but it's in there)—Great! But there was one last thing that was bothering me...

Glitch has a limit of 1000 active hours per month on a project, and that includes both hours I spend editing the code and time people spend actually using it. Logically, do I really think I need to be worried that my very basic site that will only appeal to a very niche community within a niche community will come anywhere close to actually hitting 1000 hours of activity in a month? No.

But I also know this is the internet and sometimes you post things and they get way more attention than you expect (as sort of became the case with Ohuhu markers themselves), and to be fair I have no statistics whatsoever on the kind of time people usually spend on palette websites, so I really have no way to know if 1000 active hours is even an unrealistic expectation or not, in either direction.

Between that and past experiences with "Oh, I'll worry about that limitation later when it actually proves to be a problem," I decided to look into other options that wouldn't be limited by hours, and after a cursory look around, GitHub is probably way more complicated than what I really need, but it felt like the obvious choice. At least I'd actually heard of it before!

I can't edit the code "in real time" like I can with Glitch (at least not without signing up for a subscription, I don't think), but so far I can still edit in Glitch and just copy & paste the updated code into GitHub, so that'll work for me. And it might be for the better anyway since that's another layer between my trial-and-error editing and the final site, so if I go back and try to change or add to the site in the future (which I very well might) and I accidentally break more things, it won't effect the "live" site people are actually using. 😅

I must admit I kind of want to keep toying with the site to see just how far I can push it...And it's given me some ideas for other projects, too, but I have to draw the line in the sand somewhere so people can actually use it and it's not just a private project I tinker with sometimes for all eternity 😆 😊

At least I did accomplish what I originally set out to do + a few extra things, so I don't feel like it's really "missing" anything and it should be plenty usable even if it's not totally perfect. (And I'm speaking mostly of the imperfect hex codes when I say that, for the record.)

Like I said at the beginning: This is definitely not how I expected to start the year off, but I'm really happy with the end result and I'm cautiously optimistic about where/how things might go from here.

In any case, I hope any of your Sparklers that chose to try it out like/enjoy the generator too...Or at least that you got some enjoyment out of my rambling about it here. 😆 (Which I'm assuming you have if you managed to get this far....)

The Ko-fi widget is there on the final site, but I would like to get better at promoting myself and my work so it bears repeating: If you do like the generator and feel like sending a little monetary support my way, my Ko-fi Page has a few different ways you can do that. And if it means anything to anyone: My Ko-fi Supporters got a little early preview of the generator before today and if I add anything to it in the future, they'll probably get an early look at that too. 😉

I think that's going to do it for me here today, though. It's been a while since I made a "big" public post so I have to go get re-acquainted with my cross-posting process...Which I'm not really looking forward to, but oh well—has to be done!

I look forward to seeing you Sparklers again (hopefully) very soon...! 👋

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Website created by me, MysticSparklewings

The Generator/Website is not officially affiliated with or sponsored by Ohuhu

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⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

[allmightskitten]

10 Things You Should Not Do At a Warlord Meeting:

A Dofuwani Fic

Rating: E (probably E++ eventually, there’s smut in every chapter and it only gets more unhinged)

an extract:

Doflamingo chewed on his bottom lip, expression flitting between that familiar simmering anger and something else.

"That's just the start though, isn't it?" he snapped. "First it's this conference, then you'll say we can't be seen by your fucking crew on your ship. Then it'll be that I can't come to Alabasta because people will speculate now. And you don't even want to visit my place. Isn't that how it's going to go, Croccy? I know you, I know the way you think. I know how important your image is to you and that this isn't worth risking it for."

Crocodile took a sip of his coffee. It was every but as dark and rich as it smelled, a little sweet under the bitterness.

Well, Doflamingo had a point. He hadn't considered that far ahead yet, but it was quite fairly what he might have done.

"So our arrangement may actually end. Why do you give a shit?"

The taller warlord gripped his cheap paper cup so tightly that a good deal of the dark liquid overflowed in a second, getting all over his hands. Even though the coffee was hot, he didn't so much as flinch.

Crocodile observed him from the corner of his eye, watching his response carefully. He knew Doflamingo was volatile, but he wasn't sure anymore what would come out of him.

"I'll change your mind."

Well, it wasn't that.

"What?"

Doflamingo glared down at him, setting his half-empty cup aside on the counter. He loomed over Crocodile with his big feather coat like a shadow blotting out the sun.

"I'll convince you not to end it. If I need to be the best you've ever had then I'll prove that I already am. I'll become something you can't do without."

Crocodile stared at him like he'd grown a second head, which honestly might have been easier to digest than this.

"What the hell are you yapping about? I'm not your goddamn lover breaking up with you to warrant those embarrassing theatrics. You can live without just one of your fuckbuddies. There's no need to act like it's the end of the world when all we are is–"

Doflamingo trapped him bodily against the counter, face so close to his as he interrupted him with a snarl.

"Is that all we are?"

Crocodile stiffened.

[ikamigami]

So what if I told y'all that this is actually a "Moon's paranoia" arc? And what if showrunners hint that Sun will try to help or reach out to Eclipse behind Moon's back.. and they hint that with Moon's words that he trust Sun?

Cause let me tell you something. I've watched many shows and movies to know that this line reminds me of that type of foreshadowing in which one character says "we'll meet again" but they never had the chance to meet again because that other character dies. You know what I mean, right?

So with Moon saying that he trusts Sun - it's not the first time when he says that btw cause he told Earth that he trusts Sun with his life - and Moon being more and more paranoid, I have a heavy suspicion that Moon will stop trusting even Sun..

But ofc it won't be like that that Moon will abandon Sun or anything like that.. He most definitely will be mad at Sun.. but I think that this is what may lead to Moon locking Sun on the island..

Moon really acts paranoid. Some of you may not believe me but what Moon is doing is something that paranoid person would do. What I mean is that Moon devides what informations he shares with whom. No one receives full picture. Only Moon holds all the cards all the time.

Cause look at what he did. He decided to not tell any info to Solar at the moment, right? He did the same thing with not telling anything to Sun and Lunar before. But he eventually told them everything, right? Yes and this is another thing that hints to Moon being paranoid.. because he is the one who always shares things with others. It let's him feel in control of situation.

"Everything is fine as long as I keep my finger on the pulse"..

Getting back to Moon locking Sun on the island. Moon would obviously think that this would be the best for Sun. To keep Sun safe. Even from Sun himself.. or maybe especially from Sun himself.. because remember what I wrote in this post !

I think that everything is adding up nicely. Like many people were wondering about the purpose of Evil Sun's appearance in the show, thinking that maybe he's behind Eclipse's return. But it doesn't make any sense because E Sun doesn't have any agenda to meddle with our dimension. There weren't given any hints that our dimension has anything to offer to E Sun (yet, obvi lol)..

That's why I think that they made Moon go there so he could get paranoid for legit reasons and not out of the blue. Also it's important to do a good build up for rising paranoia in character for it to be more believable..

And most of the time paranoia is piling up before it'll reach a critical point when person snaps and starts doing things that endangers their and their family lives. It never starts right off the bat..

Paranoia is no joke. It messes with your mind badly.. especially if you feed your paranoid thoughts!

I'm saying that from personal experiences. I'm still struggling with paranoid thoughts. Who's read that one post of mine then knows what I'm talking about 😅

Also it might be actually just like @nightixx (hope you don't mind that I tagged you) said in one of their posts that Moon is probably realising to what lengths Sun is willing to go to protect his family. Maybe Moon actually sees that Sun can and would probably put himself in danger in order to keep his family safe. And maybe Moon actually suspect Sun to act behind his back and maybe even he may suspect that Sun may try to give Eclipse a chance just like he did with BM.

Cause Moon isn't stupid. He might not be the best with reading emotions etc but I won't doubt that he is quite observant. Like even Old Moon was noticing that something was wrong with Sun but unfortunately he didn't do much to help.

I think that New Moon is probably noticing that something is wrong with Sun as well. But unlike Old Moon he'll do something about it. He'll keep Sun safe no matter what. And why I think that Moon may be suspecting that Sun may try to give Eclipse a chance? Because I think that in Moon's eyes Sun is too nice, too naive, too stupid - he learned that in Ruin's dimension when Sun wanted to help that dimension so badly and he learned that with how Sun tried to give BM a chance.. Both of these situations were dangerous and yet Sun was willing to help and act on his kindness even if it meant endangering himself.. Moon sees that. I think that Moon realises that Sun is the biggest threat to himself...

Also I think that it's very possible that Moon may suspect that Sun will act behind his back because Sun already lied to him about that whole being a conduit for star's power thing which like Moon said was killing Sun every day..

And important thing to note is that paranoia may induce a hypervigilance in someone. Which explains why someone who is paranoid plans things in advance and with suspicion that others will break their trust.

Old Moon was paranoid af.. and we can see that New Moon starts becoming more and more paranoid as well...

But like I said it'll most definitely end up with Moon restricting Sun's freedom in order to prevent him from endangering himself. Which I'm afraid will lead to a tragedy.

[siriannatan]

Losing Feathers

I was organising my fic files and decided I was happy where this one was

The Wither Rose Alliance was faced with quite a wall. An ice wall. A wall of ice encasing the royal palace of Rivendell. Palace where the king of the elven empire was holed up even before fWhip and his allies started the war. No wonder their war effort was so lacklustre and no official communications carried Scott's signature.

"Any idea how Scott made this thing?" Pearl asked. She and Sausage were flanking the captured council of Rivendell.

Gem hummed where she was inspecting the wall. fWhip glared at the ice, his tail tossing snow behind him. "I have no clue, it doesn't give off a magical signature, like fWhip's fire," Gem seemed to give up.

"Is that so," fWhip hummed walking up to the wall and knocking on it. "You think I could melt it?" he asked, smiling wide enough to bare his fangs.

"Maybe, but I have no clue if it'll even stick, might get stuck inside," Gem mused, pulling her coat tighter.

fWhip nodded. "I can always melt my way out," he said and before anyone could stop him, he started melting the ice, making himself quickly freezing behind him tunnel. 

He could hear Gem's muffled by ice protests as she banged on the wall. But he didn't turn back, instead making his way into the palace of Rivendell.

The castle was pretty dark from the sun slowly setting and the thickness of the ice enveloping the place. And cold enough for even fWhip to shiver slightly. Huddling himself tighter in his coat and scarf. He looked around raising the flame in his hand high. Something instantly caught his attention.

Feathers.

Snowy white feathers. Too big to be an owl's so had to be Scott's. And they led just one way from the door. With a smirk, fWhip followed them. 

With every step the cold intensified. Making fWhip pull his coat as close as he could, bundling himself in his wings. But he eventually made it to a closed - but not locked - door the feathers were leading to. Scott's throne room. Expecting ice flung at him at any moment fWhip pushed the door open. It made no sound.

No ice came his way but fWhip still froze. Not literally even if the throne room was the coldest room he's ever been in. His brain stopped as he stared at Scott.

The elven king was sat on the floor, facing his throne so he didn't yet realise he wasn't alone. And he wasn't like fWhip remembered. Scott fWhip remembered wasn't a dragon. Didn't have a long covered with cyan scales tail with a tuft of white fur at the end. Didn't have golden stag-like horns. And his wings were covered in snowy white feathers ripping out which fWhip often fantasized about.

"Well, well, well, isn't this fascinating," fWhip mused to announce his presence.

Scott was up on his feet within seconds. Their draconic, slit-pupil eyes met for a second before Scott's knees gave up and he collapsed to the floor.

"Why are you here?" Scott asked, trying to get up. Likely to retain some dignity. 

"If you didn't freeze yourself in your castle you'd know WRA declared war on Rivendell," fWhip chuckled, tilting his head. "And I'd say we won, seeing as I'm in your throne room," fWhip carried on chattering as he marched past Scott and to the throne. Once sat he looked down at Scott with bared fangs. "Now I just need to decide what to do with you," he mused. "I was planning on just killing you but with how you're now... you're too fascinating..." As he spoke Scott's eyes went wider and wider.

"You..." Scott glared as ice invaded the throne room, creeping towards fWhip. "Don't you dare come any closer," he loudly protested as fWhip slowly stood up and walked up to him. Slowly, not taking his eyes off the elf for even a second.

"But you already lost the war, darling," fWhip mused as Scott awkwardly clambered back in a futile attempt to create distance. "So as the victor, I get to pick what to do with you. And I decided to keep you," fWhip chuckled, crouching in front of stuck on his tail Scott. He was clearly used to having only wings. "So drop the ice around your dumb castle," he added coldly, grabbing one of Scott's horns. Harshly. Enjoying the way the elf winced.

Scott tried to struggle, to break free. But fWhip stayed still, his grip not faltering for even a second. He just stared at Scott with an amused glint in his blue eyes. His grin ever ever-present as he waited for the elf to tire himself out. He had to be exhausted already. From making the wall around the palace and turning into a half-dragon. No matter how the second part happened, fWhip had no doubt it was exhausting. His own 'change' was exhausting and left him starving.

Eventually, Scott slumped in fWhip's grip. He fainted, fWhip noted as he gathered Scott in his arms. Mission accomplished. He had his reward for all the effort he put into the war. His mood only grew as he noted the wall slowly melting around the palace as he carried Scott to where his allies were waiting.

"What the..." Gem's jaw nearly hit the floor as she quickly realised Scott wasn't just an elf.

"No clue, he didn't want to talk, then fainted," fWhip shrugged. 

"You're not killing him?" Sausage raised an eyebrow. It was quite a shock to everyone Scott's head was still firmly attached to the rest of him.

"He might be useful in case anyone tries to mess with my claim to Rivendell," fWhip shrugged as well as he could with Scott in his arms. "Might also annoy some cod-lovers, keep them from doing something stupid," he added, not voicing his actual thoughts. Gem liked peace, it was a shock she agreed to join the war with Rivendell.

"Yeah, no matter what you do they won't start a war if you have Scott, worried you might kill him," Pearl nodded as always adept at deciphering fWhip's real intentions.

"And even if they do it'll look bad to Katherine and Pix," Gem nodded. fWhip knew his sister so well.

Sausage was shockingly quiet. Smirking. fWhip raised an eyebrow at him. "What?"

"Nothing, I'm just shocked you got out of there that fast with how much shinier Scott is now," Sausage chuckled and everyone but the even more horrified elven council giggled. Even Gem.

"That's ridiculous, and who like who, but I expected you'd be protesting more, GemGem," he rolled his eyes. Yeah, sure, Scott's horns were shiny.

"Well, you could have done worse," She shrugged.

fWhip grumbled as he locked the unconscious elf in his carriage. He left the elf in there, under tight guard while quickly finishing what required him. Before the sun even started to rise was back and ready to go home. Even without Scott's influence, Rivendell was too damn cold for him.

And Scott was still seemingly asleep. Apparently, he woke up at some point and ate the food fWhip had someone bring him. But as he settled in his seat fWhip noticed that Scott wasn't asleep but just sitting there numbly staring ahead. Slumped in the most uncomfortable way possible. "Scott?" fWhip asked. Nothing. fWhip huffed. He was not used to being ignored. "Major," he snapped his fingers in front of  Scott's face. 

Elven king finally looked at him. But didn't move or say anything. Just moved his eyes to look at fWhip with the same blank expression. fWhip's annoyance was growing. "Just looking at you makes my joints hurt, sit properly," he requested with his best glare. Scott just shrugged.

"Don't care..." the elf said before leaning onto the side of the carriage. 

fWhip's blood boiled. Was Scott counting on annoying fWhip being the fastest way off the world? Hell no, fWhip was keeping him no matter his attitude. So he pulled Scott to his feet and sat him properly. "Don't think that giving me attitude will do you any favours," fWhip practically growled. "You're doing what I tell you to do whether you like it or not," he grumbled but Scott's attitude didn't change. 

"Whatever," Scott said, monotone and annoying.

fWhip scoffed. "You were so lively in your throne room, what got you so down since then?" fWhip asked leaning back. He didn't feel like sleeping just yet so he might as well mess with Scott a bit. Try to get any reaction out of him.

"It doesn't matter, and you don't actually care," Scott was really grinding his nerves with the attitude. Well, he had ways of getting rid of it. At home. Just had to stop himself from strangling the elf before they got there. Or from traumatising his retinue.

"Humour me. Grimlands' a fair distance away, we have time," fWhip mused with a toothy grin. "I could tell you about mating rituals and cycles of dragons instead," he added, finally getting a slight reaction in the form of Scott's eyes widening slightly and the elf stiffening.  Was being half-dragon that bad?

Scott was silent for a moment. "Xornoth," he said and fell silent once more.

fWhip waited for him to elaborate. But nothing further left Scott's annoyingly pretty lips. Annoying, he thought. But it made sense. Frankly, if it were Gem that was possessed by a demon he'd be in an even worse state than Scott. "That's it? We still have a couple of days to fill," fWhip hummed. "Anything you'd like to know about half-dragons?" he graciously asked before going into all the spicy details of dragons' mating preferences. Or at least half-dragon, as was the case with them. And he knew a lot, being one most of his life.

"Aren't you tired?" Scott glared, half-heartedly. He clearly hated his new status and appendages. 

"Not really," fWhip shook his head. And descended into chattering about the biology of dragons and how it translated to him and now Scott.

[shadowuserannie]

KOTLC Miraculous AU (pt. 2)

Did not expect the people saying they would actually read it;

So fun fact, it's been a hot minute since I last reread KOTLC (well aware the graphic novel doesn't Really Really count). So now I'm making a list of Fitz character flaws that I want to use my narrative to punish him for, so that he can grow, in my AU.

Because Fitz isn't just the angry golden boy. He's someone who doesn't realize all this privilege is a privilege. The Vackers may fight for 'good' but they still largely benefited from the KOTLC system. Playing back into why Plagg is a good match for him-in canon, both Adrien and Keefe don't care about the status that being Mari/Sophie's boyfriend comes with. But Fitz does.

So Detruire is flirty towards Ladybug. Because who better to impress and benefit his status than the superheroine of Paris?

Then the attraction stops being superfluous. He gets a vibe check-from LB or Plagg, maybe both. Plagg has had too many holders to count, and too many who were angry but angry because of their low status in life because of where they were born/born into poverty. Fitz is angry because of his pressure and lack of freedom (in this AU)-which while is equally valid, means that Plagg will be able to vibe check Fitz's privilege. Will be able to question him, call him out, get him to realize the superfluous reasons why he chases Ladybug.

So that he falls in love with Sophie. The clumsy, funny, slightly awkward classmate who smiles just a little crooked and tugs on her eyelashes and isn't all-powerful, isn't all-seeing. Just Sophie.

(Not the perfect Ladybug. Not the perfect Moonlark.)

(HAHAHAHAHAHA WATCH ME MANIPULATE THE SQUARE FOR MORE TORTURE)

so yes, YET ANOTHER PLOT LINE IG

(fixing character issues ONE BY ONE)

wait but then see Sophie realize Fitz isn't perfect. She screams in Detruire's face that Ladybug isn't perfect, she's not perfect, it's not possible for anyone to be perfect and chasing such an ideal is stupid. See her realize her own hypocrisy. Let Ladybug watch as Detruire changes, stops flirting and gets more genuinely joking instead. Treating her as a real person and not something to attain. LB watches Detruire change, and she starts to fall for someone who has proven they can. Because Detruire listened, and Detruire is trying, and fuck SHE JUST GOT HIM TO QUIT FLIRTING WITH HER-

(extra torture when I reswap the square yay)

Also before you ask, no this is not going to be some kind of s5 swap. Idk when I'll insert this in, BUT IM DEFINITELY NOT GETTING STAMINA TO EVEN THINK OF THAT RN so it'll likely be earlier in the timeline

Rayni as Lila; I saw this in a reblog, AM ADOPTING!! (thanks @ohmygoly) I dislike extra salt and I like the tentative beginnings of Rayni's canon redemption, so let's see if I'll get there before SM either hits or misses in canon!

(also @tiana4evahh I have Plans with Dex and the Lila thing hahahaha hes one of my favs)

Biana as Kagami; BEFORE I GET SHOT. Remember that canonly badass Della will have to be Emilie Agreste. So while Fitz is homeschooled (and I already have a plot reason worked out why Della agrees) Biana Vacker is sent to multiple boarding schools from a young age. When she returns, she doesn't like Sophie trying to make moves ON !HER BROTHER!! So for a while, Sophie sees her as an enemy. (also that means no Kagami/Adrien will exist in this AT ALL JUST TO CLARIFY UTTERLY)

Biana eventually befriending Sophie despite disliking her at first. Biana seeing her brother's indecision and making HER MOVE. Short Sophie/Biana while Soph tries to get over her current thing for Detruire. Biana TELLING HER OWN BROTHER NOT TO HESITATE IM TAKING LUKANETTE AND MAKING IT KAGAMINETTE I DO WHAT I WANT

Btw yk how in canon Mari and Adrien don't question their powers? Sophie and Fitz are too nosy not to HAHA AND THEY START HUNTING DOWN THIS AU'S MASTER FU ALONG WITH HAWKY

Also side note that's kinda irrelevant; When Tam and Linh eventually come in when I finally figure out how to include them, assume they are either already adopted by Tiergan (this will be indicated by their last names being Alenefar and them being proudly introduced as such) or have yet to be adopted by Tiergan and thus the plotline will come later (not introducing themselves with last names)

(@tiana4evahh okay fine I won't scrap this, but I will likely make changes if I ever write in full ao3 fanfic form and not just bullet-pointed)

And finally! While I am taking suggestions for this AU, I'm not going to do stuff because one character in KOTLC matches one in MLB perfectly. That'd be boring. I put characters in slightly unexpected roles because I think the angle would be fun to explore and wouldn't be the same role, same character, same lines. This is adapting MLB's story and adapting KOTLC's characters. I'm not looking to make perfect comparisons and copies (hence my reasoning why Keefe is not the Chat Noir/love interest in pt 1) I'm trying to make a new story where everything is not a repeat of just one of the stories it's adapted from. Not just a copy of MLB but with different names. So please do not expect as such.

Go ahead and rag on me for repeating this too much, but I've always preferred story value and not surface comparisons, which is why I am trying to make this completely clear. I'm not going to make one KOTLC character be the exact same role they had in KOTLC. This is why I am exploring the temporary Sophie/Biana. If you tell me the roles don't perfectly match, then okay! Go create your own AU! (this is not sarcastic) I just don't want getting comments on the whole [but it's not the same thing] because it's not MEANT to be an exact match, and again, sorry for being repetitive. I may include this on all posts of this AU until I finally start writing and fire spoilers.

[xxlady-lunaxx]

Orange Spider lily | {KokuZan}

Theme: Angst

Kokushibo and Muzan were secretly dating. Well, 'secretly' is a term that they use but isn't actually true. It would be secret if it weren't for their horrible skills of secrecy. Unfortunately keeping their relationship within the two of them was out of their hands, though they had somehow hidden their existence from most humans for centuries. Which made it so stupid. But.. neither of the two cared, at this point, because it's not like it would be harmful for anyone to know.

Muzan often visited Kokushibo, because of their relationship or so he said. Today was different though. Today he'd discovered something. And so, this time when he went running to Kokushibo, he was smiling. Something quite curious to the Uppermoon, given that he'd never seen a smile quite that big on his Master's face.

"Kokushibo! Look, look I found something," Muzan said, almost like a small child finding a particularily pretty rock. 

"What is it?" Kokushibo inquired.

"This." Muzan thrust out a bag that held two beautiful flowers. They looked quite like spider lilies, only they were orange.

"Orange spider lilies?" Kokushibo asked, confused. "Did the color seep out from the sun?"

"No, no, they've been like this for a while now! I was looking through some red spider lilies and I found these!! It might be the key to the blue ones! I'm going to use some for experimenting. I'll try it and see if it'll make me be able to go in the sun. I'll use it first though. If it works you can use the other spider lily for yourself," Muzan explained, clearly having thought this out before.

"Oh? How interesting," Kokushibo agreed, inspecting the flowers closely.

Muzan nodded and took them back carefully. "I'm going to try to make something that I can easily drink, alright?"

"Okay, I'll wait here." Kokushibo watched as Muzan excitedly went to his working desk where he instantly pulled out several drawers filled with liquids of all variations.

Over the next few weeks, Muzan experimented with the flower and the different assortments of htings he'd made over the centuries. The whole time, Kokushibo stood by, retrieving what Muzan needed and always there for whatever happened. Eventually, Muzan decided he would try his concoction, saying if it didn't work that would be alright since he was a demon, and if it did, well, he had it all memorized and he would make it again for Kokushibo.

So, that day, Muzan downed half the flask and then waited. He felt nothing so he told Kokushibo to cut off his arm and put it somewhere where sunlight would shine soon. The two demons watched the hand from the safety of inside while it sat there, Muzan's arm had long since regenerated. Then the sun came by and burned it to crisp. Muzan sighed. "Maybe it just needs some time?" he suggested. Kokushibo agreed.

The two went back to Muzan's work room and talked. After a while, Muzan fell asleep and Kokushibo put him in a comfortable place, deciding it had just been from the amount of work his Master had been doing recently.

The next day, Muzan awoke with a headache. He complained that he felt dizzy and was a little wobbly standing up. But that would wear off eventually. The same as the day before, they cut off Muzan's hand and put it in the sun, watching it burn, yet again. 

"How long would it take to set in?" Kokushibo asked, confused.

"If this continues through the week, maybe I should just try again," Muzan grumbled. "I still have one and a half orange spider lily flowers left."

"Won't they rot?" the Uppermoon pointed out.

"No, I froze them so they'll be contained fresh until I need them." Muzan placed his hand on his hips in an almost proud manner. "I've thought of everything!"

Kokushibo laughed and nodded. "Yes, yes you have."

The day seemed to pass by rather slowly for Muzan for he was very tired. Eventually he went to sleep again, hoping he would feel perfectly fine when he woke up. Unfortunately for him, when he woke up he felt considerably worse, the headache being stronger and the dizzyness that had previously disappeared for a couple hours, had come back fully. Only a couple steps could lead him to nearly tipping over and Kokushibo had to help him walk, which was extremely frustrating given he felt so useless like this. So weak and foolish. 

Two days went by, and he didn't seem to be getting better. Each day they would cut off part of Muzan's arm, though each day they resorted to cutting off less and less, because Muzan's condition made him have to focus all his strength on fighting whatever this illness was, and not on regeneration. Each day they took the piece of flesh and put it in the sun, only to watch it burn.

(Why did it take me so long to figure out how to write that paragraph 💀)

Muzan's illness only grew which was starting to bring back memories. The constant help he needed from Kokushibo, to fetch him some food, to take him simply to the other side of the room, it was frustrating and he was starting to actually get worried. 

By the end of the week he could not only barely stand but his regeneration was nearly twenty times slower then his normal rate. He hated this. He was trying to convince himself this was all a before affect of the spider lily but it really, he didn't actually believe it. As much as he wanted to, it was becoming obvious that he needed to stop this. And soon. 

But how? He didn't know how. Didn't even think there really was a way. He felt hopeless. 

Kokushibo tried keeping him going, but it was hard when he himself shared these worries. He constantly fretted over Muzan and tried keeping him at bay. 

Days went by as he continued getting worse and worse. And then weeks flitted past and Muzan's condition was as shit as ever. More so, if that was possible. A month passed into this, and Kokushibo told Muzan that if he didn't somehow get better soon, he might die. And when they came to this conclusion, Muzan felt absolute dread. He couldn't believe that this would happen. He couldn't. Fucking. Believe it. 

He didn't want to believe it. He didn't want to die. It sounded childish, of course, but death was his biggest fear. He merely feared Yoriichi because Yoriichi could bring him death. He feared the sun simply because it could kill him. He couldn't bear the fact he might die.

So, he asked Kokushibo for something. One night, one more unbearable night of pain, he'd been laying down in the silence, uncomfortable. Then, casually, he said, "Kokushibo? I may have been thinking and..."

Kokushibo shook his head. "If this is another 'I think this is just an effect,' then I don't want to hear it."

"No, I was thinking something. Maybe you could turn me into a demon or something? Like, I can make you into the demon king and you can give me your blood and turn me into a demon? I mean, give me your blood for more strength? As I've done for you and the other 12 kizuki?" Muzan suggested.

Kokushibo nodded slowly. "It could work.. but it would be painful for the both of us, no?"

"Would you mind? It'll go away fast. And I've been in pain these past few weeks, I honestly don't care about myself," Muzan said, sighing. 

"True. Alright then. I'll get you some food first, though."

When Kokushibo came back, the two demons ate in silence, both absorbed in their own thoughts. When they finished, they didn't do anything, unsure where to go from here. Then, quietly, Kokushibo said, "Can I.."—he hesitated for a beat—"kiss you? In case this doesn't work.. I don't want.. I want to be with you, actually, and not just worried and getting you things to help you with your sickness. I want to do this before anything happens. In case anything happens. If anything happens. You understand?"

Muzan nodded, definitely understanding. "Of course. But you better lean down here because I don't want this 'moment' to be me dying in pain."

Kokushibo chuckled softly, though it wasn't particularily funny. "I will." He leaned down, peppering Muzan's face and neck with kisses until the smaller demon was a whimpering mess. 

He stopped, eventually, letting Muzan breathe for a minute. "Kokushibo?"

"Yes?" he hummed, caressing his Master's face.

"I know I'm shit at affectionate things, but I love you, you know that, right?" Muzan murmured, leaning into Kokushibo's touch. 

"Mhm," his boyfriend smiled. "I love you too." 

Muzan flushed, still not used to any of this. "Thank you. For taking care of me."

Kokushibo nodded. "I wouldn't leave you even if my life depended on staying away."

They were silent, the comfort of each other spreading through their bodies. Eventually, Muzan said, "How do you want me to transfer my blood to you?"

"What will hurt least for you?"

"Probably if you use my finger. Or.." Muzan paused, a sly smile creeping up his face. "From my neck or my lip?" 

Kokushibo laughed. "Alright. So I'll kiss you while taking your blood like a vampire?" he said, amused.

"Sure, why not?" the demon lord said. 

"Okay, okay." Kokushibo paused, brushing Muzan's hair away from his forehead. "Love you, Muzan," he mumbled. 

"Love you too," Muzan said, sighing. 

The Uppermoon pressed his lips to Muzan's neck, carefully biting slowly down, making sure to make only a thin line which would be easier to regenerate. Muzan closed his eyes, concentrating on making sure Kokushibo got through with this. 

When Kokushibo moved up, feeling that that was all he needed to take in, he noticed how pale Muzan looked. But before he could ask if he was alright, pain shot through his body and he doubled over. He clutched his arms around himself, his mouth wide in a silent scream. 

But then the pain was over and he was panting heavily, sweating. He looked up to see Muzan still lying there, looking more sick than before. 

Kokushibo felt the opposite Muzan did, though. He felt alive. Powerful. Like he could do anything.

But instead, he leaned down closer to his lover and whispered urgently, "Are you okay?"

"Kokushibo," Muzan said, his voice like sandpaper. "Blood. Give me.. some of your blood."

"Right, right," Kokushibo murmured, panicking. He used his fingernail to slice his palm and he dripped some of his blood in Muzan's mouth carefully.

He watched his boyfriend swallow, and waited. The waiting was painstakingly slow and fear pressed Kokushibo's insides into a tight ball. His body felt like lead as he watched and waited. Nothing happened.

This wasn't what was supposed to happen, was it? When you were given blood, usually the effects started immediately. What had gone wrong? Kokushibo tried again, slipping more of his blood into Muzan's mouth. 

"Please, please work," he said, his mind and heart racing. He must've done something wrong. What had he done wrong?!

Muzan shook his head wearily. "Koku..shi.. Koku.. I don't think it's going to work," he mumbled, growing paler (is that a word?) by the second. 

"It will work! It has to work," Kokushibo insisted. As much as he'd known that it might not, he had hoped with all his might that it would. 

Muzan shook his head. "No, I can feel it.." He coughed rather violently, blood spilling from his mouth. "Kokushibo.. You'll be the demon.. lord now.. Continue on.. the work I've done.. Don't let it go to waste," he said, his eyes meeting the Uppermoon's. No, the demon king's. Kokushibo was the demon lord now. 

Kokushibo nodded weakly. "I will. But please don't die. Not yet. Please," he begged. 

"It's not my choice.. anymore," Muzan mumbled, closing his eyes. 

"No, no! Don't close your eyes, no, wait," Kokushibo said urgently, putting his hands onto Muzan's chest. What was it humans did? Something about chest compressions?? But this was different, no? All that could save Muzan was regeneration.. 

He desperately tried again to get his blood into Muzan, trying, and failing, to save him. Muzan coughed again, blood staining his clothes. 

"Kokushibo, it's no use," he said, his eyes still closed. 

"It has to work!" Kokushibo insisted. 

"It won't." 

The words were harsh and cut into Kokushibo like a knife. He knew it wouldn't, but the fact that Muzan had lost all hope made him feel suddenly hopeless as well. The words were so certain, so clear, and true. Unbearably true.

Kokushibo's hands left Muzan's chest and went to cup his face. "Fine," he said, all desperation drained from him. "Then.. goodbye, Muzan."

Muzan nodded slowly, painfully. "Yes, goodbye." 

"I still love you," Kokushibo murmured. "I won't stop."

Muzan's mouth twitched into a smile. "Such a flirt," he said, sighing deeply. "I won't stop loving you either, I promise."

And then he was gone. His chest stopped moving in it's uneven sort of breaths and the pale gradiant of his skin slowly went deathly white. Kokushibo didn't know how long he sat there, holding Muzan's face in his hands, but it was long enough for the touch of his fallen lover to become cold. Ice cold. 

He retracted himself when he realized that and stared at the body. Then, he realized, it was starting to disintigrate. He wondered, for a split second, why it hadn't disintigrated earlier. This was as Muzan had died first as a human then left the earth as a demon. Kokushibo's hand clutched the slowly disintigrating arm of Muzan's, until there was nothing but cloth in his grip.

He held onto it tightly, fearing that if he let this go, it would turn to dust as well and he would have nothing left of him. Kokushibo's upper body shook in sharp, shuddery breaths. He was trying not to cry. But try as he might, tears rolled down his cheeks.

He hadn't cried in a long time. Centuries. He never had a reason to. He'd never felt pain that lasted, never pitied anyone to the point of tears. In fact, he'd never felt much emotion since he became a demon. And then Muzan came along and made him feel. Feel happy, for once. 

Made him cry. Ugly, shaky sobs that ripped through his body. He buried his face in his hands and screamed. How could the world take Muzan from him? How could it take the one person who had ever made him feel? 

The floor trembled and he looked up. Then, he realized with a start, it was himself who was trembling. From fear, anger, and sadness. Sorrow. He'd never felt that before. When his mother died, he had been disappointed. But he'd never really been close to her. To anyone. 

When Yoriichi died, he'd felt only powerful. And powerless. But never grief. Never anything like this. He'd never felt this sort of internal pain that teared him from inside out. His hands, still clutching tightly the bloody cloth Muzan had worn the day he died. Today. 

The day Kokushibo became the demon lord, failed to save the previous one, and lost his lover all at once. The day he felt. Felt nothing but pain. 

He looked at the clothes and buried his face into it, uncaring it was covered in blood. The blood would disappear soon. Gone with Muzan. Gone. 

The word vibrated inside his mind, bouncing off the walls in his head and repeating over and over and over. Gone. Muzan was gone. Forever.

And it was all Kokushibo's fault. He had failed his master, his boyfriend, the person dearest to him. He had failed and Muzan had died and it was all. His. Fault.

{Word count: 2600}

Well now that lightheartening oneshot is done 😊

ALSO THE PICTURE I USED FOR THIS IS SO SILLY AHOIDAKMS (okay bye you chaotic demons-)

(pt. 2 here)