#which leads to some interesting dreams that i remember. i used to live and work on a boat for some time

[why-rock-look-tasty-if-no-eat]

I'm a mix of Damian and Tim. There has been times when I thought a good dream was an actual event that happened. Multiple times.

On the plus side I get free happy memories

(staying up>nightmares>working memory)

The batfam ranked on their ability to recall dreams - Least to Most

Damian - Doesn’t dream besides nightmares

Jason - also doesn’t really dream, mostly just replay of memories so technically higher then Damian

Dick - Mostly remembers the feeling of a dream rather then the dream itself whether good or bad

Cass - remembers the people in her dreams, but not what was happing

Steph - either can’t remember at all, or remembers nearly all of it

Duke - opposite of Cass, can remember most things except for faces

Bruce - Easy to recall nightmares, but similar to Dick can remember the feeling of good dreams

Tim - Dreams so vivid and realistic he just fully believes they’re actually memories. This has served as an issue

[ravengards-rogue]

WHAT SET YOU FREE, BROUGHT YOU TO ME BABY.

rdr2 men + short blurbs about their favorite sex positions.

ft. arthur morgan, john marston, javier escuella, and charles smith.

✧ tags : SPOILER HEAVY, fem + afab!reader, unprotected sex, light angst (in the horny post is crazy im sorry fdkjjkds), very gendered language, javier says one thing in spanish (thank u @nanamimizz), a little sprinkle of plot with each (and some canon divergency), john co-parents w abigail, otherwise just horny. 18+

✧ wc : about 1.4-8k each (6.3k total)

✧ a/n : sorry for making a multi character post for the cowboy game its cooking me to death. my john bias is showing rip. title is from rebel yell by billy idol but i listen to the bvb cover

sorry about charles and javiers but if i edit this anymore im going to level an entire city using hollow purple technique. please rb if you enjoyed i worked kind of hard on whatever this is.

sorry for . the THIRD repost of this i promise i wont after this. its just really bugging me. PLEASE

.𖥔 ݁ ˖˚☽˚｡⋆ ARTHUR MORGAN + PRONE BONE ; 

It’s an odd feelin’ for Arthur. 

Wanting something, he means. Wanting anything as much as he wants you. He’s lived a less than quiet life up until now. And he ain’t the brightest, certainly, but living this kind of life teaches you many lessons. One of them being, it’s better not to covet anything. Coveting something you’re not entitled to, well—it’ll lead you places you wouldn’t want to go with a gun. 

Arthur has made the mistake of coveting love before, dreamed of a future so completely out of his reach he almost convinced himself it was possible. Dreamed of it so foolishly he’d even go visit a woman he very well ought to forget. It’s his problem, his burden to bear - always desiring outcomes unsuited to him. 

He’s just that sort of man he reckons. But he learned his lesson. He tries (tried?) to stay away from it after that. Tried not to pine too much for normalcy when such hopes had failed him twice. The loss of his child completely on his account and the loss of his love at the same fate. 

So, wanting you - well, he feels like the world's dullest fool. Really. How is it that Arthur had fallen in love with someone again? It had all just happened so quickly. You were another woman he’d saved from the O’Driscolls, though it wasn’t like you were no damsel. A lot of those men were dead by the time they arrived. That sort of perseverance would stick with you while you traveled together. Much like Sadie, you didn’t take well to housework - you liked to earn your keep. Though you’re not nearly so trigger happy. 

You’re quiet, thoughtful, well-read. Plus you’re good at making money. That’s why Dutch don't complain about you joining them, he figures. 

(Arthur tries not to pry into it too much at first, but he eventually learns that you’re gambling. Which is how you’re able to make such a fast turn around. A prim little lady like you makes for a fine poker player, and you love to play men out of their money. He thinks it’s one of the funniest and most interesting things about you. He can’t help but love you a little more for it. )

When the feelings in him start to stir, Arthur tries to overlook it. Arthur convinces himself, time and time again - that there’s no way he’ll grow more tender about you. Eventually, it’ll die down. You’re a decent woman is all, a kind one - who’s easy for him to love and even easier for him to confide in. In your time together, you often come to Arthur and you always seem to have some profound wisdom he is so sorely lacking. Someone easy to love, who does not expect much from Arthur at all. It’s only natural a lonely, covetous man like him would start to dream about you. He tells himself, it will pass eventually. Should he simply let it run by him, it will pass. But Arthurs a fool, you’ll remember. 

 Of course, by the time he understood all that - he already loved you enough that he couldn’t bear it. It was already too late and it wasn’t going to change any time soon. Especially not while everything changed around him. 

So, Arthur is undoubtedly a fool, but he’s lucky. He felt divinely blessed when you’d returned his feelings for him so politely. A coy little smile on your face, a laugh like you thought he was silly for being doubtful. Arthur tried to explain himself but you wouldn’t hear a word of it. Maybe that’s another thing he loves so much about you. There’s nothing he ever needs to explain. 

In any case, all Arthur seems to do lately is want you. Wants you when it’s inconvenient. Wants you before he wants liquor or a cigarette or some other vice. Any time anything goes wrong, you’re the first thing his mind can conjure up for relief. That pretty smile and that self-assured way of living. It’s hard to get time alone in camp. And Arthur is a man in love, so any touch could be enough to set him on fire. Last week you hugged his waist a little before giving him a kiss goodbye and he had to listen to you laugh yourself into a fit as he waited for…little Arthur to settle down. 

He don’t get many chances to be with you. Lay with you in that way that grown folk in love do. Though, if the two of you book it somewhere for a few days - the camp knows better not to ask where you’ve been. But it’s not often you get to really be together, where it’s peaceful to do that. Someone’s always hounding one of you to do something. 

Arthur is a lucky man though, like he said. Today he had time. Today he’s alone with you in a beat up little saloon and today he gets to do as he likes. He gets to be greedy. And it’s an odd feeling for him, really, to want something so bad he disregards everything else in the world for a little while. 

Feeling you, though - absolves the guilt for wanting. He’d be stupid to want you any less desperately. 

Arthur’s favorite way to have you is on your stomach. Laid flat, just barely pushed up against him as he fucks you deep. You’ll fuck like rabbits for a little while and Arthur will wear you out just like this, maneuvering you until you’re pinned all underneath his weight. You lose any fight you might have, too exhausted to worry yourself with pleasing him - and when you’re like that, you let Arthur take care of you. 

(He really ain’t talented at much, but he’s good with his hands. Being dexterous is part of being a talented shot. When Arthur has the time to spread you sweet in his lap and make you cum all over his fingers, he does so for as long as he can. At least until you beg him so sweetly otherwise. The same hands, soiled with gunsmoke, look so good so deep in you. At least in his eyes.)

Wet and pliable and helpless. Arthur loves you like that. He knows, he knows you’re anything but - but he’d be damned to pretend this don’t feel best. Tight, wet cunt so welcoming from all the pleasure he’s ripped out of you. Your bodies pressed together, your heartbeat pulsing through your skin. All sticky, honeyed need and animal desire as Arthur lets all of him sink on top of you. His heavy, lumbering form crushing you in - trapping you somewhere you can’t run from him. The curve of your spine pushed against his chest, ticklish. 

Every inch of his body that so wholly wants for you, Arthur aches to make you feel. Burn it in you lest anything happens that risks your forgetting. 

He can feel his hips meet your ass, backside squished against him - desperate for deeper friction. Whining. You’re whining to him so pretty, a pillow pushed underneath you to give friction to needy clit. 

Arthur can feel how much you want more. Maybe Arthur is greedy, but he likes that look much better on you. Your pussy is sucking him in so tight, silken walls pulsing with every shallow little measured thrust. Arthur lets his arm wrap around your neck, your face pressing into his bicep. You moan again and he laughs. 

“Arthur,” Your words come out in a messy slur. He lets his scruffy face press against your neck, a kiss behind your ear. He wants to kiss you all over. There’s not enough hours in the day. “Oh, god, Arthur,” 

“Still feels good, then, I’m guessin’,” 

“Shut up,” You huff and press your cheek into his arm. He doesn’t bother stifling his laugh. “Still feels…big. Stretchin’ me out—hicc—so much,” 

You really don’t try to rile him up - but you do a damn good job of it anyway. He groans, grunts as he pulls back and pistons himself in you. A gesture half-way between a kiss and the warning shot of a gun. The sound of skin hitting skin echoes, noisy and vulgar. Arthur don’t pay it much mind. He laughs against your shoulder.

“One of these days, that moutha’ yours is gonna get me in real trouble.” 

You giggle back at him 

“What kinda trouble is that now?” 

Even from your side glance, you’ve got that lovely little smile on you. Fuckdrunk and ingratiating, like you know he’s wrapped so tight around your fingers. And he is, like nothing else in the world could have him. A wave of possession curls up over Arthur, makes him press more of himself into you. Onto you. Another deep push of his cock, sliding against the tenderest parts of you. Staking some silent desire in you. He wants and wants and wants, and hopes that whatevers above him can forgive him for making the same mistake thrice. 

“Dunno,” Arthur comments, teeth grazing your shoulder and kissing the indentations “Got our whole lives together to find out, I reckon.” 

“I’ll hold you to it, Mister.” 

Arthur laughs. “Hope you do, Miss.” 

.𖥔 ݁ ˖˚☽˚｡⋆ JOHN MARSTON + COWGIRL ;

John doesn’t say that he loves you lightly. 

Hardly a thing he says can be said that way. Could never afford too. In an alternate universe where nothing goes wrong in his life, maybe - but he has a hard time picturing what the hell that’d look like. A version of himself so untainted, without all of the violence and blood and gunsmoke? Foreign. John can’t picture it worth a damn. 

Who John is without a deadbeat father and a dead Ma is somewhere far beyond his reach. Ain’t nothing about his life, at any point, lighthearted. 

On top of all that mess, he’s got a boy at age four with a woman he ain’t married too. And that relationship is always on rocky waters, even though John’s decided to do right by his own flesh and blood sometime ago. Most things in the world he should feel good about he doesn’t, and most things he should understand render him clueless. He’s a mess on multiple accounts, and he still doesn’t know how exactly he’s meant to approach this life of his. He knows what he should do, but nothing about how to do it. 

John doesn’t come to love you easily ‘cause he wouldn’t know easy love if it hit him in his face. Quickly and painfully, but not easily. 

Your return to the gang was an odd one. You were an old presence and your disappearance was an even older story. John thought he’d never gonna see you again for sure. You’d been a part of the gang back long before all of the nonsense that took place in Blackwater and you left about the time Arthur’s boy died. John don’t remember why you left exactly. He thinks it was a fight with Hosea, of all things.

 Dutch weren't too happy about it neither, but Dutch back then didn’t make a show. 

So you left, and John buried every feeling he ever harbored. You found all them again up in Colter, where you’d been living out your days lately. According to you, in the middle of riding, you thought you’d heard Arthur. So, somewhat recklessly, you went chasing him. Didn’t matter if he was just something your mind conjured. According to you, if it was him, it was at least worth checking to make sure. You’d reunited with Arthur and after some tears, he rode with you back to camp. 

Upon your return, the gang welcomed you with open arms. 

You’d done a lot in your time alone.You spent most of that time just like that, a ghost wanderin’ the planes. You weren’t gonna stay with ‘em, but Arthur insisted and Hosea did too. That wasn’t enough to compel, so John was last to chip in. You should stay, at least until Valentine. 

(Silently he thought, you should stay so John can trace memories of you. It was so long ago, he should’ve forgotten all of it. You were a year older than John and always on his ass but easy for him to talk to. Didn’t fuss over his failures. You just barely grew into your womanhood when you set your sights on running away. You wanted more than this life, and John never really forgave you for it. His first heartbreak, maybe - but it’s all too blurry for that. 

You understood him though better than anyone, and one day you were gone. Nothing’s really the same.) 

You changed tremendously and not at all. He missed you. God, did he ever. Missed you a long time. Didn’t realize how much until you came back and everything in him felt right again. Your return stirred up old feelings and everyone noticed. He wasn’t trying to keep it a secret, but he really wasn’t trying to fall back into anything with you. Not how he did. 

Just like you did back then, you read John like an open book. And just like he did back then, he loved you all too helplessly for it.  It was just all too easy again, to be with you. 

You stayed out of the way at first, for the sake of his family. 

But, John ain’t a half-decent man even when he’s trying to be. So he set himself on being with you. It wasn’t easy - most things with him aren’t as you’ll see.  Having you around again straightened what was left of his common sense, at least. He told Abigail before telling you. He figured you wouldn’t even reply unless that was all out of the way. That turned out as well as you’d expect.

 It was settled between the two of you thereafter. He’s lucky she didn’t toss him into the street. 

Everything works out in a way. As best they can between broken people. You make peace with each other. His boy loves you like a third parent (you’re better with him than John is). Abigail commends you for straightening out such a worthless man though she’s a little melancholy.  John just tries to stay out of the way. You’ll be together in the end. There’s a plan with the five of you. 

But until it all falls apart, he doesn’t get all that much time with you. 

There’s moments like tonight, though. Rare ones. Together out robbin’, cooped out some place in the woods where no one is around. A place so shaded by nightfall that John can absolve himself of every sin he’s ever committed in his life and pray at the altar between your hips. John is convinced he might find worship like he’s always hearing about there whenever he touches you, the marred skin of his hands and knuckles reading the scripture of your body with careful precision. 

You might turn him into a literate man yet. 

John glances up at you. Only the light of the fire and the moonlight there to accompany as he watches you over him. You’re beautiful. John couldn’t picture a single thing more perfect in his life. 

Your hands against his bare chest, nails digging into the flesh as you lean forward. Your palm dug into the dirt, John finds his own hands rested at your hips. John looks at you awe-struck, cock twitching at the mere sight. His heart settles in his throat, but he’s calm all at the same time. With you, he forgets. All of it. The worst of himself. 

Bare naked and so close, he watches your face as you strain. You feel soft. Every inch of you in comparison to him is. A bead of sweat slides down the valley of your breasts. John cranes his neck up to catch it with his tongue, licking a stripe up to your neck - letting his teeth sink into the space between your jaw and neck. You want to make it last and John doesn’t blame you. It’s so rare you get to have each other so unrestrained. John can feel all the ways you want him, can see it in your face - all pinched with need. You’re holding yourself back, trying to get it to last as long as the night will allow. It’s cute in a way.

It’s different than how he’s used to seein’ you, all cocky or otherwise. You’re needy like this. Just needy. His stomach turns with lust, jolting through him like a strike of lightning. His cock twitches against your folds, sliding against them. Pure admiration watching the sticky mess of his pre-cum and your own arousal mix together and smear on your mound. You make a soft noise in the back of your throat, faint and tender as you fall forward just a little. John laughs against your neck. 

“Darlin’,” He says with a huff. Not malice. Something akin to bliss, where he can rarely afford it “Have I done something to piss you off today?” 

You pick yourself up and look down at him and frown. John kisses the corner of your mouth, resisting some crude desire to fuck up into you. 

“Just,” You grunt as the tip of his cock passes over your throbbing clit, your whole body wracking to a shiver. John looks awed. “Pent up. Goddamn it,” 

John figures it out quickly after that. It’s this part of it he likes. The proximity. The closeness. Feeling the tremble in your hands as they struggle to keep up right, muscles strained in your forearms. Being able to hold you, to keep the pace or let you take the lead. The clear view of your face as pleasure travels up through your spine and melts into you. He grabs your hips, the fat dimpling underneath his fingers as he moves you along. He can’t wait. You don’t bother to protest seeing John can’t seem to bear it anymore. You collapse into his chest, your tits pushed flat against his pecs.

His cock throbs near painfully, sliding against your soft cunt before finding himself lined with you. He thinks to himself that it’s this he was looking for, as he tucks your face against his neck and lets his tip stretch you out slowly. Such a vice like grip, stretching - resisting him like your whole body can’t anticipate the sensation of fullness. You gasp against his throat. 

“John,”  

What a sweet sound from your mouth, even sweeter as he bucks himself up. Keeps you steady and lets his cock stretch you full, feel you deep. “That’s right, my angel. Didn’t think you’d remember my name when you’re all worked up like this.” 

“You’re,” You gasp and John thrusts, thrusts hard until he’s buried to the hilt. You shudder, walls pulsing around him as he bottoms out and John laughs like the terrible man he is. He fucks you again, over and over - a wicked little smile watching “Awful. Just awful, John Marston,” 

“Ain’t that the truth,” He hums against your mouth as his hand snakes between your bodies, thumb rubbing against your clit. “Wonder what kinda woman that makes you,” 

“A foolish one,” 

John laughs. 

“I sure do love you for it,”

.𖥔 ݁ ˖˚☽˚｡⋆JAVIER ESCUELLA + SIDEWAYS ;

Javier hasn’t thought about much other than surviving. 

It’s been like that. Been like that for a while, probably much longer than he cares to admit. He’s sure any sane man would suffer the same plight if they lead the same life. Anything but survival is little more than a pipe-dream, so Javier tries not to go for anything too strongly. In that aspect he’s like many of the members of the gang he’s in, perhaps that’s why he sticks to them. There’s that phrase Hosea’s always saying - that misery loves company. Javier will take any decent company he can get.  He’s desperate for it just like he’s desperate for most things - inwardly, silently. 

Some of that desperation may be symptomatic of who he is. After he killed a man in a crime of passion for a woman he loved and ran from a government who would sooner exile him than change, Javier decided to not dream anymore. Every revolutionary who dreams too hopefully pays the price in blood.

(Javier thinks there’s probably nothing in the world as true as this. A form of gospel. He remembers the first dream he ever had after his uncle passed. Not a nightmare but a dream. He remembers the exact feeling of waking up, cold and confused. What is a dream, except a memento of survivor's guilt that loyal people cling onto fruitlessly. When hope starts to feel like a debt he’s going to waste his life paying back, Javier loses sight of everything. The beginning of the end in some way.) 

His mind doesn’t occupy itself with anything bigger than that. Since Dutch found him starving, there was never a desire to try and live off aspirations. He pays his penance with loyalty and honor. Practices some form of humility and tries, not too desperately, to carve a place for him to fit. All without drawing too much attention or caring too much. If you ignore the bleeding in his fingers, his penchant for knives over guns, and his refusal to talk too long about the place he comes from - it’s nearly believable that none of it matters. 

Except loyalty. All Javier honors is that. It’s the only thing he has some part in choosing, so he choses it every time. Living like that didn’t make any difference to him. He was surrounded by mostly decent people. He didn’t hate the life he was living. 

It wasn’t important. It didn’t matter. His directionless-ness, his floating. Hadn’t since he joined the gang. At least not to anyone but him. He didn’t know what he’s meant to do or if he was meant to proceed with this forever. He was (is)  loyal to Dutch. To the gang. 

He hadn’t thought much about what comes after. 

And it didn’t matter until he met you

He’d sworn off love after seeing where it got him, at least until he could love more dispassionately. When the women bring you back from their outing from Valentine and beg Dutch to let you stay, Javier doesn’t think much of it all. He thinks you’re pretty, if it counts for anything. But he doesn’t let himself linger on you too long. 

But that’s the sequence with you two, really. The whole time.  He doesn’t linger until he does. It doesn't matter until it does. He doesn’t think about you until it’s all he can think about. 

You go for him first. And it’s in little, unimportant ways that might not mean shit to you but mean a whole lot to him. You have some kind of tenderness about you that you wear deep, runs through your blood like love ran through his once long ago. Some softness he can’t really measure with his own. It’s not that that gets him. It’s that sometimes you look at Javier like he's … someone you want to see. He forgot what that was like all together. It felt foreign to him the first time it happened. Seeing how you light up when Javier is around. 

You wanted to see him. You noticed that he’s gone. If he sang by the campfire - you’d sit by him and listen.  If he was out in the trees keeping guard, he’d hear the soft call of your voice to Grimshaw ask Where’s Javier? And sometimes the girls will make fun of you - but you wouldn’t deny anything they said. It’s so small and ordinary. He would’ve never considered himself simple before meeting you. Nothing is simple. Nothing. 

(But then, Javier thinks of the kinds of songs he sings and the way he takes care of himself and the clothes he wears and maybe Javier has some kind of affinity for preciousness that explains all of it.) 

When Javier confesses his feelings for you - he finds the affair to be like most things between you. Ordinary love, not really between outlaws but people. It’s up against a tree while you share a drink and he’s looking at the curve of your mouth and the plum color Karen’s so kindly put on you. And his head fills with kissing you so he does. A breathless confession between alcohol stains and the feeling of your hands curled in the lapels of his suit. 

From there, Javier is your lover. He’s not interested in the business of secrets, but he tries not to let it show too much. Not that he doesn’t want to. He wants to show you off more than anything - at least some part of him does. But the other part wants to keep you away from prying eyes, keep his love for you only where the both of you can see. If he could keep that pretty lovestruck face you make all to himself forever he would. 

When he gets a chance to whisk you away from everything, Javier jumps at the chance. Not often, but Javier makes time for you. Makes time to indulge in love he thought he’d  never find again. 

That’s why he’s here with you in the middle of nowhere, a ghost town where no one knows you.. A reserved room with a bed and lowlights all to yourselves. 

Javier can’t keep his hands to himself and he doubts you expect him too. 

For Javier, this sense of proximity is what intoxicates him most. The warmth of your bare skin in the slivers of yourself exposed. Javier is fond of finding you like this after a long day of horse riding. Of sneaking touches to your waist as you push back against him to sleep, only to find his desire for you - laid clearly. He likes hearing you whimper feeling his length poke against your back, the embarrassment when it dawns on you that he wants you after all. Always surprised, even though Javier tells you it so often. Whispers it along your neck and shoulders whenever you’re at camp together.

You like the feeling of his hands so Javier always starts with them. He squeezes your hips. Planes his palms over your chest before squeezing your chest, pushing the fat between his fingers. You like the way  they look when they grope you, his chin resting against your shoulder as you spoon. In the lowlights of a cheap hotel - Javier gets the perfect view of your silhouette. Your body is sensitive over the fabric of your gown, heat prickling through you. 

Javier who is always so gentle with you, rouses so deep listening to your whining as he explores your body. The suffocating closeness of a single bed intoxicates him. 

“Javier,” Your voice is sweet and thin. Plays in Javier’s head like music and makes his mouth curl up into a catlike grin as you push back on him.  You look slightly over your shoulder, lips pushed into a pout. “Please,” 

He tugs at the fabric of your nightgown. The top half pulls haphazard underneath your tits, nipples perky and sensitive to touch while the skirt pools at your waist. What gets Javier like this is the desperation. Wanting so much but not being able to look too long. A way for you to mirror him, it’s a matter of possession. In some stupid way. Bunching your clothes up, pushing the fabric of your panties to one side, letting his arm wrap around your waist to touch and tease.  All of these are imprints of his longing, tucked faithful into your side as he whispers sweet nothings into your skin.

His cock twitches as it pushes past your folds with finality, your hands curling up at your sides.  You whimper softly, let your cheek rest against the sheets as Javier takes you on your side. Terribly close, you fuss as you feel him slide every inch into you slow, your hands reaching back for purchase. It’s the fit of you against him so perfect, the silent strokes of intimacy, the hush-hush giggles between the sheets that Javier loves most about fucking you like this. Too enamored with you to look too closely, he lets his eyes flutter closed. He could get drunk just being in your space. 

He carves out space for himself inside of you, feels your cunt accommodate for him like it loves him. A feverishness breaks out as his forehead rests on the space between your shoulders, an uncharacteristic whiny quality in his words. 

“Ser mío,” Javier says - as a reflection of what he really wants, to belong only to you. “Belong to me.” 

Darling as you always are, you nod softly. 

“All yours, Javier,” You whimper, finding his hand. “Forever,”

.𖥔 ݁ ˖˚☽˚｡⋆ CHARLES SMITH + MATING PRESS ; 

Wandering. 

He’s been doing it his whole life. Not something he’s proud of. Or ashamed of either, really. Just how things have gone for him until now. Charles doesn’t think his life has been any better or any worse than anyone else's. At least not when he weighs it with the same kind of pragmatism he does most things. It’s been a hard life, and a miserable one in so many ways. Still, it’s not something Charles is too keen to dwell on. 

There’s just something thematic about loss in Charles' life in a way he finds completely unpleasant. It’s more constant than anything. Loss of his home, loss of his mother, loss of his father in an attempt to find what’s best for him. It’s some overarching message that hangs over his head like a shadow. Everywhere he goes, trying to rectify his own solitude seems to come back to him. It doesn’t help that it’s an unfair world to start with, and would’ve been if he had just been black or just been native. But Charles is both, and has lived a life that reflects that specific injustice thoroughly. 

There’s not really anything Charles can do about it, at its baseline. When he left his father, the name of the game had simply been survival. He was well-equipped enough for that at least. But after survival comes trying to live and trying to live isn’t something so simple. Jumping in and out of gangs who thought they could get away with slighting him or generally being surrounded by unpleasant people. Trying to find something in pages of book and scripture, or in the way water ripples when it rains. 

He’s never felt any one way towards the gang. Even when he joined them all the way back in the Grizzlies. Lost in the cold, they’d crossed paths as Charles was out hunting. A lot of it feels like a blur. Of all the folks he’s met in his travels though, Dutch treats him fair and the rest of them (or most of them) are decent, honest folk. Charles stays in the Van Der Linde gang for such simple reasons as trying to stay alive and be somewhere that isn’t actively hostile towards him. He’s a good gunman, and a better fighter. The inner workings of gang politics and forging connection isn’t at the forefront of his mind, with the exception of the kindest few. 

The Van Der Linde gang is just a place where he can figure out what his purpose is meant to be, even if he doesn’t find it there. He’s never expecting anything to come out from his loyalties to it. 

Of all the things Charles expects of his life in the Van Der Linde gang, love is at the very bottom of the list. 

Maybe it’s about time he stops being surprised by these things happening to him one or way another.

 You were a member of the gang far before him, and someone Charles took to quickly. You’d joined the gang not too long after John from what Arthur tells him. Though the brunette speaks about you more fondly than he does his brother. A problem child at the start, according to Arthur - always getting into all sorts of trouble. Something you seemingly feel embarrassed about now and refuse to bring up. Charles has a hard time picturing it having only known you as you are. 

The woman you’ve grown into is someone else completely, and Charles sees that in you all the time. Compassionate like Hosea but charismatic like Dutch, and clever. And you’re beautiful, too, though Charles feels a little shallow admitting that’s part of what drew you into him. 

It wasn’t Charles that approached you first. You were the one who spoke to him, as often as you thought necessary but never in a way he found invasive. He doesn’t know what it is exactly about you that charms him near instantly. You’re enigmatic to a fault. It’s like you always know exactly what to say and exactly when to say it. Even more than that, you’re a terribly pleasant person to be around. Subtly warm and free of assumptions. When Charles talks to you about anything, you listen without making him feel like it’s any sort of burden to you. You don’t pry, don’t make missteps. Treat him fair, and then some. 

It’s unbearably simple, just how quickly and how easily he comes to adore you.  And, in some ways, Charles knows better than to believe that his purpose is loving someone. There’s more to it than that, surely - after everything. 

But then, he’ll watch you do something. Watch you do some kind of menial work that he could do for you instead. Thinks of skinning animals for new clothes and chopping wood and rubbing the soap off of you and all of a sudden it makes him feel anchored. Everything he could do for you. You anchor Charles easily, with a wispy smile. Make him want to find purpose in life with you. He never wants to be somewhere you’re not. 

He confesses it to you just like that, and like you do with most things - you accept and reciprocate without making too much of a fuss. 

For Charles, making love is an extension of wanting to ground himself in you. A distant siren song - the intersection of lust and bone deep adoration. Like most things, you’re the one to approach first every time. A soft hand on his forearm, a whisper that you want him. It’s with ease that he draws you away. Drags from you camp during nightfall with his horse and blankets and picks a spot with the perfect view of the stars. 

Charles watches you under the glow of moonlight, his vision adjusting to you easily. Naked underneath him, laid on your back with your legs folded at your knees - heaving deep breaths. He can see the sweat beading down your skin, your chest rising and falling - and the perfect view of your pussy. His hands and mouth are wet as you breathe out. He finds himself smiling at you, his own erection pressed against your thigh, pre-cum leaking out in a mesmerized haze. 

You lift your hands up and he leans down, surprised as you wrap them around his neck and pull him closer to you. Your mouths meet like that, and Charles laughs against your lips as you kiss him so eagerly. You blink at him, pretty. You’re always prettier than he remembers you being the last time he looks. 

“Charles,” You frown at him. “It’s impolite to keep a lady waiting,” 

He kisses the corner of your mouth. “Sorry, my love. I don’t want to hurt you,” 

“Well, I’m fine with it,” You repeat, almost petulant. Charles frowns. “‘Sides, it ain’t my first time taking you, you know?” 

“Well, I’m not fine with it.” 

You pout, looking at him all endeared. Charles couldn’t help but love you even if he tried. “You ain’t gonna hurt me. C’mon. Please?” 

“Please, what?” 

You look at him aghast before breaking out into a faux-scandalized giggle. “Now you—please fuck me. Pretty, please.” 

Charles feels something tickling against his spine hearing you say it. He couldn’t imagine getting sick of you in his whole life.  “Yeah, that’s good to hear.” 

You make an indignant noise but it’s silenced quickly as Charles positions himself against your entrance. He has plenty of discipline when it comes to matters like these, but right now - he feels like he’s going to lose his mind. Not nearly enough patience to wait. He lets his hands go up underneath your knees just to have something to hold onto. 

You make a little gasp as the tip of his cock pushes into you. Your walls are so soft, likely after all the orgasms he’d given you prior. You stop him in a shocked gasp, and Charles immediately readies himself to pull out. As if sensing his hesitance, you shake your head. 

“Charles,” You gasp, the words caught in your throat and hoarse “Deep. Want it deep,” 

His abdomen tightens, cocking twitching hard at your words. He agrees silently to your desires. 

When it comes to sex, there’s very little Charles dislikes.

But this is his favorite. He’s simple but no other position lets him see you so close. He likes the way your eyes widen as he pushes up underneath your knees and folds you underneath his weight. How you look pinned down under him, the perfect view of your eyes rolling back into your head and the proximity from your face to his. He lets his cock stretch you out slowly, throbbing each time your nails dig desperately into arms trying to keep your composure. Fuck you feel so tight like that. Soft pussy, dripping and sticky. You suck him in relentlessly, and Charles groans as he bottoms out. You take every inch of him so well. So perfect like the rest of you. 

Your eyes flutter open as he stays there, buried in you in complete bliss. You’re dazed. 

“Kiss?” 

Surprise followed by adoration, he abides by your request easily. Overwhelmed with it as he presses a chaste peck to your mouth, he laughs. “As many as you want.”

Anything you want, Charles thinks, he would give to you. 

.𖥔 ݁ ˖˚☽˚｡⋆

[barrenclan]

Chonny Jash's cover of The Moss seems very patfw-core to me. I think someone's brought it up before but I'd like to specifically point out some of the new/changed lyrics that I think fit

But everything you see isn't everything that is

Every thing you think to be, every thought you can't dismiss

The lives we try to lead and the time we try to give

Well it's all a fallacy, we continue to relive

^ Cats like Pinepaw and Rainhaze's curiosity about what's beyond Barrenclan territory, how cats like Cootstorm try to discourage that type of thinking and how their actions unintentionally lead them to their fates. Also very cyclecore

And every thing will live, just as every thing will die

Every foe that you forgive, and every friend that you deny

Every single first hello, and every single last goodbye

Every smile that you show, every tear that you hide

^ In my head I'm picturing an amv/pmv and for this part I'm very much imagining a sort of slideshow section about contrasts and various events: Barrenclan/Defiance, Rainhaze and Ranger/Rainhaze and Asphodelpaw, Pinepaw and Saturn/Pinepaw and Wild Rose, Slugpelt and Cashew/Slugpelt and Dustfeather. Idk if that makes sense

Well, legend has it that we're all just doomed

And we've ruined our society

Well, legend has it that we dug our tomb

Which we'll lie in for all eternity

^ Barrenclan's whole staying as punishment for their cowardice ideology

Well legend has it that, the world once knew a whole palette of lovely blues and greens

Well legend has it that, our corpses lie a foundation of insincerity

^ what Barrenclan's territory used to be - blue and green - and what it is now - on a foundation of corpses

*Attempts to Jashify Raz* *Attempts to Jashify Raz* *Attempts to Jashify Raz—

I've seen a lot of people in the server talking about Chonny Jash, he seems pretty fun. But if I'm honest, I'm more of a Johnny Cash fan. :P

Ooh, yes! You've targeted me with a TMBG suggestion, I actually went ahead and added "Don't Let's Start" to the playlist but I love this song too.

Even when you're out of work you still have a job to do Even when you don't know what it is Your job knows what it is What it is is it's coming to get you

And when you wake up you can feel your hair grow Crawl out of your cave and you can watch your shadow Creep across the ground until the day is done All the while the planet circles 'round the sun

Haha, that is funny irony. But I agree with you! Isn't it interesting how despite being named that way, "Defiance" doesn't allow any of its members to defy Deepdark?

Compliance We just need your compliance You will feel no pain anymore No more defiance

Fall into line, you will do as you're told No choice fatigue, your blood is running cold We lose control, the world will fall apart Love of your life will mend your broken heart

Will Wood is ever-popular, of course, though I never got really into him. I can see this is as a Pinepaw song!

All nightmares start as dreams and I hear my subconscious screaming They say that beauty's just skin deep So naturally, please show me your

Bones, bones, bones, let me see your bones Well, I don't wanna know if the feeling follows home Bones, bones, bones, hell, we're all alone If I come home, baby, will you show your bones?

They say that beauty's just skin deep So Ana stands and rends the rancid meat from her

Oh... Rainhaze and Slugpelt song.

Are you dead or are you sleepin'? Are you dead or are you sleepin'? God, I sure hope you are dead

Well, you disappeared so often like you dissolved into coffee Are you here right now, or are there probably fossils under your meat?

Defiance song! Spefically, I could see it as from Ranger/broader Defiance's perspective as he navigates the group.

We're at a revolution And we're baying for your blood We're laying down the law And your name's mud

Cause you say you fight for us Cross your heart and hope to die You're the bully in the playground and we'll hang you out to dry

Oh yeah, I remember this song from the IncuriousCat PMV. I like it! "Nowhere King" is also a Deepdark song, so that creepy children's song-esque music does fit with the series. If anyone wanted to edit together a trailer it'd be cool!

Perfect. No notes.

Actually, someone's already made a PMV to the comic with the song! You can check it out here.

I don't think it's been suggested yet! It's a Pinepaw song, of course.

I'll cut my hair (Ooh) to make you stare (Ooh) I'll hide my chest And I'll figure out a way to get us out of here

I can't really think right now and this place Has too many colors, enough to drive all of us insane Are you dead? Sometimes I think I'm dead 'Cause I can feel ghosts and ghouls wrapping my head But I don't wanna fall asleep just yet

[bleue-flora]

For absolutely no reason whatsoever, I feel like we should talk about Limbo. Because it’s a interesting topic with lots of space for theories and perhaps this will help us come back to some common ground of discussion, and be an open enough topic to allow everyone, whether someone who just joined the fandom or has been here for years, to hopefully feel safe and welcome enough to join in and share their thoughts and opinions. Go ahead and use the tag #dsmp limbo so I can see your thoughts, there is no right or wrong answer here.

To start off the discussion, we know the time dilation based on what Wilbur has said is about 30/1 - meaning every 1 second is 30 seconds in limbo, every 2 minutes is 1 hour in limbo, every 48 minutes is 1 day in limbo, every 1 day is a about 1 month in limbo and so on just to give you perspective. We also know based on both what happens in the finale and by what Dream says in the finale, that Limbo changes based on how you die and the circumstances around your death.

Now here are my thoughts at the moment on the matter. While a lot of times I see Limbo in fanfics more personalized to the person killed, one theory I came up with to explain Limbo is that it is actually is more connected to the situation around the death and killer/death.

For example, Schlatt died of a stroke and his limbo then becomes a gym, themeing off the fact of becoming healthy and fit something he wasn’t in life. That lead to his nation being taken over and him not being physically capable to stop it as well as him dying to a stroke, which we are encouraged to believe is caused by his alcoholism.

But I feel like perhaps Schlatt’s is the easiest to connect, Wilbur’s on the other hand is a little weirder. But I think the train station is actually connected to Philza having just arrived, so the relation to travel. Trains are often kept on a schedule to be on time and Philza’s appearance is just in time to kill Wilbur, but too late to stop him from pushing the button.

Mexican Dream’s limbo then reflects more of Dream than of Mexican Dream. With an empty, unfinished nation not unlike how empty and isolated Dream likely felt, as well as angry about nations for being the cause.

This theory becomes a little stronger when looking at Tommy’s 1st Limbo being an existence of basically nothing. And I think this reflects how Dream kinda has nothing at this point. Also relating to how Tommy killed the cat (and am I miss remembering that he also burned his clock?) the only thing(s) Dream had left. It could alternatively relate to an empty stomach adding an element from his death being from the potato.

Rambo’s limbo then connects to Sam for a few reasons, one I think Sam felt very alone in his efforts to keep Dream locked up. Like only he could do it and no one was helping him. It is also similar in the fact that Sam felt so cornered and trapped like killing Ranboo was the only thing he could do, similar to how one would feel stuck on a tiny island surrounded by water that burns. It’s also interesting since for Ranboo, the island is also inescapable like the prison and he is only able to leave when Mexican Dream comes (like Dream only escaping prison when Techno comes), oh and Sam lives on an island too.

Then finally Tommy’s 2nd Limbo I think pretty clearly relates to Tommy asking before he died about why and how Dream saw things, and Dream’s comment of “everything was fine before you came!” so Limbo shows Tommy Dream’s pov at the beginning. Reflecting how Dream feels, his - “I just don’t want to ever be alone.”

Anyways, hopefully that made some sense, those are just some thoughts I have at the moment. Now I wanna hear yours. :) How do you think limbo works? What do you think Punz’s and Dream’s Limbos were? What were Vik’s, Lazar’s and Connor’s Limbos? What do you think would have been Tubbo’s, Techno’s or other character’s Limbos? How was Quackity able to visit Schlatt’s Limbo in the Las Nevadas stream?…

[animeomegas]

HA I must disagree with everyone saying naruto and sasuke are the worst patients. Sasuke grumbles and growls sure, and Naruto is whiny about feeling bad, but I think Shikamaru would be the worst.

Being sick is not the same as resting. The recurrent aches and pains either waking him up or preventing him from falling asleep make him cranky. Fever dreams, even when you can't remember them, make sleep unrestful, he hates waking up overheated or when his feet and hands are chilly or worse yet having all three happen at once.

He's not a picky eater to begin with, but growing up with Chouji and his own mother's cooking, he knows what good food is and suddenly everything tastes wrong? Blasphemous, horrific, having to eat plain food that tastes like nothing? It takes a lot of coaxing and hand feeding to get him to eat something and there's a 50/50 chance he's glaring at you the whole time.

On top of that, it's one thing to scive off work, but suddenly falling ill and ruining his whole productivity plan (with the purpose of bringing the bare minimum at home work smarter not harder lol) stresses him out and Nara HATE being stressed. He dreads having to catch up on things (read working 9 hour days for a week, same). If he can feel himself getting sick, he actually tries to get as much as he can done before he actually has to stay home, which means a really cranky lead up and a horrible first day or two of illness.

Of course, this is not to say that Sasuke in particular is a peach. No, he's also glaring and cranky, but it's not as bad somehow. He will grudgingly allow himself to be taken care of and embrace the excuse for being babied with only nominal protest. He doesn't mind asking for what he wants (with some coaxing) while he's sick which takes some stress off of caring for him. He's also more used to rough living and doing what has to be done to get well again, so somehow I just don't think he'd be as offended as Shikamaru is.

They both hate being sick, but I think Shikamaru is taking it more personally.

Ooooh, an alternate opinion! Shikamaru... interesting.

You are so right that he's cranky though. Shikamaru is always in a FOUL mood when he's sick. He probably goes into work, scowling at everyone. He'd be stomping around if it didn't hurt his head.

And yes, he would for sure just stop eating, that's such a him thing to do. (Although part of me thinks it would be so cute to spoon feed a scowling Shikamaru haha.)

And the workload thing... that's kind of sad, but I think you're right. Shikamaru is so important and does so much work, so he has to catch up once he's better, and having that hanging over him just makes him feel worse. This wouldn't happen to Sasuke because he doesn't give a fuck lol.

While I think Sasuke would be a massive bitch when sick, this was certainly well argued. Shikamaru is certainly a contender for the competition haha.

Thanks for the ask ;) @ikemenomegas

[violetstormms]

FNAF Sun/Moon x Reader MerMay Fics

 MerMay DCA x yn fic list

With Mermay coming to a close I decide to make a list of all the fun fish filled fics I have found so far. Remember to look at the tags and read at your own discretion.

Call of the Abyss by Buligete

archiveofourown.org/works/41191230/chapters/103261704

It was probably all very silly, considering the precarious situation I found myself in, but it really was all I could think about.

Could you really blame me? I never expected to find myself in this kind of a mess. I was not some big shot, thrill seeking space explorer. I was no seasoned freight worker. No avid alien world survivalist. Not even a simple cruise liner flight attendant.

I was a gardener. My feet belonged firmly planted in the soil of a garden world. I had spent my entire life up to now solidly anchored on Earth, and never dreaming of leaving the safety of gravity and atmosphere, despite the increasingly uncomfortable quality of life on the crowded homeworld. Sure, I dreamed of greener pastures. Of fresh air and fertile land. But frontier life and adventures in the big expanse of space? Not quite.

---

A FNAF x Subnautica crossover, about the challenges of survival, surprise friendships with quirky software and alien merfolk, man made horrors beyond our comprehension and unexpected mysteries to be uncovered within the depths.

Below The Surface by Justaduck6432

archiveofourown.org/works/46186750/chapters/116275786#workskin

You aren't what people would call friendly. No. You're not even polite. Much like the salty old sailor who raised you, you're short-tempered and not too social. And that's how you like it.

One day, a dirty-rotten fish steals something important to you. You know better than to tangle with a creature so large and dangerous. But you have little to lose and, by the gods, you're not about to let that smug fish keep what's yours.

Dive into this chaotic tale of merciless mers and our hot-headed protag who has to wrangle them!

Growing Pains by Celticwolfie

archiveofourown.org/works/46891666/chapters/118117984

It was going to be a normal fishing trip. Just a normal hike to the secluded river beach and maybe relax while listening to the forest waking up around you. However, that isn't how things go for you and now you managed to gain the attention of a legendary creature. Now everything seems to be turned on its head. Hopefully, you can adapt to it quickly enough and help these living legends out as their world is starting to shrink around them.

Free Space by omenofthevoid

archiveofourown.org/works/46904299/chapters/118150342

As a Leviathan, you aren't meant for the shallow water which inhibits your growth and keeps you small. You finally move to the Dead Zone, where you hope to be able to grow.

Galaxies, Lost in Ice by StarvingMe

archiveofourown.org/works/45778489/chapters/115203013

(Subnautica/Subnautica: Below Zero AU)

Sun went hunting, and he's been gone for a few days, and so it's up to Moon to drag Sun's Human Scientist Best Friend out into the ocean to find him.

(Leads into romance with aliens, no spice, that'll be a separate work that won't be necessary to enjoy this)

Abyssal Lights by PhoenixDaNeko

archiveofourown.org/works/46600771/chapters/117353191

You used to be powerful. Feared. Vicious. A man-killer. You were one of the most fearsome myths in the sea.

Then, despite everything, you were caught. Stolen from the depths of your home. Your older siblings had always cautioned against going too close to the surface. You wished you'd listened. Captured, placed into barely big enough tanks, traded between rich bastards and unethical scientists. Losing weight, power, sanity, you're beginning to give up, when a mysterious 4 armed... Person (?) comes by.

Who is this metal man, and why is he so interested in you?

My Lungs are Full of You by Xmimi89eR

archiveofourown.org/works/47111743/chapters/118694248

You didn't like the ocean.

The water felt like it would burn (and it does). Your lungs would give out sooner than others and you didn't even know how to swim!

You never asked for this trip, never asked to be here. Yet, here you are, stuck all alone and waiting for rescue that probably would never come.

Or, well, not really alone. The burning gaze of something in the water wouldn't leave you alone.

There Are Many Benefits (To Rethinking This Career Path)  by moonliched

archiveofourown.org/works/47449438/chapters/119573569#workskin

Life is cushy, working on a subterranean research facility on an underexplored ocean planet. As the resident handyman, most of your work takes place underwater - lucky for you, cave diving is your passion. With the building between bi-annual research teams, and the next lot yet to arrive, you find yourself with an excess of free time. All you have to do is fulfil your weekly duties, prepare the facility for the next team of researchers, and relax. Oh, and track down the net that went missing some time ago.

And then you find it.

In a submerged cave.

Trapping a mermaid.

You really wish this wasn't your responsibility.

(Moon thinks he should have listened to Sun and stuck to hunting in warmer waters. Why does this bizarre two-tailed mermaid keep coming at him with sharp instruments?)

Song of the Sea by TheDreamerFae

archiveofourown.org/works/38958630/chapters/97435890

You always loved the tales of Mermaids, of Selkies and of Sirens, of people who lived in the ocean as a child. You remember vividly seeing merfolk, but chalked it up your imagination. But then a boating accident with your grandpa had left you scarred, and you no longer wanted any association with the sea. But life has other plans

INSPIRED BY BAMSARA’S FIC god I love Celestial Omens.

Unusual  by  BlueMoon_13_31

archiveofourown.org/works/47008036/chapters/118422505

Your love for the ocean has sent you all around the world. However, the beaches of your coastal home have always been your favorite. Returning to the cloudy skies along the Pacific, the last thing you expected was to run into two creatures far from their natural habitat.

The Sea Has Always Known Your Name by CleverButDevastating

archiveofourown.org/works/47410663/chapters/119469997

Everyone is so caught up in your expulsion from the ship that they don’t see the pair of dark, sinuous shapes that slip up through the water only half a dozen yards away. No one notices the flashes of vivid yellow and luminous blue, or the intelligent eyes that take in the human spectacle with inhuman curiosity.

No one except you.

Clownfishing by Sujithe2DWaifu

archiveofourown.org/works/47314285/chapters/119220796

A night fishing trip lends itself to a chance encounter with a siren. After unknowingly showing it some kindness, your life is derailed in an extremely bizarre way.

Special thank you to Bug, who puts up with me, and Tobi(@Glambots on Tumblr)-This was originally a short story written in their ask box. While the first chapter will be short, they will get longer, just so you know what you're getting into. ;) Please also remember that I’m still learning and this is my first time posting on Ao3 specifically. I apologize in advance for any formatting issues.

Also warnings for this chapter and future chapters of thalassophobia, megalohydrothalassophobia, ososphobia, injury, body horror, animal death, offscreen minor character death, and something at bare minimum reminiscent of drugging. While these may be removed during the editing process as it currently stands these will apply at some point.

Turquoise Love by Wcat03blu

archiveofourown.org/works/47208670/chapters/118947625#workskin

You finally visit the aquarium by your college and fall absolutely head-over-heels for some celestial mermaids. Then you chill with them a lot :)

Leviathan Storms by TheDreamerFae

archiveofourown.org/works/47008924/chapters/118518967#workskin

Moving back to your old home rims has brought with you a sense of nostalgia of being. Sure most of the time it was cold and rainy but it didn’t make the scene any less beautiful. But a song keeps making itself known to you, and you must find it.

But who would’ve guessed Mers existed?

Bubbly by Robin_Green

archiveofourown.org/works/47513692/chapters/119741380

A little waterlily mer guppy is trapped, home destroyed, and taken to a pet store to be sold. After spending some time living in a fish bowl, our little guppy is saved and moved to a tank that has been dubbed the daycare by the human tending to it. The daycare tank is set up to rehabilitate fish before they are released back into their natural habitats. There our guppy meets Sun and Moon, two fish that live full time in this tank taking care their healing guests.

Sun and Moon and our guppy fall in love and then shit goes down.

Pearl Eye by NaffEclipse

archiveofourown.org/works/47400922

Movement. A mer swims overhead, speaking to someone, blocking out the starlight. The interloper lays a hand on the rim of the entrance but doesn’t look down just yet, and doesn’t see you, red-handed.

Your gut clenches with the urge to flee, your strength already spent in the fight moments earlier, and you heed the warning.

A Sleuth Jesters MerMay Fic

The Sea Jesters are Real Science by MatosaurusRex and sixty_nine13

archiveofourown.org/works/38833821/chapters/97107810

You stare into the glass. At first you see nothing, just a greenish-blue landscape, peaceful and ordinary. There is nothing special about it... Or so you think. As the seconds pass, two figures become more and more visible, slowly growing from two distant dots to two large figures, easily two metres tall. The two creatures stare at you, and you raise your hand, slapping it against the cold glass that holds the creatures trapped. These two beings, which until now had been considered to be legends, raise their hands to clasp yours as well. The most wonderful living beings in the world stand before you, separated by thick glass, suffering every day at the hands of greedy people.

How long will they resist this?

 ((This fic was inspired by Tumblr shenanigans and merMAY! Thank you all for inspiring us to create this <3))

And the Sea Swallowed My Screams by Burnt_Chicken_Lookin_Ass

archiveofourown.org/works/39115788/chapters/97855353#workskin

"Thalassophobia is the persistent and intense fear of deep bodies of water such as the sea, oceans, pools, lakes. [...] Thalassophobia can include fear of being in deep bodies of water, fear of the vast emptiness of the sea, of sea waves, aquatic creatures, and fear of distance from land."

You are a freelance diver. You are hired to perform difficult dives for item retrieval, research, and/or maintenance checks in less than safe underwater environments. Rule of thumb is to never dive alone; you live by that religiously. Hardly will you ever do a job without your diving partner: Iris. You have a deep seated fear of the open ocean, so if you cant see the bottom of a given body of water, then you simply wont go in.

One day, you receive a job from Fazbear inc. to retrieve the body of an employee at the request of their family. They had drowned when a company ship they worked on had spontaneously combusted and subsequently sank. The company is willing to pay big hush money to keep both the family and your retrieval team from mentioning the wreckage for some reason.

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Looking for more stories? I have a list of DCA stories sorted by type here https://www.tumblr.com/violetstormms/710457016218435584/sunmoon-fnaf-fanfic-recommendation-list   (or my pinned comment if you don’t like clicking links)

Also if you have any recommendations please leave a comment, its always fun finding new fics. :)

[platinumrosetail]

Yandere Seth x fem reader.Warning: Seth was devastated after witnessing his wedding to a fem reader. They kill her in front of him. Later that day, Seth ends up being killed anyway. Horus regrets that he could not save his sister and uncle from Osiris. He himself buries their bodies. Some time later, the reincarnated fem reader meets Seth's reincarnation again at college and meets him again years after finishing college. Both without remembering their past lives, they do not know who the other was to them. Afterwards they continue meeting again and in the end they fall in love as in their past life. But the reader, who began to remember her past life, decides to walk away, because she knows that they ended up dying because of her. In addition to possibly repeating that ending if she continues with it, she leaves one night and breaks up with Seth via text. What the fem reader does not know is that Seth began to remember his past life, which leads him to search for her. So much so that when he finds her, he chases her throughout a shopping center. She tries to escape by taking a train, but Seth ends up catching up to her in the end. However, after a few days, Seth would see her die again.

Another scenario taken from Korean kdramas, like a stairway to heaven. Sorry if the protagonist becomes Horus' sister again and ends up dying and abandoning Seth, I have a lot of trauma with protagonists like that. I'll look forward to it.

Ooooh interesting, I’ll try my best! 😁

Warning: noob author, female reader, yandere romantic character, and others.

Character: Seth.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Your and Seth’s wedding was going great as it has everything you two wanted for it until when you were walking down the isles of the alter. You were killed by flora going straight through your body some even sprouting out of your body and around like it’s trying to encase you and make you disappear.

Seth was devastated to see who was supposed to be his wife minutes later die right in front of his eyes, he immediately knew who it was from what killed you. Seth did all that he could to possibly bring you back but sadly what he did never worked he even tried remaking you from bits of his life force plus the life forces that was still in your body but it ended with him using too much and dying in the end.

Horus ended up having to bury both of you after you both had passed, he made the tomb just for you out of the powers of king of Egypt so that you two could always be together even after death. He knew that it was all his fathers fault that you and Seth had died and made the big decision of taking care of Osiris for both of you, but before he did that he intertwined you and Seth’s fate so that you two could meet and have a better life together than this one without the interference of Osiris and his obsession with Seth.

You had reincarnated into the modern time without any of your past life’s memories so you never knew that you were previously a god. You were a college student when you met a red hair gentleman that also went to your college.

You two crossed each other a few times after that until you graduated from college with the degree you wanted and after that you haven’t seen him since then.

You started getting strange memories after meeting him afterwards, at first you thought it was just silly dreams but the more it happened the more you started to think it was something like memories rather than dreams, you’ve decided to write down your dreams to see if there’s any meaning behind them and such.

Seth; the red haired man you met while you were in college, had the same dream as you but in another perspective, he realized sooner that these were memories especially after seeing you in them as well.

You two met again while at a cafe , apparently getting the same thing and thought that one of the orders was yours. You two finally decided to start staying in contact since you two always seem to run into each other, soon enough you two started dating but that’s were the dreams kept coming in constantly before a repeat of the same dream started happening.

The dream was where you were in the wedding dress and walking down a wedding alter but before you could get to it you’ve kept getting killed by flora that shot up from the ground, there was always the same people along with Seth who was at the end of the alter he always seem to be the most affected by what was happening to you each time you look at the guests at your supposed ‘wedding’.

You started to distance yourself once you got the full picture of what had happened in your previous life, your paranoia had began making scenarios if you kept seeing Seth so you decided to break it off after a month of you two being together over text as you wanted to leave without feeling even more guilty than you already do.

Seth didn’t know what to think when he got your text about breaking up with him but he knew that he needs to go after you so that you don’t get hurt or killed again. Thankfully he made it in time to catch you before you leave, he made a whole scene that you felt pressured to agree to get back with him which caused everyone there to applaud not knowing that they shouldn’t have done that if they knew and believed in the situation you’re in.

Sadly that ended real soon when while eating a salad together, flora began to grow out of you from your mouth before it covered you entirely. You both immediately knew who had done this before you died in Seth’s arms once more.

(A/n: ok i know the ending was weird but i felt walking in nature might’ve been cliche plus i didn’t know what else besides eating sunflower seeds. Anyway hoped y’all liked it! And hope y’all have a wonderful day/evening/night!!)

[foster-the-world]

Such different ideas

I follow Rebecca of Fosterhood on Twitter. I assume I am not the only one who remembers her? She was the single foster mom who adopted two girls very close in age from foster care. When I was looking into foster care I was pretty obsessed with her post. One of the adoptions took seven years and it sounds like their agency was especially terrible/invasive. Although she didn’t always come off great in all of her stories but who does??

Anyway they are on a fancy vacation in the Cayman Islands. She posted a picture of them sitting on a terrace eating a fancy breakfast. She said something about how she would worry about spoiling them but because they are foster to adopt kids they deserve a soft life. Interesting concept but nothing I’ve ever thought. I know her older daughter was more traumatized by foster care because she had visits and uncertainity for seven years. My kids were both three when adopted. They never had to deal with any uncertainties. Foster care was annoying for us as parents but not hard on my kids day to day life. Anyway maybe that’s the difference.

I do worry about spoiling my children - they have things I could never have dreamed of as a kid. Our financial situation is better then my parents so that trickles down to the kids. I love traveling so my kids have done more trips then a vast majority of adults. I travel hack and we prioritize over other things but still can only do it because we are very privileged. We have decided the benefits of travel out weigh the downsides of “spoiling” them. We’ve actively avoided the schools where the student population is very well off because they are never diverse but also because we want economic diversity. And again privileged to have another public school option. We don’t want our kids to think everyone is rich and white/asian - which is a nyc problem because the economic disparity is so high. So we worry about spoiling them and in some ways do but its unrelated to their adoption status. I would never think well it’s okay if Bee/baby boy gets something fancy but not Rebel.

We totally acknowledge the loss of adoption. That loss is multiplied when you are adopted outside of your culture. We will do what we can (therapy, relationships with bio family, living in diverse areas) to help them through those things. And also I think recognize there is no “getting through” such a big loss. Our kids can have wonderful lives and still always have to live with what it means to lose your birth parents. They will have to grapple with that and decide what it means to them. That’s not something a fancy vacation is going to make up for. Obviously Fosterhood wasn’t implying it would but still didnt sit right with me. I also don’t think of my adopted kids as victims that deserve repayment. It’s something they will have to deal with but everyone has something they have to work with. The loss that comes with adoption is a big one, no doubt, but they aren’t the only ones who have to deal with big loss. Anyway guess I’m just grappling myself with balancing recognizing my children’s loss without making it define them. In the end I mostly know it has nothing to do with what I think. As they grow they will decide what being adopted means to them and we will follow their lead.

[midnight-in-town]

About Casca, it’s me or are they keeping her “jailed” and busy in a way that’s nothing like her ? It’s as if Griffith doesn’t remember what his ex right hand is all about… don’t get me wrong, I know he can’t give her a sword, but pretty dresses, calm days, making flower crowns with kids, who is he even kidding?

Hey Anon! Well I more or less agree but, as you said, Griffith drugged Casca so she wouldn't escape, so what else is there to do? x) At least she can go outside and see the sun...

That being said, reading the chapter, it really made me remember episode 72 during the Golden Age, when tortured!Griffith imagined what his life as Casca's companion would be:

Back then, powerless as he was after being tortured so much, he realized his dream became unachievable. Since he knew Casca used to have feelings for him and hearing that she couldn't leave him behind in such a state, he dreadfully imagined what his life would become, driven by (what he imagined was) Casca's wishes. Of course, that scared the hell out of him and he chose to become Femto soon after.

Now, in ep372, it really seems to me that it's the other way around: powerless and drugged, Casca is experiencing what Griffith's dream is all about and what life she might have had, if she had clung onto his dream like she used to do.

With Falconia, Griffith almost managed to get his kindgom, even if he still needs to wed Charlotte to get the official crown.

So if the Eclipse hadn't happened and Casca had remained by Griffith's side, like an obedient right hand woman who used to have feelings for her leader, it's likely that she would have become an honorable lady living in the castle, especially since women who are warriors a rare feat in Berserk (which btw caused Casca some feminity issues in the past).

Obviously though, that's all imaginary because the reality depicted in ep372 is pretty different from the Golden Age. As we know, Griffith became Femto and sacrificed the very people who always believed in him ; also Casca has feelings for Guts and is now Griffith's prisoner but...

...she was indeed abducted because she's indispensable to the realization of his dream, because Griffith wants to keep a good and tighter grasp over his own vessel, the moonlight child, so I find it's a cool parallel.

TL;DR what Casca is currently experiencing against her will and drugged in ep372 is probably what her life could have been like...

...if Guts hadn't made her realize that she didn't have to live by clinging onto another person's dream.

All that being said, I'm really hoping that Casca will soon get her agency back, because she deserves it and because I know she's capable of protecting herself without Guts necessarily being around, even if for that, she's going to need allies... :)) (see below)

Sorry for rambling Anon, but I hope it helps ! Have a nice day. :))

Hey Anon! Well, don't worry, there are always several possibilities !

Casca could manage to escape the castle for a short time and to come across them for example, even if I agree it's hard to imagine it now, seeing as she's drugged.

Personally, my favorite idea is the castle needing new maids and one of the girls getting hired as a replacement, seeing "Elaine" again and wondering why she's without Guts.

Or, considering that Daiba gave them diamonds when Rickert and co left Falconia, they probably don't have to work anymore...

...so maybe they will get a glimpse of "Elaine" as a (drugged) court lady (during Griffith and Charlotte's wedding ?) and wonder why she's there, thus getting hired as maids to get in touch with her?

Either way, I think it's very likely that Luca and the rest of the girls will be Casca's first allies and will help her overcome the whole 'being drugged' obstacle. :))

As for other possible allies at a later time, I discussed it a few years ago here, but I'm interested in Casca's presence in Falconia maybe acting as a catalyst leading to more development for Zodd, Sonia & Mule but also and mostly Charlotte.

Indeed, as a fan of the few interactions we had between Casca and Charlotte back during the Golden Age (because on this blog, we dislike competition between women and support women bonding over similar goals), I'm really hoping that Charlotte will eventually realize, upon seeing Casca, that the man she loves is an absolute monster and that, as a result, she will find it in her to step up as the rightful monarch of this kingdom.

We've still got some looong ways to go before we reach this point though, obviously.

I hope it answers your question, have a nice day Anon!

[justlarkin]

Continuation: The reason why Monomasa wanted to talk to MC was because he was hoping that they'd be able to convince Drovain to absorb the rest of him because Drovain will die if he doesn't. MC isn't really down with this request because their job is to observe heroes' dreams and Drovain's dream is for Monomasa to be able to come out and finally live his life without being controlled by others. Asking Drovain to give up on his dream would go against their job and, quite frankly, Drovain seems to care more about Monomasa's wellbeing than his own, so he wouldn't be down with it regardless. Monomasa and Drovain are both eventually going to be screwed if this doesn't happen though, unless MC pulls some shenanigans, so MC has some stuff to think about.

Danzo was actually listening to their conversation, so in the morning when he sees MC internally stressing about the situation, he decides to distract them from it by being obnoxious, which is nice of him imho.

Galvo finally ends up remembering that he's actually heard about an observer named MC from Exio. About them being a Unique, bringing back Mt. Fuji, that their power and skill are a mess, but they're on their way to becoming something... which shouldn't be possible since that all occurred in the present world and MC should be the only MC present. Exio would also tell Galvo that he couldn't meet MC when he asked about it. Exio was telling others about how based and OP MC is, ain't that sweet? Or ominous? Why not both? It's interesting how much he divulged to Galvo since he's usually so secretive, even around Seiichiro and his gang. MC wasn't even something he would have to mention at any point since Galvo didn't know about them, it was unprompted. Maybe Exio feels comfortable mentioning the things going on in the present world to him because he figured that it was a separate world and nothing would come from it if he knew. I'm choosing to believe he just uses Galvo to vent and traumadump on because he doesn't want to pay for therapy.

So anyways, the gang comes to the conclusion that Galvo's Exio and their Exio are most likely the same guy and bro has been using his power to world hop or that Galvo's Exio and their Exio have been communicating. According to Monomasa, this seems to line up with Exio making random schedule changes as if he knew the future, which would be possible if he already experienced these events in other worlds or if he's getting a heads up from someone.

The current objective is to flip Exio's bricks and get back to their own world, and by extension Danzo can back to his master. MC starts getting the feeling that Seiichiro's order for Danzo to protect MC might be getting in Danzo's way, which seems to be true since he seems to be hindered in battle while protecting them. MC can finally understand what Monomasa meant by Drovain being incomplete and weaker while he's around.

MC ends up talking about feeling bad for getting in Danzo's way, which Danzo "nuh uhs", and this leads to a conversation about the relationship and trust between heroes and operators, trust being a two-way street for them. Galvo asks MC who is that ideal hero that they can put their trust in and the game makes you choose between Akashi, Mokdai, and Sui. As you can see, it's red, so this option is important and the game WILL REMEMBER it for later. I would've picked Sui, but went with Akashi since I know that from a narrative point, Akashi is the one who desires MC's trust and faith the most.

Galvo requests that MC put the same trust they'd put in that chosen hero in all of them for now and work together. Monomasa seems to take his words into consideration, so maybe they'll work things out between Drovain and Monomasa at some point with a collaboration of some sort. Galvo then suggests that MC just order Danzo around, so they won't feel like a hindrance to him and, you know, teamwork, which both of them go along with.

They get to the place Exio and Galvo crashed, so that MC can try to open up a path to their world, but they discover that the area is too unstable to do so. Danzo shows them that the facility stats Grigory showed them earlier are waaay over what they should be and ominously says something that can be summarized as "we're probs boned" before the screen statics out.

[tinylongwing]

For the top 5/top 10 meme: top character arcs!

Oh jeez! Okay this is awesome, let me dig deep into my brain. Also there's no way I remember every character arc I've ever witnessed so this is just gonna be the first good ones that come to mind, haha.

For my Lord Huron folks, I'm going with Lee Green as one answer. Girl!! You champion! Takes off on her own to try and make a career work for herself in the big city of Los Angeles after bailing on 1960s Detroit and her loser boyfriend. Winds up hooked on vide noir while in the clutches of Z'Oiseau who basically just collects pretty girls as temporary trophies because he's some fucking cosmic horror creep I guess, but somehow she gets out of that? Kicks her addiction, takes back her stage name and releases multiple albums and lives her dreams. Lee, how did you manage this when basically every other character winds up dead or suffering or missing. Good heavens.

And no okay I can't resist, I'm putting another LH-er in here because my boy Johnnie Redmayne is too ridiculous. Is this even a character arc? Yes. Kid lives a life of joyous violence and hedonism in a gang, risk-taking coupled with a need to support his friends and family monetarily leads to his kidnapping and murder, but then he's like fuck that, death sucks! I don't want to die, that's boring and also getting murdered via cosmic horror drug overdose is a real big nightmare which probably unlocked some really terrible secrets he'd rather not reflect on. Nope, better to just come back, now undead, out of sheer stubborn refusal to accept death! That's way cooler. Party on, haunting desert travelers forever. Child, you're doing great and I support you.

Okay, One Piece is also like ridiculously chock full of amazing characters with the world's most unnecessarily fleshed out and traumatizing backstories, and everyone who knows me knows that I'm very much here for Trafalgar Law. Yeah yeah, and Rosinante, but look, Law is the actual major character here who grows so much as he sees his whole world burning down around him as a child, goes from self-destructive and nihilistic to learning to trust and love people again to the point where he will always put himself in harm's way before even letting anyone touch a hair on his crew's heads. Such a wholesome goth. So much found family.

Having relatively recently watched Twin Peaks (FINALLY I know) I have to put Dale Cooper in here. This is not a positive character arc, this is a man whose joy and brilliance and successes against some really dark forces led him to thinking he was capable of anything in the pursuit of justice and truth. Turns out that was probably wrong! Whoops! And now he's possibly doomed? Look, the ending of Twin Peaks is massively open-ended but Cooper is very much a deeply tragic character and I'm kind of obsessed with tragedy and bad endings.

And I'm going to stop at five or I'll never get any work done, so fifth here will be.... hm. You know what, Seo-bi from Netflix's Kingdom. I can't get enough of characters in a scientific or medical sort of role in period dramas, I think that's very very good (and Goodsir from The Terror was a very near fifth choice here for some similar reasons). But I love Seo-bi in particular because she has knowledge, she uses it, she perseveres despite so many challenges including politics and also literal zombies, and the show continually throws a couple of characters at her that look like they're supposed to be love interests and she's always like NO! Fuck off! I'm doing important medical work here, I have no time for kissing!!! And that's very powerful of her and I love that for her so much. I'm sad that this series appears to be on hold maybe forever now.

[huellitaa]

ྀི ୨ embarrassment ୧ ྀི

...is a social construct designed to make us feel bad by those who cant handle their own mistakes & or shortcomings.

seriously. like. it baffles me how people are still living in the mindset where they let embarrassment become anything more for them than a concept.

୨୧ embarrassment

- a feeling of self-consciousness, shame, or awkwardness.

embarrassment is perfectly normal. it happens to everyone because we all make mistakes. but some people let embarrassment and the fear of embarrassment consume them and the choices they make far too much, far too often.

♡ which leads me onto my first point; it is completely normal. everybody makes mistakes. this is our first time in this life and we are all learning & growing with our every choice, every action, every decision <3 remember that the next time youre panicking and freaking out because you made a mistake.

♡ its never that deep. i like to try be gentle w this stuff but lemme tell u straight no one actually cares . im serious,, like babes no one gives a shit honestly 😭😭 and your mentality should be the same. people remember this stuff n laugh for 5 mins and then theyre back to their life. and if they hang on to it for longer then theyre the one who should be embarrassed.. get a life pls??

♡ similar to what i said a moment ago , its. never. that. deep. laugh it off !!!!! giggle !!!!!! laugh about it !!!!!!!! nobody cares !!!!!! this shows that it doesnt faze you and this shows how confident you are within yourself that you dont let silly little mistakes bother you because they do not matter.

♡ when it comes to your interests, please never be embarrassed about these. this is something ive struggled with since i was little but never never never be embarassed of the things that bring you joy. if they arent hurting anyone and are perfectly okay you should never be embarrassed ab that. it makes you happy. why should you be ashamed of that for someone else???🩷

♡ has someone ever said something to you? made u doubt urself? then you get embarrassed ab it???? dont. do not even go there. i ws so insecure before (i know😭😭) and couldnt hold a single opinion for myself but when you know who tf you are you wont be doubting yourself for anyone ml.

♡ so... you wanna pursue your dreams but ur too embarrassed. ur too embarrassed and worried "what if this doesnt work" "what if it doesnt happen" n whatever other dumb shit ur worried abt and scared to outgrow your surroundings and evolve. wow. you know how silly that sounds? so.. like.. let me get this straight... youre telling me... that youre not doing what you love... for the sake of someone else or some silly little doubts????wow. you get one life n youre doing that. GET IT TOGETHER BABES. GET REAL. WHY WOULD U SABOTAGE URSELF LIKE THAT????? YOURE WORTH SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT LIKE 😭😭🩷🩷🩷🩷

♡ understand that peoples perceptions of you are often reflections of themselves just like your perceptions of others are often reflections of yourself. they think its embarrassing because they know for a fact deep down that theyd be too embarrassed and self conscious to do it themselves.

♡ and then watch the way they'll all come crawling back apologising and grovelling the moment you're rich and successful and got everything you ever wanted.. all because you had the confidence to trust in yourself and pursue what you wanted without listening to their self doubts. <3

♡ reverse psychology. "why r u doing that" "thats so cringey" why r u so wrapped up in my business? thats so cringey

♡ overall, confidence, strong self concept & trusting in your ability to bounce back from anything are the three main things that will never let you wallow in this silly little emotion again. embarrassment is like a pitiful, more insignificant, ridiculous version of fear. if ur gonna be scared then b scared of something worth ur time babe ur more than that <33

[dollgutssss]

hypnotic film opus

୨ৎ Choso is a hypnotic experience that stimulates all the vital organs. 𝄢۫.ࣨ. ݁

gummo apnea series. + rockstar! au choso (actually, he and his trashy band)

warnings — mentions of cinematographic violence, somewhat violent thoughts, religion (just a bit), first-person narration, honestly, this sucks, implied/referenced drug use. are more ramblings than anything else anddd fem OC

HAD SEEN "CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST" for the first time after seeing the T-shirt of a character from the Spanish movie "Tesis" and my stomach was not in the best state. The feeling was familiar to me: the typical anxious nausea when waking up in the morning or the taste after some unpleasant event that makes me aware of my internal organism. The important thing is that it was late spring, the power had gone out in the Audiovisual Faculty and the generator was not working due to overheating. Walking to the main auditorium was a torture because, every time I saw a person, I imagined them impaled like on the cover of that disgusting movie. So, everything around had a strange vibe like when one wakes up at six o'clock on Sundays after a supposed half-hour nap that stretched to seven. My stomach moved, one of its walls did and I thought about going back home, but I could not miss the presentation of the photozine or video art in which I signed as a collaborator in art direction and costume, and also, where I posed in some shots.

Many times, as I walked along, I wondered what the point was —specifically, the second film I saw—. What was the need? Why was it so disgusting? What was the point of making such a film? It occurred to me in between musings, at the entrance to the auditorium, that it was supposed to feel disgusting. It was meant to be something difficult to watch as if you got a merit out of it. I was meant to end the film feeling dizzy and nauseated. As dazed as if someone had shaken me hard by the shoulders and yelled as loud as they could directly into my ear as if in a fever dream. That kind of footage had no comfort, no soothing or melancholy effect even in misery. It just drained me by making big gashes.

In the main auditorium of the faculty there was electric light and everything worked well, since it had a system detached from that of the building. The place had been rented for a few hours to a group of students for the presentation. Inside, everything is dark except for the abstract play of cold lights and the big screen with the cover of the photozine. Behind me, there were still people entering or leaving. I took off my headphones as I walked a little further in because I wasn't even paying attention to The Police song that had been playing for about 4 minutes anyway. When I took my cell phone out of my pocket, its light was annoying to my eyes. Also annoying was the low battery I had left in the device and my poor ability to recognize people was still bothering my bones —I was waiting to greet the team I collaborated with and go sit down—.

"Bekka, I thought you wouldn't make it. Here, these three are from the first batch of photozines."

"Woah, thanks" I say as I flip through the first few pages without stopping to look at each photograph. Not because I had no interest, but because the colored light wouldn't let me visualize, so, long story short, I stuffed the three photozines into the cloth bag. Maki looked busy leading the others, her hair looks straighter than usual and it looks like she painted her hair roots again. "I'll go sit over there. Good luck."

The hours were not good. It wasn't crowded like a local fair, but even that was pretty good for a small college project. Maki glances at me a couple of times before I leave to find a seat. I should be next to her during the presentation on the screen. But I had asked that they not put my name in the credits. Not even a pseudonym.

Is it some form of self-sabotage?

I didn't know.

I've been living like this my whole life. I remembered the movie again. I climbed the steps, to go to the upper seats, my foot feeling my way up, afraid to jump a step because of the darkness. It's in no one's best interest to sit upstairs if I wanted to pay close attention to the video art, but I remembered there was an electrical outlet on the seat to the left and I needed to charge my cell phone battery.

Someone was sitting there. I sat down next to him, without any embarrassment. The truth is that I hadn't seen him until I was already very close, so I had no choice. I turned to see him, unable to stand the slightest curiosity to know the identity of the person and then I realized that I actually already knew him: Choso Kamo, bassist of an underground rock band of which I momentarily forgot the name. Well, at that moment I didn't know him. Know is a deep word and, actually, I hadn't exchanged a single word with him before. I had gone to some of his band's shows, when they played in open garages, basements —my most beloved basement parties, where everything looked like it was going to fall apart if we jumped around too much and where I dreamed of finding a catacomb when I opened the washing machine, but in reality I was just really drunk— and those kinds of places. They were various college bands, quite a few and of all kinds. Choso's was one of many, though a bit more «popular» - in the most underground sense possible, if that's possible - because of their vocalist: a rich kid, like so many around here, but surprisingly good-looking. Good-looking like a husky. Choso, on the other hand, was pretty as an owl that looks sideways at three in the morning or as a puppy you kick by chance and with whom you have to apologize every time you remember that event because you think he doesn't understand you.

The latter were assumptions I had. I was surprised to see him at the photozine presentation.

"Can you charge my cell phone in the outlet next to me," I asked him. He was charging his cell phone too, it was obvious from the seat he had chosen. Choso looks at me out of the corner of his eye, or so I thought, the darkness and the purple and blue tones didn't allow me to notice it for so long.

He doesn't say anything, he just sees my hand outstretched slightly at his side, which holds the cell phone and my charger. His pale fingers take my things and then his dark eyes analyze me, he is vague, tired. Two eyes like little black olives or the eight ball in pool. I never played pool. I don't eat olives often either, only green ones.

"I think your hand is stained." Choso points from his seat to the back of my hand. I was a little surprised that he noticed it. He didn't say a word before and then seemed to analyze something about me.

"It's a scorch mark. It's in the shape of Czechoslovakia."

"Czechoslo... What?"

His confused face coincides with the start of the music and the microphone test.

"Czechoslovakia."

It was a little weird. I didn't imagine him impaled in the middle of a jungle, but my stomach was still churning and I felt a need to sink four fingers under my ribs to move the order of my organs a bit. Kind of a silly feeling. It reminded me of all the times I felt a lack of wisdom, as if I had been born with nothing special. I turned to look at him again because I sensed he was sending me neurological signals and only the hairs on my left arm —the side where he was— twitched.

The projector turned on to play the video art and slides. Our faces changed color in the light.

"I've seen you before," he commented, nonchalant. His tied-back hair gave a coolness.

"I haven't."

"But I've seen you seeing me."

"Do you remember all the people you see when you walk down the street?"

"But it was in Fushiguro's basement."

"I was just teasing you. I'm Bekka."

"I know. I'm Choso."

"I know your name."

"It seemed appropriate to say it."

He had a je ne sais quoi. Or I did. He pursed his lips softly, as if he was holding back from saying something half-heartedly because he didn't want to smile anyway. His nose and lips reminded me of Japanese shoegaze and his eyes of protopunk fibers: though they seemed affable and bored, there was a hint of hostility, as if he wasn't used to talking to people he didn't know. Unclassifiable. A bit confrontational. In everything there is movement. It disturbs me, I can suddenly feel every last nerve and it's kind of annoying in a bad and good way.

"Oh... You appear there," he points. His shirt was light and suddenly I was more aware of myself and my bony wrists.

The big screen photograph was not a perfectly staged scene. Maki's tastes and mine were beautiful messes, so the goal was that; decadence and anonymity, ignorance as the seed of happiness, patience as an anti-value. Seeing myself, in a photograph projected to scale, is like trying to learn to live again and I didn't like that. But the elements were carefully placed: my figure in the corner of the room, unbathed, short tank top that showed my nipples, white underwear that looked dirty and half yellowed. Actually, I was sitting in a lot of dirty clothes. I had the chubby bulldog of one of my classmates next to me, my hair was dirty and in my lap was a wilted aster flower with missing petals.

The title of the photograph: «Philocalia»

Choso looked. I know he looked for quite a while as there was more silence than usual.

"Geto's neighbor also has a bulldog" Choso spoke suddenly, but his eyes were still fixed on the screen.

"Does he really?"

"Yes. It's called Cannibal Holocaust."

"You're kidding me."

"I don't know how to joke," he replied with some embarrassment, shrugging his shoulders. "I'm serious."

"I saw the movie before I came to college today and it was the worst mistake of my life."

"Cannibal Holocaust is a movie?"

"Ah, you weren't kidding."

I laughed.

Her ears turned red almost instantly. Conversations felt fast every time they started as if, milliseconds after he closed his mouth, I already had an answer on the tip of my tongue and vice versa. I looked at him for a few seconds, long enough for him to have seen me blink uncomfortably about three times and still not feel strange, quite apart from the fact that his body automatically stopped breathing. So, he had to think about it five more times.

Even everything about the video art felt like a cheap excuse of time, a divine being or invisible threads for him to finally talk to me. Or for me to talk to him. I spoke to him first. So it was Choso's wish, time's favorite, Buddha, God, invisible threads, red ribbons, destiny.

Our encounters escalated from that day, I'm afraid to say. I don't know to what extent or how intimate we became. It felt like Motion Picture Soundtrack, maybe from minute 2:15, in the solitude of the room. Or maybe something from the beginning, when he sang the cheap sex and sad films part, because it summed up my daily life when I used to rot in the guest room and never in my own. I went to a few shows of his band, invited by him and maybe we talked more about Riot grrrl, and he looked more punk rock and I looked more Bikini Kill style, or a Bikini Kill cover that sounded much worse with narcotics on top while I pissed with the cubicle door open, sleepy eyes and his figure on his back, pouring the last of them into the urinal. Every time he opens his mouth I am reminded of something —the least bit violent— in constant rupture, like tearing his dress to cover the bleeding, slowly ripping out the page of an adult magazine - and we are both adult enough now to keep referring to that magazine in a "formal" childlike manner— to make notes and counts of money earned and spent over the legs of a girl who resembled Belle de Jour.

Somehow or other, people change. Choso was no exception. But, I was already used to his screeching guitar and the bad trip feeling I got from his shaky voice over video call. I had already learned and gotten used to being a poor college student, living the dog years: going from a domestic one raised with sticks and strings around my neck to a street one scavenging and kicked out of every place, where every day is an unfruitful jam.

"My mother once told me something stupid, like I shouldn't hang out with people who didn't have parents or didn't know them. Because they would wilt me," I once remarked, lying on my stomach on his bed, dissecting flowers and crushing them in old books. He was sitting on the floor, next to the freshly laundered carpet, his chin on the edge of the bed, watching. Watching. "I don't even know my dad, so I think she was just trying to curse me out."

His eyes were lighter because the sun was shining full in his face.

"That's kind of a weird way of putting it. Her mouth dropped open, wanting to say something else. He hadn't slept that day so he teared up because of that, or maybe something else. I close the book and place a heavier one on top. I settled a little to reach for it. "You shouldn't remember stuff like that." he says.

"Hmm, well, who knows."

Children of the same inflorescence. The first four-legged, four-armed human in the month-long introductory philosophy class. The anatomy of the hug, interrupted mitosis, Siamese twins, two mirrors, the two for one deals on cans of booze at 7-Eleven. I liked watching him. It's different. My skin gets like a chicken's. Phobic. Tense. He formed the basis of my love, but I wasn't willing to accept it.

Sometimes I felt that he looked at me and touched me in a way that I knew he wasn't meant for me. That I didn't deserve him. Something stored in my blood, flesh and bones - and maybe even in my adrenal gland - wasn't rejecting him, but my brain was. A personality and low self-esteem where I constantly felt undeserving of good things and at the same time, I hated waiting for good things. I hated the glazed path to happiness. I felt I was doing the good thing, the right thing. It grows like mold. Inside me. There is no calm, because I feel all the movement of life. My organs, my feelings, the words in my mind. The wind in the dusty curtains, the dead insects on the pooled water, the dirty water flowing from the sink. And, as I was saying, sometimes he looked at me and didn't touch. Sometimes he touched me and didn't look. He probes the skin like a mole in the dirt.

When I looked at him, he almost never looked away. People walked, stumbled, laughed. Everyone moved. I move, my strands, my glands. He oxygen did, does and will cycle. I never knew how to write. I never knew how to pick movies well either. But, even when he had a bored expression, I could guess the feeling of longing creeping into his mind. The vision of him cemented itself in me. "Seeing him" suddenly became "The seeing of him," solid, so it entered hard through my eye, like a pebble in the first breeze off the street after the hangover and that one, the pebble, broke through some ocular membranes to settle inside me: to make it almost as basic a need.

We didn't usually talk about it. But one occasion, when he stayed at my house after a party, he cornered me.

"What exactly are we?"

"Why do you ask that?"

"Because you kiss me for free." His voice was soft, calm. I could only see his head, because he was still hiding his body behind the bathroom door. Maybe he was still a little drunk, but his voice has always been sleepy by nature, a tired inheritance. I laugh at the expression used. He frowns and presses his forehead to the cold slab. "And I know some things about you that I don't think your friends know."

"Like what?" I asked as I sorted through some of the music albums he had given me the previous weeks. I didn't look at him. He tended to hide more behind the bathroom door the more I scanned with my eyes.

"You like to sleep with your face pressed against the wall."

"I just want to suffocate at night."

"You don't like to go to the bathrooms alone, you prefer the cubicle door to be open and see someone nearby."

"I thought you were high enough to remember that."

"You cried, Bekka."

His eyes were like puddles into which someone or something had to jump for the tears to fall. He has always been someone quite sensitive, though he didn't seem so at first glance; but I had said it before: he's like a puppy kicked by accident. My heart dropped. I'd only ever seen him that way with his younger siblings. So I was rethinking what I was meaning to him so far.

"It's not a big deal, I just panic in small, enclosed places, kind of like claustrophobia, but it only happens to me with cubicles."

I closed the windows and pulled down the blinds. He pretended he had washed his face to dry the tears that no longer came out for that moment. His bass case rested on the door of the small closet. The light bulb was yellow from moth dust. The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer logo flashed on the screen as he stood next to me, the lion's roar reminding me of my childhood making me tear up a little. Why was I sensitive?

"Why were you interested in me?" I asked as I took off my stockings. It's been a while since I took off my slippers. His mouth half-opens and buries his nose in my shoulder. I could feel him wet my T-shirt with his body, as he had bathed in the rusty Spanish shower in the room.

His eyes look at my mouth.

"You were the one who kissed me first."

"I kiss with my friends at parties."

"But..."

"It's a lie." I didn't used to be a fan of showering kisses all over my face. I didn't have the patience for it much before. He frowned upward, an expression of complaint and I had no choice but to quickly kiss his cheek and then down near his chin and finally his lips. "It's a lie."

I was never used to love tokens. I've meditated on it many times. I pondered it more when I began to have whatever it was between Choso and me during that time. His anxious face, his wet mouth and chapped lips... He was quick to lose his head when it came to physical affection. He had been hostile and difficult to deal with beyond simple, quick conversations at first, but he always had a full, fleshy heart, like a fleshy fruit of premature birth. I marveled at him, in constancy. Although, when I first noticed it, I had been mean —quite a bit— thinking of turning him into a lust puppet. But it remained only a thought, something intrusive like an injection. The way his fingers used to curl around my shirt, blouse or jacket, every time I kissed him in the privacy of his room or mine, the way he asked permission for everything when it came to me and underwear of questionable taste. I learned many things from him, feeding myself, sipping any small trace of purple stillness: caressing his face with my fingertips, slowly, patiently; taking things slow was not in my inventory if my body was a sack and his hand was the one that opened me up and saw my bloody interior, used to the quick, anonymous, short life. Too short.

"That time, when I saw you, your hair was matted," he said, hugging me, the movie in the background and my fingers buried in his loose, black hair. "And a bruised knee from a blow."

"Yes, I fell coming to the party because Megumi didn't warn me about the extra step at the entrance."

Choso smiled shyly over my shoulder, though his eyes were still the same, but more affable and three months older. He's done that before, or never did. It provoked me to watch all the naughty movies to leave only the good stuff for him, like a meticulous and destructive selection for the formation of a solid and impenetrable bubble. The same thing he does for his siblings that no one ever did for him before. When I turned to kiss his cheek, he spoke at the same time the movie dialogues started.

"Sometimes I don't know if you like to play with me or just enjoy living carefree, no strings attached."

I ran my thumb gently over his dark circles under the eyes, or the increase in them because there was a small dark smudge of makeup that didn't come out in his quick shower. I only managed to expand the smudge a little more anyway and laughed. His skin felt fresh. I hadn't even wanted to take a bath, I was getting bad after the drink.

"Do you want us to be something more? Is that why you say that?" I wouldn't have minded giving it to him. The vision of his hair wetting the bed in drips and me rubbing the towel through his strands was starting to become a reality as I waited for his answer.

"You're just so strange."

"Me?"

"Not in a bad way, but in the sense that I'm attracted to you even though nothing you say is certain or solid. But you're genuine and you don't seem to be hiding anything on purpose, so you just confuse me."

"I could tell you a thing or two, when you ask me." No answer, just a quick kiss.

When I run my fingers around his shoulders, he has the same look from that time he helped me clean my room —this room— and I ended up with my hands under his Acid Black Cherry t-shirt, caressing his abdomen as he talked to me about the dirt and how messy I was for not cleaning my room in weeks. On the down low, he meant "in months," but the truth was that I hadn't cleaned it thoroughly since last year, and for that, Maki loved me. Because I was the perfect example for the theme of that photozine.

I took off the jeans I had worn to the party, leaving me in my underwear.

"Phyllocalia"

"Mmh? You remembered all of a sudden."

"I bought a photozine that day."

"You could have asked me and I'd give you one of my free samples."

He settled into the sheets, covered my bare legs and glanced at the dirty film left on the side.

"Why? Filocalia, I mean."

"Ask the Greeks," I joked. "Although you won't see them if you snort any shit or inject yourself in the arm."

"I looked it up on the internet after talking to you. I idealized you."

"Everyone does it, what did it mean?"

"«Love of beauty», but you were wearing dirty clothes, in a pile of dirty clothes. Then the meaning stretched to «Love of beauty, and the source of all beauty is God,» but I don't believe in God."

"I don't either."

"But someone saw Him in you. Even when everything had withered around you. It's one of the best pictures in the zine, even when there's an "anonymous" next to the model's name, that's you. It's as if you wanted to erase every map of your human existence."

His fingers traced imaginary lines - the parallels and meridians I struggled to learn in middle school - on my collarbone. I wanted to learn more from him. Much more. He made me understand my intellectual laziness and my search for visual and carnal stimulation as an attempt to satiate myself, to satiate ourselves. He enlightened me to the idea; that unnoticed aster flower, wilted and with missing petals, could be more than an exhibit on poverty and misery, more than a stuffed decoration in the Russian book. Most things happened too fast, ominous, and the movement made me dizzy, the fast days, the fleeting affairs as if I was running away from something... All of it too, he could explain to me, letter by letter, the slowness of things, of love, like a slow burn but in good hands and covers of Radiohead's OK Computer as a warm-up.

We both knew nothing essential.

We weren't part of the top fifth in college.

Nor did we stand out much.

Movies, music, and higher education didn't understand the small things, the costliness of crawling along when everyone was running and the ease of lying down for a while, bleeding out, talking and kissing each other in the stillness, when the lamp goes out and the movie is half over. Luckily, even though it was February and the pollen caused me to sneeze, there was a breeze after sex.

english is not my first language, so, SORRY IF YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS LITTLE STUFF. more than that, this is a small exploration, and I will probably make a longer fic taking this idea. (update, actually, I have a fic, but it's in Spanish)

୨ৎ ⊰gummo apnea⊱ is the set of three one-shots of this style, the other two are about suguru geto and toji fushiguro, soon to be over here too <3 !!!!

[zenkitsune]

Sweat & Soap Japanese Limited Editions are AAGHHHHHHH 💖💖💖

I have finally acquired all 7 volumes of the limited editions for Sweat & soap. If you don't know what this is- it's a cute mature romance comedy series! I'm bad at explaining stuff so here I pulled this from the Kodansha website:

"Asako’s living her dream, working at the toiletry maker Liliadrop. Little do her coworkers know, the reason she loves the company so much is that she’s ashamed of her body odor, and their soap is the only thing that does the trick. So when the company’s lead product developer, a perfuming genius, approaches her in the lobby and wonders what “that smell” is, she’s terrified… but could it be… that he likes it? And, even more surprising to Asako… does she like him? The hilarious ups and downs of an office romance at a personal care products company are the subject of this sexy, strange romp. Sweat and Soap combines the odd-couple chemistry of Wotakoi, the “too real!” workplace comedy of Aggretsuko, and a heavy dollop of office steaminess!"

I promise this series is amazing you guys should totally read it. It does have some spice at times too, but it's still so cute. The name of the mangaka is Kintetsu Yamada. They draw themselves as a carton of milk and I love that for them hehe.

I love getting limited edition versions of manga I love because of the variant covers, bonus stories, and sometimes cool merch! And even though I can't read Japanese... these special editions did not disappoint 😌 I wanna ramble about them~

First off, it's interesting they started doing special editions at volume 5. I wonder if that's when the series started to become very popular.

These collection of items are booklets with bonus stories and some extra stuff that are SO CUTE if you're a fan of the story.

Kind of a spoiler if you haven't read Sweat & Soap (AND YOU TOTALLY SHOULD) but there's a wedding near the end of the series and the the special items you can get are:

The marriage registry (I think, it looks like it)

AND THE WEDDING INVITATION

I ESPECIALLY loved looking at the wedding registry because you can tell which character was writing and stuff. AND REMEMBER I CAN'T READ JAPANESE. It's been a while since I've read the series, but I remember the moment in the story when they registered to get married and my heart just went AGGHHHH.

In another volume, a special item you can get are...

CUTE POST IT NOTES

I don't think I can get myself to ever use these- I love it so much. Stationary warms my heart aaaahhhhh 💖

NEXT This was one was an interesting bonus- In another volume you can get a cute cat washcloth!!

Will I use it? I don't know yet 〒▽〒

FINALLY the last thing I wanna share briefly is one of the booklets. I'm really lazy, so I haven't attempted to google translate some of these stories (or search for them online YES I'M THAT LAZY) BUUTTTT when I got the one story I had so immediately read it-

One of the bonus stories features a character name Keita. He's the younger brother of one of the main characters, Asako. He's one of my favorite characters!! For context, he works as a chef at a popular Italian restaurant and the other main character of the series, Kotaro invites his colleagues to have dinner there.

Even reading the struggle translation, I really enjoyed this short story. I always welcome more Keita features 😌✨

GO READ SWEAT AND SOAP!! I wish I had the box set, but Kodansha liked to release box sets after I'm very far into collecting a series u-u

KAY THAT'S ALL <3

[animatorweirdo]

When the dragons fly

You reminisce about the past, which leads you to an awkward predicament. Aelon is frightened as his dreams seem to become a reality.

Chapter 7

Warnings: mentions of loss of childhood, some PTSD moments, social awkwardness, disappearances, hypnosis, violence, blood, kidnapping, and falling.

---------------------------

You walk up to the balcony of the tavern. You leaned your arms against the wooden railing and looked down upon the people below you. Elves, humans, and dwarves crossed the streets. The city was small and diverse. It nearly reminded you of King’s Landing, except without the elves and dwarves. 

You look over to the mountains, thinking about a moment you once had with your father when you were a young little girl who recently bonded with a dragon. 

You remember your father taking you to the garden where you could almost see the whole city and hear the soldiers training in the courtyard. You were curious back then as you looked down on the soldiers and guards. 

“(Name),” Your father said. 

“As you can see, the training will be difficult. I will not go easy on you because you are my daughter. You will need to train as hard as them because one day, they will follow your orders on the battlefield,” your father stood beside you. 

“They might doubt you and look down on you because you are a girl. They have been taught from a young age that girls and women do not belong on the battlefield, but I do not believe in such a thing. I think you have the potential to become an excellent commander, so prove them wrong and work hard to earn their respect,” he explained. “I will father!” you looked up to him in admiration.  

“I will be the best commander you have ever seen!” You said with excitement, making him smile. “I hope so too, but we’ll have to wait till you’re older. You’re still young, so enjoy it while you still can,” he said as you began to walk through the garden. 

“I can’t wait! When I get big, will we fight the bad guys and save people from trouble? Oh, Can I get to save a prince from a tower?” you asked enthusiastically. 

“A prince from a tower? Now, where have you heard such a thing like that?” your father looked at you perplexed. “Well– you always hear about princesses getting kidnapped and taken to a tower as a hostage, so don’t you think it would be nice if a prince gets kidnapped this time?” you asked. He burst into laughter. 

“That… would be interesting, and what then, you get happily married?” he asked. “Maybe— I don't want anyone to pick my prince for me. I want to find my own prince!” you firmly stated. 

“We’ll see when you get older. You will be busy with the training, so your search for a prince might have to wait,” your father chuckled, patting your head. “That’s okay. I’m in no rush. I can always find him later. Do you think Baleria would like him?” you asked. “Who knows? It will depend on Baleria alone if she likes your prince or not,” your father explained. 

“Are you certain I can become a commander? Mother doesn’t seem to like the idea,” you asked as you began leaving the garden. 

“She’s just worried like always. You will be fine. I’ll make sure you will be strong enough to handle everything that comes your way in life,” he said. “Everything?” you looked at him curiously. “Everything— you will be strong enough to survive even the most violent of wars,” he said as you left the garden to join your mother for dinner. 

You came back to reality and continued staring at the people below you. Oh, how naive you used to be back then. You almost miss it — being innocent and living in blissful ignorance. 

Your battles with the bad guys were simply the eradication of rebels and people who sought to strike down the Targaryen house, and you barely helped people out of trouble because your family members did not want you to make them look soft. And you never got to save a prince from a tower, which was a shame. 

All these things were just empty words to hide the brutal reality. It made you wonder if your father truly wanted you to become a commander and take his place once he was gone or if he just wanted Baleria on the battlefield. 

You wished you could ask him, but that was beyond your capabilities. You might have survived the horrible ordeal to come to Middle Earth, but bringing someone back from the dead required more than simple luck. 

You heard something ramble inside the tavern. There were heavy thuds and yelling of angry men. You stood up and made your way down from the balcony. Whatever your father would have said. It didn’t matter anymore. But you should check on Helena and her brother since he tends to get himself into trouble. 

You opened the door, looked inside, and then walked over to the bar table where Helena was seated as men laughed and yelled in the tavern with the smell of alcohol lingering in the air. 

You sat down next to Helena. “Is your brother up to something again?” you asked as you both observed Mika playing a game with other men, drinking and laughing. “Just being an idiot like usual. I swear if I have to drag him back home drunk. I’m going to make him sleep in the stables,” Helena uttered in annoyance, making you chuckle at the thought. 

“Oh,” Helena stood up when you two saw Mika starting up some racket. “I knew it! We should have brought someone else because my brother is just too useless to be of any help,” She said, then went quickly after her brother to calm down a possible tavern fight. 

You observed, your mind returning to the days when you ended up in some tavern fights thanks to your men and position as a woman. Some men in Westeros always had a problem with you being a woman and a commander, so you got challenged fairly often whenever you traveled or just wanted a break. 

Life wasn’t easy in Westeros, especially if you were a woman. 

Your mind wandered deep as you remembered those violent times when you had to fight for your safety and honor. You could almost hear the sounds of men screaming and the swords clashing with each other. It left you thoughtless of everything around you. 

The door of the tavern opened. Three elves walked inside, two of them wearing tired and grim expressions while following the silver-haired elf.  “Come now, brother. One little drink hurts nobody, especially after a successful hunt,” he started with a grin. 

"I wouldn't mind if this place wasn't filled with so many humans. You know I prefer to be at home drinking than come to a tavern in a rundown city," one of them said. "Oh, don't be such a brood. If you're bored, how about talking with some lovely maidens?" the silver head spoke. "I doubt anyone would be interested in talking with you, Tyelko," the third one of the group stated. 

"Wanna bet, dear little Carnistir? For your knowledge, I can be very charming when it comes to lonely maidens,” the silver head said confidently. "I pity the maiden you decide to bother," Carnistir said.  

The blond-haired elf looked around till his eyes fell upon your figure, sitting at the bar table alone. “Ah ha, now watch and see,” he said before approaching you, making his two brothers roll their eyes. 

You were still so deep in thought that you did not notice him approach you from behind. Your mind was still thinking about your old days of wars and survival. “Hello there-!” Tyelko gently touched your shoulder, and your mind flashed to a memory where you nearly got killed by an assassin who attempted to slice your neck from behind.  

Out of reflective instinct, you swiped your healthy arm behind his head and smashed his face against the table. A loud bang echoed through the tavern, gaining people’s attention while you kept a tight grip on the stranger’s face. It took you a moment to realize the situation. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” you pulled your hands away in panic. “I wasn’t paying attention, and you– you startled me,” you almost stuttered in your words as the silver-haired elf picked himself up from the table, rubbing his swelling face. 

“No worries, but – my, you sure have a strong grip, my lady,” he groaned painfully, then looked at you. “And you’re a human maid, I see. I apologize,” he said and walked away. You looked at him before turning back and feeling your face burn with embarrassment.  

The two that waited at the door looked at the silverhead as he returned with a bruise on his face. “So much being a charmer,” one of them said while Carnistir snickered after witnessing the whole thing. “Yeah, yeah, let us just go. I changed my mind. The wine at home is far better than the liquor here,” he said. “Yeah, right,” the two rolled their eyes while following him out of the tavern. 

A red-haired elf was waiting outside, petting his horse. He looked up when he saw the door open and noticed his companions walk out. “What happened to you?” he asked after noticing a bruise on the silver head’s face.

“Tyelko over here thought it would be a good idea to ‘charm’ a maiden. Only to have his face pushed on the table after scaring one,” one of them explained as they climbed back on their horses. 

“That’s new,” he said, looking at the silver head with amused eyes. 

Tyelko groaned. “Let us just go. It was surprising that she was a human, though. I thought she was an elf maiden with that kind of appearance,” he said while his companions only shook their heads at him. They clicked their heels and rode away from the tavern. 

You hear horses outside the tavern, so you guessed the blond elf and his companions left. It gave you some relief since most men in Westeros did not like having their pride hurt and would come back for a payback. You were glad since you preferred to avoid conflict, but it did not save you from the embarrassment since you did slam someone’s face on the table out of nowhere. 

It was so dreadful that you had to order a drink to ease the embarrassment. You groaned against your hand. This was not how you had planned your visit to go.

Helena returned to you, holding Mika’s ear after pulling him out of trouble. “And stay put!” she forced him to sit on a stool before looking at your slouched-down form. “What happened? I noticed your face slammed someone on the table?” she questioned. 

“Please. Do not ask,” you groaned while considering your life choices. 

Aelon tosses around on his bed. His brows and nose frown and squint while frightful yelps escape his mouth. His mind wanders into a familiar dreamscape. 

He was back in the forbidden forest, standing in the middle of the opening with nothing but crows and ravens flying above him, cawing and making noises that sounded like laughter. He was shaking as he stared at them with fright. 

Familiar music filled the air. Aelon gasped and looked around for the source. The strange melody tried to calm down his nerves, but ever since he saw the face of the warg, he was always filled with uncontrollable unease. 

He stood back when he saw the familiar dark figure playing the flute. “Go away!” he yelled, fearing to see its face again. “Please—!” he begged. 

Shrieks suddenly filled the air. Aelon jolted and then saw his dragon flying above him. His dragon was frantically flapping his wings, screaming at him in fright and worry. 

“Falconer, what’s wrong?!” Aelon yelled. 

He then turned around and found the dark figure standing right in front of him again. His breath was stuck in his throat as he looked into those familiar white eyes. He screamed when the figure grabbed him. 

He jolted from his bed, gasping and feeling beads of sweat running down his skin. He looked outside and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Everything looked normal. 

He thought about his recurring nightmare. It had been two days now. He didn’t know why he kept dreaming about the forest, the terrifying figure, and the song that kept playing inside his mind. He didn’t know what to make of it and why it felt more real than it looked. 

The only different thing that happened was Falconer appearing in the dream. 

You once told him dreams could hold strong meanings and even be signs of the future, but he didn’t feel like it was showing him anything. It felt more like a punishment for his misbehavior. 

He sighed and tossed the blanket away, getting up to prepare for the day. 

The hairy part of the broom sweeps across the wooden porch, pushing away the yellow dust and leaves that flew with the wind. Aelon jolts when he sees the village’s watchmen yell and move around in panic. 

They were yelling something and ordering each other to find more people. It was so sudden, and the frustration in their voice nearly startled him.  He had never seen them act like this before. He then noticed Eweniel running up to him. 

“Ae! Have you heard?” she questioned with a worried tone. “Heard what? What has happened?” Aelon asked, confused and concerned. “It's Samuel. He has gone missing,” she replied. Aelon’s eyes widened.  

“Missing? How did that happen?” he asked. Eweniel shrugged her shoulders. “No one knows. He was with Ramuel, then poof. He was gone,” she explained while flailing her hands in an example. “No traces of him. He just vanished in the air,” she added. 

“His parents are not letting Ramuel leave the house. They’re afraid he’s gonna go missing too,” she said while Aelon wondered about his friend. “But how?” Aelon muttered. “I don’t know, but Ramuel said he heard some kind of music before Samuel disappeared,” Eweniel answered. Aelon paled when she mentioned the music. 

“I sneaked here to see you so I could warn you. Be careful and do not go into the woods,” Eweniel left before Aelon could ask more about the music. 

He thought about the music he had been hearing and how he was always enchanted to follow it in his dreams. It led him to the forest and then to the monster, and then the nightmare usually ends. Did it happen to Samuel? Was this happening outside his dream? 

“What’s the matter, little Targ?” Dwenn’s voice broke him out of his thoughts. Aelon looked at the older man.  “You look troubled. Is there something on your mind?” Dwenn asked. “Is Samuel really missing?” Aelon asked, hoping it was just a mere conscience. 

“I’m afraid so –” Dwenn answered with a pitiful look.  “His parents are fearful to let Ramuel go outside. They fear he will vanish as well, especially when he mentioned something about music he heard before his brother’s disappearance,” he explained. 

“Say… Aelon. Didn’t you once mention hearing something the day when (Name) left?” Dwenn asked. Aelon hesitated to answer. He wasn’t certain if he should tell about it, but he didn’t want to lie either. “I don’t know…” he uttered. “What did the music sound like?” he questioned. “No one knows. Ramuel described it as beautiful and loud, but no one else could hear it,” Dwenn described. “We better get some more wood and call it a day. Samuel’s parents have asked everyone to participate in the search,” Dwenn walked toward the chopping place. 

Aelon felt dread since the chopping place was near the woods, where he heard the music and nearly got tempted to go there. “Can we not go there today?” he quickly asked. “What if I vanish next?” he questioned fearfully. 

“It should be fine. We only need a couple of blocks,” Dwenn said, trying to comfort him. “I keep a careful eye on you, then escort you back to Helena’s family,” he patted Aelon’s shoulder. “Does that sound good?” he asked.

Aelon wanted to say no– but couldn’t bring himself to utter the word, so he nodded and walked with Dwenn to the chopping place. 

“Unbelievable,  first the wells dry up, you get attacked by a warg, and now children are going missing,” Dwenn started as they walked. Aelon thought about the creature from his dream. “What if someone is doing this?” he asked. “What if someone is playing music to lure us away?” he added. “That... would make sense, but who would do such a thing?” Dwenn asked. “Maybe a foul spirit of sorts?” Aelon suggested. “Perhaps, but we need to be careful,” Dwenn said as they arrived to the chopping place. 

“We just need a couple of things. Help me gather some planks and stay in my sight,” Dwenn said strictly. “Okay…” Aelon nodded and began helping gather the planks. He glanced toward the forest that wasn’t too far from him. He felt unease, and his imagination only made him wait for something to come out, like a warg or the creature from his dreams. 

But when something didn’t come out and a few minutes passed, Aelon shook his head and tried to stop thinking. His imagination was making him paranoid. Perhaps there wasn’t a flute-playing monster. Perhaps Samuel’s disappearance was just a coincidence. He will see once he carries the planks back to Dwenn’s shop and spends the day inside Helena's home. 

Aelon relaxed himself and tried to continue helping Dwenn. 

Something then filled his ears. Aelon gasped and covered his ears when he realized it was the music of the flute.  He was ready to call out to Dwenn, but something within his mind held him back like he didn’t have to do anything. 

The peaceful tune softly calmed down his racing heart. The fear in his mind vanished, and an odd sense of longing filled his heart.  The longing to find and hear the music. 

Aelon tried to resist when he remembered all the nightmares, but then the music’s tone turned softer and assuring. It was a new tone. He began to feel like he had nothing to be afraid of. 

He looked toward the forest, and his longing and desire to find the music became more stronger. His mind fell into a daze. The wooden planks dropped from his hands as he could no longer resist and slowly walked toward the forest. 

“Aelon?” Dwenn questioned when he heard something fall. He looked around, finding no sight of the blond-haired boy. “Aelon?” he called out again. “Little Targ?” he called out louder. “Aelon!” he yelled in a rising worry. 

Aelon’s shoes stepped across the mossy ground. Crows and ravens flew above him, watching him as the flute’s song led him through the forest. 

Aelon couldn’t think of anything. Everything was blank and empty. All he could think about was the soft, beautiful music that filled his ears, deafening everything around him. It sounded so wonderful. 

The song led him to a familiar clearing. He saw someone sitting on the rock, wearing a cloak and playing the flute. He stared at them in a daze as they continued playing. 

They looked similar to the monster from his dream, yet nothing alike. They wore a familiar cloak but did not have antlers or claws. Their hands were pale yet normal. 

Aelon stopped before them and stared at them with wonder. They were playing the silver flute beautifully, and the music allured his very being. There was a strange feeling in his mind, like a voice telling him to stop and run away, but the music was beautiful, so he ignored it. He couldn’t help it. He wanted to hear more. 

The strange person stopped playing when they noticed him. The music still echoed in Aelon’s ears as he looked at the person who stood up and hovered over him like a tree. He saw red eyes look down on him and sharp teeth that formed into a toothy grin as the person held their hand above him. 

Aelon didn’t do anything as the hand approached his face till someone shouted. 

“Get away from the boy, you fiend!” Dwenn tried to strike the person with the hatchet. The hooded figure quickly avoided the older man, and Aelon was snapped out of his trance by the sudden intrusion. 

“Dwenn?” Aelon questioned as the older man stood in front of him, keeping a protective hand over him. His heart began to race when he saw the hooded strange crouch on the stone, silently hissing at them. 

“Get back to the village, Aelon! Run!” Dwenn threw the hatchet around, making the hooded figure back away with a hiss. 

Aelon backed away, fear taking over his every thought. “Run, Aelon! Run!” Dwenn yelled as the hooded stranger’s body suddenly sprouted wings and separated into a swarm of giant bats. The creatures attacked Dwenn, clawing and biting his skin.

Dwenn screamed as one of the bats latched onto his face, plunging its fangs into his eye. Aelon gasped in horror when he saw blood gush from the older man’s eye.

“Go!” Dwenn yelled while trying to fight off the bats. 

Aelon hesitated but then turned around and tried to run back toward the village – only to be grabbed from behind and picked up. “No! Dwenn!” Aelon screamed, trying to struggle out of his taker’s arms. 

“No!” Dwenn yelled when he saw Aelon taken by another hooded figure. He fought and tried to run after, but the bats then pushed him down.  He screamed and struggled as the swarm tore his skin open, dressing the moss in his blood. Aelon screamed in terror when he saw the horrific scene happen. 

“Someone help! Please help us! Help!” Aelon struggled, kicked, and cried as the person behind him took him deeper into the forest. 

Falconer snapped open his eyes and picked up his head from the ground. He cried, sensing immense fear and distress. He shrieked in fright and stomped toward the entrance of the cave. 

Baleria picks up her head and growls at the younger dragon, preventing him from going any further. Falconer screamed back at her, groaning and chirping in distress. Low crumbles left Baleria as the two stared at each other. 

In the forest, Aelon yelled and tried to kick himself free from his captor’s arms, crying in fear, anger, and sorrow for Dwenn’s fate. The memory of Dwenn’s blood painting the ground and his screams of pain haunting his mind. 

“Stop moving around, brat!” A rough voice shouted in his ear, and he felt his hair pulled harshly. Aelon cried in pain from the sharp pain in his scalp. He then heard shrieks in the sky and looked up. 

His beloved dragon was flying above them, roaring and keeping his eyes on them. 

“Falconer!” Aelon called out. He felt hopeful but also worried since the sight of his dragon reminded him of his dream.

Falconer screamed back in return, trying to follow him and his captor. 

Aelon watched as his dragon flew above the trees. The forest was too dense for Falconer to fly down and try to attack since he could get caught by the branches. Aelon did not want to see his dragon to get injured, but neither did he want to end up where his captor was taking him. 

Aelon’s captor made twists and turns, trying to lose Falconer. Aelon felt sick from being carried and tossed around so much, but he felt comforted his dragon managed to keep up despite the trees keeping them apart. 

Falconer flew ahead and then swooped down after finding an opening and a chance to stop his rider’s captor. 

Aelon’s captor stopped in their tracks when Falconer flew in front of them, his claws ready to grab them, but then Aelon’s captor grabbed someone from their pouch and threw it right into Falconer’s face. 

Falconer shrieked by the sudden attack to his eyes and missed Aelon’s captor and Aelon by an inch. Aelon watched as his dragon crashed against some trees and fell to the ground. 

“No! Falconer!” Aelon yelled, trying to get himself free. The rough-voiced creature only held a tighter grip on the boy and continued the run, taking him away. 

Falconer chirped and croaked painfully after standing up from the crash. He groaned and tried to smudge off the dark matter from his eyes. The white dragon shrieked in anger and panic, unable to continue the chase and save his rider.

Taglist: @natchayaphorn ​ @kimnamnu @thatrandomidiot182

[changingplumbob]

List 5 facts about a favourite sim of yours, and send this to 10 simblrs whose sims you adore ♥♥♥

This took a while because I couldn't remember who I'd done, and didn't want to double up by mistake. Without further ado, Aaron York!

If you read my stories you've probably gotten to know Aaron a bit this past week but here's some more facts that don't necessarily slot well into a story.

He did not originally want to be a lawyer. He had no idea what he wanted to do but his parents financially supported him to travel around Italy for a while with his best friend Calista. When it became time to study he did law at the insistence of his parents and to his surprise found it suited his bookworm nature. Plus rocking up to places in snazzy suits and drawing everyone's attention, that makes life as a self-absorbed sim easy.

He did not make the first move, Calista did, Aaron always figured she was out of his league. For those unaware Calista is demiromantic and demisexual. As much as she loved her best friend she found his ego unattractive. Traveling with him showed her a different side of him, one that was happy to laugh at himself and genuinely cared for others. Needless to say he was thrilled when she started to flirt with him.

He and Calista discussed how they'd raise kids long before getting engaged. He offered that they split time as "main parent" so they could both be with their kids and advance in their careers. The pair decided Aaron would use his degree first while Calista worked as a barista during the time she was pregnant and raising the kids. Aaron offered to switch which would allow Calista to pursue her dream of a military career, her response was something like "Yeah except I'm pregnant for the fourth time". They switched anyway because Aaron is a man of his word.

Aaron enjoyed mainly working from home while Artemisia was growing up. He still had to attend court now and then, but was able to take the toddler to the library with him when he needed use of an archive machine. He also took over the cooking and cleaning from Calista, a role he continued once their youngest was in school. He taught Devin how to cook and Joey how to bake but could never get Deanna interested in the kitchen. Of course Artemisia preferred to make messes instead of food.

His aspiration is College Lineage, basically he wants three of his kids to earn degrees. But really he wants all four of them to have higher education. This is why he's very academic focused and wants his kids to do the best they can in school. This can lead to him seeming like he cares about their success more than who they are, but he believes gaining a degree will give his kids the best chance of succeeding in their future lives.