#which maybe is worse than my above answer

[cparvum]

"ass ee"

wheres the c

parvum wheres the c

wjeres thene c parvum *shakng*

its in my screenname. hope this helps! c::::

[steddieas-shegoes]

four times eddie gets carried and one time he does the carrying

one

Eddie opens his eyes to chaos: a heartbeat under his ear that’s furious, a voice echoing just above him yelling profanities and directions, hands digging into his legs and side that should probably hurt.

But nothing hurts.

He can’t feel anything, actually.

Which is probably a good thing considering the last time his eyes were open, he was dying.

Maybe he is dead. Maybe this is Hell.

But he catches a somewhat familiar scent, and he turns his head towards the solid but soft wall holding him.

He must make a noise because the voice vibrating against his face stops, the movement under him stops, and a different panic ensues. He’s not sure what’s being said now, too focused on the comfort he’s feeling.

Maybe it’s not Hell. Maybe he’s found his way to Heaven.

But that’s Steve’s smell and Steve isn’t dead. Is he?

Eddie’s eyes open and he finds just enough energy to make a small noise, one that wouldn’t have been heard in the chaos, but definitely gets heard in the silence surrounding him now. He hates silence. He hopes if he’s dead, he can at least hear some music sometimes.

“Eddie?”

It’s definitely Steve’s voice, and Steve’s smell, and probably Steve’s strength holding him up.

“You don’t have to talk if it hurts, but can you tap my chest if you can hear me?”

Eddie could do that. He could.

His hand was already brushing against Steve’s chest as they walked, so he lifted a few fingers and brushed them against the material of Steve’s shirt.

“That’s good!” Steve sounded pretty thrilled about such a simple touch.

Eddie was familiar with being touch starved, but he didn’t think Steve could be this bad off with all the times he’s been practically glued to Robin.

“St-“ he tried to say his name, maybe get some answers for why he was being carried, but couldn’t quite manage it.

“It’s okay. I’m getting you safe. We can fix it,” Steve was walking still, but no other voices could be heard anymore. It was like the world had narrowed down to only them. “I promise I’m gonna fix it.”

“Mkay.”

Blackness clouded Eddie’s vision again as he lost consciousness.

two

Eddie’s physical therapy sessions in the hospital sucked, but the ones at home sucked worse.

At least at the hospital, no one was around to watch him struggle and fail except the physical therapist. At home, Steve was watching and making sure he did everything right, never more than a few feet away in case he needed help.

Eddie could walk with support, but he refused to use the stupid walker the hospital gave him. Wayne found a cane in his room from when he hurt his back a few years ago and told Eddie he could decorate it however he wanted if it meant he’d use it.

And he sure did.

He covered it in black paint, stickers, and had all the kids paint their names on it.

But he still hated using it.

So he was focusing on the walking movements the PT gave him, and Steve was constantly hovering beside him, waiting for any sign that he needed to stop.

“Your legs are shaking, Eds. We should stop for today,” Steve put his hand on Eddie’s shoulder, careful not to put any weight on him. “You can do more tomorrow.”

“No, I’m almost to the couch.”

The silence was loud as he looked ahead at where the couch actually was. He wasn’t almost there. He wouldn’t make it.

But he was stubborn, dangerously so, and he was gonna make it.

He took another two shuffling steps, then felt a shooting pain in his side and nearly collapsed.

Steve’s arms were under him immediately, lifting under his legs and supporting his back in a fucking bridal carry.

“Put me down!” Eddie squirmed, but Steve was strong. “I was almost there!”

“No you weren’t and you were gonna push yourself too hard. You would’ve fallen and got hurt and if you get hurt again, it’ll be my fault.”

Eddie’s mouth snapped shut before his argument could be said.

Did Steve think he was actually responsible for Eddie?

“Stevie, it’s carpet. I would’ve been fine,” Eddie said quietly as Steve walked them over to the couch. He didn’t set Eddie down though, just held him. “Are you okay?”

“I’m not letting anything happen to you again.” Steve set him down gently on the couch, making sure his legs were stretched out so he could do some of his sitting movements. “I’m not letting you down again.”

“What do you mean? You didn’t let me down,” Eddie stayed frozen where Steve had set him down, unable to even breathe properly.

“I should’ve been there so you didn’t run back to distract the bats. You never should’ve almost died.”

“Steve…” Eddie reached a hand out, tugging on Steve’s hand until he was sitting on the coffee table across from him. “None of this is your fault. I’m an adult. I made my choices. I would’ve made them even if you were there.”

“But-“

“No buts!” Eddie smiled at him, ignoring another sharp pain in his hip. “You know how stubborn I am. Do you really think you had a shot in hell of stopping me once I decided to be a distraction?”

Steve shook his head.

“Then stop blaming yourself. You saved my fuckin’ life, man. You stayed by my side nearly every day since then. You couldn’t let me down if you tried, okay?”

“Okay.”

three

He’d fallen asleep on the couch, he knew he had.

But he was currently in Steve’s bed. Which is upstairs. He hasn’t mastered walking up stairs yet.

How the fuck did he get here?

It was dark except for a hint of moonlight streaming between the curtains and a glow under the door from the hall light that was always on.

He turned on his side and nearly screamed when he saw a black outline of someone else in the bed.

The body moved and Eddie could just make out the hair.

Steve.

He was in Steve’s bed with Steve.

“You okay?” Steve’s raspy sleep voice startled him, his heart rate climbing to probably dangerous levels.

A hand reached out and touched Eddie’s chest, right over his racing heart. Steve’s hand was warm and wasn’t moving away.

“Mhm. How’d I get here?”

“Carried you.”

He couldn’t see if Steve’s eyes were open, or if he was even properly facing Eddie, but he was grateful for the dark hiding his blush.

“I could’ve stayed on the couch.”

“Wanted you here,” Steve mumbled against his pillow, his hand bunching up Eddie’s shirt as he pulled him closer. “Sleep.”

Eddie could think about it tomorrow. Or maybe never.

Maybe this was a dream, or maybe Steve was still asleep and had no idea what he was doing or saying. Maybe he’d wake up and Steve would be gone and he’d never know for sure if he dreamt it or it was real.

But for now, Eddie fell asleep with Steve’s hand against his chest and his body heat keeping him warm.

four

“I don’t know why you picked a spot so far into the woods. Are you trying to murder me? You were just being nice for the last three months because it would be easier to trick me?” Eddie paused to catch his breath. He was admittedly very out of shape, but this trek seemed particularly difficult.

“Are you in actual pain or are you just tired?” Steve asked, not slowing down at all.

“Can’t it be both?”

Steve finally stopped and turned to Eddie, the worried set of his brow almost making Eddie feel guilty.

“We can go back, Eddie,” Steve offered quietly.

Eddie saw the disappointment on his face, though. And he was a little sore, but mostly from being tired, not from actually overexerting his muscles.

“No, I can make it. How much longer?”

Steve looked around for a moment. “Less than half a mile, but most of it is uphill.”

“I’ll just take it slow. Sorry,” Eddie apologized.

“Hey,” Steve was suddenly back in front of him, hands on his arms to stop him, to comfort him. “We can go as slow as you need. We’ve got all day. Need any help?”

Eddie didn’t. He knew he didn’t. He was doing a lot better than he expected, truthfully.

But if it kept Steve’s hands on him, he was obviously going to say yes.

Steve wrapped an arm around his waist and helped him over a particularly large log.

They continued in silence, but Steve’s arm never left his waist, and Eddie’s breath never quite went back to normal.

When they were almost at Steve’s destination, Eddie lost his footing and nearly face planted into the wet soil. But Steve tugged him back just in time, until his back was flush against Steve’s front.

“Let me help,” Steve said against his ear.

His hands went under him, lifting him up in the familiar bridal carry that seemed like second nature for them at this point.

Steve held him close, made sure he had a good grip, then started walking forward.

“You don’t have to do this,” Eddie barely whispered. He felt a bit ashamed, that he couldn’t do something so simple, that Steve felt like he had to help, that he was a nuisance.

“I want to.”

Neither of them spoke again until they reached their destination.

Steve didn’t put him down at first, walking over to a clearing that looked out over the lake.

Eddie had no idea this was even accessible to people, had only ever noticed the cliff from the edges of the lake and assumed it was just untouched wooded area.

“This is a nice view,” Eddie said as he looked around. He could see a lot of the outskirts of town, even some of the surrounding areas that were mostly untouched by the events of spring break. “Can already see some stars.”

The sun was still up, but it was near dusk. The walk back would be dark if they didn’t leave soon.

“Yeah,” Steve finally set him down on his feet, but didn’t put any space between them. “Wanted you to see it.”

Eddie watched as Steve’s hands fiddled with his sweater, a nervous habit that he noticed back when he was still in the hospital. He’d never mentioned it, wasn’t even sure Steve knew he was doing it, but he always offered his ring-covered hand as a replacement.

Maybe it was a little selfish, but Steve never seemed to mind.

As soon as Eddie slipped his hand closer to Steve, he started toying with his mood ring, a gift from Dustin when he got out of the hospital so they could tell how he was before asking. It didn’t actually work, but they all thought it was fun.

“You come out here often?”

Steve shrugged. “Not as much since Vecna. Don’t really like being alone anymore.”

“Yeah. I know what ya mean.”

They stood there in silence again, looking up at the stars and out at the vastness of rural Indiana. Steve moved on to fidgeting with another ring, spinning it and twisting it every way possible.

“Wayne asked when you’d wanna move back in with him. Said he’s settled in the new trailer and can get your room set up whenever you’re ready,” Steve finally said.

Eddie turned to look at him, noting the shakiness in his voice. He was biting his lip so much, it was a miracle he wasn’t bleeding.

Something was off.

He’d been staying with Steve because it was easy, it was best for everyone to have easy access to a bedroom and bathroom while he healed, and Steve was the only one with parents who weren’t around. Wayne was stuck in the second floor of a motel, which wasn’t ideal for Eddie at all. But now he had a new place, and Eddie could handle stairs now, and it just made sense to go home.

So why did it feel like he’d be leaving his home if he went back to Wayne?

“Do you want me to go?” Eddie asked, bracing for the ‘yes’ he was certain was coming.

“No.”

Eddie pulled back in shock.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“I mean no, I don’t want you to go,” Steve grabbed his hand again, tracing along the outside of his rings, making goosebumps pop up on Eddie’s arms. “I want you to stay. But I know you love Wayne and probably miss him. You should go if you want to.”

Eddie fishmouthed for a moment, unsure how to respond. He knew what he wanted to say. He knew he should probably think about this without Steve in front of him.

“And if I don’t wanna go?”

Steve searched his face for any hint of a lie, but Eddie knew he wouldn’t find one. He wanted to stay.

He wanted to stay with Steve.

“Then you should stay,” Steve choked out, almost in as much shock as Eddie had been only a moment ago. “Stay. Please.”

“In the guest room?” Eddie pushed. He shouldn’t push, but he had to know if this was Steve acting out of fear of being alone or if Steve was feeling the same about Eddie as Eddie was about Steve.

“I was thinking you could stay in my room. My bed.”

Eddie smirked. Steve was a charmer, no doubt about that, but he was clearly nervous, in uncharted territory.

He leaned in, watched Steve’s eyes widen in surprise at the shift in control of the conversation.

“And if I get sharing bed privileges, does that mean I also get kissing privileges?”

Steve nodded, eyes still wide, still shocked speechless.

“Could I start that privilege now?”

“Yeah. Yes, please.”

Eddie had never enjoyed a privilege quite as much as this one.

+ one

“You said the front step was fixed!” Eddie screeched as they stood outside their new home. “Look at it. It’s depressed.”

Steve snorted. “It’s just a little…crooked.”

“It’s barely even attached anymore.”

Steve nudged his shoulder and held out the key. “Would you like to do the honors?”

Eddie shook his head. “Oh no, no. We had an agreement, didn’t we?”

Steve rolled his eyes. “I didn’t think you were serious.”

“I’ve been training for this moment for over a year!”

“Throwing me around on the bed is not ‘training’, baby,” Steve smiled. “But if you really wanna do this, I’ll unlock the door.”

Eddie grinned and leaned over to pick Steve up into a bridal carry.

Steve yelped when he almost immediately dropped him, his hand fisting in Eddie’s shirt to try to keep from falling.

“I gotcha, sweetheart,” Eddie said, tightening his hold on his legs and shifting him up so that his face was level with Eddie’s. “You know what’s nice about living in the middle of nowhere?”

“What?” Steve breathed out, eyes darting down to Eddie’s lips.

“I can kiss you right here in the open and no one’s around to see it.”

“Then do it,” Steve challenged.

Eddie was always up for the challenge.

He kissed him, smiling into it as he realized this was their whole future. This house, this life, it was theirs.

Eddie carefully stepped up onto the porch, avoiding the worst of the step, and walked up to the front door.

Steve leaned over to unlock it, pushed it open, and waited.

He looked up at Eddie as Eddie stepped through the door.

“Maybe someday we can do this married,” Steve’s voice was quiet, nervous.

“You wanna marry me?” Eddie half-teased. He still couldn’t quite believe how much Steve wanted him, how much he loved him.

“I’d do it today if we could.”

“We could pretend anyway,” Eddie kissed his forehead before setting him down. “We’ve got a lot of rooms to christen.”

“Where do you wanna start?”

“The living room has a fireplace and I’ve had fantasies-“

“Fantasies? Seriously?”

Eddie tugged Steve to him by his waist, captured his lips in a heated kiss. “So many fantasies.”

Steve started walking them backwards towards the fireplace. “Show me what these fantasies looked like then.”

“You got it, big boy.”

[just-a-creep-babe]

Are your requests still open? I'm not sure about your time zone so I hope it's ok if I ask how would you think relationships with the creeps would be realistically? Like how would Jeff, Masky, Ej, and Ben act if they were real and actually interested enough to date someone? I was just interested in your interpretation since I really enjoy how you write them! ✨

I feel like I’ve maybe gone over a few of these points before but I can’t remember for certain 😬

Either way, I hope none of these were too repetitive!! And tysm!! 🥰🫶

Requests are closed but commissions are open!

Masterlist: x

Jeff the Killer

It’s no secret this guy’s crazy egotistical

So as soon as he sees someone he’s interested in, it's like he just needs to have them

They’re an ego boost; a prized trophy that further proves he’s better than everyone else

He almost doesn’t see them as a full person, but more of a commodity

Really, it doesn’t matter whether or not they want the relationship—as far as he’s concerned, he knows what’s best for them

And, coincidentally, what's best for them is him

He's a super controlling partner

Literally the embodiment of your body, my choice

Part of him expects his s/o to pliantly conform themselves to his every whim and desire

But the other part secretly thinks it’s super hot when they talk back to him

He's always liked the feisty ones, and it gives him the perfect excuse to put them back in their place~

In terms of emotional intimacy, his partner really shouldn't expect much

Jeff mentally blocks all of that kind of stuff out, and he thinks people who are open about it are weak

At best, he'll ignore his partner's efforts to connect with him on a deeper level

And at worst, he'll belittle them and use their vulnerabilities against them as a manipulation tactic

So it's overall best to keep some amount of emotional distance from him, in all honesty

The plus side to dating Jeff is that he's super protective

To the point of it being suffocating, so it isn't all that much of a positive, but I digress

Since he sees his partner as his possession, and since he's very protective of his things, he'll be damn sure nothing bad happens to them

And everyone better damn well know that they're off-limits or he will remind them by carving it into their skin

At the end of the day, Jeff primarily wants sex, first and foremost

And secondly, he wants someone that'll inflate his ego; either by being a pretty piece of eye candy by his side or by constantly gushing over him and blowing smoke up his ass

Deep down, he does want someone to care for him—someone he could love and trust, and who would protect him as much as he'll protect them—but he's way too emotionally damaged to even admit he wants that

He definitely doesn't make it easy to love him

BEN Drowned

Honestly, a relationship with him would be relatively chill

All he really wants is someone to fuck and hang out and game with

He does have a dark side, which manifests as possessive/obsessive behaviors and manipulative tendencies, and a good dose of neediness to top it all off

But it's to be expected

And, really, if his s/o just behaves and gives him all of their love and attention, then it's not like they have anything to worry about, anyway

As long as they game with him every night for at least 3 hours, have sex with him a minimum of 4 times a week, answer his texts within 10 minutes, and never spend more time with someone else, then everything's fine

He's prone to spying on them through their devices, especially if they don't do the above-mentioned things to his liking

And he'll use anything in his arsenal to ensure that they stay wrapped around his little finger

Like I said, super needy and manipulative

He'll fuck with their self-esteem, their worldview, their perception of the people around them until they can't imagine living without him

He'll become their world; he wants their life to revolve around him and him only

And if things don't go his way, it'll only get worse

Much worse

He's not above eliminating anyone he's jealous of, or even isolating his partner until they don't have a choice but to accept him back into their lives

He will fully turn psycho if he, for whatever reason, thinks that he might be losing his partner

But until that time comes, until the relationship reaches that point, it'll all be smooth sailing

He's smart enough to know just the right amount to push things to keep the relationship afloat for as long as possible

Which, despite being one of the chillest partners on a surface level, quickly makes him one of the most dangerous ones when things go south

He'll stop at nothing to keep the person he likes

And his partner will never be any the wiser of the darkness that lurks behind his easy-going intentions

They better hope they never reach the tipping point that reveals his true nature

Eyeless Jack

He's actually the chillest creep to be in a relationship with

Unlike the others, Jack firmly clings to those remaining scraps of humanity within him

If he hadn't been transformed, he'd be a perfectly fine and well-adjusted member of society

So a relationship with him would be like, well, any other relationship with a normal person

He has his emotional hangups here and there, and he isn't perfect; he struggles with communicating his feelings and intentions, and he can close himself off when he's following down

But that's par for the course as far as relationship difficulties go

The biggest issue that'll come up that probably doesn't have a Buzzfeed article to help you out is dealing with his demonic side

But even then, he's gotten fairly good at controlling himself, so it'll never be too disruptive—as long as his partner keeps an open mind about the whole thing

He'll be more possessive, and he'll get jealous more easily, but he'll never lash out at his partner because of it

If anything, if he smells someone on his partner, he'll just want to scent them—so all he needs is some physical contact to reassure him

He can get insecure about his nature from time to time, but again, a bit of reassurance goes a long way

Honestly, the most dangerous thing about dating Jack is probably his urge to mark his partner

Marking a human has a few... complications, to say the least

He's naturally bound to get more possessive and much more sexually needy, which could lead him to injure his partner

But, you know, that's just part of the risks that come with dating a demon hybrid

A relationship with Jack has its ups and downs, which honestly might get more intense than a regular human relationship, but even then, a lot of humans are far crazier than Jack, even despite his nature

Even though he deals with some pretty powerful entities, he'll make sure his s/o is safe at all times—no one will ever be able to hurt them

And even though he's a cannibal, he'd probably be too protective of them to take a nibble out of them

Like, sure, he'd love to taste them—and he'd be willing to bet they taste divine—but even if they'd be open to trying it, he wouldn't want to risk it

Overall? 10/10, can not recommend dating this man enough

Masky

Masky's very hot and cold in a relationship

The stress of work combined with the physical and mental strain of being in Slender's proximity all the time does not make things easy for him

He's prone to lashing out, closing himself off, abusing whatever substance he can get his hands on, and generally spiraling out of control

Which does not make it easy for his s/o

Since Slender took an interest in him when he was still fairly young, he's almost always had symptoms of the Slender Sickness, so he's not super experienced with long-term relationships

Meaning that alongside dealing with his mood swings, his partner will also have to guide him through the ups and downs of dating

Which is just a whole extra set of difficulties his s/o will have to face

Being in a relationship with Masky really isn't easy

But the thing is, when things are good with him, they're really good

It's like he only knows how to operate on extremes; his lows are incredibly low and his highs are intoxicatingly high

When he's on a high, he'll make his partner feel like they're on top of the world

Nothing can get in the way of pleasing his partner; not time or money or even the boundaries of the law

He'll shower them with attention and affection, he'll take them on once-in-a-lifetime experiences—he'll make them feel truly heard and loved

Their connection will be like none other; he'll make them feel like they've conquered the world together

But when he's on a down, honestly, his partner might just be better off ignoring him until he gets better again

Which could take weeks or even months

But ultimately the distance will likely be better than being around him when he's going through it

Because although he isn't proud of it, he may get violent and even abusive without necessarily meaning to

And once he snaps himself out of it, he'll be upset to the point where it'll make him spiral even lower

And once he's over it, he'll be right back to gift and love-bombing them all over again because it's his way of apologizing and making sure he won't lose them

As great as things could be with him, and as addictive as he might get, his partner should keep some kind of distance from him—for their own sake

[pomefioredove]

heyyy! i really love your writing🥹🥹 btw can i request a hc with riddle and jamil (separated) with gn!reader who’s very lazy and they have a test and only study the morning before the test? but somehow pass?? i wanna see their reaction

anyway sorry if i made any mistakes, this is my very first request and english is not my first language😔 it’s fine if you can’t do it!!

-🎲

no worries! this is a great request, their reactions would be very funny

summary: reader miraculously passes a test they last-minute studied for type of post: headcanons characters: riddle, jamil additional info: platonic or romantic, reader is not specified to be yuu, reader is gender neutral, not proofread

Jamil knew that it wasn't his place to judge

after all, being raised with the al-Asims, he'd been taught to keep his bitter thoughts to himself

but something about your carelessness reminded him all too much of Kalim

...okay... maybe you weren't exactly partying, or spacing out, but your complete lack of conviction is almost identical

and, so, Jamil decides to give you a word of advice the day before the big exam

"Worried about tomorrow's History of Magic test?"

he even gives you a big smile, trying to play it off as a casual question

you shrug. "Eh, not really,"

"If I were you, I'd be a little more concerned. The grading system is very strict at NRC,"

and with that, he's gone

his sly remark, spoken as if in friendly conversation, leaves him feeling a little more satisfied with himself

he doesn't even feel irked when Kalim nearly sleeps through the test, or when he forgets his notes, or when he absent-mindedly reads the questions aloud during...

in fact, Jamil is quite confident that in any case, you'll do much worse than Kalim, which saves the both of them

after the exam scores are posted in the hall, you find him

"What did you get?"

Jamil hates answering these kinds of questions, especially knowing that he could be in the top of the class if he was allowed to try. "Passing. And you?"

"Well..." you smile. "I really thought about what you said, so I studied this morning."

Jamil's sour mood at his own score seems to lighten

you studied the morning of the exam? oh, this was going to be rich

"...And I got full marks!"

...what.

you show him the paper and it takes all his strength to keep his usual poker face

otherwise, his jaw would drop

"How did... how?"

you shrug. "Good study plan, I guess,"

"Hmph," he crosses his arms. "Well, then... you'll have to come tutor Kalim sometime. What works for you must work for him,"

Riddle spends the entire week pestering you about studying

"I just don't feel like it," you groan

goodness. you sound just like that terrible Floyd...

"It's not a matter of want, it's a matter of need. This exam counts for a significant amount of your grade!"

"Eh... I'll just wing it,"

wing it?! oh, now you've really done it

"Consider yourself lucky for not being a part of Heartslabyul. I would have your head for that!"

and then he storms out. how graceful!

when he sees you the following afternoon, that calm, unbothered look of yours is still on your face. it drives him mad

"If I were you, I'd be praying," he says. he's almost smug about it

Riddle earns full points on every exam- it's just a given. he's sure that the two of you will be on polar opposites of the grade spectrum once the results are posted

you shrug. "Yeah, about that... I thought about what you said, and decided that I don't want to have to retake this class. So I studied this morning,"

he almost smirks. "One last-minute cram won't be enough to raise your grade above failing, I'm afraid. But perhaps this will serve as a lesson, next time you-"

Riddle stops dead in his tracks as Trein posts the exam results on the wall behind you

his eyes widen

"Full... full marks?! We're in the same percent!? How is that possible?!"

You chuckle as his face goes all red, both frustrated and flustered

"Hey, you should count this as a victory for yourself. You give great advice,"

[tastesousweet]

⭒ blurb : the fever

bf!hamzah x poc!reader

summary : blurb based on this request!!!! or hamzah takes care of reader while she's sick

mickey speaks : i hope u enjoyyyy, more of my hamzah works can be found here <3 also i’m updating my tag list so pls lmk if you’d liked to be tagged in any fics in the future

─────────── · · ୨୧ · · ───────────

there's no worse way to start your morning than in a pool of your own sweat and reading a thermometer displaying 101.2°F.

without any strength to attempt to leave your bed and no appetite to drive you to perseverance, you're left slumped lazily against your hot pillow.

just as your blinks begin to slow and your eyes droop low, an irritating sequence of vibrations beam from your phone. you pinch your eyes and let out a slightly dramatic but definitely necessary whine that turns into a groan as you stretch your arms far above your head.

you take your time, hoping whoever is waiting on the other line takes the hint by the forth ring that you’re busy drowning in your misery. you open your eyes just a peek before the ringing completely stops.

a relieved sigh comes over you as you lift your plush comforter over your head in hopes of reducing any natural light your windows allow to shine into your cluttered room.

it rings once more.

“fuck!” you let a blip of rage slip out in a seething tone, kicking your feet against your mattress harshly (an immature way of expressing yourself which makes you feel fifteen again; annoyed by your old obnoxious alarm clock).

you pull the oversized covers from your face and lean over to fiddle and grab your phone from its charging dock on your jagged, wooden night stand.

your tight expression is slightly shattered when you see the large text and tiny image in the corner of the facetime call displaying your boyfriend’s name and face.

you swipe to answer, falling back onto your pillow and covering your torso with the comforter once more (after having stripped of any clothing throughout the sleepless night).

your pouty face goes to the corner of the call as hamzah displays largely across your screen. he’s set his phone on top of his dashboard, still focused on actively driving when you answer.

“heyy, whatcha’ doing? haven’t responded to my texts at all, i was gettin’ worried..” his tongue plays with the gum in his mouth, popping multiple tiny bubbles at once.

your voice gives an unexpected voice crack, “i’m doing terrible,” hamzah’s a bit thrown off by your response but you don’t acknowledge his facial expression, instead you rub your eyes, “where are you going?”

“what happened?!” he arrives at a red light and looks at you while he’s stopped, “did you not sleep well? i was on my way to get you- thought we were playin’ pickleball today with martin and mandy.”

“eughhhh, i totally forgot about that- i’ll have to text and tell them i can’t anymore i’m like dyinggg, h. my temperature’s over 100.” you sniffle and groan.

“nah, don’t worry about that i’ll tell ‘em we can’t make it. you just stay put and i’ll be over in like- just a sec, okay?” he keeps glancing over to look at you which you appreciate, though you prefer for him to pay attention- but you don’t necessarily feel like getting into a back in forth with him over his driving habits right now.

“m’kayyyy you’re the best, love you.” you thank him gently, blowing a kiss towards the camera.

“mmm i like hearing that. you’re my favorite.” he smiles to himself, “yeah, um, i’ll see you in a bit- maybe try and get some sleep though, girl?”

“i’ll try,” you whisper.

“okay, be right there, love you.”

✧₊⁺

you’re not sure how long hamzah’s been at your side when you eventually wake up again to him sat next to you, looking through one of your many 2000s magazines.

you tap his knee silently, seemingly in a better mood after some well needed rest and the comfort of waking up in hamzah’s presence.

he displays a faux since of shock, “wow and she’s somehow even prettier when awake!”

you smile and slip your hand under your cheek as you lay and look at him, “hi, when’d you get here?”

he places your magazine down next to him, "got here maybe two hours ago? i stopped by a store and grabbed you some medicine to take and some other essentials like kitkats and iced tea- did you know hilary duff and lindsay lohan had hella back and forth beef??"

you nod, "duh, of course i do! and getting me snacks wowwww you're so perfect, huh?"

hamzah playfully shrugs his arms up and down, "a little somethin' like thattt, just for you."

you laugh but begin to cough uncontrollably, to which hamzah screws his face up in faux disgust; you stare, "thanks."

“nahh i’m playing,” he grabs one of your hands and kisses the back of it, “do you need me to do anything?”

“can you come brush my teeth with me?”

he nods immediately, standing up and picking your body (wrapped delicately in your covers) up and carrying you bridal-style into the bathroom down your skinny hallway.

on the way there you laugh again which leads to another coughing fit which you cover as much as you possibly can. hamzah teasingly stretches you away from him whining out an “eeuuuhhhh!!!” but you are quick to give him a glare that has him giggling and apologizing by curling you back into his broad chest smacking a few million kisses onto your cheek.

you push his face away in warning, “stop it you’re gonna get sick, stupid!!!!”

✧₊⁺

hamzah stands between your legs as you sit on the counter and brush your teeth. he thinks you look like an angel- or maybe a tooth fairy with the suds elegantly surrounding your mouth. despite your runny nose, hot, clammy skin and sleepy eyes, the white comforter manages to compliment your complexion in the most beautiful of ways. the sight in front of him was weirdly so angelic… “so pretty…” he lets his thoughts trickle into the air.

you pause your movements and look up at him starting to grin before scooting to the side and spitting into the sink. he grins and decides to joke with you a bit, scratching the back of his neck and blowing a raspberry into the air next to him, “did i say pretty?? i meant so ….sickly??” he squints his eyes a little trying to figure out where exactly he’s going with this, “because you’ve come down with something…. bad.”

you roll your eyes and shake your head, “it sounds like you want to call me beautiful…” you bat your eyelashes as you quote him through a mouthful of toothpaste and an insane urge to laugh.

hamzah laughs for you and wipes his eyes exclaiming, “enough! let’s wrap this up.”

✧₊⁺

hamzah made you take medicine and eat top ramen with him before you lay back down in bed. now you're lying up against your headboard watching reruns of sabrina the teenage witch with blankets curled up to your chin.

when hamzah finally comes back into your room he knocks twice before stepping into the space; he’s adorned with an arrangement of white tiger lilies in his hand and a small smile on his face.

you’re absolutely shocked, “what the fuck??? h, when’s you have time to get those?!” you prop yourself up and he hands them to you.

“i saw a little shop that was closing up when i was on my way back to my place just now; it’s cute you’d like it,” he moves to lay next to you.

“thank you,” you look at him lovingly, “for everything today; you treat me so well. how were the kitties doin’?”

“mhmm, they’re fine missin’ you though.” hamzah feels a since of pride from your words, taking the flowers from your hand and setting them on your nightstand (next to a roll of toilet paper you’ve used for your runny nose and a few empty water bottles). he turns back to you and brings his hand up to hold your face, “you’re so easy to treat well.” he leans closer to your face and your eyes shift down to his lips before you’re pulling away.

you playfully scoff and shake your head no, “nuh uh, i’m not getting you sick!”

“baby i’ve been around you all day and feel fine!! my immune system is the best there is, ‘promise.” he traces your lips with his thumb gently.

“you’re sooo…” you mumble the scold, turn on your side to move away from him.

he leans over you giggling, “amazing?” he kisses your cheek. “perfect?” another closer to your lips, “you’ve said them all before!” he sets a sweet kiss to your pouty lips before retreating back lie against the pillow next to you.

“i was gonna say needy but those work as well…” you grumble and smile to your self, “hold me?” you ask a bit louder, peeking over your shoulder to see hamzah drop his phone and immediately give you the attention you want from him, nuzzling you close and kissing your neck softly.

✧₊⁺

a few weeks later via Out of Character on YouTube

martin: yeah, and you’ve been freaking sick the past week and a half! how was that?

hamzah: very whimsical and magical. i’m kidding obviously it sucks and y/n was actually the one to give it to me! i’m not blaming but i am.

martin: i think that’s the worst part about having a girlfriend like if she’s sick you’re gonna get sick too- mandy’s like a freaking warrior though she’s never sick. it’s actually really odd.

hamzah: it’s because she’s a nurse, i think

martin: actually dude?

hamzah: yeah i read about it (he’s lying)

[pm-my-beloved]

Spiral of Contempt - Analysis

I have seen A LOT of people either claiming to not understand Spiral of Contempt, or, worse, present an interpretation which in my eyes is wrong (How dare they~). Thus, I am deciding to attempt an in-depth analysis of this abno, and while im there, also Awe, Contempt Ryoshu.

I do want to warn that I might miss some of the information because trying to put it all in somewhat coherent order is, quite hard.

First preface I think is needed to estabilish, is that it probably is an abberation of Burrowing Heaven, and that its DEFINETLY a religious themed abnormality.

So lets start with disproving a theory I have frequently seen that is like, so wrong in my opinion?? And that is, that this abnormality represents "God Complex", which like, if you make a very shallow read of it, and decide to not look at its visual design, then maybe.

But, even just from design, despite being named "Spiral of contempt" the primary action that it does, is an act of worship, of adoration, its hands raised into the heavens, blood spilling from its hands as if some form of a gorey offering.

So, first conclusion to be taken, is that this is not "Godly" abno, but rather, a worshipper. And thus is also why its primarily lust, because the core of this is, as previously mentioned, adoration of something thats been put on a pedestal.

The golden land and the pouring blood is above and beyond you, and even as abno picture shows, beyond the spiral. But what could that mean? Its a surprise tool that will help us later.

"It mus have reached this depth after burrowing and burrowing." Why would something or someone go into the depths for source of worship, rather than simply look at the heavens above? This is a question that we will provide two potential answers later.

Now, onto the abnormality choice that I want to focus on in the Mirror Dungeon

The focus on gaze, or in this case, aversion, and previous mention of burrowing makes me to personally be certain of this abnormalities status as an aberration. It also makes me think, how the original abno itself, treated gaze, as almost an act of worship, to devote your focus, yourself fully to the thing your eyes are set upon.

I believe the check passed can have 3 possible interpretations, each with slightly different implications, and all of which might, considering the surreal aspect of abnormalities, be correct at the same time.

First one, is that by being able to avert our eyes from it, from its own act of worship, it has shown us some reverence, but that act, caused the contempt in the abnormality to be directed at self, for feeling respect towards a worthless bug like us. Though I do believe that the last line "The spiral descended out of sight in the meantime" Implies that the middle statement is not describing what the spiral does itself.

Second reading, is that, The Spiral of Contempt itself is a being of little insignificance, thus to observe it, to worship it with your own attention, would be a cause of contempt, and by not adoring something as worthless at it is, we prove our own worth. I want to point out here, that the option to keep looking, is what causes hatred and contempt to burst out out of ourselves

Finally, third, perhaps most radical option that will need some explaining later, is that, whatever the spiral is worshiping itself is of no significance, is profane, that its object of awe in on itself is contemptable. The reason I think so, is because the spiral has burrowed itself under the ground to worship something, to hold it in awe. I believe that one of the angles of interpretation is that, the spiral is worshipping the profane, the bloody, messy, literally placing blood on altar made of its own hands, rather than seek true heaven. It burrows itself deeper, instead of burrowing to the surface, until it reaches sky. Additional clue is, that the primary ego gift we get from it, the hands with the sanguine offering, is named perversion, otherwise translatable as corruption of the natural order.

Additionally, with the failure of the check, what we are punished for, is failure to have courage to look away, to reject the sight in front of our eyes. This failure check leads me to further believe in interpretations 2 and 3.

Now, onto Awe, Contempt, and how it ties into two of my interpretations. In on itself, the name choice is quite interesting, seemingly two completely contrasting statements, yet if we assume correctness of my interpretation, or look at what Ryoshu represents as a person, it is perfectly fitting.

The quote Ryoshu was given shows how those two concepts compliment each other perfectly "Other, lesser painters are such mediocrities, they have no way to see the beauty that lies in ugliness"

Ryoshu, through an act of art, is a sort of worshipper. She worships the squalor and uglyness and suffering that is present in life, and her art. With her actions, she is elevating the most profane, the most vile, the most worthy of contempt, into a thing of beauty and awe. This, is based on interpretation number 3.

A different, equally valid angle in my opinion, is that this EGO represents her worship of art, while separating herself from it. She is very prideful, but she does not require praise or adoration herself, what she wants is for the art itself to be seen, to focus on artist rather than their work, is what invites her scorn. This one, obviously is based on interpretation number 2.

Thus, in conclusion. I believe that Spiral of Contempt is abnormality that both represents worship of something we choose to see as vastly greater than ourselves, and the act of deifying the horrid and profane.

I will write additional things I notice that don't warrant taking space in the analysis in a follow-up post

[simjaeyvn]

pairing: heeseung x reader

summary: you weren’t meant to be getting jealous at all, friends with benefits had boundaries but shit lee heeseung looked so fucking good in his story.

warnings: oral sex (m receiving), swearing (??), mentions of weed nd alcohol like once lol

note: not proofread + pretty rushed but i js wanted to write smth to post cus i disappeared due to uni sorry

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” The one word spills from your lips repeatedly as you stare intensely into the screen of your phone. Your fuck buddy, Lee Heeseung had posted himself, in his all black fit with his hair slightly damp and messy. You couldn’t tell if you were upset, mad or amused but what you did know was that you wanted to give him the suck of his life. But who was he trying to impress with his story? You frown at the thought of him trying to impress another girl and it’s only worse because it was definitely going to work. Heeseung was hot, really hot, as if sculpted by Aphrodite herself. The friends with benefits thing you had going on started when you guys were both tipsy and horny, things led to another and you both couldn’t deny how good the sex was and that is how the agreement all started.

Your focus on his story gets interrupted when you hear your roommate, Chaewon, squeal. Which gains all of your attention, of course, probably gained the attention of everyone who lived on the same floor as you two.

“Oh my god, Y/N. Have you seen Heeseung’s story? He is so fine.” Oh, and you guys were private. Not even private, secret. It was hard not telling your best friend you had been railed by Heeseung on the couch she’s fangirling over him on.

“He’s okay,” you say. It did bother you knowing other girls were having this reaction but it was worse when you weren’t in the position to be mad nor jealous. You weren’t familiar with the concept of feelings, they were confusing to tell apart. Romantic, platonic, etc, it was all too much so you stuck to denying anything you felt but there was something about Heeseung. Maybe it was the way he treated you after sex or the way he wouldn’t forget to smile and wave at you when he saw you on campus. There was just something about him that made you want him for yourself but you knew you’d have to give him up. It did piss you off, were you not enough? He said he wasn’t looking for anything serious but he goes around and posts this. You, yourself couldn’t tell if you were overreacting but you didn’t like the jealousy you felt one bit. Lifting yourself up from your shared couch with Chaewon, you turn to her to ask, “Are we going to Jay’s party?"

“Well no shit! Who are we to turn down a party?” She scoffs, hand on her chest to seem offended. You giggle and throw a pillow at her before walking into your room and shoving your face in the comfort of your pillows. The peaceful moment is interrupted by the notification noise coming from your phone. Groaning as you turn yourself around and lift up the screen to meet your eye level.

hee: hey pretty ;) hee: u going to jay’s party?

It takes everything in you not to reply or even open the message. He can post himself all he wants, he’ll just have to deal with a pissed you. You swear you can see a light bulb glowing above your head as you decide to continue the concept of staying pissed at him. How dare he post himself looking that good and then go to a party? Lee Heeseung was on thin ice. Jumping up from your bed, you open your closet and skim it to find the tightest, shortest dress you own. Pulling out a small black dress that hid in the back of your closet, you hum to yourself in satisfaction. Upon getting ready, you hear your phone vibrate. Unlocking the screen as you frown seeing the contact name.

hee: angel? why arent u answering? hee: do u need to be picked up?

This game was far more amusing than you thought it’d be. You lock your phone screen and wait for Chaewon in your shared living room. “Let’s go!” She yells enthusiastically.

One step in and the aroma of weed and beer dominates your nostrils. Your eyes roam around the house looking for a familiar face because Chaewon had met a cute guy out in the front of the house so now you were alone. Your eyes land on Jake in the kitchen, he waves, and you walk over. When you’re in arms reach, he hands you a cup of beer.

“You look good,” he compliments with a smug smile. Jake was cute, very cute but he was Heeseung’s best friend so any plan you wanted with him would be dismissed because he was also very nice. He was very committed to the concept of ‘Bro Code,’ which you respected.

“Thank you Jake,” you giggle before taking a sip out of the red plastic cup. You learn your body against the counter as you listen to Jake’s frustration over a girl.

“She gives me these signs but then she ghosts me. It’s annoying! How’s Heeseung though?” Jake asks, which surprises you. You were so focused on him talking about the girl, you don’t even know how he slipped Heeseung into the conversation.

“Heeseung? Well, he’s something.” You reply, eyes staring at the liquid in your cup.

“Better put a collar on him, did you see his story?” Jake laughs, gently pushing your shoulder as you laugh with him. “Oh. Speak of the devil.” You look up to ask Jake what he had meant but you’re already being pulled by your wrist across the house.

“Fuck! What the fuck? Let go!” You try to protest as you struggle loosening the grip. The hand lets go when you’re in a bathroom, you wait to see who the hell dragged you here as the figure locks the door. Once he turns around you curse yourself. “What the fuck Heeseung?!” You yell.

“Angel, you didn’t answer my texts. Didn’t even try to find me here and I see you talking to my best friend.” He says, you could tell he was tense. Why did he care? You guys weren’t anything official anyway, he had no reason to be caring but you also had no reason to be jealous.

“Why do you care? Move, let me go back.” You walk to unlock the door but you're pinned against the door before you can utter another word. Heeseung’s eyes meet yours, they’re dark, and full of lust. He looked mad, but he looked really hot at the same time.

“Why are you acting like such a brat for fucks sake?” He growls, moving one hand on your hip and the other cupping your jaw.

“Maybe if you hadn’t posted yourself for those other bitches.” You spit, turning your head to face anything but him. But he forcefully turned your head back to him. A smirk now on his face. Wow, you were one dumb motherfucker for admitting your jealousy.

“What? Was my angel jealous?” He says teasingly. You nod slowly, struggling to do so in his tight grip. “But baby, you made me all upset since you ignored me. Gonna make it up to me?” You nod with a smile on your face, knowing what he had meant. He smiles back before chasing your lips with his own. It doesn’t take 5 seconds before you’re kissing him back. As the kiss deepens, you push him back into the sink. You absolutely hated how weak you were for him. His teeth nip at your bottom lip so you allow his tongue to slip in. You cup his clothed dick with your hand which causes him to whine. Heeseung pulls back from the kiss and a string of saliva can be seen.

“Fuck angel, suck me off.” You lower yourself onto your knees as he undoes his belt and pulls down his jeans and boxers in one go. No matter how many times you’ve seen this sight, you still drool every time you see his bare cock. So thick, red and perfect for you. You wrap your hand around the base and pepper the tip with kisses whilst looking up at him before fitting as much as you can in your mouth. A low groan escapes his lips, and you love it. It gets difficult to control your gag reflex but you're so determined to make him feel good. He grabs your hair and wraps it into a makeshift ponytail. You can feel his tip brush against the back of your throat as you bob your head forward, not breaking any eye contact with him.

“Fuck, needa fuck your mouth baby.” You hum against his cock as a sign of agreement, your hands move to rest on his thighs as he uses you. “Mouth feels so baby.” He moans, eyes shut and his head thrown back. One of his hands grip onto the sink as the other holds your hair up in a ponytail and the prettiest noises leave his lips.

“Gonna cum-, gonna cum in your mouth, angel.” He pants before reaching his high, releasing in your mouth. “Open your mouth.” You open your mouth, showing him his release. “Swallow.” He commands, and you obey. You stick your tongue out again, showing him again and he swears he can cum again just from the sight.

“Sorry for earlier,” you mutter under your breath as you stand up. He smiles down at you, tucking himself back in his pants. “I’m sorry, I'll make it up to you, yeah? Let’s go to your apartment.”

[hiroshiii13]

I need Bingge yuan harem. Concubine SY, especially if he was bride napped. I want Bingge jealous of his own harem bcus it feels like punching cotton the way SY’s well adjusted and unbothered.

Bing: WDYM HE’S NOT ANGRY I HAVEN’T TURNED HIS NAME PLATE?? WHY IS HE NOT SCHEMING?

I want all the hallmarks of palace intrigue!!

SY getting sick from a lack of firewood in his palace. ZZL, his servant, stopping BH’s palanquin at the risk of death. Bowing to the emperor to ask for an imperial physician.

And Bingge trying to be nonchalant, but follows after the physician, asks the royal kitchen to make the most precious nourishing soup. ((He eventually cooks it himself after being so worried)).

Bingge’s interest starts to build. Secretly going (peeping) in the royal gardens as SY spends his time observing the flowers in full bloom. Trying his best to casually make an entrance.

Bingge’s bday banquet comes along, with priceless gifts stacked as far as the eye can see.

SY (w/ no powerful backing) procuring a small jade charm and medicinal sachet with hand embroidered details. Bingge directly asking for where SY’s gift is and keeping it on his person.

And every time after they meet Bingge thinks SY would invite him to stay the night, but he doesn’t. Bingge doesn’t need to ask, he knows. Taking SY as a concubine was a joke. But now he was getting serious about wanting him, to want it. For wanting SY to ask for it.

So he pulls his wild nature back and pretends to be soft and harmless. He always flips his name plate but never stays the night. Sometimes SY plays the qin for him, or sings, sometimes it’s just sending gifts or conversations during meals. Bingge wants his company the most.

Hell, maybe I can introduce a common enemy which allows the northern and southern kingdoms to unite (and get my moshang fix).

SY decides to follow Bingge in war while the rest of the harem stays back. He says he isn’t as delicate and he would follow Bingge through this hardship

Bingge doesn’t allow this but SY sneaks out anyway. With only the clothes on his back, some food and a dagger he travels up north to be w/ Bingge.

(Angst) Of course he’s captured along the way. And forced to become a courtesan. They meet again with SY under a new identity as a gift in the name of diplomacy.

Bingge feels betrayed, all this time? Was it all for this? Was he meant to fall in love and give away his kingdom?

After months of not seeing each other, all the hurt, confusion and longing was surmised in Bingge’s “is he good in bed?”

And he didn’t mean to say that. Especially seeing SY’s eyes glisten and his lips upturned in a sad smile. But the diplomat said how well behaved he is, how good he is.

SY bowed down and answered “my services have always been top notch.”

They fuck. Not in the way he imagined; Nothing of that sort of slow and careful lovemaking w soft whispers and laughter. There was no tenderness at all.

As SY expertly swallowed his dick, rather than bliss there was a feeling of loss in his heart. His most precious treasure, how did he become like this?

‘Was this your plan, all along?’

‘You can think what you want.’

And with that there were no more words between them. Only heavy pants and bruising bites and lots of kisses.

There were time when Bingge thought SY loved him. Maybe it was when he tried pulling out and SY locked his ankles around his hips begging him to stay inside. Maybe it was when he willingly put his arms above his head as Bingge restrained him roughly or maybe it was how he looked at him, tears falling, back arched trying to accommodate all that Bingge could give.

But Bingge would not think of that anymore. The peace talks commenced, the world condemned this stupid emperor. Honey trapped!! By a male courtesan at that!!

Most changed their mind and thought that they would be better off being a vassal state, cursing the emperor.

What the world didn’t know was the rivaling kingdom never meant to let them off. As drought became worse and tithes more absurd, the people only suffered.

Of course SY has had been slowly feeding the North intel with the help of ZZL. 🤩 He used his unique position to learn their schemes but did not tell Bingge.

At this time Bingge was essentially on house arrest, to ensure that they would push through with the treaty.

The Northern Consort schemed while his husband raised their joint army, readying to storm the rivaling kingdom.

They battle it out, and the forces of LBH and MBJ win decisively.

SY looks for Bingge, afraid of being left behind, of being disdained for the rest of his life.

In true palace intrigue fashion, he comes in time, just as someone was about to plunge a dagger into Bingge. He sacrifices himself instead.

There was no need I love yous or I’m sorrys. He knew he was loved. maybe it was a change of heart? Bingge thought.

But talking to MBJ, Bingge realized how wrong he had been. How painstakingly he helped, hiding in plain sight. And through it all, how he carried it all alone.

ZZL tended to his master choking back sobs. He could not help but feel aggrieved.

‘I should have stayed with him, this was all my fault. I should have never listened to him.’

‘What do you mean?’ Bingge arrived shortly after.

‘My master, told me to buy food in the city. I knew he was hiding something.

He left me a letter saying not to worry, that he’ll be running after the emperor’s envoy.’

‘I looked for him but only found his horse and drag marks in the soil. Later I heard he was taken by force.’

Bingge’s knees buckled from the weight of this revelation but he still crawled towards SY’s bed. How harsh had he treated him the first time they met again. How cruel were his words?

As Bingge grasped that gift SY painstakingly made for his birthday, he whispered, ‘SY, wake up, I will never wrong you again in this lifetime. Please wake up.’

But there was only a deafening silence in response.

SY woke up 5 days later, thank god that dagger was not poisoned or it would’ve been a different ending!!

Bingge tended to SY since then, practically a roundworm in his belly. The harem could NOT even visit him for long periods of time lest they draw the ire of a very jealous emperor!

Food was always prepared by Bingge. A truckload of new exquisite clothes was received. It was rumored that SY was so favoured that his palace was inlaid with gold, silver and precious stones.

But more than changes since then, they’ve decided to return to how they were. Bingge would visit him while SY played for him or sang. SY would frolic in the royal gardens, but this time Bingge would accompany him.

And when Bingge was invited to stay the night? They lay a white sheet on top of their bed rather quickly, yet spent the night in an almost torturous simmer. Getting reacquainted w e/o bodies between lots of hot kisses, bruising grips and soft laughter.

The outside world thought it was a truly ridiculous situation. A foolish emperor who surrendered it all for a male courtesan. And a male courtesan who was worth a whole kingdom, yet haphazardly threw his life for an impending puppet emperor.

But as the story was passed on, and the truth was revealed, the once absurd tale was changed to a story of an enduring love between the emperor and his favored male concubine.

(END)

[johnwickb1tsch]

Sympathy for the Devil ~ Part 10

A Donaka Mark x housekeeper!Reader fic, based on @discoscoob 's concept & bot! Though this is where the c.ai help ended because I was breaking the bot's pea pickin' mind. 😆

Warnings: Donaka Mark is a bad man with a soft spot for you. dark romance, possessive behavior, nonconsensual voyeurism, red flag red flag girl!🔺, psychological games, power imbalance, eventual dubcon/nsfw. PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER TOO!!!

one. two. three. four. five. six. seven. eight. nine.

Ten. 十

You don’t know where you get the courage to growl at this fierce man who has you in his grasp. But goddammit if he doesn’t just laugh at you–and sling you over his shoulder, carrying you like a caveman to his lair.

You do the requisite pounding on his broad back, the kicking of the feet. You swear it only makes him enjoy it more, as he tosses you down. You brace and let out a yelp, expecting hard floor below. You’re shocked, when you sink into soft mattress instead.

Which maybe isn’t great either. 

You try to scramble away, but his big hands wrap around your ankles, pulling you back, and then he is crawling over you, settling all that solid, masculine–delicious–weight on top of you. You feel him smile against your mouth, your hands pinned above your head. “Am I going to have to restrain you, to do what I want to you?” he asks casually, kissing the sensitive skin of the bend of your neck. “Or are you going to behave?”

You freeze beneath him at hearing the word restrain. As in what? Handcuffs? Ropes? Oh no. Somehow, that would be worse than everything else that’s happened tonight, and you fight not to hyperventilate beneath him, closing your eyes and grinding your teeth, even though all you really want to do is thrash like a trapped animal. 

That’s not going to work with this man. He’s too…everything. Smart. Strong. Cruel. Connected. You’re not going to beat him with brawn and you’d be a fool to count on luck. He watches you interestedly from inches away, as all this plays through your brain. You swear, he can read it like a news ticker scrolling above your head. He knows you so well.  

You hardly recognize your voice, when you ask quietly, “Will you promise…not to hurt me?”

You close your eyes again as he strokes your hair. “No,” he answers, and a spear of fear shoots down your spine. “But I don’t want to hurt you, y/n. I want your submission.”

“I don’t…understand the difference,” you admit, the fresh welling of tears spilling from the corners of your eyes. 

“Hmm.” He wipes away the moisture on your cheeks, bringing it to his lips. “I’m not wife-beating trailer trash, y/n. You’re not going to submit to me because of my fists. That would be too easy.” 

A shaky breath escapes you, as you think about how he’s used his superior strength to bully you so far. If he’s feeling self-righteous…it’s a thin fucking line. “I’m…not?”

“No.” He kisses you, lullingly gentle, cloyingly sweet. You are on even higher alert now than when he’d grabbed you earlier. “You’re going to submit, because it’s what you’ve really wanted all along. And I’m going to show you.” 

Your eyes bug wide.

“I don’t–no! That’s not fair!”

That is when his kiss upon your shoulder turns into a sharp nip. You yelp, and he is on his elbows over you, your face bracketed in his big hands. “You have a very bad habit of trying to lie to me, little one. We’re going to have to work on that.”

“I just…I don’t understand!”

“What is there to understand?” His thumbs stroke your temples, gentle once more. This man gives you whiplash.

“Why…” You try to look away, but he won’t let you.

“If you can’t look into my eyes and say it, then I’ll think you’re lying,” he scolds you. “It’s basic human behavior 101.”

With a growl you glare up at him. For some reason he finds this delightful, flashing teeth. You’re sure he knows, with a gimlet stare like his, how hard it is for mere mortals to meet head on. His standards are unfair. It’s like making a deal with a demigod–or a demon–who already knows he holds all the cards.

“Why me?” you manage to grind out. “You could have anyone.”

“I could buy anyone,” he agrees. He softens slightly, looking down at you. “But you don’t care about my money, do you? You want something else from me.” He smirks, and you are mortified all over again, a flush of heat blooming up your neck. “I read all about it.”

“Ugh.”

He chuckles, enjoying himself far too much at your expense.

When he lowers to kiss you, you consider biting him for about 2.3 seconds.

“Do it,” he dares you, his words a dagger clothed in velvet. “See what happens.” He says it almost eagerly, as though he’d welcome the leave to be terrible again. You have to remember that about him. He dangles tenderness before you like bait, not genuine sentiment. You’re playing a game, and the rules can change on this man’s whim.

He says he doesn’t want to hurt you–you’re not sure that’s true, and it certainly doesn’t mean he won’t. You can trust him as far as you can throw him, and judging by his delectable dead weight on top of you…that’s not far.

You close your eyes, feeling helpless again. And stupid. And…still turned on, if you’re being completely honest with yourself. You don’t know how you’re aroused when you should be disgusted, screaming, crying, fighting–it would win you nothing. He’s going to have his way, so you can fight it…or you can enjoy it for now, and bide your time, because he has to slip up at some point, right?

Right?

He feels the change in you, when you start softening to the onslaught of his lips, his hands on your body tracing every dip and curve. “That’s my good girl,” he murmurs, and you swear his praise lights up something in your brain like a red hot wire.

This isn’t it, you promise yourself. You are in a war with this man. And maybe you lost the first battle, and swiftly the second too, but not the whole war. You are not conquered yet. You are not conquered yet. 

With this new resolve you reach for the buttons of his shirt. They are small, and stubborn, and you let out a frustrated growl that makes Donaka smirk down at you. “Don’t rip it. This shirt cost more than a month's salary for you.”

“Well, you’re always bragging about how much money you have,” you fire back, jerking the two halves. You’re proud of yourself when there’s a tearing sound and the button goes flying. Fair’s fair. Donaka grins like a wolf, then suddenly you are flipped on your belly, your ass in the air and your panties wrenched down your thighs. 

Smack.

You scream, his big hand on your backside stinging like a swarm of angry bees, and instinctively you squirm to get away from him. But he holds you down with an unforgiving grip in your hair, pushing your face down into the mattress.

Then you hear the jangle of his belt buckle again, and the warning hiss of leather sliding free of loops. “No, no,” you beg, struggling, to zero avail. His grip is unbreakable, like this man is made of iron.

“That depends on you. Are you going to damage my property again?”

“No,” you whimper into the bedclothes, hating how small you sound. 

“That’s what I thought.”

He drops the belt beside you on the bed like a reminder, before caressing your tender bottom ever so lightly, soothing the sting. How…does that actually feel good?

He makes a sound of appreciation, pulling you against the hard bulge in his crotch with hands on your hips. He spreads your thighs wider, leaving you utterly open and vulnerable to him. You hate to say it, but you are too unnerved to fight him, so conscious of that leather strap sitting beside you like an open threat.

“Stay there,” he directs, and you do as you’re told, listening to the whisper of fabric behind you as you presume he’s undressing. 

It’s a very awkward position, and your thighs begin to tremble. You are utterly exposed like this, splayed wide open. Yet you do not dare complain, suspecting you have used up your free passes with this man for the evening. He is just waiting for an excuse.

“You are exquisite,” he sighs from behind you. “I could stare at this view all night.”

An equal mixture of uneasy warmth and mortification fills you, displayed like this for him, so utterly open with nowhere to hide. Then you wonder if he’s threatening to keep you like this for hours more as a punishment. Yet before you can even begin to think of what to say to him, he has crouched beside the bed, and his mouth is on you. 

“Oh,” is the only intelligible word that leaves your lips. Everything that comes after is mere guttural nonsense, as his tongue teases your clit, sliding against your nether lips, and you see stars. All else forgotten, you become a slave to pursuing this pleasure, your fingers like claws in the sheets, canting your hips to give him better access to anything he wants. He moans against you, a deep sound that reverberates into your womb.

You whine like the needy little thing you have become when he withdraws, wiping his mouth on the butt cheek he struck not minutes before, kissing you with a tenderness that is nearly as beguiling as his tongue in your slit.

“Shhhh, sweet girl. I’ve got what you need, if you promise to be good for me.” You feel him kneel behind you, the warmth of his hand on your spine, the intoxicating kiss of his tip to your entrance. You’re not proud–but you want it. God, in that moment you want him more than air to breathe. You betray yourself, with the tilt of your hips, with the keening that escapes from your traitor of a throat.

“Mmm,” he practically purrs from behind you. “Do you promise, y/n?” He uses his tip to tease your slick folds, but it’s not enough. Not nearly enough. 

This is just a battle.

You make a sound of affirmative, a kittenish mewl because real language escapes you. 

“Use your words, bunny.”

Not the war.

“Yes.” It's all you can manage, and he takes mercy on you, betraying his eagerness too. Slowly he fills you, stretching your flesh inch by blessed inch until you can take no more. He could give you more. He could hurt you, badly, like this. Yet he’s so careful with you that you could weep, the slow glide of his body inside yours the stuff heaven is made of. 

It's funny. Despite the terrible things he did to you earlier, if you squint, it almost feels like he cares about you. The logical part of you knows it’s all a mind fuck. It has to be. But that part of you…is drowning in an inky sea of your other desires. Things you’re usually good at denying, because they’ve never caused you anything but trouble… Maybe that was a mistake on your part, because now you’re here with this dangerous man, and you’re so pent up that you can’t say no. 

That feeling of bliss intensifies when he reaches between your legs, slowly circling your clit as he pumps inside you. You involuntarily clench upon him, winning a low groan.  He drapes his long body over yours, kissing your spine, his hand encircling the front of your throat. 

“Tell me this isn’t better than just writing about it,” he demands, his low words against your ear sending a shiver through you. 

The simple answer, of course, is yes. The rest, however, is far too complex.

You make a sound that’s neither yes or no, and his grip on you tightens. Still not enough to hurt you…but he could, and you feel that so very acutely in that moment. The fact of the matter is you didn’t consent to any of this, even if you are enjoying it. He wants your complacency, and you wonder if it has to do with conscience, or claiming his victory. 

The latter, you tell yourself. The minute you start to believe he has a heart will be the end of you. You have to keep reminding yourself of that. He does not love you, you stupid girl. He never has, and never will. 

“Well? Tell the truth.” 

“It’s better,” you answer simply, because you don’t have the capacity to tell him the rest out loud right now, and making him happy is the only way you will ever get a chance to escape him. You are going to have to be calculating, and ruthless, and neither of those things come easily to you. 

“That’s my good girl.”

It shouldn’t feel so good, to hear him say that, while he’s balls deep inside you. It shouldn’t make your treacherous cunt flutter upon his relentless cock like you mean to swallow him up, a velvety red orgasm building between your legs again. 

It’s not surrender, you tell yourself as the warm rush fills you, makes you feel like your bones are filled with glittering gold, your spine bowing so hard you fear it might crack. It’s just…a tactical play. You’ve been haunted by curiosity about this man since the moment you laid eyes on him. In the morning, you’ll make your next move. For now…you might as well enjoy it as best you can. 

The games have only just begun.   

[stillness-in-green]

Sorry if this question rubs you the wrong way, but wouldn't going out of their way to try to help villains to the absolute extreme that you propose be a bit suicidal? I feel like trying to talk no jutsu criminals like Moonfish who's a serial killing canibal, or Muscular who doesn't have any actual reason for commiting violence against others other than he enjoys it, would end up getting people hurt or worse.

Idk, maybe my perception is skewed because my country has problems with the justice system being too lenient with criminals, but then striking hard against honest folk.

Like, let's say heroes try to talk to Muscular about his feelings and stuff, and he just beats them to death. So should they arrest him and take him to jail now, or should they respond "understandable, have a nice day" and let him carry on with his rampage and try to talk no jutsu him the next day?

I’ve had enough exchanges with you, rvg, to assume you don’t mean it this way, but I gotta say, this is an incredibly fallacious way to frame the “talk to Villains” discussion.  I wrote two responses to this, first a characteristically long and rambly response which you and anyone else who’s interested are free to read below the cut.  The second response is much shorter and is here above the cut, if only for those readers who think it’s a waste of time to try and give a sincere answer to what reads like deliberate reductiveness—though again, I don’t think that’s your intent.

Here is my model version of how Heroes should engage with Villains:

Step One: Heroes should put in a basic, good faith effort to defuse and de-escalate every Villain encounter they have with the tools and knowledge they have available; the ideal result is that the Villain will choose on their own to stop presenting a danger to the public.      

Step Two: If that is not feasible for some reason, or if it is ineffective, then the Heroes should make all possible efforts to arrest the Villain with the minimal possible harm.      

Step Three: If there is an immediate threat to the lives of bystanders and there is absolutely no way the Heroes can come up with to stop the Villain non-lethally, then there should, afterwards, be an investigation into the death of the Villain and all Heroes who were involved should have to face questions about their role in the situation and their decision to use lethal force.  Measures should then be implemented to help prevent the situation from arising again in the future.  A Hero killing someone should by default be treated as a punishable failure, not a victory.

That’s it!  That’s all there is to it!  Try talking first, then try arresting, and if killing is truly the only way, be ready to explain why.  That step-by-step should be the standard, and if there are going to be deviations from it, they should be exceptionally well-justified by both the characters and the narrative.  If that’s not the standard, then I think it’s a key thing we need to see the protagonists confronting and changing.

Hero Society is obviously in the not-the-standard camp: most of the Heroes spend most of the series jumping straight to Step Two, totally skipping Step One; there are then multiple instances of Step Three being botched completely, with non-lethal tactics being discarded or ignored and lethal force being accepted without question or resistance.  By the end of the series, a tiny handful of Heroes are now hesitantly attempting what should have been their very first go-to, Step One, but their prior reliance on Steps Two and Three make the Villains much more resistant than they might have otherwise been, which reenforces the push towards lethal force in a society that will still not enforce any consequences for it.

This would all be more forgivable if not for the way BNHA positions its Heroes, as lawful defenders of the status quo in a basically modern version of Japan—i.e. they’re cops but the story either doesn’t want to saddle them with the responsibilities real cops would have or else Horikoshi has some alarming views that treat said responsibilities as bothersome administrative red tape.

Therein is my fundamental complaint: BNHA makes the choice to frame its Heroes as being basically specialized police but then disregards or attempts to minimize how that framing colors the Heroes actions’ and decisions, especially with regard to the Villains.  My thoughts on what the Heroes “should” be doing are nothing more than taking that framing (Heroes = cops) to its logical conclusion and asking the story to treat the Heroes accordingly.

Below the jump, find the longer version of this answer, which contains more picking apart of the ask’s premise, more references to the canon and to real life, and an extended discussion about the non-Hero institutions in BNHA that are in some way responsible for Villains and what Heroes’ obligations are re: those institutions.  It is, in other words, the version of this answer that’s 4000 words long instead of 500.  Reminder that it was the version of this answer that was written first, so pardon any recycled phrasing or reiterated rhetoric.

I’ll just start by re-pasting the question…

What I think is that there is a lot of air between “beating up Villains while being more concerned about the news camera catching your good side than you are about talking to the human being you’re pummeling” and “trying to talk to the Villain but just shrugging and letting them carry on if it doesn’t work”.

A perennial response Villain fans get when they talk about this is an exasperated, even outraged, “What, so you’re saying Deku should just let Shigaraki kill him or innocent people?!”  And like, no, that’s not what we’re saying at all, and it’s a really reductive, bad faith characterization of the argument.  So I want to talk first about what Villain fans are saying, and then I’ll circle back to your question about trying to talk no jutsu the really bad news Villains and what Heroes should do if that talk no jutsu fails.

First things first, and to get it out of the way, not all Villains are on the level of Muscular or Moonfish.  For the vast majority of the series, the numeric bulk of Villains are just street criminals.  It would not be a life or death struggle for Kamui Woods and Mount Lady to try and talk down a purse snatcher together.  There is so much room for positive change in how Heroes engage with street-level Villains that just gets glossed over entirely when people want to spin-kick the argument all the way to S-class threats like post-surgery Shigaraki.

Note how handily and briskly Hawks deals with the nudist flasher guy when he’s walking around town with Endeavor—he doesn’t even glance in his direction.  Would it have been so impossibly hard to use his feathers to pin the guy’s coat back together and then cheerfully ask him why he went and did a thing like that?

So just keep that in mind, first of all: for the vast majority of what a Hero does day-to-day, especially the powerful ones who are way up near the top of the rankings, there are options available to them beyond “immediately resort to extreme violence” or “give the Villain a thumbs-up and walk away, whistling to cover the sound of civilian screams.”

But okay, how about with the more dangerous Villains?  Well, the point still stands: multiple heroic characters throughout the manga show themselves to be entirely capable of carrying on a conversation—be it with the Villains or with Hero allies—while fighting.  Mirio is able to temporarily keep ShigAFO talking and distracted by simply asking him a few basic questions; he and Nighteye both are able to get at least some answers out of Overhaul(!) just by asking about his intentions. Ochaco and Toga have coherent conversation every single time they fight.  Hawks and Twice have a whole argument while fighting.  As soon as Shouto can be bothered to talk to Dabi, Dabi’s eager to spill his whole backstory to him.

Shigaraki in particular comes off as desperate to share his grievances practically every time Heroes encounter him, and that only stops being true at the very end—and even there, it might be less true if that green twit fighting him could have been arsed to just fucking ask him, “Hey, last time we fought, when we were in the same headspace, I saw an image of you crying with a dog.  What was up with that?”  Deku doesn’t have to stand there with his hands in the air while asking!  As all the examples cited demonstrate, Heroes are more than able to fight and talk at the same time.  So why don’t they try to make that talk a little more actually useful?

What I’m saying is simply that I would like it if less of that conversation were dedicated to Heroes giving moralizing sermons about how bad and unforgiveable Villains are and a lot more of it were dedicated to Heroes just asking why the Villains are doing what they’re doing, and letting the conversation go from there, fighting defensively and keeping the Villain focused on them as much as they’re capable of doing.  We see the results in the series when Heroes bother trying this—think Deku’s results with Gentle Criminal or Ochaco’s with Toga—so it’s damning that they don’t try it more often.

The likely explanation is that professional heroism as a matter of practice and culture does not tend to bother with de-escalation tactics; after all, while you’re standing there trying to talk to the bank robber, some other Hero could easily be coming in for the take-down, and then they get all the credit and glory and not least the pay.  The whole system is geared towards rewarding fast, uncompromising takedowns, ignoring the possibility of more peaceful, productive resolutions in favor of stopping the Public Disturbance as quickly as possible, because it’s more important to stop random civilians feeling inconvenienced than it is to maybe try addressing a Villain’s issues so they stand down themselves and are less likely to become hardened criminals.

Heck, even Deku really only gets anywhere with Gentle because his first instinct—shutting down the fight right away with a Smash—gets him rebounded off an air trampoline with enough force to knock him back nearly a neighborhood block.  The defensive, evasive nature of Gentle’s power means it’s difficult to hit him directly, and Gentle’s personality was such that he kept talking while Deku was figuring out how to beat him.  That talking was really what gave Deku enough insight to trigger his empathy, so he started returning the conversation in ways that he never did against e.g. Stain, AFO, or in his first fight with Muscular.  He didn’t lead by asking why Gentle was invading his school, though; he just ordered him repeatedly to stop.

Heroes and, in turn, the kids, just don’t default to trying to talk to the Villains.  We see that they can, they’re just not trained to, so it becomes a tactic of last resort, or of distraction, or, finally, as being the result of moments of connection that make them incapable of continuing to ignore the Villains’ humanity.  But when it’s a last resort like that, when they don’t bother asking questions until after the Villains have been pushed past the point of wanting to engage, everything gets so much harder and more dangerous.

Look at Shigaraki and Toga.  When Deku and Ochaco initially encounter them, the kids’ first response is basically just revulsion and terror.  And like, okay, they’re students, newly fledged Hero Course trainees.  They shouldn’t have been facing real life Villains for another two years, at least!  So it’s not surprising that they don’t know what to do and don’t react in the most empathetic manner possible.  I’m not blaming them for that.  But I do want to ask what would have happened if their classes and the Hero culture were more focused on attempting dialogue with Villains.

All Might at USJ writes Shigaraki off as a faker with no real beliefs, and Deku at the mall calls him an incomprehensible cipher, but what if either of them had instead asked Tomura why he was there and what he wanted, then asked follow-up questions from there?  How much earlier might they have found out that Shigaraki had some tragedy in his past that he blamed All Might for not saving him from?  What might finding that out early on have led them to change about how they approached Shigaraki in subsequent encounters?

If Ochaco and Tsuyu had asked Toga why she attacked people, then followed up on whatever answer Toga gave about liking blood with some questions about consent, how much sooner might they have found out that Toga spent her whole life feeling ostracized and repressed because she was convinced by the adults around her that people finding out she craved blood would make her a freak in their eyes?  How might they have engaged with her differently if they realized her parents had been verbally abusing her since she was three years old?

But we also don’t have to stop with U.A. types!  Toga went on the run at only 15—how many times did she have had close scrapes with arrest before the training camp attack?  How many other opportunities were there for someone to talk her down before she made it to the League?  Heck, even all the way to the end, if the green twit hadn’t just insisted on antagonizing Toga one last time for the road—as if he’d learned nothing at all since the mall scene!—how much more easily might Ochaco have been able to engage with her?  Maybe if Toga hadn’t set her mind to embracing Villainy because Deku functionally became yet another person calling her a freak, Ochaco could have gotten to the breakthrough point before Toga stabbed her in the gut?

I’ve been talking about the more sympathetic Villains here so far, but all this goes for the rest of them, too.  Sure, Moonfish is a cannibal serial killer now, but was he always?  Or was there a time when he was just like Toga, a teenager wrestling with quirk-driven hungers who was abused and ostracized for them?  I’ve thought, from time to time, about the idea of a League ageswap AU, where Moonfish is that scared but defiant teenager who’s been pushed over the edge and done something violent, but is not yet past saving.  Conversely, it’s all too easy for me to imagine a Toga who was never captured and never shown any compassion growing into an adult who fully embraced her vampire serial killer reputation and “deviant” hungers to become just as much an alleged monster as Canon Moonfish.

How about Muscular?  Was he always a violent sadist?  Was it impossible that he could have grown up to be anything else?  Could that taste for violence ever have found an outlet other than murder?  Could he have gotten into underground fighting, like Rappa?  Could he have become a Hero like Mirko, always hungry for a better challenge than she’s getting?  Quite frankly, even if Imasuji Gouto was a violent little bully who killed neighborhood pets as a child, he still deserved some kind of intervention—psychological counseling, medication, more acceptable outlets, etc.

How many Villains would HeroAca!Japan be spared if the people in power were more focused on intervention and rehabilitation at every stage of a Villain’s life and career?  Why do Heroes think it’s helpful or necessary to tell everyone in earshot their personal opinion about the unforgivability of their opponents?  Why is it such a problem for some readers when Villain fans point out that a lot of issues could be sidestepped entirely, and the HeroAca world considerably bettered, if the Hero Industry were less focused on showy grandstanding violence, less terrified of the optics of being anything other than maximally harsh on Villains?

That all said, that’s the nuance of what I want when I say I want more talk no jutsu.  But let’s go back to your question—what should Heroes do when they run into Villains who can’t be talked down?

Say that all the interventions and counseling programs have failed, and someone—some mother’s son, some father’s daughter—has grown up to become a Villain.  And not just any Villain, but a really dangerous one.  What do?

Well, I do still want to see Heroes try to talk first, unless they have some reason to believe talking won’t work, like knowledge that knowing that efforts in that direction have already been made and documented in previous encounters between law enforcement and the Villain in question.  There’s also some flex here based on how capable of dragging out an encounter the Heroes on-scene are, and how much danger any bystanders would be in—I would want more effort from someone who can hold their own for long periods like Deku than e.g. Manual.  But like, anyone can yell a few basic questions about motivations to see what sort of response they get.

But say our Hero is up against someone like Muscular, who just laughs off questions like that.  What to do then?

Then arrest him.

Seriously, this is not that complicated.  I’m not asking some run-of-the-mill Hero to get their arms ripped off trying to give battle therapy to Muscular!  But I do want Muscular to get therapy, or at least be offered it, once he’s no longer presenting an immediate threat and those conversations can happen in a safe environment.  And if he doesn’t accept it,[1] I still want him to be treated as humanely as reasonably possible in prison, with the therapy option always on the table if he ever wants to try it.  I also want his prison term (even if it’s for life) to not involve methods of punishment that are considered by the United Nations to constitute torture, like Tartarus’s apparent extended solitary confinement.

1: Perhaps because he would rather rip his own arms off than talk about his feelings or waste any more time getting analyzed by shrinks than he already has; pick your poison based on why and for how long you think he’s been killing people.

I truly do not have any problems, ethically speaking, with Heroes arresting dangerous Villains.  My problem has always been that Hero Society is comprehensively awful in how it treats those who don’t fit neatly into society’s little boxes.  Their social support networks are full of holes, their law enforcement is financially disincentivized from attempting de-escalation, their judicial process is completely invisible, and their prisons are concrete holes that only serve to make people worse, as we can see clearly in the case of people like poor Ending—already unstable when he was first arrested by Endeavor, but so blatantly suicidal when his sentence is up that the literal first thing he does after release is to investigate Endeavor’s personal life so as to find a way to goad Endeavor into killing him.

Now, sure, Heroes are not responsible for prison policies and practices; those are under a completely different part of the criminal justice umbrella.  Nor is it up to them to determine how e.g. financial aid programs or family services work.  But I want Heroes to be better in the ways that they—personally and professionally—can be, and I want them to be cognizant of the flaws in the system they uphold.  I want them to have some basic intellectual curiosity about the Villains they fight—why they turned out like they did, if they can be helped, and what’s going to become of them after the Hero hands them off to the police.

Like, what is All Might’s opinion on Tartarus?  He spent 30+ years fighting for the society that maintains it—does he think or care at all about the fact that some extremely damaged, abused people wind up in there after he gets done beating them up?  And if he doesn’t, what does that say about him?  What would Ochaco have done if Toga had lived and said she’d rather Ochaco kill her than let her go to prison forever?  Does Shouto think now about the family situation of every Villain he fights, or did his ability to care about “some mother’s son” begin and end with his mother’s son?

Obviously, Heroes stop Villains all the time; I’m not asking them to do deep dives into the history and treatment of each and every one.  I just want them to ask the questions they can while the Villain is in front of them, and to care about the state of both the systems that produce Villains and the ones tasked with their care.  I think that when handing people over to state custody, Heroes have a responsibility to be meaningfully confident that the state won’t abuse that custodianship.  If they aren’t—if they truly don’t give a shit about what happens to Villains once the police van door swings closed—then in my view they’re no different than any professional who shirks their duty.

So many people insist that the kids—that Heroes in general—have no duty to care about the Villains, but to me, this view comes off as wildly ignorant about the wide variety of jobs in the real world that do, in fact, confer a duty of care.

If…

…a teacher sees a child with unexplained bruises but doesn’t bother to do their due diligence as a mandatory reporter—

…a prison guard leaves a handcuffed inmate alone in a room with a fellow warden wearing brass knuckles—

…a medic doesn’t speak up when a flight attendant asks if there’s a doctor on the plane—

…a bartender just keeps on serving someone who’s obviously intoxicated and then lets them stumble out the door to the parking lot—

—then they are shirking their duty.  There is no shortage out there of examples of this sort of responsibility, one that you can be held legally responsible for, one that you choose to accept when you sign up for the job.

Heroes are not Samaritans doing the work out of the goodness of their hearts; they’re not vigilantes just trying to keep their own patch safe.  They’re government employees, crucial members of the lawful system they represent.  They have to care—not personally, not individually, but on a professional, structural level, they have to care about the people they fight because the system has to care about those people.  And if the system doesn’t care, the system has to be changed.

I'm segueing here into real life stuff, so let me note as a disclaimer that what follows is based on my cultural familiarity with American policies, as well as periodic research into that of other nations. I don't know what country you live in, rvg, so I can hardly speak to its crime-and-punishment situation. This is all a lefty American's opinion on what reading she has done about American, Japanese, and, in the case of this particular post, Scandinavian criminal justice systems.

That said: in real life, de-escalation works.  One of the things you’ll often see talked about in police reform/abolishment circles is that the police are, quite frankly, doing too much work.  Or, more specifically, they’re doing the wrong kind of work, work for which their training has not prepared them and which other groups would be far better suited to handle.

Here’s an article on offering a campus police force de-escalation training and the resulting 26-36% drop in injuries suffered by both civilians and officers; it also talks about how de-escalation tactics are used by SWAT teams but regarded with suspicion by patrol officers, with this quote being particularly telling: “[Special operations] officers were taught to use time, distance and cover to their advantage.  For patrol officers, time was viewed as 'The more time you give a suspect, the more danger you're in.'”  De-escalation is not the usual training patrol officers get, so it runs against their gut feeling, despite its proven effectiveness—compare this to BNHA’s repeated focus on speed in shutting down altercations.

Here’s an article on the results of a test run of a program in Denver, Colorado, in which police officers were completely removed from response teams to 911 calls about situations considered low risk (drug abuse, trespassing, welfare checks, etc); instead, teams of mental health specialists and paramedics were dispatched.  Reports of nonviolent crime dropped 34% over the course of the time the program ran, and the direct financial cost of the response was four times lower than sending police.

The classic dramatic image of this sort of thing is the hostage situation—and when I looked into it, numerous articles said that containment and negotiation tactics have over a 94% chance of resolving hostage crises without fatalities!

The common element in this sort of thing is refraining from showboating displays of force, loud assertions of power and authority, arguments, moralizing, threats, and so forth.  Far more effective is listening, active attempts to communicate and understand, not throwing one's weight around and not rising to aggression even when provoked.

Meanwhile, on the carceral side of things, restorative justice leads to greater satisfaction from both victims and perpetrators, more feeling that they were listened to and respected, and increased belief that justice was served.  While the evidence on its impact on recidivism is mixed, it certainly doesn’t seem to be less effective than traditional retributive justice, and may well be considerably more effective if combined with programs that focus more specifically on lessening recidivism than restorative justice alone (research is ongoing).

This article on how “cushy” Scandinavian prisons are far more effective at reducing recidivism than their much harsher, bleaker American counterparts argues that a crucial factor in reducing recidivism is minimizing the amount of resentment criminals bear towards the system.  When perpetrators can point at unjust or disproportionate punishments, cruel treatment by wardens, rejection by society, etc, it’s much easier to stew on resentment, to turn nastier themselves, to blame outside factors.  Conversely, when life inside prison is made as much like life outside prison as possible with the key difference being the crucial deprivation of freedom, that resentment is defanged, leading to more more self-reflection and willingness to accept responsibility. And again, it works: Norway is a world leader, with their recidivism rate being a mere 20% compared to the U.S.’s nearly 77%.

The studies and the evidence for this stuff is out there, it’s just fighting this huge, ugly uphill battle against people who care far, far more about inflicting punishment than they do actually improving outcomes.  And so much of that is based on cultural values—what people believe, what values they’re taught. That's where pop culture comes in.

That last article I linked above talks about the efforts made in the U.S. to turn prisons into a for-profit industry, and how demonizing criminals to encourage maximum sentences helps that effort; here’s another on how U.S. police departments rehabilitated the popular image of the police in the early part of the 1900s as bumbling fools or a corrupt gang by consulting on the writing of police procedurals, most crucially starting with Dragnet in 1951, but continuing even today.  Here’s one on a growing concern in Japan about the relationship fostered between TV studios and police when police permission and cooperation is required for filming those popular reality TV police documentary programs.

Mass media and pop culture informs this stuff.  True, Horikoshi is not having to get his work cleared by a police PR department to publish it, but you can see from the above how the police have used and do use mass media to polish up their image; they see it as an effective tool to use because it is.  And the closer to our reality a work of fiction is, the more obviously it resembles the world around us, the more it seems to purport to moral instructiveness, the more true that becomes.  That’s why I criticize BNHA much more harshly than any number of other manga or anime I follow where Good Guys Kill Bad Guys all the time and no one thinks twice about it: because those series aren’t parading the Good Guys out as Japanese citizens working with Japanese police under Japanese law to maintain the rosy image of the Japanese status quo.

I’m long past the point where I’m just rambling, so I’ll wind it down here by pointing out this: Horikoshi also thought that things in his world needed to change.  As much as I loathe BNHA’s endgame and think much of its epilogue is trite shoulder-patting pablum that fails to meaningfully address the setting’s real problems, multiple aspects of Hero Society were at least nominally challenged and subsequently changed: citizen inaction, the dominance of professional heroics as a career path, the diminishment of non-Hero careers, quirk-based discrimination.  As a direct result of the main characters’ efforts to address places where the old system was failing people, the incident rate of Villains is decreasing.

The fact that these changes are made provides in itself the evidence that they needed to be made. I think they need to go further still: my number one greivance with the epilogue is that we've seen all these changes aimed at reducing the numbers of Villains that arise in the first place, and that's nice and all, but we don't see any evidence that the Villains that do arise are treated any differently than they ever were, not even the common purse snatchers, much less the serial killers, the cannibals, and the terrorists.

So, should Heroes have to get themselves nearly killed trying to reform a Villain?  Ideally no, but that assumes a world where Heroes are working in concert with a bunch of other people who are also dedicated to preventing, reforming, or rehabilitating Villains.  If none of that other personnel infrastructure exists, then, well, to paraphrase Nedzu, someone has to take the first step.  Why shouldn’t it be the combat-trained professionals with shounen battle stamina who also happen to be the main characters?

[glow-worms-are-believers]

Catwoman's new sidekick (dc x dp)

This is very loosely inspired by this prompt. Enjoy the blurb:)

Danny didn’t really like guns. Not the ecto-weapons his parents made, but the actual bullet-filled guns. He knew how to use them, as that was what his parents had based themselves off of to create their own ectoplasm-powered version of it, but he didn’t like them. So when he’d found one not only loaded, but with the safety off in his apartment’s garbage bin, he’d plan to take it and go throw it in the river to make sure nobody would get to use it. Danny wasn’t exactly shocked to see it, this was Gotham after all, but it was a bit of a nasty surprise to say the least. It wasn’t like it could really hurt him anymore, it seemed halfas had a sort of built-in instinct for going intangible (which had explained why the Nasty-Burger-explosion-that-never-happened hadn’t affected him despite being taken completely by surprise).

Not to mention he was already in a bad mood at the news that Vlad was in the city right now for some rich guy nonsense, which Danny was 100% sure meant the fruitloop was going to come by to bother him at some point in the next few days.

“Hello, Daniel,” came Vlad’s voice from behind him as if summoned.

“Get away from me, you creep,” Danny answered, not turning around. Instead, he started walking in the opposite direction.

“Is that anyway to talk to your unckie Vlad?” The man said with his smarmy tone. “And I came by such a long way to come see you.”

“You saw me, now you can leave.” Danny didn’t bother turning his head as Vlad caught up so they were walking side by side.

The billionaire tsked as he looked around. “It’s such a shame you live in such a poor neighbourhood. You know the offer to pay for your tuition is still open.”

“Not in a million years,” Danny answered dryly.

“You’re just as stubborn as my dear Madeleine used to be,” Vlad sighed and Danny felt the disgust twist his features into a grimace.

“Still being a creepy disgusting old loner, Vlad?” Danny snarked. “How many cats are you on, number 5?”

There was flash of anger in the older man’s eye before he smirked. “And how is dear Danielle these days, it’s been so long since she came by. I think she’ll be due for another meltdown soon.”

On impulse, Danny raised the gun, knowing full well the man would go intangible faster than any bullet and pointed it at Vlad. “Don’t you dare touch her.”

“Oh please, Daniel,” Vlad scoffed. “What are you going to do, shoot me?”

“Maybe,” Danny retorted.

“It wouldn’t change anything,” Vlad dismissed.

“Might make me feel better,” Danny said even as he lowered the gun a bit, knowing it wouldn’t do anything.

Vlad knew this just as well, and he sneered before turning his back to Danny and walking away with a parting shot. “I always get what I want, Daniel. Whether it’s through you or her.”

The gun that Danny had lowered slightly now came back up. He was so tempted to empty the stupid thing at Vlad, no matter if it would all pass through him. Before he could do anything though, a voice from above sounded.

“He’s not worth it, kid.”

Danny looked up to find the masked face of Catwoman peering down on him.

“He deserves worse than this,” Danny said, mind still on the temptation of shooting at Vlad’s intangible back. This was a deserted part of the city, it wasn’t like it would hurt anyone else.

“I promise there are better ways to make him pay,” Catwoman answered.

Danny scoffed bitterly. “Vlad’s so rich, he can pay off anyone and cover up any scandal I could think of.” And if money didn’t work, there was always straight-up overshadowing innocent bystanders.

The masked woman hesitated for a while before she called down determinately. “Look, get rid of the gun, and I promise I’ll help you make him pay.”

“Really?” Danny wasn’t too sure what that entailed but anything that would hinder Vlad was a go for him. “You promise?”

“I do,” she stated with conviction. “But you have to lose the gun.”

“Yeah, ok,” Danny said. He was going to do it anyways, but if she wanted it gone even faster, Danny wasn’t going to argue.

Selina watched as her new sidekick dropped off the gun into the river. It fell in with a splash that had something in her curling comfortably. Maybe Bruce was really rubbing off on her if she was picking up strays

But, Selina had a good feeling about this. Talking a kid out of murder had been how Batman had gotten his first Robin, after all.

[moveslikekeithrichards]

entire family including my brothers girlfriend in shouting argument last night bc we were playing 20 questions (generally more like 800 questions) & my mom wasnt playing but had to get involved when my brother showed her a picture to confirm the genre of the character he was thinking of & she became absolutely enraged bc he had said Yes to "are they humanoid in shape" and she tried to tell me the character was more robotic than anything else (but not actually robotic) and he was telling me No He Is Not and they were both giving fully conflicting answers & telling me not to listen to the other & only after their difficulty answering when faced with the question "is the character live action" did i realize it was a muppet and that maybe my brother and i are horrible at playing 20 questions but we're the only people who can play it with each other bc nobody else understands our brain cells. anyway poll

(NOTE: when i say Humanoid In Shape i mean like, you could take a stick figure and flesh it out into the character, not that theyre human or human-looking or apelike etc, which is how my mom interprets it. idk if this is a Correct Definition but my brother & i both knew what i meant)

[the-broken-pen]

As another request, maybe the villain and hero are fighting , and the villain notices that the hero reacts suspiciously numb to his attacks. And when he taunts him about it, the hero sisimply says something to the effect of being used to it. And the villain is suspicious by the tone so he follow the hero and find out he’s abused by family . Cue villain saving the hero, comforting him and showering him with the love he never got

The villain should have known something was wrong the first time he hit the hero, and he simply braced, pain flickering along the muscles of his jaw, before hitting back. Face blank, a mask stronger than concrete. As if pain played no part, and it was just the give and return of kinetic energy, and nothing more.

He should have known when he said something so cruel it felt like graveyard dirt upon his tongue, and the hero merely stuttered for half a second, everything within him freezing, before he continued like nothing had happened. Nothing cruel in return, nothing biting in his face. Just–complete nothing.

“You never flinch,” the villain said, and it wasn’t a sudden realization, but it was close. Again, that momentary pause, like the hero had been grabbed and stopped by some otherworldly being on a molecular level. It allowed the villain to catch the next hit the hero threw at them.

“What?”

The hero, to his credit, didn’t sound upset, and in this line of work the villain was especially good at noticing the tiny pieces of that kind of thing. He just sounded confused, maybe.

“When I hit you. You don’t flinch,” the villain clarified. The hero just stared at them.

“You only really flinch if you aren’t used to it,” the hero said finally.

“Used to it?”

“You heard me,” the hero replied, and this time, there was irritation behind his words.

The villain tossed the hero’s fist down, and the hero stumbled back.

“And you didn’t answer my question.”

“I wasn’t aware there was one.”

“Are you intentionally being annoying, or is it just natural for you?”

The hero’s breath shuddered.

“Sorry.”

“Sorry–you–I don’t want an apology,” the villain sputtered. This conversation felt above his pay grade; and he wasn't entirely sure why, either, which irked him, itching under his skin.

“So–” the hero snapped his jaw shut around the rest of the word, and it looked like he was doing everything in his power to stop himself from finishing it.

Before the villain could prod further–about the flinching, or any other confusing aspect of it–the hero blew out a breath, and said, “I’m done here.”

The villain blinked.

“You can’t just decide when a fight is over.”

“Watch me,” the hero said, but his voice didn’t have the heat that usually went along with that phrase.

“You’re a hero, isn’t this kind of your entire job? Finishing fights, not walking away from them?”

“I said, I’m done,” the hero snarled, and it was the first hint of emotion he had shown the entire day, explosive and aimed entirely at the villain. The villain was taken aback for a moment.

The hero turned and left before the villain could even think of a response. He didn’t look over his shoulder.

Of course, the villain followed him home.

The fact that he had been able to at all was something to be worried about.

He watched as the hero entered, shutting the door behind him. Heard the sound of his bag hitting the floor, his jacket being hung up. Normal, quiet little things. Shuffling through the kitchen, making a cup of tea. A quiet conversation with his mother.

The villain was about to leave when he heard the slap.

He was through the door before he realized he was moving, leaving the handle to slam into the wall.

He caught the barest edge of a conversation as he rounded the corner–a curse word, then a vile sort of thing that was somehow worse than anything the villain had managed to say in his entire life–and slotted himself neatly between the hero and his mother.

The villain caught her wrist before it could touch any part of the hero. His grip was too tight to be anything but painful.

The hero’s mother gaped at them.

A bruise was beginning to bloom across the hero’s cheek.

The hero was shaking, slightly, face tense and drawn as he stared at the villain. Like the villain was the unnerving thing in this situation, and the hand his mother still had raised was the normality.

A rage, raw and unfathomable, ravenous within him, descending down so deep into the white hot of fury that it passed anything that had a name, uncurled itself along his bones.

“Touch him again,” the villain seethed, voice shaking with all that feral untamed mess within himself, “and you lose the hand.”

“Villain,” the hero said quietly, and the villain had never heard him so meek.

How long did it take for a person to learn that kind of quiet?

“Villain, leave it.”

The villain didn’t release the hero’s mother’s–no. The woman in front of him wasn’t a mother. She was something twisted, and broken, and cruel, upper lip curled with displeasure. Not that the villain was within her kitchen; but that he had stopped her from hitting her child.

The villain wanted nothing more than to vomit on her spotless white tiles.

Maybe in another life she would have been the kind of person the hero, with his kind heart, would have saved before it got to this point.

Maybe in another life the villain would have let the hero try.

But that was not this life.

And there was a bruise blooming on his hero’s cheek.

“You have no right–”

“Did I not make myself clear?” He said, and it was black and poisonous in the air.

The woman in front of him swallowed, and for the first time, fear flickered across her face.

Good.

“Villain,” the hero said, voice strangled, and the villain turned to look at him.

“She’s hurt you before,” the villain said, and it wasn’t a question. The hero looked at him wide-eyed, and he wondered how many times the hero had walked into a fight with him with pre-existing injuries. Injuries he would pretend later that the villain had given him.

The hero swallowed, hard.

“Yes,” he whispered, and that was all the villain needed. He turned back around.

“The only reason you are alive right now is because I think killing you would upset him,” he informed her, and he watched her face pale. “That, and getting blood out of shoes is a bitch. Isn’t it, hero? See, you wouldn’t know. Nobody’s ever made you bleed, I’d wager, because if they had, you would understand it isn’t the kind of thing you do to someone you love.”

He grinned, feral.

“You’re going to leave,” he continued. “Matter of fact, you’re going to vanish. And you’re going to do it so well that if he wants, he’ll never have to think of you again. The only way you’ll ever see him again will be because he wants it to happen, do you understand me? If you don’t, we’ll make you vanish my way.”

The hero made a choked noise behind him. “I don’t think you’ll like that very much,” the villain confided in a whisper.

He wasn’t sure the woman in front of him was breathing.

“Hero,” he said after a long minute. He was going to leave bruises on her wrist. She was shaking, and it soothed some of the yawning rage within him. “Pack a bag.”

The hero vanished into the halls of the house.

The villain didn’t say anything, just stared at the woman in front of him, as if he looked long enough he would be able to see the rotten core inside of her that had made her this way. Turned her into something violent. Or perhaps, the thing that had been inside her since birth, broken and seething. Inevitable.

He didn’t like to believe people could be born evil.

He would make an exception.

The hero appeared back behind him as silent as a wraith, far faster than the villain had expected, duffel bag in one hand.

He wondered how long the hero had had a bag tucked away, packed and ready to run if it got too bad.

He wondered what the hero considered ‘bad enough’ and his jaw clenched hard enough he could hear the bones creak.

“That all you need?”

The hero nodded, mutely, and the villain finally dropped the woman’s hand. She pulled back, hissing as she rubbed her arm, but she had the sense to not glare at the villain.

He tipped his head towards the door.

“Let’s go,” he said, as gently as he had ever heard himself.

The hero followed him out, and they didn’t say anything until the villain’s apartment door locked behind the both of them.

The villain blew out a shuddering breath.

The hero looked like he wasn’t entirely there, eyes glassy.

“Hero,” he said softly, and the hero’s gaze snapped to his face. He stopped himself from reaching for him, a helpless effort to do something, to fix it. “Can I touch you?”

He made sure it didn’t sound like a demand, because if the hero said no, the villain would die before crossing that line, no matter how much it stung. A moment later, to his relief, the hero gave a jerky nod.

He moved slowly, a gentle palm on the hero’s jaw to tip it up, inspecting the bruise with pursed lips. He brushed away the tear that slipped down the hero’s cheek with his thumb, and left it there.

“It could be worse,” the hero offered quietly.

“The fact that it exists at all is worse enough,” the villain murmured, tipping the hero’s head back down. “I’m so sorry.”

The hero blinked, brow furrowing. “For what?”

The villain shrugged one shoulder. “That it happened. That it has been happening. That I didn’t notice.”

“I’m good at hiding it,” the hero said, like it was supposed to make the villain feel better.

“You shouldn’t have had to learn how to do that at all,” the villain said, and the hero’s lip wobbled.

The hero wavered slightly, like he didn’t know what to do with himself. He carried himself like the entirety of his body was an open wound, every second spent breathing a second spent in agony.

The villain couldn’t pretend he knew what this felt like, but he could do his best to soothe it as much as possible.

“Come here,” he said softly, and the hero melted into him, shaking as he tried to cry quietly and failed. He tucked the hero against his chest, and hand coming to curl into the hero’s hair as he let out a desperate keening noise.

He rested his chin on the top of the hero’s head. “It’s going to be okay,” he whispered. “It’s not right now, but it will be, I promise. Even if it takes a while.”

The hero shuddered against him, then nodded, just once.

It wasn’t okay, but it would be.

The villain had promised.

And he never broke a promise.

[aggro-my-beloved]

Long In The Tooth (LaskoxDear)

note: happy soulmate september! my heart’s probably still beating out of my chest with excitement when you’re reading this. brb, i’m off to listen to the milo panic attack audio but interact with this if you wanna (pretty pls) summary: *aging stops at 18 until you meet your soulmate* [lasko’s been eighteen for six years now, and frankly, he’s becoming sick of playing a juvenile. what makes his endeavor for a soulmate even more bewildering? they’re one of his students.] pairing(s): LaskoxDear (romantic), GavinxFreelancer (romantic), LaskoxDamien (non-platonic?) warning(s): none word count: 3k estimated reading time: 12 mins

taglist: @ther3alsweetheart @darlin-collins @professionallyyappinabtangst @elles-roses

“SO BE LOOKING FOR AN EMAIL FROM ME f-for your class schedule. Again, I'm sorry about not having a…physical copy on hand.” Lasko combs a clammy hand through his disheveled hair, sparing a discreet glance at his leather satchel lying by his feet. It defends an entire ream of charred papers, originally for the pool of students that Lasko has been bestowed the responsibility of meeting today, but instead, it mocks him. “My printer ran out of ink.”

His run-in with the stubborn fire elemental without patience for one's troubleshooting of his agenda went worse than the guidance counselor envisioned—a surprise to Lasko, who always depicts the worst scenarios before plunging head-first into any social situation. Guess what Freelancer said was true: you think better on your feet than in the air, he reflects. 

“No worries. It’d be my luck,” The student laughs awkwardly, silently inviting Lasko to muster one of his own. 

“Well, before I send you off, do you have my questions for me?” His hands press onto the thick desktop glass, shielding the wood. One spilled cup of coffee too many, and a sputtering request to the Dean was all it took to gain that.

“I do have one.” Lasko’s heart begins thumping uncontrollably, and he thanks every deity above that the water elemental is also not an experienced telepath. What will they ask me? Maybe they want to pick my brain about the theory of shade resurgence. How much research have they done on me as an alumnus? Perhaps they find me unfit to be a counselor and a professor, being human-reared. They don't think I have the history, nor the fundamental teachings from my unempowered parents. Oh, who are you kidding Lasko? They’re probably wanting to know which food from the cafeteria won’t give someone massive—

“You look a little young to be a counselor, don’t you?” As if intrigued by their curiosity, the student creeps forward in the armchair sat opposite Lasko’s, and finds respite for their folded arms on the mahogany desk between them. Before Lasko’s lips could part, the pupil emits a gasp at their presumption. “I’m so sorry, please take that as a compliment. Your soulmate must be lucky to have someone with such a…youthful glow.” The excruciating cringe on their face is palpable (and noticeably lacking age lines), but Lasko revels in the sight of it. For once, he is not the one digging a grave mid-conversation. 

He could only muster a chuckle, eyes settling on his chewed-down fingernails and fidgeting knuckles—the only visible skin on his body that had wrinkles. This presumption is one he’s been unwillingly catering to for his past six years under the university, and his answer, like his relationship status, is unchanging. 

He offers a modest shrug. “Y-yeah, counselor, and professor. B-but you…you’re not wrong. I only look this young because I haven’t met mine yet—soulmate, I mean.” The pinch on the bridge of his nose from his glasses feels abnormally tight as he gauges the student’s reaction. A curious raise of the brow, slow nod—awed. And rightfully so, with how capable and convenient the modern age has made it to scout for one’s “better half.” Apps and chat rooms galore in addition to personal soulmate seekers (a bunch of glorified PIs with hopeless romantic tendencies, as Lasko refers to them) for hire. These things leave a person little reason to go more than a year after eighteen with no celebrated crow'sfeet or growing pains. People think he’s inept or simply non-committal. Lasko considers himself stodgy for yearning to encounter his soulmate organically.

“Well, if it’s any reassurance, you aren’t the only one.” They don’t elaborate, and Lasko doesn’t pry. He remains seated, silently watching them wrangle each strap of their backpack over their shoulders. “Thank you again for the chat, Mr. Moore.” 

“Ah, just Lasko is fine. I’m not near old enough for all that 'mister' stuff.” At least, I don’t look like it, he tacks on mentally.

“Right. I guess I’ll see you around then.” 

He clarifies, “Monday at ten,” which earns him a tilted head. “For DAMN 101, which should be on the schedule that I'llemail you.” A small, upward twitch of their lips leaves Lasko satisfied with the conversation but prepared for the tens of other students who will receive the same news. 

“I can’t wait.” 

He hopes for his sake that the rest are as understanding as this one. 

“Well well, professor, how was orientation today?” Had the man still not reeked of liquid smoke and sweat from his earlier encounter with the fire elemental, or suffered from cramping fingers and aching wrists from the barrage of emails he sent out today, Lasko’s answer may not have been so curt. 

A trace of a scowl lingered in his voice, “Not in the mood, Gav.” At the evil hiss of his name, the demon transferred his gaze from the television to the strung-out university employee entering the den. Lasko makes a show of shrugging off his blazer and settling his fatigued body into the armchair perpendicular to the sectional Gavin and his soulmate were occupying. His roommate proceeds to turn his attention to him, chorting sarcastically, “Who pissed in your Wheaties this morning?” Freelancer takes the opportunity to bury their face in the bared crook of Gavin’s neck, releasing a languid sigh of contentment. 

Lasko strives to obscure his frown, but the envy boiling in the depths of his stomach wins while the muscles of his jaw tighten. “Some fire elemental with serious anger issues almost sent me up in flames with my office, destroyed all of my paperwork, and cost me two and a half hours of emailing students their schedules and trying not to sound passive-aggressive. Do you realize how hard it is to type ‘Please see attached for your semester schedule. Thank you.’ without sounding like the biggest assho–”

Amidst his rant, Freelancer’s head pops up from the den between Gavin’s neck and collarbone. “You met Damien?” 

The question Lasko volleys is an answer in itself. “You know him?” Wide eyes with a visible twitch urge Freelancer to dig through the sofa cushions for their phone. 

“Yeah, he texted me earlier. A whole string of back-to-back messages about some university nobody screwing him over with his schedule. I didn’t think anything of it until…” They purse their lips. Lasko watches his friends’ eyes soaking in his appearance–blackened shirt cuffs, tousled tendrils of hair, and all. Should Lasko be expecting some vengeful threat? A stolen personal belonging replaced with a ransom note? A dead sprite in a wrapped box outside his office door? 

“How mad was he?” He scrubs his hands against his face, hoping to wipe the day away with his sour expression. 

“I wouldn’t check your Rate My Professor anytime soon.” Lasko throws his head back in defeat. Tarnishing his paperwork and his reputation in a single day? The ransom note wasn’t looking as unfavorable in comparison. 

“I thought it’d be water that didn’t get along with fire,” Gavin muses with a smirk. Lasko’s mind trails away from the soot-stained carpet of his office to the friendly water elemental he had the pleasure of speaking with earlier. Their curious nature and self-loathing sense of humor is something Lasko would have never considered himself attracted to, seeing as Gavin’s unyielding confidence and inflated ego always put his stomach through a spin cycle. 

A sharp inhale from Freelancer resounds through the house. “Oh my goodness, Lasko!” Instantly, he was patting down his body, checking his pulse, and looking around for the nearest mirror. He already knew he looked like shit, what was the big deal? 

“What, what is it?” Still, he turned his head every which way expecting a large bug or “kick me” sign on his back from Damien—perhaps the earlier onslaught of flames was merely a distraction. Or, the man’s just paranoid, per usual. 

“You have smile lines!” As if imitating a mirror, Freelancer offers a ballooning grin of their own, presenting the faint creases surrounding their lips to him. “You thought you could meet your soulmate and just not tell us?” They motion excitedly between themselves and Gavin, who was absorbing the scene before him. 

“I-I didn’t though, did I?” Did he? He thinks back to all of the students he spoke with earlier in the day, Damien included. A shiver courses down his spine at the thought—he’s always heard the saying ‘opposites attract’ but having a soulmate who wanted to momentarily kill him seems like a stretch. Having a soulmate be one of the many bodies in his class is equally as horrific, but—as he now recognizes—a possibility. “Holy shit, I-I met my soulmate.” 

Gavin inquires after a few seconds, “Who are they?” 

Lasko's head darts up, donning a veil of “oh fuck” on his visage. “I have no idea.” 

Much to Gavin’s chagrin and Freelancer’s enthusiasm, the couple agreed to aid him in compiling a list of the students he’d met in the last twenty-four hours, and omitting the ones who’ve been blessed to find their other half, according to Freelancer’s in-depth “research” when inputting their names online. 

“Sami Tryst is in my Thursday lab! They’ve got an engagement ring, though.” 

“Hudson Lang won a medal in the E&E games last year. He thanked his partner in his acceptance speech.” 

“Jacquelyn Gardner?” Freelancer snorts with a shaking head. “Definitely not your type.” 

Lasko’s head hinges up from the sheet of paper he was eyeing—scrawled with names, and taken straight out of Freelancer’s DAMN 101 notebook. With furrowed brows and an insulted scowl, he beckons “How would you know?”

“She has an eyebrow slit and ‘grade-a carpet muncher’ written in her Instagram bio next to her girlfriend’s name. You really wanna try competing with that, professor?” Lasko stays quiet, even through the contagious mixture of laughs flying around the room from the couple. 

He finally mutters, “Whatever”, and is nonetheless satisfied with a name being crossed off of the list. Four hours and one order from Max’s Rustic Pizza later, the trio is splayed across the living room carpet. Three names remain uncrossed on the sheet, staring back at them tauntingly. 

“Wait, you forgot about Damien.” Freelancer reminds Lasko with a small nudge. Not that he needed the reminder, but a small part of him was hopeful that leaving him off of the list would rule out the chance of them being soulmates entirely. His hands are reluctant when grabbing the pen set beside him, but are deft when writing the fire elemental’s first name below the rest. A last resort. 

“This is-it’s so…so stupid! I mean, aren’t you s-supposed to feel something when you first meet your soulmate? Like, I don’t…I don’t know, butterflies in your stomach or-or, or lightheaded?” Lasko exasperates, tossing the paper aside. It flutters to the ground and lands face-down on the carpet. 

“My jeans felt a little tighter when I met you, deviant.” Gavin’s admission is not lost on Freelancer or Lasko. The professor shields his face from the luminous ceiling fan whirling above him, both his arms locked over his eyes. As he does this, he jerks up and emits a harsh grunt.

“Agh, my neck. What the hell?” He sits up to allow his fingers to assess the tight skin. The invisible knot is yanked once more when he tilts his head too far to the left. “Ow!”

In unison, Gavin and Freelancer are quick to diagnose it. “Growing pain.” Freelancer adds with a fond smile, “It means they’re thinking of you.” 

His head snaps towards them excitedly, and this time, he grits his teeth and bears the stiffening of his muscles. “That’s it! I know exactly how to find them.” An accomplished smile overcomes his face. Complemented by his bloodshot eyes, something unsettling brews in the pits of Freelancer’s stomach. 

“Okay, can you stop looking at me like that now? It’s creepy.” 

“I would, but I don’t think I can move my neck anymore…” 

The awkward quiet grows thicker with every student that files into Lasko’s classroom the following Monday morning, broken occasionally by a squeaking chair or thump of a bookbag colliding with the floor. He studied the roll call list the entire weekend like he was presenting a dissertation, but now that he had reached the time to present, only four names were on his mind. 

“G-g-good morning every-everybody. My-my n-name is Lasko Moore, and I’ll be your professor for DAMN 101 this semester. Don’t think of this as a refresher course of things you may have learned in past institutions, b-but an opportunity to gain knowledge of…of Dahlia’s magical entities, specifically.” He’s afraid if he breathes too deeply, the hefty silence will suffocate him. “Now, I-I’m aware it's a bit—it’s a bit rudimentary to take attendance, but this is only for me to become acquainted with all of you. I’ll only do this for the first few classes until I’m comfortable putting names to faces.” 

The professor wastes no time going down the list. Each name he uttered–even ones that had been crossed off from the list–he let settle into the silence while concentrating his thoughts specifically on that person. It is the most foolish theory he's tested in a while, but he is desperate to know who could complete him so marvelously, and remain so subtle about the fact. The further down the list he goes, the tighter his airway constricts when he sees no visible flinch or sign of pain from any of his students. 

Hesitantly, he chokes out the next name on the sheet.

“Damien Rhone.” He looks up to find no hand raised, nor the rest of Damien’s body. Seconds tick by without a response, and Lasko feels even more on edge due to the lack of his presence. If the names that follow elicit no reaction from any of the students, either his “fool-proof” plan would be marked a failure, or he’d have to settle with the fact that he and his soulmate wouldn’t have the cutest “how we met” story amongst his friends. There’s a lot that can beat a late-night run into seven-eleven, but almost going up in flames might have to take second place. 

As he feared, the last name on the list gets crossed off when he marks the student present (and taken) judging by the early age spots marking their skin. He huffs but doesn’t make his agitation any more visible. After all, he is at work and his soulmate…who knows where they are. Hosting this lecture felt more taxing than all the others he’s taught within the last six years at the university. Discussing DAMN’s cornerstone neighborhoods for different magical beings is something he merely cites, amid his daydreams of arriving home to a relaxing cup of tea and a lengthy video essay to put him to sleep on his couch. The thought became so enticing, that he cut the class short by a whole twenty minutes and sent each departing student with instructions to acclimate to the university campus. While shoveling manilla folders and stray pens into his bag, he gets interrupted by a tap against his shoulder. 

“Excuse me, Lasko?” He cranes his neck at the voice, dripping anxiety. They offer their name and elaborate when Lasko furrows his brows. He swears he can feel a crease in between them that wasn’t there last night. “We met yesterday. I made a fool of myself, and then you said you’d email me my schedule. You never called my name when you were taking attendance, though. This is DAMN 101, right?” 

Lasko recalls their conversation vividly. He was post-adrenaline rush and flustered as all hell, but somehow their blunders were enough to take the edge off of him and his “broken printer”. Now, he studies the crease between their eyebrows. It wasn’t there when they met originally when they inquired about his age and backpedaled into embarrassment trying to fix their mistake. “Yes, it is. And  I’m so sorry for leaving you off the roll call sheet, I’m not sure what happened.” 

Halfway through their understanding nod, they emit a wince and introduce the nape of their neck to their hand. “I-it’sokay, I just wanted to double-check.” Lasko tilts his head, blue eyes turning into twinning seas of concern. 

“Are you feeling alright, dear?” 

“I think I may have slept wrong.”

“What are the chances of it being a growing pain?” Lasko voices his internal demand, throwing caution to the wind, as it were. 

“I’d say fat chance because I don’t have a…” They lock eyes with the man before them. Sleeves buttoned to elbows and crooked frames and smile lines. Crow’s feet decorated his orbital rims like fireworks and the creases of his hands mimicked scored clay. “Oh.” 

“That's about the reaction I was expecting.” 

“I’m sorry, but to be fair, this is new to both of us. Tomorrow I might wake up beside you but I’ll have gray hairs sticking out. Nobody prepares you for that kind of stuff.” Was this a rejection disguised in a prophecy? Lasko will have to hand it to them, it’s one of the more poetic ways to turn someone down.

“If-if y-you’d like to wait b-before we j-jump into…jump into anything, that’s fine. I just, I uh…I just wanted to find you. So bad.” 

“What? No, of course, I want this! I want you—I mean…this is just a lot to take in. Aren’t you supposed to feel something when you meet the person? Like increasing body temperature or…” They carry on rambling, with Lasko admiring no more than a foot away. A fond smile adorns his face, pink lips settled high on his cheeks and draped like a streamer. 

He had found them. 

“Excuse me, Professor Moore?” A panting voice interrupts their discovery as the two watch a student barreling toward Lasko with clear desperation. “I’m so sorry about being late. Did I miss anything important?” His eyes flutter around the room, finding all of the seats bare. “Where the hell is everyone?” 

“Hey, Dames! Meet my soulmate, Lasko. Lasko, this is Damien, my stepbrother.” 

“Soulmate!”

“S-stepbrother?”

soulmate september schedule | main masterlist | abt author

[mothiir]

list of astartes ocs

here’s a brief little summary of my ocs, because i often lose track of them and thought that you might like to know more about the boys. NSFW stuff included, so stuck it beneath a cut. this is just the space marines — taleath will get his own post because he’s my favourite (don’t tell the others). Happy to answer asks/write stuff about them

Vanatas Borjigin

The self appointed leader of the trio. Turned into Astartes later than generally recommended, so has a decent memory of his life before; of raising a batch of squalling sisters, of scavenging for meat in Nostramo’s rancid streets. It gives him major older sibling energy, even now.

Taller than Shrike, shorter than Zakyr, with bone-white skin and void-black eyes. Wears his long dark hair in a ponytail more often than not; a severe hairstyle that accentuates his raptor-sharp cheekbones. He has the usual scars you’d expect an Astartes to carry, but due to the implants being carried out well into his teens (rather than in prepubescence) the surgery scars are far more prominent than normal, standing out liver-purple across his abdomen. 

Prone to fainting fits, in which he collapses, jaw tight against the screams welling in his throat, his skull singing agony. Blood drips from his nose and his eyes, and when he wakes he babbles nonsense — and yet the nonsense always seems to come true. That’s right: our boy Van is cursed with the gift of prophecy — something he is at pains to hide from the rest of his brothers. Zak and Shrike know, but they keep his secret. Normally, Vanatas can tell when one of the attacks is coming, and it gives him just enough warning to hide, or for one of the other two to shove him into a cupboard to stop someone seeing.  

He is mean mean mean to you. He really likes it when you cry, whether you’re begging for mercy or for him to slow down or please Mr Night Lord not back there — and he always gets a bit feral when you start getting weepy. He’s the most likely to treat you like a serf-shaped fleshlight, grabbing you with very little warning, yanking your skirt to the side and sinking in with a low, contented groan. 

Despite the above, he’s normally the one ensuring you’re functioning as well as possible. He remembers to feed you, shouts at the others when they’ve let you go too long without sleep, and even gave you painkillers one time, after Zak had been a mite too rough. Maybe there’s a shadow inside him, a whisper that remembers what it is to care. And maybe not. Who knows. 

Zakyr Lamnidae 

Large, even for an Astartes. Almost eight feet tall, all bulky muscle, and — as you might imagine — almost constantly hungry. The other two taunt him for being a lardass, but he always ends up with the best bits of any meal they’ve stolen (or hunted). They never say that they are doing this, nor does he acknowledge it or thank them. It is just how it is. You hide Van when he starts bleeding from the eyes; you give Zak the fat-marbled rump of an unfortunate heretic. Yum. 

Has the same black hair, black eyes combo as Vanatas and ninety per cent of other Night Lords. He wears his hair short, shaved at the sides, and has a distinctive scar on his cheek that crawls across his jawline, and down onto his throat. It looks almost like it was caused by the talon of a great bird — or maybe a set of claws, swift as lightning? Either way, he’s not saying how he got it. If you ask, he and Vanatas start getting a bit twitchy. Some secrets are best kept quiet. 

He was in the dungeons for stealing a loaf of bread. He was six years old and starving. That’s how he ended up getting shipped out to be a neophyte — this isn’t a story he tells much. He just sees it as a great amusing irony. Imprisoned for the most base of offences, and now free to commit far worse ones. That is justice, isn’t it?

Is the most intelligent of the three, if we class intelligence as ‘book smarts’. Speaks fluent Gothic, as well as a handful of other languages, and can threaten to flay someone in upwards of twenty three tongues, including some xenos ones. Is a truly excellent artist, and absolutely would not have given the poor serf that abomination of a tattoo. Back when they were neophytes, and thus not even allowed to smell women, he did very well for himself by drawing — uh — ‘special pictures’ for other Astartes. He likes drawing the serf, and has a sketchbook full of paintings that run the gambit from surprisingly beautiful to absolutely obscene. No one is allowed to touch that sketchbook — not since Van borrowed it and returned it with the pages sticking together. 

The others are doing their best to learn Gothic, and to teach you Nostramon. Unfortunately, it’s a slow process, so Zak often finds himself conscripted in for translation. The deal is simple: he will translate, but he gets to join in. 

As for the NSFW stuff — he can be very lazy in bed. He likes being ridden, because he does enough physical work in his day job and damn it he just wants to lie back and watch a pretty girl cry as she tries to get his dick inside. Is that too much to ask? He knows, theoretically, what a clitoris is, but good luck getting him to touch it. He likes degradation, but in his sadistic hedonist way he likes to get you to degrade yourself. He’ll whisper in your ear what a horrible little slut you are, spreading yourself for the legion, and get you to repeat it back for him. It’s also how he’s teaching you Nostramon. You have a very niche, very detailed vocabulary. 

He will threaten to get you pregnant at least once a week. If you hadn’t seen Vanatas and him get in a literal fight over it, you would believe the threat - he sounds so sincere. He will be buried balls-deep in your warm innards, cooing about what a shame it would be if he came inside, how awful it would be for you. It’s a game: you’re meant to beg him not to, to offer to suck his cock, or offer up your arse. And you probably should play it. If you don’t, he starts getting a bit huffy, and no one wants that. 

Shrike Melloria 

The man is an Emperor-forsaken pervert.

Right, you probably want more detail than that. Shrike is the youngest of the group, and was born in jail. His mother was a whore; his father some unknown vagabond. When the ships came for new recruits, they grabbed up the infant because, well, what else were they to do with him? 

The words ‘boyishly handsome’ aren’t usually used to describe a Night Lord — but Shrike manages to justify their use. Yes, he’s a seven-foot killing machine — but he also has golden hair, and eyes that are more very dark blue than black. He is pale, like all his brothers, but in a way that suggests he would tan under sunlight, rather than incinerate. Give him a paint job and a week on a farm, and he could pass for an Ultramarine (as long as he didn’t open his mouth, or come into contact with any civilians)

In battle, he is a stone-cold sniper; a prodigy. There’s very little that can escape his reach. As a consequence, he’s less scarred than your average Astartes, since the enemy doesn’t normally have a chance to reach him. In another, more foolish, Legion this might be seen as a mark of cowardice — but Night Lords are pragmatic, and Shrike’s strategy gets the enemy just as dead. 

Right, now the good stuff: he is a toxic mess of a man, clingy and snuggly and nuzzly, even while doing the worst possible things to you. He’ll fuck you full, almost render you speechless from fucking your throat, and then coo about how pretty you are while scooping his cum from between your legs and jamming it into your mouth. His brand of dirty talk is cloyingly sweet, while also being absolutely horrifying: “Sweet little fledgling, open wide for me! There we are, now that’s all you’re getting —“

Vanatas has explained to him multiple times that serf cannot survive on jizz alone, and yet he still considers trying it. 

Breeding kink like whoa. Doesn’t actually want a baby, but loves the idea of making you so completely his. Would be the worst father imaginable. Is being slipped birth control by both of his brothers just in case he gets any ideas. 

Yes, he did the tattoo. No, he did not ask permission. Yes, he considers you his wife. No, the others do not agree. No, divorce is not an option. Yes, of course Vanatas and Zak have elaborate ‘let’s cuck Shrike’ role play. 

So, these guys aren’t nearly as fully formed as the Night Lord Idiot Trio, but throwing them in here to remind myself to write something later. Here are my Black Templars: 

Ezra Rothenburg 

Captain of his squad, a venerable dilf veteran of countless campaigns. Tall, broad, grey-haired, with a bouquet of scars, including one that stretches across his lips, giving him a permanent sneer. 

Blessed by the Emperor and most devout in obeying His Commands. Those that know him note that the Emperor’s Commands tend to coincide with what Ezra was planning to do anyway. 

Can and will fake visions to get the more fanatical of his brethren to fall in line. The way he sees it, the Emperor would have struck him down if He disapproved. He has not, so He must be on Ezra’s side

Isaiah Bodenstein von Karlstadt 

Primaris Marine. Big boy. Very sweet and earnest and utterly devoted to the Emperor and his captain, in that order

Himbo energy hides a mind like a whetted knife

[chocochipjewel]

Yapping about Belos and his ending excessively while also analysing him to the best of my ability under the cut

Belos fanart I also made

So given how much art of him I've reblogged by now, it really shouldn't come as a surprise that Belos is my favourite character from the Owl House.

I could talk about him for HOURSS but I just want to talk about 2 of my favourite moments of him to highlight the parts of him I love the most.

This moment in Hollow Mind, when he gets the key in his hand and you can see the light in his eyes. It's the only time his eyes have the distinct shine in them like every other character has all the time, and it's cause of the key he's holding. The key to the human realm is the only thing that gives him that shine cause it's the only thing he genuinely cares about. Everything he's doing is to go back home and revel in glory, which, while selfish, adds so much to his character. He's not doing this JUST for power, he became an Emperor just to tear his own creations down. I just find something extremely poetic about that.

And the second moment -

THIS MOMENT. THIS MOMENT IN KING'S TIDE AJDHSJSHSJS

I'm still mad these flashbacks were never brought up in any big way cause THEY REALLY SHOULD HAVE BUT AHSKSJS I'M GETTING AHEAD OF MYSELF.

Belos reliving his worst memories was always a concept that was going to be interesting because it's an insight into what really gets into the head of our main antagonist. What does the guy who is everyone else's worst fear have to fear. And the answer is himself.

The 3 memories he sees are him approaching Caleb with the knife, the actual murder as pictured above, and the creation of the grimwalkers.

What really gets me is that his eyes are wide when he recalls the first memory, but they look smaller in the second memory (in the screenshot). Maybe it's just the angle but I always interpreted it as his expression shifting to be one of genuine sadness for this particular memory. Because the mere fact that his most personal crime is also his worst memory is such an interesting concept. How does he live with that sort of guilt and worse, keep doing those same crimes but WORSE?

All of Hollow Mind could just be here really and I wouldn't complain. It's THE episode for Belos fans that really allowed us to dig into him, and the mere fact that he's consciously scratched off Caleb from all the happy memories as if to justify his own fratricide is a level of desperate coping that I just find so very interesting ajdjhsjjs

Not to mention that his inner self is a child, which, while a pretence by him, could still say something about how in his head, he still has not grown up and is still playing pretend, still playing witch hunter with every version of Caleb he creates, still playing god to finally achieve a fantasy so very childish and so frankly basic that it makes anyone watching from the outside think "wait, that's it? That's all this is for?" AND THAT'S THE POINT

Cause none of this needed to happen. None of this has a greater value than Philip trying to chase after lost dreams. All the plans he made, all his great power and his great empire amounts to nothing because he himself plans to destroy all of it to chase that childhood dream. Just like Luz, he entered the Boiling Isles to find a home, only his home was Caleb and he was never willing to love new things in the Isles, while Luz loved so much she literally changed the lives of everyone she met by loving them. And unlike Luz, Philip never grew out of that mindset, only burying it in layers and layers of lies and half truths.

In general, his relationship with Caleb is for sure the most interesting part of his character to me. The fact that he both repeatedly murders and repeatedly creates new grimwalkers in an endless cycle and then hallucinates Caleb looking at him with disdain implies so much about his dependancy on Caleb and the deepest parts of himself that know what he's doing is wrong. The parts that have broken free from the layers and layers of cognitive dissonance and have accepted that he was wrong, without any more justifications.

And now, to 'briefly' rant about him in season 3

Thanks to Them was juicy for character exploration, but I wish we actually got to see him react to the human realm properly. It's everything he's wanted, it's the one thing that still brings light into his life but the world he returned to would absolutely hate him. He's done all this for nothing. I wanted so badly to see how he copes with his guilt then, but they were short on time so I get it.

For the Future's hallucination scene makes this even more interesting cause of the depiction of him actually seriously suffering from something like hallucinations. It was dark as hell, and it was really interesting.

And then... WaD. All in all, a great finale. The only real big problem I had with it was Belos' ending.

After so much buildup to his depth and his motivations and his guilt and all his lies slowly collapsing around him, after everything he did to so many people, he deserved a better death. I don't think he didn't deserve death, I just think it happened too quick. Where was the final cathartsis from all his victims shunning him (Luz staring was perfect don't get me wrong, but the whole Hexsquad deserved to be there). Where was the moment he would finally no longer be able to lie to himself and he would be forced to accept that he did EVERYTHING he did, made all those great sacrifices, tortured so many people, just to fail and be at his victims' mercy after accomplishing nothing?

I understand the finale was juggling many MANY characters and plotpoints, but that's not stopping me from wishing for a better ending.

I wish I had had the motivation to draw something for this like I'd hoped, but a brief description about what kind of ending I'd have wanted will have to do.

I wish Luz saw his memories in the place in between with Papa Titan. It would reinforce her arc of feeling like they come from the same place too, if she saw Caleb leaving Philip and Philip's original goal of just wanting to get his brother back. I wish Luz saw all his "sad" memories and really started to question herself.

And then I would have wanted Papa Titan to shoot that down regardless, and then explain that while Belos may have started out a victim of his circumstances as an orphaned child in a cult, the Isles gave him chances to change. Memories of Philip in the Isles seeing Caleb happy, being given chances by witches, being given so many chances to change, and rejecting them accompanying this scene would be ideal. Really hammer in that he aas responsible for his own suffering and that he has absolutely no excuse for what he did to all his victims.

And then, in the final death scene, as he claims that as humans they are better than witches one last time, I wish the ghosts of all his victims showed up to prove him wrong. Every witch and grimwalker who choose to be better than him before they fell. Every member of the Hexsquad who believed in him and his regime at one point. Every single one of them a reminder of how his lies can't even convince himself anymore.

And finally, his own brother, a fellow human, who appears before him. I imagine Caleb looking at him with pity, almost sympathy, before a quiet acceptance comes onto his face and he turns away from him. He walks towards the crowd and chooses their side, next to Evelyn. Neither Caleb nor Luz say a single word. There is nothing left to be said to him anymore. Every single person on the Isles, human or witch, has turned against him now.

If anything could break his will, I think this would be it. I imagine him phasing through his different forms, trying to find a way to justify himself in each one, gradually desolving into desparate screams, before the boiling rain melts him away like in canon (except without the stomping please).

Aaaand that's it, no more notes. Thanks so much to all the Wittebane fans in the community who have kept his fanbase fed when the show didn't meet our standards and who prompted the line of thought that led to this post.

There are so many of you all who inspired and made my fandom experience fun and created so much out of just Philip, Caleb, and Evelyn (and all your OCs of course!!) so I'm just going to shoutout the ones I remember off the top of my head -

@talisman975

@jess-the-vampire

@calebsrottingcorpse

@owlyhouse

@anona1-mous

@captainmera

@moonmeg

@azure-blaze92

@a-magpie-in-the-bi

@a-magpie-in-gravesfield

This is no particular order and I'm surely missing more so this is by no means exhaustive, but this is just a shoutout for those who kept this fandom going. Y'all are the real troopers for sure.

That's all I got, but I'm posting some old Belos art soon! Cheers all, and may the terrible awful no good goo babygirl keep inspiring us for all the great art <3