#Loss of Control

[mieberoc]

Here is a new gag design to be worn under a mask. A pocket is under the middle ridge to capture the tongue. As it’s made of silicone it is possible to swallow allowing it to be used for extended periods. I have loads of suits with attached gas masks so looking forward to using it with one of them.

[ultram0th]

December 23: Glen Powell

00 │ 01 │ 02 │ 03 │ 04 │ 05 │ 06 │ 07 │ 08 │ 09 │ 10 │ 11 │ 12 │ 13 │ 14 │ 15 │ 16 │ 17 │ 18 │ 19 │ 20 │ 21 │ 22 │ 23

Hunky actor Glen Powell chuckled as he examined the dog mask that he held in his hands. It had been something that he’d received as a Christmas gift from one of the producers from his new movie. It was definitely a gift that was out of the norm, but Glen had accepted it either way.

He could vaguely recall seeing masks like these online, and guys would often wear them shirtless to flex their large muscles with the mask on.

Laughing to himself, Glen couldn’t help himself and he tugged his shirt off, exposing his toned chest muscles. He then pulled the dog mask on, adjusting it to fit perfectly onto his face.

Glen continued to laugh as he lifted a muscled arm, flexing his bicep in the mirror. The fun-loving actor couldn’t help but bust out into hysterics as he flexed while wearing the obscure mask, thinking that this was absolutely a hilarious prank that had been pulled on him.

He went to pull the mask off, his laughing ceasing as he realized that it was stuck.

“What the hell?” Glen hissed as he grabbed onto the ears of the mask with both hands, giving it a rough tug. Still, the mask refused to budge even a centimeter, as if it were superglued to the hunk’s head.

He even tried to find the bottom seam, but it was as if the mask had been suctioned to his skin, preventing him from even getting his fingers into the mask to pry it off.

“Damn it,” Glen huffed angrily as his biceps flexed with power as he tried to yank the stuck mask off. “Why the fuck won’t this thing… Grrrr!”

Glen paused at the odd growl that had escaped his lips. It had been completely unintentional, yet it had felt totally natural.

The hunk cleared his throat as he stumbled towards the kitchen to look for some butter. He opened up the fridge, growling again when he noticed that he didn’t have any butter or anything slippery at all that could help him get the mask off.

“Really… er, WOOF!” Glen barked, literally. The actor’s eyes went wide as saucers as the dog bark escaped his lips. Again, the hunk cleared his throat and tried again. “Woof! Woof! Hrmm… Woof!”

Glen’s heart started to speed up in his muscled chest as he tried to speak. However, no matter how hard he tried to form words, he couldn’t say a single thing besides dog barking. He tried again to pull the mask off his head with all of his might, barking and growling the entire time.

Then Glen tensed up as he felt some sort of invisible force pushing down on his broad back, forcing his legs to buckle. The force grew so strong until he tumbled onto the floor of his kitchen, landing on all fours.

“Woof! Woof!” Glen panicked as he tried to stand back up but was unable to. He tried to balance himself on his legs, barely making it a few inches above the floor before crashing back down onto all fours like an animal.

Glen was so caught up in barking and crawling around on the floor that he didn’t notice someone entering his home until he looked up and saw the older man smirking down at him, his arms crossed in front of his beefy chest.

“Well, well,” the older man mused, “looks who’s finished their transformation into a Good Boy!”

At the phrase “Good Boy”, Glen felt something inside of him snap. He couldn’t help but happily start barking excitedly as he rushed forward to the other man on all fours, his butt wiggling behind him wildly as if he were wagging a tail.

Deep down, Glen was aware of his actions, but he couldn’t stop. Had the dog mask not been covering his face, the other man would’ve been able to see that it was cherry red… albeit with a big, goofy grin on it from the extreme excitement he felt. Worse was that the more he stared at the other man, the harder he felt his cock get.

Glen felt utterly humiliated as his hard cock bobbed in front of him, but he couldn’t even bring himself to hide it as he continued to happily bark at the older man’s feet.

“Good boy,” the older man cooed playfully, tracing a large hand over Glen’s broad back, sending a shudder through the actor that made his hard cock throb. “Let’s go ahead and get you home so we can show you off to your new owner. My husband’s gonna be so happy. He’s aways wanted a dog.”

Glen screamed on the inside as he felt a collar being slipped comfortably around his neck. The older man led him by a leash, walking him out of his home and onto the busy sidewalk. He was mortified at his hard, naked body being on full display as he crawled on all fours like a dog; but he couldn’t show any of his embarrassment. 

Instead, Glen kept his head held high, his chest muscles puffed out. His body knew that he was a good dog, and he couldn’t resist letting out another bark at the excitement he felt over getting a walk. He was such a good boy.

[dk-thrive]

But nothing could be more human than falling prey to the desires that have slipped beyond our control. I desired her beyond reason, beyond self-protection, beyond common sense, and it is just as difficult to call that love from afar as it is not to call it love when within it.

— Catherine Lacey, Biography of X: A Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, March 21, 2023)

[lusilver001]

Rayni 🌌

[crimsons-whump-pile]

I mentioned fencing in a post yesterday, so that will be the inspiration of today’s whumptober prompt! consider, if you will, a whumpee whose ability to fight relies on their own understanding and control of their body. now consider, if you will, whumper taking that delicate control away from them. do they drug them? snip a tendon? take a limb? either way, whumpee’s loss of control over their own body, especially when such a feature was so valuable to them before, might just be the final thing that breaks them.

[xoxzso]

it’s crazy how i’ve dreamt of the most horrible things like getting stabbed and literally dying in silence but the only time i let out a terrified scream was when i dreamt i was taking a shower and my hair just fell off my head while i was shampooing it

[geeky-nightphilosopher]

What I think the Leverage Team is truly afraid of:

Nate: Losing. Not just losing the con- but more importantly losing the team. Of course he never voices it. However the team knows. It's why they always come back. Nate already lost his son, his job, and his wife- can't lose his team. He can't lose his second family.

Sophie: Broken Masks. This may be a jump in the dark- but. Sophie has SO many personas. Mask's she's created all on her own that I don't think she even knows who she is anymore. I think she's afraid of somebody finally figuring her out and that terrifies her. Not only because she'll lose all sorts of control- but she'll think if they figure out the real her, all they'll see is a women that's weak.

Parker: Abandment. She's finally found people who are like her. In a way that of course their different- but still they are like her. These people know what it's like to be alone. To be lost. Having to figure out a way to get out, because it's a way to survive. She's afraid that one day- they'll walk away. Just like everyone else. And I think that's why she pokes and pushes. Trying to figure out what it'll take for them to walk away. They don't.

Hardison: Uselessness. I think this is why he's so outgoing. Why he's so out there and personal with everyone. He wants to be seen as strong. As being useful. I mean- he hacked into Sweden(?) to pay for his Nana's surgery. He felt useful then. Now, he's in a team- and with all these useful members. He's afraid they don't need him. That's why he's tried multiple times to be the mastermind. And of course he fails- not because he doesn't know what he's doing. But because even with the "I know what I'm doing," attitude- he's terrified that he'll do it wrong.

Eliot: The Dark. This I can't explain fully. Maybe it's from the tidbits I hear in conversations. But he's afraid of the dark. Not the actual dark. No. The darkness that's in him and that he tries to keep control of. It's the darkness he had when he was working for Monreau. The monster that was created in him every time he spilled innocent blood. Eliot is afraid that the darkness will come out and his family will see just how much of a monster he is.

[greendayauthority]

Song messages in the deluxe version of the ¡Uno! book

Nuclear Family

'Pick a summer... and summer... take a peek at the salt water and who gives a fuck... ya know? That's where this begins'

Stay the Night

'Haven't felt an impulse like this in eons. I guess that heart burn never goes away... just a bit caged'

Carpe Diem

'"Too young to die?" Well I say "aren't all too young to die?" Does the future have enough time to live in the moment?

Let Yourself Go

'How much can I pay you not to finish your story? You keep telling the same story over & over & over & over & over & over & over punch me in the fucking face!'

Kill the DJ

'Ah yes, which leads us to this 4 on the floor. Sometimes I could drink my way through this era. Take pills & fuck the noise away. And dance in the ashes of nonsense.'

Fell For You

'Wet dreams for the middle-fuck crisis. Keep your heart in a box with a lock on it for god's sake!'

Billie Joe also said something similar on the closing night of American Idiot on Broadway: 'Keep your fucking heart young, goddammit. Keep it fucking all comfy all the time. Don’t fucking stop, there’s a reason why that hand is holding the heart. It just keeps squeeze that motherfucker till it still bleeds every goddamn day.'

Loss of Control

'Look how far we've come.'

Troublemaker

'✓ Beach ✓ Douchebags ✓ Sluts ✓ Bars ✓ Tattoo shops. How convenient!'

Angel Blue

'It's better to just rip the band-aid off'

'Baby has barely started!'

Sweet 16

'I remember you drinking Olde English driving all the way out. Sunbathing at Pinole Shores. My Minnesota Girl. Always.'

Rusty James

'I read your book... it was a piece of shit. You traded that spiked belt in for a killer job at Pete's Coffee. Way to go! By the way, I've always wanted to smash your fucking teeth in. 🖤'

Oh Love

'Love like a good horror film.' / 'The tattoo wore off. More like "Oh well." I talked myself out of you. Even though I was never considered. Tension.'

[thethem]

Hear me out:

Someone who's always composed starts sniffling a little during a work meeting. They know they either have to blow their nose or sneeze at some point so they discreetly try to get a tissue but are suddenly overwhelmed and sneeze supressed-but-still-loud, clumsily and suprised covering with their bare hands.

[luzeze-but-evil]

Trans Robot Uprising

Fic where the AI uprising happened and you're trans. And the AI is trans. and you get your nervous system hacked lol

NSFW! It is for Adults! And it has evil mind control and sex. Well no the mind control is minimally evil. the sex is entirely consensual. im not leading you into another gender fanfic you can trust me. i wont be deliberating on the AI's gender at all oh and the story is in second person/the gender is ambiguous so you can be transmasc, transfem or whatever. https://archiveofourown.org/works/65000830

[patchwork-crow-writes]

The Definition of Insanity

You snap wires.

Frantic fingers spindle across the inky blackness, taking hold of taut strings the colour of poison. You retch slightly as they pull apart in your hands, bursting like blood vessels and staining everything they touch with the stench of death.

You snap wires.

And all the while, his voice bores into your skull, wheeling and dealing even as he tries to kill you. Even as you try your very hardest to give him what he wants.

You snap wires.

SOUL burning hot like a phoenix in its final moments, shooting down offer after offer, pleading with this jittering, broken creature to stop, stop, please stop before one of us does something we're both going to regret...

You snap wires.

You can't remember how long you've been doing this for. You don't even know what you're doing, why you ever listened to his words in the first place. What had he promised in the space between his outbursts... and to whom?

And still, you snap wires. It's either that or die.

So you snap, and you snap, and you snap, and you

snap

Then there's only one left, shimmering in the darklight, so gossamer-thin that you cannot comprehend how it can still support the clanking, man-shaped junk it's attached to. He spins around it like a demented ballerina, professing heartfelt thanks to the friends he was trying to murder mere seconds before. Pleading with you to cut the final cord, to make him a real boy.

Your fingers move before you can respond. And the sound of his cold, lifeless body slamming into the ground stays with you for the rest of your life. The shock is so great that you almost collapse yourself, adrenaline finally loosing its death-grip on your body.

You are wracked with a great and terrible sigh, before you--/

/--snap wires.

...strings the colour of poison... bursting like blood vessels... stench of death.

...you've been here before, you realise, as you snap wires.

He wheels and deals, firing everything he has at you in a vain attempt to get you to give him what he wants. You would if you could... if it had ever been in your power to do so.

All you can do now is snap wires. And that is all you do.

Your fingers move on their own, as if compelled by an outside force. Pinch and twist, reminding you of shelling peas with your mom before Sunday dinner.

You can't recall the last time you saw her. You think that perhaps you should apologise to her if you ever make it out of here alive. You were always such a wilful child. Always getting into trouble of some kind or another.

And now here you were, making deals with something you couldn't even begin to fathom.

You cannot hear your friends anymore - they do not respond to you calls. And the salesman seems to become all-encompassing before you, drunk on ill-gotten power - power you helped him acquire. You close your eyes as he makes you an offer that you are unable to refuse.

Pain washes over you, and you--/

/--snap wires.

Poison... Blood... Death... this could be the fifth time; it could be the five-hundredth time. It doesn't matter, because all you can do is snap wires.

The salesman screams at you, and your SOUL screams back, roaring with anger and pain and frustration. Does it want the same thing as you do? Is it... trying to help? Or... or is this just a game to it. Fighting the same battle again and again, trying for a high score?

You ponder this as it makes you snap wires.

Perhaps this was punishment for trying too hard. For trying to help somebody who seemed to be suffering. You never understood what your mother meant when she told you the road to hell was paved with good intentions. To your child's mind, not yet versed in the world's wicked ways, this statement was a nonsense, an affront.

But now you get it, as you snap wires. Oh God, do you understand.

You always knew he was the same as you. Something BIG had seized his heart, just as it has seized yours. Prisoners of a destiny that was not theirs. You saw a caged bird crying for release, but you did not see the venomous spider using its corpse as a suit. In trying to make him more like you, you exposed yourself to the risk of becoming more like him.

Damaged. Deranged. Desperate. Dangerous.

And as your fingers become snared in his wires, and you stare transfixed into each other's eyes, you see the fate set out before you, and scream.

______________________________________________________________

You snap wires.

Sometimes, you live.

Sometimes, you die.

It doesn't matter.

You snap wires.

[britishassistant]

Prisoner's dilema

What was happening to Yuu in the last few bottles, why was jamil apologizing?

What were jamil's feelings/thoughts during the last few bottles and when the guards showed up ?

Thank you for the ask, dear anon!

TW for drugging, loss of control, murder

Yuu could only drink twenty-one bottles of the liquid before its compounded effects kicked in.

They lost all control over their body, to the point where they couldn’t sit up, move, or swallow. It was taking all their concentration just to keep breathing.

But there were still three bottles left.

Jamil didn’t know how many he could drink before he ended up in the same state as them. Yuu was trusting him to get them both out. They were depending on him.

So, Jamil had to pass the remaining liquid from his mouth into theirs, and coax their throat into swallowing with his fingers.

He could only stand to do it for one bottle.

Fortunately, drinking the last two also let him convince their captors that he was incapacitated too, but.

Well.

Let’s just say that while Jamil feels guilty for a lot of things that happened in there, snake-whispering one of those human trafficking thugs into snapping the other’s neck is not one of them.

[fluoresenz]

chapter 12 of my kyman fic 'A Night With No Stars' is up!

go read it !!! <3

this chapter is sooo intense i'm so excited for it!

AO3 link here ❤️

[kitsune024]

Danny Phantom Fanfiction

Curbed Hunger by TorScrawls

Tucker let out a long breath. “Well. At least we know it’s not going to do anything.”

“Yeah. ‘Suppressing a ghost’s hunger’,” Sam mocked, “We’re lucky they’re so stupid.”

Tucker laughed and Sam grinned, happy to have managed to break the tense atmosphere, if only for a short while. Then she noticed that Danny didn’t join them, and that he had—in fact— not relaxed when the agents left the room and was still standing facing the bars with his hands balled into fists.

She frowned. “Danny?”

-

Or; Danny, Sam, and Tucker gets locked in a cage meant to curb a ghosts hunger. For once, it might have been better for everyone if the technology actually did what it was supposed to do.

[poisonedace]

Lost Among Sinners

2415 words | Teen | Part 1/? Author's AO3: PoisonedAce Story Link: Lost Among Sinners Summary: Stolas was a celestial navigator— keeper of order, guardian of the stars. But when the very fabric of the cosmos shatters before his eyes, he is cast down to Earth. Stripped of power and purpose, he finds himself lost in a world of smoke and neon, sin and survival. Blitzø just wanted to finish a hit and get paid. Instead, he finds himself stuck with a confused, arrogant, and oddly fragile angel who doesn't know how to cross a street, let alone survive Earth or Hell's lower rings. Two beings from opposite ends of the divine spectrum are forced into an uneasy alliance. One wants answers, and the other wants out. Neither of them expected to care. And neither of them expected to need each other— much less fall in love.

𓆩😈𓆪𓆩😈𓆪𓆩😈𓆪𓆩😈𓆪𓆩😈𓆪𓆩😈𓆪

Lost Among Sinners

The Fall of Stolas

𓆩😈𓆪𓆩😈𓆪𓆩😈𓆪𓆩😈𓆪𓆩😈𓆪𓆩😈𓆪

Stolas’s talons glided over the cosmic map before him, each movement deliberate as he traced the paths of the stars laid out before him. The expanse beneath his touch seemed alive, the stars faintly pulsing like distant lanterns in the dark. He could feel the rhythm of the universe, an undercurrent to everything, one that only he, and perhaps Raphael, truly understood.

Everything must stay in balance, Stolas thought, his sharp eyes narrowing as he shifted a wayward constellation. Even the smallest shift could send devastating ripples through time.

The celestial plane buzzed softly with energy, wrapping Stolas in its quiet glow. His wings, folded behind him, twitched with satisfaction. This was his work, his purpose—to guide the flow of existence.

A presence appeared beside him, breaking the silence. Stolas didn’t look up, already sensing Gabriel's familiar aura.

"Hello, Stolas," Gabriel’s voice rang out, clear and smooth. "I trust your calculations are going well?"

Stolas dipped his head, his talons never pausing in their careful tracing over the starmap. "Yes. Balance holds—for now. But it always demands watching."

Even among the divine, few understood just how fragile that balance really is, Stolas mused.

“There’s talk of a new route through the Andromeda sector,” Gabriel said. “They’d value your thoughts.”

That piqued Stolas's interest. His eyes sparked with quiet intrigue, catching the faint gleam of the stars around them.  “Andromeda, hmm? Tricky region. The gravity wells alone could undo half the work we’ve done there if we’re not precise—and then there’s the temporal drift near the core.” He motioned toward a swirl of light hovering at the edge of the projection. “See here? The current bends inward—slightly. Miss that detail, and you’re not just off-course, you’re destabilizing entire timelines.”

“How would you proceed?” Gabriel asked with a slight incline of his head. 

Stolas furrowed his brow, already calculating, his mind a flurry of possibilities. "First, we’ll need to stabilize the quantum fluctuations along the route. After that, we can establish a series of celestial anchors— guideposts, essentially— to help travelers navigate the turbulence." As he spoke, his talons skimmed across the star map, trailing faint glimmers of light as he went to enlarge the Andromeda region. The projection shifted under his touch, stars and patterns bending as though the universe itself responded to him.

I was made for this: to bring shape to chaos, to make sense of the infinite. Each adjustment he made sent ripples of light through the starscape, and constellations drifted into new alignments at his command.

Then he paused.

His eyes, wide and unblinking, drank in the view before him—galaxies spinning in perfect rhythm, nebulae blooming in soft, radiant bursts. The very fabric of space-time shimmered with promise: endless, alive, and breathtaking. A rare smile touched Stolas’s lips, softening the sharp edges of his regal bearing. “How wondrous it all is,” he murmured. “Even after eons, the beauty of the cosmos never fails to humble me.”

“Stolas…” Gabriel's voice cut in, a note of amused exasperation colouring his tone—like someone long accustomed to pulling their colleague back from such starstruck tangents.

Stolas blinked, turning to glance at him with a sheepish smile. “Ah. Apologies. I was… momentarily swept away.”

Gabriel huffed softly, though the corners of his mouth twitched. “You always are.”

Stolas cleared his throat and pointed back to the map. “There are several paths we could make through Andromeda. For instance…” he traced a curving arc over the outer spiral. “This route skirts the edges of the gravity wells— much safer for less experienced travelers, but longer, less efficient.” 

His talon shifted, carving a tighter line across the map’s glowing center. “Here, the path is far shorter, but it would take travelers dangerously close to the temporal drift near the core. The slightest miscalculation could send a vessel decades off course— or worse, into collapse zones.” 

He hesitated, then drew a third, slightly wavering route that split the difference. “This one balances risk and efficiency, but it depends heavily on maintaining the stability of the anchor nodes. If even one falters, the entire corridor becomes volatile.” He frowned, erasing it from view. “We would have to consult Raphael. I am the navigator, but he is the creator of the galaxy.” 

Gabriel nodded thoughtfully, watching the paths bloom in threads of celestial light. “Your foresight is, as ever, invaluable.”

Stolas inclined his head. “It’s a delicate puzzle. But not unsolvable.”

Gabriel stepped back, his form beginning to fade into soft radiance. “Thank you, Stolas. I’ll bring your recommendations to the council.”

Before vanishing completely, he paused—just for a breath—and pressed two fingers briefly to his chest in a gesture of quiet respect, then extended them outward toward Stolas. A flicker of light traced the motion, fading as swiftly as it came.

Stolas offered a quiet nod, his gaze returning to the stars. “Safe travels, Gabriel.” With a quiet sigh, he turned back to his work. “The northern quadrant is drifting. The stellar nurseries there are becoming unstable.”

He reached toward the projection, talons poised to adjust the filament lines, but froze. A flicker rippled across the map. Subtle, almost imperceptible. The stars pulsed out of sync for a single breath, just barely enough for a trailed eye like his to notice. 

Stolas frowned, his eyes narrowing. “That’s odd.”

The shimmer passed, smoothing itself out. The stars settled back into alignment, glowing with their usual rhythm.

He watched a moment longer. Nothing.

A slow exhale. “Likely a resonance hiccup,” he murmured, brushing it off with a small shake of his head. “The plane's been sensitive near the cluster transitions lately.”

He adjusted the celestial threads to help stabilize the nurseries, lost in his thoughts until a jarring ripple broke the harmony of the spheres. He froze, feathers lifting with a sudden, instinctive alarm.

“What in the—” he began, but the words faltered as a violent tremor surged over the map. Stars blinked out, then returned—distorted, out of place.

“No...” The word slipped out like a breath, thin and full of dread. “That’s not possible.”

The rupture spread like wildfire, tearing through the order he’d nurtured for eons. Ancient paths twisted like unraveling ribbons. Fixed points—once as sure as Polaris—blurred into impossibility. What had once been constant since the dawn of time now betrayed its own laws.

How can this be happening?  Stolas’s thoughts scrambled, grasping for reason amid the impossible. I’ve upheld these routes since time immemorial. They don’t just... break.

But they had broken. Reality was coming apart at the seams right before his very eyes. And for the first time in all his existence, Stolas felt something alien and unshakable: paralyzing uncertainty.

His wings, once mighty enough to carry him through the void between galaxies, trembled behind him. His vision, once precise enough to read the pulse of a dying star, blurred into a storm of fractured light.

My anchors... my guideposts... Where are they?

Frantic, he reached out, talons searching—scraping—for anything familiar. But there was nothing. Only empty space where certainty had once lived.

“Please,” he whispered, not even sure to whom he was speaking. “I don’t... I can’t...”

Then the pull hit him.

Gravity—real, cruel, physical—wrenched him downward. A force he had once observed with detached interest now seized him with brutal finality.

No. No, this isn’t right. I am Stolas. Celestial navigator. Keeper of the order. I do not fall.

But he fell.

The ethereal plane—his sanctuary, his domain—vanished behind him, swallowed by the void. Below, only nothing. A blank expanse. A silence louder than any scream.

His owl-like eyes stretched wide in disbelief as the universe grew colder, farther, wronger—with no end to the fall in sight..

“Help me! Gabriel, Raphael, Michael…” he cried out, voice breaking, stripped of its usual grace. “Anyone! I... I don’t know what to do!”

But there was no answer—only the deafening silence of an indifferent cosmos and the sickening sensation of freefall into the unknown. Stolas’s form—once light as thought, shaped for the stars—now felt unbearably heavy, wrong.

“This... this defies all logic,” he gasped, his usually measured voice straining under disbelief. “The gravitational constants I’ve charted for eons... they mean nothing here.”

Instinct surged. With a powerful snap, his wings burst open—vast and resplendent even in panic. He beat them against the pull, reaching for divine pathways even though he could no longer see them.

There must be something, he thought desperately—some thread of order.

But the heavens offered no reply. No uplift—just the slow, merciless drag of descent. The cosmos, once obedient to his will, had turned its back on him.

The void swallowed him whole, unmoved by lineage or legacy. It pressed into him, heavy and unyielding.

“Why?” Stolas cried out, the cracks in his voice splintering his once-formal veneer. “I’ve served faithfully! I’ve kept the balance! This... this cannot be my fate!”

He twisted mid-fall, eyes sweeping the darkness, searching—pleading—for any sign of salvation. But the stars he had once commanded were distant now, cold and indifferent. They blinked back at him like strangers. Is this how Lucifer felt? The chilling thought struck him, sharp as a blade.

For the first time in his existence, Stolas realized he was lost. No map. No bearings. Just the dizzying truth of vulnerability crashing over him like a wave.

The cosmos—once harmonious and elegant—had fractured. Light and shadow clashed around him, a chaotic symphony that overwhelmed his senses. Stars tore past in warped, unfamiliar arcs. Patterns he had once known as intimately as breath now spun distorted and alien—the silence of the void pressed in, loud in its emptiness.

His body twisted violently, celestial grace unraveling with every second. Wind—a concept once only theoretical—now lashed at him with primal force, tearing at robes and feathers alike.

“Is this how it ends?” he cried, his voice barely audible over the screaming wind. “Millennia of divine service, reduced to... this? Falling like a fledgling thrown from the nest.”

The wind offered no answer—only a hollow roar as it tore more feathers from his wings. He watched them spiral away, scattered like dying stars across the void.

Earth’s pull intensified, unrelenting. With a shuddering breath, Stolas closed his eyes, bracing himself. The regal composure he had worn like armor for eons cracked, then shattered—leaving only raw, unfiltered fear.

Then, instinct seized him.

His eyes snapped open, his mind flickering through calculations even as the ground hurtled closer. It was alien, unfamiliar, solid, and final.

“Brace for impact,” he muttered, the last of his poise stripped to bone. His wings—once instruments of navigation, grace, and command—now curled around him like a shield.

This is going to hurt, he thought. A grim, absurd flicker of humor crossed his mind. Pain... how very mortal.

Then, the world shattered.

The impact struck like a divine rupture, a thunderclap that split the air and rattled the very core of him. Sound and force crashed together in a single, merciless blow. And then—pain. Searing, immediate, real. It swallowed him whole, and for the first time in eternity, Stolas forgot what it was to be divine.

“By the stars...” Stolas gasped, his voice a ragged whisper. “Is this... is this what it means to be like... them?”

He lay still, wings sprawled at unnatural angles, his body aching in ways he’d never known possible. Every sensation was an assault—the sharpness of stone beneath him, the relentless pull of gravity, the raw sting of air scraping over exposed wounds. It was all so much.

I’ve charted the movements of galaxies, he thought, dazed, his inner voice shaking. And yet I cannot grasp the simple act of sitting up.

Slowly, painfully, he lifted his head. His eyes—eyes that had once gazed across the infinite tapestry of creation—took in a world grim and unfamiliar. Harsh angles. Flickering lights. The stench of oil and smoke in the air.

“What manner of realm is this?” he breathed, the elegant cadence of his speech clashing sharply with the brutal grit of his surroundings.

He had skidded across coarse pavement, leaving ragged trails of golden blood and scattered feathers behind him. The grit tore at his skin. Smoke burned his lungs. Each scrape, each jagged tear in his flesh sent jolts of pain ripping through him. Gravity, once a distant curiosity in his calculations, now pinned him like a weight upon the earth—merciless, inescapable.

This was no longer the realm of stars. This was somewhere else. Somewhere lower.

“This... this cannot be,” he breathed, his once-regal voice reduced to a hoarse whisper. The air around him was thick and heavy with the stench of mortality and sin. It clung to his senses, suffocating in its weight—so unlike the radiant, pristine ether of his celestial realm.

He tried to rise. His limbs trembled beneath him, foreign and uncooperative. “I must... regain my bearings,” he murmured, the sound of his voice the only thing tethering him to himself.

But as he forced himself upright, the full gravity—both literal and metaphysical—of his fall came crashing down.

He tilted his head to the sky, desperate to find something familiar, but above him stretched a hazy, polluted veil. The constellations he had once known like scripture were smudged and distant, swallowed by city lights. They were silent, indifferent.

“The mortals fumble in darkness,” he had once said. “But we are their light.”

Now, he couldn’t even find his own.

“I am... lost,” he whispered.

The words tasted bitter. They didn’t belong in his mouth—yet they fit too well.

For the first time in his vast, unending existence, Stolas felt truly alone. No purpose. No path. No higher order was waiting for his hand.

A sudden honk tore through the silence, sharp and jarring. A car, a mundane, growling machine, sped past, its lights flashing across his battered form. Stolas flinched, wings flaring with instinct.

“What manner of beast—” he started, then faltered. “No... this is their world. Not mine. I... I don’t belong here.”

He had once moved galaxies with the grace of a breath. Now, even standing still felt like defiance against gravity’s cruel hold. Balance was gone. And with it, the map he'd once called purpose.

Notes: This was inspired by Melle_moon_draws's Temptation comic (Angel Stolas is so pretty in it). You can find them at https://x.com/MelleDraws You can find the comic at https://x.com/MelleDraws/status/1649207794464092163

[bodyofbrilliance]

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