#bug writing

[prettybugsinbandages]

Blot!reader pt. 2

Part 2 to this

This is a darker story. I suggest you refrain from reading it if you're in a fragile mental state or unable to handle darker themes.

Steps echoed softly against the snow as you made your way toward Mr. S's Mystery Shop, the sound somehow muted, swallowed by the heavy quiet of the world around you. It felt oddly distant, as if the entire universe had drawn its breath and left you alone with the sound of your footsteps. The fog clouding your thoughts lifted slightly as Grim darted around your legs, animatedly recounting how he and Yuuken had gotten into trouble earlier that day. His enthusiasm was contagious, pulling a chuckle from you despite yourself—a rare flicker of light in the usual gray haze.

The shop door slid open, a warm breeze rushing out to greet you like an old friend. The chill melted from your bones as you stepped inside, the scent of old wood and something faintly spicy filling the air. You followed Grim down the narrow aisles, your eyes wandering across the haphazard stacks of oddities and trinkets. The faint hum of a space heater buzzed in the background, blending with the soft thuds of items being restocked.

Your gaze landed on Grim busy packing away cans of tuna into his own basket. The extra weight of the thaumarks in your pocket served as a gentle reminder of Crowley's recent miscalculation of Ramshackle's weekly allowance. The headmage likely thought himself generous—he wasn't. So none of you bothered to correct his mistake.

A little extra was hardly a sin, and in your eyes, it was long overdue.

Leaving Grim to his own devices—his attention firmly locked on a staff member restocking the vending machine and occasionally eyeing the tuna cans with restrained interest—you made your way to the produce section. Your dormmates had sent you out with a list, and you were determined to fulfill their requests without incident. On your way back, a treat caught your eye. The packaging was flashy, almost comically obnoxious yet charming. The picture on the front was practically begging to be tasted, and you decided it was well-deserved after... well, everything

The sound of beeping filled the store, blending with the hum of quiet conversations and footsteps. At the till, you placed your basket on the counter and waited while the cashier scanned your items. Stifling a yawn into your sleeve, you reminded yourself that dinner would be soon. Briefly wondering if you'd make it back in time. A light brush against your neck jolted you from your thoughts. A hand reached past your shoulder, casually turning one of your items over.

"Ahh.. You got the last, huh? These are so popular on social media these days. Enjoy it for me, 'kay?"

The voice behind you was playful, with a hint of mock disappointment, quickly replaced by cheerful teasing. The arm withdrew just as you turned to find none other than Cater Diamond standing behind you, his signature easy-going smile already in place.

Your lips twitched, an instinct to respond stirring but words failed you. Instead, you gave a polite nod and returned to what you were doing, keeping your attention on the cashier. Cater didn't seem to mind; his light banter shifted toward Grim, who chuckled along with him, occasionally adding his own commentary.

As much as you had once longed for moments like this—to be seen, spoken to, acknowledged, the confidence you'd briefly held earlier had crumbled.

The sun was already setting by the time you left the shop, casting the sky in shades of muted blue and grey. Though the snow had stopped for the day, the cold lingered, biting at your fingertips even through your coat. You buried your hands deep in your hoodie pockets, the weight of the grocery bags straining against your arms.

"Come on, little star. You wanted to shine, didn't you? Why hide now? You're making a waste of me."

The Blot's voice echoed in your head, silken and sweet with a bitter edge. The ring on your finger grew uncomfortably warm, almost burning against your skin—a searing reminder of your contract. Your pulse quickens as guilt crashed over you in relentless waves, tangling with rising panic. You had made a promise to yourself—a cruel, unflinching vow to get your revenge. To make them feel what you had felt. To become so important that losing you would destroy them. And yet here you were, frozen in place, paralyzed at the thought of receiving exactly what you'd wanted for so long: acknowledgement.

Worse still, you found yourself too afraid to even wield the power you had traded so much to obtain, recalling how you foolishly agreed to the Blot's honeyed words that night without asking more. Then again, your time had been running out like an hourglass with a hole in it.

Grim's tug at your pant leg pulled you from your trainwreck of a mind, the words spoken softly by the blot still resonating within your mind, unable to be pushed aside and filling you with some irritation. Blinking, you tried to reorient yourself, offering him a half-formed reassuring response—until a familiar figure caught your attention near the store's exit. Cater.

"Cater.. right?" you said, tilting your head just enough to feign casual curiosity.

His bright green eyes met yours, lighting up with recognition. "Yeah! And you're... uh..." He trailed off, scratching the back of his head with a sheepish laugh, threading his fingers through his orange hair. "One of the Ramshackle prefects, right? You're so hard to get ahold of." His laugh was easygoing, but something about it hinted at familiarity, like he'd been trying to speak to you for some time now. Your jaw tightened at the thought.

You knew who he was, of course. Cater Diamond—the social butterfly, the NRC blog king, the guy who talked to nearly everyone or updates on his fast-paces student-run blog. One of the many who treated you like a nameless voice in the crowd, a background character at best. But something in his words made hope flicker faintly in your chest, a dangerous ember waiting to catch fire. Had he really been trying to reach out all along? Were you just that hard to approach..? Doubt creeped in momentarily before you brushed it off. He's lying.

The doubts clung to you like oil on fabric and your smile almost faltered. Almost. You caught it in time, replacing hesitation with a soft chuckle as you offered your name.

"You said these treats are popular online, right?" you asked, gesturing toward the flashy package. "Why? Some influencer?"

His eyes lit up, and you knew you'd hit the right note. As the two of you walked toward Ramshackle together, Cater launched into a detailed explanation about the trending treat—some influencer's viral snack review had sent demand soaring. You listened, nodding at just the right moments, letting him fill the space with his cheerful energy.

Eight minutes and fifteen seconds. The longest conversation you'd had with anyone outside of Grim or the Yuus since... well, since home.

At the front gate to Ramshackle, you paused and opened a pack of treats. Splitting it nearly in half, you handed one portion to Cater. "Sam's restocking in a whole week. You wouldn't want to miss out on the trend, right?"

For just a moment your usual resolve wavered. You knew what you intended to do—make them all regret forgetting you, bring everything crashing down—but right now... right now, you just wanted to feel a little less lonely.

Cater grinned, his eyes crinkling with the motion. "Our little secret, yeah? Guess that makes us snack buddies now. Next time, my treat—you can totes hold me to that!"

His words sparked a fleeting warmth, a rare feeling of belonging. You nodded, unable to summon a proper response.

Just for a bit... this was okay.

You tighten your grip on the bags as the warmth from the interaction fades, the stinging cold of the winter air nipping at your flesh once again.

It had been a few months since it all began—the Blot, the deal, and your decision to tear everything down. Returning to Ramshackle after parting with some friends, you shut your bedroom door behind you, the warped hinges protesting with a grating scrape against the frame. Your thoughts swirled from the events of the day, seeming vague and hazy even though it happened only a few hours ago.

"I've missed you." A voice crooned from behind—smooth and sweet, yet laced with something razor-sharp. If you could assign an item to a voice, it'd be a sugar cube.

"I was gone for two hours." you replied, setting your bag down and beginning the slow unwinding from your day. You never really knew if the Blot lived in the ring on your finger—whispering its thoughts directly into your mind—or if it was free to roam as its own entity. Tonight, it was lounging on your bed, propped up on one elbow in a mockery of comfort, the picture of lazy contentment. Despite being a humanoid figure of pure shadow, it radiated an unmistakable fondness. If shadows could smile, you knew it was smiling at you now.

"Two hours too long," it purred, with a hint of petulance bleeding into its honeyed tone.

As you sat at your desk, the Blot drifted close, leaning over your figure until both your reflections appeared in the small mirror. Its fingers, dark and lithe, combed slowly through your hair—gentle, almost reverent. Or was it mocking possessiveness?

"Do you think they'd miss you if you left for longer?" it mused softly. "Or would you slip their minds again, like you always used to?"

The question struck a nerve. You averted your gaze from its reflection, unwilling to entertain the thought as your jaw unconsciously clenched, deciding to test the waters, you shot back a reply a little too sharp for your liking. "Are you jealous?"

You turned to try and catch a gleam of its reaction, anything to give you a better understanding of the enigmatic being you've tied yourself to.

"Of them? Never." it whispered, shadowy lithe fingers tracing along your jaw, gently tilting your head back to meet its gaze in the mirror once again. "They don't know you like I do."

A chill crawled down your spine as its grip lingered a moment too long. Silence stretched between you, heavy with words left unsaid���words only the Blot seemed to know.

"How was your day, my little adventurer?" it murmured, its voice dropping to something low and intimate, almost conspiratorial. The way it spoke made it seem as though its words were meant for your ears alone, a secret shared just between the two of you.

You didn't respond immediately, focusing on your homework instead before offhandedly responding. "You're talkative today."

The air shifted subtly, the Blot retreating to your bed once more. It flopped onto your sheets like a restless cat, rolling and twisting the fabric with a peculiar energy, almost playful in its antics. For a creature so powerful, it had a strange, childlike quality in moments like these—unsettling, yet somehow familiar the way it could switch from suave and seductive to childish and pesky.

"Perhaps I'm feeling nostalgic." It mused after a pause. Was that vulnerability bleeding through, or just another calculated lure to pull you in deeper?

"Ask me something," it offered, voice as smooth as silk, "I'll humor you with an answer—a gift for all you've done, my dove."

You hesitated. There were so many questions but one had tumbled from your lips before you could stop it. "What are you?"

"You already know the answer." It interrupted, its voice dripping with mirth. It almost seemed to avoid the question, a moment of lost composure that piqued your interest.

Your disappointment must've shown—your eyes narrowed, brows furrowing and lips pursing just slightly into a pout or protest—as the Blot paused, considering you. Finally, it relented, leaning closer with a softer tone.

"Another. Ask me another. I'll give you more because it's you."

Time stretched as you considered your options once again—more carefully this time to pull back as many layers as you can grasp to reveal just a bit more. The Blot was clearly fond of you for one reason or another, but why?

You asked, your voice steady but curious. "What were you?"

The question hung in the air like a heavy cloth, wet and suffocating. For a moment, the Blot stilled. Then it smiled—a slow, deliberate curve of its shadowy mouth.

"You're so curious," it purred, voice dropping to a velvet murmur. "I love that about you."

Before you could react, it was there, face-to-face with you again, close enough that the air seemed to hum with its presence. Its tone grew lower, softer, yet charged with something deeper. The air had grown heavier. When it spoke, its voice was softer, yet somehow deeper and filled with something ancient and still thrumming with life. "Once... I was something like you. Real. Tangible. Alive."

"Wh-"

"We'd get along. At least I like to think we would" Its voice gained a firmer edge, almost wistful, yet underlined with certainty. "No... I know we would. I've seen what it's like to be forgotten." The Blot sounded firm as if it had substance behind such an egregious claim.

You recoiled slightly at the sureness of its tone as the tension thickened, words caught in your throat as you searched for a response. But the Blot spoke again, its voice growing almost tender.

"Yes. That's how I'd explain it. But it's all in the past. And now... here we are. Together."

Its fingers laced with yours, dark and cold yet strangely warm at the same time. Its thumb gently traced the rim of the ring on your finger—the physical reminder of your contract.

For a moment, it almost felt like an embrace—warm in its own strange way—before the Blot retreated at the sound of a firm knock at your door.

"Human! Come downstairs! We're watching films and consuming takeout!" Sebek's voice rang out, loud and commanding as always. You blinked, suddenly remembering your prior engagements for the evening.

On the other side of the door, Sebek continued his monologue. "Unless you fear the horror genre?" His tone wavered between challenge and care before taking a haughty turn and somehow louder. "Shall I request a film more suited to your frail constitution? I shall do it only to protect you from disgrace!"

His rapid footsteps retreated down the hall, leaving you in a strange quiet once again. Your gaze lingered on the Blot, still stretched lazily across your bed, its head tilted in quiet amusement.

With a sigh, you stood and made your way to the door, half relieved and half-annoyed.

The TV blared whatever movie had been chosen for the night, a tradition at Ramshackle where native members of Twisted Wonderland picked their favorite media to share with the prefects. It had become a cherished cultural exchange, a chance for everyone to gush about their favorite things—though you and the others never had anything to contribute.

Not that any of you wanted to. Any mention of home dampened the mood. The others missed it—their world, their families—while you had long stopped thinking of returning. You're never going home. It's too beautiful in your memories, untouched by everything you had become. Setting foot there would be like introducing flame to the wings of a butterfly.

You sat beside him, finding solace and comfort in each other's quiet presence. There was no need to speak, no need to acknowledge it aloud. He was your own guest for tonight's movie, something you never thought you'd have based on your previous reputation, or lack thereof. And yet, despite everything, you still couldn't forgive him for the way he once ignored you. You couldn't even recall how long ago that time was. It should have been easy to let go, to forget the loneliness, but the ache of it still lingered, a phantom pain of being unseen, unheard, unnoticed.

Everything felt so stagnant back then, so suffocating. In moments like these you couldn't help but be appreciative of the Blot's assistance, even as you both resented yourself and the entity in your bedroom for what it had cost you—even worse, knowing you had willingly accepted the deal. The truth, that claustrophobic reality, felt like a noose around your neck, dragging you deeper with every breath. Without the deal, you would have remained nothing—forgotten, buried in the snow, your name lost to time, your face unrecognizable by all. And when the thaw came, they could have found your body, decayed and nameless. A casualty.

A chill ran down your spine at the thought, the memory of that night creeping back, sharp and biting like frost against your skin. Jack, seated nearby, must have noticed. Without a word, the beastman draped his large, fluffy tail over your lap, a quiet attempt to offer warmth without interrupting the film.

The movie came to an end without you fully understanding the plot, the storyline lost to your distracted mind as you reflected on the whole evening. The lamps flickered back on as everyone began cleaning up, and there was an awkward, unspoken feeling hanging over everyone. The sort of quiet tension that lingered at the end of a gathering—was this goodbye? Was this the end, do they go home? The moment felt too brief.

But how many tomorrows are left?

Everyone knew that the Prefects of Ramshackle didn't belong here no matter how defined of a shape carved into everyone's hearts that only they could fill, they all knew that the Yuus would return home someday, often lamenting about their own world. Whenever the topic came up, you'd catch a fleeting glance from your friends. You'd never mentioned home—not since you'd given up on the idea. But you knew he was silently asking:

Do you plan to stay?

The boys scurried around cleaning up their messes, but their efforts were clumsy, adding new minor messes to clean—small, unnoticed attempts to stretch the moment just a little longer. They didn't want it to end yet. For now, neither did you.

Your thoughts were interrupted by a loud sneeze from Epel—one that would certainly earn him a lecture from Vil. You turn to see what he'd done, spotting a vase tipped over the kitchen counter, water and flowers spilling across the surface. They had been a gift, though the reasoning behind them had been flimsy at best. Not that you cared much. They weren't even your favorites, and flowers never lasted long anyway.

Wilting. Drying. Rotting.

Much like people.

You were slightly startled by the dark thoughts, pushing them away as Yuuken passed Epel a tissue before grabbing a rag to mop the mess before it seeped into the floorboards. Ramshackle already had enough mold; any more would be cruel.

"Did you catch a cold? I told you not to sit out in the rain too late trying to win that bet." Yuuken's tone was exasperated but laced with concern. Yuuka, less patient, flicked Epel's forehead in reprimand.

The mention of illness must have triggered Ortho's health and safety protocols, as he immediately zipped over, offering a full-body scan to check Epel's vitals.

"Uwah? Me next! Scan me!" Ace butted in with a cheeky grin—an obvious attempt to dodge dish duty. You shot him a knowing look but he only grinned wider, brushing it off and receiving his scan.

What started as a routine checkup quickly turned into a competition to see who was the healthiest, with everyone eagerly comparing stats. In the end, it came down to Jack and Sebek, though Jack narrowly took the win. Even Ortho seemed baffled by the results, staring at his screen in genuine confusion.

"I cannot understand how Sebek Zigvolt functions with such high exposure to Lilia Vanrouge's cooking..." he murmured, tilting his head.

Laughter rippled through the group as Sebek loudly protested, but the amusement died down as Ortho turned to you. Unlike the others, you hadn't joined in on their little contest, preferring to avoid the inevitable teasing about your ranking. But now, Ortho's bright yellow eyes scanned you from head to toe, and for a brief moment, his expression flickered with something strange—confusion?

"That's odd," he muttered. "You don't have any health complications, but... your body temperature is significantly lower than normal. By a lot. Please wait a moment while I check something."

Yuuta shot you a concerned glance, setting down a broken shard of the vase and rinsing his hand before reaching out to touch your forehead, only to immediately recoil.

"Woah. You're freezing..! Like wax."

Ortho scrolled through his holographic screens with increasing confusion, while the others hesitated before brushing against you, testing Yuuta's claim. You hadn't noticed before, but now that you thought about it—your skin was cold. Not just cool, but room temperature. Maybe a degree or two above it.

Ace snickered. "Maybe you really are a corpse, prefect. Don't worry; I'll cry over your grave for a good hour so you feel loved." He received a punch in the arm from Deuce for that, assuring you they'd visit every day and cry tons if you died.

The joke sent a sharp chill down your spine. For a split second, you were back there—lying in the snow, the cold sinking into your bones, the world growing quieter and quieter. The Blot ring on your finger felt soft and warm like an embrace in that moment as you pushed the memory down. You didn't even want to think about Ace and Deuce's reassurance about your death, not daring to recall how they wouldn't have even noticed a few months prior.

Ortho, unimpressed with Ace's comment, gave him a firm shove out of the way before running another scan. As he worked, Yuu barked orders at the others to finish cleaning up their messes, leaving you to sit on the couch under Ortho's scrutiny.

"It's strange..." he said, flicking through his screens and mumbling your full name a few times to search for you. "I have a database of nearly the entire student body in my records, but I had to create a new profile for you."

Something in your chest twisted.

That sick feeling, the one that always crept in whenever you felt especially neglected, clawed its way to the surface. This was a punch to the gut, a reminder that even a machine designed to remember, hadn't even noticed you enough to have you in his system.

How cruel.

You forced a laugh, pushing past the bitter taste in your mouth. "So, what do you think? Am I a corpse after all?"

Ortho paused, then, as if to make up for the oversight, carefully selected your favorite color for your new profile, even marking the tab as favorite with a cute icon.

"I apologize. I don't know," he admitted. "But I'll ask Big Brother. Maybe it's something I haven't thought about yet."

Ortho had left earlier than the others after being called back by Idia for something, but a sense of foreboding lingered in the air. You couldn't shake the feeling of being caught—caught in a way that was difficult to explain. Who else, other than the Shroud brothers, would have the highest chance of recognizing what you'd done?

Then again, the Blot taking a form and making a deal wasn't something that had ever been seen throughout Twisted Wonderland's history. Perhaps you were safe.

But the uncertainty gnawed at you, that creeping feeling that something—someone—might figure it out. The longer the silence stretched, the more unexplainable guilt festered.

Part three

was the second part weird?

I hope not hah

I have more plans to write more for this if it's still requested, and I'd like to apologize for taking two weeks to write this short thing. I got very sick, then very behind in schoolwork and then procrastinated for far too long.

My lovely little taglist: @tachibubu @shirp-collector-of-fixations @goatsmilksblog @iris-arcadia ( @tipsyon-tea - You mentioned wanting to read whatever happened next but never directly asked to tag. pls tell me if you'd like to be removed from this)

[th4t-bug]

Here is chapter one of Bug's origin story! Ao3 for those who don't like reading on Tumblr:

And now, here we go, because I have gotten the first five followers of this blog as of last night.

The Beginning

(Chapter One of "The Bug")

It's strange, really, how much my life changed in the span of three short months. It feels like forever ago, but I can still remember how this all started so clearly.

I was walking home from school, by myself. It was late, I had to make up a test in one class, and earlier that day had earned myself a detention in another. That's not the point though, what really matters is that it was dark out already when I left. I nervously peeked around each and every alley I passed on the sidewalk, around there I was more worried about getting mugged than the cold- for good reason.

The sound was faint, down an alleyway I was coming up on, but I would already recognize the sound of breaking glass anywhere. My mouth went ever so slightly dry, my backpack heavy on my shoulders, and I made what must be one of the dumbest decisions of my life.

With my hand on the wall, I peeked around the corner.

“Anybody There?” I whispered my words before I processed anything, my throat tightening at the sight before me. I'm still glad to this day that I was so great at being silent, even back then. There, down the alley, was a man, tall, and a nasty scar along the side of his neck. He held a broken glass bottle in his hand, no doubt the cause of the sound I had heard earlier.

And, most importantly to me at the time, backed against the wall in front of him, was Maddie Lane.

Maddie and I weren't friends. I didn't know her that well, but she seemed like a nice girl. And then, as we silently made eye contact over that evil man’s shoulder, she looked so scared. I don't exactly remember what the man said to her, something about money- I just know that I had to act, to do something, and I did before even thinking about it or its consequences.

My backpack was heavy, like a bag full of rocks with how much stuff I had to keep in there, so it’s surprising I was able to slide it off of my shoulders so quickly without hurting myself- and hurl it at the man.

My improvised projectile hit the man solidly in the head with a force that surprised me. The guy didn't even have time to react, the hit was angled enough for the man to fall and hit the brick wall of the side of the alleyway with the back of his head. There was a sickening crack and I fought the urge to heave as I watched the man's eyes roll back into his skull, his form slumped on the ground. There was the sound of my backpack heavily hitting the ground somewhere in the commotion, but if it was before or after the man went unconscious, I couldn't tell you, and there was a shriek (although I don't know if it was Maddie who made that sound, or me).

I was breathing heavily, my vision was a blur, and I was unable to look away from the man's body for a moment before I shook my head and looked up at Maddie, seeing the shock in her brown eyes. “Are…” I trailed off with a nervous swallow, I could still feel my hands traveling. Finally, the words managed to leave my throat, “Are you okay?”

Sure, it might have been a basic question, but that's all I could think of to say. I wanted to make sure she was alright, after what had happened.

Maddie took a deep breath, looking at me as if I was no more than a hallucination. “Yeah, I think so.” She mumbled out, sounding like she was trying to detach from the situation itself.

I was concerned, sure, but to say the least the situation felt awkward. Sure, me and Maddie shared the same English class, but we didn't really know each other. I didn't know what to say, and with the all the events that led up to this- I didn't want Maddie to think I found her ‘just in time' because I had been following her, which wasn't the case. I eventually settled on the most generic question I could think of.

“...how’d this happen?” Okay, so it may have been a very bad thing to ask given the delicate situation, but my brain pulled up blanks everywhere else. Maddie shook herself out of her stupor and shrugged, saying that it was sudden and she didn't know. It didn't sound like the truth, but I didn't push her.

I nodded and walked forward with a grimace last the still unconscious man to pick up my backpack, hoping nothing in it was broken. “Do you need me to walk you home?” I asked after a moment, but it was more of a formality than anything. Maddie, thankfully, did not take me up on my offer and shook her head. “No- no, I think I can get home safe from here.”

I nodded again, it was for the best really, we were both still a bit shaken up and I preferred being alone when something was disturbing me. “Good… I guess I'll see you tomorrow?” I said as I slung my backpack back onto my shoulders. Maddie nodded awkwardly and her brown eyes glanced away, “Yeah.”

We stood silently in that alleyway for a moment in front of each other before Maddie said her goodbyes, turned away, and left. It was a strange moment, but I didn't notice anything distinctly wrong with Maddie at the time. I sighed heavily, glancing back at the man who was still unconscious on the ground of the dirty alley. I was starting to get concerned, if he was knocked out that long he could have gained brain damage from the situation.

I, however, didn't feel particularly inclined to call an ambulance or the police, as I wanted to get home soon. I simply tried to steady myself, and I resumed the walk home.

It was dark, but my parents weren't back yet- as usual, they wouldn't be until morning. I let myself in the house, and stumbled down the hall to my room. I set my backpack on the floor next to my bed, gently so as to not risk damaging anything.

I wasn't hungry. I had eaten on the walk home from school- before seeing Maddie. But mostly, that man's unconscious body, the sound of that sickening crack- it had unnerved any sense of an appetite I may have had that night.

I crawled into bed after kicking off my socks and shoes, but otherwise didn't bother changing. That situation, all of it had exhausted me, more than I would have thought with how much worse it could have been. My green eyes stared up and spaced out at my blank white ceiling, and I got to thinking.

I mean, sure, I knew the crime rate in my city was pretty high, too high to be considered safe, but in my neighborhood it really did get bad at night. I blindly reached to the side, turning off the lamp on my night table, the blinds of my window had already been pulled shut. The room became nearly pitch black aside from the soft light of my phone, I always preferred it like that to go to sleep.

My eyelids felt heavy, I put on my wireless headphones for music and shut off my phone, placing it on the nightstand to charge. I thought of Maddie, what might have happened if I had passed her by. I sighed softly, closing my eyes, the last thought that crossed my mind before I slept was ‘maybe it's possible for me to help people more?’

Which, of course it was.

The next morning, I went through my usual routine, feeling like a passenger in my own body. I got up, dressed in clean clothes, brushed my teeth- all the works. I did so quietly, not wanting to wake my parents who would have gotten home only two hours or so before.

I don't remember thinking a lot that day, it was mostly a blur of memories from the night before. I ate breakfast on a TV tray in the living room, cleaned up a bit, and grabbed my backpack before leaving for school. I made a point to pass the alleyway from before on the way, it made my heart jump to my throat, but the man wasn't there any more- so at least he hadn't died there (as I had almost nearly convinced myself of).

I continued on my way to school, got there- yadda yadda yadda. I will be completely honest here, the only thing I remember noticing that day is that Maddie Lane was missing from her seat in my English class.

Luckily, that day, I didn't have to stay after school as I had the day before. So the walk home from school was not in the dark, but it still had me on edge, checking around every corner. It wasn't too cold, I was always resistant to temperature changes. It was about two or three months from the first snow of the year, but my jacket was zipped all the way up- I guess somehow it made me feel safer.

I did the same thing I did the night before, checking down the alley ways on my usual path home. I didn't stumble along anything bad, not for my area at least, but getting closer to my house seeing the trash and broken items on the dirty ground left a sour taste in my mouth.

The city wasn't great, hell, it was far from it. It was dirty and ridden with crime. But, for me, it was home- well, the area of my neighborhood was at least. One person could not fix all of this, it would take a miracle, a hero, even a grade A superhero to really help. However, I was no hero. But I was a rather stubborn kid who had seen some horrible things, and I wanted to help.

So, for the life of me, I was going to try.

[ducktracy]

sharing a very sage bit of advice from The Simpsons' own John Swartzwelder that i've been trying to hamper down in my writing and drawing alike. let your inner crappy little elf do his worst

[lilybug-02]

Maybe relying on the next generation to solve all your problems is a doomed-to-fail solution...*cough*

Bug Fact: Scientific research on the subject of yawing in insects is essentially nonexistent, but bees are thought to exhibit the phenomenon for thermoregulation.

V2 First || Prev // Next

Volume 2 Masterpost ▴♥︎▴

Okay I'll be 100% honest, I could not find a secure Scientific source for this bug fact. (yes I try to make my bug facts as accurate as possible). Theres not a lot of information on insect yawning. Who knew? (sarcasm😑).

There were a few scientific articles on bee thermoregulation, but I am not reading ALL OF THAT just to figure out if bees separate their mandibles a little bit.

I found this fact at Urban Beelife. Yawning would involve their Mandibles to open past neutral and snap back.

[jinglejails]

That feelin' when the bug starts runnin'.

✂️ - - - Korean n' English page/fully-drawn version under the cut - - - ✂️

[twiceasbright]

bad friend ┃ clark kent x reader

summary: your best friend asks you to set her up with clark kent, who's your work crush. despite your feelings for him, you agree- for the sake of your friend. but things go awry when you panic and end up accidentally asking him out yourself. now you have to find a way to fix it before things go too far.

pairings: clark kent x reader

tags: fluff, angst with a semi-happy ending, sfw, daily planet shenanigans, it's all a big misunderstanding, gn!reader, no use of y/n

word count: 5.1k

a/n: i saw superman and it instantly changed my brain chemistry. this is the result. please bear with me, this is my first time writing for this fandom. i hope you enjoy, and feel free to leave any thoughts or comments!! xoxo

You’re a bad friend. A very, very bad one.

When your co-worker, work bestie, closest thing you have to a sister, tells you about her crush on Clark, it’s a shock. You’d spent months commenting on him—his sweetness, his looks, his clumsiness. You never went into detail about how deep this little infatuation went, but you were sure it was obvious. Sadie’s been victim to more than a few tangents about ‘how can one man be so perfect?’ Of all people, she knows how you felt.

And yet here she is, telling you about her feelings for the journalist you’d been mooning over for what felt like forever. You know exactly what this means. You know what she’s going to ask long before the words come out of her mouth.

“I know you guys are close, like… friends or whatever,” she tells you, acrylics tapping nervously against her coffee mug. She keeps avoiding your gaze. “I just- well, I wanted to ask if maybe you… you could put in a good word for me. Maybe set us up or something?”

You smile at her, even as your heart squeezes painfully in your chest. It’s not her fault. You’d never made more than fleeting, shallow comments about Clark. There was no way for her to know how actually, desperately much you like him. You have no reason to feel betrayed.

Besides, you love her. You’d do anything and everything for her. Including—God help you—setting her up with the guy you fantasize about falling asleep with every night.

This makes you a good friend. The bad friend part is what happens next.

You approach Clark’s desk with thinly veiled resignation. Not the usual happy, skip-like gait you adopt when you decide it’s time to bother him. Which, much to his sure frustration, happens a lot. Sadie is your twin flame at work, but Clark is… he’s a companion. His desk is right across from yours, and the two of you have become each other’s support systems.

You’d hoped that one day it would turn into more. That feels foolish now. Especially when you’re on your way to pimp him out to your best friend.

“Heyyy buddy…” you greet him—terribly, awkwardly. You lightly punch his shoulder, which makes it a million times worse. You cringe so hard internally that you don’t get a chance to admire how firm his muscles are.

Clark looks up at you, raising an eyebrow as he pushes his glasses up with a finger. He’s just as bewildered by this as you. It doesn’t stop the amused curve of his lips or the way his dimples deepen. Your knees slightly buckle under the power of that smile. God, he’s so crazy beautiful.

“Hey there,” he responds, his voice like heat in your veins. Deep, smooth, calming. You want to strangle him with his stupid (charming) tie. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” you lie, waving him away. You sit on the edge of the desk, avoiding the half-full mug of coffee next to you. You cross your legs and clear your throat. “How are you doing?”

“I’m a little worried you’re having a stroke, to be honest.”

That sobers you up a little. You press your lips into a thin line. “Yeah, sorry. That was weird.”

He’s amused, clearly, but there’s a tinge of concern in those beautiful blue eyes. Of course, he’s concerned. Of course, he’s sweet and gentle and compassionate and everything you could ever want. How the hell is this your life?

“What’s going on, jelly?” he asks, and the nickname is a little like a punch to the gut.

It’s a bit from when you first started, a teasing comment from Jimmy or Lois or someone you can’t remember. You took such an instant liking to Clark, the two of you clicked so easily, that it became a joke amongst your friends. You two go together like peanut butter and jelly. Such a silly thing to say, and even sillier that you found it so meaningful. You kept it going, hoping no one realized how important it was to you.

How important he was to you.

Now, just shy of working together for two years, you use the titles more than your actual names. He’s your peanut butter, you’re his jelly. It’s stupid and inconsequential, and you hope he never stops calling you that. No matter what happens.

“Ah, you know me so well,” you joke, and it doesn’t sound the least bit convincing. So you just smile at him and push forward. “I, um… I have something to run by you.”

You can tell his interest is piqued as he leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. The fabric of his sports coat bulges against his biceps, and you’re very much staring. You hope to God that Sadie isn’t watching this right now. Or Lois or Jimmy. Or—you shudder just thinking about it—Cat.

“I’m listening,” he coaxes you to speak. To do what you came over here to do. You suck in a breath and let it out slowly.

“So, what’s your policy on dating co-workers?” you ask, because it’s easier to delay the inevitable. You’re a coward; what can you say? In your personal life, you’ll always avoid the uncomfortable moments.

It’s probably what makes you such an excellent journalist. Because you channel it all into work and don’t leave a single line you’re not willing to cross.

Your question takes him by surprise. His eyebrows shoot up, and you swear the tips of his ears turn the tiniest bit red. Something ugly twists in your stomach. He’s thought about this before. Someone here has captured his interest.

He hums for a moment before responding. An attempt to gather his bearings. “Well, I- I don’t really see a problem with it. As long as it doesn’t get in the way of us both being able to do our jobs, at least. Why do you ask?”

“Here’s the thing,” you exhale, grabbing a paperclip from his desk so you have something to do with your hands. You force yourself to meet his gaze, trying desperately not to get lost in the sea of blue. “Do you… Are you free tonight? Or any time this week?”

“I’m free tonight,” he says almost instantly. That little smile is returning to his lips, matching the glint in his eyes. “Are you asking me on a date, Jelly?”

Your heart stops. Literally stops. And then it starts up again, and it feels like it’s going to jump right out of your chest. You try to speak, to explain, but the words get caught in your throat. Clark’s always been the best at throwing you off your game.

He must take your silence as confirmation, because his smile grows. He leans forward, so close you can smell his cologne. The man always smells so good. It’s intoxicating.

“I accept. I’d love to go out with you,” he murmurs, like he’s afraid others will hear. Knowing how gossipy your co-workers are, it’s probably a smart choice. “I wanted to be the one to ask you, but I… I always got in my head about it.”

You swallow back an onslaught of word vomit threatening to pour out. Is this happening right now? Did you just ask Clark Kent on a date—accidentally—and he accepted? And does he actually look happy about it? Like he wants this? Like he wants you?

Your brain has left the building, so you can only assume your heart is to blame for what you say next. “Then, you’ll just have to ask me on the next one.”

His face lights up. It’s blinding, but you can’t look away. He’s too beautiful. Too encapsulating. He’s the sun and you’re just another lifeform feeding off the energy he gives.

“Deal,” he chuckles, holding out his hand so you can shake it. It’s such a cute gesture, and taking his hand in yours feels like a death sentence. You’ve gotten yourself into such a mess. “Do you just want to go right after work?”

His hand lingers for a moment longer than it needs to. His skin is so soft, so warm, and he’s so large compared to you. It’s the kind of thing that keeps you up at night.

“Yeah. Maybe around 6?”

That adorable curl bobs across his forehead as he nods. “That’s perfect.”

“Alright, then,” you confirm, smiling. Panic rises in you. Guilt and shame and a million other things are tearing at your insides. “I better get back to work. I’ll see you then, Peanut Butter.”

Clark’s grin could solve all the world’s problems. You’re sure of it. “See you then.”

You head back to your desk, fighting the urge to scream or throw something or run away forever. You are a terrible, horrible friend.

By the skin of your teeth, you avoid Sadie for the rest of the day. It helps that she’s caught up in meetings and scrambling to meet deadlines, but you scurry to the bathroom twice when you catch her staring. It’s shameful behavior, you know. You feel awful about it. But what are you supposed to say?

You know the situation is wrong. It’s deceiving in every way. You’re so full of regret that you feel sick. You know very well that the right thing to do is to go tell Clark the truth, ask him about Sadie, and then report back to her. But you can’t!

Maybe it’s fear, or something selfish that lives in you, but you can’t do it. You tell yourself a million times to walk over to him, and you stay glued to your desk every single time. His eyes land on you more than once, but you never let yourself look up. You’re just grateful he hasn’t walked over and tried to start up a conversation. You would probably burst into tears.

You want to go on a date with Clark. You want it more than anything. But you don’t want it like this. You don’t want to hurt and betray your friend to get it. Or for anyone to be deceived. You don’t want to be the person you’re being right this very second.

You decide you’re going to fix it. Tonight, when Clark comes to you at 6, you’ll tell him the truth. You’ll break your own heart, probably lose his friendship, and then you’ll go home. And tomorrow, after a night of some well-deserved wallowing, you’ll tell Sadie.

She’ll probably be mad. You just hope that the damage isn’t irreparable.

You make it to the end of your shift without vomiting or tendering your resignation, a feat in and of itself. You even got a draft finished, though there were sure to be mistakes to work on tomorrow. You’d gotten so focused that the last few hours just faded away. As far as anyone at the Planet was concerned, you were dead to the world.

You didn’t notice when Sadie left at 5, sending you a questioning glance. You didn’t look up at 5:30 when Steve knocked over the entire coffee station and everyone shouted in outrage. Hell, you didn’t even make a move when Clark snuck out at 5:45, going God knows where. You were completely captivated.

Now, with the clock showing 5:57, you pull yourself away and gather your things. There’s still a stab of guilt between your ribs, but most of it has fizzled into numb resignation. You know what you have to do. You know what you’re going to lose. There’s no stopping it.

Turning your desk lamp off, you hear footsteps and turn around. It’s Clark, of course, with his hands behind his back and a bashful smile on his face. Not even that sweet expression is enough to pull you from your misery. Not when you know you’ll probably never see it directed at you again.

“Hey,” he greets you, sounding a little breathless. “Sorry I disappeared for a minute. I had an errand to run.”

“An errand?” You ask, because you can’t help it. What kind of errands does Clark Kent run? Where’s his favorite place to shop? What are the staple items on his grocery list? It’s an affliction, really, wanting to know everything about him.

He moves his arm back in front of him, revealing the bouquet clutched in his fist. It’s gorgeous—all bright colors and big blooms. They’re the nicest flowers you’ve ever seen, and Clark is offering them to you with a soft smile. You might cry.

“You got me flowers?” Your voice is barely above a whisper. You’re taken aback by the kind gesture and the wrongness of this situation. It’s a wonder Clark hears you, but he does. He always does.

He shrugs a shoulder, as if it’s no big deal. As if he’s not your dream man in flesh and blood. “This didn’t start how I wanted, with you asking me out and all, so I just thought… I still wanted to make it special.”

No one’s ever gotten you flowers before. No one’s cared like this. You don’t deserve it; you want it desperately. But you can’t let yourself have it.

“They’re beautiful,” you murmur, and they are. You’d keep them alive forever if you could. “But…”

His eyebrows raise, like he knows what you’re going to say. “Don’t worry, I got a vase too,” he explains, hurrying to his desk. He picks up the glass container and brings it over. “I thought you could just keep them on your desk for the time being.”

Your hero, always thinking of everything and coming to your rescue. Superman has nothing on Clark Kent.

You stay quiet as he fills the vase with water and puts the flowers in. He even sets it down on your desk, tucked in the corner, and it looks perfect. It immediately brightens up the space. You didn’t realize how dreary everything was until there’s something pretty to look at.

“It looks so nice there. Like a little… ball of sunshine,” you laugh weakly. When you turn to look at him, his eyes are already on you. They’re warm, adoring—as if you’re something worth looking at. “Thank you, Clark.”

“Ah, it’s nothing,” he waves you off, getting bashful again. He rubs at the back of his neck. “If you’re gonna go on a date with me, I should at least try to make it worth your time.”

Another pang of regret hits your gut. You inhale sharply. “About that-”

“I was thinking we could go to that place down the street, the Italian place? I’ve heard great things,” he explains, nipping your confession in the bud. He’s excited. It breaks your heart. “I’m definitely ready to eat.”

You press your lips together. You’re quite hungry yourself, if you’re being honest. This night’s already going to suck. Might as well get some food out of it. Besides, it’ll make you feel better if you buy him dinner.

“Well, I’m convinced. Lead the way.”

He smiles, offers you his arm, and does just that.

Clark makes conversation the entire block-and-a-half walk to the restaurant. He talks about work, the article on Superman he’s writing, and his plans for the upcoming weekend. You respond where you can. But your mind’s far away. Dreading what you have to do.

“Are you okay, Jelly?” He asks when you’re stopped at a crosswalk. He’s watching you with worry, brows furrowed and lips pursed. “You seem off.”

It’s no surprise that he noticed. The man has a sixth sense for knowing when things are wrong. And as much as you hate it at this moment, it’s always been another thing you admired about him. He’s got such a big heart—all creatures, big or small, are worth saving. You’re honored to be someone he cares about.

“Just… got some things on my mind,” you say with a shake of your head. A flimsy excuse, but you hope it’ll do for now. You’re not willing to spill everything on a crowded sidewalk. “I’ll tell you about it at dinner.”

He’s not pleased with your answer, but he respects it regardless. The light changes, and Clark presses a hand to your lower back as you cross the street. The touch is warm, electric. It sends a shiver down your spine. Everything about him has always—will always—fill you with life.

This is so much more than a work-crush. So much more than some fleeting infatuation. You don’t know how the hell you’re supposed to do this.

You arrive at your destination a few minutes later. Clark gets the two of you a table on the patio and pulls your chair out for you when you sit down. Then he’s across from you. Smiling at the server who brings you water, asking if you want to order wine, commenting on how good everything sounds. The sun sets behind him, illuminating the man in golden light.

He’s beautiful. You think you’re gonna be sick.

“Lois told me they have a really good penne rosa here,” he muses, not looking up from the menu. “She’s the one who recommended this place, actually. I thought we could trust her taste.”

You look down at your own menu, barely paying attention to all the entrees listed. “She’s definitely the safest choice.”

Something in your tone captures his attention. He glances at you, eyes slightly narrowing. “Do you want to talk about what’s going on yet?”

You huff out an undignified exasperated breath. “You’re infuriatingly observant, you know that? Like, weirdly in tune with my emotions.”

Despite your frustration, he quirks a half-smile. “I just know you well. And I’m here to help. Especially when we’re on our first date and you’re obviously miserable.”

A groan slips past your lips. You run a hand over your forehead, up and through your hair. “No, no, that’s not- listen.”

In a moment of bravery, or perhaps desperation, you reach over and place your hand on his. He starts a bit, but doesn’t pull away. Warmth blossoms in your chest. God, you wish this were simpler.

“I’m so happy that you want to go out with me. Seriously. It’s something- kind of embarrassing, but I’ve wanted this for a long time. It’s just… there’s more to the story than you know, Clark.”

He’s happy about your admission, blessedly, but it doesn’t wipe the concern from his face. He puts his other hand over yours, encasing you fully. “Then tell me the rest.”

You close your eyes for a moment. This is it. There’s no more delaying, no beating around the bush. You have to come clean. For the sake of your friend, for yourself, and because Clark deserves the truth.

“Okay, but I… I just wish I could have you promise you won’t hate me after.”

Those gorgeous blue eyes soften, turning your knees to jelly. His thumb rubs circles into your hand. “I could never hate you.”

Part of you believes him. But another part—the journalist, the realist—can’t take stock in his words. Clark is the closest thing to perfect you’ve ever seen. But that doesn’t mean he actually is perfect. No one’s perfect, not even this man you care so much about.

You fill your lungs with air until they ache, and then you open your mouth to let the truth spill out.

Clark glances towards the Metropolis skyline, brows twitching, as if he heard something. He blinks and pulls his phone out of his pocket. Glances at the screen to check for a message. You didn’t even hear it go off, not even a muted buzz. But when he looks up at you, expression a storm cloud of regret, you know what’s coming.

“I’m sorry, but there’s- a family-friend is having an emergency. I have to go,” he explains, pushing himself to his feet. He reaches for his wallet, pulls out a $100 bill, and drops it on the table. “I’m so sorry. I promise I will make this up to you. Please get some food, whatever you want, on me.”

You don’t know what you’re supposed to say to that. So you stay silent, just watching as he hurries to escape. You think your heart might be shriveling in your chest a little.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? We’ll reschedule. I’m really so sorry, Jelly,” he says, and you know he means it. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him this upset. Not that it makes you feel better.

Clark turns to leave, pauses, and looks back at you. He deliberates, and then he’s leaning down to press a kiss to the crown of your head. With one more rushed I’m sorry, he disappears from sight. And you’re left alone. At an Italian restaurant, on the patio, across from an empty seat.

You glance down at the money he left. The most expensive thing on the menu is $20.

A mix between a laugh and a gasp leaves your throat. You lay your head on the table with a muffled thunk. You ponder the science needed to make a do-over machine. More than anything, you wonder how you’re gonna force yourself to go to work tomorrow.

You end up eating dinner at the restaurant. Not because you want to, but because your emotions are a mess and you think getting something in your stomach will help. You pay ‌the bill with your own money, and slip Clark’s $100 into your pocket. You’ll give it back to him tomorrow. Alongside whatever confession you can muster.

The 20-minute walk to your apartment building is the perfect opportunity to clear your head, which is exactly what you don’t do. You spiral and second-guess and fall deeper and deeper into despair. Sadie hates you. Clark doesn’t like you like that. You weirded him out. You lost your two best friends.

Obviously, you’re doing very well.

Superman is fighting some sort of alien monster on the other side of town. It’s your one and only saving grace that both your home and your work are outside the battle boundaries. A damaged apartment would surely send you over the edge right now. You still remember when your car got stomped on last year. You still haven’t bought a new one—you don’t want to risk it.

Besides, you don’t mind walking.

The apartment door sticks a little when you try to open it, so you hit it with your shoulder until it budges. You really need to get that looked at. Whenever you miraculously find the time. Or if you can talk your shady landlord into doing it. Considering it’s been three months and your sink still leaks, you find that doubtful.

You hang your bag up by the door, kick off your shoes, and fall face-first onto your couch. Briefly, you consider cracking open the liquor cabinet, but you think better of it. Nothing in there is going to help you right now. What you really need is a long shower, a cheesy 90-minute movie, and an early bedtime. Maybe a treat for good measure.

Your phone buzzes in your back pocket. A big part of you wants to ignore it. It could be Clark calling to apologize again. Or Sadie trying to figure out what happened. But it could also be Perry, or one of your sources, or Jimmy needing your help to escape a bad date.

Stifling a groan, you fish it out and glance at the screen. Your stomach drops. It’s Sadie.

One thing you’ve learned about your best friend over the course of your friendship is that she’s persistent. If you don’t answer this, she will call again. And again and again and again. If that doesn’t work, she might even show up at your door. There’s no avoiding her for very long.

Pretending like you don’t feel extremely ill, you accept the call and hold the phone to your ear. “Hello?”

“Please tell me you’re done with your date, and you didn’t answer your phone in the middle of dinner.”

You sit up so fast that it makes you dizzy. “What?”

“Your date. With Clark. Are you done already?”

The air has been sucked out of your lungs. You clutch your phone so tight you fear it might snap. “I don’t- I need you to explain what’s happening right now.”

When she answers, humor seeps into her voice. “Honey, I asked you to set me up with Kent so you could get with him.”

Every ounce of intelligence you had has flown out the window. It’s like she’s speaking in an unfamiliar language, and you’re only picking up bits and pieces. “Huh?”

“Well, at first I thought my asking you would just get you to confess your feelings about him. But it didn’t, because you’re a sweetheart with no self-preservation. So then came Plan B,” she explains, voice crackling over the call. You wonder if Superman’s fight is affecting the phone lines. “I knew if you tried to set him up with me, he’d have to tell you he didn’t feel that way. And then maybe it could spark a confession between the two of you. That didn’t happen either.”

You’re gaping at the wall in front of you. You cannot believe what you’re hearing right now.

“At the very least, if he ended up accepting the date with me out of politeness or whatever, I could bail. Send you in my stead like the evil genius I am and get your relationship moving,” Sadie continues, oblivious to the crisis you’re having. “But you, you beautiful human, you handled it all on your own. You messed it up so badly that you ended up asking him out yourself. You did my job for me.”

“How… how do you know about that?” You ask, finding your voice after a few long seconds. What kind of maniacal plan is this?

“Lois sits right behind him, sweetie. She heard the whole thing.”

Great. Lois is in on it, too. You’re sure she’s not the only one. A headache is forming behind your eyes, and you rub ‌your temples. This is so ridiculous.

“You- what- why would you do this?”

“Because I was sick of watching you two pine over each other for no good reason!” She exclaims, though there’s no malice behind it. “You want each other, and you should be together, and I knew you just needed a push.”

She’s right. You never in a million years would have approached him of your own volition. He’s so out of your league, you didn’t think it possible for him to reciprocate. Still, this entire scheme feels like way too much effort. Not to mention how terribly you screwed it up.

“Jesus Christ, Sadie, why didn’t you just tell me that?” You groan. “Do you know how awful I felt all day, thinking I betrayed your trust? I’ve been sick to my stomach!”

She laughs. She literally, fully laughs at you. You scowl. Even though she can’t see it, it makes you feel better.

“Well, I would’ve if you’d talked to me! You spent the rest of the day avoiding me like the plague.”

She got you there. You had a skill in running from your problems. “This is so ridiculous. I hate you so much.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” she giggles. You both know you don’t mean it. Hell, you’re smiling right now. “So how did the date go?”

The relief you felt at Sadie’s explanation evaporates instantly. Despite having the misunderstanding cleared up, the failed-accidental-first-date still weighs heavily on you. He’d left so suddenly. With some half-assed excuse about an emergency you don’t even think is real. It’s quite possible he just wanted a quick escape.

“It… didn’t.”

“What? What do you mean, ‘it didn’t’?”

You sigh, curling up against the couch cushions. “We’d just sat down, and I was about to tell him about the whole mixup when he just- he left.”

“He left?!” she shrieks, and you have to pull the phone away from your ear. She’s obviously invested in this whole thing.

“Yeah. He pulled out his phone like he got a message- which I’m quite sure he didn’t- and then he said he had to go. Something about a family emergency. I don’t know. It was weird.”

“What the hell? That’s so unlike him. What do you think happened?”

“Not sure,” you shake your head even though she can’t see you. “I’m worried I may have scared him off. I was acting pretty strange when I thought I was betraying you.”

“Very sweet, but unnecessary. I was never betrayed,” she comments unhelpfully. “I don’t know. He doesn’t seem like the type to scare easily. Especially with you. He likes you so much.”

You can’t stop the blush that spreads across your cheeks. Clark liking you so much? It’s a crazy sentiment. Damn near improbable. To even imagine it…

“Well, whatever it was, he left in a hurry. After giving me a hundred dollars to get myself dinner. Which I didn’t use.”

“Ugh, he’s such a gentleman. I love it,” she gushes. You agree, though you don’t feel the need to say it. She knows how you feel. “You should talk to him about it tomorrow. Try to figure out what happened, and how to move forward.”

“Yeah, I was already planning on it. He said we’d reschedule.”

“Oh, perfect, he still likes you then! Not that that was ever in doubt, but still.”

You roll your eyes. “I guess so. I just- God, I can’t believe the day I’ve had.”

Even though you can’t see her, you can picture the apologetic look on her face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you would ice me out all day. I was going to tell you.”

“Yeah, I know, it’s okay. It’s not your fault,” you assure her. “I put myself in that situation. And now that it’s over, I am so tired.”

“Alright, you should head to bed then. I won’t keep you any longer. I just wanted to, you know, debrief.” 

“I appreciate that. I worked myself into quite the frenzy.”

“I don’t doubt it,” she laughs. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? And we’ll figure out this whole Clark thing.”

“Sounds good,” you smile into the phone. “See you tomorrow, evil genius.”

“Good night, lovebug.”

The call clicks to an end, and you drop the phone in your lap. Letting out a breath, you rub at your tired eyes. Jesus, what a crazy series of events.

Something tells you tomorrow is gonna have just as much in store.

[cowboysorceror]

re-vamping and solidifying my Jason design for "door, opening" my in-progress fic! if you don't want to read my handwriting it's all written out in alt text lol 👍 EDIT: see Dick over here!

[crevicedwelling]

here’s a fun animal I saw in Borneo: the mammal!

unlike the rest of us, mammals are endothermic and produce their own body heat—but they’re not birds! it is covered in a thick coat of hair (you guessed it, separate evolutionary origin from feathers) and secretes a fatty liquid from special glands to nurture its larvae. mammals can be found almost worldwide and are highly adaptable. this one was making odd squeaking noises, possibly begging for morsels of food.

here’s another mammal I saw. pretty sure it’s a different species but I’m not an expert on identifying them

fun mammal fact: some are curiously soft to the touch! try palpating the next mammal you see, but please be careful. some may bite!

[yuuchama]

Sometime during the VDC training camp, when everyone on team Night Raven is sleeping over at Ramshackle Dorm:

Ramshackle Dorm has no shortage of spare rooms, but their condition is another story. You've managed to get enough of them decently clean. They're not as nice as your room, which has had far more time invested in it and is well lived in, but your groupmates should be able to spend a few days at the dorm without issue and are more than free to tidy up rooms as they please.

Yet on one of the first nights, you hear the door of your room creak open. It's dark and you can't see the intruder, though you know it's not one of the ghosts. The approaching footsteps aren't as heavy as Grim's, even after he's cleared out the entire fridge in one sitting. You're also pretty confident Grim is fast asleep beside you.

"Hello?" You groggily lift your head and call out to the intruder. If it's anything malicious, you hope the ensuing scuffle will cause enough noise to wake everyone else up.

A weight pushes the edge of your mattress down and there's a gentle touch at your shoulder. "Prefect, do you mind if I spend the rest of the night here?"

"Jamil?"

You almost don't recognize him in the dark with his hair down. You feel around for a bedside light. Grim groans in his sleep when it clicks on and turns over, shielding his eyes with tiny arms.

Jamil looks exhausted. "Please, I'd really appreciate if you could let me sleep here tonight."

"Yeah, sure. Of course." Maybe it's the sleep addling your brain or your trust in Jamil. You see no reason to turn down his request and didn't question why he was coming to you instead of Kalim. You nudge Grim over to make room for one more on the bed.

The vice housewarden does his best to fit in the cramped sleeping conditions, assuring "I'll pay you back for this. Thank you."

He's turned towards the wall, back touching your side so that he doesn't fall. You wait to make sure he's fully secure in bed before turning off the light. In the calm that follows, you notice he's almost imperceptibly shaking. Sure, the dorm is cold, but not that cold. Especially with three in one bed.

"Jamil, are you okay?" The longer you spend awake, the more concerning this whole situation feels.

"I'm fine. Goodnight, Prefect." Jamil already has his eyes shut and seems adamant about not discussing things further.

"Okay... Goodnight."

You lay down and silence settles over the room once more. It's really warm between your two friends. Sleep is quick to catch up to you, you find yourself nodding off within minutes of your head touching the pillow.

Before you fully drift off, Jamil turns to face you. His hair drapes over the side of the bed and he places a hand on your pillow, lightly grazing your cheek.

"Thanks again," he whispers. "I feel a lot better with you here. Your room doesn't have bugs on the wall."

[robo-writing]

Silly little thing inspired by this post

From the moment Logan came home he was acting strange—handsy, far more than usual, a glint in his eyes you’ve never seen before. Really, how could you deny your own curiosity when you felt him against your back, bulge pressing against your backside as his hands wormed their way up your shirt.

“Been waiting for you all day,” he mumbles against your skin, pinching your nipples between his two fingers, sliding his thickening cock against your ass. “Miss me sweetheart? Because I sure as hell missed you.”

In the time it takes for you to nod your head he’s already ripped your shirt open, your gasp of surprise soon overshadowed by the moan that leaves you when his hand moves to rub against your pussy over your jeans. His voice in your ear is sin itself, the sound of it enough to have you weak in the knees.

“Let’s go upstairs darling, wanna show you just how much I missed you.”

Like hell he needed to tell you twice.

Logan’s got you on your knees within minutes, large palms gripping your hips with certainty, the movement of his hips against your backside leaving you starry-eyed—You don’t know what came over him, but you do know that whatever it is, you love it.

Rough, predatory even, he folds himself against your body, grunting with each thrust as his cock batters into you, sweat lining your skin as you try your best to keep up with each movement of his hips. Even so, you can’t help how badly your body burns with exhaustion. An arm wraps around your stomach, pulling you toward his chest, keeping you steady as he fucks up into you like a man possessed.

You’re on cloud nine, floating above your own body, so beside yourself with pleasure that you give yourself fully to Logan, letting him fuck your weakened body like a toy. Your vocabulary becomes limited to cries of his name, your fingers splayed against his thighs, his voice growling into your neck.

“Good girl, stay just like that, lemme make you feel good,” he says, lapping at your open mouth. “Lemme think for you, just focus on how good it feels, yeah? Stay with me doll.”

Your head lolls to the side, a sloppy attempt at a kiss before you separate with a whine. The mounting pressure has your fingers moving towards the base of his cock, surprise gripping you when you feel how it swells beneath your fingers.

That’s certainly new.

Logan’s none the wiser, if anything the presence of your fingers only spurs him further into your warm cunt, drooling at the sudden overstimulation. “Holy shit—keep your hand right there, Jesus Christ—“

Somehow his hips move even faster, battering his swollen cock even further into your poor, abused pussy, desperate to fit himself as far as he can inside you. Your warnings fall on deaf ears, even as you beg him to listen Logan’s far more interested in stuffing you nice and full to give a shit. “Fuck, fuck, Logan—“

“Shh, fuck—“ His fingers against your clit silence your protests, your legs shaky as he continues to fuck into you. “Just be quiet f’me, that’s it—oh god—“

He keeps you nice and pliant in his arms, too cock-drunk and brainless to care about the fact that the pressure inside your pussy is growing, or care about the fact that Logan’s practically drooling against your neck, biting, licking, sucking at any exposed skin his teeth can reach. “Feel so good, so fucking good—“

You cry out his name when you cum, your juices running down your thighs and soaking his cock as he continues to fuck into you, pinning you by your arms even further into the bedsheets. Back arched, face down, ass up—his weight against your back makes you seize, your breath caught in your chest when you suddenly feel something growing larger inside of you.

It’s soon followed by the familiar warmth of him spilling inside of you, so much more than you’re used to. His cum fills you up, so much so that you feel it slipping free from where his cock is plugged inside of you, his hips still moving even if his cock is firmly locked inside of you.

It takes you far longer than you care to admit to gather yourself, your fingers reaching down to touch where his cock swells, your hips tentatively shaking only to find that it doesn’t move from you an inch. The action has him pulling you back into him, his hot breath fanning against your cheek.

“Don’t move, please,” he begs, desperation laced in his voice. “Too fuckin’ sensitive, fuck—“

“Logan,” you whine, trying to pull yourself away again. “Can’t move, you’re heavy—“

He grunts in response, slowly turning the both of you on your side, his large arms hugging you still as he’s locked inside your pussy. It’s now you can look down and see just how fat the base of him is, lodged so far inside of you that it makes your stomach bulge just that bit more.

Your whisper is that of morbid curiosity and a bit of awe, fingers tracing where your stomach protrudes with the weight of him. “Logan, what the fuck?”

“What?” He mumbles half-heartedly, and you have to grab his hand and show him exactly what you’re talking about, his head lifting to see his swollen dick disappearing in your cunt.

“What the fuck…” he whispers back, equally in awe of…whatever the hell this is.

“Is that normal?” You ask, and he shakes his head.

“No it is not,” he says, hissing when he gives an experimental thrust. “Feels fuckin’ good though.”

[prettybugsinbandages]

Blot!reader pt. 3

Part 3 to this

This is a darker story. I suggest you refrain from reading it if you're in a fragile mental state or unable to handle darker themes.

The blankets cocooned around you were cold—an empty, sterile embrace that offered no comfort as you lay wide-eyed in the oppressive stillness of the night. Sleep slipped through your grasp, elusive and taunting, while your mind clawed relentlessly at the remnants of the day. Each memory looped endlessly, twisting tighter and tighter, until nausea churned in your gut.

Your gaze wandered—adrift—until it landed on a keychain dangling from your bag. A sudden warmth flickered in your chest, fragile and fleeting, like the ghost of sunbeam on a winter morning. Nostalgia bloomed—sharp and bittersweet, wrapped in the fondness of forgotten laughter; It was a birthday gift from a friend back home. Ridiculous, overpriced, and born from an inside joke you no longer even recalled. The small plush charm had been worn thin, dulled and frayed by years of absentminded affection it had endured.

You slipped out of your bed, your feet ghosting over the cold floor. Every step toward the keychain made your heart pound louder in your ears. Its familiar texture met your fingers, soft and worn from countless caresses. Your heart was oddly soothed by its familiarity, calming you enough to allow a yawn to escape—perhaps you'd sleep tonight after all.

You turned the small item over a few times in your hands before the memory slams into you. The sharp, metallic ping cutting through the hum of your old room. The frustration that followed, the light graze of your thumb over the broken chain. The memory was vivid and final.

You left this behind.

Your breathing grew shallow, vision blurry as realization crept up on you and the keychain fell from your hands, making a soft thump on the floor. Why was it here? How was it here? Your mind spun, raking through any and all possibilities as you stared wide-eyed at the impossibility at your feet.

A sharp sound tore you from your thoughts before a light filled the room, the sudden change nearly shattering you. A melody—soft, haunting—echoed from behind, filling your stagnant cell of a room and tightening around your ribs like thorns. You turned sharply, breath caught in your throat as your gaze landed on your phone screen, glowing in the dark and casting an eerie, cold light across the room.

The name flashing across the screen made you involuntarily let out a weak gasp as you stumbled forward, your legs like jelly. That number was muscle memory, seared deep into your mind, like a brand on your personality. You knew it intimately from endless hours spent lost in conversation. Memorized by heart, you'd traced it absently while their voice poured through the receiver, filling quiet nights with laughter, dreams, and shared secrets.

"Hello?"

The voice on the line wasn't just familiar—it was them. It echoed through your skull like a haunting melody, colder than the air in your empty lungs. You couldn't breathe. Time thickened around you, dragging you slower, and slower, yet every second screamed you were running out of it.

A connection to home. A chance you'd forsaken—the thought clawed at you, desperate and hungry like a rabid dog. Shakily, you tried to respond, but it never went through. Were you finally going mad? Was there blot in your brain? You could only laugh—thin, brittle—the sound teetering between hysteria and madness.

"I don't know why I'm doing this," They said, a bitter laugh breaking through the static. Frustration bled into hurt—and then, almost painful hope. "-but I can't seem to stop calling. That movie you were excited about? It finally comes out next week. I bought us tickets—your favorite spot in the theater. I even saved up for snacks—And the café you love afterward... You'll be there, won't you?"

The line fell silent. Only the faint, familiar hum of their fan carried through—a soft, constant whir that had always comforted you during late-night sleepovers. It had run non-stop for years and back then, you'd playfully scolded them for keeping it on constantly, unaware just how much you'd miss it on quiet nights, so far from home. The sound had become home.

"...Please come back."

The call ended—abrupt, merciless. The silence that followed was louder than any goodbye, and you so desperately ached to hear the familiar: "I'll see you tomorrow."

Desperation clawed at your throat as you scrambled to call back, your voice breaking into raw, hoarse sobs—ones long overdue that tore from somewhere once deep and forgotten. Your body was drenched in uncomfortable, clammy, cold sweat as your fingers trembled to input the number once again—to hear their voice one more time. You dialed again. And again.

The number you have dialed is not in service.

Again.

The number you have dialed is not in service.

Each polite, robotic repetition was a blade twisting deeper, shredding through you with barbed, merciless precision. Your chest convulses with the weight of silence. Nails claw at your palms, desperate for something to ground you, but the shadows stretch—long, greedy, as though even the room has given up on holding you.

The ring on your finger was cold now—cold as your own uncannily waxen flesh. The Blot was silent for once—it doesn't speak, but you can feel it behind you, its presence heavy and infuriatingly soothing. Through your blurry tears, you caught its shadow standing beside your own, the moonlight spilling through your window casting both your forms in the same pale, eerie glow.

Two shapes horribly intertwined by fate.

And both so painfully, irrevocably alone.

The following morning was a haze—thick and disorienting, like radio static stretched thin over every sense. It clung to your mind like mold, seeping into every corner of your being, wrapping tight and suffocating, leaving behind a pressure that felt almost claustrophobic. Every muscle ached with a dull, persisted throb, and your movements were sluggish—each thought, each action, wading through the heavy drag of mud. Yeah, mud was the right word. The day felt filthy. You felt filthy.

Even Cater's presence—usually a bright, irritating hum in the background—brought no reprieve. When you recoiled from his touch without meaning to, the brief flicker of hurt across his face should've been satisfying. Normally, it would've been beneath the veneer. But you didn't even have the energy to enjoy it. Instead, you offered an apology sculpted to sound genuine, knowing exactly what to say to smooth it over—words shaped like honey but hollow inside.

The constant hum of the Mostro Lounge buzzed in your ears: the sharp clink of dishes, the scrape of silverware, the low murmur of conversation, and the sizzle of meals being made. The lights overhead felt oppressive, glaring down like the unblinking eye of some unseen god, judging, dissecting every falter, every wandering thought. But still, you endured.

Plate after plate. Smile after smile.

God, you hated them. You wanted to go home. Real home.

But after that cruel, fleeting taste of what you once craved, the hollow ache of your abandoned goal came crashing back—raging, desperate, clawing for dominance like rabid dogs over the newer, uglier desire: the need to stay and become somebody here. Yet deep down, you knew. You couldn't go back. not after this. Not after what you've become. You're a plague.

How would you even explain it? How do you justify the absence—the schoolwork missed, the time lost? Surely, people had moved on. Surely, you were already forgotten and that call was a hoax. Yes, another hallucination from the stress.

The spiral was relentless as you scrubbed another dish, eyes unfocused, locked on the lazy swirl of soap and bubbles clinging to your hands. Exhaustion dragged at your eyelids like heavy weights. You turned to put the glass away—misjudged the distance.

Crash.

The sound of shattering glass echoed too loudly, but all you could do was stare. For a moment, the world dulled around you—flattened into isolation, bleak and distant. The harsh light above bore down, merciless and searing, like divine judgement cast from on high.

And in that moment, it felt like punishment. Like you deserved it.

"~~~~?"

"~~~~."

Hands gripped your shoulder—firm, insistent—and shook you just enough to jolt your vision back into focus. The world sharpened painfully around the edges, and suddenly you felt it: the weight of their stares pressing into you like hot iron.

"Shrimpy!" Floyd's voice cut through the fog, sharper now, laced with something unfamiliar—concern. He shook you again, more urgently this time. His features, usually painted in playful malice, were drawn tight with worry: brows furrowed, eyes squinted ever so slightly, lips parted as if you were trying to find the right thing to say. "Did you eat somethin' Jade gave you? If you go home now, I'll be lonely." He whined with an undercurrent of care.

His head snapped up like a hunting dog catching a scent, scanning the room for his twin. But Jade was already there—hovering near the kitchen window, gaze cool and calculating as always. Yet, not even his polished mask could fully hide the flicker of unease that crossed his face. Whatever was happening, this time, he wasn't behind it.

You forced a weak smile—another apology weighing down on your tongue. Gods, how many apologies had you made today? "My hand slipped," you muttered, voice thin and brittle. "I just felt a little dizzy, that's all."

A spark of something darker, more cunning, twisted in your chest. An opportunity—small and mean—presented itself. Last night's events made you want to lash out and draw blood from any drawing too near. "I covered your and Jade's shift last night. Barely slept."

You didn't bother to look at them, didn't need to. Instead, you crouched down, gathering the shattered remnants of the glass. Floyd's grip loosened but his presence lingered close—hovering like a shadow unwilling to let go.

Measured footsteps soon approached—Jade. His gloved hands appeared in your periphery, collecting shards with practiced precision. You could feel his gaze, sharp and dissecting, practically daring you to meet his gaze. If you did, you knew he'd carve the truth out of you without mercy.

"Perhaps you should rest," Jade murmured, voice smooth as silk but carrying a weight beneath it. "I'll speak to Azul."

You kept your gaze trained on the floor.

The Leech twins were impossible to beat on their home turf. Their games were played on familiar ground, and anyone foolish enough to challenge them there would drown before they even realized they were sinking.

That's why you needed to build your own field. Make it identical, familiar, but yours. Drag them into it—make them play by their own rules.

The moment they showed the slightest hint of interest, you pushed—forced your way into their lives and curled in close until it felt natural, comfortable. And when they grew used to the warmth of your presence, when it started to feel like maybe you belonged by their side—that's when you pulled.

One would've thought they'd catch on by now, given their intellect. But perhaps they'd grown too confident, too sure of their mastery of this endless game.

You stood slowly, rinsing your hands of any lingering shards. No words. No gratitude. Just the cold satisfaction of leaving.

Behind you, their confusion burned hot—Why? Did it really sting him that much? Was it guilt for making you cover their shifts? But you had offered, hadn't you? Just yesterday, you were draped over him with teasing smiles, laughter curling between subtle touches.

So why did it feel like all of that had shattered just as easily as the glass in your hands?

He hadn't even realized he was already planning how to win you back like a forsaken lover.

Despite your body screaming for rest, you pressed on—first to your locker, then to his office.

Azul was exactly where you expected him to be: hunched over the sea of documents, files stacked like fragile towers around him, pen scratching tirelessly across paper. The steady rhythm of ink against parchment filled the room like background noise in a familiar, suffocating routine.

Your steps were measured, each one deliberate, the certainty of your intention steeling your spine. Your gaze was cold—detached—until he finally looked up. Only then did you let it soften, just enough to mask the sharpness beneath.

You hesitated for a moment, your movements stilling. Then, without a word, you extended your hand. A simple sheet of paper rested between your fingers. Two weeks' notice.

Azul took it, scanning the words with quick, efficient movements. His pale blue eyes—sharp and calculating—let every syllable seep into him, and for a brief, flickering second, something in his composed expression cracked.

You remembered why he hired you in the first place. The growing popularity of the Ramshackle Prefects had turned you and the others into commodities. Something shiny to be displayed and capitalized on. None of you were people in his eyes; you were an opportunity. Though it changed slightly after the overblot.

Of course, Azul had dressed you up nicely—polite gestures, a crisp uniform tailored just for you. And you, foolishly, had mistaken that for kindness in the beginning. Though only after the deal had you decided to repay it tenfold.

You remembered the small acts of care, offered without expectation: meals left discreetly on his desk when he skipped lunch, snacks, glasses of water, cups of tea. Then came the packed lunches—home-made and thoughtful—each one accompanied by a small, handwritten note or doodle.

The twins had teased him mercilessly for those notes. They swiped them, tore them up, or laughed at how soft he'd gotten while internally wondering why only Azul received such things. But Azul hadn't cared—or at least, that's what he thought. Until the day he found himself opening his lunch early, not to eat but to rescue the note, tucking it safely away in his locker safe before the twins could sink their claws into it.

And then you caught a cold. No lunches. No notes. No little reminders of care.

The absence was stark. The hours felt colder, emptier, like a hollow space you had opened within his routine. It was only then that Azul realized how deeply your presence had seeped into his life—how seen you made him feel.

You had understood him in ways others didn't—or couldn't. Every little gesture, every late-night conversation peeled back a layer of armor he wore. At first, it had unsettled him—your sharp perception felt like a threat, an exposed nerve.

But you didn't wield that awareness like a weapon—well, you did. But he didn't know—You gave it to him instead, focused it entirely on him. And somewhere along the way, your gaze stopped feeling like scrutiny and started feeling like sunlight—gentle and warm, coaxing him out of his cold, dark pot again.

What began as fleeting interactions and reluctant tolerance slowly bloomed into late shifts spent in quiet companionship. You started using your breaks in his office, sitting there in shared silence that felt unexpectedly comforting.

And when he noticed the way you would occasionally drift off—curled uncomfortably on the stiff office couch—he didn't say anything. But soon after, the couch disappeared, left along with Floyd in a bad mood and a small, carefully placed peel in the leather. Enough to ensure it would be ruined later.

A replacement arrived hours later, as if pre-ordered—softer, warmer. A silent offering.

Now, standing in front of him with that thin sheet of paper between you, all of that unspoken history sat heavy in the air.

And yet, you were still walking away.

"What's this?" His voice was smooth, composed, every inch the businessman he portrays himself to be—but you caught it; the slight tremor hidden beneath the polished exterior. The way his fingers tightened around the paper, the sharpness of his gaze behind those pristine glasses. He wouldn't acknowledge the sudden weight in his chest, but you felt it all the same.

You smiled—carefully, perfectly, just as you had rehearsed. Every word chosen, every expression measured, a script you'd been preparing since the first day you were hired.

"My two weeks." Your voice was light, casual, as if it wasn't meant to sting. "There's a place in town offering better pay. You always say business is business—or whatever the saying is, right? You get it; money's important. Especially for someone like me."

Azul's world spun beneath him. It felt like the ground had tilted just enough to send him off balance. You spoke like it was nothing, like he was nothing. A simple transaction—business, just as he always said.

Why had you been so kind to him if you were just going to leave? Why the meals, the notes? Why make him believe, feel, that your presence was anything more than a convenience?

He'd been aware of how distant you became outside of work when you had friends pulling you away from him—how the moments between shifts stretched into silence. The realization gnawed at him, whispering that maybe the warmth you gave him was only temporary. So, he had given you more hours, more shifts—greedy for your presence, desperate to keep you close.

It had only made things worse. You got sick. You slipped further away.

Now this—this final nail in the coffin.

He intended to be gracious. To let you go with dignity, to say something measured and reasonable—Right. I appreciate you letting me know. This is unexpected, but I respect your decision and will support you during the transition.

But when he stood, the words tangled in his throat. His hands trembled slightly, the paper shaking as if it had physically hurt him to hold it.

"I—" The breath hitched before he could stop it. his voice was raw—small. "What are they offering? I can do more."

The desperation hit him like hot spilled tea. How pathetic he must've sounded—how weak. That old fear clawed at him, the memory of being less than, the loser nobody cared about until he forced them to.

Azul adjusted his glasses, smoothing down the crack in his armor, slipping the mask back on with trembling hands. He sat back down, shoulders straight, voice steadier. "You're a valued employee. The Mostro Lounge would hate to see you go."

You almost laughed. The way he clung to formality, as if referring to his business in third person could shield him from the sting of losing you.

But instead, you smiled—bright, nauseously fake. "Ah, really? That's amazing! I was really sad I might need to leave. I've made so many good memories here." Your voice was softer, an undertone of reassurance.

Another lie. The only memory that clung to you was that night—trapped in a booth with the Yuus, celebrating a test you'd all fought tooth and nail to pass. They laughed, smiled, congratulated each other. The students outside Ramshackle never even spoke to you. You'd sat in silence, the world dull and cold, until you excused yourself with the excuse of a headache.

The drowning feeling had returned, thick and suffocating, but it was broken—suddenly, mercifully—by the Blot ring's warmth on your finger.

"Look, my dove. Look at what you've done; Watch how easily he breaks for you." The Blot's voice echoed in your head as you focused on Azul again, noting his relief.

It almost made you feel pity. Sometimes you forget he's just a kid like you.

"I'm glad we sorted that out," Azul said, his voice soft, almost tender. "You're a person I value... At the Mostro Lounge, of course." He added quickly.

When Ortho arrived home after the movie night at Ramshackle, he found Idia sprawled across his bed, fingers deftly maneuvering over his controller. The room was dimly lit with the signature blue glow it always had, the soft glow of his monitor casting a blue tint over his sharp features. The rapid clicking of buttons and the occasional flicker of movement on the screen cast across his walls like dancing spirits amongst the steady and consistent faint hum of the electronics.

Ortho inched closer, lingering near the bed, waiting for his brother to acknowledge him.

"How was it? Anything fun?" Idia asked, his voice absent minded as he spared Ortho a brief glance before refocusing on his game. Still, there was an unmistakable warmth in his tone—he was genuinely glad that Ortho was spending time with others, getting to act like a real kid. It was nice to see.

Ortho perked up at the invitation to share more eagerly plopping down beside him. "We had so much fun, Big Brother!" His voice buzzed with excitement as he watched Idia play, making a comment about a missed hit that elicited a scoff from the eldest. "I really think you should hang out with the Prefects more. You already get along with them—why not get closer? You need to get out more anyway."

His words carried a thread of concern, though he kept his tone lighthearted. He knew his brother was reclusive and lonely, always watching from the sidelines—yearning for the kind of effortless camaraderie he only saw in anime or online gaming parties. Idia longed for connection, even if he'd never admit it.

He prattles on and on about the event, recalling the experiences sharply so Idia could properly understand and visualize things. On occasion, he'd chuckle or curse under his breath at something happening in the game.

As Ortho chattered away, he recounted the night's events in vivid detail, ensuring his brother could picture everything as if he had been there himself. He was meticulous in his storytelling, highlighting funny moments and inside jokes. Occasionally, Idia would chuckle under his breath at a particularly ridiculous anecdote or mutter a curse at something happening on screen.

Then, offhandedly, Ortho mentioned the scanning competition—the malfunction with his scanner and your unusual results.

Idia's fingers hesitated over the controller for half a second, his attention subtly shifting.

You.

During his own overblot, you had been there. Ortho had mentioned it before, but at the time, it barely registered. In the haze of everything that happened, all he could recall was Yuu. They were always at the center of things, right? It made sense.

But when he later reviewed the footage, he found himself lingering. Watching.

You stood there, unwavering. No magic, no superhuman abilities—just you. And yet, despite every overwhelming odds stacked against you, you had fought. You had thrown yourself into the fray with the kind of reckless determination usually reserved for protagonists in the stories he obsessed over. The kind of character he would've rooted for, cheered for.

And yet somehow, you had slipped from his mind.

You weren't supposed to be important.

But now... now you kept appearing, inching your way into his life, making yourself impossible to ignore.

You weren't his best friend. You weren't even his close friend. If he had to assign you a rank on his totally real and definitely well-thought-out friendship tier list, you'd probably sit somewhere around B-tier.

…Maybe B+

Which, objectively speaking, was way too high.

Like, actually concerningly high. The kind of rank that makes Idia pause mid-though and wonder just how you'd managed to climb the rankings so quickly.

At first, it was just a quiet observation—fleeting glances stolen when he thought you wouldn't notice. He studied the way your smile curved, the way the light caught in your eyes, the little details that made you you. And somehow, without meaning to, those details slipped into the margins of his sketchbook—traced in careful, unintentional devotion. A tilt of your lips here, the shape of your eyes there, fragments of familiarity woven into characters he'd never admit were inspired by you.

Then came the conversations—small at first, barely more than mumbled words and hesitant remarks. But you listened. You listened in a way that no one else did, quiet and patient, letting him ramble about his favorite games, his theories, his endless tide of niche knowledge. And when he realized you weren't just humoring him—that you actually cared—the dam cracked.

One night, in the middle of another one-sided infodump, Idia got distracted. His fingers, itching for something to do, reached for his pen, and before he knew it, he was tracing delicate patterns along your skin. Spirals, constellations, intricate designs that sprawled from your fingertips to your forearm, blooming like ink-stained confessions.

It wasn't until he pulled back—saw the quiet amusement in your expression, the way you flexed your fingers to admire his absentminded work—that realization hit him like a sucker punch to the gut.

The mention of your odd vitals tore Idia back from the faint memory. "Wait, what?"

The words left Idia's mouth before he could stop them, his fingers stilling over the controller. His character stuttered to a stop, taking a critical hit and crumbling to the ground. It was enough of a shock to make him pause the game entirely, tired yellow eyes flicking up to meet Ortho's with rare focus. "What happened? Rewind." His voice came out sharper than intended—too firm, too alert. He realized it a second too late, clearing his throat awkwardly as he restarted the game, feigning nonchalance.

Ortho didn't seem to notice—or if he did, he didn't comment. Instead, his brows knit together, worry evident in his voice. "I did a full-body scan of them and found several discrepancies. Is something wrong with my scanner or are they okay?"

Idia felt something uneasy coil in his gut at the genuine concern in Ortho's tone.

"Their heart rate was extremely low, core body temperature matched the room, and their tidal volume was... severely diminished. Either extremely shallow breathing or apneic."

For a moment, Idia said nothing. His grip tightened ever so slightly on the controller. He should've shrugged it off immediately—should've dismissed it as some weird fluke, an error, a quirk of human biology he didn't need to concern himself with. Instead, a beat of silence stretched between them before he scoffed.

"Last I checked, you're completely up to date. Dunno, maybe anemia. Or thyroid issues. Human stuff. Or people from their world are a little different. Did you scan the others?" He forced out a short laugh, trying to ignore the nagging feeling creeping up his spine.

That wasn't entirely a lie. There were plenty of mundane explanations. But the gut feeling remained, pressing down on his instincts like w weight. If something was wrong—if something happened to you, and he had the chance to help but never did—he'd never forgive himself.

Ortho was quiet for a moment, processing, before shaking his head. "I didn't scan the others. They were busy. But... Do you really think everything's fine, Big Brother?"

His lips parted, but no immediate response came. Did he? Logically, none of those symptoms screamed emergency. And yet... something felt off.

"Uh—yeah... probably."

Ortho didn't seem entirely convinced, and honestly? Neither did Idia.

That night, sleep evaded him. Idia tossed and turned, body feeling heavier than usual, his mind on an unrelenting loop of unease. He could still hear the concern in Ortho's voice, see the way his little brother's brows furrowed in worry over you.

With a groan, Idia threw an arm over his face, trying to block out the gnawing guilt.

It's nothing, he told himself. It has to be nothing.

Still, the thoughts wouldn't settle. "Low body temp could be hypothyroidism or anemia. Low heart rate? Also hypothyroidism. Hypoventilation Probably anxiety T.B.H." He muttered the justifications under his breath, fingers threading through his mess of flaming blue hair.

But if it were just that, why did it still feel so wrong?

Before he even realized what he was doing, Idia had already sat up, fingers moving on muscle memory as his PC whirred to life. The pale glow of the screen cast his room in a cold light, turning every shadow into something deeper, something reaching.

Something was wrong—horribly, sickeningly wrong. He couldn't explain the gut feeling that gnawed at his ribs, twisting his organs into a grotesque bow. But it was there. it had been there since Ortho spoke your name, since those words crawled under his skin and nested like parasites.

Idia scoured through medical databases, flipping through symptom charts, searching for anything—anything that could explain this away with something as benign as anemia or some obscure human disorder he had no business caring about. But the deeper he dug, the less he found. The words blurred together, the clinical descriptions devoid of meaning in the face of the one thread that kept tightening, weaving itself through every desperate connection.

His tired yellow eyes lingered on his desktop.

STYX files.

He hovered his finger over the button. Idia had no real evidence, no real reasoning, just a gnawing dread sinking its teeth into his spine. And yet—

Click.

The sound seems to resonate in his ears and around the room like an omen of a bad decision.

The files unfolded before him, filled with brief experiments, files and documents, half finished analyses on his peers, and—at the very heart of it—the haunting icon of the folder holding his own overblot. He knew what it did. He felt what it did. The tearing of flesh, ligament and bone, drowning in darkness—thick and murky, that sickly sweet voice invading his mind.

Coaxing. Taunting.

An overblot occurs when one's body is devoured by magical corruption—a physical manifestation of despair, rage, exhaustion, and agony. The world rarely spoke about it outside hushed whispers, fewer discussed the survival rate.

Idia knew. he studied it. Lived it. During an overblot the victim is not dying. They are being unmade. It's not suffering—it's erasure. And yet, somehow, seven of them had clawed their way back from the brink in one year—himself included.

His fingers hesitated over the keys, twitching slightly with restraint. Then he dove deeper, pushing through firewalls, bypassing passcodes with the desperation of someone who already knew he wasn't supposed to be looking. He'd face repercussions from his parents later. That was a problem for a future Idia who didn't have this black hole of despair in him.

The deeper Idia searched, the less data looked like science and the more it bled into something else. Theories. Stories. Obscure folktales and half-forgotten legends. Whispers that suggested the Blot wasn't just a corruption of magic, wasn't just something lurking inside everyone.

It was suggesting the blot was an entity.

Hours bled into one another, the cold glow of his screen the only constant as Idia scoured every possible source, every scrap of knowledge that might explain the impossible. Each article, each diagram, each desperate thread pulled him deeper into a spiral, his stomach twisting with every answer he found.

Clarity struck him like the drag of a blade against flesh. A shock. Then cold, then hot. Then pain.

His blood ran ice-cold. A nauseating weight coiled in his chest, bile creeping up his throat.

It had always been okay before. It was okay when it happened to strangers, when they clawed their way back from the brink or succumbed to the abyss. It was okay when the others overblotted, when their bodies failed and their souls burned out in a final, desperate flare of magic. And it was even okay when he had done it—because that was the way of things. You burned, you recovered, or you perished. That was the rule.

But you?

You're different. You've become everything to these people—a lifeline, a tether, a presence so woven into the fabric of their existence that the thought of your absence was unthinkable. And yet...

The truth stared back at him from the depths of his research, stark and merciless.

In an overblot, the body fails. Lifeforce siphoned away, each spell cast bleeding it out like a sieve, pushed to the very edge of the fingertips until there is nothing left. The heart races wildly until it bursts—or slow, feeble and strained and full of sorrow until it withers into stillness.

He arrived at a horrible realization, one he couldn't even voice.

Idia made a choked sound, his hand clasped over his mouth, serrated teeth pressing into his palm—though the pain went unnoticed. His yellow eyes were wide and frantic, his breathing uneven and came out in short gasps.

In that moment a terrible, demented thought intruded Idia's mind. Maybe- Maybe it'd be easier if you were. Maybe it would be more merciful if your thread had already begun to fray, if your time really was fleeting—if there was an end in sight. Whatever was wrong with you, surely had to be worse than death.

But no overblotter lingers in this state. No one teeters on the precipice indefinitely. You recover, or you die.

There is no third option.

And yet, you remained.

Suspended. Stagnant. Neither healing nor decaying. All flesh rots. He will rot. One day, his body will succumb to entropy, will crumble and return to dust like every living thing before and after.

Idia avoids you like the plague. Like you're a walking curse, an omen draped in familiarity, something he found himself trusting before he knew better. Before he started watching.

He can't bring himself to look at you when you pass in the halls, can't muster the awkward half-smile or stiff nod he used to manage. His fingers hover over his phone whenever your messages come through, but each one feels like a landmine waiting to explode—his heart skips a beat for all the wrong reasons now.

Because now that he knows, he sees.

Your chest barely rises when you breathe—if you breathe at all. The crisp morning air doesn't turn to mist on your lips like it does for everyone else. And sometimes, after the laughter dies and the conversations fade, your expression slips—just for a second. Gone is the warmth, the life, replaced by something blank and cold.

And Idia wonders—how much of you is real?

How much of what he's come to know, to like—to admire—is actually you? How much of it is a lingering echo of something that should have already faded?

It's wrong. You are wrong.

And no matter how hard he tries, he can't ignore it anymore.

You stepped out of the shower, the warm steam lingering on your skin as you made your way to your room. The quiet hum of your thoughts accompanied you as you sat on the bed, towel in hand, drying your hair. Life has been good lately, mostly thanks to the extra pay from Azul. You'd been using it to treat the other Yuus, upgrading items they needed, buying things they wanted—spoiling them in a way that felt right.

Your eyes drifted to the plush still hanging from your bag, a sharp pang of hurt striking through your chest like a harpoon. You quickly looked away, a quiet whisper of resolve settling over you. You couldn't—wouldn't—go back.

A sudden ping from your phone startled you, snapping your focus back to the present. You searched your bed, brushing against the Blot, which had been lounging lazily, as it made an almost disgruntled noise when you disturbed its comfortable position.

Idia: I need you.

The Blot let out a soft whistle from behind you, leaning over your shoulder as if to read the message itself. "How bold," it teased in its usual mocking tone, its arms slinking around your waist in an almost possessive grip, like it feared you might actually accept the invitation. "I never took that one for such forwardness."

You shoved it off, frustration gnawing at you. The relationship between you and the Blot had grown strained ever since that phone call and plush incident. The Blot insisted it had nothing to do with it, but you weren't sure you believed it. That night, it had been quieter than usual. Maybe too quiet. You shook off the thought, glancing back at your phone as two more pings came through

Idia: wait no

Idia: not like that!

Idia: Just got early access to this game I've been wanting to test. ur the only person that won't be a total normie abt it

It felt... odd. Idia, of all people, invites you to his dorm room, especially after all the awkwardness between you two. He'd been avoiding you lately, distancing himself. Had you finally worn him down? You never thought it would happen so easily, but here you were.

Not that you planned to give in anyway.

You began to get ready to leave, tossing a glare at the Blot as it remained lounging on your bed. "Turn around," you ordered curtly as you changed, its childish huff echoing through the room in response. It had been off lately, less conniving, less manipulative. It was almost... docile. A little too docile. You couldn't shake the suspicion that it was up to something—or maybe, just maybe, it was comfortable with you.

"Dressing up for a date night?" The Blot's velvety voice called out, laced with an unmistakable sense of annoyance. It was once again sprawled across your bed, arms folded behind its head, legs crossed in a relaxed posture. "You're breaking my heart, my dear."

You paused for a moment, the question lingering in the air. What would it do if you fed it the wrong answer? You let your eyes flicker back to the Blot before responding, dismissing its teasing with a shrug. "I doubt it's a date."

You gave the Blot another glance, arching an eyebrow as you met its gaze. "You have a heart?"

The Blot ignored your question completely, shooting back a sharp, almost smug response. "No eighteen-year-old guy asks someone to come to his room past curfew just to 'test out a game.'" Its tone dripped with knowing mockery, and you found yourself wondering how it knew so much about mortal behavior. "Shall I escort you, my dear?"

The Blot reappeared behind you in a sharp three-piece suit, smoothing down the fabric with deliberate care as if it were trying to impress. The look suited it, but you weren't in the mood for compliments. You shook your head, irritation creeping up your spine.

"It's not a date," you repeated firmly. "You know my goal. Don't patronize me."

You shoved past the Blot, grabbing your phone and shoving it into your bag as you made for the door.

For a moment, the Blot just stared at you, its gaze heavy and unreadable. It felt almost suffocating, like the weight of its eyes was enough to drive a chill down your spine. "Ah, I see." it chirped after a beat, its tone shifting, the edge of its gaze disappearing like smoke in the wind. "Have fun then, my dove. I'll be here... as always."

part four

hope this part hadn't drifted too much. Once again, I'm very tired and even tho I'm writing it, I feel like I've somehow lost track of the story and I'm missing something (I'm literally not. I'm delusional) but idk. Just sleepy

taglist: @tachibubu @shirp-collector-of-fixations @goatsmilksblog @iris-arcadia @pumpkindevil @gabile18 @sugarxrt @fancyhawk45 @mewchiili @olxh @muffinenergy @citrus-cinnamon @boredselkie @tipsyon-tea @blerp-22 @is-it-night-or-day @xinfinityx @ashieeeesh @b0nesandskin @texas-fox @owl778 @ghostlysyntaxed @youwannatrade @jar-03

(I hope all the tags worked?? If I accidentally put the wrong username in and tagged a rando, I'm so sorry 🙏)

[memento-morri-writes]

whump-loving writer: *experiences something Bad*

whump-loving writer: I NEED TO TAKE NOTES!! I CAN USE THIS!!

[flamingpudding]

Code: GHOST

It all started when a number code flashed across the screen of the Batcomputer while Tim was working on a case.

7 8 15 19 20

Flashed across the screen several times to the point it made Tim think that someone somehow managed to hack into the Batcomputer. It was also a number code he was not familiar with at all. So Tim reported it back over their comms in hopes that maybe one of the others knew what the numbers meant. Because all he managed to figure out from it was that the number code was an alert on the Batcomputer, one that came with coordinates that lead into the middle of nowhere.

Tim was about to join the discussion Dick and Jason were having on it when Bruce silenced them all apruptly speaking up.

"Answer code 2 1 20, sent them to the coordinates attached. I will be in the cave in ETA3 and take over from there."

The sudden silence on their communication line spoke volumes especially when Tim new the numbers was a simply code for Bat. He still did what Bruce asked him to do but that didn't stop the questions running through Tim's mind. He watched on the screen of the Batcomputer how the moment he sent the code in return, Programs started like on autopilot. A map opening that contained nothing at first but then changed into a map of a whole good damn city. Tim could only gap at what was happening on the Batcomputer before Bruce appeared and pulled him away from his seat to take over himself.

Bruce without a beat of delay started to input more codes and apparently access codes too as more and more windows opened on the Batcomputer. Tim did not realise that with time Dick, Cass and Damian had joined him as they watched Bruce work away on the Batcomputer. At some point an audiotrack opened but all they could hear was only static. They thought Bruce was going to run it through one of the noise filtering programs.

But to the shock of them, Bruce suddenly triggered a hidden compartment on the console, causing it to flip over and reveal communication link build in a way non of them had ever seen before. It was silver with green accents and looked far... older and less sleek than any of the ones they used. It was clearly not designed to stay completely hidden if put into your ear.

They watched how he simply put that earpiece on and then replayed the audiotrack.

The batkids shared a look of confusion. Non of them sure what to make of the situation until suddenly Bruce stood up from the Batcomputer.

"Prepare for a rescue mission. Nightwing, Orphan and Robin will come with me, the rest of you will stay in Gotham." Was all the man said before storming of towards the Batplane.

"Bruce what is going on?!" Dick instead of going to prepare asked stoping the man before he could get away from them. "What is the meaning of that code? Aside from the fact that simply translated it means ghost."

Bruce eyed the batkids present for a moment before letting out a grunt. "Ghost is finally ready to join the family."

"Ghost?" Tim echoed confused, never having heard that alias for any of them.

"Father what do you mean, 'join the family'?" Damian chimed in clearly frowning with suspicion.

The man eyed them once more his eyes going over each of his children, it looked like he was contemplating telling them more for a moment before he stood to fully face them and let out a sigh. "Like Clark, I too have clone child."

There was a stunned silence. No one speaking up until Dick did. "How long...?"

"14 years ago"

The silence continued as they all did the mental math. Once more it was Dick who spoke up first, clearly stunned. "You had a clone since I was eleven and now is the first time I hear of that?! You never bothered telling any of us?!"

There was a long suffering sigh. "We got to Danny before he was aged up, he was a normal baby even if created in a laboratory, so it was best for him to grow up normally, with the league we arranged for him to be sent to selected family since I had my hands full with you and-"

"Danny?!" Dick cut in. "His name is Danny? Does he even know about us?"

"Dick." Bruce called out his tone warning. "Of course I kept an eye on Danny's life. And I did made contact with him when the time was appropriated considering some of the things that were happening for the boy as he grew up, however he is not aware that he is a clone and it will stay that way. He will get to know all of you once we finished this rescue mission."

Before Dick or any of the others could say anything more Bruce spoke up firmly again. "Get ready now, we do not have any more time. Anything else will be handled later."

[lilybug-02]

Sam is catastrophizing.

Bug Fact: Their ears may be on their legs, but katydids hear a lot like humans do! Scientists have found fluid-filled vesicles resembling and functioning like eardrums.

V2 First || Prev // Next

Volume 2 Masterpost

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[heich0e]

shouto always facetimes you when he's wearing a suit even if he has nothing to actually say, so one afternoon when you answer his incoming call and are greeted by the sight of his buttoned-down and lapelled chest, your face immediately feels hot.

"shouto?" you ask, your voice infuriatingly flustered even though you had tried your very best to choke it back. "what's up?"

and then he tilts the camera back up to its usual position—a little too high, so really it's just the bridge of his nose, his eyes, and the top of his head left at the very bottom of the screen. and simply he goes: "i'm wearing a suit."

"i can see that," you reply, resisting the urge to drag your hand down your face—equal parts frustrated and horrifically endeared to your boyfriend's familiar antics. "is that the reason you called?"

"i know you like when i wear them so i wanted to call and show you."

[creatingblackcharacters]

“The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth” - Violence, Violent Imagery & Black Horror

TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of death, violence, blood, hate crimes, antiblackness, police violence, rape

Note! I am going to be speaking from a Black American point of view, as my identity informs my experience. That said, antiblackness itself is international. The idea of my Blackness as a threat, as a source of fear and violence to repress and to destroy, is something every Black person in the world that has ever dealt with white supremacy has experienced.

There are two things, I think, that are important to note as we start this conversation.

One: there is a long history of violence towards Black bodies that is due to our dehumanization. People do not care for the killing of a mouse in the way they care about a human. But if you think the people you are dealing with are not people, but animals- more particularly, pests, something distasteful- then you will be able to rationalize treating them as such.

Two: even though we live in a time period where that overt belief of Blackness as inhuman is less likely, we must recognize that there are centuries of belief behind this concept; centuries of arguments and actions that cement in our minds that a certain amount of violence towards Blackness is normal. That subconscious belief you may hold is steeped in centuries of effort to convince you of it without even questioning it. And because of this very real re-enforcement of desensitization, naturally another place this will manifest itself is in how we tell and comprehend stories.

There are also three points I'm about to make first- not the only three that can ever be made, but the ones that stand out the most to me when we talk about violence with Black characters:

One: Your Black readers may experience that scene you wrote differently than you meant anyone to, just because our history may change our perspective on what’s happening.

Two: The idea that Black characters and people deserve the pain they are experiencing.

Three: The disbelief or dismissal of the pain of Black characters and people.

You Better Start Believing In Ghost Stories- You’re In One

I don’t need to tell Black viewers scary fairytales of sadists, body snatchers and noncoincidental disappearances, cannibals, monsters appearing in the night, and dystopian, unjust systems that bury people alive- real life suffices! We recognize the symbolism because we’ve seen real demons.

Some real examples of familiar, terrifying stories that feel like drama, but are real experiences:

12 Years a Slave: “This is no fiction, no exaggeration. If I have failed in anything, it has been in presenting to the reader too prominently the bright side of the picture. I doubt not hundreds have been as unfortunate as myself; that hundreds of free citizens have been kidnapped and sold into slavery, and are at this moment wearing out their lives on plantations in Texas and Louisiana.” – Solomon Northup

When They See Us: I can’t get myself to watch When They See Us, because I learned about the actual trial of the Central Park Five- now the Exonerated Five- in my undergrad program. Five teen Black and brown boys, subjected to racist and cruel policing and vilification in the media- from Donald Trump calling for their deaths in the newspaper, to being imprisoned under what the Clintons deemed a generation of “superpredators” during a “tough on crime” administration. And as audacious as it is to say, as Solomon Northup explained, they were fortunate. The average Black person funneled into the prison system doesn’t get the opportunity to make it back out redeemed or exonerated, because the system is designed to capture and keep them there regardless of their innocence or guilt. Their lives are irreparably changed; they are forever trapped.

Jasper, Texas: Learning about the vicious, gruesome murder of James Byrd Jr, was horrific- and that was just the movie. No matter how “community comes together” everyone tells that story, the reality is that there are people who will beat you, drag you chained down a gravel road for three miles as your body shreds away until you are decapitated, and leave your mangled body in front of a Black church to send a message… Because you’re Black and they hate you. To date I am scared when I’m walking and I see trucks passing me, and don’t let them have the American or the Confederate flag on them. Even Ahmaud Arbery, all he was doing was jogging in his hometown, and white men from out of town decided he should be murdered for that.

Do you want to know what all of these men and boys, from 1841 to 2020, had in common? What they did to warrant what happened to them? Being outside while Black. Some might call it “wrong place wrong time”, but the reality is that there is no “right place”. Sonya Massey, Breonna Taylor- murdered inside their home. Where else can you be, if the danger has every right to barge inside? There is no “safe”.

It is already Frightening to live while Black- not because being Black is inherently frightening, but because our society has made it horrific to do so. But that leads into my next point:

“They Shouldn’t Have Resisted”

Think of all the videos of assaulted and murdered Black people from police violence. If you can stomach going into the comments- which I don’t, anymore- you’ll see this classic comment of hate in the thousands, twisting your stomach into knots:

“if they obeyed the officer, if they didn’t resist, this wouldn’t have happened”

Another way our punitive society normalizes itself is via the idea of respectability politics; the idea that “if you are Good, if you do what you are Supposed to do, you will not be hurt- I will not have to hurt you”. Therefore, if my people are always suffering violence, it must be because we are Bad. And in a society that is already less gracious to Black people, that is more likely to think we are less human, that we are innately bad and must earn the right to be exceptional… the use of excessive violence towards me must be the natural outcome. “If your people weren’t more likely to be criminals, there wouldn’t be the need to be suspicious of you”- that is the way our society has taught us to frame these interactions, placing the blame for our own victimization on us.

Sidebar: I would highly suggest reading The New Jim Crow, written in 2010 by Michelle Alexander, to see how this mentality helps tie into large scale criminalization and mass incarceration, and how the cycle is purposely perpetuated.

You have to constantly be aware of how you look, walk and talk- and even then, that won’t be enough to save you if the time comes. The turning point for me, personally, was the murder of Sandra Bland. If she could be educated, beautiful, a beacon of her community, be everything a “Good” Black person is supposed to be… and still be murdered via police violence, they can kill any of us. And that’s a very terrifying thought- that anything at any point can be the reason for your death, and it will be validated because someone thinks you shouldn’t have “been that way”. And that way has far less to do with what you did, than it does who you are. Being “that way” is Black.

My point is, if this belief is so normalized in real life about violence on Black bodies- that somehow, we must have done something to deserve this- what makes you think that this belief does not affect how you comprehend Black people suffering in stories?

Hippocratic Oath

Human experimentation? Vivisection? Organ stealing? Begging for medicine? Dramatically bleeding out? Not trusting just anyone to see that you are hurt, because they might take advantage? All very real fears. The idea that pain is normal for Black people is especially rampant in the healthcare field, where ideas like our melanin making our skin thick enough to feel less pain (no), an overblown fear of ‘drug misuse’, and believing we are overexaggerating our pain makes many Black people being unwilling to trust the healthcare system. And it comes down to this thought:

If you think that I feel less pain, you will allow me to suffer long before you believe that I am in pain.

I was psychologically spiraling I was in so much pain after my wisdom teeth removal, and my surgeon was more concerned about “addiction to the medication”. Only because Hot Chocolate’s mom is a nurse, did I get an effective medicine schedule. My mother ended up with jaw rot because her surgeon outright claimed that she didn’t believe that she was in more than the ‘healing’ pain after her wisdom teeth were removed. She also has a gigantic, macabre (and awesome fr) scar on her stomach from a c-section she received after four days of labor attempting to have me… all because she was too poor and too Black to afford better doctors who wouldn’t have dismissed her struggles to push.

As a major example of dismissed Black pain: let’s discuss the mortality rate of Black women during childbirth, as well as the likelihood of our children to die. When we say “they will let you bleed to death”, we mean it.

“Black women have the highest maternal mortality rate in the United States — 69.9 per 100,000 live births for 2021, almost three times the rate for white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Black babies are more likely to die, and also far more likely to be born prematurely, setting the stage for health issues that could follow them through their lives.”

Even gynecology roots in dismissal (and taking brutal advantage of) Black women's pain:

“The history of this particular medical branch … it begins on a slave farm in Alabama,” Owens said. “The advancement of obstetrics and gynecology had such an intimate relationship with slavery, and was literally built on the wounds of Black women.” Reproductive surgeries that were experimental at the time, like cesarean sections, were commonly performed on enslaved Black women. Physicians like the once-heralded J. Marion Sims, an Alabama doctor many call the “father of gynecology,” performed torturous surgical experiments on enslaved Black women in the 1840s without anesthesia. And well after the abolition of slavery, hospitals performed unnecessary hysterectomies on Black women, and eugenics programs sterilized them.”

If you think Black characters are not in pain, or that they’re overexaggerating, you’re more likely to be okay with them suffering more in comparison to those whose pain you take more seriously- to those you believe.

What’s My Point?

My point is that whatever terrifying scene you think you’re writing, whatever violent whump scenario you think you’re about to put your Black characters through, there’s a chance it has probably happened and was treated as nonimportant (damn shame, right?) And when those terrifying scenes are both written and read, the way their suffering will be felt depends on how much you as a reader care, how much you believe they are suffering.

There’s a joke amongst readers of color that many dystopian tales are tales of “what happened if white people experienced things that the rest of us have already been put through?” Think concepts like alien invasion and mass eradication of the existing population- you may think of that as an action flick, meanwhile peoples globally have suffered colonization for centuries. The Handmaid’s Tale- forced birthing and raising of “someone else’s” children, always subject to sexual harassment by the Master while subject to hate from the Mistress- that’s just being a Mammy.

There’s nothing wrong with having Black characters be violent or deal with violence, especially in a story where every character is going through shit. That is not the problem! What I am trying to tell you, though, is to be aware that certain violent imagery is going to evoke familiarity in Black viewers. And if I as a Black viewer see my very real traumas treated as entertainment fodder- or worse, dismissed- by the narrative and other viewers, I will probably not want to consume that piece of media anymore. I will also question the intentions and the beliefs of the people who treat said traumas so callously. Now, if that’s not something you care about, that’s on you! But for people who do care, it is something we need to make sure we are catching before we do it.

“So I just can’t write anything?!”

Stop that. There are plenty of examples of stories containing horror and violence with Black characters. There’s an entire genre of us telling our own stories, using the same violence as symbolism. I’m not telling you “no” (least not always). I’m telling you to take some consideration when you write the things that you do. There’s nothing wrong about writing your Black characters being violent or experiencing violence. But there is a difference between making it narratively relevant, and thoughtlessly using them as a “spook”, a stereotypical scary Black person, or a punching bag, especially in a way that may invoke certain trauma.

The Black Guy Dies First

The joke is that we never survive these horror movies because we either wouldn’t be there to begin with, or because we would make better decisions and the narrative can’t have that. But the reality is just that a lot of writers find Black characters- Black people- expendable in comparison to their white counterparts, and it shows. More of a “here, damn” sort of character, not worth investment and easy to shrug off. The book itself I haven’t read, just because it’s pretty new, but I’m looking forward to doing so. But from the summaries, it goes into horror media history and how Black characters have fared in these stories, as well as how that connects to the society those characters were written in. I.e., a thorough version of this lesson.

Instead, I wrote an entire list of questions you could possibly ask yourself involving violence or villainy involving a Black character. Feel free to print it and put it on your wall where you write if you have to! I cannot stress enough that asking yourself questions like these are good both for your creation and just… being less antiblack in general when you consume media.

Black Horror/Black Thriller

We, too, have turned our violent experiences into stories. I continue to highly suggest watching our films and reading our stories to see how we convey our fear, our terror, our violence and our pain. There are plenty of stories that work- Get Out, The Angry Black Girl and her Monster, Candyman, Lovecraft Country (the show) and Nanny are some examples. There’s even a blog by the co-writer of The Black Guy Dies First who runs BlackHorrorMovies where he reviews horror movies from throughout the decades.

Desiree Evans has a great essay, We Need Black Horror More Than Ever, that gets into why this genre is so creative and effective, that I think says what I have to say better than I could.

“Even before Peele, Black horror had a rich literary lineage going back to the folklore of Africa and its Diaspora. Stories of haints, witches, curses, and magic of all kinds can be found in the folktales collected by author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston and in the folktales retold by acclaimed children’s book author Virginia Hamilton. One of my earliest childhood literary memories is being entranced by Hamilton’s The House of Dies Drear and Patricia McKissack’s children’s book classic The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural, both examples of the ways Black authors have tapped into Black history along with our rich ghostlore.” “Black horror can be clever and subversive, allowing Black writers to move against racist tropes, to reconfigure who stands at the center of a story, and to shift the focus from the dominant narrative to that which is hidden, submerged. To ask: what happens when the group that was Othered, gets to tell their side of the story?”

For on the nose simplicity, I’m going to use hood classic Tales From The Hood (1994) as an example of how violence can be integrated into Black horror tales. Tales From The Hood is like… The Twilight Zone by Black people. Messages discussing issues in our community, done through a mystical twist. Free on Tubi! If you want to stop here before some spoilers, it’s an hour and a half. A great time!

In the first story, a Black political activist is murdered by the cops. The scene is reflective of the real-world efforts to discredit and even murder activists speaking out against police violence, as well as the types of things done to criminalize Black citizens for capture. The song Strange Fruit plays in the background, to drive the point home that this is a lynching.

The second story deals with a Black little boy experiencing abuse in the home, drawing a green monster to show his teacher why he’s covered in wounds and is lashing out at school.

The fourth story is about a gangbanger who undergoes “behavioral modification” to be released from prison early. Think of the classic scene from A Clockwork Orange. He must watch as imagery of the Klan and of happy whites lynching Black bodies (real-life pictures and video, mind you!) play into his mind alongside gang violence.

Isn’t Violence Stereotypical or antiblack?

That last story from Tales From The Hood leads into a good point. It can be! But it does not have to be! Violence is a human experience. By suggesting we don’t experience it or commit it, you would be denying everything I’ve just spoken about. We don’t have to be racist to write our Black characters in violent situations. We also don’t have to comprehend those situations through a racist lens.

Even experiences that seem “stereotypical” do not have to be comprehended that way. I get a LOT of questions about if something is stereotypical, and my response is always that it depends on the writing!!! You could give me a harmless prompt and it becomes the most racist story ever once you leave my inbox. But you could give me a “stereotypical” prompt and it be genuine writing.

Let’s take the movie Juice for example. Juice in my honest to God opinion becomes a thriller about halfway in. On its surface, Juice looks like bad Black boys shooting and cursing and doing things they aren’t supposed to be doing! Incredibly stereotypical- violent young thugs. You might think, “you shouldn’t write something like this- you’re telling everyone this is what your community is like”. First- there’s that respectability politics again! Just because something is not a “respectable” story does not mean it doesn’t need to be told!

But if we’re actually paying attention, what we’re looking at is four young boys dealing with their environment in different ways. All four of them originally stick together to feel power amongst their brotherhood as they all act tough and discover their own identities. They are not perfect, but they are still kids. In this environment, to be tough, to be strong, you do the things that they are doing. You run from cops, you steal from stores, you mess with all the girls and talk shit and wave weapons. That’s what makes you “big”. That’s what gives you the “juice”- and the “juice” can make you untouchable.

I want to focus particularly on Bishop, yes, played by Tupac. Bishop, the antagonist of Juice, is particularly powerless, angry, and scared of the world around him. He puts on a big front of bravado, yelling, cursing, and talking big because he’s tired of being afraid, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it otherwise. So when he gets access to a gun- to power- he quickly spirals out of control. His response to his fear is to wave around a tool that makes him feel stronger, that stops the things that scare him from scaring him.

Now, that is not a unique tale! That is a tale that any race could write about, particularly young white men with gun violence! If you ever cared for Fairuza Balk’s character in The Craft, it is a similar fall from grace. But because it is on a young, Black man in the hood, audiences are less likely to empathize with Bishop. And granted, Bishop is unhinged! But many a white character has been, and is not shoved into a stereotype that white people cannot escape from!

Now would I be comfortable if a nonblack person attempted to write a narrative like Juice? Yes, because I’d worry about the tendency to lose the messaging and just fall into stereotype outright. But it can be done! The story can be told!

“But if Black violence bad, why rap?”

The short answer:

“In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political, I must listen to the birds, and in order to hear the birds, the warplanes must be silent.”

Marwhan Makhoul, Palestinian Poet

First, rap is not “only violence and misogyny”. Step your understanding of the genre up; there are plenty of options outside of the mainstream that don’t discuss those things. Second, every genre of music has mainstream popular songs about vice and sin. The idea that Black rappers have to be held to a higher standard is yet another example of how we are seen as inherently bad and must prove ourselves good. We could speak about nothing but drugs and alcohol and 1) there would still be white artists who do the very same and 2) we would still deserve to be treated like humans.

That said, many- not all- rappers rap about violence for the same reason Billy Joel wrote We Didn’t Start the Fire, the same reason Homer first spoke The Iliad- because they have something to say about it! They stand in a long tradition of people using poetry and rhythm to tell stories. Rap is an art of storytelling!

Rap is often used as an expression of frustration and righteous anger against a system built to keep us trapped within it. I’m not allowed to be angry? Why wouldn’t I be angry? Anger is a protective emotion, often when one feels helpless. Young Black people also began to reclaim and glorify the violence they lived in within their music, to take pride in their survival and in their success in a world that otherwise wanted them to fail. If I think the world fights against me no matter what I do, I’d rather live in pride than in shame with a bent head. Is it right? Maybe, maybe not. But if you don’t want them to rap about violence, why not alleviate the things leading to the violence in their environment?

Whether you choose to listen to their words, because the delivery scares you- and trust, angry Black men scared the music industry and society- doesn’t make the story any less valid!

Conclusion

I am going to drop a classic by Slick Rick called Children’s Story. I think listening to it- and I mean genuinely listening- summarizes what I’ve said here about how Black creators can tell stories, even violent ones, and how even the delivery through Blackness can change how you perceive them. Please take the time to listen before continuing.

I’ve been alive for 28 years and have known this song my whole life, and it just hit me tonight: not once is the kid in this story identified as Black! My perception of this story was completely altered by my own experiences, who told the story, and how it was told.

That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You can tell stories of violence that involve Black characters. I love and adore a good hurt/comfort myself! But you need to be cognizant of your audience and how they’ll perceive the story you’re telling, and that includes the types of imagery you include. It’s not effective catharsis via hurt/comfort for the audience if your Black readers are being completely left out of the comfort. “I wrote this for myself” that’s cool, but… if you wrote racism for yourself, and you’re willing to admit that to yourself, that’s on you. I’d like to think that’s not your intention! You can write these stories of woe and pain without mistreating your Black characters- but that requires knowing and acknowledging when and how you’re doing that!

@afropiscesism makes a solid point in this post: our horror stories are not just fairytales full of amorphous boogiemen meant to teach lessons. Racial violence is very real, very alive, and we cannot act like the things we write can be dismissed outright as “oh well it’s not real”. Sure, those characters aren’t real. But the way you feel about Black bodies and violence is, and often it can slip into your writing as a pattern without you even realizing it. Be willing to get uncomfortable and check yourself on this as you write, as well as noticing it in other works!

If you’re constantly thinking “I would never do this”, you’ll never stop yourself when you inevitably do! If you know what violent imagery can be evoked, you can utilize it or avoid it altogether- but only if you’re willing to get honest about it. You might not intend to do any of this, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t change the pattern, because as always, it’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!